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Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

wsj.com

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Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#61

Post by tasty_freeze »

adamnemecek wrote: post #13

I hate FB as much as the next guy but I think that Facebook is an amplifier of other trends. I think that the underlying issue is the two party system. The echo chambers get amplified.

It is a feedback loop. Politics has become more polarized, I believe, because of the need to be "pure" so avoid the wrath of the party's highly polarized base.

30 years ago an R and a D could cut a deal to get things done and few people would notice that they compromised by giving a little to get a little.

Now when such deals happen the deal makers are branded as traitors and RINOs (do people use DINOs too?) and must be primaried.

FB encourages polarization because it increases engagement with their advertisers, which is useful to FB. The polarized base is useful to parties because it motivates them to donate, proselytize, and vote. That base polarization leads to polarization in candidates, and the division grows.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#62

Post by tunesmith »

Facebook and other similar systems reward engagement. Engagement happens when people are surprised. Surprise happens when people come across new apparent "information". New information is most easily propagated through the use of lies.

It follows pretty clearly. If they don't want divisiveness, they have to either step away from rewarding engagement, or they have to stop people from lying. They're in a bind, except it's society that is bearing the cost.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#63

Post by _bxg1 »

torben-friis wrote: post #38
yumraj wrote: post #17

I've always wondered how such discussions go in company meetings where some product/feature has harmful effect of something/someone but is good for the business of the company. I cannot believe that everyone is ethicality challenged, only perhaps the people in control. So what goes through that minds of people who don't agree with such decisions. Do they keep quiet, just worry about the payroll, convince themselves t…

I've been there, obviously not to the level of a facebook board member. IMO the feeling is not really that different from making choices as a consumer ("was this shirt made by child labor?", "was the animal this meat comes from treated humanely?", etc). People tend to turn a blind eye to those questions unless something comes up that hits close to home. To be clear, I'm not saying that's justifiable or a good mindset…

That may apply in many cases, but I don't think an engineer or manager at Facebook can use that excuse. They'd have lots of other options.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#64

Post by thoughtstheseus »

miguelmota wrote: post #25
yumraj wrote: post #17

I've always wondered how such discussions go in company meetings where some product/feature has harmful effect of something/someone but is good for the business of the company. I cannot believe that everyone is ethicality challenged, only perhaps the people in control. So what goes through that minds of people who don't agree with such decisions. Do they keep quiet, just worry about the payroll, convince themselves t…

It's kind of a combination of all the above. Majority of employees are working for a paycheck and they don’t really care what goes on as long as they get paid. If the person is in an executive type role then their goal is to increase revenue so they convince themselves that it’s good for the company.

Part of this is a focus on short-term initiatives that are easy to measure and repeat. Boiling down billions of software decisions to a few KPIs seems short-sighted IMO but hey it makes money.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#65

Post by contemporary343 »

LordHumungous wrote: post #33

> Facebook policy chief Joel Kaplan, who played a central role in vetting proposed changes, argued at the time that efforts to make conversations on the platform more civil were “paternalistic,” said people familiar with his comments. I think Joel was right.

"If two members of a Facebook group devoted to parenting fought about vaccinations, the moderators could establish a temporary subgroup to host the argument or limit the frequency of posting on the topic to avoid a public flame war."

Most of the suggestions they considered were fairly modest product design choices that probably would improve user experience. To call these choices paternalistic is a stretch.

Also, the platform is already paternalistic - it polices nudity, pornography and a range of other legal content.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#66

Post by analyst74 »

yumraj wrote: post #17

I've always wondered how such discussions go in company meetings where some product/feature has harmful effect of something/someone but is good for the business of the company. I cannot believe that everyone is ethicality challenged, only perhaps the people in control. So what goes through that minds of people who don't agree with such decisions. Do they keep quiet, just worry about the payroll, convince themselves t…

Not at boardroom level, but I was in a couple meetings in past jobs where this happened.

In one case, people had different ideas of what's more ethical/user friendly, since we can't resolve those disagreements with more arguing, we go with metrics, and metrics have no morality.

In another case, everyone agreed that it was slightly shady, but it was a highly competitive market and we have to do it to stay alive.

On the bright side, if a company ventures too deep into bad practices, it will eventually lose trust of the public. Which is why the capitalistic world hasn't descended into complete madness portrayed in dystopian sci/fi films.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#67

Post by zarkov99 »

yumraj wrote: post #17

I've always wondered how such discussions go in company meetings where some product/feature has harmful effect of something/someone but is good for the business of the company. I cannot believe that everyone is ethicality challenged, only perhaps the people in control. So what goes through that minds of people who don't agree with such decisions. Do they keep quiet, just worry about the payroll, convince themselves t…

They quit. The process selects for the most sociopathic because the fitness function is heavily weighted towards bringing profits in the short term. Ethics are only a consideration to the extent that they affect public perception (hence profits) or safeguard against litigation ( protecting profits).

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#68

Post by dfxm12 »

torben-friis wrote: post #38
yumraj wrote: post #17

I've always wondered how such discussions go in company meetings where some product/feature has harmful effect of something/someone but is good for the business of the company. I cannot believe that everyone is ethicality challenged, only perhaps the people in control. So what goes through that minds of people who don't agree with such decisions. Do they keep quiet, just worry about the payroll, convince themselves t…

I've been there, obviously not to the level of a facebook board member. IMO the feeling is not really that different from making choices as a consumer ("was this shirt made by child labor?", "was the animal this meat comes from treated humanely?", etc). People tend to turn a blind eye to those questions unless something comes up that hits close to home. To be clear, I'm not saying that's justifiable or a good mindset…

I disagree and think it is significantly different. Facebook decision makers have way more agency in the directions their company takes than a consumer has in their choice of clothes to buy at Target (or wherever).

Shirt consumers don't have much of a choice. They can only buy what's for sale (and in their price range). And then, how can they be sure if a shirt was or wasn't made by child labor? How would an individual consumer's behavior lead to ending child labor?

According to the article, Facebook execs understood what the product was doing, and, while they have the ability to stop it, don't. Maybe I understand what you're saying if we're talking engineers/middle managers, but that's a boring conversation. The buck has to stop somewhere.

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