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Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

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Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#71

Post by basch »

warp_factor wrote: post #63
fbemployee1234 wrote: post #36

Throwaway for obvious reasons. Opinions are my own. I joined in the last year. I had major issues with FB before, reflecting typical HN user stance. I joined because I was curious and their promises sounded like an amazing place to work. And it is. They treat us better than any other company in terms of autonomy and input. Everyone has a tea seat at the table. And what I’ve seen, the external perceptions don’t match…

Let me disagree on this. I think You joined Facebook, and they showed you the "Employee side" where everything is beautiful, with free food and free toys and you became convinced. Yes, they treat employees super well, nobody contradicts that. But how does it change anything related to how bad the product is (and all the bad things it does to people that use it a lot). It is easy to let the beautiful inner side of Fac…

"how bad the product is"

What makes facebook so much worse than email? The fact that its default sorting algorithm is based on how relevant it thinks stories are to your interests? Any spread of false information could happen basically as easily through gmail. I dont see people getting mad at gmail and outlook for allowing chain letters to keep existing.

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#72

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

untog wrote: post #58
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people I've talked to about Cambridge Analytica think that Facebook just sent out a big pile of user data without asking anyone's permission. Which is a natural and reasonable interpretation of summaries like the one Vox provides in that article: > Facebook exposed data on up to 87 million Facebook users to a researcher who worked at Cambridge Analytica, which worked for the Trump campaign. What actua…

But... Facebook did expose that data, by allowing a researcher to gather data on 87 million users with no actual restrictions on what he could do with that data. The root cause here is Facebook. It feels like arguing semantics to say the narrative is "almost entirely false" because Facebook exposed that data to an individual who later exposed it to Cambridge Analytica. Arguably Facebook exposed data on far more than…

To be clear, the scenario was this. Facebook allowed people to voluntarily share their data with a large number of third-party apps, including one called "This Is Your Digital Life". This was a popular feature; lots of people wanted to share their data in order to get quiz results and such. The guy who created "This Is Your Digital Life" said the data was only for his academic research, but it was secretly for Cambridge Analytica.

When the news reports that some company has exposed data, that normally means they set an S3 bucket to public or got hacked. I don't think many people would naturally describe the above scenario, where I voluntarily handed my Facebook data to a third party who lied about who they were, as "Facebook exposed your user data".

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#73

Post by nepthar »

warp_factor wrote: post #12

You want to know the other side of Silicon Valley? Download the app called "Blind", where people talk openly while being anonymous. What you see there is that everyone is trying to maximize their TC (Total Comp). For most people, that's the only goal. The whole "Let's make the world a better place" is something that was sold by PR people. To talk more specifically about facebook, I have seen two attitudes in their em…

FWIW, I'm an engineer and creating a stable financial environment in which to (hopefully) one day raise family is definitely a goal, but maximizing total comp sounds like a miserable way to go through life. If I wanted to maximize total comp, I'd go into finance.

I think folks generally forget that money is a tool to help you achieve what you want in life.

Anyway, thanks for the heads up about Blind, I hadn't heard of it and I'm quite curious now.

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#74

Post by warp_factor »

badfrog wrote: post #30

I worked at FB for three years as a software engineer. The people I worked with basically believed: 1) The core product is good and useful to people/society 2) Most of the negative articles about Facebook are based on some piece of truth but go out of their way to make things seem worse and more sinister than they really are 3) Zuck generally wants to do the right thing, but of course makes mistakes 4) Yes the compan…

I disagree with all of those, but more specifically with

>> 1) The core product is good and useful to people/society.

Definitely not. If you had to put a numerical value on Facebook impact on society, it would be extremely negative I think. You grab attention of weak users, that end up spending so much time on your platform doing nothing instead of contributing in things that would benefit society. You create an illusion that everyone got a beautiful life, pushing some people on the verge to suicide//depression. And maybe the worst of all, you block free speech based on whatever private criterias you decide and you allow for mass brain washing by pushing ideas on your newsfeed. The only positive side is your utility of connecting people which already perfectly existed before.

The only reason why you get away with all of this is because it is so difficult to put an actual number on those.

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#75

Post by EngineerBetter »

basch wrote: post #66
EngineerBetter wrote: post #62

As a person who has never had a Facebook account, can someone explain what societal good they've done? I see none. I see espionage on a massive scale. I see democracies weakened for profit. I see self-obsessed shallow folks constantly taking selfies to post online. I see the degeneration of political discourse into pithy statements that can be 'liked'. What good have they done, exactly? Helped people share photos and…

It's a tool right, and from a usability, stability, security, and functionality perspective its second to none. No other program (for me) works more seamlessly between desktop and mobile. It's messaging app is first class. Tons of features. I can type a message on a pc, and carry my phone with me and pick up where I left off. It's groups allow people to self organize, at a scale I dont see anywhere else. It's newsfee…

Thanks for the critique of Facebook as a technical implementation. I was curious as to what societal good the company and its products have done.

It sounds like "saved people a bit of time by doing all the things separate services used to do".

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#76

Post by the_cat_kittles »

taytus wrote: post #19
the_cat_kittles wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is right. to think you have no choice means you are part of the problem

You are showing your privilege.

please explain to me how you have no choice when the vast majority of people on earth do not work for facebook

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#77

Post by BRAlNlAC »

basch wrote: post #57
drngdds wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like really flimsy reasoning. Sometimes news stories are wrong, therefore 90% of what you hear about Facebook is false?

More like "the explicit fact laid out in the article is true, but its context, meaning, effect on the world, and interpretation are so sensationalized that the original fact becomes irrelevant to the narrative." EG back in the day when the entire world lost its shit over the permissions an android app was asking for, not really understanding how a permission system for access to api's work. They seem to think they ar…

>They seem to think they are legal permissions not technical ones.

There has to be either oversight or trust for legal permission to be distinct from technical permission. I think most people feel there is little of either in tech, and I can't blame them. Trust is given out as a social favor, tech companies have systematically abused this social favor by extracting extreme levels of data from every interaction. When I talk to someone face to face, I don't expect them to whip out a video camera and start recording our interaction, and if they did that I wouldn't approach them with so much trust. If a tech company Hoovers up my personal data, I likely won't know it. The abuse of trust is the over-collection of data and that particular abuse is what funds the internet. If you are arguing that there is oversight on the internet, consider that Facebook still won't let you really delete your data.

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#78

Post by fbthrowaway221 »

Because there is no negative consequences for anything as long as you meet your deadlines.

And you are fed constant propaganda about how you are making the world a better place by connecting people and freeing speech. You start to believe it.

And when you bring up ideas which actually make it hard to spread false information but might reduce engagement metrics, then you are laughed out of the room. Seriously.

Until Facebook's stock price is affected by actual lawsuits, no one inside Facebook will ever be fired for generating negative news.

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#79

Post by warp_factor »

basch wrote: post #71
warp_factor wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me disagree on this. I think You joined Facebook, and they showed you the "Employee side" where everything is beautiful, with free food and free toys and you became convinced. Yes, they treat employees super well, nobody contradicts that. But how does it change anything related to how bad the product is (and all the bad things it does to people that use it a lot). It is easy to let the beautiful inner side of Fac…

"how bad the product is" What makes facebook so much worse than email? The fact that its default sorting algorithm is based on how relevant it thinks stories are to your interests? Any spread of false information could happen basically as easily through gmail. I dont see people getting mad at gmail and outlook for allowing chain letters to keep existing.

The utility_function of facebook (what it maximizes for) is for your attention grab. This in itself makes the product bad. They will hack the endorphin in your brain in order to keep you hooked.

the utility_function of email is utilitarian. No email server wants to keep their user hooked on their emails.

Re: Ask HN: Current and former FB employees, what's the other side to the story?

#80

Post by untog »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #72
untog wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... Facebook did expose that data, by allowing a researcher to gather data on 87 million users with no actual restrictions on what he could do with that data. The root cause here is Facebook. It feels like arguing semantics to say the narrative is "almost entirely false" because Facebook exposed that data to an individual who later exposed it to Cambridge Analytica. Arguably Facebook exposed data on far more than…

To be clear, the scenario was this. Facebook allowed people to voluntarily share their data with a large number of third-party apps, including one called "This Is Your Digital Life". This was a popular feature; lots of people wanted to share their data in order to get quiz results and such. The guy who created "This Is Your Digital Life" said the data was only for his academic research, but it was secretly for Cambri…

Some clarifications:

- Facebook allowed people to share their data and the data of their friends with third parties. So there was no requirement for me to use My Digital Life, or to accept a single permission prompt, in order for the researcher to have access to my data.

- people didn't "want to share their data", they wanted their quiz results. Was every bit of the data they provided required in order to get the quiz results? Doubtful. Were users aware that this data could be permanently stored outside of Facebook and used at a later point? Again, doubtful.

> that normally means they set an S3 bucket to public or got hacked

I'd argue that the combination of the above means that what Facebook did absolutely was equivalent to leaving an S3 bucket on public. Without absolutely any involvement by me, the researcher was able to access my personal data, and was given permission by someone whose understanding of what they were doing was, at best, dubious. Facebook knew all of this because they created the system it lived in, but didn't appear to consider the consequences, so yeah, I consider them responsible.

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