Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy

mintpressnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 80 posts

Re: The Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy

#71

Post by alphabetting »

krolden wrote: post #69
alphabetting wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a company of 60k people. Take issue with their hiring sure, but using the hiring of a couple staffers who are former govt data analysts (these aren't Jason Bourne/blackwater types) to define the company is silly. Now if we are looking at Tiktok's parent company, which has CCP members on their board, I think it is more fair question the motives of the company there.

So its OK when Facebook does it but bad when tiktok does it?

No I'm saying Tiktok is much worse

Re: The Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy

#72

Post by _int3_ »

s_dev wrote: post #38
alaric410 wrote: post #26

I live in a country that is not USA. Why should we allow a company led by CIA agents to operate in our country?

To have access to American tech. Simply turning off Google/Apple/Amazon/Facebook will have massive repercussions throughout that countries economy and politics and put that country at a competitive disadvantage on a world stage.

Yes, this is partially true. turning off Google/Apple/Amazon/Facebook/Microsoft will break stuff. this big five entrenched themselves in IT maybe too much in every possible way.

Also I don't believe country without big tech five will be at much disadvantage. They will be forced to build their own substitutes if they see need for it.

Re: The Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy

#73

Post by alaric410 »

tablespoon wrote: post #68
alaric410 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be ok if Facebook hired someone who was part of the Sinaloa Cartel? If you hire ex-CIA, that tells me everything about your ethics (or lack there of).

> Would it be ok if Facebook hired someone who was part of the Sinaloa Cartel? The CIA (which I understand the bulk is actually writing analysis reports and stuff like that), the FBI, USAID, and the Marines are not drug cartels; and to conflate them is not reasonable.

I agree with you. CIA is much worse. Sinaloa's evil is regional, CIA's evil is global.

Re: The Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy

#74

Post by [deleted] »

DethNinja wrote: post #14

Do people really believe there is a difference between government and the big tech? These companies regularly get large government contracts, it is unlikely that there aren’t deeper connections. I don’t believe free market exists in the USA and I think it’s economy and media is almost as heavily controlled as China.

[deleted]

Re: The Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy

#75

Post by LeonTheremin »

kornhole wrote: post #67

Social media is great if it is not controlled by government, for profit corporations, and AI. This is why I run my own social media servers in the fediverse: Mastodon, Pleroma, Peertube..

Good, but using Intel/AMD/Qualcomm/Apple to run open-source code still exposes people to hardware backdoors and silicon trojans that negate any security and privacy.

You don't need to take my testimony that all US designed CPUs are backdoored with BadBIOS at face value, be skeptical, but not from one side only - be skeptical of the billionaire side also.

Re: The Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy

#76

Post by bogomipz »

kornhole wrote: post #60
alphabetting wrote: post #42

Given the discourse on their website, FB should have known the optics here would spur negative pieces like this. That said, not buying the insinuation that CIA itself is influencing their former employees. Former employees shouldn't carry a scarlet letter with them to companies they go to after leaving government. The author's history of sensationalist posts in defense of authoritarian govts is pretty suspect as well…

If someone spent 15 years rising up to the top ranks of the CIA and then left to lead Meta's policy and content moderation, what story is logical to you?

That they were considering moving out of public sector work and someone in their network had moved to Meta and Meta pay and perks dwarfed anything they could have made by continuing to work for the federal government.

Re: The Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy

#77

Post by kornhole »

bogomipz wrote: post #76
kornhole wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone spent 15 years rising up to the top ranks of the CIA and then left to lead Meta's policy and content moderation, what story is logical to you?

That they were considering moving out of public sector work and someone in their network had moved to Meta and Meta pay and perks dwarfed anything they could have made by continuing to work for the federal government.

Yes that sounds like a good incentive to move to the next level doing much of the same thing.

Re: The Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy

#78

Post by kornhole »

LeonTheremin wrote: post #75
kornhole wrote: post #67

Social media is great if it is not controlled by government, for profit corporations, and AI. This is why I run my own social media servers in the fediverse: Mastodon, Pleroma, Peertube..

Good, but using Intel/AMD/Qualcomm/Apple to run open-source code still exposes people to hardware backdoors and silicon trojans that negate any security and privacy. You don't need to take my testimony that all US designed CPUs are backdoored with BadBIOS at face value, be skeptical, but not from one side only - be skeptical of the billionaire side also.

I believe you are describing exploits that could be used in targeted surveillance rather than mass surveillance and manipulation which are the main concerns in social media. Targeted surveillance requires identifying targets and how to reach them. If a bunch of anonymous users are using somebody's social media server via TOR or VPN, I am not sure how those individuals could be identified and targeted, but please enlighten me.

Re: The Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy

#79

Post by freebreakfast »

tablespoon wrote: post #27
freebreakfast wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_r... > Wikipedia is not a reliable source for citations elsewhere on Wikipedia.

>> Wikipedia is not a reliable source for citations elsewhere on Wikipedia. Lucky for you, I'm not citing Wikipedia in a Wikipedia article. All my cite does is show the people you probably rely on for basic information about the world looked into this source and found it severely lacking.

> the people you probably rely on for basic information about the world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fabricated_Articles_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wi...

MintPress News is probably a whack news source, but appealing to Wikipedia to support the claim is a bad argument.

Re: The Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy

#80

Post by simiones »

tablespoon wrote: post #49
simiones wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The degree is usually different, but it is sometimes spectacular how much media collaborates to hide news. Look for any coverage in the US press about the gigantic strikes that workers in India organized in November 2020, possibly involving 250 million workers [0]: there isn't even 1 single article written by any mainstream media in the US (and much of Europe). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Indian_general_st…

> The degree is usually different, but it is sometimes spectacular how much media collaborates to hide news. Hiding implies a deliberate act to obscure, but you're example is most likely nothing of the kind. > Look for any coverage in the US press about the gigantic strikes that workers in India organized in November 2020, possibly involving 250 million workers [0]: there isn't even 1 single article written by any ma…

> Hiding implies a deliberate act to obscure, but you're example is most likely nothing of the kind.

That is exactly what I meant to imply.

> Are you talking about this?

> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/world/asia/india-farmers-...

No, I am talking about the strikes I linked to, that happened one month before and are not even mentioned in this article; and which involved many many times more people (even if you don't believe the 250 million people claimed by the unions) and all industries in several Indian states.

> Also there was a US presidential election in November 2020, which is the kind of thing that drowns out pretty much every other kind of news story. The fact is that unless an international story has some kind of domestic angle (which includes geopolitics), it probably won't get much attention, because most people just don't care.

There are many international news agencies that report on, well, international news. Not even one of them reported these strikes, in November 2020 or ever since. I wasn't expecting this to be covered on Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddow's shows - obviously. But it is impossible that not a single international and economic news organization in the USA (and much of Europe, if I remember correctly) thought it worth reporting that for a few days entire Indian states were shut down.

Post reply on HN