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Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

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Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#81

Post by Nextgrid »

Invictus0 wrote: post #68
jerf wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"BBSes and forums" Observe flamewars on BBSs and forums tended to drive people away, thus tending to confine them through natural mechanisms. Our current systems encourage and fan them, and by profiting from them, create a system that sustains them indefinitely instead of naturally isolating them to just the people who actively want to participate. As someone who has a low-grade hobby of kind of keeping track of this…

I kinda wonder about just having a no politics policy. Allow user reports... If N users report a post for being political, or it triggers some regex, penalize the post in some way. Facebook doesn't have to be about politics; Instagram wasn't for a long time, but with the onset of the BLM movement, I've seen my timeline filled to the brim with politics, and at one point, people were even saying that no one was even al…

Ultimately, politics aren't the issue. Not having clear, consistent & enforced rules as well as no consequences for breaking them is the problem.

People aren't encouraged to think twice before they post because there's not going to be any significant consequences for breaking the rules.

Even if you somehow manage to get permanently banned from a social network, it's very easy to come back; it doesn't cost anything besides spending some time creating a new account.

From a business perspective it makes sense - why would you ban an abusive user that makes you money? Just give them a slap on the wrist to pretend that you want to discourage bad behavior and keep collecting their money.

Proper enforcement of the rules with significant consequences when broken (losing the account, and new accounts cost $$$ to register) would discourage a lot of bad behavior to begin with.

You could then introduce a karma/reputation system to 1) attach even more value to accounts (you wouldn't want to lose an account it took you years to level up and gain access to exclusive privileges) and 2) allow "trusted" users beyond a certain reputation level to participate in moderation, prioritizing reports from those people and automatically hiding content reported by them pending human review (with appropriate sanctions if the report was made in bad faith) to quickly take down offensive content.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#82

Post by ehsankia »

iamacyborg wrote: post #48
creato wrote: post #7

I feel like all of this debate is painfully missing the point. The problem is not some content moderation policy, the problem is that social media has changed social conversations from small local interactions into monstrous virtual fight clubs between millions of people simultaneously, and where the most extreme opinions are rewarded with the most attention. Boring level headed opinions used to at least have a chanc…

> where the most extreme opinions are rewarded with the most attention Which is amusing given that even here we have to deal with an upvote mechanism that boosts posts from strong extreme opinions.

Personally, I think the retweet model is slightly more problematic than the upvote model. For one, upvotes have an equivalent downvote (usually), which a retweet doesn't. If a famous account upvotes a post, and a I downvote a post, they basically cancel each other. If a famous account on retweets a post, then millions more will see it thanks to that one button click, and nothing I can do balanced that.

Facebook also thrives on a similar "re-share" model, which leads to the most toxic content spreading extremely quickly and bouncing to new audiences, whereas no matter how many times I upvote this thread, only a few % of the world browses HN.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#83

Post by zzzeek »

Invictus0 wrote: post #68
jerf wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"BBSes and forums" Observe flamewars on BBSs and forums tended to drive people away, thus tending to confine them through natural mechanisms. Our current systems encourage and fan them, and by profiting from them, create a system that sustains them indefinitely instead of naturally isolating them to just the people who actively want to participate. As someone who has a low-grade hobby of kind of keeping track of this…

I kinda wonder about just having a no politics policy. Allow user reports... If N users report a post for being political, or it triggers some regex, penalize the post in some way. Facebook doesn't have to be about politics; Instagram wasn't for a long time, but with the onset of the BLM movement, I've seen my timeline filled to the brim with politics, and at one point, people were even saying that no one was even al…

you can't solve social problems with technology, only policy. companies like Facebook should be broken up and regulated such that the whole model of profiting from social division is removed. this would be highly beneficial to society and is an appropriate role of government.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#84

Post by AlexandrB »

Invictus0 wrote: post #68
jerf wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"BBSes and forums" Observe flamewars on BBSs and forums tended to drive people away, thus tending to confine them through natural mechanisms. Our current systems encourage and fan them, and by profiting from them, create a system that sustains them indefinitely instead of naturally isolating them to just the people who actively want to participate. As someone who has a low-grade hobby of kind of keeping track of this…

I kinda wonder about just having a no politics policy. Allow user reports... If N users report a post for being political, or it triggers some regex, penalize the post in some way. Facebook doesn't have to be about politics; Instagram wasn't for a long time, but with the onset of the BLM movement, I've seen my timeline filled to the brim with politics, and at one point, people were even saying that no one was even al…

While that sounds appealing, that just moves the goalposts. Now, who gets to define what's politics? Is mentioning global warming politics? Is advocating for wearing a mask during COVID-19 politics? And the meta-discussion of what content constitutes politics is also inherently political.

As for user reports. I would expect the same kind of dog piling you see now with people flagging people/brands/content they don't like politically as "politics". Post a picture of a The Origin of Species? Politics! Post a link to Chick-fil-a? Politics! Etc.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#85

Post by Barrin92 »

lowdose wrote: post #59
Lammy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maintaining societal cohesion is the justification for a great many of PRC's actions (I would say 'evils', but that's my judgement), including the Great Firewall, extermination of Uyghurs, etc. It is fundamentally a waste of time to compare that society to America's melting pot on the level we're discussing.

Non of the solutions China comes up with is worth to discuss?

I've found it even of little use to bring up frameworks of other Western countries. I once got a lot of angry replies because I brought up the German approach of mostly just tackling hate speech and having independent non-profit fact-checking organisations label and correct posts, which is about as non-invasive as it gets while trying to deal with the problem, still got a ton of responses about censorship and free speech.

The US is basically free-speech fundamentalist. Expression trumps truth, with that view in mind you by definition can't deal with the problem.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#86

Post by Nextgrid »

rmrfstar wrote: post #73
Nextgrid wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't seen evidence that outrage driven engagement is profitable, though the statement is frequently repeated. Let's assume that you are able to create a social network the scale of Facebook and network effects aren't an issue (let's imagine a magical solution that interoperates with existing social networks in such a way that accounts work on either side and content is visible from both sides) with the caveat…

Is it true that failing to ban is the source of the divisiveness? I haven't used Facebook before, but it seems like the mechanism is the feed, which prioritizes divisive content. Even as a relatively senior employee, you may be unable to discern intent. You might just get an incentive scheme that compensates you for engagement rather than profitable engagement.

The feed brings visibility to offensive content, but ultimately someone has to create that content in the first place. Even if you kept the feed as-is, as long as you had bulletproof moderation that would nuke any offensive content (or other mechanisms that are effective at discouraging people from posting such content), there wouldn't be any bad content for the feed to recommend.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#87

Post by aSplash0fDerp »

creato wrote: post #7

I feel like all of this debate is painfully missing the point. The problem is not some content moderation policy, the problem is that social media has changed social conversations from small local interactions into monstrous virtual fight clubs between millions of people simultaneously, and where the most extreme opinions are rewarded with the most attention. Boring level headed opinions used to at least have a chanc…

If you want to stand out from the crowd... Don`t stand in crowds... BLHO`s are nowhere to be found.... Because they have already left the building.

"Die looted" is not referencing the information quality/concentration, but BLHO types know better.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#89

Post by draw_down »

When you're busy vesting your millions, all those silly people trying to warn you about what your company is building towards are just haters. Then once you're set, you can turn around and be so horrified and shocked, just shocked about what's happened. Thanks so much for your concern, guys.

Re: Facebook's employees reckon with the social network they've built

#90

Post by fbbf1001 »

OT question: How many FB employees feel FB was responsible for Trump's election?

If that's one of their key/sources of compunction about their company, they should realize Trump became a national figure because of NBC (who made him into this mythical business figure), Fox news (that gave him a national platform to the Republican base) and Breitbart that probably gave his campaign insights into the pulse of American voters knowing what issues got the most traction with their readers.

It's worth remembering it was the media that gave Trump an estimated $5 billion in free media advertising not FB [0]. This free media given to a candidates is one of the darkest way of interfering in US elections and giving money to a candidate.

I'm sorry but there is a bit of arrogance to think FB elected Trump when the scale that media gives to an issue or to a candidate is far more devastating than anything FB can do.

Keep in mind, Trump got 8.5 million votes from those who voted for Obama in 2012 [1]

I know the focus has been on racism among many of my friends though I'm not disputing a large number of Trump base is motivated by racist views. However, what explains the 8.5 million 2012 Obama voter voting for Trump is his economic protectionism message.

For years, the Democratic party has steadily been abandoning its working class base and many saw NAFTA (associated with Bill Clinton and Clintons as a whole) as a reason for their economic decline. It should not have been a surprise why many voted for Trump over Hillary. Blaming the growing economic disparity that Trump exploited and winning the election to FB and Mark is really scapegoating here.

[0] https://www.thestreet.com/politics/donald-trump-rode-5-billi...

[1] https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/just-how-...

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