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As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

theguardian.com

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Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#81

Post by dylan604 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #79
stri8ted wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree. My point is more broadly about the ills of social media, and how it's often framed as a Facebook problem.

> the ills of social media, and how it's often framed as a Facebook problem Facebook is the biggest. And we have evidence of the harm it, specifically, causes, in a way we don't for its competitors. They also have a spectacular track record of lying and lawbreaking.

> And we have evidence of the harm it, specifically, causes,

Just to reiterate, it's not that it is "just" harmful. They are actively studying how to make it even more so.

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#82

Post by wintermutestwin »

rPlayer6554 wrote: post #51

Simple: Facebook will be stopped when people decide to stop using it or reduce their time on the platform. All the information about their privacy abuses are quite public and people still choose to use the product. I am well aware and I use that information to use it in an informed way (limited usage only on desktop, Firefox container, and more). Yes yes, inside the HN bubble it does seem to be popular. But in the no…

>In a free society, people are allowed to surrender some freedom and privacy if they choose. It seems like what Facebook offers is worth the cost to the average person.

That is quite the platitude when being applied to an industry that is built on manipulating people and eroding "free will" at every turn.

>But in the normal world it doesn't seem like enough people care to me.

1. "normal" people lack a comprehensive understanding of just how much their privacy is being invaded and how manipulated they are. I'd guess that some of us on HN have the foresight to see exactly where this evil path leads. I am moderately technical and all this surveillance and manipulation tech (and its counters) are sometimes confusing to me.

2. Even where "normal" people are vaguely aware that their privacy is being invaded, they are being trained into a state of learned helplessness.

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#83

Post by [deleted] »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #48
mrdoops wrote: post #19

Build something better.

... as a non-profit. Keep it focused on the core reasons people wanted FB to begin with: connecting with family and RL friends (old and new) and a easy way to see what's going on in people's lives. This would be incredibly cheap to build and run. Positioned as a way to combat the evils of facecrook I would donate a large % of my annual charitable spend and I think many others would as well. I feel that this is the on…

[deleted]

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#84

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

ViViDboarder wrote: post #70
user3939382 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should stop using the term misinformation and call it untruth. This deobfuscates what’s really happening, which is that: Extreme wealth and power has caused some self-appointed Deciders of Truth to band together and decide that anyone who does not pledge allegiance to anything they decide is true will be cast out of society as much as practically possible. I remember reading Plato’s The Republic when I was young a…

Do you really believe there is no such thing as a lie? I don’t want to trust Facebook as an arbiter of anything because their motivations do not align with anything other than personal profit, but people do completely fabricate things and present them as true.

There's such a thing as a lie, but "misinformation" isn't a synonym for "lie". Efforts to fight misinformation are almost always understood to encompass misleading information - that is, information that's literally true but is used to advance an argument the misinformation checker doesn't think is valid.

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#85

Post by sofixa »

user3939382 wrote: post #33
jorgesborges wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief executive, has argued that only companies as large as Facebook have the resources to fight misinformation, election meddling and harmful content. Look, they’re not a propaganda machine! I’m so thankful we have them to “fight” against “misinformation”. I read that and my blood began to boil. Evil is the perfect description of such disgusting, deceitful pandering.

We should stop using the term misinformation and call it untruth. This deobfuscates what’s really happening, which is that: Extreme wealth and power has caused some self-appointed Deciders of Truth to band together and decide that anyone who does not pledge allegiance to anything they decide is true will be cast out of society as much as practically possible. I remember reading Plato’s The Republic when I was young a…

I think the difference between untruth and misinformation is the intent. The latter is on purpose in order to shape a narrative and mislead people. Misinformation is Trump and related people claiming the election was stolen from him - it's blatantly untrue, easily debunkable, and there's an obvious interest there. (I'm not american, just an easy example that came to me)

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#86

Post by fouc »

spectramax wrote: post #9
jqpabc123 wrote: post #2

Facebook is primarily a propaganda organization. It's main objective is to influence, manipulate and subvert the user's judgment and convince them to buy something --- be it physical product or ideology. To further this objective, it has developed an incredibly detailed psychological profile of each individual user using deeply personal info willing surrendered by the user themselves. It's skill at doing this is what…

I’d say Twitter has done more damage to the society than FB. Twitter is a pure outrage machine. I might be in the minority but Instagram is still awesome. It’s gotten more ads but most of them are quite interesting. I’ve found made in USA goods from IG ads like this: https://psudo.com/

I suspect that Facebook has more users than Twitter, and heavier engagement. Facebook has multiple aspects that people heavily use, things like photo albums, marketplace, messenger, birthdays, etc. In comparison Twitter seems more limited.

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#87

Post by pfisherman »

spectramax wrote: post #32
pfisherman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the scope of Facebook ads and surveillance is not limited to Facebook properties. The Facebook pixel and SDK are pretty ubiquitous. Twitter is actually useful if you limit who you follow to the right people. My experience of Twitter is a bunch of academics promoting their articles. Lior Pachter trashing tSNE and UMAP is about the spiciest it gets.

I fundamentally disagree with Twitter's ideological position. Banning the president, allowing Taliban leaders, it is a censorship extravaganza and the selling point is ecochambered short blips of outrage. What you're pointing out is also true - there is some good stuff on Twitter just like any platform. Most political content on Twitter is horrible, left / right - both. FB goes against silicon valley's zeitgeist and…

Well a big part of the distinction between FB and Twitter for me is the scale, scope, and competence of their surveillance and targeted influence (i.e. ads) capabilities and operations.

Would Twitter be as evil as FB if they weren’t incompetent? Maybe. But that is not the world we live in.

One area where I think we are talking past each other is referencing the consumer facing aspect vs the money making (B2B) aspect of social media. I think of these companies as ad platforms. They exist to collect data on people and their behavior, and sell tot to advertisers so they can use it to influence decisions. The whole public square thing is incidental to that. It exists only because it helps them collect data and sell ads.

To your other points Twitter is an official channel of communication for government agencies, not THE official channel. They still maintain websites and put out press kits.

Twitter should have banned the president long before they did for his repeated violations of their TOS, as they would have any normal member of the public. Same for other world leaders. Imo, leaders should be held to a higher standard of behavior wrt to the EULA and T&Cs than the average Joe.

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#88

Post by judge2020 »

pixelgeek wrote: post #72
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reining it in also presumes that legislative methods will work. I think it is already clear that they don't. How is it clear? What legislation has been attempted? The simplest legislation--I could fit it on a page--would be to ban M&A by social media companies over a certain size and force break-ups of past mergers that would have violated that restriction had it been in place since, I don't know, February 4, 2004.

They are still operating under an FTC order that they effectively ignore. They were fined and they deliberately took a bigger fine to protect their CEO. They ignored calls for their CEO to appear before parliament in the UK and Canada. Ignored. I am not fully aware of the state of legislative action in the UK from the Cambridge/Brexit issue but that hasn't gone anywhere. They are far too large to be legislated. They…

> They ignored calls for their CEO to appear before parliament in the UK and Canada. Ignored.

They're playing hardball. They know the only way these other countries can do anything, even with legislation that FB would ignore, is by either blocking the website (which would encourage the silent majority to suddenly speak up and would hurt the decision maker's chances of re-election) or sanctioning the US, which nobody is going to do.

Re: As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook?

#90

Post by psychlops »

pixelgeek wrote: post #22

What can be done to rein in Facebook? Nothing. Either shut it down or live with the impact but the time to 'do something' about Facebook was a long time ago. Before legislators in the US let it become this surveillance behemoth. Before it became a massive ad network. Reining it in also presumes that legislative methods will work. I think it is already clear that they don't. Shut it down.

> Let it become this surveillance behemoth

I would point out that businesses should not be a privilege allowed to exist by legislators or allowed to grow to a certain size by the same.

Second, I'd suggest that having large centralized organizations can only benefit legislatures as they have few sources to work with when either requesting data or bringing them to speak in front of Congress for yet another show trial.

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