Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis • Hacker News Board

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#91

Post by coloneltcb » Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 5:49 AM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #89

fthssht wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the extent of the Russian interference really though? Studies show it didn't change the outcome. We still don't really know who hacked the DNC, whether it was Russia as a hand selected group of people from intelligence agencies included was likely, or whether it was an insider as implied by Assange and security experts who looked at how fast the information was downloaded. We know Russia did take both sides o…

> Studies show it didn't change the outcome. Nothing credible says that, or could say that. Counterfactuals of that nature are very hard and in an election that was decided by 70,000 total votes out of over 130,000,000 it's nearly impossible to assign causation. > We still don't really know who hacked the DNC, whether it was Russia as a hand selected group of people from intelligence agencies included was likely, or…

Thanks for that point by point refutation, but why do I feel like a Russian troll just wasted both of our times...

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#92

Post by roenxi » Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 5:52 AM UTC

fthssht wrote: post #71

Balgair wrote: post #52

This Times piece should be taken seriously by FB, it's shareholders, employees, and users. With good sourcing, this paints a very immature picture of the company, from leadership on down to the users. Though the article uses the Russian interference as the launching off point, in my reading, it seems that these attacks on our democracy are essentially waived off. That the most pressing issue for Zuck was not that the…

What is the extent of the Russian interference really though? Studies show it didn't change the outcome. We still don't really know who hacked the DNC, whether it was Russia as a hand selected group of people from intelligence agencies included was likely, or whether it was an insider as implied by Assange and security experts who looked at how fast the information was downloaded. We know Russia did take both sides o…

I haven't been able to find the comedy in the situation myself, conspiracy theories aren't much fun when people start acting on them.

But it is profoundly worrying in a next-two-decades-of-politics sort of way. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans seem to see negotiation as a viable way achieving good outcomes, and it is difficult to see how that will end well.

If the Dems had launched this conspiracy that the Russians are scheming to do ... something ... completely out of the blue it would be good for a generation of lampooning, but it conceptually fits in with older Tea Party attempts to shut the government down, or the partisanship towards the end of the Obama presidency on issues like Supreme Court nominations. There isn't a loud force in American politics that is talking about compromise or finding common ground.

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#93

Post by nagVenkat » Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 6:13 AM UTC

panarky wrote: post #19

Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, persuading a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticis…

I felt gross reading those few lines. People should ask her how she felt when George Soros was mailed pipe bombs and ask her if her rhetoric contributed to growing hate crimes in USA

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#94

Post by dcow » Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 6:28 AM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #30

bepotts wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly it. Look, Facebook needs to get its act together. They are in need for serious reform. However, mainstream media knows that Facebook is under a ton of pressure and these types of stories generate a ton of clicks. I know people want Facebook to die, but Facebook's usage has remained pretty much the same during all these negative stories. The public is not hating Facebook as much as people want to belie…

I mean, you can bloody well hate some business and still patronize it. I'd wager most Americans hate their cable company. I agree there's little risk of users deserting Facebook en masse, but what we may see is lawmakers coming down on FB like a ton of bricks. It will be popular, too: Heavily regulating social media and slapping them with massive fines will be winning issues with constituents on both sides of the ais…

If 3 other people pledge with me, I’ll delete my Facebook account right now. I’ve already exported all my data.

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#95

Post by neonate » Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 6:32 AM UTC

kitrose wrote: post #63

tobr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you don’t understand, an actual crisis is something that affects growth.

This comment is going on n-gate for sure. http://n-gate.com/hackernews/

I think you missed some sarcasm.

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#96

Post by neonate » Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 6:33 AM UTC

nkassis wrote: post #82

fthssht wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the extent of the Russian interference really though? Studies show it didn't change the outcome. We still don't really know who hacked the DNC, whether it was Russia as a hand selected group of people from intelligence agencies included was likely, or whether it was an insider as implied by Assange and security experts who looked at how fast the information was downloaded. We know Russia did take both sides o…

Outside the now, well supported evidence of Russia's involvement in the hacking of the DNC emails we have massive donations to groups like the NRA, political campaigns and hiring people like Maria Butina to influence politicians. We've seen them try to meet with Trump's family in order to provide them with damaging information on Hillary clinton in exchange for dropping sanctions. We've also already had indictments o…

Well repeated is not well supported.

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#97

Post by nkassis » Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 6:40 AM UTC

neonate wrote: post #96

nkassis wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside the now, well supported evidence of Russia's involvement in the hacking of the DNC emails we have massive donations to groups like the NRA, political campaigns and hiring people like Maria Butina to influence politicians. We've seen them try to meet with Trump's family in order to provide them with damaging information on Hillary clinton in exchange for dropping sanctions. We've also already had indictments o…

Well repeated is not well supported.

The claims aren't just repeated the evidence for it has expanded over time. Like I said you really have to try at this point to ignore everything that has come out.

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#98

Post by bostik » Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 6:42 AM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #57

Balgair wrote: post #52

This Times piece should be taken seriously by FB, it's shareholders, employees, and users. With good sourcing, this paints a very immature picture of the company, from leadership on down to the users. Though the article uses the Russian interference as the launching off point, in my reading, it seems that these attacks on our democracy are essentially waived off. That the most pressing issue for Zuck was not that the…

From people that work there they are hiring unlimited headcount to work on integrity teams - the goal of which is to stop the kind of manipulation that happened in the 2016 election. Given the decisions Facebook has made Zuck seems like a really good CEO and when FB makes something their focus they usually pull it off - fixing mobile, instagram moves against snapchat, etc. The impression I get from people that work t…

> the goal of which is to stop the kind of manipulation that happened

That's the problem, right there. FB, as a company, believes they can somehow stop propaganda/agitprop from being disseminated on their platform. They are desperately trying to apply pre-emptive filtering, and will fail.

They have no desire to actually work on improving the situation. Once someone has been subjected to this kind of messaging, FB will do nothing to educate the victims. The aim should be two-fold: to minimise damage (100% prevention is just not possible), and to heal the damage done. But no, that would require them to take responsibility.

I have talked with some FB people who are hiring for these integrity teams. When I asked about whether they are willing to take responsibility and educate their users to prevent further damage, the answer was - and I quote: "we don't do that".

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#99

Post by jancsika » Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 6:48 AM UTC

> Looking into the Russian activity without approval, she said, had left the company exposed legally.

Ooh, what an insidious tension. I actually never considered it as a security risk of proprietary systems.

Can someone here on HN filter for posts that rankly speculate about how secure FAANG must be based on the high skill level of the security teams there? I know I've read some. I'd like to read back through them with this threat in mind.

Re: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis

#100

Post by pm90 » Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 6:57 AM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #11

Is there an actual crisis, outside the media narrative? Has Facebook seen an actual fall in monthly, weekly, or daily active users? To me, this story reads a lot like a media narrative that has very little to do with users's actual lives. And I've been reading variations on "Why Facebook sucks" and "Why Facebook is doomed" for a very long time. It's like the "Why this is the year of Linux on the desktop," but for med…

There is so much wrong with this comment.

> It's like the "Why this is the year of Linux on the desktop," but for media companies.

I don't think this is an accurate analogy. In fact, I think this analogy just muddies your argument. Its only analogous in that its a an event ("year of linux desktop" == "lets delete facebook") that pops up every now and then. But while the former argument is mostly one of technical adoption, usability and taste, the latter has morphed into a more insidious need to protect the public from targeted disinformation campaigns. The delete facebook movement is not just a technological/taste argument anymore, its a political one and you're doing it much disservice by comparing it to something which has much less impact.

> I think the conventional media sources, including the NYT, doesn't want to confront its own role in the 2016 election (the relentless media focus on Clinton's email server was insane). We don't want to acknowledge that most people's epistemological skill is low. Why look at ourselves, when we have this handy scapegoat right... over... there?

I think its important to not lump conventional news media into one big blob, just like we don't lump tech firms into one big blob. Cable News is, IMO, much more culpable for Trump's rise than NYT. NYT does actual reporting while CNN/MSNBC/FOX cable news have more punditry/opinions (NYT does have opinions too, but it doesn't dominate the medium).