Facebook’s attempt to smear the whistleblower • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook’s attempt to smear the whistleblower

#91

Post by Barrin92 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

koboll wrote: post #61

Okay, so Facebook has said she - worked there for less than two years and had no direct reports - never attended some sort of key meeting - did not work on the subject matter in question ...and therefore, she lacks context which undermines some of her claims. Which of those is a matter of character, or a "disgusting" attack? They might be wrong, or they might be right but bringing up irrelevancies, but the writer is…

because they're not even attempting to refute anything she says, which the Verge article points out. If you're going to try to smear someone by attacking their lack of experience it would probably make sense to point out how that lack of experience manifests itself in errors in her judgement.

Of course they cannot do that because she is literally citing their own words. Which is why this is just a thinly veiled, pathetic attack on a worker.

Re: Facebook’s attempt to smear the whistleblower

#92

Post by cratermoon » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

koboll wrote: post #61

Okay, so Facebook has said she - worked there for less than two years and had no direct reports - never attended some sort of key meeting - did not work on the subject matter in question ...and therefore, she lacks context which undermines some of her claims. Which of those is a matter of character, or a "disgusting" attack? They might be wrong, or they might be right but bringing up irrelevancies, but the writer is…

The goal is to divert discussion from the issue and make the discussion about her personality. The "disgusting" part is not what Facebook says about her (their folks clearly don't have much to smear Haugen with if this is the worst), it's that they don't want to address the allegations directly. The "smear" such as it is, falls flat, but it's reprehensible for Facebook's people to want to make the discussion about her rather than about the practices of the company that employed her.

Re: Facebook’s attempt to smear the whistleblower

#93

Post by cratermoon » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #76

I always liked Edward R. Murrow's response to Senator McCarthy's attempt to smear him: "Since he made no reference to any statements of fact that we made, we must conclude that he found no errors of fact." 1: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/edwardrmurrowtomcc...

Murrow really was a treasure.

Re: Facebook’s attempt to smear the whistleblower

#94

Post by prox » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #76

I always liked Edward R. Murrow's response to Senator McCarthy's attempt to smear him: "Since he made no reference to any statements of fact that we made, we must conclude that he found no errors of fact." 1: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/edwardrmurrowtomcc...

Brilliant. Ever since watching “good night, and good luck” Edward R Murrow has been a favorite.

Re: Facebook’s attempt to smear the whistleblower

#95

Post by mbesto » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #75

fireball_blaze wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of those could also be said of Snowden, but he found some impactful, explosive material.

Snowden advocated in favor of the government following their own law (not spying on people without judicially issued warrants). This 'whistleblower' is asking the government to violate their own law (the first amendment) by banning individual speech on these platforms. EDIT: Honestly, I could care less about facebook. Although I think Mark Zuckerberg should be in jail (look at the allegations that his company knowing…

> This 'whistleblower' is asking the government to violate their own law (the first amendment) by banning individual speech on these platforms.

I could be mistaken, but I don't think she is specifically advocating for that? I believe she is saying specific things should be regulated...mainly the ability to configure timelines, greater control on use by teens, etc.

Re: Facebook’s attempt to smear the whistleblower

#96

Post by cherrycherry98 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #82

Not seeing any "character assassination" in any of the quotes. None of Facebook's defense lines, low quality as they may be, seem overly personal. For the record, I fully side with the whistleblower's claims. It's just that this article is very emotional, and could have been so much more. This is a fascinating quote the author failed to address fully: "Facebook PR: “Despite all this, we agree on one thing; it’s time…

Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing for regulation for years. He wants this for two reasons:

1. Abdicating responsibility so that when the public or politicians complain about Facebook hosting or not hosting some content he can say it's not his problem, he follows the law.

2. The second is for regulatory capture. Once a social network gets a stigma of being uncool, people move on to the next thing. His status and net worth are tied up in an entity he must aggressively defend against becoming the next MySpace. If he can't buy out upstarts anymore because of antitrust then the next best protection is to make it so difficult to build a new network without a team of lawyers and moderators that no one would even think about doing it.

Re: Facebook’s attempt to smear the whistleblower

#97

Post by dnissley » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

koboll wrote: post #61

Okay, so Facebook has said she - worked there for less than two years and had no direct reports - never attended some sort of key meeting - did not work on the subject matter in question ...and therefore, she lacks context which undermines some of her claims. Which of those is a matter of character, or a "disgusting" attack? They might be wrong, or they might be right but bringing up irrelevancies, but the writer is…

It's typical for Vox reporting (parent company of the Verge) -- but also typical for pretty much any vaguely left leaning publication (see also nytimes). They seek out the most populist angle on every story, regardless of how eyerollingly absurd it is. See: https://www.city-journal.org/journalism-advocacy-over-report...

Re: Facebook’s attempt to smear the whistleblower

#98

Post by caminante » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:28 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #91

koboll wrote: post #61

Okay, so Facebook has said she - worked there for less than two years and had no direct reports - never attended some sort of key meeting - did not work on the subject matter in question ...and therefore, she lacks context which undermines some of her claims. Which of those is a matter of character, or a "disgusting" attack? They might be wrong, or they might be right but bringing up irrelevancies, but the writer is…

because they're not even attempting to refute anything she says, which the Verge article points out. If you're going to try to smear someone by attacking their lack of experience it would probably make sense to point out how that lack of experience manifests itself in errors in her judgement. Of course they cannot do that because she is literally citing their own words. Which is why this is just a thinly veiled, path…

>If you're going to try to smear someone by attacking their lack of experience

Re-read the parent comment. How is the whistleblower getting smeared based on the assertions above? Are they not factual AND relevant?

edit:

I see comments below talking past this sub-thread. Let's get down to definitions.

> Smear: damage the reputation of (someone) by false accusations; slander.

At best, the article's premise that FB's claims "smear" the whistleblower is flawed and non-constructive even if you're seeking to slit FB's throat.

Re: Facebook’s attempt to smear the whistleblower

#99

Post by cratermoon » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:28 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #45

whatshisface wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are some points I notice about this whole thing: - Facebook has stated (in the press release the article is reporting on) that they support regulation. This is typical for large market incumbents, who have been said to always support fixed-overhead regulation, because it hurts smaller competitors more than it hurts them. - Washington loves regulating things and can be safely assumed to be pro-policy in most case…

> because it hurts smaller competitors more than it hurts them Is this always true? I always thought that these companies do want to fix themselves but fixing yourself when your competition won't means that you lose. Regulation helps force everyone to fix themselves.

Regulatory capture and barriers to market entry. See, for comparison, Intuit. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

Re: Facebook’s attempt to smear the whistleblower

#100

Post by hedgehog » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 9:31 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #20

cpr wrote: post #4

I'm sure what she's saying is only part of the evil that Facebook represents, but there's something fishy about the whole setup. Why is she getting full media coverage and support, when previous whistleblowers were roundly ignored? She's a very wealthy person (1B estimated), so perhaps she's fairly well insulated from any blowback? But again, why is now the time to pile on Facebook, and why this person? [edit] Hint:…

I'm paraphrasing a similar comment I made on a different thread, but this whole situation seems fishy to me... Out of the blue some larger-than-life person (with impeccable credentials, no less) comes out of the woodwork and is lauded with attention while the big news outlets make this massive push against Facebook, all while congress is holding hearings about regulating social media. Then a massive outage happens at…

Career big tech product manager, Harvard MBA, knowing she was going to be testifying to congress, the press, and maybe a jury? Of course she's prepared, it would be really surprising if she wasn't.