3 ms·

The irony of the article title is that Facebook being terrible at this has nothing to do with hypocrisy. At worst, Zuckerberg is lying about Facebook having ta

The irony of the article title is that Facebook being terrible at this has nothing to do with hypocrisy. At worst, Zuckerberg is lying about Facebook having taken this issue seriously, but there's no hypocrisy anywhere to be seen. On a tangent, hypocrisy is tricky to nail down and not an accusation that people should lightly spew. The reason is that through the human powers of pattern matching and abstraction you can make anyone appear a hypocrite. If they aren't a hypocrite in their direct statements and deeds, just go up another level of abstraction, at some point you reach "he said he prefers good things, but he clearly does bad things!". Sometimes hypocrisy is blatant, and therefore a fair accusation, but one should think very hard about it every single time before coming to that conclusion.

ivraatiems 10y ago
It's also important to note that being hypocritical doesn't make you wrong. Smokers saying "don't smoke, it's bad for you" is a classic example. That's why it can be legitimate for a politician to say things like "yes, I take lobbyist money - everyone does. The system's broken and should be fixed."
- greenshackle2 10y ago
  Yes, this. Or, another example, a corporation could legitimately be advocating for more stringent regulation while doing the bare minimum to abide by the law. If the environment is sufficiently competitive, the corporation or politician that goes the extra ethical mile gets outcompeted and fails. So the choice is between being hypocritical or not existing. To succeed, they have to either convince all other players to cooperate and use the more ethical, less competitive strategy, or change the system so that the less ethical strategy is not an option.
elicash 10y ago
How about, "He says he he cares about misinformation on his platform, but he's directly lining his pockets from it with paid ads."
mikeash 10y ago
It's also far too easy of a target. Everyone is hypocritical to some extent. Falling short of your ideals is part of being human. I like Neal Stephenson's take on it, quoted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1305966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1305966

ivraatiems 10y ago

It's also important to note that being hypocritical doesn't make you wrong. Smokers saying "don't smoke, it's bad for you" is a classic example. That's why it can be legitimate for a politician to say things like "yes, I take lobbyist money - everyone does. The system's broken and should be fixed."

greenshackle2 10y ago
Yes, this. Or, another example, a corporation could legitimately be advocating for more stringent regulation while doing the bare minimum to abide by the law. If the environment is sufficiently competitive, the corporation or politician that goes the extra ethical mile gets outcompeted and fails. So the choice is between being hypocritical or not existing. To succeed, they have to either convince all other players to cooperate and use the more ethical, less competitive strategy, or change the system so that the less ethical strategy is not an option.

elicash 10y ago

How about, "He says he he cares about misinformation on his platform, but he's directly lining his pockets from it with paid ads."

mikeash 10y ago

It's also far too easy of a target. Everyone is hypocritical to some extent. Falling short of your ideals is part of being human. I like Neal Stephenson's take on it, quoted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1305966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1305966