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No mention of what Facebook's business is anywhere on the page. Here are some actual hard questions that would probably get you fired from the position of "Vic

No mention of what Facebook's business is anywhere on the page. Here are some actual hard questions that would probably get you fired from the position of "Vice President for Public Policy and Communications" were you to post them to the official FB blog: - can a company which makes money as an advertising platform and data broker really protect the privacy of its users when that is directly at odds with its fundamental mission? - is there value for Facebook in figuring out how to remove fake news or content from terrorists or dead users from its platform vis-a-vis continuing on with business-as-usual? - is there actually any room for someone within the organization at Facebook to ask questions like this without violating implicit or explicit company norms about how Facebook is discussed, internally or publicly?

exelius 9y ago
> - can a company which makes money as an advertising platform and data broker really protect the privacy of its users when that is directly at odds with its fundamental mission? Good question; but I'm not sure that's one that Facebook could answer themselves. I do think there are ways to protect identity from wide distribution while still allowing the type of ad targeting that Facebook does; but I also think that the cat is largely out of the bag at this point. Facebook is far from the only DMP out there and most people outside of HN couldn't name a single one of them, so you could argue that Facebook has more incentive than most to be a good steward of that data because of the very public nature of their service. > - is there value for Facebook in figuring out how to remove fake news or content from terrorists or dead users from its platform vis-a-vis continuing on with business-as-usual? Yes; the next phase in the information revolution is going to be centered around trust. If Facebook becomes widely associated with "fake news" in the public zeitgeist, that's bad. If Facebook becomes censored by governments because it is seen to be facilitating communication between terrorists, that's bad. I think Facebook has recognized that some form of content governance is inevitable. But given the nature of partisan politics around the world, I'm not so sure we want to hand that content governance off to partisan governments either. > - is there actually any room for someone within the organization at Facebook to ask questions like this without violating implicit or explicit company norms about how Facebook is discussed, internally or publicly? For question 1, I don't think so -- but only because any answer they would come up with would be inherently biased. For question 2, I think that's the exact conversation that the original post is trying to start. And yes, I think that there is a ton of value to the customer in providing a more curated content discovery experience. Whether it's of value to society remains to be seen.
haburka 9y ago
> can a company which makes money as an advertising platform and data broker really protect the privacy of its users when that is directly at odds with its fundamental mission? It's not directly at odds with its fundamental mission. If FB violates the trust of its users and maybe even law, then they lose customers and revenue. It's important for them to respect privacy as much as it allows them to avoid controversy. For example, if a news story reported that FB violates privacy laws, and then they were sued for it, it would be a huge loss for them. Ultimately the real issue is that there are no laws concerning how social media users' data is protected. There are huge fines for leaking personal medical information, but only for medical instituons. This is effective, have you ever heard of a nurse that leaked std info about a celebrity? Similarly there are fines for leaks of data if a company can accept credit cards. However social media sites can store whatever information they want with no protections, and it's fine. To me, this is a tremendous oversight by the government to not protect the privacy.
- Erwin 9y ago
  Well, in America. Data protection in EU is stronger and only getting stronger with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula... which will target EU citizen data stored worldwide.

exelius 9y ago

> - can a company which makes money as an advertising platform and data broker really protect the privacy of its users when that is directly at odds with its fundamental mission? Good question; but I'm not sure that's one that Facebook could answer themselves. I do think there are ways to protect identity from wide distribution while still allowing the type of ad targeting that Facebook does; but I also think that the cat is largely out of the bag at this point. Facebook is far from the only DMP out there and most people outside of HN couldn't name a single one of them, so you could argue that Facebook has more incentive than most to be a good steward of that data because of the very public nature of their service. > - is there value for Facebook in figuring out how to remove fake news or content from terrorists or dead users from its platform vis-a-vis continuing on with business-as-usual? Yes; the next phase in the information revolution is going to be centered around trust. If Facebook becomes widely associated with "fake news" in the public zeitgeist, that's bad. If Facebook becomes censored by governments because it is seen to be facilitating communication between terrorists, that's bad. I think Facebook has recognized that some form of content governance is inevitable. But given the nature of partisan politics around the world, I'm not so sure we want to hand that content governance off to partisan governments either. > - is there actually any room for someone within the organization at Facebook to ask questions like this without violating implicit or explicit company norms about how Facebook is discussed, internally or publicly? For question 1, I don't think so -- but only because any answer they would come up with would be inherently biased. For question 2, I think that's the exact conversation that the original post is trying to start. And yes, I think that there is a ton of value to the customer in providing a more curated content discovery experience. Whether it's of value to society remains to be seen.

haburka 9y ago

> can a company which makes money as an advertising platform and data broker really protect the privacy of its users when that is directly at odds with its fundamental mission? It's not directly at odds with its fundamental mission. If FB violates the trust of its users and maybe even law, then they lose customers and revenue. It's important for them to respect privacy as much as it allows them to avoid controversy. For example, if a news story reported that FB violates privacy laws, and then they were sued for it, it would be a huge loss for them. Ultimately the real issue is that there are no laws concerning how social media users' data is protected. There are huge fines for leaking personal medical information, but only for medical instituons. This is effective, have you ever heard of a nurse that leaked std info about a celebrity? Similarly there are fines for leaks of data if a company can accept credit cards. However social media sites can store whatever information they want with no protections, and it's fine. To me, this is a tremendous oversight by the government to not protect the privacy.

Erwin 9y ago
Well, in America. Data protection in EU is stronger and only getting stronger with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula... which will target EU citizen data stored worldwide.