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From the article, suggestions include: * Requiring verification of real names for people. (Kevin Kelly) * Firing at least half of the leadership team and repl

by pdog 9y ago

From the article, suggestions include: * Requiring verification of real names for people. (Kevin Kelly) * Firing at least half of the leadership team and replacing them with people of color. (Ellen Pao) * Becoming a public benefit corporation. (Tim Wu)

prostoalex 9y ago
> Requiring verification of real names for people. The only scalable solution to this involves uploading a scanned ID, which can be easily doctored and forged. Moreover, as the author mentions, this is bad news for political dissidents, survivors of domestic/spousal/etc abuse, victims of stalking or bullying, celebrities (and semi-celebrities), LGBT activists http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-apologizes-for-real-name-policy-2014-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-apologizes-for-real-... and some edge cases where people change countries and adapt their original name to something recognizable in other language https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=869237283099242 https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=8692372...
- distantsounds 9y ago
  Korea has worked around this by providing SMS verification, PIN numbers that are generated through the government's website, or even a locally-stored public key cert. There are ways to do it, you just need the backing infrastructure to make it happen. The American SSN system is a joke nowadays and needs to be overhauled, it could go hand-in-hand with online verifications. Mind you Facebook is a global company, and tailoring these solutions to every country would be nigh impossible.
ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
I can't believe the Ellen Pao suggestion is serious. Why can't we work on diversity without picking someone with so much baggage? Characterizing her tenure at Reddit as successful is beyond strange.
judah 9y ago
>> "Facebook needs to replace its focus on engagement quantity with interaction quality. To really do that means replacing at least half of the leadership team and board with underrepresented people of color who are informed and value diversity and inclusion" This seems to suggest that only people of color are able to focus on interaction quality. She is suggesting that people should be fired based on the color of their skin. That is racism.
- michaelt 9y ago
  I think what the article is actually trying to say is leaders place a higher priority on problems that impact them personally. If the mayor drives an F-150 truck, potholes will be less important than big parking spaces. If she drives a supercar, the reverse will be true. That's not to say a truck-driving mayor is incapable of understanding the supercar driver's perspective. Just that limited resources mean trade-offs always have to be made, and some combination of the power of dogfooding to inspire improvements, the power of self-interest, and the simple fact you see your own problems more often than other problems mean truck drivers will end up coming first. It's just human nature. Some people would say changing the composition of leadership is easier and bound to be more effective than trying to change human nature.
  - judah 9y ago
    That's still discrimination based on the color of a person's skin, regardless of perceived intentions. I remind folks that Dr. King's vision was that people be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Tim Wu definitely has the best solution which is why it will never happen. It does seem that in the information age we're going to have to rejigger the law so that internet "platforms" are held to a bit higher standard than internet "products."
golergka 9y ago
So, it's either state taking over privacy, state taking over private property or simple old racism. Nice.
billysielu 9y ago
I guess white people probably are responsible for most technical problems... but to assume anyone else would do a better job is nuts.
bsder 9y ago
> Requiring verification of real names for people. (Kevin Kelly) Why not just require a cryptographic signature/blockchain on "shares" and "likes"? Who cares about real identity as long as your account activity is traceable? Many of these problems seem to originate from a small number of sources and then rely on the echo chamber to amplify them. If you have a unique ID that you can trace back to being the source, you can do things from that point. Or you can find the particularly activated echo chamberers and do something about that. Or, even better, if I, as a user, can look at the chain, I can see that "news" either entered or shared via idiots and can block it. For you youngsters, we called that a "killfile" in the bad old days. In reality, the true problem is that Facebook doesn't want to do a single thing that might affect "engagement".
eximius 9y ago
Shame it sounds like such a bad article. I think basically all companies should be public benefit corporations by default.

by pdog 9y ago

prostoalex 9y ago

> Requiring verification of real names for people. The only scalable solution to this involves uploading a scanned ID, which can be easily doctored and forged. Moreover, as the author mentions, this is bad news for political dissidents, survivors of domestic/spousal/etc abuse, victims of stalking or bullying, celebrities (and semi-celebrities), LGBT activists http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-apologizes-for-real-name-policy-2014-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-apologizes-for-real-... and some edge cases where people change countries and adapt their original name to something recognizable in other language https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=869237283099242 https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=8692372...

distantsounds 9y ago
Korea has worked around this by providing SMS verification, PIN numbers that are generated through the government's website, or even a locally-stored public key cert. There are ways to do it, you just need the backing infrastructure to make it happen. The American SSN system is a joke nowadays and needs to be overhauled, it could go hand-in-hand with online verifications. Mind you Facebook is a global company, and tailoring these solutions to every country would be nigh impossible.

ghostbrainalpha 9y ago

I can't believe the Ellen Pao suggestion is serious. Why can't we work on diversity without picking someone with so much baggage? Characterizing her tenure at Reddit as successful is beyond strange.

judah 9y ago

>> "Facebook needs to replace its focus on engagement quantity with interaction quality. To really do that means replacing at least half of the leadership team and board with underrepresented people of color who are informed and value diversity and inclusion" This seems to suggest that only people of color are able to focus on interaction quality. She is suggesting that people should be fired based on the color of their skin. That is racism.

michaelt 9y ago
I think what the article is actually trying to say is leaders place a higher priority on problems that impact them personally. If the mayor drives an F-150 truck, potholes will be less important than big parking spaces. If she drives a supercar, the reverse will be true. That's not to say a truck-driving mayor is incapable of understanding the supercar driver's perspective. Just that limited resources mean trade-offs always have to be made, and some combination of the power of dogfooding to inspire improvements, the power of self-interest, and the simple fact you see your own problems more often than other problems mean truck drivers will end up coming first. It's just human nature. Some people would say changing the composition of leadership is easier and bound to be more effective than trying to change human nature.
- judah 9y ago
  That's still discrimination based on the color of a person's skin, regardless of perceived intentions. I remind folks that Dr. King's vision was that people be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

Tim Wu definitely has the best solution which is why it will never happen. It does seem that in the information age we're going to have to rejigger the law so that internet "platforms" are held to a bit higher standard than internet "products."

golergka 9y ago

So, it's either state taking over privacy, state taking over private property or simple old racism. Nice.

billysielu 9y ago

I guess white people probably are responsible for most technical problems... but to assume anyone else would do a better job is nuts.

bsder 9y ago

> Requiring verification of real names for people. (Kevin Kelly) Why not just require a cryptographic signature/blockchain on "shares" and "likes"? Who cares about real identity as long as your account activity is traceable? Many of these problems seem to originate from a small number of sources and then rely on the echo chamber to amplify them. If you have a unique ID that you can trace back to being the source, you can do things from that point. Or you can find the particularly activated echo chamberers and do something about that. Or, even better, if I, as a user, can look at the chain, I can see that "news" either entered or shared via idiots and can block it. For you youngsters, we called that a "killfile" in the bad old days. In reality, the true problem is that Facebook doesn't want to do a single thing that might affect "engagement".

eximius 9y ago

Shame it sounds like such a bad article. I think basically all companies should be public benefit corporations by default.