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there are some problems with what you have posted. let's begin. >things I can’t talk about but that I’m incredibly proud of, and that have made the world a me

there are some problems with what you have posted. let's begin. >things I can’t talk about but that I’m incredibly proud of, and that have made the world a meaningfully better place. ah, so we must simply trust you, then? FB has violated users trust from day one with the "dumb fucks" and the like. "making the world a better place" demands evidence. btw, i bet you can probably provide some evidence that will satisfy your criteria for this. just recognize that it's overtly incredulous unless you provide that evidence. and yes, i am incredulous here. >Facebook is showing how to properly react to a scandal lying, denying, fumbling, partial admission, larger admission, and then a cycle of non-apologies is NOT the right way to handle a scandal. >Even now, the company is exposing itself to more criticism because that’s the right thing to do. yeah, that explains the extralegal FB "raid" on CA's offices. or is there some internal explanation for that? because to everyone else, it looks like you guys were "just doing the right thing" by trying to destroy evidence of their wrongdoing. trying to dress that up somehow comes off as... shall we say, incredulous, again. there's a limit to how much people will believe that you believe. and don't even bother watching zuck's testimony to congress. you will find that he is eminently doing his darndest to avoid criticism by avoiding inquiries. i encourage you to watch it in full and count the dodges. you will break fifty. oh yeah, and trying to sue the newspaper that broke the story is egregiously scummy -- i'm talking like richard nixon level of brutal sliminess. these are the actions of a criminal organization trying to escape punishment for their wrongdoing -- or at least that's what it looks like from the outside. >Overall, it’s fairly positive, I would say. does your appraisal include: involuntary surveillance of non-users passing information to (malevolent or otherwise) governments regarding their citizens non-consensual experimentation on users' emotions (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-...)? what about being a willing accomplice in Chinese censorship, if they were allowed to operate in the country at all (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/technology/facebook-censorship-tool-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/technology/facebook-censo...)? oh yeah, and what about causing negative emotions intrinsically via using the platform (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-may-cause-stress-study-says/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-may-cause-stress-study-... and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23709009 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23709009 & an extensive amount of similar evidence)? or is this somehow acceptable despite the galaxy of evidence that explicitly links FB to worse quality of life? what about tax evasion (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/dec/23/facebook-tax-profits-outside-us https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/dec/23/facebook-...)? tax evasion is typically not prosocial behavior. what about political censorship in kashmir (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/19/facebook-under-fire-censoring-kashmir-posts-accounts https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/19/facebook-...)? or maybe political censorship of the kurds (http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201308240040-0023000 http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201308240040-0023000)? or religious and political censorship in pakistan (http://tribune.com.pk/story/855030/facebook-censored-54-posts-for-blasphemy-in-pakistan-in-second-half-of-2014/ http://tribune.com.pk/story/855030/facebook-censored-54-post...)? what about the censorship of the rohingya trying to tell the world about their persecution (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/20/facebook-rohingya-muslims-myanmar https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/20/facebook-...)? --- i guess the bigger philosophical question is: at what point do you take responsibility for your actions in the context of facebook as a company? i understand that companies are often unethical in tiny steps until they're a monster, and it's hard to tell from the inside when things are happening. i can't imagine that i would have quit the company after any two of the things i listed. but there's more than two things. all the evidence is there, now. what's your move? PS: exhibiting restraint in this post was . . . difficult.

bertil 9y ago
I don’t think you responded to any of my points. Most of what you are claiming is not true or irrelevant. I’ll try to respond to yours. > the extralegal FB "raid" on CA's offices. or is there some internal explanation for that? That was apparently part of the agreement that Facebook had with CA after it was revealed by The Guardian that they bought data from another firm. CA claimed at the time they didn’t know the data was not licensed to be sold and agreed to fairly extensive terms, including agreeing for Facebook auditors to check that the data was actually deleted. It’s my understanding that acquiring this data does not break any law, at least not clearly, so few official channels are available to prevent a company from sharing that information -- not until GDPR is in place, next month. Even then, you might need users’ complaints: jurisdiction is not clear. Facebook auditors, who are sworn to a lot fiducial obligations, not Facebook, had the ability to prevent Cambridge Analytica from deleting evidence hours after the revelations -- thanks to that previous private agreement; the ICO took several days to draft a warrant. As someone familiar with the situation, I was flabbergasted by the spin that Facebook could be “deleting evidence”: it wasn’t in their interest, certainly not after the revelations were out. It was however very representative of an incredibly misinformed and hostile media coverage of the company. If you start with the presumption that Facebook is the Devil incarnate, well… you are stuck without much options to solve a data leak, and you reach the conclusion that Facebook in the Devil incarnate. If you trust the company to act in their own interest and the interest of their users, yes, you would expect they enforce that contract properly. My position is not that Facebook is perfect: I have repeatedly pointed out here, recently and for more than decade online that I was the first person warning about such a company, since before Facebook was even founded. I suggested in early 2004 to my adviser a PhD topic on the challenges to enforce anti-competition rules on social media. I believe that there are a lot of things that make Facebook potentially dangerous and that need regulation and monitoring. I have very publicly opposed certain decisions made by Facebook, generally in that direction -- but I think that the foaming-at-the-mouth hatred that so many people display here is unhelpful and actually helping the company evade necessary challenges.
bertil 9y ago
2/ I have studied the reason for that rage in an academic context (people generally have far less violent opinion of, say, data brokers, who do a lot worst but they don’t see) so I understand it; I don’t think that’s what you are looking for. Let’s go through your list: > involuntary surveillance of non-users Facebook operates an Analytics network, like Google and about a dozen companies. I don’t think “non-users” would have their data processed differently if website owners operated their own analytic platform, I just think that would be done poorly and would cost a lot more and raise barrier to enter web businesses. Without Facebook, that market would be a quasi-monopoly for Google, which would worry me more. If you are not a Facebook users, I would expect you to consider that you are actively trying to avoid the company (and there are legitimate reasons to) and I would certainly expect you to have significant DNS-level filtering of all Facebook domains. There is an unrelated question about how your friends can upload their address book, including your emails; those emails are never matched with any web traffic. How anyone could imagine this is doable is beyond me. In either case, Facebook is the only company offering you the ability to access some of data as a non-user, although… it fails to do it because it doesn’t make sense with the current data structure. With the recent push to access that information, Facebook is thinking about how to answer that question -- but I believe they are the only company to do so. You can go ask Google what data they have about you as a non-user and see if they can tell you. I’m not blaming Google (a company that I admire greatly too) or trying some false equivalence; I’m just expecting that, if you consider the problem without your prejudice against Facebook, you’ll realise it doesn’t make sense -- unless you tell Google that this email matches this cookie. > passing information to (malevolent or otherwise) governments regarding their citizens I’m not familiar with that, even as a person who talked to team on controversial project: genuinely, I’m best mate with a guy who keeps saying that this might happen, so I would know if we did. There are situations where Facebook cooperate with law enforcement, but as far as I can tell, that’s exclusively with a warrant (and Facebook is very proud of having lawyers who can push back). I don’t think you want Facebook to act as if they are above the law and refuse to obey a judge? - non-consensual experimentation on users' emotions I don’t think the harm in that context was large: it was, literally, barely enough to be measured (that was the point of the paper, actually). I realise that Facebook should disclose more clearly that there are dozens of thousands of experiments, many of which change what you see and that some of those, plus some bugs, might affect your experience. They might affect your ability to reconnect to long-lost friends; they might affect your ability to meet your future spouse. Most websites have the same practice, so I would consider that digital literacy to know that, but I’ll readily admit that I’m ambitious when it comes to what people should know. I do think that the inexplicably violent backlash to that articles costed everyone who cares about Facebook impact on its users enormously. The research team completely closed off after the, once again irrational and foaming-at-the-mouth reaction. If you want to ask “How do you look at yourself in the mirror after what you’ve done?”, I have serious questions for you -- in a minute. - what about being a willing accomplice in Chinese censorship, if they were allowed to operate in the country at all That’s speculative. - oh yeah, and what about causing negative emotions intrinsically via using the platform This is open science and I find that very interesting -- and my work at Facebook was closely related to questions like that. I was very disappointed when I left that my personal suggestions to address that were overlooked but Moira Burke picked it up and did a tremendous job explaining the detail of their current understanding. I was impressed at the work and its impact (changing the corporate mission of Facebook in insanely important). I was more impressed that Moira did that in spite of her seeing the scars of the previous published research on Facebook’s impact. That change could have been possible two years earlier without that incident. > despite the galaxy of evidence that explicitly links FB to worse quality of life? Evidence doesn’t come into Galaxy and, like anyone reasonable, I know that new technology and new service have positive and negative sides and I work on separating them to keep the best.

bertil 9y ago

I don’t think you responded to any of my points. Most of what you are claiming is not true or irrelevant. I’ll try to respond to yours. > the extralegal FB "raid" on CA's offices. or is there some internal explanation for that? That was apparently part of the agreement that Facebook had with CA after it was revealed by The Guardian that they bought data from another firm. CA claimed at the time they didn’t know the data was not licensed to be sold and agreed to fairly extensive terms, including agreeing for Facebook auditors to check that the data was actually deleted. It’s my understanding that acquiring this data does not break any law, at least not clearly, so few official channels are available to prevent a company from sharing that information -- not until GDPR is in place, next month. Even then, you might need users’ complaints: jurisdiction is not clear. Facebook auditors, who are sworn to a lot fiducial obligations, not Facebook, had the ability to prevent Cambridge Analytica from deleting evidence hours after the revelations -- thanks to that previous private agreement; the ICO took several days to draft a warrant. As someone familiar with the situation, I was flabbergasted by the spin that Facebook could be “deleting evidence”: it wasn’t in their interest, certainly not after the revelations were out. It was however very representative of an incredibly misinformed and hostile media coverage of the company. If you start with the presumption that Facebook is the Devil incarnate, well… you are stuck without much options to solve a data leak, and you reach the conclusion that Facebook in the Devil incarnate. If you trust the company to act in their own interest and the interest of their users, yes, you would expect they enforce that contract properly. My position is not that Facebook is perfect: I have repeatedly pointed out here, recently and for more than decade online that I was the first person warning about such a company, since before Facebook was even founded. I suggested in early 2004 to my adviser a PhD topic on the challenges to enforce anti-competition rules on social media. I believe that there are a lot of things that make Facebook potentially dangerous and that need regulation and monitoring. I have very publicly opposed certain decisions made by Facebook, generally in that direction -- but I think that the foaming-at-the-mouth hatred that so many people display here is unhelpful and actually helping the company evade necessary challenges.

bertil 9y ago

2/ I have studied the reason for that rage in an academic context (people generally have far less violent opinion of, say, data brokers, who do a lot worst but they don’t see) so I understand it; I don’t think that’s what you are looking for. Let’s go through your list: > involuntary surveillance of non-users Facebook operates an Analytics network, like Google and about a dozen companies. I don’t think “non-users” would have their data processed differently if website owners operated their own analytic platform, I just think that would be done poorly and would cost a lot more and raise barrier to enter web businesses. Without Facebook, that market would be a quasi-monopoly for Google, which would worry me more. If you are not a Facebook users, I would expect you to consider that you are actively trying to avoid the company (and there are legitimate reasons to) and I would certainly expect you to have significant DNS-level filtering of all Facebook domains. There is an unrelated question about how your friends can upload their address book, including your emails; those emails are never matched with any web traffic. How anyone could imagine this is doable is beyond me. In either case, Facebook is the only company offering you the ability to access some of data as a non-user, although… it fails to do it because it doesn’t make sense with the current data structure. With the recent push to access that information, Facebook is thinking about how to answer that question -- but I believe they are the only company to do so. You can go ask Google what data they have about you as a non-user and see if they can tell you. I’m not blaming Google (a company that I admire greatly too) or trying some false equivalence; I’m just expecting that, if you consider the problem without your prejudice against Facebook, you’ll realise it doesn’t make sense -- unless you tell Google that this email matches this cookie. > passing information to (malevolent or otherwise) governments regarding their citizens I’m not familiar with that, even as a person who talked to team on controversial project: genuinely, I’m best mate with a guy who keeps saying that this might happen, so I would know if we did. There are situations where Facebook cooperate with law enforcement, but as far as I can tell, that’s exclusively with a warrant (and Facebook is very proud of having lawyers who can push back). I don’t think you want Facebook to act as if they are above the law and refuse to obey a judge? - non-consensual experimentation on users' emotions I don’t think the harm in that context was large: it was, literally, barely enough to be measured (that was the point of the paper, actually). I realise that Facebook should disclose more clearly that there are dozens of thousands of experiments, many of which change what you see and that some of those, plus some bugs, might affect your experience. They might affect your ability to reconnect to long-lost friends; they might affect your ability to meet your future spouse. Most websites have the same practice, so I would consider that digital literacy to know that, but I’ll readily admit that I’m ambitious when it comes to what people should know. I do think that the inexplicably violent backlash to that articles costed everyone who cares about Facebook impact on its users enormously. The research team completely closed off after the, once again irrational and foaming-at-the-mouth reaction. If you want to ask “How do you look at yourself in the mirror after what you’ve done?”, I have serious questions for you -- in a minute. - what about being a willing accomplice in Chinese censorship, if they were allowed to operate in the country at all That’s speculative. - oh yeah, and what about causing negative emotions intrinsically via using the platform This is open science and I find that very interesting -- and my work at Facebook was closely related to questions like that. I was very disappointed when I left that my personal suggestions to address that were overlooked but Moira Burke picked it up and did a tremendous job explaining the detail of their current understanding. I was impressed at the work and its impact (changing the corporate mission of Facebook in insanely important). I was more impressed that Moira did that in spite of her seeing the scars of the previous published research on Facebook’s impact. That change could have been possible two years earlier without that incident. > despite the galaxy of evidence that explicitly links FB to worse quality of life? Evidence doesn’t come into Galaxy and, like anyone reasonable, I know that new technology and new service have positive and negative sides and I work on separating them to keep the best.