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I rather wonder what it's like to work at Facebook. Do people still readily tell that they work at FB? With more and more shit coming to light and no impressio

I rather wonder what it's like to work at Facebook. Do people still readily tell that they work at FB? With more and more shit coming to light and no impression that Facebook is seriously interested in fixing things, I suspect people would question ones judgement to keep working there? At least I do, to be honest.

nerdponx 8y ago
It's in part self-selecting: if you work there, it's because you want to work there in spite of (or maybe because of) what's in the press.
- _Microft 8y ago
  That would mean that Facebook basically unfixable unless you fire/replace everyone. That doesn't bode well.
  - badfrog 8y ago
    The generous interpretation would be that the people who are there "because of what's in the press" want to fix the problems.
    - hopler 8y ago
      You can't fix things when all the politically important decisions are made in the C suite. Even the Chief Security Officer quit and said Facebook is hopeless.
      - throwawaymath 8y ago
        Alex Stamos has never said "Facebook is hopeless." He has also never said anything to that effect in not so few words. His take on Facebook was, and continues to be, nuanced - he has said that Facebook has deep seated challenges, but never intimated that he believes they're insurmountable. In fact, now I'm challenging you to cite this. Why say things like this if they're not true? Any broader point about Facebook doesn't even hinge on the veracity of this claim, I don't get it.
  - ed312 8y ago
    A lot of devs just want to work on cool stuff, which FB has plenty of, and ignore "politics".
    - HillRat 8y ago
      That’s the issue, innit? All the extremely cool tech is the prerequisite for the privacy-invading, democracy-busting, user-hostile, ethics-dismissing business model of the company. You can’t disentangle the “cool stuff” from the “bad stuff,” any more than a dev for the NSA plausibly can, and we as technologists have to grapple with the moral consequences of doing cool stuff for bad people. Or, to quote Tom Lehrer, "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? / “That's not my department" says Wernher von Braun
    - paulcole 8y ago
      Why is it that rich white guys are always the ones who want to ignore “politics”? Edit: Why downvote this?
      - deogeo 8y ago
        If your logic is that people at facebook want to ignore politics, perhaps you'd be better off directing your question at asians? Whites are 46% of facebook employees (underrepresented to the point of being a minority there), while asians are 41% (over-represented by a factor of ~4 vs. the general population): https://www.facebook.com/careers/diversity-report https://www.facebook.com/careers/diversity-report
        paulcole 8y ago
        Anecdotally, every time I've heard the phrase "I want to keep politics out of this," it's been uttered by some rich white dude. I don't see why Facebook would be any different.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Facebook isn't a problem because of its people's personalities, it is a problem because of its business model.
  - saiya-jin 8y ago
    Not everybody, just upper management all the way to Zuckenberg including. They set the moral bars in projects they focus on, and most people just follow. Since name above is quite far from moral person from most news I was able to see related to him/FB, what you state is most probably correct.
  - dspillett 8y ago
    > everyone No, just the actively bad ones. The ones who bobble along regardless because their individual tasks are not evil would bobble along just the same in a regime that does care more about doing the right thing (or, at least, doing the wrong thing less). Unfortunately the actively bad ones are probably good at hiding behind the more apathetic, throwing a few of them under the proverbial bus every now and then.
  - CamTin 8y ago
    (almost) nobody would dream of working for Facebook if the salaries weren't there. The "problem" with the games industry, and other industries with prestige jobs like publishing, film, etc., is that their toxicity derives from the drive of jobseekers to desire these jobs all out of proportion with their benefits and compensation. There's nothing inherent with the production of computer games that requires this attitude other than employees' and jobseekers' irrational (and very human) love of games. There are exploitative games that are bad, but there's no reason that all games have to be this way. Facebook is toxic because it fundamentally makes money in an exploitative way that is bad. There is no way for Facebook to both be a business and not be sleezy. I think it's potentially possible we could build something Facebook-like as a non-business, but if we expect it to make a return for investors, it absolutely has to do fundamentally objectionable things to its users and society.
badfrog 8y ago
Most people who work there believe the press is wrong or overblown. > I suspect people would question ones judgement to keep working there? At least I do, to be honest. You're part of a small minority. 99% of people you talk to in the real world still just think Facebook is a fun app for memes and baby pictures.
- mijamo 8y ago
  I can't say about your environment but at least in France it is completely wrong. The general opinion on Facebook is extremely negative. It does not prevent people from using it, but they have as bad a reputation as oil companies. Even when talking to random peopme in the countryside it is a very negative view. The main reasons are ads, fake news, data stealing, tax evasion from Facebook and in general a dislike of big American tech companies thinking they are better than everyone else (the importance of those factors obviously varies depending on the person).
petercooper 8y ago
People working on React at Facebook don't seem particularly fazed to me, but I think it's weird when people declare that working at Facebook is bad because Facebook does some bad things. The countries we live in do lots of bad things but we can still be proud of our country, pay taxes, and keep ourselves away from the ethically dubious activity. Similarly, someone working away on React in Facebook doesn't have to get involved in face tracking or whatever.
- _Microft 8y ago
  Isn't it like working in the supply chain of a questionable business? Ofcourse you are not doing bad things yourself but without you, others might not be able to.
- hopler 8y ago
  It's one thing to work on the roads and sewers, and psychology distance yourself from the military drone program. It's another when the core business model and the CEO's own stated goals are hostile to humanity.
  - badfrog 8y ago
    > the CEO's own stated goals are hostile to humanity Are you saying that is the case with Facebook? Can you explain?
  - blotter_paper 8y ago
    The US government has a business model (propping up the petrodollar through military force, circulating it around the world, and debasing it ad nauseum) that is hostile towards humanity. I can't imagine arguing that working for facebook is worse than working for the US government. You can psychologically distance yourself from whatever you want to, but one of these organizations murders children and the other one markets bullshit to them (both spy). I don't like either, but I see the one doing the murdering as having more, ya know... blood on their hands.
- zepto 8y ago
  Except that it’s not that Facebook ‘does some bad things’. Those bad things are pervasive and fundamental to facebook’s relationship with its users.
sfifs 8y ago
Maybe they feel they're building products that are actually adding value to people's lives? A decade ago, we hardly kept in touch or were aware of lives of people beyond the immediate circle but now we do? Maybe their products gave self expression to millions of teens and twenties who found a way they could share their opinions and shape conversations without political or high society connections FOR FREE? Maybe they feel they've rescued people from watching unskippable ads on TV and replaced with far less intrusive ads on the feed? While I neither work for nor really use Facebook products beyond WhatsApp, I do think they have added tremendous value to the world and would encourage you to also explore viewpoints different from the standard narratives.
- badfrog 8y ago
  I definitely agree with that, but I've started to hear a lot of people argue that social media is inherently bad. Reasons I've heard include wasting people's time, giving a false sense of community, and causing depression.
- JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago
  After college, many people busy with their lives don't post much on FB. There's a particular subset of friend I don't feel like I know very much about-- they're busy with their careers, relationships, etc. I couldn't passively watch my feed to know what's going on their lives, I'd have to pick up the phone and call.
- birksherty 8y ago
  I connected with long lost people on facebook. Most of them just upload a fake happy life on social media and it made me compare my life with them more. After deleting my facebook profile it never felt like I lost something. I don't want to know what's going on with everyone's life everyday. I just use phone call to connect with people I care about and few real friends now. It feels much better.
- tokyodude 8y ago
  This isn't facebook's fault but for me SMS and then social media after I feel as worked the opposite. I maybe keep mildly aware of people I haven't seen in months or year because of social media but close friends I used to call daily or weekly and have long talks. Now it feels like bad manners to call someone which might disrupt their time when I could have messaged, emailed, slacked, tweeted instead. The result is I get/have no talks. Just a few short messages over a week or month.
MivLives 8y ago
I have a friend who works at Facebook. I actually asked him this question. His answer was something along the lines of: "I don't use facebook, the problems I have to solve are interesting, and it's management that makes those decisions." I left it at that, I've known the guy for a long time and I think that goes pretty well with his mindset. It might be a different story if he was working on a data gathering team.
- bvinc 8y ago
  That's probably what I would say if I worked at Facebook. The uncomfortable line of questioning would be if you asked me WHY I don't have a Facebook. And I would explain why I don't like giving my attention to an AI driven news feed and how I don't think Facebook is having a positive effect on most user's lives. Then I'll start wondering what I'm doing with my career.
- misiti3780 8y ago
  there are literally hundreds of companies in SV solving interesting problems - i would ask him why he doesnt look for a new position

nerdponx 8y ago

It's in part self-selecting: if you work there, it's because you want to work there in spite of (or maybe because of) what's in the press.

_Microft 8y ago
That would mean that Facebook basically unfixable unless you fire/replace everyone. That doesn't bode well.
- badfrog 8y ago
  The generous interpretation would be that the people who are there "because of what's in the press" want to fix the problems.
  - hopler 8y ago
    You can't fix things when all the politically important decisions are made in the C suite. Even the Chief Security Officer quit and said Facebook is hopeless.
    - throwawaymath 8y ago
      Alex Stamos has never said "Facebook is hopeless." He has also never said anything to that effect in not so few words. His take on Facebook was, and continues to be, nuanced - he has said that Facebook has deep seated challenges, but never intimated that he believes they're insurmountable. In fact, now I'm challenging you to cite this. Why say things like this if they're not true? Any broader point about Facebook doesn't even hinge on the veracity of this claim, I don't get it.
- ed312 8y ago
  A lot of devs just want to work on cool stuff, which FB has plenty of, and ignore "politics".
  - HillRat 8y ago
    That’s the issue, innit? All the extremely cool tech is the prerequisite for the privacy-invading, democracy-busting, user-hostile, ethics-dismissing business model of the company. You can’t disentangle the “cool stuff” from the “bad stuff,” any more than a dev for the NSA plausibly can, and we as technologists have to grapple with the moral consequences of doing cool stuff for bad people. Or, to quote Tom Lehrer, "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? / “That's not my department" says Wernher von Braun
  - paulcole 8y ago
    Why is it that rich white guys are always the ones who want to ignore “politics”? Edit: Why downvote this?
    - deogeo 8y ago
      If your logic is that people at facebook want to ignore politics, perhaps you'd be better off directing your question at asians? Whites are 46% of facebook employees (underrepresented to the point of being a minority there), while asians are 41% (over-represented by a factor of ~4 vs. the general population): https://www.facebook.com/careers/diversity-report https://www.facebook.com/careers/diversity-report
      - paulcole 8y ago
        Anecdotally, every time I've heard the phrase "I want to keep politics out of this," it's been uttered by some rich white dude. I don't see why Facebook would be any different.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Facebook isn't a problem because of its people's personalities, it is a problem because of its business model.
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  Not everybody, just upper management all the way to Zuckenberg including. They set the moral bars in projects they focus on, and most people just follow. Since name above is quite far from moral person from most news I was able to see related to him/FB, what you state is most probably correct.
- dspillett 8y ago
  > everyone No, just the actively bad ones. The ones who bobble along regardless because their individual tasks are not evil would bobble along just the same in a regime that does care more about doing the right thing (or, at least, doing the wrong thing less). Unfortunately the actively bad ones are probably good at hiding behind the more apathetic, throwing a few of them under the proverbial bus every now and then.
- CamTin 8y ago
  (almost) nobody would dream of working for Facebook if the salaries weren't there. The "problem" with the games industry, and other industries with prestige jobs like publishing, film, etc., is that their toxicity derives from the drive of jobseekers to desire these jobs all out of proportion with their benefits and compensation. There's nothing inherent with the production of computer games that requires this attitude other than employees' and jobseekers' irrational (and very human) love of games. There are exploitative games that are bad, but there's no reason that all games have to be this way. Facebook is toxic because it fundamentally makes money in an exploitative way that is bad. There is no way for Facebook to both be a business and not be sleezy. I think it's potentially possible we could build something Facebook-like as a non-business, but if we expect it to make a return for investors, it absolutely has to do fundamentally objectionable things to its users and society.

badfrog 8y ago

Most people who work there believe the press is wrong or overblown. > I suspect people would question ones judgement to keep working there? At least I do, to be honest. You're part of a small minority. 99% of people you talk to in the real world still just think Facebook is a fun app for memes and baby pictures.

mijamo 8y ago
I can't say about your environment but at least in France it is completely wrong. The general opinion on Facebook is extremely negative. It does not prevent people from using it, but they have as bad a reputation as oil companies. Even when talking to random peopme in the countryside it is a very negative view. The main reasons are ads, fake news, data stealing, tax evasion from Facebook and in general a dislike of big American tech companies thinking they are better than everyone else (the importance of those factors obviously varies depending on the person).

petercooper 8y ago

People working on React at Facebook don't seem particularly fazed to me, but I think it's weird when people declare that working at Facebook is bad because Facebook does some bad things. The countries we live in do lots of bad things but we can still be proud of our country, pay taxes, and keep ourselves away from the ethically dubious activity. Similarly, someone working away on React in Facebook doesn't have to get involved in face tracking or whatever.

_Microft 8y ago
Isn't it like working in the supply chain of a questionable business? Ofcourse you are not doing bad things yourself but without you, others might not be able to.
hopler 8y ago
It's one thing to work on the roads and sewers, and psychology distance yourself from the military drone program. It's another when the core business model and the CEO's own stated goals are hostile to humanity.
- badfrog 8y ago
  > the CEO's own stated goals are hostile to humanity Are you saying that is the case with Facebook? Can you explain?
- blotter_paper 8y ago
  The US government has a business model (propping up the petrodollar through military force, circulating it around the world, and debasing it ad nauseum) that is hostile towards humanity. I can't imagine arguing that working for facebook is worse than working for the US government. You can psychologically distance yourself from whatever you want to, but one of these organizations murders children and the other one markets bullshit to them (both spy). I don't like either, but I see the one doing the murdering as having more, ya know... blood on their hands.
zepto 8y ago
Except that it’s not that Facebook ‘does some bad things’. Those bad things are pervasive and fundamental to facebook’s relationship with its users.

sfifs 8y ago

Maybe they feel they're building products that are actually adding value to people's lives? A decade ago, we hardly kept in touch or were aware of lives of people beyond the immediate circle but now we do? Maybe their products gave self expression to millions of teens and twenties who found a way they could share their opinions and shape conversations without political or high society connections FOR FREE? Maybe they feel they've rescued people from watching unskippable ads on TV and replaced with far less intrusive ads on the feed? While I neither work for nor really use Facebook products beyond WhatsApp, I do think they have added tremendous value to the world and would encourage you to also explore viewpoints different from the standard narratives.

badfrog 8y ago
I definitely agree with that, but I've started to hear a lot of people argue that social media is inherently bad. Reasons I've heard include wasting people's time, giving a false sense of community, and causing depression.
JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago
After college, many people busy with their lives don't post much on FB. There's a particular subset of friend I don't feel like I know very much about-- they're busy with their careers, relationships, etc. I couldn't passively watch my feed to know what's going on their lives, I'd have to pick up the phone and call.
birksherty 8y ago
I connected with long lost people on facebook. Most of them just upload a fake happy life on social media and it made me compare my life with them more. After deleting my facebook profile it never felt like I lost something. I don't want to know what's going on with everyone's life everyday. I just use phone call to connect with people I care about and few real friends now. It feels much better.
tokyodude 8y ago
This isn't facebook's fault but for me SMS and then social media after I feel as worked the opposite. I maybe keep mildly aware of people I haven't seen in months or year because of social media but close friends I used to call daily or weekly and have long talks. Now it feels like bad manners to call someone which might disrupt their time when I could have messaged, emailed, slacked, tweeted instead. The result is I get/have no talks. Just a few short messages over a week or month.

MivLives 8y ago

I have a friend who works at Facebook. I actually asked him this question. His answer was something along the lines of: "I don't use facebook, the problems I have to solve are interesting, and it's management that makes those decisions." I left it at that, I've known the guy for a long time and I think that goes pretty well with his mindset. It might be a different story if he was working on a data gathering team.

bvinc 8y ago
That's probably what I would say if I worked at Facebook. The uncomfortable line of questioning would be if you asked me WHY I don't have a Facebook. And I would explain why I don't like giving my attention to an AI driven news feed and how I don't think Facebook is having a positive effect on most user's lives. Then I'll start wondering what I'm doing with my career.
misiti3780 8y ago
there are literally hundreds of companies in SV solving interesting problems - i would ask him why he doesnt look for a new position