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> I’m sure, internally, it’s looked at as the “mainstream media trying to get clicks... I interviewed with FB shortly after the Cambridge Analytica stuff came

> I’m sure, internally, it’s looked at as the “mainstream media trying to get clicks... I interviewed with FB shortly after the Cambridge Analytica stuff came out (but long enough after that it was clear to everyone that FB had screwed up big time). When it was my turn to ask questions in one particular interview, I gave a standard fallback when I have nothing else: "[despite all the blahblah positives], having worked at other technology companies, what's your least favorite thing about working at FB?" This guy was a FB vet (maybe 5 or 10 years? Very long in FB time, I think). He gives me this spiel about how hard the teams work to maintain user privacy and how unfairly they're being treated by the public and the media, and how hard it is to work in an environment where everyone treats you so unfairly. I was floored. Not even a hint of apology, remorse, or "we could have done X better". "Unfair. Fake news. We're doing great things, and no one thanks us enough." And from someone that had probably made a mint having been around at FB near-IPO time. It was my first or second of the day, and while no one else was so blatant, the sentiment persisted throughout the rest of the day. I bombed the interviews hard, they didn't want me back, but I had basically decided I'd never work there by the time lunch rolled around.

ganstyles 7y ago
I interviewed there this summer because the position/compensation offered was just too good to not consider seriously. Like, top 10% at FB kind of money, which is a lot. During the interview process, I asked many FB employees about their thoughts on FB in the news, the headlines, scandals, etc. All super smart and dedicated people, but anecdotally there was no hint of them thinking they had done anything wrong. They explained for example how Cambridge Analytica was totally overblown in the media, specifically because users opted in, and the media was just bashing them. They did say they wouldn't follow the same route again, but didn't seem to consider themselves responsible ethically/morally. I can see how one might debate whether having an opt-in absolves FB of responsibility, but it had a smell to it and didn't necessarily jive with my personal ethical framework. I did get an offer, and not necessarily for that reason ended up declining. But it parallels what you said except in May 2019. I would consider taking a job there in the future and I got the sense that they're working to turn things around, but what high level people at FB said to me largely seemed to mirror your experience many years later so I thought I'd share.
- kkhire 7y ago
  >there was no hint of them thinking they had done anything wrong. the grand majority of folks know not to bite the hand that feeds them very well, more than anyone else could
  - threatripper 7y ago
    It doesn't pay to speak up. We glorify those who made a change but truth is that 99% of those who speak up even with small things quickly learn to shut up or leave for greener pastures. Remaining in the company are the YES-men and outside of regular employment those who speak just to breathe. Still, we encourage everyone to speak up to be able to weed out the black sheep before they cause too much damage.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  Wow. Between jyrkesh's tale and yours, it makes me think that things are even worse at FB than I thought they were.
- alexpetralia 7y ago
  I would also imagine that, especially during interviews, they recognize their duty is in part to sell the candidate on the firm. There's an implicit pressure to be positive about your company because there's only downside to saying negative things, even if it's honest. I don't see why an employee would put themselves on the line with a candidate, who they may never work with nor see again, just to express what they think is right.
  - taurath 7y ago
    If you're trying to hire "top 10% pay at FB" smart level people, hiding behind poorly constructed rhetorical barriers is more of a negative thing than recognizing a real negative thing. It doesn't have to be anyone's "fault" even, but more of a consequence of the system that was built with good intentions.
- netsharc 7y ago
  The people probably had a moral conflict: the good Facebook money but lose "their souls", or go with their conscience, quit and lose that money and work friendships/network. So, so they can sleep at night they've convinced themselves the company they're a part of wasn't the responsible party. So "Hey, those users opted-in, it's their own fault!". Funny how it means the company is now probably full of either "ignorance is bliss" or morally bankrupt people, because the people with good conscience have left. Not that society at large is much different... what uncomfortable truths are we ignoring?
mehrdadn 7y ago
I'm guessing it might be that the people working hard on maintaining user privacy are not the same as the people making the decisions, so the former feels they're treated unfairly.
- weare138 7y ago
  Based on the op's description, it doesn't seem like this particular FB employee minded those decisions that much. In fact, they sounded pretty enthusiastic about them.
gjs278 7y ago
take back your everyone. I still maintain that facebook did nothing wrong. idiots were tricked into voting for trump because facebook said they were idiots? who cares
manfredo 7y ago
Someone who worked at Facebook for the better part of a decade responded that they felt the media coverage was unfair to Facebook. You were suprised by this response because from an outsider's perspective you felt that Facebook employees should be apologetic? What makes you more qualified to judge whether the public perception was accurate as compared to someone who actually worked there - an "FB vet" in your own words? Having dug into the Cambridge Analytica story, I can see a number of reasons why Facebook workers would feel wronged by the coverage. In particular, many outlets omitted or downplayed the fact that Cambridge Analytica had lied about the purpose of their data collection, falsely claiming that it was for academic research. Dozens of other academic institutions were similarly allowed to solicit data from users, yet those go unmentioned because most people don't see users voluntarily sharing their data for academic purposes. But that's what Cambridge Analytica was, from Facebook's perspective. The picture painted by the media was one where Facebook brazenly sold people's data to nefarious actors, when in reality Facebook treated Cambridge Analytica just like other academic organizations in allowing them to solicit users for data - except it turned out that CA had lied about the purpose of its data collection. This story leaves makes me more empathetic towards your interviewer. If my company was so throughly demonized by the media such that candidates discount my own experience actually working at the company and are "floored" when when I tell them that the reality is different from public coverage, I'd be pretty salty too.
- tipsysquid 7y ago
  I'm no fan of Facebook, but this comment demonstrates the complexity of the situation in ways many entrepreneurs can appreciate
- stefan_ 7y ago
  Academic research isn't some magic word that you just need to invoke, particularly when it involves personal data. You need specific informed consent and the sign-off from an ethics committee on your study plan. To not ask that of someone pretending to use your data for academic research is willful ignorance. Of course, we are talking about Facebook, who have literally been in the news before for themselves running research experiments on uninformed, random users: http://laboratorium.net/archive/2014/06/28/as_flies_to_wanton_boys http://laboratorium.net/archive/2014/06/28/as_flies_to_wanto...
deleted 7y ago
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dannyr 7y ago
I shared a Lyft ride with a Facebook employee right after the CA controversy. I asked her what do employees think about it. She told me that people are really worried about how the controversy affected the stock price. (Facebook stock was down around that time.) I'm not sure how many employees worry about stock price than the supposed effect of the CA controversy but I was disappointed to hear that from a Facebook employee.
- Aperocky 7y ago
  Ask yourself: My company might have exposed millions of user to political propaganda/wrong think. It is being fixed though. 6 month worth of base salary. Choose.
- rohitb91 7y ago
  Facebook et al are knowingly leading the social collapse of countries because of the same thing that led the bankers to knowingly lead the world economy to the brink of collapse. Money
throwaway102030 7y ago
> hey didn't want me back, but I had basically decided I'd never work there Always stay positive! You won't work there not because you failed the interview, but because you didn't want to! > Not even a hint of apology, remorse He should have stood on his knees, and start crying asking for your forgiveness. > "no one thanks us enough." I'm 99% sure you are lying or intentionally misquoting. I cannot imagine any colleague of mine who would have said that during the interview. Because people who talk like that publicly do not survive in the company long enough. Especially, nobody would allow them doing interviews (there are shadow interviews, there is feedback from the candidate by the recruiter, a guy who talks like this wouldn't have been removed from doing interviews). I work for Facebook. I think CA scandal is media trash. 10 years ago the internet was very different from what it is now, more open, more friendly, safer. And Facebook worked in that environment and behaved similarly. The data stolen by CA won't help you win the election despite what the NY Times tells you. Any anyway, poking the company over and over for the issue company solved three years before you learned about it is just stupid. It would be as stupid as poking the author of telnet for security problems caused by it. Although I work for the company, there are tons of things I disagree with. For example, moderation is too strict and can be exploited by bad actors (causing good accounts to be banned). Or moderation forgives far left calling to crucify "white nationalists", but can ban you for a photo of machine gun or boobs. But how media covers CA scandal is just lies and over-exaggeration. OK, now go downvote.
jariel 7y ago
How was Facebook an 'horrible actor' in the CA scandal exactly? Facebook had relatively permission APIs. The entire world knew it. Journalists, developers, Big Cos. Nobody was screaming that there was a problem. Though there were a few issues around privacy, there wasn't really any public dialog specifically around the nature of those APIs. CA found a sneaky way to take advantage of somewhat open APIs. As the world started to become somewhat more concerned, and FB saw some room for potential abuse - FB rightly tightened up the APIs a little. This was long before the CA scandal blew up. Then it became public that CA was doing some sneaky things with the data. It's actually highly debatable if they did anything wrong within the context of the information available - or at least outside of industry norms -> what CA was doing with data from FB is what everyone is and was doing with data from similar sources. FB called on CA to erase the data, and checked that they did. It turns out, CA lied and did not. FB did the right thing every step of the way in the CA scandal. APIs of every kind err a little bit one way or the other over time and as issues surfaced, FB moved in the right direction without coaxing. The media absolutely misrepresented the entire issue. They didn't really make it clear what happened, nor did they clarify what exactly FB did wrong, but most importantly, they misled the public with respect to a separate, secondary issue which was 'special API access'. The 'scandal' is that there are tons of companies like CA using private data for all sorts of reasons, it's mostly not FB. There are definitely privacy issues around FB, and I'm not fan of them, but those are a separate issue.
- ric2b 7y ago
  So your opinion is that they weren't horrible actors because it took a while for people to complain? They're the ones that allowed it to happen, how long the world took to complain about it is not very relevant.

ganstyles 7y ago

I interviewed there this summer because the position/compensation offered was just too good to not consider seriously. Like, top 10% at FB kind of money, which is a lot. During the interview process, I asked many FB employees about their thoughts on FB in the news, the headlines, scandals, etc. All super smart and dedicated people, but anecdotally there was no hint of them thinking they had done anything wrong. They explained for example how Cambridge Analytica was totally overblown in the media, specifically because users opted in, and the media was just bashing them. They did say they wouldn't follow the same route again, but didn't seem to consider themselves responsible ethically/morally. I can see how one might debate whether having an opt-in absolves FB of responsibility, but it had a smell to it and didn't necessarily jive with my personal ethical framework. I did get an offer, and not necessarily for that reason ended up declining. But it parallels what you said except in May 2019. I would consider taking a job there in the future and I got the sense that they're working to turn things around, but what high level people at FB said to me largely seemed to mirror your experience many years later so I thought I'd share.

kkhire 7y ago
>there was no hint of them thinking they had done anything wrong. the grand majority of folks know not to bite the hand that feeds them very well, more than anyone else could
- threatripper 7y ago
  It doesn't pay to speak up. We glorify those who made a change but truth is that 99% of those who speak up even with small things quickly learn to shut up or leave for greener pastures. Remaining in the company are the YES-men and outside of regular employment those who speak just to breathe. Still, we encourage everyone to speak up to be able to weed out the black sheep before they cause too much damage.
JohnFen 7y ago
Wow. Between jyrkesh's tale and yours, it makes me think that things are even worse at FB than I thought they were.
alexpetralia 7y ago
I would also imagine that, especially during interviews, they recognize their duty is in part to sell the candidate on the firm. There's an implicit pressure to be positive about your company because there's only downside to saying negative things, even if it's honest. I don't see why an employee would put themselves on the line with a candidate, who they may never work with nor see again, just to express what they think is right.
- taurath 7y ago
  If you're trying to hire "top 10% pay at FB" smart level people, hiding behind poorly constructed rhetorical barriers is more of a negative thing than recognizing a real negative thing. It doesn't have to be anyone's "fault" even, but more of a consequence of the system that was built with good intentions.
netsharc 7y ago
The people probably had a moral conflict: the good Facebook money but lose "their souls", or go with their conscience, quit and lose that money and work friendships/network. So, so they can sleep at night they've convinced themselves the company they're a part of wasn't the responsible party. So "Hey, those users opted-in, it's their own fault!". Funny how it means the company is now probably full of either "ignorance is bliss" or morally bankrupt people, because the people with good conscience have left. Not that society at large is much different... what uncomfortable truths are we ignoring?

mehrdadn 7y ago

I'm guessing it might be that the people working hard on maintaining user privacy are not the same as the people making the decisions, so the former feels they're treated unfairly.

weare138 7y ago
Based on the op's description, it doesn't seem like this particular FB employee minded those decisions that much. In fact, they sounded pretty enthusiastic about them.

gjs278 7y ago

take back your everyone. I still maintain that facebook did nothing wrong. idiots were tricked into voting for trump because facebook said they were idiots? who cares

manfredo 7y ago

Someone who worked at Facebook for the better part of a decade responded that they felt the media coverage was unfair to Facebook. You were suprised by this response because from an outsider's perspective you felt that Facebook employees should be apologetic? What makes you more qualified to judge whether the public perception was accurate as compared to someone who actually worked there - an "FB vet" in your own words? Having dug into the Cambridge Analytica story, I can see a number of reasons why Facebook workers would feel wronged by the coverage. In particular, many outlets omitted or downplayed the fact that Cambridge Analytica had lied about the purpose of their data collection, falsely claiming that it was for academic research. Dozens of other academic institutions were similarly allowed to solicit data from users, yet those go unmentioned because most people don't see users voluntarily sharing their data for academic purposes. But that's what Cambridge Analytica was, from Facebook's perspective. The picture painted by the media was one where Facebook brazenly sold people's data to nefarious actors, when in reality Facebook treated Cambridge Analytica just like other academic organizations in allowing them to solicit users for data - except it turned out that CA had lied about the purpose of its data collection. This story leaves makes me more empathetic towards your interviewer. If my company was so throughly demonized by the media such that candidates discount my own experience actually working at the company and are "floored" when when I tell them that the reality is different from public coverage, I'd be pretty salty too.

tipsysquid 7y ago
I'm no fan of Facebook, but this comment demonstrates the complexity of the situation in ways many entrepreneurs can appreciate
stefan_ 7y ago
Academic research isn't some magic word that you just need to invoke, particularly when it involves personal data. You need specific informed consent and the sign-off from an ethics committee on your study plan. To not ask that of someone pretending to use your data for academic research is willful ignorance. Of course, we are talking about Facebook, who have literally been in the news before for themselves running research experiments on uninformed, random users: http://laboratorium.net/archive/2014/06/28/as_flies_to_wanton_boys http://laboratorium.net/archive/2014/06/28/as_flies_to_wanto...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dannyr 7y ago

I shared a Lyft ride with a Facebook employee right after the CA controversy. I asked her what do employees think about it. She told me that people are really worried about how the controversy affected the stock price. (Facebook stock was down around that time.) I'm not sure how many employees worry about stock price than the supposed effect of the CA controversy but I was disappointed to hear that from a Facebook employee.

Aperocky 7y ago
Ask yourself: My company might have exposed millions of user to political propaganda/wrong think. It is being fixed though. 6 month worth of base salary. Choose.
rohitb91 7y ago
Facebook et al are knowingly leading the social collapse of countries because of the same thing that led the bankers to knowingly lead the world economy to the brink of collapse. Money

throwaway102030 7y ago

> hey didn't want me back, but I had basically decided I'd never work there Always stay positive! You won't work there not because you failed the interview, but because you didn't want to! > Not even a hint of apology, remorse He should have stood on his knees, and start crying asking for your forgiveness. > "no one thanks us enough." I'm 99% sure you are lying or intentionally misquoting. I cannot imagine any colleague of mine who would have said that during the interview. Because people who talk like that publicly do not survive in the company long enough. Especially, nobody would allow them doing interviews (there are shadow interviews, there is feedback from the candidate by the recruiter, a guy who talks like this wouldn't have been removed from doing interviews). I work for Facebook. I think CA scandal is media trash. 10 years ago the internet was very different from what it is now, more open, more friendly, safer. And Facebook worked in that environment and behaved similarly. The data stolen by CA won't help you win the election despite what the NY Times tells you. Any anyway, poking the company over and over for the issue company solved three years before you learned about it is just stupid. It would be as stupid as poking the author of telnet for security problems caused by it. Although I work for the company, there are tons of things I disagree with. For example, moderation is too strict and can be exploited by bad actors (causing good accounts to be banned). Or moderation forgives far left calling to crucify "white nationalists", but can ban you for a photo of machine gun or boobs. But how media covers CA scandal is just lies and over-exaggeration. OK, now go downvote.

jariel 7y ago

How was Facebook an 'horrible actor' in the CA scandal exactly? Facebook had relatively permission APIs. The entire world knew it. Journalists, developers, Big Cos. Nobody was screaming that there was a problem. Though there were a few issues around privacy, there wasn't really any public dialog specifically around the nature of those APIs. CA found a sneaky way to take advantage of somewhat open APIs. As the world started to become somewhat more concerned, and FB saw some room for potential abuse - FB rightly tightened up the APIs a little. This was long before the CA scandal blew up. Then it became public that CA was doing some sneaky things with the data. It's actually highly debatable if they did anything wrong within the context of the information available - or at least outside of industry norms -> what CA was doing with data from FB is what everyone is and was doing with data from similar sources. FB called on CA to erase the data, and checked that they did. It turns out, CA lied and did not. FB did the right thing every step of the way in the CA scandal. APIs of every kind err a little bit one way or the other over time and as issues surfaced, FB moved in the right direction without coaxing. The media absolutely misrepresented the entire issue. They didn't really make it clear what happened, nor did they clarify what exactly FB did wrong, but most importantly, they misled the public with respect to a separate, secondary issue which was 'special API access'. The 'scandal' is that there are tons of companies like CA using private data for all sorts of reasons, it's mostly not FB. There are definitely privacy issues around FB, and I'm not fan of them, but those are a separate issue.

ric2b 7y ago
So your opinion is that they weren't horrible actors because it took a while for people to complain? They're the ones that allowed it to happen, how long the world took to complain about it is not very relevant.