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Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments

247 points by hhs 6y ago

narrator 6y ago
Probably why he's going to start hiring outside of tech hubs.
- spamizbad 6y ago
  Regardless of location, Facebook is hiring from demographics that typically don't support Trump. Young, STEM-educated people skew left. If you want Trump supporters to even things out you're probably going to either: A) hire older devs from less traditional software dev backgrounds. B) Still pull from Young+STEM but filter out anyone whose social media indicates them as being left-ish.
  - neilsimp1 6y ago
    > but filter out anyone whose social media indicates them as being left-ish. Hiring based on political beliefs, or in this case, presumed political beliefs, sounds like a dangerous road to go down. And I am saying this as a young, STEM-educated person who skews left.
    - dordoka 6y ago
      At least in EU, discriminating based on political beliefs goes against art. 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Pardon my ignorance but, is that allowed in the US?
      - GhostVII 6y ago
        Political beliefs are not a protected class in the US.
        Natsu 6y ago
        Except in California, oddly enough.
      - xnyan 6y ago
        No, broadly speaking there are no national laws in the US agaisnt firing someone for their political views. It is complicated but basically in the US, at the national level there are a few protected classes (age, gender religion, race, disablity) and you can’t make the decison to fire someone based on these reasons. You can fire people for any other reason or no reason, so in practice this protection is limited and genreally favors the employer. Some US states have their own addtional labor protections.
        SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
        That’s true, nationally no. But it is against the law in California where the companies of the topic are mostly located.
        xnyan 6y ago
        You are correct, but I believe my fundamental conclusion is also correct. Simply put there are a few reasons you can’t fire someone and almost infinite number of reasons you can. California has more protections than others but the balance of power still overwhelmingly stays with the employer.
      - sarabande 6y ago
        I believe that is allowed in some US states, because political affiliation is not a federally protected employment class, and some, but not all, states prohibit it.
      - raverbashing 6y ago
        In the US it seems it is slightly more complicated https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discriminate-based-on-political-beliefs-or-affiliation.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discri...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - lesstenseflow 6y ago
      > Hiring based on political beliefs, or in this case, presumed political beliefs, sounds like a dangerous road to go down. You don’t think this is happening already? I’m not sure what companies you’ve looked at but most big tech firms have left wing political cultures on an official level, with “culture“ departments and events promoting and sharing various culturally left-wing talking points everyone is supposed to be on board with. Try saying “I actually don’t think america is a deeply racist country in 2020, there’s a huge amount of opportunity here which is evidenced by the number of people (ostensible victims of racism from India, mexico, etc) who line up to come here. Oh and by the way I think natal women are entitled to privacy from men in their bathrooms (like 95% of Americans believe)” during a lunch interview and see how fast you get the “thanks for your time we’ll be in touch.” Or just say “I voted for the current president” if you prefer something shorter. Alternately, talk about supporting BLM, BDS, and how terrible America is as a country—no one will bat an eye. For the record I hold views from both of the above “columns” but I know which ones I’m allowed to share at work (the left leaning “progressive” ones) and which ones I need to keep to myself, namely, everything else. EDIT: downvoters: please set me straight here and let me know what part of my comment is inaccurate or untrue.
  - untog 6y ago
    Why would your hiring process factor in whether someone is a Trump supporter to even things out? Hiring someone based on political affiliation seems pretty awful.
  - jcadam 6y ago
    Who wants to work for a company where they're living in constant fear of being outed as a non-leftist and losing their job? I get the frequent recruiting emails from FB and (much less frequently) Google, but am really too afraid to pursue them.
    - jcadam 6y ago
      And the downvoter(s) prove my point. Read between the lines: I'm saying that there are a lot of people selecting themselves out of the candidate pool for the large SV tech companies based on the perception of SV corporate culture being promulgated through the media and forums like this one, further reinforcing the group think in those organizations. That should make you happy.
      - ilikehurdles 6y ago
        What an obnoxious strawman you're holding up. If you're not sending political manifestors on the company's listserv you're probably fine. There are right-leaning people at every company. Even facebook. Especially facebook.
        thu2111 6y ago
        That's clearly not the case. People have been harassed by coworkers at Google for something as anodyne as using the word "family": https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6605539/Google-staff-complained-word-FAMILY-offensive-homophobic-referring-children.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6605539/Google-staf... And there are far more stories like that which didn't get into the press. The right leaning people at tech companies certainly exist. They don't tend to spend all day insisting their coworkers are fired for having left wing views. That's why these firms seem left-leaning - it's those people who kick up all the fuss and make all the demands.
    - dirtydroog 6y ago
      Not sure why you're being downvoted. I can't imagine working for either company, especially in SV. I would be walking on eggshells lest someone hear, or overhear, something 'toxic' and my career gets ruined. It'd be safer to just not talk to anybody, or limit conversations to work topics only. That's an awful work environment. My demographic would make me a target, not a colleague.
  - commandlinefan 6y ago
    > Young, STEM-educated people skew left. That's a surprising conclusion... I always thought they skewed libertarian.
    - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
      Initially and used to. Now, SV absolutely and without question is left leaning overall. To not see it means you’ve never been anywhere near or that you personally are so far left they look center or right ;)
    - spamizbad 6y ago
      Kinda surprised this isn't common knowledge here, or that people think its localized to SV? Here's a link: http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/ http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/ Software Engineers: 79 Democrats for every 21 Republicans. Similar story for engineering overall (The most "conservative" engineering profession being chemical engineering) IT: 71 Democrats for every 29 Republicans. You can blame it on SV but the truth is our industry's age skews young: We are 38 years old on average compared to the workforce average of 43. Source: https://www.visier.com/clarity/four-common-tech-ageism-myths-debunked/ https://www.visier.com/clarity/four-common-tech-ageism-myths... Young voters and college-educated tend to vote more Democratic: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/e... You could argue the fact that the profession is predominantly male might mitigate some of this but the problem there is that the gender gap closes once you look at genders on a college-education basis: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-midterm-vote-divisions-by-race-gender-education/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-mi... What I'm trying to say is that if we assume political affiliation does not correlate with skill (it doesn't AFAIK), and you hire based on merit, and you hire nation-wide, your software development team will skew left. And if your hiring focuses on major urban hubs it will skew even more left. If you want to introduce artificial "balance" you are going to have to do affirmative action for political beliefs. This is challenging, as it's trivial for any individual to lie / reinvent themselves as a desirable political hire. If I wanted a job bad enough, and I knew they preferred hiring a certain political persuasion, I absolutely would pretend to be whatever they wanted me to be.
- untog 6y ago
  Come on. He’s doing that because he can pay people less. That’s what he really cares about.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
arusahni 6y ago
This is part of the circle of life for internal Facebook turmoil: 10 Facebook does something to draw ire 20 Employee drama 30 The company leadership offers some platitudes to buy time 40 GOTO 10
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- whymauri 6y ago
  5. (Optional) Establish some Oversight Council or Committee, to be disenfranchised, dissolved, or declawed at the company's earliest convenience.
  - slantyyz 6y ago
    If my memory of BASIC from the 80s is still accurate, Line 5 will never get executed, because of the GOTO 1 in line 4, so not even optional.
    - marcosdumay 6y ago
      Yeah, the OP should have numbered them 10, 20, 30, and 40, so the GP could insert a needed line in between...
      - slantyyz 6y ago
        Man, this is triggering more memories of programming in Basic. I remember writing programs in BASIC (as a kid/teen, mind you) where I didn't plan enough for changes and had to renumber swaths of code to allow more functionality. I was so happy to learn Pascal.
      - arusahni 6y ago
        I edited my post. Go wild!
  - Traster 6y ago
    Earliest convenience? It hasn't even started yet and they appointed 40 people to it. It was designed as an exercise to try and prove that people can't agree on what's unacceptable.
nikivi 6y ago
As if anything is going to change. He has the voting rights to do whatever. There are few FB employees that did speak out on Twitter with not agreeing but to what end. They will still continue to work in support of all this. I don't think it's such a big problem though, if you dislike hate and violence just mute these people from your feeds/life. The bigger issue as I see it is FB working directly in support of Trump by supporting his ads and dropping Biden's ads.
troughway 6y ago
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. His employees being vocal about this when Facebook is bought and paid for by the US government to spy on people globally is funny nonetheless. I wish they would have a spine over things that mattered rather than some nonsensical shitposts.
- ryanianian 6y ago
  > bought and paid for by the US government What?
  - troughway 6y ago
    Look into the connections between {FB, Google, Twitter, ...} and CIA, NSA. People here harp on Palantir like they’re the only bad actor. You are either clueless or playing stupid when it comes to acknowledging who is running the show. So his employees being concerned, and taking their nonsense to Twitter is an amusing farce at most.
mjayhn 6y ago
People on twitter at other $bigtech seem more than happy to bring you all on board but you've been sucking that $270k+ top-end-even-for-FAANG salary with no concern for the ethics or morality of your business for years. This isn't new. I'm less than excited to see Facebook show up on a resume and haven't been for years. Not to mention the people I've interviewed from there seem to get so accustomed to working on Facebook internal tools that aren't in use anywhere else, especially you front end devs (not talking about just react here but the internal ecosystem). Best of luck to those of you looking to leave. It took THIS much to get you to this point, don't forget that. There are a LOT of devs not from Facebook that deserve to be hired and given chances in other FAANG businesses. People you actually want to work with who won't contribute to attacks on democracy for a high salary and have refused to even respond to Facebook recruiters for the last 3-10 years. Hire them instead. Especially you Google employees who are on twitter ranting and raving right now. There's a huge amount of people who want to work with you who haven't traded their ethics for a paycheck and were laid off over the last few months. Yet you're trying to bring these Facebook employees under your umbrella? How about you help bring some other people up? It's just shocking how out of touch you SV FAANG types are. I'm glad you're actually tweeting about important things this weekend, though.
- viraptor 6y ago
  That sounds unfair. Of course you very accustomed to working with tools you work with every day, especially if they're good. You'll also never find a 1:1 match between companies though and not-bad people can switch between systems as needed. Unless you need an intermediate level boilerplate writer ready to go with tech X and Y from day 1, it should be fine. Why not say: These are people experienced with systems that work well. Maybe they can bring those workflows over and improve the company when they come here.
  - hobs 6y ago
    Because their tooling knowledge is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic compared to their willingness to sell out their own people for a buck.
ericzawo 6y ago
The tweets are nice, but little will change until people at the executive level bow out publicly.
- dfxm12 6y ago
  I wonder, has anything changed at Amazon since Tim Bray left?
  - intothemild 6y ago
    My guess is the only things that changed were that; 1. Tim Bray is happier he doesn't have to call Amazon out on it's bullshit. 2. Amazon is happier there's one less person to call them out on their bullshit.
- deleted 6y ago
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- koheripbal 6y ago
  With all these riots - I think we're going to see another 4 years.
deleted 6y ago
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sigzero 6y ago
They need to stop filtering period. Their so called "fact checkers" are wrong more than they are right and there is no way to report it easily.
- banachtarski 6y ago
  Nonsense. Even basic human checkers for high profile demonstrably false statements or calls to violence would be sufficient at this point.
scarface74 6y ago
Maybe, the government should get involved in monopolistic Big Tech. Isn't that what HN users are always wanting? I'm sure the Trump administration will get right on that. Just like now that the President is pressuring Twitter, HN users are up in arms. Be careful what you ask for.....
drevil-v2 6y ago
Facebook employees are not adequately representative of the population as a whole. They lean overwhelmingly left and as such I would take their "blowback" with a grain of salt.
- bognition 6y ago
  Hacker news comments are not adequately representative of the Facebook employee population...
  - drevil-v2 6y ago
    The billions of users of Facebook might not appreciate a censored view of the world. The shareholders might have something to say about it too.
- cameronbrown 6y ago
  That is definitely true. This however, is still a problem for Facebook, and the greater society, which seems to disagree with them more and more.
- jaybeeayyy 6y ago
  lol that certainly is a statement you cannot back up. Even Fox News has an article saying there's not enough evidence to show any bias at facebook https://www.foxnews.com/tech/is-facebook-as-left-leaning-as-everyone-suspects https://www.foxnews.com/tech/is-facebook-as-left-leaning-as-...
- matt_s 6y ago
  Some may also be much more financially sound to back up their talk with resignations or other actions if they feel strongly that their employer does things that don't sit well with them.
  - drevil-v2 6y ago
    But if they resign they would lose the six figure income and also any influence with future censorship battles at Facebook. Better to stay in, wipe your tears with dollar bills and keep the pressure alive. Zuckerberg will give up at some point. This playbook is depressingly familiar around the world now. Relentless constant pressure to delegitimise institutions at every possible opportunity. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. Just a few recent examples. UK with Dominic Cummings, Australia with the fires, India with Hindu hysteria, US with.. well everything.
blueterminal 6y ago
People really want Zuckerberg to decide whether posts of the president should be deleted or not? Is this for real? We really need mainstream decentralized applications more than ever. Thoughts of people should not be censored. Who the hell should be the truth police? You? People that have the same beliefs as you? This is just ridiculous. I don't like Facebook but great decision by Mark. Same as they decided to not remove political ads.
- hobs 6y ago
  Yeah, calls for murdering people by the president don't present any new thing for us to consider potentially new processes might apply, he's definitely not a person with enormous power, and he's definitely acting in good faith. Thoughts of people are censored by themselves constantly because of the potential harm they cause, if you cant muzzle yourself and you call for violence expect others to do it for you. People have died when Trump has tweeted, and he has shown no remorse or guilt, in fact he takes no responsibility. So, who the heck would want him on their platform? Why would you spend your server time and money on a child-brained fascist?
- lorsting 6y ago
  It's not real. This is fake news working for the Democrats.
- phone8675309 6y ago
  >Who the hell should be the truth police? You? People that have the same beliefs as you? Except Facebook is a private platform. That people use it does not make it a public platform. That would be like arguing that Six Flags over Georgia can't remove you from their park because you started protesting in it. Yes, there are people there, but no, just because they're there and it's a popular place doesn't mean they can't remove you if they want to (so long as they're not breaking another law by doing it).
  - beager 6y ago
    I rather like the comparison of social media platforms to amusement parks.
cityzen 6y ago
“Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to change his mind,” wrote Ryan Freitas, whose Twitter account identifies him as director of product design for Facebook’s News Feed. He added he had mobilized “50+ likeminded folks” to lobby for internal change. Jason Toff, identified as director of product management, wrote: “I work at Facebook and I am not proud of how we’re showing up. The majority of coworkers I’ve spoken to feel the same way. We are making our voice heard.” ---- "endeavor in the loudest possible way"? "not proud of how we're showing up"? If "the majority of coworkers" and "50+ likeminded folks" are so passionate about it... stop working for the company. Quit, make a fucking sacrifice and stop thinking that somehow you're going to change Zuck's mind. Money is a hell of a drug.
throwaway7281 6y ago
Facebook is reality, but it's also just a game. It goes like this: how deep can we go exploiting people by using information technology. How much "person" can we extract? How far can we go controlling this person (e.g. make sure user is happy, etc.). The second game is: How can we PR our way out of the nightmares we knowingly create month after month? It amazes me every day how the corporation and all its employees are able to maintain the BS level required to believe in the "mission" of the company. If you can imagine it, I never had an active account in my life and I am happy about it. And believe it or not, I still do exists have friends and family and a "social" life.
buboard 6y ago
What do FB engineers think? Should FB be editing its content and be designated as a publisher? This would imply a major change with hiring of thousands of employees and journalists to become a proper written medium. It would also mean their own wages would go way down to accomodate these new hires.
- noscrewstoyous 6y ago
  they already edit content, amazed that even on hn people seem to think that facebook isn’t dramatically controlling which content you see
pdimitar 6y ago
I think we all know he is not "facing" anything. People that collect big and stable salaries will not change company employment over this. Virtue signalling is cheap, endangering your family's livelihood is hard. "It's very difficult to make somebody understand something, especially if their salary depends on them not understanding it." Facebook is, in general, an unethical company. And this has been known for a long time. If you didn't leave yet you won't leave over this either.
- ethagnawl 6y ago
  > If you didn't leave yet you won't leave over this either. You have no idea why people have stayed and/or how their minds have changed over time. Everyone has their breaking point and this could very possibly be it for some people. Also, your quote should be attributed to Upton Sinclair.
  - malloreon 6y ago
    they stayed through: - pro Kavanaugh - genocide in Myanmar - destruction of privacy - facebook accepting it creates extremists
    - bryan_w 6y ago
      There's two sides to all those issues* that reasonable people can take. * except the Myanmar thing - but that wasn't an active thing, but rather not being responsible in growth and having incorrect assumptions about state actors
  - inopinatus 6y ago
    > Also, your quote should be attributed to Upton Sinclair. “Citations are optional on informal forums such as the Hacker News” —— Mary Wollstonecraft
  - pdimitar 6y ago
    True, everyone has their "enough of that" point. But it seems to me that the people who work at Facebook are after the good money, the prestige and the stable job that is mostly immune to tremors (like the pandemic). I can't generalise all of them of course. But we never had historical data of people mass-leaving big corps over such issues so I'm tempted to believe in my generalisation.
tibbydudeza 6y ago
Well not much has changed since it was called FaceMash and he conned the ownership from Eduardo Saverin using tactics from his buddy Peter Thiel.
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noscrewstoyous 6y ago
this is all a big distraction to the fact that facebook is already playing the “arbiter of truth” - algorithms aren’t magic, they’re just automated biases. If Zuckerberg truly wanted to be neutral they’d show unweighted posts... he doesn’t actually want that though, he’s just protecting profits (which is his primary responsibility as ceo anyway).
ceilingcorner 6y ago
Who knew the day would come when I’d agree with and defend Zuckerberg. It’s not Facebook’s job to tell me what I can or can’t think. I can evaluate the claims of Trump or any other politician myself, thank you very much.
- rswail 6y ago
  Except it has been proven that people using FB and whatsapp have incited violence in India and other places and that often people can't or won't evaluate claims with a focus on facts and evidence.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    Then work on stopping people in India from being violent? Treating human beings like mindless automatons is not the right way forward.
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    That is against laws and their terms of service. No one, not even Zuck is saying there should be zero moderation of illegal things. It’s the line of where “harmful” is. Some people would seriously argue every message from Trump is “harmful”, some that just want to game the system, some that really believe it, some that just don’t understand what power they are asking Facebook to take. The other day he had 800k likes from a tweet that just said “CHINA!”... I bet more people reported that as violence/harmful than seems reasonable.
- banachtarski 6y ago
  What an obtuse viewpoint. It's not just about you. Misinformation actively harms society as a whole. Anti-vax, fake remedies, Holocaust-denials, etc. The people taken in by such lies propagate damage beyond their immediate circles.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    Yes, free speech has some negative consequences. That’s what it means to be in a free society. If your only solution to so-called misinformation (as defined by who?) is censorship and controlling of information, you’ve already lost. In case you forgot, this website is called Hacker News. Once upon a time, hacker culture was anti-authoritarian.
macspoofing 6y ago
... Zuckerberg's instincts are 100% correct. I don't understand why people (usually democrats and the left now, but it could be right-wing evangelicals in the future) are pushing for social media companies to wade into the quagmire of politics. Twitter's 'fact check' of Trump's tweet is a perfect example of what happens if you try. Their fact check was wrong because it missed nuance and context of issues with mail-in ballots (as in, there is potential for fraud with related actions like 'vote harvesting'), and it pissed off people (not just Trump supporters) because it was ad hoc and arbitrary because you can easily find Democratic politicians making erroneous statements. Almost everything a politician will say is wrong in some way and from a certain perspective and having minimum wage Twitter reviewers be the arbiters of how political speech should be interpreted and in which way is a recipe for disaster. The "Citizen's United" ruling came around when the FCC tried to enforce rules against political speech arbitrarily when they decided a right-wing documentary critical of Hillary was deemed to break election laws, but Micheal Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (which was also purposely designed to influence election) was not. And you know what, that is unfair. There is no universe in which it is fair that Moore's documentary gets to be exempted but a right-wing group's documentary doesn't. And because of the arbitrary politically-motived actions of the FCC, we ended up with completely unchecked election spending. Get tech companies out of politics. If not, it will blow up in your face.
AlexandrB 6y ago
Facebook is too big, has too much reach, and is largely unaccountable to elected representatives - especially outside the United States. Whether Facebook decides to censor an elected official is largely a red herring. They need to be broken up[1] so that individual countries have a chance at holding them to account if they do something shitty and users have more choice of what social network to use if they disagree with Facebook's policies. [1] At a minimum, the WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions need to be rolled back.
malloreon 6y ago
Every Facebook employee should receive blowback for continuing to work there. They make the choice each day to create more value than they cost to support this platform - they implicitly support its reprehensible ideas. You work there, you own this. It is who you are.
keiferski 6y ago
Remember when "I disagree with what you say, but will defend your right to say it" was a thing? I certainly do. How far we've fallen as a culture since then.
- rocketpastsix 6y ago
  there is a difference between saying "I think this war (insert a war: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc) is wrong and unjust" and your quote is absolutely true. Some people believe in the wars, some dont but ultimately its up to us to understand a statement like above can be said openly and honestly and without fear of retribution. However, and where Facebook crosses a line, is that when you allow someone to post unabashedly false things to drive emotions. Saying "Trump is a weak leader" isn't wrong or false, just an opinion. Saying that Nancy Pelosi murdered a baby deer with her bare hands on the floor of the House and pushing it as absolutely true is where we currently are. You don't have a right to push verifiably false information with no recourse. You have a right to say your opinion. Just like you can't yell fire in a movie theater, or bomb on an airplane.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    In theory, that all makes sense. Except in reality, it doesn’t play out that way. There is no neutral arbiter on what is a fact or what precise meaning a 140-character tweet is supposed to have. Philosophers have written about this for centuries. In the current political climate I really don’t trust any side to be mature enough to present all perspectives on a situation. As I said, our culture has become so insecure that people are begging for censorship of ideas they don’t like. It’s a dangerous road to go down.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    Your concept of what’s factual has to be rooted in something.
- 6510 6y ago
  I will still: defend your right to be wrong about everything you say - till the end.
- 6y ago
PaulHoule 6y ago
Zuck has consistently backed right-wing politicians ever since he's had the chance. He had his Girl Friday solicit an antisemitic report on George Soros from a right-wing propaganda group -- that's something so stupid that everybody involved should have been fired right away and sent to Siberia. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIqESwzCGg4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIqESwzCGg4 Although Zuck won't do anything about Trump posts that encourage violence, his company certainly will "fact check" ads that oppose Trump, even when those ads come from fellow Republicans.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >Zuck has consistently backed right-wing politicians ever since he's had the chance. So what? Maybe he is a conservative? Maybe he isn't. Is that wrong? Every worker, from the bottom to the top, of every company, has a private political position. The question is why would you want the company, especially a platform like Facebook, to have a political position.
- haram_masala 6y ago
  I would say if there are two things in this world that Mark Zuckerberg are not, it's stupid, and anti-semitic.
lgleason 6y ago
Zuck get's it. Start censoring, editorializing etc. and section 230 protections will be gutted. On top of that anti-trust investigations intensify, rightfully, because you have not concentrated too much power into an un-regulated, un-elected platform vs the elected government which is against the interest of the country as a whole. For all of the engineers complaining about this, there are plenty of other ones who would be happy to take the place of the high paid engineers who have an issue with this and ask a lot less questions or who may even support what Zuck is doing.
- iandanforth 6y ago
  On the "section 230 protections will be gutted" point there is nuance in the protections I didn't understand until I read this: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/05/trump-executive-order-misreads-key-law-promoting-free-expression-online-and https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/05/trump-executive-order-...
- darkarmani 6y ago
  > Start censoring, editorializing etc. and section 230 protections will be gutted. By whom? I've been on a lot of forums and listservs where trolls get banned (censored). I've yet to see section 230 get gutted because trolls have their commented deleted.
  - jaywalk 6y ago
    By Congress.
- vharuck 6y ago
  >Start censoring, editorializing etc. and section 230 protections will be gutted. If you mean they'll stop applying to Facebook, I don't think that's true. If you mean 230 will be repealed, then the pessimist in me is willing to believe it. But the realist in me knows the consequences will quickly lead to a new law much like 230. >On top of that anti-trust investigations intensify, rightfully, because you have not concentrated too much power into an un-regulated, un-elected platform vs the elected government which is against the interest of the country as a whole. Facebook's either too big or it's not. The problem would be if it could unilaterally control public opinion. We shouldn't allow unregulated monopolies just because they happen to not anger us today.
sebastianconcpt 6y ago
How this is not Zuckerberg being unable to control his revolutionary employees eager to implement political opposition censorship because they can?
caenorst 6y ago
Except that the "glorification of violence" depends on the interpretation. It can also be a warning that people will start to defend themselves with violence or that the military will intervene. If that's the case those warning are here to AVOID violence by discouraging people to engage in looting... Facebook shouldn't make such decision based on the interpretation of some emotionally biased employees.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I can imagine a consistent "promoting violence is bad" policy - I think we can all agree that the general standards of e.g. a corporate office wouldn't permit Trump's statement. But there's no universe where "when the looting starts the shooting starts" glorifies violence more than "riots are the voice of the unheard", and 100% of the people complaining to Zuckerberg would oppose banning that second message.
- znpy 6y ago
  It's hard to mislabel "glorification of violence" given the militar culture in the US: just look of all the military propaganda more or less hidden into mainstream media (movies, tv series etc)
- ggggtez 6y ago
  >In 1967, Miami police Chief Walter Headley used the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" during hearings about crime in the Florida city, invoking angry reactions from civil rights leaders, according to a news report at the time. > Segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace also used the phrase during the 1968 campaign. While you might like to believe that the phrase could mean anything, it certainly doesn't. And in the context of Trumps tweet, which specifically mentions the military, it certainly means that he was threatening to have the US military fire on US civilians. Now consider that in the context of the US threatening action against China using "tough" tactics to subdue protests in Hong Kong and you'll see the tweet for what it is. The same kind of rhetoric and threat of violence against protesters that the US condemns elsewhere in the world.
  - 6y ago
easterncalculus 6y ago
The point of social networks then is the same as it is now, to host content that does not break the terms of service of the site. Anything further than that is extra. Just leave it as things were and people are fine. We've been saying that what's on the internet is not bond since before the inception of Facebook and Twitter, so there's no reason to try and change it now. When did people forget that there was no use in doing this?
- Lammy 6y ago
  The point of social networks is to let humans communicate.
malloreon 6y ago
Reminder: it is incumbent on every single person who doesn't approve of what facebook does to stop using its platform - no fb, instagram, WhatsApp, or messenger. every time they record an ad impression because of you or send a message that reinforces their network effect, you enable these people. It's not worth it.
g8tor 6y ago
It would be the ultimate barometer of the zeitgeist if Zuck, the most scandal-resistant and resilient CEO in SV, was dethroned for "outrageous" political views that offended his "liberal" employees. But seriously, if this did happen, what would he do next?
- ilikehurdles 6y ago
  Run for president, probably.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    He's got to do a reality show first. Even better if the theme has something to do with "the lefty nerds at the company he founded don't want him around anymore, so what's our good buddy Mark going to do with all that extra time? You guessed it: custom 4x4 trucks!"
    - g8tor 6y ago
      Zuck's Customs would be great. Definitely he wanted the President thing before, but a after seeing the last 3 years, does he really still? BTW, don't we need to have a woman president before the next white dude anyway? If that's the case 2028 is the earliest...
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tinyhouse 6y ago
Thanks to FB and the like, tech employees all over the world have much better conditions. They cannot solve the world's problems and it's also not their job. The only people who are out of touch are those who think that FAANG companies are the cause of all society issues. I've never worked at FB but would rather work for them than for most tech companies. For most tech companies if I'd dare to write something against the company or its CEO, I will be shown the door the next day with zero severance.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Ah yes, the twin rebuttals of, "it's worse somewhere else, so workers shouldn't complain" and "it's not their problem to care about systemic issues". No matter how bad it is elsewhere, Facebook employees have the right to try and improve their workplace.
  - tinyhouse 6y ago
    I didn't say they shouldn't try and improve their workplace. My point is actually the opposite. They can try because they work at FB. In most other companies they wouldn't be able to even try.
shibeouya 6y ago
Some people must have really thin skin if this is what causes them to leave a company. Liberals are such crybabies - in literally every company I've been in they keep whining if anything doesn't work the way they want or not according to their values. Silicon Valley culture is poisoned by this state of mind and renders any honest discussion impossible. Let them leave if they're unhappy, I know a few conservative engineers at FB NYC who won't miss them.
- rswail 6y ago
  As opposed to the right wing crybabies that just last week where crying about the right to get haircuts. After all, having someone else to take risks for their benefit seems to be part of their values.
  - jaywalk 6y ago
    I know plenty of hair stylists begging to get back to work, and I've never seen anyone advocate that hair stylists should be forced to go back to work so that people can get their hair cut. Your argument is totally disingenuous.
zenit-mf-1 6y ago
I have deleted my FB profil so, I am living without it since 2013 and I really don't feel I am missing social life.
reedwolf 6y ago
If those comments had come from Average Joe in Wichita, Facebook would most likely have censored them. Are we arguing that some users are just too important to adhere to the site's terms and conditions?
sharker8 6y ago
He also called his company an 'institution'. I think that kind of language is kind of rich.
- 6510 6y ago
  asylum
euix 6y ago
I think we are well passed the point of the Federal govt doing anything. The future is feudalism. Guys like zuck and Bezos are the barons of the old. In the future there will be too types of people, employees of these corps and everyone else (the peasants). All that is missing is for Amazon to acquire a PMC.
tjpnz 6y ago
>Giving a platform to incite violence and spread disinformation is unacceptable, regardless who you are or if it’s newsworthy, As someone who grew up in Christchurch this Tweet strikes a nerve. Not a single thing has changed at Facebook that would hinder an armed lunatic from freely live streaming a killing spree to thousands on the platform. This is not anything new.
binxbolling 6y ago
Amazing to me that so many people in these comments believe Facebook is or can be apolitical. This is a very childish stance, and Zuck is not standing up for their right to remain out of politics: they're deeply political, and Facebook is just asserting which political viewpoints they subscribe to as an organization.
- therealdrag0 6y ago
  Trying and failing to be apolitical is different than being intentionally political. And I prefer platforms attempt the former.
  - binxbolling 6y ago
    "We will not curb violent speech if the speaker is a notable public figure" is already political. That's a political stance, not an apolitical one, and it's very naive to believe otherwise. Besides, Facebook has a PAC! In what way is this attempting to be apolitical? Although their donations are split, since 2012 they've given 14% more to Republicans.
    - therealdrag0 6y ago
      > if the speaker is a notable public figure I haven't seen this to be the case. My impression is they found that his speech didn't violate their normal policy. Do you have support to the contrary? > Facebook has a PAC ... Lol good point. Though my assumption is this is for economic reasons. So technically you're right; that's political. Though I think it's a non-trivial distinction between trying to grease the economic engine to support corporate profits and being political in the sense of pushing for other left/right/progressive/conservative values.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Not censoring the president is political? That seems like a very black-vs-white / with-us-or-against-us mentality.
hkai 6y ago
It seems a lot of people are advocating two things: - Western social media companies are evil; and - Freedom of speech is bad. You may very well get rid of Facebook and freedom of speech, but I would like to just remind to all of you folks in the West that when you only have Chinese social media companies and no freedom of speech, there will be thousands of cases MUCH worse than George Floyd and you won't even be allowed to talk about them.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  It's almost unbelievable that people are suggesting we take the power away from elected officials and hand it over to corporations. It's like the sky isn't even blue anymore...
  - hkai 6y ago
    There is a fake Lincoln quote that, even though it's fake, aged surprisingly well in the last 140 years that it has been circulated: > "Corporations have been enthroned. > An era of corruption will follow and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed."
nootropicat 6y ago
Interesting times. Many people are now demanding unelected, nearly unaccountable corporations to actively censor elected officials, and in fact consider not doing this evil - a step beyond fascism into a new brand of totalitarianism. I would have considered this absurd even 5 years ago. The only thing missing to make this reality a full cyberpunk dystopia are corporate superhuman ais, but not for the lack of trying.
- sp0rk 6y ago
  > a step beyond fascism into a new brand of totalitarianism. Social pressure is being exerted on businesses to enact change. How does this have anything to do with fascism or totalitarianism when the government isn't even involved?
  - nootropicat 6y ago
    Government is about power, not the name. Facebook has more power to shape public opinion than most dictators in history. Traditional propaganda had to appeal to the common denominator, facebook can use ml to analyze every user individually and generate (what it think is) an optimal feed to generate the intended outcome. Filtering counterproductive information is an integral part of it. It's totalitarianism because people advocating for it are true believers: they believe if you oppose them you are evil. Fascism usually relies on self-interest in the form of carrot and stick rather than fanaticism. I'm much, much more afraid of true believers. If you disagree with the first sentence, consider a hypothetical country: everything is owned by Google. In theory, you can own land, but in practice you can't, because Google won't sell it to you. You can only rent. Everyone is communicating using devices rented from Google, software owned by Google and using servers owned by Google. Same for literally everything - food is only sold by Google, payments are only possible on Google Pay. If you break Google's ToS, you are banned from using any of its services - ie. you starve to death. Appeals are handled exactly as they are today when the issue is about a youtube channel ban or demonetization. In this world, officially there's a government with a constitution guaranteeing multiple freedoms, along with a very efficient and fair justice system. One thing the legal system allows you to do is to enter into a contract with Google that requires you to waive all your rights. If you don't sign the contract, you can't buy food and you starve, so logically everyone alive is under the contract. What entity is the actual government in this scenario? Hyperbolic? Yes. Yet, every day we are getting closer to this reality, even if the extreme outcome never happens.
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zenit-mf-1 6y ago
I was thinking since a couple of months on the idea of building a simulator that simulate a day live without as social platform like FB. A kind of: simulate people interactions where FB is shut down for, lets say for one day.
yc_theorist 6y ago
I have a theory on this. I think the next leg of the downturn will start once people actually figure out that the economy has been completed hollowed out all the money printing. At that point, of all the tech giants, Facebook is the most likely to collapse because their only moat is to collect even more of your data or acquire companies who do the same. Given that their "moonshot" cryptocurrency project was (thankfully) basically dead on arrival, they now don't have nearly as many tentacles into our lives as the other tech giants. Now, imagine being the only social network where the President of the USA is allowed to write whatever he wants. That's a sure-shot bailout package isn't it?
GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
Not sure why Facebook invested in Oculus. They already have one of the world's largest "virtual reality" platform.
DeonPenny 6y ago
Twitter just declared war with the federal government. The employee are effectively asking Zuckerberg to divebomb his own company. Zuckerberg has been in those congressional hearings. He knows exactly why he doesn't want to get in this splashzone. Cause what twitter did is so far over so many lines I can see them being the same after the FCC starts making rules for them like ISPs in 60 days.

247 points by hhs 6y ago

narrator 6y ago

Probably why he's going to start hiring outside of tech hubs.

spamizbad 6y ago
Regardless of location, Facebook is hiring from demographics that typically don't support Trump. Young, STEM-educated people skew left. If you want Trump supporters to even things out you're probably going to either: A) hire older devs from less traditional software dev backgrounds. B) Still pull from Young+STEM but filter out anyone whose social media indicates them as being left-ish.
- neilsimp1 6y ago
  > but filter out anyone whose social media indicates them as being left-ish. Hiring based on political beliefs, or in this case, presumed political beliefs, sounds like a dangerous road to go down. And I am saying this as a young, STEM-educated person who skews left.
  - dordoka 6y ago
    At least in EU, discriminating based on political beliefs goes against art. 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Pardon my ignorance but, is that allowed in the US?
    - GhostVII 6y ago
      Political beliefs are not a protected class in the US.
      - Natsu 6y ago
        Except in California, oddly enough.
    - xnyan 6y ago
      No, broadly speaking there are no national laws in the US agaisnt firing someone for their political views. It is complicated but basically in the US, at the national level there are a few protected classes (age, gender religion, race, disablity) and you can’t make the decison to fire someone based on these reasons. You can fire people for any other reason or no reason, so in practice this protection is limited and genreally favors the employer. Some US states have their own addtional labor protections.
      - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
        That’s true, nationally no. But it is against the law in California where the companies of the topic are mostly located.
        xnyan 6y ago
        You are correct, but I believe my fundamental conclusion is also correct. Simply put there are a few reasons you can’t fire someone and almost infinite number of reasons you can. California has more protections than others but the balance of power still overwhelmingly stays with the employer.
    - sarabande 6y ago
      I believe that is allowed in some US states, because political affiliation is not a federally protected employment class, and some, but not all, states prohibit it.
    - raverbashing 6y ago
      In the US it seems it is slightly more complicated https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discriminate-based-on-political-beliefs-or-affiliation.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discri...
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  - lesstenseflow 6y ago
    > Hiring based on political beliefs, or in this case, presumed political beliefs, sounds like a dangerous road to go down. You don’t think this is happening already? I’m not sure what companies you’ve looked at but most big tech firms have left wing political cultures on an official level, with “culture“ departments and events promoting and sharing various culturally left-wing talking points everyone is supposed to be on board with. Try saying “I actually don’t think america is a deeply racist country in 2020, there’s a huge amount of opportunity here which is evidenced by the number of people (ostensible victims of racism from India, mexico, etc) who line up to come here. Oh and by the way I think natal women are entitled to privacy from men in their bathrooms (like 95% of Americans believe)” during a lunch interview and see how fast you get the “thanks for your time we’ll be in touch.” Or just say “I voted for the current president” if you prefer something shorter. Alternately, talk about supporting BLM, BDS, and how terrible America is as a country—no one will bat an eye. For the record I hold views from both of the above “columns” but I know which ones I’m allowed to share at work (the left leaning “progressive” ones) and which ones I need to keep to myself, namely, everything else. EDIT: downvoters: please set me straight here and let me know what part of my comment is inaccurate or untrue.
- untog 6y ago
  Why would your hiring process factor in whether someone is a Trump supporter to even things out? Hiring someone based on political affiliation seems pretty awful.
- jcadam 6y ago
  Who wants to work for a company where they're living in constant fear of being outed as a non-leftist and losing their job? I get the frequent recruiting emails from FB and (much less frequently) Google, but am really too afraid to pursue them.
  - jcadam 6y ago
    And the downvoter(s) prove my point. Read between the lines: I'm saying that there are a lot of people selecting themselves out of the candidate pool for the large SV tech companies based on the perception of SV corporate culture being promulgated through the media and forums like this one, further reinforcing the group think in those organizations. That should make you happy.
    - ilikehurdles 6y ago
      What an obnoxious strawman you're holding up. If you're not sending political manifestors on the company's listserv you're probably fine. There are right-leaning people at every company. Even facebook. Especially facebook.
      - thu2111 6y ago
        That's clearly not the case. People have been harassed by coworkers at Google for something as anodyne as using the word "family": https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6605539/Google-staff-complained-word-FAMILY-offensive-homophobic-referring-children.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6605539/Google-staf... And there are far more stories like that which didn't get into the press. The right leaning people at tech companies certainly exist. They don't tend to spend all day insisting their coworkers are fired for having left wing views. That's why these firms seem left-leaning - it's those people who kick up all the fuss and make all the demands.
  - dirtydroog 6y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted. I can't imagine working for either company, especially in SV. I would be walking on eggshells lest someone hear, or overhear, something 'toxic' and my career gets ruined. It'd be safer to just not talk to anybody, or limit conversations to work topics only. That's an awful work environment. My demographic would make me a target, not a colleague.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  > Young, STEM-educated people skew left. That's a surprising conclusion... I always thought they skewed libertarian.
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    Initially and used to. Now, SV absolutely and without question is left leaning overall. To not see it means you’ve never been anywhere near or that you personally are so far left they look center or right ;)
  - spamizbad 6y ago
    Kinda surprised this isn't common knowledge here, or that people think its localized to SV? Here's a link: http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/ http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/ Software Engineers: 79 Democrats for every 21 Republicans. Similar story for engineering overall (The most "conservative" engineering profession being chemical engineering) IT: 71 Democrats for every 29 Republicans. You can blame it on SV but the truth is our industry's age skews young: We are 38 years old on average compared to the workforce average of 43. Source: https://www.visier.com/clarity/four-common-tech-ageism-myths-debunked/ https://www.visier.com/clarity/four-common-tech-ageism-myths... Young voters and college-educated tend to vote more Democratic: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/e... You could argue the fact that the profession is predominantly male might mitigate some of this but the problem there is that the gender gap closes once you look at genders on a college-education basis: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-midterm-vote-divisions-by-race-gender-education/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-mi... What I'm trying to say is that if we assume political affiliation does not correlate with skill (it doesn't AFAIK), and you hire based on merit, and you hire nation-wide, your software development team will skew left. And if your hiring focuses on major urban hubs it will skew even more left. If you want to introduce artificial "balance" you are going to have to do affirmative action for political beliefs. This is challenging, as it's trivial for any individual to lie / reinvent themselves as a desirable political hire. If I wanted a job bad enough, and I knew they preferred hiring a certain political persuasion, I absolutely would pretend to be whatever they wanted me to be.
untog 6y ago
Come on. He’s doing that because he can pay people less. That’s what he really cares about.
- deleted 6y ago
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arusahni 6y ago

This is part of the circle of life for internal Facebook turmoil: 10 Facebook does something to draw ire 20 Employee drama 30 The company leadership offers some platitudes to buy time 40 GOTO 10

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whymauri 6y ago
5. (Optional) Establish some Oversight Council or Committee, to be disenfranchised, dissolved, or declawed at the company's earliest convenience.
- slantyyz 6y ago
  If my memory of BASIC from the 80s is still accurate, Line 5 will never get executed, because of the GOTO 1 in line 4, so not even optional.
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    Yeah, the OP should have numbered them 10, 20, 30, and 40, so the GP could insert a needed line in between...
    - slantyyz 6y ago
      Man, this is triggering more memories of programming in Basic. I remember writing programs in BASIC (as a kid/teen, mind you) where I didn't plan enough for changes and had to renumber swaths of code to allow more functionality. I was so happy to learn Pascal.
    - arusahni 6y ago
      I edited my post. Go wild!
- Traster 6y ago
  Earliest convenience? It hasn't even started yet and they appointed 40 people to it. It was designed as an exercise to try and prove that people can't agree on what's unacceptable.

nikivi 6y ago

As if anything is going to change. He has the voting rights to do whatever. There are few FB employees that did speak out on Twitter with not agreeing but to what end. They will still continue to work in support of all this. I don't think it's such a big problem though, if you dislike hate and violence just mute these people from your feeds/life. The bigger issue as I see it is FB working directly in support of Trump by supporting his ads and dropping Biden's ads.

troughway 6y ago

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. His employees being vocal about this when Facebook is bought and paid for by the US government to spy on people globally is funny nonetheless. I wish they would have a spine over things that mattered rather than some nonsensical shitposts.

ryanianian 6y ago
> bought and paid for by the US government What?
- troughway 6y ago
  Look into the connections between {FB, Google, Twitter, ...} and CIA, NSA. People here harp on Palantir like they’re the only bad actor. You are either clueless or playing stupid when it comes to acknowledging who is running the show. So his employees being concerned, and taking their nonsense to Twitter is an amusing farce at most.

mjayhn 6y ago

People on twitter at other $bigtech seem more than happy to bring you all on board but you've been sucking that $270k+ top-end-even-for-FAANG salary with no concern for the ethics or morality of your business for years. This isn't new. I'm less than excited to see Facebook show up on a resume and haven't been for years. Not to mention the people I've interviewed from there seem to get so accustomed to working on Facebook internal tools that aren't in use anywhere else, especially you front end devs (not talking about just react here but the internal ecosystem). Best of luck to those of you looking to leave. It took THIS much to get you to this point, don't forget that. There are a LOT of devs not from Facebook that deserve to be hired and given chances in other FAANG businesses. People you actually want to work with who won't contribute to attacks on democracy for a high salary and have refused to even respond to Facebook recruiters for the last 3-10 years. Hire them instead. Especially you Google employees who are on twitter ranting and raving right now. There's a huge amount of people who want to work with you who haven't traded their ethics for a paycheck and were laid off over the last few months. Yet you're trying to bring these Facebook employees under your umbrella? How about you help bring some other people up? It's just shocking how out of touch you SV FAANG types are. I'm glad you're actually tweeting about important things this weekend, though.

viraptor 6y ago
That sounds unfair. Of course you very accustomed to working with tools you work with every day, especially if they're good. You'll also never find a 1:1 match between companies though and not-bad people can switch between systems as needed. Unless you need an intermediate level boilerplate writer ready to go with tech X and Y from day 1, it should be fine. Why not say: These are people experienced with systems that work well. Maybe they can bring those workflows over and improve the company when they come here.
- hobs 6y ago
  Because their tooling knowledge is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic compared to their willingness to sell out their own people for a buck.

ericzawo 6y ago

The tweets are nice, but little will change until people at the executive level bow out publicly.

dfxm12 6y ago
I wonder, has anything changed at Amazon since Tim Bray left?
- intothemild 6y ago
  My guess is the only things that changed were that; 1. Tim Bray is happier he doesn't have to call Amazon out on it's bullshit. 2. Amazon is happier there's one less person to call them out on their bullshit.
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koheripbal 6y ago
With all these riots - I think we're going to see another 4 years.

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sigzero 6y ago

They need to stop filtering period. Their so called "fact checkers" are wrong more than they are right and there is no way to report it easily.

banachtarski 6y ago
Nonsense. Even basic human checkers for high profile demonstrably false statements or calls to violence would be sufficient at this point.

scarface74 6y ago

Maybe, the government should get involved in monopolistic Big Tech. Isn't that what HN users are always wanting? I'm sure the Trump administration will get right on that. Just like now that the President is pressuring Twitter, HN users are up in arms. Be careful what you ask for.....

drevil-v2 6y ago

Facebook employees are not adequately representative of the population as a whole. They lean overwhelmingly left and as such I would take their "blowback" with a grain of salt.

bognition 6y ago
Hacker news comments are not adequately representative of the Facebook employee population...
- drevil-v2 6y ago
  The billions of users of Facebook might not appreciate a censored view of the world. The shareholders might have something to say about it too.
cameronbrown 6y ago
That is definitely true. This however, is still a problem for Facebook, and the greater society, which seems to disagree with them more and more.
jaybeeayyy 6y ago
lol that certainly is a statement you cannot back up. Even Fox News has an article saying there's not enough evidence to show any bias at facebook https://www.foxnews.com/tech/is-facebook-as-left-leaning-as-everyone-suspects https://www.foxnews.com/tech/is-facebook-as-left-leaning-as-...
matt_s 6y ago
Some may also be much more financially sound to back up their talk with resignations or other actions if they feel strongly that their employer does things that don't sit well with them.
- drevil-v2 6y ago
  But if they resign they would lose the six figure income and also any influence with future censorship battles at Facebook. Better to stay in, wipe your tears with dollar bills and keep the pressure alive. Zuckerberg will give up at some point. This playbook is depressingly familiar around the world now. Relentless constant pressure to delegitimise institutions at every possible opportunity. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. Just a few recent examples. UK with Dominic Cummings, Australia with the fires, India with Hindu hysteria, US with.. well everything.

blueterminal 6y ago

People really want Zuckerberg to decide whether posts of the president should be deleted or not? Is this for real? We really need mainstream decentralized applications more than ever. Thoughts of people should not be censored. Who the hell should be the truth police? You? People that have the same beliefs as you? This is just ridiculous. I don't like Facebook but great decision by Mark. Same as they decided to not remove political ads.

hobs 6y ago
Yeah, calls for murdering people by the president don't present any new thing for us to consider potentially new processes might apply, he's definitely not a person with enormous power, and he's definitely acting in good faith. Thoughts of people are censored by themselves constantly because of the potential harm they cause, if you cant muzzle yourself and you call for violence expect others to do it for you. People have died when Trump has tweeted, and he has shown no remorse or guilt, in fact he takes no responsibility. So, who the heck would want him on their platform? Why would you spend your server time and money on a child-brained fascist?
lorsting 6y ago
It's not real. This is fake news working for the Democrats.
phone8675309 6y ago
>Who the hell should be the truth police? You? People that have the same beliefs as you? Except Facebook is a private platform. That people use it does not make it a public platform. That would be like arguing that Six Flags over Georgia can't remove you from their park because you started protesting in it. Yes, there are people there, but no, just because they're there and it's a popular place doesn't mean they can't remove you if they want to (so long as they're not breaking another law by doing it).
- beager 6y ago
  I rather like the comparison of social media platforms to amusement parks.

cityzen 6y ago

“Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to change his mind,” wrote Ryan Freitas, whose Twitter account identifies him as director of product design for Facebook’s News Feed. He added he had mobilized “50+ likeminded folks” to lobby for internal change. Jason Toff, identified as director of product management, wrote: “I work at Facebook and I am not proud of how we’re showing up. The majority of coworkers I’ve spoken to feel the same way. We are making our voice heard.” ---- "endeavor in the loudest possible way"? "not proud of how we're showing up"? If "the majority of coworkers" and "50+ likeminded folks" are so passionate about it... stop working for the company. Quit, make a fucking sacrifice and stop thinking that somehow you're going to change Zuck's mind. Money is a hell of a drug.

throwaway7281 6y ago

Facebook is reality, but it's also just a game. It goes like this: how deep can we go exploiting people by using information technology. How much "person" can we extract? How far can we go controlling this person (e.g. make sure user is happy, etc.). The second game is: How can we PR our way out of the nightmares we knowingly create month after month? It amazes me every day how the corporation and all its employees are able to maintain the BS level required to believe in the "mission" of the company. If you can imagine it, I never had an active account in my life and I am happy about it. And believe it or not, I still do exists have friends and family and a "social" life.

buboard 6y ago

What do FB engineers think? Should FB be editing its content and be designated as a publisher? This would imply a major change with hiring of thousands of employees and journalists to become a proper written medium. It would also mean their own wages would go way down to accomodate these new hires.

noscrewstoyous 6y ago
they already edit content, amazed that even on hn people seem to think that facebook isn’t dramatically controlling which content you see

pdimitar 6y ago

I think we all know he is not "facing" anything. People that collect big and stable salaries will not change company employment over this. Virtue signalling is cheap, endangering your family's livelihood is hard. "It's very difficult to make somebody understand something, especially if their salary depends on them not understanding it." Facebook is, in general, an unethical company. And this has been known for a long time. If you didn't leave yet you won't leave over this either.

ethagnawl 6y ago
> If you didn't leave yet you won't leave over this either. You have no idea why people have stayed and/or how their minds have changed over time. Everyone has their breaking point and this could very possibly be it for some people. Also, your quote should be attributed to Upton Sinclair.
- malloreon 6y ago
  they stayed through: - pro Kavanaugh - genocide in Myanmar - destruction of privacy - facebook accepting it creates extremists
  - bryan_w 6y ago
    There's two sides to all those issues* that reasonable people can take. * except the Myanmar thing - but that wasn't an active thing, but rather not being responsible in growth and having incorrect assumptions about state actors
- inopinatus 6y ago
  > Also, your quote should be attributed to Upton Sinclair. “Citations are optional on informal forums such as the Hacker News” —— Mary Wollstonecraft
- pdimitar 6y ago
  True, everyone has their "enough of that" point. But it seems to me that the people who work at Facebook are after the good money, the prestige and the stable job that is mostly immune to tremors (like the pandemic). I can't generalise all of them of course. But we never had historical data of people mass-leaving big corps over such issues so I'm tempted to believe in my generalisation.

tibbydudeza 6y ago

Well not much has changed since it was called FaceMash and he conned the ownership from Eduardo Saverin using tactics from his buddy Peter Thiel.

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noscrewstoyous 6y ago

this is all a big distraction to the fact that facebook is already playing the “arbiter of truth” - algorithms aren’t magic, they’re just automated biases. If Zuckerberg truly wanted to be neutral they’d show unweighted posts... he doesn’t actually want that though, he’s just protecting profits (which is his primary responsibility as ceo anyway).

ceilingcorner 6y ago

Who knew the day would come when I’d agree with and defend Zuckerberg. It’s not Facebook’s job to tell me what I can or can’t think. I can evaluate the claims of Trump or any other politician myself, thank you very much.

rswail 6y ago
Except it has been proven that people using FB and whatsapp have incited violence in India and other places and that often people can't or won't evaluate claims with a focus on facts and evidence.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Then work on stopping people in India from being violent? Treating human beings like mindless automatons is not the right way forward.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  That is against laws and their terms of service. No one, not even Zuck is saying there should be zero moderation of illegal things. It’s the line of where “harmful” is. Some people would seriously argue every message from Trump is “harmful”, some that just want to game the system, some that really believe it, some that just don’t understand what power they are asking Facebook to take. The other day he had 800k likes from a tweet that just said “CHINA!”... I bet more people reported that as violence/harmful than seems reasonable.
banachtarski 6y ago
What an obtuse viewpoint. It's not just about you. Misinformation actively harms society as a whole. Anti-vax, fake remedies, Holocaust-denials, etc. The people taken in by such lies propagate damage beyond their immediate circles.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Yes, free speech has some negative consequences. That’s what it means to be in a free society. If your only solution to so-called misinformation (as defined by who?) is censorship and controlling of information, you’ve already lost. In case you forgot, this website is called Hacker News. Once upon a time, hacker culture was anti-authoritarian.

macspoofing 6y ago

... Zuckerberg's instincts are 100% correct. I don't understand why people (usually democrats and the left now, but it could be right-wing evangelicals in the future) are pushing for social media companies to wade into the quagmire of politics. Twitter's 'fact check' of Trump's tweet is a perfect example of what happens if you try. Their fact check was wrong because it missed nuance and context of issues with mail-in ballots (as in, there is potential for fraud with related actions like 'vote harvesting'), and it pissed off people (not just Trump supporters) because it was ad hoc and arbitrary because you can easily find Democratic politicians making erroneous statements. Almost everything a politician will say is wrong in some way and from a certain perspective and having minimum wage Twitter reviewers be the arbiters of how political speech should be interpreted and in which way is a recipe for disaster. The "Citizen's United" ruling came around when the FCC tried to enforce rules against political speech arbitrarily when they decided a right-wing documentary critical of Hillary was deemed to break election laws, but Micheal Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (which was also purposely designed to influence election) was not. And you know what, that is unfair. There is no universe in which it is fair that Moore's documentary gets to be exempted but a right-wing group's documentary doesn't. And because of the arbitrary politically-motived actions of the FCC, we ended up with completely unchecked election spending. Get tech companies out of politics. If not, it will blow up in your face.

AlexandrB 6y ago

Facebook is too big, has too much reach, and is largely unaccountable to elected representatives - especially outside the United States. Whether Facebook decides to censor an elected official is largely a red herring. They need to be broken up[1] so that individual countries have a chance at holding them to account if they do something shitty and users have more choice of what social network to use if they disagree with Facebook's policies. [1] At a minimum, the WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions need to be rolled back.

malloreon 6y ago

Every Facebook employee should receive blowback for continuing to work there. They make the choice each day to create more value than they cost to support this platform - they implicitly support its reprehensible ideas. You work there, you own this. It is who you are.

keiferski 6y ago

Remember when "I disagree with what you say, but will defend your right to say it" was a thing? I certainly do. How far we've fallen as a culture since then.

rocketpastsix 6y ago
there is a difference between saying "I think this war (insert a war: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc) is wrong and unjust" and your quote is absolutely true. Some people believe in the wars, some dont but ultimately its up to us to understand a statement like above can be said openly and honestly and without fear of retribution. However, and where Facebook crosses a line, is that when you allow someone to post unabashedly false things to drive emotions. Saying "Trump is a weak leader" isn't wrong or false, just an opinion. Saying that Nancy Pelosi murdered a baby deer with her bare hands on the floor of the House and pushing it as absolutely true is where we currently are. You don't have a right to push verifiably false information with no recourse. You have a right to say your opinion. Just like you can't yell fire in a movie theater, or bomb on an airplane.
- keiferski 6y ago
  In theory, that all makes sense. Except in reality, it doesn’t play out that way. There is no neutral arbiter on what is a fact or what precise meaning a 140-character tweet is supposed to have. Philosophers have written about this for centuries. In the current political climate I really don’t trust any side to be mature enough to present all perspectives on a situation. As I said, our culture has become so insecure that people are begging for censorship of ideas they don’t like. It’s a dangerous road to go down.
- Lammy 6y ago
  Your concept of what’s factual has to be rooted in something.
6510 6y ago
I will still: defend your right to be wrong about everything you say - till the end.
6y ago

PaulHoule 6y ago

Zuck has consistently backed right-wing politicians ever since he's had the chance. He had his Girl Friday solicit an antisemitic report on George Soros from a right-wing propaganda group -- that's something so stupid that everybody involved should have been fired right away and sent to Siberia. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIqESwzCGg4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIqESwzCGg4 Although Zuck won't do anything about Trump posts that encourage violence, his company certainly will "fact check" ads that oppose Trump, even when those ads come from fellow Republicans.

macspoofing 6y ago
>Zuck has consistently backed right-wing politicians ever since he's had the chance. So what? Maybe he is a conservative? Maybe he isn't. Is that wrong? Every worker, from the bottom to the top, of every company, has a private political position. The question is why would you want the company, especially a platform like Facebook, to have a political position.
haram_masala 6y ago
I would say if there are two things in this world that Mark Zuckerberg are not, it's stupid, and anti-semitic.

lgleason 6y ago

Zuck get's it. Start censoring, editorializing etc. and section 230 protections will be gutted. On top of that anti-trust investigations intensify, rightfully, because you have not concentrated too much power into an un-regulated, un-elected platform vs the elected government which is against the interest of the country as a whole. For all of the engineers complaining about this, there are plenty of other ones who would be happy to take the place of the high paid engineers who have an issue with this and ask a lot less questions or who may even support what Zuck is doing.

iandanforth 6y ago
On the "section 230 protections will be gutted" point there is nuance in the protections I didn't understand until I read this: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/05/trump-executive-order-misreads-key-law-promoting-free-expression-online-and https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/05/trump-executive-order-...
darkarmani 6y ago
> Start censoring, editorializing etc. and section 230 protections will be gutted. By whom? I've been on a lot of forums and listservs where trolls get banned (censored). I've yet to see section 230 get gutted because trolls have their commented deleted.
- jaywalk 6y ago
  By Congress.
vharuck 6y ago
>Start censoring, editorializing etc. and section 230 protections will be gutted. If you mean they'll stop applying to Facebook, I don't think that's true. If you mean 230 will be repealed, then the pessimist in me is willing to believe it. But the realist in me knows the consequences will quickly lead to a new law much like 230. >On top of that anti-trust investigations intensify, rightfully, because you have not concentrated too much power into an un-regulated, un-elected platform vs the elected government which is against the interest of the country as a whole. Facebook's either too big or it's not. The problem would be if it could unilaterally control public opinion. We shouldn't allow unregulated monopolies just because they happen to not anger us today.

sebastianconcpt 6y ago

How this is not Zuckerberg being unable to control his revolutionary employees eager to implement political opposition censorship because they can?

caenorst 6y ago

Except that the "glorification of violence" depends on the interpretation. It can also be a warning that people will start to defend themselves with violence or that the military will intervene. If that's the case those warning are here to AVOID violence by discouraging people to engage in looting... Facebook shouldn't make such decision based on the interpretation of some emotionally biased employees.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I can imagine a consistent "promoting violence is bad" policy - I think we can all agree that the general standards of e.g. a corporate office wouldn't permit Trump's statement. But there's no universe where "when the looting starts the shooting starts" glorifies violence more than "riots are the voice of the unheard", and 100% of the people complaining to Zuckerberg would oppose banning that second message.
znpy 6y ago
It's hard to mislabel "glorification of violence" given the militar culture in the US: just look of all the military propaganda more or less hidden into mainstream media (movies, tv series etc)
ggggtez 6y ago
>In 1967, Miami police Chief Walter Headley used the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" during hearings about crime in the Florida city, invoking angry reactions from civil rights leaders, according to a news report at the time. > Segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace also used the phrase during the 1968 campaign. While you might like to believe that the phrase could mean anything, it certainly doesn't. And in the context of Trumps tweet, which specifically mentions the military, it certainly means that he was threatening to have the US military fire on US civilians. Now consider that in the context of the US threatening action against China using "tough" tactics to subdue protests in Hong Kong and you'll see the tweet for what it is. The same kind of rhetoric and threat of violence against protesters that the US condemns elsewhere in the world.
- 6y ago

easterncalculus 6y ago

The point of social networks then is the same as it is now, to host content that does not break the terms of service of the site. Anything further than that is extra. Just leave it as things were and people are fine. We've been saying that what's on the internet is not bond since before the inception of Facebook and Twitter, so there's no reason to try and change it now. When did people forget that there was no use in doing this?

Lammy 6y ago
The point of social networks is to let humans communicate.

malloreon 6y ago

Reminder: it is incumbent on every single person who doesn't approve of what facebook does to stop using its platform - no fb, instagram, WhatsApp, or messenger. every time they record an ad impression because of you or send a message that reinforces their network effect, you enable these people. It's not worth it.

g8tor 6y ago

It would be the ultimate barometer of the zeitgeist if Zuck, the most scandal-resistant and resilient CEO in SV, was dethroned for "outrageous" political views that offended his "liberal" employees. But seriously, if this did happen, what would he do next?

ilikehurdles 6y ago
Run for president, probably.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  He's got to do a reality show first. Even better if the theme has something to do with "the lefty nerds at the company he founded don't want him around anymore, so what's our good buddy Mark going to do with all that extra time? You guessed it: custom 4x4 trucks!"
  - g8tor 6y ago
    Zuck's Customs would be great. Definitely he wanted the President thing before, but a after seeing the last 3 years, does he really still? BTW, don't we need to have a woman president before the next white dude anyway? If that's the case 2028 is the earliest...

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tinyhouse 6y ago

Thanks to FB and the like, tech employees all over the world have much better conditions. They cannot solve the world's problems and it's also not their job. The only people who are out of touch are those who think that FAANG companies are the cause of all society issues. I've never worked at FB but would rather work for them than for most tech companies. For most tech companies if I'd dare to write something against the company or its CEO, I will be shown the door the next day with zero severance.

Pfhreak 6y ago
Ah yes, the twin rebuttals of, "it's worse somewhere else, so workers shouldn't complain" and "it's not their problem to care about systemic issues". No matter how bad it is elsewhere, Facebook employees have the right to try and improve their workplace.
- tinyhouse 6y ago
  I didn't say they shouldn't try and improve their workplace. My point is actually the opposite. They can try because they work at FB. In most other companies they wouldn't be able to even try.

shibeouya 6y ago

Some people must have really thin skin if this is what causes them to leave a company. Liberals are such crybabies - in literally every company I've been in they keep whining if anything doesn't work the way they want or not according to their values. Silicon Valley culture is poisoned by this state of mind and renders any honest discussion impossible. Let them leave if they're unhappy, I know a few conservative engineers at FB NYC who won't miss them.

rswail 6y ago
As opposed to the right wing crybabies that just last week where crying about the right to get haircuts. After all, having someone else to take risks for their benefit seems to be part of their values.
- jaywalk 6y ago
  I know plenty of hair stylists begging to get back to work, and I've never seen anyone advocate that hair stylists should be forced to go back to work so that people can get their hair cut. Your argument is totally disingenuous.

zenit-mf-1 6y ago

I have deleted my FB profil so, I am living without it since 2013 and I really don't feel I am missing social life.

reedwolf 6y ago

If those comments had come from Average Joe in Wichita, Facebook would most likely have censored them. Are we arguing that some users are just too important to adhere to the site's terms and conditions?

sharker8 6y ago

He also called his company an 'institution'. I think that kind of language is kind of rich.

6510 6y ago
asylum

euix 6y ago

I think we are well passed the point of the Federal govt doing anything. The future is feudalism. Guys like zuck and Bezos are the barons of the old. In the future there will be too types of people, employees of these corps and everyone else (the peasants). All that is missing is for Amazon to acquire a PMC.

tjpnz 6y ago

>Giving a platform to incite violence and spread disinformation is unacceptable, regardless who you are or if it’s newsworthy, As someone who grew up in Christchurch this Tweet strikes a nerve. Not a single thing has changed at Facebook that would hinder an armed lunatic from freely live streaming a killing spree to thousands on the platform. This is not anything new.

binxbolling 6y ago

Amazing to me that so many people in these comments believe Facebook is or can be apolitical. This is a very childish stance, and Zuck is not standing up for their right to remain out of politics: they're deeply political, and Facebook is just asserting which political viewpoints they subscribe to as an organization.

therealdrag0 6y ago
Trying and failing to be apolitical is different than being intentionally political. And I prefer platforms attempt the former.
- binxbolling 6y ago
  "We will not curb violent speech if the speaker is a notable public figure" is already political. That's a political stance, not an apolitical one, and it's very naive to believe otherwise. Besides, Facebook has a PAC! In what way is this attempting to be apolitical? Although their donations are split, since 2012 they've given 14% more to Republicans.
  - therealdrag0 6y ago
    > if the speaker is a notable public figure I haven't seen this to be the case. My impression is they found that his speech didn't violate their normal policy. Do you have support to the contrary? > Facebook has a PAC ... Lol good point. Though my assumption is this is for economic reasons. So technically you're right; that's political. Though I think it's a non-trivial distinction between trying to grease the economic engine to support corporate profits and being political in the sense of pushing for other left/right/progressive/conservative values.
koheripbal 6y ago
Not censoring the president is political? That seems like a very black-vs-white / with-us-or-against-us mentality.

hkai 6y ago

It seems a lot of people are advocating two things: - Western social media companies are evil; and - Freedom of speech is bad. You may very well get rid of Facebook and freedom of speech, but I would like to just remind to all of you folks in the West that when you only have Chinese social media companies and no freedom of speech, there will be thousands of cases MUCH worse than George Floyd and you won't even be allowed to talk about them.

koheripbal 6y ago
It's almost unbelievable that people are suggesting we take the power away from elected officials and hand it over to corporations. It's like the sky isn't even blue anymore...
- hkai 6y ago
  There is a fake Lincoln quote that, even though it's fake, aged surprisingly well in the last 140 years that it has been circulated: > "Corporations have been enthroned. > An era of corruption will follow and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed."

nootropicat 6y ago

Interesting times. Many people are now demanding unelected, nearly unaccountable corporations to actively censor elected officials, and in fact consider not doing this evil - a step beyond fascism into a new brand of totalitarianism. I would have considered this absurd even 5 years ago. The only thing missing to make this reality a full cyberpunk dystopia are corporate superhuman ais, but not for the lack of trying.

sp0rk 6y ago
> a step beyond fascism into a new brand of totalitarianism. Social pressure is being exerted on businesses to enact change. How does this have anything to do with fascism or totalitarianism when the government isn't even involved?
- nootropicat 6y ago
  Government is about power, not the name. Facebook has more power to shape public opinion than most dictators in history. Traditional propaganda had to appeal to the common denominator, facebook can use ml to analyze every user individually and generate (what it think is) an optimal feed to generate the intended outcome. Filtering counterproductive information is an integral part of it. It's totalitarianism because people advocating for it are true believers: they believe if you oppose them you are evil. Fascism usually relies on self-interest in the form of carrot and stick rather than fanaticism. I'm much, much more afraid of true believers. If you disagree with the first sentence, consider a hypothetical country: everything is owned by Google. In theory, you can own land, but in practice you can't, because Google won't sell it to you. You can only rent. Everyone is communicating using devices rented from Google, software owned by Google and using servers owned by Google. Same for literally everything - food is only sold by Google, payments are only possible on Google Pay. If you break Google's ToS, you are banned from using any of its services - ie. you starve to death. Appeals are handled exactly as they are today when the issue is about a youtube channel ban or demonetization. In this world, officially there's a government with a constitution guaranteeing multiple freedoms, along with a very efficient and fair justice system. One thing the legal system allows you to do is to enter into a contract with Google that requires you to waive all your rights. If you don't sign the contract, you can't buy food and you starve, so logically everyone alive is under the contract. What entity is the actual government in this scenario? Hyperbolic? Yes. Yet, every day we are getting closer to this reality, even if the extreme outcome never happens.

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zenit-mf-1 6y ago

I was thinking since a couple of months on the idea of building a simulator that simulate a day live without as social platform like FB. A kind of: simulate people interactions where FB is shut down for, lets say for one day.

yc_theorist 6y ago

I have a theory on this. I think the next leg of the downturn will start once people actually figure out that the economy has been completed hollowed out all the money printing. At that point, of all the tech giants, Facebook is the most likely to collapse because their only moat is to collect even more of your data or acquire companies who do the same. Given that their "moonshot" cryptocurrency project was (thankfully) basically dead on arrival, they now don't have nearly as many tentacles into our lives as the other tech giants. Now, imagine being the only social network where the President of the USA is allowed to write whatever he wants. That's a sure-shot bailout package isn't it?

GaryNumanVevo 6y ago

Not sure why Facebook invested in Oculus. They already have one of the world's largest "virtual reality" platform.

DeonPenny 6y ago

Twitter just declared war with the federal government. The employee are effectively asking Zuckerberg to divebomb his own company. Zuckerberg has been in those congressional hearings. He knows exactly why he doesn't want to get in this splashzone. Cause what twitter did is so far over so many lines I can see them being the same after the FCC starts making rules for them like ISPs in 60 days.