25 ms·

“Today, I submitted my resignation to Facebook”

235 points by aaronbrethorst 6y ago

malloreon 6y ago
This is the bare minimum. This person worked for Facebook for just under a year taking its money while building and securing a platform/growth opportunity for white supremacy and other extremist views, and given what we know about Facebook compensation, likely did very well for that almost year. This is a good first step, but I’m curious why Facebook’s defense/promotion of white supremacy, its support for Brett Kavanaugh, and the genocide in Myanmar, which this engineer mentioned in their resignation post, wasn’t worth quitting over two weeks ago. Edit: referring to this tweet screenshotting the same engineer’s post about resignation. https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1267864584867557376?s=20 https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1267864584867557376?s=... Quoting the resigned: “Facebook, complicit in the propagation of weaponized hatred, is on the wrong side of history.”
- birdyrooster 6y ago
  They drank too much of their own Kool-Aid thinking they could reform Facebook, an undemocratically governed institution. Facebook has lost a lot of great talent because of how they treat not only their customers but their employees too. Draconian performance metrics keeping top performers from getting raises, and letting people who game the system increase their pay. Because of their engagement with universities, a lot of their employees have very little experience in any other corporate environment so they don’t recognize mismanagement when they see it.
minimaxir 6y ago
Facebook is apparently currently having an all-hands that is not going well: > have to say, from what me, @sheeraf and @ceciliakang are hearing....this is not going over super well. > Zuckerberg spent probably 20-30 minutes delivering his reasons for the post staying up. now taking pointed and heated questions from employees directly https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1267894523700457472 https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1267894523700457472
- oiasdjfoiasd 6y ago
  IMO it will be a sad sad day when social media can strong arm companies into taking actions that affect free speech and censorship.
- lostmsu 6y ago
  Prior to hearing what he had to answer, I'd like to applaud Mark for daring to speak and argue directly about the heated matters.
  - burkaman 6y ago
    He runs the company? It is not brave to talk to people you are paying to do a job.
    - lostmsu 6y ago
      His responses will have ramifications for the Facebook investors, including himself. Also, for his very public image.
    - brlewis 6y ago
      On the contrary, when you're paying people to do a job, explaining why you've decided a certain way is not your obligation. And when the people you're paying are software engineers, you're unfortunately inviting verbal abuse. (This should change.) [Obligatory disclaimer that I don't approve of everything he does]
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
        > when you're paying people to do a job, explaining why you've decided a certain way is not your obligation. Isn’t this at odds with your tagline: HowTruthful helps you make better evidence-based decisions, and helps you communicate opinions effectively. Communicate opinions effectively, unless you’re paying someone to enact your opinions, in which case fuck them.
turndown 6y ago
We live in such cynical times that instead of simply applauding someone for doing the right thing they are either accused of virtue signalling or criticized for having associated with people before it was totally apparent what their moral stances were.
- brink 6y ago
  Not everyone (me included) believes the censorship he's calling for is the right thing.
  - badrabbit 6y ago
    Do you have a better solution? And are you aware that no action means people will die and global economy as a whole might crumble?
    - programmarchy 6y ago
      Without censorship, people will die and the global economy might crumble? Seems like a very odd conclusion. Besides, the global economy in its current form is completely unsustainable. I understand the importance of racial justice, but are you saying somehow the global economy (I read that as multinational capitalism) is some vanguard of this principle?
      - badrabbit 6y ago
        If someone is actively coordinating to an end that will result in people dying, should you not censor? Why have a mechanism to censor to begin with? > I understand the importance of racial justice, but are you saying somehow the global economy (I read that as multinational capitalism) is some vanguard of this principle? This has nothing to do with racial justice. Continued unrest, rioting,etc... Will enable a steeper curve for the 2nd wave of Corona. No bailout or any government measure will help. The US economy will not collapse by itself, jusr like in 2008 it will affect the global economy. This is the 11th hour! Facebook is enabling all this. I understand if they had an unmoderated platform, but they moderate plenty! In the end the consequence is something you must acknowledge at least as a possibility when saying "censor things but not nazis and race war propaganda" This isn't about censorship,it's about policy. Do you also oppose fact checking? FB does!! > Besides, the global economy in its current form is completely unsustainable. So we should let it collapse? And how many wars and famine should be tolerated? I am all for change but not the "watch the world burn" kind of change. P.S.: Please lookup the meetings between Zuckerberg and republican leadership this year. This is strictly about politics,not censorship.
99_00 6y ago
"I cannot stand by Facebook’s continued refusal to act on the president’s bigoted messages aimed at radicalizing the American public." What is this message and does anyone have a source?
- CodeWriter23 6y ago
  Watch CNN/MSNBC instead of the raw feed on The White House YouTube channel.
- malloreon 6y ago
  You must have missed when trump tweeted/fbed “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” late last week.
  - eanzenberg 6y ago
    And it has, as people take the law into their own hands. Unfortunately in 2020 we’re still arguing whether violence is ok.
  - 99_00 6y ago
    He clarified his comments and his explanation is not inflammatory. "Looting leads to shooting, and that's why a man was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday night - or look at what just happened in Louisville with 7 people shot," Trump tweeted https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-defends-his-when-the-looting-starts-the-shooting-starts-tweet-2020-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-defends-his-when-the-l... People should be given a chance to explain what they said if it is misinterpreted. Focusing on the misinterpretation after the explanation has been made is in-fact inflammatory and divisive.
    - malloreon 6y ago
      It’s been way too many years to give trump the benefit of the doubt. His words are never misinterpreted.
      - 6y ago
NickM 6y ago
I'm always conflicted when I read about this kind of thing. I do think Facebook is actively making the world worse in many ways, but is it better for the people who care about this to quit in protest, or is it better if they stay and try to make things better from the inside? Will actions like this actually hurt the company, or will it just prompt them to hire replacements who have no such ethical qualms, and who may nudge the company in an even worse direction? I don't have an easy answer, and I can certainly imagine how difficult it would be to get up and go to work for an employer every day that you see as evil, so I don't judge the author of this post for leaving...but I think it is still a question worth contemplating. I'd love to hear what other peoples' thoughts are on this.
- iso1631 6y ago
  He answerd that in his post - Zuckerberg has no intention of listening to internal pressures. Ultimately you have to vote with your wallet.
  - NickM 6y ago
    Where did he answer that? I re-read the post but I don't see anything like what you're referencing. Voting with your wallet is another possible approach, but that only works if the lost revenue from all the people who care enough to leave can offset the extra profits FB is making by being evil. FWIW I deactivated my account over a year ago and never looked back, but I did that more out of concern for my own mental health than anything else, and I'm under no illusions that my solitary gesture will make much difference in the grand scheme of things.
    - malloreon 6y ago
      If you use any of Instagram, messenger, or WhatsApp, you vote with your wallet to keep Facebook alive.
      - FabHK 6y ago
        WhatsApp doesn't carry ads (yet), does it? How does using WhatsApp support Facebook? [Serious question... I'm trying not to support Facebook, but do use WhatsApp.]
FabHK 6y ago
> since June 2019 I have been at Facebook, working on battling the spread of misinformation. I applaud his principled stance. But he is probably the last person that should leave FaceBook now.
- thephyber 6y ago
  Users on social networks are fickle. They will tire of the existing FB platforms soon enough and his talent and integrity and will be more useful on the next FB replacement.
  - mytherin 6y ago
    Then FB will buy the next FB replacement, and he will be back to square one. At this point I find it unlikely that FB will be dethroned unless government steps in. The lock-in is too widespread, and their cash reserves too large for anyone to threaten their position. FB is not going to fall like MySpace did. The internet has changed a lot since 2005.
    - thephyber 6y ago
      > Then FB will buy the next FB replacement, and he will be back to square one. That seems like a function of how much the owners of the new company value their integrity and how much of a price they extract from Zuck if they do sell. At some point, not selling to FB could be a currency (the new upstart could pull talent which would otherwise not want to work at FB). > FB is not going to fall like MySpace did "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes." I suspect we will have to check back in on the health of Facebook after another 6 months of the COVID-economy ravages the advertising market. I think FB will be able to see the need to pivot; whether they are able to is not yet known. > I find it unlikely that FB will be dethroned unless government steps in. I think more likely users will just leave/atrophy on it like Gen Z largely did or possibly just suffer a slow death if global advertising doesn't recover to previous levels.
      - hejja 6y ago
GekkePrutser 6y ago
Lol... A bit late to grow a conscience isn't it? Better late than never I suppose. But it's clear Facebook has always been rotten to the core. After the Cambridge Analytica thing, Zuckerberg practically lying in inquiries...
- s5300 6y ago
  Are there people who were ever under the guise that it wasn't? Are there people that work for Facebook that do not know of the nice words Zuckerberg had to say about the people who initially gave Facebook their information? I'm not trying to sound snarky, but it's pretty damn obvious to anybody with a functional & logical brain that Zuckerberg is internally an angry outcast of a nerd fulfilling his fantasies of revenge... against, something that hurt him sometime in his life...
anigbrowl 6y ago
This is a nice gesture, but a more helpful one would be leaking their internal documents/information to reduce the objectionable power asymmetry. Spill the beans. Put money not into the nonprofit-industrial complex but toward the development of better tools or to allow counter-campaigning in some form. Offer to perform work for free for people who have been calling out this problem for a long time, so as to map out radicalization networks without having to get approval to use crowdtangle or sign NDAs.
thrownaway954 6y ago
whatever... this guy is a moron in my book. love how he quits a job that my people would kill for especially in these "uncertain times" and without having a new one first. i hope he finds one, but i wouldn't doubt him having a hard time right now given the current climate of covid and political upheaval. personally i think he should have found a job that suited his political beliefs while continuing to work at facebook. if there is one thing that life has taught me is that you never quit your current job until you have a new one or a new plan. "reaching out to your network" is not a plan, it's desperation.
- s5300 6y ago
  How do you know he doesn't have a new job or plan? That's a.. rather large assumption.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    From OP's post: > I’m open to any interesting, high-impact work. Even if you don’t have contacts in the education/social good space, I’d be grateful for your support in connecting me with companies looking to hire someone like me.
- TomBombadildoze 6y ago
  43k reactions and 1600 comments. You know, I feel like he just might pull through and score another job.
- agildehaus 6y ago
  Or maybe he knows he won't have much trouble finding one.
- chromeunagi 6y ago
  maybe you're the moron in not realizing that people can have values other than yours. maybe some prioritize their values to their financial security. maybe this guy is already financially independent. there's more to life than working a prestigious job -- if you don't have values and the spine to live your life true to them, what's the point?
vthallam 6y ago
[disclosure: I work on Instagram at Facebook] While some are feeling sad and think quitting is the only way, I feel it's important for employees who care to stay and help implement the changes. I am proud how employees are voicing their opinion inside the company and I hope we see some changes soon.
- danhak 6y ago
  It's a corporation, not a democracy. Any "voice" employees have is an illusion when the CEO has his mind made up and controls a majority of voting shares.
  - lexs 6y ago
    unless unionisation?
    - gentleman11 6y ago
      Political unions?
  - warent 6y ago
    Engineers can still do things such as mass walk-outs and strikes, which affect profits and shareholder confidence in leadership. But if the people who care just quit one by one, they'll only be replaced by people who dont care and will never do those things.
- trhway 6y ago
  "from inside" never works, it is just an excuse. Just face the reality - you like this big money more. I'd too if I made it through the interview.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  It's pretty clear FB management cares first and foremost (perhaps exclusively about) profitability. So the biggest and most effective way of communicating to Facebook management is to hit their bottom line. Part of that includes making it more expensive for them to recruit and retain talent. Refusing to advertise on Facebook and Boycotting their apps likewise. History suggests profitability is the only thing which changes Zuckerberg's mind.
cryptica 6y ago
Listening to a Facebook employee talk about human rights is like listening to a butcher talk about animal rights. Unfortunately, it's difficult to hear their voice over the sound of their blade hitting the cutting board.
s5300 6y ago
Page no longer found on LinkedIn?
- thephyber 6y ago
  Works for me.
thecleaner 6y ago
I just looked at this guys resume. Its pretty great. Kudos for standing up too. Hope he gets a great next job.
ALittleLight 6y ago
Personally, I agree with Zuckerberg. Facebook in particular, and tech companies in general, should not be unilaterally making choices that fundamentally affect our government. Facebook is right to keep both harsh words from Trump and the video of Floyd's murder. That said, I applaud the author for standing by his principles and putting his money where his mouth is.
klingonopera 6y ago
The problem with being a Facebook-user is quitting it while trying to keep in touch with your friends. Presently, this only works if Facebook itself would fail. I believe if it were still possible to keep in touch with Facebook friends and content without being a Facebook-user yourself, we can subvert the Network Effect, which in the first place is what Facebook owes its dominance to. A solution may be to force social media companies by law to adhere to a standard on information exchange, much like e-mail and http protocols. If there is such a thing as "OpenBook" and it still allows me to communicate, comment, view and react to FB-content, I'd ditch FB in an instant.
- beamatronic 6y ago
  It sounds like your social graph should be portable, so you can take it to a neutral 3rd party.
  - dirtydroog 6y ago
    Your phone has a phonebook.
  - FabHK 6y ago
    That would be a dream. Switch providers, keep your phone number ^W^W username and social graph.
  - gazzini 6y ago
    I’m interested in decoupling personal data from the application layer. Solid[0] is one such experiment. It seems doomed though... and even if it does “work”, I imagine the nightmare scenario where, in order to use FB, you have to give them FULL ACCESS to aaaaaaalll of your data (email, contacts, messages, etc...). There are also technical concerns around caching / rate-limiting, UX concerns around the complexity, and operational concerns around business models that don’t involve a Dragon’s cave full of data. But, I hope something like this works. Or maybe just better tools for personal blogs again? [0] https://solid.mit.edu https://solid.mit.edu
- landryraccoon 6y ago
29athrowaway 6y ago
For years now, major internet companies operating in China had to comply with censorship, surveillance, etc. These companies have three options: comply with the local law (however abusive or unethical it is), stop operations or be willing to be penalized. Zuckerberg wants to just preserve the status quo, where Facebook is protected from liability and can remain being profitable. The alternative is to wilfully expose Facebook to an unacceptable amount of liability. Facebook does not have as much power as you think in this situation.
Mirioron 6y ago
This is why large social media platforms need to have their hands tied when it comes to free speech. They either have it or they don't. This kind of back and forth where they claim to support free speech, but any time somebody says something they don't like it becomes "an issue that must be addressed" needs to stop. The end result of this is that some people's speech is free, but others' isn't. Either you have free speech for everyone or you just don't have free speech. I do applaud him for standing up for his convictions.
- oiasdjfoiasd 6y ago
  This this this.
- jjjensen90 6y ago
  There is no free speech on private social media platforms
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - commandlinefan 6y ago
    But there could be. And there should be.
    - freen 6y ago
      You could allow Nazis at your personal house party also. It is legal, due to the first amendment, but it sure does say a lot about you as a person.
    - httpsterio 6y ago
      Why? If I'm running a platform, I would run it with my personal values which might or might not be the same as what's considered moral or right by the eyes of law. As long as my values are not directly illegal, I won't compromise on the values nor let anyone else use my product or platform for that. I think it should be allowed to take a moral stand, which is why your freedom of speech has nothing to do with social media and I'm glad about it as well.
somecommit 6y ago
After all the shitty things facebook did in the whole world, inducing depression, suicidal behaviors for the most fragile etc... this person resigns because the CEO refused to censor the elected POTUS. I have a hard time to figure what's going on in his head, and how he thinks it's helping democraty.
- throwanem 6y ago
  Better late than never.
- CharlesW 6y ago
  > I have a hard time to figure what's going on in his head, and how he thinks it's helping democraty. Interesting. I have a hard time understanding out how it could be any clearer.
  - naasking 6y ago
    > Interesting. I have a hard time understanding out how it could be any clearer. Sure, censor POTUS so when the tanks roll in, people have no idea what's going on. I think it's pretty clear that your national leader should never be censored because the people he's governing have an absolute right to know every single thing he says.
    - dd36 6y ago
      Right. He has no other avenues of communication available... Even TV stations have to cut away from his nonsense, should that be illegal?
      - naasking 6y ago
        So your argument is that this isn't a big deal because POTUS has other communication media available, but then proceed to immediately contradict yourself by saying that those media also censor POTUS. Whether this should be a legal requirement, I can't say. But it does seem pretty clear that if POTUS is speaking to the public, the public should be able to hear the message if they choose, regardless of whether you personally dislike the message or POTUS.
HissingMachine 6y ago
I fully understand his reasoning and respect it as a principled action. Though, viewing it from the company perspective it really isn't that easy to just do those things he is demanding, and doing it could just cause a misstep to even further in the hole. Twitter has taken a stand, but doing so they have invited a lot of scrutiny on them, and escalation to further actions that would just increase the pain, for the company and their community. On one hand you have the demand to widen their actions to cover almost anything on their platform, and if they don't they just appear hypocritical or worse politically motivated, further movement to this would harm their community and make their platform worse. Second the inevitable push back from various actors, like Ted Cruz with the Iran sanctions, and Trump pushing to throw away the Section 230, and who knows what else this all will lead to. So making it sound like it's just a choice between coffee and frappuccino, instead of potentially throwing your whole company with the platform and it's community to a chaos, isn't a light decision. And making it sound like it is, isn't actually helping neither Twitter nor Facebook.
jackdh 6y ago
Everything else aside, is anyone else a fan of that CV layout?
gruglife 6y ago
I really don’t think FB’s brass really cares. I’m sure there are a lot of people wanting to work at FB that these people are easily replaceable
- throwanem 6y ago
  I just told a Facebook recruiter, in so many words, that I will not now or at any future time work with Facebook in any capacity, and to ensure inasmuch as it's possible that I'm never contacted by any internal or external Facebook recruiter again. Granted, I would've said that anyway. But I suspect there's more who'll say the same today than there were a week ago.
tribeofone 6y ago
Nothing says 'white privilege' like being able to quit your high paying cushy job over your 'principles'. Congratulations! It might have been smarter to just donate 90% of your salary, STFU, and go to work to stay out of poverty. That would be a less self-serving action with real impact.
mr_spothawk 6y ago
so, he waited for the 12 months to finish so he could keep whatever equity & then bailed. good for him, 4.0, expensive school, facebook pedigree... this guy is going places.
pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
Ultimately, it is Mark Zuckerberg's website and therefore the content reflects the views of Mark Zuckerberg. He has the final say on whether something is published on the website or not. It really should not matter how many "members" or "guest contributors" he has, even if it is in the billions. User-generated content is just a way to get traffic. What if the controversial speaker had his own website where he published his comments? Would Cloudflare keep it online? Instead of an overgrown website eclipsing the web, the issue then shifts to one or a few companies dominating access to hosting. Common words used in idealistic HN comments are "decentralisation" and "democracy". Neither concept suppports the idea of "minority rule" which is what we have in the case of the FAANG and a few other companies.
infoseek12 6y ago
Maybe if Facebook closes down Trump's account he won't have any way to communicate with the 42 percent, or so, of America that supports him. Maybe they can ban all of the hundred million plus members who might speak positively of him? Maybe when they do ban those people they will simply disappear and only people who agree with us will remain on this corporal plain? That's not how it will play out. There will be no deus ex machina to save you from much of humanities idiocy. Those people will move over to some other platform that's friendly to their views. Many of you are programmers and you know it's not impossible difficult to build a platform like Facebook or Twitter. Very quickly, you have a brand new self reinforcing network, populated by much of America, that will be even more hostile to the values most of us hold dear, America will be even more fractured, and Trump and his Red Hats will have another talking point about the biased media that's "censoring the truth".
r00fus 6y ago
MZ has autocratic control over Facebook, for better or worse, and it doesn't seem like he's interested changing his mind. If you disagree with MZ to the point where you can't be effective/happy, this is probably the best course of action. I used to advocate for changing systems from within, but if an institution is simply incapable of change, then it will change you.
Gunax 6y ago
Facebook cannot be the arbiter of facts and truth. IMO people are assigning way too much power to facebook. Everyone knows Facebook is just the national enquirer of the internet--no one really cares what shows up there. The reason censorship is flawed is not that everything is true--it's that handing over the power to censor has never turned out well. Was Obama lying when he said 'if you like your healthcare, you can keep it'? Well, it depends on who you ask and your interpretation of that, but he later apologized for the remark. Don't be so quick to call for a revolution, lest you find yourself at the pitchfork's tip.
- hejja 6y ago
  words are never exact and therefore the message is always subjective. censorship is bad.
bambataa 6y ago
Complete sidenote to the post: I'm looking at this guy's CV and when describing what he did as a head TA he says "developed and taught lectures; designed and administered exams". I thought TAs were meant to be secondary help when running a course. Sounds like the TAs were running this course. Is that normal?
- divbzero 6y ago
  Increased teaching responsibilities for TAs definitely happens at universities, especially for larger courses where TAs divide a large class into smaller sections. This seemed to be the case for OP and is all the more expected given that he was head TA.
- Gunax 6y ago
  When reading a resume, it's important to remember that often one attributes group effort to oneself. That's just the generally agreed upon etiquette for resumes. So a programmer who says 'Designed and developed a Ruby web app' probably did not do it herself from start to finish--she worked on a team with 20 others. That is meant to be understood in resume-speak and isn't misleading. If I were reading that, I would infer that he assisted a professor in preparing/reviewing material, lead discussions (perhaps in study sessions or small groups), and suggested or wrote exam material on behalf-of and with the professor's approval.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- davidajackson 6y ago
  Yeah it's pretty common, for example the TAs at Stanford taught a few of the engineering lectures sometimes. I think maybe it was to help them internalize the material and also practice teaching.
- Evidlo 6y ago
  For some courses, yes. In Senior Design at UIUC the TAs basically run the whole course and the professors are there to evaluate the teams' final presentation and the end of the semester.
timonoko 6y ago
What? Donald Trump is on Facebook too. I only recently heard about his Twitter account, but not because of what he was tweeting. But because he cannot unfriend anybody (as a public official?). Most of the Finnish Government has unfriended me, so important Corona-related Health Ministry tweets have not reached me.
travisoneill1 6y ago
Seems like this is an easy problem to solve. Allow users to control their own content filters instead of removing the offending content from the platform altogether. Unless this isn't actually about that, and is really just people trying to shut down opinions they don't agree with...
- programmarchy 6y ago
  I've wondered this myself. Platforms could censor illegal material as required by law, then leave the gray areas to users. There's a pretty big technical challenge, though, because instead of training a single one-size-fits-all algorithm, you suddenly have to train N algorithms, where N is the number of users on your platform. In order to scale, this training may have to be done on the client. But in addition to the technical challenge, I doubt these platforms want to cede the enormous power they have over information distribution. Right now Twitter can flex on the president of a global hegemon, which is crazy power. Why would they give that up?
  - travisoneill1 6y ago
    N is the number of content types (still a lot), so FB only needs one misinformation filter, and you the user could choose whether or not you want that one.
- javagram 6y ago
  This is not about user filters. I haven’t seen trump’s post on my Facebook because I don’t follow him. This is about employees who feel that Trump is so dangerous that his posts should be deleted or hidden to prevent his willing followers from seeing them. Needless to say, any open protocol Facebook alternative would still allow Trump to broadcast his evil messages. Just like he is able to send emails and texts with the messages to his supporters today. Is the next step AT&T and Verizon and TMobile employees demanding trump campaign SMSes be censored ? What is the meaningful difference between that and a tweet/post?
deleted 6y ago
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minton 6y ago
I think so few employees will actually walk away, that him leaving won’t have any impact. They might have had more impact by sticking around to Exert some influence from the inside.
- subsaharancoder 6y ago
  > They might have had more impact by sticking around to Exert some influence from the inside. Burn the house from inside while enjoying all the benefits it provides including 6 figure salary, bonuses, perks and stock..this is what is wrong with the current generation of keyboard activists!! (I'm not accusing you of being one) if one fundamentally disagrees with the principles of a business that they willingly signed up to work for, one should at least have the conviction to walk away and advocate for change from the outside.
NonEUCitizen 6y ago
Didn't FB recently create some oversight board? Has it weighed in yet?
morethanjs 6y ago
Hey Facebook I'll take this guy's position. My code's way better and I won't even publicly shame you when I leave.
- vntok 6y ago
  No need for signalling point #1, point #2 alone makes you a much better fit to any company than that guy.
deleted 6y ago
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RickJWagner 6y ago
I once had a work/politics conflict. I did not like the idea of the ACA (Obamacare). I've seen government run healthcare and did not think it was good. But the will of the people was implemented, and ACA was put in place. The launch was awful. The website crashed multiple times daily, and people lost their input data all the time. It was generating very big headlines. Then my company was asked to help make things better (along with Google, Oracle and a few others.) I was one of a relatively small number of people asked to help fix it. I did the best job I could. I didn't like the idea personally, but I considered it professionalism to make my best effort. My contributions were small, but I did what I could. Other members of the so-called 'Tiger Team' found bigger chunks that could be straightened out, and before too long the site was up and running. Today, this is one of my proudest work moments.
cheesecracker 6y ago
I wonder what future prospective employers think about his tendencies to publicly call out the company he works for? If eventually he quits his next job, what are the odds for him to be writing an inflammatory blog post about the company? It seems to me to not be a prudent strategy to bring politics into one's work (unless the job is political of course). On the other hand, maybe he finds a politically minded employer that way - maybe a leftist NGO or think tank? I frankly don't understand why such moves receive so much attention. People evaluate their employers or employment prospects all the time, and decide against jobs for a variety of reasons. What's the big deal?
WaitWaitWha 6y ago
When BBSes started to come about, we were warned repeatedly that censoring content would make us liable for the the contents themselves. If we did not, we could not be held liable. The only place we were told we can limit, is at account sign-up. What happened to this legal quandary? Facebook is not only a "carrier of posts" but also "arbiter of contents", in essence playing both. Is Facebook then liable for the contents? I am not referring to DMCA, but libel and related issues.
rowawey 6y ago
Must be a lot of racists on HN if this benign statement is flagged. :-/
lr4444lr 6y ago
You've gotta be kidding me. No, I'm not defending anything Trump has said on the platform, but I see FAR worse from many other people, the same people over and over, routinely, that goes unchecked.
- jfengel 6y ago
  Most of them don't have the power to actually order people to shoot.
davidajackson 6y ago
>> According to FB: We remove language that incites or facilitates serious violence Backstory to that Trump comment: 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. "He had a long history of bigotry against the black community," said professor Clarence Lusane of Howard University. ------------- I think suggesting shooting people sounds like "serious violence". It doesn't seem FB is following their own guidelines. Also, you don't suggest shooting someone for a crime instead of having a trial, that's not how justice should work. I agree with Twitter's stance on this. Put a flag next to the comment and let the public decide. I find it hypocritical that Facebook makes their logo black and then leaves a racist comment like that up.
- tomp 6y ago
  Maybe he wasn't threatening ("I'll shoot you" or "I'll order the police/army to shoot you") but instead warning ("violence might result in someone starting shooting").
  - davidajackson 6y ago
    >> The police, Chief Walter Headley warned, would use shotguns and dogs at his command. The undertones of the original comment Trump is echoing imply differently.
    - Hitton 6y ago
      >The undertones of the original comment Trump is echoing imply differently. That wouldn't be removing just "language that incites or facilitates serious violence" but also "language that has undertones that echo inciting or facilitating serious violence".
      - davidajackson 6y ago
        Trump is a powerful enough person that his undertones have the ability to incite people. I know I'm getting downvoted into oblivion and I understand the importance of free speech. I just like Twitter's approach better.
dhruvkar 6y ago
Are the views on MZ really that he's letting Facebook excuse Trump? I see it as him trying to navigate the middle of pretty treacherous waters. I don't see profit or unwilling to toe the line with the administration as being a motive. It genuinely seems that FB doesn't want to wade into the censorship game. And is there a better path forward for Facebook (or any platform)?.
sizzle 6y ago
Anyone know why downvote functionality is not working for me on this thread only?
- tobr 6y ago
  Probably because it was flagged to death. I’m not sure if the word I’m looking for is ironic or pathetic, but there’s something <that word> about flagging a discussion on this topic.

This is the bare minimum. This person worked for Facebook for just under a year taking its money while building and securing a platform/growth opportunity for white supremacy and other extremist views, and given what we know about Facebook compensation, likely did very well for that almost year. This is a good first step, but I’m curious why Facebook’s defense/promotion of white supremacy, its support for Brett Kavanaugh, and the genocide in Myanmar, which this engineer mentioned in their resignation post, wasn’t worth quitting over two weeks ago. Edit: referring to this tweet screenshotting the same engineer’s post about resignation. https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1267864584867557376?s=20 https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1267864584867557376?s=... Quoting the resigned: “Facebook, complicit in the propagation of weaponized hatred, is on the wrong side of history.”

birdyrooster 6y ago
They drank too much of their own Kool-Aid thinking they could reform Facebook, an undemocratically governed institution. Facebook has lost a lot of great talent because of how they treat not only their customers but their employees too. Draconian performance metrics keeping top performers from getting raises, and letting people who game the system increase their pay. Because of their engagement with universities, a lot of their employees have very little experience in any other corporate environment so they don’t recognize mismanagement when they see it.

minimaxir 6y ago

Facebook is apparently currently having an all-hands that is not going well: > have to say, from what me, @sheeraf and @ceciliakang are hearing....this is not going over super well. > Zuckerberg spent probably 20-30 minutes delivering his reasons for the post staying up. now taking pointed and heated questions from employees directly https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1267894523700457472 https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1267894523700457472

oiasdjfoiasd 6y ago
IMO it will be a sad sad day when social media can strong arm companies into taking actions that affect free speech and censorship.
lostmsu 6y ago
Prior to hearing what he had to answer, I'd like to applaud Mark for daring to speak and argue directly about the heated matters.
- burkaman 6y ago
  He runs the company? It is not brave to talk to people you are paying to do a job.
  - lostmsu 6y ago
    His responses will have ramifications for the Facebook investors, including himself. Also, for his very public image.
  - brlewis 6y ago
    On the contrary, when you're paying people to do a job, explaining why you've decided a certain way is not your obligation. And when the people you're paying are software engineers, you're unfortunately inviting verbal abuse. (This should change.) [Obligatory disclaimer that I don't approve of everything he does]
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
      > when you're paying people to do a job, explaining why you've decided a certain way is not your obligation. Isn’t this at odds with your tagline: HowTruthful helps you make better evidence-based decisions, and helps you communicate opinions effectively. Communicate opinions effectively, unless you’re paying someone to enact your opinions, in which case fuck them.

turndown 6y ago

We live in such cynical times that instead of simply applauding someone for doing the right thing they are either accused of virtue signalling or criticized for having associated with people before it was totally apparent what their moral stances were.

brink 6y ago
Not everyone (me included) believes the censorship he's calling for is the right thing.
- badrabbit 6y ago
  Do you have a better solution? And are you aware that no action means people will die and global economy as a whole might crumble?
  - programmarchy 6y ago
    Without censorship, people will die and the global economy might crumble? Seems like a very odd conclusion. Besides, the global economy in its current form is completely unsustainable. I understand the importance of racial justice, but are you saying somehow the global economy (I read that as multinational capitalism) is some vanguard of this principle?
    - badrabbit 6y ago
      If someone is actively coordinating to an end that will result in people dying, should you not censor? Why have a mechanism to censor to begin with? > I understand the importance of racial justice, but are you saying somehow the global economy (I read that as multinational capitalism) is some vanguard of this principle? This has nothing to do with racial justice. Continued unrest, rioting,etc... Will enable a steeper curve for the 2nd wave of Corona. No bailout or any government measure will help. The US economy will not collapse by itself, jusr like in 2008 it will affect the global economy. This is the 11th hour! Facebook is enabling all this. I understand if they had an unmoderated platform, but they moderate plenty! In the end the consequence is something you must acknowledge at least as a possibility when saying "censor things but not nazis and race war propaganda" This isn't about censorship,it's about policy. Do you also oppose fact checking? FB does!! > Besides, the global economy in its current form is completely unsustainable. So we should let it collapse? And how many wars and famine should be tolerated? I am all for change but not the "watch the world burn" kind of change. P.S.: Please lookup the meetings between Zuckerberg and republican leadership this year. This is strictly about politics,not censorship.

99_00 6y ago

"I cannot stand by Facebook’s continued refusal to act on the president’s bigoted messages aimed at radicalizing the American public." What is this message and does anyone have a source?

CodeWriter23 6y ago
Watch CNN/MSNBC instead of the raw feed on The White House YouTube channel.
malloreon 6y ago
You must have missed when trump tweeted/fbed “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” late last week.
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  And it has, as people take the law into their own hands. Unfortunately in 2020 we’re still arguing whether violence is ok.
- 99_00 6y ago
  He clarified his comments and his explanation is not inflammatory. "Looting leads to shooting, and that's why a man was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday night - or look at what just happened in Louisville with 7 people shot," Trump tweeted https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-defends-his-when-the-looting-starts-the-shooting-starts-tweet-2020-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-defends-his-when-the-l... People should be given a chance to explain what they said if it is misinterpreted. Focusing on the misinterpretation after the explanation has been made is in-fact inflammatory and divisive.
  - malloreon 6y ago
    It’s been way too many years to give trump the benefit of the doubt. His words are never misinterpreted.
    - 6y ago

NickM 6y ago

I'm always conflicted when I read about this kind of thing. I do think Facebook is actively making the world worse in many ways, but is it better for the people who care about this to quit in protest, or is it better if they stay and try to make things better from the inside? Will actions like this actually hurt the company, or will it just prompt them to hire replacements who have no such ethical qualms, and who may nudge the company in an even worse direction? I don't have an easy answer, and I can certainly imagine how difficult it would be to get up and go to work for an employer every day that you see as evil, so I don't judge the author of this post for leaving...but I think it is still a question worth contemplating. I'd love to hear what other peoples' thoughts are on this.

iso1631 6y ago
He answerd that in his post - Zuckerberg has no intention of listening to internal pressures. Ultimately you have to vote with your wallet.
- NickM 6y ago
  Where did he answer that? I re-read the post but I don't see anything like what you're referencing. Voting with your wallet is another possible approach, but that only works if the lost revenue from all the people who care enough to leave can offset the extra profits FB is making by being evil. FWIW I deactivated my account over a year ago and never looked back, but I did that more out of concern for my own mental health than anything else, and I'm under no illusions that my solitary gesture will make much difference in the grand scheme of things.
  - malloreon 6y ago
    If you use any of Instagram, messenger, or WhatsApp, you vote with your wallet to keep Facebook alive.
    - FabHK 6y ago
      WhatsApp doesn't carry ads (yet), does it? How does using WhatsApp support Facebook? [Serious question... I'm trying not to support Facebook, but do use WhatsApp.]

FabHK 6y ago

> since June 2019 I have been at Facebook, working on battling the spread of misinformation. I applaud his principled stance. But he is probably the last person that should leave FaceBook now.

thephyber 6y ago
Users on social networks are fickle. They will tire of the existing FB platforms soon enough and his talent and integrity and will be more useful on the next FB replacement.
- mytherin 6y ago
  Then FB will buy the next FB replacement, and he will be back to square one. At this point I find it unlikely that FB will be dethroned unless government steps in. The lock-in is too widespread, and their cash reserves too large for anyone to threaten their position. FB is not going to fall like MySpace did. The internet has changed a lot since 2005.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    > Then FB will buy the next FB replacement, and he will be back to square one. That seems like a function of how much the owners of the new company value their integrity and how much of a price they extract from Zuck if they do sell. At some point, not selling to FB could be a currency (the new upstart could pull talent which would otherwise not want to work at FB). > FB is not going to fall like MySpace did "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes." I suspect we will have to check back in on the health of Facebook after another 6 months of the COVID-economy ravages the advertising market. I think FB will be able to see the need to pivot; whether they are able to is not yet known. > I find it unlikely that FB will be dethroned unless government steps in. I think more likely users will just leave/atrophy on it like Gen Z largely did or possibly just suffer a slow death if global advertising doesn't recover to previous levels.
    - hejja 6y ago

GekkePrutser 6y ago

Lol... A bit late to grow a conscience isn't it? Better late than never I suppose. But it's clear Facebook has always been rotten to the core. After the Cambridge Analytica thing, Zuckerberg practically lying in inquiries...

s5300 6y ago
Are there people who were ever under the guise that it wasn't? Are there people that work for Facebook that do not know of the nice words Zuckerberg had to say about the people who initially gave Facebook their information? I'm not trying to sound snarky, but it's pretty damn obvious to anybody with a functional & logical brain that Zuckerberg is internally an angry outcast of a nerd fulfilling his fantasies of revenge... against, something that hurt him sometime in his life...

anigbrowl 6y ago

This is a nice gesture, but a more helpful one would be leaking their internal documents/information to reduce the objectionable power asymmetry. Spill the beans. Put money not into the nonprofit-industrial complex but toward the development of better tools or to allow counter-campaigning in some form. Offer to perform work for free for people who have been calling out this problem for a long time, so as to map out radicalization networks without having to get approval to use crowdtangle or sign NDAs.

thrownaway954 6y ago

whatever... this guy is a moron in my book. love how he quits a job that my people would kill for especially in these "uncertain times" and without having a new one first. i hope he finds one, but i wouldn't doubt him having a hard time right now given the current climate of covid and political upheaval. personally i think he should have found a job that suited his political beliefs while continuing to work at facebook. if there is one thing that life has taught me is that you never quit your current job until you have a new one or a new plan. "reaching out to your network" is not a plan, it's desperation.

s5300 6y ago
How do you know he doesn't have a new job or plan? That's a.. rather large assumption.
- thephyber 6y ago
  From OP's post: > I’m open to any interesting, high-impact work. Even if you don’t have contacts in the education/social good space, I’d be grateful for your support in connecting me with companies looking to hire someone like me.
TomBombadildoze 6y ago
43k reactions and 1600 comments. You know, I feel like he just might pull through and score another job.
agildehaus 6y ago
Or maybe he knows he won't have much trouble finding one.
chromeunagi 6y ago
maybe you're the moron in not realizing that people can have values other than yours. maybe some prioritize their values to their financial security. maybe this guy is already financially independent. there's more to life than working a prestigious job -- if you don't have values and the spine to live your life true to them, what's the point?

vthallam 6y ago

[disclosure: I work on Instagram at Facebook] While some are feeling sad and think quitting is the only way, I feel it's important for employees who care to stay and help implement the changes. I am proud how employees are voicing their opinion inside the company and I hope we see some changes soon.

danhak 6y ago
It's a corporation, not a democracy. Any "voice" employees have is an illusion when the CEO has his mind made up and controls a majority of voting shares.
- lexs 6y ago
  unless unionisation?
  - gentleman11 6y ago
    Political unions?
- warent 6y ago
  Engineers can still do things such as mass walk-outs and strikes, which affect profits and shareholder confidence in leadership. But if the people who care just quit one by one, they'll only be replaced by people who dont care and will never do those things.
trhway 6y ago
"from inside" never works, it is just an excuse. Just face the reality - you like this big money more. I'd too if I made it through the interview.
ogre_codes 6y ago
It's pretty clear FB management cares first and foremost (perhaps exclusively about) profitability. So the biggest and most effective way of communicating to Facebook management is to hit their bottom line. Part of that includes making it more expensive for them to recruit and retain talent. Refusing to advertise on Facebook and Boycotting their apps likewise. History suggests profitability is the only thing which changes Zuckerberg's mind.

cryptica 6y ago

Listening to a Facebook employee talk about human rights is like listening to a butcher talk about animal rights. Unfortunately, it's difficult to hear their voice over the sound of their blade hitting the cutting board.

s5300 6y ago

Page no longer found on LinkedIn?

thephyber 6y ago
Works for me.

thecleaner 6y ago

I just looked at this guys resume. Its pretty great. Kudos for standing up too. Hope he gets a great next job.

ALittleLight 6y ago

Personally, I agree with Zuckerberg. Facebook in particular, and tech companies in general, should not be unilaterally making choices that fundamentally affect our government. Facebook is right to keep both harsh words from Trump and the video of Floyd's murder. That said, I applaud the author for standing by his principles and putting his money where his mouth is.

klingonopera 6y ago

The problem with being a Facebook-user is quitting it while trying to keep in touch with your friends. Presently, this only works if Facebook itself would fail. I believe if it were still possible to keep in touch with Facebook friends and content without being a Facebook-user yourself, we can subvert the Network Effect, which in the first place is what Facebook owes its dominance to. A solution may be to force social media companies by law to adhere to a standard on information exchange, much like e-mail and http protocols. If there is such a thing as "OpenBook" and it still allows me to communicate, comment, view and react to FB-content, I'd ditch FB in an instant.

beamatronic 6y ago
It sounds like your social graph should be portable, so you can take it to a neutral 3rd party.
- dirtydroog 6y ago
  Your phone has a phonebook.
- FabHK 6y ago
  That would be a dream. Switch providers, keep your phone number ^W^W username and social graph.
- gazzini 6y ago
  I’m interested in decoupling personal data from the application layer. Solid[0] is one such experiment. It seems doomed though... and even if it does “work”, I imagine the nightmare scenario where, in order to use FB, you have to give them FULL ACCESS to aaaaaaalll of your data (email, contacts, messages, etc...). There are also technical concerns around caching / rate-limiting, UX concerns around the complexity, and operational concerns around business models that don’t involve a Dragon’s cave full of data. But, I hope something like this works. Or maybe just better tools for personal blogs again? [0] https://solid.mit.edu https://solid.mit.edu
landryraccoon 6y ago

29athrowaway 6y ago

For years now, major internet companies operating in China had to comply with censorship, surveillance, etc. These companies have three options: comply with the local law (however abusive or unethical it is), stop operations or be willing to be penalized. Zuckerberg wants to just preserve the status quo, where Facebook is protected from liability and can remain being profitable. The alternative is to wilfully expose Facebook to an unacceptable amount of liability. Facebook does not have as much power as you think in this situation.

Mirioron 6y ago

This is why large social media platforms need to have their hands tied when it comes to free speech. They either have it or they don't. This kind of back and forth where they claim to support free speech, but any time somebody says something they don't like it becomes "an issue that must be addressed" needs to stop. The end result of this is that some people's speech is free, but others' isn't. Either you have free speech for everyone or you just don't have free speech. I do applaud him for standing up for his convictions.

oiasdjfoiasd 6y ago
This this this.
jjjensen90 6y ago
There is no free speech on private social media platforms
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  But there could be. And there should be.
  - freen 6y ago
    You could allow Nazis at your personal house party also. It is legal, due to the first amendment, but it sure does say a lot about you as a person.
  - httpsterio 6y ago
    Why? If I'm running a platform, I would run it with my personal values which might or might not be the same as what's considered moral or right by the eyes of law. As long as my values are not directly illegal, I won't compromise on the values nor let anyone else use my product or platform for that. I think it should be allowed to take a moral stand, which is why your freedom of speech has nothing to do with social media and I'm glad about it as well.

somecommit 6y ago

After all the shitty things facebook did in the whole world, inducing depression, suicidal behaviors for the most fragile etc... this person resigns because the CEO refused to censor the elected POTUS. I have a hard time to figure what's going on in his head, and how he thinks it's helping democraty.

throwanem 6y ago
Better late than never.
CharlesW 6y ago
> I have a hard time to figure what's going on in his head, and how he thinks it's helping democraty. Interesting. I have a hard time understanding out how it could be any clearer.
- naasking 6y ago
  > Interesting. I have a hard time understanding out how it could be any clearer. Sure, censor POTUS so when the tanks roll in, people have no idea what's going on. I think it's pretty clear that your national leader should never be censored because the people he's governing have an absolute right to know every single thing he says.
  - dd36 6y ago
    Right. He has no other avenues of communication available... Even TV stations have to cut away from his nonsense, should that be illegal?
    - naasking 6y ago
      So your argument is that this isn't a big deal because POTUS has other communication media available, but then proceed to immediately contradict yourself by saying that those media also censor POTUS. Whether this should be a legal requirement, I can't say. But it does seem pretty clear that if POTUS is speaking to the public, the public should be able to hear the message if they choose, regardless of whether you personally dislike the message or POTUS.

HissingMachine 6y ago

I fully understand his reasoning and respect it as a principled action. Though, viewing it from the company perspective it really isn't that easy to just do those things he is demanding, and doing it could just cause a misstep to even further in the hole. Twitter has taken a stand, but doing so they have invited a lot of scrutiny on them, and escalation to further actions that would just increase the pain, for the company and their community. On one hand you have the demand to widen their actions to cover almost anything on their platform, and if they don't they just appear hypocritical or worse politically motivated, further movement to this would harm their community and make their platform worse. Second the inevitable push back from various actors, like Ted Cruz with the Iran sanctions, and Trump pushing to throw away the Section 230, and who knows what else this all will lead to. So making it sound like it's just a choice between coffee and frappuccino, instead of potentially throwing your whole company with the platform and it's community to a chaos, isn't a light decision. And making it sound like it is, isn't actually helping neither Twitter nor Facebook.

jackdh 6y ago

Everything else aside, is anyone else a fan of that CV layout?

gruglife 6y ago

I really don’t think FB’s brass really cares. I’m sure there are a lot of people wanting to work at FB that these people are easily replaceable

throwanem 6y ago
I just told a Facebook recruiter, in so many words, that I will not now or at any future time work with Facebook in any capacity, and to ensure inasmuch as it's possible that I'm never contacted by any internal or external Facebook recruiter again. Granted, I would've said that anyway. But I suspect there's more who'll say the same today than there were a week ago.

tribeofone 6y ago

Nothing says 'white privilege' like being able to quit your high paying cushy job over your 'principles'. Congratulations! It might have been smarter to just donate 90% of your salary, STFU, and go to work to stay out of poverty. That would be a less self-serving action with real impact.

mr_spothawk 6y ago

so, he waited for the 12 months to finish so he could keep whatever equity & then bailed. good for him, 4.0, expensive school, facebook pedigree... this guy is going places.

pwdisswordfish2 6y ago

Ultimately, it is Mark Zuckerberg's website and therefore the content reflects the views of Mark Zuckerberg. He has the final say on whether something is published on the website or not. It really should not matter how many "members" or "guest contributors" he has, even if it is in the billions. User-generated content is just a way to get traffic. What if the controversial speaker had his own website where he published his comments? Would Cloudflare keep it online? Instead of an overgrown website eclipsing the web, the issue then shifts to one or a few companies dominating access to hosting. Common words used in idealistic HN comments are "decentralisation" and "democracy". Neither concept suppports the idea of "minority rule" which is what we have in the case of the FAANG and a few other companies.

infoseek12 6y ago

Maybe if Facebook closes down Trump's account he won't have any way to communicate with the 42 percent, or so, of America that supports him. Maybe they can ban all of the hundred million plus members who might speak positively of him? Maybe when they do ban those people they will simply disappear and only people who agree with us will remain on this corporal plain? That's not how it will play out. There will be no deus ex machina to save you from much of humanities idiocy. Those people will move over to some other platform that's friendly to their views. Many of you are programmers and you know it's not impossible difficult to build a platform like Facebook or Twitter. Very quickly, you have a brand new self reinforcing network, populated by much of America, that will be even more hostile to the values most of us hold dear, America will be even more fractured, and Trump and his Red Hats will have another talking point about the biased media that's "censoring the truth".

r00fus 6y ago

MZ has autocratic control over Facebook, for better or worse, and it doesn't seem like he's interested changing his mind. If you disagree with MZ to the point where you can't be effective/happy, this is probably the best course of action. I used to advocate for changing systems from within, but if an institution is simply incapable of change, then it will change you.

Gunax 6y ago

Facebook cannot be the arbiter of facts and truth. IMO people are assigning way too much power to facebook. Everyone knows Facebook is just the national enquirer of the internet--no one really cares what shows up there. The reason censorship is flawed is not that everything is true--it's that handing over the power to censor has never turned out well. Was Obama lying when he said 'if you like your healthcare, you can keep it'? Well, it depends on who you ask and your interpretation of that, but he later apologized for the remark. Don't be so quick to call for a revolution, lest you find yourself at the pitchfork's tip.

hejja 6y ago
words are never exact and therefore the message is always subjective. censorship is bad.

bambataa 6y ago

Complete sidenote to the post: I'm looking at this guy's CV and when describing what he did as a head TA he says "developed and taught lectures; designed and administered exams". I thought TAs were meant to be secondary help when running a course. Sounds like the TAs were running this course. Is that normal?

divbzero 6y ago
Increased teaching responsibilities for TAs definitely happens at universities, especially for larger courses where TAs divide a large class into smaller sections. This seemed to be the case for OP and is all the more expected given that he was head TA.
Gunax 6y ago
When reading a resume, it's important to remember that often one attributes group effort to oneself. That's just the generally agreed upon etiquette for resumes. So a programmer who says 'Designed and developed a Ruby web app' probably did not do it herself from start to finish--she worked on a team with 20 others. That is meant to be understood in resume-speak and isn't misleading. If I were reading that, I would infer that he assisted a professor in preparing/reviewing material, lead discussions (perhaps in study sessions or small groups), and suggested or wrote exam material on behalf-of and with the professor's approval.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
davidajackson 6y ago
Yeah it's pretty common, for example the TAs at Stanford taught a few of the engineering lectures sometimes. I think maybe it was to help them internalize the material and also practice teaching.
Evidlo 6y ago
For some courses, yes. In Senior Design at UIUC the TAs basically run the whole course and the professors are there to evaluate the teams' final presentation and the end of the semester.

timonoko 6y ago

What? Donald Trump is on Facebook too. I only recently heard about his Twitter account, but not because of what he was tweeting. But because he cannot unfriend anybody (as a public official?). Most of the Finnish Government has unfriended me, so important Corona-related Health Ministry tweets have not reached me.

travisoneill1 6y ago

Seems like this is an easy problem to solve. Allow users to control their own content filters instead of removing the offending content from the platform altogether. Unless this isn't actually about that, and is really just people trying to shut down opinions they don't agree with...

programmarchy 6y ago
I've wondered this myself. Platforms could censor illegal material as required by law, then leave the gray areas to users. There's a pretty big technical challenge, though, because instead of training a single one-size-fits-all algorithm, you suddenly have to train N algorithms, where N is the number of users on your platform. In order to scale, this training may have to be done on the client. But in addition to the technical challenge, I doubt these platforms want to cede the enormous power they have over information distribution. Right now Twitter can flex on the president of a global hegemon, which is crazy power. Why would they give that up?
- travisoneill1 6y ago
  N is the number of content types (still a lot), so FB only needs one misinformation filter, and you the user could choose whether or not you want that one.
javagram 6y ago
This is not about user filters. I haven’t seen trump’s post on my Facebook because I don’t follow him. This is about employees who feel that Trump is so dangerous that his posts should be deleted or hidden to prevent his willing followers from seeing them. Needless to say, any open protocol Facebook alternative would still allow Trump to broadcast his evil messages. Just like he is able to send emails and texts with the messages to his supporters today. Is the next step AT&T and Verizon and TMobile employees demanding trump campaign SMSes be censored ? What is the meaningful difference between that and a tweet/post?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

minton 6y ago

I think so few employees will actually walk away, that him leaving won’t have any impact. They might have had more impact by sticking around to Exert some influence from the inside.

subsaharancoder 6y ago
> They might have had more impact by sticking around to Exert some influence from the inside. Burn the house from inside while enjoying all the benefits it provides including 6 figure salary, bonuses, perks and stock..this is what is wrong with the current generation of keyboard activists!! (I'm not accusing you of being one) if one fundamentally disagrees with the principles of a business that they willingly signed up to work for, one should at least have the conviction to walk away and advocate for change from the outside.

NonEUCitizen 6y ago

Didn't FB recently create some oversight board? Has it weighed in yet?

morethanjs 6y ago

Hey Facebook I'll take this guy's position. My code's way better and I won't even publicly shame you when I leave.

vntok 6y ago
No need for signalling point #1, point #2 alone makes you a much better fit to any company than that guy.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

RickJWagner 6y ago

I once had a work/politics conflict. I did not like the idea of the ACA (Obamacare). I've seen government run healthcare and did not think it was good. But the will of the people was implemented, and ACA was put in place. The launch was awful. The website crashed multiple times daily, and people lost their input data all the time. It was generating very big headlines. Then my company was asked to help make things better (along with Google, Oracle and a few others.) I was one of a relatively small number of people asked to help fix it. I did the best job I could. I didn't like the idea personally, but I considered it professionalism to make my best effort. My contributions were small, but I did what I could. Other members of the so-called 'Tiger Team' found bigger chunks that could be straightened out, and before too long the site was up and running. Today, this is one of my proudest work moments.

cheesecracker 6y ago

I wonder what future prospective employers think about his tendencies to publicly call out the company he works for? If eventually he quits his next job, what are the odds for him to be writing an inflammatory blog post about the company? It seems to me to not be a prudent strategy to bring politics into one's work (unless the job is political of course). On the other hand, maybe he finds a politically minded employer that way - maybe a leftist NGO or think tank? I frankly don't understand why such moves receive so much attention. People evaluate their employers or employment prospects all the time, and decide against jobs for a variety of reasons. What's the big deal?

WaitWaitWha 6y ago

When BBSes started to come about, we were warned repeatedly that censoring content would make us liable for the the contents themselves. If we did not, we could not be held liable. The only place we were told we can limit, is at account sign-up. What happened to this legal quandary? Facebook is not only a "carrier of posts" but also "arbiter of contents", in essence playing both. Is Facebook then liable for the contents? I am not referring to DMCA, but libel and related issues.

rowawey 6y ago

Must be a lot of racists on HN if this benign statement is flagged. :-/

lr4444lr 6y ago

You've gotta be kidding me. No, I'm not defending anything Trump has said on the platform, but I see FAR worse from many other people, the same people over and over, routinely, that goes unchecked.

jfengel 6y ago
Most of them don't have the power to actually order people to shoot.

davidajackson 6y ago

>> According to FB: We remove language that incites or facilitates serious violence Backstory to that Trump comment: 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. "He had a long history of bigotry against the black community," said professor Clarence Lusane of Howard University. ------------- I think suggesting shooting people sounds like "serious violence". It doesn't seem FB is following their own guidelines. Also, you don't suggest shooting someone for a crime instead of having a trial, that's not how justice should work. I agree with Twitter's stance on this. Put a flag next to the comment and let the public decide. I find it hypocritical that Facebook makes their logo black and then leaves a racist comment like that up.

tomp 6y ago
Maybe he wasn't threatening ("I'll shoot you" or "I'll order the police/army to shoot you") but instead warning ("violence might result in someone starting shooting").
- davidajackson 6y ago
  >> The police, Chief Walter Headley warned, would use shotguns and dogs at his command. The undertones of the original comment Trump is echoing imply differently.
  - Hitton 6y ago
    >The undertones of the original comment Trump is echoing imply differently. That wouldn't be removing just "language that incites or facilitates serious violence" but also "language that has undertones that echo inciting or facilitating serious violence".
    - davidajackson 6y ago
      Trump is a powerful enough person that his undertones have the ability to incite people. I know I'm getting downvoted into oblivion and I understand the importance of free speech. I just like Twitter's approach better.

dhruvkar 6y ago

Are the views on MZ really that he's letting Facebook excuse Trump? I see it as him trying to navigate the middle of pretty treacherous waters. I don't see profit or unwilling to toe the line with the administration as being a motive. It genuinely seems that FB doesn't want to wade into the censorship game. And is there a better path forward for Facebook (or any platform)?.

sizzle 6y ago

Anyone know why downvote functionality is not working for me on this thread only?

tobr 6y ago
Probably because it was flagged to death. I’m not sure if the word I’m looking for is ironic or pathetic, but there’s something <that word> about flagging a discussion on this topic.