6 ms·

Facebook fired an employee who posted evidence of preferential treatment

152 points by RaitoBezarius 6y ago

arkadiyt 6y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077359
mhoad 6y ago
It feels like you have to squint fairly hard at this point to continue to see Facebook in the same terms that they define themselves as just being interested in "presenting the marketplace of ideas". This seems to be the latest in a pretty long series of actions that seem contrary to that idea and that something else might be the real motivating factor.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  "CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION OF FACEBOOK, INC. ARTICLE III: The purpose of the Corporation is to engage in any lawful act or activity for which corporations may be organized under the Delaware General Corporation Law." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512046715/d287954dex31.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512... Facebook is no different than any other Delaware corporation. Facebook exists to do anything and everything that will profit its shareholders. Everything else is just PR.
  - sjroot 6y ago
    This language is not exclusive to Delaware corporations, or even corporations. It is standard practice when incorporating any kind of business entity. Source: if you look at the articles of incorporation for my solely-owned and operated LLC, you'd find an identical purpose statement.
site-packages1 6y ago
I saw this yesterday. There were a shocking number of people bringing up and defending people like James Damore, the misogynist Google memo guy who guest starred on white power podcasts like Stefan Molyneux's. I don't like to be an an echo chamber, but I feel like praising that sort of thing is definitely in the relm of "far right" and makes me wonder if that's the sort of people HN is attracting?
- aaomidi 6y ago
  I see you're already getting downvoted? It's funny because the same people who support James Damore are also anti unionizing which would give them a stronger voice....
  - equality_1138 6y ago
    What's funny? Unionizing in the advertising/tech industry to push a political agenda is acting like sheep! How does anyone get fooled into this kind of philosophy? Mob rules? Look at the big picture and think for yourself for a change.
    - aaomidi 6y ago
      Unionizing to protect your job.
    - ChomskyNormal4m 6y ago
      It's funny how the managers, executives, board of directors, stockholders, business associations and their lobbyists all act together, pushing the political agenda - acting as a mob, as sheep - coming to a consensus - but we who are actually doing the work are lectured to isolate ourselves from one another, and not be a sheep who join a mob.
      - equality_1138 6y ago
        Excellent point but you're also advocating for a race to the bottom and us-versus-them mentality, which would certainly weaken your product. If anything we need greater attention to the employment-at-will legal standard in most industries, so that poor management can be dealt with effectively (if at all). Anyway it's hard to believe that widespread corruption could be rooted out by an uprising of young angry geeks :) Is there actual literature on unionizing in software engineering, or is it mostly impassioned blog posts?
A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
It is mildly off-topic, but it is not intended to derail this conversation. Did anyone else notice that Buzzfeednews and Yahoo news gotten somewhat decent ( as in, Yahoo actually had an in-depth analysis that wasn't all talking points ).
- wuunderbar 6y ago
  Buzzfeed (News) has been doing some decent investigate reporting for a while: https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/07/the-investigations-and-reporting-of-buzzfeed-news-not-buzzfeed-are-now-at-their-own-buzzfeednews-com/ https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/07/the-investigations-and-rep...
- pb7 6y ago
  From my basic understanding is that Buzzfeed != Buzzfeed News. News is apparently a well run organization and it’s a shame that it uses the same brand for this very reason.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    Yes but Buzzfeed News has also been caught asking Buzzfeed to report a story so Buzzfeed news can do the "According to Buzzfeed...." kind of game.
    - CathedralBorrow 6y ago
      I hadn't heard of this, can you link a news story or something about it?
  - MajorBee 6y ago
    I'm sure they must have had a conversation on the trade-off of having a "known name" attached to their investigative journalism wing and that very "known name" causing them to be negatively associated with vacuous listicles. Maybe once Buzzfeed News becomes a brand strong enough to stand on its own it'll be spun off as a separate organization altogether.
jerkstate 6y ago
It sounds like the issue is that fact-checkers are being overridden sometimes when they flag right-wing news sources. I think that if you asked a right-wing person, they would tell you that many of these fact-checker organizations have a distinct left-wing bias. Maybe they (the fact-checkers) aren’t infallible and get it wrong sometimes?
- kingkawn 6y ago
  If the basic work of fact-checking itself justifies removing right wing content the problem isn't the fact checkers.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    What about the fact checkers who rated the EFF as wrong on the warrantless surveillance issues?
    - _underfl0w_ 6y ago
      I don't care enough to have a horse in this particular comment race, but your comment is an obvious example of whataboutism. Not a solid foundation for any argument, regardless of the content. Something to consider. Plus the op specifically mentioned falability in fact checkers.
      - vorpalhex 6y ago
        > Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument. I'm directly providing a counter example. Most people here are very well equipped to understand the nuance of the warrantless surveillance issue and why the fact checker was quite wrong - part of why it's a meaningful case. Funny enough, your first statement is an example of the bandwagon fallacy. "Well I'm just a neutral party but..."
  - jerkstate 6y ago
Miner49er 6y ago
Facebook seems to have a conservative bias. I've never used it myself though, so I can't completely say. I'm also not saying whether or not they should, but they seem to. Zuckerburg regularly hangs out with conservative political figures, but not liberal or letist ones. [0] They censor the left regularly [1]. Also, is there even any leftist publications in the FB news tab? They let the right slide by on things regularly though. They don't censor racism. [2] And they apparently have a bias that allows right publications to break their rules. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-holding-private-dinners-with-conservatives-2019-10?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-holding-priv... [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/04/24/facebook-while-black-zucked-users-say-they-get-blocked-racism-discussion/2859593002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/04/24/facebook-whil... [2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employee-leaks-show-they-feel-betrayed https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employ...
- mikeshank 6y ago
  The way this year has been going I didn't think I would laugh again. Thank you!
- twic 6y ago
  There was also this business about removing fact-checking of a bunk climate science article at the behest of a Republican congressman: https://heated.world/p/fact-check-of-viral-climate-misinformation https://heated.world/p/fact-check-of-viral-climate-misinform... My interpretation of this is not that Facebook has a conservative bias (what does it even mean for a company to have a bias?), but that Facebook's leaders are well aware that the company are extremely vulnerable to regulation, and that keeping the current administration sweet is a good way of evading regulation. If the US enters 2021 with a Democratic administration not hamstrung by a Republican congress, i would expect the apparent bias to evaporate or reverse.
  - munificent 6y ago
    > My interpretation of this is not that Facebook has a conservative bias (what does it even mean for a company to have a bias?) It would mean that the company's actions benefit members of one side of the political spectrum more than the other. We're free to speculate about why a company's actions might do that and whether it's deliberate or an emergent consequence of some other intention, but I think it's fairly straightforward to define what bias would mean.
dangerface 6y ago
The title buzzfeed came up with is misleading as the article isn't really about an employee getting fired or their evidence. Its more a general editorial on Facebook and the US election.
- 1024core 6y ago
  Did you read the entire article? The engineer joined the company in 2016 and most recently worked on Instagram. He left the company on Wednesday. One employee on an internal thread seen by BuzzFeed News said that they received permission from the engineer to say that the dismissal “was not voluntary.”
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    It contains that information over two paragraphs but it took a lot of reading to get there. It doesn't appear to be about that issue at all.
ergodicity001 6y ago
I saw a video recently where someone was discussing Facebook's "moat". Essentially, among Big Tech, it has the least defensible moat, which I think is true. https://youtu.be/4SrxqfKn9Bw?t=1605 https://youtu.be/4SrxqfKn9Bw?t=1605 I think Facebook has very little choice right now. Libra could have been a moat, but it is more or less dead now. They are being cornered into being more pro-conservative, because otherwise their moat (engagement, which is what advertisers pay for) will collapse by the time COVID is done. They need to walk the fine line between proving their engagement and hoping that advertisers would actually want to show ads to the group which is engaged.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  > because otherwise their moat (engagement, which is what advertisers pay for) will collapse by the time COVID is done. What makes you say this? I don’t quite follow.
  - ergodicity001 6y ago
    I read that small businesses' ad spending account for over 90% of Facebook revenue. If there is one thing you don't want to be right now, it is a small business owner fighting to bring employees back to work in an unsafe environment while operating at reduced capacity. What's the incentive for the employee to return to work? Jim Cramer said it well on CNBC when he asked how he can compete with the federal government to bring people back to work: https://youtu.be/qG_Nq7kIojI?t=367 https://youtu.be/qG_Nq7kIojI?t=367 This is Jim Cramer we are talking about. He can probably even afford to overpay (and outbid the federal government) for a while to bring back his restaurant staff. Regular small businesses don't enjoy such advantages. When these small businesses start rolling over one by one, there will just be a lot fewer small businesses left. And those who do survive will probably shrink their ad budgets. I once heard a funny comment: Google shows you ads for stuff you know you want to buy. Facebook shows you ads for stuff you didn't know you want to buy (search intent of course). I would say search intent will drive ad spend for the foreseeable future. Plus, if it is a secular bear market for small businesses, ad rates on Google would also come down for those small businesses which do make it out alive at the end of COVID.
bra-ket 6y ago
Good job FB, don’t let woke liberals silence opponents

152 points by RaitoBezarius 6y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077359

It feels like you have to squint fairly hard at this point to continue to see Facebook in the same terms that they define themselves as just being interested in "presenting the marketplace of ideas". This seems to be the latest in a pretty long series of actions that seem contrary to that idea and that something else might be the real motivating factor.

sandworm101 6y ago
"CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION OF FACEBOOK, INC. ARTICLE III: The purpose of the Corporation is to engage in any lawful act or activity for which corporations may be organized under the Delaware General Corporation Law." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512046715/d287954dex31.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512... Facebook is no different than any other Delaware corporation. Facebook exists to do anything and everything that will profit its shareholders. Everything else is just PR.
- sjroot 6y ago
  This language is not exclusive to Delaware corporations, or even corporations. It is standard practice when incorporating any kind of business entity. Source: if you look at the articles of incorporation for my solely-owned and operated LLC, you'd find an identical purpose statement.

site-packages1 6y ago

I saw this yesterday. There were a shocking number of people bringing up and defending people like James Damore, the misogynist Google memo guy who guest starred on white power podcasts like Stefan Molyneux's. I don't like to be an an echo chamber, but I feel like praising that sort of thing is definitely in the relm of "far right" and makes me wonder if that's the sort of people HN is attracting?

aaomidi 6y ago
I see you're already getting downvoted? It's funny because the same people who support James Damore are also anti unionizing which would give them a stronger voice....
- equality_1138 6y ago
  What's funny? Unionizing in the advertising/tech industry to push a political agenda is acting like sheep! How does anyone get fooled into this kind of philosophy? Mob rules? Look at the big picture and think for yourself for a change.
  - aaomidi 6y ago
    Unionizing to protect your job.
  - ChomskyNormal4m 6y ago
    It's funny how the managers, executives, board of directors, stockholders, business associations and their lobbyists all act together, pushing the political agenda - acting as a mob, as sheep - coming to a consensus - but we who are actually doing the work are lectured to isolate ourselves from one another, and not be a sheep who join a mob.
    - equality_1138 6y ago
      Excellent point but you're also advocating for a race to the bottom and us-versus-them mentality, which would certainly weaken your product. If anything we need greater attention to the employment-at-will legal standard in most industries, so that poor management can be dealt with effectively (if at all). Anyway it's hard to believe that widespread corruption could be rooted out by an uprising of young angry geeks :) Is there actual literature on unionizing in software engineering, or is it mostly impassioned blog posts?

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago

It is mildly off-topic, but it is not intended to derail this conversation. Did anyone else notice that Buzzfeednews and Yahoo news gotten somewhat decent ( as in, Yahoo actually had an in-depth analysis that wasn't all talking points ).

wuunderbar 6y ago
Buzzfeed (News) has been doing some decent investigate reporting for a while: https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/07/the-investigations-and-reporting-of-buzzfeed-news-not-buzzfeed-are-now-at-their-own-buzzfeednews-com/ https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/07/the-investigations-and-rep...
pb7 6y ago
From my basic understanding is that Buzzfeed != Buzzfeed News. News is apparently a well run organization and it’s a shame that it uses the same brand for this very reason.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  Yes but Buzzfeed News has also been caught asking Buzzfeed to report a story so Buzzfeed news can do the "According to Buzzfeed...." kind of game.
  - CathedralBorrow 6y ago
    I hadn't heard of this, can you link a news story or something about it?
- MajorBee 6y ago
  I'm sure they must have had a conversation on the trade-off of having a "known name" attached to their investigative journalism wing and that very "known name" causing them to be negatively associated with vacuous listicles. Maybe once Buzzfeed News becomes a brand strong enough to stand on its own it'll be spun off as a separate organization altogether.

jerkstate 6y ago

It sounds like the issue is that fact-checkers are being overridden sometimes when they flag right-wing news sources. I think that if you asked a right-wing person, they would tell you that many of these fact-checker organizations have a distinct left-wing bias. Maybe they (the fact-checkers) aren’t infallible and get it wrong sometimes?

kingkawn 6y ago
If the basic work of fact-checking itself justifies removing right wing content the problem isn't the fact checkers.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  What about the fact checkers who rated the EFF as wrong on the warrantless surveillance issues?
  - _underfl0w_ 6y ago
    I don't care enough to have a horse in this particular comment race, but your comment is an obvious example of whataboutism. Not a solid foundation for any argument, regardless of the content. Something to consider. Plus the op specifically mentioned falability in fact checkers.
    - vorpalhex 6y ago
      > Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument. I'm directly providing a counter example. Most people here are very well equipped to understand the nuance of the warrantless surveillance issue and why the fact checker was quite wrong - part of why it's a meaningful case. Funny enough, your first statement is an example of the bandwagon fallacy. "Well I'm just a neutral party but..."
- jerkstate 6y ago

Miner49er 6y ago

Facebook seems to have a conservative bias. I've never used it myself though, so I can't completely say. I'm also not saying whether or not they should, but they seem to. Zuckerburg regularly hangs out with conservative political figures, but not liberal or letist ones. [0] They censor the left regularly [1]. Also, is there even any leftist publications in the FB news tab? They let the right slide by on things regularly though. They don't censor racism. [2] And they apparently have a bias that allows right publications to break their rules. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-holding-private-dinners-with-conservatives-2019-10?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-holding-priv... [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/04/24/facebook-while-black-zucked-users-say-they-get-blocked-racism-discussion/2859593002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/04/24/facebook-whil... [2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employee-leaks-show-they-feel-betrayed https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employ...

mikeshank 6y ago
The way this year has been going I didn't think I would laugh again. Thank you!
twic 6y ago
There was also this business about removing fact-checking of a bunk climate science article at the behest of a Republican congressman: https://heated.world/p/fact-check-of-viral-climate-misinformation https://heated.world/p/fact-check-of-viral-climate-misinform... My interpretation of this is not that Facebook has a conservative bias (what does it even mean for a company to have a bias?), but that Facebook's leaders are well aware that the company are extremely vulnerable to regulation, and that keeping the current administration sweet is a good way of evading regulation. If the US enters 2021 with a Democratic administration not hamstrung by a Republican congress, i would expect the apparent bias to evaporate or reverse.
- munificent 6y ago
  > My interpretation of this is not that Facebook has a conservative bias (what does it even mean for a company to have a bias?) It would mean that the company's actions benefit members of one side of the political spectrum more than the other. We're free to speculate about why a company's actions might do that and whether it's deliberate or an emergent consequence of some other intention, but I think it's fairly straightforward to define what bias would mean.

dangerface 6y ago

The title buzzfeed came up with is misleading as the article isn't really about an employee getting fired or their evidence. Its more a general editorial on Facebook and the US election.

1024core 6y ago
Did you read the entire article? The engineer joined the company in 2016 and most recently worked on Instagram. He left the company on Wednesday. One employee on an internal thread seen by BuzzFeed News said that they received permission from the engineer to say that the dismissal “was not voluntary.”
- renewiltord 6y ago
  It contains that information over two paragraphs but it took a lot of reading to get there. It doesn't appear to be about that issue at all.

ergodicity001 6y ago

I saw a video recently where someone was discussing Facebook's "moat". Essentially, among Big Tech, it has the least defensible moat, which I think is true. https://youtu.be/4SrxqfKn9Bw?t=1605 https://youtu.be/4SrxqfKn9Bw?t=1605 I think Facebook has very little choice right now. Libra could have been a moat, but it is more or less dead now. They are being cornered into being more pro-conservative, because otherwise their moat (engagement, which is what advertisers pay for) will collapse by the time COVID is done. They need to walk the fine line between proving their engagement and hoping that advertisers would actually want to show ads to the group which is engaged.

save_ferris 6y ago
> because otherwise their moat (engagement, which is what advertisers pay for) will collapse by the time COVID is done. What makes you say this? I don’t quite follow.
- ergodicity001 6y ago
  I read that small businesses' ad spending account for over 90% of Facebook revenue. If there is one thing you don't want to be right now, it is a small business owner fighting to bring employees back to work in an unsafe environment while operating at reduced capacity. What's the incentive for the employee to return to work? Jim Cramer said it well on CNBC when he asked how he can compete with the federal government to bring people back to work: https://youtu.be/qG_Nq7kIojI?t=367 https://youtu.be/qG_Nq7kIojI?t=367 This is Jim Cramer we are talking about. He can probably even afford to overpay (and outbid the federal government) for a while to bring back his restaurant staff. Regular small businesses don't enjoy such advantages. When these small businesses start rolling over one by one, there will just be a lot fewer small businesses left. And those who do survive will probably shrink their ad budgets. I once heard a funny comment: Google shows you ads for stuff you know you want to buy. Facebook shows you ads for stuff you didn't know you want to buy (search intent of course). I would say search intent will drive ad spend for the foreseeable future. Plus, if it is a secular bear market for small businesses, ad rates on Google would also come down for those small businesses which do make it out alive at the end of COVID.

bra-ket 6y ago

Good job FB, don’t let woke liberals silence opponents