8 ms·
Facebook engineer Ashok Chandwaney quits with scathing letter
- thundergolfer 6y agoLegal and free speech issues aside, on Twitter I’m subscribed to an account that posts the ‘Top 10 most engaged articles/accounts on FB this week’ lists and it’s just damning how dominant hateful far-m right content is. I get the idea of joining Facebook to do excellent engineering work, but for most at the company the outcome of all that excellent engineering is more people spending more time engaging with ‘Obama is a secret Muslim’ and QAnon type articles. I hope Ashok finds good work at a quality company soon.
- anoncareer0212 6y agonailed it - same thing utterly convinced me, observing the top daily stories over time makes you clear-eyed. it's no different than when i was 7, at the grocery store, and wouldn't stop asking my mom why tabloids were sold on the checkout lane caps if they were made up lies about conspiracies they don't sell them on the checkout caps anymore
- ianbicking 6y agoWhat's the Twitter account?
- thundergolfer 6y agoIt’s @FacebooksTop10 and it’s run by Kevin Roose who is a tech writer for NYT. He focuses some of his time on how hate speech and conspiracy theories thrive on Facebook, which is pretty interesting.
- ryathal 6y agoFacebook is the one major social network not censoring the right. The left doesn't make the top 10 because they are far too diffuse among other networks, but no less hateful. Reddit is actively working towards censoring anything right of Hilary and barely tolerating anything right of Bernie. Twitter is actively suppressing the POTUS. Far left views get diluted between Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit.
- cbnotfromthere 6y agoBecause the left-wing is a hodge-podge of views and "principles" inconsistent to each other, the internal cannibalization of the left-wing front is a given. This is just one episode from this never ending saga of the left circular shooting squad. See: #MeToo, Rowlings, Feminists vs. LGBTQ+, etc. All these happening in what's arguably the most diverse, the most open, the most immigrant-welcoming society on Earth.
- refurb 6y agoInteresting how all of the examples of hate speech are from the far right, but none from the left. Sounds like Ashok is just upset Facebook doesn’t censor political views he disagrees with.
- sg47 6y ago"Hitler did right by killing all Jews. All Jews must be wiped out from this earth." - what should happen if someone posts this?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mc32 6y agoSame as should happen to people who say "death to all cops" and the like? No single group should endure these epithets. Either you allow them all or you allow none.
- jayd16 6y ago...yes? Sounds good. Calls to violence should not be tolerated.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deanCommie 6y agoStrawman. defund the police and "ACAB" is far from "death to all cops"
- mc32 6y agoof course, but I'm not quoting ACAB or defund the police.
- ihm 6y agoBeing a cop (an agent of the state permitted to use deadly force) is a job. It is in no way comparable to being a member of a persecuted ethnic and religious minority. EDIT: Amazed at how much I’m being downvoted for this. Didn’t realize how many “blue lives matter” people browse HN.
- 0xy 6y agoNo word on the proliferation of Antifa-affiliated groups on the platform though, fresh after their cold blooded execution of a peaceful Trump supporter during mass rioting in Portland. [1] Alternative title: Politically biased engineer quits because his company won't censor his ideological enemies. [1] https://nypost.com/2020/09/05/antifa-shooter-michael-reinoehl-appeared-to-target-victim-photos/ https://nypost.com/2020/09/05/antifa-shooter-michael-reinoeh...
- chromedev 6y agoAntifa isn't a group they are just a right-wing strawman.
- 0xy 6y agoIs Washington Post lying when they say he's a "vocal proponent of the far-left antifa movement"? [1] In fact, you appear to be attempting to disprove him in his own words, since he claimed to be "100% ANTIFA", again on Facebook. [2] [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/michael-forest-reinoeh-killed-portland-shooting/2020/09/04/652f6e98-ed44-11ea-99a1-71343d03bc29_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/michael-for... [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-reinoehl-suspect-portland-shooting-killed-federal-task-force/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-reinoehl-suspect-portla...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- site-packages1 6y agoHere’s a link to the letter. I almost joined FB for a ridiculous sum of money/equity and chose not to due to their participation in the proliferation of right wing/white supremicist hate speech. Two years later I am glad to have my position be vindicated by, inter alia, this letter. https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/047ba7bc-dc3c-4733-bd19-3f551eb0ee5a/note/8b6dd8e7-3c30-42b4-95c6-ef4c6659a34e.#page=1 https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/do...
- thex10 6y agoLink to the actual letter: https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/resignation-letter-from-facebook-engineer/0538edee-7487-4822-956a-e880c2024324/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/resignation-letter-fr...
- mellosouls 6y agopaywalled - is there an alternative link? Edit: thanks for the readable links!
- site-packages1 6y agohttps://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/047ba7bc-dc3c-4733-bd19-3f551eb0ee5a/note/8b6dd8e7-3c30-42b4-95c6-ef4c6659a34e.#page=1 https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/do...
- commoner 6y agoDirect PDF link: https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/047ba7bc-dc3c-4733-bd19-3f551eb0ee5a/note/8b6dd8e7-3c30-42b4-95c6-ef4c6659a34e.#page=1 https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/do...
- emerged 6y agoThis is literally just a political rant scribbled while slamming the door on an ex-employer. Seems like Facebook has reduced it's bias by one engineer as a result.
- silverlake 6y agoThailand forced FB to restrict access to a group criticizing the monarchy. Should FB comply with governments that want to silence and lie to their people? Should FB push for Western free speech ideals everywhere? I think FB is in a no-win situation. There is no consistent policy that works globally. All the discussion has been narrowly focused on the US, yet most FB users are outside the US. What should the policy be in countries with oppressive governments you don’t like?
- totetsu 6y agoIn Myanmar, Facebook has such a presence, that the word "facebook" was used in place of the internet. Mobile providers gave preferential(unmetered) access to facebook, so everyone uses it[0]. At the time of the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya, facebook had maybe one or two people who could speak the local language on staff..[1] Despite it being used by the whole country. The government used FB extensively to spread messages of ethnic hate, about the bad things Rohingya were doing.[2] I volunteered with some young Myanmar students in Japan at the time. They were completely adamant that Muslims were coming across the boarder and attacking Burmese people, and the government was just sending soldiers for security. They also let politicians spread hate in The Philippines (look up Maria Ressa's years of work about this.[3]) We don't need Tech experts running platforms of social exchange, we need them to be run by society experts.. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/01/facebook-free-basics-ending-myanmar-internet-org/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/01/facebook-free-basics-endin... [1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-facebook-hate/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-... [2] https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/dangerous-speech-anti-muslim-violence-and-facebook-myanmar https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/dangerous-speech-anti-muslim-v... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed7s4OL65IA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed7s4OL65IA
- wayne_skylar 6y agoWe all walk around with our model of the world in our heads. When we see something that reinforces our model we get a dopamine hit. "I knew I was right!" Instead of Fox or MSNBC selecting stories for a target audience facebook uses machine learning to find the perfect selection of stories to keep you hooked. Before Facebook had an algorithm you'd see peoples posts in chronological order. The moment they altered that was where they began to influence behavior. I do think that facebook is in the position to do something about its negative influence. And taking no action or saying "it's too hard to fix" is basically being complicit. You don't get to profit off of this machine without being responsible for its negative externalities. At least from a moral standpoint. The solution? Stop the manipulation of what users see based on machine learning. Users should see what their friends and groups post chronologically. What would be the downside of that? I'd spend less time on facebook (an upside if you ask me) and facebook would make less money.
- stopachka 6y agoThis is a very interesting solution: in effect _remove_ our interventions. If done cautiously, it could be very effective. Some of the counter to it could look like this: a. "Addicting" can be another synonym for "something people want, despite themselves", which means that it may not be up to Facebook: - If you remove sugar from snickers for example, it doesn't immediately follow that they will eat less sugar: they could just as well buy kit kats instead. The interesting question could be: how can we remove the machine learning intervention, while keeping engagement high?
- sp332 6y agoI'd argue that engagement is the wrong metric. For example, when Microsoft made the Windows Phone OS, they tried to keep interactions with the phone as brief as possible. Palm, too, had a three-click-maximum rule for their UI design. If we can't think of a good metric that should apply to everyone, just give users more control over what they see so they have a chance of figuring out something for themselves.
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- tmaly 6y agoIt seems motivated by ad dollars. If a potential customer wants to sell vitamins to someone with far right views, the platform needs those customers to be active. It needs them to provide signals so that it can identify who to show the ads to. Its that simple. I met up with a friend who spends thousands a day on Facebook ads. I have only spend $20 a week at most before, but it was just for testing. I had no idea how the latest system works. He opened my eyes to how valuable the profiles of people are to Facebook.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 6y agoI was a little annoyed by the formatting so here is the md to html version: https://siasky.net/EAC6We3XQV511dL6QnW4i0v5P7nkXrZaqbturF9ftOekLA https://siasky.net/EAC6We3XQV511dL6QnW4i0v5P7nkXrZaqbturF9ft... and the md: https://siasky.net/CAC3i72n4nno0lrq_gx_m3TanpTOgPFbIVolDUMRTZQWJw https://siasky.net/CAC3i72n4nno0lrq_gx_m3TanpTOgPFbIVolDUMRT...
- blastonico 6y agoWow, vacancy at Facebook. I'll send my resume!