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This film is full of hypocrites who got rich off social media and then found religion.

crystaln 6y ago
They were in their early 20s trying to build a company not knowing if they would succeed, and the downside of social media is still not well understood. People who realize their past actions caused harm should be praised not denigrated.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  Please. The free software movement has been highlighting the danger of software that works for its authors rather than its users for 35 years. If these very intelligent people are going to claim they didn't understand what they they were doing, my only response is: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    These companies are not software. They are services. Services people engage with voluntarily. When you engage with a company, any company, you can be sure your incentives are not completely aligned. In the case of social networks, the misalignments are particularly troubling.
    - ForHackernews 6y ago
      > These companies are not software. Oh whoops, you better tell Big Goog so they can stop paying all those expensive software engineers. I'm sorry but the apologist arguments on this thread are really laughable: "Nobody could have known!", "It's not software!", "Young teens can just voluntarily not use the software (sorry--"service") that all their friends are on!"
      - rbanffy 6y ago
        Are they selling you any software? I don't think so. They build and use software for their own goals. Your argument on open source doesn't really apply here.
        ForHackernews 6y ago
        I'm not talking about "open source" (a corporate red herring) -- I'm talking about free software. Free software empowers users to "run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software." Are any of those true of Facebook's software? Do you think these cloud companies could get away with the abuses that they do if users did have these key freedoms? The problem of software that works for its owners, rather than its users, is not a new one. It's disingenuous to pretend you only built an exploitative panopticon by accident.
        rbanffy 6y ago
        > Do you think these cloud companies could get away with the abuses that they do if users did have these key freedoms? The software doesn't run on the user's computer. You don't run Facebook - Facebook does, on their computers. The option rests with the users not to engage with their software. Being exploited by a corporation is not a universal right.
        ForHackernews 6y ago
        You're refusing to engage with the point I'm making (as is your right). But just to summarize: - "Nobody could have foreseen people getting sick when we fed them these poisoned cakes! Oh if only I hadn't made these millions of dollars making people sick!" - "Actually, many people over decades have argued that people should be able to see and modify the recipes that go into their food." - "No, that's completely different because, you see, these days Facebook is baking the poison cake in their own oven. It's not even a cake. It's a service that offers cake slices, and you're free to not eat them. (ps we also put little bits of our cake in 90% of the other food in the grocery store)"
rexpop 6y ago
Yes, and? It's impossible to escape [ideological indoctrination](https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideo...).

They were in their early 20s trying to build a company not knowing if they would succeed, and the downside of social media is still not well understood. People who realize their past actions caused harm should be praised not denigrated.

ForHackernews 6y ago
Please. The free software movement has been highlighting the danger of software that works for its authors rather than its users for 35 years. If these very intelligent people are going to claim they didn't understand what they they were doing, my only response is: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
- rbanffy 6y ago
  These companies are not software. They are services. Services people engage with voluntarily. When you engage with a company, any company, you can be sure your incentives are not completely aligned. In the case of social networks, the misalignments are particularly troubling.
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    > These companies are not software. Oh whoops, you better tell Big Goog so they can stop paying all those expensive software engineers. I'm sorry but the apologist arguments on this thread are really laughable: "Nobody could have known!", "It's not software!", "Young teens can just voluntarily not use the software (sorry--"service") that all their friends are on!"
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      Are they selling you any software? I don't think so. They build and use software for their own goals. Your argument on open source doesn't really apply here.
      - ForHackernews 6y ago
        I'm not talking about "open source" (a corporate red herring) -- I'm talking about free software. Free software empowers users to "run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software." Are any of those true of Facebook's software? Do you think these cloud companies could get away with the abuses that they do if users did have these key freedoms? The problem of software that works for its owners, rather than its users, is not a new one. It's disingenuous to pretend you only built an exploitative panopticon by accident.
        rbanffy 6y ago
        > Do you think these cloud companies could get away with the abuses that they do if users did have these key freedoms? The software doesn't run on the user's computer. You don't run Facebook - Facebook does, on their computers. The option rests with the users not to engage with their software. Being exploited by a corporation is not a universal right.
        ForHackernews 6y ago
        You're refusing to engage with the point I'm making (as is your right). But just to summarize: - "Nobody could have foreseen people getting sick when we fed them these poisoned cakes! Oh if only I hadn't made these millions of dollars making people sick!" - "Actually, many people over decades have argued that people should be able to see and modify the recipes that go into their food." - "No, that's completely different because, you see, these days Facebook is baking the poison cake in their own oven. It's not even a cake. It's a service that offers cake slices, and you're free to not eat them. (ps we also put little bits of our cake in 90% of the other food in the grocery store)"

rexpop 6y ago

Yes, and? It's impossible to escape [ideological indoctrination](https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideo...).