34 ms·

Mark in the Middle

joejohnson 6y ago
Interesting how they reiterate over and over how right-wing media proliferates on the platform but imply that centrist/liberal propaganda does not. Is there evidence of this?
- johnward 6y ago
  I'm not sure where they get their data but this list is usually like %70 conservative media figures. https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10 https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10
- agloeregrets 6y ago
  For what it is worth, it’s been shown that the most popular and most shared posts for years have been basically 80% extreme conservative ones. See here: https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?s=21 https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?s=21 That said, this is no defense of left wing propaganda. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, just that by the numbers Facebook is mostly right wing users and that extreme right wing material is more popular. Interestingly the popular right-wing material tends to be non-party related. Probably because sharing extreme right viewpoints on a generally conservative site is how you get clicks. It’s profitable, even if your organization has no horse in the race.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > by the numbers Facebook is mostly right wing users and that extreme right wing material is more popular. Is that the case, or is it just that the extreme right wing posts get more traction than other posts. Like, are the extreme right wing posts more popular than all other posts combined, or are they getting e.g. on average 10 likes where other posts only get 7? The source on Twitter seems to only look at pages (i.e. curated content), not what people share. Since they're doing it manually according to the bio, the sample must be pretty small.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  Yes, there is at least some anecdotal evidence: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo#.fu2okXaeKo https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/how-mace... > Earlier in the year, some in Veles experimented with left-leaning or pro–Bernie Sanders content, but nothing performed as well on Facebook as Trump content. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/24/facebook-clickbait-political-news-sites-us-election-trump https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/24/facebook-... https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/
- Miner49er 6y ago
  Article about it, with some data backing it up: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/how-facebook-became-the-social-media-home-of-the-right https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/how-facebook-became-... They censor anti-racists: 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... AFAIK their new News tab has far-right publications like Breitbart, but no leftist publications.
  - ppod 6y ago
    "White men are so fragile," she fired off, " Not everyone would see that as anti-racism
  - dx87 6y ago
    Looks like that "anti-racist" is upset that she can't post racist and sexist things about white men. Not exactly the example I'd give to show that FB is censoring liberals.
    - legolas2412 6y ago
      The fact that you are getting downvoted tells me a lot. Censorship is going to never be fine, even if they pinky swear it will be used only on nazis.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - alehul 6y ago
    Please don't use a term like "anti-racist" for someone who says "Whites are $NegativeAdjective." It's really disingenuous rhetoric.
- joejohnson 6y ago
  why the downvotes for asking this question?
- josefresco 6y ago
  Yes: https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10 https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10 US conservative content consistently dominates these rankings. Facebook is now primarily a US right-wing/conservative propaganda platform.
jsiepkes 6y ago
> "The community we serve tends to be, on average, ideologically a little bit more conservative than our employee base." If I had to pick one sentence of the article which sums up the entire issue it would be this one.
- m0ck 6y ago
  I would go even further in this argument - it's the small, altough very loud minority of FB (or other IT company) employees, living in their Twitter feeds and causing outrage totally disproportional to their group size. The "missing snacks" example in the article illustrates it beautifully. I would argue that it actually concerns more employees than content policy issues.
  - sjg007 6y ago
    The irony is just delicious. It's just like the problem that very small minority of folks on FB have been given a megaphone to spread lies and hate. All FB has to do is tone down the engagement algorithms. Put up a bunch of invisible walls.
    - tqi 6y ago
      10 years ago the concern was filter bubbles. Now we want invisible walls?
      - sjg007 6y ago
        Yep, increase friction. Instagram is a good example.. You have to post a photo and you can't retweet.
        tqi 6y ago
        I think we would just be trading one set of problems for another, people are already physically self sorting so it's not clear to me that enhancing digital echo chambers would make things better.
ThomPete 6y ago
I will never understand the extreme intellectual fragility of cancel culture. A lot of kids must have grown up never facing and learning to to deal with disagreement or what is it that have created such a thin skinned generation of seemingly well educated people?
- gedy 6y ago
  I heard from a retired teacher that the change he saw over time in young people was somewhat due to they grew up in smaller families with 0-1 siblings, and didn't have to share rooms, toys, etc.
- actuator 6y ago
  Yeah, the way people like JK Rowling have been hounded for not agreeing on every point with some people is very depressing to see, considering that she has been quite supportive in the past of the very groups that are hounding her. Mob like behaviour to hound someone for their beliefs just reeks of illiberalism.
  - onion2k 6y ago
    Yeah, the way people like JK Rowling have been hounded for not agreeing on every point with some people is very depressing to see, considering that she has been quite supportive in the past of the very groups that are hounding her. She has changed a lot since writing Harry Potter. It's obvious that she no longer believes in supporting marginalised groups or telling people that it's OK to be who you want to be. Her recent work is extremely political and designed to further marginalise people who are already marginalised - she's literally just had a book published that's about a serial killer who dresses as a woman to approach and attack other women, which isn't even slightly veiled as an attack on the trans community. If that's how she thinks now then she has every right to be like that, but everyone else has the right to point out she's being an asshole. As always, there's an XKCD for this - https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
    - shiba_developer 6y ago
trabant00 6y ago
> Mark Zuckerberg has faced criticism that Facebook is bad for democracy. > Employees want him to take a harder line against the Trump Administration. They employees want to support democracy by taking a stand against the democratic chosen president. I have a hard time coming up with words to describe my disbelief. Guess it's time for companies to enforce "absolutely no politics at work" rules. And you can add religion and sexuality to the blacklist as well. Guess old days "professionalism" was not without reason. 20 year old me would utterly despise current me. I find it funny.
- Thlom 6y ago
  Talking about undemocratic ...
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  C'mon, if the concept of "democracy" means anything it has to include the notion that the guy who won the last election doesn't get to just do whatever he wants (especially if what he wants is to undermine or tamper with the next election!) You're not a democracy because you hold one legitimate election -- you have to keep on having fair elections! Good luck, America.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    The US doesn’t have a democracy. And there is almost nothing to prevent Donald Trump from staying in office if he loses the election. Edit: At the federal level, the United States is unequivocally not a democracy. The United States, overall, is a Constitutional Federal Republic with some Democratic traditions and processes at the state and local levels. US citizens do not directly elect the Presidency. The US method for electing a President is extraordinarily undemocratic. And if you disagree about Donald Trump staying in office please read this article. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-if-trump-loses-and-wont-leave/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-if-trump-loses-and... If Donald Trump loses the election, Republicans retain the Senate, Trump decides the election was a fraud, and Senate Republicans go along with him, there is absolutely fuck all that Biden could do.
  - 6y ago
henearkr 6y ago
This aligns with how I have always seen Facebook, in contrast to Google for example. In their business plan Google (now Alphabet) favors a "greater good" for society rather than purely revenue optimization, whereas Facebook centers on the revenue and does not shy away morally doubtful decisions (like selling user data without regard for their anonymity, which Google avoids by restricting sensitive access to closed-loop algorithms). And that makes sense in that Google historically (and still now) favors attracting talents and great minds (who lean leftwards) to work in its teams, to build the best technology, whereas Facebook tries to focus on its market, and how to please users (quite 50/50 politically) as well as business partners (maybe rather revenue-focused guys than socially responsible guys). Both approaches make sense, but I do prefer the Google approach.
- capableweb 6y ago
  > In their business plan Google (now Alphabet) favors a "greater good" for society rather than purely revenue optimization What dream world are you living in and also where do you get this from? Google, like countless other companies in tech, is a for-profit company, that optimizes for revenue and revenue only. If they are doing anything for the "greater good", it's because it'll eventually drive up their revenue. If they truly wanted to do something for the greater good, they'd turn Google/Alphabet into a non-profit. But alas, they are not.
  - actuator 6y ago
    I have no insight about what the parent comment said but Google at one point in the past did quit the Chinese market on principles, the success of their compatriots like Apple which were more flexible with their principles does show the opportunity they left.
  - henearkr 6y ago
    There are several ways to build a business plan to make profit, and Google chose the one where they attract and retain an elite scientific and engineering staff in order to build awesome products, and so they respect the ideological lining of these staffs. Facebook insists more, in a more conventional way for sure, on marketing and business negotiations. Both approaches "increase revenue", of course, however not the same way, not with the same timeline (one of them is more long-term than the other), and, last but not least, not with the same heartburn when I read about it. PS: greater good is not opposed to profit. Your physician gets your money to care for your health. He chose this job rather than, say, the military.
frgtpsswrdlame 6y ago
Whatever you think of the opinion of some of the employees regarding FB's stance towards politics, they're just never going to get their way without a union. It's exactly right that FB is a monarchy and what we see here are akin to the political challenges you'd read about in a monarchy. The small collective actions seem to be a good step in that direction but still much, much smaller than you'd need to form a union. We've seen recent unionization efforts in professional occupations that are shrinking - media & academia mainly. But I'm not sure political mishandling or ethical concerns about data are enough to overcome the fact that tech is growing and paying good wages. People need some self-interest at stake before they make the leap to something risky like that so we'll probably keep seeing this sort of employee flailing, be it leaks or small group actions or what have you.
- blueterminal 6y ago
  Unions are absolutely detrimental to the society. Thank god we'll never have one for Software Engineers. Great short explanation from Milton Friedman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzYgiOC9cj4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzYgiOC9cj4
  - hatenberg 6y ago
    Yea Europe is a workers hell hole because of this. /S
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - bzb5 6y ago
      It is. 50% of youth unemployment in Spain for example.
      - JakeTheAndroid 6y ago
        Oh I wasn't aware that was purely caused by Unions!! And you chose the EU country with one of, if not THE highest unemployment rate. Every country has issues. To say that Unions don't work when the EU has a strong union culture, and then scapegoat other issues in random EU countries is intellectually dishonest. Spain has insane unemployment rates because of generations of poorly thought out policies, not unions. They basically had a similar setup to Greece where tons of people don't pay taxes, and it survives heavily off tourism and produces few other things to make up for the tourism economy. Any country that generates MOST of its economy from tourism is going to have a rough time. We've seen it time and time again. None of this proves the EU is a hell hole, and it has no inherent relation to unions.
C1sc0cat 6y ago
He is Fucked if Biden wins - and I suspect the dual stock structure used to maintain control might get looked at by the SEC. The Board need to tell him " Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!"
- loxs 6y ago
  As an outsider (from a different continent), it doesn't seem at all likely that there is a chance for Biden winning. It probably looks the same from where Zuck is sitting. We might, of course, both be wrong :)
  - Cederfjard 6y ago
    I think that’s a take without merit. It’s certainly not clear-cut. Here’s The Economist and FiveThirtyEight both saying that they favor Biden to win (at the time of my posting this): https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
    - jcims 6y ago
      https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
      - pirocks 6y ago
        Not sure what your saying. But if your saying they got it wrong they gave trump a 25+% of winning. Things with a 1/4th probability happen all the time.
        scarmig 6y ago
        Sure, they happen, but how often? One in hundred times?
sjg007 6y ago
Zuckerberg has the power and is being played like a violin by Trump.
- lightgreen 6y ago
  And Trump is played by Putin, and Putin is played by green aliens.
  - sjg007 6y ago
    Zuckerberg is the real kingmaker here or he could be.
Traster 6y ago
It's pretty wild to see the framing here. Employees want him to take a harder line? How many? His user base wants him to do the opposite? Do they? Mark is a centrist! Wow! That's quite a revelation! >At another company, the CEO might have ignored such a question from his workforce or declined to take it at all. A lesser CEO might have balked at the challenge! But our illustrious hero steeled himself for the task. >With tens of thousands of employees and more than 3 billion constituents worldwide Constituents? Why are we using euphamistic language? Is it because constituents sounds nice and fluffy whereas "User" would fit in a sentence "Donald Trump used facebook to threaten to shoot people, Facebook's CEO decided that this was an appropriate use of Facebook" Sorry, as the article rightly points out, I'm biased, I oppose threats of violence. I'll leave true judgement to the enlightened centrists.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Premise: Diversity is good. Diversity means diversity of ideas. Ergo, you will disagree vehemently with people, and this is a good thing under the framework of diversity. Do not confuse disagreeing with someone as that person being morally sub-human, and if you are able to do this your life will be more pleasant. Disagreement is a good thing, it is society’s mechanism for decision making in complex circumstances.
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  > Do not confuse disagreeing with someone as that person being morally sub-human If your disagreement with that person is about whether someone else is considered less of a human than they are (by dint of race, wealth, sexuality, whatever), it's probably ok to consider them morally bankrupt on that basis.
  - yomly 6y ago
    A lot of the developing world are still deeply homophobic. Are all those people morally bankrupt and unworthy of a place in the hallowed gardens of equality? Maybe a point of view is crafted through a life's worth of conditioning and experience. We seem comfortable accepting that fact when considering social conditioning over other issues, but when it comes to conservatism we draw the line - they are the evil others. Unable to see how they are the sum of their life's experiences we draw up the lines, dig in our heels and choose our side - and in doing so force the other group to take a side. I have a lot of family who have views which would terrify liberals, but I know these people are also not evil but just have had their own life circumstances shape their views. Maybe people need to travel outside their comfort zones a little more...
    - zimpenfish 6y ago
      > Are all those people morally bankrupt and unworthy of a place in the hallowed gardens of equality? I would say that places in the "hallowed gardens of equality" are for those who believe in equality, not those who consider any set of other people as lesser. > and in doing so force the other group to take a side. No-one forces anyone to be racist, homophobic, etc. > have had their own life circumstances shape their views. That sounds like the "economic anxiety" excuse for racism.
mcintyre1994 6y ago
I think coverage of Facebook is often too US-heavy and it really misses the point by making it into a US partisan issue - this article mentions Trump but doesn't mention Ethiopia. Here's a Vice Article about how hate speech on Facebook is currently pushing Ethiopia toward a genocide just like it did in Myanmar a few years ago: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg897a/hate-speech-on-facebook-is-pushing-ethiopia-dangerously-close-to-a-genocide%C2%A0 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg897a/hate-speech-on-fac...
- croissants 6y ago
  I struggle with this issue. On the one hand, I think clear incitement to violence is a line that free speech shouldn't cross, so Facebook really should have deleted posts calling for some people to be burned more quickly. On the other hand, the idea that Facebook is culpable here seems to take for granted a large chunk of Ethiopians who'll just do what they're told by Facebook posts, which seems to give very little credit to the Ethiopian people or the ability of their government to maintain order. In that sense, it feels prejudiced and patronizing, like arguing that Facebook needs to police its Ethiopian presence because Ethiopia can't police itself.
  - benwad 6y ago
    IMO Facebook should be able to police its own platform, so if it has a large presence in Ethiopia then it needs to police that part of its platform (ideally using employees based in Ethiopia). If it feels it can't effectively police Ethiopian Facebook without amplifying hateful/violent messages then they shouldn't be operating there.
    - croissants 6y ago
      It makes sense to me that Facebook should attempt to follow the laws of the various countries in which it operates -- though obviously vague laws prohibiting "sedition" or "promoting unrest" make this hard. But it seems quite difficult to navigate less codified cultural topics. For example, the problems in Ethiopia turn on old lines of ethnic division. It's tough for me to imagine that Facebook will somehow arrive at a way to manage a problem that's troubled Ethiopia for so long, even (especially?) if it uses local employees as moderators.
pjc50 6y ago
> "In my work with Joel, I’ve found him to be ... very rigorous and principled in his thinking [and therefore I'm happy to work with him despite being a Republican]" The set of people for whom this is true is shrinking by the day; remaining Republican requires an increasingly bizarre set of intellectual contortions. For example, you'd have to believe that appointing a Supreme Court justice right at the end of your term is completely unreasonable for Obama and perfectly reasonable for Trump.
- roenxi 6y ago
  The Republicans, being politicians, lied about their motives in 2015 by reflex. Nobody was ever fooled by what they said - what they believe, as evidenced by their actions, is the best option is for them to choose who is on the court. That doesn't require any intellectual contortions to understand or support for Republican voters. It isn't like the Democrats would behave much differently. There is no way Trump would have gotten any Supreme Court appointments with a Democrat Senate had they got a controlling vote in 2018 and a vacancy arisen. Any candidate would have been declared a raping bigot and the investigations would stretch out until around 3 days after a Biden inauguration. Incidentally, that was probably the strategic plan behind the Kavenaugh business; if they'd delayed the process until after the November election there was a real chance he could have been entirely borked. It is routine politics. Distasteful, naked self interest, low on scruples. But nothing special to the Republican party.
  - sagichmal 6y ago
    Yes, the Democrats would absolutely not be so nakedly malevolent. Is this not overwhelmingly apparent?
    - xienze 6y ago
      What in the world are you talking about? The whole reason Democrats are going on and on about this election year appointment is because they wanted to fill Scalia's seat in 2016 and Republicans held all the chips and said "nah, we're gonna wait until after the election." Don't take my word for it, look at what Hillary Clinton said: > The Republicans in the Senate and on the campaign trail who are calling for Justice Scalia’s seat to remain vacant dishonor our Constitution.[0] Yes of course there's a "you're being hypocritical" angle to everything, but to claim the Democrats wouldn't do this if they had the position Republicans currently do is laughable. They threw a fit about this exact same scenario just four years ago, just with the arguments flipped! And they would quickly brush aside any criticism of hypocrisy by saying "hey we didn't say you had to leave a SC seat empty during an election year, you guys did!" and they'd still have some claim to being logically consistent in their beliefs. This is how politics work, yes even your beloved party isn't above it. BTW, if you want to see some real fun, wait until the Democrats have all three branches. They're gonna pack the SC. 0: https://twitter.com/hillaryclinton/status/698675522956607488?lang=en https://twitter.com/hillaryclinton/status/698675522956607488...
_qulr 6y ago
Politics aside, many Facebook employees come across as rather childish, incapable of taking care of themselves. The big complaint is about lack of snacks! Zuck has to scold them by asking rhetorically whether they joined the company for the free food. And one employee asks if they can go live on an island by themselves, apparently like Lord of the Flies. Of course one may fairly ask whether Facebook's hiring process produced this result. The staff skews... young. As an outsider, I get the sense that Facebook is more like a college dorm than a workplace. No coincidence I guess that Facebook started in a college dorm.
- Traster 6y ago
  If you want to talk about childish, should we talk about the sort of answer Zuckerberg gave. Atleast the guy there for the snacks was getting snacks until recently, I'm worried about the guys who think they joined facebook because: >you’re here for some combination of reasons around the mission of the company, the impact that we can have in the world, trying to make sure that that’s as positive as possible
  - _qulr 6y ago
    > Atleast the guy there for the snacks was getting snacks until recently IMO destroying civil society for snacks is a worse reason than destroying civil society intentionally. The pettiness of the tradeoff makes evil people look good by comparison.
- notacoward 6y ago
  Yes, it does seem like a college dorm. Sometimes it's even intentional, as in the design of the MPK campus. A lot of the perks serve the same purpose as a college dorm: eliminate the need (or even desire) to go off campus, maximizing time-on-task for the organizational purpose. That's not entirely a bad thing, though it does grate a bit for older employees such as myself (for two more days) sometimes. The "live on an island" thing is different. It sounds like a reference to the policies around WFH and changing locations, though I'd left the Q&A by that point so I can't be sure. That's actually a pretty complex topic, so I'd be a bit cautious about oversimplifying or taking out of context.
tyingq 6y ago
"Facebook had given its employees $1,000 bonuses and said it would give them all top marks on their first-half performance evaluations, no matter how they had actually performed." Giving everyone high performance evaluations isn't a perk. It's a disservice.
- lightgreen 6y ago
  It simply means, they get their bonuses, nothing more.
  - tyingq 6y ago
    Okay, it reads like everyone's review says "Exceeds", or whatever the top mark is. That's not fair to those that are actually "Exceeding".
    - lightgreen 6y ago
      It's tough question. I mostly agree with you, because I was the one who was exceeding during COVID. But some people objectively could not because of stress and family distractions and living conditions (eg no separate office room). Socialists (who drive most SV companies) consider that an unfair disadvantage (like being a woman, or being black, or being gay), thus that unfairness need to be compensated. It is similar to a compensation for parenting: only parents get paid parenting days, while childless people don't get it, and it may be considered unfair.
      - tyingq 6y ago
        I had some of those problems. I'd have no issue with my appraisal for that time period saying "met expectations" instead of "exceeded them". Even if it dinged my bonus. The company being flexible and understanding with my time was enough for me.
mrfusion 6y ago
Isn’t it weird you wouldn’t talk about politics in most settings especially among people you aren’t close to, but it’s ok to spam your 200 friends with political articles?
- 13415 6y ago
  Whom are you referring to? I talk about politics with anyone who is interested in it. (Of course, it's also important not to talk about politics with anyone not interested in it, but that's another matter.)
- scarmig 6y ago
  What I find most surprising is that all that political spam on Facebook drives engagement so much. At this point I barely get on it and never interact with my timeline, because half of it is shitty ads and the rest repetitive politics, and my mental model of people has most of us being turned off by it. Apparently not, though I do wonder if Facebook is somehow oversampling on a particular kind of engagement.
  - em500 6y ago
    Don't be surprised that your (and likeminded people's) experience may not be representative of the world or even the country's at large. Poll after poll shows that 40% of the USA still supports Donald Trump. Remember the famous (mis)quote "How could Nixon have won? Nobody I know voted for him"
- rhino369 6y ago
  Is it socially acceptable to spam people with political articles? I don’t think so. I mute people who do too much of that.
umvi 6y ago
If I had to guess it's because facebook has a larger portion of older conservative folks than other social media platforms? If you look at /r/politics on reddit you see the opposite problem (over-representation - nearly 100% - liberal news sources) which is probably because older conservatives don't use reddit? It can't be healthy for entire social media platforms to be completely dominated by one party or the other.
- maxsilver 6y ago
  > If you look at /r/politics on reddit you see the opposite problem (over-representation - nearly 100% - liberal news sources) Is this actually true? I get that there's usually one or two left-leaning sources on there, but more than half of the stories on /r/politics (the top 30 stories, as of 9/24 in my browser) are from centrist / conservative-leaning news sources. The real problem seems to be that the overton window has shifted so far right that "liberal" in the US means "super-hyper-conservative, but a fraction less conservative than today's GOP talking points". MSNBC, USA Today, Politico, Washington Post, Newsweek, NY Times and more are all on the front page of /r/politics right now, represent slightly more than half of the stories in the first 30 entries, and not a single one of those sources are remotely "liberal" in any way.
  - umvi 6y ago
    Let me put is this way - of the top 30 stories as of right now (24 Sep 20) on /r/politics, regardless of source: - 20 are anti-Trump articles - 6 are pro-Biden articles - 1 is anti-Police - 1 is anti-Barrett - 2 are misc. politics (covid, etc.) Compare to the most popular articles shared on facebook mentioned by GP and you can see /r/politics is the polar opposite of facebook.
    - throwaway2048 6y ago
      Anti-Trump isn't synonymous with left wing, nor is being pro-biden
    - sg47 6y ago
      Pro-human, Pro-democracy, Pro-equality. Not anti-Trump but I can see how it might appear like that. :)
grawprog 6y ago
So, facebook employees are mad they're not allowed to censor things they disagree with that people post on facebook? I don't understand how facebook came to be responsible for policing political opinions anyway. In fact, I don't understand why employees at tech companies believe they have the right to police people's opinions period. I see it amongst commenters here too. What gives any of these people the right to police the opinions of others? Actually, just people in general these days seem to believe it's their right to enforce their views on others...
- dheera 6y ago
  > I don't understand how facebook came to be responsible for policing political opinions anyway. Not only that, but they seem to be responsible for policing political opinions in the US alone. Also, I never told them what citizenship I have in the process of creating my account. Why do I get so many US election reminders on Facebook but not election reminders for the 97 other democracies in the world?
- xkcd-sucks 6y ago
  > people in general these days Wait till you read some 19th century US history, you're in for a treat
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  I don't think it's "people these days;" I think it was the norm that has been disrupted by modern technology. Network broadcast television operates under standards and practices, where certain things are not allowed for broadcast. That includes the news---even news stories are subject to S&P constraint. Does network broadcast television "police political opinion" if it doesn't give a pedophile a half-hour of air time to plead their case? The world of decentralized bidirectional near-lightspeed mass-communication, where there is often not a gatekeeper, is relatively new. It's still an open question whether it's a net positive for society. I would say there have been a lot of positive consequences. Negative consequences are also stacking up quickly.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
shadowgovt 6y ago
There's a reason the phrase "The center cannot hold" exists. It's for times like this.
dsbleia 6y ago
I think this actually made Zuck's leadership look solid. Of course it's a little naive to say "we aren't political", but he's probably just doing that because it's the calculated thing to say. Almost every other company says things like that, except for a few ideological ones in Silicon Valley. I don't know how anyone takes these employees at FB seriously. They are complaining about the lack of free snacks? Anyone complaining about a 'lack of free snacks' is someone you should certainly ignore.
- pak9rabid 6y ago
  lol, this reminds me of a meeting the department I was in at the time (tech support) had with the head of operations years ago. When she opened the floor for serious questions/comments, the first thing some jackass brought up was his disappointment in the lack of free tea in the break room. The look on her face was priceless.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  To take things one level higher, I wonder why they answered this question at all. Most likely it was done to add some levity to the meeting, but more cynically, I wonder if it was done to point out just how juvenile some of the concerns are.
- doopy-loopy2 6y ago
  This.
  - dang 6y ago
    Can you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? We already asked you this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24413379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24413379) - did you not see that one? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- RangerScience 6y ago
  Free snacks, and their quality, is a complex signal. They're some of the first things to go as cash tightens up, and they're a decent rubric as to how much leadership actively gives a fuck about employees. Or they're a garnish on a pile of shit. It does definitely depend on the goals regarding company/employee relations: is this a job for which I'm paid money, or is it supposed to be more than that? If the former, how're the salaries - actually? If the latter, are they actually putting in effort to deserve it? Like proper code indentation. Yeah, you can just fix it yourself pretty easily, but it signals things.
sequoia 6y ago
To be honest I wish Zuckerberg would say "We're not censoring political posts, and if you don't like it, --> there's the door. Who's leaving first?" Facebook engineers may love to beat their chests about social justice, but when push comes to shove, they are not about to walk away from those gold plated salaries & stock grants. Most of them could leave FB and get another job paying somewhere in the ballpark of $200k (if not much more) within weeks, or a couple months. But no, 200k is not enough, they need 250k + equity + food etc. etc.. So to social justice oriented facebook employees sticking around facebook: spare us the performative gnashing of teeth. You know what facebook is, either admit the $$$ make it worth holding your nose, or put your money where your mouth is & go get a different job.
- doopy-loopy2 6y ago
  This. It would also benefit to "drain the swamp" if you will of these toxic employees.
- sudo-i 6y ago
  Maybe I’m out of the loop a little bit I feel that the argument framed as political activism is a deflection. Post 5g causes sickness or other theories... These aren’t political at all, they are just factually incorrect. Framing them as political is a mistake and it seems to have worked so well, even here on HN.
  - mikelyons 6y ago
    Using conspiracy theories, bunk science, and outright lies to influence the lower-awareness majority _is_ political action, and evidently it is currently one of the more effective strategies.
  - sequoia 6y ago
    Employees were mad specifically because he wouldn't take down the president's post threatening a violent crackdown on rioting & looting. Is it your perception that the main objection of employees was to explicitly counterfactual claims? That's not what I got from TFA Also TFA makes clear that facebook takes down tons of posts, that's the biggest complaint they get from users, so it's not true that they are leaving everything up. Respectfully: did you read TFA?
nxc18 6y ago
Facebook is worse than you think. These abstract 'cancel culture' discussions are ignoring Facebook's substantial body count, role in algorithmically pushing people to hate groups for the sake of engagement, and disrupting attempts to hold the perpetrators of genocide accountable. https://newrepublic.com/article/147486/facebook-genocide-problem https://newrepublic.com/article/147486/facebook-genocide-pro... https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/nation-world/zuckerberg-says-facebook-erred-in-not-removing-militia-post/507-83fc429d-827b-404c-8372-6371b8397cea https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/nation-world/zu... https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/09/debunked-antifa-wildfire-rumours-spread-on-facebook-overload-911-spur-calls-to-violence/ https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/09/debunked-antifa-wildfire-... https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg897a/hate-speech-on-facebook-is-pushing-ethiopia-dangerously-close-to-a-genocide https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg897a/hate-speech-on-fac... https://www.law360.com/articles/1305778/facebook-says-gambia-doc-bid-would-set-bad-precedent https://www.law360.com/articles/1305778/facebook-says-gambia... https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/how-facebook-is-complicit-in-myanmars-attacks-on-minorities/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/how-facebook-is-complicit-in...
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.is/UFwAr https://archive.is/UFwAr
dyeje 6y ago
I don't like this framing of liberals trying to censor conservatives. That's not the root of the problem. The problem is that Facebook is full of misleading or outright false content (both right and left leaning) and it is polarizing America at an unbelievable pace. You could censor literally everything remotely conservative or liberal and it still wouldn't fix anything. The uncensored side would just radicalize even faster and the censored side would find some other platform to radicalize on. I don't know how you fix this, but something needs to be done because civil discourse is just about dead and our society is ripping at the seams. Fascist countries won't have to deal with this problem because they are intentionally polarized and there is a "correct" side to be taken by the social media companies.
m3kw9 6y ago
The employees seem to only focus on the bad, but there is heck of a lot of good FB is doing. It’s. controversial place to work for, and they should understand it.
myle 6y ago
Verifiably false things should not be allowed. The assumption that everyone has the capacity (time, expertise,.. ) to tell apart truth from lies is a very big assumption. Even if it were true, it would not come for free for the individual. No one would argue that in a restaurant it is on if half of the foods are spoiled because we could tell them apart from the good ones if we examined then closely. Why the same is not true for our brains?
Kagerjay 6y ago
hm this is interesting how they incorporate audio snippets into blog quotations

Interesting how they reiterate over and over how right-wing media proliferates on the platform but imply that centrist/liberal propaganda does not. Is there evidence of this?

johnward 6y ago
I'm not sure where they get their data but this list is usually like %70 conservative media figures. https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10 https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10
agloeregrets 6y ago
For what it is worth, it’s been shown that the most popular and most shared posts for years have been basically 80% extreme conservative ones. See here: https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?s=21 https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?s=21 That said, this is no defense of left wing propaganda. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, just that by the numbers Facebook is mostly right wing users and that extreme right wing material is more popular. Interestingly the popular right-wing material tends to be non-party related. Probably because sharing extreme right viewpoints on a generally conservative site is how you get clicks. It’s profitable, even if your organization has no horse in the race.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > by the numbers Facebook is mostly right wing users and that extreme right wing material is more popular. Is that the case, or is it just that the extreme right wing posts get more traction than other posts. Like, are the extreme right wing posts more popular than all other posts combined, or are they getting e.g. on average 10 likes where other posts only get 7? The source on Twitter seems to only look at pages (i.e. curated content), not what people share. Since they're doing it manually according to the bio, the sample must be pretty small.
ForHackernews 6y ago
Yes, there is at least some anecdotal evidence: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo#.fu2okXaeKo https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/how-mace... > Earlier in the year, some in Veles experimented with left-leaning or pro–Bernie Sanders content, but nothing performed as well on Facebook as Trump content. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/24/facebook-clickbait-political-news-sites-us-election-trump https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/24/facebook-... https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/
Miner49er 6y ago
Article about it, with some data backing it up: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/how-facebook-became-the-social-media-home-of-the-right https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/how-facebook-became-... They censor anti-racists: 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... AFAIK their new News tab has far-right publications like Breitbart, but no leftist publications.
- ppod 6y ago
  "White men are so fragile," she fired off, " Not everyone would see that as anti-racism
- dx87 6y ago
  Looks like that "anti-racist" is upset that she can't post racist and sexist things about white men. Not exactly the example I'd give to show that FB is censoring liberals.
  - legolas2412 6y ago
    The fact that you are getting downvoted tells me a lot. Censorship is going to never be fine, even if they pinky swear it will be used only on nazis.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- alehul 6y ago
  Please don't use a term like "anti-racist" for someone who says "Whites are $NegativeAdjective." It's really disingenuous rhetoric.
joejohnson 6y ago
why the downvotes for asking this question?
josefresco 6y ago
Yes: https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10 https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10 US conservative content consistently dominates these rankings. Facebook is now primarily a US right-wing/conservative propaganda platform.

jsiepkes 6y ago

> "The community we serve tends to be, on average, ideologically a little bit more conservative than our employee base." If I had to pick one sentence of the article which sums up the entire issue it would be this one.

m0ck 6y ago
I would go even further in this argument - it's the small, altough very loud minority of FB (or other IT company) employees, living in their Twitter feeds and causing outrage totally disproportional to their group size. The "missing snacks" example in the article illustrates it beautifully. I would argue that it actually concerns more employees than content policy issues.
- sjg007 6y ago
  The irony is just delicious. It's just like the problem that very small minority of folks on FB have been given a megaphone to spread lies and hate. All FB has to do is tone down the engagement algorithms. Put up a bunch of invisible walls.
  - tqi 6y ago
    10 years ago the concern was filter bubbles. Now we want invisible walls?
    - sjg007 6y ago
      Yep, increase friction. Instagram is a good example.. You have to post a photo and you can't retweet.
      - tqi 6y ago
        I think we would just be trading one set of problems for another, people are already physically self sorting so it's not clear to me that enhancing digital echo chambers would make things better.

ThomPete 6y ago

I will never understand the extreme intellectual fragility of cancel culture. A lot of kids must have grown up never facing and learning to to deal with disagreement or what is it that have created such a thin skinned generation of seemingly well educated people?

gedy 6y ago
I heard from a retired teacher that the change he saw over time in young people was somewhat due to they grew up in smaller families with 0-1 siblings, and didn't have to share rooms, toys, etc.
actuator 6y ago
Yeah, the way people like JK Rowling have been hounded for not agreeing on every point with some people is very depressing to see, considering that she has been quite supportive in the past of the very groups that are hounding her. Mob like behaviour to hound someone for their beliefs just reeks of illiberalism.
- onion2k 6y ago
  Yeah, the way people like JK Rowling have been hounded for not agreeing on every point with some people is very depressing to see, considering that she has been quite supportive in the past of the very groups that are hounding her. She has changed a lot since writing Harry Potter. It's obvious that she no longer believes in supporting marginalised groups or telling people that it's OK to be who you want to be. Her recent work is extremely political and designed to further marginalise people who are already marginalised - she's literally just had a book published that's about a serial killer who dresses as a woman to approach and attack other women, which isn't even slightly veiled as an attack on the trans community. If that's how she thinks now then she has every right to be like that, but everyone else has the right to point out she's being an asshole. As always, there's an XKCD for this - https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
  - shiba_developer 6y ago

trabant00 6y ago

> Mark Zuckerberg has faced criticism that Facebook is bad for democracy. > Employees want him to take a harder line against the Trump Administration. They employees want to support democracy by taking a stand against the democratic chosen president. I have a hard time coming up with words to describe my disbelief. Guess it's time for companies to enforce "absolutely no politics at work" rules. And you can add religion and sexuality to the blacklist as well. Guess old days "professionalism" was not without reason. 20 year old me would utterly despise current me. I find it funny.

Thlom 6y ago
Talking about undemocratic ...
ForHackernews 6y ago
C'mon, if the concept of "democracy" means anything it has to include the notion that the guy who won the last election doesn't get to just do whatever he wants (especially if what he wants is to undermine or tamper with the next election!) You're not a democracy because you hold one legitimate election -- you have to keep on having fair elections! Good luck, America.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  The US doesn’t have a democracy. And there is almost nothing to prevent Donald Trump from staying in office if he loses the election. Edit: At the federal level, the United States is unequivocally not a democracy. The United States, overall, is a Constitutional Federal Republic with some Democratic traditions and processes at the state and local levels. US citizens do not directly elect the Presidency. The US method for electing a President is extraordinarily undemocratic. And if you disagree about Donald Trump staying in office please read this article. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-if-trump-loses-and-wont-leave/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-if-trump-loses-and... If Donald Trump loses the election, Republicans retain the Senate, Trump decides the election was a fraud, and Senate Republicans go along with him, there is absolutely fuck all that Biden could do.
- 6y ago

henearkr 6y ago

This aligns with how I have always seen Facebook, in contrast to Google for example. In their business plan Google (now Alphabet) favors a "greater good" for society rather than purely revenue optimization, whereas Facebook centers on the revenue and does not shy away morally doubtful decisions (like selling user data without regard for their anonymity, which Google avoids by restricting sensitive access to closed-loop algorithms). And that makes sense in that Google historically (and still now) favors attracting talents and great minds (who lean leftwards) to work in its teams, to build the best technology, whereas Facebook tries to focus on its market, and how to please users (quite 50/50 politically) as well as business partners (maybe rather revenue-focused guys than socially responsible guys). Both approaches make sense, but I do prefer the Google approach.

capableweb 6y ago
> In their business plan Google (now Alphabet) favors a "greater good" for society rather than purely revenue optimization What dream world are you living in and also where do you get this from? Google, like countless other companies in tech, is a for-profit company, that optimizes for revenue and revenue only. If they are doing anything for the "greater good", it's because it'll eventually drive up their revenue. If they truly wanted to do something for the greater good, they'd turn Google/Alphabet into a non-profit. But alas, they are not.
- actuator 6y ago
  I have no insight about what the parent comment said but Google at one point in the past did quit the Chinese market on principles, the success of their compatriots like Apple which were more flexible with their principles does show the opportunity they left.
- henearkr 6y ago
  There are several ways to build a business plan to make profit, and Google chose the one where they attract and retain an elite scientific and engineering staff in order to build awesome products, and so they respect the ideological lining of these staffs. Facebook insists more, in a more conventional way for sure, on marketing and business negotiations. Both approaches "increase revenue", of course, however not the same way, not with the same timeline (one of them is more long-term than the other), and, last but not least, not with the same heartburn when I read about it. PS: greater good is not opposed to profit. Your physician gets your money to care for your health. He chose this job rather than, say, the military.

frgtpsswrdlame 6y ago

Whatever you think of the opinion of some of the employees regarding FB's stance towards politics, they're just never going to get their way without a union. It's exactly right that FB is a monarchy and what we see here are akin to the political challenges you'd read about in a monarchy. The small collective actions seem to be a good step in that direction but still much, much smaller than you'd need to form a union. We've seen recent unionization efforts in professional occupations that are shrinking - media & academia mainly. But I'm not sure political mishandling or ethical concerns about data are enough to overcome the fact that tech is growing and paying good wages. People need some self-interest at stake before they make the leap to something risky like that so we'll probably keep seeing this sort of employee flailing, be it leaks or small group actions or what have you.

blueterminal 6y ago
Unions are absolutely detrimental to the society. Thank god we'll never have one for Software Engineers. Great short explanation from Milton Friedman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzYgiOC9cj4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzYgiOC9cj4
- hatenberg 6y ago
  Yea Europe is a workers hell hole because of this. /S
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bzb5 6y ago
    It is. 50% of youth unemployment in Spain for example.
    - JakeTheAndroid 6y ago
      Oh I wasn't aware that was purely caused by Unions!! And you chose the EU country with one of, if not THE highest unemployment rate. Every country has issues. To say that Unions don't work when the EU has a strong union culture, and then scapegoat other issues in random EU countries is intellectually dishonest. Spain has insane unemployment rates because of generations of poorly thought out policies, not unions. They basically had a similar setup to Greece where tons of people don't pay taxes, and it survives heavily off tourism and produces few other things to make up for the tourism economy. Any country that generates MOST of its economy from tourism is going to have a rough time. We've seen it time and time again. None of this proves the EU is a hell hole, and it has no inherent relation to unions.

C1sc0cat 6y ago

He is Fucked if Biden wins - and I suspect the dual stock structure used to maintain control might get looked at by the SEC. The Board need to tell him " Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!"

loxs 6y ago
As an outsider (from a different continent), it doesn't seem at all likely that there is a chance for Biden winning. It probably looks the same from where Zuck is sitting. We might, of course, both be wrong :)
- Cederfjard 6y ago
  I think that’s a take without merit. It’s certainly not clear-cut. Here’s The Economist and FiveThirtyEight both saying that they favor Biden to win (at the time of my posting this): https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
  - jcims 6y ago
    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
    - pirocks 6y ago
      Not sure what your saying. But if your saying they got it wrong they gave trump a 25+% of winning. Things with a 1/4th probability happen all the time.
      - scarmig 6y ago
        Sure, they happen, but how often? One in hundred times?

sjg007 6y ago

Zuckerberg has the power and is being played like a violin by Trump.

lightgreen 6y ago
And Trump is played by Putin, and Putin is played by green aliens.
- sjg007 6y ago
  Zuckerberg is the real kingmaker here or he could be.

Traster 6y ago

It's pretty wild to see the framing here. Employees want him to take a harder line? How many? His user base wants him to do the opposite? Do they? Mark is a centrist! Wow! That's quite a revelation! >At another company, the CEO might have ignored such a question from his workforce or declined to take it at all. A lesser CEO might have balked at the challenge! But our illustrious hero steeled himself for the task. >With tens of thousands of employees and more than 3 billion constituents worldwide Constituents? Why are we using euphamistic language? Is it because constituents sounds nice and fluffy whereas "User" would fit in a sentence "Donald Trump used facebook to threaten to shoot people, Facebook's CEO decided that this was an appropriate use of Facebook" Sorry, as the article rightly points out, I'm biased, I oppose threats of violence. I'll leave true judgement to the enlightened centrists.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Premise: Diversity is good. Diversity means diversity of ideas. Ergo, you will disagree vehemently with people, and this is a good thing under the framework of diversity. Do not confuse disagreeing with someone as that person being morally sub-human, and if you are able to do this your life will be more pleasant. Disagreement is a good thing, it is society’s mechanism for decision making in complex circumstances.

zimpenfish 6y ago
> Do not confuse disagreeing with someone as that person being morally sub-human If your disagreement with that person is about whether someone else is considered less of a human than they are (by dint of race, wealth, sexuality, whatever), it's probably ok to consider them morally bankrupt on that basis.
- yomly 6y ago
  A lot of the developing world are still deeply homophobic. Are all those people morally bankrupt and unworthy of a place in the hallowed gardens of equality? Maybe a point of view is crafted through a life's worth of conditioning and experience. We seem comfortable accepting that fact when considering social conditioning over other issues, but when it comes to conservatism we draw the line - they are the evil others. Unable to see how they are the sum of their life's experiences we draw up the lines, dig in our heels and choose our side - and in doing so force the other group to take a side. I have a lot of family who have views which would terrify liberals, but I know these people are also not evil but just have had their own life circumstances shape their views. Maybe people need to travel outside their comfort zones a little more...
  - zimpenfish 6y ago
    > Are all those people morally bankrupt and unworthy of a place in the hallowed gardens of equality? I would say that places in the "hallowed gardens of equality" are for those who believe in equality, not those who consider any set of other people as lesser. > and in doing so force the other group to take a side. No-one forces anyone to be racist, homophobic, etc. > have had their own life circumstances shape their views. That sounds like the "economic anxiety" excuse for racism.

mcintyre1994 6y ago

I think coverage of Facebook is often too US-heavy and it really misses the point by making it into a US partisan issue - this article mentions Trump but doesn't mention Ethiopia. Here's a Vice Article about how hate speech on Facebook is currently pushing Ethiopia toward a genocide just like it did in Myanmar a few years ago: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg897a/hate-speech-on-facebook-is-pushing-ethiopia-dangerously-close-to-a-genocide%C2%A0 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg897a/hate-speech-on-fac...

croissants 6y ago
I struggle with this issue. On the one hand, I think clear incitement to violence is a line that free speech shouldn't cross, so Facebook really should have deleted posts calling for some people to be burned more quickly. On the other hand, the idea that Facebook is culpable here seems to take for granted a large chunk of Ethiopians who'll just do what they're told by Facebook posts, which seems to give very little credit to the Ethiopian people or the ability of their government to maintain order. In that sense, it feels prejudiced and patronizing, like arguing that Facebook needs to police its Ethiopian presence because Ethiopia can't police itself.
- benwad 6y ago
  IMO Facebook should be able to police its own platform, so if it has a large presence in Ethiopia then it needs to police that part of its platform (ideally using employees based in Ethiopia). If it feels it can't effectively police Ethiopian Facebook without amplifying hateful/violent messages then they shouldn't be operating there.
  - croissants 6y ago
    It makes sense to me that Facebook should attempt to follow the laws of the various countries in which it operates -- though obviously vague laws prohibiting "sedition" or "promoting unrest" make this hard. But it seems quite difficult to navigate less codified cultural topics. For example, the problems in Ethiopia turn on old lines of ethnic division. It's tough for me to imagine that Facebook will somehow arrive at a way to manage a problem that's troubled Ethiopia for so long, even (especially?) if it uses local employees as moderators.

pjc50 6y ago

> "In my work with Joel, I’ve found him to be ... very rigorous and principled in his thinking [and therefore I'm happy to work with him despite being a Republican]" The set of people for whom this is true is shrinking by the day; remaining Republican requires an increasingly bizarre set of intellectual contortions. For example, you'd have to believe that appointing a Supreme Court justice right at the end of your term is completely unreasonable for Obama and perfectly reasonable for Trump.

roenxi 6y ago
The Republicans, being politicians, lied about their motives in 2015 by reflex. Nobody was ever fooled by what they said - what they believe, as evidenced by their actions, is the best option is for them to choose who is on the court. That doesn't require any intellectual contortions to understand or support for Republican voters. It isn't like the Democrats would behave much differently. There is no way Trump would have gotten any Supreme Court appointments with a Democrat Senate had they got a controlling vote in 2018 and a vacancy arisen. Any candidate would have been declared a raping bigot and the investigations would stretch out until around 3 days after a Biden inauguration. Incidentally, that was probably the strategic plan behind the Kavenaugh business; if they'd delayed the process until after the November election there was a real chance he could have been entirely borked. It is routine politics. Distasteful, naked self interest, low on scruples. But nothing special to the Republican party.
- sagichmal 6y ago
  Yes, the Democrats would absolutely not be so nakedly malevolent. Is this not overwhelmingly apparent?
  - xienze 6y ago
    What in the world are you talking about? The whole reason Democrats are going on and on about this election year appointment is because they wanted to fill Scalia's seat in 2016 and Republicans held all the chips and said "nah, we're gonna wait until after the election." Don't take my word for it, look at what Hillary Clinton said: > The Republicans in the Senate and on the campaign trail who are calling for Justice Scalia’s seat to remain vacant dishonor our Constitution.[0] Yes of course there's a "you're being hypocritical" angle to everything, but to claim the Democrats wouldn't do this if they had the position Republicans currently do is laughable. They threw a fit about this exact same scenario just four years ago, just with the arguments flipped! And they would quickly brush aside any criticism of hypocrisy by saying "hey we didn't say you had to leave a SC seat empty during an election year, you guys did!" and they'd still have some claim to being logically consistent in their beliefs. This is how politics work, yes even your beloved party isn't above it. BTW, if you want to see some real fun, wait until the Democrats have all three branches. They're gonna pack the SC. 0: https://twitter.com/hillaryclinton/status/698675522956607488?lang=en https://twitter.com/hillaryclinton/status/698675522956607488...

_qulr 6y ago

Politics aside, many Facebook employees come across as rather childish, incapable of taking care of themselves. The big complaint is about lack of snacks! Zuck has to scold them by asking rhetorically whether they joined the company for the free food. And one employee asks if they can go live on an island by themselves, apparently like Lord of the Flies. Of course one may fairly ask whether Facebook's hiring process produced this result. The staff skews... young. As an outsider, I get the sense that Facebook is more like a college dorm than a workplace. No coincidence I guess that Facebook started in a college dorm.

Traster 6y ago
If you want to talk about childish, should we talk about the sort of answer Zuckerberg gave. Atleast the guy there for the snacks was getting snacks until recently, I'm worried about the guys who think they joined facebook because: >you’re here for some combination of reasons around the mission of the company, the impact that we can have in the world, trying to make sure that that’s as positive as possible
- _qulr 6y ago
  > Atleast the guy there for the snacks was getting snacks until recently IMO destroying civil society for snacks is a worse reason than destroying civil society intentionally. The pettiness of the tradeoff makes evil people look good by comparison.
notacoward 6y ago
Yes, it does seem like a college dorm. Sometimes it's even intentional, as in the design of the MPK campus. A lot of the perks serve the same purpose as a college dorm: eliminate the need (or even desire) to go off campus, maximizing time-on-task for the organizational purpose. That's not entirely a bad thing, though it does grate a bit for older employees such as myself (for two more days) sometimes. The "live on an island" thing is different. It sounds like a reference to the policies around WFH and changing locations, though I'd left the Q&A by that point so I can't be sure. That's actually a pretty complex topic, so I'd be a bit cautious about oversimplifying or taking out of context.

tyingq 6y ago

"Facebook had given its employees $1,000 bonuses and said it would give them all top marks on their first-half performance evaluations, no matter how they had actually performed." Giving everyone high performance evaluations isn't a perk. It's a disservice.

lightgreen 6y ago
It simply means, they get their bonuses, nothing more.
- tyingq 6y ago
  Okay, it reads like everyone's review says "Exceeds", or whatever the top mark is. That's not fair to those that are actually "Exceeding".
  - lightgreen 6y ago
    It's tough question. I mostly agree with you, because I was the one who was exceeding during COVID. But some people objectively could not because of stress and family distractions and living conditions (eg no separate office room). Socialists (who drive most SV companies) consider that an unfair disadvantage (like being a woman, or being black, or being gay), thus that unfairness need to be compensated. It is similar to a compensation for parenting: only parents get paid parenting days, while childless people don't get it, and it may be considered unfair.
    - tyingq 6y ago
      I had some of those problems. I'd have no issue with my appraisal for that time period saying "met expectations" instead of "exceeded them". Even if it dinged my bonus. The company being flexible and understanding with my time was enough for me.

mrfusion 6y ago

Isn’t it weird you wouldn’t talk about politics in most settings especially among people you aren’t close to, but it’s ok to spam your 200 friends with political articles?

13415 6y ago
Whom are you referring to? I talk about politics with anyone who is interested in it. (Of course, it's also important not to talk about politics with anyone not interested in it, but that's another matter.)
scarmig 6y ago
What I find most surprising is that all that political spam on Facebook drives engagement so much. At this point I barely get on it and never interact with my timeline, because half of it is shitty ads and the rest repetitive politics, and my mental model of people has most of us being turned off by it. Apparently not, though I do wonder if Facebook is somehow oversampling on a particular kind of engagement.
- em500 6y ago
  Don't be surprised that your (and likeminded people's) experience may not be representative of the world or even the country's at large. Poll after poll shows that 40% of the USA still supports Donald Trump. Remember the famous (mis)quote "How could Nixon have won? Nobody I know voted for him"
rhino369 6y ago
Is it socially acceptable to spam people with political articles? I don’t think so. I mute people who do too much of that.

umvi 6y ago

If I had to guess it's because facebook has a larger portion of older conservative folks than other social media platforms? If you look at /r/politics on reddit you see the opposite problem (over-representation - nearly 100% - liberal news sources) which is probably because older conservatives don't use reddit? It can't be healthy for entire social media platforms to be completely dominated by one party or the other.

maxsilver 6y ago
> If you look at /r/politics on reddit you see the opposite problem (over-representation - nearly 100% - liberal news sources) Is this actually true? I get that there's usually one or two left-leaning sources on there, but more than half of the stories on /r/politics (the top 30 stories, as of 9/24 in my browser) are from centrist / conservative-leaning news sources. The real problem seems to be that the overton window has shifted so far right that "liberal" in the US means "super-hyper-conservative, but a fraction less conservative than today's GOP talking points". MSNBC, USA Today, Politico, Washington Post, Newsweek, NY Times and more are all on the front page of /r/politics right now, represent slightly more than half of the stories in the first 30 entries, and not a single one of those sources are remotely "liberal" in any way.
- umvi 6y ago
  Let me put is this way - of the top 30 stories as of right now (24 Sep 20) on /r/politics, regardless of source: - 20 are anti-Trump articles - 6 are pro-Biden articles - 1 is anti-Police - 1 is anti-Barrett - 2 are misc. politics (covid, etc.) Compare to the most popular articles shared on facebook mentioned by GP and you can see /r/politics is the polar opposite of facebook.
  - throwaway2048 6y ago
    Anti-Trump isn't synonymous with left wing, nor is being pro-biden
  - sg47 6y ago
    Pro-human, Pro-democracy, Pro-equality. Not anti-Trump but I can see how it might appear like that. :)

grawprog 6y ago

So, facebook employees are mad they're not allowed to censor things they disagree with that people post on facebook? I don't understand how facebook came to be responsible for policing political opinions anyway. In fact, I don't understand why employees at tech companies believe they have the right to police people's opinions period. I see it amongst commenters here too. What gives any of these people the right to police the opinions of others? Actually, just people in general these days seem to believe it's their right to enforce their views on others...

dheera 6y ago
> I don't understand how facebook came to be responsible for policing political opinions anyway. Not only that, but they seem to be responsible for policing political opinions in the US alone. Also, I never told them what citizenship I have in the process of creating my account. Why do I get so many US election reminders on Facebook but not election reminders for the 97 other democracies in the world?
xkcd-sucks 6y ago
> people in general these days Wait till you read some 19th century US history, you're in for a treat
shadowgovt 6y ago
I don't think it's "people these days;" I think it was the norm that has been disrupted by modern technology. Network broadcast television operates under standards and practices, where certain things are not allowed for broadcast. That includes the news---even news stories are subject to S&P constraint. Does network broadcast television "police political opinion" if it doesn't give a pedophile a half-hour of air time to plead their case? The world of decentralized bidirectional near-lightspeed mass-communication, where there is often not a gatekeeper, is relatively new. It's still an open question whether it's a net positive for society. I would say there have been a lot of positive consequences. Negative consequences are also stacking up quickly.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago

shadowgovt 6y ago

There's a reason the phrase "The center cannot hold" exists. It's for times like this.

dsbleia 6y ago

I think this actually made Zuck's leadership look solid. Of course it's a little naive to say "we aren't political", but he's probably just doing that because it's the calculated thing to say. Almost every other company says things like that, except for a few ideological ones in Silicon Valley. I don't know how anyone takes these employees at FB seriously. They are complaining about the lack of free snacks? Anyone complaining about a 'lack of free snacks' is someone you should certainly ignore.

pak9rabid 6y ago
lol, this reminds me of a meeting the department I was in at the time (tech support) had with the head of operations years ago. When she opened the floor for serious questions/comments, the first thing some jackass brought up was his disappointment in the lack of free tea in the break room. The look on her face was priceless.
s1artibartfast 6y ago
To take things one level higher, I wonder why they answered this question at all. Most likely it was done to add some levity to the meeting, but more cynically, I wonder if it was done to point out just how juvenile some of the concerns are.
doopy-loopy2 6y ago
This.
- dang 6y ago
  Can you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? We already asked you this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24413379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24413379) - did you not see that one? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
RangerScience 6y ago
Free snacks, and their quality, is a complex signal. They're some of the first things to go as cash tightens up, and they're a decent rubric as to how much leadership actively gives a fuck about employees. Or they're a garnish on a pile of shit. It does definitely depend on the goals regarding company/employee relations: is this a job for which I'm paid money, or is it supposed to be more than that? If the former, how're the salaries - actually? If the latter, are they actually putting in effort to deserve it? Like proper code indentation. Yeah, you can just fix it yourself pretty easily, but it signals things.

sequoia 6y ago

To be honest I wish Zuckerberg would say "We're not censoring political posts, and if you don't like it, --> there's the door. Who's leaving first?" Facebook engineers may love to beat their chests about social justice, but when push comes to shove, they are not about to walk away from those gold plated salaries & stock grants. Most of them could leave FB and get another job paying somewhere in the ballpark of $200k (if not much more) within weeks, or a couple months. But no, 200k is not enough, they need 250k + equity + food etc. etc.. So to social justice oriented facebook employees sticking around facebook: spare us the performative gnashing of teeth. You know what facebook is, either admit the $$$ make it worth holding your nose, or put your money where your mouth is & go get a different job.

doopy-loopy2 6y ago
This. It would also benefit to "drain the swamp" if you will of these toxic employees.
sudo-i 6y ago
Maybe I’m out of the loop a little bit I feel that the argument framed as political activism is a deflection. Post 5g causes sickness or other theories... These aren’t political at all, they are just factually incorrect. Framing them as political is a mistake and it seems to have worked so well, even here on HN.
- mikelyons 6y ago
  Using conspiracy theories, bunk science, and outright lies to influence the lower-awareness majority _is_ political action, and evidently it is currently one of the more effective strategies.
- sequoia 6y ago
  Employees were mad specifically because he wouldn't take down the president's post threatening a violent crackdown on rioting & looting. Is it your perception that the main objection of employees was to explicitly counterfactual claims? That's not what I got from TFA Also TFA makes clear that facebook takes down tons of posts, that's the biggest complaint they get from users, so it's not true that they are leaving everything up. Respectfully: did you read TFA?

nxc18 6y ago

Facebook is worse than you think. These abstract 'cancel culture' discussions are ignoring Facebook's substantial body count, role in algorithmically pushing people to hate groups for the sake of engagement, and disrupting attempts to hold the perpetrators of genocide accountable. https://newrepublic.com/article/147486/facebook-genocide-problem https://newrepublic.com/article/147486/facebook-genocide-pro... https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/nation-world/zuckerberg-says-facebook-erred-in-not-removing-militia-post/507-83fc429d-827b-404c-8372-6371b8397cea https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/nation-world/zu... https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/09/debunked-antifa-wildfire-rumours-spread-on-facebook-overload-911-spur-calls-to-violence/ https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/09/debunked-antifa-wildfire-... https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg897a/hate-speech-on-facebook-is-pushing-ethiopia-dangerously-close-to-a-genocide https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg897a/hate-speech-on-fac... https://www.law360.com/articles/1305778/facebook-says-gambia-doc-bid-would-set-bad-precedent https://www.law360.com/articles/1305778/facebook-says-gambia... https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/how-facebook-is-complicit-in-myanmars-attacks-on-minorities/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/how-facebook-is-complicit-in...

neonate 6y ago

https://archive.is/UFwAr https://archive.is/UFwAr

dyeje 6y ago

I don't like this framing of liberals trying to censor conservatives. That's not the root of the problem. The problem is that Facebook is full of misleading or outright false content (both right and left leaning) and it is polarizing America at an unbelievable pace. You could censor literally everything remotely conservative or liberal and it still wouldn't fix anything. The uncensored side would just radicalize even faster and the censored side would find some other platform to radicalize on. I don't know how you fix this, but something needs to be done because civil discourse is just about dead and our society is ripping at the seams. Fascist countries won't have to deal with this problem because they are intentionally polarized and there is a "correct" side to be taken by the social media companies.

m3kw9 6y ago

The employees seem to only focus on the bad, but there is heck of a lot of good FB is doing. It’s. controversial place to work for, and they should understand it.

myle 6y ago

Verifiably false things should not be allowed. The assumption that everyone has the capacity (time, expertise,.. ) to tell apart truth from lies is a very big assumption. Even if it were true, it would not come for free for the individual. No one would argue that in a restaurant it is on if half of the foods are spoiled because we could tell them apart from the good ones if we examined then closely. Why the same is not true for our brains?

Kagerjay 6y ago

hm this is interesting how they incorporate audio snippets into blog quotations