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Apparently he has moved to Twitter due to “fewer ethical qualms.” Never mind his new employer has built one of the most polarizing and divisive platforms in the

Apparently he has moved to Twitter due to “fewer ethical qualms.” Never mind his new employer has built one of the most polarizing and divisive platforms in the history of humankind. Sometimes I don’t know where to begin processing people like this.

stavros 5y ago
Maybe his old employer was worse?
Loic 5y ago
I will quote him directly: > "The mismatch between what they say and what they really do is growing," Cornet said. "The thicker the gap is, the easier it is to point out that hypocrisy." Maybe Twitter internally completely recognize the bad side of the platform and work accordingly. I personally make a big chunk of my money from oil & gas, I recognize that oil & gas for transportation should die, but I know we need oil & gas for materials at the moment (but should reduce, reduce and reduce the use as fast as possible). Sometimes part of your work is not all unicorns, pink and friendly, having the honesty to deal with it and not being hypocrite about it is really important.
- galacticaactual 5y ago
  So your logic is as long as we are honest and authentic about our work destroying humanity, it’s all good? What drivel.
  - echelon 5y ago
    > What drivel. Sagan says we're just a mote of dust. Jesus says throw no stones. Hate cannot drive out hate, MLK. Humans evolved as carnivores, killing to survive. Bleaker still, the universe doesn't care when the tiny speck we live on boils away. And here we are but for a brief moment. A tiny kindness goes a long way. The parent poster was being pragmatic. They're going to die, just like the two of us. Work to end the perceived problem instead of talking about it sanctimoniously. Because mimetic vitriol creates interference waves and drives us into factions. It accomplishes nothing and amplifies hate.
    - zelphirkalt 5y ago
      If no one or to few talk about the problem, the problem will not be solved either. So both is needed, the talk and the doing. That means the talk is legitimate as well.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    A person could reasonably believe it won't destroy humanity. Or that expensive energy could also destroy humanity. Humanity is delicate. There are a lot of risks, and trade-offs in how to address them.
  - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
    Sanctimony doesn't work that well. Incentives do. Shaming someone into feeling like a robber baron may sting, but behind them may be a family to support, a sick partner, a struggling child, a gender transition and associated medications and surgeries, and more. The world is a complicated place and reducing it by wagging a finger can only get you so far. Changing systems and incentives is key.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - 9dev 5y ago
    I hate to use such a dire trope, but sometimes it’s better to have someone thoughtful in a bad place than leaving it to the others all by themselves. I think the point OP was trying to make was, change has to start somewhere, and it won’t happen all at once.
  - KMag 5y ago
    The OP is explicitly talking about an honest assessment of shortcomings. They're saying it's necessary. They said nothing about it being sufficient. Presumably, the implicit message the OP tried to get across is to also work within the system to improve it.
- quicklime 5y ago
  That doesn't really make sense to me. Isn't it better to be a hypocrite and be evil only some of the time, rather than be consistently evil all of the time? I don't believe that Twitter has worked out how to act accordingly to the bad side of their platform. There's still a ton of misinformation, it's still incredibly polarizing, and IMO it has a worse overall impact than Google.
  - NotEvil 5y ago
    It's better than the alternatives. Loke koo, parler, e.t.c.. at least they try to point out when a politician is spreading misinfo.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    I think one of the main factors of it being polarizing is that big tech tried to kill misinformation on the internet. 10 years ago people would have laughed at the mere suggestion that everything on the net is true. There will always be misinformation, but this dogma that this is somehow even an issue is completely festered by now but still ridiculous in my opinion. Of course these rules against misinformation are not enforced equally, so people get angry at the unfairness and dig in. Not really surprising. Solution: Sit back an relax and let there be misinformation. Even 5 year olds can handle this easily...
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      That solution seems less practical in an era where the misinformation coupled with rapid spread via digital media can result in attempted coups.
      - raxxorrax 5y ago
        Let them vent their frustrations on Twitter instead of taking it to government institutions then. Are you referring to the Viking?
      - pydry 5y ago
        Playing censorship whack a mole on social media was one of the things that drove recruits into ISIS's arms. It didnt potential recruits from seeing the propaganda but it did quell incipient doubts in their minds that they might be the bad guys. Censorship is good at that. Censorship can work but only if you lock EVERYTHING down, north korea/china style. The more failed censorship governments engage in the more attractive this route becomes.
- dojiav 5y ago
  Yup pointing at hypocrisy and contradictions is much simpler than resolving them. The more complex problems get, the less likely anyone in the room is going to solve them any time soon(Bounded Rationality) . So beyond a point laughing at that reality becomes counter productivs. It just gets people to spend more time and energy reacting, defending, justifying and hiding things. Bottom line - if you want to do something about a very complex problem, pick a small sub problem within it to work on. That approach has better odds of producing outcomes than poking fun at people who have bit off more than they can chew.
- Zababa 5y ago
  > I personally make a big chunk of my money from oil & gas, I recognize that oil & gas for transportation should die, but I know we need oil & gas for materials at the moment (but should reduce, reduce and reduce the use as fast as possible). I've been thinking about that recently, and was wondering if not accepting a job in """bad""" industries (bad is a gross oversimplification here covering things like oil, gas, tobacco, weapons, these kind of things) is in fact running away from your duty. If you don't take a job in these industries, other people will, and these people may be worse than you. Maybe the best moral option is to in fact try as hard as you can to get an influencial position in the industry to promote energy transition, reduce harm from smoking, etc. I apologize again for the oversimplification of grouping together these different industries, my point here is to group what people think usually as "morally bad", not to pass judgment on people who work in those industries.
  - hugosbaseball 5y ago
    > I've been thinking about that recently, and was wondering if not accepting a job in """bad""" industries (bad is a gross oversimplification here covering things like oil, gas, tobacco, weapons, these kind of things) is in fact running away from your duty. If you don't take a job in these industries, other people will, and these people may be worse than you One employee can not have even the slightest influence over the world's largest tech firm, even ignoring that it's publicly traded thus institutional investors are the only people steering the ship. Or ignoring that Brin and Page's research was heavily funded by the CIA and NSA as part of a program specifically designed to encourage silicon valley to develop technology and services to make it easier for them to track social connections between people. This is a bit like going to work at an oil refinery because you think it'll help climate change. Or working for Marlboro's marketing department thinking you'll help them stop marketing to children. Even top corporate leadership doesn't really get to steer the ship. It's investors - in publicly traded companies, typically institutional investors, mostly funds. Any sort of corporate "listen to the employees" initiatives are just window dressing; a tap at the bottom of the tank of "employee rabble-rousing." Just to finish driving home how little impact any worker could have on companies of this size: do you know how Walmart reacts to a store that looks like it's about to successfully unionize despite their union-busting efforts? They turn off the lights and leave. Now consider that Walmart's goal is to undercut all the small businesses in a community, driving them into the ground. Shutting down an established store leaves a huge vacuum. Walmart is capable of destroying communities at the multi-county level and they do not care.
- akudha 5y ago
  We can't quit oil & gas overnight, the world will come to a standstill. But if Twitter were to disappear overnight, it would have zero effect on humanity, isn't it? In other words, he could have joined any number of good companies making good products, he chose to join Twitter. That is interesting to note.
  - genghizkhan 5y ago
    That's unfair. Twitter does have a huge impact on a lot of people. Twitter banning Donald Trump was a huge deal, for example. He has a smaller platform now and (imo) the world is a better place for it. The Earth wouldn't stop rotating on its axis if Twitter were to shut down, I'll give you that, but business as usual would change for a lot of people.
  - realusername 5y ago
    I would not say "zero effects" since quite a lot of news agency relies on it but that's safe to say that the platform would be replaced by something else in less than a month.
  - leesec 5y ago
    I think Twitter is a good company making a good product.
  - Dangeranger 5y ago
    Twitter is not important to me personally, but has been instrumental in organizing public protests within oppressive and authoritarian countries for over a decade. I would say that has had a materially positive impact on humanity, and could continue to do so in the future, despite all the downsides of the platform.
- ksec 5y ago
  > Sometimes part of your work is not all unicorns, pink and friendly, having the honesty to deal with it and not being hypocrite about it is really important. Which is something sorely missing from the current discourse and media, no one is saint. But I guess the media or most public don't care, "The public aren't interested in affairs. All they want to know is who are the goodies and who are the baddies." - Sir Humphrey Appleby >"The mismatch between what they say and what they really do is growing," Cornet said. "The thicker the gap is, the easier it is to point out that hypocrisy." I mean it has been there since Day one. The first time I read about "Do No Evil" in the early 2000s was when my hypocrisy radar on red alert. And the insane amount of PR shit / submarine articles [1] that came in the next few years before they IPO. They were so righteous to the point everything that was in their way was evil. Indeed, Most evil are created by those who think themselves as so righteous. They stopped talking about it from early 2010s and stopped using the tagline in 2015. But the "Do No Evil" disease or ideology still managed to spread across Silicon Valley and Tech Industry. These PR shit managed to dialled to a whole new level, Uber, Snapchat and even Apple once Steve Jobs' RDF was no longer there to shield them. ( And became more apparent once Katie Cotton retired ) I sometimes wonder if those PR people managed to jump from one company to another. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- Quequau 5y ago
  I once met a man who worked in oil & gas who was a pretty vocal (and frankly, unpleasant) "young Earth creationist". As he was in a relationship with someone in my professional social-circle at the time I wound up coming across him on a regular basis for a couple of years. I don't believe I have had a more uncomfortable, baffling, and frustrating conversation in my sixty years of existence than the one I had with him at social gathering where after him bringing it up, I asked him how he balanced his work and religion.
  - TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
    > I asked him how he balanced his work and religion. When I see personally-baffling worldviews in other people, I try to remind myself that there are 7+ billion people on the earth. Someone, somewhere, believes anything you can think of. And now the internet and social media helps them get together and reinforce their beliefs.
  - taneq 5y ago
    God put the oil into the ground for us, right next to those novelty dinosaur bones that He put there for us to find.
ergocoder 5y ago
This is like saying human traffickers use phones to organize their crimes. Apple and iPhone is the most evil company of humankind. They invent a device that helps facilitate human trafficking. Coming next: road and electricity!
- foepys 5y ago
  I get your point but there is definitely a difference between creating a platform where everybody is the same and a platform where engagement algorithms and recommendations push certain messages (or hashtags) to the top to be seen by millions.
- jjcon 5y ago
  Twitter didn’t just make a simple communication platform, they made a platform and wrote algorithms that (intended or not) elevate extremist and divisive voices. If they just made a simple chat app your metaphor would hold but they are directly responsible because they choose which content is shown and which isn’t.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Twitter was far more interesting when trends were actually real instead of prescriptive topics someone wants you to show interest in. Now it is a mix that many regard as repulsive by default.
    - loopz 5y ago
      The problem is many get hooked and duped by manipulators of the platforms. That's self-destructive.
      - raxxorrax 5y ago
        Agreed. It is one of the worst types of scam and people get taken advantage off. But if you exile Alex Jones, you also exile its users and their ability to get out of there is severely dimmed. "There must be some truth to what he says if he gets that much backlash" is always a convincing argument. I don't even mean that ironically. Better have that in the open because on the internet there will always be at least one person that disagrees with any view that is espoused.
malwarebytess 5y ago
I don't know where to begin processing people like you. Your goal isn't to understand, but to criticize; and from a perspective of superiority no less.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
the_dune_13 5y ago
They were first social media to respond to January insurrection. The key word is fewer, not zero.
- andyxor 5y ago
  s/insurrection/mostly peaceful protest
  - loopz 5y ago
    The instigator's agenda was to aspire to Reichstag burning though.
formerly_proven 5y ago
I don't like Twitter but I suspect the effects of Twitter are often exaggerated because everything is public by default, whereas in other networks a lot of stuff happens in groups/channels by default, where it is not immediately visible, so it is simply less amenable to OSINT, scraping and media analysis. In any case, between Twitter and Google it is quite obvious who is doing more harm to more people in more places and more ways. Twitter may still be a net-negative overall (in fact I believe it is) - a lot of stuff is.
- concordDance 5y ago
  > it is quite obvious who is doing more harm to more people in more places To me it's "obviously" Twitter, so I'm quite curious how you came to the conclusion it's Google.
  - riffraff 5y ago
    Google's search bubble is arguably more impactful than Twitter's social bubble due to reach, imo.
    - loopz 5y ago
      Google is an ad company, but search is their foremost product, unlike social media.
      - taneq 5y ago
        Ads are their foremost product. Search is just their vehicle for delivering ads to viewers' eyeballs.
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    In many ways Google is on the same playbook as Microsoft's Embrace/Extend strategy, but perhaps in slightly more creative and net positive way. Google embraced search, and they're basically the only one left. They embraced email and their free offering distorted the market to enough extent to make most other providers also-rans, except a few key players. Youtube is the only viable player left in the video sharing field. RSS readers are recovering but it also was a blood bath. I could go on for long, Google coming and leaving(or not) markets has huge negative impacts that I don't see Twitter having in general.
jsbdk 5y ago
Some people are absolutely rotten and obsessed with politics.
billllll 5y ago
I'm always a bit baffled at people ascribing morals to these big companies. I'd be willing to bet that many Twitter execs would kill to switch places with Google, ethical quandary and all. In that case, it's not that Twitter is more "ethical" than Google because of superior morals, it's because Twitter has not had the same opportunities to trade morals for profit. I'm not saying this out of moral superiority (I worked for Google), I just think it's silly to expect companies to do the right thing without a strong incentive to.
- mns 5y ago
  Because these companies are pretending to be moral, usually until it affects the financial side of things, after that, anything goes, if people don't find out.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
bjourne 5y ago
It seems to me that this guy has spent years thinking about ethical and moral workplace questions and that you have spent a whole two seconds coming up with a sappy zinger. He may have had good reasons to prefer Twitter over Google, these reasons may have been clearly explained, and they may have been glossed over by you.
- Mentoio 5y ago
  From an ethical point of few, twitter doesn't matter and didn't add anything real to our socieity. Google did: Maps, Android, gmail (yes gmail gave free https email accounts when others not even enforced https), skin cancer research, Alphafold, co2 neutral datacenters, pushing now for 24/7 reneweable. Google literally changed the world. In my personal opinion, Google would be worth to stay and try to change google 'back' or whatever is going wrong. What has twitter changed for anyone? Srsly? The reacted when Trump became president they didn't forsee or work on mechanism to fix sharing and multiplying fake news. Other companies like Facebook for example are a global net negative as well. I'm seeing much more fakenewes and uneducated people on facebook commenting as antivaxer than anything else. I can't understand why you would go to twitter and rant about ethical and moral workplace questions.
  - afavour 5y ago
    From the other point of view: through Maps, Android and Gmail Google has absolutely dominated the ad marketplace to a point where only Facebook can compete (and even then, weakly). They’ve built out incredible, unprecedented datasets of user activity online. If Twitter is polarising then YouTube is hyper-polarising. Twitter, I agree, is too insignificant to have done any of those things. So I can see how working there would feel a lot less morally compromising. > stay and try to change Google They’ve been at Google for 14 years. I think at that point you probably have a pretty clear idea what you, as an individual, are going to be able to change in the place.
    - Mentoio 5y ago
      My argument was and still is, that Google as a company has and had such a positive impact, that in my opinion it is worth to stay at Google while there is no real sence of pride or anything beeing part of Twitter in comparison.
thinkingemote 5y ago
To understand it just look at the complaints of tech workers. The majority of them consider internal actions as grossly more important than any outside effects. Thus, if the hiring policy is progressive and if they have good HR, and a happy working life and if the managers don't trip up with certain internal political issues this far outstrips any negative actual real world effects. Walk outs of employees happen due to internal drama, not any external actions. Twitter therefore is a great, comfortable, safe and inclusive place to work even if history might prove it to be more damaging to mental health and physical security of the world than Google. Now, the new tech unions that are occurring in a few companies give some hope against this hypocrisy as they all seem to have a line or two in their mission statements which speak up about shaping the direction and action of their employers. I hope they live up to their promise.
- djanogo 5y ago
  "if the hiring policy is progressive" What does that mean? be racist/sexist and hire less white males or any males in general?
afavour 5y ago
If your concern is polarising and divisive platforms I don’t know how you could ever give Google a free pass for YouTube. Its recommendation algorithm is a radicalisation program that targets divisive videos by design because they get higher engagement. It’s not something they intended but they’ve done near nothing to stop it. And in terms of number of people it reaches YouTube eclipses Twitter easily.
thwower234234 5y ago
> Never mind his new employer has built one of the most polarizing and divisive platforms in the history of humankind. Pretty much all the FAANGs operate in pretty much the same way. Google just has a very benign image, even while they ban people left, right and center on Youtube, censor search results, and delete adsense accounts of inconvenient news orgs. It's a bit ironic that I've to now use Yandex, from "repressive" Russia no less, in order to access sites and information not approved by the Ministry of Truth in the "freedom-loving" lands of the yee United States. If you know your "banned, unapproved, history" (the kind even Chomsky would admonish you for), you'd also know this is not new for either the US, or its predecessor, the British Empire. Hypocrisy, you tempt us, and protect us so.
- peteretep 5y ago
  How do Apple, Amazon, and Netflix operate like this?
pdimitar 5y ago
Simple, he doesn't want to let go of a big wage so makes some ethical compromises. As if we all don't do the same, and I am not sure what value does your comment bring to the discussion because almost none of us can afford to bring 100% of their ethics into their work. If you actually can, I am happy for you, but do recognize that then you'd be in a tiny minority.
viztor 5y ago
There is a huge gap between building weapons and building conversational platform...
pessimizer 5y ago
Twitter is just a bad website. Google terrifies me on surveillance, freedom of speech, and the general destruction of the internet. Twitter just annoys me. The problem with twitter is too much freedom of speech, and that's not a problem that I'm concerned about. If your ethical compass is just bad/good, I could see how this would be confusing.
sebzim4500 5y ago
I think the impact of Twitter on public discourse is massively overstated. Facebook and Youtube are both way more significant. In general I think platforms where you the user explicitly indicates their interest are less socially destructive than ones where an algorithm guesses. At least that way you are aware of what bubble you are in, and can relatively easily see what other people are seeing. On Facebook there is basically no way to do this. Unfortunately social networking sites in the latter category are much more profitable, hence why e.g. reddit is moving in that direction.
leesec 5y ago
Sometimes I don't know where to start with people assuming outright that a social media platform is evil.
ryan93 5y ago
A lot of people in this sub thread who feel entitled to only speech they like being on the internet.
radmuzom 5y ago
Down-voted. Twitter has built a platform which has allowed me, a nobody, to connect with people who are famous or experts in their field and directly interact with them. Earlier efforts to use e-mail had 0 success as most likely my mails would go to their spam. It has allowed me to discover people who would find it very difficult to make themselves heard if there was no central platform where they could post their views and allow any random person on the internet to follow them. Using Twitter, I have discovered a lot of communities which I did not know even exist. It is probably the only useful platform in existence today. Just because some people use it for hate means nothing to me.

stavros 5y ago

Maybe his old employer was worse?

Loic 5y ago

I will quote him directly: > "The mismatch between what they say and what they really do is growing," Cornet said. "The thicker the gap is, the easier it is to point out that hypocrisy." Maybe Twitter internally completely recognize the bad side of the platform and work accordingly. I personally make a big chunk of my money from oil & gas, I recognize that oil & gas for transportation should die, but I know we need oil & gas for materials at the moment (but should reduce, reduce and reduce the use as fast as possible). Sometimes part of your work is not all unicorns, pink and friendly, having the honesty to deal with it and not being hypocrite about it is really important.

galacticaactual 5y ago
So your logic is as long as we are honest and authentic about our work destroying humanity, it’s all good? What drivel.
- echelon 5y ago
  > What drivel. Sagan says we're just a mote of dust. Jesus says throw no stones. Hate cannot drive out hate, MLK. Humans evolved as carnivores, killing to survive. Bleaker still, the universe doesn't care when the tiny speck we live on boils away. And here we are but for a brief moment. A tiny kindness goes a long way. The parent poster was being pragmatic. They're going to die, just like the two of us. Work to end the perceived problem instead of talking about it sanctimoniously. Because mimetic vitriol creates interference waves and drives us into factions. It accomplishes nothing and amplifies hate.
  - zelphirkalt 5y ago
    If no one or to few talk about the problem, the problem will not be solved either. So both is needed, the talk and the doing. That means the talk is legitimate as well.
- roenxi 5y ago
  A person could reasonably believe it won't destroy humanity. Or that expensive energy could also destroy humanity. Humanity is delicate. There are a lot of risks, and trade-offs in how to address them.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  Sanctimony doesn't work that well. Incentives do. Shaming someone into feeling like a robber baron may sting, but behind them may be a family to support, a sick partner, a struggling child, a gender transition and associated medications and surgeries, and more. The world is a complicated place and reducing it by wagging a finger can only get you so far. Changing systems and incentives is key.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- 9dev 5y ago
  I hate to use such a dire trope, but sometimes it’s better to have someone thoughtful in a bad place than leaving it to the others all by themselves. I think the point OP was trying to make was, change has to start somewhere, and it won’t happen all at once.
- KMag 5y ago
  The OP is explicitly talking about an honest assessment of shortcomings. They're saying it's necessary. They said nothing about it being sufficient. Presumably, the implicit message the OP tried to get across is to also work within the system to improve it.
quicklime 5y ago
That doesn't really make sense to me. Isn't it better to be a hypocrite and be evil only some of the time, rather than be consistently evil all of the time? I don't believe that Twitter has worked out how to act accordingly to the bad side of their platform. There's still a ton of misinformation, it's still incredibly polarizing, and IMO it has a worse overall impact than Google.
- NotEvil 5y ago
  It's better than the alternatives. Loke koo, parler, e.t.c.. at least they try to point out when a politician is spreading misinfo.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  I think one of the main factors of it being polarizing is that big tech tried to kill misinformation on the internet. 10 years ago people would have laughed at the mere suggestion that everything on the net is true. There will always be misinformation, but this dogma that this is somehow even an issue is completely festered by now but still ridiculous in my opinion. Of course these rules against misinformation are not enforced equally, so people get angry at the unfairness and dig in. Not really surprising. Solution: Sit back an relax and let there be misinformation. Even 5 year olds can handle this easily...
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    That solution seems less practical in an era where the misinformation coupled with rapid spread via digital media can result in attempted coups.
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      Let them vent their frustrations on Twitter instead of taking it to government institutions then. Are you referring to the Viking?
    - pydry 5y ago
      Playing censorship whack a mole on social media was one of the things that drove recruits into ISIS's arms. It didnt potential recruits from seeing the propaganda but it did quell incipient doubts in their minds that they might be the bad guys. Censorship is good at that. Censorship can work but only if you lock EVERYTHING down, north korea/china style. The more failed censorship governments engage in the more attractive this route becomes.
dojiav 5y ago
Yup pointing at hypocrisy and contradictions is much simpler than resolving them. The more complex problems get, the less likely anyone in the room is going to solve them any time soon(Bounded Rationality) . So beyond a point laughing at that reality becomes counter productivs. It just gets people to spend more time and energy reacting, defending, justifying and hiding things. Bottom line - if you want to do something about a very complex problem, pick a small sub problem within it to work on. That approach has better odds of producing outcomes than poking fun at people who have bit off more than they can chew.
Zababa 5y ago
> I personally make a big chunk of my money from oil & gas, I recognize that oil & gas for transportation should die, but I know we need oil & gas for materials at the moment (but should reduce, reduce and reduce the use as fast as possible). I've been thinking about that recently, and was wondering if not accepting a job in """bad""" industries (bad is a gross oversimplification here covering things like oil, gas, tobacco, weapons, these kind of things) is in fact running away from your duty. If you don't take a job in these industries, other people will, and these people may be worse than you. Maybe the best moral option is to in fact try as hard as you can to get an influencial position in the industry to promote energy transition, reduce harm from smoking, etc. I apologize again for the oversimplification of grouping together these different industries, my point here is to group what people think usually as "morally bad", not to pass judgment on people who work in those industries.
- hugosbaseball 5y ago
  > I've been thinking about that recently, and was wondering if not accepting a job in """bad""" industries (bad is a gross oversimplification here covering things like oil, gas, tobacco, weapons, these kind of things) is in fact running away from your duty. If you don't take a job in these industries, other people will, and these people may be worse than you One employee can not have even the slightest influence over the world's largest tech firm, even ignoring that it's publicly traded thus institutional investors are the only people steering the ship. Or ignoring that Brin and Page's research was heavily funded by the CIA and NSA as part of a program specifically designed to encourage silicon valley to develop technology and services to make it easier for them to track social connections between people. This is a bit like going to work at an oil refinery because you think it'll help climate change. Or working for Marlboro's marketing department thinking you'll help them stop marketing to children. Even top corporate leadership doesn't really get to steer the ship. It's investors - in publicly traded companies, typically institutional investors, mostly funds. Any sort of corporate "listen to the employees" initiatives are just window dressing; a tap at the bottom of the tank of "employee rabble-rousing." Just to finish driving home how little impact any worker could have on companies of this size: do you know how Walmart reacts to a store that looks like it's about to successfully unionize despite their union-busting efforts? They turn off the lights and leave. Now consider that Walmart's goal is to undercut all the small businesses in a community, driving them into the ground. Shutting down an established store leaves a huge vacuum. Walmart is capable of destroying communities at the multi-county level and they do not care.
akudha 5y ago
We can't quit oil & gas overnight, the world will come to a standstill. But if Twitter were to disappear overnight, it would have zero effect on humanity, isn't it? In other words, he could have joined any number of good companies making good products, he chose to join Twitter. That is interesting to note.
- genghizkhan 5y ago
  That's unfair. Twitter does have a huge impact on a lot of people. Twitter banning Donald Trump was a huge deal, for example. He has a smaller platform now and (imo) the world is a better place for it. The Earth wouldn't stop rotating on its axis if Twitter were to shut down, I'll give you that, but business as usual would change for a lot of people.
- realusername 5y ago
  I would not say "zero effects" since quite a lot of news agency relies on it but that's safe to say that the platform would be replaced by something else in less than a month.
- leesec 5y ago
  I think Twitter is a good company making a good product.
- Dangeranger 5y ago
  Twitter is not important to me personally, but has been instrumental in organizing public protests within oppressive and authoritarian countries for over a decade. I would say that has had a materially positive impact on humanity, and could continue to do so in the future, despite all the downsides of the platform.
ksec 5y ago
> Sometimes part of your work is not all unicorns, pink and friendly, having the honesty to deal with it and not being hypocrite about it is really important. Which is something sorely missing from the current discourse and media, no one is saint. But I guess the media or most public don't care, "The public aren't interested in affairs. All they want to know is who are the goodies and who are the baddies." - Sir Humphrey Appleby >"The mismatch between what they say and what they really do is growing," Cornet said. "The thicker the gap is, the easier it is to point out that hypocrisy." I mean it has been there since Day one. The first time I read about "Do No Evil" in the early 2000s was when my hypocrisy radar on red alert. And the insane amount of PR shit / submarine articles [1] that came in the next few years before they IPO. They were so righteous to the point everything that was in their way was evil. Indeed, Most evil are created by those who think themselves as so righteous. They stopped talking about it from early 2010s and stopped using the tagline in 2015. But the "Do No Evil" disease or ideology still managed to spread across Silicon Valley and Tech Industry. These PR shit managed to dialled to a whole new level, Uber, Snapchat and even Apple once Steve Jobs' RDF was no longer there to shield them. ( And became more apparent once Katie Cotton retired ) I sometimes wonder if those PR people managed to jump from one company to another. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- deleted 5y ago
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Quequau 5y ago
I once met a man who worked in oil & gas who was a pretty vocal (and frankly, unpleasant) "young Earth creationist". As he was in a relationship with someone in my professional social-circle at the time I wound up coming across him on a regular basis for a couple of years. I don't believe I have had a more uncomfortable, baffling, and frustrating conversation in my sixty years of existence than the one I had with him at social gathering where after him bringing it up, I asked him how he balanced his work and religion.
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  > I asked him how he balanced his work and religion. When I see personally-baffling worldviews in other people, I try to remind myself that there are 7+ billion people on the earth. Someone, somewhere, believes anything you can think of. And now the internet and social media helps them get together and reinforce their beliefs.
- taneq 5y ago
  God put the oil into the ground for us, right next to those novelty dinosaur bones that He put there for us to find.

ergocoder 5y ago

This is like saying human traffickers use phones to organize their crimes. Apple and iPhone is the most evil company of humankind. They invent a device that helps facilitate human trafficking. Coming next: road and electricity!

foepys 5y ago
I get your point but there is definitely a difference between creating a platform where everybody is the same and a platform where engagement algorithms and recommendations push certain messages (or hashtags) to the top to be seen by millions.
jjcon 5y ago
Twitter didn’t just make a simple communication platform, they made a platform and wrote algorithms that (intended or not) elevate extremist and divisive voices. If they just made a simple chat app your metaphor would hold but they are directly responsible because they choose which content is shown and which isn’t.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Twitter was far more interesting when trends were actually real instead of prescriptive topics someone wants you to show interest in. Now it is a mix that many regard as repulsive by default.
  - loopz 5y ago
    The problem is many get hooked and duped by manipulators of the platforms. That's self-destructive.
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      Agreed. It is one of the worst types of scam and people get taken advantage off. But if you exile Alex Jones, you also exile its users and their ability to get out of there is severely dimmed. "There must be some truth to what he says if he gets that much backlash" is always a convincing argument. I don't even mean that ironically. Better have that in the open because on the internet there will always be at least one person that disagrees with any view that is espoused.

malwarebytess 5y ago

I don't know where to begin processing people like you. Your goal isn't to understand, but to criticize; and from a perspective of superiority no less.

deleted 5y ago
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the_dune_13 5y ago

They were first social media to respond to January insurrection. The key word is fewer, not zero.

andyxor 5y ago
s/insurrection/mostly peaceful protest
- loopz 5y ago
  The instigator's agenda was to aspire to Reichstag burning though.

formerly_proven 5y ago

I don't like Twitter but I suspect the effects of Twitter are often exaggerated because everything is public by default, whereas in other networks a lot of stuff happens in groups/channels by default, where it is not immediately visible, so it is simply less amenable to OSINT, scraping and media analysis. In any case, between Twitter and Google it is quite obvious who is doing more harm to more people in more places and more ways. Twitter may still be a net-negative overall (in fact I believe it is) - a lot of stuff is.

concordDance 5y ago
> it is quite obvious who is doing more harm to more people in more places To me it's "obviously" Twitter, so I'm quite curious how you came to the conclusion it's Google.
- riffraff 5y ago
  Google's search bubble is arguably more impactful than Twitter's social bubble due to reach, imo.
  - loopz 5y ago
    Google is an ad company, but search is their foremost product, unlike social media.
    - taneq 5y ago
      Ads are their foremost product. Search is just their vehicle for delivering ads to viewers' eyeballs.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  In many ways Google is on the same playbook as Microsoft's Embrace/Extend strategy, but perhaps in slightly more creative and net positive way. Google embraced search, and they're basically the only one left. They embraced email and their free offering distorted the market to enough extent to make most other providers also-rans, except a few key players. Youtube is the only viable player left in the video sharing field. RSS readers are recovering but it also was a blood bath. I could go on for long, Google coming and leaving(or not) markets has huge negative impacts that I don't see Twitter having in general.

jsbdk 5y ago

Some people are absolutely rotten and obsessed with politics.

billllll 5y ago

I'm always a bit baffled at people ascribing morals to these big companies. I'd be willing to bet that many Twitter execs would kill to switch places with Google, ethical quandary and all. In that case, it's not that Twitter is more "ethical" than Google because of superior morals, it's because Twitter has not had the same opportunities to trade morals for profit. I'm not saying this out of moral superiority (I worked for Google), I just think it's silly to expect companies to do the right thing without a strong incentive to.

mns 5y ago
Because these companies are pretending to be moral, usually until it affects the financial side of things, after that, anything goes, if people don't find out.
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bjourne 5y ago

It seems to me that this guy has spent years thinking about ethical and moral workplace questions and that you have spent a whole two seconds coming up with a sappy zinger. He may have had good reasons to prefer Twitter over Google, these reasons may have been clearly explained, and they may have been glossed over by you.

Mentoio 5y ago
From an ethical point of few, twitter doesn't matter and didn't add anything real to our socieity. Google did: Maps, Android, gmail (yes gmail gave free https email accounts when others not even enforced https), skin cancer research, Alphafold, co2 neutral datacenters, pushing now for 24/7 reneweable. Google literally changed the world. In my personal opinion, Google would be worth to stay and try to change google 'back' or whatever is going wrong. What has twitter changed for anyone? Srsly? The reacted when Trump became president they didn't forsee or work on mechanism to fix sharing and multiplying fake news. Other companies like Facebook for example are a global net negative as well. I'm seeing much more fakenewes and uneducated people on facebook commenting as antivaxer than anything else. I can't understand why you would go to twitter and rant about ethical and moral workplace questions.
- afavour 5y ago
  From the other point of view: through Maps, Android and Gmail Google has absolutely dominated the ad marketplace to a point where only Facebook can compete (and even then, weakly). They’ve built out incredible, unprecedented datasets of user activity online. If Twitter is polarising then YouTube is hyper-polarising. Twitter, I agree, is too insignificant to have done any of those things. So I can see how working there would feel a lot less morally compromising. > stay and try to change Google They’ve been at Google for 14 years. I think at that point you probably have a pretty clear idea what you, as an individual, are going to be able to change in the place.
  - Mentoio 5y ago
    My argument was and still is, that Google as a company has and had such a positive impact, that in my opinion it is worth to stay at Google while there is no real sence of pride or anything beeing part of Twitter in comparison.

thinkingemote 5y ago

To understand it just look at the complaints of tech workers. The majority of them consider internal actions as grossly more important than any outside effects. Thus, if the hiring policy is progressive and if they have good HR, and a happy working life and if the managers don't trip up with certain internal political issues this far outstrips any negative actual real world effects. Walk outs of employees happen due to internal drama, not any external actions. Twitter therefore is a great, comfortable, safe and inclusive place to work even if history might prove it to be more damaging to mental health and physical security of the world than Google. Now, the new tech unions that are occurring in a few companies give some hope against this hypocrisy as they all seem to have a line or two in their mission statements which speak up about shaping the direction and action of their employers. I hope they live up to their promise.

djanogo 5y ago
"if the hiring policy is progressive" What does that mean? be racist/sexist and hire less white males or any males in general?

afavour 5y ago

If your concern is polarising and divisive platforms I don’t know how you could ever give Google a free pass for YouTube. Its recommendation algorithm is a radicalisation program that targets divisive videos by design because they get higher engagement. It’s not something they intended but they’ve done near nothing to stop it. And in terms of number of people it reaches YouTube eclipses Twitter easily.

thwower234234 5y ago

> Never mind his new employer has built one of the most polarizing and divisive platforms in the history of humankind. Pretty much all the FAANGs operate in pretty much the same way. Google just has a very benign image, even while they ban people left, right and center on Youtube, censor search results, and delete adsense accounts of inconvenient news orgs. It's a bit ironic that I've to now use Yandex, from "repressive" Russia no less, in order to access sites and information not approved by the Ministry of Truth in the "freedom-loving" lands of the yee United States. If you know your "banned, unapproved, history" (the kind even Chomsky would admonish you for), you'd also know this is not new for either the US, or its predecessor, the British Empire. Hypocrisy, you tempt us, and protect us so.

peteretep 5y ago
How do Apple, Amazon, and Netflix operate like this?

pdimitar 5y ago

Simple, he doesn't want to let go of a big wage so makes some ethical compromises. As if we all don't do the same, and I am not sure what value does your comment bring to the discussion because almost none of us can afford to bring 100% of their ethics into their work. If you actually can, I am happy for you, but do recognize that then you'd be in a tiny minority.

viztor 5y ago

There is a huge gap between building weapons and building conversational platform...

pessimizer 5y ago

Twitter is just a bad website. Google terrifies me on surveillance, freedom of speech, and the general destruction of the internet. Twitter just annoys me. The problem with twitter is too much freedom of speech, and that's not a problem that I'm concerned about. If your ethical compass is just bad/good, I could see how this would be confusing.

sebzim4500 5y ago

I think the impact of Twitter on public discourse is massively overstated. Facebook and Youtube are both way more significant. In general I think platforms where you the user explicitly indicates their interest are less socially destructive than ones where an algorithm guesses. At least that way you are aware of what bubble you are in, and can relatively easily see what other people are seeing. On Facebook there is basically no way to do this. Unfortunately social networking sites in the latter category are much more profitable, hence why e.g. reddit is moving in that direction.

leesec 5y ago

Sometimes I don't know where to start with people assuming outright that a social media platform is evil.

ryan93 5y ago

A lot of people in this sub thread who feel entitled to only speech they like being on the internet.

radmuzom 5y ago

Down-voted. Twitter has built a platform which has allowed me, a nobody, to connect with people who are famous or experts in their field and directly interact with them. Earlier efforts to use e-mail had 0 success as most likely my mails would go to their spam. It has allowed me to discover people who would find it very difficult to make themselves heard if there was no central platform where they could post their views and allow any random person on the internet to follow them. Using Twitter, I have discovered a lot of communities which I did not know even exist. It is probably the only useful platform in existence today. Just because some people use it for hate means nothing to me.