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>“We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly,” said the confidential review. Why do we even have the collective fiction where corporate messaging aro

>“We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly,” said the confidential review. Why do we even have the collective fiction where corporate messaging around a sore topic is treated as trustworthy? Especially with companies that we know lie all the fucking time?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
smoldesu 5y ago
Every FAANG company compulsively lies to it's customers, and it's a shame because it only encourages up-and-comers to "imitate the best". Making matters worse, American politicians are utterly ill-equipped to handle this kind of deception. Not only do they likely profit off the success of Facebook, there are numerous domestic interests in preserving their control. On top of that, nobody can pull the plug because it's wrapped up with the CIA, FBI, FCC and FTC.
sdrawkcabmai 5y ago
Why out of the largest tech companies, like Amazon, Google, Netflix, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Twitter (well not large but similar to FB in terms of social network) only one has a reputation for constantly lying and misleading people on purpose in its self-interest? Is it because we pay more attention to FB or is it because FB is different in some way?
- castis 5y ago
  I dont actually see a reason to believe that _any_ of them would be telling the truth _ever_. There's no incentive to be honest and there's plenty incentive to not be.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  I recall Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon to have lied a ton.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  I put all of the companies you name in pretty much the same basket, and avoid them as much as I can. I don't shop on Amazon, I don't use Netflix, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter. I don't use Apple products. I do use Android and Google Docs/Drive/Mail but my next phone will probably be an open one and I could drop the GSuite stuff without too much pain, mostly laziness that I haven't already.
  - davidkellis 5y ago
    I'm in the same boat. Trying my best to de-FAANG my life. Self hosting as much as possible, with as little management overhead as possible, but I'm still stuck on Android and I don't know how to break free.
    - retro64 5y ago
      Flip phone. People laugh at mine, whatever. Honestly though I use a flip because it does what I need and it's tough as nails.
    - schiem 5y ago
      It's not quite ready for the prime time, but there are some open source phones in the works. The two most notable are the Librem 5 (https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/) and the Pinephone (https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/).
    - armagon 5y ago
      Which self-hosting software do you recommend?
      - davidkellis 5y ago
        I'm self hosting Ghost for blogging, Home Assistant for smart home controller, and in the middle of setting up Vaultwarden for passwords. I also run a lot of stuff off my Synology - Synology Drive instead of Dropbox or Google Drive, Synology Photos instead of Google Photos. I don't have a great solution for email or phone - emails is paid hosting through Zoho and use Android for phone. I'd like to get off those. It's all a long drawn out process.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  In this particular case, it's only Facebook and Twitter that are significant social networks and they are responsible for the biggest spread of misinformation. Google is a close third, if you hold Google responsible for its own search results (and not the websites they link to which their algorithm considers most important). I mean I think they're all overgrown capitalist machines that thirst for their users' data, mindshare and money, and all of them have a heap of dirty secrets that either have or will leak out sooner or later. And none of their dirty secrets - like this 'revelation' that Facebook has a database of favorites - will be surprising. Twitter has it too - Trump got away with stuff most people would be instantly banned for. They cite he is a person of high importance, but the real reason is that Trump and the ripple effect each of his tweets had were responsible for a big chunk of their annual revenue. Remember a few years ago that Twitter was struggling financially or stagnating in terms of activity and users? I'm sure I remember a few articles about that. But since then, Trump and some other populist politicians and commentators have caused big waves on there, because each post starts a very big and long discussion involving thousands if not tens of thousands of people, all of them having 'hot takes' on things. TL;DR they exempt people from the rules because they make them the most money.
  - KaiserPro 5y ago
    > Facebook and Twitter [are] responsible for the biggest spread of misinformation I really wish it was that simple. if it was, we could just ban it all and have done with it. For the US this is a symptom of the splitting of a country into multiple warring parts. Partly whipped up by news networks, print journalism and all by the constant war for your attention. TV news picks up some stupid tweet, offers it as an morsel for 5 minutes of hate. This pissed people off, they got online and berate the original tweet, the "other side" counter attacks, rinse, repeat. (see critical race theory) The general public are being played, so that a number of large corporations can get attention enough to sell advertising space. > Google is a close third, if you hold Google responsible for its own search results why wouldn't you? I mean they are well known for allowing advertisers to manipulate results. They track your location, what your reading, who your talking to, and sell the products to third parties. If we should be keeping an eye on anyone, it should be google. The level of questioning that FB gets must be applied to any of the internet giants.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  Microsoft was a serial liar for decades over its efforts to quash competition for DOS, Windows, Internet Explorer, and its "embrace, extend, and extinguish" strategy. Amazon's statements about working conditions in its warehouses and its treatment of workers trying to unionize directly contradict documented actions. Twitter says one thing regarding abusive and hateful users but does another. Google finessed its theft of Java. Some would say that you don't get to be as large and as profitable as those companies without resorting to mendacity and rule-breaking. Some would even say that such moves are required and acceptable
- logicalmonster 5y ago
  > Is it because we pay more attention to FB or is it because FB is different in some way? Facebook probably has the most well-known face of any of these companies in Mark Zuckerberg. And one difference between Mark and other typical cut-throat business leaders is that he's got a reputation for being weirdly socially awkward in a noticeable way to the extent that there's numerous memes about him being a robot or alien. Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, and others might be similarly ruthless or worse entrepreneurs, but they don't come across as the same level of creepy even though they also want to own your data, put cameras and microphones in your house, just as much as Facebook.
cratermoon 5y ago
Further, why do we continue to accept the fiction that rules and laws apply to the elite as for the masses? Even the not-so-elite, the Stanford swimmer who brutally raped and assaulted Chanel Miller, though convicted, was given light sentence because of his "bright future", according to the judge.
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  Is there anyone walking around that actually believes that rules and laws apply to the elite? Some seem to think that the reason this is excused is because (in the US at least) every poor schmuck seem to think they they will be rich and powerful someday and get to partake. I've never found that very credible, but smarter people than me seem to think so.
  - isk517 5y ago
    Depends on the rules and laws. The system tends to be very good at punishing rich people that swindle money from other rich people.
    - taylodl 5y ago
      In other words, when the elite are impacted the full force of law will be brought to bear on the perpetrator of the injustice. This used to be called aristocracy. We've spent the past 250 years pretending it doesn't exist here in the States.
      - colpabar 5y ago
        I find it funny how we use phrases like "Russian oligarchs" all the time without batting an eye, but we never use them when referring to the Bushes or the Clintons in the US.
        JadeNB 5y ago
        There's a minor genre of imagining US journalism standards for world reporting applied to reporting on the US: https://slate.com/tag/if-it-happened-there https://slate.com/tag/if-it-happened-there
mandmandam 5y ago
In short, I'd guess that's because the companies reporting on them are owned by billionaires, and shareholders with bags of fossil fuel, war, banking, etc, stocks. For example, the company reporting this is the WSJ, owned by Murdoch. Why are the WSJ seen as respectable? Why are any of the MSM seen as respectable? They're all objectively untrustworthy on basically everything except sport. They're all in it together, and the sooner we cut them out of our collective headspace the better our chance of survival.
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  Yeah, better to listen to someone with unknown credentials on Substack, or whatever I dig up on Facebook. That will put the MSM in their place. By the way did you know that hydroxychloroquine does cure COVID, if you also take it with tons of Zinc? Big Pharma (TM) doesn't want you to know.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    Let's not overestimate the critical thinking skill advantage separating journalists from other people. I can check the citations as well as any editor, sometimes better because I know some things about math and have no reason to be biased. When there's no scene to be at with a camera and nobody is getting interviewed, I just don't see what the media has to add. Spending years pouring over account records? Interviewing a eyewitness to get the real story from a hundred conflicting ones? Combing through a million tweets to find one with a video of a natural disaster? Those are things that a journalist could conceivably do better than I could.
    - elzbardico 5y ago
      Most journalists nowadays seem pretty gullible and hard set on their preconceived world views. I fail to see any advantage in critical thinking skills on the media class.
      - cbsmith 5y ago
SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
Do we have that collective fiction? I don't personally know anyone who thought that Facebook applied its rules to all equally, and certainly nobody here in the HN comments seems to be surprised.
tomc1985 5y ago
> Why do we even have the collective fiction where corporate messaging around a sore topic is treated as trustworthy? Especially with companies that we know lie all the fucking time? Yeah I don't get that. PR people are adversaries, not allies
linuxftw 5y ago
Clearly we need to setup the Social Media Agency and regulate them. We'll staff the agency with high level political appointments comprised entirely of Twitter and Facebook executives. Works for the FDA, anyway.
- smsm42 5y ago
  The scary thing is now this is one step from the government policy. And in some countries, it's already becoming the government policy.
- edoceo 5y ago
  We can call the the Ministry of Truth.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    It was inconceivable before 9/11 that we would ever have something called "Department of Homeland Security" or be "asked for our papers". Yet, right afterwards, we were given the "Department of Homeland Security" and the "Patriot Act", which has been extended every single time, despite how it has been regularly abused. My children have grown up into adults not knowing anything else. Just wait a short while. If you don't do something, you will live under the "Ministry of Truth".
WriterGuy2021 5y ago
That's not the only collective fiction that's problematic. At this point, the lies are the only thing keeping everything going.
huijzer 5y ago
I can only guess why, but I do know that it’s not new. For example, around 1920, journalists were praising Hershey town as a town without crime even though the town had many incidents (Michael D‘Antonio).
- bdowling 5y ago
  For some journalists, idealism trumps integrity.
dboreham 5y ago
Whenever I see such a corporate communication, my mental process is to immediately imagine the meeting that led to its creation, having attended many such meetings. Recently I've resorted to explaining various news items to my kids as "well, there would have been a meeting, and their lawyer would have said this... and the marketing person would have said that... and then they tried to figure out how to put out a statement that was true but didn't get them sued..."
de6u99er 5y ago
Today I asked the public transportation company here to either enforce their mask mandate, or to let it completely be so people who actually care can decide for themselves how big of a risk they are willing to take. By having a mask mandate which is not being enforced many customers might get a false feel of security. Same goes for Facebook. If people think that everybody is being fact checked and false information content is being taken down after being reported then stuff that doesn't get taken down must be true.
- alanlammiman 5y ago
  ah, but you are assuming that the inconsistent enforcement is an accident. "for my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law"
seph-reed 5y ago
My personal pet theory is that -- whether we admit it or not -- most people are somewhat... spiritual? Humans tend to see and believe in meaning where none exists. Seeing great injustice like this is just really hard for us, because it's a constant reminder that either: 1. there is no meaning / purpose / higher-power / etc, or 2. we have been forsaken by whatever higher-power there is. Both of these are uncomfortable, so it's often easier to just subconsciously fall into ignoring the issues and lulling oneself into a bit of happiness. Until something like this happens, then everyone has to act surprised for a bit; lest they admit to #1 or #2 above.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

smoldesu 5y ago

Every FAANG company compulsively lies to it's customers, and it's a shame because it only encourages up-and-comers to "imitate the best". Making matters worse, American politicians are utterly ill-equipped to handle this kind of deception. Not only do they likely profit off the success of Facebook, there are numerous domestic interests in preserving their control. On top of that, nobody can pull the plug because it's wrapped up with the CIA, FBI, FCC and FTC.

sdrawkcabmai 5y ago

Why out of the largest tech companies, like Amazon, Google, Netflix, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Twitter (well not large but similar to FB in terms of social network) only one has a reputation for constantly lying and misleading people on purpose in its self-interest? Is it because we pay more attention to FB or is it because FB is different in some way?

castis 5y ago
I dont actually see a reason to believe that _any_ of them would be telling the truth _ever_. There's no incentive to be honest and there's plenty incentive to not be.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
I recall Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon to have lied a ton.
throwawayboise 5y ago
I put all of the companies you name in pretty much the same basket, and avoid them as much as I can. I don't shop on Amazon, I don't use Netflix, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter. I don't use Apple products. I do use Android and Google Docs/Drive/Mail but my next phone will probably be an open one and I could drop the GSuite stuff without too much pain, mostly laziness that I haven't already.
- davidkellis 5y ago
  I'm in the same boat. Trying my best to de-FAANG my life. Self hosting as much as possible, with as little management overhead as possible, but I'm still stuck on Android and I don't know how to break free.
  - retro64 5y ago
    Flip phone. People laugh at mine, whatever. Honestly though I use a flip because it does what I need and it's tough as nails.
  - schiem 5y ago
    It's not quite ready for the prime time, but there are some open source phones in the works. The two most notable are the Librem 5 (https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/) and the Pinephone (https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/).
  - armagon 5y ago
    Which self-hosting software do you recommend?
    - davidkellis 5y ago
      I'm self hosting Ghost for blogging, Home Assistant for smart home controller, and in the middle of setting up Vaultwarden for passwords. I also run a lot of stuff off my Synology - Synology Drive instead of Dropbox or Google Drive, Synology Photos instead of Google Photos. I don't have a great solution for email or phone - emails is paid hosting through Zoho and use Android for phone. I'd like to get off those. It's all a long drawn out process.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
In this particular case, it's only Facebook and Twitter that are significant social networks and they are responsible for the biggest spread of misinformation. Google is a close third, if you hold Google responsible for its own search results (and not the websites they link to which their algorithm considers most important). I mean I think they're all overgrown capitalist machines that thirst for their users' data, mindshare and money, and all of them have a heap of dirty secrets that either have or will leak out sooner or later. And none of their dirty secrets - like this 'revelation' that Facebook has a database of favorites - will be surprising. Twitter has it too - Trump got away with stuff most people would be instantly banned for. They cite he is a person of high importance, but the real reason is that Trump and the ripple effect each of his tweets had were responsible for a big chunk of their annual revenue. Remember a few years ago that Twitter was struggling financially or stagnating in terms of activity and users? I'm sure I remember a few articles about that. But since then, Trump and some other populist politicians and commentators have caused big waves on there, because each post starts a very big and long discussion involving thousands if not tens of thousands of people, all of them having 'hot takes' on things. TL;DR they exempt people from the rules because they make them the most money.
- KaiserPro 5y ago
  > Facebook and Twitter [are] responsible for the biggest spread of misinformation I really wish it was that simple. if it was, we could just ban it all and have done with it. For the US this is a symptom of the splitting of a country into multiple warring parts. Partly whipped up by news networks, print journalism and all by the constant war for your attention. TV news picks up some stupid tweet, offers it as an morsel for 5 minutes of hate. This pissed people off, they got online and berate the original tweet, the "other side" counter attacks, rinse, repeat. (see critical race theory) The general public are being played, so that a number of large corporations can get attention enough to sell advertising space. > Google is a close third, if you hold Google responsible for its own search results why wouldn't you? I mean they are well known for allowing advertisers to manipulate results. They track your location, what your reading, who your talking to, and sell the products to third parties. If we should be keeping an eye on anyone, it should be google. The level of questioning that FB gets must be applied to any of the internet giants.
cratermoon 5y ago
Microsoft was a serial liar for decades over its efforts to quash competition for DOS, Windows, Internet Explorer, and its "embrace, extend, and extinguish" strategy. Amazon's statements about working conditions in its warehouses and its treatment of workers trying to unionize directly contradict documented actions. Twitter says one thing regarding abusive and hateful users but does another. Google finessed its theft of Java. Some would say that you don't get to be as large and as profitable as those companies without resorting to mendacity and rule-breaking. Some would even say that such moves are required and acceptable
logicalmonster 5y ago
> Is it because we pay more attention to FB or is it because FB is different in some way? Facebook probably has the most well-known face of any of these companies in Mark Zuckerberg. And one difference between Mark and other typical cut-throat business leaders is that he's got a reputation for being weirdly socially awkward in a noticeable way to the extent that there's numerous memes about him being a robot or alien. Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, and others might be similarly ruthless or worse entrepreneurs, but they don't come across as the same level of creepy even though they also want to own your data, put cameras and microphones in your house, just as much as Facebook.

cratermoon 5y ago

Further, why do we continue to accept the fiction that rules and laws apply to the elite as for the masses? Even the not-so-elite, the Stanford swimmer who brutally raped and assaulted Chanel Miller, though convicted, was given light sentence because of his "bright future", according to the judge.

metalliqaz 5y ago
Is there anyone walking around that actually believes that rules and laws apply to the elite? Some seem to think that the reason this is excused is because (in the US at least) every poor schmuck seem to think they they will be rich and powerful someday and get to partake. I've never found that very credible, but smarter people than me seem to think so.
- isk517 5y ago
  Depends on the rules and laws. The system tends to be very good at punishing rich people that swindle money from other rich people.
  - taylodl 5y ago
    In other words, when the elite are impacted the full force of law will be brought to bear on the perpetrator of the injustice. This used to be called aristocracy. We've spent the past 250 years pretending it doesn't exist here in the States.
    - colpabar 5y ago
      I find it funny how we use phrases like "Russian oligarchs" all the time without batting an eye, but we never use them when referring to the Bushes or the Clintons in the US.
      - JadeNB 5y ago
        There's a minor genre of imagining US journalism standards for world reporting applied to reporting on the US: https://slate.com/tag/if-it-happened-there https://slate.com/tag/if-it-happened-there

mandmandam 5y ago

In short, I'd guess that's because the companies reporting on them are owned by billionaires, and shareholders with bags of fossil fuel, war, banking, etc, stocks. For example, the company reporting this is the WSJ, owned by Murdoch. Why are the WSJ seen as respectable? Why are any of the MSM seen as respectable? They're all objectively untrustworthy on basically everything except sport. They're all in it together, and the sooner we cut them out of our collective headspace the better our chance of survival.

metalliqaz 5y ago
Yeah, better to listen to someone with unknown credentials on Substack, or whatever I dig up on Facebook. That will put the MSM in their place. By the way did you know that hydroxychloroquine does cure COVID, if you also take it with tons of Zinc? Big Pharma (TM) doesn't want you to know.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  Let's not overestimate the critical thinking skill advantage separating journalists from other people. I can check the citations as well as any editor, sometimes better because I know some things about math and have no reason to be biased. When there's no scene to be at with a camera and nobody is getting interviewed, I just don't see what the media has to add. Spending years pouring over account records? Interviewing a eyewitness to get the real story from a hundred conflicting ones? Combing through a million tweets to find one with a video of a natural disaster? Those are things that a journalist could conceivably do better than I could.
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    Most journalists nowadays seem pretty gullible and hard set on their preconceived world views. I fail to see any advantage in critical thinking skills on the media class.
    - cbsmith 5y ago

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago

Do we have that collective fiction? I don't personally know anyone who thought that Facebook applied its rules to all equally, and certainly nobody here in the HN comments seems to be surprised.

tomc1985 5y ago

> Why do we even have the collective fiction where corporate messaging around a sore topic is treated as trustworthy? Especially with companies that we know lie all the fucking time? Yeah I don't get that. PR people are adversaries, not allies

linuxftw 5y ago

Clearly we need to setup the Social Media Agency and regulate them. We'll staff the agency with high level political appointments comprised entirely of Twitter and Facebook executives. Works for the FDA, anyway.

smsm42 5y ago
The scary thing is now this is one step from the government policy. And in some countries, it's already becoming the government policy.
edoceo 5y ago
We can call the the Ministry of Truth.
- IncRnd 5y ago
  It was inconceivable before 9/11 that we would ever have something called "Department of Homeland Security" or be "asked for our papers". Yet, right afterwards, we were given the "Department of Homeland Security" and the "Patriot Act", which has been extended every single time, despite how it has been regularly abused. My children have grown up into adults not knowing anything else. Just wait a short while. If you don't do something, you will live under the "Ministry of Truth".

WriterGuy2021 5y ago

That's not the only collective fiction that's problematic. At this point, the lies are the only thing keeping everything going.

huijzer 5y ago

I can only guess why, but I do know that it’s not new. For example, around 1920, journalists were praising Hershey town as a town without crime even though the town had many incidents (Michael D‘Antonio).

bdowling 5y ago
For some journalists, idealism trumps integrity.

dboreham 5y ago

Whenever I see such a corporate communication, my mental process is to immediately imagine the meeting that led to its creation, having attended many such meetings. Recently I've resorted to explaining various news items to my kids as "well, there would have been a meeting, and their lawyer would have said this... and the marketing person would have said that... and then they tried to figure out how to put out a statement that was true but didn't get them sued..."

de6u99er 5y ago

Today I asked the public transportation company here to either enforce their mask mandate, or to let it completely be so people who actually care can decide for themselves how big of a risk they are willing to take. By having a mask mandate which is not being enforced many customers might get a false feel of security. Same goes for Facebook. If people think that everybody is being fact checked and false information content is being taken down after being reported then stuff that doesn't get taken down must be true.

alanlammiman 5y ago
ah, but you are assuming that the inconsistent enforcement is an accident. "for my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law"

seph-reed 5y ago

My personal pet theory is that -- whether we admit it or not -- most people are somewhat... spiritual? Humans tend to see and believe in meaning where none exists. Seeing great injustice like this is just really hard for us, because it's a constant reminder that either: 1. there is no meaning / purpose / higher-power / etc, or 2. we have been forsaken by whatever higher-power there is. Both of these are uncomfortable, so it's often easier to just subconsciously fall into ignoring the issues and lulling oneself into a bit of happiness. Until something like this happens, then everyone has to act surprised for a bit; lest they admit to #1 or #2 above.