9 ms·

Facebook’s Push to Defend Its Image

140 points by jaredwiener 5y ago

fireball_blaze 5y ago
https://archive.ph/NOssQ https://archive.ph/NOssQ
jasonhansel 5y ago
Manipulating the News Feed to show users pro-Facebook articles is...so obviously and blatantly unethical that I'm surprised so many people were willing to authorize it.
- muchtolearn 5y ago
  It certainly feels like a hail Mary attempt to save their image, especially given the recent media barrage. Anecdotally at least, it feels like most of my friends who used the platform 5 years ago are no longer active on it.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  The traditional media is FB's competition, though. Why should a company be obligated to host links to negative publicity paid for by a competitor? I assume you don't think that the NYT should be required to print anti NYT articles written by FB, right?
  - saurik 5y ago
    The comment you responded to said "unethical"; there are many things that are unethical that are not illegal (though I am not claiming this should not be, as Facebook is supposedly providing a communications platform here... but it doesn't matter if it should or shouldn't be: ethics is not law).
    - fallingknife 5y ago
      You are right. But I don't think it's unethical either. Just like I don't think it's unethical that the NYT doesn't run anti NYT articles written by FB. edit: When it comes to censoring content by political opinion, then I'm more towards the unethical side, but I think it's a step to far to expect any company to allow it's platform to be used to spread attack pieces against itself.
      - kelnos 5y ago
        The NYT and FB are two different kinds of entities, and I don't think you can judge similar (hypothetical) actions that either one might take. The NYT is a news outlet. They publish what they believe is newsworthy, interpreted with whatever biases they might have. They don't just take random things that other people have published (or want to publish) and publish them. FB is a social media site. They don't "publish" things; they provide a platform for their users to share things that interest them (and a platform for advertisers, but that's not really relevant here). If a user shares something that praises FB and another user shares something critical of FB (let's assume for the moment that both the praise and criticism are accurate, to preempt the "misinformation" argument), it is absolutely unethical for FB to over-promote the praise and bury the criticism. That's pretty much the textbook definition of unethical.
  - ggggtez 5y ago
    The point is that Facebook publicly claims it's not a media company. They do that to avoid government oversight. Once they are revealed to be acting like a media company, it's a house of cards. Regulation presumably would follow.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    Facebook doesn't present itself as a media company to its users though. It presents itself as a social platform allowing people to communicate, and the expectation from the user is that you will see content that is popular and/or being shared by your friends without any editorial control/oversight such as downranking "inconvenient" truths. It's also not done transparently, it would be one thing if FB turned around and outright said "this is inconvenient to our business, so we won't allow you to post it", but in this case they silently downrank the content behind the scenes.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > you don't think that the NYT should be required to print anti NYT articles written by FB Facebook isn't journalism; it's not comparable. The NYT does publish results of internal investigations into flaws, as do many other businesses, including much of the IT industry (all those open after action reports, for example). Openness and transparency are necessary antidotes to concentrated power.
- enumjorge 5y ago
  As someone who works at a not-small tech company, I try to practice the whole "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones". After all, most tech companies exhibit some behavior that is objectionable. But Facebook... I honestly don't know how their employees are comfortable working there.
  - redonkulus 5y ago
    Easy ... money
  - josephg 5y ago
    > I honestly don't know how their employees are comfortable working there. Probably most of the people who don’t feel comfortable with facebook’s role in society have already selected themselves out of the employee pool. If you’re the sort of engineer Facebook wants to hire, and you have a strong sense of ethics, there’s no shortage of well paid work you could do instead. The people who end up at FB are the people who don’t see a problem or don’t care.
    - gorwell 5y ago
      This is why resumes with recent FB history should be thrown in the trash.
      - coolspot 5y ago
        By the same logic, should people with criminal history also not be considered for any jobs?
        fortuna86 5y ago
        People with with criminal histories show remorse.
        fortuna86 5y ago
        Everyone I know that has taken a big bag of money from FB is still in denial about what they've done to the world.
- usernomdeguerre 5y ago
  and don't forget shelving their own comissioned reports that didn't fall in line with the pro-facebook narrative: "Mr. Schultz argued that Facebook should publish its own information about the site’s most popular content rather than supply access to tools like CrowdTangle, two people said. So in June, the company compiled a report on Facebook’s most-viewed posts for the first three months of 2021. ... A day before the report’s publication, Mr. Schultz was part of a group that voted to shelve the document, according to the emails."
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    But what company out there releases internal reports that would not show it in a good light? Have you ever worked at a company that just airs out its dirty laundry like that? This is an unreasonable expectation that is applied to no other company.
    - adrianh 5y ago
      Given the reach and usage patterns of Facebook, the expectation is indeed reasonable.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - _jal 5y ago
      Many companies have earned varying degrees of trust. Behavior like this continues to demonstrate why FB is not one of them. They're craven and untrustworthy from the top down. They have been since they started, and continue to prove it nearly every single month.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      I don't agree with the factual claim: As examples, IT industry businesses publish their flaws and internal investigations into them all the time, about massive security failures, for example. If a plane crashes, they manufacturer and the airline are expected to be very open. Facebook has great power over our communities, and thus we have very high expectations. The parent's 'expectation' that businesses (or individuals) only act in their own immediate interests, and not in the interests of their communities, is an odd contemporary idea that humanity's worst instincts are the 'true' and necessary ones, while humanity has many instincts, good and bad, and it's our free will to choose. It also ignores even 'enlightened self interest': Our society is falling apart, and social media plays a major role; you don't sh-t where you eat.
- ahahahahah 5y ago
  What does that have to do with anything? That's not what's described in the article. It's "an informational unit clearly marked as coming from Facebook". It's similar to the units that facebook has for vaccine information or voting information.
  - jasonhansel 5y ago
    There's a big difference between providing information to help the public and providing disinformation to increase profits.
- autokad 5y ago
  not saying its right, but all the tech companies do it. Blind for instance will remove a post within minutes if you create a post saying 'blind is censoring our posts', as they did with me. Surprised I didn't get banned but maybe that's coming.
  - lupire 5y ago
    YouTube doesn't censor anti-Google sentiment. I don't think Twitter censors anti-Twitter sentiment.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      Do you have evidence to back that up? I wouldn't be surprised at all if either of those things happen regularly.
- throwaway10673 5y ago
  The NYT reporter posted on Twitter clarifying that the news feed isn’t being manipulated: https://twitter.com/rmac18/status/1440457311298883588 https://twitter.com/rmac18/status/1440457311298883588
  - kordlessagain 5y ago
    Link or not, they did not use the term "manipulated".
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Why create a throwaway account to post this? Their use is limited under HN guidelines.
  - thesausageking 5y ago
    Why are you using a throwaway to mischaracterize what the reporter wrote? He literally wrote: "So to be clear: Project Amplify, in this iteration, does not involve any algorithm changes to news feed (which we don't say in the story). But it still involves Facebook pushing pro-FB content into News Feeds in a pre-determined fashion to boost its reputation." The feed ranking wasn't change, but the News feed is being manipulated by adding pro-FB content to it and he stands behind what he wrote. The article never said the News feed algorithm was changed.
    - fortuna86 5y ago
      Right, so why would "altering the news feed" matter? They don't need to alter it to add their pro-FB content, they just do it. Talk about trying to confuse on a technicality.
- mc32 5y ago
  Out of all the unethical things they do, you think their being biased for themselves is so bad that you wonder how they authorized it? Spying on users, UX dark patterns, engagement tactics, monopolistic practices, all sorts of other abuses, but you wanna call them on this? They have a lot worse things they do that I'd call them over.
mullingitover 5y ago
It's really gotta sting when, as a young man, you create this technological powerhouse only to be cursed to preside over its decline into a malevolent, warmed-over AOL. I helped my mother fix her access to facebook and it's one of my biggest regrets in life. She leaned hard into the covid misinformation that facebook spreads, turned into a delusional anti-vaxxer, and I can't help thinking that my innocently helping her fix her account is ultimately going to lead to her death.
- jumelles 5y ago
  He's actively part of all of this. "But at least one of the decisions was driven by Mr. Zuckerberg, and all were approved by him, three of the people said." "Mr. Zuckerberg, who had become intertwined with policy issues including the 2020 election, also wanted to recast himself as an innovator, the people said. In January, the communications team circulated a document with a strategy for distancing Mr. Zuckerberg from scandals, partly by focusing his Facebook posts and media appearances on new products, they said."
  - mandeepj 5y ago
    Zuck could become CIO (Chief innovation officer) for few years, if he wants to disconnect from any FB negativity.
  - Jweb_Guru 5y ago
    And beyond that, we all know the story of how and why Facebook was actually created. There was never any intent to create something that would have a positive influence on the world. I kind of doubt he's struggling much with his conscience.
- strict9 5y ago
  Can't imagine the guilt that comes with that situation, though you definitely don't deserve it. I think the amount of vaccine misinformation propagated by facebook will be the source of numerous reviews and studies in the future. It's overwhelmingly sad to see so many people die because they did not get vaccinated, presumably after being influenced by fb misinformation and cable news pundits. As a side note, the content warnings of fb posts are almost laughable, as most include this blurb: "According to the World Heath Organization" ... as though the WHO is reputable in the eyes of those brainwashed by anti-vaccine propaganda.
fallingknife 5y ago
Everyone here seems to think FB is some horrible, unethical company, but what, exactly have they done? It seems to me that all FB is is a platform that allows anyone to connect with and talk to anyone else, post whatever they want, and it comes with something similar to a Netflix recommendation algorithm that guesses what other posts people will be most likely to want to see. And, yes, this can have negative effects, but how is it FB's responsibility if people want to see negative things and interact negatively with other people?
- miracle2k 5y ago
  I agree it has become entirely irrational. I think it's the relentless media campaign starting with Cambridge Analytica, the narrative the intelligentsia left has constructed for itself re. the Trump election and now Covid combined with the new culture of conformity that there is no one to speak up when people like Miguel de Icaza casually call for the entire executive rank to be jailed.
- andreyk 5y ago
  There is a whole wikipedia article devoted to this apparently - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook I do tend to agree that FB gets more flack than seems reasonable, it's hard to expect any company with a profit incentive in this space doing much better. Though IMO Twitter is an example of better handling of misinformation, propaganda, toxic interactions, and more.
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    Twitter? That's the most toxic place on the internet. But I don't blame them for what their users want any more than I do FB. As for the Wikipedia link, 90% of that stuff falls under my initial comment of people using the platform in ways other people wish they wouldn't, so I don't find it to be FB's fault. The privacy stuff I think is real, but it's so standard internet these days that it hardly justifies the vitriol.
    - 5y ago
cblconfederate 5y ago
considering that, as is known, publishing negative stories about facebook only makes them more popular, maybe they should start publishing positive ones again?
- mullingitover 5y ago
  This isn't a bad idea. The positive light you should shine on facebook is that it has become the online destination for the elderly.
louwrentius 5y ago
Frankly, having Facebook on your resume should disqualify you as a potential hire. Because if you are willing to work for Facebook, the best case is that it means you are amoral. But how likely is it that you are probably immoral yourself? You are working on a platform that is directly responsible for propagating misinformation, often with deadly consequences. And don't get me even started on January 6th. The founder of the company started Facebook as a site to just put up pictures of women so they could then 'rate' them. The fish starts to rot at the head, and if that's the kind of 'moral compass' of the CEO, you know things are bad. If you read this and you work for facebook. I urge you to quit today. Please: today.
- hpoe 5y ago
  What about those who have a change of heart and left facebook to try and do something better? What about those in third-world countries that could only get in a on a Visa and FB was the one that hired them, could we fault them for choosing to leave a much riskier life to live the life of a FAANNG developer? Are people beyond redemption because of one bad decision, what about people that see the world differently?
  - louwrentius 5y ago
    What about What about Whataboutism You are not redeemed because you were poor and FB gave you a ticket out of poverty. Because working for FB made you do things that made the lives of other people miserable. This is not how ethics and morality works at all.
    - cybernautique 5y ago
      I don't think we can hold it against the citizens that we, as a society in the US, are fortunate enough to have naturalized by Facebook. For all their myriad harms, Facebook engineers are no slouches. We definitely get talent by Visa holders immigrating by their employment; further, I don't think we're familiar enough with their experience in their home to say that they shouldn't take any opportunity they can get to make it to the US. For all our myriad problems, I do think we're a great nation. However, excepting these employees alone, I do agree with you: Facebook employees are not good people.
ldbooth 5y ago
https://archive.is/J6rdi https://archive.is/J6rdi
SavantIdiot 5y ago
When you own the largest propaganda machine the human race has ever seen, might as well use it. This follows the article on HN yesterday about Peter Thiel's take no prisoners, apologize for nothing approach he taught to his protege Mark Zuckerberg. It's also very Trumpy. We're seeing a new generation of trillion dollar companies flexing their muscles in broad daylight, rather than behind the scenes.
broknbottle 5y ago
Let thy Bookface be straddled with mediocre engineers and under performing products.
codelord 5y ago
A screenshot from the actual experiment: https://twitter.com/joeosborne/status/1440456340673949700 https://twitter.com/joeosborne/status/1440456340673949700 Looks like the article is overblown.
- mandevil 5y ago
  If they were clear, open, and transparent about this, then the article probably doesn't get written.[1] But because they didn't announce what they're doing or the scope of it, they leave a lot of room for interpretation, and right now a whole lot of people, across the US and the world, are not interpreting Facebook's actions with any sort of benefit of the doubt. That is largely because of Facebook's well documented history. This is why intangible things that don't directly show up on a profit and loss statement- like 'consumer trust'- are so valuable. The difficulty that Facebook faces now is that when you lose trust with key stakeholders- politicians, regulators, the media, etc., it is really hard to get it back. Microsoft did, eventually, but it took ~15 years and two changes of CEO. If Zuckerberg wants to stay the CEO it might prove impossible to build trust, because people have state and it's really hard to reset that state. [1]: One of the things that the Trump administration showed is that American journalists are very good at ferreting out secrets, but if you openly declare that you are doing something, they react with much less interest. But, as the article documents, Facebook has decided to be more controlling of their data, and curate what they release much more carefully. The fiasco where they decided to kill some reporting, then held off for a month on their own reports because it would have shown that Covid vaccine FUD was the most popular article on Facebook is exactly the sort of behavior that journalists salivate over and can make careers. Just releasing the data was a minor irritant every day, but Facebook managed to turn it into a much greater embarrassment that destroyed trust with the media and academics. Even this article, which claims to be sourced to multiple fairly senior executives who disagreed enough to leak this to the NYTimes is a clear sign of the massive problems facing Facebook.
- jjulius 5y ago
  Forgive my ignorance, but how is it overblown? The article discusses Facebook deciding to inject positive stories about itself into the news feed so that people think, "Oh, maybe they're not so bad." That's what the linked image is designed to do. That it says "from Facebook" is beside the point, and the article even says they would say it was from Facebook: "People essentially see posts with a Facebook logo that link to stories and websites published by the company and from third-party local news sites." The fact is that they're purposely injecting fluff pieces into news feeds to try to get people to forget negative news about the platform. The only thing the linked tweet does is confirm what's reported in the article. Edit: Previous tweets in that chain from Joe also don't lend themselves to trust. First, the comment about how they didn't quote him for saying, "There is zero change to News Feed ranking," which the article never said would be modified - there's no reason to quote him on that if that's not the claim they're making. They only said that more puff pieces would appear, not that their ranking for where they are placed relative to other content would be adjusted. All they said was that you'd see more, and according to Joe's confirmation of it's existence, that's true. Second, his comment about how the meeting never happened. The article cites six current and former employees as having discussed that meeting. All he offers as proof that it didn't happen is that the article doesn't name the attendees or the sources. I'm sorry, but that entire thread holds almost no water.
AlbertCory 5y ago
I'm an outlier, I admit it. I don't think I'm Zuck's ideal customer, either. I use FB to communicate with friends & family. That's it. Most of them post very, very seldom, and the really chatty ones, I just mute. Most of these people, I'd never hear from and they'd never hear from me, except for FB. Whenever I read about FB's treatment of news, politics, and vax (mis)information, I think "why are you going to FB for that? There are a zillion better places on the Web." Twitter is better for getting the political Zeitgeist. RSS is not dead, contrary to what you might have heard, and Feedly is thus better for almost every kind of news. This site, Stack Exchange, and Quora are better for more intelligent commentary. Why would I even try to use FB for any of that? My cousin Ray had been (I thought) permanently estranged from his family, and he finally reconciled with them. I wouldn't have found out about that without FB. That's what it's good for. It also would not make Zuckerjerk nearly as rich.
- Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
  Should 'everyone' incl. the cousin Ray be on one single platform? Platform size matters here, Because when 40% of the population of a under-developed country are one social platform and use as a gateway for Internet it becomes a viable genocide aiding tool, Because when 70% of the population of a developed country use one platform it becomes a viable election interference tool. When a private entity has accumulated such power, then it goes against the ethos of democracy. People made noise about FB being used to commit genocide and it is now proactively blocking friend lists in countries where there could be targeted violence, Agencies investigated FB's role in election interference and now it's taking proactive approach to vet political ads. Constant vigil over such powerful private entities and calling it out is the last option left to defend the well-being of the society at large.
  - Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
    Sources: [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook-idUSKCN1GO2PN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook... [2] https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/19/technology/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-fake-news-election/ https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/19/technology/mark-zuckerberg-...
lovefeature 5y ago
Magic must defeat magic!you need https://facechance.com/ https://facechance.com/
tharne 5y ago
I don't think FaceBook is going to be able to pull this off. While Zuckerberg is clearly a talented individual, the area he has consistently shown himself to be most lacking in is self awareness. Unfortunately for him and Facebook, this is perhaps the most critical ability one needs when defending one's image.

140 points by jaredwiener 5y ago

https://archive.ph/NOssQ https://archive.ph/NOssQ

Manipulating the News Feed to show users pro-Facebook articles is...so obviously and blatantly unethical that I'm surprised so many people were willing to authorize it.

muchtolearn 5y ago
It certainly feels like a hail Mary attempt to save their image, especially given the recent media barrage. Anecdotally at least, it feels like most of my friends who used the platform 5 years ago are no longer active on it.
fallingknife 5y ago
The traditional media is FB's competition, though. Why should a company be obligated to host links to negative publicity paid for by a competitor? I assume you don't think that the NYT should be required to print anti NYT articles written by FB, right?
- saurik 5y ago
  The comment you responded to said "unethical"; there are many things that are unethical that are not illegal (though I am not claiming this should not be, as Facebook is supposedly providing a communications platform here... but it doesn't matter if it should or shouldn't be: ethics is not law).
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    You are right. But I don't think it's unethical either. Just like I don't think it's unethical that the NYT doesn't run anti NYT articles written by FB. edit: When it comes to censoring content by political opinion, then I'm more towards the unethical side, but I think it's a step to far to expect any company to allow it's platform to be used to spread attack pieces against itself.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      The NYT and FB are two different kinds of entities, and I don't think you can judge similar (hypothetical) actions that either one might take. The NYT is a news outlet. They publish what they believe is newsworthy, interpreted with whatever biases they might have. They don't just take random things that other people have published (or want to publish) and publish them. FB is a social media site. They don't "publish" things; they provide a platform for their users to share things that interest them (and a platform for advertisers, but that's not really relevant here). If a user shares something that praises FB and another user shares something critical of FB (let's assume for the moment that both the praise and criticism are accurate, to preempt the "misinformation" argument), it is absolutely unethical for FB to over-promote the praise and bury the criticism. That's pretty much the textbook definition of unethical.
- ggggtez 5y ago
  The point is that Facebook publicly claims it's not a media company. They do that to avoid government oversight. Once they are revealed to be acting like a media company, it's a house of cards. Regulation presumably would follow.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Facebook doesn't present itself as a media company to its users though. It presents itself as a social platform allowing people to communicate, and the expectation from the user is that you will see content that is popular and/or being shared by your friends without any editorial control/oversight such as downranking "inconvenient" truths. It's also not done transparently, it would be one thing if FB turned around and outright said "this is inconvenient to our business, so we won't allow you to post it", but in this case they silently downrank the content behind the scenes.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > you don't think that the NYT should be required to print anti NYT articles written by FB Facebook isn't journalism; it's not comparable. The NYT does publish results of internal investigations into flaws, as do many other businesses, including much of the IT industry (all those open after action reports, for example). Openness and transparency are necessary antidotes to concentrated power.
enumjorge 5y ago
As someone who works at a not-small tech company, I try to practice the whole "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones". After all, most tech companies exhibit some behavior that is objectionable. But Facebook... I honestly don't know how their employees are comfortable working there.
- redonkulus 5y ago
  Easy ... money
- josephg 5y ago
  > I honestly don't know how their employees are comfortable working there. Probably most of the people who don’t feel comfortable with facebook’s role in society have already selected themselves out of the employee pool. If you’re the sort of engineer Facebook wants to hire, and you have a strong sense of ethics, there’s no shortage of well paid work you could do instead. The people who end up at FB are the people who don’t see a problem or don’t care.
  - gorwell 5y ago
    This is why resumes with recent FB history should be thrown in the trash.
    - coolspot 5y ago
      By the same logic, should people with criminal history also not be considered for any jobs?
      - fortuna86 5y ago
        People with with criminal histories show remorse.
        fortuna86 5y ago
        Everyone I know that has taken a big bag of money from FB is still in denial about what they've done to the world.
usernomdeguerre 5y ago
and don't forget shelving their own comissioned reports that didn't fall in line with the pro-facebook narrative: "Mr. Schultz argued that Facebook should publish its own information about the site’s most popular content rather than supply access to tools like CrowdTangle, two people said. So in June, the company compiled a report on Facebook’s most-viewed posts for the first three months of 2021. ... A day before the report’s publication, Mr. Schultz was part of a group that voted to shelve the document, according to the emails."
- fallingknife 5y ago
  But what company out there releases internal reports that would not show it in a good light? Have you ever worked at a company that just airs out its dirty laundry like that? This is an unreasonable expectation that is applied to no other company.
  - adrianh 5y ago
    Given the reach and usage patterns of Facebook, the expectation is indeed reasonable.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - _jal 5y ago
    Many companies have earned varying degrees of trust. Behavior like this continues to demonstrate why FB is not one of them. They're craven and untrustworthy from the top down. They have been since they started, and continue to prove it nearly every single month.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    I don't agree with the factual claim: As examples, IT industry businesses publish their flaws and internal investigations into them all the time, about massive security failures, for example. If a plane crashes, they manufacturer and the airline are expected to be very open. Facebook has great power over our communities, and thus we have very high expectations. The parent's 'expectation' that businesses (or individuals) only act in their own immediate interests, and not in the interests of their communities, is an odd contemporary idea that humanity's worst instincts are the 'true' and necessary ones, while humanity has many instincts, good and bad, and it's our free will to choose. It also ignores even 'enlightened self interest': Our society is falling apart, and social media plays a major role; you don't sh-t where you eat.
ahahahahah 5y ago
What does that have to do with anything? That's not what's described in the article. It's "an informational unit clearly marked as coming from Facebook". It's similar to the units that facebook has for vaccine information or voting information.
- jasonhansel 5y ago
  There's a big difference between providing information to help the public and providing disinformation to increase profits.
autokad 5y ago
not saying its right, but all the tech companies do it. Blind for instance will remove a post within minutes if you create a post saying 'blind is censoring our posts', as they did with me. Surprised I didn't get banned but maybe that's coming.
- lupire 5y ago
  YouTube doesn't censor anti-Google sentiment. I don't think Twitter censors anti-Twitter sentiment.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    Do you have evidence to back that up? I wouldn't be surprised at all if either of those things happen regularly.
throwaway10673 5y ago
The NYT reporter posted on Twitter clarifying that the news feed isn’t being manipulated: https://twitter.com/rmac18/status/1440457311298883588 https://twitter.com/rmac18/status/1440457311298883588
- kordlessagain 5y ago
  Link or not, they did not use the term "manipulated".
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Why create a throwaway account to post this? Their use is limited under HN guidelines.
- thesausageking 5y ago
  Why are you using a throwaway to mischaracterize what the reporter wrote? He literally wrote: "So to be clear: Project Amplify, in this iteration, does not involve any algorithm changes to news feed (which we don't say in the story). But it still involves Facebook pushing pro-FB content into News Feeds in a pre-determined fashion to boost its reputation." The feed ranking wasn't change, but the News feed is being manipulated by adding pro-FB content to it and he stands behind what he wrote. The article never said the News feed algorithm was changed.
  - fortuna86 5y ago
    Right, so why would "altering the news feed" matter? They don't need to alter it to add their pro-FB content, they just do it. Talk about trying to confuse on a technicality.
mc32 5y ago
Out of all the unethical things they do, you think their being biased for themselves is so bad that you wonder how they authorized it? Spying on users, UX dark patterns, engagement tactics, monopolistic practices, all sorts of other abuses, but you wanna call them on this? They have a lot worse things they do that I'd call them over.

mullingitover 5y ago

It's really gotta sting when, as a young man, you create this technological powerhouse only to be cursed to preside over its decline into a malevolent, warmed-over AOL. I helped my mother fix her access to facebook and it's one of my biggest regrets in life. She leaned hard into the covid misinformation that facebook spreads, turned into a delusional anti-vaxxer, and I can't help thinking that my innocently helping her fix her account is ultimately going to lead to her death.

jumelles 5y ago
He's actively part of all of this. "But at least one of the decisions was driven by Mr. Zuckerberg, and all were approved by him, three of the people said." "Mr. Zuckerberg, who had become intertwined with policy issues including the 2020 election, also wanted to recast himself as an innovator, the people said. In January, the communications team circulated a document with a strategy for distancing Mr. Zuckerberg from scandals, partly by focusing his Facebook posts and media appearances on new products, they said."
- mandeepj 5y ago
  Zuck could become CIO (Chief innovation officer) for few years, if he wants to disconnect from any FB negativity.
- Jweb_Guru 5y ago
  And beyond that, we all know the story of how and why Facebook was actually created. There was never any intent to create something that would have a positive influence on the world. I kind of doubt he's struggling much with his conscience.
strict9 5y ago
Can't imagine the guilt that comes with that situation, though you definitely don't deserve it. I think the amount of vaccine misinformation propagated by facebook will be the source of numerous reviews and studies in the future. It's overwhelmingly sad to see so many people die because they did not get vaccinated, presumably after being influenced by fb misinformation and cable news pundits. As a side note, the content warnings of fb posts are almost laughable, as most include this blurb: "According to the World Heath Organization" ... as though the WHO is reputable in the eyes of those brainwashed by anti-vaccine propaganda.

fallingknife 5y ago

Everyone here seems to think FB is some horrible, unethical company, but what, exactly have they done? It seems to me that all FB is is a platform that allows anyone to connect with and talk to anyone else, post whatever they want, and it comes with something similar to a Netflix recommendation algorithm that guesses what other posts people will be most likely to want to see. And, yes, this can have negative effects, but how is it FB's responsibility if people want to see negative things and interact negatively with other people?

miracle2k 5y ago
I agree it has become entirely irrational. I think it's the relentless media campaign starting with Cambridge Analytica, the narrative the intelligentsia left has constructed for itself re. the Trump election and now Covid combined with the new culture of conformity that there is no one to speak up when people like Miguel de Icaza casually call for the entire executive rank to be jailed.
andreyk 5y ago
There is a whole wikipedia article devoted to this apparently - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook I do tend to agree that FB gets more flack than seems reasonable, it's hard to expect any company with a profit incentive in this space doing much better. Though IMO Twitter is an example of better handling of misinformation, propaganda, toxic interactions, and more.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Twitter? That's the most toxic place on the internet. But I don't blame them for what their users want any more than I do FB. As for the Wikipedia link, 90% of that stuff falls under my initial comment of people using the platform in ways other people wish they wouldn't, so I don't find it to be FB's fault. The privacy stuff I think is real, but it's so standard internet these days that it hardly justifies the vitriol.
  - 5y ago

cblconfederate 5y ago

considering that, as is known, publishing negative stories about facebook only makes them more popular, maybe they should start publishing positive ones again?

mullingitover 5y ago
This isn't a bad idea. The positive light you should shine on facebook is that it has become the online destination for the elderly.

louwrentius 5y ago

Frankly, having Facebook on your resume should disqualify you as a potential hire. Because if you are willing to work for Facebook, the best case is that it means you are amoral. But how likely is it that you are probably immoral yourself? You are working on a platform that is directly responsible for propagating misinformation, often with deadly consequences. And don't get me even started on January 6th. The founder of the company started Facebook as a site to just put up pictures of women so they could then 'rate' them. The fish starts to rot at the head, and if that's the kind of 'moral compass' of the CEO, you know things are bad. If you read this and you work for facebook. I urge you to quit today. Please: today.

hpoe 5y ago
What about those who have a change of heart and left facebook to try and do something better? What about those in third-world countries that could only get in a on a Visa and FB was the one that hired them, could we fault them for choosing to leave a much riskier life to live the life of a FAANNG developer? Are people beyond redemption because of one bad decision, what about people that see the world differently?
- louwrentius 5y ago
  What about What about Whataboutism You are not redeemed because you were poor and FB gave you a ticket out of poverty. Because working for FB made you do things that made the lives of other people miserable. This is not how ethics and morality works at all.
  - cybernautique 5y ago
    I don't think we can hold it against the citizens that we, as a society in the US, are fortunate enough to have naturalized by Facebook. For all their myriad harms, Facebook engineers are no slouches. We definitely get talent by Visa holders immigrating by their employment; further, I don't think we're familiar enough with their experience in their home to say that they shouldn't take any opportunity they can get to make it to the US. For all our myriad problems, I do think we're a great nation. However, excepting these employees alone, I do agree with you: Facebook employees are not good people.

ldbooth 5y ago

https://archive.is/J6rdi https://archive.is/J6rdi

SavantIdiot 5y ago

When you own the largest propaganda machine the human race has ever seen, might as well use it. This follows the article on HN yesterday about Peter Thiel's take no prisoners, apologize for nothing approach he taught to his protege Mark Zuckerberg. It's also very Trumpy. We're seeing a new generation of trillion dollar companies flexing their muscles in broad daylight, rather than behind the scenes.

broknbottle 5y ago

Let thy Bookface be straddled with mediocre engineers and under performing products.

codelord 5y ago

A screenshot from the actual experiment: https://twitter.com/joeosborne/status/1440456340673949700 https://twitter.com/joeosborne/status/1440456340673949700 Looks like the article is overblown.

mandevil 5y ago
If they were clear, open, and transparent about this, then the article probably doesn't get written.[1] But because they didn't announce what they're doing or the scope of it, they leave a lot of room for interpretation, and right now a whole lot of people, across the US and the world, are not interpreting Facebook's actions with any sort of benefit of the doubt. That is largely because of Facebook's well documented history. This is why intangible things that don't directly show up on a profit and loss statement- like 'consumer trust'- are so valuable. The difficulty that Facebook faces now is that when you lose trust with key stakeholders- politicians, regulators, the media, etc., it is really hard to get it back. Microsoft did, eventually, but it took ~15 years and two changes of CEO. If Zuckerberg wants to stay the CEO it might prove impossible to build trust, because people have state and it's really hard to reset that state. [1]: One of the things that the Trump administration showed is that American journalists are very good at ferreting out secrets, but if you openly declare that you are doing something, they react with much less interest. But, as the article documents, Facebook has decided to be more controlling of their data, and curate what they release much more carefully. The fiasco where they decided to kill some reporting, then held off for a month on their own reports because it would have shown that Covid vaccine FUD was the most popular article on Facebook is exactly the sort of behavior that journalists salivate over and can make careers. Just releasing the data was a minor irritant every day, but Facebook managed to turn it into a much greater embarrassment that destroyed trust with the media and academics. Even this article, which claims to be sourced to multiple fairly senior executives who disagreed enough to leak this to the NYTimes is a clear sign of the massive problems facing Facebook.
jjulius 5y ago
Forgive my ignorance, but how is it overblown? The article discusses Facebook deciding to inject positive stories about itself into the news feed so that people think, "Oh, maybe they're not so bad." That's what the linked image is designed to do. That it says "from Facebook" is beside the point, and the article even says they would say it was from Facebook: "People essentially see posts with a Facebook logo that link to stories and websites published by the company and from third-party local news sites." The fact is that they're purposely injecting fluff pieces into news feeds to try to get people to forget negative news about the platform. The only thing the linked tweet does is confirm what's reported in the article. Edit: Previous tweets in that chain from Joe also don't lend themselves to trust. First, the comment about how they didn't quote him for saying, "There is zero change to News Feed ranking," which the article never said would be modified - there's no reason to quote him on that if that's not the claim they're making. They only said that more puff pieces would appear, not that their ranking for where they are placed relative to other content would be adjusted. All they said was that you'd see more, and according to Joe's confirmation of it's existence, that's true. Second, his comment about how the meeting never happened. The article cites six current and former employees as having discussed that meeting. All he offers as proof that it didn't happen is that the article doesn't name the attendees or the sources. I'm sorry, but that entire thread holds almost no water.

AlbertCory 5y ago

I'm an outlier, I admit it. I don't think I'm Zuck's ideal customer, either. I use FB to communicate with friends & family. That's it. Most of them post very, very seldom, and the really chatty ones, I just mute. Most of these people, I'd never hear from and they'd never hear from me, except for FB. Whenever I read about FB's treatment of news, politics, and vax (mis)information, I think "why are you going to FB for that? There are a zillion better places on the Web." Twitter is better for getting the political Zeitgeist. RSS is not dead, contrary to what you might have heard, and Feedly is thus better for almost every kind of news. This site, Stack Exchange, and Quora are better for more intelligent commentary. Why would I even try to use FB for any of that? My cousin Ray had been (I thought) permanently estranged from his family, and he finally reconciled with them. I wouldn't have found out about that without FB. That's what it's good for. It also would not make Zuckerjerk nearly as rich.

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
Should 'everyone' incl. the cousin Ray be on one single platform? Platform size matters here, Because when 40% of the population of a under-developed country are one social platform and use as a gateway for Internet it becomes a viable genocide aiding tool, Because when 70% of the population of a developed country use one platform it becomes a viable election interference tool. When a private entity has accumulated such power, then it goes against the ethos of democracy. People made noise about FB being used to commit genocide and it is now proactively blocking friend lists in countries where there could be targeted violence, Agencies investigated FB's role in election interference and now it's taking proactive approach to vet political ads. Constant vigil over such powerful private entities and calling it out is the last option left to defend the well-being of the society at large.
- Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
  Sources: [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook-idUSKCN1GO2PN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook... [2] https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/19/technology/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-fake-news-election/ https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/19/technology/mark-zuckerberg-...

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tharne 5y ago

I don't think FaceBook is going to be able to pull this off. While Zuckerberg is clearly a talented individual, the area he has consistently shown himself to be most lacking in is self awareness. Unfortunately for him and Facebook, this is perhaps the most critical ability one needs when defending one's image.