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I ask this sincerely: what makes you an expert on the motives and culture of Facebook, where you feel you can authoritatively state that their problems are “not

by numair 5y ago

I ask this sincerely: what makes you an expert on the motives and culture of Facebook, where you feel you can authoritatively state that their problems are “not specific” to them? Because, as someone who has spent time with the founders and early executives, I think you’re flat-out wrong. These are people who were way more obsessed with manipulating people and society than any other group of people I’ve encountered — including “professional” trolls on the dark web — and they remain exactly like this to this day. Manipulating young women and putting them in unhealthy/uncomfortable positions is part of the founding DNA of the company. Can you really say that about any other large corporation in Silicon Valley? If you want to defend Facebook, please provide context — and any conflicts of interest.

Nextgrid 5y ago
I was approaching the problem from the financial/business angle of it. Facebook and similar businesses work on the basis of "engagement" - the more you get people to "engage", the more they look at ads and the more money you make, so your incentive is to maximize this engagement by any legal means possible. This isn't specific to Facebook. Whether there are more sociopaths in Facebook than a typical social media company is another question on which I don't have an answer, but if you look at it purely from a financial angle the problem would apply to any social media company. > If you want to defend Facebook, please provide context — and any conflicts of interest. My intent is not to defend Facebook and I don't have any conflicts of interest, but I just wanted to set the record straight because I believe the proper way to solve the Facebook problem is to outlaw/make unprofitable the underlying business model, otherwise if you kill Facebook something similarly scummy will simply take its place and you're back at square one.
- numair 5y ago
  Yeah, you can’t just sort of observe things from a distance and make hand-wavy statements regarding regulation. You’re not the only one to do this, of course — it’s actually one of the Facebook’s preferred talking points for journalists and politicians, as it turns their specific problems into an “industry-wide problem” — but your position is not accurate given the specific context of the company, its strategy, its executives, and its super-voting-shareholders. What you’re saying is a bit like, “we need stronger regulations on knives or we are just going to keep having a serial killer problem.” If you don’t know the specifics of the situation — which, sorry you don’t, and simply being a user of these products or working in tech doesn’t give you any deep insight — you should try to avoid making claims that imply expertise. It’s a bit like defending the Catholic Church because you’ve read the Bible — there’s no correlation, my friend (and I didn’t choose that example randomly). You’re all over this thread defending people you don’t know, about situations about which you don’t have knowledge. A lot of people seem to do this, this playing defense for free thing, for companies once they become big ... It’s a bit weird.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    > it turns their specific problems into an “industry-wide problem” Facebook says this to escape liability. I say this so that we nuke the entire industry. > What you’re saying is a bit like, “we need stronger regulations on knives or we are just going to keep having a serial killer problem.” The knife analogy doesn't really work. Knives have tons of legitimate usage, and are easy enough to manufacture that even if knives can no longer be obtained retail it will not be that hard for a serial killer to acquire one so regulation wouldn't work. Non-consensual data collection & unregulated advertising? That's not something ordinary customers benefit from and better regulation there could help curtail the toxic effects of social media platforms by making their pursuit of "engagement" unprofitable and making them convert to a paid service (where there is no longer incentive to generate engagement). > If you don’t know the specifics of the situation — which, sorry you don’t, and simply being a user of these products or working in tech doesn’t give you any deep insight — you should try to avoid making claims that imply expertise. You're welcome to enlighten me then. Let's say what you say is right and Facebook (as opposed to the current regulatory framework) is the problem and it gets killed off. What happens next? My worry is that a competitor takes over that will in time (if not right away) become equally scummy in their pursuit of profit (as the current regulatory framework allows this). Worse, that competitor could be based outside of our jurisdiction and/or have even less laws/morals to keep them in check and/or have an ulterior motive beyond just profit (TikTok?). > It’s a bit like defending [...] I am not defending anything here. I just think that solving the symptom of a disease does not cure the disease itself.
    - Jcowell 5y ago
      Exactly , people are treating this as a Facebook problem when it’s really an industry problem. The elimination of Facebook does not fix the root cause of why all of this has happened and doesn’t stop a competitor from coming in and doing the Exact.Same.Thing.
ryan93 5y ago
I dont get the framing of facebook as master manipulators of women. Kids feel bad on instagram because they can compare themselves to other.
- numair 5y ago
  Let’s start at the beginning: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/11/19/facemash-creator-survives-ad-board-the/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/11/19/facemash-creat... You can work your way forward from there.
  - ryan93 5y ago
    Im aware of facemash. I just dont get why kids feeling bad is somehow facebook's fault. Fucking absurd to think you couldnt survey any groups of kids at anytime in history and not find some who contemplate suicide or feel inadequate.

by numair 5y ago

Nextgrid 5y ago

I was approaching the problem from the financial/business angle of it. Facebook and similar businesses work on the basis of "engagement" - the more you get people to "engage", the more they look at ads and the more money you make, so your incentive is to maximize this engagement by any legal means possible. This isn't specific to Facebook. Whether there are more sociopaths in Facebook than a typical social media company is another question on which I don't have an answer, but if you look at it purely from a financial angle the problem would apply to any social media company. > If you want to defend Facebook, please provide context — and any conflicts of interest. My intent is not to defend Facebook and I don't have any conflicts of interest, but I just wanted to set the record straight because I believe the proper way to solve the Facebook problem is to outlaw/make unprofitable the underlying business model, otherwise if you kill Facebook something similarly scummy will simply take its place and you're back at square one.

numair 5y ago
Yeah, you can’t just sort of observe things from a distance and make hand-wavy statements regarding regulation. You’re not the only one to do this, of course — it’s actually one of the Facebook’s preferred talking points for journalists and politicians, as it turns their specific problems into an “industry-wide problem” — but your position is not accurate given the specific context of the company, its strategy, its executives, and its super-voting-shareholders. What you’re saying is a bit like, “we need stronger regulations on knives or we are just going to keep having a serial killer problem.” If you don’t know the specifics of the situation — which, sorry you don’t, and simply being a user of these products or working in tech doesn’t give you any deep insight — you should try to avoid making claims that imply expertise. It’s a bit like defending the Catholic Church because you’ve read the Bible — there’s no correlation, my friend (and I didn’t choose that example randomly). You’re all over this thread defending people you don’t know, about situations about which you don’t have knowledge. A lot of people seem to do this, this playing defense for free thing, for companies once they become big ... It’s a bit weird.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > it turns their specific problems into an “industry-wide problem” Facebook says this to escape liability. I say this so that we nuke the entire industry. > What you’re saying is a bit like, “we need stronger regulations on knives or we are just going to keep having a serial killer problem.” The knife analogy doesn't really work. Knives have tons of legitimate usage, and are easy enough to manufacture that even if knives can no longer be obtained retail it will not be that hard for a serial killer to acquire one so regulation wouldn't work. Non-consensual data collection & unregulated advertising? That's not something ordinary customers benefit from and better regulation there could help curtail the toxic effects of social media platforms by making their pursuit of "engagement" unprofitable and making them convert to a paid service (where there is no longer incentive to generate engagement). > If you don’t know the specifics of the situation — which, sorry you don’t, and simply being a user of these products or working in tech doesn’t give you any deep insight — you should try to avoid making claims that imply expertise. You're welcome to enlighten me then. Let's say what you say is right and Facebook (as opposed to the current regulatory framework) is the problem and it gets killed off. What happens next? My worry is that a competitor takes over that will in time (if not right away) become equally scummy in their pursuit of profit (as the current regulatory framework allows this). Worse, that competitor could be based outside of our jurisdiction and/or have even less laws/morals to keep them in check and/or have an ulterior motive beyond just profit (TikTok?). > It’s a bit like defending [...] I am not defending anything here. I just think that solving the symptom of a disease does not cure the disease itself.
  - Jcowell 5y ago
    Exactly , people are treating this as a Facebook problem when it’s really an industry problem. The elimination of Facebook does not fix the root cause of why all of this has happened and doesn’t stop a competitor from coming in and doing the Exact.Same.Thing.

ryan93 5y ago

I dont get the framing of facebook as master manipulators of women. Kids feel bad on instagram because they can compare themselves to other.

numair 5y ago
Let’s start at the beginning: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/11/19/facemash-creator-survives-ad-board-the/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/11/19/facemash-creat... You can work your way forward from there.
- ryan93 5y ago
  Im aware of facemash. I just dont get why kids feeling bad is somehow facebook's fault. Fucking absurd to think you couldnt survey any groups of kids at anytime in history and not find some who contemplate suicide or feel inadequate.