49 ms·

Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not harm it

369 points by mudil 5y ago

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
> But its own research is showing that content that is hateful … it's easier to inspire people to anger than it is to other emotions. “Anger with its poisoned root and honeyed tip” — Buddha
throwawaymanbot 5y ago
Are they trying to make it that SHE is the one that's harming Facebook by telling the TRUTH? (Not the Sandberg/Zuckerberg/EtAl toxic leadership???)
tayistay 5y ago
What we as a society should do (in my view): 1. Break up Facebook into separate companies to reduce its power. Antitrust laws may have to change. 2. Ban communication technologies which the behavior is a black-box to the user. It should always be apparent to the user why they are seeing what they are, and in what order. These restrictions should weaken this cancer of a business known as Facebook.
- md_ 5y ago
  > 2. Ban communication technologies which the underlying behavior is a black-box to the user. It should always be apparent to the user why they are seeing what they are, and in what order. I don't understand elliptic curve cryptography, but I still use ECC TLS.
  - tayistay 5y ago
    Perhaps I should say, deterministic behavior to satisfy pedants?
    - md_ 5y ago
      Sorry. I'm not trying to be pedantic, but how do you define this kind of thing? E.g. "deterministic?" A naive Bayes model that optimizes for inflammatory text keywords is deterministic. Is it what you want? I think you're making the point that consumer comprehension of how a system works is important, but at what level is that comprehension needed?
      - tayistay 5y ago
        I think it's not too hard to define. On this forum, I know when I post a comment, it will appear where I expect it. You will see it if you look. There's no AI in the middle of us deciding whether my reply is worthy, or prioritizing extremism to optimize for engagement. When you use email, you know what's going to happen. You can predict the behavior (yes, there are spam filters). Facebook (and other social media) behave such that if we knew the entire sequence of user behavior, we wouldn't be able to predict what happens next. It's this sort of black box behavior that isn't good. If you have an algorithm that is strictly optimizing to reduce inflammatory text, then I suppose that's ok. But still, it might be better to have user-moderation instead. I'd rather people just be banned by moderators.
nixpulvis 5y ago
Naw, just burn it down and start anew, that's fine too. It's really not all that special, and people should become comfortable with rebuilding things at the moment. Don't burn everything, just some things.
- anaganisk 5y ago
  Show me one company that places its profits/shareholder below the best interest of people. We just restart the cycle starting new.
  - travoc 5y ago
    Even cigarette companies eventually stopped targeting children for harmful products. Social media will get there some day, with enough legislation.
    - smt88 5y ago
      Cigarette companies didn't change their morals. The laws changed. In fact, they bought into the vape industry (at a time it could be marketed in a way that appeals to kids) after research showed that vaping was a gateway to cigarettes.
    - anaganisk 5y ago
      Exactly, it’s the legislation, not the companies that being change. Even FB can be hammered if the legislation had balls.
      - nradov 5y ago
        What sort of legislation?
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Even cigarette companies eventually stopped targeting children for harmful products. No, they didn't, really. They just have made it less overt when direct, and do the rest of it through the non-cigarette tobacco product firms they invest in. The whack-a-mole on that industry and its marketing of nicotine addiction to children is ongoing.
sayonaraman 5y ago
have they defined what "hate speech" and "misinformation" mean these days? More often than not these terms are used by one party to silence & suppress opposing views of another. Thankfully Zuckerberg doesn't give a damn, one would be hard-pressed to find a better CEO for social media company who can stand up to all this whining.
- curiousgal 5y ago
  Facebook is used all over the world.
- lovecg 5y ago
  It’s simple really. “All X are Y” where X is an immutable characteristic and Y is something negative = hate speech. “Covid vaccines contain 5G microchips” is misinformation. Do you have any examples of what you’re alluding to?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - baryphonic 5y ago
    What characteristics are immutable these days?
    - BoHerfVIJrEsq 5y ago
      As far as I can tell, it's banned to be transracial.
    - rocqua 5y ago
      Biological sex, ethnicity, culture of your parents, place of birth. To some extent, your religion.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  Oppressive Speech: https://doi.org/10.1080/00048400802370334 https://doi.org/10.1080/00048400802370334 Performative Hate Speech Acts. Perlocutionary and Illocutionary Understandings in International Human Rights Law: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334199177_PERFORMATIVE_HATE_SPEECH_ACTS_PERLOCUTIONARY_AND_ILLOCUTIONARY_UNDERSTANDINGS_IN_INTERNATIONAL_HUMAN_RIGHTS_LAW https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334199177_PERFORMAT...
peter_retief 5y ago
Facebook are playing politics, the fact checkers are a facile attempt to hide their true agenda. My question is, who actually uses facebook? Not me or any of my family or friends, I deleted my account years ago and just have a fake profile for a reason I cannot remember. My teenage children are completely disinterersted in facebook. For me facebook had a bad energy and now there is no reason for me to go back there
cblconfederate 5y ago
And this is just one half. The other half is Sophie Zhang's revelations about how facebook is used by corrupt governments as a weapon against their own citizens. At the very least the public should be warned about such weapons of mass manipulation, and the newspapers that used to laud them as bastions of democracy should publicly apologize
tjpnz 5y ago
You can't fix a product that works exactly as it was intended to.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  Yeah, i mean just taking a look at the product I realize that it was designed for this kind of behavior. The feed looks like a spitoon that everybody disrespects. And the comments are continuously recycled in a memory drain, in order to provoke new outrageous reactions. The page spams you to connect, react and count the reactions. The focus is not on reading, but on acting like an emotional toddler.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
oenetan 5y ago
https://archive.is/tQwE9 https://archive.is/tQwE9
ctur 5y ago
https://archive.is/tQwE9 https://archive.is/tQwE9
- dang 5y ago
  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-misinformation-public-60-minutes-2021-10-03/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-misinfor... is another article (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28741755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28741755 but we merged that thread hither)
echelon 5y ago
If you want to save society, the mental health of our children, and preserve a sane and functional democracy, etc, etc. Stop working for Facebook. Quit working for that leadership. Let their talent erode and their technical debt lead to atrophy. Don't expend your finite life living and slaving for this empire of evil. The next best step is to pledge to not hire ex-Facebookers.
- psyc 5y ago
  > pledge to not hire ex-Facebookers I agree that Facebook is a plague, but this divisive, realpolitik, tough-guy power-play nastiness really nauseates me.
  - _3u10 5y ago
    It’s not even realpolitik. Talent is talent, if 90% of the market isn’t competing it provides financial edge for those willing to break the cartel. The chances of it working are near zero because there’s always some asshole capitalist like myself to f it up.
    - johnjj257 5y ago
      True except your not an asshole and neither is Facebook. The assholes are people crying like babies about a dumb website
  - ldehaan 5y ago
    Cancel culture dude, never heard of it? If it applies to people who made a mistake in the past it applies to facebookers right? Or are we suddenly done with that stupid phase?
- yumraj 5y ago
  > The next best step is to pledge to not hire ex-Facebookers. I actually agree with that, and not because of any personal agenda against FB, but because I don’t want the corrupted, unethical mindset of FB to permeate my organization. I just cannot trust ex-FB employees to make ethical decisions.
sjg007 5y ago
[flagged]
- iammisc 5y ago
  Nope. It's corporate government mergers, such as the now well known facts that the white house and California state government are directly involved in facebooks editorial decisions. That's not capitalism. That's just a corporate state.
- sjg007 5y ago
  This is a joke people.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
We have seen this story before. Person joins Facebook thinking they can "help". Then quits. Facebook is a public company whose purpose is serve advertisers. Online ads is the only way they can generate revenue. It is not some woo-woo about connecting the world, giving people a voice, or whatever. That's what the internet enables, not a single website controlled by someone else. Facebook tries to take credit for what is good about the internet. Facebook is a barrel of fish, the website is the barrel, users are the fish (ad targets) and advertisers are the shooters. For advertisers and FB investors,^1 things are going great. Except for the bad publicity. 1. Attempts to oust Zuckerberg, the root of the problem, will always fail. https://www.forbes.com/sites/betsyatkins/2019/06/07/facebook-strong-arms-investors-who-want-zuckerberg-out/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/betsyatkins/2019/06/07/facebook... There is nothing to fix. As other commenters point out, the "solution", for users, is to stop using Facebook and use other means to communicate over the internet that do not require middlemen, third party intermediaries and interlopers that seek to sell online ad services and are determined to conduct ever-increasing levels surveillance and personal data mining.
- temp8964 5y ago
  If what you said is true, how is Zuckerberg "the root of the problem"?
  - salawat 5y ago
    He has majority control of the company. There is no balancing input. As long as Facebook is around with Zuckerberg at the helm, he is by definition the root of the problem.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- moonchild 5y ago
  > use other means to communicate over the internet that do not require middlemen The internet is a middleman.
  - deleted 5y ago
iammisc 5y ago
The biggest conspiracy theory and insurrection attempt was the fake Russian conspiracy and the conspiracy to affect the election outcome conveniently described by time magazine. I'm completely uninterested in a ragtag group of curly haired shirtless weirdos who stormed congress. I am concerned about large corporations, rich interest groups and large multi media conglomerates that have actual power to affect political dialogue without any consequence. Why does every single article about Facebook manipulating data talk about the Jan 6 riot instead of the years long onslaught of fake news?
- wesleywt 5y ago
  Do you not care about people attacking your biggest symbol of power. Within in reach of many of your representatives. Driven by years of hate and misinformation? You should care. Russian interference is well documented by American intelligence agencies and private individuals.
  - nyolfen 5y ago
    curious if you recall this https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/aerial-view-shows-fire-and-protests-near-white-house/2318884/ https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/aerial-view-shows-f...
  - cybernautique 5y ago
    I think Jan 6 was a problem in its origin, not in its means or ends. As an American, I truly do not care about people attacking Congress, or the White House, or any politician, because they are not symbols of my power anymore than my local carwash or plumber is a symbol of my power. They are public servants, worthy of no more respect than the pizza delivery person (a lot less, actually, since the pizza delivery person is working to make a living). If they were attempting to overthrow actual despots, about whom everyone agreed something Must Be Done, the popular reaction would be much different. I think the current reaction is on the money: they are violent, idiotic, hooligans. But the ability to storm the capitol is a necessity.
  - kcplate 5y ago
    Perhaps I am of the minority opinion, but I damn sure was never worried about a bunch of selfie-taking unarmed rednecks destroying the United States of America. My faith in this country goes a little deeper than that.
canada_dry 5y ago
> She also sifted through the company’s internal social network, called Facebook Workplace,...for years the company has been tightening access to sensitive material. Of course FB's highest priority order of business: lock down Facebook Workplace and put much tighter controls in place for disseminating internal documents.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  https://workplace.com/security https://workplace.com/security Those claims about privacy and security are certainly believable. Facebook has only leaked a billion or so profiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Breaches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Breaches Yes, this seems like a prudent choice for companies to use Facebook, excuse me, "Workplace", to manage internal data. Heck, why does Facebook need to sell ads, they could just sell "Workplace". The service seems to be working well for Facebook, except for the leaks.
  - nsenifty 5y ago
    Workplace (the product) has nothing to do with this but it's the policy of Facebook (the company) to trust their employees to use any information responsibly to do their jobs (with the exception of user or HR data).
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    They do sell Workplace!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
xqcgrek2 5y ago
This individual is not a 'whistleblower'. Nothing revealed is illegal or fraudulent.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  It doesn't have to be illegal or fraudulent to reveal bad things about the company that the company doesn't allow its employees to reveal. Looking up various definitions of the term, the activity reported on doesn't necessarily have to be illegal. Though I acknowledge that in many cases the activity involved is illegal.
- stevetodd 5y ago
  > Scott Pelley: What is the legal theory behind going to the SEC? What laws are you alleging have been broken? > John Tye: As a publicly-traded company, Facebook is required to not lie to its investors or even withhold material information. So, the SEC regularly brings enforcement actions, alleging that companies like Facebook and others are making material misstatements and omissions that affect investors adversely.
  - propergentle44 5y ago
    How would any of this information affect investors adversely? What she revealed is that they actually are doing what is in the best interest of the shareholders. The users are not the investors. She just revealed what we all already know and what FB has known all along…that high engagement doesn’t mean the content is worth sharing at scale in all cases, and deciding whether that line is, is often very difficult and technology/rules need to catch up to solve that problem.
- wesleywt 5y ago
  "Misleading" does not need to be illegal or fraudulent.
- runarberg 5y ago
  Are there no consumer protection laws which forbids a company from pushing a product to market that they know to be harmful to their customers? IANAL but it seems pretty illegal to my eyes.
rvz 5y ago
I thought that was Gab’s job? Looks like Facebook is in its own league of ‘enabling hate’ and is profiting off of it. On top of knowing that Instagram is bad for teens, there is no limit to the scandals, leaks, whistleblowers, lawsuits or penalties that will bring the Facebook mafia down.
snowwrestler 5y ago
Facebook is going to become a hollowed out shell of itself if they do not change. They’ll get hollowed out by litigation, legislation, investors, or all of the above. They need new leadership. The tactics that got them here will not carry them further. There are tons of examples of the positive impact of new leadership, on companies like Apple, Microsoft, Uber, Disney, Ford, etc. And there are certainly plenty of examples of very successful companies who thought they were not touchable, but received tremendous financial harm from the rest of society. There is a time for a company to fight, and there is a time to make peace. Facebook is geared up to fight, basically, everyone. No company can win against everyone. They need a leader who can let go of what they wanted Facebook to be, and see clearly what it is. Only then can a path to the future be plotted. Yes I know Zuckerberg cannot be ousted by typical corporate maneuvering. Unfortunately I think that probably just increases the chance he will take it down with him.
- nradov 5y ago
  What litigation or legislation would hollow out Facebook? I would like to see stronger legislation around consumer data privacy, but that would only marginally reduce Facebook advertising revenue.
  - 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-overpaid-ftc-fine-as-quid-pro-quo-to-protect-zuckerberg-from-liability-shareholders-claim-11632278039 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-overpaid-ftc-fine... Any action that gets Zuckerberg into a deposition or courtroom, i.e., under oath, is potential trouble for Facebook. Testimony before Congress is not the same.
    - otterley 5y ago
      Lest we forget the Microsoft antitrust trial of the late 1990s, it’s not a foregone conclusion that deposing a powerful CEO leads to their downfall. “I don’t remember” is a frequent answer that deponents give that is both frustrating and incontrovertible.
mrxd 5y ago
I think misinformation and conspiracy theories on these platforms are a huge problem. A few years ago, some bad actors were successful in convincing Congress of a crazy conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The results were far-reaching. The US violated the UN charter and launched a disastrous war in Iraq where millions of Iraqis were killed, injured and displaced. They used a platform called The New York Times to spread their lies. All of the problems of Facebook and social media are just problems of the media in general. Misinformation? Conspiracies? Social comparison? Outrage-driven content? Body image issues? All rampant in the mainstream press, but no journalists are calling for regulation of their industry. If you were to propose federal regulation of the New York Times, journalists would object and talk about the first amendment, the 4th estate and the need for a free and independent press. It's an elitist double standard with content controls for the masses and first amendment rights for the graduates of Princeton and Columbia with jobs at prestigious publications.
- misiti3780 5y ago
  * J. Miller and M. Gordon at the NYT[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-responses-iraqis-us-says-hussein-intensifies-quest-for-bomb-parts.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-responses-i...
- sysihyk 5y ago
  > crazy conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction Don't blame NYT, they are just like proverbial broken clock which displays correct time twice per day. WMDs from Hussein's stockpile were still used in Syrian War until recently by Baath Socialist militants, the pathway for sarin is pretty clear.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Is Facebook (the company and the social media platform) the masses or the Princeton graduates? You could say that it shares content generated by the masses, but arguably so does the New York Times every time it quotes someone to support a story. And these papers suggest what Facebook does to a person's wall looks a lot more like editorializing than laissez-faire regurgitation of community-generated content.
JaggerFoo 5y ago
I heard that she may be the first billionaire whistleblower, when given a percentage of the fine assigned to Facebook.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  Under what whistleblower statute? There are various statutes that provide different percentages, but there are strict rules for qualification. I haven't seen any indication that she is a qualifying whistleblower under any statute (though admittedly I am not deeply following these revelations).
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    update: sounds like these disclosures were made to the SEC under the Dodd-Frank whistleblower protections, which could yield 10-30 percent of the amount collected by the SEC. The theory of the case is that FB is misleading investors by not disclosing this material information. https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/dodd-frank/whistleblower.shtml https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/dodd-frank/whistleblower.shtml
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  To be honest, I think it's great that light is being shone on these internal documents, but I have yet to hear any big revelations in these leaks, so I don't really understand why she would be eligible for a payout. I mean, they mostly say that Facebook is bad for societal discourse and bad for personal well-being. Color me shocked. I haven't seen any evidence, for example, that Facebook tried to cover anything up. They just paid some people to do a bunch of research, which they then did nothing about because it would have had a negative impact on their bottom line. Literally every large company does this. Don't get me wrong, I think Facebook is a horrible company and could very well be the downfall of society, but I just don't think that was a secret, and nothing in these reports makes me think any differently.
- propergentle44 5y ago
  Well that certainly changes our perception of her motivations. She claims to care about making social media better but probably just wants an easy payout.
55555 5y ago
I'm glad she shared what she shared. Facebook is a cancer on society IMO. In many cases, although perhaps not this one, whistleblowers have had an extremely active and political Twitter account when hired, or are literally being hired _because_ of their wokeness. Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this? They certainly don't seem to. Political views and ideological values are subjective, so in a large enough organization you can't avoid some people getting very upset. It would seem like it would be better for business to just not let people join the organization if they're relatively likely to one day go on a moral crusade. I think it's only a matter of time before people who are militantly political or ideological -- on either side of the spectrum -- are going to be seen as toxic by any company big enough to care.
- Nevermark 5y ago
  It might be a good idea for companies to be up front about their significant moral choices. Then regardless of disgruntled employees, they can defend and discuss their behavior and any mistakes with a majority of consistent internal and external communications. And maybe avoid doing most really bad things. This consistency of purpose and avoidance of causing surreptitious harm is called “integrity”.
  - elmomle 5y ago
    As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." When over a trillion dollars of value is on the line, history tells us that people will generally act poorly and come up with any plausible justification for why they're doing good. This isn't to excuse Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, or anybody else in a decision-making position. The first time your business model is widely seen to have played a determining role in a genocide [1], the ethical decision is unambiguous--it's a good time to step down and take your billions to lobby against that business model. There's no moral excuse for doing otherwise. [1] https://time.com/5197039/un-facebook-myanmar-rohingya-violence/ https://time.com/5197039/un-facebook-myanmar-rohingya-violen...
robbrown451 5y ago
Whether or not what Facebook did was illegal and she technically qualifies as a "whistleblower", I salute her for what she has done and is doing by telling this story. People need to know about this, because it is harmful. This doesn't mean it should be illegal. But it is something people should consider if they go to work for Facebook (or other companies), and hopefully it will inspire people to do something about the toxicity and divisiveness that social media is causing or at least feeding into.
- 3np 5y ago
  From where do you get the notion that something illegal needs to take place for someone to qualify as "whistleblower"? First time I encounter this idea.
  - bink 5y ago
    I think there's a legal definition of a whistleblower that would protect them from civil litigation. That usually involves criminal conduct on the part of the company.
  - robbrown451 5y ago
    Honestly, I got it from the at-the-time topmost comment on this discussion, which said she's not a whistleblower because FB didn't do anything illegal. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28742045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28742045 (I also replied to that comment directly) I did look it up though, and the dictionary seems to suggest it needs to be illegal or against rules or something, as opposed to simply being harmful.
  - theevilsharpie 5y ago
    (Disclaimer: IANAL) A "whistleblower" in the USA is a legal term of art used to describe someone who reports wrong-doing to the government. The conduct being disclosed doesn't necessarily have to be explicitly illegal, but in order to be considered a whistleblower under the law, the information has to be disclosed to the appropriate government agency (i.e., reporting wrong-doing to a private organization or going public in the media wouldn't legally be considered protected whistleblowing). More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_protection_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_protection_in_th... The OP's article says that Frances Haugen reported Facebook's actions to the SEC, so that may make her a whistleblower legally, but it's not clear if the SEC is the appropriate agency to handle social media regulation. That seems more like something the FTC or the FCC would be responsible for.
mwhitfield347 5y ago
I had an experience with Frances in 2018 while at a company prior to her joining Facebook. She was somewhat unprofessional with me by abruptly cancelling a meeting without a very good excuse or much followup. I believe the CTO had asked her to take a meeting with me but she mostly disregarded that request. I don't see much that is substantial coming out of this. She's brought hell upon herself while playing in a mostly liberal reform narrative. She significantly violated her NDA and probably violated some trade secret theft laws. The company we both worked at was probably engaged in some forms of reverse discrimination. Personally when I interviewed for the Fake News ML team at Facebook they had me interview with a guy who had a thick Russian accent. Anyone who works in big tech has experienced a litany of dysfunction. We also know what a self-promoting egoist looks like :) This is just a media headline as meaningless as the congressional hearings that have been going on since 2017. In my opinion and life choices, the difference between a bad actor and a bystander is often that they see the brokenness of their surroundings but they persist in rationalizing what's wrong with it rather than walking away. Becoming a whistleblower is just a masochistic way to walk away or it is a play for self-gain. The whole machine of Silicon Valley has stunk for almost a decade. I suspect Frances sees something to gain with this, and unlike James Damore the same media machine Frances points the finger at will view her favorably on the mere basis that she is a "she". So goes the crusade to right wrongs with double standards...
- annadane 5y ago
  The fact you made an account just to post this. lol.
  - mwhitfield347 5y ago
    My impression of her was that bad and I wouldn’t waste time on other social media getting my 2 cents in :)
conspiracist 5y ago
I’m wary of an angle here where the individual was hired by FB to set them up for a much bigger gambit down the road. This individual can bring to light relatively trivial things and demonstrate that FB has put so-and-so measurements in place when they really go all in - think dissident/political enemy crackdown type of moves. Remember: the senate hearings are a farce because the senate is in bed with FB/NSA/CIA. But it looks good for them to seem tough and in turn it looks good for FB to say “We established a committee to oversee this X months ago. We absolutely care about Y.” The individual looks like a hero and they get a big payout. Not a bad gig. Unfortunately the concept of corporate plays like these are buried in William Gibson novels so people think they’re a fantasy, unaware of how the game works.
- sporkland 5y ago
  This is why it needs to be evaluated on its own merits. Who knows maybe you're an FB astroturfer looking to discredit a whistle blower (also in sci Fi novels)
- dang 5y ago
  We've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamebait and unsubstantive comments. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. (Also, please don't create single-purpose accounts.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - conspiracist 5y ago
    Thank you dang.
jacquesm 5y ago
Facebook was beyond fixing the day it was founded. Zuckerberg is one of the least ethical operators of a large company that I'm aware of and the company reflects that in every way possible. Fixing Facebook would mean removing Zuckerberg and that's not going to happen, so I applaud the whistleblower stepping forward but I think they're hopelessly naive if they believe that this will really lead to meaningful change.
- yumraj 5y ago
  Exactly, it is naive to separate FB and Zuckerberg. FB is morally corrupt because of Zuckerberg. In fact it is quiet telling that none of the FB cofounders were there long enough, probably because they saw who he is early on.
  - aemreunal 5y ago
    I believe it was Ben Thompson who recently suggested that it's possible a platform like Facebook is fundamentally incompatible with human nature as well. Maybe, at least, incompatible with society as it exists today. I've been thinking a lot abut that. Edit: Not a defense of Facebook. Regardless of what I said, I still don't think Facebook is trying to be a good company (morally and ethically) and I don't like them
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      That may very well be true, but FB is clearly not built with the best interests of society at heart, and until a platform rolls along that is we are pretty much in the same situation as where we are with communism: it may well be a great system to base a society on but all known implementations were made by people that were in it mostly for themselves.
    - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
      Totally agree, though with a tad of nuance. I believe a Facebook could be at least marginally compatible with human nature if the feed was just your friends, new posts in chronological order. But the economic incentives to make Facebook addictive, to traffic in outrage, and that demand that Facebook track your every move on and off the platform are just immensely strong. I mean, I think Facebook would easily be a far better platform for users if they could only see my actions on Facebook itself, instead of the god awful behavior of getting flooded with "retargeting" ads because I happened across some website somewhere, but look how bitterly Facebook fought against the iOS changes.
farmerstan 5y ago
This will have huge ramifications across all of big tech. They will get regulated now based on this. This is the excuse that government needed and they won’t lose this opportunity.
shimonabi 5y ago
It's not just politics. Like someone said on some podcast recently, you Americans get top tier content moderation, while the rest of the world is a "free speech" heaven. A few years ago a young man was brutally beaten to death on a FB livestream in my country. I reported the thing on the first day, but it took at least a week for FB to take it down. You don't need ML for that. I'm deeply convined that FB is directly responsible for the massive number of anti-vaxxers in my country.
known 5y ago
"Media is not spreading free opinion; It's generating opinion" --Oswald (b. 1918) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West
taurath 5y ago
I've watched the interview as posted on 60 minutes' youtube channel - its here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lx5VmAdZSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lx5VmAdZSI - its 13 minutes long. What I'm thankful for out of this is a little more public awareness of the engagement engines and incentives that motivate ad revenue based content platforms, driving people towards more extreme content as they'll stay longer on it. Facebook's policy communications director responded to the piece thus: > "Every day our teams have to balance protecting the rights of billions of people to express themselves openly with the need to keep our platform a safe and positive space. We continue to make significant improvements to tackle the spread of misinformation and harmful content. To suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true.". Have they visited their platform? The callout here is that it is in fact not a positive place, and that they're directly incentivized to put forward high-engagement content, much of which has negative consequences. The words to reframe it as "bad" content and that they "do nothing" is reflective of the culture they have. Any argument that works regardless of moral reflection, just like any content that gets ad revenue regardless of moral reflection. I think it would help the discourse and thinking if we sidestep the subject of "who decides what is negative/bad content?". I also think the idea of finding "better incentives" is going to immediately fail, because what sort of incentives could possibly be more alluring to a publicly traded company than massive profit margins? For that reason, I think some simple regulations, not around content, for which regulations already exist and there are incentives to keep violent content off, but instead around the amplification of content by engagement metrics. At a very minimum, disallowing amplifying content simply because its being engaged with and being actually content neutral would be a nice step. Twitter's "Top Tweets" setting or "Explore" tab are good examples of this, as is basically the entire feeds of linkedin, facebook, instagram's "Suggested posts", etc. For Facebook - I would ask them to make tools that let users take control of their own feeds. They absolutely have the ability to allow people to mute political posts if they wished. They could have settings that don’t allow image posts or links, or reposts. Or even hiding the number of likes, reactions and comments on posts. If facebook starts acting as if engagement isn’t the end all be all and maybe I’d start to believe what they say about making their platform a positive space. For me the promise of Facebook was being able to keep up with what friends and family are doing. The platform is so far away from that I have long since left.
coliveira 5y ago
The fact that congress has not done anything about FB (other than fruitless hearings) shows how badly in shape we are to confront the risks of social networks.
- victor9000 5y ago
  I think this is where tech workers are failing society. Other industries actively write legislation bc they understand that politicians are not technocrats. The best thing we've come up with is the EFF, but we need to do more given how consequential our industry has become. So if we understand how engagement optimization works, then what governing rules could we come up with to minimize the negative pact?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- shephardjhon 5y ago
  I think part of it is that there are't enough former software devs or engineers or data scientists in congress or the senate. The only programmer/politician I can name is Mayor Pete. Andrew Yang doesn't count since he was more business and less software dev. Dean Cain also had a CS degree.
- conductr 5y ago
  Unfortunately it’s just another example of how badly in shape we are to confront just about anything
malloreon 5y ago
FB is what it is because 45,000 employees work hard daily to make it that way. if they weren't satisfied with how it works or what it does, they'd fix it or they'd leave. every day they continue to work there without changing direction, they vote with their time that FB is doing what it ought to be doing. all of the responsibility for FB's effects on the world belongs to them.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  The Onion said it best: "I just bought a boat!" https://youtu.be/-DiBc1vkTig https://youtu.be/-DiBc1vkTig
coolso 5y ago
Remember when Facebook used to be pretty cool? I mean sure, it fell out of favor with younger people including myself, but overall it had generally favorable and positive views in the press and media - especially compared to today. Yeah, people knew it wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't the devil, either. But then, I guess it was about 5 years ago now, 2016-ish or thereabouts, it all seemed to change overnight, and suddenly it became demonized by the media, to such an incredible degree. Really weird.
- rocqua 5y ago
  I think it coincided with the exodus of a lot of people from Facebook. People leaving because there parents were on there, better options existing, and maybe because of advertising reporting. Maybe that drove their engagement machine to start. Or maybe this was the long term effect of their engagement machine.
eigengrau5150 5y ago
Facebook needs to be shut down. Dissolve the corporation, confiscate its assets under civil forfeiture laws, and put Zuckerberg and his enablers in jail.
- Cookingboy 5y ago
  Lol this isn't /r/news on Reddit. You don't get credit for shouting empty rally slogans like that. For better or worse, in this country you don't get to confiscate assets, dissolve corporations or put people in jail just because you don't like them.
  - eigengrau5150 5y ago
    > For better or worse, in this country you don't get to confiscate assets, dissolve corporations or put people in jail just because you don't like them. This is the country where people have been summarily executed for driving while black. I'm sure the DOJ can build a criminal case against Facebook under the RICO statutes or some anti-terrorism statute that will let them put criminal forfeiture on the table. Besides, Facebook is incorporated in Delaware. They didn't get their corporate charter out of a Cracker Jack box. https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_de/3835815 https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_de/3835815 That state's attorney has the authority to petition the state's Chancery Court to have Facebook's charter revoked. The General Assembly has authority under the Delaware state constitution to ensure that corporations that engage in malfeasance can forcibly shut down.
k4lk 5y ago
It's an unfortunate but inevitable outcome of the attention economys race to the bottom. This area needs better regulation. The best approach is to stay out of technical implementation and focus on what principles companies should adhere to. As James Williams argue: it should be a civil right to have "freedom of chance". We already knew all too well what it does to our democracy that a large part of the public only gets their news from Facebook. Prefiltered by the monetizing interests that drives it. In such an environment there is no fair chance of deciding for one self - at one end it's one individual on a smartphone, but the other is the entire R&D of Facebook with just the one goal of keeping your focus, making you engage.
- bagels 5y ago
  Many people are saying "regulation" What would that regulation actually require social media companies to do?
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
    I’m starting to think section 230 protections (as I understand them) are a bad idea. The whole issue is these negative externalities. Facebook has to choose between money for them versus good things for others. It has misaligned incentives because it isn’t liable for the harm it imposes. So make it liable.
  - k4lk 5y ago
    It's not an easy answer, but an important discussion to have. In any case, what is made abundantly clear from this information is that Facebook and others like them neither will or can protect the public interest. I like the argument that we have freedom of choice but we by no means have freedom of chance. To me that would be a place to start in terms of finding regulation that can protect the public.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    This is not palatable but trivial. Your login tied to your actual ID. Sites that won't participate can't take US funds or do business with entities that also want to do business with the US. Call for violence or threaten people go to jail. Spread malicious lies you knew are false for political gains go to jail. Spread others harmful crap unwittingly that would tend to lead to others deaths get a ticket for actual money and a strike. 3 strikes you can't play on social media this year. Get banned 3 years in a row get a 10 year vacation from social media. The internet and society would be better off within a year. Within 3 most of the real pieces of work would be conspiring with each other via tor unable to reach 90% of the population.
google234123 5y ago
I think she also wants a big payout.
slowmovintarget 5y ago
The real takeaway: Parents protect your children from social media. Talk to them. Give them rules to keep them safe. Say "No." Don't wait for Zuckerberg to do it. Don't wait for Congress to do it. Get yourself away from it, and get your children off it. Find some other way to share pictures with grandma and grandpa. We need regulation, yes, but this is the same as people smoking themselves into an early grave, but on a societal level.
- swayson 5y ago
  100% this. From what I heard Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, completely disallowed their kids to use of smartphones until they were much older and independent. When there is no skin-in-the-game, one must ask why, do they do this?
  - i_like_apis 5y ago
    The ages of their children doesn't match up to this. But it is probably good advise.
    - swayson 5y ago
      Good point
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- saos 5y ago
  kids these days don't really bother in Facebook anyways
- peter_retief 5y ago
  Teenagers are not interested in facebook at all.
  - MaxikCZ 5y ago
    So because the name of the social app is different today the OP's point makes no sense?
saos 5y ago
#deletefacebook
code_duck 5y ago
>Frances Haugen: So, you know, you have your phone. You might see only 100 pieces of content if you sit and scroll on for, you know, five minutes. But Facebook has thousands of options it could show you. >The algorithm picks from those options based on the kind of content you've engaged with the most in the past. This is the primary reason I stopped using Facebook. I did everything I could to signal I did not wish to see political content - unfollow people, hide posts, even unfriend and block people. Next thing I'd see on the News Feed? The exact same irritating political posts, now from some person I barely even knew. Meanwhile I'd manually look at the profiles of people I actually knew in real life and cared about, and major events I would love to have known about happened in their lives weeks before.
- lanevorockz 5y ago
  The reason the algorithm does this is simple, they want to trigger an obsessive compulsive behaviour. The irritating content provokes you to engage and that's how a lot of their profit is made.
  - temp234 5y ago
    You are right that Facebook gets engagement by irritating people, but this isn't an example of obsessive compulsive behavior on the part of the user, just negativity bias maybe. OCD is a specific and potentially life-ruining condition if it goes untreated. It takes people years and years to get diagnosed because almost nobody knows how to recognize OCD or thinks that it's something it isn't and the longer OCD goes untreated the harder it is to fix. I don't think most people mean anything malicious by calling any old high standard or repetitive action OCD but it's really worth getting a clear understanding of what OCD is because maybe you'll help save another person, or even yourself, from pure living hell. https://www.madeofmillions.com/conditions/obsessive-compulsive-disorder https://www.madeofmillions.com/conditions/obsessive-compulsi... Mindfulness/awareness practice sometimes is used as part of OCD treatment as a resource alongside ERP, and mindfulness is broadly useful to people, and might be good for getting away from a negative feed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31505967/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31505967/
  - deleted 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
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propergentle44 5y ago
Sorry but nothing she shared is incriminating. It’s just the challenges internally that Facebook has to deal with given their scale and how much content is shared every second. She makes a false choice that somehow Facebook can 100% make it safe but they just choose not to. It doesn’t matter who regulates it, who is in charge, the technology aspect of figuring out what is “dangerous” content and what isn’t is still impossible. Facebook has far more internal discussions and open debates about how to solve this problem than any other company. They are right. They are the best at this but they are still failing in many ways. But it doesn’t mean they aren’t trying and that they haven’t made progress.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  it's not incriminating now
- ethanwillis 5y ago
  What right does Facebook have to exist at the scale it does?
  - zip1234 5y ago
    Let's say that Facebook was killed off by the government. Does that mean no more social networks? The problems that were 'leaked' are public problems that any such company at scale deals with. They are problems that banning Facebook won't solve.
  - imgabe 5y ago
    Facebook doesn't have rights. People have rights. Like the right to free association, such as to associate together and form a corporation, like Facebook.
- sjg007 5y ago
  I think Congress will disagree. Also we don’t know everything she sent to the SEC.
- deleted 5y ago
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conductr 5y ago
It’s sad to me that so many people just can’t see this as common sense. Why do you need an insider to tell you FB is bad? Look at it. Look all around. It reminds me of when I was a kid any every smoking adult around me was hacking their lungs up. I didn’t need the surgeon general or some fancy research published in a medical journal to draw the conclusion that smoking was bad. I suppose many may be too young to remember a world without FB and it would be difficult to distinguish society today and in the past but things are not well.
- Gunax 5y ago
  Well I don't see it. No one thought Facebook was evil until Trumpnwas elected. Funny how Facebook was hailed for being a paragon of access after Obama's win. Is anyone actually reading these leaked docs? No, they're just seeing the headline and assuming whatever pet issue they have is true. I don't see what's so evil about trying to be profitable. It's a corporation. They didn't start out trying to fix society of every ill.
  - conductr 5y ago
    This seems purposely ignorant. The election part is just one thing that makes it bad. I didn’t even mention politics but I’ll bite, from what I believe I hold as a rather objective view. 1) I never heard any talks of Obama campaigns being “evil”. My knowledge is they were positive, spreading a message hope. It was more of the fact that at the time, FB was demographically skewed young and he did well with young voters. I never saw any accusations of external election tampering, fear mongering, international influence, hacking, etc. It was not conducted in a way that one would feel call “evil” unless you just don’t like Obama and feel he is personally evil and that’s your baggage not facebooks. I can’t recall exactly, but I don’t think FB even really had an advertising mechanism back then. The algorithm was not what it is today, although it was still unhealthy by my standards by witnessing the addictive qualities it had. 2) Plenty of evidence Trump behaved evil. Probably even more so those who sought to have him elected. Fake news, propaganda, fear mongering, election tampering, hacking, meddling, name calling, etc. Even the most objective person on earth has to admit it was just a dirty election of epic proportions. All enabled by Facebook. This is unhealthy. I don’t use FB and this effected me. It’s second hand smoke and I’m stuck on this flight. The don’t have to solve single thing regarding society, but that doesn’t mean they should be able to harm society. That’s why there are calls for regulation. Them being profitable is not in question, their ability to make decisions that balance profits with the health of their user base is what’s at question. There’s plenty of people, myself included, that have voiced concerns about the negative consequences of this social network. But, like it’s a bit like the people warning of an housing bubble leadinf up to 2008. Edit: a lot of typos, not fixing, but you get the gist
yawaworht1978 5y ago
Sorry to say, this whistleblower is either not honest or not capable to see. People say it's just the news, but no, I remember from a while ago being shown multiple suicide anouncements, then a baby which strangled itself accidentally in a zoo etc and I do not even have a fb account! These i was shown by Facebook users like "hey look at this". Are you kidding me, Zuckerberg and "whistleblower" , basically snuff kinda videos and suicide threats are being shared, posters not banned for it yet you say you are trying to get to the root of the problem, yet meanwhile, let's start the meta verse project and the ray ban glasses so everyone can be do a little espionage. Nope, pull the other one.
lanevorockz 5y ago
The model itself is broken, the abuses on section 230 turned platforms into publishers. It's now a chess game where external governments use this to control public perception. Best example is China and how coupled with Big Tech they are. This can only be temporary and it's inevitable for this whole thing break down once there is disagreements. All we need is one issue and the whole thing collapses catastrophically.
jayolden 5y ago
It's mad respect to the whistleblower for the intention of fixing the company instead of destroying it. Facebook should try and come up to fix its flaws.
- from 5y ago
  The more likely scenario rather than this faux-altruism is that she just wants to get whistleblower status to collect 30% of the settlement Facebook will make with the government.
deleted 5y ago
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xtartupsHQ 5y ago
Even if she harmed it, it would not be the worst thing in the world.
varispeed 5y ago
The best way to fix Facebook is to shut it down. I can't see how this company benefits anyone in any way except their owners and chums. Internet was a much better place before Facebook.
fleddr 5y ago
I see this issue as an issue far greater than Facebook. With that I mean the mass production of content that is illegal, harmful, misinformation, divisive, stolen or down-right low quality. The internet is a crowded place now, people have a lot of screen time yet a low attention span. Hence, content creators have perfected the art of short form content that achieves maximum engagement. This won't change, not even in a world without Facebook. Even journalists work this way now. Even though it harms us, it's what we want. We pay attention to bad news, outrage, the unusual. We want black and white and good and bad narratives, not complicated and reasonable takes. Imagine a world without Facebook. It only consists of blogs, and there's no timeline at all. One day one of the blogs publishes a controversial article. All other blogs will link to the outrage article. Everybody reads the controversial article, nobody reads the moderate ones. The unreasonable ones will always win. The bad algorithm is within us.
- AlwaysRock 5y ago
  > With that I mean the mass production of content that is illegal, harmful, misinformation, divisive, stolen or down-right low quality. 100%. Look at the front page of most popular websites. It's mostly outrage in some form or another. Reddit r/popular is so bad now. It's mostly videos of public freakouts, idiots in cars, or someone yelling about something on tik tok with the occasional uplifting post. Outrage content makes websites more money.
  - fleddr 5y ago
    Very much so. I'd even extend the outrage phenomenon to real life and non-tech. "I just had a perfectly reasonable conversation with my neighbor on a matter of no consequence" Said nobody ever. "Omg did you hear what that idiot down the block said this time?" Said everybody, all the time. The very act of gossip is to dramatize something mildly unusual and escalate it into an ever juicer story as it passes around. We are Facebook.
CryptoPunk 5y ago
She's no whistleblower. She wants Facebook to engage in more spying, censorship and control.
- tayistay 5y ago
  Says "CryptoPunk"
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    ?? A CryptoPunk should want a class of regime agents to be annointed as censors of Facebook posts? This is the kind censoring I've personally been subjected to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28411734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28411734 Meanwhile on Twitter, the "fact-checkers" are now taking it upon themselves to try to discredit tweets that make the leading personalities of the political left look bad: https://i.ibb.co/N7XYpkH/Screenshot-20211005-081040-Facebook.jpg https://i.ibb.co/N7XYpkH/Screenshot-20211005-081040-Facebook... This is abuse of the allegedly impartial fact-checking process for clearly ideological ends. Like Glenn Greenwald said: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1434854149087182848 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1434854149087182848 >>The entire "anti-disinformation"/"anti-extremism" industry is a gigantic fraud, funded by the same tiny handful of billionaires, governments and NGOs: a scam to control discourse while feigning neutral, non-ideological goals to battle "disinformation"
LuisMondragon 5y ago
> Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they'll click on less ads, they'll make less money.
- tayistay 5y ago
  Which is why we need to ban the use of such black-box algorithms for social media.
steve76 5y ago
So these are the people you chose to hire. People who are given everything only to take your money and refuse to work and end up betraying everyone. And I'm the evil one. I take it she never got hit with the code interview. If I was making money, and a product manager yipped up from the corner of the company about how bad everything was, they would be promptly force choked. Dear Spoiled Moron: Everything kills you. Welcome to life.
JohnFen 5y ago
At this point, it's hard to see how it's possible for Facebook to be fixed.

369 points by mudil 5y ago

> But its own research is showing that content that is hateful … it's easier to inspire people to anger than it is to other emotions. “Anger with its poisoned root and honeyed tip” — Buddha

throwawaymanbot 5y ago

Are they trying to make it that SHE is the one that's harming Facebook by telling the TRUTH? (Not the Sandberg/Zuckerberg/EtAl toxic leadership???)

tayistay 5y ago

What we as a society should do (in my view): 1. Break up Facebook into separate companies to reduce its power. Antitrust laws may have to change. 2. Ban communication technologies which the behavior is a black-box to the user. It should always be apparent to the user why they are seeing what they are, and in what order. These restrictions should weaken this cancer of a business known as Facebook.

md_ 5y ago
> 2. Ban communication technologies which the underlying behavior is a black-box to the user. It should always be apparent to the user why they are seeing what they are, and in what order. I don't understand elliptic curve cryptography, but I still use ECC TLS.
- tayistay 5y ago
  Perhaps I should say, deterministic behavior to satisfy pedants?
  - md_ 5y ago
    Sorry. I'm not trying to be pedantic, but how do you define this kind of thing? E.g. "deterministic?" A naive Bayes model that optimizes for inflammatory text keywords is deterministic. Is it what you want? I think you're making the point that consumer comprehension of how a system works is important, but at what level is that comprehension needed?
    - tayistay 5y ago
      I think it's not too hard to define. On this forum, I know when I post a comment, it will appear where I expect it. You will see it if you look. There's no AI in the middle of us deciding whether my reply is worthy, or prioritizing extremism to optimize for engagement. When you use email, you know what's going to happen. You can predict the behavior (yes, there are spam filters). Facebook (and other social media) behave such that if we knew the entire sequence of user behavior, we wouldn't be able to predict what happens next. It's this sort of black box behavior that isn't good. If you have an algorithm that is strictly optimizing to reduce inflammatory text, then I suppose that's ok. But still, it might be better to have user-moderation instead. I'd rather people just be banned by moderators.

nixpulvis 5y ago

Naw, just burn it down and start anew, that's fine too. It's really not all that special, and people should become comfortable with rebuilding things at the moment. Don't burn everything, just some things.

anaganisk 5y ago
Show me one company that places its profits/shareholder below the best interest of people. We just restart the cycle starting new.
- travoc 5y ago
  Even cigarette companies eventually stopped targeting children for harmful products. Social media will get there some day, with enough legislation.
  - smt88 5y ago
    Cigarette companies didn't change their morals. The laws changed. In fact, they bought into the vape industry (at a time it could be marketed in a way that appeals to kids) after research showed that vaping was a gateway to cigarettes.
  - anaganisk 5y ago
    Exactly, it’s the legislation, not the companies that being change. Even FB can be hammered if the legislation had balls.
    - nradov 5y ago
      What sort of legislation?
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Even cigarette companies eventually stopped targeting children for harmful products. No, they didn't, really. They just have made it less overt when direct, and do the rest of it through the non-cigarette tobacco product firms they invest in. The whack-a-mole on that industry and its marketing of nicotine addiction to children is ongoing.

sayonaraman 5y ago

have they defined what "hate speech" and "misinformation" mean these days? More often than not these terms are used by one party to silence & suppress opposing views of another. Thankfully Zuckerberg doesn't give a damn, one would be hard-pressed to find a better CEO for social media company who can stand up to all this whining.

curiousgal 5y ago
Facebook is used all over the world.
lovecg 5y ago
It’s simple really. “All X are Y” where X is an immutable characteristic and Y is something negative = hate speech. “Covid vaccines contain 5G microchips” is misinformation. Do you have any examples of what you’re alluding to?
- deleted 5y ago
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- baryphonic 5y ago
  What characteristics are immutable these days?
  - BoHerfVIJrEsq 5y ago
    As far as I can tell, it's banned to be transracial.
  - rocqua 5y ago
    Biological sex, ethnicity, culture of your parents, place of birth. To some extent, your religion.
cratermoon 5y ago
Oppressive Speech: https://doi.org/10.1080/00048400802370334 https://doi.org/10.1080/00048400802370334 Performative Hate Speech Acts. Perlocutionary and Illocutionary Understandings in International Human Rights Law: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334199177_PERFORMATIVE_HATE_SPEECH_ACTS_PERLOCUTIONARY_AND_ILLOCUTIONARY_UNDERSTANDINGS_IN_INTERNATIONAL_HUMAN_RIGHTS_LAW https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334199177_PERFORMAT...

peter_retief 5y ago

Facebook are playing politics, the fact checkers are a facile attempt to hide their true agenda. My question is, who actually uses facebook? Not me or any of my family or friends, I deleted my account years ago and just have a fake profile for a reason I cannot remember. My teenage children are completely disinterersted in facebook. For me facebook had a bad energy and now there is no reason for me to go back there

cblconfederate 5y ago

And this is just one half. The other half is Sophie Zhang's revelations about how facebook is used by corrupt governments as a weapon against their own citizens. At the very least the public should be warned about such weapons of mass manipulation, and the newspapers that used to laud them as bastions of democracy should publicly apologize

tjpnz 5y ago

You can't fix a product that works exactly as it was intended to.

cblconfederate 5y ago
Yeah, i mean just taking a look at the product I realize that it was designed for this kind of behavior. The feed looks like a spitoon that everybody disrespects. And the comments are continuously recycled in a memory drain, in order to provoke new outrageous reactions. The page spams you to connect, react and count the reactions. The focus is not on reading, but on acting like an emotional toddler.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

oenetan 5y ago

https://archive.is/tQwE9 https://archive.is/tQwE9

ctur 5y ago

https://archive.is/tQwE9 https://archive.is/tQwE9

dang 5y ago
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-misinformation-public-60-minutes-2021-10-03/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-misinfor... is another article (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28741755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28741755 but we merged that thread hither)

echelon 5y ago

If you want to save society, the mental health of our children, and preserve a sane and functional democracy, etc, etc. Stop working for Facebook. Quit working for that leadership. Let their talent erode and their technical debt lead to atrophy. Don't expend your finite life living and slaving for this empire of evil. The next best step is to pledge to not hire ex-Facebookers.

psyc 5y ago
> pledge to not hire ex-Facebookers I agree that Facebook is a plague, but this divisive, realpolitik, tough-guy power-play nastiness really nauseates me.
- _3u10 5y ago
  It’s not even realpolitik. Talent is talent, if 90% of the market isn’t competing it provides financial edge for those willing to break the cartel. The chances of it working are near zero because there’s always some asshole capitalist like myself to f it up.
  - johnjj257 5y ago
    True except your not an asshole and neither is Facebook. The assholes are people crying like babies about a dumb website
- ldehaan 5y ago
  Cancel culture dude, never heard of it? If it applies to people who made a mistake in the past it applies to facebookers right? Or are we suddenly done with that stupid phase?
yumraj 5y ago
> The next best step is to pledge to not hire ex-Facebookers. I actually agree with that, and not because of any personal agenda against FB, but because I don’t want the corrupted, unethical mindset of FB to permeate my organization. I just cannot trust ex-FB employees to make ethical decisions.

sjg007 5y ago

[flagged]

iammisc 5y ago
Nope. It's corporate government mergers, such as the now well known facts that the white house and California state government are directly involved in facebooks editorial decisions. That's not capitalism. That's just a corporate state.
sjg007 5y ago
This is a joke people.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

We have seen this story before. Person joins Facebook thinking they can "help". Then quits. Facebook is a public company whose purpose is serve advertisers. Online ads is the only way they can generate revenue. It is not some woo-woo about connecting the world, giving people a voice, or whatever. That's what the internet enables, not a single website controlled by someone else. Facebook tries to take credit for what is good about the internet. Facebook is a barrel of fish, the website is the barrel, users are the fish (ad targets) and advertisers are the shooters. For advertisers and FB investors,^1 things are going great. Except for the bad publicity. 1. Attempts to oust Zuckerberg, the root of the problem, will always fail. https://www.forbes.com/sites/betsyatkins/2019/06/07/facebook-strong-arms-investors-who-want-zuckerberg-out/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/betsyatkins/2019/06/07/facebook... There is nothing to fix. As other commenters point out, the "solution", for users, is to stop using Facebook and use other means to communicate over the internet that do not require middlemen, third party intermediaries and interlopers that seek to sell online ad services and are determined to conduct ever-increasing levels surveillance and personal data mining.

temp8964 5y ago
If what you said is true, how is Zuckerberg "the root of the problem"?
- salawat 5y ago
  He has majority control of the company. There is no balancing input. As long as Facebook is around with Zuckerberg at the helm, he is by definition the root of the problem.
deleted 5y ago
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moonchild 5y ago
> use other means to communicate over the internet that do not require middlemen The internet is a middleman.
- deleted 5y ago

iammisc 5y ago

The biggest conspiracy theory and insurrection attempt was the fake Russian conspiracy and the conspiracy to affect the election outcome conveniently described by time magazine. I'm completely uninterested in a ragtag group of curly haired shirtless weirdos who stormed congress. I am concerned about large corporations, rich interest groups and large multi media conglomerates that have actual power to affect political dialogue without any consequence. Why does every single article about Facebook manipulating data talk about the Jan 6 riot instead of the years long onslaught of fake news?

wesleywt 5y ago
Do you not care about people attacking your biggest symbol of power. Within in reach of many of your representatives. Driven by years of hate and misinformation? You should care. Russian interference is well documented by American intelligence agencies and private individuals.
- nyolfen 5y ago
  curious if you recall this https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/aerial-view-shows-fire-and-protests-near-white-house/2318884/ https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/aerial-view-shows-f...
- cybernautique 5y ago
  I think Jan 6 was a problem in its origin, not in its means or ends. As an American, I truly do not care about people attacking Congress, or the White House, or any politician, because they are not symbols of my power anymore than my local carwash or plumber is a symbol of my power. They are public servants, worthy of no more respect than the pizza delivery person (a lot less, actually, since the pizza delivery person is working to make a living). If they were attempting to overthrow actual despots, about whom everyone agreed something Must Be Done, the popular reaction would be much different. I think the current reaction is on the money: they are violent, idiotic, hooligans. But the ability to storm the capitol is a necessity.
- kcplate 5y ago
  Perhaps I am of the minority opinion, but I damn sure was never worried about a bunch of selfie-taking unarmed rednecks destroying the United States of America. My faith in this country goes a little deeper than that.

canada_dry 5y ago

> She also sifted through the company’s internal social network, called Facebook Workplace,...for years the company has been tightening access to sensitive material. Of course FB's highest priority order of business: lock down Facebook Workplace and put much tighter controls in place for disseminating internal documents.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
https://workplace.com/security https://workplace.com/security Those claims about privacy and security are certainly believable. Facebook has only leaked a billion or so profiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Breaches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Breaches Yes, this seems like a prudent choice for companies to use Facebook, excuse me, "Workplace", to manage internal data. Heck, why does Facebook need to sell ads, they could just sell "Workplace". The service seems to be working well for Facebook, except for the leaks.
- nsenifty 5y ago
  Workplace (the product) has nothing to do with this but it's the policy of Facebook (the company) to trust their employees to use any information responsibly to do their jobs (with the exception of user or HR data).
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  They do sell Workplace!

deleted 5y ago

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xqcgrek2 5y ago

This individual is not a 'whistleblower'. Nothing revealed is illegal or fraudulent.

ineedasername 5y ago
It doesn't have to be illegal or fraudulent to reveal bad things about the company that the company doesn't allow its employees to reveal. Looking up various definitions of the term, the activity reported on doesn't necessarily have to be illegal. Though I acknowledge that in many cases the activity involved is illegal.
stevetodd 5y ago
> Scott Pelley: What is the legal theory behind going to the SEC? What laws are you alleging have been broken? > John Tye: As a publicly-traded company, Facebook is required to not lie to its investors or even withhold material information. So, the SEC regularly brings enforcement actions, alleging that companies like Facebook and others are making material misstatements and omissions that affect investors adversely.
- propergentle44 5y ago
  How would any of this information affect investors adversely? What she revealed is that they actually are doing what is in the best interest of the shareholders. The users are not the investors. She just revealed what we all already know and what FB has known all along…that high engagement doesn’t mean the content is worth sharing at scale in all cases, and deciding whether that line is, is often very difficult and technology/rules need to catch up to solve that problem.
wesleywt 5y ago
"Misleading" does not need to be illegal or fraudulent.
runarberg 5y ago
Are there no consumer protection laws which forbids a company from pushing a product to market that they know to be harmful to their customers? IANAL but it seems pretty illegal to my eyes.

rvz 5y ago

I thought that was Gab’s job? Looks like Facebook is in its own league of ‘enabling hate’ and is profiting off of it. On top of knowing that Instagram is bad for teens, there is no limit to the scandals, leaks, whistleblowers, lawsuits or penalties that will bring the Facebook mafia down.

snowwrestler 5y ago

Facebook is going to become a hollowed out shell of itself if they do not change. They’ll get hollowed out by litigation, legislation, investors, or all of the above. They need new leadership. The tactics that got them here will not carry them further. There are tons of examples of the positive impact of new leadership, on companies like Apple, Microsoft, Uber, Disney, Ford, etc. And there are certainly plenty of examples of very successful companies who thought they were not touchable, but received tremendous financial harm from the rest of society. There is a time for a company to fight, and there is a time to make peace. Facebook is geared up to fight, basically, everyone. No company can win against everyone. They need a leader who can let go of what they wanted Facebook to be, and see clearly what it is. Only then can a path to the future be plotted. Yes I know Zuckerberg cannot be ousted by typical corporate maneuvering. Unfortunately I think that probably just increases the chance he will take it down with him.

nradov 5y ago
What litigation or legislation would hollow out Facebook? I would like to see stronger legislation around consumer data privacy, but that would only marginally reduce Facebook advertising revenue.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-overpaid-ftc-fine-as-quid-pro-quo-to-protect-zuckerberg-from-liability-shareholders-claim-11632278039 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-overpaid-ftc-fine... Any action that gets Zuckerberg into a deposition or courtroom, i.e., under oath, is potential trouble for Facebook. Testimony before Congress is not the same.
  - otterley 5y ago
    Lest we forget the Microsoft antitrust trial of the late 1990s, it’s not a foregone conclusion that deposing a powerful CEO leads to their downfall. “I don’t remember” is a frequent answer that deponents give that is both frustrating and incontrovertible.

mrxd 5y ago

I think misinformation and conspiracy theories on these platforms are a huge problem. A few years ago, some bad actors were successful in convincing Congress of a crazy conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The results were far-reaching. The US violated the UN charter and launched a disastrous war in Iraq where millions of Iraqis were killed, injured and displaced. They used a platform called The New York Times to spread their lies. All of the problems of Facebook and social media are just problems of the media in general. Misinformation? Conspiracies? Social comparison? Outrage-driven content? Body image issues? All rampant in the mainstream press, but no journalists are calling for regulation of their industry. If you were to propose federal regulation of the New York Times, journalists would object and talk about the first amendment, the 4th estate and the need for a free and independent press. It's an elitist double standard with content controls for the masses and first amendment rights for the graduates of Princeton and Columbia with jobs at prestigious publications.

misiti3780 5y ago
* J. Miller and M. Gordon at the NYT[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-responses-iraqis-us-says-hussein-intensifies-quest-for-bomb-parts.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-responses-i...
sysihyk 5y ago
> crazy conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction Don't blame NYT, they are just like proverbial broken clock which displays correct time twice per day. WMDs from Hussein's stockpile were still used in Syrian War until recently by Baath Socialist militants, the pathway for sarin is pretty clear.
shadowgovt 5y ago
Is Facebook (the company and the social media platform) the masses or the Princeton graduates? You could say that it shares content generated by the masses, but arguably so does the New York Times every time it quotes someone to support a story. And these papers suggest what Facebook does to a person's wall looks a lot more like editorializing than laissez-faire regurgitation of community-generated content.

JaggerFoo 5y ago

I heard that she may be the first billionaire whistleblower, when given a percentage of the fine assigned to Facebook.

gnicholas 5y ago
Under what whistleblower statute? There are various statutes that provide different percentages, but there are strict rules for qualification. I haven't seen any indication that she is a qualifying whistleblower under any statute (though admittedly I am not deeply following these revelations).
- gnicholas 5y ago
  update: sounds like these disclosures were made to the SEC under the Dodd-Frank whistleblower protections, which could yield 10-30 percent of the amount collected by the SEC. The theory of the case is that FB is misleading investors by not disclosing this material information. https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/dodd-frank/whistleblower.shtml https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/dodd-frank/whistleblower.shtml
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
To be honest, I think it's great that light is being shone on these internal documents, but I have yet to hear any big revelations in these leaks, so I don't really understand why she would be eligible for a payout. I mean, they mostly say that Facebook is bad for societal discourse and bad for personal well-being. Color me shocked. I haven't seen any evidence, for example, that Facebook tried to cover anything up. They just paid some people to do a bunch of research, which they then did nothing about because it would have had a negative impact on their bottom line. Literally every large company does this. Don't get me wrong, I think Facebook is a horrible company and could very well be the downfall of society, but I just don't think that was a secret, and nothing in these reports makes me think any differently.
propergentle44 5y ago
Well that certainly changes our perception of her motivations. She claims to care about making social media better but probably just wants an easy payout.

55555 5y ago

I'm glad she shared what she shared. Facebook is a cancer on society IMO. In many cases, although perhaps not this one, whistleblowers have had an extremely active and political Twitter account when hired, or are literally being hired _because_ of their wokeness. Do silicon valley companies not screen for intensity of political views during job interviews in order to prevent issues like this? They certainly don't seem to. Political views and ideological values are subjective, so in a large enough organization you can't avoid some people getting very upset. It would seem like it would be better for business to just not let people join the organization if they're relatively likely to one day go on a moral crusade. I think it's only a matter of time before people who are militantly political or ideological -- on either side of the spectrum -- are going to be seen as toxic by any company big enough to care.

Nevermark 5y ago
It might be a good idea for companies to be up front about their significant moral choices. Then regardless of disgruntled employees, they can defend and discuss their behavior and any mistakes with a majority of consistent internal and external communications. And maybe avoid doing most really bad things. This consistency of purpose and avoidance of causing surreptitious harm is called “integrity”.
- elmomle 5y ago
  As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." When over a trillion dollars of value is on the line, history tells us that people will generally act poorly and come up with any plausible justification for why they're doing good. This isn't to excuse Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, or anybody else in a decision-making position. The first time your business model is widely seen to have played a determining role in a genocide [1], the ethical decision is unambiguous--it's a good time to step down and take your billions to lobby against that business model. There's no moral excuse for doing otherwise. [1] https://time.com/5197039/un-facebook-myanmar-rohingya-violence/ https://time.com/5197039/un-facebook-myanmar-rohingya-violen...

robbrown451 5y ago

Whether or not what Facebook did was illegal and she technically qualifies as a "whistleblower", I salute her for what she has done and is doing by telling this story. People need to know about this, because it is harmful. This doesn't mean it should be illegal. But it is something people should consider if they go to work for Facebook (or other companies), and hopefully it will inspire people to do something about the toxicity and divisiveness that social media is causing or at least feeding into.

3np 5y ago
From where do you get the notion that something illegal needs to take place for someone to qualify as "whistleblower"? First time I encounter this idea.
- bink 5y ago
  I think there's a legal definition of a whistleblower that would protect them from civil litigation. That usually involves criminal conduct on the part of the company.
- robbrown451 5y ago
  Honestly, I got it from the at-the-time topmost comment on this discussion, which said she's not a whistleblower because FB didn't do anything illegal. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28742045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28742045 (I also replied to that comment directly) I did look it up though, and the dictionary seems to suggest it needs to be illegal or against rules or something, as opposed to simply being harmful.
- theevilsharpie 5y ago
  (Disclaimer: IANAL) A "whistleblower" in the USA is a legal term of art used to describe someone who reports wrong-doing to the government. The conduct being disclosed doesn't necessarily have to be explicitly illegal, but in order to be considered a whistleblower under the law, the information has to be disclosed to the appropriate government agency (i.e., reporting wrong-doing to a private organization or going public in the media wouldn't legally be considered protected whistleblowing). More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_protection_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_protection_in_th... The OP's article says that Frances Haugen reported Facebook's actions to the SEC, so that may make her a whistleblower legally, but it's not clear if the SEC is the appropriate agency to handle social media regulation. That seems more like something the FTC or the FCC would be responsible for.

mwhitfield347 5y ago

I had an experience with Frances in 2018 while at a company prior to her joining Facebook. She was somewhat unprofessional with me by abruptly cancelling a meeting without a very good excuse or much followup. I believe the CTO had asked her to take a meeting with me but she mostly disregarded that request. I don't see much that is substantial coming out of this. She's brought hell upon herself while playing in a mostly liberal reform narrative. She significantly violated her NDA and probably violated some trade secret theft laws. The company we both worked at was probably engaged in some forms of reverse discrimination. Personally when I interviewed for the Fake News ML team at Facebook they had me interview with a guy who had a thick Russian accent. Anyone who works in big tech has experienced a litany of dysfunction. We also know what a self-promoting egoist looks like :) This is just a media headline as meaningless as the congressional hearings that have been going on since 2017. In my opinion and life choices, the difference between a bad actor and a bystander is often that they see the brokenness of their surroundings but they persist in rationalizing what's wrong with it rather than walking away. Becoming a whistleblower is just a masochistic way to walk away or it is a play for self-gain. The whole machine of Silicon Valley has stunk for almost a decade. I suspect Frances sees something to gain with this, and unlike James Damore the same media machine Frances points the finger at will view her favorably on the mere basis that she is a "she". So goes the crusade to right wrongs with double standards...

annadane 5y ago
The fact you made an account just to post this. lol.
- mwhitfield347 5y ago
  My impression of her was that bad and I wouldn’t waste time on other social media getting my 2 cents in :)

conspiracist 5y ago

I’m wary of an angle here where the individual was hired by FB to set them up for a much bigger gambit down the road. This individual can bring to light relatively trivial things and demonstrate that FB has put so-and-so measurements in place when they really go all in - think dissident/political enemy crackdown type of moves. Remember: the senate hearings are a farce because the senate is in bed with FB/NSA/CIA. But it looks good for them to seem tough and in turn it looks good for FB to say “We established a committee to oversee this X months ago. We absolutely care about Y.” The individual looks like a hero and they get a big payout. Not a bad gig. Unfortunately the concept of corporate plays like these are buried in William Gibson novels so people think they’re a fantasy, unaware of how the game works.

sporkland 5y ago
This is why it needs to be evaluated on its own merits. Who knows maybe you're an FB astroturfer looking to discredit a whistle blower (also in sci Fi novels)
dang 5y ago
We've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamebait and unsubstantive comments. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. (Also, please don't create single-purpose accounts.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- conspiracist 5y ago
  Thank you dang.

jacquesm 5y ago

Facebook was beyond fixing the day it was founded. Zuckerberg is one of the least ethical operators of a large company that I'm aware of and the company reflects that in every way possible. Fixing Facebook would mean removing Zuckerberg and that's not going to happen, so I applaud the whistleblower stepping forward but I think they're hopelessly naive if they believe that this will really lead to meaningful change.

yumraj 5y ago
Exactly, it is naive to separate FB and Zuckerberg. FB is morally corrupt because of Zuckerberg. In fact it is quiet telling that none of the FB cofounders were there long enough, probably because they saw who he is early on.
- aemreunal 5y ago
  I believe it was Ben Thompson who recently suggested that it's possible a platform like Facebook is fundamentally incompatible with human nature as well. Maybe, at least, incompatible with society as it exists today. I've been thinking a lot abut that. Edit: Not a defense of Facebook. Regardless of what I said, I still don't think Facebook is trying to be a good company (morally and ethically) and I don't like them
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    That may very well be true, but FB is clearly not built with the best interests of society at heart, and until a platform rolls along that is we are pretty much in the same situation as where we are with communism: it may well be a great system to base a society on but all known implementations were made by people that were in it mostly for themselves.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    Totally agree, though with a tad of nuance. I believe a Facebook could be at least marginally compatible with human nature if the feed was just your friends, new posts in chronological order. But the economic incentives to make Facebook addictive, to traffic in outrage, and that demand that Facebook track your every move on and off the platform are just immensely strong. I mean, I think Facebook would easily be a far better platform for users if they could only see my actions on Facebook itself, instead of the god awful behavior of getting flooded with "retargeting" ads because I happened across some website somewhere, but look how bitterly Facebook fought against the iOS changes.

farmerstan 5y ago

This will have huge ramifications across all of big tech. They will get regulated now based on this. This is the excuse that government needed and they won’t lose this opportunity.

shimonabi 5y ago

It's not just politics. Like someone said on some podcast recently, you Americans get top tier content moderation, while the rest of the world is a "free speech" heaven. A few years ago a young man was brutally beaten to death on a FB livestream in my country. I reported the thing on the first day, but it took at least a week for FB to take it down. You don't need ML for that. I'm deeply convined that FB is directly responsible for the massive number of anti-vaxxers in my country.

known 5y ago

"Media is not spreading free opinion; It's generating opinion" --Oswald (b. 1918) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West

taurath 5y ago

I've watched the interview as posted on 60 minutes' youtube channel - its here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lx5VmAdZSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lx5VmAdZSI - its 13 minutes long. What I'm thankful for out of this is a little more public awareness of the engagement engines and incentives that motivate ad revenue based content platforms, driving people towards more extreme content as they'll stay longer on it. Facebook's policy communications director responded to the piece thus: > "Every day our teams have to balance protecting the rights of billions of people to express themselves openly with the need to keep our platform a safe and positive space. We continue to make significant improvements to tackle the spread of misinformation and harmful content. To suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true.". Have they visited their platform? The callout here is that it is in fact not a positive place, and that they're directly incentivized to put forward high-engagement content, much of which has negative consequences. The words to reframe it as "bad" content and that they "do nothing" is reflective of the culture they have. Any argument that works regardless of moral reflection, just like any content that gets ad revenue regardless of moral reflection. I think it would help the discourse and thinking if we sidestep the subject of "who decides what is negative/bad content?". I also think the idea of finding "better incentives" is going to immediately fail, because what sort of incentives could possibly be more alluring to a publicly traded company than massive profit margins? For that reason, I think some simple regulations, not around content, for which regulations already exist and there are incentives to keep violent content off, but instead around the amplification of content by engagement metrics. At a very minimum, disallowing amplifying content simply because its being engaged with and being actually content neutral would be a nice step. Twitter's "Top Tweets" setting or "Explore" tab are good examples of this, as is basically the entire feeds of linkedin, facebook, instagram's "Suggested posts", etc. For Facebook - I would ask them to make tools that let users take control of their own feeds. They absolutely have the ability to allow people to mute political posts if they wished. They could have settings that don’t allow image posts or links, or reposts. Or even hiding the number of likes, reactions and comments on posts. If facebook starts acting as if engagement isn’t the end all be all and maybe I’d start to believe what they say about making their platform a positive space. For me the promise of Facebook was being able to keep up with what friends and family are doing. The platform is so far away from that I have long since left.

coliveira 5y ago

The fact that congress has not done anything about FB (other than fruitless hearings) shows how badly in shape we are to confront the risks of social networks.

victor9000 5y ago
I think this is where tech workers are failing society. Other industries actively write legislation bc they understand that politicians are not technocrats. The best thing we've come up with is the EFF, but we need to do more given how consequential our industry has become. So if we understand how engagement optimization works, then what governing rules could we come up with to minimize the negative pact?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
shephardjhon 5y ago
I think part of it is that there are't enough former software devs or engineers or data scientists in congress or the senate. The only programmer/politician I can name is Mayor Pete. Andrew Yang doesn't count since he was more business and less software dev. Dean Cain also had a CS degree.
conductr 5y ago
Unfortunately it’s just another example of how badly in shape we are to confront just about anything

malloreon 5y ago

FB is what it is because 45,000 employees work hard daily to make it that way. if they weren't satisfied with how it works or what it does, they'd fix it or they'd leave. every day they continue to work there without changing direction, they vote with their time that FB is doing what it ought to be doing. all of the responsibility for FB's effects on the world belongs to them.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
The Onion said it best: "I just bought a boat!" https://youtu.be/-DiBc1vkTig https://youtu.be/-DiBc1vkTig

coolso 5y ago

Remember when Facebook used to be pretty cool? I mean sure, it fell out of favor with younger people including myself, but overall it had generally favorable and positive views in the press and media - especially compared to today. Yeah, people knew it wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't the devil, either. But then, I guess it was about 5 years ago now, 2016-ish or thereabouts, it all seemed to change overnight, and suddenly it became demonized by the media, to such an incredible degree. Really weird.

rocqua 5y ago
I think it coincided with the exodus of a lot of people from Facebook. People leaving because there parents were on there, better options existing, and maybe because of advertising reporting. Maybe that drove their engagement machine to start. Or maybe this was the long term effect of their engagement machine.

eigengrau5150 5y ago

Facebook needs to be shut down. Dissolve the corporation, confiscate its assets under civil forfeiture laws, and put Zuckerberg and his enablers in jail.

Cookingboy 5y ago
Lol this isn't /r/news on Reddit. You don't get credit for shouting empty rally slogans like that. For better or worse, in this country you don't get to confiscate assets, dissolve corporations or put people in jail just because you don't like them.
- eigengrau5150 5y ago
  > For better or worse, in this country you don't get to confiscate assets, dissolve corporations or put people in jail just because you don't like them. This is the country where people have been summarily executed for driving while black. I'm sure the DOJ can build a criminal case against Facebook under the RICO statutes or some anti-terrorism statute that will let them put criminal forfeiture on the table. Besides, Facebook is incorporated in Delaware. They didn't get their corporate charter out of a Cracker Jack box. https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_de/3835815 https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_de/3835815 That state's attorney has the authority to petition the state's Chancery Court to have Facebook's charter revoked. The General Assembly has authority under the Delaware state constitution to ensure that corporations that engage in malfeasance can forcibly shut down.

k4lk 5y ago

It's an unfortunate but inevitable outcome of the attention economys race to the bottom. This area needs better regulation. The best approach is to stay out of technical implementation and focus on what principles companies should adhere to. As James Williams argue: it should be a civil right to have "freedom of chance". We already knew all too well what it does to our democracy that a large part of the public only gets their news from Facebook. Prefiltered by the monetizing interests that drives it. In such an environment there is no fair chance of deciding for one self - at one end it's one individual on a smartphone, but the other is the entire R&D of Facebook with just the one goal of keeping your focus, making you engage.

bagels 5y ago
Many people are saying "regulation" What would that regulation actually require social media companies to do?
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  I’m starting to think section 230 protections (as I understand them) are a bad idea. The whole issue is these negative externalities. Facebook has to choose between money for them versus good things for others. It has misaligned incentives because it isn’t liable for the harm it imposes. So make it liable.
- k4lk 5y ago
  It's not an easy answer, but an important discussion to have. In any case, what is made abundantly clear from this information is that Facebook and others like them neither will or can protect the public interest. I like the argument that we have freedom of choice but we by no means have freedom of chance. To me that would be a place to start in terms of finding regulation that can protect the public.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  This is not palatable but trivial. Your login tied to your actual ID. Sites that won't participate can't take US funds or do business with entities that also want to do business with the US. Call for violence or threaten people go to jail. Spread malicious lies you knew are false for political gains go to jail. Spread others harmful crap unwittingly that would tend to lead to others deaths get a ticket for actual money and a strike. 3 strikes you can't play on social media this year. Get banned 3 years in a row get a 10 year vacation from social media. The internet and society would be better off within a year. Within 3 most of the real pieces of work would be conspiring with each other via tor unable to reach 90% of the population.

google234123 5y ago

I think she also wants a big payout.

slowmovintarget 5y ago

The real takeaway: Parents protect your children from social media. Talk to them. Give them rules to keep them safe. Say "No." Don't wait for Zuckerberg to do it. Don't wait for Congress to do it. Get yourself away from it, and get your children off it. Find some other way to share pictures with grandma and grandpa. We need regulation, yes, but this is the same as people smoking themselves into an early grave, but on a societal level.

swayson 5y ago
100% this. From what I heard Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, completely disallowed their kids to use of smartphones until they were much older and independent. When there is no skin-in-the-game, one must ask why, do they do this?
- i_like_apis 5y ago
  The ages of their children doesn't match up to this. But it is probably good advise.
  - swayson 5y ago
    Good point
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
saos 5y ago
kids these days don't really bother in Facebook anyways
peter_retief 5y ago
Teenagers are not interested in facebook at all.
- MaxikCZ 5y ago
  So because the name of the social app is different today the OP's point makes no sense?

saos 5y ago

#deletefacebook

code_duck 5y ago

>Frances Haugen: So, you know, you have your phone. You might see only 100 pieces of content if you sit and scroll on for, you know, five minutes. But Facebook has thousands of options it could show you. >The algorithm picks from those options based on the kind of content you've engaged with the most in the past. This is the primary reason I stopped using Facebook. I did everything I could to signal I did not wish to see political content - unfollow people, hide posts, even unfriend and block people. Next thing I'd see on the News Feed? The exact same irritating political posts, now from some person I barely even knew. Meanwhile I'd manually look at the profiles of people I actually knew in real life and cared about, and major events I would love to have known about happened in their lives weeks before.

lanevorockz 5y ago
The reason the algorithm does this is simple, they want to trigger an obsessive compulsive behaviour. The irritating content provokes you to engage and that's how a lot of their profit is made.
- temp234 5y ago
  You are right that Facebook gets engagement by irritating people, but this isn't an example of obsessive compulsive behavior on the part of the user, just negativity bias maybe. OCD is a specific and potentially life-ruining condition if it goes untreated. It takes people years and years to get diagnosed because almost nobody knows how to recognize OCD or thinks that it's something it isn't and the longer OCD goes untreated the harder it is to fix. I don't think most people mean anything malicious by calling any old high standard or repetitive action OCD but it's really worth getting a clear understanding of what OCD is because maybe you'll help save another person, or even yourself, from pure living hell. https://www.madeofmillions.com/conditions/obsessive-compulsive-disorder https://www.madeofmillions.com/conditions/obsessive-compulsi... Mindfulness/awareness practice sometimes is used as part of OCD treatment as a resource alongside ERP, and mindfulness is broadly useful to people, and might be good for getting away from a negative feed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31505967/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31505967/
- deleted 5y ago

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propergentle44 5y ago

Sorry but nothing she shared is incriminating. It’s just the challenges internally that Facebook has to deal with given their scale and how much content is shared every second. She makes a false choice that somehow Facebook can 100% make it safe but they just choose not to. It doesn’t matter who regulates it, who is in charge, the technology aspect of figuring out what is “dangerous” content and what isn’t is still impossible. Facebook has far more internal discussions and open debates about how to solve this problem than any other company. They are right. They are the best at this but they are still failing in many ways. But it doesn’t mean they aren’t trying and that they haven’t made progress.

cblconfederate 5y ago
it's not incriminating now
ethanwillis 5y ago
What right does Facebook have to exist at the scale it does?
- zip1234 5y ago
  Let's say that Facebook was killed off by the government. Does that mean no more social networks? The problems that were 'leaked' are public problems that any such company at scale deals with. They are problems that banning Facebook won't solve.
- imgabe 5y ago
  Facebook doesn't have rights. People have rights. Like the right to free association, such as to associate together and form a corporation, like Facebook.
sjg007 5y ago
I think Congress will disagree. Also we don’t know everything she sent to the SEC.
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conductr 5y ago

It’s sad to me that so many people just can’t see this as common sense. Why do you need an insider to tell you FB is bad? Look at it. Look all around. It reminds me of when I was a kid any every smoking adult around me was hacking their lungs up. I didn’t need the surgeon general or some fancy research published in a medical journal to draw the conclusion that smoking was bad. I suppose many may be too young to remember a world without FB and it would be difficult to distinguish society today and in the past but things are not well.

Gunax 5y ago
Well I don't see it. No one thought Facebook was evil until Trumpnwas elected. Funny how Facebook was hailed for being a paragon of access after Obama's win. Is anyone actually reading these leaked docs? No, they're just seeing the headline and assuming whatever pet issue they have is true. I don't see what's so evil about trying to be profitable. It's a corporation. They didn't start out trying to fix society of every ill.
- conductr 5y ago
  This seems purposely ignorant. The election part is just one thing that makes it bad. I didn’t even mention politics but I’ll bite, from what I believe I hold as a rather objective view. 1) I never heard any talks of Obama campaigns being “evil”. My knowledge is they were positive, spreading a message hope. It was more of the fact that at the time, FB was demographically skewed young and he did well with young voters. I never saw any accusations of external election tampering, fear mongering, international influence, hacking, etc. It was not conducted in a way that one would feel call “evil” unless you just don’t like Obama and feel he is personally evil and that’s your baggage not facebooks. I can’t recall exactly, but I don’t think FB even really had an advertising mechanism back then. The algorithm was not what it is today, although it was still unhealthy by my standards by witnessing the addictive qualities it had. 2) Plenty of evidence Trump behaved evil. Probably even more so those who sought to have him elected. Fake news, propaganda, fear mongering, election tampering, hacking, meddling, name calling, etc. Even the most objective person on earth has to admit it was just a dirty election of epic proportions. All enabled by Facebook. This is unhealthy. I don’t use FB and this effected me. It’s second hand smoke and I’m stuck on this flight. The don’t have to solve single thing regarding society, but that doesn’t mean they should be able to harm society. That’s why there are calls for regulation. Them being profitable is not in question, their ability to make decisions that balance profits with the health of their user base is what’s at question. There’s plenty of people, myself included, that have voiced concerns about the negative consequences of this social network. But, like it’s a bit like the people warning of an housing bubble leadinf up to 2008. Edit: a lot of typos, not fixing, but you get the gist

yawaworht1978 5y ago

Sorry to say, this whistleblower is either not honest or not capable to see. People say it's just the news, but no, I remember from a while ago being shown multiple suicide anouncements, then a baby which strangled itself accidentally in a zoo etc and I do not even have a fb account! These i was shown by Facebook users like "hey look at this". Are you kidding me, Zuckerberg and "whistleblower" , basically snuff kinda videos and suicide threats are being shared, posters not banned for it yet you say you are trying to get to the root of the problem, yet meanwhile, let's start the meta verse project and the ray ban glasses so everyone can be do a little espionage. Nope, pull the other one.

lanevorockz 5y ago

The model itself is broken, the abuses on section 230 turned platforms into publishers. It's now a chess game where external governments use this to control public perception. Best example is China and how coupled with Big Tech they are. This can only be temporary and it's inevitable for this whole thing break down once there is disagreements. All we need is one issue and the whole thing collapses catastrophically.

jayolden 5y ago

It's mad respect to the whistleblower for the intention of fixing the company instead of destroying it. Facebook should try and come up to fix its flaws.

from 5y ago
The more likely scenario rather than this faux-altruism is that she just wants to get whistleblower status to collect 30% of the settlement Facebook will make with the government.

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xtartupsHQ 5y ago

Even if she harmed it, it would not be the worst thing in the world.

varispeed 5y ago

The best way to fix Facebook is to shut it down. I can't see how this company benefits anyone in any way except their owners and chums. Internet was a much better place before Facebook.

fleddr 5y ago

I see this issue as an issue far greater than Facebook. With that I mean the mass production of content that is illegal, harmful, misinformation, divisive, stolen or down-right low quality. The internet is a crowded place now, people have a lot of screen time yet a low attention span. Hence, content creators have perfected the art of short form content that achieves maximum engagement. This won't change, not even in a world without Facebook. Even journalists work this way now. Even though it harms us, it's what we want. We pay attention to bad news, outrage, the unusual. We want black and white and good and bad narratives, not complicated and reasonable takes. Imagine a world without Facebook. It only consists of blogs, and there's no timeline at all. One day one of the blogs publishes a controversial article. All other blogs will link to the outrage article. Everybody reads the controversial article, nobody reads the moderate ones. The unreasonable ones will always win. The bad algorithm is within us.

AlwaysRock 5y ago
> With that I mean the mass production of content that is illegal, harmful, misinformation, divisive, stolen or down-right low quality. 100%. Look at the front page of most popular websites. It's mostly outrage in some form or another. Reddit r/popular is so bad now. It's mostly videos of public freakouts, idiots in cars, or someone yelling about something on tik tok with the occasional uplifting post. Outrage content makes websites more money.
- fleddr 5y ago
  Very much so. I'd even extend the outrage phenomenon to real life and non-tech. "I just had a perfectly reasonable conversation with my neighbor on a matter of no consequence" Said nobody ever. "Omg did you hear what that idiot down the block said this time?" Said everybody, all the time. The very act of gossip is to dramatize something mildly unusual and escalate it into an ever juicer story as it passes around. We are Facebook.

CryptoPunk 5y ago

She's no whistleblower. She wants Facebook to engage in more spying, censorship and control.

tayistay 5y ago
Says "CryptoPunk"
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  ?? A CryptoPunk should want a class of regime agents to be annointed as censors of Facebook posts? This is the kind censoring I've personally been subjected to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28411734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28411734 Meanwhile on Twitter, the "fact-checkers" are now taking it upon themselves to try to discredit tweets that make the leading personalities of the political left look bad: https://i.ibb.co/N7XYpkH/Screenshot-20211005-081040-Facebook.jpg https://i.ibb.co/N7XYpkH/Screenshot-20211005-081040-Facebook... This is abuse of the allegedly impartial fact-checking process for clearly ideological ends. Like Glenn Greenwald said: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1434854149087182848 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1434854149087182848 >>The entire "anti-disinformation"/"anti-extremism" industry is a gigantic fraud, funded by the same tiny handful of billionaires, governments and NGOs: a scam to control discourse while feigning neutral, non-ideological goals to battle "disinformation"

LuisMondragon 5y ago

> Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they'll click on less ads, they'll make less money.

tayistay 5y ago
Which is why we need to ban the use of such black-box algorithms for social media.

steve76 5y ago

So these are the people you chose to hire. People who are given everything only to take your money and refuse to work and end up betraying everyone. And I'm the evil one. I take it she never got hit with the code interview. If I was making money, and a product manager yipped up from the corner of the company about how bad everything was, they would be promptly force choked. Dear Spoiled Moron: Everything kills you. Welcome to life.

JohnFen 5y ago

At this point, it's hard to see how it's possible for Facebook to be fixed.