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Facebook whistleblower hearing: Frances Haugen testifies in Washington – live
- sayonaraman 5y agotime to buy more FB shares when a company leaves the headlines it's time to sell.
- whymauri 5y agoyou jest, but they are up 170% since the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
- netizen-936824 5y agoThis same attitude, caring about profit above all else, is the reason for this shit show in the first place. Shameful.
- cute_boi 5y ago(All of the following are my personal opinion) and long as laws, rules, regulation supports it many people/corporation will always choose profits over ethics and its not a broad generalization but a natural instinct in my opinion. And you can also buy prestige just by throwing cents in name of philanthropy right? I hate it but this is how natures works and its too cruel.
- netizen-936824 5y agoHumans ate in control of laws and regulations, we CAN do something
- nicoburns 5y ago> and long as laws, rules, regulation supports it many people/corporation will always choose profits over ethics Many is a key word here. Many will, but many will not. And how many do is definitely a function of culture. As shown by the big difference in attitude to this question between the US and Europe.
- zozin 5y agoThat’s what a business is. Greed is good, it drives people to do great things and create amazing products. If company A cared less about profits and more about society, it would lose out to company B who cares only about profit and market share, before eventually company A withers and dies and all we are left with is company B. It’s the role of government to curtail greed and industry actions. The current climate is caused by a a failure of government to step in and intervene, not by the industry caring about profit above all else.
- jjulius 5y ago>Greed is good... You say this as though there aren't any downsides to greed. >The current climate is caused by a failure of government to step in and intervene, not by the industry caring about profit above all else. No, it's both. Full stop.
- sayonaraman 5y agoI don't think you can argue with Gordon Gekko " that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit..." And btw this forum is hosted by one of the most prominent venture capitalist firms in Silicon Valley which funds thousands of (promising) capitalists. That's what America is about, greed, the pursuit of happiness, whatever you call it, everything else is noise.
- jjulius 5y ago>That's what America is about, greed, the pursuit of happiness, whatever you call it, everything else is noise. The pursuit of happiness is not greed. What qualifies as 'happiness' is entirely up to each individual, and for many people that doesn't include being greedy.
- sayonaraman 5y agowell as the success of the US economy shows, those greedy capitalists create millions of jobs and goods and increase overall "happiness" of millions (of perhaps less greedy) people. Greed and free markets make for a healthy society. As a counter-example see what happened with the Soviet Union, I can tell you first hand that didn’t work very well. Demonizing "bourjois" values of private property and prosperity, while fetishizing the “common good” and all-controlling government made the entire society very unhappy (except for a few fat bureaucrats) and led to its eventual collapse.
- paxys 5y agoYou are overestimating how much this entire saga (including yesterday's outage) has affected Facebook's share price.
- dillondoyle 5y agoI bought more after a stop loss sale. I was a strong bull for a while basing on where I spend my advertising dollars. I spent like at least 60% of my clients money on FB (before CTV scaled). Now CTV is eating more budget AND I'm really feeling the iOS changes. I think the ad market will sort it self and value out but this month has been bad and all over the place. For instance targeting small non-profit donor lists isn't as effective but for some reason I'm having some success just targeting everyone over 45 (a non-profit ask, prob won't work as well for a Democratic ask). I also see a ton of tik tok videos reposted with logo and everything on IG. Still a bull but I am concerned and unless they get a new platform or immersive reality/ar takes off I don't think there is room for huge exponential growth anymore. Significant incremental 100% though IMHO. But who am I opinion doesn't matter, my ad buying experience is only one tiny anecdote. I'm small in both spend and my investments - only recently became better at saving vs spending. Though my dad put in more than I could a bit after IPO and has bumped his retirement considerable
- pjc50 5y ago> I also see a ton of tik tok videos reposted with logo and everything on IG Yes, that's what reels is for, reposting content you made in the tiktok editor. (So few people understand that that's an important part of the success of tiktok, as is its radically different suggestion algorithms)
- sva_ 5y agosee https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28760228 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28760228
- sharklazer 5y agoDefinitely not a "whistleblower"... more like FB-insider political operative.
- yonaguska 5y agoAgreed. Psaki is already citing this "whistleblower" to argue for more government oversight in censorship. > Psaki was asked about Haugen’s interview and whether the revelations “change the way the White House thinks about regulating Facebook and other social media giants.” “This is just the latest in a series of revelations about social media platforms,” Psaki said, “that make clear that self-regulation is not working. That’s long been the president’s view and been the view of the administration.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/jen-psaki-says-facebook-whistleblower-interview-shows-self-regulation-is-not-working/ar-AAP8rLs https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/jen-psaki-says-facebook-wh... Here comes the regulatory capture that Facebook has been begging for.
- aaomidi 5y agoEvery whistleblower is a political operative. And that word isn't a negative word.
- yonaguska 5y agoSnowden?
- yonaguska 5y agoIn this case, I agree. She's represented by the same PR firm that Psaki used to work for and is represented by the same law firm that Eric Ciaramella used.
- raxxorrax 5y agoHonestly what got me most suspicious was the blind praise we also see in this threat. I believe the suspicion is heavily justified.
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- beaned 5y agoThis feels hollow. These are things that have been obvious to everyone for a very long time. We all already talk about it openly and have been forever. What does it mean to be a "whistleblower" about it?
- ehutch79 5y agoEvidence
- gruez 5y agoHow many legislators refusing to act because of the lack of evidence?
- aaomidi 5y agoIt increases the pressure to act.
- beaned 5y agoOf what? We've had evidence forever, it's public and understood. It's in our addictions, unhappiness, and politicization of everything. We all know where it comes from and we all know that companies are profit-driven. There are literally no secrets being revealed.
- satellite2 5y agoThe fundamentaly new aspect of her revelation is the extent of FB awareness of the situation, that they have evidence that some previously tested minor modifications to their algorithm could reduce public harm and disinformation, but choose not to do so as it would hurt their profit. As the company has obligations to its shareholders to increase profit whenever possible, it has a conflict of interest making it impossible for them to choose the best option for the public good. So it's really like auto makers not providing more than the minimal set of safety feature required by regulators. We know that the only way to reduce said harm is by realigning incentives which requires involving the legislator.
- Gunax 5y agoI think this all just a continuation of how society wants everything safe and made of foam. We cannot have danger at the park because someone might scrape a knee. We cannot have contact sports because someone might break a tooth. And we cannot have uncensored internet because someone might reqd something that wasn't Snopes-approved. Most infuriating to me is that now it's about coddling teens. I didn't want to be coddled as a teen. I wanted to be respected. I wanted to be free of patronizing zealots. Oddly, Zuckerberg was a teenager himself when he started the damn thing. Teens have rights too, as much as we adults want to deny them.
- michaelmrose 5y agoPeople are being fed deliberate poisonous stupidity because Facebook figured they were vulnerable to it or rather implemented an algorithm that maximized engagement and therefore revenue at the expense of the health of society and people's lives. You are trivializing this harm. I have family that aren't vaccinating and may harm themselves or others because of poisonous shit they learned on Facebook.
- raxxorrax 5y agoTeens navigate social media even better than many 30-somethings who were also digital natives. I agree with the sentiment though. Missinformation is a narrative from legacy media to fortify their positions against social media giants. To be fair, the latter are a problem, but mostly the censorship by them is.
- anovikov 5y agoSadly, best thing these regulations could achieve is making Facebook work "worse", that is, not as invasive/addictive and thus not as harmful, and enable some competition. I can't expect that in a democratic society the very root of the problem with social media - that free speech worked well only in times when printing a pamphlet required some money, connections and education and set a high social and intellectual threshold for doing so, and simply does NOT make any benefit to the society when ANYONE can post on Facebook. Just as democracy itself stops working when everyone can vote, becoming a snake that eats it's own tail. Sadly, this will eventually result in end of the Western world as we know it and there is nothing we can do.
- tablespoon 5y ago> Just as democracy itself stops working when everyone can vote Um, what now? Are you saying universal suffrage is a bad thing? Who are the people you think should be denied voting rights to keep "democracy itself...working"?
- OGforces 5y agoYeah that gave me pause as well. Just says it like it’s a well known tenet of American political thought.
- cwp 5y agoUh, children? Non-citizens?
- tablespoon 5y ago> Uh, children? Non-citizens? The real answer was people who aren't "wealthy property owners."
- ipaddr 5y agoOften people cite people who are not interested and/or not following politics and cannot make an informed decision. That is the central debate around forced voting.
- tw600040 5y agoI don't understand which of these accusations are actually breaking the law. They all imply that Facebook isn't being a Good Samaritan, but that isn't actually illegal.
- bcrosby95 5y agoYou could have said the same thing about cigarette companies half a century ago.
- oarabbus_ 5y agoAnd Philip Morris/Altria Group has vastly grown in size since half a century ago. It seems you are proving their point?
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- kaesar14 5y agoIs that true for domestic sales?
- munk-a 5y agoThey have - though they've diversified domestically in a significant way and while cigarettes (and vaping!) is still a major societal problem it's not nearly as bad as it was in the 80's and earlier.
- r00fus 5y agoWhile cigarettes are no longer a threat to societal health. We have monitoring programs in place, insurance costs (smokers pay higher premiums) factored, and ways to prevent our kids from being marketed to. The alternative is we go the banhammer route, and as we learned with prohibition era, that had unintended/undesirable consequences.
- Alex3917 5y ago
- zestyping 5y agoI strongly recommend you give this your time and attention. Two things I find striking and admirable about her testimony, that absolutely make it worth watching even if you are already familiar with the controversy: 1. She is consistent and focused at explaining the issue as a systemic problem with incentives, not a question of good people versus evil people. 2. She is skillfully demonstrating how to deliver strong criticism without scorn but rather with empathy, compassion, and a spirit of collaboration toward all involved. These qualities are what really set this apart from other criticism of social media, and both are incredibly important and healthy in a world where Facebook and Twitter have normalized the opposite. And as a result, to my astonishment, both Republicans and Democrats are engaging with this more intelligently, patiently, and constructively than I have ever seen. It really has to be seen to be believed.
- adventured 5y agoIt is an impressive performance on her part. She successfully navigated several primitive attempts by senators to frame the intent of people at Facebook as malevolent. A typical politician move to try to create a fictionalized supervillain to attack - a vapid rhetoric path. She dodged that multiple times and directed the conversation back to the substantive issues of privacy, algorithms, content.
- taurath 5y agoThese folks are ooold. They don’t understand anything other than black and white because they’re just told it’s an issue. Average age of a senator is 63 years old.
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- asabjorn 5y agoIt is significant that she is advocating for censorship of "hate speech". Considering that she donated to "critical social justice" activists [1], the increased centralized censorship she asks for is most likely another step to censor dissenters to critical social justice. This is neither measured nor moderate. Facebook already apply heavy censorship in a way that is arguably driving a lot of suspicion and division. Their content "supreme court" is currently largely staffed with establishment democrats [3]. "Hate speech" [2] as defined by critical social justice adherents could refer to anything that doesn’t proceed from a critical consciousness, i.e., that which accords with critical theories, especially those for “Social Justice,” possibly including microaggressions. That the GOP and DNC establishment are in alignment to censor dissenter in both ranks is not surprising. That being "Bernie bros", "Yang gang", "Trumpians", or any other flank. [1] https://thenationalpulse.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-donated-36-times-to-democrats-including-to-anti-primary-extremists-and-aoc/ https://thenationalpulse.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-don... [2] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-hate-speech/ https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-hate-speech/ [3] https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/05/06/facebook-supreme-court-packed-with-anti-trump-progressive-figures/ https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/05/06/facebook-supreme-c...
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- tacocataco 5y agoWhy can't we just force all social media to advasarially integrate. I want to be able to message my parents on Facebook from a different social media. Let the market compete on UI and how they store your data. Imagine only being able to call other Sprint customers with your Sprint cell phone. We didn't put up with this for telephones, why should we tolerate this?