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Looks like you are willfully ignoring Facebook’s own findings. They know that polarizing content is more engaging yet harmful… and they choose to amplify it any

Looks like you are willfully ignoring Facebook’s own findings. They know that polarizing content is more engaging yet harmful… and they choose to amplify it anyway. The same old argument that it’s hard therefore let’s not do anything is not applicable. Facebook is not a neutral platform that just shows all posts from your friends in a chronological order. They are actively manipulating the stream and are fully responsible for what you consume.

vladd 5y ago
Walmart is "manipulating" the placement of products on the shelf so that it's more likely for you to engage in bulk buying when you visit their stores. Both Facebook and Walmart have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to create value for them. The difference is that, with user generated content, the idea of black and white "bounds" of the law is no longer applicable and you have to devise a system of checks and balances based on probabilities. You can consider 10'000 posts for offline analysis: give them to some human raters and decide retrospectively what engagement and thoughts (positive/negative) are they generating in teens, which should enable you to draw some statistics about the expected average outcome. This doesn't mean it's either scalable or economically feasible to do so in real time for every post (so you cannot take decisions based on something that doesn't exist at the individual post level). You can have multiple algorithms, send all of them to human raters and get for each algorithm some aggregated behaviour, but then we're back to the book question above -- what ratio of positive vs negative outcome in outliers is acceptable, and how do you define a "legal"/"allowed" algorithm?
- chalst 5y ago
  My regular reminder that there is no fiduciary duty to behave unethically. Fiduciary duty is a class of highly specific legal obligations on directors to act attentively and not put their own financial interests above those of shareholders. It is not an obligation to maximise return on investment. Cf. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20776770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20776770
- finfinfin 5y ago
  I am baffled by this display of lack of ethics. Do we need a Walmart comparison to put Facebook’s action in perspective? Facebook - by its own acknowledgement - negatively affects teenage mental health and the democratic processes in many countries. Do you see how different this is from selling more mayonnaise jars in Walmart? Facebook doesn’t have a duty to manipulate content. This is a very weak excuse that works mostly for people directly benefiting from the situation. Didn’t cigarette companies have a duty to maximize profits? Pharma companies pushing accessible opioids? Is that a more apt analogy?
  - kaibee 5y ago
    I would also have OP consider that yes, maybe having corporations like Nestle, CocaCola, etc that prioritize profit above all else is, in fact, also bad. Like, lets be real here, if the CEO of Coke had a button that could double the consumption of Coke products in the USA he would definitely push it, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of people would become more obese and live worse, shorter lives. Advertising is an attempt at such a button.
  - vladd 5y ago
    The following has been used for sure in order to commit crimes and fiddle with democracy: Verizon phone conversations, Gmail discussions, Twitter, Snapchat or Tiktok messages etc. Nobody wakes up and says "let's be unethical today", but rather, it's the reality of life with user generated content platforms, that either you get both outcomes, or you get none. The discussion is about making people realize that the "technology" to keep only the good parts (without the downsides) wasn't invented yet. Hence we're in a position to argue whether it would be more ethical to shutdown / censor everything, or have fruitful discussions on how to emphasize the good outcomes over the bad ones with the current tech (by first understanding it, something that politicians seem to be very bad at, or show little interest in it compared to the negative FB sentiment engagement they're generating in their voters -- ironic :) ).
    - cmorgan31 5y ago
      Nobody? Give it a rest. We're not dumb enough to think everyone in technology, specifically ad tech is ethical by default. Facebook made their own bed and made the mistake of allowing the internal research out of the closed corporate box. They can mitigate the impact of their most engaged content but it would be to their own fiscal detriment which is why they fundamentally decide not to mitigate it.
- nuerow 5y ago
  > Walmart is (...) Whataboutism advances no discussion. Either Facebook's problems are discussed based on Facebook's circumstances and decisions and consequences, or we're better off not posting any message at all.
  - docmars 5y ago
    Comparisons, analogies, and metaphors are useful tools to increase understanding and draw parallels to ideas that are challenging to navigate and naturally, lead to a variety of thoughtful outcomes or interpretations. Crying "whataboutism" is as fruitless as you've described above. It is often used to steer a conversation towards a single direction of bias when those comparisons lead to inconvenient conclusions/possibilities that fall outside of what the person claiming it has accepted. Just sayin'. ;)
    - nuerow 5y ago
      > Comparisons, analogies, and metaphors are useful tools (...) Whataboutism is neither. It's a logical fallacy employed to avoid discussing the problem or address issues by trying to distract and deflect the attention to irrelevant and completely unrelated subjects.
      - wanderingstan 5y ago
        I found it an apt comparison, highlighting how something we might accept in physical space (Walmart) yet be critical of equivalent action in the online space. It’s a thoughtful and coherent argument, even if one disagrees with it, not whataboutism
- sul_tasto 5y ago
  Walmart doesn’t stock land mines, rocket launchers, anthrax, or many other items harmful to democracy and society on its shelves, even though I’m sure it could make a lot of money selling such items.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure none of that is legal to sell in Walmart's big-box retailer format.
- int_19h 5y ago
  > Both Facebook and Walmart have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to create value for them. I feel like the more this claim is repeated, the more pushback you're going to see against it - and rightly so. We need to remember that corporations are themselves fictitious legal entities. They only exist because society wills them into existence, and it can do so with arbitrary strings attached - there's no natural right to form a corporation. So, if it turns out that "fiduciary duty to their shareholders to create value" inevitably leads to the abusive megacorp clusterfuck that we are seeing today, why should we be clinging to it?
  - finfinfin 5y ago
    It’s puzzling how many people are so ready to mask their own responsibility by shifting it to a legal entity that apparently now has a duty to do whatever it takes to generate more profit. As if individually these people wouldn’t act in unethical ways but once they put on the “I am a corporation” mask anything goes.
freeopinion 5y ago
> Facebook [clipped] are fully responsible for what you consume. I'm not sure how deeply you hold this belief, but I am concerned to see so many people push all blame from their own actions. While it may be true that Facebook is largely responsible for what is consumed * on Facebook *, individuals are largely responsible for consuming Facebook.
- drbojingle 5y ago
  That's true, but does my mother understand what's really going on? Do you? Do I? Choosing to pick up the phone and call your daughter and choosing to go on Facebook is very different and people growing up with the former might not realize how different the latter really is.
- satellite2 5y ago
  I think they do. When you only see post about how vaccine cause autism, anectode about this and that person and the diseases they got from the vaccine and that on top of that the vaccine doesn't even prevent the disease it was designed against, then it becomes reasonable to become antivax. And if effectively Facebook knowingly choose, through their algorithm parameters selection, to promote this material as it increases engagement more than reasonable content, then yes, I think they should at least be partly held responsible for the harm caused by the anti vaccine movement. And this is only one example.
- chasd00 5y ago
  this is true and if you're going to put Facebook in the spotlight you're going to have to put a light on everyone else. The entire computer gaming industry is one big dopamine cartel. If the facebook addiction is such a big deal then it's a little ironic gaming hasn't been completely dismantled. //edit: honestly i think politics are a little at play here. Facebook (these days) is used heavily by an older more conservative crowd and i think it's irritating to the other side
- rmahan 5y ago
  I think they fall into more responsibility here because they’ve also designed it to be addictive. If Facebook was easier to quit, I’d hold individuals more accountable.

vladd 5y ago

Walmart is "manipulating" the placement of products on the shelf so that it's more likely for you to engage in bulk buying when you visit their stores. Both Facebook and Walmart have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to create value for them. The difference is that, with user generated content, the idea of black and white "bounds" of the law is no longer applicable and you have to devise a system of checks and balances based on probabilities. You can consider 10'000 posts for offline analysis: give them to some human raters and decide retrospectively what engagement and thoughts (positive/negative) are they generating in teens, which should enable you to draw some statistics about the expected average outcome. This doesn't mean it's either scalable or economically feasible to do so in real time for every post (so you cannot take decisions based on something that doesn't exist at the individual post level). You can have multiple algorithms, send all of them to human raters and get for each algorithm some aggregated behaviour, but then we're back to the book question above -- what ratio of positive vs negative outcome in outliers is acceptable, and how do you define a "legal"/"allowed" algorithm?

chalst 5y ago
My regular reminder that there is no fiduciary duty to behave unethically. Fiduciary duty is a class of highly specific legal obligations on directors to act attentively and not put their own financial interests above those of shareholders. It is not an obligation to maximise return on investment. Cf. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20776770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20776770
finfinfin 5y ago
I am baffled by this display of lack of ethics. Do we need a Walmart comparison to put Facebook’s action in perspective? Facebook - by its own acknowledgement - negatively affects teenage mental health and the democratic processes in many countries. Do you see how different this is from selling more mayonnaise jars in Walmart? Facebook doesn’t have a duty to manipulate content. This is a very weak excuse that works mostly for people directly benefiting from the situation. Didn’t cigarette companies have a duty to maximize profits? Pharma companies pushing accessible opioids? Is that a more apt analogy?
- kaibee 5y ago
  I would also have OP consider that yes, maybe having corporations like Nestle, CocaCola, etc that prioritize profit above all else is, in fact, also bad. Like, lets be real here, if the CEO of Coke had a button that could double the consumption of Coke products in the USA he would definitely push it, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of people would become more obese and live worse, shorter lives. Advertising is an attempt at such a button.
- vladd 5y ago
  The following has been used for sure in order to commit crimes and fiddle with democracy: Verizon phone conversations, Gmail discussions, Twitter, Snapchat or Tiktok messages etc. Nobody wakes up and says "let's be unethical today", but rather, it's the reality of life with user generated content platforms, that either you get both outcomes, or you get none. The discussion is about making people realize that the "technology" to keep only the good parts (without the downsides) wasn't invented yet. Hence we're in a position to argue whether it would be more ethical to shutdown / censor everything, or have fruitful discussions on how to emphasize the good outcomes over the bad ones with the current tech (by first understanding it, something that politicians seem to be very bad at, or show little interest in it compared to the negative FB sentiment engagement they're generating in their voters -- ironic :) ).
  - cmorgan31 5y ago
    Nobody? Give it a rest. We're not dumb enough to think everyone in technology, specifically ad tech is ethical by default. Facebook made their own bed and made the mistake of allowing the internal research out of the closed corporate box. They can mitigate the impact of their most engaged content but it would be to their own fiscal detriment which is why they fundamentally decide not to mitigate it.
nuerow 5y ago
> Walmart is (...) Whataboutism advances no discussion. Either Facebook's problems are discussed based on Facebook's circumstances and decisions and consequences, or we're better off not posting any message at all.
- docmars 5y ago
  Comparisons, analogies, and metaphors are useful tools to increase understanding and draw parallels to ideas that are challenging to navigate and naturally, lead to a variety of thoughtful outcomes or interpretations. Crying "whataboutism" is as fruitless as you've described above. It is often used to steer a conversation towards a single direction of bias when those comparisons lead to inconvenient conclusions/possibilities that fall outside of what the person claiming it has accepted. Just sayin'. ;)
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > Comparisons, analogies, and metaphors are useful tools (...) Whataboutism is neither. It's a logical fallacy employed to avoid discussing the problem or address issues by trying to distract and deflect the attention to irrelevant and completely unrelated subjects.
    - wanderingstan 5y ago
      I found it an apt comparison, highlighting how something we might accept in physical space (Walmart) yet be critical of equivalent action in the online space. It’s a thoughtful and coherent argument, even if one disagrees with it, not whataboutism
sul_tasto 5y ago
Walmart doesn’t stock land mines, rocket launchers, anthrax, or many other items harmful to democracy and society on its shelves, even though I’m sure it could make a lot of money selling such items.
- Talanes 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure none of that is legal to sell in Walmart's big-box retailer format.
int_19h 5y ago
> Both Facebook and Walmart have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to create value for them. I feel like the more this claim is repeated, the more pushback you're going to see against it - and rightly so. We need to remember that corporations are themselves fictitious legal entities. They only exist because society wills them into existence, and it can do so with arbitrary strings attached - there's no natural right to form a corporation. So, if it turns out that "fiduciary duty to their shareholders to create value" inevitably leads to the abusive megacorp clusterfuck that we are seeing today, why should we be clinging to it?
- finfinfin 5y ago
  It’s puzzling how many people are so ready to mask their own responsibility by shifting it to a legal entity that apparently now has a duty to do whatever it takes to generate more profit. As if individually these people wouldn’t act in unethical ways but once they put on the “I am a corporation” mask anything goes.

freeopinion 5y ago

> Facebook [clipped] are fully responsible for what you consume. I'm not sure how deeply you hold this belief, but I am concerned to see so many people push all blame from their own actions. While it may be true that Facebook is largely responsible for what is consumed * on Facebook *, individuals are largely responsible for consuming Facebook.

drbojingle 5y ago
That's true, but does my mother understand what's really going on? Do you? Do I? Choosing to pick up the phone and call your daughter and choosing to go on Facebook is very different and people growing up with the former might not realize how different the latter really is.
satellite2 5y ago
I think they do. When you only see post about how vaccine cause autism, anectode about this and that person and the diseases they got from the vaccine and that on top of that the vaccine doesn't even prevent the disease it was designed against, then it becomes reasonable to become antivax. And if effectively Facebook knowingly choose, through their algorithm parameters selection, to promote this material as it increases engagement more than reasonable content, then yes, I think they should at least be partly held responsible for the harm caused by the anti vaccine movement. And this is only one example.
chasd00 5y ago
this is true and if you're going to put Facebook in the spotlight you're going to have to put a light on everyone else. The entire computer gaming industry is one big dopamine cartel. If the facebook addiction is such a big deal then it's a little ironic gaming hasn't been completely dismantled. //edit: honestly i think politics are a little at play here. Facebook (these days) is used heavily by an older more conservative crowd and i think it's irritating to the other side
rmahan 5y ago
I think they fall into more responsibility here because they’ve also designed it to be addictive. If Facebook was easier to quit, I’d hold individuals more accountable.