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Zucc has, time and time again, chosen profit over people. Facebook over country. They knew what they were doing (spreading misinformation, creating political di

Zucc has, time and time again, chosen profit over people. Facebook over country. They knew what they were doing (spreading misinformation, creating political division, harming childrens' mental health) and actively chose to not do anything about it. If no private entity can be trusted to do better than that, maybe facebook shouldn't be a private entity IMO.

avalys 5y ago
Ford knows that children get injured, even killed, in traffic accidents in Ford vehicles. Yet, knowing this, they still sell these vehicles and profit from them. Does this mean they are choosing profit over people?
- stocknoob 5y ago
  I don't know, does Ford try to get you drive as fast as possible, as long as possible?
  - avalys 5y ago
    Are liquor stores immoral? Owners of liquor stores? Microbreweries? Vineyards? Something like half of the alcohol industry's revenue comes from people drinking at levels dangerous to their health.
    - stocknoob 5y ago
      They have a known dangerous substance, so have to check ID, can only sell to people 21+, can't ship across state lines, can't advertise in many mediums, and are heavily regulated. Just like Facebook, right?
      - avalys 5y ago
        Does regulation make selling liquor to an alcoholic any more moral?
        stocknoob 5y ago
        You seem to think Facebook is like UPS, passively delivering anonymous packages, and most of us think they're a tobacco company determined to push their product no matter the consequence. They aren't a common carrier, they are the platform that decides what rises and does not. And their priorities indicate they aren't moral.
        baby 5y ago
        Your newsfeed is based on your friends and the groups you follow. I think you’re talking about youtube and tiktok.
      - baby 5y ago
        > have to check ID, can only sell to people 21+ hum... not in France
  - baby 5y ago
    They definitely haven't placed any cap on the speed you can reach with cars, even though there are legal speed limits. They also are in the business of advertising horse power as a marketing argument.
  - scatters 5y ago
    Yes, in their advertising.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Ford is definitely responsible for encouraging people to buy ever larger cars which are responsible for the increasing number of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. So yes they are choosing profit over people.
beachy 5y ago
I have found I am terrible at understanding what new technologies are "for". I didn't really get the iphone when it first came out. And I didn't get Facebook. Then my "aha" moment was that Facebook was like email, but looser - you could post your holiday photos on it, without thinking who to send them to, and your friends could see them and chime in if they were interested. Facebook was post-email. Mind blown! But Facebook is not that thing anymore. It's now a vicious cesspool of outrage-inducing rubbish, peppered with inane vapid memes. Obviously that's what people want, but people want a lot of things that they aren't really proud of. Most of us like a bit of gossip, even if we wouldn't like to be described as a gossiper. I personally find myself unhealthily drawn to stories about anti-vaxxers who are begging for the vaccine from their deathbeds. An unworthy part deep inside me thinks "serve you right". I am not proud of that. Facebook now panders to our lowest, ickiest instincts. And in doing so, it legitimises those icky instincts, and starts us feeling like those instincts aren't so bad. Then our behaviour gets worse. Next thing on the slippery slope, we're marching to the Capitol, part of an armed insurrection. Not a lover of regulation at all, but something has to give. Our society cannot survive bottom dwelling AI leeches like Facebook.
baby 5y ago
Why do people keep repeating that it is Facebook’s fault to spread misinformation? Humans do that. IMO channels like fox news have caused much more damage.
- readflaggedcomm 5y ago
  Because the channels to spread it are what can be regulated, when we can't silence people directly.
  - spaced-out 5y ago
    So when will regulations stop companies like Fox News and OAN from spreading vaccine misinformation?
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      Regulation already forced them to stop spreading misinformation about voting fraud, and in fact forced them to apologize on air many times.
- cageface 5y ago
  Because Facebook's algorithms actively amplify negative and provocative information. They could choose not to do this and accept lower profits. If they had a purely linear chronological feed then a lot of these problems would vastly diminish.
  - baby 5y ago
    By showing you more relevant things? Youtube and tiktok do it too. The alternative is people watching fox news all day long.
    - worrycue 5y ago
      There are many things that are “relevant”. If you have an interest in retro Casio watch collecting, showing you review videos for retro Casio watches would be relevant. But … would it get you “engaged” as much as showing you biased political videos with outrage inducing clickbait titles? Facebook’s algorithm is like an orchestra conductor. By its choice of content it chooses to show Facebook users, it guides the actions of its users. It’s main goal is to guide its users into sticking around for as long as possible - which while is somewhat manipulative, most people aren’t too bothered by that. Unfortunately their algorithm’s choice of content has been discovered to have other more unpleasant side effects … and Facebook isn’t willing to sacrifice profit by having its algorithm suggest stuff that’s just as relevant to a user, without the unpleasant side effects, but less “engaging”. In the shorten 60 minutes interview, I believe the whistleblower mentioned that Facebook leading up to the 2020 election actually clamp down on its algorithm fearing things could going south but lifted the measures after the election was over … then we got 6th Jan 2021.
kevinsundar 5y ago
If you claim that they knew what they were doing then you must believe that Facebook somehow knows at scale: 1. exactly what content is misinformation and what is not 2. exactly what content creates political division 3. exactly what content harms children's mental health If you want Facebook to "do something about these" you're asking Facebook (in reality a poorly paid human moderator or an ML model) to become the arbiter of each these for billions of users worldwide. Do you really want that?
- herbstein 5y ago
  You can know that you're spreading misinformation, creating political division, and harming children's mental health without being able to point to whether a specific piece of content is doing that. If we rephrased the GP post slightly it would say something about creating a system of incentives that, knowingly or not, created these outcomes. It's in fact entirely possible the current system was implemented with no ill intent. The creation of the system itself isn't, as such, the critique. Rather, the critique is how they, after seeing what the outcome of the system is, choose to keep it in place. These things are complex and unpredictable and fixing it isn't as simple as setting a boolean flag. What we want to see is the public realization from the executives at Facebook that what they're doing is harming vast amounts of people and a decisive commitment to concrete, proactive, and fundamental changes to the system. All of this backed up by short-term visible results in both the short-term and long-term behavior of the system and company.
  - rossdavidh 5y ago
    Agreed, but I think what many critics of FB don't seem to realize is, the only solution to this that will really work, is for there not to be a social media network this big. Scale is its own problem. No executive will decide, "I'm too successful, let's split apart into dozens of smaller companies". The problem isn't how FB is run, it's what they are.
  - kevinsundar 5y ago
    You can know that, sure. But any "concrete, proactive, and fundamental changes to the system" require first deciding what content is "okay" and "not okay". Or somehow stopping people from spending time on Facebook products, which just moves the problem to TikTok (or whatever social network takes it place). I see it as either we allow all content or no content regardless of the effect, any other method has facebook (or again a human moderator or ML model) deciding whats okay and not okay for our eyeballs to see. I don't want that. We can't depend on tech companies to fix human societal issues. People have been spreading misinformation on the radio and tv, political division by partisan "news" sites, and children's mental health is affected when they compare themselves to peers in school. We can't blame facebook for these. The reality of the situation is that if Facebook makes any changes everyone will jump ship to another platform and the cycle will continue.

avalys 5y ago

Ford knows that children get injured, even killed, in traffic accidents in Ford vehicles. Yet, knowing this, they still sell these vehicles and profit from them. Does this mean they are choosing profit over people?

stocknoob 5y ago
I don't know, does Ford try to get you drive as fast as possible, as long as possible?
- avalys 5y ago
  Are liquor stores immoral? Owners of liquor stores? Microbreweries? Vineyards? Something like half of the alcohol industry's revenue comes from people drinking at levels dangerous to their health.
  - stocknoob 5y ago
    They have a known dangerous substance, so have to check ID, can only sell to people 21+, can't ship across state lines, can't advertise in many mediums, and are heavily regulated. Just like Facebook, right?
    - avalys 5y ago
      Does regulation make selling liquor to an alcoholic any more moral?
      - stocknoob 5y ago
        You seem to think Facebook is like UPS, passively delivering anonymous packages, and most of us think they're a tobacco company determined to push their product no matter the consequence. They aren't a common carrier, they are the platform that decides what rises and does not. And their priorities indicate they aren't moral.
        baby 5y ago
        Your newsfeed is based on your friends and the groups you follow. I think you’re talking about youtube and tiktok.
    - baby 5y ago
      > have to check ID, can only sell to people 21+ hum... not in France
- baby 5y ago
  They definitely haven't placed any cap on the speed you can reach with cars, even though there are legal speed limits. They also are in the business of advertising horse power as a marketing argument.
- scatters 5y ago
  Yes, in their advertising.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
Ford is definitely responsible for encouraging people to buy ever larger cars which are responsible for the increasing number of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. So yes they are choosing profit over people.

beachy 5y ago

I have found I am terrible at understanding what new technologies are "for". I didn't really get the iphone when it first came out. And I didn't get Facebook. Then my "aha" moment was that Facebook was like email, but looser - you could post your holiday photos on it, without thinking who to send them to, and your friends could see them and chime in if they were interested. Facebook was post-email. Mind blown! But Facebook is not that thing anymore. It's now a vicious cesspool of outrage-inducing rubbish, peppered with inane vapid memes. Obviously that's what people want, but people want a lot of things that they aren't really proud of. Most of us like a bit of gossip, even if we wouldn't like to be described as a gossiper. I personally find myself unhealthily drawn to stories about anti-vaxxers who are begging for the vaccine from their deathbeds. An unworthy part deep inside me thinks "serve you right". I am not proud of that. Facebook now panders to our lowest, ickiest instincts. And in doing so, it legitimises those icky instincts, and starts us feeling like those instincts aren't so bad. Then our behaviour gets worse. Next thing on the slippery slope, we're marching to the Capitol, part of an armed insurrection. Not a lover of regulation at all, but something has to give. Our society cannot survive bottom dwelling AI leeches like Facebook.

baby 5y ago

Why do people keep repeating that it is Facebook’s fault to spread misinformation? Humans do that. IMO channels like fox news have caused much more damage.

readflaggedcomm 5y ago
Because the channels to spread it are what can be regulated, when we can't silence people directly.
- spaced-out 5y ago
  So when will regulations stop companies like Fox News and OAN from spreading vaccine misinformation?
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    Regulation already forced them to stop spreading misinformation about voting fraud, and in fact forced them to apologize on air many times.
cageface 5y ago
Because Facebook's algorithms actively amplify negative and provocative information. They could choose not to do this and accept lower profits. If they had a purely linear chronological feed then a lot of these problems would vastly diminish.
- baby 5y ago
  By showing you more relevant things? Youtube and tiktok do it too. The alternative is people watching fox news all day long.
  - worrycue 5y ago
    There are many things that are “relevant”. If you have an interest in retro Casio watch collecting, showing you review videos for retro Casio watches would be relevant. But … would it get you “engaged” as much as showing you biased political videos with outrage inducing clickbait titles? Facebook’s algorithm is like an orchestra conductor. By its choice of content it chooses to show Facebook users, it guides the actions of its users. It’s main goal is to guide its users into sticking around for as long as possible - which while is somewhat manipulative, most people aren’t too bothered by that. Unfortunately their algorithm’s choice of content has been discovered to have other more unpleasant side effects … and Facebook isn’t willing to sacrifice profit by having its algorithm suggest stuff that’s just as relevant to a user, without the unpleasant side effects, but less “engaging”. In the shorten 60 minutes interview, I believe the whistleblower mentioned that Facebook leading up to the 2020 election actually clamp down on its algorithm fearing things could going south but lifted the measures after the election was over … then we got 6th Jan 2021.

kevinsundar 5y ago

If you claim that they knew what they were doing then you must believe that Facebook somehow knows at scale: 1. exactly what content is misinformation and what is not 2. exactly what content creates political division 3. exactly what content harms children's mental health If you want Facebook to "do something about these" you're asking Facebook (in reality a poorly paid human moderator or an ML model) to become the arbiter of each these for billions of users worldwide. Do you really want that?

herbstein 5y ago
You can know that you're spreading misinformation, creating political division, and harming children's mental health without being able to point to whether a specific piece of content is doing that. If we rephrased the GP post slightly it would say something about creating a system of incentives that, knowingly or not, created these outcomes. It's in fact entirely possible the current system was implemented with no ill intent. The creation of the system itself isn't, as such, the critique. Rather, the critique is how they, after seeing what the outcome of the system is, choose to keep it in place. These things are complex and unpredictable and fixing it isn't as simple as setting a boolean flag. What we want to see is the public realization from the executives at Facebook that what they're doing is harming vast amounts of people and a decisive commitment to concrete, proactive, and fundamental changes to the system. All of this backed up by short-term visible results in both the short-term and long-term behavior of the system and company.
- rossdavidh 5y ago
  Agreed, but I think what many critics of FB don't seem to realize is, the only solution to this that will really work, is for there not to be a social media network this big. Scale is its own problem. No executive will decide, "I'm too successful, let's split apart into dozens of smaller companies". The problem isn't how FB is run, it's what they are.
- kevinsundar 5y ago
  You can know that, sure. But any "concrete, proactive, and fundamental changes to the system" require first deciding what content is "okay" and "not okay". Or somehow stopping people from spending time on Facebook products, which just moves the problem to TikTok (or whatever social network takes it place). I see it as either we allow all content or no content regardless of the effect, any other method has facebook (or again a human moderator or ML model) deciding whats okay and not okay for our eyeballs to see. I don't want that. We can't depend on tech companies to fix human societal issues. People have been spreading misinformation on the radio and tv, political division by partisan "news" sites, and children's mental health is affected when they compare themselves to peers in school. We can't blame facebook for these. The reality of the situation is that if Facebook makes any changes everyone will jump ship to another platform and the cycle will continue.