8 ms·

The Facebook whistleblower is heroic and terribly wrong

67 points by null_object 5y ago

krisrm 5y ago
I personally don't understand why, as a whistleblower, she should also be proposing policies. "Hey there's something wrong" and "Here's how you fix it" seem like they should be very distinct in these cases where someone could easily use their leverage as a "high profile" whistleblower to push a particular political agenda.
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  People ask for Snowdens take on everything too. I think it's just that as a whistle-blower they're somewhat of a verified good guy who also has domain expertise.
- pixelgeek 5y ago
  I think legislators want to hear opinions from people that have experience in the subject matter.
- mikecoles 5y ago
  Video that discusses her possible biases and the trojan horse suspicion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRjSjjyfN1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRjSjjyfN1U
  - pixelgeek 5y ago
    Louder with Crowder? Really? Well he certainly is familiar with bias. I'll give you that.
    - mikecoles 5y ago
      So... nothing to refute? Just don't like the guy?
      - pixelgeek 5y ago
        Post a link to content posted by someone who isn't a bully and a homophobe and I'll look at it. Crowder is a cut-rate Rush Limbaugh without the gravitas and he has the same approach. I don't have any opinion about him as a person but as a source of information he isn't reputable and I'd not waste my time listening to him.
        Banana699 5y ago
        >Post a link to content posted by someone who isn't a bully and a homophobe and I'll look at it. That's.. Not coherent. GP didn't ask you to look, you volunteered that you don't want to look.
        bopbeepboop 5y ago
        Your comment on why you’re not viewing it: > someone who isn't a bully and a homophobe Your explanation of your own comment: > I don't have any opinion about him as a person […] as a source of information he isn't reputable I think at some level, you recognize that you’re ignoring a source based on your opinion of him as a person, so you feel the need to claim the opposite. You’d think if your second paragraph were true, you’d have commented on his failures as a source and not him as a person as the basis of your objection in the first paragraph.
        notarget137 5y ago
        Is it not what is said a concern for you rather who is saying it?
- thesausageking 5y ago
  I understand the objection, but I think she is a subject matter expert having worked for Facebook, Yelp, and Pinterest. Also, while at Facebook, she worked in their civic integrity department, which is supposed to handle issues like what she was testifying on. Legislators can either take her suggestions or ignore them.
TheNexxuz 5y ago
I disagree, this "whistle-blower" is not heroic. I bet that it will be found that FB paid her to "come out" on this to try to convince the public to want more censorship.
- rpastuszak 5y ago
  What?
- calbruin 5y ago
  Can you elaborate?
chartpath 5y ago
Just because you don't think she goes far enough doesn't mean you need to tear her down. It seems disingenuous if you're a self-described reformer like this author. Why is it Frances Haugen's responsibility to fix everything? Can't the author start with "yes, and"? I guess it just seems unproductive to use such a click-baity title.
- pixelgeek 5y ago
  > I guess it just seems unproductive to use such a click-baity title. Titles that aren't 'click baity' don't get noticed anymore. Sad but true
pixelgeek 5y ago
I listened to her testimony and the reactions to it and thought that she illustrated the problem with social media but I don't know that there is a solution to the problem of Facebook that doesn't address the issues of scale and a lack of social accountability. Corporations are typically run by the type of person that will do whatever they can to maximize profits and the central theme of her testimony is that the 'anything we can do to make money' drive is the core issue. Facebook turns a blind eye to things that will impact their engagement numbers and increasing new users. Which, as Matt points out in his article, isn't an issue except for the sheer scale of Facebook. For me the factor complicating is that you can't 'solve' the problem here because the core problem is the drive to maximize profits and increase users at all costs. Any corporate structure is going to run a social media company in the same fashion. And will build up to the size of Facebook if it is allowed to do so. SO you can't 'fix' it
- chuckee 5y ago
  Core issue for some. For others, the centralization of power is more worrisome. Would it be an improvement if, instead of chasing profits, Facebook used their power to instead suppress your favored political movement?
  - pixelgeek 5y ago
    I don't think chasing profits is necessarily a problem. Profits over everything else is. When your moral compass has to be thrown out to continue to push engagement then you have a problem. And which political movement is it that you think is being suppressed?
    - Loughla 5y ago
      I read that more as a theoretical - how would you feel if your political leanings were suddenly suppressed everywhere facebook touches? I don't think there's a win here for facebook as it currently stands. They can't let unfettered bullshit keep happening, and they can't truly moderate without becoming arbiters of some truth they've decided. When they are the largest company in this space, and they apply their moral compass, I guess you're just assuming that moral compass points to where you want to go?
kixiQu 5y ago
> First, we need to ratchet back Section 230 as Haugen suggests (or even further), which would simplify the business model. I give the [EFF] money not because of the bad players in this whole mess, but because of the people with good intentions who aren't as enmeshed in the grit of how stuff works. Every revision of section 230 I've seen proposed would be catastrophic for things entirely unrelated to the intent of the revision. [EFF]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks https://www.eff.org/deeplinks (though I'd agree with the top-level take that drastic anti-monopoly action needs to be a piece of the pie here)
- pixelgeek 5y ago
  > First, we need to ratchet back Section 230 as Haugen suggests I don't understand how Facebook can get Section 230 protection if they moderate your feed? How is that not publishing?
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    Are you referring to the current state of affairs, or the state of affairs on a hypothetical world without 230? In the world with 230, Facebook is not considered the publisher because they are a "provider" of an "interactive computer service", and the content they are showing is "information provided by another information content provider." Therefore they are not treated as the publisher. That is what s230 does. In a world without s230, whether they moderate or not, they'd be liable as a publisher for anything their service shows. They would have to dramatically restrict the spread of information to limit risk of litigation, e.g. in the case of people who might sue them for an individual user's slander. Note that this same issue would apply to anyone running newsgroup servers, website hosting, forums, wikis, etc. Republishing UGC would probably become economically challenging.
    - pixelgeek 5y ago
      > the content they are showing is "information provided by another information content provider." But they aren't. They make decisions about what goes into someone's feed. When they started out and the feed was just a list of items posted by people or groups you followed then it was just 'showing' content. Using an algorithm to show people content that they will engage with more is not 'showing' something. It crosses the line into publishing. Facebook makes a decision about content
Traster 5y ago
I'm not sure we should be taking the whistle-blower's policy recommendations too literally, since her recommendations about what to do are going to directly influence whether people think she's a credible witness. It's much easier to say "Oh I think we should just do better" whilst also saying "And here's how facebook murders babies" rather than "We should shut down facebook". Because if you say "We should shut down facebook" when you present evidence that facebook murders babies, people will just say "Oh well you would say that, you just want to shut down facebook". I think this article misses the main way we got here today. The reason we are here today is because Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram are 1 company. This should never have happened. It was totally anti-competitive. Social media will innevitably have network effects, so it kind of makes sense that you'll end up with giants. What doesn't make sense is that you then allow that giant to go around stamping on all its competitors. What is the best competition for Instagram today? Tiktok. Why is Tiktok the best competition? Because it's the one company facebook can't buy. Facebook has extended its life by acquiring any competitive threats or copying those that it couldn't. Simple traditional governance around mergers could have avoiding this situation. Social media companies will grow big through network effects, but until recently, they didn't stay big - because the natural ebb and flow of users meant interests change and different demographics want to differentiate themselves. You wouldn't need to regulate facebook if it had real competition, because its influence would be smaller and it would face real competitive pressure to improve its platform.
- pixelgeek 5y ago
  > You wouldn't need to regulate facebook if it had real competition And it would if the existing regulatory bodies did their jobs. But apparently they can be dodged with a truckload of political contributions. As would any future regulatory body that legislators come up with. Ask people who live downwind of a chemical plant if the EPA works.
  - Phileosopher 5y ago
    I feel like this is a variation of the Two Generals Problem, but instead of it being about communication, it's about accountability: "You have many people. One of these people gains more power than the rest. They can abuse that power, so there needs to be someone to monitor that power, but _that_ person can abuse power. How do you effectively hold everyone accountable about abuses of power without requiring that absolutely everyone become a regulator to create a loop?"
amelius 5y ago
"The Facebook whistleblower is heroic but I think she got one thing wrong" would be a better title.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kiryin 5y ago
I don't want to make any wild guesses, but something about this particular whistleblower case makes my spidey-sense tingle. Something is amiss. I suppose time will tell.
- MrZongle2 5y ago
  You're not the only one. I have absolutely no proof to counter taking everything at face value. But my gut tells me that there's something not quite right with this whole thing, and I find it unsettling. I'm not willing to wave the flag for either the whistleblower or Facebook at the moment.
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  I agree. Something smells funny. Doesn't mean that good things can't happen because of it, but there's definitely a fishy smell in the area.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Is it the fact that "major news outlets" didn't even really vet her before doing hours of B roll and wide reaching confident stories as to the veracity and intent of her reports...?
6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
I’m amazed at the amount of conspiracy theory support I’ve seen about her here on HN (and conspiracy theories I’ve seen on HN in general lately). Am I the only one perceiving an uptick in this stuff?
- Loughla 5y ago
  No, I'm with you on that. There has also been a massive uptick in extremely polarized political statements and beliefs, as well. Not sure why.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    The two major political parties in the US (the majority of the audience of this board, for better or worse) are pitting their voterbases against each other in a desperate bid to retain their power in the face of undirected populist sentiment spread via Internet.
- mFixman 5y ago
  Articles about Facebook bring the worst of this site.
blacktriangle 5y ago
The Facebook whistleblower is a clear government plant sent there to justify government take over of Facebook's popular opinion control apparatus. The Republicans want to shut down the faction that want Trump back and the Dems want to shut down the Bernie bros and Yang's new party, so both parties are united in their desire to regain control of public discourse. When's the last time you've ever seen a whistleblower treated so kindly by the feds?
stefantalpalaru 5y ago
See also: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-want-to https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-...

67 points by null_object 5y ago

I personally don't understand why, as a whistleblower, she should also be proposing policies. "Hey there's something wrong" and "Here's how you fix it" seem like they should be very distinct in these cases where someone could easily use their leverage as a "high profile" whistleblower to push a particular political agenda.

thatguy0900 5y ago
People ask for Snowdens take on everything too. I think it's just that as a whistle-blower they're somewhat of a verified good guy who also has domain expertise.
pixelgeek 5y ago
I think legislators want to hear opinions from people that have experience in the subject matter.
mikecoles 5y ago
Video that discusses her possible biases and the trojan horse suspicion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRjSjjyfN1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRjSjjyfN1U
- pixelgeek 5y ago
  Louder with Crowder? Really? Well he certainly is familiar with bias. I'll give you that.
  - mikecoles 5y ago
    So... nothing to refute? Just don't like the guy?
    - pixelgeek 5y ago
      Post a link to content posted by someone who isn't a bully and a homophobe and I'll look at it. Crowder is a cut-rate Rush Limbaugh without the gravitas and he has the same approach. I don't have any opinion about him as a person but as a source of information he isn't reputable and I'd not waste my time listening to him.
      - Banana699 5y ago
        >Post a link to content posted by someone who isn't a bully and a homophobe and I'll look at it. That's.. Not coherent. GP didn't ask you to look, you volunteered that you don't want to look.
      - bopbeepboop 5y ago
        Your comment on why you’re not viewing it: > someone who isn't a bully and a homophobe Your explanation of your own comment: > I don't have any opinion about him as a person […] as a source of information he isn't reputable I think at some level, you recognize that you’re ignoring a source based on your opinion of him as a person, so you feel the need to claim the opposite. You’d think if your second paragraph were true, you’d have commented on his failures as a source and not him as a person as the basis of your objection in the first paragraph.
      - notarget137 5y ago
        Is it not what is said a concern for you rather who is saying it?
thesausageking 5y ago
I understand the objection, but I think she is a subject matter expert having worked for Facebook, Yelp, and Pinterest. Also, while at Facebook, she worked in their civic integrity department, which is supposed to handle issues like what she was testifying on. Legislators can either take her suggestions or ignore them.

TheNexxuz 5y ago

I disagree, this "whistle-blower" is not heroic. I bet that it will be found that FB paid her to "come out" on this to try to convince the public to want more censorship.

rpastuszak 5y ago
What?
calbruin 5y ago
Can you elaborate?

chartpath 5y ago

Just because you don't think she goes far enough doesn't mean you need to tear her down. It seems disingenuous if you're a self-described reformer like this author. Why is it Frances Haugen's responsibility to fix everything? Can't the author start with "yes, and"? I guess it just seems unproductive to use such a click-baity title.

pixelgeek 5y ago
> I guess it just seems unproductive to use such a click-baity title. Titles that aren't 'click baity' don't get noticed anymore. Sad but true

pixelgeek 5y ago

I listened to her testimony and the reactions to it and thought that she illustrated the problem with social media but I don't know that there is a solution to the problem of Facebook that doesn't address the issues of scale and a lack of social accountability. Corporations are typically run by the type of person that will do whatever they can to maximize profits and the central theme of her testimony is that the 'anything we can do to make money' drive is the core issue. Facebook turns a blind eye to things that will impact their engagement numbers and increasing new users. Which, as Matt points out in his article, isn't an issue except for the sheer scale of Facebook. For me the factor complicating is that you can't 'solve' the problem here because the core problem is the drive to maximize profits and increase users at all costs. Any corporate structure is going to run a social media company in the same fashion. And will build up to the size of Facebook if it is allowed to do so. SO you can't 'fix' it

chuckee 5y ago
Core issue for some. For others, the centralization of power is more worrisome. Would it be an improvement if, instead of chasing profits, Facebook used their power to instead suppress your favored political movement?
- pixelgeek 5y ago
  I don't think chasing profits is necessarily a problem. Profits over everything else is. When your moral compass has to be thrown out to continue to push engagement then you have a problem. And which political movement is it that you think is being suppressed?
  - Loughla 5y ago
    I read that more as a theoretical - how would you feel if your political leanings were suddenly suppressed everywhere facebook touches? I don't think there's a win here for facebook as it currently stands. They can't let unfettered bullshit keep happening, and they can't truly moderate without becoming arbiters of some truth they've decided. When they are the largest company in this space, and they apply their moral compass, I guess you're just assuming that moral compass points to where you want to go?

kixiQu 5y ago

> First, we need to ratchet back Section 230 as Haugen suggests (or even further), which would simplify the business model. I give the [EFF] money not because of the bad players in this whole mess, but because of the people with good intentions who aren't as enmeshed in the grit of how stuff works. Every revision of section 230 I've seen proposed would be catastrophic for things entirely unrelated to the intent of the revision. [EFF]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks https://www.eff.org/deeplinks (though I'd agree with the top-level take that drastic anti-monopoly action needs to be a piece of the pie here)

pixelgeek 5y ago
> First, we need to ratchet back Section 230 as Haugen suggests I don't understand how Facebook can get Section 230 protection if they moderate your feed? How is that not publishing?
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  Are you referring to the current state of affairs, or the state of affairs on a hypothetical world without 230? In the world with 230, Facebook is not considered the publisher because they are a "provider" of an "interactive computer service", and the content they are showing is "information provided by another information content provider." Therefore they are not treated as the publisher. That is what s230 does. In a world without s230, whether they moderate or not, they'd be liable as a publisher for anything their service shows. They would have to dramatically restrict the spread of information to limit risk of litigation, e.g. in the case of people who might sue them for an individual user's slander. Note that this same issue would apply to anyone running newsgroup servers, website hosting, forums, wikis, etc. Republishing UGC would probably become economically challenging.
  - pixelgeek 5y ago
    > the content they are showing is "information provided by another information content provider." But they aren't. They make decisions about what goes into someone's feed. When they started out and the feed was just a list of items posted by people or groups you followed then it was just 'showing' content. Using an algorithm to show people content that they will engage with more is not 'showing' something. It crosses the line into publishing. Facebook makes a decision about content

Traster 5y ago

I'm not sure we should be taking the whistle-blower's policy recommendations too literally, since her recommendations about what to do are going to directly influence whether people think she's a credible witness. It's much easier to say "Oh I think we should just do better" whilst also saying "And here's how facebook murders babies" rather than "We should shut down facebook". Because if you say "We should shut down facebook" when you present evidence that facebook murders babies, people will just say "Oh well you would say that, you just want to shut down facebook". I think this article misses the main way we got here today. The reason we are here today is because Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram are 1 company. This should never have happened. It was totally anti-competitive. Social media will innevitably have network effects, so it kind of makes sense that you'll end up with giants. What doesn't make sense is that you then allow that giant to go around stamping on all its competitors. What is the best competition for Instagram today? Tiktok. Why is Tiktok the best competition? Because it's the one company facebook can't buy. Facebook has extended its life by acquiring any competitive threats or copying those that it couldn't. Simple traditional governance around mergers could have avoiding this situation. Social media companies will grow big through network effects, but until recently, they didn't stay big - because the natural ebb and flow of users meant interests change and different demographics want to differentiate themselves. You wouldn't need to regulate facebook if it had real competition, because its influence would be smaller and it would face real competitive pressure to improve its platform.

pixelgeek 5y ago
> You wouldn't need to regulate facebook if it had real competition And it would if the existing regulatory bodies did their jobs. But apparently they can be dodged with a truckload of political contributions. As would any future regulatory body that legislators come up with. Ask people who live downwind of a chemical plant if the EPA works.
- Phileosopher 5y ago
  I feel like this is a variation of the Two Generals Problem, but instead of it being about communication, it's about accountability: "You have many people. One of these people gains more power than the rest. They can abuse that power, so there needs to be someone to monitor that power, but _that_ person can abuse power. How do you effectively hold everyone accountable about abuses of power without requiring that absolutely everyone become a regulator to create a loop?"

amelius 5y ago

"The Facebook whistleblower is heroic but I think she got one thing wrong" would be a better title.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kiryin 5y ago

I don't want to make any wild guesses, but something about this particular whistleblower case makes my spidey-sense tingle. Something is amiss. I suppose time will tell.

MrZongle2 5y ago
You're not the only one. I have absolutely no proof to counter taking everything at face value. But my gut tells me that there's something not quite right with this whole thing, and I find it unsettling. I'm not willing to wave the flag for either the whistleblower or Facebook at the moment.
brokenmachine 5y ago
I agree. Something smells funny. Doesn't mean that good things can't happen because of it, but there's definitely a fishy smell in the area.
atatatat 5y ago
Is it the fact that "major news outlets" didn't even really vet her before doing hours of B roll and wide reaching confident stories as to the veracity and intent of her reports...?

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago

I’m amazed at the amount of conspiracy theory support I’ve seen about her here on HN (and conspiracy theories I’ve seen on HN in general lately). Am I the only one perceiving an uptick in this stuff?

Loughla 5y ago
No, I'm with you on that. There has also been a massive uptick in extremely polarized political statements and beliefs, as well. Not sure why.
- atatatat 5y ago
  The two major political parties in the US (the majority of the audience of this board, for better or worse) are pitting their voterbases against each other in a desperate bid to retain their power in the face of undirected populist sentiment spread via Internet.
mFixman 5y ago
Articles about Facebook bring the worst of this site.

blacktriangle 5y ago

The Facebook whistleblower is a clear government plant sent there to justify government take over of Facebook's popular opinion control apparatus. The Republicans want to shut down the faction that want Trump back and the Dems want to shut down the Bernie bros and Yang's new party, so both parties are united in their desire to regain control of public discourse. When's the last time you've ever seen a whistleblower treated so kindly by the feds?

stefantalpalaru 5y ago

See also: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-want-to https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-...