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> Allen left Facebook soon after that for a data scientist job at the Democratic National Committee. So the guy on the election integrity team then takes a job

> Allen left Facebook soon after that for a data scientist job at the Democratic National Committee. So the guy on the election integrity team then takes a job with the DNC. This is called a revolving door. And now, curiously, he is part of the effort to push for more censorship of Facebook. This concerted effort to cow Facebook into censoring their platform more is coming from the RNC, DNC, Congress, and the mainstream media. This founders' letter from their website is dripping with hubris: https://integrityinstitute.org/founders-letter https://integrityinstitute.org/founders-letter They talk about keeping the Internet "safe" and "good" but not free.

wil421 5y ago
Not surprising. I know a few people who have family members who are ex US intelligence apparatus or FBI turned Facebook investigators. They investigate the bad bad stuff like CP, human trafficking, and animal torture. I’m sure they are specifically hired for connections.
- debacle 5y ago
  The current conversation isn't about the real bad stuff (which I thankfully have never seen on FB), but rather about how much control the government should have over Facebook as a platform, and the direction seems to be universally in favor of more restriction of speech, not less.
  - wil421 5y ago
    I think it’s still very similar. Misinformation is still bad stuff but not the worst of it. If a foreign political group was buying billboard or newspaper ads there would be some kind of legal accountability. Instead of ads like this we have troll farms targeting Black and Christian Americans with misinformation. Maybe it’s time there was some kind of legal framework about posts and foreign influence but I don’t pretend to be any sort of policy maker.
    - splistud 5y ago
      To extend this somewhat, not only does paid and quasi-paid political speech(paying operatives/algorithms rather than a newspaper) not face the same accountability re content on Facebook (for example), Facebook does not face the same accountability for providing equal access to it's platform for all political points-of-view.
camgunz 5y ago
Do you really disagree that there's way, way too much bad stuff on Facebook and it's had a hugely harmful impact on our society? Or, do you just think we shouldn't do anything about it?
- baumy 5y ago
  Yes, I disagree with that. Even if I agreed, I'd still think we shouldn't do anything about it. How much bad stuff is "too much?" Which stuff is "bad"? Who gets to decide? Why should I trust them? Who and what else is influencing them? What happens when the people making those decisions change? Why should I cede the authority to decide which "stuff" I get to see to anyone other than myself? There are no good answers to any of these questions, and there never will be.
  - camgunz 5y ago
    I don't think we need to get that philosophical about it. Can't use bots, can't pay people to astroturf. Ez.
    - sayhar 5y ago
      yep.
- colpabar 5y ago
  I don't think the comment was about "too much bad stuff on facebook" at all, rather it was about how an actual facebook employee, who now works for the dnc, is forming a group that will advocate for policy that will affect facebook. When this happens in the banking industry, we call it regulatory capture. When it happens in the insurance/healthcare industry, we call it regulatory capture. When a board member of an oil company is appointed head of the epa, we call it regulatory capture. Why is this case any different? (here's another way of looking at it: if the guy was hired as a "data scientist" by the republicans, wouldn't you question his motives?)
  - camgunz 5y ago
brodouevencode 5y ago
Forget the military industrial complex, welcome to the social media industrial complex.
- debacle 5y ago
  In our current descent into technofascism, I think every industry is going to be gamed.
guscost 5y ago
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C. S. Lewis
TechBro8615 5y ago
This is either a Trojan horse or an exercise in self-aggrandizing pomposity. What is this about “not breaking your NDAs” with Facebook? If you had integrity the NDAs wouldn’t matter, because no moral framework is constrained by respecting an arbitrary document drafted by a megacorporation to keep you silent. When your first move is to assuage any fears from your former employer that you might do something as drastic as break your NDA, it’s obvious your priorities are nowhere near where you claim them to be. So the question becomes, is this intentional dishonesty, or lack of self-awareness? I suspect a bit of both. Don’t tell me what integrity means. Edit: Apparently I read this wrong, and they haven’t actually quit their jobs? So this is just a cartel of self-righteous employees at tech corps with plans to maximize efficiency of collaborative deplatforming? Lol!!!
- colpabar 5y ago
  The line about the one founder taking a job with the DNC was enough for me, but I'm glad I read until this part because I think it's even more illuminating: >"Frances is exposing a lot of the knobs in the machine that is a modern social media platform," Massachi said. "Now that people know that those knobs exist, we can start having a conversation about what is the science of how these work, what these knobs do and why you would want to turn them in which direction." Which I translated to: >Now that someone else has broken their NDA, we can use our jobs that we are not quitting to make more money.
  - zasz 5y ago
    I don't know about Jeff, but I know Sahar quit working at Facebook over a year ago to work on this instead.
    - sayhar 5y ago
      Yep! We both quit FB in 2019. This has been our (full time, volunteer, spending our savings) job since ~Jan/Feb of this year. It's taken a long time to gather people, build trust, figure out our strategy, find consensus, make our first reports, etc.
- 5y ago
baumy 5y ago
I had the same take away from that founders letter as you did - full of arrogance, as well as very chilling and creepy in my opinion. Somewhere in this thread one of them is commenting, and made a point to link to that same letter saying how proud he was of it. Just a complete disconnect.
refurb 5y ago
That’s exactly what this and all the efforts to control Facebook are - a power grab. Slap some “feel good” language around protecting democracy (ha!) and they can nicely make sure it’s their message that’s approved (of course! They are protecting democracy) and not their opponents (they are harming democracy!).

wil421 5y ago

Not surprising. I know a few people who have family members who are ex US intelligence apparatus or FBI turned Facebook investigators. They investigate the bad bad stuff like CP, human trafficking, and animal torture. I’m sure they are specifically hired for connections.

debacle 5y ago
The current conversation isn't about the real bad stuff (which I thankfully have never seen on FB), but rather about how much control the government should have over Facebook as a platform, and the direction seems to be universally in favor of more restriction of speech, not less.
- wil421 5y ago
  I think it’s still very similar. Misinformation is still bad stuff but not the worst of it. If a foreign political group was buying billboard or newspaper ads there would be some kind of legal accountability. Instead of ads like this we have troll farms targeting Black and Christian Americans with misinformation. Maybe it’s time there was some kind of legal framework about posts and foreign influence but I don’t pretend to be any sort of policy maker.
  - splistud 5y ago
    To extend this somewhat, not only does paid and quasi-paid political speech(paying operatives/algorithms rather than a newspaper) not face the same accountability re content on Facebook (for example), Facebook does not face the same accountability for providing equal access to it's platform for all political points-of-view.

camgunz 5y ago

Do you really disagree that there's way, way too much bad stuff on Facebook and it's had a hugely harmful impact on our society? Or, do you just think we shouldn't do anything about it?

baumy 5y ago
Yes, I disagree with that. Even if I agreed, I'd still think we shouldn't do anything about it. How much bad stuff is "too much?" Which stuff is "bad"? Who gets to decide? Why should I trust them? Who and what else is influencing them? What happens when the people making those decisions change? Why should I cede the authority to decide which "stuff" I get to see to anyone other than myself? There are no good answers to any of these questions, and there never will be.
- camgunz 5y ago
  I don't think we need to get that philosophical about it. Can't use bots, can't pay people to astroturf. Ez.
  - sayhar 5y ago
    yep.
colpabar 5y ago
I don't think the comment was about "too much bad stuff on facebook" at all, rather it was about how an actual facebook employee, who now works for the dnc, is forming a group that will advocate for policy that will affect facebook. When this happens in the banking industry, we call it regulatory capture. When it happens in the insurance/healthcare industry, we call it regulatory capture. When a board member of an oil company is appointed head of the epa, we call it regulatory capture. Why is this case any different? (here's another way of looking at it: if the guy was hired as a "data scientist" by the republicans, wouldn't you question his motives?)
- camgunz 5y ago

brodouevencode 5y ago

Forget the military industrial complex, welcome to the social media industrial complex.

debacle 5y ago
In our current descent into technofascism, I think every industry is going to be gamed.

guscost 5y ago

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C. S. Lewis

TechBro8615 5y ago

This is either a Trojan horse or an exercise in self-aggrandizing pomposity. What is this about “not breaking your NDAs” with Facebook? If you had integrity the NDAs wouldn’t matter, because no moral framework is constrained by respecting an arbitrary document drafted by a megacorporation to keep you silent. When your first move is to assuage any fears from your former employer that you might do something as drastic as break your NDA, it’s obvious your priorities are nowhere near where you claim them to be. So the question becomes, is this intentional dishonesty, or lack of self-awareness? I suspect a bit of both. Don’t tell me what integrity means. Edit: Apparently I read this wrong, and they haven’t actually quit their jobs? So this is just a cartel of self-righteous employees at tech corps with plans to maximize efficiency of collaborative deplatforming? Lol!!!

colpabar 5y ago
The line about the one founder taking a job with the DNC was enough for me, but I'm glad I read until this part because I think it's even more illuminating: >"Frances is exposing a lot of the knobs in the machine that is a modern social media platform," Massachi said. "Now that people know that those knobs exist, we can start having a conversation about what is the science of how these work, what these knobs do and why you would want to turn them in which direction." Which I translated to: >Now that someone else has broken their NDA, we can use our jobs that we are not quitting to make more money.
- zasz 5y ago
  I don't know about Jeff, but I know Sahar quit working at Facebook over a year ago to work on this instead.
  - sayhar 5y ago
    Yep! We both quit FB in 2019. This has been our (full time, volunteer, spending our savings) job since ~Jan/Feb of this year. It's taken a long time to gather people, build trust, figure out our strategy, find consensus, make our first reports, etc.
5y ago

baumy 5y ago

I had the same take away from that founders letter as you did - full of arrogance, as well as very chilling and creepy in my opinion. Somewhere in this thread one of them is commenting, and made a point to link to that same letter saying how proud he was of it. Just a complete disconnect.

refurb 5y ago

That’s exactly what this and all the efforts to control Facebook are - a power grab. Slap some “feel good” language around protecting democracy (ha!) and they can nicely make sure it’s their message that’s approved (of course! They are protecting democracy) and not their opponents (they are harming democracy!).