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That's not really accurate. There are a number of ways that the moderators can put their thumb on the scale of the algorithm if they choose, by collapsing toge

That's not really accurate. There are a number of ways that the moderators can put their thumb on the scale of the algorithm if they choose, by collapsing together submissions, changing titles, disabling flags, putting posts in the second-chance pool, etc.

ksaj 5y ago
Okay, please point to a time on HN that this was done to actively promote something harmful. Because that's really the only point here - the ethics of actively promoting something harmful since it makes money. Facebook would not have developed the "Fix" if they didn't recognize the problem at hand. They just actively decided the problem was too profitable.
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  HN promotes launches and hiring posts by their portfolio companies. It wouldn’t be a stretch, given their size, to suggest some of these companies do harm. And since the definition of “harmful” varies so much, I don’t think it’s a useful adjective. Half of the US seems to think vaccines are harmful - would a YC company who promotes vaccine access be harmful in their view?
  - ksaj 5y ago
    Harmful, for this purpose all along, is that the company actively spent money to develop something to deal with what they deemed to be a problem. But they then sat on it ONLY because of the money that problem was actually making them. If they didn't deem it to be harmful, they wouldn't have developed the "Fix" in the first place. That would have been a waste of money, and this is all about money.
    - edmundsauto 5y ago
      Did they develop a solution that could be deployed in production, or was this a series of adhoc SQL queries that a group of employees was using to advocate for a change? I've worked at big companies, and there is a massive gap between "some DS' notebook" and a "fix". The truth is we are only projecting/inferring this is about money - it could also have unintended consequences, or had unacceptable tradeoffs internally. At every bigco, employees disagree and create slide decks to sway others to their side - and those decks are very charged, tend to overstate findings, and advocate for more resources to be deployed under the management of the report writer.

ksaj 5y ago

Okay, please point to a time on HN that this was done to actively promote something harmful. Because that's really the only point here - the ethics of actively promoting something harmful since it makes money. Facebook would not have developed the "Fix" if they didn't recognize the problem at hand. They just actively decided the problem was too profitable.

edmundsauto 5y ago
HN promotes launches and hiring posts by their portfolio companies. It wouldn’t be a stretch, given their size, to suggest some of these companies do harm. And since the definition of “harmful” varies so much, I don’t think it’s a useful adjective. Half of the US seems to think vaccines are harmful - would a YC company who promotes vaccine access be harmful in their view?
- ksaj 5y ago
  Harmful, for this purpose all along, is that the company actively spent money to develop something to deal with what they deemed to be a problem. But they then sat on it ONLY because of the money that problem was actually making them. If they didn't deem it to be harmful, they wouldn't have developed the "Fix" in the first place. That would have been a waste of money, and this is all about money.
  - edmundsauto 5y ago
    Did they develop a solution that could be deployed in production, or was this a series of adhoc SQL queries that a group of employees was using to advocate for a change? I've worked at big companies, and there is a massive gap between "some DS' notebook" and a "fix". The truth is we are only projecting/inferring this is about money - it could also have unintended consequences, or had unacceptable tradeoffs internally. At every bigco, employees disagree and create slide decks to sway others to their side - and those decks are very charged, tend to overstate findings, and advocate for more resources to be deployed under the management of the report writer.