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I greatly enjoyed this sentence: > The one mystery we weren’t able to figure out is why any sane person working at Facebook would feel comfortable publishing a

by creato 5y ago

I greatly enjoyed this sentence: > The one mystery we weren’t able to figure out is why any sane person working at Facebook would feel comfortable publishing a content report that admitted that the most viral publisher on its platform this year was a barely active drop-shipping scam page full of stolen video content run by an LLC that doesn’t even exist anymore.

deleted 5y ago
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Causality1 5y ago
They're not paid to care.
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  Even worse: They’re paid to not care.
  - mitchdoogle 5y ago
    When conducting scientific research, I'd think "not caring" is a desirable trait. You don't want anyone's personal feelings to get in the way of reporting accurate information.
    - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
      I think this is just being pedantic. You have to care about something to formulate and test a hypothesis. You have to care about what the data say to bother gathering them and collating them into some report in the first place. "To care" can be "to be curious about something" or "to have an interest in something", not just "to be concerned about something."
      - mitigating 5y ago
        No, you have to be interested in something. Caring implies that you have an emotional desire for the hypothesis to be either true or false and that leads to bias. Scientific interest drives motivation.
avalys 5y ago
Well, perhaps whoever generated this report was simply reporting the truth and not trying to fabricate or distort the truth in order to make Facebook look better? The fact that the author of the linked article apparently just presumes that they would do so and "[can't] figure out" why they wouldn't says a lot about their own integrity.
- mitchdoogle 5y ago
  I don't think it says anything about their own integrity. I think it's just a tongue-in-cheek remark about how this information makes Facebook look ridiculous.
mdaidc 5y ago
When corporations hide facts we call them immoral, and when they publish the facts we are scratching our heads? Facebook does a lot of internal research which to me seems to be coming from a good place. Doing that research carries a lot of risk for them; e.g. the recent 'whistleblowers' mainly leaked that exact research reports. But instead of giving Facebook credit for even doing that, we always take a negative approach. Note: I don't like facebook, I don't even have a facebook account, but unless we encourage good behavior (even at places we dont' like) how do we expect things to get better?
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  Yeah I also find it surprising that people are shocked that Facebook have internal studies into e.g. whether instagram causes depression in teenage girls (answer: inconclusive), like they’re a bad company for investigating whether their products have negative effects on people…
  - A_non_e-moose 5y ago
    I think the shock is how old the reports are, and how since then things have not changed, but in fact worsened.
  - Marvin_Martian 5y ago
    Its more that people are shocked* that facebook communicated to the outside that such problems were nonexistent, despite knowing that this was a lie. *not sure wether shocked is the right term to begin with, it seemed more like indignation to me.
    - dan-robertson 5y ago
      Did they actually know it was a lie? E.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/10/opinion/instagram-facebook-mental-health-study.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/10/opinion/instagram-faceboo...
      - 5y ago
snowwrestler 5y ago
Every reply so far has missed the point of this sentence, so here it is: Facebook reporting accurately is sane, but Facebook is in charge of what is being reported, which is not sane. Like, imagine if your friend was slowly poisoning himself by flavoring his food with lead for a month. Even if he is honest with you about what he’s been doing, it’s still not a sane situation. If anything it’s less sane to be seemingly lucid and forthright about a month of self-destructive behavior, but not actually do anything to change it. The question here is: why did Facebook allow the situation to get so bad that this page was the top for a whole month? Why didn’t someone at Facebook notice this stupid pointless scam page was surging and do even a little of research and tweaking to change that? They have seemingly abandoning any responsibility for the behavior of the machine they built and operate. Personally I don’t give them many points for just reporting that.
- klyrs 5y ago
  It's more complicated than that. Facebook is a company. People in different parts of the company do different things, have different motivations, etc. One cannot look at a large organization as an individual. I tried to come up with a more apt analogy... but analogies are awful here.
  - cj 5y ago
    If it were a tiny thing that slipped under the radar, I'd buy it, but if my company were being dinged in the media every day for spreading misinformation, I would make sure the whole company is hyperaware of how misinformation spreads... which is often through viral posts and pages. I don't think this sort of oversight is something to blame on corporate bureaucracy.
    - jazzyjackson 5y ago
      maybe these junk posts are all that’s left to boost after tamping down the obvious misinformation and political propaganda
  - rob74 5y ago
tantalor 5y ago
Burying the lead, to be sure.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by creato 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Causality1 5y ago

They're not paid to care.

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
Even worse: They’re paid to not care.
- mitchdoogle 5y ago
  When conducting scientific research, I'd think "not caring" is a desirable trait. You don't want anyone's personal feelings to get in the way of reporting accurate information.
  - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
    I think this is just being pedantic. You have to care about something to formulate and test a hypothesis. You have to care about what the data say to bother gathering them and collating them into some report in the first place. "To care" can be "to be curious about something" or "to have an interest in something", not just "to be concerned about something."
    - mitigating 5y ago
      No, you have to be interested in something. Caring implies that you have an emotional desire for the hypothesis to be either true or false and that leads to bias. Scientific interest drives motivation.

avalys 5y ago

Well, perhaps whoever generated this report was simply reporting the truth and not trying to fabricate or distort the truth in order to make Facebook look better? The fact that the author of the linked article apparently just presumes that they would do so and "[can't] figure out" why they wouldn't says a lot about their own integrity.

mitchdoogle 5y ago
I don't think it says anything about their own integrity. I think it's just a tongue-in-cheek remark about how this information makes Facebook look ridiculous.

mdaidc 5y ago

When corporations hide facts we call them immoral, and when they publish the facts we are scratching our heads? Facebook does a lot of internal research which to me seems to be coming from a good place. Doing that research carries a lot of risk for them; e.g. the recent 'whistleblowers' mainly leaked that exact research reports. But instead of giving Facebook credit for even doing that, we always take a negative approach. Note: I don't like facebook, I don't even have a facebook account, but unless we encourage good behavior (even at places we dont' like) how do we expect things to get better?

dan-robertson 5y ago
Yeah I also find it surprising that people are shocked that Facebook have internal studies into e.g. whether instagram causes depression in teenage girls (answer: inconclusive), like they’re a bad company for investigating whether their products have negative effects on people…
- A_non_e-moose 5y ago
  I think the shock is how old the reports are, and how since then things have not changed, but in fact worsened.
- Marvin_Martian 5y ago
  Its more that people are shocked* that facebook communicated to the outside that such problems were nonexistent, despite knowing that this was a lie. *not sure wether shocked is the right term to begin with, it seemed more like indignation to me.
  - dan-robertson 5y ago
    Did they actually know it was a lie? E.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/10/opinion/instagram-facebook-mental-health-study.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/10/opinion/instagram-faceboo...
    - 5y ago

snowwrestler 5y ago

Every reply so far has missed the point of this sentence, so here it is: Facebook reporting accurately is sane, but Facebook is in charge of what is being reported, which is not sane. Like, imagine if your friend was slowly poisoning himself by flavoring his food with lead for a month. Even if he is honest with you about what he’s been doing, it’s still not a sane situation. If anything it’s less sane to be seemingly lucid and forthright about a month of self-destructive behavior, but not actually do anything to change it. The question here is: why did Facebook allow the situation to get so bad that this page was the top for a whole month? Why didn’t someone at Facebook notice this stupid pointless scam page was surging and do even a little of research and tweaking to change that? They have seemingly abandoning any responsibility for the behavior of the machine they built and operate. Personally I don’t give them many points for just reporting that.

klyrs 5y ago
It's more complicated than that. Facebook is a company. People in different parts of the company do different things, have different motivations, etc. One cannot look at a large organization as an individual. I tried to come up with a more apt analogy... but analogies are awful here.
- cj 5y ago
  If it were a tiny thing that slipped under the radar, I'd buy it, but if my company were being dinged in the media every day for spreading misinformation, I would make sure the whole company is hyperaware of how misinformation spreads... which is often through viral posts and pages. I don't think this sort of oversight is something to blame on corporate bureaucracy.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    maybe these junk posts are all that’s left to boost after tamping down the obvious misinformation and political propaganda
- rob74 5y ago

tantalor 5y ago

Burying the lead, to be sure.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]