4 ms·

Meta disbands team responsible for ensuring Facebook products are ethical

28 points by sandebert 4y ago

hericium 4y ago
Quite obviously this group's work had no effects. Waste of money to pretend that Zuckerberg has morals or ethics. > People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks. ~ Mark Zuckerberg
- smcn 4y ago
  You can tell how outdated that quote is and it's a shame because so much has changed. You don't need to submit anything any more, they can steal everything they want behind your back.
amelius 4y ago
We shouldn't rely on companies being ethical to begin with. Time and time again we see that if companies promise to self-regulate, it turns out to be a disaster.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > We shouldn't rely on companies being ethical to begin with. > Time and time again we see that if companies promise to self-regulate, it turns out to be a disaster. We shouldn't rely on them to self-regulate, but we should expect [1] them to make every effort to be ethical. [1] not in the sense of predict or assume, but like in the phrase "not meeting expectations."
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Well they were doing a pretty awful job anyway.
latchkey 4y ago
I recently reported an obviously fake profile. 3 days later, I got a message that they received my report. It takes me to their /support page which is blank and says "Error State ...". If I simply reload that page in the browser, I see the content which says: We didn't take down XYZ's photo We want to make sure that we can review and remove the most harmful content as soon as possible, so we’re using technology to prioritize what our team reviews. As there is a high volume of reports right now, we weren’t able to review your report this time. We understand that this might be upsetting so we recommend exploring the options available to control what you see. You can also request a review if you disagree with the decision to not take this down. I then requested another review and they responded just over 24 hours later and said they took down the photo. I went to look and the photo was still there. If you can't get the basic process right, might as well fire the entire team.
- diogenescynic 4y ago
  There's a Facebook page for "Makras Real Estate" which is a really scummy property manager in the Bay Area. Nearly every review is fake on their Facebook page and from someone with with profile pictures of sunsets, dogs, cars, and usually less than 10 friends an no other posts. I reported a couple dozen posts since they were very obviously fake reviews from fake profiles. Facebook did the same thing as in your example and didn't take anything down. Don't trust any reviews on Facebook--assume they are all fake.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  Yeah, I got exactly that message a week or so ago.
diogenescynic 4y ago
I recently interviewed with Facebook and was wholly unimpressed with the team and managers. For a mature company, it still seemed super dysfunctional and chaotic. They also lacked basic industry standards and best practices that basically any other company a fraction of their size would have. I have a feeling when Facebook starts to collapse, it's going to be a really hard and fast fall.
- wollsmoth 4y ago
  The VR stuff is interesting. But it still boils down to being some type of video game, which I don't think is going to achieve the kind of adoption and sales to justify itself. We'll see I guess. FB and the ad sales are still growing internationally for now. So I wouldn't count them out completely yet, but I think you're right to be nervous about hitching your wagon to their star.

28 points by sandebert 4y ago

Quite obviously this group's work had no effects. Waste of money to pretend that Zuckerberg has morals or ethics. > People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks. ~ Mark Zuckerberg

smcn 4y ago
You can tell how outdated that quote is and it's a shame because so much has changed. You don't need to submit anything any more, they can steal everything they want behind your back.

amelius 4y ago

We shouldn't rely on companies being ethical to begin with. Time and time again we see that if companies promise to self-regulate, it turns out to be a disaster.

tablespoon 4y ago
> We shouldn't rely on companies being ethical to begin with. > Time and time again we see that if companies promise to self-regulate, it turns out to be a disaster. We shouldn't rely on them to self-regulate, but we should expect [1] them to make every effort to be ethical. [1] not in the sense of predict or assume, but like in the phrase "not meeting expectations."

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Well they were doing a pretty awful job anyway.

latchkey 4y ago

I recently reported an obviously fake profile. 3 days later, I got a message that they received my report. It takes me to their /support page which is blank and says "Error State ...". If I simply reload that page in the browser, I see the content which says: We didn't take down XYZ's photo We want to make sure that we can review and remove the most harmful content as soon as possible, so we’re using technology to prioritize what our team reviews. As there is a high volume of reports right now, we weren’t able to review your report this time. We understand that this might be upsetting so we recommend exploring the options available to control what you see. You can also request a review if you disagree with the decision to not take this down. I then requested another review and they responded just over 24 hours later and said they took down the photo. I went to look and the photo was still there. If you can't get the basic process right, might as well fire the entire team.

diogenescynic 4y ago
There's a Facebook page for "Makras Real Estate" which is a really scummy property manager in the Bay Area. Nearly every review is fake on their Facebook page and from someone with with profile pictures of sunsets, dogs, cars, and usually less than 10 friends an no other posts. I reported a couple dozen posts since they were very obviously fake reviews from fake profiles. Facebook did the same thing as in your example and didn't take anything down. Don't trust any reviews on Facebook--assume they are all fake.
actionfromafar 4y ago
Yeah, I got exactly that message a week or so ago.

diogenescynic 4y ago

I recently interviewed with Facebook and was wholly unimpressed with the team and managers. For a mature company, it still seemed super dysfunctional and chaotic. They also lacked basic industry standards and best practices that basically any other company a fraction of their size would have. I have a feeling when Facebook starts to collapse, it's going to be a really hard and fast fall.

wollsmoth 4y ago
The VR stuff is interesting. But it still boils down to being some type of video game, which I don't think is going to achieve the kind of adoption and sales to justify itself. We'll see I guess. FB and the ad sales are still growing internationally for now. So I wouldn't count them out completely yet, but I think you're right to be nervous about hitching your wagon to their star.