4 ms·

The book was absolutely horrifying. Meta is far worse than most people realize.

by boplicity 9mo ago

lostlogin 9mo ago
Spoilers please! Are they doing worse than their genocide phase?
- marstall 9mo ago
  The Myanmar story was definitely the worst (Mark Z + callow execs being willfully ignorant as Facebook clearly inflamed ethnic cleansing there and caused many deaths). Later in the book, the China story was a close second. In order to get into China (to "grow") - exec team agreed to host Facebook's servers in China where the government could get access to customer private data, so they could stifle dissent. Tons of other weird/bad/embarrassing stuff too. The author, a member of the core executive team, was seriously complicit but redeemed herself in my view with this no-holds-barred account of the complete lack of ethics up top. In general a damning portrait of the executive team as just not giving a shit about anything except for growth and willing to actively participate in dictatorship in order to make it happen.
  - Anon1096 9mo ago
    > In order to get into China (to "grow") - exec team agreed to host Facebook's servers in China where the government could get access to customer private data, so they could stifle dissent. That's exactly what Apple does with iCloud in China.
    - boplicity 9mo ago
      It wasn't just Chinese data, though. It was access to all customer data. They also built tools specifically for searching and filtering that data that they told congress were impossible to build...
  - alex1138 9mo ago
    I want to point out a few things here because people are going to split hairs about definitions and other irrelevancies I don't know exactly how they do this in non-english languages, but english speakers have complained that all the posts they see from friends are the most abrasive and inflammatory. Specifically those. So it's not just "a neutral platform". If this was happening in Myanmar then of course it inflamed ethnic tensions Second, Facebook's barging into emerging markets - with Free Basics, they sent letters on behalf of Indians to the telecom regulatory body (including net neutrality advocates who were very much against it). Facebook in Myanmar would not even be a thing in the first place were it not for their larger internet.org initiative. (I don't dislike "social media". It's fine to connect with people, but not the way FB does it) Whether we ought to have these services wholly decentralized or some sort of KYC system - dunno. But FB (and specifically Zuckerberg) are just bad faith actors
    - lostlogin 9mo ago
      If the system was decentralised and started helping out a genocide, what would the mechanism be for stopping that? The free-speech absolutists would presumably just shrug but that seems absolutely wild.
      - alex1138 9mo ago
        But you're not addressing my fact it was artificial ranked ordering. Also, Facebook (per Sarah Wynn Williams) was told about this and they did nothing about it
        lostlogin 9mo ago
        I’m aware Facebook didn’t act, I wasn’t aware of the rankings. I’m just wondering how a decentralised system would manage something like this.
- randycupertino 9mo ago
  My biggest takeaway from the book is Zuck is such a brat who got so grumpy and pouted so much when other facebook employees on the private jet beat him at board games that they set up an internal plan to always let him win. Sheryl Sandberg comes off poorly too, calling her assistant "Little Doll," beckoning her to sleep in her lap during private jet trips and buying her lingerie on business trips. Then on another trip she tried to get a different employee to come cuddle and sleep in the jet bed with her and pouted when this person declined, saying the first assistant always would so why does this person have a problem with it. She also has racist comments, talking about how she likes to always hire Filipino nannies because they are "service oriented."
  - robocat 9mo ago
    > racist comments, talking about how she likes to always hire Filipino Filipino is not a race.
NickC25 9mo ago
Mark has been known to be a major piece of shit for 20+ years now. How is this news to anyone?
- alex1138 9mo ago
  Upvoted, to rescue you from the sea of grey Hi, FAANG engineers

The book was absolutely horrifying. Meta is far worse than most people realize.

lostlogin 9mo ago

Spoilers please! Are they doing worse than their genocide phase?

marstall 9mo ago
The Myanmar story was definitely the worst (Mark Z + callow execs being willfully ignorant as Facebook clearly inflamed ethnic cleansing there and caused many deaths). Later in the book, the China story was a close second. In order to get into China (to "grow") - exec team agreed to host Facebook's servers in China where the government could get access to customer private data, so they could stifle dissent. Tons of other weird/bad/embarrassing stuff too. The author, a member of the core executive team, was seriously complicit but redeemed herself in my view with this no-holds-barred account of the complete lack of ethics up top. In general a damning portrait of the executive team as just not giving a shit about anything except for growth and willing to actively participate in dictatorship in order to make it happen.
- Anon1096 9mo ago
  > In order to get into China (to "grow") - exec team agreed to host Facebook's servers in China where the government could get access to customer private data, so they could stifle dissent. That's exactly what Apple does with iCloud in China.
  - boplicity 9mo ago
    It wasn't just Chinese data, though. It was access to all customer data. They also built tools specifically for searching and filtering that data that they told congress were impossible to build...
- alex1138 9mo ago
  I want to point out a few things here because people are going to split hairs about definitions and other irrelevancies I don't know exactly how they do this in non-english languages, but english speakers have complained that all the posts they see from friends are the most abrasive and inflammatory. Specifically those. So it's not just "a neutral platform". If this was happening in Myanmar then of course it inflamed ethnic tensions Second, Facebook's barging into emerging markets - with Free Basics, they sent letters on behalf of Indians to the telecom regulatory body (including net neutrality advocates who were very much against it). Facebook in Myanmar would not even be a thing in the first place were it not for their larger internet.org initiative. (I don't dislike "social media". It's fine to connect with people, but not the way FB does it) Whether we ought to have these services wholly decentralized or some sort of KYC system - dunno. But FB (and specifically Zuckerberg) are just bad faith actors
  - lostlogin 9mo ago
    If the system was decentralised and started helping out a genocide, what would the mechanism be for stopping that? The free-speech absolutists would presumably just shrug but that seems absolutely wild.
    - alex1138 9mo ago
      But you're not addressing my fact it was artificial ranked ordering. Also, Facebook (per Sarah Wynn Williams) was told about this and they did nothing about it
      - lostlogin 9mo ago
        I’m aware Facebook didn’t act, I wasn’t aware of the rankings. I’m just wondering how a decentralised system would manage something like this.
randycupertino 9mo ago
My biggest takeaway from the book is Zuck is such a brat who got so grumpy and pouted so much when other facebook employees on the private jet beat him at board games that they set up an internal plan to always let him win. Sheryl Sandberg comes off poorly too, calling her assistant "Little Doll," beckoning her to sleep in her lap during private jet trips and buying her lingerie on business trips. Then on another trip she tried to get a different employee to come cuddle and sleep in the jet bed with her and pouted when this person declined, saying the first assistant always would so why does this person have a problem with it. She also has racist comments, talking about how she likes to always hire Filipino nannies because they are "service oriented."
- robocat 9mo ago
  > racist comments, talking about how she likes to always hire Filipino Filipino is not a race.

NickC25 9mo ago

Mark has been known to be a major piece of shit for 20+ years now. How is this news to anyone?

alex1138 9mo ago
Upvoted, to rescue you from the sea of grey Hi, FAANG engineers