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Ex-facebook employee here: abandoning ethics in facebook didn't start in near past. And it's not only the legal team; engineers and PM team are even worse in th

by hedayet 9mo ago

Ex-facebook employee here: abandoning ethics in facebook didn't start in near past. And it's not only the legal team; engineers and PM team are even worse in this matter. Only people ready to do "anything" to optimize their performance rating and team goal are successful at facebook. And remember, facebook only hires smart people. So they do know what they are doing.

10xDev 9mo ago
>facebook only hires smart people So it is true, they really do only hire insufferable pricks.
kevin061 9mo ago
"they know what they are doing". Individually? Maybe! I hear Meta pays among the highest, if not the single highest salaries of FAANG. But as a company? Meta has been entirely incapable to innovate since it was renamed. Betting billions on an obviously flawed idea of a Facebook-owned VR universe, then shortly pivoting to a cryptocurrency that ended up being little more than a rugpull, and, after investing billions in expensive AI staff, they're now pulling the plug on that, too The most successful products like WhatsApp and Instagram were purchased, not internal developments. Nobody cares about Threads and it mostly only exists because Elon Musk destroyed Twitter. I sure hope Instagram and WhatsApp are bringing in enough money because Meta is running out of things to do, other than milking their current customers dry. Do they know what they're doing? Do they really?
- refulgentis 9mo ago
  It comes across as boorish, on an article about widespread sexual exploitation including children and 17-strike sex trafficking policies, to write a long rant about whether the trillion dollar company has a long-term business strategy that'll give it more power. That is quite clearly not what they are asserting, discussing, or even adjacent to conversationally. It doesn't help when you're exaggerating to make it have some foundation, and obviously so. (they pivoted from VR to crypto? pulled the plug on AI?)
- wrxd 9mo ago
  The game they’re playing isn’t to make new products or to make the products they have better. They’re playing the game of making the line go up and as much as I dislike them I have to say that they’re being successful
  - kevin061 9mo ago
    That's fair I guess they really are successful at that.
- raxxorraxor 9mo ago
  They could have had their ecosystem if they would have been a little less greedy. I think this was the reason last gen VR wasn't overly successful, despite the advancements. No hackers and enthusiasts were able to do cool stuff with VR hardware because every hardware vendor sucked and nobody was exactly in an nvidia position. They didn't offer support for devices that were just 1.5 years old. I will never buy any Facebook hardware again, even if the financial loss isn't important to me. It is a matter of respecting the customer. If you start with enshitification outright, people might just skip your product.
autoexec 9mo ago
So many companies have devised a system where only sociopaths can get ahead and now a bunch of sociopaths are running them. We're still supposed to be able to hold those psychos accountable for the harms they cause the reset of us. It's not just facebook's lawyers who have abandoned their duties. The government is failing as well and I suspect a large part of that has to do with how comfortable they've gotten with bribery and corruption.
mysteria 9mo ago
I mean from a privacy perspective alone its clear that Meta throws its ethics out the door in that regard. There's the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the more recent incident with Instagram bypassing Android OS restrictions for more tracking, and many many other examples. Their apps also regularly nag you to allow access to stuff like contacts and the photo gallery when you've already said no the first time. And for a personal anecdote: I was recently helping a senior setup Whatsapp Desktop on her Windows computer. It could chat fine but refused to join calls, displaying an error that said there was no microphone connected. I mean, there is a mic connected and it could record voice notes fine. Turns out that error actually meant that there was no webcam connected, and a webcam is required to join calls. I think it's the same way in the mobile app where you need to give it the camera permission to join a video call even if you turn the video off. Meanwhile Zoom, Teams, Webex, and others allow you to join any call without a mic or camera. As she didn't have a webcam I first tried the OBS virtual camera but Whatsapp refused to recognize that despite all other apps working fine with it. Somehow Droidcam with no phone connected worked fine, displaying a black screen in the virtual camera feed, and that got Whatsapp to join the call successfully. Absolutely ridiculous and it's clear to me how desperately they want that camera access and that sweet data.
- alex1138 9mo ago
  See, this is why I made a comment in that Apple thread (see my post history) about stopping Facebook doing things like this. I was told "Android can do it too". Yes but no. Apple may do evil things but they punished Facebook for their bullshit, revoking their certificate. The landscape of contact info (phone numbers, email addresses, social media services, people just submitted it, they trust me, dumb f-) means you can't have bad faith actors like Zuckerberg Zucking about. Whatsapp is such a clear case of antitrust just for starters Edit: sorry, not entirely clear, I mean we need Apple's system of granularity. "Deny access to contacts" needs to work even when the asking company (Facebook) tries tricking people
esafak 9mo ago
I've met ex-Facebook employees who don't see what the fuss is about. I wonder what fraction of them hold that view.
- hedayet 9mo ago
  many prefer to remain ignorant about the consequences of their deeds; it helps them sleep better at night.
- bogwog 9mo ago
  Probably because they don't allow their own children to use the product.
- NickC25 9mo ago
  I would think that fraction is directly related to how much Meta stock they own, and how long they've had it for. Ethics are for the little people, when your stock holdings grow by several multiples ethics are just hindrances.
  - shrubby 9mo ago
    I'm thinking about the study by Erich von Holst where few minnows were lobotomised and returned to the shoal. Afterwards these were returned to the shoal and they started dominating. Moral development levels by Kohlberg tell a similar story where L1 is the narcissist (Zuck, Trump,...) level. Lobminmows. The current societal level or at least the direction. L2 is the conventional moral as in the shoal that most of us follow. This level imitates the normal. See Musk as a prime example of the change. You can also revert to L1 by trauma, addiction... L3 is the post conventional level where you do what's right and can differentiate between normal and right. So L1 arrested development. L2 herd moral and narrow empathy. Them vs. us being the right thing. L3 being universal compassion. L1 controls the airspace and L2 follows the loudest even though everyone (except the very few who are L1) wants the society to be L3. So whether we dare to grasp this will decide the faith of our children and also us as the time is running out and the power has concentrated to very few L1. And IMO the left and the right in the politics are both L2, with minor differences and both have failed us and served L1. L1 is zillionaire mindset.(Rushkoff and the Mindset) L2 is Banal evil (Hannah Arendt and Banality of Evil) L3 is true ethics or ephics where ethical theory comes to praxis. Sorry, perhaps bit off-topic but this is fascinating in light of latest news from Greenland and Davos. The current wouldn't have happened though without the help of Zuck, Cambridge Analytica etc.

by hedayet 9mo ago

10xDev 9mo ago

>facebook only hires smart people So it is true, they really do only hire insufferable pricks.

kevin061 9mo ago

"they know what they are doing". Individually? Maybe! I hear Meta pays among the highest, if not the single highest salaries of FAANG. But as a company? Meta has been entirely incapable to innovate since it was renamed. Betting billions on an obviously flawed idea of a Facebook-owned VR universe, then shortly pivoting to a cryptocurrency that ended up being little more than a rugpull, and, after investing billions in expensive AI staff, they're now pulling the plug on that, too The most successful products like WhatsApp and Instagram were purchased, not internal developments. Nobody cares about Threads and it mostly only exists because Elon Musk destroyed Twitter. I sure hope Instagram and WhatsApp are bringing in enough money because Meta is running out of things to do, other than milking their current customers dry. Do they know what they're doing? Do they really?

refulgentis 9mo ago
It comes across as boorish, on an article about widespread sexual exploitation including children and 17-strike sex trafficking policies, to write a long rant about whether the trillion dollar company has a long-term business strategy that'll give it more power. That is quite clearly not what they are asserting, discussing, or even adjacent to conversationally. It doesn't help when you're exaggerating to make it have some foundation, and obviously so. (they pivoted from VR to crypto? pulled the plug on AI?)
wrxd 9mo ago
The game they’re playing isn’t to make new products or to make the products they have better. They’re playing the game of making the line go up and as much as I dislike them I have to say that they’re being successful
- kevin061 9mo ago
  That's fair I guess they really are successful at that.
raxxorraxor 9mo ago
They could have had their ecosystem if they would have been a little less greedy. I think this was the reason last gen VR wasn't overly successful, despite the advancements. No hackers and enthusiasts were able to do cool stuff with VR hardware because every hardware vendor sucked and nobody was exactly in an nvidia position. They didn't offer support for devices that were just 1.5 years old. I will never buy any Facebook hardware again, even if the financial loss isn't important to me. It is a matter of respecting the customer. If you start with enshitification outright, people might just skip your product.

autoexec 9mo ago

So many companies have devised a system where only sociopaths can get ahead and now a bunch of sociopaths are running them. We're still supposed to be able to hold those psychos accountable for the harms they cause the reset of us. It's not just facebook's lawyers who have abandoned their duties. The government is failing as well and I suspect a large part of that has to do with how comfortable they've gotten with bribery and corruption.

mysteria 9mo ago

I mean from a privacy perspective alone its clear that Meta throws its ethics out the door in that regard. There's the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the more recent incident with Instagram bypassing Android OS restrictions for more tracking, and many many other examples. Their apps also regularly nag you to allow access to stuff like contacts and the photo gallery when you've already said no the first time. And for a personal anecdote: I was recently helping a senior setup Whatsapp Desktop on her Windows computer. It could chat fine but refused to join calls, displaying an error that said there was no microphone connected. I mean, there is a mic connected and it could record voice notes fine. Turns out that error actually meant that there was no webcam connected, and a webcam is required to join calls. I think it's the same way in the mobile app where you need to give it the camera permission to join a video call even if you turn the video off. Meanwhile Zoom, Teams, Webex, and others allow you to join any call without a mic or camera. As she didn't have a webcam I first tried the OBS virtual camera but Whatsapp refused to recognize that despite all other apps working fine with it. Somehow Droidcam with no phone connected worked fine, displaying a black screen in the virtual camera feed, and that got Whatsapp to join the call successfully. Absolutely ridiculous and it's clear to me how desperately they want that camera access and that sweet data.

alex1138 9mo ago
See, this is why I made a comment in that Apple thread (see my post history) about stopping Facebook doing things like this. I was told "Android can do it too". Yes but no. Apple may do evil things but they punished Facebook for their bullshit, revoking their certificate. The landscape of contact info (phone numbers, email addresses, social media services, people just submitted it, they trust me, dumb f-) means you can't have bad faith actors like Zuckerberg Zucking about. Whatsapp is such a clear case of antitrust just for starters Edit: sorry, not entirely clear, I mean we need Apple's system of granularity. "Deny access to contacts" needs to work even when the asking company (Facebook) tries tricking people

esafak 9mo ago

I've met ex-Facebook employees who don't see what the fuss is about. I wonder what fraction of them hold that view.

hedayet 9mo ago
many prefer to remain ignorant about the consequences of their deeds; it helps them sleep better at night.
bogwog 9mo ago
Probably because they don't allow their own children to use the product.
NickC25 9mo ago
I would think that fraction is directly related to how much Meta stock they own, and how long they've had it for. Ethics are for the little people, when your stock holdings grow by several multiples ethics are just hindrances.
- shrubby 9mo ago
  I'm thinking about the study by Erich von Holst where few minnows were lobotomised and returned to the shoal. Afterwards these were returned to the shoal and they started dominating. Moral development levels by Kohlberg tell a similar story where L1 is the narcissist (Zuck, Trump,...) level. Lobminmows. The current societal level or at least the direction. L2 is the conventional moral as in the shoal that most of us follow. This level imitates the normal. See Musk as a prime example of the change. You can also revert to L1 by trauma, addiction... L3 is the post conventional level where you do what's right and can differentiate between normal and right. So L1 arrested development. L2 herd moral and narrow empathy. Them vs. us being the right thing. L3 being universal compassion. L1 controls the airspace and L2 follows the loudest even though everyone (except the very few who are L1) wants the society to be L3. So whether we dare to grasp this will decide the faith of our children and also us as the time is running out and the power has concentrated to very few L1. And IMO the left and the right in the politics are both L2, with minor differences and both have failed us and served L1. L1 is zillionaire mindset.(Rushkoff and the Mindset) L2 is Banal evil (Hannah Arendt and Banality of Evil) L3 is true ethics or ephics where ethical theory comes to praxis. Sorry, perhaps bit off-topic but this is fascinating in light of latest news from Greenland and Davos. The current wouldn't have happened though without the help of Zuck, Cambridge Analytica etc.