[HN Gopher] Facebook's advertising integrity chief leaves company
___________________________________________________________________
Facebook's advertising integrity chief leaves company
Author : elsewhen
Score : 257 points
Date : 2021-01-02 13:45 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| williesleg wrote:
| Facebook is cancer.
| anupamchugh wrote:
| Facebook is a company that never stood by small businesses. It's
| also the company that manipulated users into a free basic
| services just to create their own walled garden in the internet.
|
| Still, sardonically they created two ad campaigns: Apple vs free
| internet and vs small businesses. Their whole marketing stunt was
| laughably wrong. No wonder their chief left the company.
| bcherny wrote:
| > Facebook is a company that never stood by small businesses.
|
| Curious what makes you say this? Knowing a handful of small
| business owners, I hear lots of good things about how great FB
| ads are for reaching their customers without requiring multi-
| million dollar ad spends, agencies, etc.
| absolutelyrad wrote:
| "Chief of Advertising Integrity" does anyone take that title
| seriously? Forget advertising, Facebook and it's CEO himself has
| no integrity.
| VonGuard wrote:
| I mean, "Advertising Integrity" and "Facebook" shouldn't appear
| in the same sentence. Amazon is bad enough with fake reviews
| and retailers that ship terrible products when advertising them
| as something better.
|
| So it takes a lot to make me think something is worse and
| meaner to consumers than Amazon. But sure enough, Facebook is
| it. Their ads are about 60% complete scams, from what I can
| tell. I get all these ads for $200 Lego sets for $30! And there
| are hundreds of comments from people who have bought. Guarantee
| they all got 1 Lego brick in the mail 8 weeks later, and the
| site that sold it to them is gone.
|
| This would be bad if it was an occasional thing, but most
| Facebook ads I see are EXACTLY like this. Bait and switch. They
| send you a thing so you can't claim they didn't send you
| anything, but Facebook is making bank off of these dishonest
| scammers and seems not only not to care, but to encourage it.
| Oh and the thing they send you is from China, so sending it
| back costs more than you spent.
| icefrakker wrote:
| So it takes a lot to make me think something is worse and
| meaner to consumers than Amazon.
|
| That's a comment about yourself and not about Amazon. The
| idea that you can't find a shittier company than Amazon is
| completely laughable. What a completely insipid comment.
| joshthecynic wrote:
| Well, "advertising" and "integrity" don't belong together
| anyway. Advertising is an inherently dishonest industry.
| dcgudeman wrote:
| Honest question, what did Mark Zuckerberg do that makes you
| think he has "no integrity"?
| nowherebeen wrote:
| How about his "copy, acquire, kill" strategy for startups and
| how he even pretends it's even remotely fair for a fledging
| startup to compete with a multi billion dollar company?
| Technically wrote:
| He's had ample opportunity to demonstrate it. What do you
| look for in looking for a lack?
| 3131s wrote:
| Grandstanding about transferring all his wealth for tax
| purposes under the guise of it being "charity", obnoxious
| attempts to man-in-the-middle most of India's internet
| connectivity, screwing over users with "privacy zuckering"
| that causes settings to revert, etc.
|
| The joy of my life was seeing Zuckerberg getting absolutely
| owned on his own Facebook page by thousands and thousands of
| Indian people who wanted nothing to do with his money-
| grubbing initiatives.
| ses1984 wrote:
| Pretty much everything he does makes me think he has no
| integrity.
| choward wrote:
| I thought this conversation was common knowledge by now:
|
| Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
|
| Zuck: Just ask.
|
| Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
|
| [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
|
| Zuck: People just submitted it.
|
| Zuck: I don't know why.
|
| Zuck: They "trust me"
|
| Zuck: Dumb fucks.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| At least for me my impression of Mark Zuckerberg lowered
| significantly once I learned the details of him pressuring
| native hawaiian people via lawsuits from their ancestral
| lands so he can have an island to himself.
| nearbuy wrote:
| It sounds a bit less clear-cut than that. It seems that,
| through inheritance, 138 relatives each owned a tiny share
| of 2.35 acres of land, with one of the relatives, Carlos
| Andrade, owning a larger share and having been the only one
| living on the land. Andrade sued his relatives to force
| them to sell and compensate them for their shares.
| Zuckerberg sided with Andrade. I'm not sure of the details,
| but it sounds like he doesn't have the island to himself,
| since Andrade is living there, and it sounds like the other
| relatives weren't using the land.
| d33 wrote:
| How about this one for a start?
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-
| im...
|
| There are so many problems surrounding Facebook and its CEO
| Zuckerberg that it's pretty difficult to choose one.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAgbIiQSzEk
|
| That's the peak of cynicism that could only compare to
| politicians like Putin.
| noja wrote:
| Lying to congress?
| mattacular wrote:
| Stealing the idea for Facebook probably is a good place to
| start, followed by every single thing he's ever done since
| then.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Conducting psychological research on users without consent or
| IRB approval.
| antiterra wrote:
| You mean A/B testing?
| arrosenberg wrote:
| No, I mean the paper the other user linked where they
| were turning dials so Zuck could cosplay as The Mule.
| antiterra wrote:
| If FB had intuitively decided that too many positive
| posts had a negative effect on users (as contemporary
| research was suggesting) and amplified negative post
| visibility, there'd be no controversy. If FB decided
| intuitively that positive posts were good and they should
| reduce visibility on negative posts, there'd be no
| controversy.
|
| Since FB A/B tested the effect of both and let academics
| analyze the data, that somehow means they are demonic.
|
| https://www.pnas.org/content/116/22/10723
| arrosenberg wrote:
| But the question was about integrity, not demonic
| possession.
| ben_w wrote:
| Published research in PNAS:
| https://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788
| derivagral wrote:
| I'll use the gawker article[0] about what he thinks of his
| users:
|
| [0] https://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-
| calling-us...
| Reedx wrote:
| That's something said by a 19 year old in an instant
| message. It doesn't mean anything, especially 17 years
| later.
| jhayward wrote:
| I would say that when someone tells you who they are, you
| should believe them.
| n_io wrote:
| I would generally agree. Don't understand why your
| comment is getting downvoted either...
| Tarsul wrote:
| it means he was an asshole then. Thus, higher probability
| he is an asshole today.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Every 19 year old is an asshole, even the nice ones.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| I am certainly no fan of FB or MZ, but if I am being open-
| minded and fair, that article doesn't seem so bad. I've
| said stuff like that sarcastically/ironically that would
| sound really bad if taken out of context.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| You're not the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.
| blackbrokkoli wrote:
| You could probably write a book about that, here is my
| favorite:
|
| Illegally using Facebook log data to breach the accounts of
| journalists who he did not like.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The Zuck says that privacy is a thing of the past, yet he
| buys all of the houses around his so he can have private home
| life.
| victor9000 wrote:
| I imagine that this role reports to some middle manager in the
| PR department.
| objclxt wrote:
| Facebook uses "Integrity" as a friendly synonym for abuse /
| spam / illegal activity.
|
| For example, it avoids them actively having to say they have a
| "fake accounts team" (which would in turn indicate they have a
| fake accounts problem). Instead it's part of the "Community
| Integrity team".
| antiterra wrote:
| This is inaccurate, 'integrity' appears to just be a
| generalized term for any sort of content policing or support,
| including recovering passwords and memorializing accounts of
| the deceased.
|
| Teams have absolutely been identified by specific problem
| areas, so your reasoning doesn't hold up. For example, "FNRP"
| stands for Fake, Not Real Person (which distinguishes from
| celebrity impersonation etc) per
| https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/may/21/revealed-
| facebo...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Pulled straight out of the Moral Mazes playbook, chapter on
| "dexterity with symbols."
| wpietri wrote:
| Oh, interesting! I hadn't heard of this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Mazes
|
| At this point, its research is nearly 40 years out of date.
| Is it still worth reading? And are there more up-to-date
| versions?
| hitekker wrote:
| I'm reading it right now And I highly recommend it. Many
| of its insights remain both relevant and thought-
| provoking.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Moral Mazes is one of the rare books I return to and read
| multiple times. Far from being out of date, 40 years
| later it is more relevant and the research lines up more
| directly with corporate behavior than really any other
| research on this topic written since then. It really is a
| tremendous book.
| Smaug123 wrote:
| Zvi Mowshowitz talks a lot about it, starting at
| https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/05/30/quotes-from-
| moral-ma... (main sequence page
| https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2020/05/23/mazes-sequence-
| summa...). I found his sequence valuable.
| m463 wrote:
| Ambiguity is a tool as well.
|
| "Advertising" for example could mean the benign "show me a
| picture of some product" or it could mean "identify who I
| am, how I behave, where I work, how much I make, who I
| know, and maintain and share a dossier on all of it"
| civilized wrote:
| "...so as to show a slightly more suitable product
| picture"
| m463 wrote:
| suitable... for the highest paying advertiser, not you.
| (advertiser -> person who wants to sell their product)
| nowherebeen wrote:
| So it's a form of doublespeak?
| SilasX wrote:
| I'd say doublespeak would be if "advertising integrity"
| were the department charged with respecting users' privacy
| and (informed) choices, while said dept. executed
| Facebook's policies that go very much against these things.
|
| But if parent is correct, the role is to enforce things
| users want (regarding spam/fraud/illegal goods), which
| matches standard notions of integrity, so it's not
| doublespeak.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I don't know that I'd call it doublespeak. There's a lot to
| be said for defining a job in terms of what it's trying to
| produce rather than what it's trying to fight.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| Got it
| yesitstrue2 wrote:
| In principle, good point. In practice, it really depends
| on where your levels of cynicism are at. Crediting FB
| with wanting to "produce 'integrity'" or even that
| they're "trying to fight" the myriad of destructive
| externalities their money-geyser has spewed forth is..
| generous.
| [deleted]
| tsimionescu wrote:
| I think the point is more that they are fighting click-
| spam and other kinds of advertising fraud, to maintain
| the integrity of their advertising platform, in the sense
| in which an antivirus is maintaining the integrity of
| your system; NOT the sense in which an anti-graft law is
| maintaining the integrity of a politician.
| sorokod wrote:
| Like a "Ministry of Peace" for war department?
| victorvation wrote:
| Well, "Defence" would, as the intended product is not
| necessarily peace...
| namdnay wrote:
| I think doublespeak is when the two meanings are opposite,
| no? This sounds more like your standard corporate euphemism
| wpietri wrote:
| I can't find a definition like that. Wikipedia has it as
| "Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures,
| disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words."
| Which seems to fit perfectly for Facebook's behavior.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| Fair enough
| nindalf wrote:
| That's not true. Source: I worked on the fake accounts team
| at Facebook. It's bizarre that such a comment can be so high
| up.
|
| Also, Where did you even get the idea that Facebook is trying
| to suppress the idea that fake accounts exist? The estimate
| of the number of fake accounts is a part of every quarterly
| report. Has been for years.
| herodoturtle wrote:
| So if the Chief of Advertising Integrity leaves the company
| it might be a good thing? As in they no longer have integrity
| issues?
|
| Gotta love these headlines /s
| vr46 wrote:
| My immediate thought was that 'they even have one?'
| ashleshbiradar wrote:
| what company has integrity? not trying to normalize bad things,
| but seriously, what profit-driven thing has integrity?
| a3n wrote:
| One place I would look is some, but not all, medical device
| companies.
|
| Making devices that are helpful and not lethal is
| motivational and fulfilling for employees, and great PR.
|
| Disclosure: I worked at such a company, and have much respect
| for the care and capability of almost everyone I knew.
| Cullinet wrote:
| One of the most highly moral and conscientious doctors I
| was lucky enough to attend school with is now a medical
| equipment director having been a incredibly young board
| member of a major American pharma Corp. I definitely agree
| with your views here.
| lordnacho wrote:
| My local fish and chip shop sells fish that's fish and chips
| that are potatoes. They don't take my money for nothing, and
| they don't take my data to sell me ads.
|
| I'm sure you can think of a few other for-profit businesses
| that do what they say and say what they do.
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| FB's "Chief of Advertising Integrity" and Google's "Chief of
| Privacy Integrity" ....
| rapnie wrote:
| Maybe the corresponding role was "front-end marketing
| designer".
| indymike wrote:
| I'm impressed with whatever branding exercise came up with
| Chief of Advertising Integrity. So much meaning and non meaning
| at all in the same four words.
| [deleted]
| wpietri wrote:
| I can't find it now, but I remember a story from somebody in
| the Lean Manufacturing world about a place that was having
| safety problems, so they appointed somebody Safety Director.
| This signaled to everybody that safety was that one guy's
| problem, not theirs. Accidents went up further and stayed up
| until they got rid of the Safety Directory position and made
| everybody responsible for safety.
|
| That resonated for me because I've seen that happen in
| software, that classic pattern where cowboy coders ship garbage
| to QA. The lowest bug rates I've seen are where everybody cares
| about quality.
|
| With Facebook, I expect that "Chief of Advertising Integrity"
| is sort of light a lightning rod. The job is not to solve the
| problem, it's to take the hits.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Sounds like something out of the Silicon Valley TV show.
| avian wrote:
| This story explains why every workplace safety exam I ever
| took had at least one question similar to "who is responsible
| for fire/machine/... safety" where the only correct answer
| was "everyone".
| jacquesm wrote:
| This goes for computer security as well, but in practice
| without at least a voice in the management security will
| get axed on every turn because it is seen as all cost
| without benefit to the company. This is changing slowly,
| mostly on account of the GDPR, but it is still the
| prevailing view.
| smillbag wrote:
| That's such a funny story, and so predicate. I would love the
| source to this if it comes to anyones mind!
| dcsommer wrote:
| There are pros and cons of having dedicated teams for work
| that also has to be accomplished by other teams. For
| instance, it's not a good idea to skip having a security team
| using the logic that "other teams will just think its that
| one teams job." The security team provides expertise and
| (with cooperative management or other teams) can enact
| policies that influence the rest of the organization to the
| benefit of security. That can't happen without a set of
| people dedicated to thinking about those problems.
|
| For your QA team example, the mistake made in some
| organizations is explicitly removing testing from developer's
| responsibilities.
|
| It's a matter of BOTH/AND -- you need to have BOTH central
| teams responsible for long term health of
| {safety,privacy,security,testing,etc.} AND hold developers
| responsible to deliver the recommendations of and use the
| tools developed by central teams.
| nipponese wrote:
| His official title was Dir. of Product Management, which as you
| probably know, does not project integrity either.
| etempleton wrote:
| I am always a bit surprised that Facebook ended up as reliant on
| advertising revenue as they are. I feel like they missed
| opportunities to replace Craigslist as the de facto online
| classifieds and to offer a payment system like Apple Pay. Perhaps
| these are only obvious in hindsight.
|
| I feel that most of their issues stem from their complete revenue
| reliance on advertising. It forces them to make decisions about
| their core product that reduces utility, but makes it
| superficially a more sticky user experience.
| a3n wrote:
| The thing about ads as a user/product is that it doesn't feel
| like you're giving away resources at every interaction. You're
| just reading about grandkids and adrenochrome. It's about the
| lowest friction transaction there is.
| ma2rten wrote:
| I used to work at the biggest social network in the
| Netherlands. They tried to make a push for becoming a
| classifieds site and also payments before Facebook, but neither
| of these worked out.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Yeah, unfortunately ads is the most profitable business model
| on the internet for large sites with sticky user-bases.
|
| If FB thought they'd have made more money going after
| Craiglist and PayPal, then that's what they would have done
| ten years ago.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| The thing is that ads made them a lot quite quickly. Anything
| else will need time to grow to notable revenue streams. It's
| similar to Google in that regard, who always had revenue
| streams aside (like search appliances) but only now with
| different cloud-related (enterprise apps etc. included)
| projects.
|
| But yeah I wonder about their thoughts for embedding payment
| into WhatsApp. Given Facebook's size they of course get a lot
| of regulatory attention, but they seem to think in that
| direction with Libra and other projects.
| lukeramsden wrote:
| > I feel like they missed opportunities to replace Craigslist
| as the de facto online classifieds and to offer a payment
| system like Apple Pay. Perhaps these are only obvious in
| hindsight
|
| I think they're trying to rectify both of these exactly. I
| don't know about in the US but here in the UK, Facebook
| Marketplace is pretty much now the de facto online classifieds
| site, at least for everybody I know. As for payments, they seem
| to be struggling more, but that is, I assume, one of the
| purposes of Diem (formerly Libra).
| baby wrote:
| My guess is that marketplace has already replaced Craigslist in
| a number of listings. I still go to Craigslist for finding a
| rent though.
| DLay wrote:
| Someone on Reddit was speculating that Leathern is joining Brave:
|
| https://reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/koo0zt/_/ghsa7xw/?c...
| yalogin wrote:
| This is like Fox News having an ombudsman for honesty and
| integrity in reporting.
| matchbok wrote:
| Remember, if you work for FB, you are part of the problem.
| Zelphyr wrote:
| I feel strongly that we're at the point where one can't think
| of Facebook and be ignorant of the problems and the clear
| abusive practices they have and continue to be engaged in.
| Every time they get caught they feint an apology and proceed to
| either ignore the issue, continue that same practice but in a
| different way, or engage in some new abusive scheme. It is
| foundational to them because it is fundamentally part of Mark
| Zuckerberg's ethics, or lack there of as the case appears to
| be.
|
| So... in my opinion anyone going to work for Facebook, or
| continuing to work for them is no different than someone doing
| the same at a tobacco company. They know what is going on at
| those organizations and they are choosing to look the other
| way. That in and of itself is not illegal, of course, but they
| can't cry foul when they get accused of doing immoral and
| unethical things while employed there.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Can you explain (with links please) how Facebook are
| ethically equivalent to tobacco companies (who's product
| literally (not figuratively) kills people).
|
| If you can't, then I'm going to assume that it's mindless
| hyperbole (a straight to which Facebook, for whatever reason,
| appears to be prone to).
| 3gg wrote:
| They are expressing their own opinion, and the comment
| clearly explains how they draw a parallel between Facebook
| and tobacco companies. Why do you need a link?
|
| Also, while Facebook may not directly kill people, the hate
| speech that it helps proliferate does have real
| consequences for real people. One such instance was in the
| Muslim genocide in Myanmar. Since you appear to like links
| a lot, here is one for you:
|
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/facebook-
| myanma...
| petre wrote:
| Their ad delivery network is a vechicle for cyberbulying
| and hate speech and these things do kill people.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/business/hana-kimura-
| terr...
|
| It's also interesting how Japan tries to quell
| cyberbullying, while regular bulying is rampant in this
| country with kids dropping out of school.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| All social media platforms are vectors for cyber-bullying
| and hate speech (whatever the hell that is).
|
| At some point, one needs to accept that people suck, and
| we can't blame communications platforms for their
| suckiness (much as we might like to).
| 3gg wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, I was not aware of that story.
|
| The article you shared also repeats the idea that
| governments/society should impose stricter rules on how
| Facebook and other networks manage the content posted on
| their platforms, but that is where I digress a little. I
| think Facebook is indeed the problem, and also not part
| of the solution. Like I mentioned in another reply above,
| Facebook is a centralized, free-for-all network, one in
| which the random mob can harass individuals to their
| death like what seems to have happened in this case. But
| a social network does not have to be this way; Facebook
| is what it is because that is what works best for their
| ad revenue. They cannot address the endemic problems with
| their platform because those are at odds with their
| business model and would turn the platform upside down.
| The platform must remain "open" so that people can
| "connect" and "share", i.e. the company must do
| everything it can to keep users on the platform so that
| it can surveil them and target them with ads with the
| things it has learned, and hate and disinformation happen
| to be particularly good at keeping people "engaged". I
| then think it is naive for us to take these networks for
| granted and to continue pretending that we can simply
| delegate "content moderation" to corporations. Society
| must take control of its online discourse, and any
| "solution" that falls short of completely destroying the
| surveillance economy that powers these unethical
| corporations is insufficient in my opinion.
| notfromhere wrote:
| It's a big disinformation network that among other things,
| fueled ethnic cleansing in Myanmar
| stopChanging wrote:
| Unfortunately, people will remain more interested in a bigger
| paycheck than personal integrity.
| tjpnz wrote:
| I suspect a lot of people either believe there isn't a problem,
| that if there's one it's been overplayed or simply don't care.
| wtf_is_up wrote:
| What problem?
| dcgudeman wrote:
| I don't know why people are downvoting you. I had the same
| question.
| 3gg wrote:
| It could have passed as a troll question given that this is
| an old an well-known problem, but I guess it's best to err
| on the side of informing people than turning them away.
| macintux wrote:
| https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/facebook_unknowable_megas.
| ..
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| shrimpx wrote:
| The idea that Facebook "works on privacy", and that this guy is
| going to "work on privacy" elsewhere now, is the most facetious
| thing ever. It's like saying that Trump's legal team led by
| Giuliani "works on election integrity".
| nabla9 wrote:
| >"leaving Facebook to work on consumer privacy beyond just ads
| and social media"
|
| Palantir Technologies?
| thegabez wrote:
| Could be Brave?
| izzytcp wrote:
| Who gives a sh*t? Why is this even shared here? HackerNews needs
| to get back to Engineering please. And, what the hell is Chief of
| Advertising Integrity ...
| annadane wrote:
| Why even bother commenting like that? You're not contributing
| anything
| zwlee94 wrote:
| i completely disagree. i'm glad this person wrote that - it
| lets me know that this board isn't completely 100% dead and
| there's people here who think posts about 'facebooks
| integrity advertising chief' have no business being on a
| board about Hacker News. maybe everyone is afraid to speak up
| against this kind of useless B.S. for fear of being accused
| of not being 'constructive' enough or something.
| djohnston wrote:
| I disagree. I don't think it added any value. It's self
| evident why something ends up on the front page right? I
| don't go around shitting on every topic I'm not interested
| in, it's a waste of our finite time.
| blackbrokkoli wrote:
| I will be first in line to cynically complain about
| inappropriate topics on HN, but why do you think this
| particular post is irrelevant?
|
| Software culture is partly hacker culture, and Facebook is
| probably one of the most visible showcases of this culture -
| and therefore somewhat worthy of discussion on HackerNews,
| wouldn't you agree?
| joshthecynic wrote:
| "Advertising integrity chief" sounds like something straight out
| of Orwell.
| rock_hard wrote:
| https://twitter.com/robleathern/status/1345133167833997317?s...
|
| His own statement
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| It's so gauche and embarrassing to see a serious executive
| announcing a principled career change through Twitter. "Tweet
| 6/12" ... a red flag should go up somewhere. Can you not buy a
| domain and link a short paragraph?
|
| This isn't an issue related to Threader or visual
| reconstruction of tweets. Rather, how did society get to a
| place like this? It's bananas.
| JoshTko wrote:
| Can you elaborate why it's gauche? I'm assuming the intent is
| to share on the platform that has the audience you are seeing
| to share the message to. It's not user friendly to direct
| people to another channel.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Twitter lacks both document authoring features and
| professionalism context for anything like an announcement
| like this. It comes off like an out of touch person trying
| to stay "fresh" or "with it" shoe-horning a dry press
| release comment into a medium people use to laugh at cat
| photos. Even official Twitter accounts and journalists have
| the sense to link externally to more important matters. It
| undermines credibility to put those matters directly on
| Twitter. A single short tweet of that type is bad enough,
| but a 12 tweet thread is further forcing long discourse
| into a platform built to avoid it.
| Infinitesimus wrote:
| Strong perspective but understandable.
|
| Alternative take: Twitter is where people are and
| information spreads by push vs having someone
| discover/navigate/link to your personal site for the
| announcement.
|
| 12 tweets is certainly a lot though but I don't get the
| idea that using Twitter to share important news is
| gauche. Maybe that was the case when they first launched
| but certainly not now.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| They could have used Facebook if they wanted to write a
| longer post, but they wanted the audience from Twitter.
| Aside from that they are a private person, not a public
| good and can do whatever they like. Be it not announcing
| a job change at all or printing and distributing flyers
| or something in between.
| baby wrote:
| you know your president announces anything, including firing
| people, over twitter right :D?
| geodel wrote:
| From Twitter:
|
| > After almost 4 years, I made the difficult decision to leave
| Facebook, and 12/30/20 was my last day at FB. I've had a great
| experience in a difficult, fun, fast-growing and impactful role
| at the company working with amazing people
|
| From internet:
|
| > At Facebook, RSUs are subject to a 4-year vesting schedule:
| 25% vests in the 1st year (5% every 2.4 months), then 25% in
| each of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years (6.25% every 3 months)
|
| I guess good for him to enjoy his wealth now. I wish him good
| health.
| high_derivative wrote:
| The initial 4 year schedule is largely irrelevant,
| considering high performers get large refreshers.
| fractionalhare wrote:
| And even those who receive just a standard "Meets
| Expectations" rating receive sufficient refreshers that
| there isn't that big a cliff after four years either. It
| may go from something like $500k to $450k.
|
| There's a lot of jumping around at the 3-year mark,
| especially for people who want to cash in their FAANG brand
| for a similar package somewhere else. But once you get to
| E5 and higher there is significant financial incentive to
| stay with FB for longer than the initial four years.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| For an E5 you get ~600k initial grant and 120k refresher
| for meets all. So your equity comp goes Year 1: 150k Year
| 2: 180k Year 3: 210k Year 4: 240k Year 5: 120k
|
| That's a pretty big drop. It's less if you have higher
| ratings or promo of course.
| ffggvv wrote:
| not true. people usually have a large cliff after four
| years where their compensation goes down. because they ir
| initial grant is no longer vesting so they go from:
|
| initial grant / 4 + (refreshers x 3) per year
|
| to:
|
| refreshers x 4 per year
|
| in addition, refreshers are given at the current stock
| price whereas the initial was grant was given at the 4
| years ago price which was much lower therefore appreciated
| considerably
| coldtea wrote:
| Being Facebook's "advertising integrity chief" sounds like a
| sinecure, anyway...
| hooande wrote:
| People are the problem, not Facebook. Conspiracy theories, FOMO
| and interpersonal toxicity existed long before social media, in
| roughly the same proportions. FB can prevent overt scammers and
| bad actors from using their platform, but that's about it. Any
| organization with the thinnest patina of legitimacy can and
| should be able to participate.
|
| Running a scam business tends to be low expense. They don't have
| much to invest in other than advertising, which is why scams
| dominate low value ad inventory. I don't blame facebook for this.
| It's just part of running one of history's largest advertising
| businesses.
|
| I understand that many of us here aren't fond of social media,
| but the majority of humans really like it. And they bring with
| them all of the worst (and best) aspects of social interaction. I
| don't blame facebook for that, either.
|
| Being angry at social media companies is like being angry at the
| mirror because you don't like your appearance. Facebook isn't the
| cause of humanity's problems. It's just the means by which we're
| observing them.
| andred14 wrote:
| The censorship currently on Facebook is identical to the tactics
| of H1tler and his pal Dr. G0bbels.
|
| I was banned merely for sharing my polite opinion backed up with
| statistics and scientific facts.
|
| Why is that not OK?
| mrfusion wrote:
| Well that's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one.
| eznzt wrote:
| Why do they hire people for positions such as "chief of
| advertising integrity"? Haters are gonna hate; the legacy media
| won't stop hating on them just because they have a "chief of
| advertising integrity".
| irateswami wrote:
| The words "Facebook" and "integrity" in the same sentence is an
| oxymoron.
| jhowell wrote:
| The tweet referenced in the article. Anyone come across technical
| insight into the limitation?
|
| https://mobile.twitter.com/robleathern/status/13266401782414...
| cm2012 wrote:
| Flagged because this thread has no value beyond people who don't
| like fb kvetching. The guy who left loves fb, he didn't leave
| because fb is being unethical.
| cs702 wrote:
| As a corporation, Facebook truly seems to be trying to improve
| its behavior for the benefit of society at large, but the company
| is finding it very difficult to do The Right Thing, because it
| would reduce future revenue growth, shrink long-term
| profitability, and hurt the company's competitive standing
| against the many other companies that are trying to eat
| Facebook's lunch every day.
|
| In the extreme, Facebook's choices appear to be: (a) act in the
| best interest of society and get f#cked by competitors; or (b)
| remain a dominant force in the market, but as a side effect, f#ck
| everybody. All options for Facebook appear to be a mix of those
| two horrible choices.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Facebook could use its wealth and influence to lobby for
| government regulation that would rein in bad behaviour while
| ensuring a level playing field so less-ethical competitors
| would be penalized.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Isn't there really no choice? Doesn't the corporate
| responsibility force them to only consider the greatest
| financial gain, regardless of the downsides for society?
| 3gg wrote:
| > As a corporation, Facebook truly seems to be trying to
| improve its behavior for the benefit of society at large.
|
| No, it's not. Their social network is engineered entirely and
| unsurprisingly in support of their bottom line. A social
| network does not need to be a centralized, free-for-all like
| Facebook is, but Facebook is that way because that is what
| works best for their ad revenue. The rapid proliferation of
| disinformation and hate speech is a consequence of this broken
| system, but the company has always treated those very real
| problems as a necessary evil, a nuisance to be patched up with
| the least effort/cost as possible to keep the ball rolling.
| This does not benefit anybody but them.
| _Understated_ wrote:
| > As a corporation, Facebook truly seems to be trying to
| improve its behavior for the benefit of society at large
|
| Sorry, that's a hard disagree from me and I think you couldn't
| be further off the mark.
|
| Facebook's entire raison d'etre from day 1 is to take as much
| data from as many sources as possible, then use the most
| powerful computers, programmed by the brightest minds, to use
| that data to maximise their profit with no regard for what
| damage that may do to you or society at large - look at what
| Jonathan Haidt talks about wrt to mental health problems and
| social media.
|
| They use the dirtiest psychological tactics to ensure that you
| never put down your phone and to ensure that you only see what
| they deem to have maximum engagement (whatever the f that
| means) and only put their hands up to any nefarious shit when a
| spotlight is on them for it.
|
| I can understand Facebook wanting to clean up their image from
| a PR perspective but it's nothing to do with altruism or
| wanting to serve the public better... if they can make more
| money from looking like a decent bunch, they'll do it.
| jariel wrote:
| No, this is totally overstating the situation.
|
| Also - you could say the same and yet _much much more_ about
| Google.
|
| Google represents 10x the threat of FB because we all use it
| and essentially need it - and it's more broadly deployed.
|
| FB is just FB. Use it or not.
|
| FB can 'have it's cake and eat it'.
|
| There's nothing wrong with using learned user behaviours to
| place some ads. There are reasonably narrow contexts in which
| privacy really isn't invaded, there's no harm really.
|
| Where it 'gets bad' is when they follow you across the
| internet (like Google does ...), or when they use 'nasty
| algs' for interactivity (I don't think this is as bad as it
| seems).
|
| Google is reading all your email and knows every search you
| ever made, I find that far more invasive.
|
| FB has overstepped their bounds but there's no reason the
| can't go back in.
|
| As far as 'anti trust' - it makes very little difference that
| FB owns WhatsApp and Insta. Break them up - very little will
| change.
|
| The 'anti trust' issue is almost entirely with Google and
| Apple.
|
| Google uses their search to promote their own products over
| others, rips off content for their search summaries, and uses
| Chrome and Android as a kind of 'market dumping' to ensure
| Search success.
|
| Apple's 'App Store Only' rule for content distribution is
| questionable.
| jldugger wrote:
| > Facebook's entire raison d'etre from day 1 is to take as
| much data from as many sources as possible, then use the most
| powerful computers, programmed by the brightest minds, to use
| that data to maximise their profit
|
| My impression was that on Day 1 it was really just to rate
| the attractiveness of the coeds at Harvard.
| _Understated_ wrote:
| I believe it was but remember the "dumb fucks" quote from
| Zuckerberg about why people just give him the data freely.
|
| Their entire application has been about data harvesting.
| cs702 wrote:
| My point is that Facebook can improve its behavior only by
| putting its business at risk.
|
| If Zuckerberg, Sandberg, et al could improve Facebook's
| behavior _without putting the business at risk_ , they would
| do it in a heartbeat. But it appears they can't.
|
| Their efforts are thus sincere but highly constrained: They
| will never voluntarily do anything that would put the
| business -- their life's work -- at risk.
|
| If I may use an imperfect analogy: Facebook is a "polluter of
| society" that can't afford to stop polluting until all its
| competitors are _forced_ to stop polluting society too.
| _Understated_ wrote:
| Your original point says that they are looking to change
| for the benefit of mankind...
|
| They aren't. They have no sincerity. They will do what
| makes money. Period.
|
| They have shown time and again they don't give two fucks
| about humanity, mental health, regulators etc until they
| are about to generate bad PR from it.
|
| The government seems to be aiming at them right now
| although I suspect that once the brown envelopes stuffed
| with cash start passing around that will be diluted down to
| "honest gov, we'll start doing right!".
|
| Their clock is about to be cleaned by Apple when they roll
| out the changes to apps requiring them to tell people the
| data that's being harvested... Facebook will quite rightly
| be worried right now.
|
| If Google did the same... well, we'd see some folks bailing
| quick-sharp I reckon... rats and sinking ships and all
| that.
| rtx wrote:
| I hope governments starts with more evil companies.
| Facebook should be down the list.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| My point is that Oil Companies can improve their behavior
| only by putting their business at risk.
| smolder wrote:
| I don't think it's a justifiable for risk mitigation
| reasons to act as the oil industry has. What they can do
| more of is invest in more R&D for moonshot energy
| products. Or invest into existing green energy areas. I
| believe there are just better short term returns on PR
| (deceiving the public as much as possible), buying help &
| protection from regulators, and the status quo generally.
| I also believe the powers that be in that industry, like
| many others, are old, uninspired, and unreasonably
| resistant to change. Like Zuckerberg, they're more afraid
| of lost profit than destroying the world, whether by a
| lot or a little.
| taurath wrote:
| Sounds like a job for regulation to me.
|
| Of course it's profitable to be a monipoly and doing the
| "right thing" might be to allow competitors in but one
| could basically never truly do that while the bottom line
| is the most important thing.
|
| It's so strange to me that so many truly believe a profit
| motive is all that's needed to have good outcomes. It was
| never so, only starting in the 80s did companies care about
| shareholder value over everything else.
| chishaku wrote:
| > It's so strange to me that so many truly believe a
| profit motive is all that's needed to have good outcomes.
|
| Not strange. In the U.S. at least, we're acculturated to
| this ideology our whole lives through education and
| media.
|
| That said, many/most of the wealthiest or influential
| market participants, fortune 500 CEOS, academics from top
| biz/econ programs understand the importance of trust in
| the economy and the role that an effective government
| (contracts, the rule of law, and regulation) play in
| enabling that trust.
|
| If you or your industry are the target of regulation,
| though, government BAD, regulation BAD, regardless of
| what you philosophically believe.
| taurath wrote:
| People still think they're getting a good deal which is
| mostly laughable. I've been in industries while wanting
| more regulation in them - it's always shocking for me to
| imagine the amount of unreturned loyalty businesses will
| get from their employees.
| wolco2 wrote:
| When you are build on a certain core you can't change
| who/what you are.
|
| Facebook is built on getting / using user data to determine
| what to show.
|
| Google is built on geting / using user data to determine
| what to show.
|
| To betray those goals wouldn't make sense. How they go
| about it can change. Facebook has always gone hard and
| fast. They treat you more like a raw piece of meat. They
| will run ab tests on you and treat you like a variable in a
| ongoing experiment. Google has such reach that they can
| make minor changes and capture vast amounts of data.
|
| Other companies are doing the same way but instead of using
| it to determine what to show you they use it to determine
| what ads look like so you can buy their product.
| sharkjacobs wrote:
| > Facebook can improve its behavior only by putting its
| business at risk. ... They will never voluntarily do
| anything that would put the business -- their life's work
| -- at risk.
|
| I don't understand how, given this, you could possibly
| sincerely open your original post with
|
| > As a corporation, Facebook truly seems to be trying to
| improve its behavior for the benefit of society at large
|
| I can't tell what your position is. Your opening sentence
| sounds like you think that Facebook should be given the
| benefit of the doubt because they mean well, when what the
| rest of what you're saying is that Facebook needs to have
| costs imposed on it in order to enable it to improve its
| behaviour
| giantrobot wrote:
| > If Zuckerberg, Sandberg, et al could improve Facebook's
| behavior without putting the business at risk, they would
| do it in a heartbeat. But it appears they can't.
|
| I think the point is they literally _can 't_ improve
| Facebook's behavior because their behavior _is_ their
| business. They don 't have any products that can function
| without their panopticon and Skinner boxes.
|
| It's not that they can't _compete_ by changing their
| behavior but cease to be a viable business that can even
| operate.
| tome wrote:
| I'm finding these two sentences hard to reconcile.
|
| > If Zuckerberg, Sandberg, et al could improve Facebook's
| behavior without putting the business at risk, they would
| do it in a heartbeat. But it appears they can't.
|
| > Facebook truly seems to be trying to improve its behavior
| for the benefit of society at large
| cs702 wrote:
| Imagine yourself as the CEO of a manufacturer that
| pollutes rivers, and you sincerely want to stop
| polluting, but if you stop polluting, the company's costs
| would increase to the point it would no longer be able to
| compete against all the other companies that continue
| polluting -- and they're trying to eat your lunch you
| every day. So, if you stop polluting you would quickly
| lose relevance, be forced to shut down plants, be forced
| to fire lots of decent people, and eventually go out of
| business.
|
| Moreover, when the company was started, _no one anywhere_
| realized that polluting rivers was so bad for everyone.
| No one knew back then; no one thought of it as a problem.
|
| Your choices are: (a) act in the best interest of society
| and get f#cked by competitors; or (b) remain a dominant
| force in the market, but as a side effect, f#ck
| everybody. All your options appear to be a mix of those
| two horrible choices.
|
| What would _you_ do?
| TomSwirly wrote:
| Imagine that you invent the idea of polluting rivers, and
| you set up a company to monopolize polluting rivers, and
| you tell people for decades that you want to stop
| polluting rivers, but every year the rivers get polluted
| by you.
|
| The logical conclusion of your argument is this -
| Facebook cannot be operated safely and still make a
| profit and should shut down as soon as possible.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > The logical conclusion of your argument is this -
| Facebook cannot be operated safely and still make a
| profit and should shut down as soon as possible.
|
| sounds great! how soon can this happen?
| legutierr wrote:
| I would choose to use my skills working for a different
| company in a different industry.
|
| If Zuckerberg really had a problem with what Facebook was
| doing, but didn't feel he could ethically risk the
| company's growth and financial performance by changing
| its direction, he could quit and sell all his shares. He
| might take a financial hit, but he would still be one of
| the world's richest people.
| tdfx wrote:
| > If Zuckerberg really had a problem with what Facebook
| was doing, but didn't feel he could ethically risk the
| company's growth and financial performance by changing
| its direction, he could quit and sell all his shares. He
| might take a financial hit, but he would still be one of
| the world's richest people.
|
| He is one of the world's richest people. He seems to have
| concern (or at least feigns it) for the problems Facebook
| is causing. If he resigns and allows someone else, who is
| more hungry and motivated by money to take over, you
| believe Facebook's behavior would improve?
| daenney wrote:
| If he's concerned about it why would he pick a successor
| that doesn't share his concerns? He still controls the
| company.
| foepys wrote:
| > What would you do?
|
| Personally, I wouldn't even start or be part of such a
| company, simple as that. I cannot imagine somebody
| polluting rivers on purpose just to make money but those
| people exist regardless. So this question is moot for
| quite a few people (me including) that could never ever
| get in this mindset and predict what they would do.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| Agressively lobby for criminal penalties (as in all the
| CXOs go to prison) for any company that continues to
| pollute after <date the law passes + 1year or so>, while
| loudly telling everyone that you will stop polluting as
| soon as your competitors are forced to do likewise.
|
| Please cite any privacy legislation supported by
| Facebook/Zuckerberg under which CEOs or other responsible
| parties ( _not_ disposable middle managers) actually end
| up in prison ( _not_ pittance fines) for violations.
| noahtallen wrote:
| I think as many companies have started to do today, one
| can spin green manufacturing as a PR thing, and possibly
| market your product towards customers who are willing to
| pay more for greener manufacturing practices. Along the
| way, hopefully you could invest in green manufacturing
| improvements to make the tech cheaper at scale.
|
| I don't think it has to be an a or b situation. I think
| the best and brightest could solve the problem without
| decimating their profits. Perhaps I am not that smart,
| but surely Facebook is. (They have significantly more
| resources than their competitors, I imagine.)
|
| Is it really true that Facebook would go bankrupt by
| being more ethical? I'm not so sure. They have a captive
| user base. A lot of older folks who aren't great with
| tech are on Facebook, and they won't be going anywhere
| that quickly. With as many users as they have -- a
| seventh of the world's population - I can't imagine
| people will leave in droves that quickly. One of
| Facebook's biggest advantages is the network effect of
| "everyone you know is already here".
|
| My opinion is that Facebook does in fact have the
| resources to be more ethical without loosing so much
| profit that they go out of business.
|
| I think the problem partially is maximizing revenue at
| the cost of everything else. I'm not sure I buy into the
| idea that they must maximize revenue. Couldn't they be
| more ethical at the cost of some money, and then that new
| revenue amount still is enough to cover expenses?
| cs702 wrote:
| _> I don't think it has to be an a or b situation. I
| think the best and brightest could solve the problem
| without decimating their profits._
|
| I hope you're right! But so far, it appears no one at
| Facebook has figured out how to escape this "tyranny of
| horrible choices."
|
| _> I think the problem partially is maximizing revenue
| at the cost of everything else._
|
| I disagree. I think the problem, from the perspective of
| Facebook, is figuring out how to do The Right Thing while
| _remaining relevant and competitive_ against the many
| companies trying to dislodge Facebook from its dominant
| position. Many of Facebook 's users are _addicted_ to the
| social-media-crack; if Facebook stops providing it, they
| will migrate to other social networks that provide it.
| And many of Facebook 's customers -- advertisers and
| propagandists -- _want_ Facebook to continue to modify
| user behavior on their behalf; and if Facebook stops
| doing that, those customers will migrate to the
| competition.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > the many companies trying to dislodge Facebook from its
| dominant position
|
| Such as? Can you find me one company that provides a
| similar feature set to Facebook (cross-platform messaging
| & calling, personal & business pages with unlimited media
| uploads, groups, marketplace, dating and the network
| effects of everyone you know already being on it with
| their real name and no usernames to worry about)?
|
| Furthermore, if Facebook stops or tones down paid
| advertising and unpaid spam/clickbait it will be yet
| another reason for users to prefer _them_ versus the
| competition.
|
| > Facebook's users are addicted to the social-media-crack
|
| Are they? Facebook users are primarily there for keeping
| in touch with their friends, and happen to get sucked
| down the rabbit hole of bullshit by Facebook's algorithms
| which prioritizes engagement. Removing the engagement-
| generating crap won't suddenly remove the need for people
| to socialize.
|
| > many of Facebook's customers -- advertisers and
| propagandists -- want Facebook to continue to modify user
| behavior on their behalf; and if Facebook stops doing
| that, those customers will migrate to the competition.
|
| These customers want to go where the users are. If
| Facebook stops advertising but all the users remain
| (partly _because_ of the lack of advertising),
| advertisers do not have a magic wand to move people
| across to another platform where they can advertise,
| short of paying those people to move (in which case it
| would be a win-win situation as people would be
| compensated for their time & attention).
| evan_ wrote:
| It doesn't matter to the people forced to drink the
| polluted river water if the person doing the polluting
| feels bad about it, or doesn't. Feeing bad does not
| absolve the CEO of anything.
|
| This analogy also ignores that Facebook is putting huge
| amounts of money into lobbying efforts to ensure that
| they continue to be able to figuratively pollute the
| river.
| chishaku wrote:
| > the CEO of a manufacturer that pollutes rivers, and you
| sincerely want to stop polluting
|
| Imagine you started a company that pollutes rivers and
| you're still the CEO.
|
| Imagine people believing you sincerely want to stop
| polluting.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| Not just a company that pollutes rivers, but Filthy
| Frank's River Wreckers Pollution Distribution Specialists
| LLC, A company who's entire core mission, and reason for
| existing is the polluting of rivers.
| smolder wrote:
| I can imagine it of course but can't see parallels to
| Mark Zuckerberg. He hasn't done a substantive thing to
| show societies health is a priority. A tax break
| foundation that works on ways to spread Facebook further
| is not it.
| daenney wrote:
| > If Zuckerberg, Sandberg, et al could improve Facebook's
| behavior without putting the business at risk, they would
| do it in a heartbeat.
|
| Based on what evidence do you make this assertion?
| nr2x wrote:
| Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
|
| Zuck: Just ask.
|
| Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
|
| [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
|
| Zuck: People just submitted it.
|
| Zuck: I don't know why.
|
| Zuck: They "trust me"
|
| Zuck: Dumb fucks
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| You're apologizing for a company that makes hand over fist
| money. Has a single competitor in its space (online
| advertising), and that's Google.
|
| There is no "getting fucked" when it's a monopoly controlling
| its market. Right now, legislation is helping Facebook by
| increasing the barrier to entry to compete with them.
|
| So what you're saying is Facebook created this entire situation
| but would not have if you know it didn't have to. The only
| thing is we are only as shitty as we let ourselves be. Stop
| accepting shitty behavior from people and trying to justify for
| no reason.
| ratsmack wrote:
| As a corporation with a huge amount of investment money
| involved, they will bend every rule and law to maximize the ROI
| for those investors. Also, these companies will extract every
| bit of data from their customers (product) that they can, in
| obscurity, to accomplish their goal.
| bird_monster wrote:
| > As a corporation, Facebook truly seems to be trying to
| improve its behavior for the benefit of society at large,
|
| The nuance is that they're not - they're trying to improve
| their _image_.
| na85 wrote:
| >Facebook truly seems to be trying to improve its behavior for
| the benefit of society at large
|
| I am utterly, completely bewildered at how one could look at
| Facebook's behavior and come to this conclusion.
| Triv888 wrote:
| He must be a Facebook employee that ate the pudding.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I see you're getting some downvotes, but I agree with you. Put
| another way, though: the problem is not Zuckerberg per se, it's
| the business model of advertising-supported, general-purpose
| social networks. If you took everybody out of Facebook and
| replaced them all with other equally qualified people, they
| would behave the same, as an organization. The problem is not
| Who, it's What. You can't "fix" Facebook, because the problem
| is pretty fundamental to what they are.
| EarthIsHome wrote:
| I think you're on the right track, but it's not just because
| it's an "advertising-supported" business model. It's the
| fundamental laws that govern our society: profit. Replace
| Zuckerberg, Bezos, et al. with anyone else, and the new CEOs'
| decisions will be bound by the same constraints.
| sollewitt wrote:
| Thought experiment: Cory Doctorow becomes CEO of Facebook
| with Zuckerberg's entire stock allocation and equivalent
| voting control. Do you stand by your assertion that nothing
| changes?
| smt88 wrote:
| Reddit isn't perfect, but it is run totally differently
| from Facebook, including: offering paid subscriptions,
| having an open API, and not trying to justify widespread
| surveillance as an ad-targeting tool.
| 0xB31B1B wrote:
| strong disagree that a Facebook staffed with different folks
| would behave the same. Zuckerberg has a majority of the votes
| due to his super voting shares. Leadership matters,
| individual actions matter. Twitter, for all its faults, has a
| leader who is leading the company down a different path than
| the pure money chasing and dominance, and i can imagine a
| differently lead Twitter being making more money and being
| worse for society. Zuckerberg is motivated by dominance,
| nothing else, and he has the ability to change course. Their
| actions are constrained along a set of possible outcomes but
| the leaders of both companies are choosing where in that set
| they want to land.
| the-dude wrote:
| Twitter even worse for society? How?
| nacs wrote:
| Note parent post says _if it were under a different
| leader_ for that.
| cs702 wrote:
| Exactly, except that we don't have to imagine anything. If
| Facebook were to disappear today, there already exist many
| companies with similar business models willing to take its
| place. Some more willing to cross the line than Facebook.
| giobox wrote:
| This is the critical point virtually all criticism of
| Facebook often fails to address. Sure, you could regulate
| to death/kill Facebook tomorrow with legislation in country
| X. All that happens is a clone launches immediately
| overnight from a country with less onerous regulation, one
| that anglosphere legal systems will have even less direct
| control over than the Facebook we have today.
|
| FB, for all its flaws, is at least still based in a
| democratic nation and operates within a (_relatively
| speaking_) fair legal system. That the FEC is able to
| demand (and force implementation of!) regulation already at
| FB is evidence this works, at least a little. Better the
| devil you know as they say...
|
| We can't remove the natural human desire to connect to one
| another on the internet (and associated problems). For me
| personally, the cat is out of the bag - you can't rewind
| time and uninvent the underlying communication
| infrastructure. If people want a social network, the
| internet will make it for them again and again and host
| from whatever polity/region allows.
| 13415 wrote:
| Regulations are never for particular companies, that
| would be legally untenable. Whatever regulation a country
| comes up with for Facebook will also affect any other
| company trying to get into their footsteps. Regulation is
| the only way to prevent companies from abusing their
| positions of power. The idea is illusory that they would
| do it voluntarily even if they could make a profit. Some
| of them might under some leadership, but not in general
| and not all of them.
| roydivision wrote:
| Legislation is the key here, not simply destroying the
| company.
| bostonsre wrote:
| Zuckerberg holds 90% of class b shares which have 10x the
| voting rights of normal shares and gives him 4 billion votes.
| There are -2.4 billion class A shares. He has stacked the
| board with loyalist yes men. It is a dictatorship bent on
| maximizing profit. The business model and how they operate is
| defined by Zuckerberg. It seems to me that he should hold the
| majority of the blame.
| soupson wrote:
| Yes. This is surveillance capitalism taken to its extreme.
| Facebook didn't invent it, they're just doing it in a way
| that makes the consequences more difficult to ignore than
| Google, which has been able to largely sidestep the blowback
| by being mission critical to so many people and also having
| massive goodwill projects that don't directly point to being
| profit driven.
|
| It's up to citizens of the US and EU to reign this in. We can
| hate the player but we gotta hate the game even more.
| SCHiM wrote:
| I mean, GDPR is a step in the direction. Many websites, and
| by extension, people seem to think that you comply by
| 'gdpr' by putting up a stupid cookie banner.
|
| But the real compliance is not storing PII, then you don't
| even need a cookie bar!
| sokoloff wrote:
| When the law defines 32 but numbers (IP addresses) as
| PII, it's not terribly surprising to me that "real
| compliance" is not eagerly adopted.
| oblio wrote:
| GDPR doesn't define IPs as PII, unless you use them as
| such. If you have a legitimate use for IPs, then you're
| fine.
| soupson wrote:
| Asking companies not to retain PII is like asking a crack
| addict to please ignore the crack pipe and torch while
| you step out for an hour. The only solution is to make
| PII radioactive. Tax it. Burn companies that abuse it or
| leak it to the ground. HIPAA is a fucking nightmare but
| companies still figure it out:
| Nextgrid wrote:
| GDPR is mostly that; the penalties for data breaches are
| essentially a tax on PII. GDPR also restricts how you can
| process data and the user should always be informed and
| has the right to object.
|
| The problem is that the GDPR is not being enforced
| seriously.
| annadane wrote:
| I would argue they basically invented it. A lot of the
| dirty tactics in play today are because companies feel the
| need to catch up to Facebook, who set the ecosystem as it
| is by continually being dishonest and predatory
| boraoztunc wrote:
| > Facebook didn't invent it.
|
| Didn't Google invent this model? [1]
|
| >Surveillance capitalism was invented around 2001 as the
| solution to financial emergency in the teeth of the dotcom
| bust when the fledgling company faced the loss of investor
| confidence. As investor pressure mounted, Google's leaders
| abandoned their declared antipathy toward advertising.
| Instead they decided to boost ad revenue by using their
| exclusive access to user data logs (once known as "data
| exhaust") in combination with their already substantial
| analytical capabilities and computational power, to
| generate predictions of user click-through rates, taken as
| a signal of an ad's relevance.
|
| >Operationally this meant that Google would both repurpose
| its growing cache of behavioural data, now put to work as a
| behavioural data surplus, and develop methods to
| aggressively seek new sources of this surplus.
|
| >The company developed new methods of secret surplus
| capture that could uncover data that users intentionally
| opted to keep private, as well as to infer extensive
| personal information that users did not or would not
| provide. And this surplus would then be analysed for hidden
| meanings that could predict click-through behaviour. The
| surplus data became the basis for new predictions markets
| called targeted advertising.
|
| >Here was the origin of surveillance capitalism in an
| unprecedented and lucrative brew: behavioural surplus, data
| science, material infrastructure, computational power,
| algorithmic systems, and automated platforms. As click-
| through rates skyrocketed, advertising quickly became as
| important as search. Eventually it became the cornerstone
| of a new kind of commerce that depended upon online
| surveillance at scale.
|
| >The success of these new mechanisms only became visible
| when Google went public in 2004. That's when it finally
| revealed that between 2001 and its 2004 IPO, revenues
| increased by 3,590%.
|
| >Surveillance capitalism is no more limited to advertising
| than mass production was limited to the fabrication of the
| Ford Model T. It quickly became the default model for
| capital accumulation in Silicon Valley, embraced by nearly
| every startup and app.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shos
| hana-...
| coldtea wrote:
| > _As a corporation, Facebook truly seems to be trying to
| improve its behavior for the benefit of society at large_
|
| Based on what? Lip service? Empty gestures? Those are worth as
| much as Google's "Don't be evil" motto and Apple's and Nike's
| social justice campaigns...
| bogomipz wrote:
| >"As a corporation, Facebook truly seems to be trying to
| improve its behavior for the benefit of society at large, ..."
|
| Could you provide some examples how "FB truly seems to be
| trying improve its behavior for the benefit of society at
| large"? Just using one very recent example - how do you
| reconcile that outlook with FB threats against the Ad
| Observatory[1]?
|
| [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-demands-nyu-ad-
| observ...
| 13415 wrote:
| I'll be honest, judging from my experience with Facebook's ads
| system, I'd wager they have accumulated some technical debt and
| their content evaluation (aka censorship) systems don't really
| work or don't scale. There are numerous reports of incorrect
| flagging of business accounts and ads managers and insanely
| long review processes (which, by the way, never result in an
| apology) on forums outside Facebook. Advertisers were moving to
| other platforms because Facebook became unpredictable and ads
| costs were skyrocketing just before the US elections.
|
| It's a bit better now but they still seem to have problems
| identifying objectionable content. If the system doesn't work
| for ads, it won't work for orders of magnitude more user posts
| either.
| kerng wrote:
| If you don't want to be a shitty company, don't build your
| business on top of a business model that harms people and
| society.
| spanktheuser wrote:
| It's almost as if capitalism _requires_ outcomes which are
| exploitative. Whether that is the labor force, the environment,
| minority populations, civil society, population health.
|
| Too bad no one has written a book or three looking into this.
| I'd read it.
| quonn wrote:
| What's needed is regulation. A lot of regulation that is not
| questioned based on some free market fundamentalism.
|
| That's all. Given that, capitalism works fine.
| freebuju wrote:
| Your first argument gave me quite a good chuckle.
| purplecats wrote:
| based on your own set of possibilities it sounds like they
| chose b and "f#ck everyone else" contradicts "Facebook truly
| seems to be trying to improve its behavior for the benefit of
| society at large".
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhSX7IzHkrE
| TomSwirly wrote:
| > As a corporation, Facebook truly seems to be trying to
| improve its behavior for the benefit of society at large,
|
| Like how?
|
| > All options for Facebook appear to be a mix of those two
| horrible choices.
|
| If they can't avoid destroying society and still be profitable,
| then they deserve to go bankrupt.
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