[HN Gopher] Facebook whistleblower hearing: Frances Haugen testi...
___________________________________________________________________
Facebook whistleblower hearing: Frances Haugen testifies in
Washington - live
Author : spzx
Score : 221 points
Date : 2021-10-05 14:52 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| sayonaraman wrote:
| time to buy more FB shares
|
| when a company leaves the headlines it's time to sell.
| whymauri wrote:
| you jest, but they are up 170% since the Cambridge Analytica
| scandal.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| This same attitude, caring about profit above all else, is the
| reason for this shit show in the first place. Shameful.
| cute_boi wrote:
| (All of the following are my personal opinion)
|
| and long as laws, rules, regulation supports it many
| people/corporation will always choose profits over ethics and
| its not a broad generalization but a natural instinct in my
| opinion. And you can also buy prestige just by throwing cents
| in name of philanthropy right?
|
| I hate it but this is how natures works and its too cruel.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Humans ate in control of laws and regulations, we CAN do
| something
| nicoburns wrote:
| > and long as laws, rules, regulation supports it many
| people/corporation will always choose profits over ethics
|
| Many is a key word here. Many will, but many will not. And
| how many do is definitely a function of culture. As shown
| by the big difference in attitude to this question between
| the US and Europe.
| zozin wrote:
| That's what a business is. Greed is good, it drives people to
| do great things and create amazing products. If company A
| cared less about profits and more about society, it would
| lose out to company B who cares only about profit and market
| share, before eventually company A withers and dies and all
| we are left with is company B.
|
| It's the role of government to curtail greed and industry
| actions. The current climate is caused by a a failure of
| government to step in and intervene, not by the industry
| caring about profit above all else.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| > It's the role of government to curtail greed and industry
| actions.
|
| It's the role of the government to curtail murder, but that
| doesn't resolve me of personal responsibility.
| jjulius wrote:
| >Greed is good...
|
| You say this as though there aren't any downsides to greed.
|
| >The current climate is caused by a failure of government
| to step in and intervene, not by the industry caring about
| profit above all else.
|
| No, it's both. Full stop.
| sayonaraman wrote:
| I don't think you can argue with Gordon Gekko " that
| greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is
| right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and
| captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit..."
|
| And btw this forum is hosted by one of the most prominent
| venture capitalist firms in Silicon Valley which funds
| thousands of (promising) capitalists.
|
| That's what America is about, greed, the pursuit of
| happiness, whatever you call it, everything else is
| noise.
| jjulius wrote:
| >That's what America is about, greed, the pursuit of
| happiness, whatever you call it, everything else is
| noise.
|
| The pursuit of happiness is not greed. What qualifies as
| 'happiness' is entirely up to each individual, and for
| many people that doesn't include being greedy.
| sayonaraman wrote:
| well as the success of the US economy shows, those greedy
| capitalists create millions of jobs and goods and
| increase overall "happiness" of millions (of perhaps less
| greedy) people.
|
| Greed and free markets make for a healthy society.
|
| As a counter-example see what happened with the Soviet
| Union, I can tell you first hand that didn't work very
| well. Demonizing "bourjois" values of private property
| and prosperity, while fetishizing the "common good" and
| all-controlling government made the entire society very
| unhappy (except for a few fat bureaucrats) and led to its
| eventual collapse.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I absolutely _can_ argue with Gordon Gekko. His
| "philosophy" is intended to be a caricature of what's
| wrong, not a serious position.
|
| > "Greed... captures the essence of the evolutionary
| spirit..."
|
| But see, we don't _want_ the evolutionary spirit. We want
| our kids to be able to play in the park without worrying
| about the survival of the fittest. We want cures for
| diseases. We want social safety nets. We want to live in
| a civilization, not in a "state of nature"; we want to
| be humans, not animals.
| zozin wrote:
| Of course there are downsides to greed, but as a driving
| force of human action it's good because it's relatable,
| identifiable, and can be regulated. Society gets to
| dictate how much greed is okay, not private industries.
| We decided long ago that killing out of greed is bad for
| society, so that's why we punish murder. The same thing
| with stealing, fraud, etc. In a complete vacuum you would
| no doubt have companies killing competing CEOs or
| destroying a competitor's property or lying constantly,
| but we don't live in vacuum. We live in a society
| curtailed by laws and regulations. So far we have had
| very little pushback against addictive apps, that will
| soon change.
| munk-a wrote:
| No - just because you're a predicatable asshole doesn't
| make you not an asshole. I don't disagree that whenever
| possible we should create laws that prevent selfish
| behavior from being a winning move but the economy moves
| quickly and exploiting new economic ideas for greed is
| still a dick move.
| gruez wrote:
| >>The current climate is caused by a failure of
| government to step in and intervene, not by the industry
| caring about profit above all else.
|
| >No, it's both. Full stop.
|
| disagree. it's the job of government to add legislation.
| _not_ having rules, then acting surprised when things don
| 't go the way you want is asinine. if you want people to
| act in a particular way, spell it out. Don't act like
| it's implied and be outraged when people don't abide by
| your imaginary rules.
| coliveira wrote:
| You must be joking, because people who believe that greed
| is good are exactly the same ones who believe the
| government should not be imposing rules and everything
| should be left for the markets to decide.
| gruez wrote:
| How is this relevant? Me subscribing to "greed is good"
| doesn't also automatically subscribe to "there shouldn't
| be any government intervention".
| jjulius wrote:
| It can be legal to be an asshole, but you're still an
| asshole. It may be legal to act in an unethical manner,
| but you're still acting unethically.
|
| We absolutely are in the "current climate" because the
| industry cared about profit above all else, because they
| _could_.
| gruez wrote:
| This presumes there's an universal definition of
| asshole/unethical that everyone agrees on. You might
| think paying workers minimum wage is asshole/unethical,
| so you pay above it even though it's above market rate.
| Other business owners disagree and undercut you, causing
| you to be driven out of business. You think they're
| assholes and fume in your head about how evil they are,
| but they think nothing's wrong and you're just a bad
| businessman. Is it fair to denounce them for the way
| their acted, because their morals don't match up with
| yours?
| boston_clone wrote:
| People doing things worse is rarely a valid justification
| for not doing things better. What a weird approach to
| ethics in this thread.
|
| Are our moral goals no longer about improving and setting
| a higher bar for how we conduct ourselves? Have we
| succumbed to material wants and ego at the cost of
| decency? Goodness gracious.
| gruez wrote:
| I don't think you'll find much objections to doing good,
| but but where do you stop? Say the minimum wage is $10
| and you decide to pay your workers $15. You _still_ get
| flak from people who want you to pay even higher (see:
| amazon getting flak despite paying above market /minimum
| wage). Do you just turn your business into a non-profit?
| After all, any profit means there's money that could be
| spent doing good.
| jjulius wrote:
| They can be a better businessman _and_ still be an
| asshole. The two are not mutually exclusive.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| There will always be people who are willing to be
| assholes for money. Yea they're an asshole, but they're
| not actually making things worse since there are plenty
| of people ready to replace them.
| ironmagma wrote:
| Profit is different from greed.
| paxys wrote:
| You are overestimating how much this entire saga (including
| yesterday's outage) has affected Facebook's share price.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| I bought more after a stop loss sale. I was a strong bull for a
| while basing on where I spend my advertising dollars.
|
| I spent like at least 60% of my clients money on FB (before CTV
| scaled). Now CTV is eating more budget AND I'm really feeling
| the iOS changes.
|
| I think the ad market will sort it self and value out but this
| month has been bad and all over the place. For instance
| targeting small non-profit donor lists isn't as effective but
| for some reason I'm having some success just targeting everyone
| over 45 (a non-profit ask, prob won't work as well for a
| Democratic ask).
|
| I also see a ton of tik tok videos reposted with logo and
| everything on IG.
|
| Still a bull but I am concerned and unless they get a new
| platform or immersive reality/ar takes off I don't think there
| is room for huge exponential growth anymore. Significant
| incremental 100% though IMHO.
|
| But who am I opinion doesn't matter, my ad buying experience is
| only one tiny anecdote. I'm small in both spend and my
| investments - only recently became better at saving vs
| spending. Though my dad put in more than I could a bit after
| IPO and has bumped his retirement considerable
| pjc50 wrote:
| > I also see a ton of tik tok videos reposted with logo and
| everything on IG
|
| Yes, that's what reels is for, reposting content you made in
| the tiktok editor.
|
| (So few people understand that that's an important part of
| the success of tiktok, as is its radically different
| suggestion algorithms)
| sva_ wrote:
| see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28760228
| tw600040 wrote:
| I don't understand which of these accusations are actually
| breaking the law. They all imply that Facebook isn't being a Good
| Samaritan, but that isn't actually illegal.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| My response is by no means a whole response, but I share my
| amused surprise given that 'shareholder value' argument gets
| trotted out the moment company does anything that upsets
| society a little. This suggests that it is not about the good
| of the society, but that of a specific power center. Normally,
| as you said, pursuit of profit is cool in US.
|
| Here, FB, if you listen to some of the commentary, is not doing
| 'enough' to combat 'hate' and 'disinformation'. In short, FB
| does not do enough about wrongthink to use 1984 terms.
|
| Now, there are arguments to use against FB for the impact on
| society, but the fact that everyone appears to be surprised
| that company, gasp, chooses profit over society, is beyond
| hilarious. No fucking shit.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Congress is where new laws are enacted.
|
| If a law was broken, it's be a judicial branch / trial. The
| topic of discussion here is what future laws should be.
| somedude895 wrote:
| She's accusing Facebook of withholding information on these
| issues from shareholders. Now whether the information was
| relevant or significant enough to announce to shareholders is
| another question. I guess the media awareness of the
| whistleblowing did lead to share prices dropping, so kind of a
| self-fulfilling prophecy?
| not2b wrote:
| She's also handed over lots of material to the SEC, which has
| the responsibility of deciding whether there have been any
| violations. But that's a separate track from congressional
| hearings.
| asabjorn wrote:
| Her testimony seem designed to provide cover for increased
| viewpoint censorship on the facebook platform. Her explicit
| examples are "hate speech" by conservative dissenters that
| cause people to disagree with narratives she agrees with.
|
| Facebook has applied some of the most heavy-handed and
| widespread politically motivated censorship that the west has
| ever seen. If anything, increasing this censorship is likely to
| increase cronyism and division more than anything.
|
| And their censorship has often not been correct in the past,
| when being wrong caused real damage. E.g. the now mainstream
| lab leak hypothesis was censored in a way that may have delayed
| a more effective response.
| shadilay wrote:
| It doesn't matter which side the censorship falls on. No one
| entity should have the power over the speech of millions.
| Break up facebook.
| asabjorn wrote:
| The people involved also cause me pause. Her lawyer is
| Andrew P. Bakaj, an attorney and former intelligence
| officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. He was the
| principal attorney representing the whistleblower who filed
| the initial complaint that led to the launch of multiple
| investigations by the United States Congress into the
| Trump-Ukraine scandal, the impeachment inquiry into
| President Donald Trump, and, ultimately, the first
| Impeachment of Donald Trump.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_P._Bakaj
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I don't understand which of these accusations are actually
| breaking the law.
|
| You misunderstand: this isn't so much about enforcing existing
| laws, rather it's about advocating for _new_ ones.
| not2b wrote:
| Congress is not a court. Congressional hearings aren't about
| determining whether someone broke the law, but rather about
| whether laws need to be changed.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| You could have said the same thing about cigarette companies
| half a century ago.
| dcgudeman wrote:
| You really think Facebook is the equivalent of Big Tobacco?
| This moral panic is really reaching a feverish crescendo.
| kevingadd wrote:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+myanmar
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-
| facebo...
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55929654
| munk-a wrote:
| I think Big Tobacco is still worse but honestly? The
| extreme radicalism we're seeing in our modern society is
| pretty terrible - I just don't think it's fair to blame
| _all_ of that radicalism on Facebook, even if it has played
| a role in nurturing it.
| marvin wrote:
| I'm fairly confident that widespread internet-based
| multicast communication is almost solely responsible for
| many of the profoundly weird things that have happened in
| global politics for the last six years. It's a very
| powerful new tool for communication that has hit very
| fast and without enough time for society to adapt to the
| change. A textbook example of accelerating technological
| change throwing a monkey wrench into what seemed to be a
| well-oiled machine.
|
| It's fair enough to say that Facebook is only responsible
| for a significant part of this, as there's also Twitter,
| YouTube, Instagram (pre-acquisition), Snapchat, TikTok
| and so on, and there would be others if these did not
| exist. The root cause is smartphones, the Internet and
| cheap bandwidth & servers.
|
| But in the context of regulation, _finding out how to
| deal with_ this new weapon of communication, starting
| with a case study of the biggest seems like an excellent
| beginning.
|
| I honestly think unregulated social media has the
| potential to do more damage than unregulated tobacco
| sales, if by regulation we mean "government-enforced
| rules". But I don't mean to frame it as a context; it
| seems obvious that both are a good idea.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| It wasn't fair to blame all of cancer on Big Tobacco,
| either.
| dntrkv wrote:
| > The extreme radicalism
|
| What do you think FB's role is in that? Do you think the
| "algorithms" are to blame?
|
| Seems to me that unmoderated online discussion will
| always be toxic. Take a look at the chan forums for an
| extreme, anonymous version of social media where there
| are no algorithms to blame.
|
| When you bring the general public online and give them a
| platform to voice their insane ideas they never discussed
| before, you get the internet in 2021.
|
| Combine that with the fact that until recently, people on
| the opposite sides of the political spectrum rarely
| interacted. The division was there, but it was masked by
| the inability to directly attack each other. Now, I can
| go on Twitter and argue all day with the other side in a
| thread below a Senator's tweet.
|
| Unless you are suggesting Facebook begin heavily
| moderating what people say, there will be no other
| outcome until we as a society collectively learn to 1.
| Have empathy for others when conversing online, 2. Stop
| participating in discussions that make you feel terrible,
| and the classic, 3. Don't believe everything you read
| online.
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| That's actually a great analogy.
|
| Years of social media and misinformation resulted in an
| attempted coup and insurrection earlier this year, the
| major contributing factors of which are still ongoing. I
| don't think phillip-morris ever got that far.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| While FB no doubt contributed to the Jan 6 riot, it's too
| simple and tidy to blame it on social media. There is a
| complex web of factors, including interpretation of the
| Constitution, view of history, fear of tomorrow if the
| other side takes over, frustration with a sense of
| powerlessness, etc.
|
| Frankly, the Jan 6 episode is not all that different from
| the BLM riots last year, in that their causes are
| analogous and the sense of powerlessness led to rioting.
| beambot wrote:
| Except that one of them occurred at the time & place of
| the major transition of power and actively stormed a
| congressional session resulting in deaths in a core
| federal government building. But sure... other than that
| "not all that different".
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| No disagreement there, and for the record I am glad the
| Jan 6 rioters are being prosecuted.
|
| The point I was raising is that "Facebook = riot" is too
| simplistic an explanation. Moreover the contributing
| factors are not isolated to one event or political
| persuasion.
| stephencanon wrote:
| > sense of powerlessness led to rioting
|
| Middle-class and rich white people from politically-
| advantaged parts of the country, that famously powerless
| group.
| evnc wrote:
| I don't mean to defend those who stormed the capitol, who
| to be clear I don't agree with, but the important thing
| to note here is _sense_ of powerlessness. These people
| _felt_ powerless, regardless of whether or not they
| _were_ in any kind of objective sense, and that feeling
| motivated their actions.
|
| This is relevant to the current discussion inasmuch as FB
| (and social media generally) may have contributed to,
| stoked and fomented said feelings of powerlessness for
| the sake of engagement / eyeballs / ad clicks.
| stephencanon wrote:
| I don't think I believe that they actually feel
| powerless, though. The right-wing and centrist press spin
| that narrative, because it's the only way to justify
| their actions, but it doesn't square with reality: people
| who feel powerless do not violently threaten the workings
| of government, believing that they will succeed and avoid
| any negative consequences if they fail. Those are the
| actions of people who are used to getting their way all
| day every day, who cannot believe that they won't get
| their way again.
| irrational wrote:
| It's worse, right? Other than second-hand smoke, tobacco
| for the most part hurts just that person. The same can't be
| said for social media.
| mFixman wrote:
| Tobacco kills 8 million people per year, and that's with
| over half a century of regulation and cessation problems
| taxation. It's also a disgusting habit that destroys any
| area smokers step in.
|
| HN is at its worse when fuming over Facebook, and
| comparing the tragedy caused by smoking companies with
| social media is a good example of how uninformed the site
| can get.
| satellite2 wrote:
| With only 10 years of existence and already to its
| palmares a genocide in Myanmar and making the worst
| pandemic since the plague much worse, I think the
| comparison is not so far fetched.
| mFixman wrote:
| So the Burmese government and military junta had nothing
| to do with the genocide. The local media, endemic
| discrimination, local warlords, international support,
| nor the people actually guiding and doing the genocide
| had any responsability.
|
| Was social media the cause for the 1994 genocide in
| Rwanda too?
| satellite2 wrote:
| As with cigarette seller, it was never in their best
| interest that their product cause cancer. But it does. In
| top of that they had evidence of it earlier than the
| public and chose to hide it.
|
| Facebook had many internal whisteblowers that the
| platform was used to shape the public opinion and
| facilitate the genocide and choose to do nothing.
| shadilay wrote:
| "Cut the tall trees" Mass media sure helped.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| Facebook is much, much, much worse.
|
| Assuming general equivalency in manipulation of public
| opinion to hide their malfeasance,
|
| the impact of that malfeasance is orders of magnitude worse
| for our society, democracy, and world culture.
|
| If you have any doubt about this, you haven't looked at any
| of the reporting, not just from this latest data dump, but
| from any of the other whistle-blowing, leaks, third party
| investigations, etc.
|
| It's not _just_ that they bury and spin any internal
| findings which may compromise their ability to pursue
| "engagement," it's so so much worse.
|
| Look at the documents. This whistleblower brought the
| receipts.
|
| Their continued operations as a monolith represents an
| acute and active threat. They should be broken up and
| subjected to transparency requirements.
|
| That's what you get when you pursue profit and power at the
| expense of social cohesion, functioning government, and in
| the case of many in harsh realities outside the US,
| assistance in brutal political suppression and worse.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| LOL downvotes are the surest possible sign of unsettling
| and upsetting those who are complicit.
|
| Work for them? Quit. Do business with them? Don't. Think
| access to clients and relationships with them depend on
| participating in this ecosystem? It doesn't.
|
| Break the monopoly.
| atonse wrote:
| Facebook has a much wider reach than Bic Tobacco could
| dream of.
|
| As far as actual impact on thousands of lives, it's
| probably a tossup since Facebook has many means of ruining
| lives (psychological manipulation, distrust in government,
| pandemic misinformation, political misinformation). But I'd
| wager that Facebook has probably already caused way more
| harm than tobacco. It's hard to measure though.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Read "A Genocide Incited on Facebook, With Posts From
| Myanmar's Military"[1] and "Facebook Admits It Was Used to
| Incite Violence in Myanmar"[2].
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-
| facebo...
|
| [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-
| facebo...
| oarabbus_ wrote:
| And Philip Morris/Altria Group has vastly grown in size since
| half a century ago. It seems you are proving their point?
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Is that true for domestic sales?
| [deleted]
| munk-a wrote:
| They have - though they've diversified domestically in a
| significant way and while cigarettes (and vaping!) is still
| a major societal problem it's not nearly as bad as it was
| in the 80's and earlier.
| r00fus wrote:
| While cigarettes are no longer a threat to societal health.
| We have monitoring programs in place, insurance costs
| (smokers pay higher premiums) factored, and ways to prevent
| our kids from being marketed to.
|
| The alternative is we go the banhammer route, and as we
| learned with prohibition era, that had
| unintended/undesirable consequences.
| oarabbus_ wrote:
| >While cigarettes are no longer a threat to societal
| health.
|
| Cigarettes are the leading cause of preventable death in
| the USA (even moreso in countries where smoking is far
| more accepted widespread) so I don't believe this to be
| even remotely true.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > The alternative is we go the banhammer route, and as we
| learned with prohibition era, that had
| unintended/undesirable consequences.
|
| Prohibition never banned a specific delivery mechanism
| but not the actual drug, so it's never been tried.
| midasuni wrote:
| Weed was banned for a significant time
| LatteLazy wrote:
| They're really not breaking any laws.
|
| They might be doing some things which are questionable
| ethically. But stopping that would require new laws. And that's
| very hard because you can't really make a case to target FB in
| particular (and not also a bunch of other harmful media). But
| other harmful media (eg Fox "news") is protected by the 1st
| amendment. And likely so is Facebook for that matter.
|
| But pointing at unethical behaviour and pretending you're
| outraged is very in vogue. Doubly so in big tech.
| sv123 wrote:
| If everything that Facebook does to maximize profits is legal,
| but some of it is horrible, then we should write new laws to
| make the horrible stuff illegal. If Facebook does things that
| are bad for the world then policymakers should try to make it
| stop.
| tw600040 wrote:
| By all means. But you can't write laws targeting one
| company..
|
| For example.- from what is being discussed - "Requiring
| Facebook to publicly disclose its internal research". --
| either make all companies disclose internal research or none
| of them. You can't just pick and choose.
| oarabbus_ wrote:
| Precisely. Passing legislation regulating all social media
| companies is valid. Targeting a specific company in
| legislation, in addition to not making sense, will quickly
| be struck down by courts.
| some_furry wrote:
| Easy workaround: Any publicly-traded company worth more
| than $1B in total stock.
|
| Now you aren't targeting Facebook, you're targeting all
| wealthy corporations.
| munk-a wrote:
| Why should we not also apply these laws to companies
| worth 100M that are doing the same crap? We gain nothing
| by finely targetting these laws especially if it allows
| some facebook-like clone to enter the market and change
| one minor thing to dodge having the same oversight.
| oarabbus_ wrote:
| I mean, sure, then it isn't targeting a specific company.
| But it baffles me why you'd want to put a Market Cap
| threshold instead of regulating all social media
| companies evenly regardless of size. Your "rule" wouldn't
| have applied to Parler, for example.
| some_furry wrote:
| We need to be careful with regulations. It's good to
| regulate giants, but creating barriers to entry that
| prevent new players from competing with the giants is a
| bad outcome we need to remain cognizant of.
|
| Maybe $1B is too high. Maybe $1M is too low. Somewhere in
| the middle is a sweet spot.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > You can't just pick and choose.
|
| Actually we can just pick and choose. Targeting the largest
| actor has the most effect.
|
| Our court system uses subpoenas all the time to get access
| to important information.
|
| And right now, it seems that facebook has some important
| information that our lawmakers should know.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > But you can't write laws targeting one company..
|
| Why not?
|
| And it's certainly been done in the past, see the history
| of Standard Oil.
| munk-a wrote:
| You can, however, closely examine a company[1] and the
| horrible things they're doing to create sane laws to
| restrict the whole market. Any anti-facebook law will
| probably strongly impact twitter and reddit among others -
| but it still can reasonably affect facebook in the largest
| manner. If it affects facebook in the largest manner
| because we all hate facebook then that's a load of
| horsedung - but it can affect facebook in the largest
| manner because they're doing all the stuff we don't want
| anyone to do.
|
| 1. (formally "a near monopoly" instead of "a company" -
| edited for clarity)
| oarabbus_ wrote:
| >closely examine a near monopoly
|
| Facebook is a near monopoly? In what? Ads? They're not
| even the biggest advertising company, Google is bigger.
|
| "Social media"? There's Twitter, Reddit, Snapchat,
| Tiktok, Tumblr, Youtube and dozens of others.
|
| Can you clarify what you mean by "near-monopoly" in this
| context?
| munk-a wrote:
| I'm sorry - that's the only part of my statement you're
| going to read? The throw away context at the beginning?
|
| I'll remove the mention of it being a near monopoly since
| that's really unnecessary for the main statement.
| oarabbus_ wrote:
| Well yes, alleging a monopoly implies they are running
| afoul of anti-trust laws but the whistleblower is
| alleging FB made false statements to investors. The
| hearing does not have to do with monopolies/antitrust.
| munk-a wrote:
| Hrm - that's fair. I've adjusted my statement to remove
| any mention of monopolies.
| r00fus wrote:
| Government can regulate markets. If Facebook is a monopoly
| then by regulating the market, you regulate FB.
|
| Thoroughly agree all social media should show more
| transparency on the kinds of things FB is alleged to be
| doing.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Why stop at social media? Imagine that 50 years ago, Big
| Tobacco had to disclose its research. Imagine the same for
| Big Oil. Wouldn't that have been a good thing?
|
| Now, you can go too far. You don't want to make every tech
| company disclose their research on, say, improved silicon
| layout algorithms. But if it involves harm to customers or
| the public, yes, they should have to disclose it.
| Qi_ wrote:
| A regulation like that has to be examined for the
| incentives it creates, not just the goal. If companies
| are forced to disclose research that involves customer or
| public harm, they will probably just stop doing the
| research, or fabricate false results. Thus, information
| is lost rather than disclosed. No companies want to say
| "our product is harmful to our customers."
| ensignavenger wrote:
| Do you think if all companies are required to disclose
| such research, that they are still going to conduct it to
| begin with? If they don't already know the answer, they
| will just not ask the questions- just like a trial
| lawyer.
| vijaybritto wrote:
| Yeah that means that the law is inadequate and that a company
| can get away with killing people
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| Whether or not anything here is illegal is for the courts to
| decide. But the hearing is for policymakers. If there's grossly
| disagreeable and unethical conduct then it's up to policymakers
| to create new laws or modify existing laws to prevent these
| things in the future.
|
| This is why hearings like this are important.
| invalidname wrote:
| As a public company they need to disclose information to
| investors which in some cases they didn't disclose. This is a
| SEC violation that might be hard to prove since it's hard to
| say what's OK and isn't.
|
| Also Facebook reps lied to congress which is criminal. The
| studies show they clearly knew a lot more than they were
| admitting to about the impact they had and lied under oath.
| danny_taco wrote:
| The breaking the law bit comes in the form of an accusation to
| the SEC that Facebook misled investors by not disclosing that
| they are in fact not doing everything possible to combat the
| spread of extremism and radicalization through their platform
| as they claimed - that they decided to ignore this because it
| would impact their profits.
|
| Misleading investors is a crime from what I understand, so if
| found guilty on that account, they did break the law. Now, if
| they will be found guilty is another matter. Personally I don't
| think they will even be prosecuted for it.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| >they are in fact not doing everything possible to combat the
| spread of extremism and radicalization through their platform
| as they claimed
|
| The only way they could claim they are doing everything
| possible would be by not having a platform or by reviewing
| every post prior to people seeing it.
| tw600040 wrote:
| One can pick and choose statements like this and put tailored
| spin on it and make any statement a lie. example, Apple says
| this is the best iPhone ever. False , I like the one with
| headphone jack better. Are we going to put all statements by
| all companies to this level of rigor?
| munk-a wrote:
| The statements Facebook is being judged on very well may
| also be too vague for anyone to find real fault - I can't
| tell if there's anything there to specifically prove that
| facebook were directly misleading investors while privately
| chatting about how awesome it is that radicalism drives
| engagement - if there's a memo to that effect they could be
| in real trouble.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| "Best phone" is clearly subjective.
|
| "Doing everything we can" is at least somewhat objective.
| If a contractor says he's painting your house as well as he
| can, when he's actually on vacation in Hawaii, that
| statement is clearly false.
| im3w1l wrote:
| As long as facebook remains online there is a chance that
| someone, somewhere could post something bad. Doing
| everything they can would therefore mean shutting
| facebook down. The literal interpretation is ridiculous
| and no one could believe it. So we have no choice but to
| interpret it as "doing everything _reasonable_ that they
| can ". But what is reasonable? That is where subjectivity
| enters.
| sp332 wrote:
| They probably didn't put that in their 10-K though.
| beaner wrote:
| This feels hollow. These are things that have been obvious to
| everyone for a very long time. We all already talk about it
| openly and have been forever. What does it mean to be a
| "whistleblower" about it?
| ehutch79 wrote:
| Evidence
| gruez wrote:
| How many legislators refusing to act because of the lack of
| evidence?
| aaomidi wrote:
| It increases the pressure to act.
| beaner wrote:
| Of what? We've had evidence forever, it's public and
| understood. It's in our addictions, unhappiness, and
| politicization of everything. We all know where it comes from
| and we all know that companies are profit-driven. There are
| literally no secrets being revealed.
| satellite2 wrote:
| The fundamentaly new aspect of her revelation is the extent
| of FB awareness of the situation, that they have evidence
| that some previously tested minor modifications to their
| algorithm could reduce public harm and disinformation, but
| choose not to do so as it would hurt their profit. As the
| company has obligations to its shareholders to increase
| profit whenever possible, it has a conflict of interest
| making it impossible for them to choose the best option for
| the public good.
|
| So it's really like auto makers not providing more than the
| minimal set of safety feature required by regulators.
|
| We know that the only way to reduce said harm is by
| realigning incentives which requires involving the
| legislator.
| [deleted]
| sharklazer wrote:
| Definitely not a "whistleblower"... more like FB-insider
| political operative.
| yonaguska wrote:
| Agreed. Psaki is already citing this "whistleblower" to argue
| for more government oversight in censorship.
|
| > Psaki was asked about Haugen's interview and whether the
| revelations "change the way the White House thinks about
| regulating Facebook and other social media giants."
|
| "This is just the latest in a series of revelations about
| social media platforms," Psaki said, "that make clear that
| self-regulation is not working. That's long been the
| president's view and been the view of the administration."
|
| https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/jen-psaki-says-facebook-wh...
|
| Here comes the regulatory capture that Facebook has been
| begging for.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Every whistleblower is a political operative. And that word
| isn't a negative word.
| yonaguska wrote:
| In this case, I agree. She's represented by the same PR firm
| that Psaki used to work for and is represented by the same
| law firm that Eric Ciaramella used.
| yonaguska wrote:
| Snowden?
| [deleted]
| Gunax wrote:
| I think this all just a continuation of how society wants
| everything safe and made of foam. We cannot have danger at the
| park because someone might scrape a knee. We cannot have contact
| sports because someone might break a tooth. And we cannot have
| uncensored internet because someone might reqd something that
| wasn't Snopes-approved.
|
| Most infuriating to me is that now it's about coddling teens. I
| didn't want to be coddled as a teen. I wanted to be respected. I
| wanted to be free of patronizing zealots. Oddly, Zuckerberg was a
| teenager himself when he started the damn thing.
|
| Teens have rights too, as much as we adults want to deny them.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| People are being fed deliberate poisonous stupidity because
| Facebook figured they were vulnerable to it or rather
| implemented an algorithm that maximized engagement and
| therefore revenue at the expense of the health of society and
| people's lives.
|
| You are trivializing this harm. I have family that aren't
| vaccinating and may harm themselves or others because of
| poisonous shit they learned on Facebook.
| anovikov wrote:
| Sadly, best thing these regulations could achieve is making
| Facebook work "worse", that is, not as invasive/addictive and
| thus not as harmful, and enable some competition.
|
| I can't expect that in a democratic society the very root of the
| problem with social media - that free speech worked well only in
| times when printing a pamphlet required some money, connections
| and education and set a high social and intellectual threshold
| for doing so, and simply does NOT make any benefit to the society
| when ANYONE can post on Facebook. Just as democracy itself stops
| working when everyone can vote, becoming a snake that eats it's
| own tail.
|
| Sadly, this will eventually result in end of the Western world as
| we know it and there is nothing we can do.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Free speech on the internet worked fine before companies
| developed algorithms to feed you content that made them the
| most $$. I would also say there's a problem in traditional
| media - something shared with social media.
|
| Outrage sells. We have a bunch of people walking around being
| angry about shit that is never gonna change, politicians don't
| give two fucks about (except it gets you to vote for them), and
| _all_ media are laughing to the bank because of the engagement
| it drives.
| munk-a wrote:
| > Free speech on the internet worked fine before companies
| developed algorithms to feed you content that made them the
| most $$.
|
| Free speech on the internet worked fine back before everyone
| was on the internet - I don't think it's easy to tell if the
| shift was solely due to companies coming along with echo
| chamber algorithms or if it's an issue with most people not
| being able to handle being anonymous by default. I'm not
| trying to say it's definitely one way or the other (or some
| other way I can't recognize) - but I think we've got a very
| murky study with a lot of confounding variables.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Just as democracy itself stops working when everyone can vote
|
| Um, what now? Are you saying universal suffrage is a bad thing?
| Who are the people you think should be denied voting rights to
| keep "democracy itself...working"?
| OGforces wrote:
| Yeah that gave me pause as well. Just says it like it's a
| well known tenet of American political thought.
| cwp wrote:
| Uh, children? Non-citizens?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Often people cite people who are not interested and/or not
| following politics and cannot make an informed decision.
|
| That is the central debate around forced voting.
| anovikov wrote:
| Immovable property owners who are able to extract rents
| sufficient for independence from government. That is, back to
| pre-Jacksonian era. Of course, there is no way to get it done
| because it's a catch-22: people won't vote to resign their
| voting rights, this is why i believe collapse is imminent.
|
| Just like "communism" (Soviet "socialism") stopped working
| when variety of goods in demand became so large, and life
| cycles of products became so short, that centralised planning
| no longer had any chance not to mismanage it - that is,
| simply due to technological change, or in communist terms,
| "progress of means of production", democracy seems to stop
| working when free speech becomes really, really free.
|
| I'd go on to say that, as a broad generalisation, rights and
| liberties of the Western world that we value so much are
| valuable and positively contribute to society only as long as
| they can _in reality_ be only used by elites.
|
| Sadly, concept of human rights (late XVIII century) largely
| preceded industrialisation, and thus the prospect of
| exponential economic growth that will some day make
| "universal" rights REALLY "universal" - evaded imagination of
| their inventors. They saw those rights, as a matter of
| course, as "universal for people like themselves", just as
| they didn't think of them as pertaining to women - not
| because they were especially sexist, but because it just
| didn't cross their minds...
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> Who are the people you think should be denied voting
| rights to keep "democracy itself...working"?
|
| > Immovable property owners who are able to extract rents
| sufficient for independence from government. That is, back
| to pre-Jacksonian era. Of course, there is no way to get it
| done because it's a catch-22: people won't vote to resign
| their voting rights, this is why i believe collapse is
| imminent.
|
| Did you answer the inverse of my question? It sounds like
| you think only wealthy property owners should have the
| right to vote (e.g. something like the pre-Jacksonian era
| franchise), is that correct?
| anovikov wrote:
| Yes, or something like that. People who can be expected
| to be responsible (they have a lot to lose) and who will
| never come to depend on the government, but rather,
| government will always depend on them.
|
| Expanding suffrage to people who depend on the government
| rather than other way around is easy to explain
| (populism: "let me create millions of new voters, they
| will be super happy and all vote for me"), but
| destructive and impossible to undo. And we are at the
| tail end of it now when all these people not just vote,
| but can also make use of free speech...
|
| Of course, there could be in theory a multitude of ways
| to fix it, not just by limiting suffrage (like poll tax
| for example), but all of them unrealistic.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> It sounds like you think only wealthy property owners
| should have the right to vote...
|
| > Yes, or something like that....
|
| > And we are at the tail end of it now when all these
| people not just vote, but can also make use of free
| speech...
|
| Do you also think it's a bad thing for people who aren't
| wealthy property owners to have free speech rights as
| well?
| carabiner wrote:
| Polarization was lower when TV political coverage was
| regulated. Regulation of media can work. The thing is, TV
| wasn't algo driven. Facebook is a WMD for misinformation, it's
| just devastatingly effective, capable of toppling (or raising)
| governments and should have special rules.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"Polarization was lower when TV political coverage was
| regulated."
|
| Cynically speaking, if you are able to control the narrative
| it stands to reason that there would be less polarization
| simply because you are manipulating what the public is being
| told.
|
| "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to
| strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow
| very lively debate within that spectrum...." -- Noam Chomsky,
| The Common Good
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Polarization was lower when TV political coverage was
| regulated.
|
| No, it wasn't.
|
| _Partisan_ polarization may have been, but only because the
| divide between the major parties didn 't capture the major
| salient ideological divisions in the country, so that the
| polarization that existed didn't align with partisan
| identity.
|
| This had nothing to do with TV regulation (and, indeed,
| _predates TV_ ), and everything to do with the long period of
| partisan realignment between the New Deal and the mid-1990s.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Not to mention, the cold war, the external threat, which
| was widely accepted. Once the wall fell, that unifying
| factor disappeared.
| megaman821 wrote:
| There is a direct contradiction to this in recent history.
| The Iraq War started before Facebook was a thing. The false
| story about WMDs as pretense to the war was widely circulated
| by traditional media. 15,000 US soliders and 500,000 Iraqis
| were killed. The most comparable thing attributed to Facebook
| is the Myanmar coup where around 800 people were killed.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| We also spent trillions on endless wars, sacrificed our own
| to the tens of thousands, and others to the millions.
|
| These wars stopped with social media. They can't possibly
| happen if everybody has a voice and can call BS when they see
| it.
|
| If you start to regulate media this way, you will destroy
| this and we will tumble head-in to yet another war.
| munk-a wrote:
| We literally just ended our last war just over a month ago
| - I think it's a bit too early to celebrate how much of a
| peace loving society we have become. The war contractors
| were milking Afganistan for decades and haven't needed a
| new target - let's see if we can go for a year at peace
| before we declare pacifism achieved.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| We haven't declared any wars in the past five years
| either.
|
| Administrations used to hiding bad failures can no longer
| do so.
|
| You can't have another Nayirah testimony if everybody is
| gonna point out what a lie it all is online.
| [deleted]
| zestyping wrote:
| I strongly recommend you give this your time and attention. Two
| things I find striking and admirable about her testimony, that
| absolutely make it worth watching even if you are already
| familiar with the controversy:
|
| 1. She is consistent and focused at explaining the issue as a
| systemic problem with incentives, not a question of good people
| versus evil people.
|
| 2. She is skillfully demonstrating how to deliver strong
| criticism without scorn but rather with empathy, compassion, and
| a spirit of collaboration toward all involved.
|
| These qualities are what really set this apart from other
| criticism of social media, and both are incredibly important and
| healthy in a world where Facebook and Twitter have normalized the
| opposite.
|
| And as a result, to my astonishment, both Republicans and
| Democrats are engaging with this more intelligently, patiently,
| and constructively than I have ever seen. It really has to be
| seen to be believed.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| asabjorn wrote:
| It is significant that she is advocating for censorship of
| "hate speech". Considering that she donated to "critical social
| justice" activists [1], the increased centralized censorship
| she asks for is most likely another step to censor dissenters
| to critical social justice. This is neither measured nor
| moderate.
|
| Facebook already apply heavy censorship in a way that is
| arguably driving a lot of suspicion and division. Their content
| "supreme court" is currently largely staffed with establishment
| democrats [3].
|
| "Hate speech" [2] as defined by critical social justice
| adherents could refer to anything that doesn't proceed from a
| critical consciousness, i.e., that which accords with critical
| theories, especially those for "Social Justice," possibly
| including microaggressions.
|
| That the GOP and DNC establishment are in alignment to censor
| dissenter in both ranks is not surprising. That being "Bernie
| bros", "Yang gang", "Trumpians", or any other flank.
|
| [1] https://thenationalpulse.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-
| don...
|
| [2] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-hate-speech/
|
| [3] https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/05/06/facebook-
| supreme-c...
| Minor49er wrote:
| These activists and programs work to serve the interests of
| people who identify as trans. Haugen is a transwoman, so is
| that really surprising?
| asabjorn wrote:
| For all I know Haugen is not trans. But even if she was
| that doesn't preclude her from not being a critical social
| justice (CRT) activist, so that is not the most significant
| fact.
|
| What she is aiming for by censorship of "hate speech" is
| CRT defined "inclusion" [1]. This means to not tolerate any
| speech (including symbolic displays or representation) that
| offends, might offend, or could be construed as being
| potentially offensive to any member of any marginalized
| group.
|
| Members of putatively marginalized groups [2] who do not
| claim to experience or suffer from the oppression critical
| social justice activists assign to them are dismissed as
| inauthentic.
|
| So in the end inclusion by censoring "hate speech" is a
| tool to ensure censorship of _any_ opposing viewpoint.
|
| [1] https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-inclusion/ [2]
| https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-marginalization/
| jmcgough wrote:
| Haugen is not transgender, I'm not sure where you're
| getting that from.
| comfysocks wrote:
| I too am against hate speech (who isn't?), yet that doesn't
| mean I am for taking prohibition of hate speech to absurd
| extremes.
|
| I'm also against child pornography (who isn't?), yet I am
| against those that use fear of child pornography as a smoke
| screen for mass surveillance.
|
| No need to paint Haugen as an extremist by loose
| associations.
| mandis wrote:
| disheartening to see this downvoted. I come here for
| relatively neutral discussions.
| chalst wrote:
| I didn't downvote asabjorn's comment, although I found it
| weak (e.g., "critical social justice" is a rhetorical
| portmanteau that does not have a determinate meaning [1]:
| it's a term to be avoided if you want curious
| conversation), but I did downvote yours. If you want to
| support a viewpoint, actually argue for its legitimacy.
| Downvoting comments that you think are not good for the
| site is perfectly legitimate, but contentless whining is a
| waste of time.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_d
| eletio...
| kordlessagain wrote:
| They are making strawman arguments and, for some, this is
| completely obvious.
| asabjorn wrote:
| How is my argument a strawman?
| kordlessagain wrote:
| Begin by defining a strawman argument.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| ... and you're mad that someone whose sources are far-right
| tabloids is getting downvoted?
| jmeister wrote:
| You can easily find mainstream sources for those claims.
| Maybe parent doesn't want to direct traffic to such
| sites.
| ctrlp wrote:
| New Discourses is not far right
| bobthechef wrote:
| Discussion is generally favorable over war, as long as the
| truth isn't being sacrificed for the sake of avoiding
| accusations. To say that Facebook hasn't been engaged in bad
| behavior is, I think, a bit of a stretch though. "Systemic" can
| be used in the same way that bureaucracies do to avoid
| responsibility: no one is responsible for the actual state of
| affairs personally, at least that's the claim. But ol' Zuck has
| been aware of many problems, grilled over them, etc, etc, so
| we're not dealing with innocent people here if there is any
| guilt here. I am not making accusations, but if I were feeling
| the heat, I might go into damage control and maybe "allow" a
| sympathetic whistleblower to steer change in a way that softens
| the outcome.
| adventured wrote:
| It is an impressive performance on her part. She successfully
| navigated several primitive attempts by senators to frame the
| intent of people at Facebook as malevolent. A typical
| politician move to try to create a fictionalized supervillain
| to attack - a vapid rhetoric path. She dodged that multiple
| times and directed the conversation back to the substantive
| issues of privacy, algorithms, content.
| comfysocks wrote:
| At work, we're trained to examine the _whole_ trade space with
| no forgone conclusions. To make trade studies rationally, not
| emotionally. To consider the needs of all relevant stake
| holders, not just your favorite cohort.
|
| Imagine if political discourse could be like that.
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