[HN Gopher] As teens left Facebook, it planned to target 6-year-...
___________________________________________________________________
As teens left Facebook, it planned to target 6-year-olds, documents
show
Author : samizdis
Score : 360 points
Date : 2021-11-01 17:40 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| rangoon626 wrote:
| Some of ArsTechnica writing staff has also targeted 6-year-olds,
| so please spare me.
| fumar wrote:
| I can't wait to see how https://stratechery.com will defend this
| as a good perspective for Meta or FB. I studied Philip Morris for
| a paper in undergrad. PM played their fiddle perfectly to the
| tune of "we didn't know enough to be directly and intentionally
| wrong." It mirrors Facebook's attempts to be good and let the bad
| happen while creating smoke and mirrors for the media and
| government.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| With enough studies, any narrative can be constructed and
| supported.
|
| Only with access to _all_ study results can one get an
| objective viewpoint.
|
| That's the seduction of industry-funded and -controlled
| studies, and why we don't accept it as a practice in most
| places anymore.
|
| Congress should subpoena all Facebook's internal research
| efforts.
| dntrkv wrote:
| Know about what? What exactly do you think they're hiding?
| antiterra wrote:
| I mean they could basically point out that Messenger Kids is a
| great product and has been extremely useful for connecting kids
| to friends and family (while allowing parental supervision.)
| You know, kids who, before this month, couldn't even get
| vaccinated against COVID.
| sjtindell wrote:
| I like this comparison.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Exxon et al too
| randomopining wrote:
| "Candy companies plan to lure 6 year olds."
| albertopv wrote:
| These people is sick, I can't find another reason to go after 6yo
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Money.
| bob229 wrote:
| Facebook is evil and if you use it you enable it. Delete your
| account now
| [deleted]
| hsnewman wrote:
| Why does our society allow for a company like this to exist?
| motherzucker wrote:
| "In contemporary America, children must be trained to
| insatiable consumption of impulsive choice and infinite
| variety...So it is with the child versus the gross national
| product: what individual child is more important than the gross
| national product?"[1]
|
| FB is the pinnacle of advertising.
|
| Without advertising, American society could not social engineer
| insatiable consumerism, and therefore could not achieve
| infinite growth.
|
| Big Ads is what keep the Ponzi scheme from collapsing.
|
| [1]Culture Against Man, Chapter 3: Advertising as a
| Philosophical System, by Jules Henry (1963)
| goatlover wrote:
| Because enough people in society want the services the company
| offers. There's almost 2.9 billion FB users in the world.
| ferdowsi wrote:
| People who continue to work Facebook at are going to face tough
| questions not just from current-day peers, but from future
| generations about why they willingly continued to work for such a
| company when there were no shortage of other opportunities
| available to them. At this point, engineers have to weigh the
| ability to work on "cool technical problems" at FB vs the serious
| risk of historical/reputational stain on one's legacy.
| fallingknife wrote:
| I think it will be more like someone who worked on the violent
| video games that were "ruining" the children back in the 90s.
| goatlover wrote:
| Or all those evil, "devil-worshipping" heavy rockers, and the
| the back-masking records. Or like when Bart Simpson said,
| "Eat my shorts" for the first time, and how that was teaching
| kids disrespect. Which is truly hilarious now given the many
| years of Family Guy, South Park and other adult cartoon
| shows.
| [deleted]
| lhorie wrote:
| I disagree. This comment seems to come from the idea that work
| defines you, but that doesn't generalize at all. Family and
| friends hearing that you work at FB will almost alway only
| think about the prestige/money angle.
|
| I work at Uber, another company whose leadership historically
| made some very questionable decisions, and not once did I ever
| get holier-than-thou crap from acquaintances. And even if I
| did, I have enough internal perspective to appropriately call
| BS or disregard people who think parroting 5 year old articles
| constitutes having an educated opinion on the company today.
|
| Another similar example is Microsoft. They were demonized
| extremely heavily a decade or two ago, but these days, claiming
| that working there is a reputational stain would be pretty
| laughable. LinkedIn, Groupon, AirBnb, etc all had negative
| press at one point or another. But if you work in any of those,
| the most common reaction is "Oh, cool!"
| sabas123 wrote:
| If we assume that "evilness" or what ever metric we use to
| shame FB employees is transitive, is it really possible to work
| in a way that is significantly better?
| jdavis703 wrote:
| People could apply this same reasoning to folks who work for
| the US federal government. Or defense contractors. Or fossil
| fuel companies. Thing is, I think very few people would see
| "Chevron" on someone's resume and refuse to hire them (aside
| from maybe environmental organizations).
| rightbyte wrote:
| > People could apply this same reasoning to folks who work
| for the US federal government. Or defense contractors.
|
| People making weapons are not smug do-gooders. It is pretty
| clear what a gun or cigarette does to people.
|
| > Or fossil fuel companies.
|
| Views move slowly. Hopefully Facebook will be viewed as the
| asbesthos or lobotomy of the early 21st century.
| Unklejoe wrote:
| "They paid me $400k a year whereas the median income in the US
| was like $30k a year" would be enough for a lot of people to
| forgive you for the egregious crime of working for Facebook.
| cronix wrote:
| Yeah, no one ever looks down at people, or companies, that
| put their own personal interests (money) above that of
| society.
| smabie wrote:
| I mean people might do look down on it, but they're
| hypocritics: pretty much everyone puts their own interests
| ahead of other people/society.
| Frondo wrote:
| I don't mean this to be snarky, but this sounds like
| someone who has no family, no kids, never been in a
| serious relationship. Once you're committed to one or
| more other people, you're pretty much putting their
| interests ahead of yours most of the day. If my friends
| who are parents are to be trusted, their kids are their
| priority in every substantial decision they make.
|
| Also, it's surprisingly cynical to say that people don't
| put their interests above society -- most of the people I
| know have taken on work and hobbies that don't maximize
| their personal gain, because they'd rather improve
| society somewhat.
| bigfudge wrote:
| I just don't think that's true. Some people scrupulously
| pay taxes, but others don't and push the line as hard as
| possible. There's real variation in people's willingness
| to 'defect' from the public good.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| "They paid me $400k a year when similar companies for similar
| positions paid me $320k" is a very different story.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| people who believe drugs should be legal will work as
| guards at prisons locking up non-violent drug offenders for
| a lot less money. As a misanthrope I think you expect too
| much of your fellow humans if you expect a good grasp of
| ethics.
| klyrs wrote:
| Those guards can have their cake and eat it too: help
| smuggle drugs into the prison, charge a premium handling
| fee.
| kadoban wrote:
| Software devs, on average, have many more choices for
| where to work than prison guards do.
| tshaddox wrote:
| $80k a year is still a big raise even from $320k. But the
| bigger issue is that in most cases it wouldn't be easy to
| establish high confidence that the company offering the
| $320k salary is significantly _less bad_ for the world than
| Facebook is (for whatever one 's own definitions may be for
| _" bad"_).
| door103 wrote:
| I'd be interested in what tech companies pay $320k and
| aren't ethically dubious
| gpm wrote:
| Ethically I felt pretty good working at Rubrik (data
| backup company), as my first job out of university my
| total comp was >50% of that, I'm sure the senior people
| (who would be making $400k at facebook) are making that
| much.
| gmadsen wrote:
| the vast majority of people are not knowledgeable about
| where a facebook employee could or couldn't work and for
| how much.
|
| The only people that will judge are other swe
| whymauri wrote:
| Until you tell them that there's other companies willing to
| match or nearly match that compensation for seniors...
|
| https://www.levels.fyi/
| tharne wrote:
| 30k is not the median income in the U.S. and there are plenty
| of ways to make a decent living without working for FaceBook.
| You can make a very nice living as a developer working for
| non-tech companies. Or, if you prefer not working in front of
| a computer, you can make quite a bit driving a forklift or
| working as a plumber.
| robocat wrote:
| "The U.S. Census Bureau lists the annual real median
| personal income at $35,977 in 2019"
|
| Calling it $30k is wrong, but not very wrong.
|
| Also note: "The U.S. Census Bureau also reports the median
| income for each family. In 2019, it was $86,011."
|
| (Note I didn't double check numbers above, they were just
| the first I found from Google results).
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| $35k includes children, retirees and other people who
| don't work for whatever reason.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Median full-time worker weekly pay projected on an annual
| (52 week) basis for Q3 2021 is $52,156 (52 x $1,003).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Note that "family" for income statistics means a
| household of two or more people who have relations from
| specified set between members, so that median family
| income is kind of like median household income, except
| that it excludes all single-member households as well as
| multimember non-family households (who are typically
| living together to save money), so it is biased strongly
| upward compared to similar household stats.
| celim307 wrote:
| If you make 400k at fb you can make 300-350k at other tech
| giants, who are not perfect but not as comically evil as fb
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| So, that's a 25% pay cut. What makes you think that people
| who make 400k can afford to take a 25% pay cut?
| idrios wrote:
| The criticisms towards FB are definitely warranted, but I'd
| argue that other tech giants are on the same level.
| Facebook was just the only one that openly picked a fight
| with _the entirety of traditional media_ who have massive
| resources and experience in manipulating public opinion, so
| bad or gray area things that Facebook does get amplified
| more than they would were it another company.
| laserlight wrote:
| Other tech giants are definitely not on the same level.
| Facebook is the only one which directly profits from
| manipulating people.
| rightbyte wrote:
| In what way are e.g. Netflix and MS evil on a level even
| close to Facebook?
|
| Netflix has to be some saint in comparison. MS just now
| is starting to be a wanna-be Googlesque spy and has a
| history of screwing _competitors_ over, not the people in
| general.
| idrios wrote:
| Netflix is a saint, I'll agree with you. Microsoft less
| so. They had market dominance in the 90's and got hit
| with antitrust for, e.g. preventing users from
| uninstalling and replacing internet explorer. I remember
| reading that the only thing this changed about their
| behavior was they started donating more to political
| campaigns.
|
| The real offense is that it's been 20 years since then
| and congress hasn't trust busted any of these companies
| that have committed way more egregious sins. Apple has
| your device locked down such that you can't get an app on
| your own phone unless it's been approved by them. The
| charger changes every few years so you need to buy a new
| one, and iphone screens crack notoriously easily. Google
| and Facebook are competing for who can collect more data
| on users, but Google's more entrenched by providing
| services that people _need_ to use like email, search,
| internet browsers, maps, a phone. Facebook 's trying to
| have a monopoly over your online social life.
|
| Microsoft's brand is strongly B2B, which is lucky for
| them because businesses 1. have a lot of money to spend
| on your service, and 2. are unlikely to make very public
| critical statements about you the way an average Joe
| consumer would. It's a great position so they're doing
| everything they can stay entrenched. It makes sense that
| their biggest sins are in being anticompetitive; they hit
| the jackpot and are trying not to share it.
| skyfaller wrote:
| Frankly I think that there will be a cultural divide, just as
| we have pro-covid and anti-covid camps today (due in part to
| Facebook's algorithmic amplification of disinformation). Many
| will say "actually, surveillance targeting children is good",
| "actually, social networks that promote genocide are good",
| "actually, lying about your numbers and destroying entire
| industries that rely on your numbers is good", etc. Some
| entities and people will take a stand, and some will proudly
| hire anyone who seems in danger of experiencing consequences.
|
| In order for Facebook engineers to be judged by future
| generations:
|
| - there would have to be future generations
|
| - they would have to have accurate information about what
| Facebookers have done
|
| - they would have to live in functioning democracies where
| accountability is possible
|
| The result of Facebook/Meta's efforts, intentional or not, will
| be to prevent any of these eventualities from coming to pass.
| lexpar wrote:
| Are you actually saying that Facebook is working to prevent
| _future generations of humanity_ from existing? I can't
| imagine how you expect people to take you seriously.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| I totally agree, but why does it take hurting kids to be the
| line.
|
| With the agency most tech workers have, the behaviour of their
| employers really reflects on on the employee.
| [deleted]
| seaman1921 wrote:
| > no shortage of other opportunities available to them
|
| well clearly there aren't better opportunities because no one
| is loyal like that - they would have obviously quit if there
| were better opportunities.
| duderific wrote:
| This disregards the effect of inertia. Looking for a job is a
| lot of extra work that must be undertaken in the context of
| already having a job - working around schedules, interviewing
| etc. It is simply easier to continue working at the same job,
| so I don't think you can say "they would have obviously quit
| if there were better opportunities."
|
| Edit: sp
| FourHand451 wrote:
| I hope you're right, but to me that sounds like the probable
| outcome in a world that is more just than the one we live in. A
| big organization leaves a lot of room to deny hands-on
| involvement with the more unsavory stuff that's going on, and
| on a purely technical level former Facebook engineers still
| have skills that will be valuable to future employers.
|
| I do not equate Facebook engineers with actual Nazis, but what
| seems more likely to happen to me is something analogous to the
| "Clean Wermacht" myth. I think anyone who isn't directly and
| publicly implicated in especially egregious actions is going to
| have all the deniability and technical skill they need to
| remain an attractive hire in most cases.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht
| fleddr wrote:
| Not at all. To an employer, having FB on your resume is a
| positive from a professional point of view.
|
| As for peers, what exactly is your obligation to them?
| gremloni wrote:
| lol at demonizing facebook in a world with real life cartoon
| villains running around.
| avree wrote:
| Hey, my middle name is your username! Neat. Anyways, the pearl-
| clutching around "working for bad companies" is pretty
| misplaced. Every major company has things they do that are bad;
| Google, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft to name a
| few are companies that regularly perpetrate evil daily. People
| need to work to earn a living, the idea that "they can easily
| just get a job somewhere else!" is a fallacy.
| lowkey_ wrote:
| > People need to work to earn a living, the idea that "they
| can easily just get a job somewhere else!" is a fallacy.
|
| Do you know anyone at FB? I know several engineers at FB, and
| it's a fallacy to think they can't easily get offers from
| many top startups, and other FAANG companies.
| avree wrote:
| Yes, I know many people at FB. I wasn't saying they aren't
| talented enough to work with other FAANG companies; if you
| read my entire comment I'm saying that every company has
| things you can be morally outraged about, so unless you
| want to cycle through seed-round stage startups every 6
| months, you're probably going to run into some things
| you're not a fan of in your career as an engineer.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| subsubzero wrote:
| FB interview standards are extremely high. People who work
| there, probably about 95% of them could work at any other
| tech company if they choose to. What keeps a majority of the
| people there I would assume is 2 things,
|
| #1. The pay is very close to top in the industry,
| hedgefunds/netflix pay usually more.
|
| #2. Getting to work on products/features that are used by
| millions and sometimes billions of users, not many companies
| can offer that to a candidate.
|
| I personally am hounded by their recruiters but will never
| work there due to moral objections about their leadership and
| their companies effect on society. That being said I am not
| judging people for working there, everyone has a free choice
| to make and some people may not have my convictions and there
| are many great people who do work there.
| avree wrote:
| Yes, that is the point I was attempting to make. These
| people are talented enough to work anywhere, but could they
| make the same pay? Is it guaranteed they won't run into
| something as morally troubling to them, such as
| Microsoft/Google's partnerships with ICE and aggressive
| seeking of defensive contracts, for example?
| CyanBird wrote:
| > Every major company has things they do that are bad
|
| I am sorry, but funding random shows that people might not
| like as Netflix does is quite below the "evilness" meter of
| setting up ways to target 6 year Olds.....
|
| The fact that you are even trying to equate these as being
| anywhere the same, at least in my eyes strongly strongly
| undermines your capacity to make moral judgments
| ta20211004_1 wrote:
| Google "Netflix Kids".
| avree wrote:
| What level of moral outrage should cause someone to want to
| quit their job? Does Microsoft's repeated contracts with
| ICE count? Netflix's ads for content like "Cuties" showing
| children "twerking" and doing other sexual provocative
| poses (plus the current strikes from their trans employees
| and their handling of it)?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Then don't work for a "major company". There are hundreds -
| nay, tens of thousands - of other companies; heck, just
| Facebook alone has over a dozen _household-name_ competitors.
| mbesto wrote:
| > People need to work to earn a living,
|
| "Tragedy of the commons" much?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
|
| > the idea that "they can easily just get a job somewhere
| else!" is a fallacy.
|
| Actually in today's tech driven world, this isn't hyperbole.
| There are more than enough opportunities for talented
| technologists to find opportunities outside of Facebook.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| And most of those opportunities are just as bad, as the
| person you were replying to pointed out.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Not in a negative-impact-on-society kind of way
| mbesto wrote:
| Not really. Facebook's disinformation capabilities are
| far worse than Apple's or Googles. Key differentiation
| example - Apple doesn't have an algorithm that bubbles up
| iMessages in the interface.
|
| Even then, I'm not evening actually alluding to those
| companies - I'm talking about other tech start-ups,
| smaller companies, etc.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| "other tech start-ups, smaller companies, etc." tend to
| pay significantly less than Facebook.
| mbesto wrote:
| _significantly less_
|
| I can't take your comments seriously anymore. This isn't
| true by any stretch of the definition of "significantly
| less". Please do some basic research:
| https://www.glassdoor.com/research/jobs-companies-2019/
| marcellus23 wrote:
| There's a huge number of companies out there that are not as
| evil as those big ones. And even among those big ones, there
| are obvious choices for ones that are more or less bad, to
| anyone with principles. And yes, it is pretty easy to find a
| job somewhere else if you have Google or Netflix on your
| resume.
|
| "every company does bad things and therefore they're all
| equally bad, phew, now I don't have to leave my cushy $300K
| FAANG job where I push microtransactions to little kids" is
| not very convincing.
|
| It comes down to greed and prestige; that's all.
| 1024core wrote:
| > There's a huge number of companies out there that are not
| as evil as those big ones.
|
| Facebook didn't start off targeting 6yos. Once you go
| public, you're on a treadmill to keep delivering profits
| for Wall Street. So who's to say that the new startup you
| join will continue to be this angel who does no evil?
| MiguelX413 wrote:
| Who's to say that you have to stay at the new startup you
| join if they start going that direction too?
| kodah wrote:
| Personally, I don't find it that easy to get another job as an
| engineer so I'd be very careful with that logic.
|
| For reference, I'm a dropout and therefore struggle with
| abstract algorithm problems like the ones they dump on you to
| solve in 30-60 minutes in interviews. I certainly can solve
| them, just not in that kind of timeframe, but that is now a
| common expectation in order to achieve a certain level of
| (mostly unrelated) problem solving and income.
| notyourwork wrote:
| I've not seen engineers coming from advertisement space get
| chastised, why is Facebook a special case of this?
| spicyramen wrote:
| I totally agree. I know people that work in different areas,
| but their salaries are mainly paid by Ads money. To me is like
| working for Nazi party and saying you were only working in
| poster ink technology...
| xwdv wrote:
| If this is what prevents someone from considering a job at
| Facebook they're a fool. This day of judgement will never come.
| Future generations have potential to be just as egregious,
| maybe even more so than today's generation of engineers. _They
| might even invent something even worse than Facebook, and we'll
| look back at today as the good old days._ The only questions
| that will be asked is how did they make so much money and what
| advice do they have for replicating such success.
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| The entire boomer generation already is facing questions.
| Doctors will be prosecuted like the Nuremberg trials for these
| vaccines they're forcing on people... Things are still just
| warming up!
| [deleted]
| tombert wrote:
| This hasn't really played out historically has it? Goldman
| Sachs (as a corporation) did a lot of bad leading up to the
| 2008 financial crash, and yet we continue to hire ex-engineers
| from there.
|
| I used to work for Apple, but they didn't really ask my advice
| on how they should charge people on the app store, or how they
| should make it difficult to repair the phone, or how they
| should throttle phones if the batteries get worse. I was just a
| mediocre software engineer working a mediocre job that paid
| relatively well. Should I be blamed for all the problems listed
| out before if I didn't contribute to any of them directly?
|
| Maybe, and I do think there is an argument to be made for that,
| but I don't think that's how most people think. Most people are
| relatively happy to blame the executives of a company with an
| understanding that regular salaried workers are more or less
| stuck with what they're doing.
| DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote:
| For some reason everyone likes to blame Goldman for the 2008
| crash, but no one wants to blame themselves for getting over-
| leveraged by buying 3 houses.
|
| Everyone likes to blame Facebook, but no one wants to blame
| themselves when they're one of the 2.8 billion using
| Facebook.
|
| Everyone likes to blame oil companies, but they drive cars
| and have plastic all around them. I worked at an oil company
| for a few years. I sat near the environmental engineers who
| were doing their best to make it clean as possible. HN
| readers want to hate oil workers for doing their jobs but
| then turns around and still demands cheap oil.
| namdnay wrote:
| And then the oil companies turn around and sponsor someone
| like Greg Abbott, and you realise "oh yes, they are face-
| eating leopards after all"
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I wonder how frequently this "stain" impacts people in
| practice. I've got some defense contractors on my resume. I
| suppose some people might flinch on that, but I've never felt
| like I had a problem getting work or growing my career.
|
| I suspect it might be like that. A small percentage of people
| would nix you, but you would never know. Compared to something
| like the porn industry, which I've heard is death to a resume.
| RationPhantoms wrote:
| No they won't. Just like the employees at Dow Chemical Company
| who helped manufacturer Agent Orange or White Phosphorous, they
| won't get questioned.
| BurpIntruder wrote:
| They already are. We rarely hire former facebook engineers
| anymore. They cost too much, most of them have done very little
| interesting work and of the FAANG companies, they are by far
| the most entitled.
| tester756 wrote:
| Because if they wouldn't, then I'd do that, as simple as that.
|
| Then retire after 5 years
|
| edit.
|
| Or maybe quit to other faang after years
| _3u10 wrote:
| Unlikely.
|
| Regarding peers, first, if it becomes an issue just take it off
| your resume. Second, don't work with those people. Go somewhere
| else that pays well and work with other mercs instead of people
| working for free soda to save the whales.
|
| As to future generations, as long as you take responsibility
| for it your grandkids will think it's pretty bad ass.
|
| Kids: Grandpa, what did you do for work?
|
| Grandpappy: Well, kids, let me tell you about the time that
| grandpappy came up with this algorithm that reduced obesity in
| America by several points and made millions doing it. Big Ag
| wasn't happy about it, but dietpills.com loved it.
|
| Kids: Legend.
| strict9 wrote:
| When I've gone to tech conferences over the years, I've heard
| talks given by fb/instagram devs about the problems they're
| working on, and the tools they've created to do it.
|
| On one level it seems very alluring--pay, technical challenges,
| being at the cutting edge of new technology. But for me those
| points can't counteract the role fb has in society and what
| people generally think of the company.
|
| Culture is important, and it starts at the top.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| When you retire, with very few exceptions, nothing you did in
| your working life will be remembered by anyone but yourself.
| So it's important that you be content with it. That
| realization has taken a while to hit me, and it's growing
| into a desire to retire early so I can do things that are
| personally rewarding and are not just goals on someone else's
| project plan.
| buitreVirtual wrote:
| True, for the most part. But your family and friends will
| remember, and not kindly, if you worked for FB.
| [deleted]
| mise_en_place wrote:
| That I very much doubt. The average outrage timer is 48
| hours, then everybody forgets and jumps to a new
| controversy. As for Facebook, many of my relatives still
| use it, either indirectly through WhatsApp or Instagram,
| or directly. Maybe my technically minded friends would
| care if I worked for Facebook, but even then those are
| far and few between. I barely remember my coworkers from
| 10 years ago.
| genewitch wrote:
| A few counterpoints. The average outrage may be 48 hours,
| but I am sure the median is much higher. I'll boycott
| nestle and Samsung products forever, for instance, and
| have for nearly a decade and a half with nestle.
|
| Some of my closest friends started as work colleagues,
| and since I retired 8 years ago I still talk to a half
| dozen or so, with a couple talked with daily.
|
| You (nor I) are not everyone, and extrapolation from our
| own viewpoints is very nearly always invalid.
| dfadsadsf wrote:
| What's wrong about Nestle? Also Samsung is strange
| company to boycott.
|
| Overall boycotting both of these companies is easy
| because replacement products for everything they do is
| plentiful, widely available and the same price. Not much
| sacrifice here.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> What's wrong about Nestle?_
|
| Nestle is the dietary equivalent of Facebook & Cambridge
| Analitica. [1][2]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj6JOKrL_vg
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoKLovtnbGY
| philk10 wrote:
| Nestle - baby milk formula, bottled water ( paying $200
| to Michigan whilst Flint residents had unusable water)
| povik wrote:
| Technical nit: if average is 48 hours, median cannot
| possibly be higher than 96 hours.
| havkd wrote:
| If I told my friends and family that I work for Facebook,
| WhatsApp, or Instagram, they'd think I'm fucking cool.
| toast0 wrote:
| Having worked for WhatsApp, mostly my friends and family
| said, "What's That?" ... and I sighed. Of course, when I
| worked for Yahoo Travel, mostly they said "That's still
| around?", so no love wherever I work. :)
| [deleted]
| mbesto wrote:
| > But your family and friends will remember, and not
| kindly, if you worked for FB.
|
| If this was even remotely true Facebook would have had a
| massive impact on its usage since its consumer based. It
| would seem weird that the Facebook brand is so tarnished
| to the point that the population would still be users but
| at the same time tar and feather loved ones who maintain
| it.
| handrous wrote:
| Nah. They'll remember that you paid their way through
| college, could afford to make their childhoods and path
| to "the good life" easy in general, and left them a pile
| of cash when you died.
| strict9 wrote:
| For various reasons (including age and working in tech)
| I've considered leaving software development when I reach
| my 40s, to pursue something that I love doing that's a bit
| more tangible.
|
| This comment lit a fire under me. Thank you.
| mandelbrotwurst wrote:
| It's possible for your work to have impact in both the
| present and future even if it isn't actively recalled from
| anyone's memory after you retire.
| trts wrote:
| > Culture is important, and it starts at the top.
|
| Over my career it is somewhat impressive how true this has
| been. Across companies that say very similar things about
| what it means to be an employee of X, the behavior of execs
| and senior leadership ripples through the ranks in obvious
| ways. When statements from high-level people are empty or
| specious, you can expect to encounter the same in your own
| management chain.
|
| It only takes a moment to remember this each time a FB
| recruiter pings me. Couldn't I be one of the people working
| on solving these big problems and making XX% more while doing
| it? It's a false choice.
| hef19898 wrote:
| True, also wgen it comes to changes up the chain. I don't
| buy the whole "these high level org and management changes
| won't affect the way work" stuff anymore.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >what people generally think of the company
|
| which is what exactly? if they didn't like it, they'd be
| leaving in droves. tech nerds are really the only ones upset
| about anything that FB has done/is doing.
|
| instead, the average person looks at what they get from FB.
| most of them never, not once, think at about what cost. to
| them it is free to use, and that's all that matters. raising
| privacy concerns goes no where. manipulating people's
| emotions isn't really doing much negatively to FB either.
| addicts are like that though. deep down, they might actually
| be aware that what they are doing is not good for them, but
| that isn't strong enough to fight the addiction.
| mdoms wrote:
| > if they didn't like it, they'd be leaving in droves
|
| It's 2021, if you really, genuinely don't understand the
| power of network effects by now then there truly is no hope
| for you.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I think Jan 6 and the Big Lie are pretty clear evidence
| of the power of network effects. To claim I don't
| understand them is you trying to twist a narrative.
|
| I actually anticipated your diatribe, but decided against
| making that part of my original comment. Yes, there's "no
| where" else for them to go blah blah blah. However, some
| people do actually decide to walk away from it for their
| own personal health/sanity regardless of how it affects
| relationships from not being on the platform. We see
| these comments all the time about "I quit FB x years
| ago". I'm one of them because of what I know about FB.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The network effect comes with the network. On net, people
| like the network.
| lost-found wrote:
| The majority of the public has a negative view on Facebook:
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/poll-
| america...
|
| This was from 2019 and their public image has definitely
| not been improving. So to say it's "only tech nerds" is a
| straight up lie.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's not a lie. People can have a negative view of
| something and continue to do that something. They can
| also have that negative view without truly understanding
| why they have that view. People are actively trying to
| mislead polls with answers they think the poll is looking
| for, or just false info to skew numbers. FB is in the
| news with negative stories, so they repeat those when
| asked even without thinking about why.
|
| If you asked someone about a teacher or some other adult
| trying to manipulate a kid, they'd obviously say that it
| is bad. Telling them FB is doing it with what posts they
| see, they don't respond the same way. They just don't get
| how an "al-go-rythym" can be so bad. They don't truly
| understand the ramifications of the hoovering up all of
| the data they do. They shrug their shoulders and say
| things like they are okay with it as long as it's not
| real money.
|
| So, I stand by my stance saying it is only tech nerds
| that truly get what is going on here.
| lost-found wrote:
| That's not what you said, you said "tech nerds are really
| the only ones upset about anything that FB has done/is
| doing" which the article I provided proves that's not
| accurate. Move the goalposts all you want, I don't care,
| but it is certainly not only "tech nerds" that disprove
| of what FB is doing.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Maybe. Wasn't my intent, but let's allow the conversation
| to move past that.
|
| The mass populace is not stopping their use of FB
| regardless of what's in the news or what these polls say
| about their views of FB. From the evidence, one can only
| surmise that people don't truly care what FB does. Most
| addicts don't care what their drug dealer does as long as
| they can get their fix when they need it.
| mattmcknight wrote:
| Are you spreading misinformation on social media
| (assuming HN qualifies)? https://www.documentcloud.org/do
| cuments/5794861-19093-NBCWSJ...
|
| Look at the poll yourself, linked at the bottom of the
| article. Facebook 36% positive, 33% negative.
|
| Of course their public image has not been improving, as
| there is high frequency campaign from newspapers and TV
| news to attack their competition. CNN in particularly has
| wanted to deflect blame to Facebook for all of the free
| airtime CNN gave Trump in 2016. However, it seems to be
| quite a stretch to extrapolate from 2019 survey that
| listed 33% negatives for Facebook.
| buitreVirtual wrote:
| The parallels with the tobacco industry continue to amaze
| me. People viewed that industry very negatively but
| continued to smoke even after all revelations about their
| lobbying and its health consequences came to light. It
| has taken decades for the number of smokers to decline
| substantially. I imagine that FB will similarly die a
| very slow death over the next 10-20 years, and even then
| it won't die completely (but it will be replaced by other
| toxic social media corporations).
| rightbyte wrote:
| I guess the point is that both are addictive?
| Liquix wrote:
| Does the majority of the public know that Instagram ==
| Facebook, though? Genuinely curious - non-tech folks do
| seem to love talking about how awful Facebook is and how
| they don't use it anymore, but then comes the scrolling
| through Instagram for 6 hours..
| takeda wrote:
| They started putting their brand on other products and
| last week they realized that maybe it wasn't a good idea,
| so they renamed to Meta.
|
| So now we will have
|
| Instagram by Meta, WhatsApp by Meta, Occulus (actually
| Metaverse) by Meta
|
| Ignorance is bliss.
| _jal wrote:
| Every quarter or so, I tell FB head hunters to go away. I do
| think about the money I'm turning down, but I also like to
| sleep at night.
|
| Having morals does cost money.
|
| And yes, I do think less of the 'typical' FB employee.
| Everyone's story is different and I'll listen, but the
| presumption is that working there means being OK with
| enabling genocide for a nice paycheck.
| president wrote:
| I believe this is false. Every day at work, I see many
| instances of people choosing self-enrichment over the
| betterment of society. We are lost in a see of state and
| corporate sponsored activism for social justice causes, which
| distracts from other significant existential issues.
| [deleted]
| jrockway wrote:
| I think the blame is misplaced. People work at Facebook because
| they offer among the highest salaries, and are insulated enough
| from the bad PR to not feel bad about it.
|
| It is hard to understand the breadth of scope of the FAANGs.
| You read in the newspaper that Google exists to turn over
| dissidents to the Chinese government, but there are plenty of
| engineers working on making the Linux kernel more secure, or
| providing gigabit internet for $79/month. Should those
| engineers quit and go work on CRUD apps for some startup at
| half their salary? It doesn't make much sense, and that's why
| people don't do it.
|
| (I don't know if the scope of Facebook is similar to that of
| Google, but I imagine it is. I submitted a patch to some open
| source project of theirs that collects diagnostic information
| from NTP servers. Are those people really to blame for
| targeting their product at 6 year olds? No. They just want to
| work on interesting projects for a great salary, and hope that
| whatever bigger system they're part of works out.)
|
| Basically, it won't be effective to be an Internet Tough Guy
| and tell all Facebook employees to quit. They won't do it. Make
| their work illegal (regulate), or make their work unprofitable
| (stop buying their ads), and the problem solves itself.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| > open source project of theirs that collects diagnostic
| information from NTP servers
|
| What's this project and what data does it collect? Pretty
| much every device connects to an NTP server, so this is
| intriguing.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > are insulated enough from the bad PR to not feel bad about
| it
|
| You'd have to be living under a rock to be able to make that
| excuse.
| Permit wrote:
| Alternatively, you may be working very close to the issues
| at hand and watching traditional media distort the facts
| and social media lie about them may have caused you to
| distrust both.
|
| For example, it is commonly parroted (even here on HN) that
| Facebook sells your data:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28760228
| fabianhjr wrote:
| > It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When
| His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It
|
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/
| vram22 wrote:
| Ha. Yes. I was just going to write this (in reply to
| jacquesm's comment above, and also in reply to his parent
| commenter):
|
| "No, it's that Upton Sinclair quote about salary that is
| the reason", but you beat me to it :)
|
| When will people learn? Always look for the motive.
|
| As they used to say (and maybe still do) in detective
| novels, "cherchez la femme", which is French for "search
| for the woman", i.e. the reason why the crime (of
| passion) was committed.
| treesknees wrote:
| My old roommate works there on a database/storage team.
| They are pretty insulated. He doesn't directly interface
| with the product-side. Sure perhaps on some level he could
| look at his role and say he's enabling mass collection of
| user data. But at the end of the day he has no interaction
| with the actual filesystem contents or what they mean.
| They're just bits flying around.
|
| So, should the graphic designers of the emoji buttons feel
| responsible for misinformation? The CDN/network folks
| keeping the websites available? The janitorial and
| cafeteria staff for cleaning up and feeding the "monsters
| of humanity" ?
| Benjammer wrote:
| >at the end of the day he has no interaction with the
| actual filesystem contents or what they mean. They're
| just bits flying around
|
| Whatever helps him sleep at night I guess. I doubt
| history will make this distinction when talking about
| "legacy," as this sub-thread is.
|
| >"monsters of humanity"
|
| You have to realize that this exaggeration contributes
| poorly to the discussion, right? Are you seriously trying
| to satirically hyperbolize the characterization of
| Facebook's effects on society in order to make it seem
| like people are overreacting to the whole thing? This is
| a _wild_ take on the matter, to me, in 2021.
| [deleted]
| jonp888 wrote:
| Only a few posts below this is one where someone
| unironically equates Facebook engineers defending their
| choice of employer with SS officers defending their part
| in the Final Solution.
|
| Welcome to HackerNews.
| goatlover wrote:
| More like r/news at this point.
| wdb wrote:
| Similarly to working at the database team of an online
| casino or gambling site. Personally, I wouldn't want to
| work for such companies or FB no matter what salary.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| I used to work in defence. A colleague of mine said that
| he didn't have a moral problem because "we didn't make
| things that went bang".
|
| We actually worked on training systems for soldiers.
| Technically, we didn't make things that went bang. But we
| enabled their use. So I didn't personally believe that we
| could escape the moral dilemma using that argument.
| freen wrote:
| IBM just flipped some bits for some Germans in the 1940s.
|
| No biggie!
| jacquesm wrote:
| There is this movie called 'Cube' that deals with this
| problem.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/
|
| The short version is that a bunch of tech people are
| asked to design all kinds of man-traps, the buyer then
| combines the various traps in a shifting maze and the
| techies are kidnapped and dumped in the maze trying to
| survive their own creations.
| yumraj wrote:
| > I think the blame is misplaced. People work at Facebook
| because they offer among the highest salaries, and are
| insulated enough from the bad PR to not feel bad about it.
|
| Would you say the same if they were _say_ peddling crack to
| kids, that hey it pays better....
|
| If all one cares about is money, then yes, it is one's fault
| and the blame is correctly placed.
| eigengrau5150 wrote:
| > People work at Facebook because they offer among the
| highest salaries, and are insulated enough from the bad PR to
| not feel bad about it.
|
| Good job defending the little Eichmanns. Or are you perhaps
| defending yourself?
|
| "For when I speak of the banality of evil, I do so only on
| the strictly factual level, pointing to a phenomenon which
| stared one in the face at the trial. Eichmann was not Iago
| and not Macbeth, and nothing would have been farther from his
| mind than to determine with Richard III 'to prove a villain.'
| Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his
| personal advancement, he had no motives at all... He merely,
| to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was
| doing... It was sheer thoughtlessness--something by no means
| identical with stupidity--that predisposed him to become one
| of the greatest criminals of that period. And if this is
| 'banal' and even funny, if with the best will in the world
| one cannot extract any diabolical or demonic profundity from
| Eichmann, this is still far from calling it commonplace...
| That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness
| can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken
| together which, perhaps, are inherent in man--that was, in
| fact, the lesson one could learn in Jerusalem."
|
| -- Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the
| Banality of Evil
| default-kramer wrote:
| I don't understand your point. Are you saying that things
| like Linux and NTP servers _can_ be used by an evil
| organization, therefore people who work on them are partly to
| blame for the resulting evil? If so, I disagree. There is a
| pretty clear line between working to improve the Linux kernel
| and working to get more children and teens to use Facebook.
| jonp888 wrote:
| No, the opposite, that many of the people working for evil
| organisations are not doing evil stuff, but instead
| maintaining kernel drivers or whatever, and they don't
| concern themselves with how exactly the money that pays
| their salary was generated.
| yreg wrote:
| He is talking about engineers employed by Facebook who are
| working on linux kernel.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Well, we know how much your morals cost, then.
| [deleted]
| jrockway wrote:
| I appreciate the personal evaluation. I worked at Google
| for about 6 years, and left to make half as much money
| working on open source software. I can't find a single
| thing that HN would disapprove of, except maybe banning all
| the cryptominers that appeared all at once after our
| product was discussed here ;)
|
| This is not much of a hardship for me personally, because
| half of a lot is still a lot. It wasn't HN that factored
| into my decision to leave, though, that's all I'm saying.
|
| I'll add that the majority of my colleagues at Google
| actively opposed the things that HN thinks is evil, and
| still do. You can steer things in the right direction from
| the inside perhaps more effectively than from the outside.
| You know the tradeoffs and can suggest a reasonable
| compromise. That's engineering in a nutshell. No doubt,
| Google has tens of thousands of engineers that think just
| like the average HN reader, and are working hard every day
| to steer the company in that direction. Maybe you're not
| satisfied with the results, but at least they're doing
| something about it more impactful than typing screeds and
| sending them into the ether.
| archontes wrote:
| You're missing the point... completely. Until unethical
| behavior doesn't pay dividends, people will engage in that
| unethical behavior. Ostracizing them to any degree less
| than the sex offender list offers fails at 'making it not
| pay dividends'.
|
| Snide comments are useless, and posting a snide comment in
| response to a post _literally_ saying that snide comments
| are useless is hilarious and ironic.
| [deleted]
| tombert wrote:
| Give me a break. Most of us aren't dropping everything to
| go join the Peace Corps, we want to live a comfortable
| life, and by no coincidence, most of us work for assholes.
| Nearly any sufficiently old company has its share of
| controversies (this includes startups, they're just smaller
| so they're not as publicized).
|
| I will agree that Facebook's controversies are a bit more
| egregious than most, but at the end of the day I don't
| really see how a random Facebook _engineer_ is
| substantially worse than an engineer who works for
| Microsoft, or Apple, or Google, or Lockheed Martin, or
| <insert large corporation here>. People just want to make a
| decent living, not change the world.
|
| However, I think there's plenty of blame you can place on
| the decision-makers at Facebook (most of the executive
| level team).
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I don't really see how a random Facebook engineer is
| substantially worse than an engineer who works for
| Microsoft, or Apple, or Google, or Lockheed Martin, or
| <insert large corporation here>. People just want to make
| a decent living, not change the world._
|
| The Nazi SS officers also used this line of arguments
| during the Nuremberg trials, that they were just _"
| following orders from above, with no choice in the matter
| (other than the choice to voluntarily join the SS for
| personal gains), just like the soldiers of the allies;
| what's the difference that makes them the bad guys?"_
|
| My point is, you can make big tech bucks at other places
| as well, nobody forces you to work for an evil corp, you
| choose that voluntarily. And there are other less evil
| places you can work for.
| tombert wrote:
| I knew this was going to come up because this is the
| internet, but I don't think this line of reasoning
| applies to every arbitrary Facebook engineer.
|
| The Nazi soldiers tried at Nuremburg were _directly_
| murdering the Jews, and so "just following orders" led
| to a direct harm. However, I don't think that logic went
| transitive for forever; did we execute the secretaries
| that took phone calls in military Germany headquarters? I
| don't think we did, but you could argue that they helped
| enable all the murders.
|
| Similarly, if a person's entire job at Facebook is to
| contribute to Presto or React, I don't really view them
| as guilty as a person who worked on all the data-
| harvesting stuff, and _way_ less guilty than an executive
| making the decisions.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> did we execute the secretaries that took phone calls
| in military Germany headquarters? I don't think we did,
| but you could argue that they helped enable all the
| murders_
|
| Unlike military members of the SS, their secretaries
| didn't really have the power to send people to their
| deaths or perform executions.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Isn't that what they are doing? There was a story not
| long ago about a lady in her 90s who was a secretary at a
| death camp at 18. She's being dragged to court.
| Benjammer wrote:
| I would absolutely give you a break if you don't join the
| Peace Corps. I won't give you a break if you choose to
| take a lucrative job at Facebook. This is not a black-
| and-white issue.
|
| >I will agree that Facebook's controversies are a bit
| more egregious than most
|
| So, I would posit that working at Facebook is, thus,
| "more egregious than most" other jobs. That's the point
| here. Nobody is saying that it's either work at Facebook
| or join the Peace Corps. I, personally, think an engineer
| at Facebook is contributing more harm to society than an
| engineer at any of the other companies you mentioned,
| yes. _Substantially_ worse? Depends how we define that.
| But, _worse_? Definitely.
| throwaway2331 wrote:
| Have you read Solzhenitsyn's "From Under the Rubble?"
|
| It has a section called "The Smatters" where he derides
| Soviet Russia's intelligentsia for being cowards that
| would trade physical comfort in return for sacrificing
| their soul and morality.
|
| This is in contrast to "Old Russia's" intelligentsia,
| that would canktankerously fight and even sacrifice
| themselves and their personal needs, just to uphold their
| own (many times removed-from-reality) ideals.
|
| The former's "pragmatic nihilism" of only taking cares of
| one's self and one's interests is mirrored today among
| our society.
|
| That's not to say I'm any better.
|
| I, too, am a coward.
| tombert wrote:
| I mean, I said in a sister thread that I do think there
| could be an argument that me working for an awful
| corporation does enable them and I am at some level
| responsible for their actions, but I don't know that it's
| realistic to expect someone in the corporate world _right
| now_ to drop everything and only work for ethical people
| right now...our entire society is somewhat based around
| us working for evil corporations.
| hobs wrote:
| Nobody is asking for that burden or level of effort, just
| not people literally out to actively exploit... everyone.
| yladiz wrote:
| But that's just an easy argument that keeps the status
| quo. In a western society today may be impossible to
| escape some big "evil" corporation, but there's a major
| difference between having no choice to participate in the
| system and willingly choosing to work for said
| corporation. In the case of Facebook someone who works
| there may not be directly responsible for its actions if
| they're not at a very high level but they are directly
| condoning them by working for Facebook and helping
| further its mission.
| throwaway2331 wrote:
| I agree that it's unrealistic to expect.
|
| But there is something intoxicating and sublime in being
| unrealistic.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| As long as a lack of money is able to present a serious
| danger to one's quality of life, health and well-being,
| money will always win over not having/getting money.
| laserlight wrote:
| > money will always win over not having/getting money
|
| This statement could benefit from less certainty.
| According to Stoics, a non-virtuous life is not worth
| living. They would prefer to die rather than earning
| money in a non-virtuous manner.
| philipov wrote:
| Stoicism is the philosophy of aristocrats and emperors.
| Marcus Aurelius could _afford_ to deride money in a way a
| middle class person can not.
| lukebitts wrote:
| Epicletus was born a slave and was also stoic. Stoicism
| is a great philosophy, and not just for the rich
| goatlover wrote:
| You might want to reference the Cynics instead, since
| it's a bit easier to be stoical when you already have
| money, power and status, as another poster pointed out.
| Benjammer wrote:
| >People work at Facebook because they offer among the highest
| salaries, and are insulated enough from the bad PR to not
| feel bad about it
|
| I'm curious how you draw a line between "the bad PR" and
| everything else at Facebook? Are you distinguishing the media
| coverage of the company as a separate thing that employees
| have to deal with other than the actual actions the company
| takes, and the ramifications of its real effects on society?
|
| If someone is "insulated from the bad PR," does that mean
| they are insulated from anything working with or enabling the
| bad actions/effects? Or just insulated from the "PR"? If the
| former, how could we possibly make that distinction with an
| organization as large and complex as Facebook? How can you be
| so sure that anything any given employee touches does or does
| not connect to the bad effects on society? If you just mean
| insulated from the "bad PR," then can you see why history
| might look unfavorably on someone who hides the greater
| negative effects of their actions from themselves?
| 8note wrote:
| I've never bought an ad on Facebook, and yet it continues to
| run, and Facebook won't comply to non-US laws, and will
| almost certainly have a large influence on whatever
| regulations are put in.
|
| Your suggestions are even more toothless than banning
| Facebook engineers from the local bars and breweries
| threatofrain wrote:
| Facebook won't comply with non-US laws? Are we talking
| about the EU or China?
| zapataband1 wrote:
| Part of why I quit Oracle
| dntrkv wrote:
| Oh please.
|
| Every major tech company does all the same shit Facebook does,
| the rest are just lucky that FB takes most of the heat.
|
| Tell me, what exactly has Facebook done that is so bad compared
| to Google, Amazon, or Microsoft?
| programzeta wrote:
| It's not what Facebook does that the others don't, in my
| opinion, it's that Facebook does not have services for
| businesses. They have scant little _utility_ to businesses
| outside of advertising services to temper their outrages
| with, so they 're given even less of a benefit of the doubt
| than other tech companies.
| math-dev wrote:
| Exactly! Add Apple to the bunch too. (Good) Regulation is
| required now
| dralley wrote:
| > Every major tech company does all the same shit Facebook
| does, the rest are just lucky that FB takes most of the heat.
|
| > Tell me, what exactly has Facebook done that is so bad
| compared to Google, Amazon, or Microsoft?
|
| You're angling to absolve Facebook here, but I'll flip that
| in the other direction. They all deserve a healthy serving of
| contempt, and frankly it's the reason why I never respond
| when Amazon and Google recruiters come calling 3 times a
| week.
|
| https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1450000616202248193
|
| But what separates Facebook from the others is the utter lack
| of shame about what they're doing, and the fact that
| Zuckerberg has no accountability due to the arrangement of
| voting shares. That makes them uniquely dangerous.
| nighthawk454 wrote:
| That's a bit illogical. They're not trying to 'absolve'
| them, as if somehow Facebook isn't bad because others are
| also bad. They're all similar (ly bad).
|
| What separate's Facebook is their namesake product is too
| close to the source of controversy. Google's "public
| facing" products are things like search, YouTube, gmail,
| google docs. Amazon has 2-day shipping and prime video and
| such.
|
| When people think of Amazon/Google they think of that
| first. Sure, they're doing all the same controversial with
| their products. But in my experience, the average non-tech
| person has more buffer for that, when there's a bit of
| separation between the brand identity and the bad behavior.
|
| A lot of non-tech people aren't even aware that FB (Meta?)
| owns Instagram and WhatsApp - that's the kind of tolerance
| buffer that the other FAANG has for _all_ of their main
| products.
|
| In this sense, the rebrand to "Meta" might actually work a
| bit.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| Uniquely? GOOG invented the dual class share structure, and
| the founders still control over 50% of shares by votes.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Most of them do plenty of bad shit but at least for a company
| like Amazon you can make the case that their logistics and
| infrastructure delivers real value and moves material goods
| around the world and creates quite harsh but at least
| reasonably paying blue collar jobs whereas Facebook and other
| 'social media' giants' drive political discourse to ruins,
| teenagers mad, and employ hordes of underpaid gig workers to
| sift through child abuse content and other horrid crap.
|
| And that aside you're not forced to work for FAANG. Plenty of
| small companies around who do good work in healthcare or what
| have you, or national security, the defense sector and other
| public sectors desperately looking for engineers.
|
| Plenty of work to do that is more meaningful than getting
| kids to click on ads.
| culopatin wrote:
| Where do they post these gig jobs you're talking about? Do
| you have an example?
| wikidani wrote:
| >reasonably paying blue collar jobs As a disclaimer, I'm
| not from the US and my sources might be entirely biased but
| I thought a big chunk of amazon employees were ill paid and
| on foodstamps?
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Isn't this the "Stalin was just as bad as Hitler" argument?
| missedthecue wrote:
| No, because modern society heavily criticizes both Hitler
| and Stalin.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Facebook's entire business model is creating people addicted
| to chaos. It has radicalized people, led to suicides, and
| caused a huge rift in many countries' political ecosystems.
| That is their business model, it's the only way they make
| money.
|
| Amazon, Google, Microsoft etc have flaws but their business
| models don't depend on creating conflict.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| It's not the only way they can make money, it's how they
| are choosing to maximize profits.
| thehappypm wrote:
| That's probably the most damning thing. They know they
| could promote more positive content and kill doom
| scrolling with the flip of a switch. But that would
| probably reduce their session length and reduce the
| number of ad impressions to sell.
| goatlover wrote:
| And the media could do the same thing, but they know bad
| news sells. Why is FB fundamentally different from the
| rest of media?
| james_in_the_uk wrote:
| I think that's a little unfair. As an idea FB genuinely
| revolutionised person to person communications, not all for
| the worse. Remember what it was like before to stay
| connected with family and friends remotely. Swapping email
| addresses, posting your holiday snaps on your shared
| hosting server space running some cr*p Perl or PHP scripts.
| And that was progress. My thoughts towards Facebook are
| complicated. They certainly have some issues but I am not
| sure that makes their core mission inherently evil.
| [deleted]
| hermitwriter wrote:
| Source on those claims? Not "the media" but actual sources
| that haven't been debunked?
| thehappypm wrote:
| The New York Times article here has many linked sources,
| and their reporting on the situation has been stellar.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/technology/whistle-
| blower...
| sabas123 wrote:
| I agree with hermitwriter here. Currently I'm not at all
| convinced somebody can claim that all of these negative
| effects wouldn't have existed if we had a morally correct
| social media platform instead.
| hermitwriter wrote:
| Most of her claims make a gigantic leap to conclusions.
| I'm asking for a source that shows, for example, a
| suicide that was _because_ of Facebook. Radicalization
| trends as another example have been on the rise in the US
| long before FB or social media, and there are many other
| countries where FB exists but radicalization is on the
| decline.
|
| There is plenty wrong with FB, but this all seems like
| trying to pin a root cause to something b/c we need
| something to blame. Maybe correlation, but I don't see
| the causation.
| mbesto wrote:
| > a suicide that was _because_ of Facebook.
|
| I actually know of no study that conclusively attributes
| a cause to suicide, so this point is moot in both
| directions. Do you?
| thehappypm wrote:
| "Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls,
| Company Documents Show
|
| Its own in-depth research shows a significant teen
| mental-health issue that Facebook plays down in public"
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is-
| tox...
|
| Their own research shows they know the negative impacts
| of their platform.
| hermitwriter wrote:
| In said study, Facebook acknowledges problems with the
| study itself as do other researchers without a dog in the
| fight. Let's see an independent study show the same
| thing.
| theduder99 wrote:
| an independent study with access to insider
| information..k
| [deleted]
| takeda wrote:
| I'm assuming you have been in comma in the past few
| years?
| hermitwriter wrote:
| Nope. I just don't believe hyped up spin; especially when
| the deliverers of the content are biased. I like
| research, and facts.
| [deleted]
| spamizbad wrote:
| Unfortunately there are no shortage of prestige-chasing
| engineers who will gladly code anything for the right price.
| odiroot wrote:
| > People who continue to work Facebook at are going to face
| tough questions not just from current-day peers, but from
| future generations about why they willingly continued to work
| for such a company when there were no shortage of other
| opportunities available to them.
|
| I honestly don't think so. Were all ex-Enron employees
| considered unemployable or even immoral? How about Union
| Carbide or tobacco concerns?
| yojo wrote:
| I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. It seems to me tech
| companies experience a much higher level of employee activism
| around moral issues than other industries.
|
| I also think it's naive to assume reputational stigma won't
| weigh in on hiring decisions.
|
| 3 years ago I was seeing a lot of candidates with Uber
| resumes. It wasn't surprising that they were trying to leave,
| but it was surprising it took them so long. I would wonder if
| they were unable to get hired elsewhere.
|
| I always did my best to give a fair interview but it's
| possible bias crept in.
| Mehdi2277 wrote:
| I've worked at facebook in past. Facebook has been
| complimented at a number of interviews and one company I
| worked for very actively poached fb engineers. It was
| extremely clear for that company given the resume system
| even marked resumes with certain desirable companies and
| the sheer amount of fb employees we hired. I think my
| current one also has a bias for them. I have tended to stay
| in social media industry but I've interviewed for other
| industries and gotten positive reception with facebook. I
| remember once getting negative reception on going from
| facebook to a small lidar startup as interviewer viewed it
| as dropping to lower tier/prestige company.
|
| I have not worked for Uber, but my experience at other big
| tech companies is they're viewed fine too for engineering
| talent.
|
| As for non-engineers most of my family/friend group views
| facebook/similar very positively. Facebook remains largest
| social media by a ridiculous amount. Nearly 3 billion MAU
| is something no other social media company comes close.
| They certainly have negative sentiment too, but there are
| tons of people happy with them. I have worked at one
| company that some friends did show negative view and that
| was tiktok (mostly because of china concerns). Tiktok as
| worse then facebook in perception and even for tiktok it
| was still mild thing. It was never a job concern with both
| of them I found myself in demand anyway.
| root_axis wrote:
| I doubt it. There are so many companies out there doing far,
| far, _far_ worse than Facebook and nobody bats an eye with
| respect to the employees that work at these firms.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I remember reading a comment very much like this 3-4 years ago
| about Uber. Can't find it of course, but there was this article
| 4 years ago https://insights.dice.com/2017/03/08/uber-alumni-
| trouble-fin... although that is about Uber having a bad work
| culture, not that working there meant you were ethically
| compromised which is what I remember being the previous concern
| - like yours is for FB.
| [deleted]
| darepublic wrote:
| Parents have to protect their children from a plethora of bad
| influences out in the world. Yesterday was Halloween and my home
| was soon drowning in a sea of unhealthy and morally questionable
| plastic wrapped candies from evil corporations such as nestle.
| Most parents are more worried about the health effects than the
| ethics of these products, ie most people only care about
| themselves. Facebook.. is clearly a form of mental junk food to
| which you can get hooked on but I don't feel it's exceptional in
| this regard. Just please grow up and say no to shitty Facebook.
| And parents, don't let your kids/teens etc get hooked on it
| without a fight
| [deleted]
| tylerchilds wrote:
| Classy.
| Supermancho wrote:
| Targeting != luring, but it makes for good clickbait.
|
| When it comes to putting things in their body, it's ok (eating
| cereal from Kellog). When it comes to socialization media, it's
| ok. (dressing up as Disney characters) When it's FB, hold the bar
| door.
|
| FB is garbage for known reasons. This story feels like some witch
| hunt material stretched thin - "Zuck is bad and we have to keep
| the eyeballs on the demonization of FB!"
| taylorfinley wrote:
| I think the difference is there are documents showing Facebook
| is aware their platform harms teenage children. If Disney did
| studies that showed their products were psychologically
| damaging their consumers I think we would be right in 'witch
| hunting' them too. Honestly I think marketing to children is
| predatory in general and it's kind of crazy that we don't have
| more checks on this.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| As I understand it those same documents showed that actually
| they mostly _benefit_ teenage children.
| goatlover wrote:
| So you think shows and toys made for children should only be
| marketed to the parents? What if the kid is alone watching an
| ad on tv or the internet?
| samizdis wrote:
| Good point re use of "lure". That was the Ars headline (title),
| but I've just edited it to remove lure and use target.
| eli wrote:
| Wait, what is the difference between "targeting" and "luring"
| in this case?
| freyir wrote:
| "Luring" implies that you're tempting someone with intent to
| trap and ultimately harm them.
|
| "Targeting" is more neutral. You might target someone with an
| ad because you believe in your product and expect it will
| improve their life. But it would be a bit weird to say you're
| luring someone to use your beneficial product.
|
| In Facebook's case, they apparently know of harmful effects
| on youth, so "lure" seems appropriate.
| imgabe wrote:
| Would you apply the same language to any other company that
| markets to kids? Do Fisher Price and Disney "lure" children
| or do they just make products that are intended to be used by
| children?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Would you apply the same language to any other company
| that markets to kids?_
|
| Yes, I would.
| beardedetim wrote:
| > Do Fisher Price and Disney "lure" children or do they
| just make products that are intended to be used by
| children?
|
| If we change `lure` to `manipulate into wanting`, then yes
| I would say that. I would also expand this to _any_
| marketing. I am currently wrestling with if I would go as
| far to say that _all communication_ is _manipulation_ but I
| feel that's a step too far for some reason while I
| definitely feel that _marketing_ is _manipulation_.
| imgabe wrote:
| To me lure specifically implies that you are just
| offering something desirable as bait in order to trap
| someone and do harm to them. Evil witches in the forest
| use gingerbread houses to lure children in and eat them.
| Pedophiles lure children into vans with candy. You use a
| fishing lure to catch fish.
|
| Now, there's certainly a case that Facebook's products
| are harmful, but is it Facebook's _intent_ to harm
| people? I don't personally think so, but others may
| disagree. "Lure" is the type of language you use if you
| want to equate Facebook with pedophiles and fairytale
| villains in your readers' minds.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| > you are just offering something desirable as bait in
| order to trap someone and do harm to them
|
| Offering something desirable (a product that people want
| to use) - check
|
| To trap someone (can't move to another platform, all your
| friends and data are in a walled garden) - check
|
| And do harm to them (use data to target further
| manipulation/advertising) - check
|
| (And that's not even considering the more psychological
| harms of Facebook, which they may not _intend_ but they
| certainly know about, have enflamed, and have done
| nothing to combat)
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > Now, there's certainly a case that Facebook's products
| are harmful, but is it Facebook's intent to harm people?
|
| Facebook aims to maximize engagement. Engagement is
| maximized by showing content that makes people angry and
| scared. [0] Is it harmful to make people scared and angry
| to maximize the amount of ads that pass their eyeballs? I
| know Facebook has internal research that shows them how
| Facebook affects people mentally (not great!), so
| ignorance isn't a defense for them here.
|
| [0] This is a WaPo article reposted on MSN, no paywall
| bypass needed https://www.msn.com/en-
| us/news/technology/five-points-for-an...
| geoka9 wrote:
| > but is it Facebook's intent to harm people?
|
| For the purposes of this discussion, is it really
| different from knowing that their products are harmful
| and still making sure as many people as possible use
| them?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| All communication is manipulation, to an extent - by
| telling people things, you are affecting their minds. I
| think we should distinguish based on whether it is in the
| interests of the recipient for them to be provided with
| certain input.
|
| Telling you about a new song you'd want to hear? Good.
| Telling you that I've got a can of beer for you, just
| after you've left an AA meeting? Bad.
| beardedetim wrote:
| > distinguish based on whether it is in the interests of
| the recipient for them to be provided with certain input
|
| Who would distinguish that? The receiver? The giver?
| Something/someone else? T
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| For most things, it's obvious. (I'm giving a definition,
| not a process by which rulings can be made.)
| eli wrote:
| Sure, Disney lures kids to Disney World. Quite successfully
| too.
| moskie wrote:
| If you care to make a distinction between the results of a
| six-year-old using Facebook's products vs. using Fisher
| Price's products, then, yes, "lure" might be appropriate
| for one context and not the other.
| atoav wrote:
| > When it comes to putting things in their body, it's ok
| (eating cereal from Kellog).
|
| Spain just barred cereal makers from advertising to kids. For a
| reason
| formerly_proven wrote:
| I don't understand cereals, practically all of them are
| complete garbage foods. Why do people buy into them?
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's easy to understand why the kids like them: they are
| full of sugar. Hard to damn a kid for that. What is easy to
| damn are the parents that relent to the tantrums that do
| the providing/enabling. It's also easy for young kids to
| make a bowl for themselves without needing any parental
| assistance. The kid loves that, and frankly, so do the
| parents that are buying it if it allows them to sleep in or
| pay attention that much longer to their social feeds.
| CGamesPlay wrote:
| > so do the parents that are buying it if it allows them
| to sleep in or pay attention that much longer to their
| social feeds.
|
| Man, what an uncharitable take. I bet they also like that
| the kid is learning how to prepare food for themselves
| independently. Or that they have time to do something
| like make themselves breakfast before dropping off at
| school and going to work. Further, I bet a lot of these
| parents also aren't as nutritionally educated as the
| people in this thread seem to be (for a lot of consumers
| "healthy" and "fat free" are interchangeable).
| dylan604 wrote:
| Meh. I didn't say that all parents do this because of
| that reasoning. I also didn't attempt to say that some do
| it for that reason. You can't deny that it is true for
| some while I will stipulate it's not all nor the sole
| reason.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The "adult" cereals have the same advantages, with a lot
| less sugar.
|
| My parents would only buy the relatively plain ones --
| Weetabix, Shredded Wheat and so on.
|
| The first time we went to the USA I was 12. We bought
| colourful cereal for the novelty of it, but the next
| morning I could barely eat it. It was insanely sweet!
| (Presumably with HFCS, which I wouldn't have experienced
| before.) Unsurprisingly, there was no pressure from my
| parents to finish the bowl, or the rest of the box.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean by "buy into them," but people
| buy them because they taste good.
| the_doctah wrote:
| There's plenty of cereals that are healthy-ish
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Mmmmm, musli.
| Steltek wrote:
| Oh man, you don't know the half of it. John Harvey Kellogg
| developed breakfast cereal to keep you from jerking off. He
| originally didn't include any sugar: it was just tasteless
| plant crap in a bowl.
|
| https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/32042/corn-flakes-
| were-i...
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Quick and easy no-prep meal.
| mortehu wrote:
| If eaten with milk, at least it contains half the
| recommended daily amount of calcium, which can be a real
| challenge to provide in adequate amounts.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Anecdote my childhood... my mom always did the shopping.
| One day my dad takes me and when it comes time to get a
| cereal I pick Cookie Crisp, because YOLO I'm not going to
| get this opportunity again!
|
| We get home. My mom sees I selected the cookie cereal and
| yells at us. We should both know better!
|
| She wanted to see Fruit Loops, our commonly purchased
| cereal.
|
| I was only like, eight, but read all the little words in
| the white box and their amounts. They were practically the
| same.
|
| Didn't matter. Into the trash the box went.
|
| In her head it was no better than Chips A'hoy crushed up in
| a bowl. Cookies! For breakfast!
|
| The Fruit Loops however, we're clearly some healthy option,
| because, you know, FRUIT.
|
| My mom is not dumb at all, but seemingly never put an ounce
| of thought into this.
|
| So I'm torn that everyone should know they're all sugar,
| and I have a clear example of people just not ever really
| considering it.
| utexaspunk wrote:
| You mean Froot
| midasuni wrote:
| Isn't that a Mandela effect claim?
| Symbiote wrote:
| It Britain it's common for there to be "traffic light
| labelling" on processed food. It makes the nutritional
| value of these products very obvious, as it's facing you
| on the shelf.
|
| Although this article says it's less useful than I
| thought, and might be replaced with something else.
| (Though it's a food industry publication.)
|
| https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/health/has-traffic-light-
| health-...
| smabie wrote:
| I like garbage foods! And so do others
| forty wrote:
| Perfectly reasonable. However it's another thing to give
| them to your kids.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| I wasn't allowed sugary cereals as a kid, so let me weigh
| in as an adult: sweet cereals just taste good to most
| people. We're hard-wired to enjoy sugary food.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| People have various intelligence and various education.
| Some do not understand nutrition, and assume naively that
| garbage would not be sold as food, especially for kids.
| freyir wrote:
| Smart, educated people do things that are bad for then
| all the time. And eating cereal (in moderation) is pretty
| far down on the "bad things" list.
| jetrink wrote:
| The UK also banned ads that targeted children for cereal
| above a certain sugar content. The cereal makers protested,
| but in the end, they simply reduced the amount of sugar in
| their products to just below the allowed threshold, continued
| to advertise as before and sales were unaffected.
| nazgulnarsil wrote:
| What the HELL? If sales were unaffected then why the
| sugar?!
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| I assume its suicidal for one company to make their
| product less sugary when kids want the calorie bomb
| tastier ones. This decision made the playground equal.
| nazgulnarsil wrote:
| Great point.
| Symbiote wrote:
| That sounds like a great success! It should be easier,
| politically, to gradually lower the specified amount of
| sugar in the regulation, now the regulation already exists.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| I don't know whether this is whataboutism or just plain
| defeatism.
|
| Just because our social institutions have failed to protect us
| from various other bad actors doesn't mean we should abandon
| hope on trying to do something about the one in front of us
| today.
| Supermancho wrote:
| It comes off as agenda rather than sincere concern and that
| should be highlighted.
|
| Surely not defeatism, when I think it's a reasonable thing
| for companies to plan around demographics. I don't think it's
| a good idea to empower social institutions to decide that you
| can't be considered a consumer until your 18th birthday.
|
| It's whataboutism for sure, but in the sense that FB is
| literally less impactful than existing brands so the question
| comes to the forefront. Why? Well because Zuckman bad.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _When it comes to putting things in their body, it 's ok
| (eating cereal from Kellog)_
|
| Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's okay. There aren't
| many people out there celebrating the fact that nutritional
| equivalent of sugar and sawdust is marketed and sold to
| children who don't understand the impact of nutrition on their
| health and well-being. There are plenty of people and groups
| that are against advertising to children, and who are against
| the proliferation of junk food.
| joelbondurant wrote:
| Most everyone in Karenifornia is a child molesting communist
| betacuck.
| curiousllama wrote:
| I get the FB hate in general, esp bc of data privacy and impact
| on democracy.
|
| That said, not sure I understand the critique of the products for
| kids. Is it that _facebook_ shouldn't build tech products for
| kids? Is it that big tech in general shouldn't build tech
| products for kids (eg, YouTube for Kids)? Or am I missing
| something else?
|
| Sincerely asking, not trying to be snarky.
| Kluny wrote:
| I've been learning in my law course about how laws are built
| from precedent and often need to be based on real things that
| have happened, rather than in anticipation of something bad
| maybe happening in the future.
|
| So when it comes to facebook and other big tech companies, I
| feel like they should be regulated similar to how toy companies
| can't advertise violence to children, and tobacco companies
| can't advertise to children at all. Those laws are incredibly
| strict and written with the understanding that kids are
| vulnerable and naive, and can't really think for themselves.
| But that vulnerability still has to be demonstrated, and
| tangible harm has to be shown before a robust law can be
| written (meaning, one that won't be struck down as
| unconstitutional or unreasonable or whatever), and such laws
| are still in the process of being written for the tech
| companies.
|
| So you could argue that they should back off of marketing to
| kids as a moral thing, but equally you could argue that they
| need to stake out their territory before laws are written that
| block off entire lines of business. The tech companies are
| behaving rationally, but the results can be awful. Society
| needs to fight back and protect ourselves with strong laws.
| james_in_the_uk wrote:
| J.S. Mill in action.
|
| As an aside: You'll enjoy learning law and being in IT.
| You'll see a lot of parallels between the jurisprudence of
| centuries ago and the current state of tech. A lot of the
| same type of issues thrown up every time society goes through
| a major change.
| vanviegen wrote:
| I'd say: no, they shouldn't be allowed to do that.
|
| In the same way kids aren't allowed to drink alcohol, smoke
| cigarettes or gamble. That shit's addictive, and we as a
| society don't expect children to be able to properly consider
| the long term consequences when making the decision to use it.
| (Of course one could make the same argument about adults, but I
| digress.)
| semisupervised wrote:
| So who is supposed to make them? I don't disagree that big
| tech shouldn't make them, but this is different from big
| tobacco. Tobacco/alcohol is completely banned for kids under
| 18. Kids will be using the internet.
| antiterra wrote:
| Being able to talk to classmates or relatives is not any kind
| of addiction I'm concerned about.
|
| To me, the main question is about introducing kids to a
| branded product in order to build affinity for the main
| product. Building that affinity is going to be a significant
| reason these kinds of products are made.
|
| I imagine we wouldn't feel great about feeding our kids food
| that was branded with Johnny Walker or Smirnoff. Curiously, I
| think most parents would have little problem with a kids
| board/card game that was co-branded with a Las Vegas casino.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The whole premise rests on the idea that FB products are
| inherently harmful to children.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _The whole premise rests on the idea that FB products are
| inherently harmful to children_
|
| It's also that it's Facebook doing it. I'm not writing off
| social media or messaging for kids. But Facebook's culture is
| broken, they constantly lie about everything--I don't trust
| them with our next generation. (Similar situation tanking
| their crypto play. Had Libre not been a Facebook project, it
| would have likely worked.)
| Pxtl wrote:
| Well, in their defense, I think they've actually done a better
| job of it than most. My kids have FB Messenger For Kids and as a
| parent FB is the one company who gets it right - as a parent, I
| get to green-light their friends' list.
|
| Considering how many kid apps are based on whack-a-mole an
| endless list of user-provided content instead of whitelisting,
| Facebook's approach on this is a breath of fresh air.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I think Zuck has lost the plot. Anyone know the best way to take
| a bet on it?
| jklinger410 wrote:
| Wait until you find out that people are allowed to run ads during
| children's television series!
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Anyone remember when "children's television advocates" were a
| thing, and there was such pressure on the issue that presidential
| candidates had to give opinions on forcing broadcasters to air
| more content for kids?
|
| There's a lot of negativity around these apps, much like there
| was for TV previously, but I doubt the story is much different.
| Parents would actually be pissed if kids were blocked from this
| stuff, particularly YouTube.
| malwarebytess wrote:
| Ban children and adolescents from social media by law.
| option_greek wrote:
| Guess the contenders for BeEvil list keeps growing. 6 year olds?
| What's next babies raised in Meta day cares?
|
| Why the Zuck are these companies not punished.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| What law have they broken that they should be punished under?
|
| The tricky thing about the digital space continues to be that,
| in general, it is under-regulated. It's not whether or not
| companies have broken laws; it's that there are so rarely laws
| to break.
|
| COPPA is the only one I can think of that might _possibly_
| apply here, and nothing in COPPA says you can 't build a
| service for 6-year-olds (only that if you're going to, it must
| be done carefully).
| reaperducer wrote:
| _What law have they broken that they should be punished
| under?_
|
| It just looks bad.
|
| Doing things just because the law allows it is a sign of low-
| grade thinking. It's why big companies hire /and listen to/
| external PR firms.
| adolph wrote:
| > Doing things just because the law allows it is a sign of
| low-grade thinking. It's why big companies hire /and listen
| to/ external PR firms.
|
| Correct! Genius thinking is doing things the law doesn't
| allow and hiring PR firms to make it look fine.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| Well, first, because even if we change the law, we don't apply
| that to actions taken before the law was changed (and for good
| reason).
|
| Second, because basically all of our laws are made by legal
| bribery.
| root_axis wrote:
| > _Why the Zuck are these companies not punished._
|
| Why would they be? The prevailing narrative is that we must
| enshrine social media platforms into our lives as permanent
| fixtures, akin to running water and electricity. If the culture
| were to accept that these platforms are actually unnecessary,
| unhealthy, and their use should be discouraged (like
| cigarettes), then our addicted society would have to face a
| major detoxing crisis that few are prepared to acknowledge.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _What 's next babies raised in Meta day cares?_
|
| Enron had a day care center for its employees. Built it to look
| like a miniature version of its corporate headquarters. What
| could possibly go wrong?
|
| https://maps.apple.com/?address=1565%20Louisiana%20St,%20Hou...
|
| (To be fair, I went to a corporate-run day care center when I
| was a kid. It was run by Playboy. They did a pretty good job of
| keeping things hidden from us kiddies. We thought it was just a
| hotel.)
| adlorger wrote:
| its important to note two things; Facebook does not target 6
| year olds. Many other companies do.
| s5300 wrote:
| Zuck became good friends with the administration that has
| appointment the majority of the nationwide judiciary at all
| levels of government.
|
| Probably something to do with that.
| bitwize wrote:
| Ah, Facebook, all the aboveboard business sense of an American
| tobacco company.
| adlorger wrote:
| i continue to be highly unimpressed with the quality of criticism
| about facebook - but impressed by its staying power.
|
| FB made no secret of its plans to make an Instagram for Kids with
| added safety controls and parental controls but it was basically
| shunned out of exististance for reasons ranging from "Lol Mark
| Zuckerberg is so awkward" to "we cant tolerate any advertising in
| our Late Stage Capitalism age" to "Instagram makes teenage girls
| want to kill themselves".
|
| None of these really stuck and Facebook continues to chug along
| in general with a good core business model (down a bit due to
| Apple's ATT, not press coverage) and lots of experimental and
| ambitious non-core businesses. People continue to use and rely on
| the products - both brands and the people who love them.
|
| If you were to ask Facebook employees themselves what their real
| external risk factor is, its definitely not congress or headlines
| - it's TikTok. And TikTok is not a better alternative when it
| comes to user privacy, teenage mental health, or the pernicious
| role of social media in our lives.
| fallingknife wrote:
| How bad is that really? I got the full brunt of the internet at 8
| and that's 1000x worse than anything on FB. I still don't think
| there's anything wrong with FB that isn't just people doing
| things that other people don't like and then blaming FB for it.
| reayn wrote:
| > I got the full brunt of the internet at 8 and that's 1000x
| worse than anything on FB.
|
| This is like saying you got your ass beat by the big kids at
| school after messing with them and now every other kid should
| go through that experience as well.
|
| > I still don't think there's anything wrong with FB
|
| Check out some submissions [0] and see if you hold the same POV
| afterwards.
|
| 0.
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| mynameishere wrote:
| Just like Pfizer.
| EastOfTruth wrote:
| As 6yo left facebook, it planned to get at-birth-implants to take
| off.
| dleslie wrote:
| I'm no fan of Facebook's assault on privacy and exploitation of
| user data; I'd rather pay for a service than be the product.
|
| That said, Messenger Kids is a crazy good product that took off
| like fire among my children's classmates. Parents get to
| authorize all contacts and review all communication; kids get fun
| photo and video chat tools, with all sorts of kid-friendly
| filters and such, along with loads of minigames. The UI is so
| dead-simple that illiterate youngsters have no problem using it.
|
| So, yah, I'm not at all surprised to learn that they target 6
| year olds. _They have a product clearly intended for them_.
| dougmccune wrote:
| The article wasn't about Messenger Kids though. If you click
| through to the actual slide deck that was leaked it shows that
| the current status quo is that Messenger Kids is the only
| product in the portfolio that is available for kids. The future
| state they envision is one in which all their products are
| available to kids, but tailored for those users. So that means
| IG and FB.
|
| I'm a parent of a 9 year old and 7 year old. My 9 yo has
| Messenger Kids. I agree it's a pretty well designed app. But
| it's just messaging (and some games). It's like the telephone.
| I don't mind that. But IG and FB are different things entirely.
| My concern isn't that my kid can chat with his friends. It's in
| the compare and despair, the constant posting of fake versions
| of your perfect life to make others feel jealous, and the
| algorithmic promotion of outrage (sorry, I mean high
| engagement) content.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Why do kids even need a messenger app though ?
|
| Seems like a pretty shit use of a kids precious time being a
| kid.
| dleslie wrote:
| Because a global pandemic made it so that in many regions of
| the world it was _impossible_ for children to play with each
| other in person.
|
| My kids, for instance, went around eight months where Covid
| restrictions meant that indoor gatherings with other children
| were verboten. Even playgrounds were closed to them for some
| time.
| iamstupidsimple wrote:
| Mobile phones aren't just another time waster, they have
| actively replaced things like television and SMS. There is
| immense social pressure to be on these platforms, so I'd
| rather it was done in a safe way than forcing everyone onto
| some shadier platform (likely full of adults and without the
| barriers that Messenger Kids has).
| freeflight wrote:
| _> There is immense social pressure to be on these
| platforms_
|
| And the way to fix that is to give in to said pressure,
| which are just network effects, until everybody and all
| their kids are on FB or one of their platforms?
|
| _> I 'd rather it was done in a safe way than forcing
| everyone onto some shadier platform_
|
| I wonder how most of us here managed to grow up for decades
| on a "not safe for children" web before we had companies
| like Facebook "tackle" a problem they created themselves?
|
| As hyperbolic as that might sound, this is a discussion
| that needs to be had properly and doesn't just stop at the
| emotional appeal of _" Think about the children!"_ but also
| involves what role Social Media is actually supposed to
| hold in society and if children should have access to it at
| all.
|
| Yes, that sounds radical, but we are also living in times
| that present a radical shift to how societies used to
| function, maybe radical shifts need radical solutions.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Because we overprotect. Kids cannot be kids. Kids must live
| in their own safe bubble these days. It is actually unhealthy
| for the children and their development.
|
| When I was a kid, I spent most of my time with my
| grandparents and I was either in their garden or outside in
| the street with other kids.
|
| I am honestly tired of the "think about the children" motto,
| or the selling of things in the name of protecting children
| (which it really does not do and solves nothing, or "solves"
| a non-issue).
| jdavis703 wrote:
| In some parts of the world children were locked out of school
| and in-person socializing for two school years. Even
| playgrounds were shutdown with mixing between households
| prohibited. Allowing children to safely engage in digital
| socialization is probably better than nothing.
| johnisgood wrote:
| > Allowing children to safely engage in digital
| socialization is probably better than nothing.
|
| This is debatable. It could actually be worse, but I am not
| too well-informed on this. Of course socialization is good,
| and one would think that it is better to have it digitally
| than to not have it at all; I would think so, too, but this
| may not be true, or at least not in a longer-term. I think
| we should allow kids to be kids and do the socializing in
| real life, ideally without masks so they could learn to
| pick up emotional cues from facial expressions and so
| forth. This plays a pretty important role in the children's
| development. I wonder what kind of effects those
| restrictions have had on "some" of these children. For what
| it is worth, I am not speaking out against the
| restrictions, but its effects on both children and adults
| make me curious.
| dleslie wrote:
| The socialization on Messenger Kids is quite literally
| video chat and cooperative or competitive multiplayer
| games.
|
| They play things similar to pictionary, have video chats
| where they can digitally dress up in fun outfits, and so
| on.
| donmcronald wrote:
| In terms of usability and giving parents moderation control, I
| think they've done a good job. I hate Facebook, but I'll
| recommend messenger kids because it actually makes some effort
| to give parents control over what their child is doing.
|
| I think the real conversation should be about data collection
| and what kind of profiles they are / aren't building. I don't
| think kids should be trained from age 6 onwards to think the
| privacy invasions being foisted on us by our current social
| media companies are ok. I don't mind if Facebook is using it as
| a "hook them early" kind of product since there's some
| reciprocal value, but they shouldn't be allowed to collect any
| data or build any profiles on kids.
|
| > Facebook believes its app complies with COPPA.
|
| Believes? Lol.
|
| I'm also not really sure what everyone thinks Facebook should
| do about online bullying. That's not a Facebook problem. It's a
| society problem. If Facebook starts to monitor and analyze
| every interaction teens will simply find another platform
| because they don't want their privacy violated like that. I
| don't blame them.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Six year olds, dude.
| nielsbot wrote:
| HN discourages joke comments, but this made me laugh
| rustamm wrote:
| Six year olds are literally mentioned only in the title of the
| article.
| cbtacy wrote:
| "Facebook was considering new products targeted at children
| as young as six years old, according to a new document handed
| over to Congress by whistleblower Frances Haugen."
| reayn wrote:
| I haven't been on HN for a long time (maybe a year counting
| my pre-account lurking stage) but I've noticed that quite a
| lot of comments here seem to just be knee-jerk reactions to
| what the submissions' title is.
|
| Not saying that's a bad thing in its entirety (the titles
| here are usually great and can easily spark discussion on
| their own) but just something I hope I'm not alone in having
| noticed.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Hey, I read the doccloud PDF in the article, but I wasn't
| going to pass on a good Big Lebowski reference opportunity.
|
| I do think I see more people appearing to make
| _substantial_ comments that are based on misunderstandings
| from the title alone, and that's more worrisome to me.
| reayn wrote:
| Oops, the reference flew right above my head, nothing
| personal lol.
|
| >I do think I see more people appearing to make
| substantial comments that are based on misunderstandings
| from the title alone, and that's more worrisome to me.
|
| Exactly.
| Pxtl wrote:
| It's a reference to a line from The Big Lebowski.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdHLM-WjwG4
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Looked at through a less "assume malice" lens: this line of
| internal questioning is how you get to a safer product for a wide
| userbase.
|
| The issue that Facebook is trying to solve is that kids already
| use the platform. They'd rather proactively have a configuration
| that is appropriate for that age group than offer none and have
| to deal with the consequences of the underage getting on adult
| Facebook and hitting content they aren't supposed to be exposed
| to (and, more corporate-selfishly: running the risk of being
| hauled in front of a Congressional committee or into court under
| the argument that they aren't complying with the spirit of COPPA
| if "kids just lie about their age" is a known issue on their
| platform that they haven't done anything proactive to address).
|
| The original memo Ars is pulling from here is a pretty good read
| (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21095535-copy-of-
| you...). The header is "The internet wasn't built with young
| people in mind, but we're about to change that." And, yeah...
| They've identified a real problem and a possible value-add for
| families.
| beefield wrote:
| > The issue that Facebook is trying to solve is that kids
| already use the platform.
|
| I would assume that if Facebook cared the slightest bit, they
| would be able to identify users that are six years old and
| simply redirect them to a safe page that is _not_ facebook.
| Maybe a page that says that if you _really_ are overage, could
| you please send your id. At least that 's what they seem to be
| doing if they think the user account is not legit for some
| other reason.
| fallingknife wrote:
| You mean like all of those "are you 18?" popups that I'm sure
| you always answered honestly?
| ahepp wrote:
| This company made over $85 billion revenue in 2020 based on
| the idea that they can precisely target ads to specific
| groups. The claim that they can't outsmart 6 - 13 year olds
| (elementary school children) is not believable.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Here is my parental 'value-add' - Social Media is not
| appropriate for my 7 year old, at all on any level.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I assume they aren't breaking any laws and probably not the only
| company doing this? It's still a bit creepy. I'm sure at least a
| few of you are friends with some of the more notable stand-up
| comedians. I assume Joe Rogan / Jamie Vernon would find the topic
| interesting to discuss.
|
| Could they instead target the parents of 6-year-olds? Parents
| should in theory have a better ability to make informed
| decisions.
| underwater wrote:
| My kids go to a school where they use an iPad from age 7 up.
|
| Messenger for Kids is a well thought out app that lets parents
| have a lot of control over who their kids talk to. It also allows
| you to monitor their conversations way that respects the kids'
| privacy.
|
| Contrast this with iMessage, where literally anyone can randomly
| message a child using their Apple ID, and there are zero controls
| available to parents for monitoring or approving contacts.
|
| Look beyond messaging, and the Apple store targets kids with
| crappy apps filled to the brim with creepy ads. YouTube
| recommends creepy, addictive, unmoderated, content.
|
| Facebook, and maybe Microsoft, are literally the only companies
| making products that are actually designed for kids.
| crackercrews wrote:
| > _the Apple store targets kids with crappy apps filled to the
| brim with creepy ads._
|
| On several occasions I've searched for apps by name, and not
| only are they not in the top few results, the App Store shows
| me borderline adult content within just a few screens of the
| top. I have no idea why it is so hard to find apps searching by
| name, but it is one of the main reasons I don't let my kids use
| the App Store app.
| [deleted]
| good8675309 wrote:
| I hate Facebook but you've got a solid point. Youtube still
| hasn't fixed Elsa-gate. And Apple is hostile to any serious
| parental control apps that would fix their issues.
| snarf21 wrote:
| All fair points but let's not pretend that this is altruism.
| They are providing this for a reason and their business is
| creating outrage to sell ads. iMessage and others could do
| better but Apple's business is selling expensive phones and
| apps from an app store.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| Why do you think Apple pushes ipads for education?
| weeznerps wrote:
| HN is so crazy sometimes. Literally the only two comments
| mentioning the actual product in question are positive and
| discuss the features and why they are useful for kids. Everyone
| else just uses the headline as an opportunity to sound off on
| why FB engineers should be taken behind the chemical sheds and
| beaten with electrical cords.
| TheRealNGenius wrote:
| I agree with this sentiment. HN lately has often seemed a
| reactionary cesspool where anything and everything is
| scrutinized based on the headline alone. The vast majority of
| highly upvoted comments are always negative critiques in this
| regard, with few comments coming from people who may have
| actually clicked the link. This holds true of Show HN's,
| Launch HN's, or anything else about anything.
| IshKebab wrote:
| YouTube Kids is pretty solid too.
| lhorie wrote:
| > YouTube recommends creepy, addictive, unmoderated, content
|
| If we're comparing with Youtube, I can't help but think people
| aren't looking very hard. My kids' school can recommend dozens
| of places to get computer activities for kids. None of them are
| from big tech companies. There's a ton of small players in
| edtech, many with high quality content (I bring up
| prodigygame.com here from time to time, but there are others)
|
| If you want to look specifically into communication tools for
| kids, the thing to be aware of is COPPA: it's an extremely
| restrictive regulation that governs what is allowable in
| apps/websites targeted at kids (e.g. something as basic as
| avatars are a no go, because they can expose the kid's
| appearance to strangers). Considering the horror stories you
| hear about teens and instagram, it's actually fairly
| understandable that the regulatory position is that kids have
| no business exposing themselves to online threats. Doctors also
| often suggest limiting screen time to no more than an hour a
| day. Parents letting screens babysit their kids do so against
| all sorts of expert advice.
|
| People also bring up covid quarantines as a justification for
| more online engagement, but IMHO, this is an abnormal situation
| in the first place, and even then, there are various ways for
| kids to socialize, be it via zoom at school or just going to
| the nearby playground. And FWIW, I didn't have any of this
| fancy pants online social stuff growing up and I turned out
| just fine, even without a whole lot of in-person socialization
| either.
| yumraj wrote:
| > My kids go to a school where they use an iPad from age 7 up.
| > Messenger ... > .. IMessage ..
|
| Not sure what kids using iPad has to do with them having access
| to Messenger and iMessage? Or, even YouTube app access.
|
| Speaking as a parent ... It is a parent's job to make sure the
| software and the content children are using is appropriate for
| them and is in their interest. If one is relying on for profit
| companies, then .... I'd rather not say.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| > Even before investigations revealed that the company's products
| were destroying teens' mental health
|
| This is tangential, but are we all just credulously swallowing
| this claim now? What's next, casual references to the obviously-
| stolen 2020 election? The Facebook study claimed nothing close to
| "destroying teens' mental health"; it didn't even show net harm!
| The topline claims were something like 30% of teens self-
| reporting that use made them feel worse... With 30% reporting no
| change and 30% reporting it made them feel better. That's
| ignoring the multiple other problems with the interpretations of
| the study that are floating around:
|
| 1) intentionally unrepresentative sample and minuscule sample
| size
|
| 2) self-reporting, which decades of higher-quality research has
| shown is not correlated with harm when it comes to the
| relationship between teens and media use (high-quality studies
| have so far shown a minimal relationship between phone/social
| media use and any objective measure of teen mental health)
|
| 3) other larger studies are even more positive than Facebook's
| internal study, showing almost 3x as many teens claiming an
| improvement in mental health from social media than a decline[1]
|
| I know we're in a post-truth world, but it's a really jarring
| reminder how universally the rot has spread that this is an Ars
| Technica article posted on HN, both entities that I once
| considered to at least display a _pretense_ of intellectual
| honesty.
|
| The weirdest part about all of this is that I hold and have
| always held a very low opinion of Facebook, and think their
| amoral reputation is fully deserved. It's just a more strongly-
| held belief that it's insane to barrel full-speed towards
| destroying any sense that we all live in the same reality. It's
| no more defensible when Ars+HN does it than when a QAnon Facebook
| group does.
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043138622/facebook-
| instagram...
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _I know we 're in a post-truth world,_
|
| We're not in a post-truth world; people have always made stuff
| up. We've just got the cultural values of the scientists,
| applied to our good ol' traditional behaviour, so people are a
| little more credulous at the moment than they usually are.
| nyxaiur wrote:
| No, the problem is scientist getting paid by conglomerates.
| The Institute of Tabaco Studies is the best examples or the
| bogus pain experts Perdue had on their payroll. People
| trusted scientist so big cooperation bought the scientists.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| > We're not in a post-truth world; people have always made
| stuff up.
|
| A post-truth world doesn't mean that lies now exist, but I
| suspect you know that. I'm referring to things like the
| dramatic declines in trust in journalism[1], a crucial part
| of how we build our aforementioned shared reality. There are
| cultural and technological explanations for this, but no
| small part of the blame falls on journalism itself (though
| arguably, this is just the inevitable consequence of the
| structural economic challenges that they've faced).
|
| The explosion of communication and information access
| engendered by the Internet is a double-edged sword. Decent,
| intelligent people are able to sift through the firehose of
| lower-quality info to build a clearer view of the world than
| ever before, without being bottlenecked by the pitfalls faced
| by the institutions that used to have a monopoly on producing
| and transmitting knowledge.
|
| But it seems that the vast, vast majority of people benefited
| from the paternalism of our scientific and journalistic
| institutions, and are helpless before the one-two punch of a)
| a firehose of low-quality info and b) the spreading rot in
| the scientific and especially journalistic establishment.
|
| [1] https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/
| Pro... The proportion of Americans who trust the media is at
| 2/3 of what it was even 20 years ago
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| True. I was comparing now to the days before newspapers and
| investigative journalism. Perhaps "post-truth" does make
| sense as a term, if there was also "pre-truth", and we have
| left the golden age of truth.
| d2049 wrote:
| I also wish people on HN would be more thoughtful. If they
| don't believe six year olds should be marketed to, shouldn't
| they be similarly outraged about candy companies (where sugar
| is known to be both addictive and incredibly harmful), ads for
| toys and other products during Saturday morning cartoons, etc?
| The simple answer is, they aren't outraged about those things
| because they're not being fed that message through their media
| bubble. Most people here probably didn't even read the article
| about the documents, but they commented or upvoted. That is,
| like you said, no better than when people are doing the same on
| crazy conspiracy theories.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Yes, and these pitfalls are so obvious and straightforward
| that I've been careening for the last decade towards the
| conclusion that most people who do this simply aren't capable
| of understanding the concept. It's beyond their ability to
| understand that their opinions about the world should be
| anything but an uncritical regurgitation of every single
| _mood_ that their media bubble pushes on them (despite being
| in a state of permanent horror at how the "other side"
| uncritically regurgitates everything _their_ media bubble
| pushes on them).
|
| I'm sure this is a process that every person with a brain has
| gone through in every period of history, but being in the
| early stages of the Internet's massive transformation of the
| way society communicates with itself seemingly makes it a lot
| more volatile.
| lovecg wrote:
| You hit the nail on the head. Any other study which is nothing
| but a few dozen people surveyed about how an intervention X
| made them feel, with the results split would barely register on
| HN. Yet if X = Instagram use it's suddenly this huge news.
| rustamm wrote:
| You're so right about this. I'm surprised so many HN users just
| blindly accept any critical claim about facebook.
|
| The article on Ars is pure click bait. Nowhere in the article
| 6yo kids are mentioned. The article doesn't even contain any
| news material, it just regurgitates things published a week
| ago.
|
| Reliance on self reported studies, that doesn't even paint
| Facebook bad by itself. If you want to prove that Facebook is
| bad for mental health, show me at least an observational study
| that so that I can compare the baseline prevalence of mental
| health disorders with the mental health of FB users. I doubt it
| would be different for any other social network user. The key
| word here is comparison. Raw numbers rarely mean anything by
| themselves.
| cbtacy wrote:
| From the article... "Facebook was considering new products
| targeted at children as young as six years old, according to
| a new document handed over to Congress by whistleblower
| Frances Haugen."
| blue_box wrote:
| They don't need to create a new product for them. They are going
| to buy Roblox soon and have millions of children on their
| platform.
| chipgap98 wrote:
| I don't think this is a real possibility. Any large scale
| acquisition that Facebook tries to do would be blocked the the
| US government.
| notRobot wrote:
| ...really? The Instagram purchase wasn't blocked. The
| WhatsApp purchase wasn't blocked. The Oculus purchase wasn't
| blocked. But this one will be?
| throwaway946513 wrote:
| Considering that those acquisitions proceeded before the
| intense scrutiny Facebook has received in the past year or
| two, it is quite likely that it would be blocked.
| mdoms wrote:
| This is a fantasy. The US government has not meaningfully
| regulated big tech and there's no reason to believe they will
| start now (unless you consider the public bloviation of
| politicians "reason to believe" - I do not).
| pugets wrote:
| Facebook should first understand that a lot of kids avoid
| Facebook specifically because their parents are on it. No kid
| wants mom & dad to read everything they write online.
|
| TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram are all the rage among kids, and
| those apps are like the Wild West compared to Facebook and
| Twitter. TikTok is the fastest-growing app of them all, and the
| company don't seem to care at all what kids post online, who
| views the content, or whether kids are being harmed.
| reayn wrote:
| Most kids avoid facebook because it's not nearly as friendly
| UI-wise as tiktok/instagram or snapchat and lacks a lot of
| "shiny features" that those apps have. The word "facebook" also
| comes with a pretty boomer connotation when heard by anyone
| under the age of 20 nowadays and most kids genuinely think that
| only grandparents use it.
|
| Also the quality and types of content you frequently find on
| facebook simply just don't attract people our age anymore.
|
| >nd the company don't seem to care at all what kids post
| online, who views the content, or whether kids are being
| harmed.
|
| They have no reason to, all of the names you mentioned make all
| of their decisions and changes based off of what will increase
| engagement, not the greater good.
|
| Pretty sure everyone on HN already knows that though.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _Instagram_ [...] _compared to Facebook_
|
| Obligatory "Facebook controls Instagram" comment. I'm sure
| Facebook is perfectly aware.
| itomato wrote:
| Youngsters have an online profile.
|
| To do without shaping that profile would be unthinkable.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-11-01 23:02 UTC)