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Comment by BenderV | Hacker News Reader

Zuckerberg is not responsable for the existence of the Friendship Paradox or our natural instinct to envy, etc. Facebook mission in itself, is good. We have no reason to doubt Zuckerberg honesty to do good. Do you have any example where Facebook did something that they knew was bad but still did it?

It's true that social network bring bad side effects, everything does. They can only try to correct them.

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> Do you have any example where Facebook did something that they knew was bad but still did it?

Yes, here's a study on manipulating the feed of over 600,000 users, in order to elicit an emotional response. Without asking for permission of course, because apparently you agree to FB playing mind tricks on you when "agreeing" to their terms and conditions. Really, it can't get worse than this and they have no justification.

Here's the resulting paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full.pdf

Ah yes, I had forgotten about this unethical chestnut you have brought forth. This is the kind of research which would never (and I do mean literally never-- no chance, zero, nada, zilch) get approved by an institutional review board (IRB) if a scientist wanted to perform a similar experiment. There was no consent process, and the study aimed to effect a tangible and measurable emotional change, for no real greater good/purpose.

I also forgot about this one. Good too recall. Especially now that algorithms dictate more and more our lives, are still not (usually) public.

You are aware that every advertisement you look at every day has been designed to elicit an emotional response yes? The advertisers in the newspaper, Internet and billboard down the street didn't get your opt in permission either.

Not the same context, though you're right, it's similar-- the context of this was specifically to study the capacity for an effective emotional change controlled by social media only. They didn't have any monetization plans for the emotional change, which could potentially be negative.

that doesn't make it any more moral. just because others are already doing it, is it automatically OK?

Actually it does. They did something relatively harmless for science (and maybe, indirectly, for profit). The whole advertising industry is based on doing worse things, all the time, for pure profit. That this Facebook study is a subject of an outrage is, frankly, ridiculous.

That is an appeal to tradition, and it a fallacy. It isn't moral for advertisers to do harmful things to users just because most advertisers do it.

Most scientist do not do harmful things to their subjects. Modern science requires consent. So your fallacious argument, even if it weren't, fails to argue correctly in the first place, because scientists aren't advertisers.

Facebook study was done without consent. It was harmful to their users (subjects) because it interfered with their emotions. It is immoral.

The outrage might seem ridiculous, from the perspective of an advertiser, because, as you said, they do worst things all the time, so this study is hardly appalling for them. But from the perspective of other people, it is.

I hope this gave you an insight into (our) reaction to the study.

They do it explicitly with malicious intent; there is no bones about their goal which is to manipulate you and trick you into spending money on their products based on psychological charlatanry rather than offering you actual value.

It's different when you do 'research', i.e. purport to act like a scientist, not a scam artist.

I have always been surprised scientific and ethics committees haven't somehow come down on Facebook and its decision makers for this? Let alone, where is all of their data for public review to allow as many third-parties to analyze it as possible to view its impact?

Ethics committees have come down on FB for this. They just don't have any control over Facebook.

Do you know if any governments have taken any action - or are government ethics committees the brunt of it?

It's frightening to think that they have crunched the numbers on how a user's emotional state is reflected in profitable interactions.

> Zuckerberg is not responsable for the existence of the Friendship Paradox or our natural instinct to envy, etc.

Nor is the tobacco industry responsible for nicotine's addictive effects.

The question is, do the benefits outweigh the problems? As I've never used Facebook, I can't really judge.

> Nor is the tobacco industry responsible for nicotine's addictive effects.

Devil's advocate: this is not the main problem with tobacco industry. The main issue is that other components of tobacco smoke are carcinogenic.

The main problem is the industry has known for almost a century that severe health problems are linked to smoking tobacco, and spent the better part of that time hiding the truth while addicting a nation.

Now they're concentrating their focus on the Third World, getting millions more addicted where they aren't pestered by pesky "laws."

Nor should they be (although they are, IDK what absence of laws you're talking about, there are pictures of dead children in cigarette packs and advertising is illegal in most of LA). Everyone knows the risks, people smoke because they want to. Or do you think we, citizens of third world countries are all illiterate know nothings who got tricked by tobacco companies? I can't understand people wanting so bad to be other people babysitters. If you don't want to smoke don't, don't want your children to, teach them not to. Is that so hard?

> Everyone knows the risks

No, they probably don't. People don't know that smoking is the leading cause of erectile dysfunction; or that smoking is linked to penile cancer; or what the actual risks of lung cancer are.

People just know that smoking is harmful, but they laugh that off with "I might get hit by a bus tomorrow".

> Or do you think we, citizens of third world countries are all illiterate know nothings who got tricked by tobacco companies?

It's not about citizens of developing world being illiterate know-nothings, it's about tobacco companies being abusive manipulative arseholes who lie and who have millions of dollars to fund those lies.

now don't make people people completely stupid just because they don't have an university degree (or read HN). the fertility/ptence issues are not that famililar (and definitely should be spoken about more loudly, this would have bigger impact than photos of cancerous lungs), but even in very remote and undeveloped places, all know that smoking = potential lung cancer, and that's a very miserable way to die.

but guess what - all sorts of biases step in, we like to lie to ourselves, nicotine addiction isn't neglible either. in 2015, this information is world-widely known for years and years (apart from north korea, maybe), but people like to ignore it. somebody gets cancer from smoking? well man up and blame his own stupidity/weakness.

>No, they probably don't. People don't know that smoking is the leading cause of erectile dysfunction;

Yes, there is a picture of a man covering his genitalia with a thumbs down and a big IMPOTENCE written on the back of cigaret packages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_packaging_warning_mess...

Any large organic molecule you burn will be carcinogenic. That includes nicotine, any plant, and any paper you wrap it in.

They at least did doubtful experiments [1].

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinker...

"... no reason to doubt Zuckerberg honestly to do good."

That is not the way making a claim works. A claim is made, and evidence to support that claim must be brought forward before the claim is to be accepted. We have a claim, but no evidence for that claim in hand, and as such, intellectual honesty dictates that our doubt is 100%.

There is the old yet reliably sourced claim of Zuck calling his users dumb fucks. It is probably that his opinion has changed as he has matured, however the sourness of the original intent remains a part of his Facebook website.

Yes, you are right. Without any evidences, our doubts about any claims is total. I was just transposing my belief that people are generally honest and good. Though, I don't have any proof for that matter.

> Do you have any example where Facebook did something that they knew was bad but still did it?

The long con of Facebook itself -- fooling us all into giving up our privacy. We got here by FB misleading it in incredibly calculated ways. Google "Privacy Zuckering". It's a dark pattern that tricks users into giving up more privacy than they would want to, by making purposefully misleading UI. One trick after another like that is how we got here.

> Do you have any example where Facebook did something that they knew was bad but still did it?

Real name policy

Nothing to doubt? Do you know how Facebook was founded ?

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