Hacker News Reader

Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

>> We need to deprioritze short-term growth and revenue and to explain to Wall Street why that is ok. We need to be willing to pick sides when there are clear moral or humanitarian issues. And we need to be open, honest and transparent about challenges and what we are doing to fix them.

Those who want facebook to step up on various issues may regret it. Don't assume that Facebook will pick good over evil. Many Facebook people have spoken about the end of privacy, that it would be a good thing. Note that those who run Facebook don't actually use it, at least not in the way they want the rest of us to use Facebook. Do not expect Facebook to take the popular side. They have their own opinions that are likely very different than those of the common person.

View on HN

Many Facebook people have spoken about the end of privacy, that it would be a good thing.

Zuck famously tapes over his laptop camera even in a building and on a network he physically owns...

Because physically owning something means no one can digitally hack it. This is why no ones personal computer ever gets hacked... Oh wait

Not comparable. Zuck employs an army of security experts to keep FBs network secure. He’s protecting himself against Facebook itself.

> Note that those who run Facebook don't actually use it

I would love this claim to be true, but could you back it up with some data?

After one famous scandal it was revealed that FB actually forced moderators to have their personal accounts with real name and use them for moderation - that's how their identity was exposed:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/16/facebook-...

Off the FB topic, but when I was a consultant working at Google, implementing some mobile JS SDK stuff, I was an a presentation with country execs / project managers and team leads, there was about 12 in the room in total.

I said "here's the Android version, here put this URL in your phone"

There was a very sheepish silence as I looked around the table, and saw only iPhones. Nobody there had a single android phone in the room, except me, because I brought one in to test with.

I actually laughed out loud

"None of the company’s (Facebook) key executives has a “normal” Facebook presence. You can’t add them as friends, they rarely post publicly and they keep private some information that the platform suggests be made public by default, such as the number of friends they have.

Over at Twitter, the story is the same. Of the company’s nine most senior executives, only four tweet more than once a day on average."

in https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/23/never-get-high...

Couldn't that be chalked up to how insanely busy people in such positions must be in their day-to-day life?

For twits yes, but I don't see how it is relevant to showing how many friends you have for example on FB

The US President is a busy fellow, and yet...

> Don't assume that Facebook will pick good over evil

If Facebook doesn't, a new competitor will. People will switch if they no longer feel safe.

If Facebook becomes too thoroughly ingrained in everything then it would be rather difficult for a new competitor to step up. People are too willing to sacrifice privacy in the name of convenience.

I feel like facebook is getting less, not more ingrained in everything. Not being on facebook has only gotten easier for me, and young people don't seem keen on signing up for the service anymore.

That's a fair point. I pulled myself out of it last year (only check occasionally for updates on events my friends are planning), so I don't see its influence as much anymore... for which I am grateful haha.

Instagram seems to be the hot new thing for the younger generation, from what I understand, but Instagram is owned by Facebook. So while Facebook itself may not be keeping up, the company as a whole (and its methodologies regarding privacy) will likely remain relevant for a while yet.

young people prefer... Instagram (bought by Facebook) or whatever hot new startup (soon to be bought by Facebook)

I used to ask my students (2/3rd year university kids) about facebook. Last year all the females said the same thing: Facebook has too much of a "creep factor". They didn't feel safe. But work, especially applying for jobs, often demands one have a facebook presence. I myself, during background checks, have had to justify why I don't have a facebook account. In many corners it is just expected that everyone uses it, with suspicion falling on those who don't. This isn't the free market of econ textbooks.

Is the expectation that you have some social media presence or facebook in particular? Would "I mainly use twitter/g+/linkedin/instagram fly?"

The expectation is that everyone has some social media presence. Anyone claiming not to be on facebook is suspected of hiding something, that they are a liar.

I am hiding something when I close the stall door in the bathroom, but that doesn't make me an awful person.

What an insane viewpoint!

If you don't mind me asking, where are you located and what kind of jobs have asked you for this information? Do they ask for a username or do they try to friend you to access your private content? This is something I have never experienced and I'm genuinely curious to know what goal it serves the employer and how common of a practice it is.

Law, but I was teaching forensics students. Law firms and police departments do extensive background checks. I'm now in defense and we do insane background checks. If you say that you don't drink, you better not have a facebook page full of drunken party pictures.

side note: Women tend to prefer to preferred to as "women", not "females", and adult students tend to preferred be referred to as "adults" or "young adults", not "kids".

What industry are you in where people expect a Facebook account?

Ask a Rohingya: it makes no difference if you aren't on Facebook if your neighbour is on it being fed racist propaganda until they come to burn your house down.

> Don't assume that Facebook will pick good over evil

The first step is to realize that there is no such thing as good or evil, just what like-minded people choose or have been conditioned to see as good or evil. So saying that "Facebook will always do good and/or avoid evil" doesn't even make sense. Good according to whom? Evil according to whom? And since there ARE differences of opinion in those definitions, it will at some point be the case that whatever Facebook does do is something YOU would consider not-good, maybe even evil, even if the people who make up Facebook's decision making process legitimately think they are doing good. So you don't even have to be pessimistic or cynical for this argument to fall flat.

Your moral relativism argument might be relevant if everyone in this thread didn’t already have a shared understanding of what good/evil mean in the context of facebook and this discussion.

Can you summarise what that shared understanding is?

I'm sure numerous groups that you believe are evil have a shared understanding of good/evil in this context and others that does not agree with your own.

If you really want to practice empathy, you need to also practice empathy with those that you believe are evil. I'm certain that most of those people believe they are doing good.

You do have to be pessimistic or cynical to think that the words good and evil have no real meaning, or even if they do then it’s not worth trying to use them because nothing is perfect and clear.

Refusing to deal with nuance and disagreement in a complex world might even be a good practical definition of pessimism. It’s a catch all “what’s the point of even trying?” excuse.

I believe you have it backwards. Believing the words good and evil “have real meaning” is “refusing to deal with nuance and disagreement in a complex world.”

Reply on news.ycombinator.com