Comment by GreeniFi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by GreeniFi | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think I’m the only one that finds it a bit weird what a hash FB have made of this issue. For a long time it was an era-defining company. It’s employees and even Zuckerberg seemed intent on making the world a better place. But the machine metastasized into something other than a tool to share baby pictures with distant relatives. I think we’ve all (re)learned for the first time that virality seems to favour the bad guys. Tap our worse nature and score eyeballs(1). In a sense this wasn’t FB’s fault, it’s a feature of human nature which FB inadvertently facilitated.

As such, I don’t see why FB just didn’t try and own this. They had a lot of goodwill, even as the platform changed over the years. Why didn’t they just come clean: we have a serious issue, and we’re going to close down aspects of the platform until we can deal with it.

I obviously know none of the protagonists of this tale, but I’d love some insight into their personalities and how these drove their decisions.

(1) I say (re)learned as this as been the profit basis of British tabloids for 30 years and more.

Edit: for formatting and clarification of one point.

> I don’t see why FB just didn’t try and own this. They had a lot of goodwill, even as the platform changed over the years. Why didn’t they just come clean: we have a serious issue, and we’re going to close down aspects of the platform until we can deal with it.

Probably because, at their core, they're a shady company. The idea of being upfront, honest, and embracing shot term pain to benefit others is alien to their DNA.

Facebook's entire business model involves tracking people and tricking them to reveal more about themselves than they realize, then they use that data in ways they're not entirely honest about. Those practices build institutional habits of mind that are hard to break.

The movie The Social Network might be half fictionalized, but it portrayed a way someone like Zuckerberg or Sanders could be out of touch with reality by not responding to normal social cues or morals, and then getting used to getting away with things.

The platform has so much volume they refuse to actually hire enough people to monitor it, they've adapted to this level of profitability and won't change without being forced to (it's the same issue with Youtube, if it can't be automated, the platform would have to change) - it's like how in the USA and even the UK farmers with significant manual labour requirements won't raise wages, they'll try to get migrant farm workers to do it.

out of touch with reality by not responding to normal social cues or morals, and then getting used to getting away with things.

I like to call this Michael Jackson Syndrome.

People get rich and/or famous enough and surround themselves with enough sycophants who keep telling them how great they are and they start doing things that normal people wouldn't do. Then it turns into a destructive feedback loop.

> I like to call this Michael Jackson Syndrome.

Uhh I definitely wouldn't compare Michael Jackson to a Zuckerbot/Sandberg (the latter were raised in seemingly wholesome suburban families and just seem to have ego/greed issues, while the former (not being a saint himself or anything) was the victim on an abusive/oppressive childhood). Don't really want to get into this, as it'd be an unrelated tangent.

TLDR: this is a horrible attempt at drawing a parallel

Consider this: Facebook brought on Joel Kaplan in May 2011.

According to wikipedia:

In May 2011 Facebook hired Kaplan as its vice president of U.S. Public Policy, as part of a Facebook's effort to "strengthen" the company's ties to Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.[8] In October 2014 Kaplan succeeded Marne Levine as Facebook's vice president of global public policy.[9]

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

The first big FTC ding against FB was in Nov 2011. That's some good timing!

Further, before working for Facebook, the wonderful Joel Kaplan oversaw public affairs for Energy Future Holdings. Ok, so what? Well, from the wikipedia for Energy Future Holdings:

Energy Future Holdings owns four of the nation’s highest emitting coal-fired power plants, which together account for approximately one quarter of all industrial/utility air pollution reported to Texas regulators.

And:

The Martin Lake, Big Brown, and Monticello plants rank first, third, and fourth, respectively, in airborne mercury pollution in the United States according to company reports submitted to the EPA.[10][13] Such high levels of mercury pollution have drawn criticism for their harmful effects on child development.[13]

And:

NOx emissions from EFH’s coal plants help contribute to harmful levels of ozone in the air in Dallas and other parts of east Texas, and ozone pollution can trigger asthma attacks and respiratory problems.[13]

So you have this guy that clearly gives zero fucks about "making the world a better place" or whatever Mark says his vision is.

To me, that really says it all.

> It’s employees and even Zuckerberg seemed intent on making the world a better place.

That was their public relations working as planned.

Actions never reflected that. Unlike Google, who had, in fact, tried to not be evil (but has since removed "don't be evil" from their mission statement...), FB was evil from the start, but behaved like it was the fault of those dumb fucks. (And in many ways, it still is - fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, then thrice, then gogoolice...)

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