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Comment by badfrog | Hacker News Reader

I worked at FB for three years as a software engineer. The people I worked with basically believed:

1) The core product is good and useful to people/society

2) Most of the negative articles about Facebook are based on some piece of truth but go out of their way to make things seem worse and more sinister than they really are

3) Zuck generally wants to do the right thing, but of course makes mistakes

4) Yes the company does bad things sometimes, but not significantly worse than Google or Amazon (which are the main places many FB employees would consider working if they left)

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And what did you believe, or currently do?

Basically the same. My reasons for leaving were not related to company/product ethics.

"3) Zuck generally wants to do the right thing, but of course makes mistakes"

Yeah, he does not mistakes like openly calling his users dumb fxxxx anymore.

https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-im...

But I have zero indications to believe, that he changed his believes in any way. Sad truth is, that he might be right. Mainstream humanity seems pretty stupid, to trust all their sensitive data to strangers who apparently have no respect for them. Does not make Zuckerberg a nice person, though.

I disagree with all of those, but more specifically with

>> 1) The core product is good and useful to people/society.

Definitely not. If you had to put a numerical value on Facebook impact on society, it would be extremely negative I think. You grab attention of weak users, that end up spending so much time on your platform doing nothing instead of contributing in things that would benefit society. You create an illusion that everyone got a beautiful life, pushing some people on the verge to suicide//depression. And maybe the worst of all, you block free speech based on whatever private criterias you decide and you allow for mass brain washing by pushing ideas on your newsfeed. The only positive side is your utility of connecting people which already perfectly existed before.

The only reason why you get away with all of this is because it is so difficult to put an actual number on those.

> The only reason why you get away with all of this is because it is so difficult to put an actual number on those.

It's equally difficult to put numbers on the positive effects, which can be anything from enjoying a joke to organizing a protest of an oppressive government to preventing a suicide.

Or simply live casting the torture of a mentally challenged individual.

As I said in a previous comment, I'd be curious if this "wasting time instead of contributing to society" applies also to other entertainment companies that quite literally waste thousands of hours a year of the average weak person, such as Netflix, which instead is typically seen as providing very positive value to society.

Yeah, it kind of implies that you should spend 100% of your waking time being "productive", which is not realistic. Everybody needs time to recharge, and depending on your personality, that can be anything from going to a bar with friends, to playing recreational sports, to watching TV, to scrolling through the internet.

Yeah. I ask this because I want to be able to understand the personality of whomever is writing these comments, before deciding if I should consider or simply dismiss them.

If the person will just say "year, clearly Netflix is just as negative for society", then that will be enough for me to completely dismiss this person's opinions on the entire matter, since Netflix, just as Facebook, has provided me with massive positive value, even if, at times, it made me jealous of seeing the life of other people as presented in some TV shows, again just as Facebook.

While I also wouldn't put Netflix on a pedestal, I think it is in a very different category than Facebook:

Netflix, you indeed lose your time but you don't have that feeling that everyone else is having a wonderful time while you are losing yours on the couch. Netflix (as TV) provides some healthy entertainment.

Facebook on the other hand provides entertainment by broadcasting how perfect other people's life are. And this is exactly what pushes people to depression and suicide. Ask people you know and most of them will admit that after their daily visit on Facebook they feel a bit burned-out. This effect is also magnified because you now always keep in mind that you should post a "perfect picture" on Instagram to please your followers.

This seems like a stretch to me and certainly diminishes the value of your opening original comment "... that end up spending so much time on your platform doing nothing instead of contributing in things that would benefit society".

Personally, I've just as well felt a bit burned-out by watching very popular TV shows on Netflix portraying the amazing lives of some people as I have with Facebook, and I would never say Netflix has caused negative value to my life, just as I wouldn't say that with Facebook, which in my personal experience has been one of the very best products of this decade.

Certainly agree to disagree.

I can see your point and definitely agree to disagree.

I think the perverse effect of Facebook are not fully well understood yet. But I'm fairly confident we will look back at this as something terrible. Facebook and Instagram also indirectly created the selfie generation, more self-centered than ever with the goal of getting more and more likes. I don't see that happening with TV.

And then there is the whole fee-speech//mass propaganda tool// privacy debate that I'm not even getting into.

> Netflix (as TV) provides some healthy entertainment.

It's far from obvious that TV is healthy. This article has some discussion of one potential downside and a rebuttal: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-tv-rot-your-...

With simple logic: If TV is not Healthy, then Facebook is definitely worse as it mixes TV and broadcasts specifically the fake perfect life of people you know.

Would you apply that reasoning to watching porn, reading Harry Potter novels, bbq-ing etc?

Arguably, none of those are "contributing in things that would benefit society".

Every generation has its own toxic time wasters. Things that people aren't willing to pay for, and wished they used less off. But the alternative is doing nothing, which can actually be painful to some.

It used to be TV, chat, radio. Netflix actually brings a lot to the table, in that people appreciate it enough to pay for it.

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