Interview with Reid Hoffman | Hacker News Reader

Interview with Reid Hoffman

nytimes.com

65 pointsrmason35 comments

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth that Reid Hoffman, Jeff Weiner, DJ Patil et al get to live their day to day without the reputation hit or scrutiny of FB because LinkedIn is not as “sexy” a media target despite being notorious for using the shadiest dark patterns in the industry and almost certainly historically more cavalier with user data than either FB or Goog with the lawsuits to back it up.

Edit: I added DJ Patil because he’s built a post-LinkedIn image as a champion of data for good but as the chief data person at LinkedIn almost certainly was the mastermind behind all the shady things LinkedIn ever did with user data.

I am curious, what shady dark patterns, and what cavalier things have they done with the data? I know there was a data breach but anything else?

You can google for it...both the lawsuits around misuse of user data and their notorious use of dark patterns

You made the claim, so you should back it up. I can google lots of things related to LinkedIn, but whatever I may find may not be exactly what you are referencing.

Looking up LinkedIn dark patterns will show you tons of stuff. Just alone on HN you’ll find tons of stuff. It Is common enough on HN itself so I don’t think the OP needs to back it up.

The effects of Facebook on our society have been extreme, often negative, and for the most part unforeseen until more recently. People consider it to have precipitated a crisis.

Is there any plausible argument that LinkedIn has contributed to the decline of society? Because it’s at least arguable that Facebook has.

Just because your impact on the world is not as huge or consequential as Facebook doesn’t give you free range to exploit user data as you please and protect you from legitimate criticism for doing so. That is classic “whataboutism”

I think the smart thing is they didn't wander too much into politics. At least most of my LinkedIn feed is mostly still about work related topics.

The shadiest thing LinkedIn has ever done with user data is buttress their recommendation algorithms. I used to work there and trust me the data we have on customers is neither nefarious nor used for shady things other than growth. The dark patterns deserve their criticism but we have a very minimal picture of someone’s life other than a resume and business connections.

Have you talked to people worked for LinkedIn marketing or sales solution?

LinkedIn once asked if I wanted to see what contacts I knew in the network. I clicked ok to connect to my email, and it immediately sent an email to everyone in my email history. It pretended to be written by me, saying I wanted to reconnect. It sent it to everyone - every old landlord, ever ex, every business contact, everyone. It was literally identity theft. That's a dark pattern.

Dark pattern right there

Meddling in an Alabama election isn't exactly sitting on the sidelines.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/us/reid-hoffman-alabama-e...

Reid Hoffman apologizes for funding a group that allegedly spread misinformation in Alabama Senate race

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/26/reid-hoffman-apologizes-for-...

He is funding another one for 2020 election. The stealth startup is crating a new campaign tool and only sells to one side of political spectrum.

I'm perfectly okay with him sitting on the sidelines if the alternative is him paying people to spread fake news.

Except Reid Hoffman is doing the ultimate in sideline sitting by supporting milquetoast campaigns and candidates with small ideas. This article is a puff piece where he manages to make no interesting or bold political claims. I am going to hold our leaders to a higher standard.

PAY YOUR TAXES REID, THATS ALL WE NEED.

Before I clicked the comments button and without reading the article I made a mental bet with myself that the first comment would be something negative (a growing trend on HN I’ve observed). You did not disappoint (well kinda...).

@all: Is anyone aware of any sentiment analysis that’s been done on HN posts across time? I am fascinated by what may be digital equivalent of the Marxist proletariat uprising.

> what may be digital equivalent of the Marxist proletariat uprising.

What do you mean by this analogy?

I think he means the correction of a system with wealth inequality that leads to the people we love most suffering through no fault of their own. We can see the backsliding of quality of life for people who's output has been unchanging for decades. Many of us have friends and family who live "back home" and are not software engineers with healthy budgets. Many of us are married to or are related to people who come from different socio-economic, ethnic or racial backgrounds which have given us the uncommon knowledge (to privileged society) of what it is like to be stuck in a class of perpetually losing.

I see. I misunderstood then. IMO, that is not a good description of a Marxist uprising.

It's a common trend but I don't believe it's a growing one. Indignation comes up as a fast reflex response. Thoughtful comments are reflective and come more slowly. That's all one needs to explain why negative comments show up first.

Please don't use HN for political battle and please don't use uppercase for emphasis. These are two of the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

I would edit my comment however the site doesn't have such advanced functionality.

Comments can be edited until the edit window runs out (2 hours). It's necessary for discussions to congeal after a while, because it's confusing to readers and unfair to repliers when an earlier comment removes what a later comment replied to. Allowing edits for a while, and then not, is the tradeoff here.

If users want a comment edit after the window has expired, they can always email us at hn@ycombinator.com.

Also, I think that this article was inherently political. To ask me not to mention politics in my comment of it is not in good faith. I can't see how this isn't more stifling to intellectual curiosity.

Everything is inherently political. Mentioning and battling are different.

I wrote about our approach to moderating politicized topics recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20013092. If after reading that you still find something unclear, I'd be happy to answer additional questions.

Thank you for writing about this. I am happy to see you engaging with the community on this.

I've never met anyone who admires Reid Hoffman.

Maybe not, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here, and especially not personal attacks.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

Edit: it looks like you've done it a lot, and we ban that sort of account. If you're going to post here, could you please do it more thoughtfully from now on?

dang, I don't know if you read your comment replies, or if you're even a single person. Thanks for taking the time to moderate HN.

Even though I don't always agree with which comments get flagged / etc, I appreciate you keeping unproductive comments to a minimum.

I'm a person. I read them. I think Gary Numan is interesting too.

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