It's increasingly clear that Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp are applications that every technologist should shun, and advocate against in their personal lives and in their workplace based on the actions of the corporation that owns them.
As long as the app remains ad-free and E2E encrypted, it's not clear to me that WhatsApp is yet worse than plain SMS.
the tougher thing for me has been the network effect and getting folks to make the jump since _everyone_ is on whatsapp.
One of the reasons I deleted my Instagram account in 2017 was that their recommendation algorithm started showing me neo-Nazi posts. I suspect this was because I followed a bunch of motorcycle and custom/vintage truck hobbyist accounts. Turns out a lot of these IG bikers and truck bros were neo-Nazis. Definitely not something I want from my hobbies.
Really? That seems... unlikely. Is it possible that your bar for “Nazi” is screwed to include things someone right of center would think are just normal values? Because I’m guessing you saw BUILD THAT WALL posts and AR-15 Competition pictures and not swasticas and lynched black men.
I saw some of the symbols featured on this page:
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/...
And some symbols on this page:
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/08/12/flags-and-oth...
A lot of it was from European neo-Nazis about European issues (threats directed towards refugees, Muslims, Communists).
If Facebook is generally considered harmful (i.e. to society), and if they know that it's considered harmful, and they continue to work there, putting their limited time on earth to growing, enhancing, improving a service that is harmful, then they are bad people.
They can be good family people, good for their communities, but bad for society at large. Being good mothers and fathers, volunteering for neighborhood garbage cleanups, helping out in their church or mosque, that doesn't make their day job work not bad, or make them not bad for doing the harmful day job work. They can be both.
I for one couldn't look my children in the eye each night and say, "I did something harmful for society today, that is what afforded you a new Switch."
Not it shouldn't. We know that these companies are morally corrupt. When you sell your time to help grow these companies you are also morally corrupt. Simples.
I still wonder if AI giants like Yann LeCun and John Carmack should be considered evil cogs in the machine.
And (while I’m not necessarily saying that Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp are fundamentally bad) the way history might judge people (such as your friends) would be in their response to finding themselves working at companies which could be considered morally dubious.
Do they deserve to be judged in 2020 for decisions they made 30 years before the clear effects of global warming were visible?
I would argue that yes, they do.
By that metric, there are several thousand other companies that are more worthy of our boycott, by virtue of literally ravaging the planet, poisoning human beings and propping up brutal dictatorships.
EDIT: By the lack of responses and the litany of downvotes, I'm guessing no one can actually articulate a response, but it's just bad because feel feels.
Get your message out by all means, however, our government is too important to be left to the whims of the free market in terms of deciding who amongst us is going to be running it.
There cannot be an equal opportunity platform when everything degenerates to "the richest guy wins the contest for mindshare". If everyone were working out of the same pool, and using the same avenues for outreach, you'd have a much easier time of it regulating the current wild west of mass media outreach for political purposes, and purportedly a much more effective one-stop shop where people could actually go to become informed on what can auditable be sourced to a campaign.
Least that's the drift I'm picking up.
I mean there are all kinds of disparities in terms of likeability and attractiveness. Certainly, those who are rich have an easy way to advertise -- by spending money -- and thus to be seen. However, some people are naturally louder than others. Some, more outgoing. Some are extroverts. Some not, etc. Our government is formed from people who are able to convince others to vote for them. This is not about ideas, or the 'best ideology'. It is ultimately about likeability, which differs already from person to person. I don't understand why money makes a difference.
Anyway, as we've seen money doesn't make a difference. In the last election, it bought Clinton only a narrow margin in the popular vote despite spending twice as much. And of course it cost her the election.
I don't see much indication that -- at the highest levels of office -- money makes much difference. Perhaps it can at a local level, and of course buying votes outright should be outlawed, as it is. But I do not understand the moral outrage here.
https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/did-money-win
Actually talk to actual voters? Like American politicians did for 200 years before the internet?
I dunno. Lincoln's campaigns look quite commercial and media savvy: https://clickamericana.com/topics/politics/abraham-lincolns-...
Electing the ruler to an effective empire is a very different process to electing a local mayor.
because it undermines the democratic principle of one person having one vote. Money is speech in the US and Bloomberg has more of it than a lot of people combined. He's not even participating in civic discourse or debates, politics is not any more about debating ideas or running on a positive vision, it's two New York oligarchs having a personal feud on twitter with one calling the other short and the other one making gingerbread man memes.
If I'm not mistaken the ideal of American democracy was that ordinary people can take control of their own lives and govern themselves, not that increasingly bizarre celebrities and public figures control media and government because they have more money to spend on influencers on instagram and television ads.
This isn't politics any more where people get together to deliberate how they want to organise their social life, it's a giant circus in which tech companies, the media and a whole array of grifters use for to make money or amuse themselves.