Facebook engineer Ashok Chandwaney quits with scathing letter | Hacker News Reader

Facebook engineer Ashok Chandwaney quits with scathing letter

gizmodo.com

56 pointsKroeler58 comments

We all walk around with our model of the world in our heads. When we see something that reinforces our model we get a dopamine hit. "I knew I was right!" Instead of Fox or MSNBC selecting stories for a target audience facebook uses machine learning to find the perfect selection of stories to keep you hooked.

Before Facebook had an algorithm you'd see peoples posts in chronological order. The moment they altered that was where they began to influence behavior.

I do think that facebook is in the position to do something about its negative influence. And taking no action or saying "it's too hard to fix" is basically being complicit. You don't get to profit off of this machine without being responsible for its negative externalities. At least from a moral standpoint.

The solution? Stop the manipulation of what users see based on machine learning. Users should see what their friends and groups post chronologically. What would be the downside of that? I'd spend less time on facebook (an upside if you ask me) and facebook would make less money.

This is a very interesting solution: in effect _remove_ our interventions.

If done cautiously, it could be very effective.

Some of the counter to it could look like this:

a. "Addicting" can be another synonym for "something people want, despite themselves", which means that it may not be up to Facebook:

  - If you remove sugar from snickers for example, it doesn't immediately follow that they will eat less sugar: they could just as well buy kit kats instead.

The interesting question could be: how can we remove the machine learning intervention, while keeping engagement high?

I'd argue that engagement is the wrong metric. For example, when Microsoft made the Windows Phone OS, they tried to keep interactions with the phone as brief as possible. Palm, too, had a three-click-maximum rule for their UI design.

If we can't think of a good metric that should apply to everyone, just give users more control over what they see so they have a chance of figuring out something for themselves.

This issue lies in the example: why isn’t windows phone dominant today?

We may argue that engagement is the wrong metric, but ultimately what matters is what customers will choose. If choosing between A and B, they choose the more engaging one, you’re in a tough spot.

I agree with your alternative, but with a twist: in effect you need to come up with something, that users will like _more_ then what they are doing now. More customization could be an option, but this hasn’t proven to be true in the market.

This is literally just a political rant scribbled while slamming the door on an ex-employer. Seems like Facebook has reduced it's bias by one engineer as a result.

Link to the actual letter: https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/resignation-letter-fr...

paywalled - is there an alternative link?

Edit: thanks for the readable links!

Direct PDF link: https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/do...

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/do...

It seems motivated by ad dollars. If a potential customer wants to sell vitamins to someone with far right views, the platform needs those customers to be active.

It needs them to provide signals so that it can identify who to show the ads to. Its that simple. I met up with a friend who spends thousands a day on Facebook ads.

I have only spend $20 a week at most before, but it was just for testing. I had no idea how the latest system works. He opened my eyes to how valuable the profiles of people are to Facebook.

Thailand forced FB to restrict access to a group criticizing the monarchy. Should FB comply with governments that want to silence and lie to their people? Should FB push for Western free speech ideals everywhere? I think FB is in a no-win situation. There is no consistent policy that works globally. All the discussion has been narrowly focused on the US, yet most FB users are outside the US. What should the policy be in countries with oppressive governments you don’t like?

I was a little annoyed by the formatting so here is the md to html version:

https://siasky.net/EAC6We3XQV511dL6QnW4i0v5P7nkXrZaqbturF9ft...

and the md:

https://siasky.net/CAC3i72n4nno0lrq_gx_m3TanpTOgPFbIVolDUMRT...

Wow, vacancy at Facebook. I'll send my resume!

In Myanmar, Facebook has such a presence, that the word "facebook" was used in place of the internet. Mobile providers gave preferential(unmetered) access to facebook, so everyone uses it[0]. At the time of the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya, facebook had maybe one or two people who could speak the local language on staff..[1] Despite it being used by the whole country. The government used FB extensively to spread messages of ethnic hate, about the bad things Rohingya were doing.[2] I volunteered with some young Myanmar students in Japan at the time. They were completely adamant that Muslims were coming across the boarder and attacking Burmese people, and the government was just sending soldiers for security. They also let politicians spread hate in The Philippines (look up Maria Ressa's years of work about this.[3])

We don't need Tech experts running platforms of social exchange, we need them to be run by society experts..

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/01/facebook-free-basics-endin...

[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-...

[2] https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/dangerous-speech-anti-muslim-v...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed7s4OL65IA

Here’s a link to the letter. I almost joined FB for a ridiculous sum of money/equity and chose not to due to their participation in the proliferation of right wing/white supremicist hate speech. Two years later I am glad to have my position be vindicated by, inter alia, this letter.

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/do...

Legal and free speech issues aside, on Twitter I’m subscribed to an account that posts the ‘Top 10 most engaged articles/accounts on FB this week’ lists and it’s just damning how dominant hateful far-m right content is.

I get the idea of joining Facebook to do excellent engineering work, but for most at the company the outcome of all that excellent engineering is more people spending more time engaging with ‘Obama is a secret Muslim’ and QAnon type articles.

I hope Ashok finds good work at a quality company soon.

nailed it - same thing utterly convinced me, observing the top daily stories over time makes you clear-eyed.

it's no different than when i was 7, at the grocery store, and wouldn't stop asking my mom why tabloids were sold on the checkout lane caps if they were made up lies about conspiracies

they don't sell them on the checkout caps anymore

Facebook is the one major social network not censoring the right. The left doesn't make the top 10 because they are far too diffuse among other networks, but no less hateful. Reddit is actively working towards censoring anything right of Hilary and barely tolerating anything right of Bernie. Twitter is actively suppressing the POTUS. Far left views get diluted between Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit.

What's the Twitter account?

It’s @FacebooksTop10 and it’s run by Kevin Roose who is a tech writer for NYT. He focuses some of his time on how hate speech and conspiracy theories thrive on Facebook, which is pretty interesting.

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