Facebook to staff: Avoid company-branded clothing for own safety
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
Facebook is still a great place to work but the brand is so damaged that it's hard to see how they gain consumer trust again. As a consumer company it means any new product (libra, unified family of apps etc..) will fail because of that.
By its own merits...
So by this calculus, all guilt, blame and responsibility is just waved away. They're only following orders, all the way to the top, where management are simply rationally trying to maximize revenue for stockholders, who also have no liability.
Using the Greysteil Graywashing System™, any crime may be committed and no one is ever held responsible!
Maybe someone sees it as an opportunity to learn from the talent around them, or enjoys the small piece that they’re working on.
But not everyone in a company that is less than favorable with a given population should be judged equally.
People heard the meme a lot, so they think it has weight without actually having thought about it. Encouraging people to reveal this about themselves, with pride no less, is the singular useful property GL has.
Most people need a job in order to continue to eat and to buy shoes for their children. They can't just quit. I don't judge anyone for working the job they can get.
They not only have other choices, but also are implementing the policies.
This is the problem with tech interviewing - it's so incredibly fickle that even someone with a senior job at a prestigious place doing practical work may not be able to pass an abstract problem-solving whiteboard interview somewhere else.
(And yeah, some of the Tech they do is cool and there are only few places with such demand for technical solutions for that large scale of operation, but there's cool tech elsewhere as well)
If there is one thing that Facebook developers should not have an issue with, it's in passing these kind of processes.
I'd worry about the opposite: if the typical image of a Facebook employee is of a drone suited at "studying to the test", working at a company with zero ethical principles and justifying it by the good money, then how will they be able to adapt to a more value-based job?
Well exactly - they may now have family commitments such as caring for people that make cramming impossible even if it was possible before.
> If there is one thing that Facebook developers should not have an issue with, it's in passing these kind of processes.
But they may have passed their interview a decade ago at this point. They may have also come in via an acquisition and so not formally interviewed at all if they come from an early startup.
You can take someone who passes an interview at Google but fails at Facebook, and vice-versa. These interviews are so incredibly astronomically tough and so subtle and fickle that it's no guarantee to be able to move.
People are not working at Facebook because they don't have other options.
This is not some last resort, minimum wage, no other options work. People spend weeks or months preparing for interview and then some of them move to the other end of country to work there. In fact it's pain in the ass to get job there, so people there really want to be there, and jump through hoops to get there.
They are plenty other related job's that will keep your family fed and clothed. People are not working at Facebook because they don't have other options.
There are plenty of people on this planet that have hard time putting food on the table and clothes on their children, equating them with Facebook employs that make 150k+ is just wrong
Right, so that's what it takes to get a tech job. And if you can't do that anymore (maybe you're a carer for example), you'll struggle to get a new job.
No that's what it takes to get one of the best paying tech jobs on the planet. If you lower your criteria there are plenty of other tech jobs that demand less, and compensate less.
Kind of gives perspective to how long Google (with Android, YouTube, Groups, GMail, GSuite, GCP) has managed to go relatively untarnished (as a brand) but Facebook couldn't.
I reckon that's because Google largely works on pull models: you ask for something and G gives it to you. Its services superficially appear like databases just sitting there, even if we know that's not the case.
FB and Twitter, on the other hand, largely work on push models: you log on and the app will give you stuff to look at, as well as notifying you incessantly. It easier to perceive the app's own agency and priorities.
In this sense, it explains why Google tends to get heat over Youtube: because it's closer to a push model, both with homepage and suggestions.
Also, Google services are largely useful to get stuff done, in a way FB and Twitter are not. That gives G a big pass.
There is an interesting speech by Zeynap Tufekci on this topic:
However you frame it, Google are showing you things you want to see - it's an affirmative feed back mechanism.
Facebook at best do that. Frequently they show you things you don't care about. Also things you don't want. It's an adversarial feedback mechanism.
In this light it's not surprising Facebook has earned a lot more ire a lot more quickly - though not undeservedly either.
On some level this still feels like you can squarely pin it on "optimizing for engagement". I highly doubt Facebook would be earning the anger it currently does if The Feed has remained a simple linear timeline. They were functionally getting into editorializing when they went with the new thing.
We're basically there already as far SEO spam goes, and Google goes to some efforts to try and minimize that because it's a bad search experience and drives people away.
"trust" is not meaningful where the whole purpose of Facebook is to profile people in order to influence (=manipulate) them through advertising and promoted content, and sell their data to third parties for other kinds of (mis)use.
That is what Facebook is about, in terms of its commercial model; it's not as though they're claiming something else and ask you to "trust" them.
(and of course, there's the small matter of letting the US government eavesdrop on all communications.)
"the brand is so damaged" as if it just happened for no reason
But in fact, Facebook destroyed its own brand.
Libra is a perfect example of it. After years of malfeasance, Facebook is going to print its own money! Why wouldn't we trust you?
I tried to dig up some stats, and the best I could find was a survey by The Verge[1] from Dec 2019:
According to the survey, 71% of people had a favorable opinion of Facebook, and 75% think Facebook has a positive or neutral impact on society.
However, Facebook scored relatively worse than most other brands surveyed (except Twitter), so you may be onto something. It's also possible that it's worsened in the past year.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21144680/verge-tech-survey...
Also, I suspect developers and knowledge workers are more likely to dislike Facebook. It doesn't matter what the cashier at Safeway thinks. If your friends and acquaintances hate Facebook, it's going to feel a lot worse. And if you are a developer or designer, it's likely you have a fair number of friends who are developers.
It's not the 90% of oblivious people who are the problem.
It's not even the 10% of "woke" digital people who are the problem. We probably need to talk about issues more in this country.
It's the <1% of those "woke" digital people who will gun you down at the local grocery store because you work at Facebook who are the problem. In the end, it's always the extremists that represent the threat, and therefore oblige the appropriate security posture.
Eh... no, I wasn't talking about anyone "gunning you down", the linked article is. I was just talking awkward conversations and getting the side-eye for working for the country's #1 douche.
I mean... yeah the 1% issue is likely bigger now, but this will blow over. Your buddies who think you sold your soul to the devil for a couple bucks will be around for years.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Make%2BOrwell%2BFiction%2BAgain+h...
A good comparison would be Nestlé. For decades now, a vocal minority have been calling for boycotts over their unethical methods, like with formula or or labor practices. Yet most people still happily buy Kit Kats.
I've seen multiple, separate parties see the commercials for Portal and be mildly interested in the product until it's revealed that it's by Facebook, and then they laugh and completely dismiss it a la "not a chance in hell I'm trusting Facebook to X".
I'd be curious to see how well they're selling (or not).
I looked through it and saw no mention of facebook or zuckerberg or even any facebook execs. I knew David Marcus is/was a facebook exec, but even he is listed as head of Novi[2]. That right there tells you how damaged that brand(facebook) is when their crytocurrency project doesn't list the company or the CEO(zuckerberg). Needless to say I said thanks, no thanks to that recruiter.
[1] - https://www.diem.com/en-us/
[2] - https://www.diem.com/en-us/association/#board_of_directors
* https://www.uniqlo.com/us/en/men-hybrid-down-parka-429290.ht...
* https://www.canadagoose.com/ca/en/mens-bromley-black-label-b...
* https://www.gucci.com/us/en/pr/men/ready-to-wear-for-men/out...
Uniqlo is one of the few stores I'll shop from because they don't have the the logos and are decent quality for the price.
I guess I should clarify my statement to be that the more gratuitous a logo, the less I think of the quality of the product. For example, I imagine Gucci is trying to cash in on its name, or people wanting to show off their willingness to spend money rather than it being a good jacket.
In a sense, Gucci and Vitton are what low class people think rich people wear. Kind of like Trump thinks being rich is shitting in gold toilets.
Of course, this contempt of "tacky luxury" is in itself a form of signaling among a certain class.
or maybe those "expensive ones" aren't higher end clothing in your pov?
Luxury brands also frequently sacrifice a brand every few years and drop it down the "status" level, such as Michael Kors/YSL/etc, and you will start seeing low quality product with the huge labels slapped over it sold in stores like Macys where they wouldn't have been seen before.
Zara/H&M/Uniqlo are nice in that they sell non logo'd utilitarian clothing at the lowest cost (I'm a big fan).
You are not your target market.
A blank patch looks sort of conspicuous, but a cute little non-corporate owl or fox will look like it's meant to be there.
I remove labels too when possible, and avoid clothing where the brand is an integral part of the item. Why would I keep them?
However, the vast majority of logos I see on clothes are actually part of the clothing, that's what I meant by "stitched in." I realize now, via Google, I meant "embroidered on."
EDIT: Just went through my closet and I found there's another large category of logos that are screen printed on. There were zero I personally saw that could be removed with a knife without heavily damaging the fabric. Maybe men's clothing is different.
With men's clothes, you can buy plain shirts, socks, etc in 3-packs (there's few choices, but few are needed). Women's clothes tend offer more unbranded options, unless you're buying athletic wear or a purse. Casual shoes generally suck in this regard, for men and women.
This has been getting more difficult, of late. It used to be that logos were embroidered on tags or patches, which were then stitched onto the clothes. But with embroidery robots and the rise of counterfeiting, companies are making it more difficult to remove their brands.
edit: but practically? Thrift shops have a wealth of logo-free stuff
For my laptop I use metallic tape as that was one of the few where the light would not shine through it. It also look quite natural on it.
Basically they made their brand / labels part of the "identity" of the outfit. I mean you can get a $5 or a $50 or a $500 polo shirt, for the most part they'll be the same but the more expensive ones will have the alligator or guy on a horse on them. The practical differences between them are minimal, and in terms of production it's a few dollars (at most) difference.
Upper end LV and more expensive luxury leather good concerns are more understated, sort of a 'if you know you know' thing -- Hermes, Celine, Bottega maybe, etc. A Birkin in a non exotic leather with normal hardware is not a very flashy loud bag(unless you know it). There's still a lot of status signaling and striver insecurity in this(it is fashion after all) but it's slightly more covert and these people are nominally concerned about ostentatious branded stuff being 'tacky.' The social ideal is less about flashy spending and more imitating serious old money who "just want to pay for the highest quality"(though this is, imo, fiction). Can't look like you're trying.
Branding seems mostly about vanity. People often say that they don't care about popular brands and yet the popular brands remain popular. Perhaps we're more vain that we think.
Clothes without branding are sold in less fancy stores or look less cool; often customers are not actually willing to buy them.
I don’t care about it having specific labels on it. In fact I would like to not have those for the most part. But knowing that you are buying genuine Converse shoes might be nice vs knock offs.
Similarly I talked myself into Rimowa Air Salsa suitcase $699 vs the < $150 stuff I'd always bought previously. It was lighter than other so can fit more loot. Two flights later a wheel came off. Took it in for repair at Rimowa, next flight it came off again. Took it in again. Worked for a few flights but next time it came off Rimowa couldn't fix it in time for my return flight so they forwarded me to a local fix it shop at my expense. They fixed that particular wheel better than Rimowa (screw instead of glue) but a few more flights and a different wheel came off.
Similar issues with Schott jackets.
So at least for me, expensive brand != quality. It just equals expensive and possibly in a style I like.
Second, motorcycle gear. I know that TCX is going to have better boots than TourMaster. I know that a Shoei helmet is going to be better than a Walmart helmet. Is everything they put out perfect? No. But I can trust the brand overall.
And as a bonus, rock climbing equipment. I would much rather buy a Black Diamond or a Perzl carabiner than a Chinese knock off.
Clothing is somewhat harder this way but still, I am very happy with my Smart Wool socks and LL Bean insulated jeans vs something from Old Navy or similar.
I'm still not going to wear obvious logos in general, and not wearing prints saves me from the most obvious stuff - and some things can't be avoided as easily. I'm not going to replace the backpacks I have: They were free and functional. I also sometimes have branded shoes because comfort is more important than a logo.
reminds me of this fascinating podcast about the history of textiles.
https://www.econtalk.org/virginia-postrel-on-textiles-and-th...
The fastest spinners in the world used to take 13 days 8hrs a day of labor to spin enough thread to make one pair of jeans. A 200 thread count bed sheet would take 59 days. And neither of those include the time turning that thread into fabric.
Instead of buying cheap cotton shirts in bulk, try buying a few good merino wool t-shirts from a responsible manufacturer, locally produced under much better labor conditions. It will also impact the environment less, partly because cotton production uses ridiculous amounts of water and partly because you're not having products shipped to you from halfway around the globe.
A merino wool t-shirt will be more comfortable, last longer and be more resistant to dirt and odors, as well as regulate temperature much better. For normal day-to-day use, you can alternate between two shirts. Hang the shirt in the bathroom while you shower, then air it out in your bedroom for 24h. You'll find that it doesn't hold on to odors, because the wool isn't absorbent like cotton. Give it a quick shake and wear it for another day, letting the other shirt air out.
Carry on-only travelers swear by merino wool because it's generally lighter than cotton and because you can wear it for several days or even a week like this. If you're not squeamish, you can even do this same routine with underwear, too.
People are so obsessed with quantity now, perhaps because it's an easily measured property. Try going for quality instead :-)
2 that come to my mind right now are Uniqlo and Muji. But I'm sure there's plenty more to buy from in every country.
I think the above companies definitely took the wind out of Gap/American Eagle/Hollister/Nike type companies though who were cashing in on splashing their brand name on everything, but not offering consistent quality in relation to the price.
Edit: they're also one of my favourite tools for reworking automotive wiring harnesses.
And then it's of course signalling - by showing specific brands, you send a message.
My employer got everyone jackets one year, nice ones actually, you just had to submit your size. I didn't, and it's not that I don't like my employer, I absolutely do, but I don't feel that it's necessary for me to advertise where I work. I also quietly ignored the dress shirts, polos and t-shirts that was handed out recently.
People can wear whatever they want, I don't really care. I just don't see the point in paying for branding, or using myself as an billboard.
[1] - It's easiest to imagine for this exercise that you work somewhere unquestionably positive, like a research group that just cured cancer and then released the cure into the public domain or something else that doesn't have Facebook's baggage.
They used to pay 'bums' to wear sandwich-boards. Just sayin.
In general, a big flashy logo signals that the brand itself and people's reaction to it matters more than the quality of the garment. I'll grudgingly accept a small stitched design on a polo or dress shirt, at least those tend to be very minimal. Stitched designs can sometimes be carefully removed, but often the tight embroidery stitches will have distorted or ruined the fabric underneath.
Luckily it is still possible to find good quality clothes with no (or very minimal) branding, but you have to completely avoid fast fashion and main street stores. I've been able to completely excise all clothes with prominent branding from my wardrobe and I'm never going back.
The only exception I make graphic designs is for band shirts, but I feel that's different from corporate branding.
EDIT: the irony of this comment hit me just now.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_tech_bus_protest...
[1] https://www.berkeleyside.com/2014/01/22/activists-target-goo...
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/i-was-assaulted-for-wearing-...
[3] https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/apple-google-buses-rerouted-...
I mean, Facebook de-platformized a politician that 70+ million people voted for.
It doesn't really matter if they had the right or wrong reasons in doing this: the pool of disillusioned people just grew tremendously and I can't see anyone claiming otherwise.
Or did Facebook think that all of these 70+ million people would just sit back quietly and accept that their politician was blocked (or perceived of being censored)?
EDIT: Clarified the last sentence do to using the word "censored" incorrectly: thanks for pointing it out.
Anyway tl;dr the US needs massive political reform and one should never be constrained to just two choices.
e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Conservative_Party_leader...
In contrast, US Presidents are elected with zero input from Congress and are often at odds with the House and/or Senate majority.
I'm not yet willing to predict mass violence but I will remind people that we had an opposition MP killed during the campaign for Brexit.
Same problems as the US. We have a two party state, which means very broad coalitions, no real choice, and a lot of unheard voices. Just like the US, we have suffered deindustrialisation as companies shipped production overseas, encouraged by our politicians, and those people who lost out have no way of fighting back. Their resentment has grown to the point where it is now finding expression through Brexit and populists like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.
Proportional representation provides a "release valve" for angry minorities, in that new parties can form. Some people think this is a danger, because they see those parties gaining some real power, but what usually happens is their supporters see the realities of political compromise, see some gains, at least feel represented, and the anger recedes.
The first place we're seeing the cracks is the UK leaving the EU whilst NI has not, and support for Scottish independence on the rise.
More pertinent to your reply: without a constitution the flexibility is simply exploited for party political gain, which often destabilises the country. Similarly, the trend has been in recent decades for the executive to increasingly take power away from parliament, which has proceeded unchecked. So some of us envy your constitution and the lack of gaming in e.g. the timing of elections. And let's not even get started on the "ceremonial" royal family...
I mean, read the article: Facebook has realized the same thing and that's why they are recommending their employees to not wear Facebook branded clothing.
Like it or not, the pool of disillusioned people is now much larger and I'm not particularly keen on learning what effects that will have down the road.
In a strong 2-party democracy voting against one party looks equivalent to voting for another, even though the intention is not.
Yikes, what a world we live in.
>"Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere. We’ve got to get the children connected to their parents,” Waters said at the Wilshire Federal Building.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/25/politics/maxine-waters-trump-...
Censoring would be proactive from FB, they have actually allowed him to breach TOS before without a ban, and only this time they enforced the rules we are all subject to.
But that's still beside the point: there is still a fraction greater than 0% of his voters, who will feel (correctly or incorrectly) that their politician was censored. And therein lies the problem with the blocking decision.
It does not matter in any shape or form whether Facebook was right or wrong in their action in blocking Trump: This decision will radicalize more people, as a direct side effect or unintended consequence of their decision to block him due to the TOS violation. Trump is not just some internet lunatic, he is a political candidate and former POTUS that 70+ million people voted for.
> This decision will radicalize more people,
I disagree. It will remove the lightning rod and greatly remove his reach.
Introducing news was a disaster.
Censorship is in general perfectly legal, the first amendment only protects from government action, and even then, only sometimes, depending on what’s said.
Also do we like Terms of Service now? I thought the mood across HN was that they don't really count as "consent" because nobody reads them?
When presented as dozens of pages of legalese text that you need a law degree to understand I don't think they're reasonable.
Having documented that certain behaviors will result in blocking is perfectly reasonable to me.
They could easily identify people who are disenfranchised and seeking a sense of belonging in their platform. They could easily go back to reverting their feed to show real and positive updates from friends and family. Many of these people would probably re-engage in a more healthy way with the platform instead of constantly seeking outrage inducing feedback loops.
The main issue is that doing so would not only be ethical but it would also be less profitable and therein lies the main issue.
indeed it's not shocking given that FB were happy to take money from conservative disinfo peddlers right up to Nov. 3rd. It's a shame this is happening but maybe it's time they had a taste of their own medicine in their own country? Because the last time when they caused a genocide in Myanmar by supporting the junta nobody at FB has been held responsible.
There is no such thing as "dirty/unethical" money in their eyes. Sod their mgmt and PR-teams who are playing the victim card advising employees about "how to be safe in a big ugly world".
Anyone wearing FB swag should be entitled to at least half a year living (as a Muslim) in Myanmar while posting their experience with dissent on the platform. The fact that FB sees itself still as a platform that can bring positive change suggests they drew the wrong conclusions from the "Arab Spring success story".
FB is a "tool of terror" in countries which are considered developing. Even in places like US, Germany, UK, Brazil, India etc FB does more to divide people than to bring them together.
A few FB employees now "uncomfortable" about whether their swag is still wearable in public isn't anything the majority will lose sleep over. Certainly not in Myanmar.
Just like I criticized both the BLM movement with its violence (riots) and braindead slogans ("defund the police"), I think it's important to criticize both the right-wing rioters and the Big Tech response. None of those people, regardless of what they're fighting for (in particular if they're doing it in good faith) are using the right tactics to achieve their goals. BLM chanting "defund the police" while rioting and requiring more police? Right-wingers want their politics & cclaims of election fraud taken seriously while staging a faux-coup in clown custumes? What did they expect, the public opinion not to turn against them? These tactics are so ridiculous that I find it really hard to believe they were sincere in their intentions.
Same here for Big Tech. If they wanted to prevent "inciting violence" they'd censor specific tweets, not ban Trump and Paul Ryan. But, mostly, I think the best move against further violence was increased government action, both in case of BLM (e.g. destroying CHAZ in Portland) and in case of Capitol attack (increased military presence in DC).
I think (and hope) that FB&co are digging their own grave. They probably calmed Democrats for now, but they're a single scandal away from being dismanteled.
I think you're underestimating the depth of the problem. The fact that the Capitol attack got as far as it did was because factions of government intentionally did not act, or even blocked action. All of society needs to fight this, at every level; it's an existential threat.
The republicans abandoned "seriousness" with their election of Donald Trump. It turned out to be unnecessary. He did all sorts of ludicrous things, down to the Four Seasons Total Landscaping conference, but those didn't actually affect his grasp on power because they were irrelevant to his supporters.
The coup came surprisingly close to working. Several representatives were successfully intimidated into voting to decertify an election they knew was legitimate: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/01/07/major...
This time they didn't bring guns. No mass shooter, just one cop beaten to death with a fire extinguisher. Nothing like the Vegas shooting. One day the mass shooters and the coup attempters will coordinate.
This is a fake fact. More republicans said they were going to vote against certifying the electoral votes before the riots. Then they changed their minds; the rioters had the opposite effect to what they wanted.
[0]: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/gop-rep-claims-colleague...
It doesn't come with a pamphlet. Meaning is established inside the minds of those who see / hear it.
If that meaning is consistently at odds with the intention, the fault lies with the sloganeer.
"Reduce police funding by a large amount, but not too large, let's face it, we need at least a few cops!" isn't as catchy for protesting.
The only people who think "defund the police" means anarchy are the "braindead" ones, because they didn't even do a tiny bit of research.
Evidently, they think a lot of those people are violent extremists. And they're not wrong. Hence the OP.
They didn’t change their policy, the context changed and Zuckerberg said as much.
Wouldn't the illegal state action here be forcing facebook or twitter to keep trump on their site? That seems like a violation of twitter's speech and their first amendment rights. IANAL, but I don't think private companies are forced to provide access - they are allowed ToS and allowed to ban.
FB, Twitter, etc. were bending over backwards to allow speech in violation of their policies because they thought that public access to the speech of elected politicians in rule of law democracies was important. With rule of law in question and direct incitement of violence they've changed tact (clearly within their legal right as I understand it). [0]
There's a quiet irony here that the same ideology that argues it's right for a private business to refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple in violation of a protected characteristic, is okay with forcing a private company to provide service to those aligned with their interests. Inciting insurrection is not a protected characteristic.
The fact employees have to be cautious about wearing the brand is because the faction that carried out the attack is dangerous, not because what Facebook did was wrong.
[0]: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/16/mark-zuckerberg-and-f...
I think that was their mistake. They should've banned the accounts at that point, showing that (as the law in a democracy says) no one is above the law. [They should likewise act on other accounts, of all political persuasions].
As it is, it looks like they all colluded to deplatform Trump at the same time -- as though his messages were a fun toy so long as it served their purposes, and worthy of derision as soon as it didn't.
I think they take their power seriously and there is a real distinction in the context prior to 1/6. I write about why this is hard in my blog post linked in the other comment.
Things changed with trump’s incitement of the assault on the capitol. I think the decisions they made at each point made sense.
This isn’t an obvious or easy problem to answer. In the absence of policy they’ve become de-facto regulators. We’ve had a non functioning legislative body for a while and America seems to specialize in bad workarounds for missing policy.
It's not hard to see why people are skeptical, and don't buy that Facebook is taking their power seriously.
I think your argument has merit, but I don't agree that Facebook is taking their power seriously or that they are applying the same rules to a different scenario. I _do_ agree that things are different post-1/6. But I think it has more to do with people finally waking up and smelling the coffee they've been brewing for the past four years.
I also agree that there is a huge legal vacuum here that FAANG are having to fill. We definitely put too much responsibility and blame on these companies. It's way past due that the government set some rules here, one way or the other. We may not agree on whatever rules get set, but at least they'll be rules set by a democratic process rather than the whims of corporations.
That said, I address that AOC clip in my blog post, I think she oversimplifies the issue and doesn’t really address the core problem.
From the post:
“Watch this exchange between AOC and Zuckerberg, specifically the question about taking down lies in political ads. AOC also attempts to clarify that she doesn’t mean ‘spin,’ but lies. This really gets to the core of the issue: who is determining the difference and how? Do we really want private companies, or Mark Zuckerberg specifically, determining which political speech from an elected democratic leader is a lie and which is not?
Zuckerberg gives a diplomatic answer here, but I think he could have pushed back harder. This responsibility should fall to AOC and the other elected leaders in Congress. If there’s to be policy around political speech and social media, it should not be the responsibility of private companies to determine when to censor or not censor the speech from democratically elected politicians, operating in countries with rule of law and a free press.
There are a lot of conditions on that statement, but it’s because the conditions are relevant and important. The same standard cannot be automatically held for politicians in non-democratic countries, countries without rule of law, countries that suppress speech themselves, or countries without a free press. The moderation standard is also different for the comments of regular people not in office (though this is still not a trivial problem). For politically elected leaders that meet these conditions though, it’s dangerous to have private companies determine what speech from these elected politicians should and should not be seen by the public on their platforms.”
—
Today the USG no longer meets those constraints and rule of law is in question.
I wouldn't really say that AOC oversimplifies the issue. I doubt she was interested in an in-depth debate about political moderation with Mark. Her drive was just to either elucidate the truth of Facebook's policy, or show Facebook as deceptive. Mark decided to dodge the question, so he ended up showing Facebook as deceptive.
Fact is, Facebook decided to go the no-moderation route. That's their right. But they should stand behind that policy and the consequences of it. A good CEO would've answered AOC by restating that they are not the arbiter's of truth. Not exactly that difficult of a response. But Mark chose the worst, whishy-washy, slimy response probably because he didn't put any points into his Speech skill and every other dialogue option was greyed out. Either way, it makes Facebook look spineless and deceptive. Hence why I used that clip to demonstrate why people are rightly skeptical of any suggestion that Facebook might be applying their policies consistently.
P.S. The truth of it is perhaps deeper than that. Facebook is taking the no moderation policy at least partly because of money (otherwise, they wouldn't give a shit). Since they've done that it's in their best interest that Congress _not_ provide guidance, because _any_ guidance will more likely than not require some amount of moderation. And that means less ads, which means less money. So really Mark's non-answer was more about being willing to sacrifice Facebook's image in exchange for continuing to muddy the discussion and promote inaction. Any other answer, one way or the other, would have proved AOC's point and given Congress further impetus to have a discussion about online political speech.
Or he really did forget to put points in Speech.
P.P.S. Whatever one might think of Twitter, Jack Dorsey's response during that whole fiasco was fucking superb, and relevant to the tangent we're slightly on about political speech moderation: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1189634360472829952.html It really just sums up the issues nicely. Again, regardless of how one may feel about Twitter or their decision there, that response is what I'd expect of a cogent CEO.
Their policy is to not block the speech of elected political leaders in democratic countries with rule of law. They followed that until rule of law and democracy itself became at risk (via incitement of violence and insurrection). At which point they blocked and said exactly that.
Twitter’s handling of this was more confused and haphazard. They were obviously trying their best, but their position was less clear and led to more inconsistencies. The 12hr suspension prior to the ban was also dumb.
I also don’t buy the cynical take that FB’s moderation decision was financially motivated as opposed to motivated by principle (I explain this more in depth in the blog post). It would have been way easier for them to just ban political ads and flag trump to cheers from the press than to take a principled position. Those ads are a tiny source of revenue.
Yes Mark’s charisma is off the charts bad, but the content of what he says and writes is good.
You can choose to believe it if you want, but it’s not the truth.
Trump finally got booted from these platforms not really because of his TOS violations. Rather, he was removed because it became clear that the structures used to manage higher-order social issues have failed (read: The US Government), and so the players lower down the stack were compelled to step in.
"Yes, respecting democracy is a reason to not act over policy disagreements, no matter how horrible those policies may be, but preserving democracy is, by definition, even higher on the priority stack.
Turn off Trump’s account."
An argument could be made (especially "securities fraud") that these platforms have their own legal liability in supporting these illegal actions because they allowed them despite violating their own ToS.
I'm sure there was some belief along the line of "it's the right thing to do" as well. There was also probably some consideration that with Democrats having both Congress & the White House their actions, among those in power, were less likely to be interpreted as too heavy handed. Ultimately though I think legal liability may have been the largest factor.
1.) Animated or colorful icons with incrementing numbers in some context. This is huge for the addiction factor. 2.) Infinite scrolling. Also for addiction factor. 3.) Relative Timestamps. Everything is more immediate and you feel the need to stay on longer.
So, hopefully their employees stay safe, but as far as the company is concerned... Occasionally, to continue to have a republic, we have to slay a dragon or two. I can think of three, actually.
Also I believe infinite scrolling existed before FB, probably on RSS readers and other places on the web. NNTP clients did this long long ago.
If you're saying FB popularized them because they were so popular - well ok maybe.
I think I'm going to start noticing these everywhere now...
Have to give some kudos to iOS 14, letting me hide all the apps so I no longer need to individually adjust their notification settings so I don't see that incrementing notification number!
So yeah, I can also see auditors not wanting to wear their IRS swag...especially during tax season.
What can't we take this seriously? There was a right wing terror attack just days ago, rhetoric all over the internet is filled with imagery of violence and revolt and retribution. And all anyone wants to talk about is the spin directed in the other direction about who is culpable, and whether or not content moderation and censorship are the same thing, and whether or not it actually constituted a coup.
But, people got hurt and killed on Wednesday, and the same communities continue to threaten the same kind of thing. Is it so hard to believe that people at Facebook or Twitter or wherever, who are geeks just like us, are genuinely afraid right now?
I'll take my downvotes now, thanks.
The person you replied to didn't suggest otherwise.
You seem to be ranting at someone who is just pointing out that being associated with Facebook is much like being associated with the IRS... another very unpopular and potentially dangerous job.
Obviously physical violence in reaction to non-physical action(s) is completely uncalled for. People shouldn’t be afraid to work for Google, Facebook and Twitter for fear of physical retribution. They should be utterly ashamed and embarrassed to though.
I also thought about how the money for my project came from coercion - the customer had no option to cancel the service we provided them, or to select a provider who gives them a better deal, or to simply manage their welfare and insurance by themselves (the biggest expenses of welfare state). My coworkers would talk about tax payers in a demeaning tone - as if they rightfully owed us something.
After a few months if thinking I followed the gut feeling and quit. I encourage anyone working for their “public sector” and especially tax departments to think about the morality of your work, and remember that life is like 80 years if you’re lucky, so spend it on productive and useful things - not the kind of parasitic work that happens at IRSs around the world
But... they do? Tax payers use public services every day.
I get what you’re saying but if someone opted to not pay taxes surely it wouldn’t be fair for them to drive on public roads, or use public transit? Or drink water provided by city-maintained pipes? How on earth would you enforce that? If someone wished to live a life where they used absolutely zero tax payer funded things how would they even start?
> I encourage anyone working for their “public sector” and especially tax departments to think about the morality of your work
Many years ago I worked for a local government authority. It’s honestly some of the most rewarding work I’ve done before or since. I created pages and backend tools for people to look up trash collection, how to vote, what’s going on at their local recreation centres, so on. All of those things played a part in creating community. And yes, they were paid for by taxes. Which meant no ads, no up sell, no invasive tracking, no monetisation to worry about. I could just make a tool that served people.
The tools I created are probably already long gone, but the community still exists. When I’m old I don’t think I’ll have the slightest regret about the work I did. The two years I spent at a startup, burning myself out to create a product that failed and has since vanished from the earth? I’ll regret that more.
The flip side of what you speak of is the force and coercion required to fund all these nice things.
I’ll use my country as an example: a family father may earn €4600/month (a good salary indeed!) but after income tax and “employment fee” receive €2650. When they spend, they pay a 25% sales tax (VAT). This means he gets to spend about €1700 of the €4600 value he creates. (Source: https://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fakta/Skatter/Rakna-pa-dina-skat...)
So as a back of the envelope calculation, you could say that if a government project costs €2650x2, one “effective” expert slave labourer is used for it.
And the moral issue is this: these men (main tax funding group) must therefore, in order to fund their families, work more than otherwise, and not see their children. Their wives must often work too, and the obvious solution is to leave the kids in (government) daycare - which effectively is a daily abandonment trauma. The work I did for the government had a direct effect of children not seeing their fathers and mothers, but their upbringing being outsourced to the state. I think this is such a moral ugliness, I can have no part in it any more.
Donations to public interest organizations works a bit like this. Part of the donation is removed from your revenue so it's like sending tax money directly to things you believe in.
But still.
I don't have an ad blocker. I'm using a run-of-the-mill browser here. Won't tell which one, you would probably laugh.
And the website is blocking me on grounds of having an ad blocker. And there's no way around it. I can click "learn more", only to be redirected to another page which is equally blocked by this "we need your money" shit.
Look, I understand you need money to survive. But at least give us a way to contact you, or something?
EDIT: Well, I have a PiHole which I forgot about, actually. So they're probably right on the ad blocker. lol
EDIT2: Oh no, that's hilarious. It actually happens because I've rejected permissions on their cookie popup.
BTW I am using an adblocker (uBlock Origin) and it is not blocking me, prolly because it also blocks its anti-adblock script.
Ahahah that's good!
Here's a link that should work for you : https://archive.is/jq8cX
99% of the people at AIG had nothing to do with the business that contributed to the financial crisis. In fact, the business unit most responsible was in Connecticut (we were in the Financial District in Manhattan). So it was pretty frustrating to be a worker bee making a middle income salary and having no insight to or ability to influence the issues causing the financial crisis, and yet having strangers wanting to yell at or physically harm you.
In that case, I would urge people to remain patient and avoid making conclusions and long term decisions based on this response. It’s likely things ease up once “calm” is restored.
Whether they want to or not, politicians and the ultra wealthy are going to have to get out of bed together. The affair is over, if for no other reason then their own physical safety, then at least for their financial safety.
If income inequality continues and there's less and less available jobs for working age men, those men will find something to occupy their time, and I promise you, it won't be selling wood carvings on Etsy. I cannot remember where I heard this, and I'm going to butcher the quote, but it went a little something like, "When you take away a man's ability to earn his way, you turn him into a revolutionary." I'm almost certain I got that wrong, but that's the gist of it. We need a huge jobs program and we need one now. An enormous infrastructure bill would be a good start to calming down a lot of this nonsense. Employed people with disposable income rarely want to upend the system.
If we continue down this path, then the cold civil war that we're seeing waged mostly on the Internet, but occasionally out in the open, is going to turn into a hot one. And I guarantee you, if things escalate, you'll find Russia taking advantage of this by sending groups of their special operators to train these people, because no one in the world has more experience with urban warfare than Russia. And if you think that the American military is entirely unsympathetic to these people, you are starkly and dangerously wrong.
EDIT: And yes, I've been hearing / reading / seeing references to the "boogaloo" for years now. It seems we might be facing it sooner, rather than later.
The people who attacked Capitol were employed with disposable income.
If the system was working, wages wouldn't be stagnant for 50 years. Housing prices wouldn't have nearly quadrupled. College education prices wouldn't have nearly... you know what, I don't even know the correct modifier... gone up by 5000%. In 1971, CEO pay was at best 30-40 times the median salary of an employee at a company. If you made $10,000 a year, the CEO might make $300,000-400,000. The very best CEOs rarely made multi-millions.
This is not a sustainable system.
The problem is, these people don't really have the education to know how to attack the system to correctly dismantle it (in fact, it might not even be possible to dismantle it from a non-violent / institutional standpoint, but that's another conversation), so they instead riot and install Viking Pepe as their leader.
I agree with you that until we fix the rot in the system that leaves so many in despair, unrest will continue to escalate.
I think I'm being downvoted because most of us that post here on HN are either thoroughly entrenched in the system in some way, or we're elevated beyond these problems which mostly affect poorly educated lower class people.
We have tons of FAANG employees that post here, tons of wealthy entrepreneurs, lots of startup founders, etc. None of us really have jack shit in common with poor disenfranchised people. But we better start making it a priority to look into, else I fear we're going to find ourselves in a very unenviable position.
I think I meant to say that they had already succeeded in upending the system, and now they were trying to lock it in.
Downvotes appropriate; my bad. :-)
I am going through lists of Capitol stormers. I am finding cops, former firefighters, former officers, teachers, real estate agents, professors, lawyers, CEOS, etc. If anything, these people have some of the better jobs. I am sure there are unemployed people in there and there is selection bias, but it is hardly exclusive.
Some articles of employed people:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-protests-fal...
https://www.newsweek.com/here-are-people-that-have-lost-thei...
As a species, we're not exactly martyrs. Its the reason one man with a shotgun can hold 26 people hostage. At best, if every person bum rushed him, he might get 2-4 shots off. That's the absolute best case scenario. The logical thing to do is a coordinated attack, because then you ensure the safety of the group instead of your individual safety.
So it goes with this. If hundreds of people were willing to storm the Capitol, its because hundreds of thousands - possibly even millions - have the same sentiment, but for whatever reason - distance, fear of reprisal, etc. - couldn't physically be there.
I think that incident was 1) just the start of many more riots / clashes and 2) evidence of much larger, broader problem that we need to solve.
Exhibit A: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/01/10/retired-air-f...
> And if you think that the American military is entirely unsympathetic to these people, you are starkly and dangerously wrong
This is a serious problem. Either the incoming democrat administration lets it fester and be "protected" by people who will cheerfully discuss their murder, or they carry out what could accurately be described as an ideological "purge".
> Russia
They sent a spy to solicit the NRA, who was hugely successful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina#Involvement_in_U....
Perpetuated by whom? Why would anyone involved want to blame unemployed men? Those who support storming the Capitol wouldn't want to portray themselves as "frustrated, unemployed men," and those who oppose it wouldn't want to blame a supposedly innocent group. Where does the perception come from?
That's not always protected, depending on how you're defining it. Seditious conspiracy is a major felony.[1]
A person is allowed to speak generally about political change. "Trump is a jerk, we should throw him out!" would probably be protected.
"Trump is a jerk, we should march to the WH after work today and physically remove him" might not be protected (though the bar to conviction would be pretty high - government would probably have to prove you actually meant to do so, not just "making noise").
IANAL, so that above is meant to be very general.
The trick to stochastic terrorism is to incite other people to do it without quite overstepping the arrestable line yourself. A sort of distributed "Nuremberg defense".
Just like airport security theatre and the PATRIOT Act were eased up after 9/11?
There are plenty of laws in the books to charge people who are actually doing illegal acts (like storming the capital)
Other side: "People need to stand up! Government needs to back off!"
Then flip flop when it's "their side" a few months later..
A friend of mine runs a social media brand that calls out men who post nasty comments on female strength athletes profiles, she simply screenshots them and posts them to the brand as well as making memes of the horrific things.
She's shared screenshots of people wishing violent sexual assault against underage girls just beacuse they are a strength athlete, and instead of that person getting banned for advocating the rape of a minor, she gets a 3 day, week, 30 day ban from Facebook and/or Instagram for simply screenshotting and reposting a public comment. You can see some of these awful things screenshotted, as well as her various bans, on https://www.instagram.com/you.look.like.a.man/
Or they you remove a politician, or something like Info Wars for saying absolutely insane/dangerous things and then all the fans "overstepping! You're overstepping!" meanwhile everyone else is "it's about bloody time!"
I would absolutely hate to be the leadership at any social media platform. Even things like nudity, I've seen several burlesque friends have posts removed and temporary bans issued for topless women with pasties covering their nipples on digital flyers advertising their next show, meanwhile I once saw a woman breastfeeding to a club song while sexually fondling her bare breast that wasn't being used to breast feed with millions of views on Facebook and tens of thousands of comments that was months old...
Not only is there no consistency in how such things are applied, but when they do get applied people freak out for various reasons.
Like Sam Altman (/u/sama) said a few days ago:
>There are exemptions to free speech defined by the Supreme Court, and we urgently need new ones for the age of social media.
>What those exceptions are should be decided by the government, and fairly applied by companies.
As an extreme, all social media could be pushed offline temporarily in the US - assuming that were feasible. Another extreme is doing absolutely no censoring of anyone. I think we largely would be best served with very little censorship, but even Mark Zuckerberg states proper oversight of his platform is ... “difficult.”
Personally, I remember being a kid and taking the internet too seriously one day. My friends quickly corrected me with “the internet is full of lies.” And I’ve forever taken what I read and saw on it with a huge grain of salt - basically assuming it’s wrong until verified through out of bands ways and means. Ie if someone I loved posted something deeply unsettling I’d call or visit them to see how they were doing. I’d probably not say anything on their actual post. If it looked like something about my car registration, I’d check with the MVD directly and not using any links in the email. Possibly a way to do this as citizens would be to start by reading the constitution and its amendments. Or, at the very least, make a mental decision to severely discount the use of the internet for information and authority.
It was never going to be possible to be neutral forever in the culture war. Which is why people were asking for Facebook to pick sides earlier, and deliberately, before e.g. the Rohingya genocide.
...or 4 years later, as the case may be.
I wouldn't wear West Ham gear while walking through a Millwall neighbourhood. I probably also wouldn't wear big tech stash at the heat of some super frothy political times layered on top of a pandemic and other unrest.
Maybe there's an argument about behaving indifferently as itself being a political stance but I am happy not inviting trouble to myself.
The sports analogy is quite good though. For the vast majority it’s just red team vs blue team based on identity and emotion with precious little ratiocination.
No matter if you're wearing Facebook clothing, something political, your sports team clothing, etc. You shouldn't have to be afraid for it.
Is it really society's failure to fight back against a company whose entire business model is detrimental to said society?
And there are more companies like this. Do we assault anyone working for companies that pollute? What about people working in banks that made possible the 2008 crash? And I could go on and on.
If anyone is doing anything illegal, they should be brought to justice. Violence will bring only more violence and won't solve the problem.
> If anyone is doing anything illegal, they should be brought to justice.
Besides mental issues, people rarely resort to violence; not only is it risky in terms of legal/physical consequences but it's also more effort; why would anyone go out and beat up someone if they can achieve the desired effect without that?
Given that there are people that are threatening Facebook employees with violence, it seems that "conventional" justice doesn't seem to have any effect (or corruption... I mean lobbying is perverting the course of justice) and people are threatening to take the matter in their own hands in an act of desperation.
It’s a lashing out sparked by wealth inequality and people knowing something is wrong with this country but not sure who to attack or vote for.
Nobody lashes out against Amazon warehouse workers because of brand.
I think we can take as a given that every engineer at Facebook could easily get a job elsewhere. To be a Facebook employee is a conscious choice.
The bigger question is - should you avoid working at companies that are a net negative, or should you stay there to try to improve them?
I don’t know the answer, but I don’t see Facebook improving and I wouldn’t personally work there, for ethical reasons.
Yes.
> I think we can take as a given that every engineer at Facebook could easily get a job elsewhere. To be a Facebook employee is a conscious choice.
yes, but loosing a lot of benefits.
> should you avoid working at companies that are a net negative, or should you stay there to try to improve them?
Thats two questions. And it's been on my mind for about a year now. I was bought out. The tech we make could be a brilliant tool for mankind, or if deployed incorrectly, commoditised stasi/KGB/Chinese secret police as a service. I don't want it to be the latter. If I leave there will be less voices of dissent.
FB is a whipping boy. There are things that it should rightly be criticised for: not adhering to its own ToS for celebrities. Not enforcing age restrictions for instagram, not having enough diversity in its India operation. Myanmar.
The difference between FB and the rest of SV is that FB has an utterly utterly shit PR team, who sits apart from the company. They love sniffing their own farts. (for example I only found out how many small companies advertise on FB when I joined. yet they reference this heavily only once, and expect a single full page advert to win people over.)
Let us not forget that whilst FB is a data dustpan and brush, Google, Amazon, Apple, and your ISP are data hoovers. most of FB's data is collected willingly. The stuff your phone snitches on you every minute is extra ordinary. Amazon is literally selling a live feed of your front door to the police.
I don't seek to admonish Facebook of its failings. They should be fucking hauled through the shit. But, we should also start to look at other companies, especially with the rise of AR.
https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/04/app-privacy-labels-messaging-...
That's a data hoover, not a dustpan... and it's not been collected "willingly".
You can uninstall messenger/instagram/fb. you can't easily stop apple or google snooping your location, health, finance and contact information and use your phone.
Facebook don't have access to my location, health, financial, search or browsing history. I know because I did a GDPR request. Depending on where you live, you can do the same.
Your second answer is just a question of comfort. Similar to questions around ecology, making a choice one considers "right" might mean that you value that choice enough that the loss of benefits isn't a net loss to you. Much like with climate change, doing good things is hardly valued at all in terms of ethics in the current way tech does anything though.
And I agree with you that all companies should be scrutinized heavily, and it's possible that Facebook just has become the symbol of that behaviour in all of tech.
However (1) other people doing worse things is not really an excuse that's valid in itself ("I murdered somebody but there are serial killers out there!"), (2) facebook does a whole lot of dirty work especially in poorer countries like in Myanmar where it became ubiquitous by being pre-installed on smartphones and has become THE central information (and misinformation) hub of its own volition, and (3) you're pointing out AR and the most significant actor of that field currently is Facebook itself.
Indeed, I am not a moral absolutist. Its an abstract question, in which the answer tells more about the person rather than the state of morals as a whole. I must point out that I feel and know that I have compromised my morals by working at FB. That aside it is perfectly possible to work at $company and do good. There are plenty examples of resistors and rule benders that have helped people from the "inside" of terrible regimes.
I don't want to belittle Facebook's moral failings. But I am worried that shitting on facebook is being seen as fixing the problem. That was my intention, not to throw a dead cat on the table and run away.
Myanmar Is a special case. I don't think facebook actively caused the issue, but their in-attention made it worse. My (limited) understanding is that Facebook was acting like the local radio stations in the Rwanda genocide. Again, if FB had placed resources when first alerted, they might have been able to temper the spread.
India is my area of concern. The leadership there all come from the same schools, know the same people and think the same negative things about their Muslim neighbours. (this is a simplification of course) Some changes have been made, not least because of internal pressure.
on point 3, yes. AR worries me, but not because Facebook are making it.
For it to work for facebook, they have to work 10 times harder than anyone else to prove that its safe. Which I think is valid, my only wish is that same level of scepticism is applied to _all_ players. AR _needs_ to be safe, because it is so invasive. The problem comes when AR manufactures start allowing Apps. At that point all hell breaks loose.
I think ultimately all of big tech is on a downwards slope in terms of trust from society, but Facebook just got caught earlier stepping in that direction and is therefore a little bit lower already, thus your comment about making more efforts to go back up the well.
The real PR and lobby guys that all of big tech should hire are the Equifax ones, because whatever damn magic those terrible people managed to concoct has allowed them to get away with what is basically one of the worst fuck ups in history and STILL manage to make people pay for a thing that is mandatory in North America.
the building itself was also devoid of any signs that indicated this contained an FBI office.
interestingly enough, a few months later, i was contracted for another job at a different FBI field office. that one had a sign out front and seemed surprised when i asked if i needed to remove my badge before leaving the building.
People on the other side of the wealth divide sense something is wrong with this country but are unable to put their finger on what. Attacks on tech workers is really a surface level issue.
Misguided radicalism happens in places with deep economic issues caused by things that are too complex to completely reason out. What causes wealth inequality? Nobody can put their finger on it but people will make up a reason if they have too. Usually that reason involves attacking anyone and any symbol on the other side of the wealth divide.
Just because someone wears Carhartt and drives a kitted-out truck doesn't mean they're working class. That's a costume, and you were fooled.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/03/americas-inequality-ele...
My conclusions are based on data. Which further fuels the confusion. We can engage in an endless argument on who’s data is garbage and who’s is not
I was looking forward to the branded swag too...
Regarding the original article, I've received no warnings about wearing FB branded stuff outside, so the warning may have been specific to DC or specific locations.
I never wore another employer-branded shirt in public.
Hell, I work at a games studio and we're maybe not forbidden, but heavily discouraged from wearing company merch at conferences and such to protect ourselves(we've had several incidents in the past years where employees were targetted specifically by thieves and scammers to extract company information. I don't think it was much because of possible disgruntled players, but nowadays you never know).
I think the article is framing it as a recent development related to Trump, but I don't think it's that weird in tech world, it's just basic employee safety.
So I'd agree, nothing new from FB here
Telling regular staff members that you have it in place can often mean the insurance company won't pay out for many reasons:
- adversaries might learn you will pay out and target your org/country specifically
-staff may act more recklessly knowing it's in place
-if you have to make payouts your premiums may go sky high or you won't get it in future
- staff may make a deal for a cut of the ransom by setting up something with a dodgy actor
- when/how K&R is paid is very very complicated. For example a ransom is never paid by insurance directly, the company must have cash to pay the ransom (which often catches them out) and they are compensated for loss of XYZ etc.
Also many people find only when they need to use it that K&R has strict rules depending on what country you get it from. Some insurance companies won't pay if the ransom is to be paid to AQ, ISIS or other sanctioned organisations. Also how the whole situation is dealt with and the ransom negotiated is important and effects the K&R payout. If the company doesn't have good corporate security etc to manage it, things can get very messy on the K&R side of things. A lot of people (esp US companies for some reason - perhaps the idealism that "sending in the SEALS" people see on TV) think somehow their government is going to be a knight in shining armour in such situations and believe me, very often they make a situation a lot lot worse.
The really disappointing thing is that I've heard some medical staff get this advice to protect themselves from angry COVID-denyer protests outside hospitals.
Of course, it is a sad state of affairs that it could attract violence. Someone is always going to disagree with what you do regardless of what it is, but it's a shame that that itself leads to violence.
A few years ago There was massive fuss when BT started putting the company logo on the carpark stickers.
And some "engineers" (linemen) have been assaulted by anti 5G cranks in the UK not sure if the same has happened in the US
CIVIL SERVICE REPRESENT.
I have worked at some trendy and well thought of companies, I was proud to wear their logo. especially at trade shows.
However I don't really wear facebook stuff out, partly because they bought out the company I loved, and mostly because I really don't agree with half the stuff they do. I was really surprised with the sheer quantity of branded stuff they dish out. I don't think I'd even actively recruit for them
It doesn't help that they really can't fucking PR even if the company depends on it. Its hilarious that for a company so driven by data they can't commission a single fucking user survey to test PR and policy changes.
Facebook is doing so much shady stuff to people, I wouldn't be surprised if some people took their hatred too far (I dearly do hope nobody takes it out on random employees though!).
I don't see how these extremists could benefit from act of violence on private business or citizens.
Despite the deaths, I'm glad this happened, at least we now have example of rioters on both sides.
Maybe the third party will gain the remaining sane people in the USA?
From where I stand a few deaths are not that important.
The more political parties in the USA taint themselves the greater the chance people will change the status quo.
The USA is one of the few places were people are crazy enough to change things.
You can find many, depending on your opinions
There are European states in which government overreach wrecked the economy so much that anti-establishment parties got elected.
You can see trump as one meager step in that direction. I think the natural conclusion, after seeing that things are not changing by voting mainstream parties, is to actually vote someone else.
[citation needed]
It's not a success story, nothing really changed and the party turned into the establishment (they didn't really have a plan), but it shows where people's heart is.
Right and left wing parties in Italy laughed at it at the beginning, nobody thought they would ever win.
Italy has a lot of very productive industries. But they can't compete with Germany and other northern European countries while the scales are tipped firmly against them due to their currencies being tied together via the Euro. A freely floating currency would correct that and make Italy a very promising place to invest in and export from.
Greece is a different story, and it is not entirely blameless. It should never have been allowed to join the Euro. But the cause of its economic woes is the same: its currency is tied to stronger economies with which it can't hope to complete, and that economic imbalance has caused complete devastation of its economy.
> Exiting the Eurozone and reverting to national currencies is pretty much the only answer to fix their economies.
We had this argument in 2008ish and Syriza abandoned the plan, after (correctly) realising that crashing out of the Euro would be worse.
It's been stagnant ever since joining the Euro, and nothing material has changed which would improve matters, and I don't see the status quo being tenable. 2008 might not have been the tipping point, but doing something which isn't in the long term interest of people can't continue indefinitely.
Apart from that would incur tariffs that would be far high than the trade winds exposed by the eurozone.
Having your own currency only really helps when you have a boat load of debt, and you want to inflate your way out of the problem. However that's exceptionally damaging in the medium term, especially if you have unstable leadership.
The fundamentals of italy are difficult to overcome by leaving, or blaming the eurozone. Italy has a rapidly ageing populace, and a drop in fertility. None of that is going to be fixed by leaving the euro.
- Angus King (Maine),
- Bernie Sanders (Vermont)
Between them, Joe Manchin, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, they definitely do hold all the power right now.
There were exemple of rioters on both sides for a long time. What's new is not simply rioters either.
Which one?
Cambridge Analytica
The strategy meetings
The storming of the Capitol
I'm sure i forgot some.
Those threats are probably just idiots sounding off and will never come to anything, but given recent events being careful just-in-case is quite prudent. An idiot sounding off can easily turn into an idiot taking action.
Citation needed.
You need a citation to explain to you how government buildings are funded??
I can't believe you actually claimed that current events are more impact full than 9/11.
And then being cheered by different media and the president.
Wearing your boss's logo on your free time just looks kind of sad and pathetic, in my opinion.
I know two engineers from Lockheed-Martin's Skunkworks with whom I had served in the Navy, and they proudly wear LM polo shirts. They're doing interesting work, work that might benefit the entirety of humanity. I would be proud to work there too.