Facebook Execs Told Employees It Isn’t a “Root Cause” of Polarization in the US | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Execs Told Employees It Isn’t a “Root Cause” of Polarization in the US

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37 pointshackerbeat26 comments

I’m curious why this is flagged.

Facebook handing out a playbook to its employees to get them to spread PR seems quite relevant to this forum.

Root cause? No. There are many reasons.

Gas on the fire? Sure seems like it from all the studies that have been done in the last few years.

I'm sure they came to this finding by how many "likes" they got on the employee blast email announcing it. Funny though, there was no dislike button.

Watching The Social Dilemma on Netflix[1] was eye opening for me. I say that as someone who is intimately familiar with the technology related to the topics discussed.

[1]https://www.netflix.com/watch/81254224

I'm always confused by this discourse, because my Facebook feed is stream a bunch of vacation and baby photos, while my Twitter, no matter how hard I try to curate it, is a toxic cesspool of political vitriol. Why are we even talking about facebook?

Probably because Twitter has actively wooed journalists by giving them easy access to verification, greater prominence on the platform, and helping to supply them with an endless source for stories (helped by the fact that it's inherently much more public than Facebook posts). Also, a lot of the political vitriol on there is in aid of causes the journalists support.

Probably your feed is different from a lot of people's. Mine isn't so bad either, but I have seen ugly stuff on there on public groups. If you were to seek it, you would find it. And probably a number of people find it without seeking, then get caught up.

It really depends on which filter bubble you're stuck in. Mine is ok too, but some people see very different things: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/opinion/facebook-disinfor...

This is surprising. I'd have thought execs would claim FB is indeed root cause. And then in repeat of vigorous e-protest employees would again skip desserts after finishing off company provided gourmet lunches.

> Facebook has created a ”playbook” to help its employees rebut criticism that the company’s products fuel political polarization and social division.

In my opinion, this is the core of the story and the title is misleading.

Title was copied from original post and is just as fitting.

Corporate Gaslighting is correct. Fbook is a threat to society. It profits off social division and anger. Let the down votes rain down.

How about “fuel for the fire”

What a farce. Everyone with a pulse can see the damage that Facebook has caused to our democracy and around the world. Facebook employees have a black stain on their resumes that they will need to answer for for the rest of their careers.

>the damage that Facebook has caused to our democracy

What damage is that?

Edit: Examples of causing damage to democracy would include things like stopping people from voting by force, hacking voting machines, etc. Facebook has not done anything of the sort. Or is it that when you say "our democracy", you just mean "the United States"? If that's the case, well... that's a big argument that probably inevitably boils down to preferences rather than anything people can agree on for logical reasons.

Reginald Denny, the LA protests, roof Asians, and flag burning all existed well before FB. It’s difficult to see how anyone can point to FB as the root of the problem.

What’s a “roof Asian.”

Korean shop keepers that had to defend their shops with guns during the LA riots.

because LAPD is famously corrupt and racist. They took an equal opportunity stance during the Rodney King riots; they couldn't beat up the Koreans so LAPD decided to go MIA and not defend taxpayers' property.

He's referring to the Korean population in Los Angeles who took up rifles and went onto the rooftops of their businesses to defend against the looting, rioting, and murdering mob. This happened during the L.A. riots, 30 years ago.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads...

Asians defending their shops from their shop roofs with guns during the LA riots.

They are right. The root cause for polarization is wealth inequality which is caused by government fiat money printing; of which Facebook happens to be a major beneficiary. Facebook is therefore only a beneficiary of the problem and not the root cause.

Wealth inequality leads to inequality of opportunities which causes inconsistent experiences of the same economic system and causes polarization. One side's experience is characterized by constant struggle with repeated and almost inescapable failure (obvious glass ceilings everywhere)... The other side's experience is characterized by repeated success with little effort required and so they think that people on the other side must be extremely lazy or stupid.

How are you distinguishing causation from correlation as it pertains to wealth inequality and monetarty policy?

Banks and governments are constantly injecting new money into the economy. If you look at how that money flows into the system, you will realize that governments mostly award big lucrative contracts to big corporations and banks loan capital entirely based on existing collateral owned... So it's pretty clear who is controlling the majority of all the newly created currency; those who already control a lot of capital. Then when you compound the returns on those investments, it's pretty clear what's driving accelerating inequality. Some entities are getting easy money and others are not.

An entity which has access to easy credit can throw that newly printed currency on any asset and it will balloon in value over time at an accelerating pace... No matter what the asset is. The value of the collateral will increase faster than their underlying debts; these entities can thus keep borrowing in perpetuity. They can keep it going forever, so long as banks keep loaning them more money...

Banks cannot stop loaning money to big capital holders because they know that it will lead to a catastrophic economic collapse. They are stuck in a vicious cycle wherein big corporations act like governments; constantly taking out new bigger loans to pay for the older loans... Or engaging in credit laundering through the use of shell companies.

One half the country is pseudo-Christian and the other half is promoting trans/transgenderism which is defined by Christians as Satanic. Doesn't take high IQ to see these things are not compatible and not directly the fault of FB.

This is obviously true.

However Facebook is grouping people together into groups who only receive messages that reinforce these kinds of beliefs.

It is amplifying and hardening them and making them more extreme.

Is it the cause? Of disagreement? no. Of the extreme polarization? Yes, is one of them.

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