Facebook’s attempt to smear the whistleblower
theverge.com
theverge.com
- worked there for less than two years and had no direct reports
- never attended some sort of key meeting
- did not work on the subject matter in question
...and therefore, she lacks context which undermines some of her claims.
Which of those is a matter of character, or a "disgusting" attack? They might be wrong, or they might be right but bringing up irrelevancies, but the writer is acting like stating these is some sort of reprehensible smear.
However, since she didn't work on anything relevant, they have to do research without any guidance.
It's Day 1. They can't come out and say "we don't know what she's talking about or where she got her data, so we can't refute it."
As PR, the worst thing for them to do is deny something only to be hit by factual evidence; they'd rather know all the evidence to begin with them try to put it in a good light or reveal a good reason for things being that way.
Of course they cannot do that because she is literally citing their own words. Which is why this is just a thinly veiled, pathetic attack on a worker.
Re-read the parent comment. How is the whistleblower getting smeared based on the assertions above? Are they not factual AND relevant?
edit:
I see comments below talking past this sub-thread. Let's get down to definitions.
> Smear: damage the reputation of (someone) by false accusations; slander.
At best, the article's premise that FB's claims "smear" the whistleblower is flawed and non-constructive even if you're seeking to slit FB's throat.
The parent comment’s point would seem to be that this person is making a claim that should be refutable with evidence. But the evidence is Facebook’s own data supporting her claim so they can’t do that. Instead, they diminish her credibility. It’s not “smearing” in the sense of calling her a baby eater, but it is a credentials fallacy meant to make people dismiss her claims regardless of validity.
This is really more a flaw of the article, but can you add data that directly refutes the claims raised by this article?
e.g. in her leaked emails, does any of that refute the wording/claims raised in this article?
I'm asking in good faith.
Did Facebook deny creating those documents? No. Did they refute statements from those documents? No. Hence statements about the whistleblower are not relevant.
edit: It appears the shared documents were from a previous leak, I can't locate any of the documents from this leak.
Where are they shared?
Can you explain to me using basic logic what the connection is between your career status at facebook and reading research of the effects of facebook products on its users? what's next, do I need to work at Exxon to understand climate science?
Yes. So they're right but bringing up irrelevancies. It's a diversionary tactic, no doubt. But it's not a "smear".
EDIT: Honestly, I could care less about facebook. Although I think Mark Zuckerberg should be in jail (look at the allegations that his company knowingly experimented on people without their consent), individuals should have the ability to publish on the platform. If bakers must bake cakes, this is only fair.
I could be mistaken, but I don't think she is specifically advocating for that? I believe she is saying specific things should be regulated...mainly the ability to configure timelines, greater control on use by teens, etc.
I am referring to these points of the testimony:
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/FC8A558E-824E...
> The result has been a system that amplifies division, extremism, and polarization — and undermining societies around the world. In some cases, this dangerous online talk has led to actual violence that harms and even kills people. In other cases, their profit optimizing machine is generating self-harm and self-hate — especially for vulnerable groups, like teenage girls. These problems have been confirmed repeatedly by Facebook’s own internal research.
While she is correct that facebook has allowed people to talk that's led to violence (some of it very justified... see the arab spring, etc), and that facebook contributes to division, I don't believe the government should be in the business of regulating the speech of individual users of these websites. Ultimately, that just means the government just gets to squash dissenting voices. Ending the 'dangerous online talk' may today mean stopping violent extremists, but may tomorrow become "Don't discuss anti-government policy messages because it may inspire some people to commite violence" which is a slippery slope.
For example, the whistleblower claims that some online talk amplifies extremism which 'undermines societies around the world'. Some societies deserve to be undermined. Few would batt an eye if Facebook were used by North Korean dissidents to organize around toppling that country's dictatorship.
SCOTUS decided in favor of the bakers in that case, even if SCOTUS left the underlying question undecided (in either direction).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
You should pay attention to what's going on before commenting on out of date news.
Also, a similar case in washington of an old lady florist forced to provide flowers for an event she doesn't believe in. This is like asking a jewish deli to cater the nazis.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gay-couple-wins-case-florist...
In that case, the SC explicitly denied the request, thus de facto legalizing forcing individual people with consciensce disagreements working in their own business to do business with those they disagree with. This is an obvious violation of the individual right to freedom of conscience.
Meanwhile, facebook, a multi-billion dollar powerful corporation, which does not enjoy constitutional rights neither by nature nor law, is given a free pass to exercise its conscience. Sorry... I'll speak for the little guy.
No, it is not.
Being a Nazi is a choice. Being gay is not. (Also, legally, being a Nazi is not a protected class.)
https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-sp...
And having a gay wedding is indeed a choice, and Jack Phillips shouldn't be forced to participate if he believes that his belief in his god makes it so that participating is akin to taking part in evil.
They are not a protected class, which means you're allowed to do things like not hire Nazis without running afoul of Federal discrimination law.
I can be fired for being a Nazi, or a redhead, or a comic book fan. I cannot be fired for my skin color, or my national origin, or my religion. That's how protected classes work.
If not, why not? If so, why? If the answer is not 'Yes facebook must publish', how do you square this away that the answer is 'Yes you must bake'.?
I don’t believe this is the case, isn’t the whistleblower accusing Facebook of lying to its investors and has filed SEC complaints for the matter?
What about your focus on the word "disgusting" is worth resolving BEFORE we get to the threat to the long term sustainability of the democratic political systems currently in place?
1: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/edwardrmurrowtomcc...
> If this is all that your comms department can get through legal, you know what’s being said is almost 100% true.
For the record, I fully side with the whistleblower's claims. It's just that this article is very emotional, and could have been so much more. This is a fascinating quote the author failed to address fully:
"Facebook PR: “Despite all this, we agree on one thing; it’s time to begin to create standard rules for the internet. It’s been 25 years since the rules for the internet have been updated, and instead of expecting the industry to make societal decisions that belong to legislators, it is time for Congress to act."
Facebook has a point here. We don't even know what Facebook is. A media company? A news organization? A shop? A dating site? And if it does all of these things, and does so at planetary scale, is has the potential to do harm to big parts of the world, in countless ways. Yet there's pretty much zero rules.
I think we vastly underestimate how complicated the balancing act is. If Instagram does mental harm to teenage girls, whilst this very likely was not the original intent, what exactly is the "correct" course of action, in a way codified in law? Should it be forbidden for other girls (influencers) to broadcast their beauty lifestyle? Should there be a maximum time cap for consumers to browse the feed? The China way? Should influencers just be deplatformed if we don't like them, taking away their income?
None of these rules or laws seem very plausible or sane to me, and this is just one example of how Facebook can do harm.
Anyway, to end constructively, I'd say a first step is to force Facebook to give full access to its underlying (anonymized) data. If we've created a planetary-scale monster, we should treat it as a special case.
1. Abdicating responsibility so that when the public or politicians complain about Facebook hosting or not hosting some content he can say it's not his problem, he follows the law.
2. The second is for regulatory capture. Once a social network gets a stigma of being uncool, people move on to the next thing. His status and net worth are tied up in an entity he must aggressively defend against becoming the next MySpace. If he can't buy out upstarts anymore because of antitrust then the next best protection is to make it so difficult to build a new network without a team of lawyers and moderators that no one would even think about doing it.
Is it avoidance or asking for a democratic process to provide guidance? For example, yes automakers did push for a lot of rulemaking that cemented the car's position in transportation and yes a rule about driving on the left or right side is better decided by the community of drivers represented by their government, not GM alone.
But I still believe there's a category of societal issues that are extremely hard to codify into rules, even if Facebook would be morally sound. It would still be hard or impossible.
You guessed correctly.
Guess whom can't comply? Indeed, everybody else. That's why they welcome regulation.
Facebook is an entity that controls the information flow reaching its users and shapes it in the interest of the highest bidder.
A pretty powerful closing statement IMHO.
This doesn't sound like character assassination, it's Facebook claiming that she wasn't informed enough. It would be like the NSA telling us not to listen to Snowden because he didn't actually work on the programs that he obtained documents about.
Perhaps it's premature to call it character assassination, but we've seen this play out quite a few times.
As in the company provides "background" information such as seems to be the case here. Of course, this is really the company framing the conversation and deflecting the criticisms without addressing them.
I see the discussion here is largely fixated on whether this constitutes a "smear" or not. So, it seems to be working from Facebook's point of view as we are not discussing the actual allegations against them.
Despite that, not everyone has the will to connect these dots.
From the congressional hearing today, she did not answer questions beyond her expertise [1], and she had over a decade of relevant experience in Engagement Based Ranking algorithms [2], which was largely the focus of the hearing.
And the use of the term "God's own truth" feels like a really underhanded and unjustified rhetorical trick. To use a analogy, It feels like they are declaring a winner during the opening argument of the prosecution, before the defense has even had a chance to fully respond: "If Facebook had evidence, it would show it." Doesn't the author realize that kind of counter evidence will come later?
No, the author doesn't hate Facebook, nor does the "whistleblower". This isn't being drive by hate, it's being driven by love: love of government-mandated censorship. They're not alone, either, Zuckerberg himself is a huge fan; that's why his pushback here was so weak. Facebook was running TV commercials last summer calling for tighter legal restriction on social media.
Tremendously convincing.
Do tell.
If there is no such thing (i.e. no objective source) why would one use any term for it?
Why would one modify truth to be "god's own?" Is it a rhetorical claim to the authority/authenticity of an unseen third party?
What is relevant, is the documents, which are not being released in full. Only after they are will we see the full picture, so anything happening before that is just manufactured narrative to serve someone's purpose.
Vetting data over dumping everything often has benefits.
As a hypothetical
FB: we only did that once!
Leaker: in fact you did that many times (shows papers)
Public forkable repo or gtfo.
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(Emphasis mine.)
[1] Jen Psaki's former employer https://www.dailywire.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-leftis...
Absolutely disgusting. I can't believe intelligent people read, let alone cite, this Enquirer-level garbage.
And obviously, discounting someone presenting factual evidence that at the moment is unchallenged based on perceived personal politics is fair game, reasonable, and the measure of good faith discussion.
1. this is fishy
2. she is a political operative for the dems
3. she has a liberal bias therefore this is all fishy and she cannot be trusted
4. she is rich and has some backing so she is definitely a political operative. This one is especially true because if she was poor Facebook would have been SLAPPed her already into shutting up. So there's no winning here.
5. (US) adults are responsible enough for the government to not have to regulate social media. Let's conveniently temporarily forget about the Rohingya minority.
6. Facebook is a net positive for civilization
7. nothing is actually whistleblown, we already knew all that. Therefore, we're ok with it and we should ignore this. Also see 1.
8. We're dealing with Schrödinger's censorship. Conservative voices are being censored on Facebook which is ran by 'libs' and at the same time they're not censored as the government (also libs) prepares to censor them. Or censor them more? Who knows anymore. TLDR they're going to be censored.
9. the staple of 'tech companies' is discussed all over the place as someone is talking to congress about its internal workings so the news is all over HN. Super fishy (see 1) so definitely a hit piece. If there was only one or two links it would probably be fine. But so many links may definitely be the hand of some lib political operative. Or not? Who knows? We're just saying that to muddy the waters. Big if true!
I think I'm going to be taking a break from forums in general. Either some Facebook friendly PR machine got activated or the collective mind has been poisoned by years and years of misinformation and generally sowing mistrust to the point of 'everything is a conspiracy and nothing is real'.
Why is she getting full media coverage and support, when previous whistleblowers were roundly ignored?
She's a very wealthy person (1B estimated), so perhaps she's fairly well insulated from any blowback?
But again, why is now the time to pile on Facebook, and why this person?
[edit] Hint: She's in fact calling for more censorship of the views she doesn't like.
[edit] Greenwald nails it (just published): https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-...
- Facebook has stated (in the press release the article is reporting on) that they support regulation. This is typical for large market incumbents, who have been said to always support fixed-overhead regulation, because it hurts smaller competitors more than it hurts them.
- Washington loves regulating things and can be safely assumed to be pro-policy in most cases. More to the point, incumbents today are far more concerned about the possibility of being blindsided in their campaigns by maneuvers on a platform their own team doesn't know how to work with, than they are about the difficult to quantify pros and cons of balancing antitrust and libertarian policy. You'd expect them to be pro-regulation on average, if it reduces the importance of the internet in running campaigns.
- The public is not presently pro-regulation and nobody really knows what form the regulations should take.
So in a nutshell, everyone who's powerful in this situation wants the same outcome, and all that is left is to convince the public to support a bill which will probably be titled something like "Cyberspeech Freedom Act of 2022." Lobbyists may have already drafted it, and we can expect that well-meaning activists will be swept along by the push and end up supporting something they wouldn't like if they fully understood what it was.
Additionally, reading the whistleblower's account and her opinions/goals struck me as an incredibly naive way of thinking...although I think she may be genuine (she's my age and I have many peers like her).
What kind of organization respects the value of complete top-down organizational change initiated by rank and file members of the company? Who would think an organization would give them that kind of power? The role that she was hired for seems destined to give her no resources to accomplish the stated goals; we saw something similar but on a much smaller scale with Basecamp.
I know a lot of my peers believe in the power to make sweeping organizational changes like that, but it's "fucking with other peoples' money". To me the whole situation seems like the setup to a bad joke.
Facebook doesn't have to do much to smear her in my eyes because she already strikes me as a ridiculous person. That said, Facebook is similarly ridiculous for hiring people with causes in direct opposition to how they do business and giving everyone in the company unfettered access to damaging internal information.
In fact, I think being taken away from consideration of the real issue is a major consequence of the way this is being approached: nobody can debate with the obvious truth that teenagers are getting a little too sucked in to the fake world of influencers, and right now we're not discussing it, ironically.
I've long been in the ban social media completely camp. It's a tool too dangerous for use by regular people.
If one did want to coordinate such a campaign, there's a certain society-wide informational/narrative vulnerability that makes such a campaign potentially attractive:
-You have a public who loves latching onto 'good vs evil', 'david vs goliath' stories, and in this meta-narrative, we the public shall vanquish the evil goliath by any means necessary!
-We also have a public who at large isn't terribly interested in questioning their own biases, thinking through the higher abstract principles at play, thinking through externalities from vanquishing said evil, and in general going against the grain in these 'good vs evil' battles
-You have a news media environment who profits off such engaging meta-narratives and stories, and is more than willing to push these stories out into the public
-The companies and their employees in the news media environment also have their own in-house biases against certain 'villians' such as FB, which further incentives the spread of such stories and meta-narratives. FB has been a competitive threat to media companies. FB has also done or been accused of things which have frustrated media employees of all political persuasions.
FB is a perfect villian in this meta-narrative, regardless of any of the facts at play. They know it too.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-leftis...
Do you have anything to say about the substance of the revelations? Or just want to interject irrelevant BS about her personal life?
A majority of Americans support regulation of big tech https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/07/20/56-of-ameri...
It's like asking "do you think the government should do something about abortion?" Banning it and enshrining it as a right are both "doing something", but the two groups are unlikely to see themselves as agreeing with each other.
I guess that this is true for the USA. But Facebook is a global company and other countries may be more regulation friendly.
Is this always true? I always thought that these companies do want to fix themselves but fixing yourself when your competition won't means that you lose. Regulation helps force everyone to fix themselves.
Out of the blue some larger-than-life person (with impeccable credentials, no less) comes out of the woodwork and is lauded with attention while the big news outlets make this massive push against Facebook, all while congress is holding hearings about regulating social media. Then a massive outage happens at Facebook right after the New York Times published an article titled "Facebook Is Weaker Than We Knew." (This could honestly just be atrocious luck and an incredible coincidence.)
This woman is also remarkably calm, well-spoken, knowledgeable, and articulate for someone testifying before the Senate for the very first time - all while being broadcast around the globe, live on television. Perhaps she's simply a natural, but I sense she received some coaching and preparation beforehand. Combine that with how well she is being received by senators from both parties and you start to wonder just how much of this was orchestrated in advance.
But what if the reason she is being heared is because she is remarkably calm, well-spoken, knowledgeable and articulate? Should that theory not be tested first accoring to Occams razor? [1]
>"Perhaps she's simply a natural"
That is certainly within the realm of possibility. That being said, to me, it seems incredibly unlikely that someone in her situation would be so articulate, collected, and unflappable after being suddenly thrust onto the national stage in just a few short days. Even if she knew she was going to attract a ton of attention when she came forward, she just doesn't seem to be showing the kind of body language that reflects someone in her situation who doesn't know what is about to happen next.
Again, to me, the most simple explanation is that she was coached or prepared beforehand and knew what to expect. I wouldn't put it past some political operatives to slip her some questions from a few senators before the hearings began.
This next part is going to sound the most conspiratorial, so take it with a grain of salt. Despite all of what I wrote, she really could be the real deal and there was no conspiracy behind the scenes to make the perfect storm for Facebook. But to me, that begs the question of, "how lucky were we that such a person with impeccable credentials just so happened to be the perfect whistleblower to take down Facebook?"
This is entirely standard practice in Congressional hearings.
Concrete example: the Kavanaugh hearings.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/kavanaugh-preps-se...
> According to Grassley spokesman George Hartmann, the committee has also reached out to Cristina Miranda who posted on Facebook that she had heard about the incident while in school with Ford, but has has since said she actually has no knowledge of the incident. Miranda declined to talk to the committee, according to the aide.
> The panel has also interacted with an attorney for an unnamed person that's included in Ford's original letter, but whose name was redacted, but the committee hasn't received a formal response yet.
> Kavanaugh, meanwhile, was back at the White House complex on Thursday, amid a week of visits that have included preparation for the possibility of additional Senate testimony, according to a person involved in the confirmation process.
> Separately, a Republican Senate aide who has been briefed on Kavanaugh’s preparations said the practice sessions “have been going well,” adding that he’s been spending his days as if a hearing will go forward on Monday.
> Mike Davis, chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, drew scrutiny Wednesday for posting and then deleting tweets saying he had personally questioned Kavanaugh and referring derisively to Ford's legal team — and indicating that, despite his current role in the investigation, he backed the nominee's confirmation.
Some of them even have forms for whistleblowers to reach out.
https://crenshaw.house.gov/whistleblower
"Please describe your goals in working with Rep. Crenshaw (e.g. oversight, legislative action)?"
How many whilst blowers have tried to take down facebook?
How many of those have been articulate etc i.e. have the skills this woman has?
What are the examples of inarticulate, poorly spoken whilstblowers who have taken down organisations in the information age?
Not sure who the burden of proof is on here tbh. Proof takes work.
I just have suspicions because everything just seems too perfect. I would expect a whistleblower to be some Average Joe/Jane, not some wunderkind with an amazing background and unflappable presentation. I would expect a lot more stuttering and sweating - Edward Snowden was jittery during his first several interviews and his body language just screamed uncertainty about the future.
But I digress. Just because something feels wrong doesn't mean it really is. Could just be a false-positive.
And had she been, that'd just be used as proof she was a plant too, because "a professional wouldn't sound like that."
So?
Do you think Zuckerberg doesn't get coaching and preparation before his hearing appearances?
It's interesting to speculate on who is supporting the FB whistleblower's campaign.
Facebook is the only one still allowing far-right speech on their platform. That is why the Democrats are going after them.
Update: There is no verifiable information about her stake in the company.
Wiki says they nearly went bankrupt just before a funding round. Even Zuckerberg only owned 28% of Facebook at IPO.
She's receiving a large press and Congressional focus because she's testifying about harm to children.
Not political censorship, perceived bias, or internal politics.
It's a cleaner story.
Greenwald, like all politicians, is twisting the story to meet his narrative. He doesn't "nail it". He's just regurgitating his preferred talking point, and ignoring her actual testimony.
Let them defend themselves without character assassination, please.
Where does it mention her character??
She leaked 18k documents. How does the number of direct reports she supervised affect their veracity?
Generally after hacking a company, the documents are provided in a ZIP for everyone to download. Information wants to be free, but we are only being provided with her summary of the documents rather than the evidence itself.
How? Where?
While this article uses some pretty sensational language, it does accurately describe Facebook's response to Haugen's revelations.