Comment by dahart | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dahart | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> The longer we try to blame a technology for humanity’s issues, the longer it will take to address the issues.

I think it is the people at Facebook are being blamed in the comment above, and not the technology, no?

> Facebook didn’t change anyone.

You’re right that human nature is not Facebook’s fault, however, you cannot logically use that to conclude that Facebook bears no responsibility. Facebook is changing people, and there’s evidence of it. You don’t get to claim human nature when feeding drugs or alcohol to an addict, or when being a bookie for illegal fights, or when pimping. Advertisers don’t get to claim human nature when advertising cigarettes to teenagers. There are plenty of laws on the books to prevent companies from trying to leverage the negative sides of human nature, and there are plenty of companies that are currently using our worst impulses to goad us into spending our time and money with them.

Facebook intends to normalize incredulity at all times, in order to maximize their own profit, and because of the scale of Facebook, it’s causing a net negative in human behavior. Fewer people would be choosing outrage, and less often, if Facebook wasn’t pimping it. Allowing people to form companies with this intention should be illegal, no? Or if you see this as purely human nature and think Facebook is not complicit, how are you suggesting we address the issues?

I should have genericized the company name - I wanted to highlight the housing motivation for tech-workers to do ill. the company-formerly-known-as-fb just provides one very familiar example of this.

We're all constantly tempted to engage in sociopathic but well-remunerating work. (No doubt there is plenty of pro-social well-remunerating work - i.e. I'm not painting that as a zero-sum choice)

The question becomes, 1 - what choice does each of us individually make when faced with such a role, and 2 - more importantly, how easily can a company identify & recruit a sufficiently-qualified-yet-sufficiently-desperate individual for the same role who will go ahead and make such a moral compromise.

>You don’t get to claim human nature when feeding drugs or alcohol to an addict, or when being a bookie for illegal fights, or when pimping.

I think Facebook usage is fundamentally different from drugs/alcohol. A heroin addict can understand heroin is destroying their life, but be physically unable to prevent themselves from shooting up. I am not aware of instances (at any scale, I'm certain examples exist but exceptions don't disprove the rule) where people are aware that Facebook usage is ruining their lives but are incapable of discontinuing their use.

I noticed I wasn't getting anything out of Facebook years ago and decided to stop using it. Similarly, Instagram was fun and engaging until it was not and then I stopped using that too. My experience mirrors that of many people I know. Still more continue to use Facebook and Instagram, and while I personally don't understand how someone could enjoy using either at this point, they are autonomous adults who can choose to use/waste their time with whatever method they prefer. If there emerges a substantive quantity of people who begin to think using Facebook has a negative impact on their lives but who find themselves incapable of putting it down, I think a conversation about the broad approaches society could take to help people detach from these technologies would be appropriate.

>Facebook intends to normalize incredulity at all times, in order to maximize their own profit, and because of the scale of Facebook, it’s causing a net negative in human behavior. Fewer people would be choosing outrage, and less often, if Facebook wasn’t pimping it. Allowing people to form companies with this intention should be illegal, no?

I'm not completely averse to the idea of making something illegal if a majority of people find it to be a net negative. We just have so many aspects of society (broadly in many cases, but I can only speak specifically to American society) where profits supersede general welfare that it comes off insanely hypocritical to point to Facebook specifically while not addressing any of the others.

If you're an advocate of making Facebook illegal because it intends to maximize incredulity/outrage for profit then you would also need to make news programs (both national and local) illegal. You would need to make Twitter illegal. You would need to make YouTube illegal. Most (all?) large scale internet platforms depend on milking outrage for profit. News programs do the same. I'd be interested in having conversations about making all of them illegal. I would not be interested in a conversation about making one of them illegal.

But if we are going to be honest about why Facebook is becoming the public whipping boy, it's because Boomers who voted for Donald Trump used Facebook to talk loudly about why they like Donald Trump.

> I am not aware of instances (at any scale, I'm certain examples exist but exceptions don't disprove the rule) where people are aware that Facebook usage is ruining their lives but are incapable of discontinuing their use.

"Ruining their lives" is likely a bit too strong of language, but the potential negative influence of Facebook and complete lack of privacy is certainly becoming something of common knowledge, and yet people continue to use it. As a society you can make a pretty strong argument that it's been a net negative, and yet we're apparently unable to do anything about it. The whole enterprise of maximizing engagement positions some of the smartest minds in tech to maximize qualities of addiction.

In other words, there seem legitimate parallels to draw.

> But if we are going to be honest about why Facebook is becoming the public whipping boy, it's because Boomers who voted for Donald Trump used Facebook to talk loudly about why they like Donald Trump.

This seems a dishonest oversimplification. You can point to the 2016 election as a tipping point perhaps in how we view Facebook, but it was not because boomers were talking about why they liked Trump, it was because we began to realize at scale just how powerful manipulation (by state actors) on these platforms can be.

>the potential negative influence of Facebook and complete lack of privacy is certainly becoming something of common knowledge, and yet people continue to use it

People using something that you think has a bad influence on them does not mean it's an addiction. They are simply making a different choice than you have made.

You can't (or, shouldn't, I suppose) make something illegal purely because you don't like that people use it.

Having watched a large number of interviews with addicts I am starting to realise that they know exactly what they are doing and choose to continue doing it. To avoid feeling what they otherwise would be feeling. Addicts who have been clean for months relapse because of a boyfriend walking out etc.

I recently deleted facebook. I hadn't actively used the platform in years, but actually deleting it was a difficult decision because there's some people I interact with using Facebook (but don't care enough about to connect through other means). I get invited to parties through facebook. I invite people to parties through facebook.

The network effect is part of the drug. I know it's bad for me. I know it's bad for society. That provided the push for me to delete it, but it didn't make it less painful.

I still have instagram, for similar reasons as to why I had facebook. It's going to be difficult to delete that for the same reason, especially since I still somewhat actively use the product itself.

Like drugs, it's easier for some people to quit than others. You shouldn't lessen other people's experiences and assume that everyone can quit as easily as you.

Most people aren't advocating for Facebook to be illegal, but want some of their practices to be illegal. Yes, this should also apply to Youtube, Twitter, etc. My feeling is that the recommendation systems should be removed, and that they should only be allowed to show you content you've explicitly subscribed to.

Facebook is the whipping boy because they've expanded knowing they're doing harm, having internal research that shows they're doing harm, and ignoring the consequences. Twitter is as much to blame for Trump as Facebook. Youtube is as to blame for QAnon as Facebook. All of them have algorithms that make people more politically extreme.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com