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Comment by mensetmanusman | Hacker News Reader

Dozens hired of a >7500 workforce amounting to ~0.5%. Is that alarming?

I mean yeah? Why would a social media company hire dozens of former federal law enforcement agencies? What’s the rationale?

To help catch sex offenders, I imagine. Terrorism, drugs...stuff like that.

“think of the children!!!”

Yes, actually in this case that's a valid reason and your attempt to use it as a counter argument is wrong

Anti-abuse, which every internet platform has to do, has a lot of overlap with intelligence/investigation work. Let’s say you want to indentify:

1. Covert networks of fake accounts on your site that are run by hostile governments attempting to destabilize a country

2. Human traffickers attempting to lure teenagers across national borders where they will be sold into slavery

etc…

You could probably benefit from having former FBI agents on your team.

Even if you don’t care about doing the right thing, the bad press and government scrutiny you will get from those problems is a lot worse than this article.

If the FBI was so effective at these problems, why are these problems so rampant? Could it be that the FBI is too effective at these problems? They have enough funding to run many operations...

What problems are rampant and compared to what?

Isn’t this like asking why we still have fires if firefighters are so good at putting them out?

Why would a private company that has issues with fires and complying with fire codes ever want to hire a firefighter?

Mitigation? Lots of possibilities, this doesn’t seem strange to me (other than the company seems to be unable to control their fires, which is unusual for real companies outside of analogies)

Anyways, the metaphor is pretty strained at this point, I just meant that the idea that the FBI doesn’t work against these things because they still exist is nonsensical to me.

Because people don’t want their stuff burning down?

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/27/736715592/the-private-firefig...

"why are people still sick if hospitals exist?"

Well clearly the directors of the fbi have nothing to gain by solving these problems at the federal level where they're not paid as well. Rather they have every incentive for the crimes to continue while they leverage their newfound expertise to get a more lucrative private sector engagement.

It's not difficult to understand when the incentives are made clear. Yes this is extremely clear.

Because they are candidates with experience in investigating many of the same problems that plague their platform.

Investigate how? Isn’t that the governments job?

I assume Twitter has IP addresses and account info to turn over to law enforcement.

Or are you suggesting Twitter take on a part of normal law enforcement activities?

Twitter (and all large websites with user contributions) have users who abuse their services, and they hire people who work to mitigate or otherwise address those issues.

Some issues may have legal concerns and necessitate cooperation with authorities, some do not. It depends on the nature of the issue.

I mean banks have users who abuse their services. You hire risk compliance people and forensic accountants, but do they hire a crew of FBI to investigate financial crimes?

Yes, banks do this. If you are an expert in analyzing financial fraud, this skill is useful to both the FBI and banks.

Doesn't make sense. I mean, it's not like they ever need to find out who's been attempting or succeeding in taking over accounts.

They might need help detecting sarcasm.

Since that evades automation, I expect they might. If they care.

The "I was just being sarcastic" was an enormous lie during the 2016 election cycle, though. Detecting lies is probably higher on their list.

Right? When someone tries to arbitrarily revise their meaning after the fact, it strains credibility.

I like the phrase: "Mean what you say and say what you mean". It isn't perfect, nor fool proof, but it has a lot of value. It might not result in the boldest, wittiest, funniest, most sarcastic phrases, but I personally am not optimizing to keep myself in the spotlight, energize my base, or shock+offend non-supporters.*

* "Shock and awe-fend" perhaps?

The social networks are filling themselves with spooks. Internet companies are going to be more intertwined with government than banks, especially because their specialties are so widely applicable in government functions. Virtually every government project has a data or tech element, so potential contracting is unlimited. Some tech companies could really replace entire agencies (under a failing, corrupt government.)

Some startups should really start making that offer. Pitch that your startup should be responsible for regulating beef and monitoring compliance.

What proof do you have this is happening?

What's your theory then?

Physical security and insider threat management for one thing. All big companies tend to hire for these positions from the ranks of law enforcement. Look up literally any company in the fortune 500 and look at the experience of the chief of security - they don't tend to come with PhDs from Stanford. Moreover Twitter is a target of many government agencies around the world, extremists groups of various shades, and disgruntled randos who believe the Californian elite is stifling their favorite brand of hate. It takes organization and expertise to operate safely within that kind of threat.

yes

They're not hiring them as janitors or cooks, so isn't that 7,500 number pretty irrelevant? If they switch CEOs, we could call it a 0.00013% turnover, but that would also be silly.

> They're not hiring them as janitors or cooks, so isn't that 7,500 number pretty irrelevant?

It is good enough estimate, certainly good enough to support the "Dozens hired of a >7500 workforce amounting to ~0.5%. Is that alarming?" argument.

If you want, make a guess that Twitter has 1% of its headcount as janitors and cooks. Then revise 7,500 to ~7,425. The resulting math will vary about 1%. Peanuts.

> If they switch CEOs, we could call it a 0.00013% turnover, but that would also be silly.

Facepalm.

The comment is unrelated, a strawman, and laughably argued.

Take a mulligan and try again?

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