> What the site was is that, I had scraped data for all students at IIT Delhi, and made a profile for all of them.
> anyone could make an anonymous account, and then comment anything on anyone's profile.
Oh, good, they made a harassment factory.
> anyone could make an anonymous account, and then comment anything on anyone's profile.
Oh, good, they made a harassment factory.
Young people doing (sometimes questionable) experiments.
The fact that the default response to this is "omg" and "this guy deserves to be in prison" is an indication of the dark times we're headed towards. A society unable to tolerate deviance from the norm, is a society that will fail to adapt to inevitable changes to the norm. And the norms are changing.
I am pretty pro-privacy. And yes, I find it to be fairly thoughtless, but that's no reason for coercive intimidation. The fact that this was the reaction to someone doing an experiment speaks poorly about the society it took place in, and explains why there haven't been any major breakthroughs - in consumer tech, science or the arts – from within that country.
More generally, HN's reaction is disappointing. This is a very hacker thing to do. Hackers have always been people out at the edge doing things that get them into trouble. The fact that most people on HN want to crush that rebelliousness – that hacker spirit – is sad to me.
I think there's a dark undercurrent in global culture, where people would rather live in a world where they're poor but able to control others as opposed to one where they're wealthy but unable to exert control over others.
The author's response was the main problem, showing a complete lack of character or ethical concern. There is a world of difference between being a hacker with a sense of rebelliousness and a jerk who thinks there should be zero consequences to their actions.
I don't think many here would disagree with you.
> Because it still has a reasonably positive reputation overall and it's affecting billions of people.
I'm gonna disagree with you. Maybe it's because I live in the Bay Area so the culture is affected by the proximity of tech companies. But my family in the middle of the country mostly seem to be on the same page, so I don't know how you explain that. It may be that I'm drawn to people who care about these topics and some degree of sameness is expected within family dynamics resulting from the parents' values raising us. Whatever.
I think a good portion of society considers FB a garbage product but don't know of an alternative and just accept it for what it is. I think a smaller portion of society recognizes that they are amoral and terrible for society. How many countries have now discussed legislation to limit kids accessing social media (whether you agree or disagree)? That didn't spring out of nowhere fully formed. Years of criticism got us there.
I can explain that. 100% of Americans add up to roughly 5% of the worlds population. As such, there are billions of non American users with very different viewpoints and opinions.
yes. correct.
> Because it still has a reasonably positive reputation overall and it's affecting billions of people.
does it? its like the power company -- you just kinda have to use it, or else you just have ot go without.
Given the external consequences of certain actions, for all intents and purposes that "world of difference" may exist only inside their skull.
Yeah, Facebook started in college, but it didn't start with scraped data and auto-generated profiles.
So, it all checks out.
I got into trouble in college which nearly became a police matter simply for scraping emails. I didn’t even store the data. I was just testing a tool that I had created and actually found a data bug in the college’s IT system where it gave me access to all the emails instead of access to only the group that I was supposed to be part of.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I self reported (actually I reported the bug to IT thinking I would be rewarded, lol) it would have become a police matter. Because I self reported before they reached out to me the Dean and college President let it remain a code of conduct violation.
I agree-ish with everything generally except this. I don't think this is a global thing at all. I think this is at best a subset of people in mostly western nations.
That said, I no fan of the author or his actions (which paint him like a real jerk). The facts don't really support the benefit of the doubt you're giving him here.
Straw man fallacy. Literally nobody here has said he deserves to be in prison.
> This is a very hacker thing to do. Hackers have always been people out at the edge doing things that get them into trouble.
It saddens me that you don't recognize a difference between "thing that gets you in trouble" and "thing that harms others". Getting in trouble is not the problem here.
He had several rounds of warnings before things escalated (not counting the local bully).
Elite schools are full of dumb people. Being good at math doesn't automatically give you emotional intelligence.
> that is smart enough to make a social media app
What, like it's hard? I could've sworn making a Twitter clone was in plenty of "Programming for Dummies" books during the 2010s - and they didn't even have access to LLMs!
That should have been the first clue that this was a bad idea. Nevertheless, the author pressed on with the bad ideas.
They even mention how they watched "The Social Network", a biopic about a very damaged narcissist who is oblivious and/or indifferent to how he hurts people. And the author sees this as something to repeat! It'
> A society unable to tolerate deviance from the norm
A metric "deviates from the norm". The phrase you're looking for is "violation of norms". [0]
> is a society that will fail to adapt to inevitable changes to the norm. And the norms are changing.
They don't seem to be. There seems to be consensus in the comments that the author's behavior was distasteful and violated norms.
Unfortunately, you can't explain away literally anything anybody does wrong simply by claiming they were only "deviating from the norm", and that should be accepted no matter what, for the sake of building adaptivity. A society which accepts anything, including hurting innocent kids, is a society which will quickly collapse.
0 – https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/norm-vi...
> This is how Facebook started.
And along with it, commercial mass surveillance, monetized addiction, and destruction of free societies. Oh, and their decision enabled the Rohingya genocide too.
> A society unable to tolerate deviance from the norm, is a society that will fail to adapt to inevitable changes to the norm
Excusing a harassment platform or non-consensual female rating site for university students as social tolerance is gross.
> And the norms are changing.
Oh sure. The tech billionaires' wet dream are coming true at the expense of everyone subject to their whims.
> The fact that this was the reaction to someone doing an experiment speaks poorly about the society it took place in
Calling these acts as mere "experiments" tells us what you think about the suffering of others.
> explains why there haven't been any major breakthroughs - in consumer tech, science or the arts – from within that country.
What an arrogant and ridiculous take, but sadly, I recognize this line of reasoning. You think there are legionnaires of the Antichrist busy at HN trying to halt technological progress!
> that hacker spirit
So let's screw over a bunch of kids for "rebellion," that's the "hacker spirit" now?
> I think there's a dark undercurrent in global culture, where people would rather live in a world where they're poor but able to control others as opposed to one where they're wealthy but unable to exert control over others.
Most people are watching the ultra‑wealthy get richer while losing control over their own lives.
This 1984-style rhetoric wrapped in emotional manipulation makes me sick.
I printed it out so I could paste it on my toddler thrashing machine :)
And also I think people are really really overlooking the 'cool' part of the website, which i thought would be the real discussion at hacker news, like all the design choices i made, the virality, everything, like that was really fucking cool i think...
anyways, thanks for being rational man...
[0] btw i just think in general people should grow a thicker skin.im not trying to be insensitive, but it'll just be better for them if they do, like people have said a lot of shit about be, but how can you let randos on the internet ruin your mood man. go live your dreams out.
IT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN UP THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T CREATE THEIR PROFILES, YOU DID. It doesn't matter if you were moderating anything, nobody involved gave their consent. You forced them into that position.
>And also I think people are really really overlooking the 'cool' part of the website, which i thought would be the real discussion at hacker news, like all the design choices i made, the virality, everything, like that was really fucking cool i think...
At no point in your linked post do you stop and highlight those things. There's no discussion of the technical aspect, how you streamlined your code, prepared to scale, what makes your code special or unique, what about the UI/UX might be unique or groundbreaking, what's running on the backend, nothing.
No, your entire post was about how you refuse to see how what you did is wrong while you complain about the reactions that everyone else had. You failed to talk about anything else but your ego and your hubris, how you would rather tell someone, "bitch come suck my dick," instead of trying to have a constructive conversation with them, and now you're mad that that's all that we can see?
Good god, child.
Edit: And for the record, it wasn't even natural virality, it was forced. People only visited your page because you forced their profiles to be on there and then told them what you did. For something to be viral, people have to want to go their and use it on their own. I am not shocked at all that you cannot see this.
You built a car wreck. Something so terrible that people had no choice but to look.
Obviously, fucking obviously, if you make profiles about people without their consent then they will be drawn to see what is going on. You can achieve the same thing by making a website where you post everyone's home addresses. Don't get any ideas.
None of this was impressive, at least not from a conceptual view.