People at FB - do you feel guilty at all?
ok I know this can get dicey but I’m looking for actual answers, do not want to get into ant political debates or arguments here. And I don’t mean to insult anyone with this question. So people at fb - given the recent news about Mark z and advertising etc - how are you feeling ethically working there now? Honestly I care less about the american political ad ramifications but more like genocide in countries where their only internet is literally facebook? This is besides like breaking up tech giants like fb to buy up everything (so we have less new small businesses starting than literally during the carter recession) and destroy our economy...I’m more curious about the morality of fake advertising and marks complete disregard for anything but making himself more money. Its obviously more complicated than all of this but I don’t care about fighting about details here - just want people’s thoughts. But Ive gotten contacted by fb so many times and I just could not stand working there and making them more money. I have plenty of old coworkers there who are good people so thats why I am curious. I mean 3 out of 4 dollars of online marketing is either fb or google alone and yet they can be completely false? how do yall not care about this? truly just curious. please don’t be trolley / throw insults.
You mentioned Google at the end, but you only asked about FB. Why is that? The truth is every company is evil in some lens, but it's never that simple. FB is just an easy target for the media. There are good people trying to solve unsolvable problems everywhere, and I've seen the positive that FB brings to the world. So no, I have no problem working there.
Copying my reply about what fb below. Coming to your point about tying to do good from within - this is what I tell myself working at any for profit company so I get it. I just feel like fb needs to not be helped right now to make more money. Yeah I thought about just phrasing it as like faang companies but for me the whole genocide thing and lack of doing anything to change that does separate fb to another degree. Others are for sure evil but fb is also having a huge spotlight on them so it’s harder imo to not pay attention or care. So why I picked them to ask about.
And thanks for answering I get the trying to do better from within side. How is that going?
False marketing is consumer fraud and is already handled by the right people in local and national government. The resolution infra is well established and if you as a consumer get screwed over it’s moderately easy to get retribution. What Zuck is saying is important. He’s saying I’m not going to let the left dictate and create sensorship.
Look left or right I don’t want censorship but there’s a difference between being able to fact check and censor?
Fact check against what? You’re making the assumption that the infrastructure and data is there to fact check everything that could possibly be put on an ad. That doesn’t scale so it makes no sense to introduce legislation around it. Complete waste of taxpayer money
Who the fuck cares? Facebook engineers make top of the line money. I am sure they wouldn’t give a fuck once they retire early with millions in the bank. You got to focus on your personal wellbeing instead of other things. Make your money and gtfo.
You didn't actually say what you think is unethical about goog or fb? You prefer that tech companies decide what speech is allowable?
one of the examples that OP gave was of Myanmar's Rohingya crisis. So yes, when genocides are happening tech companies do bear the responsibility - right? FFS we have rules for what ads to show and claims to make when talking about food content/product quality on TV. we don't care about free speech when lies(misinformation) is involved in that situation - because we have sorted it out. I get that ours is a much more complicated situation, but solution to problems like these has to start somewhere.
No add on tv is fact checked. We already have laws about campaign ads.
So should facebook fact check every ad they run?
I’m sure there are ways they can make it easier to check them is all. Better than nothing
No. Facebook should only remove content that incites violence, nothing more.
I do not think Facebook is unethical. They are incredibly damaging to the society, yes, but not because it’s an unethical company. Herein lies the difficulty of evaluating FB. We, humans, have discovered these information related technologies that so far seem to be incompatible with the way our society has evolved, and especially with things like democracy and social relationships. So the hope is that we will discover new ways to evaluate the technologies that FB, Google, Amazon represent, beyond our current good vs evil framework, before they take us down as a society.
Great comment! Follow up though - for me why I created this question is specifically not even trying to limit disinformation- especially in countries that have no other ways to get their media like Myanmar. Curious your thoughts on ethics when it comes to that? But no I do appreciate your comment and this may sound dumb but it reminds me of the good place. Inherently these companies are not unethical. But what happens when the companies evolve and other things with it that come to a genocide of people? For me the issue isn’t even that misinformation happened. But now that we have seen some terrible ramifications why isn’t mark interested on at least tying to help that component? There are other things too we could get into but I think overall those are even more of grey areas than this.
I disagree. Before fb it was impossible to hear dissenting voices. Through this tool people were able to topple regimes and get their voices heard. Never before in history was that possible
Define evil, and see the nature of things. Then you realize you live in your dream.
The recent stuff Zuckerberg said about freedom of speech made me appreciate facebook more. He’s one of the only tech companies to stand up to Chinese communist oppression. He believes in giving as many people a platform as possible. I like facebook a lot more. Most of the gate comes from anti-democracy voices who are upset their candidate lost. News flash: Obama uses the same tactics to help him get elected and no one said a peep.
So yeah I chose to leave out us politics for a reason. That is very dicey. And look I used to work for a well known social forum website known for giving everyone a platform. I don’t disagree with that. And I do appreciate that. My issue is more with his lack of any attempt to stop disinformation advertising. It’s been why I didn’t work there. Truly the only reason. And why I post about it now is bc of his recent comments on it. I’m not saying censor people - but with all the manpower they have they have to be able to come up with a way to have better systems in place to try and stop misinformation. Specifically in countries that do not have other forms of internet or media available. I’m not saying fb is all bad and it’s only the right like no. There’s so much bs from the left as well. But when mark has seen ramifications in other countries causing mass genocide, and yes in our elections, why can’t we make it better? Look it’s like let’s develop better systems that’s all. I got so frustrated today by his complete lack to have any acknowledgment on his impact when it’s the negative, but will take alll the praise for the positive. Like let’s address the issue without straight censorship I think that’s possible. And totally agree with you on the China thing!
Also if we get into politics for one quick sec - I’m not mad at him for meeting with the right recently and more hardcore groups. But do it with the left too bc otherwise it seems disingenuous to say you want to hear every opinion imo.
No one ever talks about the good that Facebook has done over the past decade. So many people have support groups, met their significant other or spouse through Facebook, find out about dope events, being able to mark self as safe in the event of some natural disaster or mass shooting, a platform for people to protest horrible regimes etc. I’m not as addicted to fb as I was in the past but I love keeping up with articles that friends post, good news from my family and friends, etc. but yeah in case anyone is wondering, fb is a large company, we are all busy trying to improve our products, launch new features, help folks keep in touch. We are not sitting as one crowd speaking about how we can try to maliciously ruin the world. That’s just not the reality lol.
Lol we’re fucked...
Hey, you forgot about getting Trump elected.... thank you ? I guess?
Ur gonna have a hard time finding a top company that's not evil to some extent.
Yeah I thought about just phrasing it as like faang companies but for me the whole genocide thing and lack of doing anything to change that does separate fb to another degree. Others are for sure evil but fb is also having a huge spotlight on them so it’s harder imo to not pay attention or care. So why I picked them to ask about.
FB actually does more than many companies and is a leader in battling misinformation. Don't believe me? Try creating a fake account of FB vs Twitter and see which one is easier.