Is Facebook Evil?

[nelsonic]

• http://gizmodo.com/why-facebook-is-evil-according-to-mindblowing-new-seri-1709083311
• https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/sep/29/how-evil-is-facebook
• https://veekaybee.github.io/facebook-is-collecting-this/

[jpic]

In my experience, Facebook has an aggressive moderation policy against hate speech, interesting to learn that they generally allow it outside of my experience... Maybe it's different in different languages, and I haven't been used facebook for a very, very long time.

Anyway, conservatives I know are not science or climate change deniers, sure, they disagree with the projection models used by the IPCC (which is famous for failing or borderline cheating at that), or disagree that the increase in CO2 is a bad thing (arguing that vegetation needed going from 300 to 400ppm), or they consider that nuclear energy is a better bet than aeolian for which Germany compensates the weaknesses with coal based energy (which makes it worse than nuclear), and I can imagine how the memes in the article would make them laugh, but as always with a joke: you can't expect everybody to understand it. But what if a user likes them and goes to facebook to see them, does that mean facebook shouldn't let them have it because it would be "misinformation" if taken seriously?

Also we're seeing only conservative memes being targeted by this article, but they don't have a monopoly on misinformation: ecologist misinformation and memes are also legion on facebook, bottom line conclusion of the article "all anti ecologist propaganda is fake and non-science backed, all pro-ecologist propaganda is science backed and true"... interesting point of view.

[nelsonic]

This seems good for democracy ... https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-61339293

If you're unaware of what's going on in the Philippines (that Facebook is 100% enabling), watch: Philippines Election: Last Week Tonight: https://youtu.be/FtdVglihDok

[nelsonic]

"His company exploits people for money and he doesn't care. It needs to stop!"

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-62497674

[nelsonic]

This morning on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33529838

https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/

Billionaire whose company made $46.7 Billion Profit last year and has $41 Bilion in CASH in the bank 🏦 fires 11k people going into a recession. 👌 What a nice guy! ❤️

Has the Facebook roadmap changed so much that they no longer need all these people? 🤷‍♂️ Or are they just cutting back to boost profits and keep investors happy? 💰 To Zuckerberg this is all a numbers game. He doesn't care about the lives he destroys in the process.

But Twitter also layed off 3.5k people ...

Yes, you could retort with the fact that Elon who is even wealthier than Zuckerberg has also fired half the Twitter employees ...

This is obviously very sad for all the people affected. 😢

But it's a red herring argument/fallacy because Zuck has owned and operated Facebook from the start and has managed the company into its current state. The fact that he's firing these 11k people is 100% his choice/responsibility; he has more than enough cash to keep paying everyone.

In the case of Twitter, Elon is definitely being an 455H0L3 by firing people, but he is trying to revive the stagnant platform that hasn't released any new features or improvements in years

and made a Net Loss in 2021!!

Twitter is bleeding money and would go bankrupt if Elon didn't fix it!

Twitter briefly made profits in 2018/19 but not enough to offset the cumulative losses. 🔥 Anyone with even a Wikipedia-level understanding of business knows that you cannot operate at a loss indefinitely...!

Facebook ("Meta") makes a huge profit and could re-direct all these people toward improving the safety of people using its' products. e.g: Eliminating Human Trafficking, Selling Illegal Drugs and child abuse.

If the average Facebook engineer is paid $150k the annual wage bill for these 11k people is 150,000 x 11,000 = 1,650,000,000 i.e. $1.6 Billion (and most of these people would have been earning less than this!) This is insignificant for a company that makes $40+ Billion in annual profits!

In other words:

Mark Zuckerberg can easily afford
to make the world better for everyone
but has chosen not to.

[ndrean]

Source: https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/internet-services-social-media-technology-media-and-telecom/metas-employee-headcount/

I am not defending Zuckerbeg but looking at the figures, he indeed has been greedy since the COVID, expecting sustainable growth that didn't happen. I hope most of those who leave are the last who entered, otherwise it is a bad way to clean his business. Also what shoked (but not surpised) me was this:

I mean I hope they will not discover they are fired by not being able to enter the system. I say this because I experienced this

[nelsonic]

@ndrean this kind of terminating access to internal systems is fairly normal/standard from an info/data security perspective. Companies don't want people accessing (copying/deleting) sensitive data out of rage when fired. 😡 Super lame that you went through the experience of being locked out ... 😢

Yes, Zuckerberg expanded the number of employees aggressively these last few years, 📈 this was covered in detail on a recent All-in Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-bIpJdaCnM This layoff is simply reversing the hiring they did in 2021; but probably cutting lots of "under performers" ...

The fact remains: Facebook has a mountain of cash and could easily use that money to improve the safety of the most vulnerable people using their product(s).

If you haven't already, read into "The Facebook Papers": https://www.npr.org/2021/10/25/1049015366/the-facebook-papers-what-you-need-to-know https://www.npr.org/2021/10/25/1048918722/ex-facebook-employee-speaks-out-about-the-spread-of-false-information The "fake news" problem is the tip of the iceberg. There is real world harm that comes from their inaction. There is no reasonable defence for Mark Zuckerberg.

[ndrean]

The world is full of influencers and lobbyists. And what about the algorithms pushing content? Tiktok from China is an example: in China, you mainly receive positive pushes - stories about successful people - while here, it's mainly stupid things. This is received by influenceable kids and is a long-term vicious program. This is also a huge concern I believe.

[nelsonic]

@ndrean 100% agree that TikTok is deeply concerning; it's systematically destroying the attention spans / focus ability of people that use it. If Instagram is Crack and YouTue is Cocaine then TikTok is Fentanyl. I wouldn't let my children near any of these insidious platforms.

"Social media is like crack; immediately gratifying and hugely addictive." ~ Gary Vaynerchuk

[nelsonic]

Cyber bullying and harassment is getting much worse on Facebook:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1013569/facebook-bullying-and-harassment-content-removal-quarter/

Tens of millions of people are having their lives made into misery on Facebook. This graph only shows the content that was removed. Think about all the content that wasn't removed because it doesn't meet some arbitrary guideline or they simply don't have enough content moderation staff/systems (despite the BILLIONS in Profits) ...

[nelsonic]

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63938628

😢

This lawsuit will probably be squashed by Facebooks more expensive lawyers or a bribe to the AG. 🙊 But the fact that they've opened it should tell you they think they have a case. 💭

[nelsonic]

Thankfully there is good news Facebook is declining in key geographic regions:

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/facebook-statistics/

39 Million people in Europe stopped using Facebook in 2022! 😮 Let's hope they didn't all switch to TikTok ... 🙄

[nelsonic]

"You may think Facebook is the product and you’re the client, but that’s not entirely true. There’s a reason tech companies call us users and not customers. It’s because we’re just people who come and use the interface. The product Facebook sells is you. The advertisers are the customers. That goes for all tech companies that make most of their money from ads." ~ Ben Wolford

https://benwolford.medium.com/ad-transparency-is-a-distraction-from-the-real-problem-with-facebook-6352239cc116

[nelsonic]

Highly recommend watching the Senate hearing where this Meme is from: https://www.youtube.com/live/6ValJMOpt7s?t=17533

Wonder why he was so keen to buy Giphy ... https://giphy.com/gifs/sorry-zuckerberg-testimony-1Bh2zyW2yuBEalV0rO

[sistemaon]

Sincerely speaking, give me one social media that is not "evil".

[nelsonic]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

Before a psychopath created a “social network” that promotes the worst of society, the internet was a promising idea.

[nelsonic]

Facebook is WORSE than You Think: Whistleblower Reveals All https://youtu.be/XYhSUdphPvQ

[nelsonic]

https://youtu.be/OsKMbxTDB7s

[nelsonic]

Not just Evil, but actively targeting vulnerable children with addictive features: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/24/bipartisan-group-of-ags-sue-meta-for-addictive-features.html

[nelsonic]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98821dn27lo

Original: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/17/opinion/social-media-health-warning.html Ad/Paywall free: https://archive.is/GD7IQ

[nelsonic]

Why Zuckerberg’s Rebrand Shouldn’t Distract Us: https://youtu.be/n8JQBxPO9Ts seriously, watch it!

Zuck has clearly paid branding consultants, personal trainers and "influecers" millions (drop in the bucket for him) to rebrand his image to be appealing to Gen-Z and it has worked! People in that "target demographic" are totally buying it!

But it's a distraction so people don't focus on the harm his platforms continue to do to society. People are spending wasting more time than ever on his platforms scrolling away their lives.