With the way current corporations - both public and private - are setup, those in ‘power’ seems to be shielded - for various reasons - and the victims are ultimately punished (one way or another). We need something similar to a #MeToo movement to weed out the cancer and bring justice to victims.
What are some solutions? Consumers boycotting products, shareholders voting out bad apples, government / legal oversight? Any more ideas?
Don't forget HN is likely frequented by senior figures from all the major tech companies so that kind of comment on here doesn't necessarily indicate that such sentiment is leaking out into the wider world at volume.
Interesting how that happens sometimes in HN. Two threads about the same thing. One of them sane discussion, the other a bunch of kiss-the-ring-of-a-corporation pseudo-worship.
Yeah I've seen a few comments on here about Zuckerberg's dumb fucks quote along the lines of "I would have said the same thing" (would you? I hope your employer doesn't find your screen name)
Combine that with a few "is this surprising to anyone?" and "this is a nothingburger" (except when it might be, like some of the Russia narrative being made up, it depends; but then, it still deserves a more substantive comment than that) and you get the general level of discourse
I bought the book specifically as a result of Facebook's attempts to silence the author and have been enjoying the read so far. While there's nothing "surprising" about the stories it recounts of Facebook's leadership (as many pessimists and contrarians have mentioned each time it's brought up here), it's nonetheless interesting to read intimate details of specific instances where--much as in these discussions--sociopathic and abusive behavior is normalized and goes unchecked, even by those who eventually become victims of it themselves.
I hope that over time we're able undo some of the damage caused by these bad stewards of power, but it's disheartening to see how many just care to be on the right side of the whip.
I also purchased the book specifically because Facebook/Meta has been trying so hard to bury it. It is worth finding out what FB/Meta/Zuckerberg want so badly to be concealed.
If there's a person who used ALL his power to win every skirmish, no matter how unscrupulously, it was BG.
A guy that powerful and unscrupulous and also unattractive with that horrible voice only gets women because of money and power. And the only woman who could stand him enough to marry him (and have his kids) was no looker, yet divorced him with no press whatsoever.
That's the power of money. I suspect a lot of us nerds wouldn't've been nerds if we could get girls. Some of us grow up to be kind, grateful partners, but we likely didn't trample everyone underfoot to become a mega billionaire.
The silence that surrounds him smells like money, to me.
There's a lot of subjective judgement going on in this post, but putting that aside: how does all this not apply equally well to most other wealthy billionaires such as Bezos, Ellison, Ballmer etc... ? I'm curious why you're picking on Gates.
Because I felt like willfully ignoring the precept that I should not be talking bad about another person who is not present. I am not fully submitted to the Divine Will, therefore I still make mistakes.
I should not have said these things about BG and his ex-wife, even if they are bang-on true.
I apologize to all who have read this, and though BG or his ex-wife will likely never read this, I want to openly say to them that I apologize to you both and ask you to forgive me for my gossiping against you today, and will try my best in the future to not do it again.
I hope I have learned this lesson, once and for all.
That's admirably reflective. I was just wondering why Gates came to your mind rather than e.g. Bezos. It might be that you've recently read about some scandal that Gates hushed up. Or perhaps Gates is an easier target because he's slightly more aligned with progressive causes.
Well, it's not really that surprising is it? It's mostly a clarification of what types of bad behaviour.
I haven't read the book, but from the article it seems like it's mostly inappropriate sexual behaviour and some stuff we already know, but apparent collectively decided that we don't care enough about to attempt to change how Meta operate.
My failed attempt at sarcasm and cynicism. Of course I am shocked and sort of getting numbed by these aholes behavior and the way they carry out these deplorable actions with impunity. Because they can afford lawyers, and / or company resources (aka HR) always seem to side with these aholes.
I'm more shocked there really weren't any shocking revelation. It's pretty much what everyone expected.
- Zuckerberg wants people to like him.. okay..
- Weird personal details about lingerie budgets.. an insinuation about Sandberg having some homosexual relationship.. eye roll
- The Myanmar stuff we already knew about. It's bad. It seems negligent, but not like Zuckerburg wants to drown babies (all the FANG don't want to hire moderators and want to solve everything with machines)
- They tried to work with the chinese government to get in to China. okay
I was expecting stuff like top VPs look at people's private messages willy nilly, or Zuckerberg makes sure supportive political condidates win in third world countries. Things that actually matter.
I had an opportunity to talk about racism with a racist. He said that he was not racist because he didn’t want to kill people of color. He is the kind of person, who doesn’t go into a restaurant if there are non whites in it, even in the safest neighbourhood.
Since then, I’m not sure at all about that. There are definitely a lot of racists, who don’t consider themselves as such. I’m not sure that they are not the majority.
It’s quite possible that this can be generalised, and applied to this too.
Yes. People tend to consider themselves fair a priori.
So if a person has a bias against Armenians (just to pick a random group), she is likely to think "I know I'm fair, so if I don't like many Armenians, it must be because most Armenians are unlikable".
>- The Myanmar stuff we already knew about. It's bad. It seems negligent, but not like Zuckerburg wants to drown babies (all the FANG don't want to hire moderators and want to solve everything with machines)
Translation: "I am lucky not to be part of the group being exterminated, therefore I am comfortable to brush that under the rug"
It may be boring but we should continue to hold companies to a higher standard than excusing sexual harassment and social irresponsibility at global scale
I would personally put that in the eye roll category.
The problem is that pro-Palestine camp is a pretty active group of evangelists that inserts itself into every discussion and comments on unrelated posts. You have to moderate them to avoid alienating or fatiguing your normal users.
A funny example is LinkedIn of all places. Personally, I constantly see pro-Palestine propaganda liked or shared from connections. Most of that content is demagoguery or outright lies. Has no place on a work-related so I also report it.
I have no dog in this race but the content of the pro-Palestine crowd is simply low-quality.
As a homosexual I am completely unable to emphasize with cultures and nationalities that kill my kind. Many of us think like that, but embedded in the „left and liberal“ groups we often are and the threat of violence from watermelons, we need to hide our real opinion.
Though Hamas as argument is good enough. With the support they enjoy among Palestinians, a distinction between civilian and hamas fighter is generally not possible.
It's justified for gays to support Israel on the grounds that Israel is socially liberal (or that Palestinian society is illiberal, which it is).
It's not so smart for gays to be cavalier about 'left and liberal' groups considering how recent and how tenuous any tolerance of homosexuality is within right-wing and conservative groups.
That might be a horribly obvious and boring thing to write, but it's the sad truth.
Facebook is filled with russian propaganda or elon posts. Seems like facebook dont care and its business as usual with no regards to any externalities they cause.
Another source of allegations about the behaviour at Meta comes from 7amleh's report on how they systematically suppressed what Americans and others were allowed see about Israel's invasion of Palestine.
Note that all the replies to this have conveniently steered the conversation into fighting over the Israel-Palestine war and gotten us to not talk about the actual point, that FB very credibly worked alongside the US gov't to suppress what Americans saw about the war on social media, lots of times suppressing actual journalists with press vests who were reporting from within Gaza at a time when formal press were banned by Israel from entering Gaza (meaning reliance on the ones already inside was crucial)
This paper seems to mainly suggest that the suppression is happening on the internal platforms that Meta's employees and content-moderators use, for discussions, rather than that they're censoring what I would see an an end user?
You're right, this report isn't about the actual censorship of end-user content, but that was also quite widespread. Zuck even himself admitted how the US government would pressure them to censor certain things, but he discussed it in the context of COVID. Similar things happened about Israel-Palestine as well
Americans are one of the most, if not the most, propagandized populations on the planet, and the worst part is a large cohort of them fully believe they aren’t.
Political messages often come from ostensibly small, independent outlets now - outlets whose incentives are no better than those of governments.
A show might be hosted by a couple teenagers in hoodies, but if the hosts are audience-captured, or supported by powerful interests, or just hold strong, irrational views, it's still just bad propaganda.
the corporations or algorithms are not really under democratic control
That is true. Social media is democratic only to a point. If it were truly representative of the general public, it might be an improvement (or less sensational, at least).
Re: small creators. There are many creators who seem small - like Joe Rogan - but actually operate on a scale that places intense pressures on them. People tend to give more trust to 'influencers' than they should because they seem relatable.
For what it's worth, Americans still have access to opposing viewpoints. You can view Press TV, Russia Today, etc. Authoritarian states will ban completely access to news it doesn't want its population to read
> NGO Monitor is a right-wing organization based in Jerusalem that reports on international NGO (non-governmental organisation) activity from a pro-Israel perspective.
I'm referring to Israel's invasion of Palestine, which in this specific instance started on October 9, 2023 or so, and resulted in the total destruction of Gaza, and the direct killing of 60,000, and the indirect killing of possibly 300,000.
This is the invasion that had more bombs dropped on Gazan civilians than were dropped in the entire Afghanistan war. And one in which Israeli snipers repeatedly shot and killed children, doctors, and journalists.
I was not specifically referring to Israel's 17 year blockade of Gaza, during which it destroyed their airport, port, and control the water supply and electricity, which it has currently cut off, a severe war crime.
Nor am I specifically referring to Israel's invasion of the West Bank, currently happening, where Israel has recently stolen more land than all the land it stole since the Oslo accords.
Nor am I specifically referring to Israel's brutal domination of Palestine since its invasion in 1948, during which European refugees drove 750,000 native Palestinians from their homes, stealing their land and massacring over 15,000 in a series of brutal attacks.
Yes, the palestinians or hamas are all bloodthirsty jihadist death cult followers and their actions have nothing to do with their explusions, the occupation and everyday humiliation in their existence.
The modus operandi of zionists is to use their propaganda to deflect from the facts that make Israel indefensible e.g. the fact that israel has systematically destroyed Gaza's health care system.
