Former Reddit CEO Decries 'Rage-Induced Interactions' on Facebook and Twitter (wired.com) 164
Were the creators of Facebook and Twitter oblivious to how social networks could be abused? "I struggle to believe that these brilliant product CEOs, who have created social media services used by millions of people worldwide, are actually naive," writes Ellen Pao, the former CEO of Reddit. "It's a lot more likely that they simply don't care."
[S]ocial media companies and the leaders who run them are rewarded for focusing on reach and engagement, not for positive impact or for protecting subsets of users from harm. They're rewarded for keeping costs down, which encourages the free-for-all, anything-goes approach misnomered "free speech." If they don't need to monitor their platforms, they don't need to come up with real policies -- and avoid paying for all the people and tools required to implement them....
In the earliest days, it wasn't always obvious what these platforms were doing and what they would become -- even to insiders. But at a certain point, it became clear that money was the driving factor, and dopamine- or rage-induced interactions meant more money.... CEOs should just forget about hiding behind "naivete" and "free speech," and instead remind themselves they can take actions that will meaningfully change the direction of the future. The first step is acknowledging the problem... You've solved for increasing engagement; now it's time to make real, positive interactions a priority.
The next time a CEO claims ignorance, "we must hold them accountable," the essay argues, complaining that right now there's a vacuum of leadership.
So instead, "Everyone's holding hands on the road to hell."
In the earliest days, it wasn't always obvious what these platforms were doing and what they would become -- even to insiders. But at a certain point, it became clear that money was the driving factor, and dopamine- or rage-induced interactions meant more money.... CEOs should just forget about hiding behind "naivete" and "free speech," and instead remind themselves they can take actions that will meaningfully change the direction of the future. The first step is acknowledging the problem... You've solved for increasing engagement; now it's time to make real, positive interactions a priority.
The next time a CEO claims ignorance, "we must hold them accountable," the essay argues, complaining that right now there's a vacuum of leadership.
So instead, "Everyone's holding hands on the road to hell."
Weirdest editing (Score:5, Insightful)
Failing to mention that the author is Ellen Pao and just saying "former CEO of Reddit"
Re: (Score:2)
The very same Ellen Pao who tweeted: "CEOs of big tech companies: You almost certainly have incels as employees. What are you going to do about it?"
Was she demanding that single people be fired?
Was she demanding that CEOs of big tech companies provide arranged marriages to their employees?
No wonder they hid her name from TFS.
Who knows what goes in her head.
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How about company-owned bawdy houses, like in the old west mining towns? Ellen? Hello, are you still there?
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Oh, of course that makes a difference. The world has two kinds of people, good people whose opinions you should trust without question, and bad people, whose opinions you should reject without consideration.
I take it Pao is one of the bad people.
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"To you, there is no debate" True, the facts are what they are despite Trump's bullshit denials that retarded deplorable faggots defend KNOWING it's untrue. The Witch Hunt -TM keeps catching witches and getting them to confess.
Deal with it. Trump is guilty of crimes. There's no two ways about it. If you want civility you have to admit the honest facts of the matter. Then you earn my respect as a Republican, not before. Not while defending an obvious fraud.
The fact that the GOP has gotten behind him
Re: (Score:1)
I never did say Hillary was "clean" nor did I vote for her. She is guilty of violations of statutes, but evidence of intent to disseminate classified info was not found. Further the issue was the 14th Amendment's "equal enforcement" clause requiring similar crimes to have been prosecuted equally prior to HRC's violations, which in literally thousands of cases from Colin Powell to Jeb Bush and beyond was never sought and never pursued. I found her to be corrupt and dishonest, but she did at the very least
Obligatory (Score:5, Informative)
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
Re: (Score:1)
"People who hate government hate themselves" - George Carlin.
That is true in countries that elect their government.
You don't like you politicians? elect different ones!
Remember, politicians are only slightly smarter than the people who elected them.
Corollary, if you have an Idiots at the helm, it already tells you something about the voters.
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>>Remember, politicians are only slightly smarter than the people who elected them.
not likely and what a weird thing to say.
Re:I gotta be honest (Score:4, Informative)
Meanwhile people keep telling me she should just be a welder a few make $26/hr ignoring that's only the top 10% and they're doing dangerous work.
Welding is not dangerous, and $26/hr is way less than the top 10% make. Pay is proportional to skill. If all you know how to do is stick welding from your high school shop class, you may not make much. But if you learn MIG, TIG, or acetylene welding, and are good at it, you can earn $50/hr or more even in flyover country.
Disclaimer: I am not a very good welder.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Underwater welding is actually EXTREMELY dangerous. Its one of the most dangerous professions on the planet.
Yep (Score:4, Informative)
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In most of the US, $30,000 to $36,000 dollars a year IS middle-class. Lower middle class, sure, but certainly not poor.
Try moving out of San Francisco and New York. Move to states where the taxes are less than 10%, and where housing prices are around $100K. That's the VAST majority of the country, the "flyover" parts that ignorant people like you deride and avoid.
Something else I forgot to mention (Score:2)
The really high paying stuff is (Score:2)
$50k year isn't a lot of money any more. And you'll live in the middle of nowhere on oil fields to get it. That's fine when you're 18 and drive 3 hours into town every weekend. Not when you're 25 and want kids (and schools for said kids).
Also, wages for welders aren't going up but inflation _is_. The only people who's livelihoods aren't being eaten alive by inflation are folks wi
Re:I gotta be honest (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with social media, and all internet discussion, is people like you who can't stay on topic and want to turn everything into a discussion about politics. Rather than being about social media, your post is about college costs, medical costs and Nancy Pelosi. You try to loosely associate it with the topic with the first and last sentence, but really it's just an off-topic rant. Then some people who agree with your opinion come and upvote your post, making it the most prominent on the page, so the discussion becomes completely derailed.
People like you ruin internet discussion for others. When every topic turns into a discussion about politics, people simply give up and stop participating.
You are the problem. Please stop.
Context matters (Score:4, Insightful)
My point is the rage of the working class is being largely ignored. It's how we got a proto-dictator like Trump (and yes, I will call him a proto-dictator. He praised Kim Jon Un's people standing in attention and President Xi of China granting himself the presidency for life). I call out Pelosi because she's one of the ones ignoring me.
Everything _is_ politics. Everything we do and think has broad implications on society as a whole, even the really stupid stuff, when it's scaled up to a national level. When you ignore the working class getting the crap beaten out of them sooner or later they're going to do something to fix that. If we're lucky we get sound policy (hey, it happened in Europe). If we're not we get dictatorships and war. Now's the time to choose which one.
But Hey, go right on dismissing all this as "just politics" like it doesn't matter. Right up until it bites us all in the ass, hard.
Re-read my post (Score:2)
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>> So yeah, I rage a lot.
This can be treated with drugs, but until then, I suggest you stay off of social media.
Time to put up, then (Score:2)
He should donate all the money he made from the rage-fest that is Reddit, then. I'd suggest a charity that assists victims of the poison reddit has spread.
Re:Time to put up, then (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary was very careful not to mention her by name, but without reading the article, I can guarantee this is Reddit Ex-CEO Ellen Pao. The person who fought long and hard for censorship to the point of nearly destroying the most popular internet forum in the world.
Hate speech is not free speech. (Score:2, Insightful)
Hate speech is not free speech. This has been decided in the courts. Other speech has consequences. For example shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. Or speech that incites others to violent acts or riot.
It is clear that the CEOs of Fakebook and TWITter among others do not care about trying to eliminate hate speech and speech that incites to violence, any more than they care about trying to eliminate fake news from their platforms. All that they really care about is how much personal info that they ca
Re:Hate speech is not free speech. (Score:5, Informative)
For example shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater.
You might want to read the history of this analogy. It was first used by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. His reasoning was that obviously the government had the power to arrest someone for shouting fire in a theater, so, hey, it was also okay for the government to arrest people for speaking out against the WW1 draft. Totally the same thing.
So the defendants went to prison, where they were beaten and abused. Some of them died there.
So using stupid analogies to justify political censorship has a long history.
Later in his life, Oliver Wendell Holmes said this ruling was one of his biggest regrets.
Shouting fire in a crowded theater [wikipedia.org]
Schenck v. United States [wikipedia.org]
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So exactly what are you saying then ? That people should have the right to yell FIRE! in a theater ?
Of course not. I am saying that equating "yelling fire in a theater" with "hate speech", as the GPP was doing, is idiotic.
How is allowing Ann Coulter to speak on campus harming anyone? Being offended is not "harm".
As an aside, I can't understand why liberals want to silence Ann Coulter. I can't imagine a better spokesperson for any cause that I despise.
Re: Hate speech is not free speech. (Score:2)
That people should have the right to yell FIRE! in a theater ?
You DO have that right. Whether or not it's criminal depends entirely on the context. The only time such speech is restricted is when it's both false, malicious, and likely to cause immediate harm. If there's an actual fire, you can yell fire. If you're on actor on stage and have to yell fire as part of the performance, you can yell fire. If you make it obvious to everyone that you're joking, you can yell fire. If you see smoke and assume that there's a fire, but there isn't, you can yell fire.
This is
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>That people should have the right to yell FIRE! in a theater?
They do. Speech is protected.
>even when this creates a panic
Endangering human life isn't.
I'll explain The Point like you're five: This means you don't have an example of "special category speech". It happens to be lumped with an incidental offense.
Still too many big words? Consider that the same speech is fine in an empty theater. The problem isn't the speech.
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Private websites are absolutely free to ban whatever they consider hate speech to be from their platforms, but it's protected speech the government cannot punish you for.
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Money is speech, can I pay someone to kill you freely. Sure they can be punished for the killing but do I not have a right to free speech, to pay money, as means of expressing my feelings about you.
Free speech, is the freedom to express your opinion and not the freedom to say anything you want say.
Here is a tricky one, give your word in court but wait speech should be free, so how can I be bound by it. Why would my word have any value when by law it should be free how do you legally bind someone to their
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The Pao crusade continues (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing chairman Pao would be much happier with the Chinese model. They do after all censor all the social media for "positive impact" and "protecting a small subset of users".
It must be difficult to be so smart that you feel a responsibility of governing the lives of every human being on the planet.
She'd be happy now. (Score:3, Informative)
Of late, Reddit has just banned a bunch of random accounts because they're Iranian bots, apparently, colluding to drive narratives to specific ends.
They were clearly successful, given the accounts (before being wiped) had histories of posting literally all over the political spectrum, on a wide variety of topics, the majority of which had nothing to do whatsoever with politics or geopolitical issues.
Meanwhile, of course, any Redditor can tell you of the massive and weird shift of one of Reddit's most popula
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I'm guessing chairman Pao would be much happier with the Chinese model. They do after all censor all the social media for "positive impact" and "protecting a small subset of users".
Are those really the only two possibilities, totalitarian censorship or horrifying trollscape? With all the ingenuity of Silicon Valley and the rest of mankind, and that's all we can come up with?
I think we can do better; the biggest obstacle to finding a better solution is the belief that one does not exist.
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I'm guessing chairman Pao would be much happier with the Chinese model. They do after all censor all the social media for "positive impact" and "protecting a small subset of users".
Are those really the only two possibilities, totalitarian censorship or horrifying trollscape? With all the ingenuity of Silicon Valley and the rest of mankind, and that's all we can come up with?
I think we can do better; the biggest obstacle to finding a better solution is the belief that one does not exist.
This isn't something that can or should be fixed with technology or silencing the opposition. Myself, I don't think "hate speech" should be banned. When one bans something like that one doesn't actually make it go away, all one does is drive it underground. The correct and only workable solution is to confront it and destroy it on equal footing. If the posters of such speech truly have no real value, they will be driven out. Can one change the minds of the propagators of such things? Probably not. Though, t
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Are those really the only two possibilities, totalitarian censorship or horrifying trollscape?
It seems that some people will only be satisfied with "free speech" when every internet forum is nothing buy anonymous trolls barking racial slurs at eah other 24/7.
Myself, I don't think "hate speech" should be banned. When one bans something like that one doesn't actually make it go away, all one does is drive it underground.
I hear this argument a lot, I don't buy it (assuming we're not talking about the governme
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Seriously? You're equating New Jersey native Ellen Pao with Mao and Chinese censorship? How racist is that exactly? Can I get a judge's score?
You're just proving her point, genius.
How about instead of ridiculous name-calling and straw men you actually contribute to the conversation? There's no need to immediately pretend you're outraged and trot out extremist views as if they were fact.
It's not like Pao is making some earth-shattering discovery here, money talks. How about personal responsibility and accoun
Re: The Pao crusade continues (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously? You're equating New Jersey native Ellen Pao with Mao and Chinese censorship? How racist is that exactly? Can I get a judge's score?
This is why everyone hates SJWs.
Re: The Pao crusade continues (Score:2)
For being humorless cunts who try to ruin everything.
Shut up Ellen (Score:1)
Article summary doesn't even mention the name of the former Reddit CEO, but I'm guessing its Ellen Pao, right?
Rage, Rage against Rage (Score:2)
It's nice to be able to blame others when you no longer have any influence or financial interest on social media.
It would also be very beneficial for users of social media to never be passionate about issues because a sedated, non-controversial flock are very cheap and easy to wrangle.
Financial interests are all that matters to the owners of social media sites. If it didn't cause an outcry (more work) they probably would be running Trump/Nazi/Erectile Medication ads on every page of their sites.
Uh oh...more removing stuff coming (Score:3, Insightful)
CEO who? (Score:1)
I can't think of any other tech article in which a former exec is reference and the name not the submitted /. post. Of course in this case it was Ex-CEO Ellen Pao
Slashdot System (Score:2)
It seems to me like this problem of allowing free speech while keeping the general public away from toxic posts was solved ages ago by Slashdot and it's system of moderation and meta-moderation. If only other sites would adopt the system.....
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was solved ages ago by Slashdot and it's system of moderation and meta-moderation. If only other sites would adopt the system.....
No, slashdot over the last 10-20 years has been on a huge decline, I rarely if ever see truth based posts about US politics for instance. (aka if you are voting for any rightwing party you are too stupid to understand what the bank bailouts meant in 2008). Our whole species is just stupid, no amount of moderation can cure that level of stupidity. Slashdot suffers from popularity as much as any other site because newer generations of kids and 20 somethings don't have the same experience as the best informe
You can stop reading when (Score:3, Insightful)
an author puts "free speech" in quotes.
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The First Amendment to the US Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech." It says nothing about private companies like Facebook, Twitter, or Google making policies about the type of speech they want to allow on their platforms. "Free speech" does belong in quotes when what people mean is that a private concern declines to provide a platform for a particular type of speech. It's like crying censorship because a bookstore declines to carry a particular magazine. You migh
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Your comment started out pretty interesting, but I stopped reading when I saw "free speech" in quotes so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make...
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It's completely appropriate. Speech always has and always had limits, even limits set in law. Even in the United States.
Anyone who think that free speech is something that is an unqualified absolute right is an idiot. Period.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Ellen. (Score:4, Insightful)
The title pretty much sums it up, Ellen Pao trying to shit on other social media CEOs is possibly the most hypocritical thing I've ever seen. She is not only part of the problem but a prime source of it.
Venting (Score:2)
Well, they should censor this crap (Score:2)
And there is precedent...
Remember newspapers, when they were not merely cage lining or, now, superseded by online whatever?
Remember the editorial page? Letters to the Editor?
There was a time when editors and/or their staff did indeed read those letters. All of them, even the rants and threats. But they would not publish them if these writers crossed a line. Editorial staff might even let the police know.
So, Twitter etc, somewhat the modern, Internet version of Letters to the Editor, permits this spew. Mayb
Re:In Other Words NAZIS NOT WELCOME (Score:1, Insightful)
Stay on Breitbard and Der Sturmer, nazi scumbags. You have 100% right to speak your mind there within the confines of law. You have 0% of a right to be a nazi on anyone's platform. That's how this works, they own their platform. Blow.
Deal with it snowflake nazis, scatter back behind the fridge where you belong, deplorable cockroaches. America doesn't censor you, society does - for good reason, you are un-American uneducated scumbags of no value to society.
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You do realize that the number of actual Nazis in the US is barely measurable? What we do have is a bunch of hateful people that decide to just label people as Nazis as a way to claim the moral high ground and suppress those with ideological, but mainstream differences. Oddly enough, it was the Nazis who used the tactic of calling their opponents less than human, deplorable, cockroaches who were the root for all that was wrong in order to get the general populace to go along with treating them as scum who
Re: In Other Words NAZIS NOT WELCOME (Score:1, Interesting)
You're absolute correct, but you forgot to apply the other slices of bread to the shit sandwich, the "Christian conservative" far right.
Seriously... It's really, really sad listening to the two parties argue over who's the biggest victim. Part of me wishes you'd just kiss and make up and another part wants to give you all a broken bottle and watch you kill each other off, but that'd never happen because you're just too goddamn pathetic.
What you'll do is lobby your representatives to pass limp, symbolic le
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Good luck scraping the shit off either of those.
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> You have 0% of a right to be a nazi on anyone's platform. That's how this works, they own their platform. Blow.
Looking forward to revisiting this gem of a post in another decade or two when China and India control the major platforms and decide to ban things insulting to Hindus or deemed subversive to the state.
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Tolerating Nazis is known as an appeasement. I am not for that. My grandfather murdered nazi scum by hand and I hope to be given the chance to follow in his patriotic and life-loving footsteps. Nazism is the enemy of America.
If you support it expect to die. Don't be confused thinking my liberal social values extend to treasonous nazi faggot scumbags. You will die.
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Ahh, so you were only a Nazi when Obama was in office. I got what you're saying now. By the way, if you grandfather saw this side of you he would probably disown you.
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"CEO of Reddit"
No point in reading any further.
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You can just mouse over the link and the URL tells you it's Ellen Pao
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Pao
She's controversial outside of anything Reddit related, especially her gender discrimination suit against another former employer that to an outside observer looked a lot like extortion.
Re:Which former Reddit CEO? (Score:4, Insightful)
She wasn't "controversial". She was straight up bigoted and consistently lied and extorted people as a matter of policy. On reddit and off reddit.