Facebook Is Still Prioritizing Scale Over Safety (buzzfeednews.com) 21
Facebook's growth at any cost mentality has birthed innumerable scandals over the past decade -- election meddling, political discord, privacy invasion. Yet today, after repeated apologies and promises to do better, that mentality remains largely unchanged. From a report: BuzzFeed News has learned the company continues to evaluate and compensate product managers based mostly on their ability to grow its products, with little regard to the impact of those products on the world. In fact, for Facebook, the very word "impact" is often defined by internal growth rather than external consequences and it uses growth metrics as key criteria for evaluating performance and determining compensation changes. This emphasis on growth, particularly as it's tied to performance evaluation, encourages Facebook's employees to focus on growth above all else, sources close to the company told BuzzFeed News. "Working at Facebook made me aware of how you can reprogram humans," one exâ"product manager who recently left the company said. "It's hard to believe that you could get humans to override all of their values that they came in with. But with a system like this, you can. I found that a bit terrifying."
Hard to believe? (Score:1)
"It's hard to believe that you could get humans to override all of their values that they came in with"
You must be kidding. Why would you find that hard to believe? It is all about money. Have you ever met a human?
Re: (Score:3)
Money? It doesn't have to be money, although money does generally work well. Threats, appeals to fears of the target, lies, there are lots of ways to get most people to abandon their values, as any quick glance over history will confirm.
Re: (Score:1)
True. But at Facebook it is money. The rank and file employees are making a LOT of money there, probably $300k+ on average all in.
Re:Hard to believe? (Score:4, Interesting)
Money can buy Power, and people want Power.
Once someone makes enough money to live comfortably, it becomes more about Power. So you collect more money, so you have more people working Under You.
Or your home or car is nicer then the others, you get respect from your wealth thus what you say has more influence so you have more Power.
There are people who are not interested in Power. We sometimes considered them as not being ambitious. Why would they turn down that promotion? They are smart and capable. Where the truth is they have what they need, and don't feel the need to control other people, and they are happy with their own freedom.
However this form of Power is a primitive factor in our nature. For the Human Animal to succeed in breeding they need to make themselves look better then the competition out there.
Re: Hard to believe? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
"It's hard to believe that you could get humans to override all of their values that they came in with"
You must be kidding. Why would you find that hard to believe? It is all about money. Have you ever met a human?
Not all humans are like that, but basically all that are "successful" are.
USA USA USA (Score:2)
So, just like every other publicly traded company. Ever since Dodge v. Ford got grossly misinterpreted, companies -- and their C-level managers and their Boards of Directors -- are only after one thing.
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I don't recall Ford or Dodge ever having devices in people's hands feeding them information (or misinformation) during all their waking hours.
Re:USA USA USA (Score:4, Insightful)
No, Ford just set fire to the people (Pinto, Explorer).
You, the American people, voted for Ford and Facebook - if you want your corporations to put public safety ahead of their profits, you must elect governments which will enforce that.
You, the American people, choose Ford and Facebook - if you want your corporations to put public safety ahead of their profits, you must focus on public safety and community wellbeing rather than the size of your investment portfolio and trying to start companies like these.
What values do you believe people came in with (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to believe that you could get humans to override all of their values that they came in with
Excuse me, have you talked to humans recently?
Many of them are VERY COMFORTABLE sharing just about anything, with people they just met on a bar or a plane or whenever.
The desire to keep to yourself and be private actually seems like an uncommon trait to me.
Also people believe that are sharing pretty much with just friends on something like Facebook, so why would they be guarded? It's not that people are compromising values so much as Facebook is doing things that are complex to understand for most people.
Re:What values do you believe people came in with (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet nearly everybody has something that they don't want to share, and that they would be horrified if it got shared, or shared with the wrong people.
To use an oft-cited example, when people share pictures of their kids, they do it because they're proud of their kids and they want their friends to see them. But if Facebook had a bug that allowed random pedophiles to see those photos and create a private feed to vote on the most attractive kids, the parents would, of course, absolutely hit the ceiling. And given Facebook's often-confusing photo sharing permissions, a security breach of that magnitude isn't really that unlikely unless they are really, really careful.
And yet, until something horrible actually happens with a given user's data, most users always assume that it won't happen to them, even as Cambridge Analytica and other similar stories prove that such an assumption isn't necessarily valid. Humans are fascinatingly good at ignoring risks until they comes back to bite them in the you-know-what. This is why folks don't demand improvements, and probably never will.
I guess at some point, something catastrophic will utterly destroy all trust in Facebook in one fell swoop, and somebody else will step in to take their place, until they make some crucial mistake. Rinse and repeat. It's the tech circle of life.
Safety? (Score:2)
If you're doing anything with Facebook that will affect your safety, you're doing it wrong. If having some advertisements thrown at you has an effect on your safety, then how did you ever survive Saturday morning cartoons?
Given the hyperbole in the title, and the meaningless summary, I stand upon the /. tradition of refusing to read the article.
Re: (Score:2)
This. Both parts :)
Do I like the fact a massive disinformation campaign largely pushed through Facebook may have caused the unwashed masses to vote against their own interests? No. Do I hold Facebook responsible for that? Also No. --> Do I expect Facebook to fix that? Fsck No.
What do I expect from Facebook: Stability, Responsiveness, Features and Connections to most of the people I want to connect to. According to TFS that's what they are focusing on so... YAY Facebook!
Okay Burma (Score:1)
Re: Okay Burma (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
"The rich...are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the sp
Re: (Score:2)
Yet, all of global capitalism is obsessed with growth. We're destroying the planet, because the growth can not stop. So are you calling capitalism cancer???
I'm not the OP, but I still feel compelled to answer in the affirmative. Yes, I call capitalism a cancer - have done so in the past, and shall continue to do so.
God will forgive them (Score:2)
Laws never envisioned the kinds of money these corporations are dealing with, the companies have turnovers greater than many countries. So the fines they can get are completely out of whack with reality.
The means of punishment needs to change, take away 10% of the shares from the top 100 shareholders and THEN you will get change.
who cares (Score:1)