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Inside Facebook The Day Before The Presidential Election (buzzfeednews.com) 76

An anonymous reader shares a report: Less than 24 hours before a historic US presidential election day, Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice president of global affairs and communications and the former United Kingdom deputy prime minister, tried to rally employees at the embattled social networking corporation. Noting that the world would be watching the results, Clegg published a post on an internal message board about the work Facebook employees had done to prepare for the vote. Many things had changed since 2016, he said, alluding to an election in which Russian state actors used Facebook to sow discord, while the company and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stood by oblivious. "We have transformed the way we approach elections since the U.S. presidential election four years ago," Clegg wrote in the note titled "READY FOR ELECTION DAY." "Thanks to the efforts of far, far too many of you to mention by name, Facebook is a very different company today." It is indeed. Roiled by months of internal scandals and high-profile failures, the social network giant heads into Election Day with employee morale cratering and internal political discussion muzzled on internal message boards.

While Clegg took an optimistic tone in his post, Facebook released results of an internal survey on Monday that revealed a stark decline in employee confidence over the past six months. Its semi-annual "Pulse Survey," taken by more than 49,000 employees over two weeks in October, showed workers felt strained by office shutdowns and were continuing to lose faith that the company was improving the world. Only 51% of respondents said they believed that Facebook was having a positive impact on the world, down 23 percentage points from the company's last survey in May and down 5.5 percentage points from the same period last year. In response to a question about the company's leadership, only 56% of employees had a favorable response, compared to 76% in May and more than 60% last year. (A Facebook employee acknowledged in the announcement that the uptick in May's Pulse results were "likely driven by our response to COVID-19," which was widely praised.)

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Inside Facebook The Day Before The Presidential Election

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  • by Russki3433 ( 7309806 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @11:44AM (#60679970)

    ...is to steal the election using Russians and Facebook. I mean, no one is even attending his rallies. Everyone prefers Biden!
     
    --
    www.fark.com/politics

  • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's amazing how many of the people boarding up their businesses are willing to vote for the people burning them down.

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        It's amazing how many of the people boarding up their businesses are willing to vote for the people burning them down.

        As opposed to the people who support the con artist and his supposed law and order who are working to intimidate people into not voting or suppress their vote in the first place. Or, for that matter, attempt to run an opponent's bus off the road.
        • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

          by zeugma-amp ( 139862 )
          I notice you don't deny that it's Biden supporters who are burning and looting.
        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          Nobody tried to run anyone off the road. They just boxed the bus in and the fender bender was probably the bus drivers fault.

          As far as voter intimidation goes you are what referring the officially authorized poll watchers being turned away illegally, so the democrats in Philly can rig the election in private? That intimidation. Not one of the votes in that county should be counted at this point, hopefully the courts will see to that, or just as well the legislature will simply assign the electors, rather t

          • the officially authorized poll watchers being turned away illegally,

            Try again. No one was turned away from polling places [phillyvoice.com].

            Not one of the votes in that county should be counted at this point, hopefully the courts will see to that,

            The courts already decided. See above. Nothing like hearing people deliberately working to intimidate people into not voting or suppressing people's votes whine when they can't get their way.
      • Biden was burning down businesses?

        • by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:08PM (#60680364) Homepage Journal

          Biden was burning down businesses?

          His supporters on the Far Left were...yes.

          You know, the groups he won't say negative things about...

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            His supporters on the Far Left were...yes.

            Heh. No, they aren't. Facebook memes are not sources.

            • by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:59PM (#60680562) Homepage Journal
              IT's pretty plain.

              All of those businesses out there boarding up their windows are NOT trying to protect them from Trump or Trump supporters.

              • All of those businesses out there boarding up their windows are NOT trying to protect them from Trump or Trump supporters.

                The Trump Administration made several moves to sabotage the electoral process. I'm curious if your news sources are even telling you about that or if that's okay because you might get what you want.

                • The Trump Administration made several moves to sabotage the electoral process. I'm curious if your news sources are even telling you about that or if that's okay because you might get what you want.

                  Well, they are trying to sue states and all that are trying to handle this election outside of the laws that are on the books and in force at this time.

                  If someone is trying to change the rules of the game in the middle of the game, that is a justifiable area for litigation.

                  • If someone is trying to change the rules of the game in the middle of the game, that is a justifiable area for litigation.

                    Yup. There's litigation going on right now about the USPS, trying to undo what the Trump Administration did to it.

            • Facebook memes didn't smash my cities downtown shopping district.
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by cayenne8 ( 626475 )
              Seriously?

              All of these folks boarding up, barricading business entrances are not in fear of rioting Trump supporters regardless of which way the election goes.

              It's not trump supporters out there rioting, breaking into businesses, looting and burning cities.

              Watch the footage of all the looters running around stealing and destroying in those stores, I"m guessing you'd be hard pressed to pick out the trump supporters.

              Not a lot of MAGA hats or shirts in there stealing and burning.

              • I'm not seeing a lot of Biden paraphernalia either. Do you have sources of their political associations besides your ass?

            • Anarchists like Antifa, who support the left? Right wing agitators? LOL. I guess that's what's in the new playbook. It was really the right that burned smashed and looted shit. Not the PEACEFUL PROTESTERS.
          • by GlennC ( 96879 )

            And here I am with any mod points.

            This is one of the funniest things I've seen all day.

          • The far left aren't Biden supporters. They don't care for him any more than they do for Trump. They're a bit like various white nationalist groups are for the Republican party, only for the Democrats. No one in the party really likes them, but they are a vote.
          • You verified their voting history?

      • It's amazing how many of the people boarding up their businesses are willing to vote for the people burning them down.

        It's amazing how many people see Trump Administration sabotaging the electoral process then grumble that the real problem is American citizens standing up against it.

    • sufficient moderation capabilities

      That probably depends on who is defining "sufficient". It is almost certain that Facebook wants more chaos rather than less as long as the economic value of that exceeds the damage to their image. That latter can be managed to an extent so it is a fairly subjective evaluation that be done only by Facebook insiders. I expect their capacity for moderation has been built around that evaluation.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by aitikin ( 909209 )
        Oh I'd bet that they were at some point, but meta-modding came through and invalidated it and/or the positive modding overcame it.
    • MOD PARENT UP! Facebook needs to "disable posting to large groups..."

      People have told me that Trump supporters use Facebook as their news.

      In the entire history of the world, no one has been accused of so many different abuses as has President Trump. Trump supporters need to answer the stories. They almost never do. Why? A friend told me that he listens to radio when he drives across the U.S. to where he was raised. He said the news in the center of the country is entirely different than on ABC, CBS, a
  • in the coup up to their necks. A pox on them all.
    Quality of Life is better with less big tech and celebrity crap.
  • Pretty telling, that. #zuckerpunch
  • by Thelasko ( 1196535 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @12:16PM (#60680104) Journal
    I'm imagining trash cans on fire and people running around in panic.
  • Was it Lenny Bruce who told people who work in advertising to kill themselves? Or another comedian?

    Anyway, I'm pretty sure that if he was still alive, he would add Facebook and Twitter employees to the list. Probably googlers and Amazon employees, too. Or are they all the same, since it's all about the advertising?

    I was deliberately vague in the Subject, because there is plenty of evidence of social media causing suicide. The sad story of Hana Kimura is still in my mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] On

    • It was Bill Hicks, though I'd argue he was the Bruce's heir.

      • by shanen ( 462549 )

        Thanks, I should have been able to remember that. I was only sure that whoever said it was dead. Bill Hicks was the one who died young of cancer...

        Now I'm seriously wondering about suicide statistics related to social media or working at social media companies. It would be an interesting recruiting pitch to note "And our company's employees have the lowest suicide rate of any company in the SNS business." But my solution approaches would still focus on MEPR...

  • by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @12:22PM (#60680128) Journal

    All FB had to do was say they would allow no postings, of any kind, 24 hours before and after election day. You would still see ads and could review whatever existed, but nothing new.

    But that would be too simple and as I've said before, KISS is dead.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • All FB had to do was say they would allow no postings, of any kind, 24 hours before and after election day. You would still see ads and could review whatever existed, but nothing new.

      Actually, if they would do this FOREVER, the world would be a MUCH better place.

      :)

  • About right now Zuckercluck is dancing around in his mansion in his underwear to the Soviet national anthem and getting loaded on vodka. The best thing Facebook could do for the election was to turned itself off during the entire election process, which is of course ridiculous and is never going to happen. Social media showed initial promise for people sharing their vacation photos or organizing get-togethers. It has devolved into a total disastrous smoking pile of garbage that we'd be better off if we didn
  • "Only 51% of respondents said they believed that Facebook was having a positive impact on the world"

    How does anyone think Facebook has any positive impact on anything?

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