Former Facebook Staffers React to Company's Unapologetic Response to Whistleblower (protocol.com) 70
"Facebook's efforts to undermine the testimony of whistleblower Frances Haugen began before she even left the Senate Commerce Committee hearing room Tuesday," reports Protocol.com:
"Just pointing out the fact that @FrancesHaugen did not work on child safety or Instagram or research these issues and has no direct knowledge of the topic from her work at Facebook," spokesperson Andy Stone said in a tweet that ended up being read aloud by Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, during the hearing. Another statement from Policy Communications Director Lena Pietsch referred to Haugen dismissively as someone who "worked for the company for less than two years, had no direct reports" and "never attended a decision-point meeting with C-level executives."
For Nu Wexler, a former Facebook policy communications staffer, the anti-Haugen spin was overkill. "The statement they put out about Frances Haugen was beyond the pale," said Wexler, who also worked in policy communications at Google and Twitter. "As a former employee, I disagreed with what they said, and as a communications professional, I think it was really bad PR." The counterattack strategy has differed dramatically from the regretful responses Facebook has offered in past episodes, like the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In those cases, the company often responded with an apology and a plan. This time around, from Mark Zuckerberg on down, the company has been decidedly less apologetic, with Haugen as a case study for the new approach.
For some former Facebook employees watching from home, the experiment in public aggression is backfiring. From Wexler's point of view, Haugen demonstrated clear facility of the facts and familiarity with the industry. "They're going to have a hard time convincing people that she doesn't know what she's talking about," he said. Katie Harbath, a public policy director at Facebook for 10 years who left the company in March, said, "All these folks, whether they had direct reports or not, they all have perspective and expertise that should be heard...." Another former Facebook communications staffer called the company's response "a mistake." "It's not about her. The whole dialogue that's happening is not about whether she's a credible messenger or not," the former staffer said, before adding, "She is a pretty credible messenger...."
The remarks from Stone and Pietsch have also prompted former employees, some of whom held more senior roles during their time at Facebook, to publicly rally to Haugen's defense. "Well I was there for over 6 years, had numerous direct reports, and led many decision meetings with C-level execs, and I find the perspectives shared on the need for algorithmic regulation, research transparency, and independent oversight to be entirely valid for debate," tweeted Samidh Chakrabarti, who founded the civic integrity team Haugen worked on, and whose breakup she noted in her Senate testimony....
Facebook didn't respond to a question about why it's taking such an unapologetic approach toward Haugen's disclosures.
Harbath has a theory: "The other one wasn't working."
For Nu Wexler, a former Facebook policy communications staffer, the anti-Haugen spin was overkill. "The statement they put out about Frances Haugen was beyond the pale," said Wexler, who also worked in policy communications at Google and Twitter. "As a former employee, I disagreed with what they said, and as a communications professional, I think it was really bad PR." The counterattack strategy has differed dramatically from the regretful responses Facebook has offered in past episodes, like the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In those cases, the company often responded with an apology and a plan. This time around, from Mark Zuckerberg on down, the company has been decidedly less apologetic, with Haugen as a case study for the new approach.
For some former Facebook employees watching from home, the experiment in public aggression is backfiring. From Wexler's point of view, Haugen demonstrated clear facility of the facts and familiarity with the industry. "They're going to have a hard time convincing people that she doesn't know what she's talking about," he said. Katie Harbath, a public policy director at Facebook for 10 years who left the company in March, said, "All these folks, whether they had direct reports or not, they all have perspective and expertise that should be heard...." Another former Facebook communications staffer called the company's response "a mistake." "It's not about her. The whole dialogue that's happening is not about whether she's a credible messenger or not," the former staffer said, before adding, "She is a pretty credible messenger...."
The remarks from Stone and Pietsch have also prompted former employees, some of whom held more senior roles during their time at Facebook, to publicly rally to Haugen's defense. "Well I was there for over 6 years, had numerous direct reports, and led many decision meetings with C-level execs, and I find the perspectives shared on the need for algorithmic regulation, research transparency, and independent oversight to be entirely valid for debate," tweeted Samidh Chakrabarti, who founded the civic integrity team Haugen worked on, and whose breakup she noted in her Senate testimony....
Facebook didn't respond to a question about why it's taking such an unapologetic approach toward Haugen's disclosures.
Harbath has a theory: "The other one wasn't working."
Re:General Solution Approach to the Facebook Probl (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: General Solution Approach to the Facebook Prob (Score:3)
This is why I always finish my yogurt.
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NAK
Ya, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Another statement from Policy Communications Director Lena Pietsch referred to Haugen dismissively as someone who "worked for the company for less than two years, had no direct reports" and "never attended a decision-point meeting with C-level executives."
Apparently, she does know how to gather/photograph a LOT of documents, so all that probably isn't necessary. I'd have thought that a "Policy Communications Director" would know that undermining the messenger when the message is yours doesn't really help you.
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I think this comment should get modded up. Let's say "Insightful". ...But I have no points ATM.
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ie they're closer to the coal-face.
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Or more accurately, the more high level the employee the more incentive to edit what they actually see.
Re:Obvious conclusion then... (Score:4, Informative)
I highly recommend that you break out of the self imposed echo chamber you have locked yourself into and do some independent research and look at primary data sources before you start acting like 5th grader and call people names. In this case you would have found out that on Sept 23, 2021, the government of India disapproved the use of ivermectin because he data showed that it was ineffective link to India government's search engine - search for ivermectin [icmr.gov.in], or you can use the Direct link to the document [icmr.gov.in].
Don't you ever get tired of being lied to?
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Your Trump chip is malfunctioning, please report to Ponch and Jon for maintenance.
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I highly recommend that you break out of the self imposed echo chamber you have locked yourself into and do some independent research
A patient who does their own medical research has a fool for a doctor.
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Merely a fool is a massive upgrade from the worst chapters of the AHA and APA. Wish it were not true, but Industry Capture R Us in the association space, more than once.
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Or, what it does to your brain-like material.
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You should be killed. In a painful way.
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> This is what too much ivermectin does to your brain.
So, Ivermectin doesn't seem to actually treat Covid and the main study was clearly fraudulent once anyone looked at the data, but the fact that you can only respond to the way this was clearly coordinated for political impact with an off-topic insult is telling.
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Lighten up Francis.
Re:Ya, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently, she does know how to gather/photograph a LOT of documents, so all that probably isn't necessary.
Well, this is the established PR Playbook for the rich and powerful, isn't it? Attack the messenger, ignore the documentation (because it's pretty much unassailable), and do your utmost to keep the public distracted so they hopefully don't remember that massive stacks of actual proof exists.
Those do seem like tepid, desperate attacks (Score:5, Insightful)
She was there as a professional for almost two years, which is plenty enough time to settle in and know the place.
Meaning she witnessed it all firsthand.
So fucking what? She blew the whistle on what the company actually did, not what some C-level executives claimed they were doing. The world is too full of C-level executives announcing "strategies to realign company synergies to better paradigms", or some other shit that amounts to nothing.
Re: Those do seem like tepid, desperate attacks (Score:1)
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The "it" was Instagram which is owned by FB. Instagram is used by teens.
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Facebook is the same as any other social media in the same way that Covid is the same as any other respiratory virus.
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the vast majority of teens, girls or otherwise, don't even use FB these days
"Facebook is for old people." Heard from a teenager someplace.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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My teen nieces are on Facebook. I suspect that's a big part of the reason why they're antivax and pro-Trump.
Sorry, but FB simply shows you what you want to see. Have a fetish of some kind? FB will show you advertisements with images that has that exact thing (clothing, exposed body part, etc) because it has learned from which ads you interact with or merely linger on or scroll back to.
If you are a die hard liberal as far left as can be, then to you FB will be nothing but posts, ads, etc, supporting your viewpoint. This is one of the main "problems" of the FB algorithms - reinforcement. It will amplify your leanin
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Sorry, but FB simply shows you what you want to see.
Many people miss that that is the core of "the algorithm".
From the earliest days the core remains. WAY back when it was showing faces and upvoting who you thought was beautiful so you could see more beautiful people. It was one of many "hot or not" and "rate my body" style websites with a chance you'd see someone you know. Then when they shifted to business friendly stuff and when comments were added the preferences remained so you can see more comments from people you liked more in the past, finding more.
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Ex-employees (Score:1)
Ah yes ex-employees, where else to find neutral unbiased folk who are not embittered or jealous?
Re:Ex-employees (Score:4, Insightful)
Because people who witness wrongdoing never leave in disgust, do they.
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Ah yes ex-employees, where else to find neutral unbiased folk who are not embittered or jealous?
We should listen to the neutral unbiased current employees instead should we?
Facebook are Privacy Rapists (Score:2)
This is getting more and more clear as information comes out.
Facebook will throw you under the bus? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people have an unwarranted feeling of "family" with their employer. That's because they work with a specific group, and they come to identify that group with their employer. That group MAY have your back - but your employer often will not. I think anyone who's reached this point and is employed by Facebook and believes that they wouldn't be absolutely thrown under the bus if they dissent is delusional. I mean, look at Google's behavior with employees in the past few years, and Facebook never even had broadly-encouraged high-minded theories like "Don't be evil". They did have broadly-encouraged theories like "Move fast and break things", which would seem to be exactly this situation.
Or, let me put it a different way: Do you think an employer that REALLY valued your independent opinion because they value you as a person would pack you so tightly in your office space?
Re:Facebook will throw you under the bus? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are not saying anything new when you say its your immediate team who have your back. Thats where good managers come in - engender loyalty in your team so some team member wont go rogue and sabotage what the company is trying to achieve. Forget direct reports, fire her manager.
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The hunter-gatherer bands were larger than that, though the family groupings within the bands may have been around that size. Pretty clear evidence (largely genetic) for the larger sizes, but the smaller groups are less clearly proven and the social structures of modern hunter-gatherers aren't reliable evidence. Dunbar's Number is also worth considering. (No, I don't know why I got into the anthropology kick a few months ago.)
Also, I rather doubt that 10 hunters with stone weapons would suffice for mammoth
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Its pretty much known that loyalty doesnt work beyond a group of 5-10 people.
Hmm. What about people loyal to a football team, among thousands in the same group? People can be loyal to a political party, whose supporters number millions. Then there is patriotism, which is loyalty to your country. As far as I can see, people are quite capable of joining and supporting tribes vastly bigger than the 5-10 you mention.
Regarding company loyalty, for big companies, a good management policy is to encourage some kind of company spirit, which can mean employees make an extra effort. Speaking f
What the fuck is wrong with Republicans? (Score:1, Troll)
Do they have some sort of mental illness or something?
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Yes. Post-traumatic faux syndrome.
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It's just the narcissist/dictator mentality of demanding their beliefs are more important: We see it from the anti-abortion protestor outside a clinic all the way to the current government of Texas. They don't want to prevent problems, they want to punish people for being different. It's why anti-abortion activists frequently support a death penalty.
Leadership, from the boardroom to government is full of such psychopathic tendencies. Every society and government needs a way of limiting their demand fo
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Leadership, from the boardroom to government is full of such psychopathic tendencies.
That is a common meme, but my own experience indicates that most business leaders are not narcissistic psychopaths, on my informal assessment.
One chap I worked for is very good at making money, and very focused on that, to the extent of bullying people when things don't go his way. But actually, he is honest and trustworthy, which is probably one reason why he is such a successful businessman.
At my present place of work, we have an MD who is clearly intent on expanding the business, but he is not demanding
"Whistleblower" you say... (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean the left-wing activist complaining to the federal government that Facebook doesn't censor conservative viewpoints enough already? The same one who was *instantly* a verified celebrity on Twitter?
I think you mean the *completely obvious* Trojan Horse, tasked by our government / corporate / media elites to further stifle dissent of their generally anti-American (and specifically anti-Trump) agenda. She's a tool for the exact same power structure that she purports to blow the whistle on, and a complete fraud.
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Republicans: Facebook is evil for all these reasons and needs to be broken up.
Also Republicans: This person, who is whistleblowing facts supporting most of the reasons we have been saying Facebook is evil and needs to be broken up, is a "completely obvious" Trojan Horse tasked by our government / corporate / media elites to further stifle dissent of Trump and all the Fascist shit he represents, therefore this person is a complete fraud.
One of these days you're going to wake up and smell all the shit you sho
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Frances Haugen doesn't want Facebook to be broken up as far as I can see. The OP is right: She just wants more suppression of "hate, violence and misinformation".
It's also correct that she's supported by Bryson Gillette, a liberal (in the Phil Ochs sense [youtube.com]) lobbying/political PR firm, "founded by Bill Burton, spokesperson for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign" as they boast on their webpage. Needless to say, most whistleblowers aren't supported by the kind of PR firm which advertises its closen
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Let me get this straight. You're saying that the OP, a self-righteous bastion of contempt for everyone that isn't them, is "right", because they can be both correctly speaking on behalf of the "masses" of Republicans who think Facebook is evil, as well as the "leadership" of Republicans who have these grand designs of fascism and ultimately don't want Facebook to go away, but just change so that they can control it. And it's ok to paint the whistleblower in this case as a "left-wing activist", a "tool for t
Re: "Whistleblower" you say... (Score:2)
They aren't right in some grand cosmic sense. They're just right on certain facts.
Compare Frances Haugen and Steven Donziger. There's the difference of what a corporation in the bipartisan establishment's good favours (Chevron) can get away with, versus one out of favour (Facebook). That Haugen's release is a bid in a political power play over Facebook should be obvious.
Re:"Whistleblower" you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Facebook has less to do with censorship (although I think we do need to acknowledge that Facebook and social media in general tends to censor conservative viewpoints - there's a reason that Gab had to be created, but there is no equivalent "liberal Twitter") and more to do with the way they promote content. And the way Facebook promotes content is bad in general.
Basically, your Facebook timeline contains three types of content: things posted by your "friends," ads, and "suggested posts." While ads are based on things it thinks you or people you know are likely to be interested in, the content it shows you from friends and the content it suggests is content that it knows you're likely to "engage" with (defined by "liking/posting comments"). And that content tends to be content that makes you mad - think that xkcd cartoon "someone is wrong on the Internet" [xkcd.com].
And this cuts both ways. Most articles focus on how it leads to "right wing extremism" while ignoring the very real left-wing extremism it also promotes. Like center-left content? Well, maybe you'd also be interested in some light-weight SJW content about racism. Liked that? Well, how about some BLM content. OK with BLM? How about Antifa?
The BLM riots were mostly planned on Facebook. Facebook causing extremism is a real problem, and it cuts any way you care to: it's not just a left/right thing. If you're a Star Trek fan it'll happily try and make you into a rabid pro-Star Trek, anti-Star Wars type, if it can. Anything you care to become extreme about - flat earth, anti-vax, anything - it will try and guide you towards, in the name of encouraging "engagement."
The solution is simple: knock it off with the suggestions, and just show people what their friends actually post. That's what it did when people joined Facebook originally, that's what people really want. People joined Facebook to get pictures from family and friends in an easy and convenient way, not to be shown content designed to enrage them into "engagement."
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Isn't it time for your next dose of prophylactic horse paste?
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The Right has been playing the victim since Reagan and the beginning of Fux News. Pretending that they had to create a whole other channel just to be heard, never mind that their message is BS.
Then and now... (Score:2)
Your parents today: "Oh my God, Facebook told me that Hillary Clinton is running a pedophile ring out of the basement of a pizza shop!"
The fake WB or the real one? (Score:1)
The person splashed all over the news isn't a whistleblower.
It's a trojan horse being used to give FB and the government an excuse to go all uber-draconian censorship.
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Yup. There was no whistleblowing in her testimony.
'Whistleblower' (Score:2)