I don't know about Facebook in particular, but what you're missing is that the reason employees can debate internally about policy is that they trust it won't leak externally. The risk of leaks eventually results in companies clamping down on security, so most employees aren't told anything that's not already public, unless they need it for their job. (Much like Apple has been all along, where employees only know what they need to know.)

So I would ask you where you'd rather work? At an employer that trusts you not to leak stuff, or somewhere that doesn't trust you? If it's the latter, you might as well be a contractor.

You'll find this is true in most organizations, not just companies. They want to know if they can trust you with their secrets. It does require some faith that internal debate will help the organization make good decisions most of the time, which admittedly can be a stretch sometimes.

I think you're missing the greater context here. Bosworth's memo is classic end justifies the means. This is almost an admission that they knew things they were doing would be deeply unpopular.

The post in full doesn't read at all like it was to stimulate discussion. It reads more like it was to silence dissent.

If you really wanted to stimulate discussion and gather employee views on this stuff, you'd send a survey round. But the relationship is still asymmetrical between boss and employee.

All you're doing when posting something like this semi-publicly is creating an environment where more quiet conscientious views get shouted down by the loudest voices.

>It reads more like it was to silence dissent.

Which makes his response read all that more hollow. Calling it a straw man? The post seems to have been an all out justification for immoral behavior by an executive. I can't imagine a Jr. Engineer or someone fresh out of college with their MA in Stats feeling super comfortable hopping in and going, "Hey this sound unethical and if people saw you saying it they would think we're hella fucked up." I'm relatively low-ranking at another big SV company and the thought of needing to stand up to a high ranking employee like that is more than a little intimidating.

> the thought of needing to stand up to a high ranking employee like that is more than a little intimidating.

And not just that, but to be expected to "contribute to a discussion" in such a way that all your coworkers can see. I think as somebody who takes objection to that memo I'd probably be more inclined look for alternative work.

Same. I'm not even THAT low-ranking, and it's still a big deal when I push back against a VP or director on something that's in my area. For some topic where I didn't even feel like an expert, against such language, and with morals concerned? I think I'd just silently start looking for a new job.

> I think I'd just silently start looking for a new job.

That's good though. Boz already made the decision to prioritize connecting more people, despite the costs. He didn't have to tell his employees, but he did. This allows you to make the decision on whether it's worth staying at Facebook.

So basically, he’s admitted to unethical behaviour? Is this why his heart is breaking?

It's good for that employee, but it doesn't do anything for the billions of people using Facebook.

I had disagreements with Boz via text while I was a rank and file employee at Facebook. It didn’t change his mind, and I still thought he was incorrect.

But I’d sure as hell take that situation over many others I’ve had where my only contact with execs is through occasional, content-free memos.

I'd guess that sending a one-sided bombshell like that would tend to stimulate debate rather than suppressing it, at least in a company with a tradition of lively internal debate. Maybe in more top-down companies it's different?

But yes, the people in power do tend to be heard more in internal debate. (Not necessarily just managers though. Good or controversial writers can also have a lot of influence.) And this does mean more soft-spoken people sometimes don't get an equal voice.

Online discussions are often more heat than light. I don't think internal discussion can be replaced by surveys, though? They're both useful.

There are also problems that equality doesn't fix. As the number of people scales up, the power of each person gets smaller. Filling out a survey when you know it's one of hundreds or thousands tends not to feel very empowering, or even a good use of your time.

I guess I'm comparing and contrasting this with the infamous Google sexism memo.

They canned an employee for saying something unpopular they disagreed with.

The fact that this went such a different way says something. Maybe that something is "the cultures of Google and Facebook are so different it explains the discrepancy." But maybe it's "Facebook wanted to float this as an ethical trial balloon."

They canned an employee for creating an unholy PR shitstorm outside of the firm.

Basically this is the end of the tech world and all those people who used to join these firms because they believed tech would make the world a better place.

Now its going to be pretty much closed communication and minimal interaction internally. IF you have an issue, well tough balls, tech is no longer good for that - god forbid it shows up on HN. If it shows up on the media thats career suicide.

I suspect its probably time for HN to be shut down soon as well.

No they didn't, they didn't can the leaker that actually created the shitstorm, they canned Damore to appease the outraged.

I must admit, when I read it, it did absolutely read to me like a contrarian attempt to start debate. I find it hard to believe that anyone would post sentiments along the lines of ‘we connect people, so what if someone commits suicide’ without it being a deliberate attempt to start debate.

If he actually believed that stuff, it would be extraordinary scary. I don’t think he does.

"The risk of sarcasm is that you're taken seriously."

Trolling is a terrible leadership technique.

Have you read any HN’s opinions on self driving cars? There is a strongly held belief that individual deaths don’t matter as long as, on average, deaths go down. You can argue the connecting people is inherently good, so how are Boz’s opinions any different?

Boz’s pieces over the last few years tend to fall into the “Strong opinions, weakly held” category. I also suspect he argues a point that is stronger in sentiment than he really believes, to help his message stand out.

The problem is, you might think that but this is senior leadership putting out an email that is setting the general culture and direction for the company. He’s explicitly recognising and endorsing “questionable” (his words!) decisions made.

He can’t come back and say he didn’t mean it. Besides, if he was trying to spark debate, doesn’t that mean he though my it was even potentially justifiable to use unethical practices to drive growth?

I agree it was very poorly judged. Regarding your last point, I honestly assumed that he had seen stirrings of this kid of reasoning within the company and was attempting to ridicule it.

Are they truly unpopular? The events in question happened several years ago, and while this specific incident wasn't known, it was well-understood that FB profiting from harvesting personal data.

In my daily casual conversations with co-workers and friends, the topic is very rarely raised, and only to speculate why the timing of the issue seems to tied to a rise in conservative politics.

The consequentialism is not the talking point in the meme. What's controversial is his valuation of "the ends": that "connecting people" has greater utility than the life or happiness of a minority of those connected.

I'm not going to make any assertions about the intent of the meme because I don't know the context, but the logic expressed in the meme seems to have been their strategy already to me, from the outside.

> This is almost an admission that they knew things they were doing would be deeply unpopular.

Yes, and there were discussions internally about this. One could argue that the recent shift from promoting pages content to promoting your friends content might have been the result of that.

Perhaps you would send a survey, Bosworth chose for a different option. Internal memos leaking out to the public without context is a classic case of causing FUD.

The post will always look different to outsiders wont it?

most of the justifications for it to appear as dissent silencing will have to be post fact justifications as a result.

I prefer the distrustful organization.

I would never be tempted to suspend disbelief that this one time my opinion, effort, goodwill actually mattered.

I've fallen for the "trust us" scam too many times. Embarrassing. Ever more, the only thing I trust is mutual distrust.

I've never worked for a company that gave employees a forum to talk openly. Company policy was always set by upper management behind closed doors and broadcasted down to everyone else. Discussions and disagreements were handled privately.

I like the idea of employees having open discussions about company policy and direction, but I would never would have believed such a thing could exist at enormous companies like Facebook and Google. Though, given headlines recently, I'm not sure it will survive much longer.

How about a company where decisions are shared internally and employees feel empowered enough to speak up, *externally if needed, against what they see as an injustice when internally nothing is done? That shouldn't be too much to ask for. Perhaps some tech unions are needed to enforce this, as shareholders and owners would probably rather have just the dichotomy you presented.

This just reveals how big the power imbalance is between employees and executives that we’d have to make such decisions.

When you say speak up, do you mean internally or externally?

I thought it’d be clear but I added clarification.

Speaking up internally when you’re not on the board often doesn’t get much done. At least if it’s a moral objection.

If you want to get something done, you need to think about who gets to make the decisions and how to influence them.

Depending what it is, speaking up externally might not get you more pull with internal decision-makers? Particularly if they feel betrayed.

Or, maybe a big external stink could cause action? Depends what it is.

It's quite possible that neither would work, and then you've burned your bridges for nothing.

> At an employer that trusts you not to leak stuff, or somewhere that doesn't trust you?

That's a false dichotomy. I'd like to work for an employer that would not mind me discussing my work related stuff outside without immediately classifying that as a leak, and I'd like my employer to trust my judgment in knowing what is and what is not appropriate in such discussions.

Discussing stuff outside work is different from leaking internal communications verbatim.

I left Facebook for a place where the stakes are a lot lower, but information leaks like a sieve.

It’s really disheartening to know that a lot of new coworkers would prefer to leak their “spin” to the press and actively try to damage the company when they don’t get their way.

It all depends on what the public interest angle is. In the case of Facebook the hypocrisy on display borders on the unbelievable. Facebook arguably infringes in the worst way possible on the privacy of a very large chunk of humanity but is highly offended when its own 'private' communications are exposed.

If it's good for the goose it is good for the gander and companies with this much influence on the world should welcome transparency, not oppose it. And if they do not welcome transparency then we'll have to help them along a bit every now and then.

Facebook doesn’t maliciously expose private user data in order to inflict harm on people.

No, they do it to make money. But that's all the same to me.

Employees would probably feel more comfortable about debating opinions regardless of company trust if their opinions didn't involve Orwellian kinds of user manipulation and "questionable practices".

Unfettered leak-free debate, or, heavy secrecy? Seems like an easy choice, especially on paper, just like unlimited vacation vs. 3 weeks paid — the devil is in the implementation and unforeseen consequences.

I think the reality with FB is that the current idealized system is not necessarily the best, and likewise, the occurrence of leaks is not necessarily a sign of impending doom. Sometimes leaks are a necessary symptom for when an organization has gone off the rails and has failed to self-correct. I don’t think any organization enjoys or wants leaks — just as no human enjoys sneezing or diarrhea — but sometimes the temporary discomfort is necessary for long-term health.

So you could say, they value their privacy and don't want their comments shared with people they didn't authorize?

It's ironic to see employees complaining about what is essentially a lack of privacy, when the company they work for goes out of its way to convince everybody that privacy is a thing of the past, and in so many words, so does the very Bosworth post they would protect and keep private. Eat your own dog food.

And then one of them says that whoever leaked the post (the whistleblower, is how I would refer to them) lacks integrity. Integrity? You work for Facebook. Has it never occurred to you that maybe you're the baddies?

The word "integrity" may have a different meaning inside a tightly-knit corporate culture[1] than on the outside, just like "honor" means something different inside the Mafia, where it means "you can steal and murder, but above all, keep your mouth shut".

A corporate code of silence that insists on the absolute privacy of internal communications is similar to the Mafia's code of silence, in which it's considered bad form (punishable by death) to blab to the authorities:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omert%C3%A0

"Omertà is a code of honor that places importance on silence, non-cooperation with authorities, and non-interference in the illegal actions of others."

It will be interesting to see what kind of documents this and other whistleblowers will decide to leak in the future. Facebook needs its own Snowden to expose its inner workings.

[1] I suspect that the corporate obsession with secrecy we're seeing here is not unique to Facebook. What's unique is the irony of a privacy-destroying company insisting on its own right to privacy.

That's a false dichotomy. It's better to work somewhere where transparency isn't a problem.

Exactly.

> So I would ask you where you'd rather work? At an employer that trusts you not to leak stuff, or somewhere that doesn't trust you? If it's the latter, you might as well be a contractor.

Employers which still use trust at scale are ignoring their risk analysts. The risk of a secret leaking is proportional to the number of people who know the secret. You can reduce the risk with Stasi-style surveillance, or legal enforcement (e.g. legally classified state secrets), but few people wish to work under those conditions.

It's a false dichotomy because people would rather work for an employer that trusts them with the secrets they need to get their job done, and doesn't trust them with the secrets they don't need, a.k.a. the principle of least access. Openness in organizations is important insofar as people can attain access to information they need when they need it, but not unlimited access to everything, which ultimately reduces organizational trust when leaks inevitably occur.

> At an employer that trusts you not to leak stuff, or somewhere that doesn't trust you? If it's the latter, you might as well be a contractor.

I'm a contractor, in the same team of FTE devs for a year, it's going really well, but I was a little hurt when I realised they were reading CVs to fill a vacancy in the team without putting me in the loop.

Edit: I understand why they are doing it, I mean I'm from a big consulting company (Alten), but still it stung a little, especially since I'm on pretty good term with the rest of the team.

This sort of post isn’t a debate. It’s a pep rally.

Personally, I’d rather be in the dark about policy than be schnookered into thinking that I have some meaningful input.

Oh the irony. People trusted Facebook to keep their data secure and it 'leaked' to C.A.

It seems apt that internal debates and posts would leak to the outside world.

I was a Facebook employee for several years; I left shortly before this memo was drafted. The environment was pretty much the opposite of "don't rock the boat." Dissenting opinions were encouraged and openly discussed, but everyone understood that could only happen if it didn't undermine the PR department's job.

Boz fostered this culture by example, publishing internal memos critical of the company. In this case, questioning whether the company's driving mission was the universal good that leadership thought it was when it was adopted. Having such high-profile dissent in circulation gives more cover to individual contributors with a gripe than any amount of policy language would.

> In this case, questioning whether the company's driving mission was the universal good that leadership thought it was when it was adopted.

Except that, Bosworth's shabby recants aside, in the original post the driving mission was not questioned but reinforced to an extreme, cult-like degree by a high ranking Facebook official. He didn't minced words and sought no compromise: growth at any cost, using unethical methods and to the point of endangering people, if that is what it takes. Growth is a good by definition, regardless what your antiquated, pre-Facebook morals tell you.

This a wide extension of the field where debate is possible and a strong reinforcement for unethical behaviour, "Facebook and Boz have your back and anyone questioning growth is an enemy". What was previously unspeakable, is now under debate, we are debating the degree of acceptable unethical behavior and Boz's position seems to be "to any degree". This was merely 20 months ago, not in the distant past when Facebook was founded.

It's specious to call this an environment of open debate, it's a bold move to the organizational culture of a cult or criminal gang. It's not surprising at all then that the current debate centers on ways to root out the traitors and select employees for "integrity" (unflinching loyalty).

I've read it over a few times again, and think I know why it's so divisive. In the memo, he describes a state of affairs, with two possible subtexts:

1) This is the state of things today, and the uncomfortable truth of how we got here; what do we do about it?

2) This is how things both are and should be; either get in line or leave.

I, obviously, gravitated towards the first interpretation and you the second. Without further context, I'm not sure there's any way to really know which was intended.

It seemed more declarative to me. It seemed more about clearly delineating the ugly parts of a pre-existing ideology, not suggesting that there be any change, but that people should acknowledge the consequences of pushing the "connecting people" philosophy.

When viewed in the context of a conversation of whether “the company's driving mission was the universal good that leadership thought it was when it was adopted.” can you see how Boz’s post could move conversation in a positive direction?

I know this is hard to believe from the outside, but most Facebook employees believe that Facebook can have a positive influence on be world. It’s deeply ingrained in the company’s culture. An executive doesn’t just come out and say “it’s all business, fuck the consequences”.

This is why not leaking things is so important. The context and culture within a company change how a message is interpreted.

This falls within: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....” ― Noam Chomsky

It applies to pretty much any tech company that claims to love debate and dissent internally.

Reminds me of Orthodox Judaism (other religions may be similar, but it's what I grew up with). Intense debate was highly valued and encouraged, but as soon as you questioned the fundamental truths that the belief system was founded on, you went too far. e.g. questioning that the bible was written by God, or whether God even exists.

That in turn reminds me of Al-Ghazali [1], and the impact he had on Islam. Unable to resolve why some things seemed to contradict Islamic beliefs, he developed and successfully spread the view that there's actually no such thing as causality or logic -- that every single thing is an independent act of god. In other words a leaf does not start burning when exposed to fire because it reaches a certain temperature (speaking loosely), but rather because god decided he'd set it alight at that exact moment. And of course that ash is not created by the fire, but instead by an instantaneous decision by god to turn the burnt object to ash. By rejecting any and all causality, he was able to dismiss all logical issues by simply asserting that causality and logic are social constructs. And that belief spread like wildfire, as such rationale that offers easy explanations for uncomfortable to accept phenomena is wont to do...

Today somewhere around 1/4 of the world's population is Islamic. And there have been a total of 3 Islamic Nobel laureates in the sciences. It's a rather nice demonstration on the question of whether 'geniuses' are born or made. If Allah's hand is not chained, what point is there in seeking to discover these alleged laws of nature?

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali

Over half the number of Muslim Nobel laureates (sciences and more), according to that Wikipedia link, have occurred since the year 200.

So, obviously, since the graph is spiking, we can expect to see lots more.

This is my sarcastic way of saying that taking a single metric which is affected by tons of different factors, and applying it to a complex argument about, basically, sociology/anthropology (human behavior and culture) really doesn’t provide a lot of value.

I think your post opens a door to a lot of interesting conversations, but that using the # of Nobel Prize nominations per religious / cultural group as a metric closed most of those doors.

It’s also not very scientific.

Please keep the crypto racism off HN.

The Nobel Prize is a European institution.

I'd say it's the same in other religions (from my personal anecdata with catholicism).

But I think that, in such context, the acceptance of fundamental truths are necessary to have a debate, like mathematical axioms are necessary for proofs. In addition to that the fundamental truths are about one's Faith, so I don't think there's a lot to debate on, either you belive or you don't.

Spot on. It's an effective technique to give people the illusion of having explored all possible options and arguments.

Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

That quote is meant to be applied towards government and society. It doesn't make sense when you apply it to companies. Most employees are passive and obedient as long as they get paid. Do you think IBM or Goldman Sachs employees are allowed to dissent internally? I'd much rather work in an environment that's somewhat open than one that is completely closed.

Is your argument Facebook allows more dialogue then Goldman or IBM so this is okay?

Perfect example of what Chomsky was talking about, and the former cult member above who sincerely believes they were in a free speech zone demonstrates how effective this management technique is.

Basically saying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_issue with more words :)

This seems to assume that public debate is masterminded according to a particular design

Debate in a corporate environment is, in fact, masterminded. In these cases, its often specifically encouraged, in a certain fashion. The venues for the debate are built and moderated for that purpose, backed by the policies of allowed conduct of the employer.

An interesting comment from comments on TheVerge:

It’s probably worth bearing in mind that in any company that pushes this kind of ‘open’ communication, there’s an unavoidable pressure on most ordinary employees to say the ‘right’ things. A company that has so much of its internal correspondence open and visible to anyone will very quickly descend into 1984 territory. So those ‘dense’ folk bleating about integrity are likely to really be saying ‘I would never leak, boss, you can trust me’. And in all likelihood, the actual leaker is one of those voices. Personally, I find it baffling that so many supposedly intelligent people see an office under the Eye of Sauron as a Good Place to Work.

>"Boz fostered this culture by example, publishing internal memos critical of the company. "

I read his memo titled "The Ugly." There was nothing in there that was critical of "the company." The only criticality I read was this individual being critical of people who might be prone to self-reflection. Judging from the memo and other employees characterizations of him "Boz" just sounds like a total asshole.

Yes, it does seem like it. However, I would leave the door open a crack for irony. This is hard to judge out of context, but he has to have anticipated (encouraged?) pushback.

Does the memo really come across to you as "critical" or "questioning" anything?

> That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends.

> I know a lot of people don’t want to hear this. Most of us have the luxury of working in the warm glow of building products consumers love. But make no mistake, growth tactics are how we got here. If you joined the company because it is doing great work, that’s why we get to do that great work.

I understand what you and others are trying to say. That he somehow disagreed with his own words, and wrote it to start an internal debate.

But is the reader supposed to know that from some kind of context we can't see? From the words themselves, it seems pretty clear he fully supports the continuation of, in his own words, "questionable" practices.

He said that he didn’t believe his own words. I just don’t believe him. He literally tells employees all the dodgy things they are doing is justified to help them “connect” more people. In no way do I believe he didn’t believe that.

Not only that, but he told his employees what they are doing is totally justified and to keep doing it, because it was sanctioned by management.

This is how I would communicate and do communicate when people are making morally borderline choices.

The most common reaction for people is to ignore the moral implications, a la wall street "We are unlocking value".

If boz went 180 degrees and said "welp, thats it growth is over, we have a major disaster in a few years" - the GREATER force would murder him, namely shareholders.

Even now, Facebooks greatest pain is coming from the hit to its wealth, not to the number of uninstalls coming via "deletefacebook".

At this scale and size for a large top tier tech company, the man in charge is expected to not rock the boat. Any course correction occurs slowly, or through crisis.

Apparently we are doing it by crisis

Please don't try and spin the term "don't rock the boat." A company that brutally cracks down on leakers and has employees en masse calling them "people without integrity" is the epitome of that mentality.

It's great they feel they created a microcosm of openness within the company, but that doesn't seem to have made it act any more morally when it comes to protecting user privacy.

Scary, it seems like they use Newspeak internally.

>Boz fostered this culture by example, publishing internal memos critical of the company. In this case, questioning whether the company's driving mission was the universal good that leadership thought it was when it was adopted.

“We connect people. Period. That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in. The work we will likely have to do in China some day. All of it”

This is not dissent, this is not 'rocking the boat', this is not being critical of the company. He's taking their mission to the extreme worst case scenario and saying that even then the mission is justified. It's the polar opposite of the things you assert it is.

FB is covering by saying no one agreed with it and it was only there to provoke discussion. Why delete the post and its discussion then? It's obvious the discussion on the post wasn't critical enough to actually provide cover for these excuses so they burnt the post and are now lying about it.

"Why delete the post and its discussion then?"

Because the post and the discussion was leaked publicly.

Question remains the same. So what?

You and all the other former Facebook employees sound like people who are working hard to defend the money you made there. Because the dirty looks members of the general public now give those who made their money from Facebook probably gets to you.

Unless you were there since 2005, Boz was a higher up with more seniority, so the original memo was more of a put up or shut up piece than an RFC.

> so the original memo was more of a put up or shut up piece than an RFC.

That couldn't be further from the truth. Facebook's internal communications happen almost 100% exclusively through Facebook itself, meaning this "memo" was most likely a Facebook post, complete with liking, reacting, and commenting capability from anyone in the company.

Buzzfeed touched on this in their version of the story:

> One former employee who spoke with BuzzFeed News noted that they remembered the post and the blowback it received from some workers at the time. “It was one of [Bosworth’s] least popular and most controversial posts,” the ex-employee said. “There are people that are probably still not in his fan club because of his view.”

Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/growth-at-any-cost-top-face...

I think the issue is that Facebook hasn’t done anything to curb bullying, terrorism, fake news or electioneering. They allowed CA to abscond with user data and they took Russian money to target voters. If they can’t track their ads or comply with federal election laws, that’s a big problem.

> I was a Facebook employee for several years; I left shortly before this memo was drafted. The environment was pretty much the opposite of "don't rock the boat." Dissenting opinions were encouraged and openly discussed, but everyone understood that could only happen if it didn't undermine the PR department's job.

It likely depends on where you are in the company. I haven't worked at FB but have a few friends who have in the past. One of them told me something pretty similar to what you experienced, the other had the exact opposite.

So I'm honestly not sure what to believe about their culture. It seems, once a company gets big enough, that culture becomes multiple sub cultures and I'm not sure there is a single culture that drives the company anymore.

It's also a question of the importance of the issue that you're "rocking the boat" about. It might be completely OK to argue with your manager about how the UI for a particular feature should look, but not OK at all to question the ethics of the company's mission, or the ways in which it makes money.

Arguing that internal company discussions should be all public is like arguing that people should have no privacy. That's a slippery slope.

For example, how would you feel if you told your spouse about the grudges you have with your friends or work colleagues, then (s)he goes out and tells on you? That wouldn't be a very happy marriage imo.

In society people that spread gossip are marginalized by those that hate gossip, because we have private affairs that we'd like to keep private. It's a natural phenomenon.

And yes, I see the irony of defending Facebook by invoking privacy. I try not to have double standards.

This is a company that wants to be the default medium for private communications among friends and loved ones, yet deliberately makes security settings opaque and actively encourages oversharing. Anyone who doesn't see that analogy -- especially those employed at Facebook -- are already riding down the slippery slope.

You've hit the key point from my POV.

I have a hard time having empathy for Facebook in this situation when their entire approach to user's information has been incredibly disrespectful. Constant TOS changes. Misleading privacy settings. Opt-out rather than opt-in sharing. Dark patterns designed to serve the company rather than the user ... and straight up bad ideas. I deleted my account right after they did the TOS change that Cambridge Analytica took advantage of. (The one where your friends choices would share your information. That was a transparently dumb idea from the get go.)

What did leaking this memo actually accomplish? If you are someone who wants tech companies to be accountable for their impact on society you should welcome these internal conversations. All that the leak will do is make them less likely.

Conversations where bosses tell their employees we should connect more people and grow the network no matter the cost? You're right we should have conversations about this, but publicly.

Facebook surrendered it's right to discuss such things privately when it's willfully kept lax policies on sharing users data. Stuff like this should leak earlier so we can talk about it before, rather than after, awful things happen.

I’m far from the biggest fan of Facebook, but I’m absolutely a fan of playing devils advocate in an organization if for no other reason than to solicit reactions and get people engaged. As someone who will use this device sparingly when appropriate, that’s really what this post looked like to me (as opposed to someone who was in it to get terrorists signed up to fb... really?). I honestly feel sorry for the guy

On the other hand, have we really gotten to the point where we have to try to provoke others into a debate? Why can't we state what we mean, what we think, what we're uncertain about, what questions we'd like to discuss in order to foster discussion instead of provoking it. Playing devil's advocate is fine when it's understood what's going on and why you're playing devil's advocate, but when there's ambiguity you play this game of "yes I said that I didn't mean it though" which ends up sounding weak as it does in those case. Devil's advocate is a great cognitive strategy for exploring an issue together, but it's a very poor conversational strategy.

No, I don't see anything that says provoking others into a debate is the only means of conversation, just one possible way of prompting a discussion. I imagine a straightforward discussion as your described is the norm, and this could be one case where they were provocative and so was selected to be leaked. But I agree with your second point that this does not appear to be such a case.

You don't inspire this sort of debate by putting up a straw man.

You inspire this sort of debate by thought exercise and ask about actual application - you couch the conversation to direct your staff to stronger ethics.

If this conversation were at Uber, in their self driving car division the consequences of this would be human life. The way to have that conversation, with context would be to couch it in the "trolly problem" - because that would keep the framing.

Ethics, the word is ethics - Facebook is clearly lacking them. Were "dumb fucks" according to FB's chief - and the fish rots from the head down.

And the staff's response "find the leakers" -- funny how many groups of people I find despicable seem to chant this.

It’s really not a good idea to play the devils advocate as a high ranking individual in a company without being super extra explicitly clear about that. People might mistake it as the companies position, especially if no other high ranking individual contradicts or clarifies he companies position.

I do believe he meant it when he was saying unethical behaviors and negative effects on society were worth the greater good of connectivity.

When I play devil's advocate I clearly state what I'm doing up front. This smells like an attempt at rewriting history.

You are mistaken. At Facebook, the devils advocate would argue in favor of government regulation.

Memos like this allow for open discourse within the company. Leaks only encourage companies to be even more closed off. Facebook could easily hide their language in corporate speak if they really want to encourage people to drink the corporate Kool Aid.

That's not what the memo was, it was not a case where "bosses tell their employees what they should do".

It was a case of starting a debate by voicing an extreme opinion.

No it wasn't.

The memo is exactly and clearly telling employees what to think and do. No questions allowed.

Companies sometimes drink so much of their own kool-aid that they lose all perspective on what's actually important. Shining a light on conversations like this one can be an ego-check, where people who don't work at Facebook can say, "hey ... wait a minute here...".

It's an "emperor's new clothes" situation where we all get to play the role of the child.

The thesis of the memo couldn't be written any other way?

I think you could write about the ideas contained in Boz's memo in such a way that if the memo leaked you still wouldn't look like huge bleeps.

It's not the conversations that are getting them into trouble. If it were just this memo, then nobody would care.

Their action are getting them into trouble. Leaking memos like this merely offers a window into their souls.

> It's not the conversations that are getting them into trouble.

I find these surreal cult-like conversations a lot more off-putting than Facebook's data practices. Those I can understand, these conversations (and the words of these well meaning employees more than those of big bad Boz) make me feel like I need to take a shower. To me, this shows the very worst of intellectually dishonest to the point of delusion, modern day North American culture, and it disgusts me.

I was with you until you specifically criticized North American culture. What makes you think that German or Chinese companies don't also push their employees to place the company's success above ethical considerations?

Of course it could have been written in the style of a press release or perhaps reduced to a politician-style soundbite. But although pablum is harmless when leaked, it doesn't have the nuance needed to give real direction to smart and powerful knowledge workers. It is also bland and may be regarded by thoughtful workers as insincere.

This didn't have nuance. If the guy isn't lying, he was throwing a bomb to get people to react; if he is lying, he was floating the worst let-us-do-evil-that-good-may-come company line I've personally ever seen. In neither case was this a nuanced statement!

It was much more nuanced than the headlines such as the one used by BuzzFeed in their original story [https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/growth-at-any-cost-top-face...]. He was trying to start a meaningful conversation, which is basically impossible to do under the constraint that you avoid giving adversaries any way to take your remarks out of context and spin them to manufacture outrage.

Well said. If I received internal memos which have gone through an external PR filter, the message would probably read like any other generic press release, and engender gossiping and finding hidden meanings in the memo.

Perhaps it could have been worded differently (better?), but I did appreciate the solid direction that was given by the memo. All too often, leadership is unable to give clear guidance because they are too wishy-washy about what the goals actually are, perhaps not even knowing what the goals should be besides making money.

>What did leaking this memo actually accomplish?

It showed that FB says one thing in public and then does the opposite in private.

There is the "WikiLeaks justification": leaking this memo will force Facebook to have more vigorous internal controls for locking down information, making them less efficient and hastening their downfall.

Wouldn't hiring people with integrity mean hiring executives that write memos that they actually agree with ?

>Bosworth distanced himself from the memo, saying in a Twitter post that he hadn’t agreed with those words even when he wrote them.

That is scary as shit. That they think the leaker is the one without integrity and not the executive team.

What terrible people.

>What terrible people.

The language was kind of funny to me even. Hunting down the leakers to make Facebook great again... the company sounds like the business version of the white house administration. If it's this difficult and requires this much secrecy to convince yourself that what you're doing isn't evil then maybe something is very wrong on a foundational level.

> he hadn’t agreed with those words even when he wrote them

I'm struggling to see why anybody thinks this is a reasonable defence.

There is no indication he didn't believe it. The company's behaviour is consistent with it. He only said "I didn't mean it, it was to stimulate debate", and the classic "You're missing context" (which I am not able to show, of course) after drawing negative PR.

It seems very generous to me to give his recent tweet much credibility at all.

>Wrote another: “This is so disappointing, wonder if there is a way to hire for integrity. We are probably focusing on the intelligence part and getting smart people here who lack a moral compass and loyalty.”

Says the company who's very moral compass is coming into question.

Nazi soldiers following orders to line up minorities in slums and shoot them, or herd them into cattle cars - loyal, yes? Moral? No.

"Loyalty," in that post, to what? To Mark and the investors' bottom line, and tangentially with it the bottom line of you and your fellow employees? Loyalty to this idea of "connecting the world?" Is that really the value of Facebook?

It sounds like a cargo cult.

The stuff being reported around Facebook is certainly cause for serious concern. "Cult"[0] has a pretty contentious meaning which is problematic when applied to Facebook without further analysis—it can certainly be separated from issues of loyalty and morality. "Cargo cult"[1] really doesn't apply at all, at least in the context of what you're describing here.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult#Metaphorical_uses_o...

Thanks, you're right. I've been using the word wrong for a while.

And how do they "connect" people? Maybe I use Facebook wrong, but I so nothing much more than vanilla posts I have no interest in from the same people day after day. There is literally nothing I know of in the platform that would cause me to spontaneously meet someone new, unlike forums, meetup.com, etc.

> And how do they "connect" people?

Don't forget - corporations are people too. I think Facebook's mission might be to connect people with advertisers.

Established organizations are the wrong place to effect change by employees. They are not democratic, they may love to give the impression to employees and the media but there is always a hierarchy and a powerful inner group that makes the decisions.

Debate is ok but anything real that threatens the powerbase will be quickly dispatched. The only person who can change Facebook is Zuckerburg and his inner cotorie or strict regulation. But this is not a problem limited to Facebook. Google is worse and there are others like Palantir and a pipeline of companies who would like to take their place.

Ethical behavior from individuals will only have an effect in smaller companies and early startups. When they do not get engineers who agree to unethical practices and when there is pushback they quickly realise they may need to rethink.

But software folks have postured on freedom and liberty endlessly but gone ahead and build some of the creepiest stalking infrastructure ever built without a care for fundamental human values or ethics and thus are not trusted anymore.

No?

People with integrity have done this all the time, people with integrity are standing up and bringing these issues up constantly.

But frankly normal people cant be arsed to give up free services like google and facebook because they dont, cant, and wont afford the costs of those services at full.

Further - I am a dyed in the wool non facebook user who was warning about this from the day it was created.

But Facebook employees are correct in what they say.

They genuinely believe that they must be a force for good, and that their websites will bring people together.

It is the MOST essential thing for these people to be able to talk to each other candidly and clearly while they still believe in doing good and being ethical.

Because once that goes, the ability to say uncomfortable things, the only other option is to become the corporate behemoths that all SV-ites hate. To become a suit.

I can't understand how people on HN are missing this.

Facebook has been regularly an enabler - but for all those years HN has been cool with it.

Now, when the shoe has dropped, people here are displaying the same overreach and lack of nuance that created this scenario in the first place.

Facebook is the least of all evils. People are ALWAYS going to create this miserable form of social networking because its easier and matches human neuro patterns closely enough.

But this is the one time we will have a single institution which is not yet culturally made up of suits, who can institute or make the effort to fail correctly.

Facebook internally discussing this and realizing that there is no hope is more critical than people tearing facebook down.

Having a clear idea of objective reality, of being able to see our actual options as both employees at facebook, and as users of facebook (or friends with facebookers), is our best way forward.

Be careful what you ask for FB'ers if fb etc get considered CNI your probley going to have to have security clearance if you access to sensitive data - which is going to suck even more so if your origionaly from outside of the states.

I know that some Team leaders at one Uk telco I worked at where asked to go through DV clearance - That's TS (drug tests polygraph) in USA terms.

Most companies have held internal memos like this as private to the organization. Any breach of that is a firing offense. FB, Google, Apple, etc. are not doing anything that corporate America hasn't been doing for ... for I don't know how long.

It is disconcerting how FB employees have come out in support of these ideas from the memo, though.

I think big tech has it very different, given how much they know about their personal employees lives. Some information should leak within a healthy society so backlash and corrections can occur before an election might be compromised by a horrific breach.

For a view on what's different an excerpt from a Guardian piece is below.

---

“It’s horrifying how much they know,” he told the Guardian, on the condition of anonymity. “You go into Facebook and it has this warm, fuzzy feeling of ‘we’re changing the world’ and ‘we care about things’. But you get on their bad side and all of a sudden you are face to face with [Facebook CEO] Mark Zuckerberg’s secret police.”

The public image of Silicon Valley’s tech giants is all colourful bicycles, ping-pong tables, beanbags and free food, but behind the cartoonish facade is a ruthless code of secrecy. They rely on a combination of Kool-Aid, digital and physical surveillance, legal threats and restricted stock units to prevent and detect intellectual property theft and other criminal activity. However, those same tools are also used to catch employees and contractors who talk publicly, even if it’s about their working conditions, misconduct or cultural challenges within the company.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/16/silicon-v...

One of the important qualities of a great place to work is that decisions are made based on sober analysis rather than reflexive corrections. Maybe you're right, and Facebook is just too important to allow that, but I think it's fair for Facebook employees to be unhappy about this.

Do you honestly believe you can’t have both? I’m not saying all data should be public, what I am saying is if what you’re discussing is morally repugnant given your past history it shouldn’t surprise you if it gets leaked.

The problem is that lots of people find lots of different things morally repugnant. If it's normalized for people to leak things that they consider morally repugnant, that means there are serious costs to engaging in any controversial discussion. There's no way I'm going to talk about diversity at my company if I think someone might go tell a reporter what I said; there's no viewpoint on the issue which isn't offensive to someone.

I think we’ve all blocked out the scary part of Pinocchio, where the boys go to the carnival (Pleasure Island). Spoilers: it ends with them being treated as literal livestock.

Leakers are a HUGE problem, especially when they reveal that the emperor has no clothes. (hello Googlers and FB-ers)

BUT, I've the read the memo and as I saw it, he says that getting people connected can mean that bad guys will also be connected. But that is life. Terrorist and child molesters will use a smartphone too...but

The employee reaction is natural. They feel their privacy has been violated

The data driven espionage companies should be neutered. Ad's are a joke, that's not how they make their monies.

This one is my favourite:

"This is so disappointing, wonder if there is a way to hire for integrity. We are probably focusing on the intelligence part and getting smart people here who lack a moral compass and loyalty."

Note how the focus is not on the morality of honouring users privacy, but on the "morality" of protecting the company. Collecting personal information about billions of people, using "questionable" practices, then selling access to it. Its a "good job". One that the commenter does not want to lose. Understood.

However there are laws to protect companies against employees who leak secrets. Employees sign nondisclosure agreements. Companies can adopt no tolerance policies on leaking to the media. They can terminate employees who violate them. No employee needs to consult a moral compass; the rules are clear. Break them and there can be grave consequences.

On the contrary, there are no equivalent remedies available to users whose privacy has been entrusted to Facebook. There is nothing to keep FB honest. There are no grave consequences for violations of user privacy.

When there is a "leak" of users information, the user is entitled to nothing more than an impersonal apology.

Relative to other businesses, one might go so far as to believe "there are no rules" in the space where FB has operated. Users (who are not the customers of FB) have no recourse; theres nowhere else they can go. Buy.

In all seriousness, it is the user who must hope that every FB employee has a "moral compass". Whether FB employees can trust each other is not what the user wants to know. The user wants to know if she can trust FB's employees.

I found that part wow-worthy too. I wonder if they thought whistle-blowers or leakers like Manning or Snowden have "moral compass" and "integrity", or if they're traitors without "loyalty".

Funny, didn’t Zuckerberg say that “Privacy is dead”? I guess only for users of his product.

Not a surprise really.

Many jobs considered "good" require a person to forget about ethics.

Tobacco, oil, pharma, agro, car, ads industries. Now we can also add "social web" to this list.

A person willing to suspend morals in exchange of money is the one you should not trust. Especially if they cannot be held accountable for their actions.

Because hell knows what ELSE they are ready to do.

And they will fight to defend their source of income = "loyalty" = "protecting questionable practices" = "indulging in mafia-like behaviors".