Hyperbolic for sure but I do not think it is naive at all. Facebook has proven many times over they are basically the Mafia of Silicon Valley and nothing they say should be trusted or taken at face value.

That being said there are many other threats to western society and while many or most of those will exploit Facebook as much as they can for influence they will continue to exist should Facebook fall.

The Engineering wage raises during 2010-2014 are a huge part due to Facebook back then entering a biding war for talent, which google had to counter which raised comps for everyone. Also, after 2015 you had more companies hitting the fray (Uber, Airbnb, etc). If it wasn't for Facebook, the compensation industry wise would look something like MSFT's comp (pretty low in general).

So, for one thing, Meta / Facebook has been great at raising the comps for engineering in SV.

You seem to be conflating Western society with engineering wages in SV. They are not the same, and what's good for one can very much be bad for the other!

I guess you were getting at the Mafia analogue in GP. Perhaps that was an unfortunate analogue, but GP's points were valid, not native.

I was not commenting on that - more on Facebook's business practices in general.

As for Silicon Valley collusion re: wages in my opinion the agreement that George Lucas / Steve Jobs / Ed Catmull / Others made in the late 90s / early 2000s to screw over tech workers and specifically VFX workers (they were afraid of a VFX union) was worse and flys under the radar way more than it should. VFX workers to this day continue to get screwed by this totally illegal collusion (and there was a large settlement of "unknown amount" at one point).

edit: After looking into the above lawsuit we may actually be talking about the same thing - although it did dramatically screw the VFX industry more than tech. And I refuse to credit Facebook with helping with that - it was the exposure of that collusion that ended it.

That does not mean Google gets a pass and I don't think my original comment implies that at all

It was a combination of both the lawsuit and Facebook. Had the lawsuit happened without Facebook bidding for top talent, it would've taken decades for compensation to rise to the rate they are now because there was no other company able or willing to attract top talent away from Google, Apple, etc.

Right now, the same thing is happening thanks to Amazon. They're having a hard time hiring SWE's due to the terrible reputation, so they've increased their compensation sharply to attract talent. Facebook followed suit since they are also finding it difficult due to its horrible public perception right now.

The result is that other major tech players are upping their compensation to continue to compete for top talent. It's wonderful.

I’m still blown away how true this is, especially given how overwhelmingly vital VFX is to film & TV revenue now - Star Wars, MCU.

Uh society is more important than SV engineering wages, full stop. You’re looking at a single tree and ignoring the forest of manipulation FB has done to society.

I think the reason people hate on Facebook here is that they do things like spread misinformation and lies about elected officials and current events, damaging democracy. It is annoying that Apple and Google underpaid already-well-paid people, but not a huge issue for society in general.

Why is it hyperbolic and why is it naive?

It was a tool used to influence elections in the United States, I can't think of any other entity that has had a larger negative impact on our society recently (maybe coronavirus?).

> It was a tool used to influence elections in the United States

Are you talking about fake Russian accounts buying $100k worth of facebook ads in 2016? That constitutes 0.00625% of total spending (1.6 bn) on the 2016 election. Or are you talking about something else?

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/facebook-sold-100000-ads-fak...

The IRA Russian troll farm had 1000 employees in 2015. They used Facebook as a tool to influence elections in the United States.

This is very well documented https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency

And I don’t know why the sister comment about Facebook being used to commit genocide in Myanmar was flagged and killed. This is also well documented by eg the NYT and the UN. It was also admitted by Facebook itself.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebo...

It swings in every direction. Not just what they allow in terms of ads but what gets suppressed, promoted, shown/reshown. Visibility and not.

Arguably Facebooks help in spreading misinformation is to a large degree behind the Republican success in 2016. Tipping an unpopular president from too unpopular to win the popular vote to one which could at least win the electoral college.

This ultimately led to gross mismanagement of the pandemic when it was most vital leading to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.

In order to have a larger negative effect on society each and every Facebook engineer would have to personally conduct a mass shooting.

Edit: In support of this position consider that the 2016 election was arguably lost entirely based on 78,000 votes in the rust belt. Basically based on 1/20th of 1% of voter turn out.

Some sources put the number of unnecessary covid deaths in 2020 at around 200k deaths.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/lancet-study-40-...

Other sources put the number of software engineers at around 8850

https://www.daxx.com/blog/development-trends/number-software...

The number of unnecessary covid deaths per Facebook software engineer is ergo about 23.

Looking at stats from the FBI from 2000 - 2018 884 were killed in 277 incidents meaning the average shooter only managed to kill about 3 people.

https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-eng...

Nearly every nut bar I know personally who is radicalized was first radicalized on facebook before sometimes moving on to other platforms.

Facebook engineers by the numbers are actually far more effective at killing folks than the average shooter. Your choice of employment isn't moral nor is it morally neutral to just write code. Individuals in high demand who could work nearly anywhere ought to consider working somewhere more ethical.

Nothing in Russia is in any sense a "great threat to Western society".

They have recently threatened to murder all of western society with nuclear weapons should it choose to intercede to prevent the mass murder they are presently perpetrating upon the old folks women and children of one of their neighbors while discussing the possibility of perpetrating further mass murders against its other neighbors.

The only saving grace is that this is probably but not certainly a bluff.

I don't think anyone on my TV really believes that nuclear war is a thing that can happen? If they thought it could happen, surely they wouldn't constantly argue for escalating conflict? Surely they don't really want to melt everyone's children? That seems very antisocial?!

Ukraine is not part of "western society". Numerous Western politicians have had off-mic moments in which they admitted that dangling NATO membership was only ever meant to bait Ukraine and Russia into a ruinous proxy war. Which has now occurred.

> Numerous Western politicians have had off-mic moments in which they admitted that dangling NATO membership was only ever meant to bait Ukraine and Russia into a ruinous proxy war. Which has now occurred.

Please don't spread conspiracy theories.

Just because Zelensky said it, don't assume it's a "conspiracy theory". [0] Or, for that matter, that theories about conspiracies aren't true. Power-hungry bastards do conspire, regularly.

[0] https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-puti...