"Facebook reported $23.1 billion net profit in 2022, a decline on the $39.3 billion made in 2021. Meta has invested heavily into the metaverse, which is cutting into its profits."
Well said. And they are actively promoting products (FB & IG) that induce social disorders/mental illnesses and blatantly turn a blind eye to it. It's just plain wrong.
Of course all can be bad, I’m just not sure you’ve accurately identified the biggest offender.
We live in a world where actual vaccine skeptics are being given high positions of power in state-level health organizations, and I place the blame for that squarely on social media.
So clearly you don't believe in free will?
There's definitely an element of echo chambers in most Internet media (echo chambers like HN, for example), and it's definitely possible that this is driving increased polarisation, but it's not a slamdunk argument.
tl;dr not just social media, there's a lot of other stuff going on too (like, for instance, the outsourcing of manual labour out of the US).
Devil's advocate but why don't you see Facebook as a blank canvas where people can post whatever they want, and it's the people posting the dividing content responsible?
Facebook is just the medium, no? Could be Reddit, could be Twitter. Why are you holding Facebook responsible in your mind?
It becomes hard to get the photo of your pleasant day in front of your friends and family, but easy to bait Uncle Roger into a debate about politics or derisively rag on some easy target.
Engaging posts are a specific kind of content and not all platforms optimize for them. Facebook isn’t the only one that does, but it’s looking like it was a pretty socially toxic experiment and Facebook is one of several companies now stuck on the wrong side of the story.
Why is that Facebook's fault if they are just the middle man for their users (both on the content creation side and the content consuming/engagement side)?
It’s a bit like saying a drug dealer has no accountability because it’s the user who buys the drugs. In this case FB is well aware of the consequences of their actions, and even worse, their total inability to do anything when it’s not in a dominant language. This has had profound consequences in places like Myanmar and India where disinformation spreads like wildfire and leads to the killing of people. You’d think they’d step back and go “whoa, this isn’t what we intended for FB to be” and do something about it. The opposite has happened.
What came first though, the chicken or the egg?
What came first, the content in an unbiased fashion and then the algorithms were trained on which content generated best engagement and it got promoted
or
did Facebook just behind the scenes start pushing bad content on a whim with no backing information? I don't think that happened
Probably because we generally associate responsibility with choice.
Are users also responsible for their own choice to create and respond to engagement-optimized posts? Sure, but that’s an orthogonal concern to Facebook’s own choice and the responsibility they bear for it.
"I don't like the content that ends up on + promoted through algorithms on Facebook, therefore, they should be responsible"
It's not their content, and they aren't the ones engaging with it.
They are pushing it because users post it and then engage in it.
Say we got rid of Facebook tomorrow. This exact same problem would happen at another company/platform unless there was heavy intervention/moderation (which to my understand, Facebook absolutely already does some level of moderation?). What's that equivalent to? I'm not a "free speech advocate" or anything like that but what you're asking for is censorship instead of asking users to bear the responsibility of the content they consume.
Most people use the word censorship to refer to banning some specific kind of content: banning what. Meanwhile, the discussion around Facebook is usually around how they measure and reward content, not what the content is.
If you're actually being sincere in this discussion, I think you may not see how engagement is just one particular kind of how and it's not a given that social media sites optimize for it. It was an innovation that some sites introduced because it benefited their business model and it caught on for a while. But it wasn't universally adopted, needn't be used at all, and is becoming less fashionable among both sites and users. Facebook's a bit behind the game on restructuring away from it though, possibly because of over-investment and momentum, or possibly because of being a closely-held company that can be philosophically stubborn.
I am.
> Meanwhile, the discussion around Facebook is usually around how they measure and reward content, not what the content is.
I thought the original point was "divisive content gets promoted and Facebook doesn't stop it/encourages it".
Promoting that content is the "how" that Facebook has chosen to do and continues to do, and something that isn't a given for operating a social media company. That's what they're being held responsible for.
their content delivery/ranking algorithms prioritize (from my understanding as just a general person in the public who has never seen what's probably millions of lines of code across many different internal private systems at Meta) user engagement over all
If the algorithm is spitting out content that we're all critical of (because it's divisive, bad for mental health, etc.), why are we not acknowledging that it's just a side effect of
1. user input + 2. user engagement to that input = 3. ranked content delivery algorithm
If Facebook went away tomorrow, another platform would fill its place. Humans have shown that they like to doom-scroll on their phone and are ok being fed ads in the mean time because social media scrolling is basically the equivalent of an electronic cigarette for the brain in terms of dopamine delivery.
Because humans have chosen to prioritize the shittier meanier grossier nastier content, Facebook's "models" have been trained on that. Why are we criticizing Facebook's models that we basically played our own individual role in building?
Practicality and precedent. We can effectively regulate the algorithms a countable number of companies use in their products, but can't effectively make people not susceptible to doom-scrolling (nicotine, heroin, gambling, whatever).
> If Facebook went away tomorrow, another platform would fill its place.
Not if the troubling practices were illegal or too expensive to operate. It would be a pretty dumb investment to bother. Instead, new platforms would pursue different techniques for content presentation and profitability, just like existing competitors already do.
What does regulation of Facebook's algorithm look like to you? Promote specifically which types of content less/not at all? Obviously "politically divisive/disinformation" but who gets to be in charge of that/classifying what is/isn't disinformation/divisive?
A site that optimizes for content that people heavily interact with (engagement) is different than a site that prioritizes the relationship type between users (friends original content > public figure OC > shares > etc) or positive response (upvotes), etc
None of these many other systems rely on discerning the specific nature of content or making sure it’s of some certain arbitrary moral character. But they each lead the network as a whole to favor different kinds of content and so the experience for users ends up different. And it’s already known that social media sites can be successful using these other techniques.
I think that's hit the nail on the head. In a neutral environment, a user would be shown a feed of friends posts with ads mixed in for their demographic.
In an optimised for engagement environment, a user is shown posts that are known to increase engagement and quite often those posts are inflammatory.
This engagement environment is much more likely to expose people to extreme views
Regarding users bearing responsibility for what they consume - I have seen others report running into this and I have as well - no amount of feed grooming keeps the controversial content off my feed for a meaningful amount of time. I actively unfollow / snooze content I don’t want to see, but Facebook has countered this by adding “suggested for you” items to my feed. It’s impossible to only see my friends’ updates. I must be exposed to the negative stuff as a cost of using Facebook.
Mind you this is not a question of "just doing fiduciary duty". It could very well be argued that not fomenting fear and extremism in its userbase is good for business and the brand. Yet it chooses to be evil.
And it's obvious why. Facebook is dying. There are almost no "regular" posts and people on there anymore. They're desperate to maintain some sort of engagement even if it means making the platform a gathering spot for the KKK.
from a business perspective, if Facebook decided to shut its doors tomorrow from a moral/ethical standpoint, wouldn't somebody else just fill the gap?
There's clearly a "need" for this kind of platform in society from a capitalism standpoint.
Not calling Meta a news company, just making a comparison re: curation and how it can transform the inputs into something else.
Meta is not breaking any legal law circa 2023, but history will bucket it along with asbestos/cigarette businesses
This isn't just a problem with Facebook and Twitter either, its an issue in modern journalism as well. Basically anything that is funded by advertisement will fall into this trap.
They’ve done a search over the space of things that drive engagement with the site and have written a feed/content sort algorithm that optimizes for those things. They could just as easily choose to optimize for something else - like number of heart reactions only - but they choose not to because that would presumably result in lower engagement and thus less eyeball time and thus less profit.
They didn't post/create the content, and they prioritize what users engage with the most.
Why do they deserve blame?
They just incentivized it. Your argument is akin to "Yes your honor, I paid the assassin, but I didn't murder that man. The assassin did!"
> Why do they deserve blame?
Because the algorithms aren't neutral.
If Facebook let you follow who you wanted and showed only that content in chronological order, you'd have a leg to stand on. But they are tampering with the flow of information in ways that increase engagement artificially using psychological manipulation.
It's fine if you're content to let them hide behind their algorithms, but you're wrong both in a moral sense and likely soon in a legal sense.
Facebook wasn’t always like this — it used to just be a place where you could see what your friends are up to.
Does Facebook have a right to exist and try their best to earn profit? Yes.
In doing so, they become a middle man for trying to push ads. Does this have measurable negative societal effects? Arguably. I would say "depends on who you ask" but it's pretty hard to look at it subjectively instead of objectively when there is so much data showing it's true.
But what's the alternative? Asking them to stop entirely? Unrealistic. Asking them to make less money not pushing certain content because it's divisive? That's the same content that got optimized to the top based on engagement statistics and is netting them "the most money" from advertisement views, right?
I get what you are saying about the negative effects, I just don't know how realistic it is to hold Facebook accountable when their primary motive is profit. If society tears itself apart in the process because Facebook gave society the platform to do that, at what point does the government intervene and ask them "hey, help us police moral/ethics to control the effects"?
Huh? They could be better, but we have anti-corruption laws because fairness has priority over some degree of profit, we have worker protection laws because worker rights take priority over some degree of profit, we have occupational safety laws and health benefit laws because health takes priority over some degree of profit, we have a zillion laws that plainly demonstrate that social priorities often take some degree of priority over profit.
Social media is a new industry and we're working out the rules. Engagement optimization turns out to be detrimental to society's well-being, so yeah... we're probably going to figure out a way to assert that through law and regulation, and some participants might see their business model impacted along the way.
It's hard not believe that you're just trolling at this point.
"allowed to exist by society" is putting it lightly. It's in demand. High demand.
You're right. The profit mechanism should be abolished/replaced. But in the meantime Facebook is still morally culpible for their shenanigans, even if market forces agree with them.
I just can't help but feel this view is wildly unpopular/radical almost anywhere other than an online social media forum for people who like to spend their free time in the comment section (like a Reddit or a HackerNews)
I believe it's possible to retain autonomous production (ie, to not have a command economy) while using different mechanisms than profit to organize production.
That said, if you're saying "Facebook does evil things because the system incentivizes them to" then maybe the conclusion should be that we change the system, no? And whether the idea is popular or not seems irrelevant, given your admission that it's the root cause. Popularity also might be subject to change given the overall circumstances.
Notice how your responses continue the conversation in a specific direction, and not in another direction. This is something you have choice over. Now imagine you automate this process with an algorithm that adaptively promotes certain replies to your comments and demotes certain other replies in a systematic fashion. Do you not then think that that algorithm has some bearing on how the conversation unfolds?
true or false: it pushes content to the top that users choose to engage in/with?
Without users and their behavior, the Facebook platform would be empty/neutral.
It's the users driving the divisiveness, etc.
Therefore, if the users consumer lots of "divisive" content and it causes good engagement, isn't it the user's fault for being such "fans" of the divisive content that it makes Facebook algorithms promote it?
The addict is of course not without blame, but at the very least I hope we can find a consensus that the dealer is behaving extremely immoral. This is essentially how I view facebook. It's abusing the human condition for profit with destructive effects.
We all have the ability (and some might argue responsibility) to educate ourselves on what our actions cause, and that’s why a lot of people, myself included, minimize or avoid Facebook use. However, that doesn’t remove culpability from Facebook for pushing addicting, polarizing, or divisive content onto users.
They are just pursuing profit, yes. But we as a society should really be pushing for their profit to be diminished by the extent it negatively impacts society. For instance, imagine Facebook were in part liable for terrorist attacks because it pushed radicalizing content, or partially liable for suicides, because it pushed content that destabilized someone’s mental health. We shouldn’t be tolerating them pushing content because the user is “such a fan” of the content any more than we tolerate doctors pushing addictive drugs, gambling or cigarette companies pushing their products, etc.
People ruin their lives doing things that feel "good" in the moment all the time. Facebook is a machine for that.
It’s not just the medium.
When a metric like “engagement” is optimized for, this seems to result in controversial/divisive content making its way to the top. So yes, Facebook is a medium, but it is a medium that encourages certain content by rewarding it with more eyeballs and interaction than other content.
As a contrast, Reddit’s default sort is “best” which tends to put higher scored comments towards the top. Users have the choice of sorting by controversial, but that is transparent to the user that that’s what they’re getting. Reddit’s downvote lets users effectively shun content in a way that Facebook doesn’t - this has its trade offs, as it seems to encourage groupthink and echo chambers.
Facebook (and Youtube, and Twitter, and...) chooses which content to promote, for their own interests, which often correlate with generating outrage based on made-up bullshit. They're far from a "blank canvas".
That's not what my YouTube feed is like whatsoever. I've "curated" it that way though. A lot of "not interested" or "don't recommend this channel" clicks.
This reads like the company is losing money. It's not; it's still profitable, even with the metacurse.
Puking pikachu face
If I needed to pay you more because you got a larger offer from Meta, I'd say good luck and enjoy working for Zuck! That's gross and extortion mentality.
"Pay me more, because I got a higher offer somewhere else."
It is a threat and employers shouldn't be forced to respond to threats like that. It isn't negotiation, it is a demand. How about instead of doing it that way, you say something like: "The salary you offered is lower than I expected. Here is what I expect and these are the benefits I'll bring to your organization."
It also sets a bad tone from the start. What else will the employee like to threaten on in the future? If I don't have the same coffee machine that Meta uses... will they quit on me? Where do you draw the line?
This is also why the newer laws around wages are focused on being upfront about what the wage is in the job description. I'm all for that. Don't apply for jobs that are paying less than your expectation.
Exactly why I said... "I'd say good luck and enjoy working for Zuck!"
"waste their time, drag my feet, and use their offers to increase my salary offerings at other companies"
Yes, they are. The person is wasting Meta's time in order to increase their salary offerings at other companies. That's gross and that's what I'm reacting to.
> How about instead of doing it that way, you say something like: "The salary you offered is lower than I expected. Here is what I expect and these are the benefits I'll bring to your organization."
Because thats not effective. When employers have the upper hand, they're perfectly willing to say "Take the offer or go pound sand." Do you happen to think thats extortion?
It absolutely is effective, I've used it myself many times.
It appears you are saying an employee negotiating for a better salary is a gross and extortion mentality?
If so I have to say I 100% disagree with you. Negotiating is one of the last tools workers have left. Would you say a company offering to hire someone for x more than they are currently making is a gross and extortion mentality too?
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that using that tactic to negotiate a higher salary, is gross. I'm saying that I'd never hire someone who said that to me. There are far better ways to negotiate than demanding higher salary because you're doing fake interviews at Meta and they offer you such.
That's laudable, because you're filtering out the idiots. Nobody in their right mind would say that to you. People would say stuff like "I have two offers currently, one from Facebook and another from Acme. They are both very generous but in terms of preference, I would love to work here if the company is able to match them." That's it. And that's fine. That's what most people are doing during their job search (get multiple offers). Nobody goes on to say that they intentionally interviewed at some company they'll never work for in order to get a higher offer to be used as leverage. Why would anyone self-sabotage themselves like that?
Of course they wouldn't, however it is super easy to see right through what they are doing.
For the past couple of years, I noticed this trend of trying to fuck over prospective employees and drive down compensation. Of course, we can't forget the no poaching cartel for which large companies got a nice slap of the wrist, but it's the small things like:
- rejecting candidates with competing offers (like OP above) - not providing offers in writing (so that it would be hard to use a verbal offer in a negotiation) - requesting written proof of competing offers or paystubs to prove current income. - prolonging or spreading the interview process over weeks/months so that you're not able to coordinate negotiations (Google is a major offender here).
My previous comment had asked this also: Is it okay for a company to offer and employee more than they are making at another company or is that a gross and extortion mentality as well?
In my eyes employees are paid based on their worth to a company. If company x says I am worth more than company y, but I like working at company y more, is it gross and wrong for me to say "hey company y I really love working for you but I think my labor is worth more than you are paying me. For example company x has offered me more money of the same job responsibility."?
I in no way have a extortion mentality. Rather I believe I am being under compensated for the work I do and to show this I have gotten quotes for what my skills are worth to other companies in the field.
I would equate the above to shopping around for quotes for a home upgrade. Typically people want to get multiple quotes to see what the fair market value of the work is.
I think it's actually an even worse source of division in many countries outside the US, we (Americans) just don't hear about it as much. There are plenty of horrific examples from around the world like https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
The problem is he is talentless.
A company that has been hemorrhaging money to push a failed VR and “web 3.0”-verse is laying off people. I never would have imagined this will happen in 1000 years.
I have said this before and will say it again. I will never work for “Meta”/Facebook/Zuckerberg. The company itself is a prime source of division in the United States of America and has the worst business practices and culture.
I will however continue to interview, waste their time, drag my feet, and use their offers to increase my salary offerings at other companies.