[fbemployee1234]

Throwaway for obvious reasons. Opinions are my own.

I joined in the last year. I had major issues with FB before, reflecting typical HN user stance. I joined because I was curious and their promises sounded like an amazing place to work.

And it is. They treat us better than any other company in terms of autonomy and input. Everyone has a tea seat at the table.

And what I’ve seen, the external perceptions don’t match the internal objectives. I hear real change from leadership, and most of the major issues are years old.

Fb has invested hugely in protecting elections, possibly more than any single government. They have doubled that on integrity, etc.

And realistically, I don’t think we know how to balance harm and good in the real world. I just don’t see tracking online activity as more harmful than the benefit that people get from the service. (Not so much US users, but the benefits to people in very poor countries are very real, and wouldn’t exist if the service didn’t monetize so well)

In short I don’t see them as an evil entity. They’re just a large one that is easy pickings for negative press. I used to work for the US government in a health research role; this feels similar.

When something is so massive and decentralized, the “bad press” events are gonna happen. I think FB, and especially Zuckerberg, have done a great job responding to these issues to try and solve them.

Remember, what Facebook is doing has never been done before. There are going to be mistakes.

[rwl]

> I just don’t see tracking online activity as more harmful than the benefit that people get from the service. (Not so much US users, but the benefits to people in very poor countries are very real, and wouldn’t exist if the service didn’t monetize so well)

Can't you elaborate on this? What's the difference between people in the US and poor countries? Why does tracking help the latter group?

[121789]

I think he's just saying that folks in developing countries get more value of the service (developed countries have much more competition), not that they benefit from tracking more.

[fbemployee1234]

This. Poor countries use Facebook for really valuable actions like talking to loved ones. In the states we have alternatives and can afford a few bucks a month for a service. But in poor countries, Facebook is often a lifeline (sometimes literally, in the case of crises)

[chromecanary]

You hear a lot of "STOP SHOWING ME ADS ON _____. I'LL PAY FOR THIS. STOP TRACKING ME. I'D LOVE A PAID VERSION OF ______"

And every single time I laugh at how much those statements reek of privilege. It's always from people who live in the biggest, richest cities of the country and are usually white+young+have steady incomes.

If Facebook started offering ad-free versions, within a year it would become a website only for the SF/NY/London elite kids.

Imagine if these services were paid: Facebook = $40/month. Whatsapp = $30/mo, Instagram = $30/mo. Youtube = $30/mo. Google Search = $50/mo. Google Maps = $30/mo.

Sure, you're probably rich enough that you can afford a crazy amount to subscribe to every possible website. But the majority of the world cannot - and that's why ads are not just an unnecessary distraction but instead a necessary way to life on the Internet.

[rwl]

> Sure, you're probably rich enough that you can afford a crazy amount to subscribe to every possible website. But the majority of the world cannot - and that's why ads are not just an unnecessary distraction but instead a necessary way to life on the Internet.

You seem to be assuming that "life on the Internet" requires these services, and requires them to bring in the insane revenues that they bring in through targeted advertising. It doesn't. The Internet and the Web had thriving communities before any of them existed, and there are meaningful alternatives to everything you mentioned that don't surveil their users. The only thing that makes any of these services feel required is network effects and the attendant monopoly power. People use them instead of the alternatives because they're "free", and that's where their friends are and where the content is. They actively enforce this power, by buying competitors, investing in slicker UIs, preventing other services from providing a different interface to the same data, and not providing any meaningful way for users to export their data and delete it from the company's servers. Wanting an alternative to this situation needn't be an expression of privilege.

[notacoward]

I'll add that as soon as you charge more than zero you'll lose revenue to some VC-funded copycat with no hope or intent of ever becoming profitable before the early stakeholders sell the worthless husk to some sucker. Those are the "ethical standards" so many here are fighting for.

[warp_factor]

Let me disagree on this.

I think You joined Facebook, and they showed you the "Employee side" where everything is beautiful, with free food and free toys and you became convinced. Yes, they treat employees super well, nobody contradicts that. But how does it change anything related to how bad the product is (and all the bad things it does to people that use it a lot).

It is easy to let the beautiful inner side of Facebook take over the product side of Facebook that everyone else is seeing from the outside.

[throwawaymath]

I get that you have a fundamental disagreement with the opinions expressed by this commenter, but please don’t invalidate their experience like that. Saying, “Sorry but no” is a flippant way of dismissing their experience without actually being sorry for doing it.

It’s frankly not for you to say “what happened” when it comes to their opinion, which is based on what they’ve witnessed and experienced. Note that this entire thread does not concern facts, it concerns impressions and opinions. This isn’t the place to “Actually, ...” what someone else has said.

It strikes me as particularly condescending that you’re telling this person they only feel this way because of “free food and free toys.”

[warp_factor]

You make a good point and I edited my comment. Thanks.

[badfrog]

> But how does it change anything related to how bad the product is

From OP:

> I hear real change from leadership

> Fb has invested hugely in protecting elections, possibly more than any single government. They have doubled that on integrity, etc.

> I think FB, and especially Zuckerberg, have done a great job responding to these issues to try and solve them.

You might think they're misinformed or incorrect, but you can't say they didn't address product/company issues.

[fbemployee1234]

I don’t think the product is bad, nor do I think it’s evil. The people who decide to use the service every day get value.

I think the negative fb news of late has really enabled people to strengthen their confirmation bias against fb.

For every super negative story that HN latches onto, there are a dozen internal projects that help the world in some way.

I guess I just see the intentions and a broader Perspective in some ways. When I saw how the sausage was made, I was actually impressed with the earnestness of peoples intentions.

Put simply, I don’t think anyone on HN has enough facts and measurements of outcomes to judge FB.

[basch]

"how bad the product is"

What makes facebook so much worse than email? The fact that its default sorting algorithm is based on how relevant it thinks stories are to your interests? Any spread of false information could happen basically as easily through gmail. I dont see people getting mad at gmail and outlook for allowing chain letters to keep existing.

[warp_factor]

The utility_function of facebook (what it maximizes for) is for your attention grab. This in itself makes the product bad. They will hack the endorphin in your brain in order to keep you hooked.

the utility_function of email is utilitarian. No email server wants to keep their user hooked on their emails.

[fbemployee1234]

How are you measuring this utility function? What is the evidence that facebooks objective is to hack endorphins?

All the conversations I’ve heard discuss how to make products better for users. Even if it hurts standard metrics.

For example, the goal of the feed team hasn’t been to increase engagement for a couple of years now. The metric of choice is meaningful interactions.

The outsiders perspective of FB seems to be a couple of years out of date, compared to what I’ve seen.

[krrishd]

I mean, those notifications everyone gets that have no actual pertinent info/are super blatant engagement hacks have been widely discusssed/experienced, and there's no strong argument that those make products better for users (and it's obvious what metrics they're attempting to inflate).

[fbemployee1234]

This sums up the advertising industry as a whole.

[basch]

I wish the person who replied didnt delete their comment. They asked you if you felt the same way about netflix. Are products who want to keep people hooked, and have all their attention universally bad?

[chromecanary]

Obviously so. If you're into music/movies/arts you should come up with a crappier product. I hope you don't come up with tunes that are addictive and get people hooked to your music.

Same with sports teams: I hope they all play crappy so that people are not hooked onto them.

/s

[warp_factor]

I replied on another thread on this topic where the same question got raised. (TLDR: Not perfect, but definitely a magnitude better).

[throwawaysow]

This argument sounds a lot like gaslighting. You can put this argument for any unethical company and it would work.

[adamrezich]

Can we please stop using "gaslighting" as shorthand for "an opinion or perspective expressed by a single user that I disagree with?" I've seen it in several comment threads here in the past few weeks and it's getting really annoying.

[fbemployee1234]

I think you could also identify similar negative consequences from any entity the size of Facebook. I think it’s a side effect of being big, and fb is no different than any of the F1000 or just about any government on the planet.

What I do see internally — executives down through rank and file acknowledge the problems and work really hard to address them. I haven’t seen the same level in introspection elsewhere, even when I worked for the DoD.

[badfrog]

> This argument sounds a lot like gaslighting.

That's just a matter of whether you think OP truly believes what they said.

[CompanionCuuube]

"It's not a lie, if you believe it!" - George Costanza

[badfrog]

Indeed. You can be wrong without lying.

[tdhoot]

How is this gaslighting?