[throwaway77665]

This may come off as condescending, but I'm honestly just curious.

From the outside looking in, it seems as though you are paid to drink cool-aid and paint FB in a positive light. How does one get to be in your position? What are the qualifications for your job?

[pwdisswordfish2]

Remember that VPN app that Apple pulled from the app store, the one that Facebook was using to spy on users' internet usage to gain intel about potential competitors. When Facebook acquired the VPN app this guy came with the purchase. VP of Inegrity. Oh, the irony.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo

Another commenter noticed this first but the comment is buried at the bottom of the thread. You have to enable showdead to see it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23319381

[commoner]

Facebook's "VP of Integrity" Guy Rosen (guy_ro) co-founded Onavo, a spyware company that Facebook acquired in 2013. Onavo's flagship app was Onavo Protect, a VPN service that Facebook used to monitor the activity of its competitors, including Snapchat. Facebook acquired WhatsApp and copied features from Houseparty based on the data it harvested from Onavo users.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-copycats-how-facebook-s...

Onavo Protect was removed from the App Store in 2018 for privacy violations, and from Google Play in 2019. Onavo then rebranded to Facebook Research and marketed itself through targeted ads to teenagers on Instagram and Snapchat. Apple revoked Facebook's developer certificate because Onavo was using it to bypass the App Store review process. Three U.S. senators (Richard Blumenthal, Ed Markey, and Mark Warner) criticized Facebook Research for harvesting data from children. Facebook Research was discontinued later that year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo

Guy Rosen moved on to be Facebook's VP of Product Management. In 2019, he briefly adopted the "VP of Integrity" title when performing damage control for Facebook's live stream of the Christchurch mosque shootings, and then reverted back to VP of Product Management after he was called out on it.

https://gizmodo.com/facebook-exec-gets-new-title-as-vp-of-in...

The next time Facebook needs a public relations injection, it should consider using someone other than the co-founder of Onavo.

[danielscrubs]

> The next time Facebook needs a public relations injection, it should consider using someone other than the co-founder of Onavo.

It seems like they knew exactly what they where doing. They want money and I don't believe for a second that the most ethical road is where the money is, you have to be able to say no to money and Facebook clearly shows us time and time again that money has the highest priority.

The highest value seems to be in companies that brand themselves as trustworthy but really isn't. No matter if it is Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Google or Nestle.

[pwdisswordfish2]

You just can't make this stuff up!

[mrgill]

Jesus christ... and they got the courage to call themselves VP of Integrity.

FFS

[sizzle]

Unbelievable. Just when I think I've seen it all in tech, how can someone like this take their title seriously having peddled their spyware to the highest bidder. Hope the cognitive dissonance keeps these execs with a broken moral compass up at night, if not for what they've done for themselves, then for contributing to making the world a worse place for their children and beyond. Thanks for sharing, wish there was a database full of these snakes and their slimy legacy they've left behind.

[rajacombinator]

“Sheryl, I need a guy I can sacrifice next time SHTF. I’m not going to another congressional hearing.”

“Let me make some calls.”

[guy_ro]

Fair enough, but I also get to see first-hand how decisions are made and how rigorous debates take place, so I have more faith in the process. We've got lots to do to improve transparency of how this stuff happens, because I know people care about it. One way we started a while ago is publishing minutes to one of our meetings where decisions on content policies get made. https://about.fb.com/news/2018/11/content-standards-forum-mi... -- lots more to do!

[choppaface]

Can you qualify what you mean by “rigorous” ? I think this is an important point of contention because Facebook is so accustomed to using data to justify decisions. Yet these ethical issues often either have no data and/or the consequences of Facebook’s actions impact users who are not on Facebook. Moreover, the data is not available to the public (despite the public generating the data) so the public can’t actually reproduce the warrant used internally at Facebook. This lack of reproducibility is why I think there’s so much friction around Facebook claiming their decisions are made with “rigor.” Thanks.

[BubRoss]

You didn't answer either of his questions.

[1123581321]

His work history is on LinkedIn. VP Integrity is essentially an executive product management role so qualifications would be along those lines.

Edit: LinkedIn says he was an engineering manager, then took a series of roles culminating in a data startup that got him into Facebook in the current role.

[evgen]

'A data startup'? How very generous of you. He co-founded a spyware company that was bought by Facebook to discover what other companies/apps to buy or clone.

You do not get to the position he has at Facebook by having either ethics or morals. Having seen this up close at Facebook HQ I can assure you that everyone at VP level or above there knows what they are doing, knows the long-term consequences, and simply does not care because the paycheck is far too large for simple ethics to enter into the discussion.

[modamilk]

Morality and strong ethics do not place a glass ceiling on anyone’s achievement. Arguably, consistently good ethics lead to more opportunites and better outcomes.

The main issue here is people have different ideas of what is ethical. Disagreements arise when countries and increasingly companies exert power of people given to them by those same people.

In my mind, the same problems existed before facebook and expecting facebook to solve them for everyone is rediculous. Even more rediculius is expecting everyone to accept facebook’s solutions.

[1123581321]

Thank you for examining his career more closely.