[kspacewalk2]

This negativity is mostly a moral panic confined to the elites who feel threatened by Facebook's power to disrupt their world (which they misinterpret as the end of the world). Facebook's actual users don't seem to care much.

[gfodor]

If you work for Facebook, you are contributing to a system which will grow into being the most effective mechanism, by far, for a bad actor to deploy capital to successfully alter the beliefs, behavior, and choices of your children. One day, through VR/AR/AI agents, they will even be able to turn your children against you for someone paying the right price, if the development of Facebook, the system, continues on its present trajectory and no ethical framework is put in place to restrain their actions. (Regulation won’t work, it is the wrong solution to this problem imo.)

You should resign if you do.

[KaiserPro]

> the most effective mechanism, by far, for a bad actor to deploy capital to successfully alter the beliefs

TV works better.

> One day, through VR/AR/AI agents, they will even be able to turn your children against you

Again unless your kids hate you, I doubt that's going to be the case. AR is far more likely to give the user "Perfect Memory" which will have all sorts of interesting side effects to how we manage forgiveness and growing up.

AR has a whole bunch of vectors that will fuck with the fabric of society, but this isn't one.

> ethical framework is put in place to restrain their actions. (Regulation won’t work, it is the wrong solution to this problem imo.)

Ok this is an interesting one. Laws are ethical frameworks, its just their values tend to lag society's values.

Facebook's "ethics" are codified here https://transparency.fb.com/policies/community-standards/ they are, much as it pains me, quite good. If I was going to write a guideline to civic engagement, this would be a good thing to base it on.

Facebook's problems are threefold:

1) nobody likes them so _anything_ they do will be negative. They could pay off all medical debt for the US, and it'd still be a negative action.

2) They don't enforce the rules evenly, some of this is down to scale, others because they don't want to piss off noisy operators(ie trump, modi, etc).

3) people are fucking stupid in groups.

Don't get me wrong, facebook have trespassed on a number of occasions. In practice to the same level as google/apple/amazon etc etc.

>You should resign if you do.

so that facebook can stuff it's self full of people who lack ethics? thats going to end well isn't it.

[gfodor]

Eventually, unless something changes, Facebook will be able to commandeer your avatar to allow a third party to speak on your behalf to persuade others. Eventually, you will come to have personal relationships with non-human agents which also can be paid to persuade you via their ad system. TV will be a joke in comparison.

[KaiserPro]

but they can only do that if people still engage with the company.

TV only has high esteem because it is seem as a "verified" medium, ie its had some level of fact checking. (whether thats true or not is another matter.)

If you undermind an entire new medium by abusing people's avatars to sell shit, it will sink the entire medium, unless the platform offers something compelling enough to overcome the stink.

[gfodor]

Well, obviously. Their current system offers enough value for users to keep using it. The question of if working on something is an ethical pursuit is only partially connected to it's demand. Examples abound of things which people happily buy en masse but the question of if they are the right thing to push forward as a contributor is unclear.

[drstewart]

>you are contributing to a system which will grow into being the most effective mechanism, by far, for a bad actor to deploy capital to successfully alter the beliefs, behavior, and choices of your children.

I believe you are actually describing government employees.

[bostik]

Governments don't generally pimp you to the highest bidder.[ß]

They flog you to the current Don, calculated to be replaced by a new Don every few years.

ß: Bribery notwithstanding.

[KaiserPro]

They don't need to pimp you out, they just need to listen to rich interest groups.

[aflkunusu]

Here's my opinion about a topic, that includes my prediction for the future along with my assumptions of what solutions won't work, and so I know what everyone else should do.

[gfodor]

No, my opinion that people should resign from Facebook is not a forwards looking opinion but a backwards looking one. But if you agree with my position on what you're contributing to, it is an additional reason to do so.

[marticode]

If the disruption is the mass distribution of antivax and antiscience propaganda that kills 1000s of people, the manipulation of opinions by hostile foreign state actors, the flaming of genocide and the utter division of nations into completely antagonistic sides, then I'm sorry but maybe the elites have a point.