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by nickpp 43 days ago
Even his examples (Meta, Google, Airbnb, Uber) are "hated and accused" mostly by pundits and activists. Their users and investors are overall rather happy with their services (all have healthy competition) and their employees can quit and work for somebody else at any moment.
1 comments
angrysaki 43 days ago
It's almost like the people who spend their time thinking and researching the positives and negatives of a particular company/service come to different conclusions than the people who make money off the company or are directly marketed it.
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nickpp 43 days ago
> people who spend their time thinking and researching the positives and negatives

If only we could trust such big hearted people who selflessly donate their time and expertise for thinking and researching - without asking those pesky little questions like "what do they stand to gain? what hidden agenda do they have? what ideology dictates their value system? what axes to grind and biases do they harbor?"

I'd rather trust the people directly involved, whose interests are mostly clear and known.

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angrysaki 43 days ago
>I'd rather trust the people directly involved, whose interests are mostly clear and known.

That seems like a wild statement to me. Just so I understand what you're saying. Are you saying you would trust Meta's statements on if their algorithms are harmful to youth/society over independent researchers because those researchers might have some hidden bias?

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nickpp 43 days ago
No, I am not saying I trust Meta's statements at all. I am just saying that I have ZERO trust in those "independent researchers".

I am old enough to remember when "researchers" and "experts" where warning us about the evils of violent FPS gaming, the whole panic over teens and kids playing Doom. The Columbine shooting. The end was nigh! Of course, it was all blown out of proportions...

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missingdays 43 days ago
If you ask any of those questions to people directly involved, the answer is the same for all 4: money
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throwaway-blaze 42 days ago
At least for meta, its employees, and its customers (advertisers), and its users, you can infer easily why they are involved. Researchers have other motivations like currying favor via an opinion or paper with a particular benefactor, or the tenure game, or 1000 other hidden things you cannot reason about without disclosure on their part.

PS I'm not a fan of Meta.

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