[imglorp]

Meta is a symptom; the whole business is rotten.

We've all heard the vocabulary: engagement maximization, a/b testing, emotional targeting, ad auctions, user surveillance, sentiment analysis. Children are not emotionally or intellectually prepared to repel this hostile takeover of their minds.

Civilization needs to rein in all these terrible things corporations do to humans.

[kridsdale1]

I worked in the team at Facebook (2017-2019) relevant to this stuff. I saw (did not write) some of the documents cited.

The rank and file engineers and designers and PMs doing the work were all morally correct people, working very hard all the time to steer the ship away from harm to normal people and toward establishing healthy relationships and media diet.

We were consistently undermined and overruled by the Directors and Executives. Many health and safety boosting projects (with evidence) were cancelled or turned backwards to maximize harm, because it correlated with revenue or “Time Spent” or “Sessions”, which I guess their equity was based on.

Those leaders own full responsibility for this.

[RetroTechie]

> Those leaders own full responsibility for this.

Sorry, no free pass.

No doubt there's lots of decent people working at FB. But through their work they do support a company with questionable ethics. Same goes for FB users.

Not judging any of FB's employees (or users) here! But unless you're starving or someone's whipping you, you have a choice to go elsewhere.

[pllbnk]

We shouldn't blame people who work in companies making harmful decisions. Employees are not in a position of strength and should not feel responsible for choosing employment that helps them maximize their wealth. It's the government's responsibility to control the employers.

[syndacks]

Yes, the men running concentration camps are 100% absolved of their culpability. Not their fault!

[pllbnk]

Meta is a private organization subject to the laws of the countries it operates in. Concentration camps are government entities, legalized by the country. Even then it's not always the choice of a person whether to comply the orders. But let's not go into extremes, they don't help the discussion.

[sometimes_all]

> Employees are not in a position of strength

Employees that are paid multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars plus equity, and likely can jump ship to another company without a hitch are not in a position of strength?

Please. Meta is one of the few firms where employees genuinely had a chance to stop this from happening, with all the "engineers are first-class citizens" bit.

I'd rather people own up to their responsibilities than dodge around theoretical nonsense.

[mindslight]

This framing is directly at odds with the top-level comment. "the whole business is rotten."

If someone is a professional programmer and wants to maintain a similar level of income, where do you propose they go? There are similar perverse incentives at every other big tech company. While I agree that it's certainly possible for someone to avoid working for big tech and horrible companies in general, it's not possible for everyone to do so. Framing things the way you have merely supports unproductively railing at individuals who have worked for big tech, while actually making it harder to critique the underlying structural incentives.

[sometimes_all]

To quote Don Draper: "that's what the money is for".

By all means go work for big tech if you want to, it's a free country, but then you don't get to wash your hands off the bad things your company's doing by saying stuff like "the execs made us do it" or "the execs overruled us".

There's nothing unproductive in calling out denying responsibility/culpability. Some would say it's practically mandatory.

[mindslight]

> There's nothing unproductive in calling out denying responsibility/culpability. Some would say it's practically mandatory.

I've been condemning the surveillance industry going on two decades now. Making that condemnation personal has felt pretty unproductive to me. Maybe there is now enough of a critical mass of people seeing the problems that personal condemnation might help move the needle these days, but many years of this not being true is still the perspective I am coming from.

[RetroTechie]

> This framing is directly at odds with the top-level comment. "the whole business is rotten."

No, both apply. I agree it doesn't help to take aim at lower-level employees. The Zuck & co at the helm, and underlying causes that produce a laser-focus on "shareholder value", are both better targets.

But Meta has many employees, including various levels of management. Each of them can discuss shaky-ethics decisions, organise, protest, or.. quit.

Just saying that every cog in the machinery carries some responsibility. Some more than others.

[cryo32]

If you can't make the board do good or hold them to account when they do bad things, you should leave.

No leadership position can function without enough resources to do their bidding.

And yes, I have done that.

[afavour]

> The rank and file engineers and designers and PMs doing the work were all morally correct people

Then why didn't they quit?

I believe I could have gotten a job at Meta (and hey, maybe I'm wrong!) but I've never been able to stomach the idea of working on their products. If I can choose to avoid working on morally compromising things, why can't they?

And look, I get it. If they didn't make it some other engineer would. There's no union or anything that would make resisting it a meaningful cause. But that doesn't mean everyone can absolve themselves of any culpability. They took the (big pile of) money, they did the work.

[palmotea]

>> The rank and file engineers and designers and PMs doing the work were all morally correct people

> Then why didn't they quit?

I can't speak for those people, but decisions like quitting your job aren't one-dimensional. Quitting a job can create severe hardships for a family, stress relationships to the breaking point, etc. The Bay Area is very expensive, so I'd imagine that's true even for workers making otherwise very good salaries at Facebook. Then consider that the harms caused by Facebook are remote, abstract, and diffuse. Also, making the pushing for the right decision to only get overruled by the people in power can feel like doing enough for many people.

Also, there's the frog in a pot effect: a lot of the problems with social media have only become well understood relatively recently. Maybe you'd chose no to join Facebook today, but would stay if you'd already worked there for 10 years.

> If I can choose to avoid working on morally compromising things, why can't they?

What other morally compromising things have you not chosen to avoid? The modern world is full of them, many of them well publicized even if they're not in-your-face. IMHO, it's impossible to avoid them all without killing yourself.

[afavour]

> I can't speak for those people, but decisions like quitting your job aren't one-dimensional. Quitting a job can create severe hardships for a family, stress relationships to the breaking point, etc.

I can't disagree with that. But my point is more... own it, then.

OP's comment said the leaders are fully responsible. I argue the engineers are responsible too. If they made the decision they made because they don't want their family to leave the Bay Area then that's the decision they made: they put their family ahead of broader societal damage they're helping create. I might do the same for my family. But I wouldn't try to claim that I'm completely blameless in the scenario.

> Also, making the pushing for the right decision to only get overruled by the people in power can feel like doing enough for many people.

I suppose I would counter with "but it isn't".

> What other morally compromising things have you not chosen to avoid?

Again, I agree with what you're saying, every day involves some level of moral compromise. But the task I choose to dedicate most of my waking hours to, day in day out, is a little different from whether I buy free range eggs or not.

[lazide]

So you’re saying hard decisions… are hard for reasons? No shit Sherlock.

They made them a specific way, and will be stained with the consequences, because they were cowards who took the easy way out.

[palmotea]

> They made them a specific way, and will be stained with the consequences, because they were cowards who took the easy way out.

One thing I've gotten tired of as I've gotten older is self-righteous judgement like that, when directed at the rank-and-file.

Your assignment: carefully inspect your life, and enumerate all the things which you are "stained with the consequences, because [you] were [a] coward who took the easy way out." There are lots because you're a human living in the modern world. Then, before you join the peanut gallery to judge smoeone, remember that guy's like you.

Sure, judge leaders like Zuckerberg like that, the buck stops with him, and his lieutenants who support his vision, and associates with "fuck you" money. But regular folks who need a job who try to do the right thing within their scope but are overridden? Come on.

[lazide]

‘Just following orders’ is derided for a reason.

What do you think that actually looks like?

The same damn thing.

What do you think the scientists working at big tobacco said to themselves?

The same damn thing.

The system won’t work without the ‘little people’ doing all the day to day.

This is, quite literally, the ‘banality of evil’.

[iterateoften]

Don’t worry, all employees were morally good people, who chose to stay and make millions from the harm to children they supposedly were resisting.

It’s not like meta was a charity. There was a lot of money being made by every one knowing the harm they were doing.

[smugma]

2017-2019… it sounds like maybe he did quit.

[AlexandrB]

“The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons.”

[AlexandrB]

The old adage applies to social media: "the medium is the message". You can't steer a ship whose whole purpose is crashing into icebergs from crashing into an iceberg. You're working against the whole purpose of the thing itself. Even if these engineers are Facebook were successful another, less idealistic, social media company would pick up the slack of promoting the clickbaitiest most sensationalistic content possible. We already saw this happen with the meteoric rise of TikTok.

I don't know what the solution is, but the incentives created by the combination of algorithmic feeds and how lucrative internet "fame" can be consistently encourages the worst kind of content.

[rawgabbit]

Social should and will get the tobacco treatment. Social media is detrimental to public health and will get regulated/taxed to the point the industry will become unprofitable.

[AlexandrB]

I just worry that the wrong thing will be regulated/taxed. It's the combination of algorithmic feed + global reach + monetization potential that makes social media so nasty. But it's easy to create "social media" regulations that would apply to sites like this one, or old-school forums.

[rawgabbit]

In years past, when corporations saw the writing on the wall, they would actually get together and propose a set of regulations that could live with and satisfy the public. Because we are well past that point, yes, the wrong things and the rights things will get shoved into whatever regulation is coming.

[zonkerdonker]

Advertisement as a concept should get the tabacco treatment.

[throwaw12]

But you can't sue individuals in this case.

They will say: I had this metric to increase shareholder value, I tuned it, that's it, no one stopped me or told me not to do it.

US just needs different laws

[xorcist]

> engineers and designers and PMs doing the work were all morally correct people,

No. I'm sorry. You are not allowed to say this. Our society is post-truth enough as it is.

This is a company founded on a singular idea: Lock up as much as the free web as possible behind their login and own as much of the information as possible. Every type of web service on the open web, from forums to classifieds to event booking to blogs and social media, and of course games early on, has been reimplemented on their platform.

Every single person working on maximizing "engagement" or whatever you call it these days knows exactly what they are doing.

Sure, do your thing. Take over what parts of the web you can. Take on the metaverse. We live in a market economy and you are free to do this. But not for a second are you allowed to talk about morals or doing good "from the inside". This is not the responsibility of senior executives alone. That is simply too much.

This is a company where everyone knew an actual genocide was coordinated using their platform, and they did absolutely nothing to stop it, despite the efforts from Amnesty and outside journalists to raise attention to it. There must be a limit to how much spin you can put on it.

[baggachipz]

> Children are not emotionally or intellectually prepared to repel this hostile takeover of their minds.

Neither are most adults. The current situation in the world is plenty of evidence for that.

[dijit]

"You are not immune to propaganda" is a phrase that doesn't hit hard enough.

It applies to you dear reader, yes you, not u/baggachipz.. YOU.

I am also not immune, I believe myself to be, constantly. My worldview is truth and I am "open to other ideas"- yet I have very obviously anchored myself to things the first time I hear of them, despite actively making steps to try to see all angles and explain away facts with alternative theories. (which is exhausting) I definitely believe what someone wants me to believe.

It's plain, it's obvious, and yet it continually happens. It's only with a decade of distance that I even realise what had happened.

And people call me "balanced" and "intelligent", theoretically I have more tools to deal with this than the majority of the population.

Yet... I am not immune to propaganda.

[baggachipz]

Sure, but lots of people are way more susceptible. Self-reflection is important here. The ability to question one's state and beliefs is the only tool to combat propaganda. Most people don't seem to do that; they parrot party lines and stay glued to their "news" networks.

[lazide]

Because for the most part, it works, and it’s way easier.

Until someone takes the car off a cliff, of course, but that almost never happens.

[inigyou]

Which beliefs have you questioned lately?

[austin-cheney]

In all fairness social media is in the same kind of business model as porn and gambling. None of that is forced on anybody. If you don't want those in your life then just don't consume them. If you don't want them in your household use a DNS blocker. How much should we really parent the rest of society?

[ryandvm]

It's a fair question, but it irritates me because it suggests that we should accept the self-destruction of vast swaths of the population in the name of perfect liberty.

The reality is that we have a lot of institutions that prey on consumers' biology in a way that is overpowering for the average individual. Social media, ragebait news, and junk food are good examples of legal products that hijack human tendencies for the purpose of commercial exploitation.

We do not allow unrestricted access to opiates because the average person does not have the fortitude required to resist addiction. It's becoming increasingly clear that some of these media products are able to induce drug-like dependency - and harm.

Fortunately, for the media products, I think the answer is fairly obvious. Sitting at the bottom of all this is advertising. Meta needs people looking at their screens 6 hours a day because they don't make money from subscriptions, they make their money per-view from the advertisers. FOX News or MSNBC are the same, if you're not holding your iPad with white knuckles wondering how democracy is going to end, they're not making money.

[austin-cheney]

The alternative is excessive regulation. Sugar, especially fructose, is extremely destructive to the body and its more addictive than cocaine, but I don't see laws forbidding access to sugar. If you are that concerned with regulating people to death start with the greatest harms first and see just how far that goes.

[tolerance]

> It's a fair question, but it irritates me because it suggests that we should accept the self-destruction of vast swaths of the population in the name of perfect liberty.

We shouldn't. But to what end?

[TheOtherHobbes]

Facebook chose that business model. It wasn't forced on it.

The terrible thing about social media is that has real utility. If you take away the addictive optimisation and surveillance and leave the local networking, forums, discussion groups, and small sales and basic ads you still have a very viable business - somewhat smaller, but still wildly successful.

But the point of Facebook is surveillance and belief/behaviour modification. The services provided are secondary.

[austin-cheney]

Nearly everybody is already aware, but some people choose to use Facebook anyways. That is their choice.

[ben_w]

> If you don't want those in your life then just don't consume them.

That works fine when the thing is neither addictive nor required for interaction with certain people you need to interact with.

I can avoid Meta specifically, but then again I also live in Germany and one of the language podcasts I listen to had the host complain about their bank telling them to communicate by fax next time they wanted to change their PIN.

[edwcross]

Law forbids my local administrative entities from engaging with porn and gambling. Yet they force me to use Facebook if I want to see events that are happening (and paid with my taxes).

So, sorry, but the liberal ideal paradise of "let loose and people will choose" does not work in practice, at least where I live. I need some laws to force my less tech-savvy nearby citizens to make the right choices.

[Mwntalhwalth]

In order to follow clubs the local HS puts on you have to follow their Instagram account. They put the content/updates nowhere else.

"Need to be on IG dad so I can be active in extracurricular in HS."

Mandate APIs out and this problem goes away so folks can vibe code really simple solutions that keeps you off the site.

[netsharc]

A decade ago official entities like police or city hall would say "Follow us on Twitter to get the latest news", and would just use it as an instant publication platform (well it's what it was designed for)...

[edwcross]

Yes but for local political points, they left Twitter last year, because "it was trendy". Besides, lots of old people living here, so they can't leave Facebook, otherwise the old people won't get their news!

As if they cared, most news are only useful for working people and families anyway... but oh well, they vote, they have time to complain loudly, and they have all the houses around here (because of course, why would they move to a better-suited flat place, and leave their now-too-large-for-a-couple houses so that families could move instead?), so the mayor has to be on Facebook, and not on Bluesky or Mastodon or somewhere else.

[austin-cheney]

You are falsely conflating so many things. I highly doubt your local law prevents certain people from ever accessing porn or gambling, because its absurd to enforce. More likely is that they forbid use of employer information system to access vices, which is fine.

Secondly, your local municipality isn't forcing you to access Facebook just because they put some content there.

Third, if you feel that strongly about this then go to your city counsel and demand they put their content somewhere else.

[tempodox]

Sure, let your kids buy alcohol, cocaine and heroin in every shop there is. Then see how much it helps that you ban those at home.

[CJefferson]

Because most people can't set up a DNS blocker. There are lots of things we, as a society, decide we want to ban. I think social media is closer to illegal drugs.

We don't need to let multi-billion dollar companies maximise profits while ruining people's lives. We can just decide to ban them, as a society.

[slibhb]

> Children are not emotionally or intellectually prepared to repel this hostile takeover of their minds.

Then their parents shouldn't let them use the internet.

I find it interesting that so much of how people think about morality involves attributing free will unevenly. I.e. "facebook execs" are using their free will to addict people but those people have no ability to resist. It's so obviously corrosive to think something like "only evil people have free will; good people are just hapless victims".

[KyleTheDev]

I don't really see how this applies in the specific thread? I understand your overall point, and I agree. But, here, we're talking about individuals pushing a company & its' employees towards creating what can be considered poison. They themselves would not be immune to their poison, and I'd wager plenty of them are probably equally addicted to their devices. Children will also be susceptible, and potentially more-so due to their developing brains.

I don't really see how this scenario is an uneven attribution of morality.

[inigyou]

What do you think it's like to be a child when all your friends have InstaTok and you don't?

[jhickok]

Assuming we eek thru a whirlwind of catastrophic dangers, one day we will look at this period of time with the same reaction as if we had been sprinkling lead on our cereal.

[etcimon]

All those software turds getting liquidated and replaced by open source would be the best thing for humanity altogether

[rf15]

What HUMANS do to humans. Any one of the people in power could have stopped this, and none of them did.

[imglorp]

Sort of - it's collective wrongdoing. Individuals on the street do not do this to each other. Individuals in groups justify their tiny contribution as insignificant towards the aggregate societal harm the organism does.

Leaders like Zuck, on the other hand, have no excuse.

And marketers, there's still time to save your souls and find honest work.

[intended]

Yes and no.

At the scale of these firms, it is an issue of incentives, more than it is personal responsibility.

I know that many of the people who worked in safety flagged issues. I know NGOs and victims reached out to people in the firm over and over again.

Humans wanted to do the right thing. Its just that for other humans, they had to answer to shareholders and they had a far stronger set of incentives to ensure they made “number go up”.

Your string of people doing the right thing, makes little headway in the face of the tide of other humans who have incentives to increase time on site.

[wseqyrku]

Large corporations behave very much like a typical dictatorship anywhere in the world. And I mean they are playing the exact same playbook as much as they can. Actually sometimes I don't know which one borrowed from the other. The latter is definitionally the ultimate monopoly, which looks like the annual target for those corporations.