Facebook is doing so much shady stuff to people, I wouldn't be surprised if some people took their hatred too far (I dearly do hope nobody takes it out on random employees though!).
That group of people manipulated by Trump et al just stormed the Capitol and people died. There were ~74 million who voted for Trump, how many are willing to go so far, only God knows.
Overall it had no positive spin - so no.
Also there is a difference between "This was nothing to be glad about" and "There was nothing to be glad about".
If governments spending keeps increasing, you'll probably reach a point in which it won't be that unrealistic.
There are European states in which government overreach wrecked the economy so much that anti-establishment parties got elected.
You can see trump as one meager step in that direction. I think the natural conclusion, after seeing that things are not changing by voting mainstream parties, is to actually vote someone else.
Eg. Italy and the v-day (f*k you day against politicians) which turned into the 5 star movement.
It's not a success story, nothing really changed and the party turned into the establishment (they didn't really have a plan), but it shows where people's heart is.
Right and left wing parties in Italy laughed at it at the beginning, nobody thought they would ever win.
You don't need a "citation". Off the top of my head, Greece and Italy. Just read the news regularly. The Euro has devastated the economies of several countries, and the fallout has been slowly building for the last decade. You don't have youth unemployment over 50%, lack of opportunity, lack of investment, and lack of control over your future without it having far-reaching implications. The current state of things doesn't leave much (if any) opportunity for this to be corrected. They are permanently indebted. Exiting the Eurozone and reverting to national currencies is pretty much the only answer to fix their economies.
Italy has a lot of very productive industries. But they can't compete with Germany and other northern European countries while the scales are tipped firmly against them due to their currencies being tied together via the Euro. A freely floating currency would correct that and make Italy a very promising place to invest in and export from.
Greece is a different story, and it is not entirely blameless. It should never have been allowed to join the Euro. But the cause of its economic woes is the same: its currency is tied to stronger economies with which it can't hope to complete, and that economic imbalance has caused complete devastation of its economy.
2008 was 12 years ago. How well has the Italian economy fared in the interim?
It's been stagnant ever since joining the Euro, and nothing material has changed which would improve matters, and I don't see the status quo being tenable. 2008 might not have been the tipping point, but doing something which isn't in the long term interest of people can't continue indefinitely.
> Exiting the Eurozone and reverting to national currencies is pretty much the only answer to fix their economies.
Apart from that would incur tariffs that would be far high than the trade winds exposed by the eurozone.
Having your own currency only really helps when you have a boat load of debt, and you want to inflate your way out of the problem. However that's exceptionally damaging in the medium term, especially if you have unstable leadership.
The fundamentals of italy are difficult to overcome by leaving, or blaming the eurozone. Italy has a rapidly ageing populace, and a drop in fertility. None of that is going to be fixed by leaving the euro.
Along with Andrew Yang's Democracy Dollars to wash out industrial complex lobbying $ with citizen $ by 8:1 ratio, along with Journalism Dollars to take away power from the duopoly and mainstream media to craft and perpetuate just the two main narratives they want, and ideally the Freedom Dividend/UBI to reduce the stress on people.
Yes. Since the various platforms dropped Trumps there have been threats made that were not being made beforehand, and those are threats to cause harm to people or property not just threats to leave the network (which is generally what people threatened after the other recent scandals like CA).
Those threats are probably just idiots sounding off and will never come to anything, but given recent events being careful just-in-case is quite prudent. An idiot sounding off can easily turn into an idiot taking action.
I mean, is that so weird? I have a friend who works at DWP(Department of Work and Pensions) and they are forbidden from wearing badges or any identifying work insignia outside of their buildings because of personal safety and the risk to data and equipment.
Hell, I work at a games studio and we're maybe not forbidden, but heavily discouraged from wearing company merch at conferences and such to protect ourselves(we've had several incidents in the past years where employees were targetted specifically by thieves and scammers to extract company information. I don't think it was much because of possible disgruntled players, but nowadays you never know).
I think the article is framing it as a recent development related to Trump, but I don't think it's that weird in tech world, it's just basic employee safety.
At least a decade ago I remember seeing all sorts of tech employees wearing Pride themed shirts on Caltrain during Pride weekend. That was extremely normal and absolutely no one thought anything different.
I have a friend whose NDA forbids him to tell anyone which company he works for. Because he is insured by company, and they don't want to attract kidnappers.
Kidnap and ransom insurance usually has stipulations that only very senior management on a need to know basis are told in a company.
Telling regular staff members that you have it in place can often mean the insurance company won't pay out for many reasons:
- adversaries might learn you will pay out and target your org/country specifically
-staff may act more recklessly knowing it's in place
-if you have to make payouts your premiums may go sky high or you won't get it in future
- staff may make a deal for a cut of the ransom by setting up something with a dodgy actor
- when/how K&R is paid is very very complicated. For example a ransom is never paid by insurance directly, the company must have cash to pay the ransom (which often catches them out) and they are compensated for loss of XYZ etc.
Also many people find only when they need to use it that K&R has strict rules depending on what country you get it from. Some insurance companies won't pay if the ransom is to be paid to AQ, ISIS or other sanctioned organisations. Also how the whole situation is dealt with and the ransom negotiated is important and effects the K&R payout. If the company doesn't have good corporate security etc to manage it, things can get very messy on the K&R side of things. A lot of people (esp US companies for some reason - perhaps the idealism that "sending in the SEALS" people see on TV) think somehow their government is going to be a knight in shining armour in such situations and believe me, very often they make a situation a lot lot worse.
The really disappointing thing is that I've heard some medical staff get this advice to protect themselves from angry COVID-denyer protests outside hospitals.
Yeah but that's not what downvoting is for. It cannot be surprising or offensive that not everyone in the tech _world_ has tied their identity up with the company they work for that they don't want to broadcast it - or that (as in this case) many organisations consider it better from a business/safety perspective to forbid it.
Of course, it is a sad state of affairs that it could attract violence. Someone is always going to disagree with what you do regardless of what it is, but it's a shame that that itself leads to violence.
> DWP(Department of Work and Pensions) and they are forbidden from wearing badges or any identifying work insignia outside
CIVIL SERVICE REPRESENT.
I have worked at some trendy and well thought of companies, I was proud to wear their logo. especially at trade shows.
However I don't really wear facebook stuff out, partly because they bought out the company I loved, and mostly because I really don't agree with half the stuff they do. I was really surprised with the sheer quantity of branded stuff they dish out. I don't think I'd even actively recruit for them
It doesn't help that they really can't fucking PR even if the company depends on it. Its hilarious that for a company so driven by data they can't commission a single fucking user survey to test PR and policy changes.
You're right, but I also think the main takeaway from the tech bus protests was that the resulting conversations made it plainly visible just how out of touch even the politically engaged tech workers are.
A sad state of affairs but prudent and thoughtful of FB to advise this.
I wouldn't wear West Ham gear while walking through a Millwall neighbourhood. I probably also wouldn't wear big tech stash at the heat of some super frothy political times layered on top of a pandemic and other unrest.
Maybe there's an argument about behaving indifferently as itself being a political stance but I am happy not inviting trouble to myself.
Perhaps a more germane example is that for the past five years one wouldn’t wear Trump branded apparel in many parts of virtually every major US city unless part of a large group.
The sports analogy is quite good though. For the vast majority it’s just red team vs blue team based on identity and emotion with precious little ratiocination.
So they’re saying the response right now looks like the response immediately after 9/11. Ie mobilizing a whole of government effort to stamp out a home grown terrorist threat. (Per cable news this AM.) This news and other social media news reinforce this being a large response.
In that case, I would urge people to remain patient and avoid making conclusions and long term decisions based on this response. It’s likely things ease up once “calm” is restored.
I wonder how long it will take to restore calm? People have been talking up armed insurrection in some form for as long as I've been on the internet. This stuff that used to appear in mass shooter manifestoes is now everywhere. And it's not a group with identifiable leaders, it's more a "stochastic terrorism" thing. Both "advocating revolution" and "owning weapons" are protected activities under the US constitution, so how do you identify the actual terrorists?
Well a good start might be to address a lot of these concerns.
Whether they want to or not, politicians and the ultra wealthy are going to have to get out of bed together. The affair is over, if for no other reason then their own physical safety, then at least for their financial safety.
If income inequality continues and there's less and less available jobs for working age men, those men will find something to occupy their time, and I promise you, it won't be selling wood carvings on Etsy. I cannot remember where I heard this, and I'm going to butcher the quote, but it went a little something like, "When you take away a man's ability to earn his way, you turn him into a revolutionary." I'm almost certain I got that wrong, but that's the gist of it. We need a huge jobs program and we need one now. An enormous infrastructure bill would be a good start to calming down a lot of this nonsense. Employed people with disposable income rarely want to upend the system.
If we continue down this path, then the cold civil war that we're seeing waged mostly on the Internet, but occasionally out in the open, is going to turn into a hot one. And I guarantee you, if things escalate, you'll find Russia taking advantage of this by sending groups of their special operators to train these people, because no one in the world has more experience with urban warfare than Russia. And if you think that the American military is entirely unsympathetic to these people, you are starkly and dangerously wrong.
EDIT: And yes, I've been hearing / reading / seeing references to the "boogaloo" for years now. It seems we might be facing it sooner, rather than later.
Are you kidding me? Donald Trump's election was a big "fuck you" to the system. They absolutely want to upend the system. The system isn't working for them, and they know it.
If the system was working, wages wouldn't be stagnant for 50 years. Housing prices wouldn't have nearly quadrupled. College education prices wouldn't have nearly... you know what, I don't even know the correct modifier... gone up by 5000%. In 1971, CEO pay was at best 30-40 times the median salary of an employee at a company. If you made $10,000 a year, the CEO might make $300,000-400,000. The very best CEOs rarely made multi-millions.
This is not a sustainable system.
The problem is, these people don't really have the education to know how to attack the system to correctly dismantle it (in fact, it might not even be possible to dismantle it from a non-violent / institutional standpoint, but that's another conversation), so they instead riot and install Viking Pepe as their leader.
People respond to incentives, incentives are created by systems, and systems aren't put into place by one single person. The "actors" that created many of the problems we suffer under are dead or dying - or quite simply, too rich and powerful to be easily or effectively held accountable.
I think I'm being downvoted because most of us that post here on HN are either thoroughly entrenched in the system in some way, or we're elevated beyond these problems which mostly affect poorly educated lower class people.
We have tons of FAANG employees that post here, tons of wealthy entrepreneurs, lots of startup founders, etc. None of us really have jack shit in common with poor disenfranchised people. But we better start making it a priority to look into, else I fear we're going to find ourselves in a very unenviable position.
I edited my comment after I posted it as I knew I didn't express myself properly, but I must have screwed it up. And now I don't really remember what I meant to say.
Echoes of BLM protests in which most violent actors were white [0], i.e. not a member of the group in whose name they did violence.
Could be many reasons for this. I’d speculate that no matter the political leaning, some fraction of people are always looking for excuses to be violent, and will readily deploy others’ grievances to this end.
> there's less and less available jobs for working age men, those men will find something to occupy their time
I am going through lists of Capitol stormers. I am finding cops, former firefighters, former officers, teachers, real estate agents, professors, lawyers, CEOS, etc. If anything, these people have some of the better jobs. I am sure there are unemployed people in there and there is selection bias, but it is hardly exclusive.
I think you're focusing on the storming of the Capitol itself and not the over-arching sentiment that even makes such an event possible.
As a species, we're not exactly martyrs. Its the reason one man with a shotgun can hold 26 people hostage. At best, if every person bum rushed him, he might get 2-4 shots off. That's the absolute best case scenario. The logical thing to do is a coordinated attack, because then you ensure the safety of the group instead of your individual safety.
So it goes with this. If hundreds of people were willing to storm the Capitol, its because hundreds of thousands - possibly even millions - have the same sentiment, but for whatever reason - distance, fear of reprisal, etc. - couldn't physically be there.
I think that incident was 1) just the start of many more riots / clashes and 2) evidence of much larger, broader problem that we need to solve.
> And if you think that the American military is entirely unsympathetic to these people, you are starkly and dangerously wrong
This is a serious problem. Either the incoming democrat administration lets it fester and be "protected" by people who will cheerfully discuss their murder, or they carry out what could accurately be described as an ideological "purge".
Perpetuated by whom? Why would anyone involved want to blame unemployed men? Those who support storming the Capitol wouldn't want to portray themselves as "frustrated, unemployed men," and those who oppose it wouldn't want to blame a supposedly innocent group. Where does the perception come from?
There are groups with identifiable leaders. You could even see groups in uniforms, trained and organized. Basically the same thing as with Islamic terrorist groups.
That's not always protected, depending on how you're defining it. Seditious conspiracy is a major felony.[1]
A person is allowed to speak generally about political change. "Trump is a jerk, we should throw him out!" would probably be protected.
"Trump is a jerk, we should march to the WH after work today and physically remove him" might not be protected (though the bar to conviction would be pretty high - government would probably have to prove you actually meant to do so, not just "making noise").
Indeed - so the Q movement has been pushing further and further towards this, and has finally hit the point where there will be some kind of legal pushback.
The trick to stochastic terrorism is to incite other people to do it without quite overstepping the arrestable line yourself. A sort of distributed "Nuremberg defense".
Please stop with this fake thought-crime "stochastic terrorism." It's not clever, no matter how much Anderson Cooper loves to say it. People are responsible for their own actions.
> In that case, I would urge people to remain patient and avoid making conclusions and long term decisions based on this response. It’s likely things ease up once “calm” is restored.
Just like airport security theatre and the PATRIOT Act were eased up after 9/11?
You're being downvoted but you aren't wrong. It's starting to look like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.
A friend of mine runs a social media brand that calls out men who post nasty comments on female strength athletes profiles, she simply screenshots them and posts them to the brand as well as making memes of the horrific things.
She's shared screenshots of people wishing violent sexual assault against underage girls just beacuse they are a strength athlete, and instead of that person getting banned for advocating the rape of a minor, she gets a 3 day, week, 30 day ban from Facebook and/or Instagram for simply screenshotting and reposting a public comment. You can see some of these awful things screenshotted, as well as her various bans, on https://www.instagram.com/you.look.like.a.man/
Or they you remove a politician, or something like Info Wars for saying absolutely insane/dangerous things and then all the fans "overstepping! You're overstepping!" meanwhile everyone else is "it's about bloody time!"
I would absolutely hate to be the leadership at any social media platform. Even things like nudity, I've seen several burlesque friends have posts removed and temporary bans issued for topless women with pasties covering their nipples on digital flyers advertising their next show, meanwhile I once saw a woman breastfeeding to a club song while sexually fondling her bare breast that wasn't being used to breast feed with millions of views on Facebook and tens of thousands of comments that was months old...
Not only is there no consistency in how such things are applied, but when they do get applied people freak out for various reasons.
Like Sam Altman (/u/sama) said a few days ago:
>There are exemptions to free speech defined by the Supreme Court, and we urgently need new ones for the age of social media.
>What those exceptions are should be decided by the government, and fairly applied by companies.
The comment you replied to reads a lot like whataboutism to me. But your comment is very informative and highlights the predicament we're all facing.
As an extreme, all social media could be pushed offline temporarily in the US - assuming that were feasible. Another extreme is doing absolutely no censoring of anyone. I think we largely would be best served with very little censorship, but even Mark Zuckerberg states proper oversight of his platform is ... “difficult.”
Personally, I remember being a kid and taking the internet too seriously one day. My friends quickly corrected me with “the internet is full of lies.” And I’ve forever taken what I read and saw on it with a huge grain of salt - basically assuming it’s wrong until verified through out of bands ways and means. Ie if someone I loved posted something deeply unsettling I’d call or visit them to see how they were doing. I’d probably not say anything on their actual post. If it looked like something about my car registration, I’d check with the MVD directly and not using any links in the email. Possibly a way to do this as citizens would be to start by reading the constitution and its amendments. Or, at the very least, make a mental decision to severely discount the use of the internet for information and authority.
Well, yes. People have been complaining that Facebook and twitter will protect certain kinds of abuse while removing other people for complaining about it for a while. It is known that reporting systems can be manipulated by politically motivated reports. That's the side effect of the ongoing culture war; before people showing up at the Capitol with zip ties, it was people searching Facebook for burlesque acts to maliciously report. Or using the "real names" policy against trans people.
It was never going to be possible to be neutral forever in the culture war. Which is why people were asking for Facebook to pick sides earlier, and deliberately, before e.g. the Rohingya genocide.
This is terrorizing people all across the country. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it since 9/11. I actually think the impact is far greater because it’s all over the country. At least post 9/11, you didn’t need to worry so much if you lived outside of urban areas. Now you are seeing white nationalist militia groups holding some type of “protests” all over America. Yes, even in small towns. This is the very definition of terrorism and it’s quickly spreading.
In fairness the 101 days of utter lawlessness in Portland, and the weeks - months of riots that resulted in burning down businesses and public buildings, many of which the rioters themselves paid for and will pay for again when they're rebuilt, were mostly contained in a few locations across the nation.
That fear mongering brought things like patriot act and the sentiment that every Muslim is a threat to the West, I would refrain from that type of hysterical comments.
"Holding protests" is something different from storming congress and holding zip locks and different forms of weapons in order to assault elected officials.
And then being cheered by different media and the president.
The comment I was replying to mentioned groups protesting all over America. It was not a direct reference to the events in DC. If we're talking about groups holding protests, this is not terrorism.
It is just common sense. If I wear clothing branded with my company's logo then I could be held accountable for my actions outside of work, even if I am doing the right thing and it is perceived to bring the company into disrepute, I could be disciplined or potentially fired.
> Is it possible to do the right thing and be working at Facebook?
Yes.
> I think we can take as a given that every engineer at Facebook could easily get a job elsewhere. To be a Facebook employee is a conscious choice.
yes, but loosing a lot of benefits.
> should you avoid working at companies that are a net negative, or should you stay there to try to improve them?
Thats two questions. And it's been on my mind for about a year now. I was bought out. The tech we make could be a brilliant tool for mankind, or if deployed incorrectly, commoditised stasi/KGB/Chinese secret police as a service. I don't want it to be the latter. If I leave there will be less voices of dissent.
FB is a whipping boy. There are things that it should rightly be criticised for: not adhering to its own ToS for celebrities. Not enforcing age restrictions for instagram, not having enough diversity in its India operation. Myanmar.
The difference between FB and the rest of SV is that FB has an utterly utterly shit PR team, who sits apart from the company. They love sniffing their own farts. (for example I only found out how many small companies advertise on FB when I joined. yet they reference this heavily only once, and expect a single full page advert to win people over.)
Let us not forget that whilst FB is a data dustpan and brush, Google, Amazon, Apple, and your ISP are data hoovers. most of FB's data is collected willingly. The stuff your phone snitches on you every minute is extra ordinary. Amazon is literally selling a live feed of your front door to the police.
I don't seek to admonish Facebook of its failings. They should be fucking hauled through the shit. But, we should also start to look at other companies, especially with the rise of AR.
I have seen that disclosure. Its a wonderful bit of spin there. Apple's PR is really good, it allows signal to piggy back like a champ.
You can uninstall messenger/instagram/fb. you can't easily stop apple or google snooping your location, health, finance and contact information and use your phone.
Facebook don't have access to my location, health, financial, search or browsing history. I know because I did a GDPR request. Depending on where you live, you can do the same.
Your first answer is ethically debatable in a way that entirely depends on what is perceived to be "right". I'm not sure it's as clear cut as anyone would want it to be, but your approach is consistent with a specific kind of definition from what you're saying in your third answer.
Your second answer is just a question of comfort. Similar to questions around ecology, making a choice one considers "right" might mean that you value that choice enough that the loss of benefits isn't a net loss to you. Much like with climate change, doing good things is hardly valued at all in terms of ethics in the current way tech does anything though.
And I agree with you that all companies should be scrutinized heavily, and it's possible that Facebook just has become the symbol of that behaviour in all of tech.
However (1) other people doing worse things is not really an excuse that's valid in itself ("I murdered somebody but there are serial killers out there!"), (2) facebook does a whole lot of dirty work especially in poorer countries like in Myanmar where it became ubiquitous by being pre-installed on smartphones and has become THE central information (and misinformation) hub of its own volition, and (3) you're pointing out AR and the most significant actor of that field currently is Facebook itself.
> Your first answer is ethically debatable in a way that entirely depends on what is perceived to be "right"
Indeed, I am not a moral absolutist. Its an abstract question, in which the answer tells more about the person rather than the state of morals as a whole. I must point out that I feel and know that I have compromised my morals by working at FB. That aside it is perfectly possible to work at $company and do good. There are plenty examples of resistors and rule benders that have helped people from the "inside" of terrible regimes.
I don't want to belittle Facebook's moral failings. But I am worried that shitting on facebook is being seen as fixing the problem. That was my intention, not to throw a dead cat on the table and run away.
Myanmar Is a special case. I don't think facebook actively caused the issue, but their in-attention made it worse. My (limited) understanding is that Facebook was acting like the local radio stations in the Rwanda genocide. Again, if FB had placed resources when first alerted, they might have been able to temper the spread.
India is my area of concern. The leadership there all come from the same schools, know the same people and think the same negative things about their Muslim neighbours. (this is a simplification of course) Some changes have been made, not least because of internal pressure.
on point 3, yes. AR worries me, but not because Facebook are making it.
For it to work for facebook, they have to work 10 times harder than anyone else to prove that its safe. Which I think is valid, my only wish is that same level of scepticism is applied to _all_ players. AR _needs_ to be safe, because it is so invasive. The problem comes when AR manufactures start allowing Apps. At that point all hell breaks loose.
You know what, I started by writing that I don't think Facebook has to do 10x the work but as I was going through examples of behaviour from Apple, MS, Google, and even worse (the absolute crappy companies outside of big tech like Equifax), I actually tend to agree with you.
I think ultimately all of big tech is on a downwards slope in terms of trust from society, but Facebook just got caught earlier stepping in that direction and is therefore a little bit lower already, thus your comment about making more efforts to go back up the well.
The real PR and lobby guys that all of big tech should hire are the Equifax ones, because whatever damn magic those terrible people managed to concoct has allowed them to get away with what is basically one of the worst fuck ups in history and STILL manage to make people pay for a thing that is mandatory in North America.
Some people are proud of what they do, and happy to do it.
I know two engineers from Lockheed-Martin's Skunkworks with whom I had served in the Navy, and they proudly wear LM polo shirts. They're doing interesting work, work that might benefit the entirety of humanity. I would be proud to work there too.
Or it's some cloth and keeps me warm. Lol I don't care much about my company but I wear it around the house. (I don't like the potential attention in public)
I have a co-worker that lives up in Cobb County, GA. One day he came to work about being approached by some men while he was at Waffle House for breakfast, because he was wearing a SnowFlake t-shirt.
I am an x-Facebook employee. In the early days I used to be proud wearing Facebook swag. Later it bacame more and more an issue. People started making comments on feature X or policy Y they didn't like. I eventually didn't wear any swag in public, this is when I've realized I need to leave the company.
Facebook is still a great place to work but the brand is so damaged that it's hard to see how they gain consumer trust again.
As a consumer company it means any new product (libra, unified family of apps etc..) will fail because of that.
So the people aren't responsible. But "Facebook", being a corporation and not a human, has no moral or ethical basis at all and exists entirely to make money.
So by this calculus, all guilt, blame and responsibility is just waved away. They're only following orders, all the way to the top, where management are simply rationally trying to maximize revenue for stockholders, who also have no liability.
Using the Greysteil Graywashing System™, any crime may be committed and no one is ever held responsible!
Your response is hyperbole. Why does it have to be all or nothing? Just because not everyone should be held accountable for a large company’s decisions, doesn’t mean that no one should be.
Maybe someone sees it as an opportunity to learn from the talent around them, or enjoys the small piece that they’re working on.
But not everyone in a company that is less than favorable with a given population should be judged equally.
Godwin's law just says that as the length of a discussion increases, the probability of a nazi comparison approaches 1. It says nothing about that even being a problem, much less losing the argument. Even better: as the length of a discussion increases, the probability of any comparison, any string of words, any combination of letters, "approaches 1". Something you can say about anything you might as well say about nothing.
People heard the meme a lot, so they think it has weight without actually having thought about it. Encouraging people to reveal this about themselves, with pride no less, is the singular useful property GL has.
> The reputation of people working there still is damaged
Most people need a job in order to continue to eat and to buy shoes for their children. They can't just quit. I don't judge anyone for working the job they can get.
This is the problem with tech interviewing - it's so incredibly fickle that even someone with a senior job at a prestigious place doing practical work may not be able to pass an abstract problem-solving whiteboard interview somewhere else.
That senior developer at a "prestigious place" can find a job that'll pay the bills, though, without working at A Name You've Heard Of. They have other choices; they just might not be choices that are as cool. (Darn?)
If they consider Facebook cool, they don't seem to have an ethics issue with Facebook in the first place ...
(And yeah, some of the Tech they do is cool and there are only few places with such demand for technical solutions for that large scale of operation, but there's cool tech elsewhere as well)
Not even less than a week ago, there was a thread about how to "nail the Facebook interview" and how it is kind of expected to cram and prep for these "abstract problem-solving whiteboard interview"
If there is one thing that Facebook developers should not have an issue with, it's in passing these kind of processes.
I'd worry about the opposite: if the typical image of a Facebook employee is of a drone suited at "studying to the test", working at a company with zero ethical principles and justifying it by the good money, then how will they be able to adapt to a more value-based job?
> it is kind of expected to cram and prep for these "abstract problem-solving whiteboard
Well exactly - they may now have family commitments such as caring for people that make cramming impossible even if it was possible before.
> If there is one thing that Facebook developers should not have an issue with, it's in passing these kind of processes.
But they may have passed their interview a decade ago at this point. They may have also come in via an acquisition and so not formally interviewed at all if they come from an early startup.
You can take someone who passes an interview at Google but fails at Facebook, and vice-versa. These interviews are so incredibly astronomically tough and so subtle and fickle that it's no guarantee to be able to move.
You are missing the point. I am trying to argue that these people self-select. If they are at Facebook occupying a white-collar job, it is very likely that they share the ethics of the company. The challenge for those (rare) people that want to leave Facebook (or any FAANG, really) due to a realignment of personal values will be in finding a place where they can prove that they are not just a mindless robotic drone like Zuck, not their technical chops.
often these companies will not hire their own janitors, but contract a another company that doesn’t give them the same expensive benefits as the regular employees
That is true in the legal framework. In practical terms the Janitor however will say "I work at Facebook" (as long as they are proud of the brand) not "i work at sublease janitorial management corp" in a social situation as Facebook is where they are. And going back to the original article: Even such contractors sometimes get corporate swag at such places.
True, they go even further like most large tech companies, security(physical), IT, food chefs/preparers, even alot of recruiters are all permanent contractors.
Not just the IRL jannies, but the ones who police the platform too. They are contractors who make minimum wage and are exposed to horrors every single day with little psychological support.
In general, that's true, but I'm guessing the majority of Facebook employees (at least the technical ones) are highly employable at other tech companies.
People are not working at Facebook because they don't have other options.
This is not some last resort, minimum wage, no other options work.
People spend weeks or months preparing for interview and then some of them move to the other end of country to work there. In fact it's pain in the ass to get job there, so people there really want to be there, and jump through hoops to get there.
They are plenty other related job's that will keep your family fed and clothed. People are not working at Facebook because they don't have other options.
There are plenty of people on this planet that have hard time putting food on the table and clothes on their children, equating them with Facebook employs that make 150k+ is just wrong
> People spend weeks or months preparing for interview and then some of them move to the other end of country to work there.
Right, so that's what it takes to get a tech job. And if you can't do that anymore (maybe you're a carer for example), you'll struggle to get a new job.
> Right, so that's what it takes to get a tech job. And if you can't do that anymore (maybe you're a carer for example), you'll struggle to get a new job.
No that's what it takes to get one of the best paying tech jobs on the planet.
If you lower your criteria there are plenty of other tech jobs that demand less, and compensate less.
that's because Facebook is still a very sought-after tech job... I'm in Atlanta and there's tech jobs out the wazoo (Delta, Home Depot, IHG, Turner, etc. etc.) and then there's new tech companies like Calendly, MailChimp, SalesLoft etc. etc. — all of which are easier to score a job AND don't carry the scarlet letter type of branding
Facebook's is in an unenviable position: They tried to commoditize user-data to go after Google which back-fired. They tried long and hard to not be sole arbitrators for content moderation and were squarely blamed for it. They do take a stance to de-platform the most powerful person in the World but are now in the cross-hairs of every conservative as well. The left-wing obviously would like them regulated to oblivion... They have always been between a rock and a hard place post IPO.
Kind of gives perspective to how long Google (with Android, YouTube, Groups, GMail, GSuite, GCP) has managed to go relatively untarnished (as a brand) but Facebook couldn't.
> Kind of gives perspective to how long Google [...] has managed to go relatively untarnished
I reckon that's because Google largely works on pull models: you ask for something and G gives it to you. Its services superficially appear like databases just sitting there, even if we know that's not the case.
FB and Twitter, on the other hand, largely work on push models: you log on and the app will give you stuff to look at, as well as notifying you incessantly. It easier to perceive the app's own agency and priorities.
In this sense, it explains why Google tends to get heat over Youtube: because it's closer to a push model, both with homepage and suggestions.
Also, Google services are largely useful to get stuff done, in a way FB and Twitter are not. That gives G a big pass.
However you frame it, Google are showing you things you want to see - it's an affirmative feed back mechanism.
Facebook at best do that. Frequently they show you things you don't care about. Also things you don't want. It's an adversarial feedback mechanism.
In this light it's not surprising Facebook has earned a lot more ire a lot more quickly - though not undeservedly either.
On some level this still feels like you can squarely pin it on "optimizing for engagement". I highly doubt Facebook would be earning the anger it currently does if The Feed has remained a simple linear timeline. They were functionally getting into editorializing when they went with the new thing.
Google Search is trending in the same direction and could easily end in the same place, with search results skewed to support (or suppress) particular narratives and ideological beliefs. Look at the "ML Fairness" debates and ask yourself whether their workforce will at some point decide that they have a moral obligation not to present the raw content of the internet for a given topic, but rather to elevate the "correct" content.
Google absolutely could show me whatever maximizes "engagement" instead of what I want to see too. I wouldn't use Facebook if there wasn't something I wanted to see there (and there almost isn't now, I just use it for some groups, and messenger - the feed is useless now, but it hasn't always been).
Interesting observation. Just imagine if google search was more engagement driven. It’s pretty great that it is only so to a small degree (in the sense of figuring out what links people are most likely to have been searching for, which is sort of a case of that positive feedback loop in engagement systems)
Honestly I'm not sure they could: unlike The Feed which is something you look at when you're bored, search results don't benefit much from the normal click maximizers - i.e. "What you read next will SHOCK you!" isn't a useful result when I'm searching "difference between lawnmower blades".
We're basically there already as far SEO spam goes, and Google goes to some efforts to try and minimize that because it's a bad search experience and drives people away.
Facebook was a lot more pleasant to use before the feed went nuts. It was nice to log in and wonder what somebody was up to, then click the link to their profile to see what they had posted. It was a long time ago though
> Facebook is still a great place to work but the brand is so damaged that it's hard to see how they gain consumer trust
"trust" is not meaningful where the whole purpose of Facebook is to profile people in order to influence (=manipulate) them through advertising and promoted content, and sell their data to third parties for other kinds of (mis)use.
That is what Facebook is about, in terms of its commercial model; it's not as though they're claiming something else and ask you to "trust" them.
(and of course, there's the small matter of letting the US government eavesdrop on all communications.)
Not to discount your experience, but IMHO this is a pretty niche opinion. Most of my friends and family seem to be either oblivious to any issues with Facebook, or at most be concerned about X or Y but unwilling to part with their network.
I tried to dig up some stats, and the best I could find was a survey by The Verge[1] from Dec 2019:
According to the survey, 71% of people had a favorable opinion of Facebook, and 75% think Facebook has a positive or neutral impact on society.
However, Facebook scored relatively worse than most other brands surveyed (except Twitter), so you may be onto something. It's also possible that it's worsened in the past year.
If 10% of people think Facebook is the root of all that's evil, you are likely to have some awkward conversations regardless of what 70% of people think. It doesn't take a majority of people to make things awkward/ ugly, just a vocal minority.
Also, I suspect developers and knowledge workers are more likely to dislike Facebook. It doesn't matter what the cashier at Safeway thinks. If your friends and acquaintances hate Facebook, it's going to feel a lot worse. And if you are a developer or designer, it's likely you have a fair number of friends who are developers.
It's not the 90% of oblivious people who are the problem.
It's not even the 10% of "woke" digital people who are the problem. We probably need to talk about issues more in this country.
It's the <1% of those "woke" digital people who will gun you down at the local grocery store because you work at Facebook who are the problem. In the end, it's always the extremists that represent the threat, and therefore oblige the appropriate security posture.
> It's the <1% of those "woke" digital people who will gun you down
Eh... no, I wasn't talking about anyone "gunning you down", the linked article is. I was just talking awkward conversations and getting the side-eye for working for the country's #1 douche.
I mean... yeah the 1% issue is likely bigger now, but this will blow over. Your buddies who think you sold your soul to the devil for a couple bucks will be around for years.
I have a red hat that says "make Orwell fiction again" on it that I haven't worn in years. Most people will either grumble to themselves and ignore it or read it and realize it's not what it looks like at first glance. I'm still not dumb enough to wear it on the Boston subway. Your buddies might think you sold your soul but they also aren't gonna dump a coffee on your or sucker punch you.
Going rate seems to be about $20 (and if Amazon isn't your thing I bet Ebay and all the other usual suspects have them too). If that's worth it to troll people IRL is up to you.
While I can understand why that 10% would make someone unwilling to work there, until now I doubt that 10% caused brand damage that caused their products to fail.
A good comparison would be Nestlé. For decades now, a vocal minority have been calling for boycotts over their unethical methods, like with formula or or labor practices. Yet most people still happily buy Kit Kats.
>As a consumer company it means any new product (libra, unified family of apps etc..) will fail because of that.
I've seen multiple, separate parties see the commercials for Portal and be mildly interested in the product until it's revealed that it's by Facebook, and then they laugh and completely dismiss it a la "not a chance in hell I'm trusting Facebook to X".
I'd be curious to see how well they're selling (or not).
I was messaged by a Libra(now called Diem?) teams recruiter, went to the site[1] and thought in the back of my head, isn't this the facebook crypto-currency?
I looked through it and saw no mention of facebook or zuckerberg or even any facebook execs. I knew David Marcus is/was a facebook exec, but even he is listed as head of Novi[2]. That right there tells you how damaged that brand(facebook) is when their crytocurrency project doesn't list the company or the CEO(zuckerberg). Needless to say I said thanks, no thanks to that recruiter.
also makes me really question the "a facebook" app thing they put prominently into the whatsapp startup screen. I've heard it was literally just Zuckerberg's ego being damaged because it became so popular compared to the blue app but it seems like a bad move
My understanding is they added this for legal reasons. Users were not aware Instagram and WhatsApp were owned by Facebook and legislators had issue with that.
I'm sure it's not just me, but I loathe branding on clothing. It's frustrating when I'm shopping and every second item has a brand name, logo, or some graphic clearly visible. I think this comes from living in a society where people are judged if they don't wear the correct label.
That’s just not true at all. <s>Okay maybe not specifically logos</s> (Edit: actually no, the statement still stands even if we talk specifically about logos) but many luxury brands have very distinct patterns covering their apparel, so much so that an entire item would be a sea of “logos”. See Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel, etc. for example.
Lol... Have you ever seen a Louis Vuitton bag or Supreme clothes? I mean, maybe is low tier to millionaires but people usually wants just the logo because others will know is expensive and they ""can"" afford it... Or maybe I didn't get the point xD
I'm not into shopping for clothes much, but I'm comparing the level of logo-ing I saw in high end stores like Hugo/CK/Zegna in NYC or London to logos at places like Macys/mall stores/etc. I've seen the cheaper Armani branded stuff that has Armani Exchange written all over or the Louis Vuitton stuff, but typically, they also have higher priced products that aren't branded.
I am probably wrong about outerwear, as much of it does seem logo'd, even the higher end ones.
Uniqlo is one of the few stores I'll shop from because they don't have the the logos and are decent quality for the price.
I guess I should clarify my statement to be that the more gratuitous a logo, the less I think of the quality of the product. For example, I imagine Gucci is trying to cash in on its name, or people wanting to show off their willingness to spend money rather than it being a good jacket.
In (technical) outerwear things with no labels it seems are either low end(uniqlo, rei white label etc) or you end up paying a super premium for unbranded stuff. Think Veilance(Arcteryx), or Acronym.
Maybe focusing on price is not the best metric here, after all when talking luxury items the price has no direct relation with the physical product almost by definition. In this domain of purchasing, "higher end" means high class, not just expansive.
In a sense, Gucci and Vitton are what low class people think rich people wear. Kind of like Trump thinks being rich is shitting in gold toilets.
Of course, this contempt of "tacky luxury" is in itself a form of signaling among a certain class.
Yes, they sell to different clientele. The Ralph Lauren/Lacoste/Calvin Klein/etc clothing that has gratuitous logos is basically a different product than their higher end products. You won't even see it sold in the same stores as the higher end clothing.
Luxury brands also frequently sacrifice a brand every few years and drop it down the "status" level, such as Michael Kors/YSL/etc, and you will start seeing low quality product with the huge labels slapped over it sold in stores like Macys where they wouldn't have been seen before.
Zara/H&M/Uniqlo are nice in that they sell non logo'd utilitarian clothing at the lowest cost (I'm a big fan).
As an alternative, sew your own patch over it. There are plenty to choose from in craft stores, on Etsy, even department stores probably have a few inoffensive ones, if they have sewing supplies.
A blank patch looks sort of conspicuous, but a cute little non-corporate owl or fox will look like it's meant to be there.
Sure you can remove something that's just simply stitched onto a garment, I remove most of the tags from a lot of my clothing that way. The stitches usually need to be removed from many of my pants pockets too, so I'm very familiar with removing stitches.
However, the vast majority of logos I see on clothes are actually part of the clothing, that's what I meant by "stitched in." I realize now, via Google, I meant "embroidered on."
EDIT: Just went through my closet and I found there's another large category of logos that are screen printed on. There were zero I personally saw that could be removed with a knife without heavily damaging the fabric. Maybe men's clothing is different.
I'm one of these anti-logo folks (a severe case, I dislike text as an aesthetic and won't get anything with writing or symbols). I know, you're thinking "how can I find clothes without all that stuff?" And I'm here to tell you, it's simple: there are fewer choices to consider. See a rack full of a brand that thinks its logo is more appealing than your personal brand? Keep moving. Less choices, less option paralysis, less time shopping.
With men's clothes, you can buy plain shirts, socks, etc in 3-packs (there's few choices, but few are needed). Women's clothes tend offer more unbranded options, unless you're buying athletic wear or a purse. Casual shoes generally suck in this regard, for men and women.
This has been getting more difficult, of late. It used to be that logos were embroidered on tags or patches, which were then stitched onto the clothes. But with embroidery robots and the rise of counterfeiting, companies are making it more difficult to remove their brands.
edit: but practically? Thrift shops have a wealth of logo-free stuff
What I've found since I started avoiding visibly branded clothing is that a lot of small vendors of organic/ethical/sustainable clothing seem to share my aversion to visible branding. At worst, they'll have the logos on tags sewn onto the clothing, instead of embroidered or printed on.
I've grown less & less tolerant of logos around me over the years. To the point where I will turn containers around throughout my house so I don't have to look at them. I prefer to think of products in terms of their utility, not whichever abstract group of execs currently owns their marketing. I'm sick and tired of giving advertising free rent in my head.
I've stuck some painter's tape over the logos that are in my face all day long, like on my workstation display. Might be a little bit excessive but it feels good to exercise some control over my environment.
Black tape. I have it on multiple items in front of me right now. It fixes annoying blue lights as well as logos, and black tape on black plastic is almost invisible.
For my laptop I use metallic tape as that was one of the few where the light would not shine through it. It also look quite natural on it.
For the most overt ones - prime example is Louis Vuitton - it's about protecting their design. That is, you cannot copyright or patent a design (e.g. the cut of clothing), but what they did instead is plaster their things with iconography that CAN be trademarked.
Basically they made their brand / labels part of the "identity" of the outfit. I mean you can get a $5 or a $50 or a $500 polo shirt, for the most part they'll be the same but the more expensive ones will have the alligator or guy on a horse on them. The practical differences between them are minimal, and in terms of production it's a few dollars (at most) difference.
LV stuff being leather the costs of an equivalent quality knockoff(if such a thing exists) aren't dirt cheap like cotton. The heavily branded stuff(monogram canvas) tends to be on the lower end, entry level luxury aimed at a more aspirational purchaser.
Upper end LV and more expensive luxury leather good concerns are more understated, sort of a 'if you know you know' thing -- Hermes, Celine, Bottega maybe, etc. A Birkin in a non exotic leather with normal hardware is not a very flashy loud bag(unless you know it). There's still a lot of status signaling and striver insecurity in this(it is fashion after all) but it's slightly more covert and these people are nominally concerned about ostentatious branded stuff being 'tacky.' The social ideal is less about flashy spending and more imitating serious old money who "just want to pay for the highest quality"(though this is, imo, fiction). Can't look like you're trying.
Branding seems mostly about vanity. People often say that they don't care about popular brands and yet the popular brands remain popular. Perhaps we're more vain that we think.
Clothes without branding are sold in less fancy stores or look less cool; often customers are not actually willing to buy them.
I care about brands. For one, it’s easier to distinguish quality items because certain brands make it easy. For example if I see LL Bean branded boots on sale I know they’ll likely be of higher quality than no name Walmart ones.
I don’t care about it having specific labels on it. In fact I would like to not have those for the most part. But knowing that you are buying genuine Converse shoes might be nice vs knock offs.
I used to think this but my experiences have not backed that up. Bought my first $1k jacket (Paul Smith). It took me a while to work up to that but I had mental list of features I wanted (belt, pockets for hands, flip up collar, certain style) and this one had them so a friend pointed out it would last years so $1k not really that much divided by years of use. It developed a whole in the pocket within 4 weeks of purchase as well as the hanger loop in the collar broke in the same amount of time. I've never owned a jacket that broke that fast.
Similarly I talked myself into Rimowa Air Salsa suitcase $699 vs the < $150 stuff I'd always bought previously. It was lighter than other so can fit more loot. Two flights later a wheel came off. Took it in for repair at Rimowa, next flight it came off again. Took it in again. Worked for a few flights but next time it came off Rimowa couldn't fix it in time for my return flight so they forwarded me to a local fix it shop at my expense. They fixed that particular wheel better than Rimowa (screw instead of glue) but a few more flights and a different wheel came off.
Similar issues with Schott jackets.
So at least for me, expensive brand != quality. It just equals expensive and possibly in a style I like.
It certainly depends on the brand but I’ll give you two counter examples. First, I have two charcoal Weber grills. One of them had rusted and lost one of the moving pieces. Bad news. Good news: I was able to cheaply source replacement parts. A no name grill in that situation would get tossed and a whole new grill would need to be bought to replace it.
Second, motorcycle gear. I know that TCX is going to have better boots than TourMaster. I know that a Shoei helmet is going to be better than a Walmart helmet. Is everything they put out perfect? No. But I can trust the brand overall.
And as a bonus, rock climbing equipment. I would much rather buy a Black Diamond or a Perzl carabiner than a Chinese knock off.
Clothing is somewhat harder this way but still, I am very happy with my Smart Wool socks and LL Bean insulated jeans vs something from Old Navy or similar.
I generally think it depends on how they do the branding. I generally wear simple black clothing, though I'll very occasionally choose something grey. I tend not to have much selection in stores, especially in women's clothing. If someone wants to put a small brand on their buttons, a pocket, or something similarly small and non-intrusive, I might just go with it if the clothing fits my requirements.
I'm still not going to wear obvious logos in general, and not wearing prints saves me from the most obvious stuff - and some things can't be avoided as easily. I'm not going to replace the backpacks I have: They were free and functional. I also sometimes have branded shoes because comfort is more important than a logo.
There's a bunch of online stores now which sell very cheap plain-color clothing. Once you have your sizes figured out it becomes very simple to keep replacing things - my biggest problem these days is determining what cotton-weight I want my next 10 T-shirts to be in.
The fastest spinners in the world used to take 13 days 8hrs a day of labor to spin enough thread to make one pair of jeans. A 200 thread count bed sheet would take 59 days. And neither of those include the time turning that thread into fabric.
Alternatively, you could buy higher quality items instead of bulk-buying cheap throwaway clothing. If you have to buy your t-shirts in bulk, that sounds to be like they wear out way too fast.
Instead of buying cheap cotton shirts in bulk, try buying a few good merino wool t-shirts from a responsible manufacturer, locally produced under much better labor conditions. It will also impact the environment less, partly because cotton production uses ridiculous amounts of water and partly because you're not having products shipped to you from halfway around the globe.
A merino wool t-shirt will be more comfortable, last longer and be more resistant to dirt and odors, as well as regulate temperature much better. For normal day-to-day use, you can alternate between two shirts. Hang the shirt in the bathroom while you shower, then air it out in your bedroom for 24h. You'll find that it doesn't hold on to odors, because the wool isn't absorbent like cotton. Give it a quick shake and wear it for another day, letting the other shirt air out.
Carry on-only travelers swear by merino wool because it's generally lighter than cotton and because you can wear it for several days or even a week like this. If you're not squeamish, you can even do this same routine with underwear, too.
People are so obsessed with quantity now, perhaps because it's an easily measured property. Try going for quality instead :-)
Growing up in the 90s in the US, I don't believe there was an equivalent to Uniqlo/Muji/H&M/Zara that offered a decent, but low cost no logo product.
I think the above companies definitely took the wind out of Gap/American Eagle/Hollister/Nike type companies though who were cashing in on splashing their brand name on everything, but not offering consistent quality in relation to the price.
Where it applies, the 'quick unpick' is my friend there. Obviously doesn't apply to printed things. I've received a lot of snobbery in both directions when hiking though.
Edit: they're also one of my favourite tools for reworking automotive wiring harnesses.
Some time ago I learned a reason for that: It is hard to protect material, color or cut for cloths. What however can be protected is the company logo. By putting the logo on they therefore prevent copies.
And then it's of course signalling - by showing specific brands, you send a message.
Some things can't really be bought unbranded, at least not in the quality and sizes I want, but that normally just a small labels like on jeans. I'm okay with that, but otherwise I don't wear branded clothing.
My employer got everyone jackets one year, nice ones actually, you just had to submit your size. I didn't, and it's not that I don't like my employer, I absolutely do, but I don't feel that it's necessary for me to advertise where I work. I also quietly ignored the dress shirts, polos and t-shirts that was handed out recently.
People can wear whatever they want, I don't really care. I just don't see the point in paying for branding, or using myself as an billboard.
I think it's different for company-branded things. If you're proud of where you work because you think they impact the world positively[1], that's very different than being proud to broadcast that you paid $$$ for something.
[1] - It's easiest to imagine for this exercise that you work somewhere unquestionably positive, like a research group that just cured cancer and then released the cure into the public domain or something else that doesn't have Facebook's baggage.
Really ... are people being paid to be a walking billboard? Sports teams, sure ... ballet companies, colleges, bands ... but multi-national corporations with $hundred-million advertising budgets? Cars sporting car-company insignia ... you paid for?
They used to pay 'bums' to wear sandwich-boards. Just sayin.
I refuse to buy or wear any clothes with prominent branding and I would never privately wear branded merchandise for a company I work for. Work stops the second I walk out the door to go home, I am not an advertising billboard. If they want me to wear branded clothes at work, I'm not going to buy it myself.
In general, a big flashy logo signals that the brand itself and people's reaction to it matters more than the quality of the garment. I'll grudgingly accept a small stitched design on a polo or dress shirt, at least those tend to be very minimal. Stitched designs can sometimes be carefully removed, but often the tight embroidery stitches will have distorted or ruined the fabric underneath.
Luckily it is still possible to find good quality clothes with no (or very minimal) branding, but you have to completely avoid fast fashion and main street stores. I've been able to completely excise all clothes with prominent branding from my wardrobe and I'm never going back.
The only exception I make graphic designs is for band shirts, but I feel that's different from corporate branding.
I mean, Facebook de-platformized a politician that 70+ million people voted for.
It doesn't really matter if they had the right or wrong reasons in doing this: the pool of disillusioned people just grew tremendously and I can't see anyone claiming otherwise.
Or did Facebook think that all of these 70+ million people would just sit back quietly and accept that their politician was blocked (or perceived of being censored)?
EDIT: Clarified the last sentence do to using the word "censored" incorrectly: thanks for pointing it out.
I think it's a fairly large assumption to make that they all voted for him specifically. I don't think it's too crazy (given he won <50% of the popular vote in the 2016 primaries) to assume a large number of those voters voted "Not Democrat" or voted Republican instead of voting Trump specifically.
This is a problem with the US system at the moment. It was the same issue with the Brexit referendum; people got two choices (remain or leave), while the process was a lot more subtle and there were plenty of 'in between' solutions available. People voted leave for single issues, while leaving actually caused multiple issues that affected them directly.
Anyway tl;dr the US needs massive political reform and one should never be constrained to just two choices.
What makes you say that about the UK? As an American, I’ve always been envious of what I perceive as the UK’s greater electoral flexibility, expressed through systems like snap elections and Parliament’s role in appointing the chief executive.
I suppose what I mean is that I like how this process produces PMs who are aligned (at least to start) with the majority will of Parliament, since the party/coalition with the most seats in Parliament gets to pick them.
In contrast, US Presidents are elected with zero input from Congress and are often at odds with the House and/or Senate majority.
Same problems as the US. We have a two party state, which means very broad coalitions, no real choice, and a lot of unheard voices. Just like the US, we have suffered deindustrialisation as companies shipped production overseas, encouraged by our politicians, and those people who lost out have no way of fighting back. Their resentment has grown to the point where it is now finding expression through Brexit and populists like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.
Proportional representation provides a "release valve" for angry minorities, in that new parties can form. Some people think this is a danger, because they see those parties gaining some real power, but what usually happens is their supporters see the realities of political compromise, see some gains, at least feel represented, and the anger recedes.
The first place we're seeing the cracks is the UK leaving the EU whilst NI has not, and support for Scottish independence on the rise.
More pertinent to your reply: without a constitution the flexibility is simply exploited for party political gain, which often destabilises the country. Similarly, the trend has been in recent decades for the executive to increasingly take power away from parliament, which has proceeded unchecked. So some of us envy your constitution and the lack of gaming in e.g. the timing of elections. And let's not even get started on the "ceremonial" royal family...
The two parties that hold all the power in the US make sure that it’s just the two parties. How do you reform a system when the people who benefit from the system hold ask the cards?
That's beside the point: there is _obviously_ a fraction that is much greater than 0% of the people who voted for Trump (whether they voted for him or against his opponents) who will now feel oppressed because the person they voted for - whatever reason - is now banned from the largest social media network in the world. This fraction is from the large (millions) group of people who had nothing to do with the riots.
I mean, read the article: Facebook has realized the same thing and that's why they are recommending their employees to not wear Facebook branded clothing.
Like it or not, the pool of disillusioned people is now much larger and I'm not particularly keen on learning what effects that will have down the road.
They also felt oppressed because the Trump lied to them repeatedly and told them their vote was stolen. Luckily many Republicans, including the 2 cabinet members that resigned, have decided they can no longer support Trump. Twitter banning him will lead to less division, not more.
Pretty obvious but really sad and scary at the same time. "You decided you no longer wanted to interact with Donald Trump. Of course you should now fear for your personal safety. What did you expect?"
Reminder what powerful Democrat Maxine Waters said:
>"Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere. We’ve got to get the children connected to their parents,” Waters said at the Wilshire Federal Building.
The wording here is a bit weird. He was not censored, he broke the TOS and was therefore blocked from using a platform.
Censoring would be proactive from FB, they have actually allowed him to breach TOS before without a ban, and only this time they enforced the rules we are all subject to.
Fair enough, I'm not a native English speaker and should maybe used a different word.
But that's still beside the point: there is still a fraction greater than 0% of his voters, who will feel (correctly or incorrectly) that their politician was censored. And therein lies the problem with the blocking decision.
It does not matter in any shape or form whether Facebook was right or wrong in their action in blocking Trump: This decision will radicalize more people, as a direct side effect or unintended consequence of their decision to block him due to the TOS violation. Trump is not just some internet lunatic, he is a political candidate and former POTUS that 70+ million people voted for.
Freedom of speech doesn't matter if people can just storm the capitol and kidnap/kill their adversaries. That needs protected first - the first amendment never protected incitement of violence.
> This decision will radicalize more people,
I disagree. It will remove the lightning rod and greatly remove his reach.
What dictionary are you using that says censoring can only be done by a government? It seems like a tech employee talking point so they can pretend they aren't censoring people.
Private companies can censor too. For example, your ISP, browser vendor or email provider could block websites/emails/ads from a given source without telling you.
Then you have a potential first amendment violation.
Censorship is in general perfectly legal, the first amendment only protects from government action, and even then, only sometimes, depending on what’s said.
If they were serious about starting somewhere, perhaps they could disable the engagement mechanisms that border on addictive pattern exploits.
They could easily identify people who are disenfranchised and seeking a sense of belonging in their platform. They could easily go back to reverting their feed to show real and positive updates from friends and family. Many of these people would probably re-engage in a more healthy way with the platform instead of constantly seeking outrage inducing feedback loops.
The main issue is that doing so would not only be ethical but it would also be less profitable and therein lies the main issue.
indeed it's not shocking given that FB were happy to take money from conservative disinfo peddlers right up to Nov. 3rd. It's a shame this is happening but maybe it's time they had a taste of their own medicine in their own country? Because the last time when they caused a genocide in Myanmar by supporting the junta nobody at FB has been held responsible.
There is no such thing as "dirty/unethical" money in their eyes. Sod their mgmt and PR-teams who are playing the victim card advising employees about "how to be safe in a big ugly world".
Anyone wearing FB swag should be entitled to at least half a year living (as a Muslim) in Myanmar while posting their experience with dissent on the platform. The fact that FB sees itself still as a platform that can bring positive change suggests they drew the wrong conclusions from the "Arab Spring success story".
FB is a "tool of terror" in countries which are considered developing. Even in places like US, Germany, UK, Brazil, India etc FB does more to divide people than to bring them together.
A few FB employees now "uncomfortable" about whether their swag is still wearable in public isn't anything the majority will lose sleep over. Certainly not in Myanmar.
Obvious perhaps, but I do not think that the leap from "disillusioned" to "violence" is one we should accept as normal, and indicates just how far down the rabbit hole we are already. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.
Just like I criticized both the BLM movement with its violence (riots) and braindead slogans ("defund the police"), I think it's important to criticize both the right-wing rioters and the Big Tech response. None of those people, regardless of what they're fighting for (in particular if they're doing it in good faith) are using the right tactics to achieve their goals. BLM chanting "defund the police" while rioting and requiring more police? Right-wingers want their politics & cclaims of election fraud taken seriously while staging a faux-coup in clown custumes? What did they expect, the public opinion not to turn against them? These tactics are so ridiculous that I find it really hard to believe they were sincere in their intentions.
Same here for Big Tech. If they wanted to prevent "inciting violence" they'd censor specific tweets, not ban Trump and Paul Ryan. But, mostly, I think the best move against further violence was increased government action, both in case of BLM (e.g. destroying CHAZ in Portland) and in case of Capitol attack (increased military presence in DC).
I think (and hope) that FB&co are digging their own grave. They probably calmed Democrats for now, but they're a single scandal away from being dismanteled.
>But, mostly, I think the best move against further violence was increased government action, both in case of BLM (e.g. destroying CHAZ in Portland) and in case of Capitol attack (increased military presence in DC).
I think you're underestimating the depth of the problem. The fact that the Capitol attack got as far as it did was because factions of government intentionally did not act, or even blocked action. All of society needs to fight this, at every level; it's an existential threat.
> Right-wingers want their politics & claims of election fraud taken seriously while staging a faux-coup in clown costumes? What did they expect, the public opinion not to turn against them? These tactics are so ridiculous that I find it really hard to believe they were sincere in their intentions.
The republicans abandoned "seriousness" with their election of Donald Trump. It turned out to be unnecessary. He did all sorts of ludicrous things, down to the Four Seasons Total Landscaping conference, but those didn't actually affect his grasp on power because they were irrelevant to his supporters.
This time they didn't bring guns. No mass shooter, just one cop beaten to death with a fire extinguisher. Nothing like the Vegas shooting. One day the mass shooters and the coup attempters will coordinate.
> Several representatives were successfully intimidated into voting
This is a fake fact. More republicans said they were going to vote against certifying the electoral votes before the riots. Then they changed their minds; the rioters had the opposite effect to what they wanted.
This isn't entirely clear[0]. I'm not sure how much credence to put into this claim, but the idea that some representatives were intimidated (both before and after) isn't without merit.
How many times did you call out the behavior when people were walking up to Trump supporters and punching them in the face? Bonus points if you posted it to places like, well, Facebook. Or bash their car or throw a rock through their window? This is not new, it's just happening to a different political crowd now and for some strange reason people can now finally call it out without feeling a tinge bit hypocritical.
> Or did Facebook think that all of these 70+ million people would just sit back quietly and accept that their politician was blocked (or perceived of being censored)?
Evidently, they think a lot of those people are violent extremists. And they're not wrong. Hence the OP.
46% of voting Americans are by definition, not extremists. I think it is best if we all try to avoid slippery generalizations between all Trump supporters and the furthest out. It feeds into tribalism, and can skew our own perceptions.
Whilst facebook confirms its data sharing agreements with Huawei, and a government thats quite literally got millions of people 'they disagree with' in camps, killing them, torturing them, sterilizing women.
Facebooks cool tho. I get my 'news' from there, and I am sure its all on the up and up.
Facebook practically invented the dark triad of addictive UI elements that are currently partially responsible for driving us all constantly insane (violence for the last 4 years, the attack on DC, etc. ad infinitum):
1.) Animated or colorful icons with incrementing numbers in some context. This is huge for the addiction factor.
2.) Infinite scrolling. Also for addiction factor.
3.) Relative Timestamps. Everything is more immediate and you feel the need to stay on longer.
So, hopefully their employees stay safe, but as far as the company is concerned... Occasionally, to continue to have a republic, we have to slay a dragon or two. I can think of three, actually.
None of these companies should be proud of inventing narcissistic addictive UI elements, it's harmful to society. These companies are so narcissistic, that they want to fight over who gets credit for inventing these narcissistic addictive UI elements... the like button is not a genius invention, it's a simple idea that has been exploited for psychological addictions.
damn, here's me clicking More on Hacker New.. and this comment was 12 hours ago.
I think I'm going to start noticing these everywhere now...
Have to give some kudos to iOS 14, letting me hide all the apps so I no longer need to individually adjust their notification settings so I don't see that incrementing notification number!
I noticed a similar thing happens with their regional offices, while Google and other companies show their branding outside the buildings, in buildings with FB offices most of the times you don't know there is one just by looking outside or even at the building reception. At least this was the perception I had from the ones I have seen.
As a current FB employee this matches what I've seen of the offices I've visited. In fact, all swag I've received in the year I've been here also doesn't have FB branding on the exterior.
Regarding the original article, I've received no warnings about wearing FB branded stuff outside, so the warning may have been specific to DC or specific locations.
It's a failure when people don't feel physically safe to state their entirely opinions, identities, and allegiances, yes. It's the principle of free expression.
I want Facebook gone, it causes more harm than good but their employees shouldn't be harassed or assaulted because of it.
And there are more companies like this. Do we assault anyone working for companies that pollute? What about people working in banks that made possible the 2008 crash? And I could go on and on.
If anyone is doing anything illegal, they should be brought to justice. Violence will bring only more violence and won't solve the problem.
I agree with you and I'm not defending the practice, I'm simply sharing the reasoning behind this threat of violence.
> If anyone is doing anything illegal, they should be brought to justice.
Besides mental issues, people rarely resort to violence; not only is it risky in terms of legal/physical consequences but it's also more effort; why would anyone go out and beat up someone if they can achieve the desired effect without that?
Given that there are people that are threatening Facebook employees with violence, it seems that "conventional" justice doesn't seem to have any effect (or corruption... I mean lobbying is perverting the course of justice) and people are threatening to take the matter in their own hands in an act of desperation.
This is like when my mum used to tell me to don't wear t-shirt with Hebrew letters on it because it attract hates in the streets (in Paris, France) that sucked to not be able to wear what i want...
I used to work in tech in the Bay Area. I stopped wearing company-branded clothing in San Francisco circa 2015 when anti-techie protestors picketed company bus stops [0], picketed the homes of Google employees [1], assaulted people wearing Google Glass in the street [2], and shot out commuter bus windows on the freeway [3]. Company merch just attracted the wrong kind of attention. The situation was getting bad then, sounds like it’s only gotten worse with the election.
We went through this at AIG during the financial crisis. No fun. I feel for them. We had to return our security badges and exchange them for new ones without AIG identifiable info on them so that we wouldn’t get harassed on the subway. And were told to keep quiet about who we worked for.
99% of the people at AIG had nothing to do with the business that contributed to the financial crisis. In fact, the business unit most responsible was in Connecticut (we were in the Financial District in Manhattan). So it was pretty frustrating to be a worker bee making a middle income salary and having no insight to or ability to influence the issues causing the financial crisis, and yet having strangers wanting to yell at or physically harm you.
I think people need to look at the bigger issues. What caused 70 million people to vote for trump and what caused a mob to descend onto the government building in the first place.
People on the other side of the wealth divide sense something is wrong with this country but are unable to put their finger on what. Attacks on tech workers is really a surface level issue.
Misguided radicalism happens in places with deep economic issues caused by things that are too complex to completely reason out. What causes wealth inequality? Nobody can put their finger on it but people will make up a reason if they have too. Usually that reason involves attacking anyone and any symbol on the other side of the wealth divide.
I know I'm not supposed to complain about lousy web design. I've been told in the past. I know.
But still.
I don't have an ad blocker. I'm using a run-of-the-mill browser here. Won't tell which one, you would probably laugh.
And the website is blocking me on grounds of having an ad blocker. And there's no way around it. I can click "learn more", only to be redirected to another page which is equally blocked by this "we need your money" shit.
Look, I understand you need money to survive. But at least give us a way to contact you, or something?
EDIT: Well, I have a PiHole which I forgot about, actually. So they're probably right on the ad blocker. lol
EDIT2: Oh no, that's hilarious. It actually happens because I've rejected permissions on their cookie popup.
PiHole and strict privacy settings on the browser. I'm guessing the settings are a little too strict for them. I'd be ok with (some kinds of) ads, but I guess that always comes with privacy issues.
While trying to read the article, a graphic video of a lady having earwax extracted started autoplaying. I don't think I've ever been so put off from an article so quickly.
back in mid-90s i did a contract job for a field office of the FBI. they had a policy that we were required to remove our ID badges when we left the building (to go to lunch or whatever).
the building itself was also devoid of any signs that indicated this contained an FBI office.
interestingly enough, a few months later, i was contracted for another job at a different FBI field office. that one had a sign out front and seemed surprised when i asked if i needed to remove my badge before leaving the building.
Are you interested in the sviervice of a hacker to get into a phone, facebook account, snapchat, Instagram, yahoo, Whatsapp, get verified on any social network account, increase your followers by any amount, bank wire and bank transfer.
I can vouch for him because I have used him to monitor my spouse many time when I feel suspicious movements TALENTED HACKERS DO YOU REQUIRE A CERTIFIED HACKER FOR : +University grades hack, +Bank account hacks, +Control devices remotely hack, +Facebook Hacking Tricks, +Gmail, AOL, Yahoomail, inbox, hack are available, +Database hacking, +PC computer tricks +Bank transfer, Western Union, money gram, Credit Card transfer +Wiping of credit, +VPN software, +ATM Hack we are the real deal when it comes to hacking, carding, WU transfer, Money Gram transfer etc contact us now Email (Hackertechnology609@gmail.com) +1 (213) 793‑8045 (whatsapp)
352 comments
[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 293 ms ] threadFacebook is doing so much shady stuff to people, I wouldn't be surprised if some people took their hatred too far (I dearly do hope nobody takes it out on random employees though!).
I don't see how these extremists could benefit from act of violence on private business or citizens.
Despite the deaths, I'm glad this happened, at least we now have example of rioters on both sides.
Maybe the third party will gain the remaining sane people in the USA?
From where I stand a few deaths are not that important.
The more political parties in the USA taint themselves the greater the chance people will change the status quo.
The USA is one of the few places were people are crazy enough to change things.
You can find many, depending on your opinions
There are European states in which government overreach wrecked the economy so much that anti-establishment parties got elected.
You can see trump as one meager step in that direction. I think the natural conclusion, after seeing that things are not changing by voting mainstream parties, is to actually vote someone else.
[citation needed]
It's not a success story, nothing really changed and the party turned into the establishment (they didn't really have a plan), but it shows where people's heart is.
Right and left wing parties in Italy laughed at it at the beginning, nobody thought they would ever win.
Italy has a lot of very productive industries. But they can't compete with Germany and other northern European countries while the scales are tipped firmly against them due to their currencies being tied together via the Euro. A freely floating currency would correct that and make Italy a very promising place to invest in and export from.
Greece is a different story, and it is not entirely blameless. It should never have been allowed to join the Euro. But the cause of its economic woes is the same: its currency is tied to stronger economies with which it can't hope to complete, and that economic imbalance has caused complete devastation of its economy.
> Exiting the Eurozone and reverting to national currencies is pretty much the only answer to fix their economies.
We had this argument in 2008ish and Syriza abandoned the plan, after (correctly) realising that crashing out of the Euro would be worse.
It's been stagnant ever since joining the Euro, and nothing material has changed which would improve matters, and I don't see the status quo being tenable. 2008 might not have been the tipping point, but doing something which isn't in the long term interest of people can't continue indefinitely.
Apart from that would incur tariffs that would be far high than the trade winds exposed by the eurozone.
Having your own currency only really helps when you have a boat load of debt, and you want to inflate your way out of the problem. However that's exceptionally damaging in the medium term, especially if you have unstable leadership.
The fundamentals of italy are difficult to overcome by leaving, or blaming the eurozone. Italy has a rapidly ageing populace, and a drop in fertility. None of that is going to be fixed by leaving the euro.
- Angus King (Maine),
- Bernie Sanders (Vermont)
Between them, Joe Manchin, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, they definitely do hold all the power right now.
There were exemple of rioters on both sides for a long time. What's new is not simply rioters either.
Which one?
Cambridge Analytica
The strategy meetings
The storming of the Capitol
I'm sure i forgot some.
Those threats are probably just idiots sounding off and will never come to anything, but given recent events being careful just-in-case is quite prudent. An idiot sounding off can easily turn into an idiot taking action.
Hell, I work at a games studio and we're maybe not forbidden, but heavily discouraged from wearing company merch at conferences and such to protect ourselves(we've had several incidents in the past years where employees were targetted specifically by thieves and scammers to extract company information. I don't think it was much because of possible disgruntled players, but nowadays you never know).
I think the article is framing it as a recent development related to Trump, but I don't think it's that weird in tech world, it's just basic employee safety.
So I'd agree, nothing new from FB here
Telling regular staff members that you have it in place can often mean the insurance company won't pay out for many reasons:
- adversaries might learn you will pay out and target your org/country specifically
-staff may act more recklessly knowing it's in place
-if you have to make payouts your premiums may go sky high or you won't get it in future
- staff may make a deal for a cut of the ransom by setting up something with a dodgy actor
- when/how K&R is paid is very very complicated. For example a ransom is never paid by insurance directly, the company must have cash to pay the ransom (which often catches them out) and they are compensated for loss of XYZ etc.
Also many people find only when they need to use it that K&R has strict rules depending on what country you get it from. Some insurance companies won't pay if the ransom is to be paid to AQ, ISIS or other sanctioned organisations. Also how the whole situation is dealt with and the ransom negotiated is important and effects the K&R payout. If the company doesn't have good corporate security etc to manage it, things can get very messy on the K&R side of things. A lot of people (esp US companies for some reason - perhaps the idealism that "sending in the SEALS" people see on TV) think somehow their government is going to be a knight in shining armour in such situations and believe me, very often they make a situation a lot lot worse.
The really disappointing thing is that I've heard some medical staff get this advice to protect themselves from angry COVID-denyer protests outside hospitals.
Of course, it is a sad state of affairs that it could attract violence. Someone is always going to disagree with what you do regardless of what it is, but it's a shame that that itself leads to violence.
A few years ago There was massive fuss when BT started putting the company logo on the carpark stickers.
And some "engineers" (linemen) have been assaulted by anti 5G cranks in the UK not sure if the same has happened in the US
CIVIL SERVICE REPRESENT.
I have worked at some trendy and well thought of companies, I was proud to wear their logo. especially at trade shows.
However I don't really wear facebook stuff out, partly because they bought out the company I loved, and mostly because I really don't agree with half the stuff they do. I was really surprised with the sheer quantity of branded stuff they dish out. I don't think I'd even actively recruit for them
It doesn't help that they really can't fucking PR even if the company depends on it. Its hilarious that for a company so driven by data they can't commission a single fucking user survey to test PR and policy changes.
I wouldn't wear West Ham gear while walking through a Millwall neighbourhood. I probably also wouldn't wear big tech stash at the heat of some super frothy political times layered on top of a pandemic and other unrest.
Maybe there's an argument about behaving indifferently as itself being a political stance but I am happy not inviting trouble to myself.
The sports analogy is quite good though. For the vast majority it’s just red team vs blue team based on identity and emotion with precious little ratiocination.
In that case, I would urge people to remain patient and avoid making conclusions and long term decisions based on this response. It’s likely things ease up once “calm” is restored.
Whether they want to or not, politicians and the ultra wealthy are going to have to get out of bed together. The affair is over, if for no other reason then their own physical safety, then at least for their financial safety.
If income inequality continues and there's less and less available jobs for working age men, those men will find something to occupy their time, and I promise you, it won't be selling wood carvings on Etsy. I cannot remember where I heard this, and I'm going to butcher the quote, but it went a little something like, "When you take away a man's ability to earn his way, you turn him into a revolutionary." I'm almost certain I got that wrong, but that's the gist of it. We need a huge jobs program and we need one now. An enormous infrastructure bill would be a good start to calming down a lot of this nonsense. Employed people with disposable income rarely want to upend the system.
If we continue down this path, then the cold civil war that we're seeing waged mostly on the Internet, but occasionally out in the open, is going to turn into a hot one. And I guarantee you, if things escalate, you'll find Russia taking advantage of this by sending groups of their special operators to train these people, because no one in the world has more experience with urban warfare than Russia. And if you think that the American military is entirely unsympathetic to these people, you are starkly and dangerously wrong.
EDIT: And yes, I've been hearing / reading / seeing references to the "boogaloo" for years now. It seems we might be facing it sooner, rather than later.
The people who attacked Capitol were employed with disposable income.
If the system was working, wages wouldn't be stagnant for 50 years. Housing prices wouldn't have nearly quadrupled. College education prices wouldn't have nearly... you know what, I don't even know the correct modifier... gone up by 5000%. In 1971, CEO pay was at best 30-40 times the median salary of an employee at a company. If you made $10,000 a year, the CEO might make $300,000-400,000. The very best CEOs rarely made multi-millions.
This is not a sustainable system.
The problem is, these people don't really have the education to know how to attack the system to correctly dismantle it (in fact, it might not even be possible to dismantle it from a non-violent / institutional standpoint, but that's another conversation), so they instead riot and install Viking Pepe as their leader.
I agree with you that until we fix the rot in the system that leaves so many in despair, unrest will continue to escalate.
I think I'm being downvoted because most of us that post here on HN are either thoroughly entrenched in the system in some way, or we're elevated beyond these problems which mostly affect poorly educated lower class people.
We have tons of FAANG employees that post here, tons of wealthy entrepreneurs, lots of startup founders, etc. None of us really have jack shit in common with poor disenfranchised people. But we better start making it a priority to look into, else I fear we're going to find ourselves in a very unenviable position.
I think I meant to say that they had already succeeded in upending the system, and now they were trying to lock it in.
Downvotes appropriate; my bad. :-)
Could be many reasons for this. I’d speculate that no matter the political leaning, some fraction of people are always looking for excuses to be violent, and will readily deploy others’ grievances to this end.
[0] https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/arrest-recor...
I am going through lists of Capitol stormers. I am finding cops, former firefighters, former officers, teachers, real estate agents, professors, lawyers, CEOS, etc. If anything, these people have some of the better jobs. I am sure there are unemployed people in there and there is selection bias, but it is hardly exclusive.
Some articles of employed people:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-protests-fal...
https://www.newsweek.com/here-are-people-that-have-lost-thei...
As a species, we're not exactly martyrs. Its the reason one man with a shotgun can hold 26 people hostage. At best, if every person bum rushed him, he might get 2-4 shots off. That's the absolute best case scenario. The logical thing to do is a coordinated attack, because then you ensure the safety of the group instead of your individual safety.
So it goes with this. If hundreds of people were willing to storm the Capitol, its because hundreds of thousands - possibly even millions - have the same sentiment, but for whatever reason - distance, fear of reprisal, etc. - couldn't physically be there.
I think that incident was 1) just the start of many more riots / clashes and 2) evidence of much larger, broader problem that we need to solve.
Exhibit A: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/01/10/retired-air-f...
> And if you think that the American military is entirely unsympathetic to these people, you are starkly and dangerously wrong
This is a serious problem. Either the incoming democrat administration lets it fester and be "protected" by people who will cheerfully discuss their murder, or they carry out what could accurately be described as an ideological "purge".
> Russia
They sent a spy to solicit the NRA, who was hugely successful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina#Involvement_in_U....
Perpetuated by whom? Why would anyone involved want to blame unemployed men? Those who support storming the Capitol wouldn't want to portray themselves as "frustrated, unemployed men," and those who oppose it wouldn't want to blame a supposedly innocent group. Where does the perception come from?
That's not always protected, depending on how you're defining it. Seditious conspiracy is a major felony.[1]
A person is allowed to speak generally about political change. "Trump is a jerk, we should throw him out!" would probably be protected.
"Trump is a jerk, we should march to the WH after work today and physically remove him" might not be protected (though the bar to conviction would be pretty high - government would probably have to prove you actually meant to do so, not just "making noise").
IANAL, so that above is meant to be very general.
1 - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384
The trick to stochastic terrorism is to incite other people to do it without quite overstepping the arrestable line yourself. A sort of distributed "Nuremberg defense".
Just like airport security theatre and the PATRIOT Act were eased up after 9/11?
There are plenty of laws in the books to charge people who are actually doing illegal acts (like storming the capital)
Other side: "People need to stand up! Government needs to back off!"
Then flip flop when it's "their side" a few months later..
A friend of mine runs a social media brand that calls out men who post nasty comments on female strength athletes profiles, she simply screenshots them and posts them to the brand as well as making memes of the horrific things.
She's shared screenshots of people wishing violent sexual assault against underage girls just beacuse they are a strength athlete, and instead of that person getting banned for advocating the rape of a minor, she gets a 3 day, week, 30 day ban from Facebook and/or Instagram for simply screenshotting and reposting a public comment. You can see some of these awful things screenshotted, as well as her various bans, on https://www.instagram.com/you.look.like.a.man/
Or they you remove a politician, or something like Info Wars for saying absolutely insane/dangerous things and then all the fans "overstepping! You're overstepping!" meanwhile everyone else is "it's about bloody time!"
I would absolutely hate to be the leadership at any social media platform. Even things like nudity, I've seen several burlesque friends have posts removed and temporary bans issued for topless women with pasties covering their nipples on digital flyers advertising their next show, meanwhile I once saw a woman breastfeeding to a club song while sexually fondling her bare breast that wasn't being used to breast feed with millions of views on Facebook and tens of thousands of comments that was months old...
Not only is there no consistency in how such things are applied, but when they do get applied people freak out for various reasons.
Like Sam Altman (/u/sama) said a few days ago:
>There are exemptions to free speech defined by the Supreme Court, and we urgently need new ones for the age of social media.
>What those exceptions are should be decided by the government, and fairly applied by companies.
https://twitter.com/sama/status/1347980613559611392
As an extreme, all social media could be pushed offline temporarily in the US - assuming that were feasible. Another extreme is doing absolutely no censoring of anyone. I think we largely would be best served with very little censorship, but even Mark Zuckerberg states proper oversight of his platform is ... “difficult.”
Personally, I remember being a kid and taking the internet too seriously one day. My friends quickly corrected me with “the internet is full of lies.” And I’ve forever taken what I read and saw on it with a huge grain of salt - basically assuming it’s wrong until verified through out of bands ways and means. Ie if someone I loved posted something deeply unsettling I’d call or visit them to see how they were doing. I’d probably not say anything on their actual post. If it looked like something about my car registration, I’d check with the MVD directly and not using any links in the email. Possibly a way to do this as citizens would be to start by reading the constitution and its amendments. Or, at the very least, make a mental decision to severely discount the use of the internet for information and authority.
It was never going to be possible to be neutral forever in the culture war. Which is why people were asking for Facebook to pick sides earlier, and deliberately, before e.g. the Rohingya genocide.
...or 4 years later, as the case may be.
Citation needed.
You need a citation to explain to you how government buildings are funded??
I can't believe you actually claimed that current events are more impact full than 9/11.
And then being cheered by different media and the president.
I think we can take as a given that every engineer at Facebook could easily get a job elsewhere. To be a Facebook employee is a conscious choice.
The bigger question is - should you avoid working at companies that are a net negative, or should you stay there to try to improve them?
I don’t know the answer, but I don’t see Facebook improving and I wouldn’t personally work there, for ethical reasons.
Yes.
> I think we can take as a given that every engineer at Facebook could easily get a job elsewhere. To be a Facebook employee is a conscious choice.
yes, but loosing a lot of benefits.
> should you avoid working at companies that are a net negative, or should you stay there to try to improve them?
Thats two questions. And it's been on my mind for about a year now. I was bought out. The tech we make could be a brilliant tool for mankind, or if deployed incorrectly, commoditised stasi/KGB/Chinese secret police as a service. I don't want it to be the latter. If I leave there will be less voices of dissent.
FB is a whipping boy. There are things that it should rightly be criticised for: not adhering to its own ToS for celebrities. Not enforcing age restrictions for instagram, not having enough diversity in its India operation. Myanmar.
The difference between FB and the rest of SV is that FB has an utterly utterly shit PR team, who sits apart from the company. They love sniffing their own farts. (for example I only found out how many small companies advertise on FB when I joined. yet they reference this heavily only once, and expect a single full page advert to win people over.)
Let us not forget that whilst FB is a data dustpan and brush, Google, Amazon, Apple, and your ISP are data hoovers. most of FB's data is collected willingly. The stuff your phone snitches on you every minute is extra ordinary. Amazon is literally selling a live feed of your front door to the police.
I don't seek to admonish Facebook of its failings. They should be fucking hauled through the shit. But, we should also start to look at other companies, especially with the rise of AR.
https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/04/app-privacy-labels-messaging-...
That's a data hoover, not a dustpan... and it's not been collected "willingly".
You can uninstall messenger/instagram/fb. you can't easily stop apple or google snooping your location, health, finance and contact information and use your phone.
Facebook don't have access to my location, health, financial, search or browsing history. I know because I did a GDPR request. Depending on where you live, you can do the same.
Your second answer is just a question of comfort. Similar to questions around ecology, making a choice one considers "right" might mean that you value that choice enough that the loss of benefits isn't a net loss to you. Much like with climate change, doing good things is hardly valued at all in terms of ethics in the current way tech does anything though.
And I agree with you that all companies should be scrutinized heavily, and it's possible that Facebook just has become the symbol of that behaviour in all of tech.
However (1) other people doing worse things is not really an excuse that's valid in itself ("I murdered somebody but there are serial killers out there!"), (2) facebook does a whole lot of dirty work especially in poorer countries like in Myanmar where it became ubiquitous by being pre-installed on smartphones and has become THE central information (and misinformation) hub of its own volition, and (3) you're pointing out AR and the most significant actor of that field currently is Facebook itself.
Indeed, I am not a moral absolutist. Its an abstract question, in which the answer tells more about the person rather than the state of morals as a whole. I must point out that I feel and know that I have compromised my morals by working at FB. That aside it is perfectly possible to work at $company and do good. There are plenty examples of resistors and rule benders that have helped people from the "inside" of terrible regimes.
I don't want to belittle Facebook's moral failings. But I am worried that shitting on facebook is being seen as fixing the problem. That was my intention, not to throw a dead cat on the table and run away.
Myanmar Is a special case. I don't think facebook actively caused the issue, but their in-attention made it worse. My (limited) understanding is that Facebook was acting like the local radio stations in the Rwanda genocide. Again, if FB had placed resources when first alerted, they might have been able to temper the spread.
India is my area of concern. The leadership there all come from the same schools, know the same people and think the same negative things about their Muslim neighbours. (this is a simplification of course) Some changes have been made, not least because of internal pressure.
on point 3, yes. AR worries me, but not because Facebook are making it.
For it to work for facebook, they have to work 10 times harder than anyone else to prove that its safe. Which I think is valid, my only wish is that same level of scepticism is applied to _all_ players. AR _needs_ to be safe, because it is so invasive. The problem comes when AR manufactures start allowing Apps. At that point all hell breaks loose.
I think ultimately all of big tech is on a downwards slope in terms of trust from society, but Facebook just got caught earlier stepping in that direction and is therefore a little bit lower already, thus your comment about making more efforts to go back up the well.
The real PR and lobby guys that all of big tech should hire are the Equifax ones, because whatever damn magic those terrible people managed to concoct has allowed them to get away with what is basically one of the worst fuck ups in history and STILL manage to make people pay for a thing that is mandatory in North America.
Wearing your boss's logo on your free time just looks kind of sad and pathetic, in my opinion.
I know two engineers from Lockheed-Martin's Skunkworks with whom I had served in the Navy, and they proudly wear LM polo shirts. They're doing interesting work, work that might benefit the entirety of humanity. I would be proud to work there too.
Facebook is still a great place to work but the brand is so damaged that it's hard to see how they gain consumer trust again. As a consumer company it means any new product (libra, unified family of apps etc..) will fail because of that.
By its own merits...
So by this calculus, all guilt, blame and responsibility is just waved away. They're only following orders, all the way to the top, where management are simply rationally trying to maximize revenue for stockholders, who also have no liability.
Using the Greysteil Graywashing System™, any crime may be committed and no one is ever held responsible!
Maybe someone sees it as an opportunity to learn from the talent around them, or enjoys the small piece that they’re working on.
But not everyone in a company that is less than favorable with a given population should be judged equally.
People heard the meme a lot, so they think it has weight without actually having thought about it. Encouraging people to reveal this about themselves, with pride no less, is the singular useful property GL has.
Most people need a job in order to continue to eat and to buy shoes for their children. They can't just quit. I don't judge anyone for working the job they can get.
They not only have other choices, but also are implementing the policies.
This is the problem with tech interviewing - it's so incredibly fickle that even someone with a senior job at a prestigious place doing practical work may not be able to pass an abstract problem-solving whiteboard interview somewhere else.
(And yeah, some of the Tech they do is cool and there are only few places with such demand for technical solutions for that large scale of operation, but there's cool tech elsewhere as well)
If there is one thing that Facebook developers should not have an issue with, it's in passing these kind of processes.
I'd worry about the opposite: if the typical image of a Facebook employee is of a drone suited at "studying to the test", working at a company with zero ethical principles and justifying it by the good money, then how will they be able to adapt to a more value-based job?
Well exactly - they may now have family commitments such as caring for people that make cramming impossible even if it was possible before.
> If there is one thing that Facebook developers should not have an issue with, it's in passing these kind of processes.
But they may have passed their interview a decade ago at this point. They may have also come in via an acquisition and so not formally interviewed at all if they come from an early startup.
You can take someone who passes an interview at Google but fails at Facebook, and vice-versa. These interviews are so incredibly astronomically tough and so subtle and fickle that it's no guarantee to be able to move.
People are not working at Facebook because they don't have other options.
This is not some last resort, minimum wage, no other options work. People spend weeks or months preparing for interview and then some of them move to the other end of country to work there. In fact it's pain in the ass to get job there, so people there really want to be there, and jump through hoops to get there.
They are plenty other related job's that will keep your family fed and clothed. People are not working at Facebook because they don't have other options.
There are plenty of people on this planet that have hard time putting food on the table and clothes on their children, equating them with Facebook employs that make 150k+ is just wrong
Right, so that's what it takes to get a tech job. And if you can't do that anymore (maybe you're a carer for example), you'll struggle to get a new job.
No that's what it takes to get one of the best paying tech jobs on the planet. If you lower your criteria there are plenty of other tech jobs that demand less, and compensate less.
Kind of gives perspective to how long Google (with Android, YouTube, Groups, GMail, GSuite, GCP) has managed to go relatively untarnished (as a brand) but Facebook couldn't.
I reckon that's because Google largely works on pull models: you ask for something and G gives it to you. Its services superficially appear like databases just sitting there, even if we know that's not the case.
FB and Twitter, on the other hand, largely work on push models: you log on and the app will give you stuff to look at, as well as notifying you incessantly. It easier to perceive the app's own agency and priorities.
In this sense, it explains why Google tends to get heat over Youtube: because it's closer to a push model, both with homepage and suggestions.
Also, Google services are largely useful to get stuff done, in a way FB and Twitter are not. That gives G a big pass.
There is an interesting speech by Zeynap Tufekci on this topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI
However you frame it, Google are showing you things you want to see - it's an affirmative feed back mechanism.
Facebook at best do that. Frequently they show you things you don't care about. Also things you don't want. It's an adversarial feedback mechanism.
In this light it's not surprising Facebook has earned a lot more ire a lot more quickly - though not undeservedly either.
On some level this still feels like you can squarely pin it on "optimizing for engagement". I highly doubt Facebook would be earning the anger it currently does if The Feed has remained a simple linear timeline. They were functionally getting into editorializing when they went with the new thing.
We're basically there already as far SEO spam goes, and Google goes to some efforts to try and minimize that because it's a bad search experience and drives people away.
"trust" is not meaningful where the whole purpose of Facebook is to profile people in order to influence (=manipulate) them through advertising and promoted content, and sell their data to third parties for other kinds of (mis)use.
That is what Facebook is about, in terms of its commercial model; it's not as though they're claiming something else and ask you to "trust" them.
(and of course, there's the small matter of letting the US government eavesdrop on all communications.)
"the brand is so damaged" as if it just happened for no reason
But in fact, Facebook destroyed its own brand.
Libra is a perfect example of it. After years of malfeasance, Facebook is going to print its own money! Why wouldn't we trust you?
I tried to dig up some stats, and the best I could find was a survey by The Verge[1] from Dec 2019:
According to the survey, 71% of people had a favorable opinion of Facebook, and 75% think Facebook has a positive or neutral impact on society.
However, Facebook scored relatively worse than most other brands surveyed (except Twitter), so you may be onto something. It's also possible that it's worsened in the past year.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21144680/verge-tech-survey...
Also, I suspect developers and knowledge workers are more likely to dislike Facebook. It doesn't matter what the cashier at Safeway thinks. If your friends and acquaintances hate Facebook, it's going to feel a lot worse. And if you are a developer or designer, it's likely you have a fair number of friends who are developers.
It's not the 90% of oblivious people who are the problem.
It's not even the 10% of "woke" digital people who are the problem. We probably need to talk about issues more in this country.
It's the <1% of those "woke" digital people who will gun you down at the local grocery store because you work at Facebook who are the problem. In the end, it's always the extremists that represent the threat, and therefore oblige the appropriate security posture.
Eh... no, I wasn't talking about anyone "gunning you down", the linked article is. I was just talking awkward conversations and getting the side-eye for working for the country's #1 douche.
I mean... yeah the 1% issue is likely bigger now, but this will blow over. Your buddies who think you sold your soul to the devil for a couple bucks will be around for years.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Make%2BOrwell%2BFiction%2BAgain+h...
A good comparison would be Nestlé. For decades now, a vocal minority have been calling for boycotts over their unethical methods, like with formula or or labor practices. Yet most people still happily buy Kit Kats.
I've seen multiple, separate parties see the commercials for Portal and be mildly interested in the product until it's revealed that it's by Facebook, and then they laugh and completely dismiss it a la "not a chance in hell I'm trusting Facebook to X".
I'd be curious to see how well they're selling (or not).
I looked through it and saw no mention of facebook or zuckerberg or even any facebook execs. I knew David Marcus is/was a facebook exec, but even he is listed as head of Novi[2]. That right there tells you how damaged that brand(facebook) is when their crytocurrency project doesn't list the company or the CEO(zuckerberg). Needless to say I said thanks, no thanks to that recruiter.
[1] - https://www.diem.com/en-us/
[2] - https://www.diem.com/en-us/association/#board_of_directors
* https://www.uniqlo.com/us/en/men-hybrid-down-parka-429290.ht...
* https://www.canadagoose.com/ca/en/mens-bromley-black-label-b...
* https://www.gucci.com/us/en/pr/men/ready-to-wear-for-men/out...
Uniqlo is one of the few stores I'll shop from because they don't have the the logos and are decent quality for the price.
I guess I should clarify my statement to be that the more gratuitous a logo, the less I think of the quality of the product. For example, I imagine Gucci is trying to cash in on its name, or people wanting to show off their willingness to spend money rather than it being a good jacket.
In a sense, Gucci and Vitton are what low class people think rich people wear. Kind of like Trump thinks being rich is shitting in gold toilets.
Of course, this contempt of "tacky luxury" is in itself a form of signaling among a certain class.
or maybe those "expensive ones" aren't higher end clothing in your pov?
Luxury brands also frequently sacrifice a brand every few years and drop it down the "status" level, such as Michael Kors/YSL/etc, and you will start seeing low quality product with the huge labels slapped over it sold in stores like Macys where they wouldn't have been seen before.
Zara/H&M/Uniqlo are nice in that they sell non logo'd utilitarian clothing at the lowest cost (I'm a big fan).
You are not your target market.
A blank patch looks sort of conspicuous, but a cute little non-corporate owl or fox will look like it's meant to be there.
I remove labels too when possible, and avoid clothing where the brand is an integral part of the item. Why would I keep them?
However, the vast majority of logos I see on clothes are actually part of the clothing, that's what I meant by "stitched in." I realize now, via Google, I meant "embroidered on."
EDIT: Just went through my closet and I found there's another large category of logos that are screen printed on. There were zero I personally saw that could be removed with a knife without heavily damaging the fabric. Maybe men's clothing is different.
With men's clothes, you can buy plain shirts, socks, etc in 3-packs (there's few choices, but few are needed). Women's clothes tend offer more unbranded options, unless you're buying athletic wear or a purse. Casual shoes generally suck in this regard, for men and women.
This has been getting more difficult, of late. It used to be that logos were embroidered on tags or patches, which were then stitched onto the clothes. But with embroidery robots and the rise of counterfeiting, companies are making it more difficult to remove their brands.
edit: but practically? Thrift shops have a wealth of logo-free stuff
For my laptop I use metallic tape as that was one of the few where the light would not shine through it. It also look quite natural on it.
Basically they made their brand / labels part of the "identity" of the outfit. I mean you can get a $5 or a $50 or a $500 polo shirt, for the most part they'll be the same but the more expensive ones will have the alligator or guy on a horse on them. The practical differences between them are minimal, and in terms of production it's a few dollars (at most) difference.
Upper end LV and more expensive luxury leather good concerns are more understated, sort of a 'if you know you know' thing -- Hermes, Celine, Bottega maybe, etc. A Birkin in a non exotic leather with normal hardware is not a very flashy loud bag(unless you know it). There's still a lot of status signaling and striver insecurity in this(it is fashion after all) but it's slightly more covert and these people are nominally concerned about ostentatious branded stuff being 'tacky.' The social ideal is less about flashy spending and more imitating serious old money who "just want to pay for the highest quality"(though this is, imo, fiction). Can't look like you're trying.
Branding seems mostly about vanity. People often say that they don't care about popular brands and yet the popular brands remain popular. Perhaps we're more vain that we think.
Clothes without branding are sold in less fancy stores or look less cool; often customers are not actually willing to buy them.
I don’t care about it having specific labels on it. In fact I would like to not have those for the most part. But knowing that you are buying genuine Converse shoes might be nice vs knock offs.
Similarly I talked myself into Rimowa Air Salsa suitcase $699 vs the < $150 stuff I'd always bought previously. It was lighter than other so can fit more loot. Two flights later a wheel came off. Took it in for repair at Rimowa, next flight it came off again. Took it in again. Worked for a few flights but next time it came off Rimowa couldn't fix it in time for my return flight so they forwarded me to a local fix it shop at my expense. They fixed that particular wheel better than Rimowa (screw instead of glue) but a few more flights and a different wheel came off.
Similar issues with Schott jackets.
So at least for me, expensive brand != quality. It just equals expensive and possibly in a style I like.
Second, motorcycle gear. I know that TCX is going to have better boots than TourMaster. I know that a Shoei helmet is going to be better than a Walmart helmet. Is everything they put out perfect? No. But I can trust the brand overall.
And as a bonus, rock climbing equipment. I would much rather buy a Black Diamond or a Perzl carabiner than a Chinese knock off.
Clothing is somewhat harder this way but still, I am very happy with my Smart Wool socks and LL Bean insulated jeans vs something from Old Navy or similar.
I'm still not going to wear obvious logos in general, and not wearing prints saves me from the most obvious stuff - and some things can't be avoided as easily. I'm not going to replace the backpacks I have: They were free and functional. I also sometimes have branded shoes because comfort is more important than a logo.
reminds me of this fascinating podcast about the history of textiles.
https://www.econtalk.org/virginia-postrel-on-textiles-and-th...
The fastest spinners in the world used to take 13 days 8hrs a day of labor to spin enough thread to make one pair of jeans. A 200 thread count bed sheet would take 59 days. And neither of those include the time turning that thread into fabric.
Instead of buying cheap cotton shirts in bulk, try buying a few good merino wool t-shirts from a responsible manufacturer, locally produced under much better labor conditions. It will also impact the environment less, partly because cotton production uses ridiculous amounts of water and partly because you're not having products shipped to you from halfway around the globe.
A merino wool t-shirt will be more comfortable, last longer and be more resistant to dirt and odors, as well as regulate temperature much better. For normal day-to-day use, you can alternate between two shirts. Hang the shirt in the bathroom while you shower, then air it out in your bedroom for 24h. You'll find that it doesn't hold on to odors, because the wool isn't absorbent like cotton. Give it a quick shake and wear it for another day, letting the other shirt air out.
Carry on-only travelers swear by merino wool because it's generally lighter than cotton and because you can wear it for several days or even a week like this. If you're not squeamish, you can even do this same routine with underwear, too.
People are so obsessed with quantity now, perhaps because it's an easily measured property. Try going for quality instead :-)
2 that come to my mind right now are Uniqlo and Muji. But I'm sure there's plenty more to buy from in every country.
I think the above companies definitely took the wind out of Gap/American Eagle/Hollister/Nike type companies though who were cashing in on splashing their brand name on everything, but not offering consistent quality in relation to the price.
Edit: they're also one of my favourite tools for reworking automotive wiring harnesses.
And then it's of course signalling - by showing specific brands, you send a message.
My employer got everyone jackets one year, nice ones actually, you just had to submit your size. I didn't, and it's not that I don't like my employer, I absolutely do, but I don't feel that it's necessary for me to advertise where I work. I also quietly ignored the dress shirts, polos and t-shirts that was handed out recently.
People can wear whatever they want, I don't really care. I just don't see the point in paying for branding, or using myself as an billboard.
[1] - It's easiest to imagine for this exercise that you work somewhere unquestionably positive, like a research group that just cured cancer and then released the cure into the public domain or something else that doesn't have Facebook's baggage.
They used to pay 'bums' to wear sandwich-boards. Just sayin.
In general, a big flashy logo signals that the brand itself and people's reaction to it matters more than the quality of the garment. I'll grudgingly accept a small stitched design on a polo or dress shirt, at least those tend to be very minimal. Stitched designs can sometimes be carefully removed, but often the tight embroidery stitches will have distorted or ruined the fabric underneath.
Luckily it is still possible to find good quality clothes with no (or very minimal) branding, but you have to completely avoid fast fashion and main street stores. I've been able to completely excise all clothes with prominent branding from my wardrobe and I'm never going back.
The only exception I make graphic designs is for band shirts, but I feel that's different from corporate branding.
EDIT: the irony of this comment hit me just now.
I mean, Facebook de-platformized a politician that 70+ million people voted for.
It doesn't really matter if they had the right or wrong reasons in doing this: the pool of disillusioned people just grew tremendously and I can't see anyone claiming otherwise.
Or did Facebook think that all of these 70+ million people would just sit back quietly and accept that their politician was blocked (or perceived of being censored)?
EDIT: Clarified the last sentence do to using the word "censored" incorrectly: thanks for pointing it out.
Anyway tl;dr the US needs massive political reform and one should never be constrained to just two choices.
e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Conservative_Party_leader...
In contrast, US Presidents are elected with zero input from Congress and are often at odds with the House and/or Senate majority.
I'm not yet willing to predict mass violence but I will remind people that we had an opposition MP killed during the campaign for Brexit.
Same problems as the US. We have a two party state, which means very broad coalitions, no real choice, and a lot of unheard voices. Just like the US, we have suffered deindustrialisation as companies shipped production overseas, encouraged by our politicians, and those people who lost out have no way of fighting back. Their resentment has grown to the point where it is now finding expression through Brexit and populists like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.
Proportional representation provides a "release valve" for angry minorities, in that new parties can form. Some people think this is a danger, because they see those parties gaining some real power, but what usually happens is their supporters see the realities of political compromise, see some gains, at least feel represented, and the anger recedes.
The first place we're seeing the cracks is the UK leaving the EU whilst NI has not, and support for Scottish independence on the rise.
More pertinent to your reply: without a constitution the flexibility is simply exploited for party political gain, which often destabilises the country. Similarly, the trend has been in recent decades for the executive to increasingly take power away from parliament, which has proceeded unchecked. So some of us envy your constitution and the lack of gaming in e.g. the timing of elections. And let's not even get started on the "ceremonial" royal family...
I mean, read the article: Facebook has realized the same thing and that's why they are recommending their employees to not wear Facebook branded clothing.
Like it or not, the pool of disillusioned people is now much larger and I'm not particularly keen on learning what effects that will have down the road.
In a strong 2-party democracy voting against one party looks equivalent to voting for another, even though the intention is not.
Yikes, what a world we live in.
>"Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere. We’ve got to get the children connected to their parents,” Waters said at the Wilshire Federal Building.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/25/politics/maxine-waters-trump-...
Censoring would be proactive from FB, they have actually allowed him to breach TOS before without a ban, and only this time they enforced the rules we are all subject to.
But that's still beside the point: there is still a fraction greater than 0% of his voters, who will feel (correctly or incorrectly) that their politician was censored. And therein lies the problem with the blocking decision.
It does not matter in any shape or form whether Facebook was right or wrong in their action in blocking Trump: This decision will radicalize more people, as a direct side effect or unintended consequence of their decision to block him due to the TOS violation. Trump is not just some internet lunatic, he is a political candidate and former POTUS that 70+ million people voted for.
> This decision will radicalize more people,
I disagree. It will remove the lightning rod and greatly remove his reach.
Introducing news was a disaster.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
Censorship is in general perfectly legal, the first amendment only protects from government action, and even then, only sometimes, depending on what’s said.
Also do we like Terms of Service now? I thought the mood across HN was that they don't really count as "consent" because nobody reads them?
When presented as dozens of pages of legalese text that you need a law degree to understand I don't think they're reasonable.
Having documented that certain behaviors will result in blocking is perfectly reasonable to me.
They could easily identify people who are disenfranchised and seeking a sense of belonging in their platform. They could easily go back to reverting their feed to show real and positive updates from friends and family. Many of these people would probably re-engage in a more healthy way with the platform instead of constantly seeking outrage inducing feedback loops.
The main issue is that doing so would not only be ethical but it would also be less profitable and therein lies the main issue.
indeed it's not shocking given that FB were happy to take money from conservative disinfo peddlers right up to Nov. 3rd. It's a shame this is happening but maybe it's time they had a taste of their own medicine in their own country? Because the last time when they caused a genocide in Myanmar by supporting the junta nobody at FB has been held responsible.
There is no such thing as "dirty/unethical" money in their eyes. Sod their mgmt and PR-teams who are playing the victim card advising employees about "how to be safe in a big ugly world".
Anyone wearing FB swag should be entitled to at least half a year living (as a Muslim) in Myanmar while posting their experience with dissent on the platform. The fact that FB sees itself still as a platform that can bring positive change suggests they drew the wrong conclusions from the "Arab Spring success story".
FB is a "tool of terror" in countries which are considered developing. Even in places like US, Germany, UK, Brazil, India etc FB does more to divide people than to bring them together.
A few FB employees now "uncomfortable" about whether their swag is still wearable in public isn't anything the majority will lose sleep over. Certainly not in Myanmar.
Just like I criticized both the BLM movement with its violence (riots) and braindead slogans ("defund the police"), I think it's important to criticize both the right-wing rioters and the Big Tech response. None of those people, regardless of what they're fighting for (in particular if they're doing it in good faith) are using the right tactics to achieve their goals. BLM chanting "defund the police" while rioting and requiring more police? Right-wingers want their politics & cclaims of election fraud taken seriously while staging a faux-coup in clown custumes? What did they expect, the public opinion not to turn against them? These tactics are so ridiculous that I find it really hard to believe they were sincere in their intentions.
Same here for Big Tech. If they wanted to prevent "inciting violence" they'd censor specific tweets, not ban Trump and Paul Ryan. But, mostly, I think the best move against further violence was increased government action, both in case of BLM (e.g. destroying CHAZ in Portland) and in case of Capitol attack (increased military presence in DC).
I think (and hope) that FB&co are digging their own grave. They probably calmed Democrats for now, but they're a single scandal away from being dismanteled.
I think you're underestimating the depth of the problem. The fact that the Capitol attack got as far as it did was because factions of government intentionally did not act, or even blocked action. All of society needs to fight this, at every level; it's an existential threat.
The republicans abandoned "seriousness" with their election of Donald Trump. It turned out to be unnecessary. He did all sorts of ludicrous things, down to the Four Seasons Total Landscaping conference, but those didn't actually affect his grasp on power because they were irrelevant to his supporters.
The coup came surprisingly close to working. Several representatives were successfully intimidated into voting to decertify an election they knew was legitimate: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/01/07/major...
This time they didn't bring guns. No mass shooter, just one cop beaten to death with a fire extinguisher. Nothing like the Vegas shooting. One day the mass shooters and the coup attempters will coordinate.
This is a fake fact. More republicans said they were going to vote against certifying the electoral votes before the riots. Then they changed their minds; the rioters had the opposite effect to what they wanted.
[0]: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/gop-rep-claims-colleague...
It doesn't come with a pamphlet. Meaning is established inside the minds of those who see / hear it.
If that meaning is consistently at odds with the intention, the fault lies with the sloganeer.
"Reduce police funding by a large amount, but not too large, let's face it, we need at least a few cops!" isn't as catchy for protesting.
The only people who think "defund the police" means anarchy are the "braindead" ones, because they didn't even do a tiny bit of research.
Evidently, they think a lot of those people are violent extremists. And they're not wrong. Hence the OP.
Facebooks cool tho. I get my 'news' from there, and I am sure its all on the up and up.
1.) Animated or colorful icons with incrementing numbers in some context. This is huge for the addiction factor. 2.) Infinite scrolling. Also for addiction factor. 3.) Relative Timestamps. Everything is more immediate and you feel the need to stay on longer.
So, hopefully their employees stay safe, but as far as the company is concerned... Occasionally, to continue to have a republic, we have to slay a dragon or two. I can think of three, actually.
Also I believe infinite scrolling existed before FB, probably on RSS readers and other places on the web. NNTP clients did this long long ago.
If you're saying FB popularized them because they were so popular - well ok maybe.
I think I'm going to start noticing these everywhere now...
Have to give some kudos to iOS 14, letting me hide all the apps so I no longer need to individually adjust their notification settings so I don't see that incrementing notification number!
Regarding the original article, I've received no warnings about wearing FB branded stuff outside, so the warning may have been specific to DC or specific locations.
No matter if you're wearing Facebook clothing, something political, your sports team clothing, etc. You shouldn't have to be afraid for it.
Is it really society's failure to fight back against a company whose entire business model is detrimental to said society?
And there are more companies like this. Do we assault anyone working for companies that pollute? What about people working in banks that made possible the 2008 crash? And I could go on and on.
If anyone is doing anything illegal, they should be brought to justice. Violence will bring only more violence and won't solve the problem.
> If anyone is doing anything illegal, they should be brought to justice.
Besides mental issues, people rarely resort to violence; not only is it risky in terms of legal/physical consequences but it's also more effort; why would anyone go out and beat up someone if they can achieve the desired effect without that?
Given that there are people that are threatening Facebook employees with violence, it seems that "conventional" justice doesn't seem to have any effect (or corruption... I mean lobbying is perverting the course of justice) and people are threatening to take the matter in their own hands in an act of desperation.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_tech_bus_protest...
[1] https://www.berkeleyside.com/2014/01/22/activists-target-goo...
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/i-was-assaulted-for-wearing-...
[3] https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/apple-google-buses-rerouted-...
It’s a lashing out sparked by wealth inequality and people knowing something is wrong with this country but not sure who to attack or vote for.
Nobody lashes out against Amazon warehouse workers because of brand.
99% of the people at AIG had nothing to do with the business that contributed to the financial crisis. In fact, the business unit most responsible was in Connecticut (we were in the Financial District in Manhattan). So it was pretty frustrating to be a worker bee making a middle income salary and having no insight to or ability to influence the issues causing the financial crisis, and yet having strangers wanting to yell at or physically harm you.
People on the other side of the wealth divide sense something is wrong with this country but are unable to put their finger on what. Attacks on tech workers is really a surface level issue.
Misguided radicalism happens in places with deep economic issues caused by things that are too complex to completely reason out. What causes wealth inequality? Nobody can put their finger on it but people will make up a reason if they have too. Usually that reason involves attacking anyone and any symbol on the other side of the wealth divide.
Just because someone wears Carhartt and drives a kitted-out truck doesn't mean they're working class. That's a costume, and you were fooled.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/03/americas-inequality-ele...
My conclusions are based on data. Which further fuels the confusion. We can engage in an endless argument on who’s data is garbage and who’s is not
But still.
I don't have an ad blocker. I'm using a run-of-the-mill browser here. Won't tell which one, you would probably laugh.
And the website is blocking me on grounds of having an ad blocker. And there's no way around it. I can click "learn more", only to be redirected to another page which is equally blocked by this "we need your money" shit.
Look, I understand you need money to survive. But at least give us a way to contact you, or something?
EDIT: Well, I have a PiHole which I forgot about, actually. So they're probably right on the ad blocker. lol
EDIT2: Oh no, that's hilarious. It actually happens because I've rejected permissions on their cookie popup.
BTW I am using an adblocker (uBlock Origin) and it is not blocking me, prolly because it also blocks its anti-adblock script.
Ahahah that's good!
Here's a link that should work for you : https://archive.is/jq8cX
the building itself was also devoid of any signs that indicated this contained an FBI office.
interestingly enough, a few months later, i was contracted for another job at a different FBI field office. that one had a sign out front and seemed surprised when i asked if i needed to remove my badge before leaving the building.