> Pichai attempted to explain individual email account settings to Steube, prompting the congressman to interject when the Google chief said the “primary tab” is for friends and family. “Well, it was my father who is not receiving now my campaign emails. So clearly that familial thing you’re talking about didn’t apply to my emails,” Steube exclaimed, conflating his personal emails with his political campaign’s.
It's not so surprising that these people are ignorant, but what's really frustrating is that they don't even realize their own ignorance. If they did that, maybe they'd get help writing these questions from somebody with a clue.
Let’s assume for a second that his campaign’s emails were truly going to spam by default. If that’s happening by default (we don’t know that it isn’t), isn’t that cause for concern?
Either the spam algorithm is rightly (by design intent) filtering because the campaign emails fit certain heuristics of spammy email. Or perhaps a skunkworks style rogue group within Google is meddling. (To be clear, I’m not suggesting this is happening, and personally believe it’s improbable – but one must consider that it’s possible.)
Just a reminder that the President is 78, the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate (2nd and 3rd in line for the presidency) are both 81, and this is the oldest Senate in history of this country with an average age around 65.
All else being equal people vote for candidates like them and older people turn out to vote at a much higher rate than young people. If you want you representatives to actually understand the world they are tasked with leading or want them to at least have consider how their decisions will personally affect them a decade in the future, you need to vote and convince your peers to vote. It is especially important to vote in primaries due to the US's two party system.
What is strange to me why did the Facebook person try to explain the term to the Senator? I’m no lawyer, and this is just my first reaction about what she answered based on what little I know.
These Senate hearings are not jovial chats among friends. They are in the same ballpark as depositions, or interviews with law enforcement officiers. You are not there to make the opposition’s work easier. (Assuming you with counsels decided that the best option for you/your company is to appear.) You have to be curteous, and truthfull. But you absolutelly should not go into “guessing what the question might be”.
When he asks “Will you commit ending finsta?”
I would answer “At facebook we have no feature or setting named finsta. We cannot commit to end what we don’t offer.”
And let him explain what he thinks finsta means to him.
In casual conversations we often try to answer the question we think we should have been asked. This is not such an occasion.
This whole thing is a performative display, so might as well take the opportunity to make the Senator look out of touch in their photo-op.
Hearings were originally intended to be fact finding sessions. During an era in which 'Newspapers' were an experimental new technology, it was still a good idea to get all the lawmakers into a room and bring in witnesses to present different sides of an issue.
And that might have been the case in the 19th Century, but in the post-war administrative state, Senators do not actually hold hearings to gather information as they have teams of full time aides that do that for them with modern technologies like the internet and the telephone that have obviated the need for hearings.
In the modern world, hearings are an opportunity to give speeches in front of cameras, to ask questions that embarrass your enemies and make your allies look good. Therefore Facebook is correctly using the hearings in their modern form, by trying to make the questioners look bad by pointing out how out of touch they are.
To what degree should companies be responsible for goods which, without structured or disciplined use leads to harm, especially when the good in question has an apparently reasonable use case?
Alcohol would be a good example, as would be unhealthy foods from the restaurant industry and food supply chain. But restrictions to drugs are made on an ad-hoc basis and not from a general principle.
While not banned, a lot of countries restricted television advertising of unhealthy food to children during childrens programming. I dont know how effective this was/is, but I suspect it's been erroded by new marketing channels(internet etc) anyway.
Drugs. The term you are looking for is drug, because numerous studies have shown the effect on brain chemistry[2] and behavior[1] from social media addiction could be as bad as hard drugs.
"She said Facebook takes "the privacy, safety and well-being of all those who use our platform very seriously, ...""
The magic incantation.
Flawed reasoning: "We take X seriously" therefore there are no problems with X.
Contrast "seriously" with "seriously enough".
There must be more to it. There must be some science behind the use of the "take X seriously" statements.
"We've committed to not retaliating for this individual speaking to the Senate," she said.
Do they know who it is. Do they believe retaliation would be legal.
"Facebook's brand is bad, and I think Facebook, you know, would freely admit that," said Katie Harbath, a former public policy director at the company. "But, you know, nobody else is gonna come and defend the company besides themselves."
Why won't anyone else come and defend the company. Wouldn't advertisers, users (ad targets) and investors want to defend the company.
"In this next chapter of our company, I think we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company," [Zuckerberg] told tech journalist Casey Newton this summer.
Try to escape bad rep. Social media bad. "We are not social media. We are metaverse."
"They've been able to weather these storms over and over again," said Yael Eisenstat, who worked at Facebook on elections integrity for political advertising in 2018.
"What I think is different this time is that I don't think they're fully understanding that internal employees have questions now."
After Facebook has "connected the world", then what. No more growth. What then.
When they try to change the way they’re viewed instead of bringing up relevant facts, you know that they know that they don’t have a leg to stand on.
I say we do to Facebook what JFK wanted to do to the CIA.
Imagine social media without a profit motive. Decentralize, distribute and encrypt the fuck out of it. I don’t want curated feeds, I want to keep in touch with people I know.
Isn’t the magic just that humans sometimes believe what is said rather than what is done? You need to watch what people do, and whether they actually do what they say.
> "We take X seriously" therefore there are no problems with X.
This is my favorite response doing Tech DDs. I meet execs who say "we take security seriously" all of the time. I enjoy the follow-on of "ok show us then"...
Do you backup your DB? Do you test it? No?
Do you encrypt everything at rest? No?
Are you using MFA for all services that are accessible by developers? No?
The challenge is what, exactly, to regulate. Here are some ideas:
Ban algorithmic content curation. If a product is going to have a "featured" section or "watch next" or whatever, that should have to come from a human editor who can be held accountable for their choices.
This would force huge changes in a lot of services, but ultimately I think we've learned that engagement algorithms drive toxic feedback loops and echo chambers that their creators are not proud of. This outcome in inherent to any function that maximizes engagement, so we just have to stop.
Ban one-bit reactions; ie. no like buttons that get people addicted to the high of "crowd approval." Just allow comments.
Ban ad-targeting based on any protected class (age, race, gender).
Make those requirements kick in for any app with greater than $10M ARR or 50,000 DAU.
How do you suppose that happens? First you need fact finding, which happens in the background, and soundboarding, which is what this is. It looks like a circus, because it, in part, sort of is. The Senate is gauging to what degree the public cares about this. If prioritizing this issue will bring them votes when they go to campaign on it.
(sorry for the source; couldn't get a digital version of the ad since they don't appear to serve it online)
They've been buying full-page ads to this effect in the print edition of the Economist for years now. Given that they clearly believe that they'll be able to steer any such regulation into being a competitive advantage, I'd really rather explore other avenues.
e: my personal nightmare is Facebook-as-regulated-utility: all of the evil the existing corporation exerts, plus no chance that it'll ever naturally go the way of myspace. I'm not ideologically opposed to all regulation ever anywhere, just deeply concerned that any regulation we see in this space will move us closer to that particular cyberpunk dystopia.
Sounds like social media platforms might end up like cigarette companies, where they finally acknowledge the harm of their product and add a disclaimer to avoid liability: "This product is designed to manipulate you. It will probably make your life worse." Or, like the drug companies: "If you have depression, suicidal thoughts or find yourself screaming at some rando on the internet, stop taking Facebook and consult a therapist."
Maybe a required 20px white on black label affixed to the top of the app at all times. Like a cookie banner, but not dismissible?
THIS PRODUCT IS DESIGNED TO MANIPULATE YOUR EMOTIONAL STATE. [READ MORE]
That seems totally reasonable to me.
We should call our legislators and demand this. This would make society so much better if Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, etc. were forced to bear this marking.
Not that I don't support warning disclaimers on facebook, but "designed to manipulate your emotional state" certainly applies to all movies, music, most books, etc. A big difference between these things and facebook is that facebook is reactive. It constantly measures your emotional state and modifies what it presents you with. Movies, music and books don't do that (yet?)
Facebook reacts to you reacting to facebook; putting you inside a control loop. Facebook is more akin to a car salesman than a movie director; a car salesman who knows virtually everything about you because he's MITMed your social interactions for years, and can modify his individualized approach to manipulating you minute by minute.
Sounds good. I also propose that companies can opt out, at the cost of donating 20% of their annual revenue, every year, to agricultural development or to the military. These are prosocial organizations known for their contribution to society.
These warnings are added to cigarette companies because banning them outright is too disruptive for those who are already addicted. They aim to reduce the number of new drug users.
This is pointless for social media. It won't stop people from using these things because too often it's the only way to talk to family and friends. Even their jobs could depend on it.
Just ban advertising in general. They're the ones enabling all the evils in 21st century digital society. This will take care of social media, surveillance capitalism and more in one fell swoop.
I can think of no greater waste of human time or energy than these ridiculous Senate "hearings". It's just performance art, on all sides - they should just bring Yoko Ono in and call it a day.
The sad thing is that Senators usually call these hearings so they can make tough sound bites against naughty companies, but they usually just end up sounding like idiots (see the other comment about Sen. Blumenthal's "Finsta" nonsense).
Senators are accountable to the people, Facebook is accountable to its shareholders.
It could be bozo the clown for all I care, but at least, someone is attempting to answer these questions on behalf of parents not technically capable enough to do something about this.
This is completely subjective but it always seems to me like whenever these sitdowns happen it's nothing but an opportunity for politicians to posture and get their soundbites in to clip and re-use in Twitter shorts and campaign material with not much actually happening afterwards. The only time giant companies actually seem to change course is when rumors of upcoming regulatory pressure from the FCC or something like that start up.
I understand that I might be cynical but even when they're not just producing cringe at these hearings, they always seem to do the Ted Cruz thing and so I've stopped expecting anything to actually happen...
70 comments
[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 160 ms ] thread> Sen. Blumenthal asks Facebook "Will you commit to ending Finsta?"
> Facebook's safety chief has to explain that Finsta is slang for a fake account.
Sigh.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-rep-greg-steube-asks-googl...
> Pichai attempted to explain individual email account settings to Steube, prompting the congressman to interject when the Google chief said the “primary tab” is for friends and family. “Well, it was my father who is not receiving now my campaign emails. So clearly that familial thing you’re talking about didn’t apply to my emails,” Steube exclaimed, conflating his personal emails with his political campaign’s.
Either the spam algorithm is rightly (by design intent) filtering because the campaign emails fit certain heuristics of spammy email. Or perhaps a skunkworks style rogue group within Google is meddling. (To be clear, I’m not suggesting this is happening, and personally believe it’s improbable – but one must consider that it’s possible.)
Spam's where quite a few of them belong.
One needs to understand the concept of "Finsta" before they can ask that the concept be prevented.
All else being equal people vote for candidates like them and older people turn out to vote at a much higher rate than young people. If you want you representatives to actually understand the world they are tasked with leading or want them to at least have consider how their decisions will personally affect them a decade in the future, you need to vote and convince your peers to vote. It is especially important to vote in primaries due to the US's two party system.
These Senate hearings are not jovial chats among friends. They are in the same ballpark as depositions, or interviews with law enforcement officiers. You are not there to make the opposition’s work easier. (Assuming you with counsels decided that the best option for you/your company is to appear.) You have to be curteous, and truthfull. But you absolutelly should not go into “guessing what the question might be”.
When he asks “Will you commit ending finsta?”
I would answer “At facebook we have no feature or setting named finsta. We cannot commit to end what we don’t offer.” And let him explain what he thinks finsta means to him.
In casual conversations we often try to answer the question we think we should have been asked. This is not such an occasion.
Hearings were originally intended to be fact finding sessions. During an era in which 'Newspapers' were an experimental new technology, it was still a good idea to get all the lawmakers into a room and bring in witnesses to present different sides of an issue.
And that might have been the case in the 19th Century, but in the post-war administrative state, Senators do not actually hold hearings to gather information as they have teams of full time aides that do that for them with modern technologies like the internet and the telephone that have obviated the need for hearings.
In the modern world, hearings are an opportunity to give speeches in front of cameras, to ask questions that embarrass your enemies and make your allies look good. Therefore Facebook is correctly using the hearings in their modern form, by trying to make the questioners look bad by pointing out how out of touch they are.
jesus christ the college educated are morons.
Will the gods be mad that she was blasted for burying things?
Drugs. The term you are looking for is drug, because numerous studies have shown the effect on brain chemistry[2] and behavior[1] from social media addiction could be as bad as hard drugs.
[1] https://www.addictioncenter.com/news/2019/09/excessive-socia...
[2] https://neurogrow.com/what-social-media-does-to-your-brain/
The magic incantation.
Flawed reasoning: "We take X seriously" therefore there are no problems with X.
Contrast "seriously" with "seriously enough".
There must be more to it. There must be some science behind the use of the "take X seriously" statements.
"We've committed to not retaliating for this individual speaking to the Senate," she said.
Do they know who it is. Do they believe retaliation would be legal.
"Facebook's brand is bad, and I think Facebook, you know, would freely admit that," said Katie Harbath, a former public policy director at the company. "But, you know, nobody else is gonna come and defend the company besides themselves."
Why won't anyone else come and defend the company. Wouldn't advertisers, users (ad targets) and investors want to defend the company.
"In this next chapter of our company, I think we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company," [Zuckerberg] told tech journalist Casey Newton this summer.
Try to escape bad rep. Social media bad. "We are not social media. We are metaverse."
"They've been able to weather these storms over and over again," said Yael Eisenstat, who worked at Facebook on elections integrity for political advertising in 2018.
"What I think is different this time is that I don't think they're fully understanding that internal employees have questions now."
After Facebook has "connected the world", then what. No more growth. What then.
I say we do to Facebook what JFK wanted to do to the CIA.
Imagine social media without a profit motive. Decentralize, distribute and encrypt the fuck out of it. I don’t want curated feeds, I want to keep in touch with people I know.
Use it to invade Cuba?
> "I want to be clear: This research is not a bombshell."
It's not, because you knew about it.
> "We take X seriously" therefore there are no problems with X.
This is my favorite response doing Tech DDs. I meet execs who say "we take security seriously" all of the time. I enjoy the follow-on of "ok show us then"...
Do you backup your DB? Do you test it? No?
Do you encrypt everything at rest? No?
Are you using MFA for all services that are accessible by developers? No?
etc. etc.
Then no, you don't take security seriously.
Social media has proven time and again they are unwilling to do the right thing.
They perform human experimentation and must be regulated for public safety.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook...
It is an on going activity.
Ban algorithmic content curation. If a product is going to have a "featured" section or "watch next" or whatever, that should have to come from a human editor who can be held accountable for their choices. This would force huge changes in a lot of services, but ultimately I think we've learned that engagement algorithms drive toxic feedback loops and echo chambers that their creators are not proud of. This outcome in inherent to any function that maximizes engagement, so we just have to stop.
Ban one-bit reactions; ie. no like buttons that get people addicted to the high of "crowd approval." Just allow comments.
Ban ad-targeting based on any protected class (age, race, gender).
Make those requirements kick in for any app with greater than $10M ARR or 50,000 DAU.
How do you suppose that happens? First you need fact finding, which happens in the background, and soundboarding, which is what this is. It looks like a circus, because it, in part, sort of is. The Senate is gauging to what degree the public cares about this. If prioritizing this issue will bring them votes when they go to campaign on it.
https://mobile.twitter.com/kateo/status/1306071764741558275
(sorry for the source; couldn't get a digital version of the ad since they don't appear to serve it online)
They've been buying full-page ads to this effect in the print edition of the Economist for years now. Given that they clearly believe that they'll be able to steer any such regulation into being a competitive advantage, I'd really rather explore other avenues.
e: my personal nightmare is Facebook-as-regulated-utility: all of the evil the existing corporation exerts, plus no chance that it'll ever naturally go the way of myspace. I'm not ideologically opposed to all regulation ever anywhere, just deeply concerned that any regulation we see in this space will move us closer to that particular cyberpunk dystopia.
Maybe that's already in the EULA??? :shrug:
We should call our legislators and demand this. This would make society so much better if Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, etc. were forced to bear this marking.
Caresses the supple leather underneath me
Facebook reacts to you reacting to facebook; putting you inside a control loop. Facebook is more akin to a car salesman than a movie director; a car salesman who knows virtually everything about you because he's MITMed your social interactions for years, and can modify his individualized approach to manipulating you minute by minute.
I think hitting Facebook's wallet is the only way to get them to reform.
This is pointless for social media. It won't stop people from using these things because too often it's the only way to talk to family and friends. Even their jobs could depend on it.
Just ban advertising in general. They're the ones enabling all the evils in 21st century digital society. This will take care of social media, surveillance capitalism and more in one fell swoop.
The sad thing is that Senators usually call these hearings so they can make tough sound bites against naughty companies, but they usually just end up sounding like idiots (see the other comment about Sen. Blumenthal's "Finsta" nonsense).
This (and other prominent) companies are put in power by these people. It’s embarrassing that a community like HN is blind to this.
It could be bozo the clown for all I care, but at least, someone is attempting to answer these questions on behalf of parents not technically capable enough to do something about this.
Which just makes the statement "Facebook is accountable to Mark Zuckerberg".
I think we've given them more than enough chances they need to be completely dissolved nothing of value will have been lost.
Military and agriculture are the foundations of every powerful state.
The state would become more powerful and those employees reassigned to more productive tasks would be morally progressed.
I understand that I might be cynical but even when they're not just producing cringe at these hearings, they always seem to do the Ted Cruz thing and so I've stopped expecting anything to actually happen...