I wonder if this is sad because people took advantage of an obvious power dynamic, which would make her the victim... Or if she's in control of her destiny and a brilliant marketer. I mean this is clearly getting lots of attention and no matter if the story is correct or not, the myth of her sleeping with Meta employees might significantly raise her attractiveness for similar people, i.e. nerds with a high salary, i.e. her perfect customers.
I wouldn't be surprised if this led to an increase in paid business by Meta employees. In that case, she would have converted a business issue into an opportunity.
Because her income depends on maintaining her instagram account. That's a material need, anything in the other direction is a rationalization. You might as well say a prisoner forced her prison guard to sleep with her by being so appealing.
Literally everyone income is dependent on various types of enforcement authorities (HR, professional licensing boards, cops, osha, etc) not being on their case.
I have a very hard time seeing anyone who manages to pull a fast one on some stupid bureaucracy as a victim.
The only difference between this scenario and an actual porno setup is that the meta employee isn't a college professor who controls her grade.
You could make the argument that it's only a power dynamic problem if the IG employee is the first to bring up sex, but if a college student offers to sleep with their professor to get a better grade, if the professor accepts are they benefiting from a power dynamic? I would say, very clearly yes.
The hypothetical professor, or meta employee, is transacting business that creates a conflict of interest with their prior business relationship with their employer.
This is little different from me tipping the safelite guy to lay a bead of sealant on some other stuff while he's at it.
A prisoner sleeping with a guard is an obvious abuse of power… if they remain imprisoned. I’d not know what to make of it though if the prisoner was freed though.
It’s like bribing a cop to destroy evidence of wrong doing, rather than being forced to bribe them since they stopped you on the road. If the bribe removes you from their power then it changes the dynamic and moral outcome.
> She was banned repeatedly, which does make it feel a little extortion-esque, akin to the cop throwing you back in prison so you can bribe him again.
She was probably also violating policies repeatedly (e.g. sexual nudity).
I think viewing this situation as a case of a purely unidirectional power dynamic is an ideologically-motivated falsehood. She's got one kind of power, the Facebook employees have another kind, and it's unclear who (if anyone) is on the loosing end.
I mean, she claims she was literally hunting for Facebook employees to achieve her goals (likely to not suffer the usual consequence for policy violations). It's also quite possible that the employees she successfully used could get fired on account of the situation she consciously engineered. This also has one of the hierarchy or duty-of-care dynamics that you'd have in a school or workplace setting.
> I mean, she claims she was literally hunting for Facebook employees to achieve her goals
Yeah, and if you check her IG page, as of today it explicitly states that she is looking for TikTok employees now, probably for the exact same purpose (but that one is just a speculation on my part).
As a sidenote, on her twitter she referred to the whole incident as "When Instagram tried to cuck me so I took my power back"[0].
EDIT: looks like her IG went private at some point earlier today, so I cannot see that statement about TikTok there anymore (and no, I am not going to request to follow her account just to find that one post).
He´s trying to identify the strongest power dynamic. The natural balance is towards Meta, since she needs more to have her account unbanned, but if it was also her plan, and it worked, it balances out.
According to the tweet: "She said she got her Instagram deleted so she just started messaging Facebook employees on LinkedIn and having sex with them until one finally gave her her account back".
“Myth” is an interesting choice of word here. Her read of the policy is accurate enough, and certainly she’s right about sfbay tech workers being vulnerable to social pressure of this sort. Whether or not her story is provable, it’s absolutely plausible.
I don’t envy Facebook trying to discuss their fraternal “unclose your account” policy in the same breath as the sexual promiscuity of their employees. (And I bet the infosec team is having a James Bond moment, too: imagine how many more people are going to try sleeping with tech workers for privileged access now that this threat surface is better known.)
Has meta ever publicly disclosed details about an employee fired for an ethics violation in a manner that would even conceivably left them unemployable?
Doesn't stop them drop simply dropping their stint at Meta.
(Also, it would be surprising to hear that Meta ever gives a reference worse than "I can confirm Foo was employed with us from x to y and I can make no further comment.")
Reminds me of why I always advise people to have a friend check their references:
Decades ago my SO went through a stint of over a year where absolutely no one would hire her, she'd get offers but they'd abort at the last minute. Finally, she landed a temp job through friendly introductions for a help desk line for the local government.
After a long run as a temp they decided to hire her on full time and put her through the normal hiring process. She got a call from HR about a problem with her references: The pharmacy she'd worked at for several years claimed that she worked for two days then no-showed and that was it. Eventually she got on the phone with them and HR and it was discovered that some other person in another city had been in their system with the same SSN and they were reading off the wrong record.
It was only because she had already been doing the job and was well liked that she had the opportunity to learn what was happening and set the record straight. Without that who knows how many more years she would have continued getting turned away from work.
Actually, many employers do verification checks to ensure your resume is accurate. Facebook has an email address or phone line (as do Google, Apple, etc) to verify this.
Absolute monopoly power drives corruption. Social media companies have monopolies on their segment of the market, and it's only a matter of time before they formalize the corruption that clearly already occurs in their review process.
This is why corporations that have monopoly (or oligopoly, or near-monopoly) status should not be immune to providing their customers with some form of public-driven due process.
Monopoly power drives corruption. Social media companies have monopolies on their segment of the market, and it's only a matter of time before they formalize the corruption that clearly already occurs.
This is why corporations that are monopolies (or oligopolies, or near-monopolies) should not be immune to providing their customers with some form of public-driven due process.
The line between pornography, prostitution, and "sex that happens to be adjacent to a gift or service", can obviously be fuzzy. I don't really get the feeling that you honestly don't understand that, as your edit implies. You are totally free to make a semantic argument, and others are free to disagree with it and, further, consider it to be a "bad faith" argument serving as an excuse to simply be derogatory (hence flagging).
Note that I have no idea what this person does and therefore have no opinion about where her individual sexual acts lie on the spectrum.
The downvoters/flaggers are mislabeling these observations as 'derogatory' when they are simply 'irreverent'.
And, since the comment is irreverent in exactly same way that the subjects of the comment – publicity-seeking sex-workers – typically like to be strategically irreverent, it's not derogatory to them.
This is a very strange comment. First you say she's a prostitute instead of a porn star, and then you suggest she didn't even sleep with the guy. Then... why do you even think she's a prostitute?
> This is a very strange comment. First you say she's a prostitute instead of a porn star, and then you suggest she didn't even sleep with the guy. Then... why do you even think she's a prostitute?
Someone can be a prostitute but still be lying when they claim to have sex with a particular person. Also I'm under the impression that "porn stars" actually make pretty terrible money for making porn, and actually make their money through things like stripping and prostitution ("escorting") that's enhanced by their "porn star" status.
> Someone can be a prostitute but still be lying when they claim to have sex with a particular person.
So, she’s a prostitute, just one who has never slept with anyone working at Meta?
Well, I guess good on her for getting her Instagram unbanned by going through the official channels.
> Also I'm under the impression that "porn stars" actually make pretty terrible money for making porn, and actually make their money through things like stripping and prostitution
Should be a log of messages and IG actions Facebook infosec can reference, no? Someone unbanned the IG account and there should be a log of that event.
Understanding how moderation powers for online services play out in real-life situations is absolutely an important topic for hackers. Especially so when it's the megaplatforms on which so many other projects depend.
Similar motivations can also often create privacy risks for users & staff, requiring both technical & organizational design to prevent. The NSA, Google, and others have all had problems where employees misused their access to pursue personal romantic/social aims.
There's a reason the YC application traditionally asked, "Please tell us about the time you, username, most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage."
There seems like some cognitive dissonance happening here.
Is there this level of outrage when people use their status within SV to get actual help with problems at google/facebook/twitter? Are twitter employees getting fired when high clout SV people get bluchecked as a status symbol?
Or maybe there's something unique about the fact that she's having sex with these people, and in fact having sex with people for money is different that writing computer software for people for money.
To be clear: I think that what we're doing to our society by normalizing the idea of young women becoming literal prostitutes, and pretending like that is just cool and normal is horrifying. I just think that stories like this being noteworthy kindof highlight the hypocrisy I see within tech where people pretend that the employees at onlyfans and pornhub aren't litereally engaging in grooming.
1. Major corporations are unwilling to solve account problems with actual humans. I decry it, but it's a horrible part of the industry.
2. I can foresee an account problem solved by reaching employees on a forum they're known to frequent. You talk to them and force someone to look at the problem. It is unfair, but I am a realist.
3. I cannot foresee a massive company having such lax security processes that exchanging anything can solve for point 2. Sex, money, whatever. Is Facebook ok that its employees are getting screwed, or getting money, for favours?
Because most people are still viscerally repulsed by such shameless promiscuity, even if they rationalize it to themselves otherwise. In my opinion, the instinctual reaction is correct here. It is not normal or cool to be a prostitute.
Being a Meta employee in certain areas allows you to verify anyone on Instagram. A couple of the more unscrupulous employees there that I knew/know would exchange verification for sex with "influencers".
She should offer a service for hire to sleep with Apple and Google employees to get people's accounts turned back on. Seems more direct and effective than creating a twitter storm to try to punch through their Kafkaesque support processes.
I think the fundamental aspect of this story is that these accounts can be extremely important to people's lives. They are important enough to go on a crusade of sleeping with multiple random people but at the same time are at the whim of getting banned without recourse and unbanned at the whim of the employees in control.
There is a severe imbalance between how much these things mean to people and the control they have over them.
You can’t push certain kinds of content into a grey area on your services. Take a stand, treat everyone equally, and don’t put people in a position where they feel the need to literally figure out which one of your employees they need to fuck to get even treatment.
Apple shouldn’t be able to dictate the content and policies of other platforms. Some of the most bizarre forms of damage can only be inflicted by people trying to “do good”.
Im a guy so I probably can't offer sex to get favors from tech companies, but I could offer cash to employees. Is that allowed?
New innovation, SupportBid! An auction where people bid on or buy now 15 minutes blocks of support help from tech companies. I bet there are countless people that would pay $300 for 15 minutes to get their accounts back.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 124 ms ] threadI wouldn't be surprised if this led to an increase in paid business by Meta employees. In that case, she would have converted a business issue into an opportunity.
I have a very hard time seeing anyone who manages to pull a fast one on some stupid bureaucracy as a victim.
You could make the argument that it's only a power dynamic problem if the IG employee is the first to bring up sex, but if a college student offers to sleep with their professor to get a better grade, if the professor accepts are they benefiting from a power dynamic? I would say, very clearly yes.
This is little different from me tipping the safelite guy to lay a bead of sealant on some other stuff while he's at it.
But she profits greatly, and is getting banned with cause. She also went out of her way to meet up with those people and slept with them.
It doesn't even sound like there is a clearly stated quid pro quo, sounds more like manipulation in this case.
She was probably also violating policies repeatedly (e.g. sexual nudity).
I think viewing this situation as a case of a purely unidirectional power dynamic is an ideologically-motivated falsehood. She's got one kind of power, the Facebook employees have another kind, and it's unclear who (if anyone) is on the loosing end.
I mean, she claims she was literally hunting for Facebook employees to achieve her goals (likely to not suffer the usual consequence for policy violations). It's also quite possible that the employees she successfully used could get fired on account of the situation she consciously engineered. This also has one of the hierarchy or duty-of-care dynamics that you'd have in a school or workplace setting.
Yeah, and if you check her IG page, as of today it explicitly states that she is looking for TikTok employees now, probably for the exact same purpose (but that one is just a speculation on my part).
As a sidenote, on her twitter she referred to the whole incident as "When Instagram tried to cuck me so I took my power back"[0].
0. https://twitter.com/Kittylixo/status/1527021683256659968
EDIT: looks like her IG went private at some point earlier today, so I cannot see that statement about TikTok there anymore (and no, I am not going to request to follow her account just to find that one post).
According to the tweet: "She said she got her Instagram deleted so she just started messaging Facebook employees on LinkedIn and having sex with them until one finally gave her her account back".
I don’t envy Facebook trying to discuss their fraternal “unclose your account” policy in the same breath as the sexual promiscuity of their employees. (And I bet the infosec team is having a James Bond moment, too: imagine how many more people are going to try sleeping with tech workers for privileged access now that this threat surface is better known.)
Imagine how many accounts that were otherwise evoked a "eh, thotty but passable" repose from the arbitrators are gonna get banned now.
How would I know to not hire unethical exmetas?
(Also, it would be surprising to hear that Meta ever gives a reference worse than "I can confirm Foo was employed with us from x to y and I can make no further comment.")
Reminds me of why I always advise people to have a friend check their references:
Decades ago my SO went through a stint of over a year where absolutely no one would hire her, she'd get offers but they'd abort at the last minute. Finally, she landed a temp job through friendly introductions for a help desk line for the local government.
After a long run as a temp they decided to hire her on full time and put her through the normal hiring process. She got a call from HR about a problem with her references: The pharmacy she'd worked at for several years claimed that she worked for two days then no-showed and that was it. Eventually she got on the phone with them and HR and it was discovered that some other person in another city had been in their system with the same SSN and they were reading off the wrong record.
It was only because she had already been doing the job and was well liked that she had the opportunity to learn what was happening and set the record straight. Without that who knows how many more years she would have continued getting turned away from work.
edit: oh apparently that's some kind of reference (news.ycombinator.com/whoosh hahaha!)
This is why corporations that have monopoly (or oligopoly, or near-monopoly) status should not be immune to providing their customers with some form of public-driven due process.
Otherwise we're just asking for corruption.
This is why corporations that are monopolies (or oligopolies, or near-monopolies) should not be immune to providing their customers with some form of public-driven due process.
Note that I have no idea what this person does and therefore have no opinion about where her individual sexual acts lie on the spectrum.
And, since the comment is irreverent in exactly same way that the subjects of the comment – publicity-seeking sex-workers – typically like to be strategically irreverent, it's not derogatory to them.
Someone can be a prostitute but still be lying when they claim to have sex with a particular person. Also I'm under the impression that "porn stars" actually make pretty terrible money for making porn, and actually make their money through things like stripping and prostitution ("escorting") that's enhanced by their "porn star" status.
So, she’s a prostitute, just one who has never slept with anyone working at Meta?
Well, I guess good on her for getting her Instagram unbanned by going through the official channels.
> Also I'm under the impression that "porn stars" actually make pretty terrible money for making porn, and actually make their money through things like stripping and prostitution
If you say so. I don’t know too many porn stars.
I don't either, I've just read the pay is surprisingly terrible. Like a one-time payment of a couple hundred bucks.
It's basically just gossip and accusations without any evidence.
Similar motivations can also often create privacy risks for users & staff, requiring both technical & organizational design to prevent. The NSA, Google, and others have all had problems where employees misused their access to pursue personal romantic/social aims.
There's a reason the YC application traditionally asked, "Please tell us about the time you, username, most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage."
Is there this level of outrage when people use their status within SV to get actual help with problems at google/facebook/twitter? Are twitter employees getting fired when high clout SV people get bluchecked as a status symbol?
Or maybe there's something unique about the fact that she's having sex with these people, and in fact having sex with people for money is different that writing computer software for people for money.
To be clear: I think that what we're doing to our society by normalizing the idea of young women becoming literal prostitutes, and pretending like that is just cool and normal is horrifying. I just think that stories like this being noteworthy kindof highlight the hypocrisy I see within tech where people pretend that the employees at onlyfans and pornhub aren't litereally engaging in grooming.
2. I can foresee an account problem solved by reaching employees on a forum they're known to frequent. You talk to them and force someone to look at the problem. It is unfair, but I am a realist.
3. I cannot foresee a massive company having such lax security processes that exchanging anything can solve for point 2. Sex, money, whatever. Is Facebook ok that its employees are getting screwed, or getting money, for favours?
In a similar situation: in the mid '00s US Department of the Interior regulators were having sex with employees of big oil companies.
Being a Meta employee in certain areas allows you to verify anyone on Instagram. A couple of the more unscrupulous employees there that I knew/know would exchange verification for sex with "influencers".
There is a severe imbalance between how much these things mean to people and the control they have over them.
Apple shouldn’t be able to dictate the content and policies of other platforms. Some of the most bizarre forms of damage can only be inflicted by people trying to “do good”.
New innovation, SupportBid! An auction where people bid on or buy now 15 minutes blocks of support help from tech companies. I bet there are countless people that would pay $300 for 15 minutes to get their accounts back.