A growing number of early Facebook employees regret the world they created
vanityfair.com
vanityfair.com
If that's what MZ believes, he's being selective in the studies he's reading. It's frightening that we have a very smart guy with a fatally flawed anthropological view of Facebook's effect.
Mass media technologies like Facebook/tv/radio/newspapers actually have the opposite effect: They increase tribalism and polarization.
Yes, social networks bring some people together... like distant relatives sharing more photos than the Kodak film days. Or a group that shares a hobby like anonymous unrelated guitar players talking about gear on a music forum.
However, asking for communication platforms to bridge the gap of Democrats vs Republicans or Christians vs Muslims or Pro-life vs Pro-choice doesn't work. What really happens is those groups use the technology to dig in their heels even further and double-down on their entrenched positions. Tribalism amplified to the max.
People tend to predominantly post things that make them look good, and reading that makes people feel like their own lives aren't as great as those of their friends and acquaintances.
Facebook is not making people feel happy. It's making them sad and envious of their friends.
TL;DR - Facebook is a "sausage factory", and only a few people know what actually goes on in there. Our collective human history can be used to justify pretty much anything. The chapter that is relevant to my point is that humans are very good at externalizing and abstracting the product for the sake of the customer. The thing with Facebook is that the product and the customer is the same: [two different sets of] people.
To your question, "Otherwise how could he look at himself in the mirror?": What do you use a mirror for that cannot be replaced or overcome with sufficient wealth?
=== The Long; Do Read
Even at the risk of drawing an incomplete, yet horrific analogy, I'll do so anyway. Facebook's users are product correct? Another product consumed by many people is meat. Most meat is prepared in slaughterhouses from animals bred and grown in factory farms for slaughter. There are a lot of procedures that are followed to make the extraction and sale of meat as economically profitable as possible. I don't know of all of them, but here are a few that I do know of
1) Feeding animals hormones to make them grow faster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_somatotropin
2) Feeding animals antibiotics to prevent outbreaks of disease within a herd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_somatotropin
3) Packing animals extremely close together (closer than they would be if they were free to wander unimpeded), so that they are exposed to their own waste in high concentrations and over a prolonged duration: https://www.aspca.org/animal-cruelty/farm-animal-welfare/ani... .
A whole lot from one page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_animal_farming
4) The major milestone in 20th century poultry production was the discovery of vitamin D, which made it possible to keep chickens in confinement year-round.
5) Meat-type chickens currently grow to market weight in six to seven weeks, whereas only fifty years ago it took three times as long.[Havenstein, G.B., P.R. Ferket, and M.A. Qureshi, 2003a. Growth, livability, and feed conversion of 1957 versus 2001 broilers when fed representative 1957 and 2001 broiler diets. Poult. Sci. 82:1500–1508] This is due to genetic selection and nutritional modifications (but not the use of growth hormones, which are illegal for use in poultry in the US and many other countries).
6) On average, a chicken lays one egg a day, but not on every day of the year. This varies with the breed and time of year. In 1900, average egg production was 83 eggs per hen per year. In 2000, it was well over 300.
7) The use of sow stalls (gestation crates) has resulted in lower production costs, however, this practice has led to more significant animal welfare concerns. Many of the world’s largest producers of pigs (U.S. and Canada) use sow stalls, but some nations (e.g. the UK) and some US States (e.g. Florida and Arizona) have banned them.
8) Piglets often receive range of treatments including castration, tail docking to reduce tail biting, teeth clipped (to reduce injuring their mother's nipples and prevent later tusk growth) and their ears notched to assist identification. Treatments are usually made without pain killers. Weak runts may be slain shortly after birth.
9) Many routine husbandry practices involve ear tagging, dehorning, loading, medical operations, vaccinations and hoof care, as well as training for agricultural shows and preparations. There are also some cultural differences in working with cattle - the cattle husbandry of Fulani men rests on behavioural techniques, whereas in Europe cattle are controlled primarily by physical means like fences.[Lott, Dale F.; Hart, Benjamin L. (October 1979). "Applied ethology in a nomadic cattle culture". Applied Animal Ethology. Elsevier B.V. 5 (4): 309–319. doi:10.1016/0304-3762(79)90102-0.]
10) Farmed fish are kept in concentrations never seen in the wild, e.g. 50,000 fish in a 2-acre (8,100 m2) area,["Fuss over Farming Fish, Alaska Science Forum". Retrieved September 6, 2015.] with each fish occupying less room than the average bathtub. This can cause several forms of pollution. Packed tightly, fish rub against each other and the sides of their cages, damaging their fins and tails and becoming sickened with various diseases and infections.[This also causes stress."Facts about Fish and Fish Farming", Advocates for Animals.]
11) Technological advances have led to growing shrimp at ever higher densities, and broodstock is shipped worldwide. Virtually all farmed shrimp are penaeids (i.e., of the family Penaeidae), and just two species of shrimp—the Penaeus vannamei (Pacific white shrimp) and the Penaeus monodon (giant tiger prawn)—account for roughly 80% of all farmed shrimp. These industrial monocultures are very susceptible to diseases, which have caused several regional wipe-outs of farm shrimp populations. Increasing ecological problems, repeated disease outbreaks, and pressure and criticism from both NGOs and consumer countries led to changes in the industry in the late 1990s and generally stronger regulation by governments.
A few quotes from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrial-far... (I liked this article - you should read it if you have an interest in the topic)
12) Broiler chickens, which are reared specifically for their meat, often suffer lameness due to overcrowding. [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrial-far...]
13)
What happens when farmers now take a young calf, separate her from her mother, put her in a tiny cage, vaccinate her against various diseases, provide her with food and water, and then, when she is old enough, artificially inseminate her with bull sperm? From an objective perspective, this calf no longer needs either maternal bonding or playmates in order to survive and reproduce. All her needs are being taken care of by her human masters. But from a subjective perspective, the calf still feels a strong urge to bond with her mother and to play with other calves. If these urges are not fulfilled, the calf suffers greatly.
This is the basic lesson of evolutionary psychology: a need shaped thousands of generations ago continues to be felt subjectively even if it is no longer necessary for survival and reproduction in the present. Tragically, the agricultural revolution gave humans the power to ensure the survival and reproduction of domesticated animals while ignoring their subjective needs. In consequence, domesticated animals are collectively the most successful animals in the world, and at the same time they are individually the most miserable animals that have ever existed.
14) The scientific study of animals has played a dismal role in this tragedy. The scientific community has used its growing knowledge of animals mainly to manipulate their lives more efficiently in the service of human industry. Yet this same knowledge has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that farm animals are sentient beings, with intricate social relations and sophisticated psychological patterns. They may not be as intelligent as us, but they certainly know pain, fear and loneliness. They too can suffer, and they too can be happy.
Edit: Formatting
https://hbr.org/2017/04/a-new-more-rigorous-study-confirms-t...
End justifies the means, ala Bill Gates, type of reasoning. Will make it up to the world /God when I use the FB stock to do good.
Until you can answer those questions, society will keep drifting. Dan Carlin had a good argument which essentially boiled down to we are all in this together, but the obvious counter example to that is to make the walls higher and eventually to make the other group submit.
Does this ever really happen without complete extermination? I suspect this route is an illusion.
From my perspective facebooks net effect is positive compared to before because it exposes people to different opinions way more than before where it was litterally only someones closest friends, neighbours, family and the news that you had as sources.
Trump is an anamoly and his affect on the tribalism and polarization can't be taken for the norm yet I suspect that a lot of the reason there seems to be indication of increased tribalism is because of him not Facebook.
There are plenty problems with facebook but from my perspective it's better than it's bad.
If it creates a filter bubble how can it then increase tribalism and polarization?
These are problems you face when you interface only with people who share very congruent values and obtain their news from the same source. If Facebook uses Skinner Box techniques to keep you on the site as long as possible, it’s not interested in outcomes that are good for you but might make you leave, like challenging your beliefs and values.
It's an oversimplification of how the algorithm actually works as there are plenty of non-political interestest involved too.
http://education.biu.ac.il/files/education/shared/science-20...
Conclusion: People are extremely aligned to viewpoints, reinforced by their friends, however they are less aligned than if they STRICTLY consumed media from their own viewpoint because they have some cross-cutting issues.
Key relative measure there and worth reading into more depth.
That's the point; he's not. His approval rating is 38% which is historically low, but that still means that tens of millions of Americans like what he's doing. If you don't know any of them, that says more about you and your bubble than him. (That applies to me as well; of all the people I know I'd be surprised if more than 5% approved of Trump).
I suspect that a lot of the reason there seems to be indication of increased tribalism is because of him
I suspect it's largely the reverse. "Progressives" were rioting over Halloween costumes and the alt-right was making racist memes well before Trump came on the stage, and that's possibly because Facebook and other social media made it easier for them to organize.
I am well aware of people who approve of him, I also wasn't surprised when he won I expected it exactly because I don't live in a bubble.
I have plenty of good friends who voted Trump and Hillary and I understand why people would vote for either of them. I also understand why Trump still have a relatively large approval rating and disregarding his absurd and clumsy style I am not as negative towards his presidency.
I'm also honestly curious though. Care to elaborate why you're not as negative towards him? And if not in public, I'd really love to continue this by email (mine's in my profile).
I met a Trump voter from India who had spent more than 10 years and a lot of money to get his green card.
He complained about the Dreamers and how that basically was cheating what he had to do the official way.
These are the kind of subjects people care about when voting for someone like Trump.
With regards to Trump and why I am not as negative towards him. Because I don't know (besides his toe-cringing communication style) what it is I should be negative about that isn't mostly republican politics.
By and large, his politics haven't really done much in any fundamental way. I am aware that there are specifics that can be put forward as "bad" but to me politics is a much larger game than just isolated events.
Fact is that we don't know what the consequence will be. The results of any presidents politics are often seen long after they left office.
So I am basically unsentimental with regards to Trump. Personally, I am what you would call a fiscally conservative but value based liberal.
I benefit from globalization because of what I do, but I am aware of the problems it creates for many in the working class (which I grew up in too) and I think Trump's appeal to them was at least an attempt at changing things in some fundamental ways.
What I hold even higher though is the US democratic process which I consider extremely impressive in it's ability to contain someone like Trump.
In other words like most other presidents before him, Trump is being guided by the checks and balances of the US democratic system.
I don't see any cause for real concern so far.
could you elaborate on capital-D Dreamers? I'm unfamiliar with the term.
> These are the kind of subjects people care about when voting for someone like Trump. With regards to Trump and why I am not as negative towards him. Because I don't know (besides his toe-cringing communication style) what it is I should be negative about that isn't mostly republican politics.
Do you truly believe that his only failing is his communication style? I find myself troubled by the lack of decorum (weird, impulsive tweets, comments that make no sense whatsoever, etc.), locker-room comments like:
“Whoa!” Trump responds. “Whoa! I’ve gotta use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful. I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”
“Whatever you want,” Bush replies.
“Grab them by the pussy,” Trump replies. “You can do anything.”
While I don't know how I feel about the lack of 'decorum' I gotta admit that even my least politically correct locker-room talk hasn't been close to this kind of stuff.
I can understand wanting to vote against the status quo, but Trump just strikes me as way, way into crazy territory. How do you feel about these kinds of statements he makes? And again, I really am honestly inquisitive, and I'd be happy to move this to email.
> So I am basically unsentimental with regards to Trump. Personally, I am what you would call a fiscally conservative but value based liberal. > I benefit from globalization because of what I do, but I am aware of the problems it creates for many in the working class (which I grew up in too) and I think Trump's appeal to them was at least an attempt at changing things in some fundamental ways. What I hold even higher though is the US democratic process which I consider extremely impressive in it's ability to contain someone like Trump.
I'd describe my history and current situation as very similar. I suppose it's part of the reason why I'm so curious about all this, because I can see a parallel universe version of me voting for Trump. Sure, from my current universe this parallel universe version of me is alien, perhaps even repulsive, but it's somehow still me.
I find that fascinating, having had that experience once before (conservative evangelical until my early twenties. That version of me was actually me, not some 'brainwashed' version I can distance my current self from. I really was a young-earth creationist once).
> In other words like most other presidents before him, Trump is being guided by the checks and balances of the US democratic system. > I don't see any cause for real concern so far.
I wish I could be more certain about this, but based on my new consumption there do seem to be a number of very real, very negative effects. However, I'm not certain enough about that to say this with full conviction. If anyone can be more specific about the actual consequences of Trump's presidency, I'd love to hear it. So far I'm inclined to believe that it's worse than many of us think, but I also feel that a lot of the media I've been consuming has been unreasonably negative about Trump (and that strikes me as difficult to pull off).
[1]: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/04/politics/daca-dreamers-immigra...
I am not a celebrity either but I have hung out with enough of them to see that "when you are a celebrity you can do anything" is pretty much true. Especially if you look good.
It's really a discussion of the privilege of being a celebrity more than anything from my point of view and I have no problem separating them which is probably why I don't consider it relevant with regards to Trump specifically. It's really a crazy world you live in when you are a celebrity.
I find it telling that you can't actually point to anything that Trump has done which is demonstratively bad in the way it's being portrayed by most media. All anyone really has is the indignation over his tweets and a few areas which I don't believe there is any consensus around on either side of the aisle.
You haven't spent any time thinking about this, I take it.
This is a really gross thing to say. Go read Louis C.K.'s statement as just one example out of many recent ones. There are a lot of rich playboys out there, but just because "they let you do it" doesn't mean you're not forcing yourself on them and you're not a disgusting fucking creep.
You are welcome to feel it's a gross thing to say I am not expecting you to understand what I am talking about. I was simply answering someone who asked for my opinion.
As a society it is something we don't recognize as such.... at least not yet. It is a violence that we all do to ourselves as a collective. Partly I think because of an economic system that is essentially based on necessity and survival. This economic system, is a reflection of us, so it's a catch 22 situation whereby living in fear makes us dissociate, and while dissociated we act from the "map" not the actual reality... so we keep spinning the wheels of these comanies as well as the old mindsets.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/what-...
Just a few hours before this story, we had one titled "Is it time to stop trusting Google search?".
It's as if someone gave a command and all the media is acting in unison.
Lets see what stories tomorrow brings. Honestly, there hasn't been a day in a few months without an attack on social media and tech companies.
"In Silicon Valley, a growing number of early Facebook employees regret the world they created."
Apart from that I use Messenger to talk to friends and relatives.
I feel like I'm the only happy Facebook user here.
I find myself intensely disliking my neighbors if I’m on it enough. It feels dystopian.
You should read: "power to build community and bring the world together... inside our walled garden".
Facebook has never been about building technologies aiming at decentralizing the web, so any power they'll give people will be on their own rules and domain.
Riding a friend's Ferrari is rare. Reading about the equivalent every day makes you feel like everyone has a Ferrari but you.
When the cameras are off, he's all about the money. Don't forget that he once called people who willingly upload their data to Facebook "dumb fucks". Yes, I know, it was a long time ago and he's matured since then, whatever. It's still a smoking gun that Facebook was not created with idealism about "human connections" in mind. At best that part came later, if it came at all.
I don't think this is (so much) about money for him. If he weren't a 'true believer' his ego would have to come to grips with the idea that he has created sorrow for millions of people all around the world his whole adult life.
Those involved in developing, expanding, etc. social media know what they're complicit in and it extends far beyond, and is far worse, than simply having some moron elected.
Stopped reading right about there.
Facebook, or rather the Social and later, Entities Graphs are essential essential capacities. They are what really matters: who do you trust, who do you care about. Those are key, they are heavily defended from pretenders and they keep on unlocking a lot of essential value to any service leveraging it.
The best illustration of what that Graph represents is Messenger: you give some people the right to notify you (and a subset, access to an overlooked secondary Inbox); that service is essential. Having institutions like your airline, payments, be allowed in there is a big step forward. If Marcus manages that well, that extension will unlock a lot of the promisses of email, structurally removing the spam.
Having the News Feed inform that social and interest graph is a great way to get up-to-date information, but it comes with an indeed agressive behavioural growth hack. I do not believe that the level alarm around that is warranted, but what people see, political and social polarisation, etc. all those are real issues that Facebook Researchers have looked into. Other researchers have looked into that too, but usually with a very partial view and no access to extensive dataset.
I believe it is a problem that openly critical researchers can’t access that database; I don’t think that granting them access will necessarily help, though, because most media will happily apply a big selection bias on whatever comes out of academia, as they already do. But in spite of that limit, internal researchers have enough of freedom to point out issues. There are issues: they are a small team, too US-focused, tend to have liberal-intellectual bias, etc. but they feel, and are, responsible for those issues. More importantly, they are managed by people very willing to take in detailed, informed criticism.
Facebook changed their core values over what happened during the campaign. They willingly identified and explained what happened, shared details about ‘the Russian interference’ which was a lot of about weaponasing dissent than ads. They did that because, unlike “the press” they have the means, intellectual and technical, feel the responsability and see it as their mission to help democracy, not let the party of their owner win no matter what.
I do not think that Facebook can’t close the News Feed, or revamp it entirely. They believe that its overall impact on democracy is still clearly positive because they measure it (quite well, actually; I have doubts about other aspects of their methodology but not that one). They have identified key ways it is being abused and they are working on fixes.
The hearing in the Senate was an ignorant and populist pandering from politicians whom I otherwise admired, them insistently proving they couldn’t get the sense of the scale of the transformation, but Facebook is catching up faster than ageing politicians.
Wising up, they will implement soluitons, most of them invisible. I suspect one of them is flagging aggressively partisan groups, preventing rage-baiting. I wished one of them was raising the profile of “the smartest of your opponent”. I know they will try, measure, re-think and improve their solution.
And so will the people who think chaos raises their profile, but not as well -- because they can’t survive the scrutiny that Facebook willfully accepted.
I remember my history class (in France) about “the Dreyfuss case”, a deeply polarising debate in the early XXth century (in abstract: Country vs. Justice; in practice: should a French officer condemned of treason, transparently because of prejudice for his Jewish heritage, be freed after evidence proved him innocent?) but I’ve been an exchange students in enough countries to know every country had gone through something similar. No one was in charge, and the only solution then was to forget; the Dreyfuss case stopped becoming an issue with WWI.
Facebook is not responsible for Trump’s election, nor are they for Obama’s election; neither is Cambridge Analytica or any other single actor. But both those, and probably a couple more institution have the means to understand what happened, and provide some resolution -- the resolution pro- and anti-Dreyfuss never got. Well-intended actors will offer and implement solutions. Transparency in advertising (what Facebook suggested first) is little, but it will give people a sense of what is happening.
Don’t confuse Facebook, a project to make social trust something computer can process, with the News Feed, an implementation of it. The former is being defended; it stumbled by allowing fake profiles in, but learned from that; the other relies on behavioural hacks that are being analysed in detail, for the first time. A new threat on the later emerged last year and it is being patched. But if the issue is impulse control and cannot be leveraged for good, getting rid of the News Feed is not out of the question. As far as I can tell, it would simply make things worst.
I think that's naive and misses the forest for the trees. You may be technically correct (as you would be saying "people are confusing Google and its search engine"), but none of that structural pedantry relieves Facebook of any responsibility over its obliviousness about how it's affecting society.
> Facebook changed their core values over what happened during the campaign.
No, Facebook's change of heart has been slow, incomplete, and didn't begin until well after the campaign ended.
> Facebook is not responsible for Trump’s election…
They (obviously?) are to some degree, so I find that a very bizarre thing to say. It's likely that even Facebook doesn't yet understand the full scope of their election influence.
Online Social Networking and Mental Health
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183915/
"Addiction to online social networking, as well as Internet addiction in general, are recent and insufficiently investigated phenomena, frequently discussed and sometimes disputed in the psychiatric literature.30–35 The addictive nature of SNS is supported primarily by the mental preoccupation of many chronic SNS users who as a result tend to neglect other aspects of their social functioning such as family and offline friends. In addition, according to our own observations, sudden cessation of online social networking (i.e., lack of Internet connection) may in some chronic users cause signs and symptoms that at least partially resemble the ones seen during drug/alcohol/nicotine abstinence syndrome."
And just googling "facebook addiction nih", it looks like there is plenty more material of this sort.
The psychological tactics facebook and others use trigger the release of dopamine just like cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, and gambling.
I read no further.
First, yes someone ran some ads, but to what end? Where they actually effective? Of the people who we fed said ads how many noticed them? Where of age to vote? Where real people not bots? AND changed their vote?
Where is the data that supports Russia elected Trump? Where?
Do I believe FB (and all - tech - companies) should be aware of the unintended of its products? Of course. Shiney and new is not a free pass on - moral, ethical and/or social - responsibility.
I'm not a Trump supporter. He'll be gone soon enough. However the incompetence and Orwellian habits of the mainstream media will remain. That should be a major concern for everyone.