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Comment by docker_up | Hacker News Reader

Most of what the press reports is a distortion of the truth, or making something sound worse than it really is.

Sure there are issues but all companies have them, just like Google, Amazon, etc. There are a lot of good people doing good work here, and connecting the world for the better. You don't hear about the 99.99% of the good things because that won't encourage clicks for the news rags.

If the press took an interest in your company, or even you personally, no one would look good from their constant digging to make you look as bad as possible. Imagine if your worst moments in your life were publicized for everyone to see, without seeing all the good things you've done? People would think you're an asshole as well.

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This should be the top comment.

Let's take a current headline: "Facebook is facing criticism for not allowing users to opt out of a feature that lets people look them up using their phone number or email address."

There are so many ways to explain how this could come to be and the vast majority of those would not be attributed to malicious intent.

It's not like PMs at Facebook are sitting around wondering how they can exploit people's privacy. They work on a massively complex product which sits on extremely sensitive data. Releasing a feature without properly vetting all of the ramifications (some of which exist completely outside of your purview or knowledge) is the reality.

Could Facebook have better cultural practices within the company when it comes to privacy? Sure. But that's a far leap from assuming that workers there are intentionally trying to exploit people's privacy.

I'm by no means absolving Facebook of the responsibility they have with regard to individual and global impact. But I imagine Facebook employees are aware of the amazing benefit Facebook has provided as much as they are the negative impact it's had. It's not hard to see how many people would believe the good outweighs the bad.

I have huge huge grips with tech news reporting. NYT/WaPo are reasonably decent usually. You should look at how unbalanced recent tech articles are:

Look at this horrendous article by Josh Constine: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/facebook-research-teens/

> "So 18 percent of research testers were teens. It was only less than 5 percent when Facebook got caught. "

Very very colloquial term plus hugely biased+loaded terms like 'caught' are being used. Even basic Journalistic standards are not being met.

This isn't a new article. That's an opinion piece (and I am not disagreeing with his facts but with how opinionated his presentation is).

There's a difference between "GSW lose to Celtics 129-95" and "Low energy GSW show disinterest in the game and get walloped by Celtics 129-95".

And Josh is one of the more popular tech 'journalists'. So you can imagine how problematic the whole industry is. There's no "news". There's just opinion pieces - all of which are from a single elite SF/NY/LA bubble

The latest from Josh Constine: https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/06/facebook-living-room/

"Perhaps this will just be more lip service in a time of PR crisis for Facebook."

"Now Facebook might finally see the dollar signs within privacy."

Shamefully opinionated comments again from Josh.

>It's not like PMs at Facebook are sitting around wondering how they can exploit people's privacy.

I'd bet serious money there are. They won't let themselves think of it in terms "exploiting privacy", but use some friendly-sounding framing like "leveraging data collection" which is still inherently inseparable from the exploitation of privacy.

Meh .... the same could be said of virtually every job. You'd be hard pressed to find any company (including yours, or your clients if you freelance) who have squeaky clean operations.

By that example do you think everyone working at Nike are using friendly-sounding framing like "making high performance shoes affordable at scale" when really what they're doing is exploiting kids in developing countries?

There is a cost of doing things at scale and living a modern day life where you don't directly benefit from that is virtually impossible.

This may be true but its very easy to argue that an organization with the global influence of Facebook deserves that kind of scrutiny. The average Joe may look like an asshole under the same lens, but I would also say the potential effects of his assholery are generally far more limited by comparison.

Never said that Facebook doesn't deserve scrutiny. But it should be fair scrutiny, not unfair, biased scrutiny that gets incentivized to only show the negative.

I think that if the scrutiny were fair, perceptions would be drastically different and much more favorable (and the news reports would be more boring). Yes, people make mistakes. But there's no global conspiracy, and Facebook is operating on a level that no other company has ever done before so for the most part we are learning as we go along as well.

It is interesting how so many people (here and elsewhere) love to point out how Facebook loves controversy because it drives engagement, then immediately turn around and hotly deny that journalists also love controversy because it drives engagement. :eyeroll:

> There are a lot of good people doing good work here, and connecting the world for the better.

What does that actually mean? This sounds like a stock phrase from a press release.

At its best, I guess you could say Facebook helps you kinda-sorta keep in touch with old friends you don't see that often. But I somehow suspect that's not what the majority of FB engineers are actually working on.

Your point about the press focusing on the negative is valid, but I have to say the lowlights for FB are a lot worse than anything I've worked on in my career.

There are millions of people in various Facebook groups that are connected, based on things like illnesses, concerns, etc. The ability to share information and experiences and support each other are unparalleled.

Just because you only use Facebook to connect with friends doesn't mean there are billions of people using it for other extremely beneficial purposes.

Backdoors in your cell phone OS can be used to catch criminals. They can also be used to spy on innocents. Sometimes the cost isn't worth it.

There were plenty of internet forums and even IRC and Usenet before Facebook. Maybe FB has pushed out other, better, places for people to gather and communicated?

There is a lot of value in a marketplace for discovery and consistent interface. Let us not echo the sentiment of the infamous poster suggesting dropbox would fail because "who wouldn't just spin up an ftp server backed by source control".

From the stance of democratizing the internet, for better or worse, I don't think we can sit here and deny the formative role Facebook played in getting people shut out from the net involved with it.

I guess I would argue that Facebook is not "the net" -- it's AOL 2.0. You're probably right that has value of its own, but it's not the same value as an open internet, or the promise of what was once the worldwide web.

> At its best, I guess you could say Facebook helps you kinda-sorta keep in touch with old friends you don't see that often.

It's more than that. At its best (your phrase) FB helps marginalized people or those in rare circumstances (e.g. health-related) find others with similar experiences who can offer advice and support. It has helped people reach out to one another during emergencies. Yes, those are extreme cases, but you used the phrase "at its best" so let's not understate what the best is.

> somehow suspect that's not what the majority of FB engineers are actually working on.

Of course it isn't. Like at every other tech company, the engineers are mostly working on their own piece of technical infrastructure. They're not directly out there saving lives. Nor are they directly out there ruining any. Is it fair or useful to blame individuals at Facebook for the worst of what their company does, and simultaneously deny them any credit for the best, with no idea what role they actually play or what direction they're trying to push the company in?

Does anyone here suppose that oppressive governments around the world aren't also using RHEL and Hadoop to target their victims? Dell servers? Cisco switches? Who provides their cars, their guns, their bone saws? There are many companies at least as complicit in all of these awful acts, so why is the tsunami of self-righteousness only directed at one? Are people motivated by a desire for justice, or a desire for the approbation of others? Dopamine addiction isn't limited to Facebook users.

> Sure there are issues but all companies have them, just like Google, Amazon, etc.

Ahhh, what-aboutism I love it.

> If the press took an interest in your company, or even you personally, no one would look good from their constant digging to make you look as bad as possible.

Unless they straight lied they'd find a middle age developer working for a small/medium sized manufacturing company that treats it's staff and customers well.

Facebook operates at a scale where even if it has good intentions it's outcomes can be the same as someone intent on doing negative things, it's the nature of the beast.

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