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Comment by RodgerTheGreat | Hacker News Reader

Former arsonists, industrial polluters lead new push to fix climate change.

I hate this types of comments because as an ex-fb I did care deeply about communication tools and social networks.

Just don't care much about the consequences of how they're used, eh?

To be purposefully blunt, nobody cares. I'm sure there are good, nice people at Facebook. But the reason they're all able to enjoy insane salaries and perks is because Facebook's business is to keep their users hooked on their platforms as much as possible, track their users as much as possible, and then sell this information.

I mean, kudos to you I guess for "caring deeply" about communications tools and social networks, but none of that can change the incentives inherent in Facebook's business model.

Facebook doesn't sell the information. It uses the information to improve the experience for their users, to prevent abuse of their services, and to allow advertisers to do more specific targeting with their campaigns.

F'ing spare me.

You are correct, I should have used clearer language, but by "sell the information" I meant that they monetized the information to make money selling ads.

But let's stop with the idea that somehow Facebook's data Hoover is somehow a benefit. Facebook could very easily get rid of all the problems they have on their site which require minimal data collection, but it would also cost them many billions of dollars, so they won't do it.

I guess $0 is technically not selling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#Data_scand...

Users consented in giving their information to a third party and then were betrayed by that third party misusing using the data.

Personally I believe there in a big difference between a company giving your data to another company behind your back and doing so after you have approved it first.

I mean if you move the goal posts then sure but the argument was about if the activity occurred which it does.

---

FB has never claimed (in court) that CA violated any agreements they had with them. The only comments they've made are PR speak to obscure the fact that CA acted within the rules (hence why FB needed to update the rules). The only court cases that arose are against FB* for sharing data with CA they shouldn't've.

Per-FB's policy there are only a few things worth talking about. > (7) If you use any partner services, make them sign a contract to protect any information you obtained from us, limit their use of that information, and keep it confidential. > (9) Don't sell, license, or purchase any data obtained from us or our services. > (10) Don't transfer any data that you receive from us (including anonymous, aggregate, or derived data) to any ad network, data broker or other advertising or monetization-related service.

7 - This is my understand as to what happened. CA didn't turn around and release this data.

9 - Doesn't apply as nobody claims Kogan sold the data to CA.

10 - Doesn't apply as CA isn't these things.

* Technically the FTC did also against CA but it was literally _just_ because CA also recorded the User's FB ID [2].

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20180329131546/https://developer... [2]: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2019/12/...

It doesn’t matter how much you care about those if your business model is still just to stoke extremism. If I come across someone that has Fb on their resume I’m going to be considering the period of their tenure in my assessment of their character.

So your answer to extremism is more extremism?

Maybe the thing you should be taking away from Facebook in their resume, is that they're no longer working there. There's nothing to be gained from crapping on ex-Facebook employees that doesn't seem to boil down to ego-stroking and making sure people know how high your moral horse is.

No, I'm going to look at the period of their tenure - if they made the choice to go to Fb when it was well clear what it was, that's on them - if they started before and then left once it became clear that would be a positive.

All in all, if you choose to work for a shitty company, or doing shitty things, you should assume people will use that as part of their opinion of you.

I do not get how that becomes any extremism of any kind - that's just standard outcome of reading someone's resume?

And if you write comments like this, you should assume some people are going to think your a judgmental and closed minded person

That is not fb’s business model.

I don't say this to pile on, but I've spent years telling head hunters from FB (among others) that my ethics are not for sale. I've made less money and operated at smaller scales as a result.

Everyone makes their own choices.

No, everyone makes their own opinions. I always believed that fb was a good company, that’s why I went to work there.

If it helps, a lot of the replies you are getting to this is just another "vocal minority on HN" effect. Which is not representative of the reality at all.

In real life, people use tiktok, people use facebook, people use snapchat, and the only thing that other people worth their salt will get from seeing that you used to work at FB is "hm, they must at least be a somewhat decent dev with solid understanding of the area they worked on".

The people who are the loudest in their condemnation of you, purely due to your former employment at fb, aren't the ones you are likely to ever cross paths with in any meaningful way in the first place. And that's a good thing.

People are annoyed at the holier than thou BS given in instances like this or that Netflix doc. People who are keeping the millions made from social media and purporting to now be doing benevolent work. Most don’t care if you just worked for FB and aren’t saying silly stuff.

Yep and they are using the money earned from it to fund their project (and possibly get rich again in the process). It's blood money.

That's a thought provoking way to put it. Part of the problem is however that only internal employees fully understand the destruction that was going on.

Intimate familiarity with how you started a fire doesn't necessarily correlate with the skills to put it out.

sure but in general i feel like it would help a lot

... But can help others put it out. "It's a chemical fire" leads to people putting it out with a radically different substance.

It's always funny to see how defensive people get about criticism. More that likely this 'fix' for social media will either fail or just end up being another social media platform with the aim of attracting engagement and selling user data / screen time for ad space.

Only former employees were fully complicit.

Anyone with a critical view of these organizations has seen exactly the extent of the harm. The endless news releases should be an adequate trail to follow.

People, at large, have chosen to ignore all the unbelievable actions so they can continue to stalk others online -cough cough- I mean, keep in touch with grandma.

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