fdeage

Thanks, I'll try my luck there then..

Thank you for the reference. However I want them to learn bare HTML/CSS first, does joedocs allow to create a website from scratch?

You're right, very interesting :) thanks!

Thank you! I had heard of it but never really checked... You're right, it's gonna be very useful until they want their own domain name :)

Thanks a lot for your reply. Do you think Google is serious about differential privacy?

Also, I wonder whether the fact that most comments on this thread come from Google (ex-)employees, and not FB's, is saying something...

Thanks for this long and well-thought reply.

> First, I believe in our basic mission to make the world more open and connected

Real question: do you think the top management feels the same? In general, do you see a lot of cynicism in workers around you?

> You want evil companies? How about...

Not saying GOOG/FB were worse than others, but people and the MSM began to increasingly question their moral alignment in the past few years, which is why I'm asking.

It might be because tech companies had been trying so hard to look like "the good guys" in the past 20 years. So it might just have something to do with that.

Also, the moral problems arising from having a military force have been studied for centuries, so nothing new here. It doesn't mean we cannot be critical of the military at the same time (and it's not all bad either btw).

Finally, the tech industry has a huge power on us. This power is rising every day, and has been invisible to most until recently. So questioning its morals, intentions and agenda today matters.

Thanks for replying.

2 questions:

- what's the most negative in Google's actions in your opinion? - do you have examples of routine critiques of Google that you feel are unjustified?

Very interesting, thanks for taking the time.

"Trying to not be evil just doesn't scale so easily": your remark reminded me of this quote from Leopold Kohr:

"There seems to be only one cause behind all forms of social misery: bigness. Oversimplified as this may seem, we shall find the idea more easily acceptable if we consider that bigness, or oversize, is really much more than just a social problem. It appears to be the one and only problem permeating all creation. Whenever something is wrong, something is too big. … And if the body of a people becomes diseased with the fever of aggression, brutality, collectivism, or massive idiocy, it is not because it has fallen victim to bad leadership or mental derangement. It is because human beings, so charming as individuals or in small aggregations, have been welded into overconcentrated social units."

(The Breakdown of Nations, 1957)

Maybe I should have been more precise in my post, but I was interested in people's subjective definition here, not in providing a definition myself (not feeling qualified for that).

I hear your point, but I was interested precisely in Google/FB employees' feelings about their own company, not in objectively defining "evil".

Not sure I see the point you want to make with COVID-19 though... You mean there is "worse" evil going on somewhere else?

I agree, I doubt there can be much difference between Fortune 500's company A and Fortune 500's company B, in the long run.

I thought, though, that "being evil" (whatever that means) came from some kind of instinct of survival experienced when facing the threat of bankruptcy, or at least very strong market pressures. And and it didn't seem to me that Google had been facing these yet.

Thanks for your reply, and sorry to hear you feel trapped in your company right now.

Do you feel like this feeling is common among Googlers?

Also, I'd be very interested in hearing what you think of the reasons from Googlers defending the company, since you probably hear them a lot by working at Google.

I see.

I have to say I'm slightly surprised, because I thought that top SWE like the ones working at "elite" companies such as Google were enjoying more freedom when choosing their employer.

Seems like it's hard for everyone then... (again, no judgement)

Reminds me of this: "Of the 186 Facebook employees polled, only 21 percent said they would entrust their data to the social media giant."

(https://decrypt.co/12708/most-facebook-employees-dont-trust-...)

Do you think they might have an interest in spreading them, besides user engagement? Also, I'm not implying anything, but what makes you think they are not trying to fight this spread?

Actually the funny thing is I wasn't thinking about COVID-19 at all... (maybe I should get out of my cave sometimes)

I get your point, but what prevents us from considering "evilness" an emergent property of organizations...?

So you would consider that a user has the same responsibility as a FB/Google developer in using these services?

You're right. My question was to be taken from a privacy standpoint, and I was referring to some critics today (both inside and outside the tech community) of how Google and FB specifically handle privacy.

Funny you mention a telecom provider, because the same happened to me in France: I wanted to switch plan on the same operator, but couldn't because I was redirected to the login screen again and again.

Nice one. God, it makes me so sad that websites can get away with this behavior now. What website was it? Shiny new startup?

By the way, a very interesting article on the same subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6186730

I'm not claiming anything about E2EE in WhatsApp. In fact, the whole post is about trying to know whether they implement it properly.

That's interesting. Could you develop on this conflict?

For some reason it reminds me of the famous Moxie article: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving Is it the same idea?

Agreed, but I meant "properly implemented E2EE".

1. OK...

2. You are restating my friend's argument, but the idea of E2E is precisely to remove trust from the equation. If applied properly, there's nothing the company controlling the server can do.

3. Most probably, but that's not the point here. My question is specifically about the messages themselves.

4. Sure, but not related to my question either :)

I know there are other problems and unknowns when using WhatsApp on an iPhone. I do not see how this is related to E2E though... Does it mean that any try to secure communications on the iOS platform is irrelevant in your opinion?

Yes, but he also claimed to be willing to implement E2E encryption in Messenger (the whole "the future is private" narrative that he tried to push last year).

Plus, merging 4 messaging app of this size probably takes some time. This doesn't say anything about today's WhatsApp IMO.

(By the way, one day I sent a picture of a dress to my sister-in-law on WhatsApp. She told me that Instagram sent her an ad 5 minutes later, with the exact same dress.

It was so unlikely to be random that I checked right away to see if pictures were safe. It turns out that pictures received and sent are shared within all Facebook apps - Facebook, Messenger, Instagram -, at least on iOS)