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Facebook is terrible

Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2021 2:21 pm
by Stephanie
I posted a bit on the Nick Catone thread about a series The Wall Street Journal have done based on a whistleblower leaking a load of Facebook docs, but that thread is more about some of the free speech arguments around social media and things like content moderation. So I thought I'd start another thread for people to discuss some of the sh.tty stuff Facebook get up to.

The most recent is a series of documents about teen mental health and them seeing children as a valuable untapped market. Although one hilarious bit is that children think Facebook is for old people (over 40).

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-d ... 1632953840

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 9:03 am
by plodder
I am moron and can't get past the firewall

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 9:30 am
by Stephanie
plodder wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 9:03 am
I am moron and can't get past the firewall
I think I did it by searching the title using Firefox on my phone, but there might be better ways!

ETA: some other articles talking about the files

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/2270 ... -documents
https://www.businessinsider.com/wsj-fac ... ?r=US&IR=T

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:21 am
by Gfamily
Stephanie wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 9:30 am
plodder wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 9:03 am
I am moron and can't get past the firewall
I think I did it by searching the title using Firefox on my phone, but there might be better ways!

ETA: some other articles talking about the files

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/2270 ... -documents
https://www.businessinsider.com/wsj-fac ... ?r=US&IR=T
Interesting that the second link gave me adverts along the lines of "people in Stockton on Tees are looking at ...", and I'm nowhere near Stockton-on-Tees.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:23 am
by sheldrake
Does the article discuss their tax arrangements?

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 11:05 am
by plodder
Stephanie wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 9:30 am
plodder wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 9:03 am
I am moron and can't get past the firewall
I think I did it by searching the title using Firefox on my phone, but there might be better ways!

ETA: some other articles talking about the files

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/2270 ... -documents
https://www.businessinsider.com/wsj-fac ... ?r=US&IR=T
Ah thanks,

It's the creepy caring bit that gets me, finding the language to square the circle of toxicity whilst balancing the need to maintain uber-profit. The kind of "these poor people would have suffered anyway" as they pour another drink vibe.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 11:39 am
by sheldrake
plodder wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 11:05 am
It's the creepy caring bit that gets me, finding the language to square the circle of toxicity whilst balancing the need to maintain uber-profit. The kind of "these poor people would have suffered anyway" as they pour another drink vibe.
That's exactly what it's like. 100% on the nail.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 12:15 pm
by Stephanie
sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:23 am
Does the article discuss their tax arrangements?
Not this particular one, it was just releasing documents on mental health because Facebook accused them of misrepresenting the data.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 12:18 pm
by Stephanie
plodder wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 11:05 am
Stephanie wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 9:30 am
plodder wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 9:03 am
I am moron and can't get past the firewall
I think I did it by searching the title using Firefox on my phone, but there might be better ways!

ETA: some other articles talking about the files

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/2270 ... -documents
https://www.businessinsider.com/wsj-fac ... ?r=US&IR=T
Ah thanks,

It's the creepy caring bit that gets me, finding the language to square the circle of toxicity whilst balancing the need to maintain uber-profit. The kind of "these poor people would have suffered anyway" as they pour another drink vibe.
Yeah, absolutely. Here is how they attempted to spin it. https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/resea ... instagram/

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 1:10 pm
by plodder
it's really complex and people like the WSJ don't understand how hard we work to get this as good as it can possibly be for <snorrrrt> IM THE KING OF THE WORLD

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 1:28 pm
by Stephanie
that was their second attempt too. the one nick clegg wrote was even worse https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/what- ... got-wrong/

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 1:42 pm
by sheldrake
plodder wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 1:10 pm
it's really complex and people like the WSJ don't understand how hard we work to get this as good as it can possibly be for <snorrrrt> IM THE KING OF THE WORLD
They don't do drugs (at work), but they are Very Important And Caring Intellectuals Who Are Just Trying to Save The World.

Imagine the modern Labour party if almost all of the members were able to pay themselves 6-figure salaries and the leadership, committee members, constituency organisers, MPs etc. were all making millions per year. They amplified the divisive shouty identity politics and quietly dropped all mention of redistribution of wealth, fair taxation etc.. then took over 80% of the western world's newspapers and TV stations.

It's that.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 3:28 pm
by plodder
Stephanie wrote:
Fri Oct 01, 2021 1:28 pm
that was their second attempt too. the one nick clegg wrote was even worse https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/what- ... got-wrong/
omg he’s still doing the I’m sorry video

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 8:20 pm
by Boustrophedon
There is a blogger on FB, female, young mother, outspoken, so of course she has been getting abuse. Today a troll sent her unsolicited p.rn and dick picks. He did this without obscuring his name or profile in any way.
A quick search revealed his YouTube channel full of extreme right wing views and misogyny, no surprises there. His profile was also worryingly full of videos of things burning.
Of course she blocked him screen-shotted the lot and reported him to the police and FB.
Of course that profile quickly vanished, whether by action by FB or by the culprit simply pre-empting the inevitable.
Thing is he has at least 10, possibly more, identical profiles ready to go and has already started the abuse from a new profile.

Others of her followers have reported abuse from him on FB and on dating apps, including being a stalker and sending p.rn and dick pictures.

Facebook seem reluctant to remove his duplicate profiles as they have done nothing wrong despite duplicate profiles being in violation of FB terms and conditions.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2021 6:49 am
by headshot
A friend posted a picture of his toddler in the bath (I wouldn’t do that, but there you go). Facebook tagged the photo as inappropriate and gave him a warning about posting nude child content.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:15 pm
by Woodchopper
headshot wrote:
Sun Oct 03, 2021 6:49 am
A friend posted a picture of his toddler in the bath (I wouldn’t do that, but there you go). Facebook tagged the photo as inappropriate and gave him a warning about posting nude child content.
IMHO not that terrible. Your friend was clearly innocent.

But the whole point of Facebook is that the material is viewed all around the world. Images may also remain on a hard drive even after someone assumes they’ve been deleted (eg via a browser cache). It’s possible that somewhere in the world an acquaintance of your friend could get into trouble for having an image of a toddler in a bath on their hard drive.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:28 pm
by sTeamTraen
I have several friends who work in the area of the psychology of harm from media. They are skeptics of the mainstream US psychological view that "zOMG TV/PS5/phones are frying our kids' branez". Until about 10-15 years ago this was mostly about violent movies and/or video games, but now the focus has moved to social media and smartphones. Their overall conclusion is typically that this is almost always just moral panic, and I nod along because indeed much of the "sky is falling" research is either terrible or obviously fake.

But as far as I know they all think Facebook is terrible, just not because of implicit psychological harm.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:38 pm
by Stephanie
I don't know about other orgs. But with Facebook it is difficult to confirm either way, because they a) are not particularly open with their data b) have provided flawed data to researchers before and c) actively prevent external researchers from using tools to study content on the platform, like ads.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2021 8:26 am
by plodder
Facebook documentary / expose in the states, it’s this kind of thing that will gradually erode the confidence of their their core audience:

https://mobile.twitter.com/60Minutes/st ... 4502079491

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2021 12:43 pm
by sheldrake
Facebook and lots of online traditional newspapers are under intense commercial pressure to attract eyeballs and clicks and unfortunately thats always been much easier with emotions like fear, self-righteous anger and objectifying lust than our higher feelings and aspirations.

Same reason the Daily Mail does fine without a paywall. It’s fine tuned to frighten and/or piss people off.

As you said earlier on, we have to keep hacking away at anything that gets as big as Google or Facebook with anti-competition law. Now that they’re exercising overt editorial skewing/censorship on political content I would also take away their section 230 protection if I were a US regulator.

Except for a surge during lockdown, facebook isnt very trusted in the west anyway, its just got people locked in through a network effect of it being hard to get all your aunties and old work colleagues to join up on a new platform.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2021 7:26 pm
by sTeamTraen
Facebook has been a whole lot less terrible for getting on for four hours now. :lol:

That said, I have a small side bet that Zuckerberg just took the whole f.cking lot offline when he got to work this morning (everything went down around 8:45 am PST, as far as I can tell) after last night's whistleblower revelations on US TV, either (a) out of pique, (b) to show the world that Facebook is just a vulnerable part of the Internet like any other, or (c) to remind people that a very substantial part of the world's trade and communications now relies on Facebook's products and services.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2021 7:44 pm
by Gfamily
sTeamTraen wrote:
Mon Oct 04, 2021 7:26 pm
Facebook has been a whole lot less terrible for getting on for four hours now. :lol:

That said, I have a small side bet that Zuckerberg just took the whole f.cking lot offline when he got to work this morning (everything went down around 8:45 am PST, as far as I can tell) after last night's whistleblower revelations on US TV, either (a) out of pique, (b) to show the world that Facebook is just a vulnerable part of the Internet like any other, or (c) to remind people that a very substantial part of the world's trade and communications now relies on Facebook's products and services.
You're not the only one

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2021 7:54 pm
by dyqik
Gfamily wrote:
Mon Oct 04, 2021 7:44 pm
sTeamTraen wrote:
Mon Oct 04, 2021 7:26 pm
Facebook has been a whole lot less terrible for getting on for four hours now. :lol:

That said, I have a small side bet that Zuckerberg just took the whole f.cking lot offline when he got to work this morning (everything went down around 8:45 am PST, as far as I can tell) after last night's whistleblower revelations on US TV, either (a) out of pique, (b) to show the world that Facebook is just a vulnerable part of the Internet like any other, or (c) to remind people that a very substantial part of the world's trade and communications now relies on Facebook's products and services.
You're not the only one
It crossed my mind as well.

If it really was that, it's something that the SEC would be very interested in. Deliberately scuppering your publicly traded company following allegations of misleading investors is the kind of thing that gets you several years.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2021 8:14 pm
by sheldrake
It's unlikely to be self-sabotage; being unreliable just tends to make people look harder for an alternative. Mark Zuckerberg has enough business sense to see that I'm sure.

Re: Facebook is terrible

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2021 8:14 pm
by dyqik
The current story is that Facebook employees can't get into the server rooms, because the LDAP server that controls access to the room is down.