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Some Facebook Employees Are Quitting or Asking To Switch Departments Over Ethical Concerns (businessinsider.com)
Some dissatisfied Facebook engineers are reportedly attempting to switch divisions to work on Instagram or WhatsApp, rather than continue work on the platform responsible for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to a recent report from the New York Times. An anonymous reader writes: Many believe Facebook should have done more to handle the data responsibly, and the events that followed increased scrutiny against Facebook, reportedly taking a toll on employees working on the platform. Since the news came out, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg have spoken to the media on a few occasions, but it was days before the company commented on the scandal, which it now estimates around 87 million total users affected. Then, a leaked memo from Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth written in 2016 revealed a "growth at all costs" mentality that put Facebook in a position to be held responsible for the situation it's found itself in. As it became evident that Facebook's core product might be to blame, engineers working on it reportedly found it increasingly difficult to stand by what it built.
Is this really a move because of ethical reasons. I can't imagine that anyone working at Facebook is surprised by this. I'd tend to believe the a over is more to cover your own ass. At best employees had a clue that something like this was possible, at worst they had direct knowledge of it. I don't think anyone working at Facebook suddenly had a moral epiphany.
Sent from my TARDIS
Why make sure everyone knows? Oh yeah, virtue signalling FTW
I am sure these FB employees were just following the orders, but why act only now? FB practices were well-known even outside of FB, this couldn't possibly be the first time they found out what is happening in the showers.
... that Facebook's entire business model is based on collecting, using, and selling data and metadata about people?
This sudden appearance of embracing moral behavior and ethics would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetically self serving and so hypocritically self righteous as to be nauseating.
Check your premises.
lol jk
How Slashdot and others keep referring to this as the "Cambridge Analytics scandal" as if Facebook's business model is only wrong when one side takes advantage of it.
I had a WhatsApp chat with my friend about news analysis software which I have not done anything with for years, and 30 minutes later I was seeing Facebook ads for news analysis software.
So Facebook is scanning my end to end encrypted chats, which is considerably worse than finding out I love gun toting puppy dogs.
The very reason why facebook existed from the beginning was to sell personal information. Why did they take a job with them if they were concerned about the ethics of doing that?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"Facebook's core product might be to blame"
Well, when something is free, YOU are the product. Ergo, YOU are to blame.
Are these employee's now just moving? How many years have they been working there and just now realize how FB uses personal data? Is it they didn't mind how the data was used if they believed in the ends it was used for?
All of this could be true, but in the end they are looking out for number 1: Themselves. If you've worked in the Tech sector, you can see the end coming. The rats start abandoning ship first, or employees if you will. This is also a smart move as the company will put the blame on the employee soon enough. So get out while you can.
So FB employees leaving because of ethics? Sounds like leaving is actually showing what their ethics is: Me first!!
Facebook had ZERO to do with the outcome of the election. Not one Trump voter in the country is now thinking to themselves "wow, Facebook tricked me into voting for Trump!". All of these BS excuses are nothing but delusions to avoid facing the reality of being rejected.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Facebook had ZERO to do with the outcome of the election. Not one Trump voter in the country is now thinking to themselves "wow, Facebook tricked me into voting for Trump!". All of these BS excuses are nothing but delusions to avoid facing the reality of being rejected.
Not one person in the US thinks, wow that Pepsi commercial made me want to drink a Pepsi. Yet people do drink Pepsi, and Pepsi continues to advertise.
No one thinks they're being influenced by ads, or political propaganda. Everyone thinks they're above that, but here's a secret: you are influenced by ads. You're at a store all it has is Pepsi, Coke, or Smith's off-brand cola and you want a cola... odds are very high you pick a Pepsi or a Coke because you're familiar with them- or if you do buy a Smith's it is because it is cheaper. Brand familiarity has made Pepsi or Coke more appealing.
Same happens with these political BS stories. Trump is kinda like Pepsi- he's always throwing his name out there to get publicity. This facebook campaign was like an expensive ad campaign (and ignored by financing laws). No-one, not one person, thinks they were influenced by the fake stories... but they probably think that whilst drinking a Coke or a Pepsi.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I have never had a Facebook account and think the whole idea of a global gossip site is asinine... but could we PLEASE stop treating any little piece of crap about Facebook as news? All this FUD is pissing me of and consume electrons that could be used to transit real news.
I'm not on facebook either. I think it's asinine too. HOWEVER, when an organization has over a billion users worldwide, and over 50% of the US voting age population, it becomes newsworthy. Facebook directly impacts most voting Americans. Indirectly, they have data on all Americans. They are a major player in advertising, broadcasting, and news distribution and data collection.
It's naïve to think that they don't matter just because you don't use them.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
But, hey, jump ship while it's sinking to another ship with bigger holes in it if you want to.
You do realize where we get our intel from, right?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Oh good grief. Trump won the nomination as a rejection of the fake Republicans he was running against and then the same people voted for him over Hillary Clinton. NOBODY was swayed by a damned Facebook ad. That's just delusional.
Not one Trump voter in the country is now thinking to themselves "wow, Facebook tricked me into voting for Trump!". All of these BS excuses are nothing but delusions to avoid facing the reality of being rejected.
You should read up on how advertising works. You might find it enlightening.
"Not one" is a really high bar. And, based on polling data, we know a lot of Trump supporters feel disappointed in his presidency. That some would blame "being tricked" over "being wrong" is just human nature. Whether they specify that it was Facebook that tricked them... I'm not sure.
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Anyone who worked at FB who suddenly has a change of heart is being disingenuous or trying to save their skin. Everyone at the company knew their sole job was to collect data on people and sell it.
They weren't offering anything to the users other than a place to spout off their nonsense. Since they weren't charging for the service (excluding advertisers), where did people think the money came from to run operations?
To claim they didn't know or now suffer umbrage at what has been going on is a joke at best. They were happy to collect their large salaries and stock bonuses, being made millionaires overnight, while the data was being collected. Don't now come to the public and proclaim their disgust. If they truly wanted to make a statement, the least they could do would be to give back their stock and leave the company completely.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If presented with the same choice tomorrow between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump do you think any Trump voters would be voting for Hillary? That's all I'm saying.
"I don't have a Facebook account" is the new "I don't have a TV"
Oh good grief. Trump won the nomination as a rejection of the fake Republicans he was running against and then the same people voted for him over Hillary Clinton. NOBODY was swayed by a damned Facebook ad. That's just delusional.
And no one ever buys Pepsi cola.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Commentary on ads for Sad Coke aside, you appear to be right about the influence of fake stories on the election. FTA:
Richard Gunther, Paul A. Beck and Erik C. Nisbet, the study's authors, inserted three popular fake news stories from the 2016 campaign into a 281-question YouGov survey given to a sample that included 585 Obama supporters — 23 percent of whom didn't vote for Clinton, either by abstaining or picking another candidate (10 percent voted Trump, which is in line with other estimates).
Here are the false stories, along with the percentages of Obama supporters who believed they were at least “probably” true (in parenthesis):
Clinton was in “very poor health due to a serious illness” (12 percent)
Pope Francis endorsed Trump (8 percent)
Clinton approved weapons sales to Islamic jihadists, “including ISIS” (20 percent)
Overall about one-quarter of 2012 Obama voters believed at least one of these stories, and of that group 45 percent voted for Clinton. Of those who believed none of the fake news stories, 89 percent voted for Clinton.
[...]
For those defecting from Clinton, believing fake news had a greater effect than anything except being a Republican or personally disliking Clinton. Obama voters who believed one of these fake news stories “were 3.9 times more likely to defect from the Democratic ticket in 2016 than those who believed none of these false claims, after taking into account all of these other factors,” the researchers write.
Given that these fake stories were widely circulated on Facebook, the inference that Facebook had a non-zero effect on the election is fairly obvious.
The memo is nothing, only the internet lynch mob would make anything of it. It was the equivalent of a hammer company executive saying "We make hammers so people can put in nails. Some people might hit people or animals over the head with our hammers, or use them to smash car windows. But we believe enabling people to put in nails is a valuable mission."
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It has been obvious for years to any thinking person that Facebook's business model is selling information about its users. Honestly, the whole site has turned into a major pain with mostly retarded content. Google Plus is actually better and more interesting in my opinion. I predict in 5 years no one will really care about FB, just like no one cares about MySpace now. This most recent scandal is nothing new for FB, it's just that the sheeple have finally caught on to the scam.
Not one Trump voter in the country is now thinking to themselves "wow, Facebook tricked me into voting for Trump!".
Just because they're not thinking it doesn't mean that it didn't happen.
Yes, certainly some would. They have said so in public: in polls, response to interviews, and even "confessional" style op-eds.
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I'm very cautious about that noise about Trump regret. These are the same groups who's polling indicated a Hillary sweep on election night. If I had to guess the same mechanisms are involved too and the pollsters have learned nothing. 95%+ of the news is critical of Trump, it's unpopular still to like Trump, you call someone up asking them if they regret voting for Trump... some of them say "yes"... odds are in the voting booth next time they'll still vote for him again.
In this case, an actually valid concern: "Have you now, or have you ever been employed by facebook" (paraphrasing "have you now, or have you ever been a communist") If you were/are employed by facebook, you clearly/obviously/intentionally took steps to undermine the privacy of American citizens, which violates the 4th amendment: "...effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, ..."
Because of this, you are guilty of intentional acts agains the US Constitution,. Yep, TREASON!