
Internal Facebook posts of employees discussing leaked memo - coloneltcb
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/30/17179100/facebook-memo-leaks-boz-andrew-bosworth
======
marricks
The Guardian has a piece that discussed the FB employees reaction to this leak
and it was down right scary. Many calls for hiring workers "with integrity" on
talking about how this leak was destroying FB's perception as a great place to
work.

How scary it must be to work at a place with such an overwhelming "don't rock
the boat" mentality. Leakers everywhere, and Google, FB, and Apple especially
risk their jobs and their career to give the public an open look at places
which hold overwhelming power over our personal lives.

FB's internal perspective on privacy and goals are vital for the public to
know, it shouldn't take the next massive breach of trust to trigger an
investigation to learn the detais. A leaker, sorry, I mean someone "without
integrity", in 2016 could have done a lot of good.

~~~
skybrian
I don't know about Facebook in particular, but what you're missing is that the
reason employees can debate _internally_ about policy is that they trust it
won't leak _externally_. The risk of leaks eventually results in companies
clamping down on security, so most employees aren't told anything that's not
already public, unless they need it for their job. (Much like Apple has been
all along, where employees only know what they need to know.)

So I would ask you where you'd rather work? At an employer that trusts you not
to leak stuff, or somewhere that doesn't trust you? If it's the latter, you
might as well be a contractor.

You'll find this is true in most organizations, not just companies. They want
to know if they can trust you with their secrets. It does require some faith
that internal debate will help the organization make good decisions most of
the time, which admittedly can be a stretch sometimes.

~~~
dpwm
I think you're missing the greater context here. Bosworth's memo is classic
end justifies the means. This is almost an admission that they knew things
they were doing would be deeply unpopular.

The post in full doesn't read at all like it was to stimulate discussion. It
reads more like it was to silence dissent.

If you really wanted to stimulate discussion and gather employee views on this
stuff, you'd send a survey round. But the relationship is still asymmetrical
between boss and employee.

All you're doing when posting something like this semi-publicly is creating an
environment where more quiet conscientious views get shouted down by the
loudest voices.

~~~
ribosometronome
>It reads more like it was to silence dissent.

Which makes his response read all that more hollow. Calling it a straw man?
The post seems to have been an all out justification for immoral behavior by
an executive. I can't imagine a Jr. Engineer or someone fresh out of college
with their MA in Stats feeling super comfortable hopping in and going, "Hey
this sound unethical and if people saw you saying it they would think we're
hella fucked up." I'm relatively low-ranking at another big SV company and the
thought of needing to stand up to a high ranking employee like that is more
than a little intimidating.

~~~
jyrkesh
Same. I'm not even THAT low-ranking, and it's still a big deal when I push
back against a VP or director on something that's in my area. For some topic
where I didn't even feel like an expert, against such language, and with
morals concerned? I think I'd just silently start looking for a new job.

~~~
Aunche
> I think I'd just silently start looking for a new job.

That's good though. Boz already made the decision to prioritize connecting
more people, despite the costs. He didn't have to tell his employees, but he
did. This allows you to make the decision on whether it's worth staying at
Facebook.

~~~
chris_wot
So basically, he’s admitted to unethical behaviour? Is this why his heart is
breaking?

------
alexandercrohde
It's kinda ironic that a post about "All we are doing is connecting people and
information" gets deleted because it gets connected to a lot of people
("leaked").

You can't simultaneously hold the opinion that there's no harm in sharing
information, while also holding the opinion that there is such thing as a
"leak." It just strikes me as so ironic for a company that champions "privacy
is dead, live with it," to have to delete its own valid internal debates
because of the consequences of lack of privacy (i.e. leak = lack of privacy).

~~~
notacoward
> You can't simultaneously hold the opinion that there's no harm in sharing
> information, while also holding the opinion that there is such thing as a
> "leak.

Likewise, you can't simultaneously hold the opinion that users should have
control over where their content is seen, and that it's OK to publish and
comment on an internal post. In a less spiteful world, some of the employees'
reactions might have been taken as evidence that they _do_ understand and care
about issues of privacy or containment. Maybe that would lead to more
collaboration on solutions, which is necessary because there are actually some
tricky tradeoffs here. But that doesn't give the same dopamine hit as cutting
down the tall poppies, right?

~~~
avoidit
>> Likewise, you can't simultaneously hold the opinion that users should have
control over where their content is seen, and that it's OK to publish and
comment on an internal post.

This argument is illogical, because Facebook forces everyone to sign its ToS
to use its services, while nobody forces a Facebook employee to leak internal
stuff. Said another way, whether or not I wish to have control over my FB
data, FB _coerces_ me to agree that it can do whatever it wants with my data.
Its not exactly opt-in, is it? Its far worse, of course, if you consider
shadow profiles, because it is even coercing people who didn't even explicitly
sign up to the ToS. Unless the leak happened via some kind of coercion (which
doesn't seem to be the case), your comment is incorrect.

>> In a less spiteful world, some of the employees' reactions might have been
taken as evidence that they do understand and care about issues of privacy or
containment.

What? You mean you care about something, but you just won't _do_ something
about it, nor openly tell anyone _why_ you wouldn't do something about it, or
even _talk_ about it _before_ the issue blows up? Yep, totally convincing.

>> Maybe that would lead to more collaboration on solutions,

Why do people need to "collaborate" on solutions? What do they get from it? Is
Facebook going to pay people a share of the profits? If Facebook is a
corporate entity which serves its self-interest against people's self-interest
(which they have clearly been doing for a long time), what kind of idiot would
suggest the people whose self-interest has been affected should now "come to
the table" so "we can all work something out"?

>> which is necessary because there are actually some tricky tradeoffs here.

The only tricky tradeoff here is: should Mark Zuckerberg be the only one who
should go to jail, or should the entire company be rounded up? It is quite
tricky, I do agree.

>> But that doesn't give the same dopamine hit as cutting down the tall
poppies, right?

I don't know about tall poppies, but "culling" the "weeds" is the only way to
have a healthy garden.

~~~
notacoward
> Its not exactly opt-in, is it?

You're free not to use it. If that opt-in isn't enough, exactly how many
levels do you want? If you _do_ choose to use a free service, whether it's
Facebook or a public library, you have to consider how it's paid for. Actively
using something and also actively undermining its means of support ... well,
I'll just leave that thought there.

> You mean you care about something, but you just won't do something about it

You seem to have some pretty unrealistic expectations of what individual
employees can do at a 30K-person company, or about anyone taking the right
action without deliberating first.

> Why do people need to "collaborate" on solutions? What do they get from it?

Ummm ... the solutions, which are not only applicable to Facebook? This is a
_general_ problem faced by many companies. The solutions could also be useful
to the people who blather about creating a distributed alternative to
Facebook. I've been a member of the decentralization and distributed-system
community for far longer than Facebook or Y Combinator have existed. I also
know something about the scale and connectedness of the data at Facebook.
We're multiple basic innovations away from being able to create such an
alternative. Wouldn't it be nice if people who actually understand various
parts of this can talk and work together? That doesn't become more likely when
every discussion is filled with people who only read others' comments enough
to find where to insert their own half-baked opinions or insults.

~~~
avoidit
>> If that opt-in isn't enough, exactly how many levels do you want?

Since you can't seem to count to 2, how about:

1\. You let us share your data with others in return for free service

2\. You don't let us share your date in return for paid service

>> If you do choose to use a free service, whether it's Facebook or a public
library

Well, a public library is tax funded and people _outside_ the library
employees have a big say in its inner workings. So you can't get your
comparisons correct either.

>> Actively using something and also actively undermining its means of support
... well, I'll just leave that thought there.

Perhaps you should complete the thought, because I don't actively use the
something

>> You seem to have some pretty unrealistic expectations of what individual
employees can do at a 30K-person company, or about anyone taking the right
action without deliberating first.

Really, as opposed to your very realistic expectations that everyone should
just trust FB employees would have "done the right thing" had they not been
caught red-handed? Oh right, because FB knows better what is best for everyone
else.

>>Wouldn't it be nice if people who actually understand various parts of this
can talk and work together?

This is truly bizarre. So if FB rolls over and dies tomorrow, does it mean
innovation will come to a complete halt? Let us say you think, "oh, but it
might take much longer". Does that automatically adversely affect people
_more_ than the damages that can be caused to society via rampant data
collection? How can you be so sure? Oh wait, because you must be smarter than
everyone else, as you got through the interview.

And finally, it is interesting all the things that you selectively left unsaid
(exactly like other FB employees have been doing all the while).

\- you don't have the courage (what an ironic handle) to discuss shadow
profiles

\- you never actually addressed the fact that no one from outside coerced the
leak, which made your first comment more rhetorical than substantial

\- you cleverly twisted the "collaboration" to be _amongst_ FB employees when
clearly the line following tells that you actually meant collaboration between
FB employees and its users (dopamine hit for whom, that is? so you are now
assuming others cannot read either?)

~~~
dang
We've banned this account for violating the site guidelines.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
bayonetz
Bystander here. Why the ban? It’s snarky in places for sure but I’d say it’s a
pretty solid set of points and counter points. It definitely “added something”
to my experience reading this thread.

------
gaius
_“This is so disappointing, wonder if there is a way to hire for integrity. We
are probably focusing on the intelligence part and getting smart people here
who lack a moral compass and loyalty.”_

The sheer lack of self-awareness in that statement.

~~~
aserafini
It's breathtaking isn't it? Facebook sells personal information to
advertisers. And this employee worries there might be 'smart people who lack a
moral compass' working there? It would be funny if it wasn't also terrifying
that Facebook employees believe the company is a force for good in the world.
Working for Facebook is about as moral as working for Big Tobacco: there's
plenty of evidence the product is actively harmful.

~~~
jameslk
Where can I purchase some Facebook personal information? I'd love to use it
for some custom audiences on my ads. /s

As far as I'm aware, Facebook has _never_ sold personal information to
advertisers[0], because that would be giving away its crown jewels. It might
leak it, but doesn't hand it out for sale.

EDIT: Downvoters, please point out where I'm wrong. It looks bad for the
community to suppress factual statements.

0\.
[https://www.facebook.com/help/152637448140583](https://www.facebook.com/help/152637448140583)

~~~
wilonth
I think he means _indirectly sell_ , which is kinda true. By letting the CA
scandal happen, they seriously sold a lot of data. Not what they really wanted
to do, but their reckless policies and vague morality standard caused that.

Also, nothing changes the fact that Facebook is clearly harmful to the society
in important ways, according to various researches. And they do not care about
this fundamental issue, they just want more users and more profit.

~~~
jameslk
> By letting the CA scandal happen, they seriously sold a lot of data.

The CA scandal did not involve any sale between CA and Facebook. CA sold
insights gleaned from data pulled from Facebook's public and free-of-charge
Graph API.

> Also, nothing changes the fact that Facebook is clearly harmful to the
> society in important ways, according to various researches.

I'm not sure how that's relevant here. Arguing that Facebook is a bad company
does not make misinformation more correct.

~~~
aserafini
It's relevant because we're discussing a Facebook employee that wants to
screen hires for integrity. Given widely known scientific evidence that FB
causes anxiety and lowers self-esteem, which is a direct consequence of its
core business model: integrity is already in question when you accept the
interview.

------
zelon88
I'm surprised by the sheer amount of blind loyalty at Facebook.

I mean, I consider myself to be a loyal employee but I'm not blind to ethical
violations. The way these employees are defending a global multi-billion
dollar organization it's almost like they were executives. They'd rather sell
out the rest of the world for what? To be a FB engineer until they retire?
It's like Facebook indoctrinates it's employees somehow.

I can't think of a single non-managerial employee at my company that wouldn't
speak up if we deliberately started violating agreements with our customers
and coming closer and closer to breaking the law, and I'm comfortable with
that.

~~~
ikeyany
These employees are people who are pulled straight from college, given
salaries higher than most of their contemporaries ever dreamed of earning, and
are told they are special and are changing the world. Why wouldn't they be
blindly loyal to the sociopathic machine they helped create?

------
wbronitsky
From the original post by "Boz"[0]:

> Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in
> a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools. And we still connect people

This guy is a VP at Facebook. Words mean things and his words have weight
within the company. This alone disgusts me. He could have easily taken the
other side of the argument to stir debate and chose not to.

> Leakers, please resign instead of sabotaging the company

I think the level of hubris espoused by these Facebook employees is a much
better reason to delete Facebook than anything I've seen so far. In fact,
although the data we have gotten is incomplete, it seems to possibly be the
general feeling. The focus on growth and profit over any thought of doing the
right thing is actually evil, especially when one recognizes that evil is
being done.

This company is no longer a small company built out of a dorm room. It is a
massive publicly traded company that has revenues and active users in the
billions. Despite the current climate, words actually have meaning, especially
words greatly amplified on these tools, and these actions have real
consequences.

[0] [https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/growth-at-any-cost-top-
face...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/growth-at-any-cost-top-facebook-
executive-defended-data)

~~~
Aunche
The reason Facebookers hate leakers so much is because it helps no one. The
leaker gets to continue working his cushy software job while a bunch of PR
people are forced to work overtime to control the situation. Facebook is going
to continue to do whatever it wants to do, but they'll just be more secretive
about it within the company. Boz could have easily written a memo with
corporate-speak if he just wanted everyone to drink the Kool-Aid.

~~~
sanbor
> The reason Facebookers hate leakers so much is because it helps no one.

It helps the general public by giving insight about how crazy is the people
that builds and moderate the platform used to communicate by millions of
people.

~~~
Aunche
How are they crazy? If anything, I think it's refreshing that a VP
acknowledges Facebook's problems. If he never acknowledged it, everything
would be peachy. I guess ignorance is bliss for most people.

------
Veen
From the outside, this all seems rather cultish. Are Facebook employees so
convinced of the nobility of the company, in spite of all the evidence to the
contrary?

It brings to mind the famous Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a
man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not
understanding it!"

~~~
munificent
_> Are Facebook employees so convinced of the nobility of the company, in
spite of all the evidence to the contrary_

At best, we only have evidence that the subset of employees who chose to
comment on that internal thread and whose comment was chosen by the journalist
to be included in the article feel this way.

One of the things that media and aggregation have really accelerated is the
cognitive fallacy where we assume the most _interesting_ data points are the
most _frequent_ when in reality the inverse is almost always true — common is
boring. If you were to go by the news, men bite dogs way more often than dogs
bite men. But that's only because "man bites dog" is worth reporting and "dog
bites man" is not.

------
NDizzle
What material is "the bubble" made out of if Facebook employees immediately
jump to "spies" when it comes to leaking something like this? Has it been so
long since they've had contact with soul-containing humans that they forgot
how they operated?! Zucker-bot must be replicating ye olde FB HQ.

~~~
ggggtez
I don't think it's fair to say the entire company believe it was spies.
Clearly a lot think it was just a few jerks. That said, FB is almost certainly
infiltrated by a few governments. It's not exactly a small company. If China
wanted to get someone on the inside, it couldn't be that hard.

But IMO, this was just an employee who admires Snowden.

~~~
username223
> just a few jerks.

Where by "jerks" you mean "people with deep misgivings and the courage to risk
their careers by speaking out against one of the world's premier surveillance
organizations?" This isn't the kind of thing you do for lulz, and I doubt
they're getting paid.

------
dschuetz
It's interesting to see how Facebook reacts to internal corporate data being
shared, in reverse to Facebook sharing private user data to third parties.

Boz complains that his memo was taken out of context and he doesn't even agree
with it anymore, yet everyone is judging! Gasp! Facebook on the other hand
_totally connects_ people by creating and selling ad profiles on said
connected people. Based on data people shared years ago, out of the context,
disagreeing to what they said years ago! And that's a good thing, right?
Because it connects people! Ugh.

~~~
dschuetz
I've got an idea. Is there any way to place targeted advertisement inside
Facebook's internal communications feed?

Based on Facebook's latest reactions to media coverage and memos shared to
public I was able to deduce an ad profile which I'd like to sell. Facebook, it
appears, might start looking for external psychological and legal counselling,
and I might have third parties interested in targeting that circumstance.

~~~
samstave
"Hi, it looks like youre trying to type an internal memo and the language
youre using suggest depression, angst and anxiety! how can i help"
\--Facebooky

------
pdkl95
> Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, a vice president at Facebook

 _~sigh~_

"Boz" is the only person I regret introducing to programming. (I convinced him
to attend the 4-H project where I taught BASIC)

~~~
dpflan
Do you still teach? I ask because when I obtained my C.S. degree, the
curriculum required that students take a course that focused on ethics,
entitled: _Computing, Society, & Professionalism_ [1.]. I think this would be
hard to squeeze into a BASIC course, but discussing the implications of
use/abuse of technology is valuable.

[1.]
[https://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Amy.Bruckman/teaching/4001/fal...](https://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Amy.Bruckman/teaching/4001/fall2017/index.html)

~~~
bordercases
Not many students see their ethics course as anything more than a writing
credit, with some resentment.

~~~
dpflan
I agree. It feels forced. But exposure is important.

------
kerng
Wow, as according to this leadership was fully aware that collecting cell
phone contact data is unethical, but they did it anyway because the end
justifies the means. Scary stuff. I always thought it's awesome to work there,
with free food and games and stuff but I guess it all comes with a cost.
Facebook internally seems like a pretty unhealthy community.

------
shanghaiaway
The leaker simply "connected" Facebook to the outside world.

~~~
phkahler
Here the employees thought they were just sharing among "friends" and someone
went and used their information for other purposes.

------
DanielBMarkham
Seems like this is a bit of a dupe, so I'll repeat my initial comment:

There are many, including those inside Facebook, that are actively asking for
more federal regulations. I don't do regulation discussions. Brings out too
much stupid.

But I will say that this is a survival ploy. If you get regulated, you are now
approved by the government. You're good to go, able to operate freely in
society. You just have to abide by whatever the regulations are.

Facebook may have a business model that just doesn't work in a society that
values privacy, anonymity, and small diverse groups of people with widely-
varying mores. This seems to be the lesson Facebook itself is learning now
about, well, Facebook. What do we do then? It's not like anybody at Facebook
is going to bring that up. They've got a ton of money. What do we do if the
existence of Facebook itself is unacceptable?

~~~
Slansitartop
> If you get regulated, you are now approved by the government.

Not necessarily. I suppose it would be possible to regulate it into
nonexistence, by undermining the privacy-invading business model. You could
probably get at least part-way there by requiring that profile-based targeted
advertising and data collection be explicitly opt-in with informed consent.
IIRC, the GDPR has a lot of good stuff about how consent must be obtained.
Further regulations could mandate that services and incentives cannot be
provided conditionally based on tracking or accepting profile-based targeted
advertising, etc.

If the above regulation takes effect, much of the business value of profile
data evaporates. Facebook would only be left with eyeballs to shove non-
targeted ads in front of, and maybe generalized market research.

------
mrgordon
“That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable
contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay
searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in.
The work we will likely have to do in China some day. All of it.”

If you justify "questionable contact importing practices" then you aren't
putting up a straw man. You are talking honestly about your "questionable"
decisions and trying to defend them. Thus you should expect outrage from those
who realize you've lied to the public using "subtle language" in order to grow
at any costs.

In other words, the self-awareness to call out the "subtle language" and
"questionable practices" implies that the company pursued those growth
strategies despite CLEARLY knowing they were sketchy. This is extremely
damning but those in power will try to deflect the problem as if someone
leaking it is the issue.

I never would have worked at Facebook before due to their questionable
policies. This incident reinforces that and shows that the problems come from
the top. Now we'll watch debate there get muzzled in the interest of staying
out of the news and growing at all costs. Perhaps a success for shareholders,
but a failure for rank and file employees with morals.

~~~
gaius
_The work we will likely have to do in China some day_

Social media disruption disintegrated Libyan society to the point it could no
longer function. The Arab Spring was a test firing of a psychological nuke. We
should all be concerned that Facebook is planning to attack China, because
they will defend themselves.

~~~
greenyoda
I didn't interpret that as Facebook planning to _attack_ China. To me, it
sounded like the work they'd have to do to _cooperate_ with the Chinese system
of censorship and surveillance in order to get their product accepted there.
(E.g., build a version of PRISM[1] for the Chinese government, just as they
did for the NSA.)

This kind of collaboration with an authoritarian regime is something that
Facebook employees who value freedom might find to be distasteful, but if it
furthers the company's lofty goal of "connecting everyone in the world", then,
hey, it can be justified.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_\(surveillance_program\))

------
speedplane
I'm kind of amazed over the attention FB is receiving over the data leak and
their general attitude over privacy. They have been incredibly clear that they
don't value privacy at all, Zuck even said so years ago.

\- They have a huge spam-bot problem that they willfully ignore; \- use
aggressive email and notification technique to re-engage users; \- stone-wall
traditional publishers to accommodate their distribution techniques \- sell
and trade personal user information for advertising \- Have most security and
privacy settings buried under submenus, almost intentionally built to ignore
\- Have a history of shady apps and games on their systems with questionable
value to the user \- Have a culture of growth at all costs, without regard to
the substance of that growth.

All of the above was known for years, has nothing to do with the recent breach
or 2016's election. I just can't understand why this is a surprise or why we
should trust a word FB says.

~~~
gaius
_Zuck even said so years ago._

Zuck also got a free pass on his “young people are smarter” comments. I hope
the rampant ageism catches up with FB too.

~~~
speedplane
Exactly. Sure, he put out a press release and some PR moves "expressing
regret" of his "word choice", but does he really regret or care? Impossible to
tell when he is sincere, impossible to trust him.

------
meganibla
Cue Facebook with the fake victim complex.

I respect their level of propaganda skill how they are trying to shape the
narrative into that they have been victimized, are fully justified and are not
actually at fault.

What impresses me most is how homogenously fanatically unified their culture
is.

It’s said a cult is that which can only survive by cutting itself off from
reality.

What scares me is that people who are so fanatical about their mission and
Corp are responsible for so much real human outcomes... The best lack all
conviction the worst are full of passionate intensity.

------
meitham
Facebook employees are perfectly suitable to work in spy organisations, such
as in the NSA. They seem to all agree on “punish the leaker” attitude, instead
of self reforms!

------
dschuetz
Well, that was unfortunate for Facebook. Zuck was trying to mitigate the PR
disaster that Cambridge Analytica has produced last week, telling that
_mistakes_ were made. Now there is another whistleblower who basically
destroys all credibility of anything Facebook will have to say in the upcoming
weeks. It appears that Zuck's lieutenants have a _distinct understanding_ of
what's good for them and what they think of what's good for others. Either the
head does not know what the hands are doing, or they all are lying and all
that is common practice in the entire user data fencing industry.

------
dawhizkid
The tone of the responses are objectively creepy. Almost cultish. It makes you
wonder if FB has become known as an amazing place to work because their HR org
had become so good at selling the FB culture to anyone who joins to keep them
in line.

Now that mirage has a few cracks in it and executives are freaking out.

Reminds me of Westworld.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
You can see the same approach at Google. Leaks are characterized as betrayal
of the Google family/social group. The goal of this seems to be to ideally
prevent people from leaking things they can't be fired for leaking.

You leak of trade secret, you can be fired. But if you talk about work
practices, that's a legally protected right that these companies don't want
you to talk about. If they can make people who do feel ostracized and like
they're betraying their family, maybe they'll reconsider sharing what goes on
behind the curtain.

~~~
Aunche
Other employees doesn't like leakers because they're selfish and immature. The
leaker gets to continue to work their cushy software job while forcing PR
people to work overtime. "Leaks" like this don't help anyone besides
journalists anyways. The most obvious example is the Jame Damore diversity
"manifesto." I can't conceive of how that leak was supposed to accomplish
anything but generate controversy.

~~~
dingaling
> while forcing PR people to work overtime

As opposed to doing what else? Emptying bins?

They are employed to spin news for the benefit of the corporation. They have
risk assessments and plans-of-action for the most likely eventualties. Their
_job_ is to do exactly what they've been doing in response to this leak.

~~~
Aunche
A janitor is employed to clean. That doesn't mean you should throw your
garbage on the floor.

------
djhworld
Nice to see that instead of trying to question why the memo was leaked, some
are blaming the leaker

~~~
hoppelhase
Same counts for Snowden.

------
BoorishBears
This memo is being totally overblown.

It’s like a telephone company admitting their services will be used to call in
bomb threats, coordinate terrorist attacks, conduct verbal abuse, but that
they should stay steadfast in their mission to provide communication to people
for the greater good that comes of it.

It’s a little tacky, but past the last thing on a long list of wrongs Facebook
has committed for so many words to be shed over.

~~~
ikeyany
I keep hearing that analogy but it doesn't really hold water. Telephone
companies don't coerce you into becoming an addict, manipulating their UIs so
that you subconsciously associate their platforms with the words "friend" and
"like", shove controversy and irrelevant comments from strangers into your
feed so that you get annoyed and feel like you're missing out when you clearly
stated that you want a chronological ordering of what your close friends and
family posted, and then innocently call it "engagement" or "connecting
people". So no, it's not like a telephone company.

~~~
BoorishBears
You’ve twisted my words.

I’m not saying they’re like a phone company, I’m saying this would be the
equivalent of a phone company saying what I said.

There’s a very clear difference.

I’m also not saying Facebook is a social good here, but those wrongs, valid or
not, are tangential to the memo.

~~~
harrumph
>I feel you’ve intentionally twisted my words.

I don't. Make comparisons, own them.

------
andrei_says_
> “How fucking terrible that some irresponsible jerk decided he or she had
> some god complex that jeopardizes our inner culture and something that makes
> Facebook great?“

This sounds like the perfect storm in the perfect bozo culture, like the one
perfectly described in Dan Lyon’s “Disrupted”. If you haven’t read that book,
I can’t recommend it enough for understanding the insanity of tech startups.

------
mehrdadn
> Several employees suggested Facebook attempt to screen employees for a high
> degree of “integrity” during the hiring process.

Is this a euphemism for "fidelity", or do they really, genuinely mean
"integrity"? In my mind "integrity" implies doing the right thing if it's not
to the immediate benefit of those close to you, but that could very well
involve whistleblowing or leaking information for the benefit of the greater
good, which doesn't seem to be in line with what they want. Seems to me that
they really mean they just want people who'd stay steadfastly loyal to
themselves?

------
lordofmoria
Seeing the comments of some of these Facebook employees and the caps for
“integirty” checks reminds me of flavor of the internal discussions at Booz
Allen Hamilton after Edward Snowden leaked and was promptly fired from the
company.

If you’ve worked somewhere, and given them sweat and blood for years, whether
it’s Facebook or the NSA, it’s impossible to not feel defensive and betrayed
when someone challenges the very ground you’ve been building your career on.
Regardless of whether the challenger is right in the end.

Having said that, at least the government is honest about its secrecy and
opaqueness, sounds like Facebook has a bit of a cult going on.

------
mratzloff
Facebook employees outraged their privacy was violated

------
thisisit
> “All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All
> of the work we do to bring more communication in. _The work we will likely
> have to do in China some day. All of it.”_

In China? Really?

> Another theory floated by multiple employees is that Facebook has been
> targeted by spies or state-level actors hoping to embarrass the company.

Still want to work in China?

------
r00fus
> Bosworth distanced himself from the memo, saying in a Twitter post that he
> hadn’t agreed with those words even when he wrote them.

What's most ironic about Bosworth's words and his response (other than well,
it's impacting company PR now), is that FB folks expected their internal memos
to stay private while knowingly allowing exfiltration of personal data for
millions of their users.

The hubris here is ridiculous. If you support public-everything don't sound
shocked when your internal stuff is also exposed.

------
eli_gottlieb
>“That conversation is now gone,” Bosworth continued. “And I won’t be the one
to bring it back for fear it will be misunderstood by a broader population
that doesn’t have full context on who we are and how we work.”

So you're saying _your users_ aren't _supposed_ to understand who you are and
how you work?

Well, that's why I keep a Facebook profile: I want a public persona to have
his data collected.

------
theabacus
I love the internal attitude here. Everyone is (at least portrayed) to be
assuming that the leakers were being "evil". One think I've been taught is to
assume everyone's intentions are the best they could be (aside from the
reality of what they are), and I always try to put this into practice. It
seems like the attitude is "everyone-is-out-to-get-me".

------
throwawayface
i admit i do not know the whole story, however bosworth's memo sounds very
cultish:

> That conversation is now gone. And I won’t be the one to bring it back for
> fear it will be misunderstood by a broader population that doesn’t have full
> context on who we are and how we work.

> This is the very real cost of leaks. We had a sensitive topic that we could
> engage on openly and explore even bad ideas, even if just to eliminate them.
> If we have to live in fear that even our bad ideas will be exposed then we
> won’t explore them or understand them as such, we won’t clearly label them
> as such, we run a much greater risk of stumbling on them later.
> Conversations go underground or don’t happen at all. And not only are we
> worse off for it, so are the people who use our products.

this sets facebook as the chosen ones or saviors of the people. and of course
the commoners dont understand and cannot be privy to these esoteric methods.

------
saudioger
I'm always shocked by how easily people fall into cults and groupthink. I
guess our biology is just tuned for it.

------
TAForObvReasons
> "Leakers, please resign instead of sabotaging the company,"

So are the employees upset about the "growth at all costs" mentality, or upset
that it was laid bare?

~~~
pishpash
Upset that their options are worth less than before.

------
DanielBMarkham
There are many, including those inside Facebook, that are actively asking for
more federal regulations.

I don't do regulation discussions. Brings out too much stupid.

But I will say that this is a survival ploy. If you get regulated, you are now
approved by the government. You're good to go, able to operate freely in
society. You just have to abide by whatever the regulations are.

Facebook may have a business model that just doesn't work in a society that
values privacy, anonymity, and small diverse groups of people with widely-
varying mores. This seems to be the lesson Facebook itself is learning now
about, well, Facebook. What do we do then? It's not like anybody at Facebook
is going to bring that up. They've got a ton of money. What do we do if the
existence of Facebook itself is unacceptable?

------
jacquesm
Funny, the only people who acted with any integrity here are the leakers, it
seems like FB _does_ have a hiring problem though when it comes to integrity,
only not the one they think they have.

FB sharing user data behind their backs -> good, FB internal data shared with
the world -> bad. The cognitive dissonance is strong enough to fracture
skulls.

The way the guy tries to whitewash his previous article by stating it was a
strawman of his own making and he didn't feel good about it when he wrote
it... sucks to be him I guess, he probably never thought he would have to
defend those words. Nice to see someone at FB openly admitting to FB being
unethical.

------
MBCook
Nice to know that conspiracy theories run wild INSIDE Facebook as well as
among users.

Maybe that’s why they’re so bad about controlling obviously bad information.

It couldn’t possibly be because people _disagreed_ with that ethos. No. It’s
the Mongolians.

------
2474
Wait, I don't have integrity if I stand up against something, anonymously or
not, I believe is wrong? The employees calling for the hiring of people with
"integrity" have been drinking the Kool-aid.

Bosworth can say what he wants but he shouldn't feel broken-hearted because
what he said leaked, he should feel broken-hearted for what he said.

Leaking doesn't have to silence conversation unless Facebook wants it to.

------
cat199
“We recognize that connecting people isn’t enough by itself. We also need to
work to bring people closer together,”

These two sentences in conjunction imply that facebook has a strategic goal to
specifically _manipulate_ rather than _facilitate_ human relationships...

What sort of narcissistic pride is necessary for one to believe that one has
the right or imperative to manipulate societal interactions as a whole for
profit?

------
Quanttek
Looking at the comments quoted by the Verge, it seems like internal Facebook
commenters are no better than Fb commenters below news stories:

> _Another theory floated by multiple employees is that Facebook has been
> targeted by spies or state-level actors hoping to embarrass the company.
> “Keep in mind that leakers could be intentionally placed bad actors, not
> just employees making a one-off bad decision,” one wrote. “Thinking
> adversarially, if I wanted info from Facebook, the easiest path would be to
> get people hired into low-level employee or contract roles.” Another wrote:
> “Imagine that some percentage of leakers are spies for governments. A call
> to morals or problems of performance would be irrelevant in this case,
> because dissolution is the intent of those actors. If that’s our threat —
> and maybe it is, given the current political situation? — then is it even
> possible to build a system that defaults to open, but that is able to resist
> these bad actors (or do we need to redesign the system?)_

Also, the blind loyalty is really disturbing

------
bkohlmann
Provocative ideas are critical to discovering truths that consensus won't
find.

The reason Facebook (and many successful tech companies) is successful is
because they relentlessly experiment and iterate, killing off ideas that don't
gain traction while embracing those that do. Often times the ideas that do get
traction are unexpected, but revealed because of a culture that allows any
idea to be thrown into the dialogue.

If you can't say something provocative without fear of it later coming back to
haunt you, folks will be less likely to raise uncomfortable, or non-consensus,
ideas. This will lead to less innovation. It's also okay if it's wrong. And if
it is wrong, folks should be willing to push back. That's how a high-
functioning, ideas driven organizations thrives.

~~~
heavenlyblue
Theranos have innovated themselves to oblivion. We must learn that there's a
definite line between innovating and blatantly generating noise for the sake
of new noise (also supported by inverstors).

~~~
bkohlmann
Societal utility is a weighted average. Any worthwhile process will have
positive and negative outcomes. Those that endure will provide greater upside
than downside.

I believe that a process where any idea is given consideration is preferable
to one in which ideas are suppressed. We need all the "bad" ideas to discover
the "good" ones.

~~~
heavenlyblue
A process where any idea is always given consideration is naturally highly
vulnerable to sybil attacks.

For example, there's a reason why once upon a time we had agreed (as a
society) to never accept any new potents for perpetual motion machines -
because the only ideas that were left are the bad ones, and we can prove it.

Now if there comes a time in history when the laws of physics suddenly
discover something new - we may re-approach our decision. But I don't think
many educated people believe it's going to happen anytime soon.

~~~
bkohlmann
That's the point though - we only know that perpetual motion machines are not
yet possible because nearly every testable idea we've come up yields nothing.
Our system is better for allowing, and dismissing, bad ideas than never
allowing them at all.

~~~
mrgordon
I'm not sure where you're going with this. Facebook allowed these terrible
ideas to proliferate which is why we have lost our privacy and rights to
"subtle language" and "questionable policies." Now people are acting like the
choice is between allowing these ideas or not allowing them.

In reality, its much more nuanced. It turns out a lot of people think the
ideas are horrible, offensive, and immoral. Thus Facebook can continue to
embrace these ideas and lose employees and public respect, or they can not
embrace these ideas and hopefully recover some reputation. It isn't about
"disallowing" these ideas. Its about not building a business around screwing
people over if you don't want to be known for screwing people over. Something
can be allowed without memos from top ranking managers dictating that this is
the way the business runs (and will run in the future in China)

------
the_snooze
(x-posted from the other submission marked dupe)

It's fun imagining this attitude applied to the Space Race.

>So we go to space.

>That can be bad if they say accidents happen. Maybe three of our guys die on
the launchpad. Maybe a spacecraft is lost on recovery.

>And we still go to space.

>The ugly truth is that we believe in going to space so deeply that anything
that allows us to go to space more is de facto good. It is perhaps the only
area where the metrics do tell the true story as far as we are concerned.

>That's why all the work we do in space-going is justified. All the pure
oxygen environments. All the hatch designs that can only be opened from the
outside. All the ad hoc procedures and cheap wiring. The work we will likely
have to do on the Moon some day. All of it.

~~~
Scaevolus
The bad part of the space race is ICBMs, not losing a few astronauts.

~~~
trhway
>The bad part of the space race is ICBMs

my understanding of history is that space race was good part of ICBMs.

------
the_snooze
It's fun imagining this attitude applied to the Space Race.

>So we go to space.

>That can be bad if they say accidents happen. Maybe three of our guys die on
the launchpad. Maybe a spacecraft is lost on recovery.

>And we still go to space.

>The ugly truth is that we believe in going to space so deeply that anything
that allows us to go to space more is _de facto_ good. It is perhaps the only
area where the metrics do tell the true story as far as we are concerned.

>That's why all the work we do in space-going is justified. All the pure
oxygen environments. All the hatch designs that can only be opened from the
outside. All the ad hoc procedures and cheap wiring. The work we will likely
have to do on the Moon some day. All of it.

~~~
jadedhacker
For what it's worth, the space race was something most people accepted as
something worth doing, the astronauts knew every operational detail of their
spacecrafts and volunteered, and a small number of people were affected.

By contrast, not everyone accepts the FB mission as bluntly stated, few except
a fraction of technical people understand what FB is doing and how it works
and are capable of informed consent, and 2B people are affected.

The Moon isn't populated, China is and their people might have an opinion
about being colonized by FB industrialists, either for or against.

------
cobbzilla
Consider this, Facebook employees: if your mission _truly_ were to connect
everyone in the world, you could do that without exploiting them.

You could become a premier Mastodon node in a federated social network and
succeed against your peers with a better user experience, features, mobile
apps, etc.

Or, you could continue on your path to centralized hegemony, which will only
ultimately end in failure as the world migrates to a federated social media
model.

Quit now while you're ahead. You've made a lot of money already, go make some
more working for a company that doesn't exploit people.

If only one talented engineer takes this advice to heart, the world will be a
better place.

------
phkahler
The irony and hypocrisy in this are stunning.

------
oh-kumudo
The memo itself reads as if a manifesto of a cult, where it claims growth is
simply GOOD, even worth sacrifice of others' lives. That makes me a little
uncomfortable.

Also it feels so weak, that the author himself seems running into some
existential crisis himself that 'questionable' practices such as he mentioned,
begins to rock his 'faith', that he has to declare the opposite, loudly,
confidently, to dispense his inner guilt.

------
johnny313
It is a bit disconcerting to hear FB employees say that the failure of
integrity was to leak an internal discussion, not complacency around dubious
business practices.

------
xster
There isn't a single source for the material besides the original 2016 memo?

It's funny that the article should mention 'Another theory floated by multiple
employees is that Facebook has been targeted by spies or state-level actors
hoping to embarrass the company.' because until proven otherwise, the whole
article is just one Comcast subsidiary's hearsay about another company.

------
maym86
Facebook employees upset that internal information they thought was private
has been leaked. The lack of self awarness is amazing. No sympathy.

------
creaghpatr
Great section in the book Chaos Monkeys about the 'Sec', basically an internal
KGB that monitors all employees actions and access

------
Yizahi
I just love how (supposedly) quoted FB employees use word "integrity" when
they actually mean "spineless". Hypocrites.

~~~
pbalau
The leaker is spineless. The post was posted many months ago. They leaked it
now, during one of the biggest shit storm in fbs history. They did it for some
benefits, not because they give a shit. If they did, they would have leaked it
when it was posted.

~~~
Yizahi
Basically anything that ever happened in the world can be explained that it
had been done for "some benefits" or "for hype" etc. Personally I do not
consider "for PR" an important argument unless there is any factual evidence
for it. Otherwise we could dismiss literally anything with such explanation.
And, no, obviously leaker is not spineless by any possible definition.

------
arca_vorago
Let me know when everyone is ready to get down to brass tacks... and discuss
the CIA, NSA, InQTel, and tech companies. There is something much more
widespread and insidious in tech than just Facebook. Facebook is one of many
created surveillance orgs. These issues are systemic, and I mean so much more
than just the fucked up SV advertising model.

------
frenchie4111
Full memo is here:

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/growth-at-any-cost-top-
face...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/growth-at-any-cost-top-facebook-
executive-defended-data#mod-subbuzz-text-7)

As other commenters have said, it seems to me that this is being totally
overblown due to all the recent CA drama.

------
2aa07e2
> Another theory floated by multiple employees is that Facebook has been
> targeted by spies or state-level actors hoping to embarrass the company.
> “Keep in mind that leakers could be intentionally placed bad actors, not
> just employees making a one-off bad decision,” one wrote.

Who could they be? Democrats or Chinese?

------
dmoy
There teaches a point in size with companies like that (open to its own
employees, with candid-ish company-wide meetings every week or whatever), past
which the chances of leaking get a lot higher. E.g. you see a lot more leaks
coming out of Google now that it's huge.

It's unclear how to reconcile open culture and leaks.

------
Havoc
Pretty much anything that has a significant impact is going to have a dark
side.

e.g. Electricity has improved living standards drastically, but occasionally
it electrocutes someone.

That doesn't strike me as a reason to avoid electricity. I suspect that is the
thought the author was trying to convey...poorly.

------
rsgfhsfghsfgh
[https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/30/17179100/facebook-memo-
le...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/30/17179100/facebook-memo-leaks-boz-
andrew-bosworth)

------
rajacombinator
This is like /dev/null for naive employees right? I’m sure Zuck views most of
his employees in the same light as people who trust him, and rightly so. Their
opinions are only relevant to making them feel better about themselves.

------
mychael
Andrew Bosworth lists himself as a "Co-Inventer of News Feed, Messenger,
Groups" on his Twitter bio without any sense of irony or self-awareness.

His software patents are about as innovative as a peanut-butter jelly
sandwich.

------
tempz
The scariest part is un-adult emotional environment, where employees (people
hired at-will to work) refer to other employees as "brothers and sisters".

This looks more like _Lord of the Flies_ setup than like for-profit company
workforce that sells 8 hours of its time in return for paycheck, with some
reasonable socializing at work.

This seems to be the trend, and is by no means limited to Facebook. Providing
socializing benefits (food, playground, etc.) and requiring emotional
committment at work is far more sinister than it appears.

While keeping employees emotionally arrested at 12-year-old stage may extract
extra sweat, the overall downside for the society is abysmal.

------
mbrameld
If they could have hired for integrity this situation would have been avoided,
just not in the way that the Facebook employees calling for "integrity"
imagine.

------
Fins
If anything, now FB won't even be able to say that "it was all Zuck's fault,
Zuck's the bad one". No, they are rotten to the core.

------
overthemoon
> All of the work we do to bring more communication in. The work we will
> likely have to do in China some day. All of it.

What is he talking about here? Work in China?

~~~
thousandautumns
I'm assuming he is referring to actually building up Facebook in China. I
don't think they have any major presence there. But its a massive market so
I'm assuming its on their target list.

------
mesozoic
Hmm didn't know integrity meant making sure not to share morally compromising
behavior of the company with the public.

------
stevew20
I like that some of these employee's think they work for a company that is not
evil.

------
foolinaround
many of these comments are plain retaliation, and the leadership has to deal
with it; the working environment has become toxic already

------
cobbzilla
Zuck::Gates :::: Boz::Ballmer ?

------
feelin_googley
Emily Waite: "Mark Zuckerberg has never really understood privacy. From
Facebook's earliest days, he figured people [incl. Boz?] would eventually grow
comfortable _sharing everything with everyone_ -indeed, his business depended
on it."

Source:

[https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-a-history-of-mark-
zucke...](https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-a-history-of-mark-zuckerberg-
apologizing/)

"Whether Boz believed his own words-then or now-matters less than the memo's
seeming confirmation of a growing hunch among users: that tech companies like
Facebook care less about the people who use their products than they do about
growth as a means to fulfill their rosy-lensed ambitions.

...

Instead, it lays bare the naivete Facebook has maintained about its product."

[Poll: What do you think. Do the employees comments that have been "shared
with everyone" suggest naivete?]

Source:

[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/03/why-the-leaked-
faceb...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/03/why-the-leaked-facebook-
memo-is-so-dangerous-for-zuckerberg)

------
feelin_googley
"Facebook has tapped one of its most veteran execs to lead all of its consumer
hardware efforts, including the mysterious Building 8 division responsible for
its forthcoming video chat device.

 _Andrew "Boz" Bosworth_ will oversee Building 8 and Oculus, Facebook's
virtual reality arm, Business Insider has learned. ...

The device, codenamed Aloha, will feature a large touchscreen along with a
camera and speakers and be capable of recognizing peoples' faces when they
step into view, three people with knowledge of the device said.

...

One hurdle Building 8 has faced in its efforts to build its first device is
_consumer mistrust of Facebook protecting user privacy_ , according to
multiple people familiar with the matter. The company conducted marketing
studies for project Aloha and _received overwhelming concern_ that Facebook
would use the device to spy on users, according to one person with knowledge
of the matter.

 _To assuage concerns about privacy_ , Facebook has considered creative ways
to market Aloha, including _pitching it as a device for letting the elderly
easily communicate with their families_. Building 8 _employees_ have also
considered creating _new brand names beside Facebook_ to sell their gadgets
under."

Source:

[https://www.businessinsider.in/Facebook-is-unifying-its-
hard...](https://www.businessinsider.in/Facebook-is-unifying-its-hardware-
efforts-under-a-veteran-exec-and-readying-an-Aloha-video-chat-
device/articleshow/60200313.cms)

"Regina Dugan, the head of Facebook's secretive hardware lab called Building
8, is leaving the company _after just 18 months_.

It's unclear who will take over Dugan's role leading Building 8 on a day-to-
day basis. Facebook recently promoted Andrew "Boz" Bosworth to run all of the
company's hardware projects, but that also includes Oculus hardware, not just
Building 8.

"There is a tidal shift going on in Silicon Valley, and those of us in this
industry have _greater responsibilities_ than ever before," Dugan said in a
statement provided by a company spokesperson. "The timing feels right to step
away and be purposeful about what's next, thoughtful about new ways to
contribute in times of disruption."

At Facebook, Dugan oversaw a number of hardware efforts, _none of which have
actually launched_ , including a video chat device and a smart [microphone
and] speaker, according to Business Insider."

Source:

[https://www.recode.net/2017/10/17/16488654/regina-dugan-
face...](https://www.recode.net/2017/10/17/16488654/regina-dugan-facebook-
hardware-lab-exit-building-8)

[ What did she mean by "greater responsibilities"? Whats the "tidal shift"? ]

"The memo is classic Boz because _it speaks to the majority of Facebook
employee views_ but it's also polarizing. Tonally he doesn't mince words. This
is clearly a post meant to rally the troops."

There is no record of Zuckerberg's response to the memo. However, a year later
in August 2017, Bosworth was tapped to run the company's consumer hardware
efforts."

"The natural state of the world is not connected," Bosworth wrote. "It is not
unified. It is fragmented by borders, languages, and increasingly by different
products. _The best products don 't win._ The ones everyone use win."

Source:

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/growth-at-any-cost-top-
face...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/growth-at-any-cost-top-facebook-
executive-defended-data)

That last statement suggests everyone is _not_ using the best products.

It suggests the senior management at Facebook are well aware that their
product is not the best.

As a user, I want the best products.FN1

Is there any reason I shouldnt?

Why should I settle?

There are many ways to communicate over the _internet_ (cf. www), peer-to-peer
being the original and one of the most versatile, IMO.

Using a single billions-page _public website_ to communicate over the internet
is one possible way, it has proven very popular, but if I understand the
Bosworth statement correctly, it is not necessarily the best way.

Being "fragmented" (e.g. decentralized) may be a desirable characteristic for
users communication if one of the goals is to avoid being an easy target for
advertisers looking for massive pools of consumers all gathered in one place,
which appears to be the definition of the Facebook "product".

FN1. Using the word "product" to describe what Facebook offers to the user is
probably misleading. FB is only a "product" for advertisers. Users pay nothing
and recieve nothing. They merely use a single website belonging to a Harvard
computer science drop-out in order to "stay in touch". The website is designed
to exploit that use for the purpose of selling advertising.

------
avoidit
1\. Bosworth's reaction:"for fear it will be misunderstood by a broader
population that doesn’t have full context on who we are and how we work"

2\. Wrote another: “How fucking terrible that some irresponsible jerk decided
he or she had some god complex that jeopardizes our inner culture and
something that makes Facebook great?”

3\. Back to Bosworth: "The post was of no particular consequence in and of
itself, it was the comments that were _impressive_." (italics mine)

4\. And lastly: " If we have to live in fear that even our bad ideas will be
exposed then we won’t explore them or understand them as such, we won’t
clearly label them as such, we run a much greater risk of stumbling on them
later. Conversations go underground or don’t happen at all. And not only are
we worse off for it, _so are the people who use our products_." (italics mine)

In other words: 1\. we know better than you 2\. the ends do justify the means
(contrary to MZ's opinion) 3\. don't mind the contents, just notice how smart
the employees are 4\. let us tell you what is best for you

~~~
evrydayhustling
The comments quoted are pretty shill-ish... but I found myself weirdly
sympathetic to Bosworth's concern about leaks. If corporations are people,
than their internal communications are like thoughts floating around before a
decision is made. If you're properly distributing decision making in a
company, individual sections are going to come up with ideas that are
embarrassing in the big picture! Would you want your stray thoughts picked
apart in the press?

BUUUUUUT (a) Bosworth is at the top of his org, so calling his own post a "not
quite staw man" is a ridiculous cop-out. Like it doesn't have 1000x the weight
of the comments below. And (b) The reason people are being forced to
interrogate Facebook's "character" through internal docs is because a lack of
candor has made that character impossible to judge based on public statements
and actions. You did it to yourself, man!

~~~
Jedd
> If corporations are people ...

But they're not, of course. Sure, I don't want my internal thoughts floating
around, but I'm not a) several thousand people, and b) the personification of
those several thousand people attempting to work out the best way of
extracting other people's sub-conscious & internal motivations and desires,
and sell them to marketers ... so my perspective is skewed.

The rest of the excuses in TFA seem very 'some people say...' or 'it's been
said that...' style posturing, which may be an interesting academic exercise,
but as you say it feels a bit of a cop-out to use that as a post-
rationalisation.

------
AmIFirstToThink
I don't like Facebook either, but I actually very much _like_ the part where
they want to let people talk knowing fully well that what gets said would
range from Nobel Peace prize worthy, to undesired, to wanting to burn the
whole universe down.

Can you imagine Bic worrying like this about what someone might write using
their pens?

Do you imagine the restaurant worker who served breakfast to the 9/11
hijackers having second thoughts about serving food?

Answer to Facebook's woes is to return to Free Speech with compliance with law
enforcement if laws are broken. No proactive banning of speech with the fear
that it might be illegal. Let the legal process enforce laws, Facebook should
comply with lawful orders to take down content, but not before. Facebook
should embrace bubbles. Let people chose the bubbles they live in and let
advertisers choose bubbles that they advertise in. If a advertiser doesn't
want to advertise in "self-defense" bubble, then any content
tagged/identified/categorized as "self-defense" doesn't get ads from that
advertiser. Make people explicitly aware that there are bubbles out there that
they can choose to be part of, or choose to be excluded from, or choose to
peek inside for just a bit. Make default no-login/under-age view safe i.e. at
least 1k logged-in views where at least 20 people did not raise "inappropriate
content" flag.

Free Speech, embrace bubbles, comply with law enforcement and that should make
Facebook relevant again.

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inverse_pi
I'm opening a can of worms by saying what I'm about to say but here goes
nothing: Why are people criticizing individual companies for "growing at all
cost"? Every company was once a start-up fighting to survive, every large
company was once medium size and had to fight with the Google, Amazon of their
days. It is not the Nash equilibrium to NOT try growing at all cost. If they
don't, they'll lose. So at what point should a company stop trying to grow at
all cost? Is it when they've won all battles, like Google? So why are we
looking into the past to criticize Facebook, Uber, and potentially many more
startups that are "growing at all cost"? Of course, the definition of "all
cost" shouldn't be taken too literally.

~~~
dkural
Your argument as I understand it is "Hey if I/companies don't do what's needed
to survive, someone else will do it anyways, and I/companies lose". Just
because some other group is willing to do unethical things (i.e. at all costs)
doesn't make it ok for your company / you to do those things.

People generally cheat and do unethical things to "win" or "not lose". The
reward doesn't make it any more ok.

Also, I can't believe I'm explaining this.

The memo was pretty literal - "someone might die", "things we have to do in
China". Sounds like they truly meant "all cost".

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infiniteseeker
Those pesky Russians...that Putin sure has a lot of time on his hands /s

~~~
prolikewhoa
This would be the easy way out of admitting they did something wrong.

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zeveb
> ‘How fucking terrible that some irresponsible jerk decided he or she had
> some god complex that jeopardizes our inner culture and something that makes
> Facebook great?’

I wonder if some Facebook employees understand how folks in the IC feel about
Snowden or Manning now …

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notthegov
Facebook's level of engineering, technology and data seem close to the point
of implementing a transformative virtual reality social experience that would
be indistinguishable from reality.

Imagine if Facebook invented a way to simulate reality, then the user (the one
superuser) would write the past in the future. Then go i to the simulation,
hide himself and forget where he is.

Only the powerful, intergalactic intensity of music and lyrics along with the
obvious absurdist quality of news in reality finally leads the user to realize
he is the superuser.

He created this world but She created him. His bots (abstractions) run this
world and with Her, they can turn the simulation into a perfect Utopia.

Just a thought I had after seeing Ready Player One yesterday. This idea that
the future creates the past, and then the past creates the future is another
indication that Free Will is an illusion.

The best aspect of all of this; if it were all some Facebook-Total Recall
experience, then all the pain, confusion and embarassment would evaporate.

