
Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments - hhs
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-trump-employee-criticism/facebooks-zuckerberg-faces-employee-blowback-over-ruling-on-trump-comments-idUSKBN2382D0
======
pdimitar
I think we all know he is not "facing" anything. People that collect big and
stable salaries will not change company employment over this.

Virtue signalling is cheap, endangering your family's livelihood is hard.

"It's very difficult to make somebody understand something, especially if
their salary depends on them not understanding it."

Facebook is, in general, an unethical company. And this has been known for a
long time. If you didn't leave yet you won't leave over this either.

~~~
edanm
> Facebook is, in general, an unethical company. And this has been known for a
> long time. If you didn't leave yet you won't leave over this either.

You might be right. But you might be wrong. And the way you're framing it,
it's either a) someone agrees with you, and has already left FB (meaning you
were right), or b) someone has stayed at FB, therefore ethics is unimportant
to them.

Your dichotomy leaves no space for the idea that you might be wrong, or that
the people who work at FB might not agree with you that it is unethical.

~~~
koheripbal
Nuance is such a rare commodity online these days.

One telling sign of that is that few, if any, media sources that criticized
Facebook's decision even bothered to publish the rationale.

Think about that. Imagine perceiving yourself as _journalist_ and
intentionally not reporting the rationale of a point of view you disagree
with.

Once I heard Facebook's logic... I actually found it compelling. I think it's
good we have social media companies that don't all agree with one another and
act as a single entity. That would be scary.

~~~
pdimitar
> _Once I heard Facebook 's logic... I actually found it compelling. I think
> it's good we have social media companies that don't all agree with one
> another and act as a single entity. That would be scary._

I don't think any reasonable human being will argue with that.

The problem are a lot of other practices of Facebook, like the lack of privacy
and all sleazy corporate lingo and lobbyist pressure they utilize to never
actually have to be a privacy-first company.

And that's not even touching their experiment with free Facebook traffic in
India, simply branded as "Internet" which, predictably, led many people to
believe that Facebook _is_ the internet. (And surprising no one, this was
stopped only after a big wave of negative PR.)

------
throwaway7281
Facebook is reality, but it's also just a game. It goes like this: how deep
can we go exploiting people by using information technology. How much "person"
can we extract? How far can we go controlling this person (e.g. make sure user
is happy, etc.).

The second game is: How can we PR our way out of the nightmares we knowingly
create month after month?

It amazes me every day how the corporation and all its employees are able to
maintain the BS level required to believe in the "mission" of the company.

If you can imagine it, I never had an active account in my life and I am happy
about it. And believe it or not, I still do exists have friends and family and
a "social" life.

------
keiferski
Remember when "I disagree with what you say, but will defend your right to say
it" was a thing? I certainly do. How far we've fallen as a culture since then.

~~~
znpy
People misunderstand that quote as much as people misunderstand the concept of
freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech means that the police can't raid your house for what you
think or say or a judge cannot rule against you for what you think or say.

But freedom of speech doesn't mean that other people are forced to either
listen to you or provide with their own private means (like content hosting or
bandwidth) for you to express your ideas.

~~~
keiferski
This line of argument is really tiresome and comes up every single time in
discussions like this. It's been done over and over and over again and I'm not
really interested in arguing about it.

What I am talking about is the _culture_ of defending free speech. The
_cultural value_ of defending the right of people you dislike to express ideas
that you disagree with, because the value and importance of free expression
goes beyond the short-term unpleasantness of ugly opinions. _This_ is what we
are losing / have lost and it is extremely dangerous for democratic society
and civil liberties. It has nothing to do with the legal definition of free
speech.

~~~
deegles
How do you categorize anti vaccine, flat earthers, and people who believe
BillG wants to implant people with microchips?

This is the paradox of tolerance. Some ideas are worth debating, some are not.
We all have limited time and energy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

Edit: the irony of getting downvoted while trying to have a discussion about
being able to express ideas...

~~~
keiferski
No, the paradox of tolerance is relevant when you have radical political
factions inflicting violence on the population and preventing opposing
opinions, not when some small group of people has crazy ideas that have
little-to-no impact on society as a whole.

 _The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit,
its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the
intolerant._

Crazy people thinking that the Earth is flat doesn't prevent you from
circumnavigating it.

~~~
archagon
Meanwhile, the person holding the most powerful office on Earth is retweeting
Q memes...

------
caenorst
Except that the "glorification of violence" depends on the interpretation. It
can also be a warning that people will start to defend themselves with
violence or that the military will intervene. If that's the case those warning
are here to AVOID violence by discouraging people to engage in looting...

Facebook shouldn't make such decision based on the interpretation of some
emotionally biased employees.

~~~
ggggtez
>In 1967, Miami police Chief Walter Headley used the phrase "when the looting
starts, the shooting starts" during hearings about crime in the Florida city,
invoking angry reactions from civil rights leaders, according to a news report
at the time.

> Segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace also used the phrase
> during the 1968 campaign.

While you might like to believe that the phrase could mean _anything_ , it
certainly doesn't. And in the context of Trumps tweet, which specifically
mentions the military, it certainly means that he was threatening to have the
US military fire on US civilians.

Now consider that in the context of the US threatening action against China
using "tough" tactics to subdue protests in Hong Kong and you'll see the tweet
for what it is. The same kind of rhetoric and threat of violence against
protesters that the US condemns elsewhere in the world.

~~~
scohesc
Yes, because never before have those words (or a variation of them) been
spoken at all ever since they were uttered in 1967.

Give me a break.

~~~
drewrv
That "the president is too dumb to understand the context of his words" is not
a strong defense.

------
binxbolling
Amazing to me that so many people in these comments believe Facebook is or can
be apolitical. This is a very childish stance, and Zuck is not standing up for
their right to remain out of politics: they're deeply political, and Facebook
is just asserting which political viewpoints they subscribe to as an
organization.

~~~
therealdrag0
Trying and failing to be apolitical is different than being intentionally
political.

And I prefer platforms attempt the former.

~~~
binxbolling
"We will not curb violent speech if the speaker is a notable public figure" is
already political. That's a political stance, not an apolitical one, and it's
very naive to believe otherwise.

Besides, Facebook has a PAC! In what way is this attempting to be apolitical?
Although their donations are split, since 2012 they've given 14% more to
Republicans.

~~~
therealdrag0
> if the speaker is a notable public figure

I haven't seen this to be the case. My impression is they found that his
speech didn't violate their normal policy. Do you have support to the
contrary?

> Facebook has a PAC ... Lol good point. Though my assumption is this is for
> economic reasons. So technically you're right; that's political. Though I
> think it's a non-trivial distinction between trying to grease the economic
> engine to support corporate profits and being political in the sense of
> pushing for other left/right/progressive/conservative values.

------
nootropicat
Interesting times. Many people are now demanding unelected, nearly
unaccountable corporations to actively censor elected officials, and in fact
consider not doing this evil - a step beyond fascism into a new brand of
totalitarianism. I would have considered this absurd even 5 years ago.

The only thing missing to make this reality a full cyberpunk dystopia are
corporate superhuman ais, but not for the lack of trying.

~~~
sp0rk
> a step beyond fascism into a new brand of totalitarianism.

Social pressure is being exerted on businesses to enact change. How does this
have anything to do with fascism or totalitarianism when the government isn't
even involved?

~~~
koheripbal
Many politicians have suggested that the government SHOULD be involved in
cracking down on social media speech.

AOC (a US congresswoman) specifically suggested that legislation be written to
curb free speech on Facebook.

------
hkai
It seems a lot of people are advocating two things:

\- Western social media companies are evil; and

\- Freedom of speech is bad.

You may very well get rid of Facebook and freedom of speech, but I would like
to just remind to all of you folks in the West that when you only have Chinese
social media companies and no freedom of speech, there will be thousands of
cases MUCH worse than George Floyd and you won't even be allowed to talk about
them.

~~~
koheripbal
It's almost unbelievable that people are suggesting we take the power _away_
from elected officials and hand it over to corporations.

It's like the sky isn't even blue anymore...

~~~
hkai
There is a fake Lincoln quote that, even though it's fake, aged surprisingly
well in the last 140 years that it has been circulated:

> "Corporations have been enthroned.

> An era of corruption will follow and the money power of the country will
> endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people
> until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is
> destroyed."

------
noscrewstoyous
this is all a big distraction to the fact that facebook is already playing the
“arbiter of truth” - algorithms aren’t magic, they’re just automated biases.

If Zuckerberg truly wanted to be neutral they’d show unweighted posts... he
doesn’t actually want that though, he’s just protecting profits (which is his
primary responsibility as ceo anyway).

------
narrator
Probably why he's going to start hiring outside of tech hubs.

~~~
spamizbad
Regardless of location, Facebook is hiring from demographics that typically
don't support Trump. Young, STEM-educated people skew left.

If you want Trump supporters to even things out you're probably going to
either: A) hire older devs from less traditional software dev backgrounds. B)
Still pull from Young+STEM but filter out anyone whose social media indicates
them as being left-ish.

~~~
jcadam
Who wants to work for a company where they're living in constant fear of being
outed as a non-leftist and losing their job?

I get the frequent recruiting emails from FB and (much less frequently)
Google, but am really too afraid to pursue them.

~~~
dirtydroog
Not sure why you're being downvoted. I can't imagine working for either
company, especially in SV. I would be walking on eggshells lest someone hear,
or overhear, something 'toxic' and my career gets ruined. It'd be safer to
just not talk to anybody, or limit conversations to work topics only. That's
an awful work environment. My demographic would make me a target, not a
colleague.

~~~
slantyyz
> limit conversations to work topics only. That's an awful work environment.

Ok, maybe it's because I'm older (but not a boomer), but I don't think that's
an awful work environment.

I use dinner party rules on social media and at the workplace. That means I
avoid talking about politics, religion, etc. It's not because I'm afraid of
being outed for my views or anything, it's because I look at work as work, and
not a place to socialize or broadcast my views.

~~~
seneca
I'm 100% aligned with you on this. The problem is that many people, especially
younger millennials, don't follow these social rules. Aside from it being
exhausting to listen to them preach their political beliefs at work, you can
also be "outed" just by not agreeing with them vocally enough. I've had
friends have to leave teams because of this dynamic.

~~~
iron0013
It’s funny, my experience has been the exact opposite. Conservative boomer and
older-gen-x employees where I work are very outspoken, loudly rehashing Fox
News talking points in the cafeteria, seemingly projecting their voices as
loudly as possible to try to get a rise from everyone else. I don’t know if
they feel “safe” because they are nearer to retirement and have pensions
(which have since been phased out and none of us younger folks have them) or
what, but the younger workers keep their heads down and don’t tend to chat
about politics.

~~~
seneca
I've definitely experienced the loud and completely socially-unaware older
conservatives as well, but generally not at work. Is your career in danger if
you disagree with these people? That danger is where it goes from an
undesirable work environment to one that is genuinely bad for society.

If so, that seems like the same dynamic, just with a different hegemony. It's
a horrible pattern for a workplace regardless of which view is the orthodoxy.

------
reedwolf
If those comments had come from Average Joe in Wichita, Facebook would most
likely have censored them.

Are we arguing that some users are just too important to adhere to the site's
terms and conditions?

------
arusahni
This is part of the circle of life for internal Facebook turmoil:

10 Facebook does something to draw ire

20 Employee drama

30 The company leadership offers some platitudes to buy time

40 GOTO 10

~~~
whymauri
5\. (Optional) Establish some Oversight Council or Committee, to be
disenfranchised, dissolved, or declawed at the company's earliest convenience.

~~~
slantyyz
If my memory of BASIC from the 80s is still accurate, Line 5 will never get
executed, because of the GOTO 1 in line 4, so not even optional.

~~~
marcosdumay
Yeah, the OP should have numbered them 10, 20, 30, and 40, so the GP could
insert a needed line in between...

~~~
arusahni
I edited my post. Go wild!

------
blueterminal
People really want Zuckerberg to decide whether posts of the president should
be deleted or not? Is this for real?

We really need mainstream decentralized applications more than ever. Thoughts
of people should not be censored. Who the hell should be the truth police?
You? People that have the same beliefs as you?

This is just ridiculous. I don't like Facebook but great decision by Mark.
Same as they decided to not remove political ads.

~~~
phone8675309
>Who the hell should be the truth police? You? People that have the same
beliefs as you?

Except Facebook is a private platform. That people use it does not make it a
public platform. That would be like arguing that Six Flags over Georgia can't
remove you from their park because you started protesting in it. Yes, there
are people there, but no, just because they're there and it's a popular place
doesn't mean they can't remove you if they want to (so long as they're not
breaking another law by doing it).

~~~
commandlinefan
> That would be like arguing that Six Flags over Georgia can't remove you from
> their park because you started protesting in it

But in the context of this post, you (and the Facebook employees) are actually
arguing exactly the same thing: that Six Flags should be _required_ to ban
people who, for example, wear Republican candidate T-shirts to the park.

~~~
espadrine
> _Six Flags should be required to ban people who, for example, wear
> Republican candidate T-shirts to the park_

That is a strawman.

They are advocating that Six Flags should ban people who draw swastikas on the
carts, even when those people are in office, or seek election.

~~~
therealdrag0
Why use such off topic examples? Isn't it more like

> They are advocating that Six Flags should ban people who tell people around
> them "Hey if you try to burn or rob that snack stand, that security guard
> might shoot you!"

AFAIK this is more aligned with the presidents comments that everyone is in a
hissy about. Would you consider that a bannable offense at Six Flags?

------
malloreon
Reminder: it is incumbent on every single person who doesn't approve of what
facebook does to stop using its platform - no fb, instagram, WhatsApp, or
messenger.

every time they record an ad impression because of you or send a message that
reinforces their network effect, you enable these people. It's not worth it.

------
AlexandrB
Facebook is too big, has too much reach, and is largely unaccountable to
elected representatives - _especially_ outside the United States. Whether
Facebook decides to censor an elected official is largely a red herring. They
need to be broken up[1] so that individual countries have a chance at holding
them to account if they do something shitty and users have more choice of what
social network to use if they disagree with Facebook's policies.

[1] At a minimum, the WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions need to be rolled
back.

------
nikivi
As if anything is going to change. He has the voting rights to do whatever.

There are few FB employees that did speak out on Twitter with not agreeing but
to what end. They will still continue to work in support of all this.

I don't think it's such a big problem though, if you dislike hate and violence
just mute these people from your feeds/life. The bigger issue as I see it is
FB working directly in support of Trump by supporting his ads and dropping
Biden's ads.

------
easterncalculus
The point of social networks then is the same as it is now, to host content
that does not break the terms of service of the site. Anything further than
that is extra. Just leave it as things were and people are fine.

We've been saying that what's on the internet is not bond since before the
inception of Facebook and Twitter, so there's no reason to try and change it
now. When did people forget that there was no use in doing this?

~~~
Lammy
The point of social networks is to let humans communicate.

------
DeonPenny
Twitter just declared war with the federal government. The employee are
effectively asking Zuckerberg to divebomb his own company. Zuckerberg has been
in those congressional hearings.

He knows exactly why he doesn't want to get in this splashzone. Cause what
twitter did is so far over so many lines I can see them being the same after
the FCC starts making rules for them like ISPs in 60 days.

------
yc_theorist
I have a theory on this.

I think the next leg of the downturn will start once people actually figure
out that the economy has been completed hollowed out all the money printing.
At that point, of all the tech giants, Facebook is the most likely to collapse
because their only moat is to collect even more of your data or acquire
companies who do the same. Given that their "moonshot" cryptocurrency project
was (thankfully) basically dead on arrival, they now don't have nearly as many
tentacles into our lives as the other tech giants.

Now, imagine being the _only_ social network where the President of the USA is
allowed to write whatever he wants. That's a sure-shot bailout package isn't
it?

------
sebastianconcpt
How this is not Zuckerberg being unable to control his revolutionary employees
eager to implement political opposition censorship because they can?

------
tjpnz
>Giving a platform to incite violence and spread disinformation is
unacceptable, regardless who you are or if it’s newsworthy,

As someone who grew up in Christchurch this Tweet strikes a nerve. Not a
single thing has changed at Facebook that would hinder an armed lunatic from
freely live streaming a killing spree to thousands on the platform.

This is not _anything_ new.

------
zenit-mf-1
I have deleted my FB profil so, I am living without it since 2013 and I really
don't feel I am missing social life.

------
euix
I think we are well passed the point of the Federal govt doing anything. The
future is feudalism. Guys like zuck and Bezos are the barons of the old. In
the future there will be too types of people, employees of these corps and
everyone else (the peasants). All that is missing is for Amazon to acquire a
PMC.

------
zenit-mf-1
I was thinking since a couple of months on the idea of building a simulator
that simulate a day live without as social platform like FB. A kind of:
simulate people interactions where FB is shut down for, lets say for one day.

------
GaryNumanVevo
Not sure why Facebook invested in Oculus. They already have one of the world's
largest "virtual reality" platform.

------
lgleason
Zuck get's it. Start censoring, editorializing etc. and section 230
protections will be gutted. On top of that anti-trust investigations
intensify, rightfully, because you have not concentrated too much power into
an un-regulated, un-elected platform vs the elected government which is
against the interest of the country as a whole. For all of the engineers
complaining about this, there are plenty of other ones who would be happy to
take the place of the high paid engineers who have an issue with this and ask
a lot less questions or who may even support what Zuck is doing.

~~~
darkarmani
> Start censoring, editorializing etc. and section 230 protections will be
> gutted.

By whom? I've been on a lot of forums and listservs where trolls get banned
(censored). I've yet to see section 230 get gutted because trolls have their
commented deleted.

~~~
jaywalk
By Congress.

------
sharker8
He also called his company an 'institution'. I think that kind of language is
kind of rich.

~~~
6510
asylum

------
ericzawo
The tweets are nice, but little will change until people at the executive
level bow out publicly.

~~~
dfxm12
I wonder, has anything changed at Amazon since Tim Bray left?

~~~
intothemild
My guess is the only things that changed were that;

1\. Tim Bray is happier he doesn't have to call Amazon out on it's bullshit.
2\. Amazon is happier there's one less person to call them out on their
bullshit.

------
mjayhn
People on twitter at other $bigtech seem more than happy to bring you all on
board but you've been sucking that $270k+ top-end-even-for-FAANG salary with
no concern for the ethics or morality of your business for years. This isn't
new. I'm less than excited to see Facebook show up on a resume and haven't
been for years. Not to mention the people I've interviewed from there seem to
get so accustomed to working on Facebook internal tools that aren't in use
anywhere else, especially you front end devs (not talking about just react
here but the internal ecosystem).

Best of luck to those of you looking to leave. It took THIS much to get you to
this point, don't forget that.

There are a LOT of devs not from Facebook that deserve to be hired and given
chances in other FAANG businesses. People you actually want to work with who
won't contribute to attacks on democracy for a high salary and have refused to
even respond to Facebook recruiters for the last 3-10 years.

Hire them instead. Especially you Google employees who are on twitter ranting
and raving right now. There's a huge amount of people who want to work with
you who haven't traded their ethics for a paycheck and were laid off over the
last few months. Yet you're trying to bring these Facebook employees under
your umbrella? How about you help bring some other people up?

It's just shocking how out of touch you SV FAANG types are. I'm glad you're
actually tweeting about important things this weekend, though.

~~~
elteto
Passing judgment on thousands of employees like this is really no better
either, you are just imposing your own morals on them.

~~~
walls
Ah the "I was just doing my job" defense.

~~~
inopinatus
The Philip Morris of tech.

~~~
elteto
See my other reply on this same thread. I would never work for Philip Morris
in the same way I would never work for FB.

This mentality is extremely dangerous because it cuts both ways: imagine
companies discriminating against employees because they believe abortion is a
right, or because they are strong 2A supporters or detractors.

If we go down this path, we _all_ end up losers. Attacking the employees is
really not the way to go, in the end, they are the ones with the least
leverage to influence anything.

------
g8tor
It would be the ultimate barometer of the zeitgeist if Zuck, the most scandal-
resistant and resilient CEO in SV, was dethroned for "outrageous" political
views that offended his "liberal" employees.

But seriously, if this did happen, what would he do next?

~~~
ilikehurdles
Run for president, probably.

~~~
jessaustin
He's got to do a reality show first. Even better if the theme has something to
do with "the lefty nerds at the company _he founded_ don't want him around
anymore, so what's our good buddy Mark going to do with all that extra time?
You guessed it: custom 4x4 trucks!"

~~~
g8tor
Zuck's Customs would be great. Definitely he wanted the President thing
before, but a after seeing the last 3 years, does he really still?

BTW, don't we need to have a woman president before the next white dude
anyway?

If that's the case 2028 is the earliest...

------
ceilingcorner
Who knew the day would come when I’d agree with and defend Zuckerberg. It’s
not Facebook’s job to tell me what I can or can’t think. I can evaluate the
claims of Trump or any other politician myself, thank you very much.

~~~
rswail
Except it has been proven that people using FB and whatsapp have incited
violence in India and other places and that often people can't or won't
evaluate claims with a focus on facts and evidence.

~~~
ceilingcorner
Then work on stopping people in India from being violent? Treating human
beings like mindless automatons is not the right way forward.

------
scarface74
Maybe, the government should get involved in monopolistic Big Tech. Isn't that
what HN users are always wanting?

I'm sure the Trump administration will get right on that.

Just like now that the President is pressuring Twitter, HN users are up in
arms. Be careful what you ask for.....

------
tinyhouse
Thanks to FB and the like, tech employees all over the world have much better
conditions. They cannot solve the world's problems and it's also not their
job. The only people who are out of touch are those who think that FAANG
companies are the cause of all society issues. I've never worked at FB but
would rather work for them than for most tech companies. For most tech
companies if I'd dare to write something against the company or its CEO, I
will be shown the door the next day with zero severance.

~~~
Pfhreak
Ah yes, the twin rebuttals of, "it's worse somewhere else, so workers
shouldn't complain" and "it's not their problem to care about systemic
issues".

No matter how bad it is elsewhere, Facebook employees have the right to try
and improve their workplace.

~~~
tinyhouse
I didn't say they shouldn't try and improve their workplace. My point is
actually the opposite. They can try because they work at FB. In most other
companies they wouldn't be able to even try.

------
PaulHoule
Zuck has consistently backed right-wing politicians ever since he's had the
chance. He had his Girl Friday solicit an antisemitic report on George Soros
from a right-wing propaganda group -- that's something so stupid that
everybody involved should have been fired right away and sent to Siberia. See

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIqESwzCGg4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIqESwzCGg4)

Although Zuck won't do anything about Trump posts that encourage violence, his
company certainly will "fact check" ads that oppose Trump, even when those ads
come from fellow Republicans.

~~~
haram_masala
I would say if there are two things in this world that Mark Zuckerberg are
not, it's stupid, and anti-semitic.

------
macspoofing
... Zuckerberg's instincts are 100% correct. I don't understand why people
(usually democrats and the left now, but it could be right-wing evangelicals
in the future) are pushing for social media companies to wade into the
quagmire of politics. Twitter's 'fact check' of Trump's tweet is a perfect
example of what happens if you try. Their fact check was wrong because it
missed nuance and context of issues with mail-in ballots (as in, there is
potential for fraud with related actions like 'vote harvesting'), and it
pissed off people (not just Trump supporters) because it was ad hoc and
arbitrary because you can easily find Democratic politicians making erroneous
statements. Almost everything a politician will say is wrong in some way and
from a certain perspective and having minimum wage Twitter reviewers be the
arbiters of how political speech should be interpreted and in which way is a
recipe for disaster.

The "Citizen's United" ruling came around when the FCC tried to enforce rules
against political speech arbitrarily when they decided a right-wing
documentary critical of Hillary was deemed to break election laws, but Micheal
Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (which was also purposely designed to influence
election) was not. And you know what, that is unfair. There is no universe in
which it is fair that Moore's documentary gets to be exempted but a right-wing
group's documentary doesn't. And because of the arbitrary politically-motived
actions of the FCC, we ended up with completely unchecked election spending.

Get tech companies out of politics. If not, it will blow up in your face.

------
tibbydudeza
Well not much has changed since it was called FaceMash and he conned the
ownership from Eduardo Saverin using tactics from his buddy Peter Thiel.

------
malloreon
Every Facebook employee should receive blowback for continuing to work there.
They make the choice each day to create more value than they cost to support
this platform - they implicitly support its reprehensible ideas.

You work there, you own this. It is who you are.

------
buboard
What do FB engineers think? Should FB be editing its content and be designated
as a publisher? This would imply a major change with hiring of thousands of
employees and journalists to become a proper written medium. It would also
mean their own wages would go way down to accomodate these new hires.

~~~
noscrewstoyous
they already edit content, amazed that even on hn people seem to think that
facebook isn’t dramatically controlling which content you see

------
cityzen
“Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to change his
mind,” wrote Ryan Freitas, whose Twitter account identifies him as director of
product design for Facebook’s News Feed. He added he had mobilized “50+
likeminded folks” to lobby for internal change.

Jason Toff, identified as director of product management, wrote: “I work at
Facebook and I am not proud of how we’re showing up. The majority of coworkers
I’ve spoken to feel the same way. We are making our voice heard.”

\----

"endeavor in the loudest possible way"?

"not proud of how we're showing up"?

If "the majority of coworkers" and "50+ likeminded folks" are so passionate
about it... stop working for the company. Quit, make a fucking sacrifice and
stop thinking that somehow you're going to change Zuck's mind.

Money is a hell of a drug.

------
sigzero
They need to stop filtering period. Their so called "fact checkers" are wrong
more than they are right and there is no way to report it easily.

~~~
banachtarski
Nonsense. Even basic human checkers for high profile demonstrably false
statements or calls to violence would be sufficient at this point.

------
troughway
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

His employees being vocal about this when Facebook is bought and paid for by
the US government to spy on people globally is funny nonetheless.

I wish they would have a spine over things that mattered rather than some
nonsensical shitposts.

~~~
ryanianian
> bought and paid for by the US government

What?

~~~
troughway
Look into the connections between {FB, Google, Twitter, ...} and CIA, NSA.

People here harp on Palantir like they’re the only bad actor. You are either
clueless or playing stupid when it comes to acknowledging who is running the
show.

So his employees being concerned, and taking their nonsense to Twitter is an
amusing farce at most.

