
Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo - danroseai
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54161344
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yuliyp
There was a previous discussion of this yesterday based on a Buzzfeed News
article about the same memo:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24474343](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24474343)

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BMSmnqXAE4yfe1
But the title with the word "blood" is more attractive.

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rStar
when I went to university in 1999 it was my dream to work at a company like
microsoft, then google. then i realized that big tech is just a way for those
in control of society to control us more efficiently. i feel for those who
just want to put their head down and do the work. nobody thought they were
going to CS school to enable the exploitation of less lucky others. but now we
have facebook, amazon, palantir, google, microsoft et al doing whatever their
doing, not with the benefit of society but for the benefit of society’s
owners. as a tech person, that makes me extremely uncomfortable, and someone
who hasn’t figured out even a personal route around the problem, much less a
societal one. god bless us all.

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pathseeker
Isn't this looking at the past with rose colored glasses though?

Time before using computers for business was terrible with much less
transparency (no Googling prices, etc). Paperwork got lost all of the time.
Companies could easily bury things, etc.

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rococode
Agreed, imo transparency, accountability, and general corporate "goodness" are
probably at all-time highs. The thing is the public's level of awareness of
the remaining shadiness is also at an all-time high, so it can feel like
things have gotten worse because we see more of it, even if the amount of
things that go unnoticed has gone down.

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input_sh
Here's the original article, with more direct quotes from the memo:
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook-
ignore-political-manipulation-whistleblower-memo)

According to it, the full version isn't going to be released because it
contains privately identifiable information.

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themacguffinman
I'm honestly confused. Doesn't the Buzzfeed article publish her full name and
excerpts from her LinkedIn profile? Protecting the author's private info is a
hard reason to swallow when they literally reveal the author's full name and
LinkedIn profile.

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input_sh
The way I interpreted it is that she referenced private info on other people
(or internal teams) in there.

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justinzollars
I've been involved in politics and software a long time. I was an elected
Hillary Clinton DNC Delegate in 2008. I'm a senior software engineer today.
And I'm not sure Democracy will survive contact with social media. I have a
solution.

1\. Ancient History - Historically politics was a hobby of the elite. You had
to go out of your way, sometimes into the cold to attend party meetings. The
discussions were academic and professional. People who were involved in
politics had their lives very much together, on both sides of the isle.

2\. Social Media was invented. I had the opportunity to work with a very
fantastic and kind person. My role in the organization was software engineer.
This person's role was warehouse operations. Because of Social media this
person, who would otherwise never be politically engaged, rocks social media
all day long. With the advent of Facebook on mobile, this person tweets
political memes all day long. This person spends Xor time on reddit, and
"chan" sites. This person now represents the main stream. This person is
awesome, but shouldn't be shaping policy.

3\. Solutions. I have a number of ideas. I think we should move away from
ideas such as ballot initiatives and direct democracy and embrace the fact we
are a Republic. We need professionals to determine policy not the twitter mob.
Another solution I would seriously implement is a rule. No politics on social
media. If its political, flag it, delete it. This would take care of twitters
toxicity problem, and facebooks foreign interference problems.

I'm spitballing ideas here, but I am not sure Democracy can survive first
contact with social media. It's a mess. people are angry. If you work at one
of these big tech companies, I'd love to know your take!

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troebr
> Solutions. I have a number of ideas. I think we should move away from ideas
> such as ballot initiatives and direct democracy and embrace the fact we are
> a Republic. We need professionals to determine policy not the twitter mob.

Congress people and senators are professional policy makers. The problem is
that if they acted solely in the best interest of the nation then they
wouldn't get reelected. So what, is not having elections a better solution?
Should there be no parties so that actual conversations happen and require a
consensus? Should terms be limited? No clue. I'm not sure we as a society can
fix ourselves without a major kick in the butt.

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kyran_adept
I find it repulsive that no one is discussing that the original author was
doxed by a news organization and this was done after a "whistle-blower" leaked
their memo to the news org. One person discussing something internally with
their peers, and maybe trying to make things better, has their life ruined now
because everyone on the internet knows their name.

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secondcoming
It is Buzzfeed after all. The lowest of the low.

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1vuio0pswjnm7
Facebook uses the term "inauthentic" while the memo's author and the BBC use
the term "fake".

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24477933](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24477933)

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diegoholiveira
What would happen to Facebook if we do ban advertising from the internet?

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coolspot
Advertising itself is not inheritly bad: healthy socium needs product and
price discovery.

Even targeted advertising, if done right is very good for both buyer and
seller.

Bad part is data collection and predatory targeting, like for (rather mild)
example “easy money passive FBA business” targeting aspiring enterpreners.

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secondcoming
Why do all these types of leaks end up at Buzzfeed?

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jentist_retol
I've taken a hard line with people who work at Facebook. If you're still there
and unwilling to represent the failings your company has done to society, then
I need to hear a justification before moving further in the conversation. I
don't think I've ever felt this strongly about a tech company.

I know that's tough but it's a matter of ethics. And frankly, Facebook is an
amazing technical institution, and I would love to work with the majority of
them based on technical chops alone.

I've put my money where my mouth is on this sort of thing in the past - I
passed on an Uber employee who worked on the "god mode" feature and had no
opinions on it making the news or its being abused other than "I was just
building the feature". It made the news for abusiveness, at least have a
little remorse!

So Facebook employees, please understand, if I ever meet you in a technical
interview, there will be a five minute section for a hard "liberal arts"
question politely lobbed your way :)

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captainredbeard
> I don't think I've ever felt this strongly

I'm sure that your employer loves your personal feelings interfering with
hiring talent.

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gabereiser
Exactly why we have interview problems in engineering. I respect engineers for
having opinions and ethics and they should lean on them, but to bar one from
employment because they were doing their job is wrong, immoral, and
potentially illegal.

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_t0du
What if the job they were "just" doing exists in a legal grey area? Or, more
realistically, is flatout illegal?

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secondcoming
You wouldn't hire a former prostitute who put themselves through education to
better themselves and get a mainstream job?

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_t0du
Is the prostitution on their resume?

