
Social Credit Systems, coming soon to a democracy near you - bidart
http://fama.io
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dang
This main thread this is related to is
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22211363](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22211363).

Please don't editorialize titles like that. This is in the site guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

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Uptrenda
Okay so everyone go here: [https://fama.io/product/](https://fama.io/product/)

It has examples of what Fama "finds". Here are some from the website (some
might be offensive):

1\. “white people can't say the n word, but at least we can say we know our
dads and that police don't target us”

2\. “Kyle and Pete are really trying to convince me that One Direction is
cool. They’re one more gay comment away from being kicked out of my
apartment.”

3\. “Work is the last place I want to be right now”

4\. “Black men like thick chains because it reminds them of the good ‘ol days”

5\. “You can’t buy a girl a drink and not have sex with her after, I don’t
care what you have to do, get what you paid for.”

6\. “Unpopular opinion - black lives only kind of matter.”

Plenty of racist comments there. But getting red flagged as a potential 'toxic
employee' for saying that you don't like your job? I mean come on... That's
dystopian as hell and straight out of 1984. Call me old fashioned but I don't
think people should lose future employment opportunities for a few dumb
twitter comments. This is taking political correctness to some next-level
techno-nightmare.

Maybe it's time to get ahead of the curve here and make a startup that
provides people with new identities complete with online banking, 'social
credit', and face masks to fool humans / AI.

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hpoe
How about I make this offer to companies I'll show up do my job to the best of
my ability and get a paycheck, I'll also agree to not talk about politics
religion or other contentious issues that lead to bad feelings.

In return you agree to judge me on how well I do my job and make you money and
we all agree that whatever shit I do on my own time is my problem not yours.
How's that sound?

~~~
AwaAwa
This is Madness! Madness I tell you!

Honestly, this used to be the norm but now? There is no norm. Only a race in
all directions, in the hope of optioning a goal.

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sarcasmatwork
Companies already scan social media. No surprise someone built a company
around it. Too bad it does not root out toxic or incompetent management.

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withinboredom
I'm curious about the legality of it. How do we know it won't discriminate
illegally? Or how does an employee dispute the information?

~~~
Mountain_Skies
The applicant likely will never know why they were rejected. How long would it
take for someone to realize they could assassinate the character of a rival or
someone they simply didn't like by posting with a fake account in places the
AI is likely the source input? The target might never know that the false
posts exists while being silently passed over.

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endergen
Funny how just using the culturally appropriate term “toxic workplace
behavior” and all of sudden it doesn’t sound so bad. Who wouldn’t want that.

~~~
lykr0n
The workplace extends into personal life now. People tweet shit publicly, and
they publicly associate themselves with a company via Linkedin. So if this
person says the wrong thing, people will harass them and the company they work
for.

It's the sound business choice to see which employees are saying online and
screen for people who could say the wrong thing and cause PR issues for the
company.

~~~
ohmaigad
The question is - does the "bad PR" really matter? Is there actual
data/research proving that it in fact has an impact on the business profits? I
doubt that people won't go and watch the latest Guardians of Galaxy just
because James Gunn is back at directing it. I wouldn't put that much weight on
the usual twitter outrages.

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lykr0n
I'm split on this. On one hand this company is pure evil (as i've said
before), but on the other this would exactly what I would use to screen
employees that I'd hire. There is some terrible shit people say online that
reflects who they are as a person who I would want to stay far away from the
company I built.

EDIT. An example of what I would screen for are the following: \- "locker
room" discussions on a profile they put their name on. off color jokes and all
that \- "woke" discussions about oppression and how you're more oppressed if
you are X, while group Y isn't

Both of those are people who I would not want around.

~~~
hpoe
But does it really matter so long as they don't bring it into the workplace.
Like does it matter if the person you sit next to spends their free time
beating squirrels as long as they don't spend hours of time talking about it
at work and making you look at their pictures?

On the flip side would you want to have on your team someone who sucks at
their job and who you always have to cover for but they spend all their free
time helping teach one eyed orphans how to do multivariate calculus?

Does it matter as long as they keep their personal life at home and their
professional life at work?

~~~
lykr0n
You're right, it doesn't matter. What matters is that stuff that can be viewed
as controversial or actively discriminates against someone/group of people can
be found under their name.

Look that story a few years ago where a woman tweeted something like "I'm
going to Africa something something aids. jk I'm white." People got pissed and
attacked her company.

I don't care she said that. I care that she was stupid enough to say that
under her own name.

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felixr
That's the company behind

I had to get a background check for my job; the report is a 300 page pdf -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22211363](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22211363)

Right?

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noeodonn
I have engaged in what this company might call "toxic" behavior in online
forums, It does not mean I will behave like this in the work place.

Sarcastic, anti-social internet trolls are some of the smartest people you'll
ever meet and are the people you want working for your company. And they are
generally smart enough no know _not_ to behave like that in the workplace.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
Do you set up your accounts in a way that makes it easy for others on those
forums to associate you with your employer?

------
vz8
Previous threads of interest:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22211363](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22211363)
(today)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22086331](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22086331)
(14 days ago)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10371715](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10371715)
(2015)

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mmastrac
I saw this on Twitter and emailed a request to "privacy@fama.io" to remove any
and all information they have on me.

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koonsolo
I highly doubt that this is legal in EU, but I'm not an expert.

The reason is that at my current client, we are not allowed to google a name
from an incoming resume, due to privacy reasons. Not even search that person
on linkedin.

Maybe they are overinterpreting the EU privacy law, but I'm not sure.

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rukittenme
I would criticize this product but I don't want to lose future employment
opportunities.

~~~
speedgoose
You want to work for companies that use this service?

~~~
rukittenme
Someday we might not have a choice.

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mjh2539
Can't wait to make people who disagree with my worldview destitute!

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brighton36
This may just select for obedient employees. Which, may very well be what
employers need. But, it could potentially eliminate diversity of opinion.
(Presumably that offers some advantage...)

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mikedilger
I don't think this is
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit)

