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posted by janrinok on Monday April 02 2018, @03:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the pretend-it-never-happened dept.

According to Facebook employees who spoke with the New York Times, staffers are also urging the company to hunt down the leakers who released the Bosworth memo.

If the report is accurate, the deletion of internal communications could have legal implications, including in an ongoing Federal Trade Commission investigation into the company’s data-handling practices. Destruction of internal documents was a partial focus of the FTC’s recent investigation of Volkswagen.

Bosworth’s memo continued catastrophic PR fallout following findings that the Facebook data of as many as 50 million users was wrongly harvested by the election consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. In the memo leaked Thursday, Bosworth wrote that “connecting people” should be the company’s driving goal, even if “it costs someone a life by exposing someone to bullies” or “someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools.”


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by MrGuy on Monday April 02 2018, @03:43PM (16 children)

    by MrGuy (1007) on Monday April 02 2018, @03:43PM (#661524)

    In some ways, if you just read the sentence about terrorism, you could paint Bosworth as a free-speech champion. "We believe so passionately in free speech that we're willing to take the risk that some people will use speech we don't like." Left as a soundbyte, it's the passionate counteragument to the "Think of the children!" argument that supporters of censorship trot out. And if that was all he had to say, I'd be on Bosworth's side.

    But that's NOT all he has to say. He's not really in the business of free speech. He's in the business of GROWTH. Growth through increasing connections. Growth at all costs. His goal isn't speech - it's increasing the reach of his product.

    In the memo, Bosworth specifically justifies the practices (which he admits are questionable) of harvesting your contacts into Facebook to make it easier for facebook to mediate your connections. He doesn't give a damn about your consent, or your privacy, or even what you have to say. He doesn't even care if his product is good - he cares about whether you use it. He cares about growth. He cares about winning.

    Andrew Bosworth doesn't care passionately about speech. He cares that you use his platform. Whatever makes usage go up is good, whatever makes it go down is bad. Speech isn't good because it's good - it's good because it makes the numbers go up. This isn't moral leadership. It's the cynical business cold calculating profit-and-loss math that we all fear from big corporations. If Andrew Bosworth felt censoring some individuals or thoughts would make usage go up, he'd censor it in a heartbeat.

    "The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often 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 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.
    ...sinp...
    The natural state of the world is not connected. 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.

    I know a lot of people don’t want to hear this. Most of us have the luxury of working in the warm glow of building products consumers love. But make no mistake, growth tactics are how we got here. If you joined the company because it is doing great work, that’s why we get to do that great work. We do have great products but we still wouldn’t be half our size without pushing the envelope on growth. Nothing makes Facebook as valuable as having your friends on it, and no product decisions have gotten as many friends on as the ones made in growth. Not photo tagging. Not news feed. Not messenger. Nothing.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @03:59PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @03:59PM (#661536)

    By censoring people, you are forbidding their connection, which is the exact opposite of growth.

    Even if censoring causes growth now, there will come a time when no more growth is possible without finding ways to include those you've been censoring. Growth in connections cannot stop until there is the possibility to connect with anyone who wishes to connect. So, I would say that this perspective only results in "soft" censorship, whereby Facebook provides the tools for each individual to block a connection, but not to prevent other people from forming whatever connections they want.

    Maybe you'll get echo chambers, but what else can you hope for?

    At that point, it would be in Facebook's interest to promote a "debate" feature, where various echo chambers could connect in a well-refereed manner, and so on.

    • (Score: 2) by MrGuy on Monday April 02 2018, @04:13PM (4 children)

      by MrGuy (1007) on Monday April 02 2018, @04:13PM (#661549)

      Read his comment (which is admittedly vague) about "the stuff they'll eventually have to do in China." China is a very high censorship regime. He sounds 100% open to censorship (or even state monitoring) if it builds growth for his platform in China.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @04:17PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @04:17PM (#661552)

        It wouldn't be Facebook censoring the Chinese, but rather the GOVERNMENT of China censoring the Chinese.

        You're angry at the wrong people, pal.

        There's more of a chance of people sharing information through a censored Facebook than through a service that doesn't exist.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @04:10PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @04:10PM (#661545)

    Heh, it is kind of amusing to me that the die hard free market types hate the idea of a one world government. The reality is that corporate greed has propelled us toward that fate faster than anything else. Corporations are a return to feudalism but with a veneer of society pasted on. They can make up all sorts of rules in their own kingdoms, and while people are "free" to come and go they will have profiles constructed and deviations from the norm will leave you unemployed.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday April 02 2018, @04:34PM (8 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 02 2018, @04:34PM (#661558) Journal

      The reality is that corporate greed has propelled us toward that fate faster than anything else.

      That is a narrative. But where's the evidence to back up the "reality"? The problem is that there's a bunch of vague touchie-feelie concerns about corporate greed and such, till one gets to the government organizations actually causing the big concrete problems.

      Most of the corporate greed stuff is easy to work around at the individual level. Work in a hellhole? Get a job somewhere else that doesn't suck. Corporation has your data and is using it to like, advertise to you? A bunch of responses, ranging from ignoring the advertising on up to never using that business again. That's what supposedly is threatening us with one-world government. The proper label for this is "scapegoat". It is absurd to destroy one's freedom and future so thoroughly for such a modest threat.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday April 02 2018, @06:07PM (5 children)

        by bob_super (1357) on Monday April 02 2018, @06:07PM (#661594)

        HR is using Linkedin and Facebook to decide whether your resume should make it to the team trying to recruit. Your data doesn't please them, by either not existing, or coming with a FB-for-HR flag (a convenient $1000/mo/recruiter monetization service)? You ain't getting the job sir.
        China and their social scoring will soon look like amateurs compared to what private companies will soon do to people.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 02 2018, @06:19PM (4 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 02 2018, @06:19PM (#661601) Journal

          HR is using Linkedin and Facebook to decide whether your resume should make it to the team trying to recruit.

          Fortunately, I didn't put up party pictures on FB just like I didn't show up to the interview in a toga.

          Your data doesn't please them, by either not existing, or coming with a FB-for-HR flag (a convenient $1000/mo/recruiter monetization service)?

          What company could survive that HR? Let us recall when businesses get too retarded, they go out of business.

          China and their social scoring will soon look like amateurs compared to what private companies will soon do to people.

          That's nonsense. First, it's a dumb thing to do. Second, it's an expensive thing to do and companies aren't in the business of spending money on dumb things to do. Meanwhile China has the budget to squander on whatever it feels like.

          • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 02 2018, @06:29PM

            by bob_super (1357) on Monday April 02 2018, @06:29PM (#661607)

            "The recent hire who went postal in $company had scary posts on his FB wall, yet HR did not do a proper background check which would have clearly found him to be a threat. Now I will sue your negligent ass to pay for my poor orphans." Don't be an idiot recruiter, check your hires' social media history.

            Will it be an ad before it's a news item? It is coming, either way.

          • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 02 2018, @09:20PM (1 child)

            by frojack (1554) on Monday April 02 2018, @09:20PM (#661667) Journal

            Fortunately, I didn't put up party pictures on FB just like I didn't show up to the interview in a toga.

            Unfortunately, your "friends" probably did, without asking your opinion or permission. Worse, they tagged them with your name, and FB and (probably Google) is doing facial recognition in the background across their entire photo database. FB added your contacts mined from your phone and other people's phone, and they know exactly where you live, your email addresses, and those of your friends.

            You were screwed by your friends without even asking.

            Probably there will be a lawsuit some day where someone finds out that a company did in fact use FB to deny them a job, sue the company for billions. Until that happens, you are screwed even if someone photoshopped that toga onto you as a joke.

            --
            No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:55PM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:55PM (#662193) Journal

              Unfortunately, your "friends" probably did, without asking your opinion or permission. Worse, they tagged them with your name, and FB and (probably Google) is doing facial recognition in the background across their entire photo database. FB added your contacts mined from your phone and other people's phone, and they know exactly where you live, your email addresses, and those of your friends.

              And yet this is amateur stuff compared to what various government agencies keep right now and what they can do with that. Let us keep in mind what started this.

              Heh, it is kind of amusing to me that the die hard free market types hate the idea of a one world government. The reality is that corporate greed has propelled us toward that fate faster than anything else. Corporations are a return to feudalism but with a veneer of society pasted on. They can make up all sorts of rules in their own kingdoms, and while people are "free" to come and go they will have profiles constructed and deviations from the norm will leave you unemployed.

              No actual example of such hypothetical "corporate greed" has been constructed that is worse than what several governments do now.

              Probably there will be a lawsuit some day where someone finds out that a company did in fact use FB to deny them a job, sue the company for billions. Until that happens, you are screwed even if someone photoshopped that toga onto you as a joke.

              Yet another way "corporate greed" can't keep up with the hype. What lawsuit will get you off of the government databases? Sovereign immunity goes a lot further than that.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @10:00PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @10:00PM (#661689)

            Here we see the cow chewing its cud as it patiently walks through the slaughterhouse doors...

            "Everything will be fine!" says the cow. "The humans have always taken care of me, everything is fine!"

            You may have a decent brain in that skull khallow but it is severely lacking important data points regarding reality. Your neural nets thus suffer. No matter how good a brain you've got it is useless when operating on garbage. You and others have been crying all over the place with every instance of corporate censorship while completely forgetting the days when you replied with "but they are a private company and can do what they want. Don't like it? Don't use their service!"

            So we're back to corporate apologetics already? Forgotten are the complaints about affirmative action and corporate PR ousting "wrongthink"? Stick to math, there you can actually have some comfort knowing your assumptions are valid; and when not you're probably able to be convinced when the actual proof is given to you.

      • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday April 03 2018, @02:41PM (1 child)

        by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 03 2018, @02:41PM (#661962) Homepage Journal

        The problem with corporations is when they become monopolies or monopsomies. Or both. They can get as hard to escape as governments.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:58PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:58PM (#662197) Journal

          The problem with corporations is when they become monopolies or monopsomies.

          They'll still not be as powerful as governments which are powerful monopolies/monopsonies. In fact, most such monopolies will be due to the existence of government interference.