To be 100% clear… I’ve planned this for a while, largely because of the general shift of the company over the last few years, and I am extremely lucky to be in a situation where I could leave. Most of my extremely talented and dedicated colleagues are not in this position.
RE the first comment, I honestly think part of this decision is a tacit understanding by Zuck that the only communities that are likely to do any growing on Facebook are the kind that would welcome the ability to openly use slurs.
Second from bottom is my fave. Like if you think you're doing your best and allowing genocide, that's a pretty strong indicator the people criticizing you are right.
where was this person when facebook was actively encouraging atrocities in Myanmar? they've been doing it since 2012 and for years had essentially zero moderation because they couldn't be arsed to hire anyone who could read the language
where were you when whatever attrocity proceeding the military junta in myanmar?!! our maybe dont pit proletariat against one another. instead of chiding people for not having come out of the matrix sooner, work with those who now have.
lol shut the fuck up white people, yall dont care about brown people being genocided but when they come for yall then all fo a sudden it's a big deal everyone should care about
I'm in a third world country. Today I was at the birthday party of a trans. He's 59, has two kids in their thirties, and lives with a woman for 20 years. He's beloved and respected by everyone in the neighborhood. Nobody cares if he was born Filomena. Nobody cares about his gender or his sexuality.
it could be all be as simple and as wonderful as this, but for some unfathomable reason transphobes want to throw a fucking fit over giving human beings basic respect and dignity.
I don't think you did. Seems like you assumed the worst when statistically it's just not realistic that none of these employees meant exactly what they said (and mean it with their whole heart). I get your skepticism but deriding the people trying to make change from the inside just isn't the way.
The people who accuse others of "virtue signaling" don't believe that anyone really holds the positions/thinks or values those things -- they think that people only do them to get praise.
Your regular reminder that ‘virtue signalling’ is what terrible people call ‘basic human decency’ so they can bear to look at themselves in the mirror.
The ironic thing about Zuck’s “virtue signalling” comment is that it completely misunderstands the way it is used as a criticism. The criticism is that it is a form of hypocrisy - but at the end of the day it doesn’t absolve META of the charge that what they are doing is fundamentally BAD.
Many already knew who he was. He was a Harvard kid that basically got greedy and made it look like Facebook was all his idea. He screwed everyone that helped him along the way. He’s not only greedy but is married to an Asian woman. Trump is actively discriminating other minorities daily. Aborhent!
"discussing topics and making arguments" is also a covert nod to what drives their engagement metrics. People stay on social media sites longer when content is extreme/outrageous/enraging. He's courting engagement (ad $) at the expense of human beings and actual community.
the only real time I can excuse people talking about "virtue signaling" is when corporations and politicians pander to minorities, as it is almost always done cynically.
Always remember, anytime someone complains about "woke" or "sjw", they're telling you that they're angry about no longer being able to punch down without suffering consequences.
Prediction: Meta will dig in but have to pay more to retain and hire employees. When I was in business school, tobacco industry employees had fully-paid part-time tuition, and they had this robot script “tobacco is a product marketed and sold exclusively to adults,” said with less & less conviction.
Now it’s the same with pharma industry. When you run a morally corrupt business, you have to pay more / offer expensive benefits to keep quality employees.
It would be best if the world accepted that Facebook doesn't need to exist. Humans don't need to belong to massive online communities of strangers where the purpose is to target ads. How good or terrible their content policies are should simply be irrelevant and unimportant.
Hate to burst the bubble: Meta policies were already terrible.
I was placed in FB prison a dozen times for innocuous stuff like posting a funny cartoon mocking Proud Boys. Meanwhile, several times, I reported ACTUAL HATE SPEECH towards gays and blacks—the response? ‘Doesn’t violate our policies’
Remembering the time I got banned for a week for making a page that rated different shag carpets (I was mocking a bunch of slut shamey "Rate Your Shag" pages with similar names, and nope, asking for them to review their decision obvs did nothing)..
I got banned for posting a photo of my young enby child w/o a shirt (sometimes kids don’t wear shirts, it’s not sexual?!) but had them tell me all manner of horrible things were totally acceptable 🤷🏻
This policy change is such an incredible disgrace. I’m appalled and disgusted. I can’t imagine how extra devastating it must be to be an employee of Meta that is a woman, LGBTQIA+, or a person of color right now. I’m terrified and disgusted from the outside looking in. This is disgraceful.
The broad reactions to it. Effectively Meta is going from heavily moderated -> lightly moderated. This is how all social media and many forums were pre-2015. People taking it as a personal attack on identity are being dumb.
Comments
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/amnesty-report-finds-facebook-amplified-hate-ahead-of-rohingya-massacre-in-myanmar
It's literally inverting a positive thing to make it a smear.
And these people claim to be Christians.
I was placed in FB prison a dozen times for innocuous stuff like posting a funny cartoon mocking Proud Boys. Meanwhile, several times, I reported ACTUAL HATE SPEECH towards gays and blacks—the response? ‘Doesn’t violate our policies’