After Whistle-Blower Goes Public, Facebook Tries Calming Employees

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/10/technology/facebook-whistleblower-employees.html

32 17 5 years ago

Can I really trust the NY Times to correctly report on this?

They have every interest to see Facebook, which increasingly acts as a gatekeeper to traditional new sites, to look and be as bad as possible.

Edit: This isn't a value judgement on whether the NYTimes is better than Facebook or anything similar.

lithos• 5 years ago

Oh yeah, and after Facebook went down recently they probably saw how much better their numbers look without Facebook.

syspec• 5 years ago

Yes.

slg2• 5 years ago

Do people not know how reporting works at a place like the NYT? The NYT does not act as a single institution with a single mind. There might be some institutional bias based off hiring practices, but individual reporters aren't going to be doing the company's dirty work like you are suggesting. The risk to their personal reputation is not worth protecting a company that might lay them off in 6 months.

bingohbangoh3• 5 years ago

Sure they can, if they perceive Facebook as a threat they'll report negative things about them.

Do people not value job security?

"Never ask a man to do something against which his salary depends on" and all that.

tablespoon3• 5 years ago

Can I really trust the NY Times to correctly report on this?

Short answer: yes.

They have every interest to see Facebook, which increasingly acts as a gatekeeper to traditional new sites, to look and be as bad as possible.

Long answer: that line of thinking is at the root of a lot of conspiracy theorizing, and it's got all kinds of flaws. For instance: you assume "they have every interest to see Facebook...look bad," but what about their other interests? You don't seem to have considered those.

mikestew• 5 years ago

They have every interest to see Facebook...

[citation needed]. No, I don't want to hear an indirect rant about the financial interests of the NYT, nor do I care about some over-used quote from Upton Sinclair. It doesn't have to be a full-blown peer-reviewed citation, but just something, anything other than some unsupported, bordering-on-conspiracy theory.

Because my response otherwise is: "no, they don't. They have every interest in being the "paper of record", and maintaining a reputation that will quickly be lost should the NYT be found telling whoppers to hurt what might be viewed as a competitor." There's a reason I subscribe to the NYT and not the NY Post.

raxxorrax2• 5 years ago

No, technically you cannot trust them, although I don't think they have reason to lie. Every successful supraregional newspaper today is dependent on Facebook and collaborates with it.

To those that downvote you I would really hear your reason. My favorite high quality newspaper (non US) was transparent with that fact that direct collaboration is necessary for successful economic prospects. The paper said it can only promise to report objectively on Facebook, the dependence wasn't even disputed. I don't know exactly, but I would think it was at least 6-8 years ago.

But I would argue that newspapers today try to establish themselves as authoritative sources. I think the problem Mrs Haugen tries to identify is far less dangerous than the proposed solution of a government institution consisting of former social media employees. That is ripe for special interest corruption. That is worse than some angry and angsty teenagers and even less democratic.

dustractor• 5 years ago

“She didn’t know how basic stacks worked,”

Sure, most programmers have at least heard of a stack, and some could tell you the name of an operation one might do to a stack, and quite a few could at least tell you the name of an algorithm that did said operation, but stack-based programming is kind of a niche domain so that sounds more like the thing a non-programmer would say to impress other non-programmers.

thatguymike• 5 years ago

The high-level tech stack, not the memory stack.

benjaminjosephw• 5 years ago

“She didn’t know how basic stacks worked,” wrote one Facebook engineer, referring to a term used by the engineering team to describe how data is structured in computer programming. He said all of her testimony should be disqualified.

I don't know what's funnier, the poor attempt to discredit her or the terrible reporting of it.

The headwinds are indeed blowing against Facebook. Working there seems to be more of a career liability than something to be proud of.

tablespoon3• 5 years ago

“She didn’t know how basic stacks worked,” wrote one Facebook engineer, referring to a term used by the engineering team to describe how data is structured in computer programming. He said all of her testimony should be disqualified.

This is a magnificent illustration of the bizarre arrogance some developers have about programming in relation to other disciplines (though usually not this ridiculous degree).

Every software engineering and computer science program should have a "don't be that guy," module where this quote is studied.

tablespoon3• 5 years ago

In reply to a now deleted child comment, since I'd already finished writing it:

> “She didn’t know how basic stacks worked,”
Is it clear that the engineer is talking about the stack data structure vs. the tech stack?

Yes, given the way the quote is phrased, it's a stretch beyond reason to interpret "basic stacks" as "tech stack." Furthermore, their comment would have still been clueless even if they were referring to "tech stacks." There's a lot of wrongness there to unpack, but one element is the assumption that low-level technical implementation knowledge is a requirement for a valid higher level understanding. That's as foolish as "disqualifying" biologists because they haven't passed a course in quantum mechanics. Whether this thing was built on the LAMP stack, something with Java, or some bespoke thing is completely irrelevant to understanding the effect it has on people and society, which is the only thing at issue here.

zthrowaway• 5 years ago

This “whistleblower” was propped up by the establishment, I would be worried too. There’s a shift in agenda here against FB.

After Whistle-Blower Goes Public, Facebook Tries Calming Employees

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