४ ऑक्टोबर, २०२१

"When they got rid of civic integrity, it was the moment where I was like, 'I don't trust that they're willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.'"

Said the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, interviewed on "60 Minutes," summarized at CNN


If I understand this correctly, Haugen is in favor of greater censorship at Facebook and critical of the company for going as far as it does in supporting freedom of speech. She has a very self-righteous demeanor, so I'm afraid it can cause casual listeners to think she's on the good side in a battle of good versus evil, so pay close attention.

The term "civic integrity" is baffling, but I think it's a euphemism for censorship. Please correct me if I am wrong. There was a unit within the company called "civic integrity," and it was broken up after the election and its work was, it seems, reassigned. That's the sense in which it can be said "they got rid of civic integrity," but it sounds as though she's saying they got rid of the abstract ideal, integrity.

ADDED: Here's the full transcript. Here's the gist of what Haugen has to say:
Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they’ll click on less ads, they’ll make less money.... People enjoy engaging with things that elicit an emotional reaction and the more anger that they get exposed to, the more they interact and the more they consume.... Facebook has demonstrated, they cannot act independently. Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety. It is subsidizing, it is paying for its profits with our safety.

६८ टिप्पण्या:

Mike Sylwester म्हणाले...

Immediately after Facebook banned Trump, I canceled my Facebook account.

Joe Smith म्हणाले...

Anyone who advocates for more censorship and less freedom of speech is evil.

It's not even a close call.

She is either a shill for Facebook (they would love to escape responsibility for content) or a shill for the government...or both.

Narayanan म्हणाले...

If I understand this correctly, Haugen is in favor of greater censorship at Facebook and critical of the company for going as far as it does in supporting freedom of speech.
----------
further supported because CBS/60 minutes put her on without much probing for what she means

NorthOfTheOneOhOne म्हणाले...

She "lost" a friend due to online conspiracy theories. Lost how? Did the person die or did they just stop talking to her because they disagreed over politics?

That's some really sloppy reporting.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

Only Democrat views are allowed. Including thuggery and intimidation from Antifa.

Original Mike म्हणाले...

"There was a unit within the company called "civic integrity," and it was broken up after the election and its work was, it seems, reassigned."

It sounds as if the unit was tasked with "Elect Biden" and it was broken up because it's task was accomplished and now it was time to bury the evidence.

mccullough म्हणाले...

Calling it The Insurrection is misinformation.

Ice Nine म्हणाले...

Facebook is down worldwide this morning.

Mike (MJB Wolf) म्हणाले...

So the theme today is people pretending that the opposite of reality is happening? Antarctica isn't really melting, Trump isn't running, and "civic integrity" means we should censor more?

hawkeyedjb म्हणाले...

Facebook, YouTube, Google, Amazon... all of them are censorship platforms. The only people who work there are the ones who want censorship or, like Frances Haugen, want more censorship. They are evil corporations filled with evil people. It is disastrous that these organizations play such a large role in our civic life, in our political discussions, in our elections. They exist to strangle discourse; their self-righteous leaders and their Frances Haugen drones would gleefully do to the 1st Amendment what Nancy Pelosi did to Trump's state of the union speech.

Guimo म्हणाले...

The answer to bad speech is more speech, not censorship.

Ice Nine म्हणाले...

>>The term "civic integrity" is baffling, but I think it's a euphemism for censorship.<

I think you are right. Here are a couple corroborative clues (seen elsewhere): Haugen doesn't think FB is doing enough about "disseminating hate," and she refers to Jan6 riot as "insurrection."

Of course she wants more censorship. And we know exactly whom she wants to censor more, don't we.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

She sounds like a stupid cunt to me. Estrogen fueled assertiveness, that means, not the British version where it just means any unpleasant and unreliable person.

Floris म्हणाले...

If she was in favor of traditional forms of free speech, she never would have been allowed to appear on 60 Minutes.

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen,

What's she blowing a whistle about? Less censorship? Or the fact(?) that facebook used the idea of "Civic Integrity" to censor Trump and his supporters, and now FB doesn't need to do that?

Her motivation is suspect and childish: a(n ex-) friend of hers believed something that she didn't believe, and that shouldn't be allowed.

madAsHell म्हणाले...

Wow!! My Facebook has died!! No, really......I can't flirt with my old girlfriends.

gilbar म्हणाले...

she lost a friend, to "online conspiracy theories" ?? Like Russian Collusion ?
she was upset about "the insurrection" ?? you mean the one in Portland? or the whole BLM thing?

John Borell म्हणाले...

She's either a deep state plant or a useful idiot.

gilbar म्हणाले...

Ice Nine said...
Facebook is down worldwide this morning.

huh! i see that it is (in iowa, anyway); i wouldn't have thought that was possible

I'm Not Sure म्हणाले...

"She has a very self-righteous demeanor, so I'm afraid it can cause casual listeners to think she's on the good side in a battle of good versus evil, so pay close attention."

"The world will be a better place when everybody else is required to do things the way I think they should", said every progressive, ever.

mezzrow म्हणाले...

Tracy Flick endures. Sainthood and success are a tough double, but Frances has the right stuff for the job.

Iman म्हणाले...

When I watched her body language as she talked with Dudley Doright, she was all self-righteous and shit, so I was like, “well what’s going on here?”

Don’t use FB, never used Instagram. So, I’m like… “who gives a flip?”…

I’m like so done with this…

Rabel म्हणाले...

I'll bet that dress looked good on her 5 years ago.

Breezy म्हणाले...

I’m coming to the conclusion that online ads are evil. Their presence distorts the decisions of the social media leadership, invades privacy, encourages bullying behavior due to ease of entry and anonymity, encourages useless “clicks” and they are abusive and time consuming to individual users. They should be outlawed. The whole social media system must be consuming a gazillion tons of energy that is just a waste.

People who use the platforms should pay a monthly fee, or something, instead. That should reduce the number of people willing to participate, give most everybody their lives back and save a lot of stress and strain for the bulk of us. (I know I know not gonna happen)

Wince म्हणाले...

What's she talking about?

We did have "riots" the entire summer of 2020.

gilbar म्हणाले...

Down since 11:45 EDT (110 minutes ago)
I'm glad that
a) it's not my company's internet access that has been down for 110 minutes
b) heck! i'm glad i'm not involved at all!

110 minutes down is At least 110 minutes too long. Someone's not getting a bonus this year!!

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

"She "lost" a friend due to online conspiracy theories. Lost how? Did the person die or did they just stop talking to her because they disagreed over politics?"

I'd like to see a transcript of the whole show, but from reading some other articles, I think the "danger" she's talking about is young people committing suicide. There seems to be some sort of conspiracy theory about how conspiracy theories cause suicide. I'd like to see the claim spelled out clearly, and I suspect that the reason it's not is that it doesn't sound cogent.

Joe Smith's comment is a good hypothesis: "She is either a shill for Facebook (they would love to escape responsibility for content) or a shill for the government...or both."

Quaestor म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
rcocean म्हणाले...

Censors have to pretend their only censoring harmful or dangerous things. But notice how people like the Facebook censor changes the "Conversation" from liberty, freedom, and indivuality to what's good for the Group. "We" need to protect "us" from bad information and ideas.

Of cause this is all crap. Facebook just censors things Billionaire Zuckerberg doesn't like.
Facebook and regime didn't care that Trump/Russia was all "Misinformation". And they've done zero to prevent orgs like Antifa from being violent. Its all about who they like and who they don't.

Daniel12 म्हणाले...

Let's move past the knee-jerk reactions and get to the actual situation we face.

"The answer to bad speech is more speech, not censorship."

Wow have we tried more speech already. There is an endless amount of speech. The problem is not limiting speech, but the FACT that the algorithms Facebook and all the others use are meant to maximize engagement. Which is done by highlighting the most extreme and emotion-causing posts, as well as those for instance that encourage girls to become anorexic. Let's talk solutions not platitudes.

Breezy for instance makes a great point about the incentives from the revenue model and having a subscription service instead.

"Or the fact(?) that facebook used the idea of "Civic Integrity" to censor Trump and his supporters, and now FB doesn't need to do that?"

Agree with your question mark there. Especially as Facebook's own data (until they stopped releasing it) showed that Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino and Franklin Graham regularly outperform everyone on the platform in terms of daily engagement.

"Joe Smith's comment is a good hypothesis"

This is hilarious. I mean, we have an actual real honest to goodness conspiracy theory here, a true one, that Facebook is constantly conspiring to fuck us all up! It's true! They are! But yes, please, just layer another conspiracy theory on top to reject a whistleblower who is providing clear support for everyone's complaints about the social network. Thanks.

DanTheMan म्हणाले...

re: "Civic Integrity"

Lefties have to call things by false names because otherwise the majority would be against it.

William म्हणाले...

How did it come to pass that the Russian collusion story was never labelled as a conspiracy theory or as disinformation? I saw just the snippet posted here, but my theory is that she and CBS have a very narrow view of what constitutes disinformation or a conspiracy theory. If you agree with me on this point, you have entered into my conspiracy and are now a threat to democracy.

narciso म्हणाले...

like being told there's ten years before the Earth catches fire, pretending there is an epidemic of cop murders of black and latinos that's the nightly news,

Charlie म्हणाले...

This campaign to censor "misinformation" is part of the same misguided push on the left to make things safe and to somehow engineer risk out of life. Misinformation becomes a danger to society to the same degree that the virus is, or conservative ideas are. I'm baffled that so many people and online powers (Mozilla, Twitter, Facebook, et. al.) have come to believe that free speech is dangerous. I've read 1984 several times, but I never quite believed that anyone would come to see the Thought Police as a worthy idea, at least here in America.

Rabel म्हणाले...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-misinformation-public-60-minutes-2021-10-03/

The "danger" is that Facebook "amplifies hate, misinformation and political unrest" for clicks and profit and this is harmful to people according to Haugen. The suicide angle is a minor aspect "amplified" by 60 Minutes for clicks and profit.

Transcript above. Incomplete for sure.

narciso म्हणाले...

how many times have they challenged any of the left tropes, in fact they further them from rathergate to how they covered the pandemic

Readering म्हणाले...

I've never been on Facebook so don't know what I am missing. But the heart of her claims seems to be that Facebook is lying about what it does. Presumably it says one thing to keep regulators at bay and does another because highly profitable. Seems like Facebook could prosper making less profit and doing what it says it does.

Tacitus म्हणाले...

Facebook still down nearing 2pm Central. Instagram likewise. No coherent explanation appears to be available. Hmmmm.

I've developed a minor hobby to keep FB interesting. I'm trying to break the algorithm that sends me "Suggested for You" stuff. It takes a certain combination of reporting things as False Information, Spam, Gross Content and Violence. On a seemingly random basis you can also block various apps that are involved in the system. Otherwise blocking sites one at a time can be done, but there are so damned many similar ones. FB labors under the misconception that I have any interest in guitars and 1960's Country Music figures.

Maybe I hit just the right combination and brought the whole thing down!

T

Howard म्हणाले...

Civic Integrity sounds like what Honda would name their new electric car.

Daniel12 म्हणाले...

It's weird that everyone sees speech on a private social network as free. And by that I don't mean the standard canard that free speech doesn't apply to privately owned spaces. I mean that your speech, who sees it, whose speech you see, and (almost) all the money that gets made from it is entirely controlled by a private company right now, today. We do not exist on a free speech environment that this whistleblower is trying to curtail. In fact, exactly the opposite.

Break up Facebook.

Iman म्हणाले...

“Facebook is down worldwide this morning.”

Facebook should be left right where you found it. Face down. Dick in teh Dirt!

tommyesq म्हणाले...

Down since 11:45 EDT (110 minutes ago)

Looks like she got her wish for more censorship.

madAsHell म्हणाले...

FB labors under the misconception that I have any interest in guitars and 1960's Country Music figures.

Oh....you're over 50, and white. Facebook assigned the same profile to me.

Since that time, I've quadruple my guitar collection, and I'm working through Red Foley's "Don't Fence Me In". I just don't understand it.

Otherwise..............There were no interesting firearms at Cabellas.

Krumhorn म्हणाले...

She needs to drop 35 before I'll pay any attention to her in that dress.

I used to be 100% in support of Section 230 of the ironically-named Communications Decency Act. I have flipped around 180 degrees on that. While I firmly believe that our hostess should not be held accountable in any way for the content of comments on her blog even with moderation, it is clear that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, and other large platforms of international reach have become publishers and should be subject to liability for the content.

- Krumhorn

dbp म्हणाले...

I think "whistleblower" is the wrong word.

If anything, she is a spokesman for the "more censorship" faction within Facebook. Or possibly it's some 3-D chess thing, where Facebook wants politicians to effectively force/give permission to be even more blatant in their selective censorship.

Phil 314 म्हणाले...

I read the entire WSJ Facebook series and listened to most of the interview they had with her. The series is compelling and certainly revealed a lot of concerning material. Having said that, in the interview Haugen felt her division could "save democracy". and yes she called Jan 6 as an "insurrection" as opposed to a riot.

Reminiscent of Julian Assange.

tommyesq म्हणाले...

While I firmly believe that our hostess should not be held accountable in any way for the content of comments on her blog even with moderation, it is clear that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, and other large platforms of international reach have become publishers and should be subject to liability for the content.

What would the border be? Not being sarcastic or advocating a position, really curious to know where people would draw the line.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

While I firmly believe that our hostess should not be held accountable in any way for the content of comments on her blog even with moderation, it is clear that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, and other large platforms of international reach have become publishers and should be subject to liability for the content.

So exactly how would the regulatory agency decide who or was not a "publisher"? And what happens when a comment from Althouse is republished on Facebook?

Narr म्हणाले...

I couldn't watch more than 30 or 40 seconds.

Some folks have mentioned her looks. She has the look and demeanor of a spoiled child, the classroom narc-ette, probably a star student and no doubt a campus activist.

Narayanan म्हणाले...

Joe Smith's comment is a good hypothesis: "She is either a shill for Facebook (they would love to escape responsibility for content) or a shill for the government...or both."
Facebook is shill for the government

Quaestor म्हणाले...

Althouse writes, "There was a unit within the company called "civic integrity..."

Civic integrity, Newspeak for Republican voter suppression. After the election it was conveniently memory-holed. By this time next year the Republican voter suppression unit will be fully reactivated. MiniTrue never sleeps, only pauses for breath now and then.

These days, integrity is mostly a semi-meaningful buzzword used by people anxious to gain unmerited trust, or it's Trekkie-style technobabble, as in Captain Picard, Lieutenant Worf reports a 63.7 percent degradation in warp field integrity or high integrity 5G WiFi is vital to our future corporate viability. In other words, bullshit. In the case of Facebook, the use of the word integrity probably qualifies as civility bullshit, because, like all effluvium, it flows only in one direction -- downhill into the gaping maw of the proglodyte hellmouth.

There's another meaning of integrity -- wholeness or unity. Therefore civic integrity might decode as national oneness of mind -- the very essence of totalitarianism. If that is Facebook's corporate goal, then it is a more insidious enemy than the Soviet KGB at the height of the Cold War, a profit-making propaganda operation dedicated to the extinction of liberty and self-government.

Nor should anyone be fooled by Haugen's claim to be a whistleblower. That's nothing but shameless mendacity. The Haugen megillah is a rhetorical Potemkin village constructed by CBS News and Facebook's upper management designed to obfuscate actual and gravely damaging whistleblower revelations about Facebook provided to Project Veritas last May. (I may be wrong, but unless Haugen is summarily fired like Morgan Kahmann was summarily fired and then blacklisted by several other technology firms, then I am entirely correct.)

[Reposed with a bizarre typo fixed and some minor refinements.]

Hammond X. Gritzkofe म्हणाले...

BRF

Readering म्हणाले...

At least with Facebook down Americans have more time to celebrate Christmas. I wonder how folks are using the extra time in other countries.

walter म्हणाले...

The term "civic integrity" is baffling, but I think it's a euphemism for censorship. Please correct me if I am wrong.
--
Sounds sufficiently Orwellian...

Ignorance is Bliss म्हणाले...

I don't suppose the interviewer asked her about the spiking of the Hunter Biden laptop story, and if that comports with her view of civic integrity

Original Mike म्हणाले...

"So exactly how would the regulatory agency decide who or was not a "publisher"?"

Gee, can anyone think of a criterion that would differentiate althouse.blogspot.com from facebook.com?

Anyone?

Krumhorn म्हणाले...

What would the border be? Not being sarcastic or advocating a position, really curious to know where people would draw the line.

While severe, a clear line would be whether the site is income-producing (and I'm not talking about Amazon portals). Other lines could be drawn at some metric that would gauge reach. Twitter has close to 200M active user accounts. Facebook has over 1.5B.

Pick some number that is substantially less than that. The point is that these platforms make so much money (yay!!) that they can afford the massive overhead of squads of self-righteous, smug leftie censors (Boo!!)

Ann merely has one of her annual fits and shuts off all comments. It's not viewpoint moderation.

So exactly how would the regulatory agency decide who or was not a "publisher"? And what happens when a comment from Althouse is republished on Facebook?

I wouldn't propose regulatory interference, although broadcasters are subject to certain regulatory standards. They should be subject to civil liability. If they are going to spend the money to censor viewpoints, they can certainly accept the burden of being a publisher. If they can decide with impunity that the Hunter Biden laptop emails can be banned, they can check on republished Althouse comments too.

Normally, I would strongly argue that the market will take care of these problems over time, but the de-platforming of Trump across all social media and then AWS kicking off Parler as a market alternative, the market is deprived of a foothold to fight back. The lefties justify this as fight "extremism". They they mean is that they are banning those with whom they disagree.

- Krumhorn

gpm म्हणाले...

>>If I understand this correctly

Kudos to Althouse for putting in the effort to make any sense of this whatsoever. "When they got rid of civic integrity" had me totally baffled before the Althouse explanation (though, admittedly, I'm just working off the Althouse excerpt, without suffering through the whole undoubtedly insufferable thing); I would never have guessed what "civic integrity" was supposed to mean. And, even with the Althouse clarification, the whole thing (as quoted by Althouse) still doesn't make any sense, though her interpretation seems likely to be correct.

I joined Facebook for one and only one reason: Somebody in my high school class established a private group for our 40th reunion (and, with only a single exception so far, a group limited to members of our class). Although I followed and even joined a couple of Chicago groups for a while, I've totally ignored Facebook for the last few years, without taking the step of deleting my account. I've signed on to the Facebook group a couple of times recently because, well, we just had our 50th reunion. But for that group, I would just delete the account.

>>Newspeak for Republican voter suppression

Yeah, I'm too lazy to even begin starting to list the details, but we're definitely getting well into Newspeak territory. Perhaps not quite what Orwell had in mind ("double plus unhood"), but definitely no, you can't say that, and, of course, you must say this in terms of language.

>>Civic Integrity sounds like what Honda would name their new electric car.

Honest to God question: Is there a new Howard here (and not the "not that Howard" one)? Because someone using that soubriquet (so proud of myself for that pretentious term!) is posting some stuff recently that actually makes sense. Still, the tell in any Howard post has always been any reference to "you people," which lets you know that you're about to get a lot of offensive ranting you should just ignore.

--gpm

Original Mike म्हणाले...

Just to be clear who the "whistleblower" is: Facebook ‘Whistleblower’ Donated 36 Times to Democrats, Including to Anti-Primary Extremists And AOC.

Howard म्हणाले...

I'm quite intrigued by Krumhorn's rent seeking plan.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Gee, can anyone think of a criterion that would differentiate althouse.blogspot.com from facebook.com?

Anyone?


Other than the number of hits, no. If althouse.blogspot.com had as many subscribers as Zuckerberg she would be as rich (and in your world) and liable as him.

LA_Bob म्हणाले...

"Civic Integrity sounds like what Honda would name their new electric car."

Howard, I'll give you an upvote for that one.

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

iThe term "civic integrity" is baffling, but I think it's a euphemism for censorship. Please correct me if I am wrong.

No, it means "censorship of anyone to the Left of me"

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Daniel12 said...
Wow have we tried more speech already. There is an endless amount of speech. The problem is not limiting speech, but the FACT that the algorithms Facebook and all the others use are meant to maximize engagement. Which is done by highlighting the most extreme and emotion-causing posts, as well as those for instance that encourage girls to become anorexic. Let's talk solutions not platitudes.

Solution:

You scum sucking maggots stop censoring people

Original Mike म्हणाले...

"Other than the number of hits, no."

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

Lurker21 म्हणाले...

Her friend who helped her through celiac disease didn't die, but got drawn into conspiracy theories. According to a Guardian article he got sucked into White supremacy and the occult, causing a rupture, before returning to normal. Color me skeptical. I suspect that whatever he came to believe, she perceived it as racist and woo-woo supernatural, but then I that suspect gluten fears are far-out paranoia as well.

Lurker21 म्हणाले...

From her website:

Frances Haugen is an advocate for public oversight of social media.

We can have social media we enjoy that brings out the best in humanity.

Get updates from Frances
Stay involved in the journey to social media that’s good for humanity.

Born in Iowa City, Iowa, Frances is the daughter of two professors and grew up attending the Iowa caucuses with her parents, instilling a strong sense of pride in democracy and responsibility for civic participation.


She sounds terrifying.

Daniel12 म्हणाले...

"You scum sucking maggots stop censoring people"

Great! Now go get on your knees and beg your corporate overlords at Facebook to please please pretty please decide today not to censor someone, or you swear you'll find a different platform for really real this time. Or, if they don't censor someone, get right back on your knees and say thank you good Facebook kind Facebook you did a good job today.

Hey at least you'll be looking for a pat on the head from Mark Zuckerberg instead of Joe Biden!