Quite a few double standards are being applied to Facebook by the media-industrial complex and the uninformed. On the other hand, Facebook has stumbled a lot on their own and deserve a significant portion of the criticism they get. It's a nuanced topic and isn't as simple as "FB bad, pls delete".
Facebook also has an extremely talented employee base and they pay industry-high salaries while also doing cutting edge work.
Smart people want to work with other smart people on interesting large-scale problems.
But then, who cares if you make big money. For allowing this the US deserves everything it gets.
Facebook is many things, and has many effects on society. Not all of them are good and in some cases cause active harm but not all of them are bad and in some cases do active good. I think most people agree with this assessment if they're being intellectually honest.
And from there, we can try to identify what aspects are extremely problematic and potential solutions to curb the downside risks.
But the point of your rhetoric seems to be because you want to drive a specific agenda or viewpoint. Everything you said could equally apply to Television, Hollywood, or even Radio and those same arguments were made during the advent of those media too. It's just not interesting rhetoric to engage with.
If you can reduce abusive patterns of misinformation on Facebook by a few percent, that's a huge win for both the company and for the billions of people affected by the service - by extension, society.
This is likely the other side of the argument.
"Facebook has stumbled a lot on their own" - stumbled as if it has no organizational will that pushed in a certain direction e.g. the growth hacks & engagement efforts that have caused a lot of these problems.
You're free to nitpick my choice of words and assume bad faith/intentions on my part. Doesn't bother me. We don't know each other.
But to your point, sure let's replace the word "stumbled" with "fucked up" or whatever else you'd prefer. I don't think my larger point really changes all that much.
People working for Facebook, taking the money Facebook has because of all of it it is doing but the AI Expert doesn't care?
Thats probably the same people who like the challenge for military drone guidance systems because they like the challenge.
Great.
I don't have anything to contribute here that I think can be productive for us.
1. People who work there are generally happy. Interesting problems to work on, a company where tech is respected, etc.
2. A lot of those issues you list are common in big tech, see Google. The people I know who are looking at Facebook may want to work at a bigger, more stable company.
3. As everyone else mentions, $$$. That said, Finance also pays similar rates but I don't see a lot of people fighting for those roles, so that doesn't fully explain it IMO.
But there will be a tipping point soon (next 12 months) when FB stock price begins to legit crash after another scandal finally breaks the camel's back. Hasn't happened yet with the FTC fine, but it will come. When their valuation is no longer up and to the right, the hiring situation will change dramatically.
Does the Television industry hit too close to home to not use as an analogy instead?
(Ex-Facebooker. When the Cambridge Analytica stuff went down I wasn't too thrilled, but above all I left because of lack of work-life balance.)
Also, how do you know they aren't having a harder time hiring?
Edit:
And, a properly defined career ladder. Competitive stock refreshers and bonuses. Varied projects.
Why majority thinks that everything what FB does is necessarily bad? It's not true at all and plainly evil propaganda.
With people like you no wonder he gets away with all his crap.
Don't believe what you read in the news.
I mean really it shouldn't be surprising, they pay really well.
They will have to live with the consequenses when they are older. I hope it weights heavily on those that compromised their beliefs for a 'cool job'.
