<story><title>Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/14/facebooks-safety-check-is-a-stress-inducing-flip-of-social-norms/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>whatevthrow31</author><text>Ok, I had to make a throwaway for this because apparently its a heated debate.&lt;p&gt;Why does everything Facebook do have to be so heavily criticized?&lt;p&gt;Safety Check is a wonderful feature. If I remember correctly, it started off as an internal hackathon project that got turned into a full feature. They get shit if they turn it on (here), and if they don&amp;#x27;t turn it on (past tragedies where they failed to turn it on).&lt;p&gt;Why does everything Facebook do turn into a riot? After years in the industry, 95% of things that are &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; that come out of big companies end up being well meaning and just look malicious without context. Hanlon&amp;#x27;s razor is real.&lt;p&gt;Yeah, Facebook has to fund all this somehow. Yeah, they are going to make their ad space extremely valuable with all the information they have. They don&amp;#x27;t sell your raw data. They sell access to you like the rest of the industry.&lt;p&gt;Those creepy ads that you saw based on some conversation you had? Turns out that they&amp;#x27;re NOT listening to your mic or whatever. It&amp;#x27;s either confirmation bias or something you&amp;#x27;re not thinking about.&lt;p&gt;Those friends that they suggest with a new account? Turns out your friends posted pictures of you on Facebook, and Facebook knows how to do facial recognition.&lt;p&gt;It feels like everything Facebook is overblown on HN. What am I missing?&lt;p&gt;Edit: I should have said this originally, but I&amp;#x27;m a former Facebook employee, now at another big tech company. I try not to be too controversial in writing, which is why I made a throwaway.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jdietrich</author><text>Imagine if one-fifth of the entire global population read the same newspaper every morning. Imagine if that same newspaper also operated the largest espionage network in the history of humanity.&lt;p&gt;Facebook doesn&amp;#x27;t receive &lt;i&gt;nearly&lt;/i&gt; enough scrutiny and criticism. Western governments have been completely blindsided by the immense power that lies in the hands of Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook have a near-monopoly on social media in many countries. They have an incomprehensibly vast archive of personal data, alongside a EULA that allows them to do nearly anything with that data. Their algorithms profoundly influence how two billion people perceive the world, with practically no transparency or oversight.&lt;p&gt;Facebook are a hair&amp;#x27;s breadth away from any number of dystopian scenarios. We should be extremely nervous about the unchecked power that Facebook wields. We should pounce on any dubious decision that Facebook makes, but we should also be asking some serious and fundamental questions about the position of Facebook in our society.&lt;p&gt;Look at Zuckerberg&amp;#x27;s recent manifesto. He fully understands how powerful he is, and he has a clear vision of how he intends to use that power to shape the world. It&amp;#x27;s time that we (and our elected representatives) woke up.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.facebook.com&amp;#x2F;notes&amp;#x2F;mark-zuckerberg&amp;#x2F;building-global-community&amp;#x2F;10154544292806634&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.facebook.com&amp;#x2F;notes&amp;#x2F;mark-zuckerberg&amp;#x2F;building-glob...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/14/facebooks-safety-check-is-a-stress-inducing-flip-of-social-norms/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>whatevthrow31</author><text>Ok, I had to make a throwaway for this because apparently its a heated debate.&lt;p&gt;Why does everything Facebook do have to be so heavily criticized?&lt;p&gt;Safety Check is a wonderful feature. If I remember correctly, it started off as an internal hackathon project that got turned into a full feature. They get shit if they turn it on (here), and if they don&amp;#x27;t turn it on (past tragedies where they failed to turn it on).&lt;p&gt;Why does everything Facebook do turn into a riot? After years in the industry, 95% of things that are &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; that come out of big companies end up being well meaning and just look malicious without context. Hanlon&amp;#x27;s razor is real.&lt;p&gt;Yeah, Facebook has to fund all this somehow. Yeah, they are going to make their ad space extremely valuable with all the information they have. They don&amp;#x27;t sell your raw data. They sell access to you like the rest of the industry.&lt;p&gt;Those creepy ads that you saw based on some conversation you had? Turns out that they&amp;#x27;re NOT listening to your mic or whatever. It&amp;#x27;s either confirmation bias or something you&amp;#x27;re not thinking about.&lt;p&gt;Those friends that they suggest with a new account? Turns out your friends posted pictures of you on Facebook, and Facebook knows how to do facial recognition.&lt;p&gt;It feels like everything Facebook is overblown on HN. What am I missing?&lt;p&gt;Edit: I should have said this originally, but I&amp;#x27;m a former Facebook employee, now at another big tech company. I try not to be too controversial in writing, which is why I made a throwaway.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fratlas</author><text>I agree with you up until the mic comment.
I ran a few tests with friends. We talked about &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; obscure topics repeatedly (and nothing else) that we would otherwise would have never messaged, and after scrolling 2 mins, targeted ads appeared for those topics. Happened for multiple topics.</text></comment>