This is an interesting read: The Return of the Unis Shell, by Michael Greenberg. A few thoughts on why work on the *nix shell has been stagnant for a while now, as well as a few ideas on the way forward. {link to this entry}

Today, we read in the technology news that, according to Frances haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, Facebook purposedly encourages hate speech for profit:

“There was conflict... between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook,” Haugen told Pelley, “and Facebook chose over and over again to optimize for its own interests — like making more money.”

While the company repeatedly claims it is helping stop hate speech, at least on its own products, one internal Facebook document leaked by Haugen says, “We estimate that we may action as little as 3-5% of hate and ~0.6% of V&I [Violence and Incitement] on Facebook despite being the best in the world at it.”

Another document was even more blunt. “We have evidence from a variety of sources that hate speech, divisive political speech, and misinformation on Facebook and the family of apps are affecting societies around the world.”

Haugen claims the root of the problem is the algorithims rolled out in 2018 that govern what you see on the platform. According to her they are meant to drive engagement and the company has found that the best engagement is the kind instilling fear and hate in users. “Its easier to inspire people to anger than it is to other emotions,” Hagen said.

To be honest, from what we can read in this news piece, it is far from clear to me that Facebook actually planned or promoted any of this. Rather, what I read is that the company, in spite of all its efforts, only manages to take action and prevent a small percentage of cases of hate speech that occurs on their platform, even though they do acknowledge that it is taking a tool in societies around the world. However, that is a far cry, I think, from arguing that Facebook is encouraging the practice in order to make a profit. Said that, it seems clear that the so-called social media ends up promoting this type of behavior due to its own internal dynamics. There is no need for anyone to plan it that way. Knowing that, we may very well reach the conclusion that we are better off staying away from it. At least, that is the decision I ended up taking after I had been on Facebook for quite a few years between the end of the 2000s and the beginning to mid-2010s. At first, I just stopped posting and lurked around. Then, after noticing that it didn't have a good effect on my mental tranquility and truly provided me with little personal benefit, I disabled my account, and only kept Facebook Messenger around because there are a few friends who still prefer to communicate that way. To this day, I still think it was the right choice. {link to this entry}