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Nifty3929 10 hours ago

Because recognizing the author as conflicted and an unreliable narrator changes how you should weight and consider the information they are providing. It doesn't necessarily mean anything is untrue - but it does add extra, valuable information to how much you trust it.

If someone tells me something, I'm mostly likely to believe it without further investigation. But not always.

jmull 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Another one. Deflecting the criticism of Meta with a “whaddabout the author!”

Formed as an answer to a question, but not one that was asked.

A different account than last time, though, so I’ll ask you too: Why do the dark work of deflecting on behalf of Meta (lol)?

ashdksnndck 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Many of the juicy stories from the book have no supporting evidence other than the claims of the author. Their credibility is all we have to go on here. If someone wrote a message here saying that they were a fly on the wall at the publisher’s office where they had a workshop inventing these stories to sell more books, you’d be right to question their motives.

utbabya 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Even justice system considers the trustworthiness of a witness, evaluating incentive, conflict of interest.

Having worked in another FAANG, I realize a large number of criticisms do come from imaginations, since I could see the contrast first hand. Nobody could tell exactly the consequences of all actions, most of the time it's just a buncha folks trying to figure out what to do, experimenting, iterating. Have you tried executing a conspiracy, like a surprise party? Good luck keeping a secret with more than 5 people.

There's also the problem of perspective. To a less technical engineer who don't know what they don't know, having their deliverable rejected time and again could feel like a conspiracy against them. If you read a blog post from them you'd think the culture is very toxic when everyone is doing their best juggling to be considerate while keeping the quality high.

As with others commenting on this, I've no idea how true the book is, in fact I have never read it. OTOH, even without the book, researches saying social media is making teenagers depress look convincing to me, and, although it's a losing battle, privacy matters a lot to me so I've personally stopped using social media for many years.

None of these give me full confidence to trust nor distrust the narrator, for things that you can't observe externally. It's all percentage.

bena 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think the point is that up until she was fired, she was Meta. She wasn’t a random employee, she was their global public policy director. She wasn’t just implementing policy, she was responsible for creating it.

The question remains whether or not she would have written this book had she not been fired.

It’s not like she quit due to her ethical objections

tzs 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The question does indeed remain, but is it a question whose answer matters?

If someone exposes a shady organization why should I care if they did it for ethical reasons or for something less noble like revenge for getting kicked out of that organization?

mech422 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>> but is it a question whose answer matters?

I think it does? "scummy person loses job, finds another way to cash in" almost seems to becoming a trope? I think it raises questions about what is left _out_ of the book, not just what's in it - are the issues raised the worst/most important, or just the ones that will sell the most books? Did we really need someone to 'tell us' meta/social media can be evil?

There are reasons that (some) criminals are not allowed to profit from books/movies about their crimes.

Anyway, that's just my general feelings about this sort book - I've never heard of the book or the author. And I honestly have no interest in reading it. Based on what I'm reading here - that would basically be rewarding/enriching one of the 'bad actors' ?

RHSeeger 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> but is it a question whose answer matters

Yes. 100%. And the fact that you're not seeing why it does is confounding to me.

This person has shown that they are willing to harm society (for their own benefit, presumably); by active choice. And, as such, anything they say needs to be viewed through the lens of "is this person lying for their own benefit".

1. Their previous actions do mean that we should not trust what they are saying outright, we should do (more) work verifying the information they provide.

2. Their previous actions to _not_ mean we should avoid holding other accountable when the information provided turns out to be true.

You're asking your question like someone is arguing that this person's information doesn't matter (2); but the point being made is that we should (1).

bena 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Because it doesn’t really target the issue.

Would she go do the same job at Alphabet? X? Probably, if they’d have her.

And the only real thing that’d happened is the government has been used to remove other companies’ competition.

Hooray I guess

pests 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The question remains whether or not she would have written this book had she not been fired.

Assume the answer is no. What does this change about any of this?

bena 9 hours ago | parent [-]

She’s attempting to use the public to bludgeon Meta.

This is a fight among shitty people. I will not lionize either side. They both contributed to the shitty state of affairs today.

Meta can burn and she can go broke. I’m fine with both

pests 9 hours ago | parent [-]

That's a good reaction to have.

Thankfully she wrote the book so we know about all these bad deeds.

prepend 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I don’t think the book revealed anything new about FB’s bad deeds, though. Was there novel info?

I think its just more exposure for already bad things.

Had she had a trove of emails or something, I might thing differently.

This is quite different from the recent lawsuits that produced novel material and evidence.

pests 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Knowing something is happening and reading detailed descriptions of them actually occurring is different, IMO. I learned things I didn't know while reading it, at least.

jmull 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A third “whaddabout the author”!

It’s almost as if…

croes 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The fate of every whistleblower