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Monday, 11 Oct 2021

Gooood Monday.

For years now, we’ve heard many calls to regulate Facebook and push it to take action against spreading hate speech and misinformation.

And for years now, these calls have been mostly emotional. If you want to keep a big tech giant in check, you need more: facts, documents, and numbers.

Now we finally got them.

PIC OF THE WEEK

“Facebook can change, but is clearly not going to do so on its own. ... Congress can change the rules that Facebook plays by and stop the many harms it is causing.”

- Frances Haugen, Facebook whistleblower

THE STORY

Last week was definitely a one to remember for Mark Zuckerberg. 

First, Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram all went down for about six hours on Monday. This global outage caused the company’s stock price to drop by 5%.

But that’s not the worst thing. The last couple of days also brought a spotlight on Frances Haugen. A 37-year-old former Facebook product manager revealed herself to be a whistleblower who fed the Wall Street Journal a series of internal company documents. Haugen testified before the US Senate Commerce subcommittee, painting a picture of Facebook that’s far from pretty.

WHY IT'S INTERESTING

By now you’ve probably heard all about the Facebook outage (and seen all the memes), so let’s skip this part and quickly walk through Haugen’s complaints – which are much more interesting.

Ex-Facebook staffer revealed what many of us have suspected for a while now: that Facebook feeds off hate speech and misinformation. Some of the documents revealed by Haugen show that Facebook algorithms give more traffic to links with content that instigate negative comments.

“The mechanics of our platform are not neutral”, notes one document, acutely titled “What Is Collateral Damage?”. Another quotes a Facebook official stating: "we were willing to act only *after* things had spiraled into a dire state" in reference the company’s role in 2020 elections and January 6 Capitol riots.

Haugen called for regulating engagement-based ranking algorithms used by Facebook and Instagram.

She also revealed that Facebook has misled the public about the negative effects of its platforms on children and teens. One of Haugen’s complaints cites Facebook’s internal studies that prove Instagram’s influence on young girls, contributing to suicidal thoughts and eating disorders.

Pretty grim stuff. What’s changed is that now, thanks to Haugen’s testimony and documents she revealed, the ground for Facebook’s critique is finally more empirical rather than just emotional. And that’s pretty big.

All that’s left is waiting for Congress to do something about all of this – because Mark Zuckerberg surely won’t. After all, he’s had more than enough time and information to react. He simply chose to turn a blind eye.

DIG DEEPER

• What’s good, bad, and missing in the Facebook whistleblower’s testimony by Casey Newton, The Verge
  
• Facebook whistleblower testimony should prompt new oversight by Martin Pengelly and Charles Kaiser, The Guardian
• Facebook Is Latest Tech Company to Ignore Employee Alarm Bells by Shelly Banjo, Bloomberg
• Silenced no more: A new era of tech whistleblowing? by James Clayton, BBC
  

NEWS

Jury orders Tesla to pay $137 million to a former worker over racist treatment / The New York Times

Paddle announces first non-Apple payment alternative for iOS users / VentureBeat

Telegram says it added 70M users during Facebook and WhatsApp outage / TechCrunch

Blue Origin is launching the TV star William Shatner on Tuesday / Business Insider

Google rivals call on EU to set rules for search engine preference menus / TechCrunch

FINANCIAL MARKETS

FRIDAY CLOSING PRICES, LAST WEEK % CHANGE

TECH INSIGHTS

REPORT

Open source developers are unique: Tips for working with and managing community-centric dev teams by Bill Detwiler for TechRepublic

IBM's Vice President for open technology and developer advocacy, Todd Moore shares his tips on managing and working with open source development teams.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

READ

Informal Leadership Comes at a Cost by Harvard Business Review

Encouraging up-and-coming talent to take on informal leadership of a team or project is a great way to support both employees and their entire teams, but new research suggests that these duties can also take a toll on informal leaders’ job satisfaction and energy levels. Formal leaders can support them in various ways.

LISTEN

Managing Your Time and Energy by EntreLeadership

Organizing time and prioritizing is hard when you are a leader. Sometimes it ends up with working 14 hours a day, seven days a week. If you don’t declare a finish line, your body will. Carey Nieuwhof, a leader and leadership expert, explains how to take control of your time and how to lead a company without being always present.

WATCH 

How NFTs Are Building the Internet of the Future by TEDMonterey

Technologist Kayvon Tehranian explores why NFTs (digital assets that represent a certificate of ownership on the internet) are a technological breakthrough. They dissolve economic boundaries, putting power and economic control back into the hands of digital creators - and pushing forward the internet's next evolution.

APPS & TOOLS WE LOVED

TECH

Scribe 2.0: record a workflow and generate step-by-step guides.
 
+1,916 upvotes, #4 Product of the Month on Product Hunt

REMOTE WORK TOOLS

Cosmos Video 2.0: work and hangout in a shared space - virtual HQ for remote teams.

+908 upvotes, #3 Product of the Day on Product Hunt

NO-CODE

Reform: a modern, clean-looking form builder, no code required.

+1,197 upvotes, #1 Product of the Week on Product Hunt

THREAD OF THE WEEK

View full thread on Twitter