"Whistleblower" Frances Haugen is a vital media and political asset because she advances their quest for greater control over online political discourse.
Not surprisingly, this charade began with a focus on how social media is harming children, particularly young girls. That's the hook that everyone can get on board with. Censorship is good if it's for the sake of the CHILDREN. Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain.
Her treatment seems just a bit different from what I have come to expect from actual whistleblowers against the rich and powerful. It usually involves less fawning and more harassment and threats. Oh, could it possibly be, Mrs. Haugen is as fake as they come?
And this is why I no longer support the Democratic Party. The overreach and constitutional violations are staggering in efforts to stifle public debate, dissenting opinion, and free flow of information. She isn’t a whistleblower. She is just a whiner.
A free society can only exist with the informed consent of the governed. When a critical mass of the governed lack the capacity to offer informed consent a free society is impossible.
Censorship can backfire. The Streisand Effect is a real thing. If you tell people that they're not allowed to see something, they're going to want to see it even if they had no interest in seeing it before.
In China researchers have found that when people learn that something has been censored they are more likely to believe that it's true. The censorship actually serves to enhance the credibility of the thing that's being censored.
I think that a lot of vaccine hesitancy is being driven by censorship. People are far more skeptical of the vaccine than they otherwise might be because nobody is allowed to criticize it.
I agree with your assertion in the title. They do not want to hurt Facebook, just make sure the tow the party line. Facebook is one of the biggest enablers of these speech tyrants.
Even if they take my beloved Glenn Greenwald and my other independent media away from me, I'm never going to go back to mainstream media. I'll just watch cat videos instead.
I think she was only at Facebook for a year, yet she was able to figure out the whole structure enough to steal the right documents and leak them to the WSJ. It just seems like she went there for that specific purpose. Someone’s behind her I’m sure.
The fear Mr. Greenwald has for regulation leading to further dominance by Facebook and Google is well founded. Years ago I was walking through an industrial plant, with the company CEO and owner. The company was in an environmentally sensitive industry, with lots of "mom and pop" competitors. This guy's company was one of the largest in the industry. The topic of new environmental regulations came up in our conversation. The CEO at first bemoaned the cost, but went on to say it would drive out the mom and pop competitors. This would allow pricing (and profits) to improve. At that point he had an aw-shucks smile on his face. Beware of this Trojan horse.
This "Whistleblower" narrative is so obviously manufactured. This woman is just another person whining about the very obvious -- indeed, cliched -- problems with spending too much time social media. (They get social anxiety, tend to seek out sources of confirmation bias, blah, blah . . .) Acting like this is suddenly a new "scandal" for which FB must reform is Fake News 101.
This is a replay of the Summer of 2020, when the New York Times and its ilk started attacking FB relentlessly for anything and everything, from privacy breaches, to "hate speech," to alleged sexual harassment in its workplace, to hit pieces on Sheryl Sandberg. It could not have been more obvious that this was all to intimidate FB to get on board with the left's plans to manage information flow during the 2020 election. It worked. And now they are at it again.
Most pathetic of all are the mainstream Republicans, who just watch their constituents getting censored and screwed yet again, and can only mutter that it's all fine because it's just a "private company." What losers.
PLEASE stop referring to these people as “liberals” - they are not. Call them leftists or the totalitarian left because there are of course leftists, perhaps yourself among them, that oppose this.
I think you are missing the point of the whistleblower. Haugen may have leanings toward regulations (a separate issue) but her concern is that Facebook has knowingly hidden its own research showing its negative effects on society (and the world). Her concern is about Facebook manipulating algorithms to channel information. She is arguing that engagement is Facebook's only aim: more engagement translates into digital addiction and consequently more revenue. Elected officials may be obsessed with censoring but Haugen is talking about a business model that is predatory. That the original "rating women" tech start-up has morphed into an ugly monster does not seem to concern Facebook.
Everyone thinks of Big Tech engineers as geniuses coding mysterious algorithms. But we forget that there is a huge psychological component to social media platforms that is also being "engineered." I see that as the issue here. Very smart engineers may be writing software so that our digital devices look beautiful but its the "product managers" like this woman who are figuring out ways that motivate people to act or react while online. This is powerful stuff. And if social media can make people react in nefarious ways, then Huston, we have a problem.
Yet the actual whistleblowers Assange and Snowden are facing life in prison, and in exile, respectively.
Not surprisingly, this charade began with a focus on how social media is harming children, particularly young girls. That's the hook that everyone can get on board with. Censorship is good if it's for the sake of the CHILDREN. Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain.
My faith in the commitment of Americans to their liberties is at a very low point. Prosperity has raised a 200 million head herd of sheep.
Her treatment seems just a bit different from what I have come to expect from actual whistleblowers against the rich and powerful. It usually involves less fawning and more harassment and threats. Oh, could it possibly be, Mrs. Haugen is as fake as they come?
And this is why I no longer support the Democratic Party. The overreach and constitutional violations are staggering in efforts to stifle public debate, dissenting opinion, and free flow of information. She isn’t a whistleblower. She is just a whiner.
Frances Haugen is the latest iteration of Christine Blasey Ford
A free society can only exist with the informed consent of the governed. When a critical mass of the governed lack the capacity to offer informed consent a free society is impossible.
Censorship can backfire. The Streisand Effect is a real thing. If you tell people that they're not allowed to see something, they're going to want to see it even if they had no interest in seeing it before.
In China researchers have found that when people learn that something has been censored they are more likely to believe that it's true. The censorship actually serves to enhance the credibility of the thing that's being censored.
I think that a lot of vaccine hesitancy is being driven by censorship. People are far more skeptical of the vaccine than they otherwise might be because nobody is allowed to criticize it.
I agree with your assertion in the title. They do not want to hurt Facebook, just make sure the tow the party line. Facebook is one of the biggest enablers of these speech tyrants.
Even if they take my beloved Glenn Greenwald and my other independent media away from me, I'm never going to go back to mainstream media. I'll just watch cat videos instead.
I think she was only at Facebook for a year, yet she was able to figure out the whole structure enough to steal the right documents and leak them to the WSJ. It just seems like she went there for that specific purpose. Someone’s behind her I’m sure.
This whistleblower looks very suspicious to me.
The fear Mr. Greenwald has for regulation leading to further dominance by Facebook and Google is well founded. Years ago I was walking through an industrial plant, with the company CEO and owner. The company was in an environmentally sensitive industry, with lots of "mom and pop" competitors. This guy's company was one of the largest in the industry. The topic of new environmental regulations came up in our conversation. The CEO at first bemoaned the cost, but went on to say it would drive out the mom and pop competitors. This would allow pricing (and profits) to improve. At that point he had an aw-shucks smile on his face. Beware of this Trojan horse.
This "Whistleblower" narrative is so obviously manufactured. This woman is just another person whining about the very obvious -- indeed, cliched -- problems with spending too much time social media. (They get social anxiety, tend to seek out sources of confirmation bias, blah, blah . . .) Acting like this is suddenly a new "scandal" for which FB must reform is Fake News 101.
This is a replay of the Summer of 2020, when the New York Times and its ilk started attacking FB relentlessly for anything and everything, from privacy breaches, to "hate speech," to alleged sexual harassment in its workplace, to hit pieces on Sheryl Sandberg. It could not have been more obvious that this was all to intimidate FB to get on board with the left's plans to manage information flow during the 2020 election. It worked. And now they are at it again.
Most pathetic of all are the mainstream Republicans, who just watch their constituents getting censored and screwed yet again, and can only mutter that it's all fine because it's just a "private company." What losers.
PLEASE stop referring to these people as “liberals” - they are not. Call them leftists or the totalitarian left because there are of course leftists, perhaps yourself among them, that oppose this.
I think you are missing the point of the whistleblower. Haugen may have leanings toward regulations (a separate issue) but her concern is that Facebook has knowingly hidden its own research showing its negative effects on society (and the world). Her concern is about Facebook manipulating algorithms to channel information. She is arguing that engagement is Facebook's only aim: more engagement translates into digital addiction and consequently more revenue. Elected officials may be obsessed with censoring but Haugen is talking about a business model that is predatory. That the original "rating women" tech start-up has morphed into an ugly monster does not seem to concern Facebook.
Everyone thinks of Big Tech engineers as geniuses coding mysterious algorithms. But we forget that there is a huge psychological component to social media platforms that is also being "engineered." I see that as the issue here. Very smart engineers may be writing software so that our digital devices look beautiful but its the "product managers" like this woman who are figuring out ways that motivate people to act or react while online. This is powerful stuff. And if social media can make people react in nefarious ways, then Huston, we have a problem.