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jmullyesterday at 4:46 PM2 repliesview on HN

A strange response.

Rather than address the comment you change the subject, “whaddabout the author!”

Why do the dark work of deflecting on behalf of “Meta”?

(lol, that name gets me every time. Might as well have renamed themselves NoIdeaWhatToDoNow)


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Nifty3929yesterday at 5:10 PM

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.

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Mezzieyesterday at 6:59 PM

I believe what Sarah Wynn-Williams wrote in Careless People.

I also think she's shown herself to be a person I'd want to stay away from.

The reason this matters to me is because the more media attention Ms. Wynn-Williams gets, the more her ideas of what we should do about Meta will spread and be given credence. The more she will be given credence outside of simply reporting what she saw. I can both believe what she says and think it's best to stop fanning the flames and giving her personal attention.

This entire saga reads to me as intra-elite fighting: Ms. Wynn-Williams is representing the cultural/educational elite, and obviously the Meta execs are the tech elite. As an ordinary person, I'm not under any delusion that either side has my best interest in mind when they fight, or when they advance policy, regulatory, or other suggestions. The derision and disdain Ms. Wynn-Williams has for people not in her milieu throw up a lot of red flags for me.

It comes down to believing that Ms. Wynn-Williams wants to hurt Meta, not to help us.

I also believe that blindly supporting people or organizations just because they also hate people or organizations you hate is a very bad idea. The enemy of your enemy can still be your enemy. In this case, regarding technological politics, Zuck and co. want us to become braindead addicted zombies, and Ms. Wynn-Williams will want us to have no control or access at all, because we can't handle it and it's for our own good. She's from the cultural group pushing for things like age restriction and verification, devices you can't root/restricting what you can install on your own device, etc. Both are bad. One sees us as cattle and the other sees us as toddlers.

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