alt Hacker NewsI know an ex-Facebook employee who told me that "Nobody at Facebook ever makes a conscious decision about whether something is good or bad. You are given a metric, and your job is to make that metric go up. If it turns out that making the metric go up has negative consequences [for the business, I don't think it's anyone's job to worry about the rest of society], then somebody else is given another metric to ameliorate the negative consequences of you making your metric go up."
He didn't last all that long, he had a conscience. I've heard similar things, but not quite in such clear words, from several other people I know who have worked at Facebook/Meta.
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I know couple of people who said exactly same thing. One of them is quite smart and I asked what was his/her personal opinion and I've heard: "I'd rather not talk about it ever again"
That sounds mysterious and important
That's a really effective way to get a group of people to do horrible things. Break it up into small pieces where each one isn't that bad in and of itself.