Saturday Open Thread | Facebook exec said site could be used to organize terror attack in 2016 memo

Posted on March 31, 2018 by SouthernGirl2

A top Facebook executive and one of Mark Zuckerberg‘s longest-standing business partners reportedly penned a memo in 2016 that raised the possibility of a terrorist attack being organized by malicious groups using Facebook’s software.

In an internal memo obtained by BuzzFeed entitled “The Ugly,” Andrew Bosworth raised the possibilities of negative effects of Facebook’s ability to bring humans closer together, including as examples terrorist attacks or children being exposed to online bullies.

“So we connect more people,” he wrote. “That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs someone a life by exposing someone to bullies.”

Growth at any cost

“Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools,” he added.

Despite this, Bosworth wrote that the overall goal of connecting the world’s population “justified” the work Facebook does to grow its user base, even if some negative effects can occur.

“We connect people. Period. That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in. The work we will likely have to do in China some day. All of it,” he wrote.

Bosworth now says, however, that he doesn’t agree with the post, nor did he when he wrote it, issuing a statement Thursday afternoon calling the piece “one of the most unpopular things I’ve ever written internally.”

“I don’t agree with the post today and I didn’t even when I wrote it,” Bosworth wrote, declining to criticize specifics in the post. “To see this post in isolation is rough because it makes it appear as a stance that I hold or that the company holds when neither is the case.”

Facebook has been under fire and lost millions in market value in recent weeks over revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a data firm used by President Trump’s 2016 campaign, among others, obtained data on roughly 50 million users without their consent or knowledge.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued a public apology over the news reports, and has been called to testify before Congress over the issue.

About SouthernGirl2

A Native Texan who adores baby kittens, loves horses, rodeos, pomegranates, & collect Eagles. Enjoys politics, games shows, & dancing to all types of music. Loves discussing and learning about different cultures. A Phi Theta Kappa lifetime member with a passion for Social & Civil Justice.
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34 Responses to Saturday Open Thread | Facebook exec said site could be used to organize terror attack in 2016 memo

  3. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    March 31, 2018 at 8:13 pm

    http://triblive.com/aande/books/13452135-74/this-refugees-stories-relatable-to-all-americans
    Excerpt:

    Viet Thanh Nguyen earned a Pulitzer Prize for “The Sympathizers,” his debut novel. His second book “The Refugees,” a collection of short stories, also was critically acclaimed.

    These books not only reflect his experiences as a refugee from Vietnam — he came to the U.S. in 1975 when he was 4 — but are also works of the imagination. As editor of “The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives” Nguyen wrote in the introduction, “I do not remember many things, and for those things I do not remember I am grateful, because the things I do remember hurt me enough.”

    “There’s no doubt that part of what I had to do as a writer was not just imaging events, but remembering things in my own life that I would much rather forget, or had forgotten, in order to evoke feelings in myself that I could use in my work,” says Nguyen, who appears April 9 at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland as a guest of Pittsburgh Arts & Lecture Ten Evenings series.

    When Nguyen arrived in the U.S., his family was sent to a camp at Fort Indiantown Gap in Central Pennsylvania before moving to Harrisburg. He lived there until 1978, when his parents moved to San Jose, Calif., long before it became one of the centers of Silicon Valley.

    The short stories in “The Refugees,” are set across that time and space. While being a refugee is a unique experience, Nguyen believes the stories are not inaccessible.

    “I have to believe that the people who are not refugees can read the experiences of refugees,” he says, “and find it within themselves to imagine how they would feel if they were to lose their homes and were forced to flee, or be separated from their loved ones. Those human emotions, I think, are definitely universal no matter what circumstances have happened to you.”

    https://servantgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/The-Refugees-book-e1487708124291.jpeg

    Reply
  4. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    March 31, 2018 at 8:07 pm

    https://images.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/gta/2018/03/26/judge-slams-immigration-officers-overzealous-approach-in-tamil-refugee-case/suresh_nagarasa_2_.jpg.size-custom-crop.0x650.jpg
    “A federal judge’s recent ruling means Suresh Nagarasa’s case will be reconsidered. Previously, an immigration officer decided Nagarasa was safe to return to Sri Lanka, where he claims he was tortured on two occasions. (NICHOLAS KEUNG / TORONTO STAR)”
    https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/03/26/judge-slams-immigration-officers-overzealous-approach-in-tamil-refugee-case.html

    Reply
  5. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    March 31, 2018 at 6:24 pm

    https://cruxnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/20180329T1109-16005-CNS-DACA-INDIANA-BAUTISTA-690×450.jpg
    “Ana Bautista, religious education coordinator at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Goshen, Ind., poses in her office March 11. A beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, she said she prays every day it continues, so she can live and work without fear of deportation. (Credit: CNS photo/Denise Fedorow, Today’s Catholic.) ”
    https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2018/03/31/indiana-dreamer-wants-to-stay-out-of-the-shadows/

    Reply
  6. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    March 31, 2018 at 5:13 pm

    “Launch Video – Poor People’s Campaign | A National Call for Moral Revival”

    https://youtu.be/thb4jsc6Stg&rel=0

    https://poorpeoplescampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/PPC_Logo.jpg

    Reply
  18. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    March 31, 2018 at 12:51 pm

    “Santa Ana to begin clearing homeless people from Civic Center area, as resettlement of riverbed homeless winds down”
    https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/30/santa-ana-to-begin-clearing-homeless-people-from-civic-center-area-as-resettlement-of-riverbed-homeless-winds-down/
    Excerpt:

    “At a special meeting Friday, the Santa Ana City Council called for exploring legal options to force communities around the county to do their part in dealing with homelessness. Just days earlier, the Board of Supervisors rescinded an earlier 4-1 vote calling for temporary homeless shelters in Irvine, Laguna Niguel and Huntington Beach after tens of thousands of people signed petitions and showed up by the busload to protest.

    “Also on Friday: the county’s behavioral health director, Mary Hale, retired less than two weeks after county supervisors admitted they’d failed to spend tens of millions of dollars in available mental health funding for homeless housing. Supervisors Andrew Do and Todd Spitzer alleged county Heath Care Agency staff members essentially hid upwards of $184 million in surplus Mental Health Services Act funding.

    “But news reports from recent years have repeatedly drawn attention to the unspent money. And county documents show that Hale told the board in Aug. 2015 that the MHSA dollars could be spent on housing for the homeless – even highlighting it as a need.

    “Under pressure from Judge Carter, supervisors in recent weeks have voted to appropriate $90.5 million in MHSA money for homeless housing.

    “Stepped-up efforts continue to provide shelter and services to homeless people under Carter’s guidance.

    “Beginning Monday, April 2, Health Care Agency outreach workers and clinicians, assisted by Santa Ana Police Department officers, will assess and provide referrals to an estimated 200 people living around the Civic Center.”

    “Rescue Mission offers work training for homeless”
    http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/homelessness/sd-me-homeless-jobs-20180316-story.html

    https://78.media.tumblr.com/f88e9836d1e018ed4c2f42ab1731a60b/tumblr_nhw1yvPAjE1s91yx0o1_500.jpg

    Reply
  19. Liza says:
    March 31, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    I love this. It will make you smile, guaranteed…

    https://twitter.com/Codeybab/status/979149482268024834

    Reply
    • yahtzeebutterfly says:
      March 31, 2018 at 12:26 pm

      Congratulations, Codey!!!

      You have me smiling and so happy for you!

      Thanks for posting this, Liza!

      Reply
  23. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    March 31, 2018 at 9:35 am

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Eye drop users everywhere have had it happen. Tilt your head back, drip a drop in your eye and part of that drop always seems to dribble down your cheek.

    But what most people see as an annoyance, some prescription drop users say is grounds for a lawsuit. Drug companies’ bottles dispense drops that are too large, leaving wasted medication running down their faces, they say.

    Don’t roll your eyes. Major players in Americans’ medicine cabinets — including Allergan, Bausch & Lomb, Merck and Pfizer — are asking the Supreme Court to get involved in the case.

    https://apnews.com/8c76eaec40b740718e32d124301bd701/Drug-companies-want-Supreme-Court-to-take-eye-drop-dispute?utm_medium=AP_Politics&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

    Reply
  25. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    March 31, 2018 at 8:32 am

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/us/vermont-gun-law.html
    Excerpt:

    “The bill, which passed the Senate, 17 to 13, on Friday after clearing the House earlier in the week, would raise the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21 and ban bump stocks, which are devices that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire more rapidly. It also contains restrictions that go beyond those in the measure signed in Florida, like an expansion of background checks and a limit on the capacity of magazines that can be sold or possessed in the state.”

    Reply
  26. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    March 31, 2018 at 8:28 am

    “Body camera shows officer threatened to shoot Alton Sterling within seconds”
    https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/31/us/alton-sterling-police-videos-hearings/index.html

    Reply
  27. rikyrah says:
    March 31, 2018 at 4:35 am

    Good Morning,Everyone 😄😄😄

    Reply

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