Chat: This was never really about increasing safety… It was all for the pR wins

Internal document19 Aug 2021173 messages1 named participant, plus redacted or unnamed

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Wednesday 19 August 2020

12:31Darius Kilsteinomg check this out

12:31Darius Kilsteinhttps://fb.workplace.com/groups/fyi/permalink/3382011645189305/?comment_id=3383908324999637

12:31Darius Kilsteinis a designer on Growth

12:31Darius KilsteinNever mix politics with work kids

12:32████WOAH

12:32████what the fuck

12:33Darius KilsteinShared an image

12:33████1 mean

12:33████he could have made his point without writing it the way he did

12:33████he wrote it in as incendiary way as possible

12:34████jesus

12:34Darius KilsteinYeh he had major issues with Lina a while back

12:34Darius KilsteinHad to step in to help calm the situation

12:34Darius Kilsteinso he's known to be incendiary

12:34████missing some basic EQ

12:35Darius KilsteinYou cant fight the pack these days, and to try and do it in a work setting and all heeated up is just plain stupid

12:35Darius KilsteinI guess you could consider him brave though?

12:35████i think you

12:35████can

12:35Darius KilsteinShared an image

12:35████and ppl should

12:36████but telling a black woman her post is like back of the bus racisim

12:36████seriously?

12:36Darius KilsteinYeh, not great

12:36Darius KilsteinSomeone tagged his manager, his manageers manageer, and his managers managers manager

12:37Darius Kilsteinruthleess

12:37████i saw

12:37████ya

12:37Darius KilsteinI do agreee with the left leaning company though

12:37████i mean we are too sjw

12:37Darius Kilsteinit definitely is, there's no way around that

12:37████thats like all of tech

12:37Darius KilsteinI gave that feedback for US 2020 101

12:37████even though deep in side we're not

12:37Darius Kilstein"Try and be balanced"

12:37████deep inside we are all about $$$$

12:38████but there is a way to get your point across

12:38████and there is a way to just be a dick about things

12:38Darius Kilsteintotally

12:38Darius KilsteinHey i'm less versed in the art of left vs right misinfo

12:38Darius Kilsteinhttps://fb.workplace.com/photo.php?fbid=774661876621959&set=pcb.299373467984412&type=3&theater

12:39Darius KilsteinAre all of these terms anti-right?

12:39Darius Kilsteinor is it balanced?

12:42████i think the problem is

12:42████with these things, its highly contextual

12:42████so like for a certain group of ppl, yes

12:42████but not everyone

12:42████its like

12:43████here in the US, when you talk about eating chicken and watermelon, esp in the south, it has a long history of association of discrimination against black ppl,

12:44████and most african americans who grew up here, would be really offended by that

12:44████but in asia, this is a very common and very popular offering

12:44████and no one would consider it racist, even visitors

12:44████b/c it does not have the same associations

12:45████btw this was a good segment on ugly decliious

12:45████that i saw recently

12:45████but pretty interesting and relevant

12:46Darius KilsteinMakes sense

12:47Darius KilsteinI for one, love fried chicken

12:47████i mean thats why mark wants us to be a platform

12:48████cuz this is hard

12:48████me too

12:48████and watermelon

12:49Darius KilsteinI was just a little concerned because Gregoire shared this chart (and I only recognise anti-trump hashtags) and then he told me he was asked to analyze QAnon next, and i'm wondering if there is someone pulling the strings asking us to look at misinfo only which galvanizes the right and not the left. I want to ensure he is balanced

12:49Darius Kilsteinideally we are looking at both :)

12:49████that makes sense

12:50Darius KilsteinAnyways i told him to remain as balanced as possible

12:50████just so you know

12:50████we have seen repeatedly that more misinfo come from the right

12:50████(based on 3rd party fact checkers)

12:50Darius KilsteinYeh thats what I was thinking too

12:50████but def agree he should be careful always in his work, period

12:50████also in the framing

12:51████like i was more worried he called it "bad hashtags":)

12:51████does not pass the nytimes test!

12:52Darius Kilsteintotally, is there a crash course in the do's/dont's for political work @ FB

12:52Darius KilsteinPolitical Bootcamp

12:52████i mean the simple shit is

12:52Darius Kilsteinthere totally should be one

12:52████if your analysis gets published in nytimes tomorrow, does this make us look bad and nefarious and biased

12:53████which as we know now, leaks happen all the time

12:53Darius KilsteinYa this is a classic

12:53████but you know what this is a good call

12:54████we should think of a way to do a crash course

12:54████esp for more jr ppl who may have not yet built up their judgement muscle

12:54Darius KilsteinI'm sure someone on policy/legal could run a class with minimal prep

12:54Darius Kilsteinactually they probably need a lot of prep

12:55Darius Kilsteinto ensure safety of learnings lol

12:55Darius KilsteinFeels like a great org contribution for them: P

12:55████actually i wonder if PR can help

12:55████haha

12:55████im sure they'd be happy

12:55████alex s had to testify in court

12:55████b/.c of that analysis he did with tom cunningham

12:55████im sure he wishes it was framed differently

12:56████also that peice from 2 weeks ago in WSJ

12:56████about us and racial justic

12:56Darius Kilsteinomg i missed all of this

12:56Darius Kilsteinlol

12:56████using some old ass and debunked analysis

12:56████haha you're missing the all action :)

12:56████hey btw

12:56████not sure if you saw my response back to alex

12:56████i added u

12:57████might be good for bockin and him to push

12:58████altho not sure if you 100% agree with my thought that we can try more things...i think you guys at least formally said no to that right?

12:59Darius KilsteinYep Bocking is exchanging emails with 1. I reached out to Andrew privately and told him that I disagree with this decision, and he agrees, looks like Alex does too

13:00Darius KilsteinWe can try more things, it's just not as lucrative as US DAU so we put it on hold this half

13:00████i think also

13:00████like i was not close to how this came together

13:00Darius Kilsteinw/ more staffing we could, although I think we'll never really mitigate enough

13:00████but ideally our need was to demonstrate committmdnt

13:00████vs this exact idea

13:01Darius KilsteinThis is basically Karina/ pigeon holing our org into a corner

13:01████i wonder if we actually worked with policy to define what that could look like

13:01████vs this one thing

13:01Darius KilsteinTheir argument is that if we don't do it, regulators will force us anyway and its only a matter of time

13:01████i know

13:01████but there is not one way to do this

13:01████for ex

13:01████you can do opt in / out which i also dont know why we didnt test

13:01████or

13:03████you can build something smarter, than default by private, for example not letting ppl who are 2+ degrees from you or some measure of "familiarity" get in touch with you

13:03Darius KilsteinThis was never really about increasing safety

13:03Darius KilsteinIt was all for the PR wins

13:03████i know

13:03████but my point is

13:03████we can get a PR win

13:04████if we worekd with OR

13:04Darius KilsteinIf the goal was to increase safety, we'd go hard after the places where safety are a problem (e.g. Direct, Search)

13:04████PR

13:04████on defining some measures

13:04████taht looks good

13:04████that does not have such big losses

13:04████we took this really literally

13:04████even though we know up front

13:04████that the safety problem we really care abouot

13:05████was really high intensity spare prevalence

13:05████and there are better ways to solve for that

13:05████than this

13:05████half the shit we did for bullying last yr was for pr

13:05Darius KilsteinYah totally agree. I don't know how this project came together so have less context. The original Framing I heard was "Default to private and mitigate and there's no way around it". That is how the team executed

13:06████ya

13:06████i mean hindsight 2020 for me

13:06████b/c the real problem we want to solve

13:06████is demonstrate committment

13:07Darius KilsteinI think that's true but it'd be worth checking in with Karina or on that

13:07████also PR should be working to spin up a good strong on whatever we build, not the other way around

13:07████i did ping karina separately

13:46████ok

13:46████so we just had a call

13:46████me and k

13:46████sounds like a few things

13:46████we could have done other things

13:46████but we didnt and now its too late, we are on borrowed time with regulators

13:47████adam shot down the opt in option last yr, not sure why was not in that meeting

13:47████also sounds like the way we did this

13:47████was kind of a cluster

13:47████ideally we testing variations

13:47████long term

13:48████even ones adam didnt like

13:48████and we didnt

13:48████so then we're stuck now with one shitty option to go forward with

13:48████although we can still change it

13:48████the regulators are not married to this treatment

13:48████they are married to us showing we have some way to protect teens when they first sign on

13:49████and that protection can mean diff things

13:51████but the other things she called out, which was right

13:51████is that we are getting cruficified by regulators on this

13:52████and that FB and whatsapp do not have this problem b/c they already are private by default

13:58████this also tells me we need to figure out a better working model btw growth and WB

13:59████ideally this was not handoff but a solution built w/ privacy and growth in mind from the getgo

13:59████and seems like that didnt happen

14:22Darius KilsteinYes AFAIK this was a handoff from WB. will have way more context on inception so I can check in with him when he's back next week.

Chat: This was never really about increasing safety… It was all for the pR wins

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