An important @BuzzFeed piece by @RMac18 and @CraigSilverman uses leaks and insider accounts from @Facebook to paint a picture of a company where morale is in freefall, as techies are forced to confront their role in a sociopathic institution.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employee-leaks-show-they-feel-betrayed

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As America descends into authoritarian violence and faces an election which a criminal strongman has signalled his intention to steal (or discredit), these high-waged, intelligent workers are coming to realize that the firm will happily trade civilization for its own profits.

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And so you get the spectacle of thousands of workers walking off the job, or joining internal dissent groups, or resigning and posting long (leaked) videos that quote liberally from Hannah Arendt to explain why they can no longer stomach working at the company.

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Facebook management cloaks its abetting of fascism in the language of "free speech" and "consistency" but both of these principles are routinely jettisoned when they are inconvenient.

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FB stumbled into its role of fascist enabler, but, like the business people who enabled the rise of midcentury fascist strongmen, Facebook may think of fascists as regrettable thugs, but it's 100% behind their commitments to low tax, low regulation, and lax labor standards.

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We often forget that fascism isn't mere authoritarianism: it is the merger of authoritarianism with business, a form of state capitalism in which business and the government become interpenetrated with one another.

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And since reality has a well-known left-wing bias, Facebook has often angered the fascists it hopes to please by reflecting reality. This is a high-risk business, because fascists are committed to nothing except themselves: Trump loves FB when it helps Trump.

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When it gets in his way, he will do anything he can to destroy it. Which is why FB's real policy decisions aren't being made by its integrity team. They are routinely overridden by Joel Kaplan, an ex-Bush advisor now serving as VP of policy.

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Kaplan - a rape apologist who sat behind Kavanaugh to lend support during the confirmation - is the firm's direct line to would-be fascists in the GOP. He's behind the company's rule-rigging to enable Trump to get away with saying whatever he wants.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/29/female-furies/#fb-hearts-dt

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He's the one who suppressed the company's own internal research that showed they were "sowing division" by allowing disinformation campaigns to spread.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#joel-kaplan

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Every horror of technological "progress" has been regretted by its inventors. The problem is that the Oppenheimers typically wait until AFTER the mushroom cloud is rising on the horizon to express their doubts.

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We need earlybird Oppenheimers! Even during the pandemic, Facebookers can walk into amazing, high-paid work at a variety of firms. They don't even need to choose between their families' groceries and their conscience.

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The FB employees who are blazing their way out the door with 20-minute video denunciations could be the first wave of a mass exodus. As powerful as FB is, it depends utterly on a scarce, irreplaceable pool of technical and engineering talent.

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Shandes like Kaplan are absolutely replaceable. The engineers who down tools and turn in their badges? Not so much.

eof/