hello everyone! i'm a product manager in integrity at facebook, looking after systems like this to keep fake/abusive accounts at bay. which is good.

things are a bit more complicated than the community hacks back in the day, like when we posted fake 
'reply' links all over the delphi network, tricking people into replying random messages into npcff :'-)

Yay!

Do you feel like Facebook is like, morally salvageable and all that? I use it a little bit and own an Oculus thing and sometimes wonder if it's all evil, but it gets quite wearying trying to keep on top of that for everything.

God but those days were fun. I don't have nearly the time to be in shenanigans like that anymore. Still, just built a Lego Technic Dodge Charger with my six-year-old, so there's that.

I was verrrrry cynical when I joined (I was an outright critic), but thought worst case it'd look great on my CV for whatever is next, and I'd have some good stories.

But 5 months in I can't see how any of the conspiracy theories are true about Facebook's bad intentions - in fact working in Integrity I see how much effort (10,000s of employees/contractors) and money (billions) is being spent trying to squash any badness.

I haven't quite switched to the "facebook is a force for good" end of the spectrum, but I at least am conscious that the ratio of good:bad news coverage we get doesn't seem to be proportionate to the actual ratio of good:bad things that are enabled because of facebook/instagram/whatsapp. particularly mindful of this at present, as tools like ours are making isolation a little less... isolated!

Woah, blast from the past! Nice to hear all's good!

> But 5 months in I can't see...

So you're currently around OT level II...?

Principal Software Engineer for large betting company.

Doesn't surprise me that someone on here has ended up with a job at Facebook.

I'll always have mixed feelings about Facebook and the related empire. I find how much control they have (or can be harnessed) as very worrying.

I've always generally been fairly comfortable with my data being the currency. Will I pay cash money for access to a social network? Nope. And at the end of the day things cost money to run.

Facebook were right place, right time and got the critical mass to make them dominate the market.

I'd say my biggest issue was them buying Instagram and WhatsApp.

Is it in Leeds by any chance? I visited them a year or so ago.

Yeah - Sky Bet. Both William Hill and Sky Bet are in Leeds.

oh, so they are too. It's only Sky Bet I've visited but I've worked with both over the years. I don't suppose you mix much with the sponsorship team but it's that lot I deal with. More or less evil than Facebook, since we're talking about it? Sport means I indirectly work with so much bad stuff I'm sure.

One of your dev colleagues is the brother of a motion designer I worked with until he cycled all the way to New Zealand to escape us. Small world/Big world in one sentence!

Funny you should mention small worlds.

I'm sure Mikee occasionally pops up on my Facebook because he knows or has some connection with someone I lived with in uni halls.

Yeah.. I don't know much about that part of the business. There's a couple of thousand of us - so although I've been there for over 3 years, there's still whole departments where I don't know a single person or wouldn't recognise them to look at.

I don't think we're evil - certainly never see it. I'm not exposed to the whole business though.

Bit of a weird time for us at the moment - Cheltenham was busy, then immediately after that pretty much every event was cancelled and it's been completely dead since. On top of that, we merged with Paddy Power/Bet Fair in the past couple of days.

Really hoping football starts up again soon so I can feel a bit less anxious about job security.

With the evil I just mean the whole encouraging people to gamble thing really, and the advertising of it. It's not exactly selling land mines to dictators, but still.

Anyway, yes, the football and job security. Very very very much so indeed. The Hundred and NFL having things cancelled for this year has put a large enough hole in my employer's income already. On the other hand, not dying of awful virus, I suppose! But given our lovely tory overlords make noises about cutting furlough already, things don't exactly look great.

All internal communications are very much about trying to make sure we're leading the way when it comes to safer gambling, and I know they invest heavily in it - but on the other hand they have to advertise to stay in the competition. It's not really something I have much involvement in at all, nor want to.. sounds like a nightmare.

We've not used the furlough scheme, presumably because of the bad optics of a gambling company using tax payers money to keep people employed. I imagine they've got another couple of months of full employment left until they have to start making some big decisions if sports haven't properly started returning.

Each day there's noises about some leagues coming back, so hopefully I'll be able to stop holding my breath soon.

Yeah, I'm somewhat involved in how the footy (and cricket and rugby) might come back (like, really really far down the chain obv not in any decision-making capacity) and it's sort of hopeful for some kind of thing in neutral venues in mid-June. Maybe.

It was strikingly noticeable to me during last year when Sky Bet suddenly switched all the adverts we made with them to responsible gambling messages when they'd previously been about all the handy and fun ways to bet, etc. I assume shitting themselves they'll be all banned from advertising again sooner or later. Some teams have about six or seven different betting/casino ads per game, it's nuts.

Hey Mikee, when the lockdown's relaxed and we can all do tongues again, we should meet up for a refreshing beverage. Working at Leeds Uni.

Hey, long time no speak! Sounds like a good plan.

I know a load of people at Sky Bet, my current place has haemorrhaged people over to Sky Bet in the last year, lots of senior management, architects and devs. Our loss, your gain I'm sure.

I'm also in central Leeds (normally anyway). A lunchtime mini-meat with Throb would actually be doable. (bounce)

 

Do you have anything to do with the library there?

Edit - actually I think he might be at Leeds Beckett.

I know the guy who heads it up - I do karate with him.