6/24/2026 at 1:54:57 AM
Meta continuing to be the most shameless (and shameful to work for) company around.I can't think of a single product of theirs that hasn't made the world a markedly worse place. Even their recent hardware foray is managing to find a way to ruin trust in everyday interactions (guys filming drunk girls with Ray Bans, surveillance, etc.).
Have several friends at the more 'thoughtful' frontier labs that bin meta applicants straight to the trash for this very reason.
by jazzpush2
6/24/2026 at 4:45:59 AM
Facebook, for instance, made a lot of money for shareholders, which we know is the same thing as making the world a better place.by inigyou
6/24/2026 at 9:14:41 AM
For a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for the shareholders…by user_of_the_wek
6/24/2026 at 5:08:30 AM
> I can't think of a single product of theirs that hasn't made the world a markedly worse placezstd
I’m torn about React and PyTorch :)
by haunter
6/24/2026 at 5:17:39 AM
They author thousands of open-source. Nobody would consider those 'products' (though feel free to play pedantic). And many would argue React did far more harm than good.by jazzpush2
6/24/2026 at 4:16:54 PM
As someone working daily with React, I agree. And I wouldn’t consider it a Facebook product at all. The amount of work they offload to the community is substantial.by port11
6/24/2026 at 7:50:30 AM
Without React we might not have had the JavaScript framework explosion, we'd all be programming in Angular JS.Maybe I'm exaggerating slightly, but I think we should judge frameworks compared to what other things existed at the time.
It's, by the way, another example of how the only good thing Facebook did was deny Google complete dominance.
by vintermann
6/24/2026 at 5:58:27 PM
NGL I like modern Angular more than React, but I never experienced v1 of AngularJS so I don't know how much of modern Angular is influenced by React.I like that it's a framework with opinions vs React which is a "Library".
by DerArzt
6/24/2026 at 8:54:51 AM
We would still have a framework of the week like we do today. There was a new framework weekly before React and there are frameworks of the week after React. React just gave us one more way of showing text on a screen.by calgoo
6/24/2026 at 9:00:35 AM
> React just gave us one more way of showing text on a screen.Well, yes, but... its popularity is not completely accidental. It's good - even by today's standards, but certainly by the standards of the time.
by sd9
6/24/2026 at 11:34:02 AM
In 2015 I was teaching that React was a lightweight library that simply did function state -> html, codebases were bug-free, snappy and easy to understand. And it was true compared to configuring jQuery listeners the unperformant way into a Rube Goldberg machine of cause and effect.by aitchnyu
6/24/2026 at 8:51:28 AM
React was a godsend vs dealing with the Angular $digest loopby agrippanux
6/24/2026 at 1:35:46 PM
Without React, we might've just used Svelte.by fakedang
6/24/2026 at 11:35:16 AM
We would end up with some other (probably worse) JS frameworks instead, JQuery(shudder) was still big, Angular 1 was a glimpse of something but they went for Angular 2+ that changed everything, backbone js, ember js,etc.Vue is probably the only outsider of that age that stayed even somewhat relevant (really by just doing what Angular 1 did but correctly), Angular seems to have kinda survived in some niches but other than that I haven't heard of the other similarly aged frameworks in a long while.
by whizzter
6/24/2026 at 5:39:56 AM
React made front end suck. Sorry.by digitaltrees
6/24/2026 at 7:29:32 AM
React definitely didn't make frontend _great_ in a lot of cases, but jQuery, mootools, prototype, knockout, ember, angular, and a whole lot more JS frameworks that have come and gone predate React. If React hadn't been invented there'd be just as many poorly developed browser apps as there are today. You can't really pin that on React.by onion2k
6/24/2026 at 6:07:36 PM
Actually I can pin it on react directly. React was built by facebook to solve a single problem that most developers don’t have: their message count badge would be stale and out of date, their solution was to add global state, eliminate most of the browsers built in features, move away from multi page apps with http calls etc. so all kinds of things got harder like url routing, SEO, server side state management, etc.But most apps don’t need a persistent counter that updates without browser refresh. Further, there were other easy solutions like http request polling, or even websockets. They weren’t solutions for Facebook because they had to support lots of devices that couldn’t handle something like websockets. But instead of the industry realizing this was a specific tool for a specific niche case we just piled on to the design pattern and built a massive lock in ecosystem that may the web worse.
by digitaltrees
6/24/2026 at 7:42:05 AM
What I can pin on react is that it is very inefficient with resources using much more cpu power than needed to render some text and images on a webpage. Imagine all the electricity that was wasted because of react and the negative impact on the environment it has had because of that.by archerx
6/24/2026 at 9:36:33 AM
React doesn't do anything unless the DOM needs to to be updated.Arguably React does have a 'disadvantage' in the sense that it doesn't do two-way data binding, and chooses to update as little of the DOM as necessary to render a change (which it's good at, and gets right), but that's sometimes more than just changing a text node or a value. I suspect that if React hadn't come along there'd be lots of homegrown frameworks doing something similar in a worse way. React is well thought-out and well designed.
Also, every reactive framework can have the same problem. It's not a React thing; it's a library-that-tracks-changes-and-updates-the-DOM thing. Used poorly you'll end up in a re-render loop.
We could just have static HTML pages and that would eliminate the whole problem, but then we'd be complaining about the electricity used on network roundtrips and people using badly coded desktop apps instead. Ultimately, libraries can be as bulletproof and fool-proof as you like, and developers will find new and novel ways to use them to build crap software. The responsibility (mostly) lies with the developers much more than the library.
by onion2k
6/24/2026 at 8:34:32 AM
I think you might be forgetting how much it sucked before React.by Vinnl
6/24/2026 at 6:12:43 PM
I started with manual ajax calls and browser compatibility issues. It was a painful time. I remember jquery solved some real problems.But I found the best development cycle as a rails/django multi page apps developer. Anytime I encountered something I needed to update without a refresh it was easy to solve with polling or eventually websockets.
by digitaltrees
6/24/2026 at 9:21:37 AM
I vastly prefer plain JS over React, but I will admit that React probably was instrumental in helping create frontend frameworks that are actually good, like Svelte. So I will give Facebook credit for that.by InsideOutSanta
6/24/2026 at 12:09:24 PM
Svelte is awesome. Svelte 5's runes are especially powerful because they let reactivity escape the component boundary. The same reactive model works everywhere, whether you're updating the DOM or building plain application logic.Rich Harris makes the point that React isn't actually reactive: "React doesn’t have any understanding of the values running through your app. It is not Reactive."
Rich Harris - Rethinking reactivity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdNJ3fydeao
>Modern JavaScript frameworks are all about reactivity. Change your application's state, and the view updates automatically. But there's a catch — tracking state changes at runtime adds overhead that eats into your bundle size and performance budgets. In this talk, we'll discover an alternative approach: moving reactivity into the language itself. Your apps have never been smaller or faster than they're about to become.
He starts with spreadsheets as the archetypal reactive system.
Defines reactivity as values automatically updating according to dependency relationships.
Contrasts that with React's model of rerunning component functions and diffing virtual DOM trees.
Argues that React "doesn't understand the values flowing through your application" and therefore isn't reactive in the traditional sense.
Virtual DOM is pure overhead:
https://svelte.dev/blog/virtual-dom-is-pure-overhead
>But it turns out that we can achieve a similar programming model without using virtual DOM — and that's where Svelte comes in.
React tracks component renders; reactive systems track data dependencies. React doesn't react, it repeats.
I think React should have been called "Repeat", "Re-Run", "Regurgitate", or "Retch".
by DonHopkins
6/24/2026 at 11:45:59 AM
Part of me hopes that without React (poorly) filling the void, something like Elm could have gained traction. But ultimately I think it’s unlikely.by pseudocomposer
6/24/2026 at 11:56:12 AM
Avoiding traction was a major goal of Elm. The creator was committed to Elm being his personal jewel, not useful for others.by lupire
6/24/2026 at 7:22:46 AM
Corporate open-source (Open Source) is done for free labor and PR, it shouldn't be bonus points for any company that does it, unless they commit to it and pay their contributors, have no CLAs that allow them to relicense the work, or adopt practices and licenses that are clearly more in line with the actual spirit of free software. Real free software that should be considered a public good is produced by people, for people.There are sometimes well meaning people in corporations that do their best to at least get something out there and kudos to them, but corporations running Open Source projects should receive no goodwill for it, it's basically a scam.
by 59nadir
6/24/2026 at 7:47:09 AM
Well yeah, you shouldn't give much credit to the corporation, but neither should you backlist all applicants who ever worked for them (as OP says some frontier labs do)by vintermann
6/24/2026 at 7:49:11 AM
I'm not really commenting on that, I just want to remind people that Open Source is highly overrated and should not be looked at as a point in favor of a company.by 59nadir
6/24/2026 at 8:27:01 AM
While I agree with your point I don't agree that open source is overrated. This movement is one of the greatest developments in modern history, and the fact that corporations have exploited it for their own gain should in no way diminish its significance.by allarm
6/24/2026 at 8:40:33 AM
Open Source is the company takeover of the good that Free Software represents, I don't really see it as a "movement" by people. It's set up precisely to exploit the people for free labor and look good doing it.by 59nadir
6/24/2026 at 9:14:23 AM
Just see how the open source initiative runs their "elections"… https://lwn.net/Articles/1014603/by LtWorf
6/24/2026 at 12:22:13 PM
And the kind of founding leaders they elect.Russ Nelson: "Blacks are Lazy"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Russ_Nelson#Blacks_are_la...
Eric S. Raymond: "The people who knew Russ as a Quaker, a pacifist and a gentleman, and no racist, but nevertheless pressured OSI to do the responsible thing and fire him in order to avoid political damage should be equally ashamed. Abetting somebody elses witch hunt is no less disgusting than starting your own. Personally, I wanted to fight this on principle. Russ resigned the presidency rather than get OSI into that fight, and the board quite properly respected his wishes in the matter. That sacrifice makes me angrier at the fools and thugs who pulled him down."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47232296
>Guido is not racist like ESR is, and it would have been a disaster to have somebody as racist and obsessed with dragging the organizations he leads into the pro-racism side of political culture war battles that have absolutely nothing to do with their mission, as ESR has a track record of trying to do: He threw down the gauntlet and attempted to drag OSI into supporting Russ Nelson after his infamous "Blacks are Lazy" blog posting that caused him to resign for the good of OSI, who ESR wanted to spend their resources and reputation fighting his culture war against (dog whistle alert:) "thugs" who don't want to follow a racist leader. That kind of blatant racism and totally non-python-related racist culture warfare bullshit political battles would have been extremely detrimental to the python community, just as his other antics and his and Russel's racist rants were detrimental to the open source community. OSI has enough problems attracting women and minorities that they don't need white male leaders telling black people they're lazy and accusing people who disagree of being "fools and thugs".
Russ pulled his own "Blacks are Lazy" post down and resigned of his own free will and was not fired, so ESR was unwittingly calling Russ a fool and thug for pulling himself down, even though he was actually attacking anti-racist people, who didn't believe blacks are lazy, and thought racist white people who publically called all blacks lazy (then patronizingly lectured them on why they are justified to be lazy) didn't deserve to lead OSI.
by DonHopkins
6/24/2026 at 12:58:10 PM
You find protestant ideology in the weirdest places…by LtWorf
6/24/2026 at 1:24:16 PM
Actually, Russ is a Quaker (or rather used to be until he renounced it for being too "socialist"). He created the first Quaker website in the world, quaker.org, in early 1995.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Nelson#Personal
But his actual lifelong ideological religious cult is Libertarianism, obviously. And they epitomize what's wrong with the open source movement, ESR having based his career on tearing down and shitting all over everything RMS has done with Free Software.
ESR and Russ and their ilk just love playing a tired little game I call "Libertarian Chicken":
https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/blob/main/skills/no-ai-g...
For many more examples, just look at the decades long consistent pattern of ESR's obnoxious inflamatory posts to the linux mailing lists, before he got kicked off for playing said games.
by DonHopkins
6/24/2026 at 7:46:39 AM
[dead]by jekekepel
6/24/2026 at 5:17:56 AM
> zstdYes, but also “damning with faint praise” immediately comes to mind
by usefulcat
6/24/2026 at 5:36:17 AM
zstd was created outside FB, it's an acquihire.by formerly_proven
6/24/2026 at 11:28:19 AM
https://jsx.lolby nchmy
6/24/2026 at 5:28:14 AM
I've avoided react as much as I could. Maintained a high paying frontend career without react until a year or so ago, when I was forced by management to start using it. Thankfully AI was able to touch it for me while I pinched my nose.by colordrops
6/24/2026 at 5:46:55 AM
What was your framework of choice if not react, if you don't mind me askingby darkest_ruby
6/24/2026 at 6:20:57 AM
I will blow your mind: you don’t necessarily need oneby camillomiller
6/24/2026 at 6:55:58 AM
> shameful to work forAs bad as Meta products are for society, I'd say Palantir is far more shameful to work for.
by cherryteastain
6/24/2026 at 7:00:46 AM
I disagree. Many Palantir FDEs work on morally benign or even positive projects, for example helping hospitals during COVID. (Of course, many also do unethical work).At Meta, almost everyone is contributing to unethical ends.
by hbcdbff
6/24/2026 at 9:37:35 AM
Like saying you were a medic in the SS. You're still in the SS.by LtWorf
6/24/2026 at 4:17:43 PM
Okay, but this is between being a medic in the SS or an engineer building Panzers.by port11
6/24/2026 at 4:29:31 PM
Engineer building Panzers is better then SS medic. No doubt there.It is in fact better to be employed arms manufacturer then be member of SS - regardless of which position they put you in. You knew this is fascist organization as you was entering it and that everything you will do is to advance those goals.
by watwut
6/24/2026 at 4:37:07 PM
I don’t know if the distinction holds. The philosophical base of where you work goes is the same: fuelling the Nazi war machine. Building a machine that kills thousands isn’t that distinct from healing a soldier that kills dozens. Meh.by port11
6/24/2026 at 2:35:30 PM
Exactly 1000000%by qsxfthnkp2322
6/24/2026 at 4:22:01 AM
Meta is a golden jail for one teenager who cannot grow up no matter what he does. Shame.by zx8080
6/24/2026 at 2:52:39 PM
Don’t anthropomorphize the lawn mower. He could leave anytime and learn how to enjoy a more modest and less harmful life.by citadel_melon
6/24/2026 at 5:20:18 AM
Not to defend him, but there are actually quite a lot of people who can’t or won’t grow up.by usefulcat
6/24/2026 at 7:49:54 AM
Sure, most of them don't have the body count Zuck's wracking up, though.by roughly
6/24/2026 at 5:31:53 AM
What’s your point? There’s a lot of people who can’t or won’t do a lot of things.by jakeydus
6/24/2026 at 4:46:09 AM
Seeing how much damage he does as it is, I don't want to know the grown-up version.by zombot
6/24/2026 at 4:08:27 AM
Back in the day... 2004-2005 facebook was amazing. Spread like wildfire, and lots of fun to use. Just you and your college friends, and their friends.by test6554
6/24/2026 at 4:19:39 AM
Even the original idea (if The Social Network is a trustworthy source) was copied -- Zuckerberg just has a complete lack of vision, but is clearly an intelligent operator with good business sense. Jagged intelligence, like an LLM.by lend000
6/24/2026 at 7:13:53 AM
In 2001 France had Copains d'avant https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copains_d%27avant for school based networking. So not a new ideaby arkh
6/24/2026 at 7:27:12 AM
Lol I was working on a social network site when FB came out and there were many sites like it (MySpace). Some of them even still exist like VK.by hparadiz
6/24/2026 at 9:39:42 AM
We just had a thing that would export MSN messenger contact list, you'd add your email there and everyone would add you on MSN. Way less creepy than the stalking fb was doing.by LtWorf
6/24/2026 at 5:52:40 AM
has zuckerberg done anything productive of his own accord? facebook was ripped off. most meta companies were acquired. it could be argued that propagandizing the entire world was productive relative to vested interests but that was done on the behest of those interests, not zuck himself. the only thing im aware of zuck actually spearheading was the metaverse, a conclusively unproductive pursuit costing tens of billions to achieve literally nothing. it isnt objective to unilaterally behave with vitriol ... still this person seems more comparable to cancer itself than any actual human. i guess you could collapse productivity to 'making money' in which case clearly he is productive, im more referring to accomplishing anything useful for humanity. i also dont consider mass surveillance to be useful for humanity as bad actors will always get away with it whether they are on or off camera.by thin_carapace
6/24/2026 at 6:08:18 AM
> has zuckerberg done anything productive of his own accord?It probably will surprise no one to learn his "next big thing" is a prediction market app.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/23/technology/meta-predictio...
Hits the Meta product trifecta perfectly:
* Derivative
* Late to market
* Harmful to society
by georgemcbay
6/24/2026 at 9:07:32 AM
Zuck is Equally Excited about all things, as noted by Demis. Zuck is that kid who wants his hand in all cookies jars.by Npovview
6/24/2026 at 8:57:37 AM
I don't think you can say that the idea was "copied". It was a very obvious idea. I had the same idea before I heard of the Facebook. Do you know why it's called the face book?You may as well say Bezos copied the idea of Amazon from book shops.
Really, he was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
by IshKebab
6/24/2026 at 4:59:34 AM
Or he’s backed by the CIA?by digitaltrees
6/24/2026 at 9:18:50 AM
Any resemblance to a voluntary mass surveillance and personalised sentiment profiling network is entirely accidental.by TheOtherHobbes
6/24/2026 at 2:00:24 PM
Possible. Probably.https://whyy.org/segments/facebook-a-computing-pioneer-a-sec...
by LargoLasskhyfv
6/24/2026 at 10:10:44 AM
Or maybe you are backed by the CIA?by breppp
6/24/2026 at 6:16:23 PM
Except there is plenty of public evidence Facebook was. I think they were even on the cap table and thiel / palintir are explicitly partners in wiring up tech data pipelines into the knowledge graph. Thats why thiel was an early investor, this is known public info.by digitaltrees
6/24/2026 at 7:54:55 AM
Unlikely, since he is extremely hated by the Democratic party establishment. He's treated like a scorned ex.by vintermann
6/24/2026 at 8:59:09 AM
It was US only as you had to have a .edu email address to join, which most universities around the world did not get as it was mostly a US thing. It took forever for them to open up to non-US universities.by calgoo
6/24/2026 at 12:48:48 PM
It would of been nice keep it that way. MySpace was just fine.by doublerabbit
6/24/2026 at 4:22:53 PM
The hook that Facebook had over MySpace (and the million other "Social Network" platforms of that day) was that you couldn't embed shitty HTML intot he profileby marysol5
6/24/2026 at 7:44:58 AM
Depends on what you consider theirs I guess. The pytorch ecosystem and initial push to open weight models, I consider a pretty good thing for the world all things considered. Lots of great code from FAIR.by vintermann
6/24/2026 at 8:23:19 AM
> initial push to open weight models...Push? Did you forget about the leak and the takedown requests?
by whilenot-dev
6/24/2026 at 4:17:53 PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Compute_ProjectBut yeah
by marysol5
6/24/2026 at 2:17:26 AM
I hope there’s a day where collectively the money is no longer enough and reason and good will prevails so that Meta can crumble to dust while I am alive; but doubtful that day will ever come.by millerfiller
6/24/2026 at 3:24:22 AM
Portal was pretty good and an originalish productby magixx
6/24/2026 at 5:01:04 AM
Spy on your grand parents from the convenience of your kitchen counter top!now in arctic white!
by digitaltrees
6/24/2026 at 4:43:34 AM
Why did they discontinue that? It was a very good product; we got them for all the grandparents and they worked really well at bringing the family together across distance. Could have fit in so well with WhatsApp too. But then they just killed it.by sbrother
6/24/2026 at 5:11:52 AM
Shareholders didn't like it. At the end of the day Meta is an advertising company so everything they do must be in service of increasing revenue from advertising.by measurablefunc
6/24/2026 at 4:18:10 AM
Valve is a different company.by pwdisswordfishq
6/24/2026 at 4:28:55 AM
Meta's Portal is different from Valve's Portal.by steve_adams_86
6/24/2026 at 4:41:53 AM
> Meta Portal devices and accessories are no longer availablelol
by whateveracct
6/24/2026 at 11:00:50 AM
> I can't think of a single product of theirs that hasn't made the world a markedly worse place.I feel I have to ask... how do you feel Messenger made the world a worse place?
by dataflow
6/24/2026 at 11:12:13 AM
Go look at Messenger on the App Store and look at the “data linked to you” section. An app with that much surveillance baked in is surely not improving the world.by adriand
6/24/2026 at 4:41:52 AM
What are these "thoughtful" frontier labs you speak of? I see Meta folks going to the big ones all the time. Ton of former PyTorch/Inductor folks now are at Ant/TM etc.Everyone I know in the GPU compiler/GPGPU space seems to be either going to meta or leaving meta for NV or some AI lab. My anecdotal observations don't align with "bin meta applicants straight to the trash."
by zer0zzz
6/24/2026 at 1:49:20 PM
Yea I was going to ask the same question about "thoughtful frontier labs". Not sure that's really a thing unless we're talking about being thoughtful of accumulating wealth and power for a small handful of people.by ryan_n
6/24/2026 at 2:09:30 PM
Man I despise Facebook, no two ways about it. But one time our dog slipped her collar and escaped while we were out of state. We got back late in the evening after she had bolted. We were up all night searching for her and we posted to the Ft. Collins Lost & Found group. We got a few hits that night, and by the next morning there was so much participation that we could trace her movement through town with an accuracy rate of a few blocks. The latest picture was at the intersection of a side-road and the state highway as it left town, so I was down there, looking around and freaking out that she was street pizza, when she booped me on the back of the leg. Don't know how I missed her but I sure am glad she found me.When social media works right it's an amazing thing. It's just too bad that we don't use 90% of it right. As an example I've never given back to that commons when I see a stray pet.
by troyvit
6/24/2026 at 7:15:48 AM
I guess having an insecure creep as CEO could play a role in all that.by steve1977
6/24/2026 at 11:17:06 AM
I know people who married after meeting thanks to facebook dating.by Traubenfuchs
6/24/2026 at 2:21:59 AM
They dont need frontier labs. Meta's dashboard jockeys get paid the sameby brcmthrowaway
6/24/2026 at 3:19:31 AM
[flagged]by asdaqopqkq
6/24/2026 at 3:35:37 AM
WhatsAppby TZubiri
6/24/2026 at 3:56:01 AM
Nitpick: Facebook bought WhatsApp, it didn't make it.by sillywalk
6/24/2026 at 4:03:03 AM
They've also largely made WhatsApp worse.by Marsymars
6/24/2026 at 4:44:16 AM
How so? Most of the hardcore encryption stuff was built at Facebook under the founder's supervision afaik for the purposes of making it harder for Zuck to inevitably ruin the privacy aspects.I personally don't use it, because it _is_ loaded with engagement bait but its not all worse and is better in some ways.
by zer0zzz
6/24/2026 at 6:05:32 AM
From an infrastructure PoV, I seem to recall that WhatsApp was one of the few major companies that used Erlang, and were famous for being able to run the entirety of WhatsApp on only a few servers, each of which was serving millions of concurrent connections, mostly thanks to Erlang/BEAM (at least, from what I read). When it got acquired by Facebook, they then proceeded to rewrite the entirety of the backend in C++. Seems kind of baffling to me.by myng111
6/24/2026 at 4:49:00 AM
They added ads, an "AI companion", and backdoor logging of all chat messagesby inigyou
6/24/2026 at 4:54:46 AM
That last one’s going to need some substantiation.“In the ordinary course of providing our service, WhatsApp does not store messages once they are delivered or transaction logs of such delivered messages. Undelivered messages are deleted from our servers after 30 days. As stated in the WhatsApp Privacy Policy, we may collect, use, preserve, and share user information if we have a good-faith belief that it is reasonably necessary to (a) keep our users safe, (b) detect, investigate, and prevent illegal activity, (c) respond to legal process, or to government requests, (d) enforce our Terms and policies. This may include information about how some users interact with others on our service. We also offer end-to-end encryption for our services, which is always activated. End-to-end encryption means that messages are encrypted to protect against WhatsApp and third parties from reading them.” (https://faq.whatsapp.com/444002211197967)
by otterley
6/24/2026 at 5:09:04 AM
I believe it was the automatic unencrypted weekly data upload to Google Driveby inigyou
6/24/2026 at 5:11:53 AM
Can you post a link?by otterley
6/24/2026 at 5:42:50 AM
No. It's a special arrangement between Google and WhatsApp which makes a file only visible to WhatsApp, and not appear in your regular drive so you can't do normal cloud file operations like generating public links.by inigyou
6/24/2026 at 4:25:11 PM
It's not a "Special Arrangement", it's a feature in Google Drive when an app does a backup rather than "upload".by marysol5
6/24/2026 at 6:30:19 AM
Without evidence of this “special arrangement” I don’t see why anyone should believe you. You made a claim that is directly contrary to WhatsApp’s published materials and they have a lot to lose if you are correct. On the other hand, if your accusation is false, it’s tantamount to libel.by otterley
6/24/2026 at 6:54:56 AM
How's this? Not sure if it's the same issue but it's much more damning than the one I knew about. https://www.techspot.com/news/112232-federal-agent-whatsapp-...You know how I found this link? Googling WhatsApp encryption backdoor. You could have too.
by inigyou
6/24/2026 at 7:04:03 AM
[dead]by otterley
6/24/2026 at 7:51:50 AM
> You know how I found this link? Googling WhatsApp encryption backdoor. You could have too.No need for the attitude. Op asked you for a source, which is customary for one to back up their initial claim; an onus on you and not for someone else to validate your claims.
by x______________
6/24/2026 at 3:17:27 PM
All I asked for was specific examples while acknowledging what I hated about the platforms progression.by zer0zzz
6/24/2026 at 4:24:09 PM
WhatsApp encryption is Signalby marysol5
6/24/2026 at 5:02:19 AM
Reconning. We made it so Zuck had plausible deniability for all the bad shit happening on WA as a direct result of anticipated regulatory pressure.There is no “make things harder for the dictator” at Meta/Fb and never has been.
by gmerc
6/24/2026 at 8:59:39 AM
Not yet they haven't. They've basically left it alone, with very minor UI/UX improvements.They have very recently shown signs of making it worse (the AI button), but overall I've been surprised how careful they've been about doing it slowly. We've probably got another 5-10 years of it being great before they turn it to shit.
by IshKebab
6/24/2026 at 5:53:48 PM
Yeah, I'll admit they've basically left it alone, but I'd chalk up the changes as minor UI/UX regressions that have ballooned the app size by an order of magnitude since it was acquired.And the native Windows app was a post-Facebook introduction, but it was also Facebook that canned it in favour of the current web wrapper turd.
by Marsymars
6/24/2026 at 11:25:44 AM
And by "UX improvements" we mean dropping support for millions of devicesby LtWorf
6/24/2026 at 3:43:26 AM
I think OP’s point is that it was bought not made similar to Instagram.by asp_hornet
6/24/2026 at 4:30:57 AM
Binning applications for working at Meta seems hilarious and over the top. The ‘thoughtful’ labs are vacuuming up everyone’s chat logs and prompts to train the next model as well.by dxxmxnd
6/24/2026 at 2:25:05 AM
Where should we work instead?I’d really like to leave, but I’m kind of stuck, and I don’t have enough to retire.
I have to work remote from a non-coast state for family care reasons, and the places I’ve interviewed at the last few months have balked at hiring a remote employee.
by jopolous
6/24/2026 at 2:37:19 AM
Your options are:1. Find another job 2. Don’t find another job
You can’t say “where else can I work” like you have no agency over your life. Everyone chooses every day to do what they do that day.
You don’t get to be morally absolved because you’re choosing the easy path and you’re “stuck”. I’m sure there are plenty of places that pay less that would love to have talented remote employees.
by dozerly
6/24/2026 at 4:17:53 AM
The key point here is the “pay less” part. I know people that have turned down offers from meta that would 5x their salary and their personal situation would notably improve from at least some of that extra cash.The OP is a bit preachy and maybe some employees really don’t have any other options even with accepting lower salaries, but the majority should at least realise the golden handcuffs their bound by even if they choose not to act on them.
by tempay
6/24/2026 at 9:25:46 AM
> there are plenty of places that pay lessThis exactly. I value working from home and not working for a company that actively makes the world hell, so I make a quarter of what some of my peers at FAANG-adjacent companies make. Which is still a lot more than I realistically need.
by InsideOutSanta
6/24/2026 at 10:18:01 AM
Is there any place you look or way of looking that has you in that job? I'm currently happy with my ethical and remote job myself, but I question if it will be around in 10 years, and I especially hate job hunting.by duskdozer
6/24/2026 at 11:15:59 AM
Small B2B/B2G software companies. Look at companies that answer RFPs from your local governments.by InsideOutSanta
6/24/2026 at 4:13:57 AM
I don't blame someone for working at facebook, but I don't think most of you realize how cash money a FANG company looks on your resume to IT managers at the lowly normal companies. Go work in financial services, insurance, retail, go be a contractor and work/travel until you find what you like.by test6554
6/24/2026 at 2:55:54 AM
Not sure why you're being downvoted. Maybe a little preachy, but the gist of the point isn't incorrectby ra0x3
6/24/2026 at 3:26:20 AM
In a large portion of tech people like to pretend that they are absolved of responsibility for their societal contributions. “Get that bag” and all that. Work at Anduril as long as it makes that bread, etc.It makes sense that someone promoting them to re-evaluate the harm they’re causing by participating would elicit negative response
by dozerly
6/24/2026 at 7:17:57 AM
> Work at Anduril as long as it makes that bread, etc.You don’t work at Anduril to make bread, at least not as a software engineer. It’s a long hours startup with worse pay than FAANG in high CoL areas. The people that work there fundamentally believe in “improving the defense of the west”.
It is the private sector equivalent of joining the military. If you want to bag on people in the military, go ahead. But they are not in the same category as people just doing things for convenient good money.
by kortilla
6/24/2026 at 9:26:18 AM
> It is the private sector equivalent of joining the military.If the motivation is 'improving the defence of the west', it's more equivalent to joining a fringe paramilitary organisation; the dogwhistle is clear.
by Planktonne
6/24/2026 at 3:40:22 PM
It’s okay, I put my thoughts out there and I appreciate the feedback from other engineers.It’s actually kind of motivating. I’d interviewed at several places over the last few months and something out of my control always came up and halted the process (remote work closed down, hiring freeze, etc), so I’m definitely feeling a bit down about job prospects right now.
I needed some people to remind me “no, don’t be complacent, keep trying, there’s stuff out there and it’s worth the effort to continue looking”
by jopolous
6/24/2026 at 3:47:21 AM
People don’t particularly care for platitudes from anonymous people on the internet. Even less so when they reduce a complex dilemma in your life to a binary choice between an “easy and amoral” option and a “difficult but righteous” one.Most people make compromises inside imperfect systems. The person casting judgment almost certainly has their own moral compromises too, except those they understand, contextualize, rationalize, and forgive themselves for.
It’s just tiresome. There may not be a ton of context, but even knowing that someone is bound to a particular place because of caregiving responsibilities should be enough to invite a little more empathy and grace, and a lot less judgment.
by least
6/24/2026 at 5:32:38 AM
I agree. That said, a cursory glance at their post history shows they donate 6-figures to charity, which while very commendable, flies in the face of the idea of being 'stuck'.In any case, it's quite simple. If you work at Meta, you certainly have other options. Similar-tier companies pay just as well, and lower-tier companies will interview you readily.
We're not talking about someone scraping by here - working at Meta is a choice, and takes hard work to get into. That does not absolve you from the damage the company has done to the world. If you work there, you contribute to it (no matter how small the capacity) and you benefit from it literally through wages and share ownership. Your vested interest is in the company growing. Historically, that has meant via very dark patterns.
by jazzpush2
6/24/2026 at 7:21:32 AM
> donate 6-figures to charity, which while very commendable, flies in the face of the idea of being 'stuck'.Have you considered that the harm of the loss of 6 figures can completely destroy local charities?
This quickly devolves into effective altruism and the problems that come with that but it’s very easy to end up in a situation where you think the net good you bring by keeping a local abused women shelter open far outweighs the negative consequences for working at Meta.
by kortilla
6/24/2026 at 7:19:28 PM
I don't care to dive into imaginary philosophical debates. I'm responding to the person in this thread saying, "I'm stuck" while clearly being financially well-off.by jazzpush2
6/24/2026 at 4:01:24 AM
I think there would be more empathy if Meta were the only company in the world where it was possible to work. That's "stuck." This is not.I've quit jobs over ethical boundaries. It's not an easy decision, and "integrity" doesn't quite pay rent, but helped me to sleep better at night and let me live with myself.
by ryandrake
6/24/2026 at 11:24:37 AM
You're making it very easy for them here. Giving up on any kind of personal integrity or responsibility in exchange for a lot of money is not a complex dilemma. You don't need context to see it's wrong. It's a classic deal with the devil, a literary trope as old as time.by 9dev
6/24/2026 at 3:57:37 AM
They are not understanding that it's not one person's moral failing at the root of it, it's the system that forces everyone into participating in amoral things, including for example the investors of Meta who are getting a bigger bag. That includes every one of you S&P500 index fund hodlers.by pishpash
6/24/2026 at 9:27:03 AM
It's both. We can point to individuals who make terrible decisions and also acknowledge that there will always be such people as long as the system incentivizes them.by InsideOutSanta
6/24/2026 at 6:42:34 PM
How many of index fund investors take a short position on Meta to cancel out that share? That's pretty easy to do. If it's nobody then everyone is "such people" and it is meaningless to single out any one person. Just acknowledge that there is no moral high ground for anyone. You either provide labor or capital to the enterprise, which is worse?by pishpash
6/24/2026 at 6:52:46 PM
I reject the idea that a person who doesn't do literally everything they can to improve the world is the same as one who actively makes it worse.by InsideOutSanta
6/24/2026 at 7:40:48 PM
what a mindset.I'll make sure to shame my Illumina scientist neighbor for working on tech that deliberately targets underage children (purposely violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.). After all, he owns the world's most popular index fund, which includes Meta. He certainly should feel just as culpable as the Meta employees!
by jazzpush2
6/24/2026 at 9:53:22 AM
I might agree with this.But I also think all of the people criticizing Meta should post where they work. I'm sure plenty of people here work for ethically dubious companies, and make the same excuses.
Glass houses and all that.
by budsniffer952
6/24/2026 at 11:19:17 AM
The gall of one of the best-compensated people on the planet acting like they had no place else to go. Well, Mister Ivory Tower, I've got news for you: Having a conscience doesn't come for free. You'll be fine with a lower pay that's still several multiples of what other people make.You don't need to retire early, there are companies aplenty that accept remote workers. But you won't, because you sold yourself out for money.
by 9dev
6/24/2026 at 7:54:56 AM
Ahh the olde Nuremberg Defense - Befehl ist Befehl ... “an order is an order”by blitzar
6/24/2026 at 11:26:45 AM
"Was hätten wir denn tun sollen?" - What were we supposed to do? We were just the little people…It's always the same.
by 9dev
6/24/2026 at 4:42:37 AM
i have like 5 companies in my rolodex who would hire me to be fully remote tomorrowget with the times
by whateveracct
6/24/2026 at 5:04:33 AM
Knock it off. Nobody wants to read your braggadocio, and it’s insulting to people who are having real challenges finding work.by otterley
6/24/2026 at 9:26:58 AM
Someone working at Meta is not someone who has real challenges finding work.by Planktonne
6/24/2026 at 3:47:35 PM
I wish there were an anonymous way to get contact info for those companies!by jopolous
6/24/2026 at 3:49:03 PM
that's what the rolodex is forby whateveracct
6/24/2026 at 5:17:21 AM
There's some kind of irony using outdated terminology like "rolodex" and telling someone else to get with the times. :)by bluefirebrand
6/24/2026 at 7:41:01 AM
It’s almost as if they were making a joke.by adamors