The Facebook Papers: Documents reveal internal fury and dissent over site’s policies

sumargentho (25) in news • 3 years ago

Thousands of leaked documents highlight employees’ disillusionment with spread of misinformation and calls to violence.

“Hang in there everyone,” he wrote. Facebook should allow for peaceful discussion of the riot but not calls for violence, he added.

His post was met with scathing replies from employees who blamed the company for what was happening.

“I’m struggling to match my values to my employment here,” an employee wrote in a comment. (The employee’s name was redacted in a version seen by NBC News.) “I came here hoping to effect change and improve society, but all I’ve seen is atrophy and abdication of responsibility.”

Another employee asked, “How are we expected to ignore when leadership overrides research-based policy decisions to better serve people like the groups inciting violence today?”

The comments openly challenged the company’s leadership with a not-so-subtle message: Facebook’s well-documented problems in abetting violent polarization and encouraging the spread of misinformation weren’t getting fixed, despite the company’s investments and promises.

The comments are in thousands of pages of internal Facebook documents given to NBC News detailing Facebook’s internal debates around the societal impact of its platforms. Together the documents offer the deepest look provided to outsiders at the internal workings of the world’s largest social media company.

They are a small fraction of the internal communications over the past several years at Facebook, where employee message boards that started as a way to embrace transparency have become an outlet for reflection and advocacy on the impact of social media.

The documents show employees — many who were hired to help Facebook address problems on its platforms — debating with one another on internal message boards free of public relations spin. Many tried to figure out how to turn stalled bureaucratic wheels and steer a company that now has so many departments that employees sometimes aren’t aware of overlapping responsibilities. Some employees defended management, with one calling Facebook executives “brilliant, data-driven futurists like many of us.”

For the study, each of the 24,699 participants completed questionnaires on two occasions. For these questionnaires, they recalled all the foods they had eaten during the previous 24 hours.

The participants who were most likely to be mushroom eaters were college-educated, non-Hispanic white women.

The overall incidence of depression among the entire study cohort was 5.9%.

Mushroom eaters constituted 5.2% of the participants. The researchers divided these mushroom eaters into three groups according to the extent of their mushroom consumption.

Those who ate a median amount of mushrooms (4.9 grams [g] per day) were the only group to experience a reduction in the likelihood of depression.

Curiously, the researchers did not observe a similar reduction in depression for those who ate the most mushrooms (19.6 g each day), suggesting that a median intake constitutes the sweet spot for relief from depression.

On the other hand, Dr. Muscat speculated, “The number of study participants [who] consumed a half-a-serving size of mushrooms or more was quite small, so it could just be statistical variation.”

“Alternatively,” he added, “if mushrooms prevented depression, you would expect to see a greater effect in those who consumed the most, so either the protective effect in the middle consumption group is not real, or there are other factors that are obscuring the association in the highest tertile that we just don’t know about.”

Possible underlying mechanisms
The researchers hypothesize that the antidepressant properties of mushrooms may be related to specific compounds present in the fungi.

As lead study author Dr. Djibril Ba, Ph.D., M.P.H., suggests: “Mushrooms are the highest dietary source of the amino acid ergothioneine — an anti-inflammatory, which cannot be synthesized by humans. Having high levels of this may lower the risk of oxidative stress, which could also reduce the symptoms of depression.”

Mushrooms also contain antioxidants, which — according to the authors of the study — some believe have antidepressant qualities.

Another possible influence may be the presence of potassium. This is present in button mushrooms, which are the most popular mushroom variety in the United States. Some research links potassium to a reduction in anxiety.

The researchers also explain that some mushrooms, such as lion’s mane, or Hericium erinaceusTrusted Source, “can stimulate the expression of neurotrophic factors, such as nerve growth factor (NGF)Trusted Source synthesis, which could have a potential impact on preventing neuropsychiatric disorders including major depression.”

MNT spoke with Dr. Uma Naidoo, a Harvard-trained nutritional psychiatrist, professional chef, nutrition specialist, and author of the national bestseller This is Your Brain on Food. We asked Dr. Naidoo, who was not involved in the study, which other foods can support mental health.

She replied, “In regard to depression, the three key nutrients or foods to be included in the diet are folateTrusted Source, omega-3sTrusted Source, and fermented foodsTrusted Source.”

“Additionally,” said Dr. Naidoo, “I encourage everyone to be getting plenty of fiber in their diet through a variety of colorful vegetables and berries, and to be cooking with herbs and spices, for overall improved mental health and reduced risk of cognitive decline with age.”

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3 years ago by sumargentho (25)

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