Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1129&v=LGiiQUMaS....

"We were able to ingest the entire social network of the US."

https://twitter.com/cld276/status/975568130117459975

"Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing."

"They came to office in the days following election recruiting & were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side."

So in this formulation you're making Facebook out to be some kind of super-governmental authority on the proper or improper use of this potentially civilization shifting cache of data.

This issue here isn't, oh noes! Trump broke Facebook's rules, bad Trump!

This issue here is that this cache of data exists and we've seen it put to use in a variety of ways that elicit dismay from a variety of people.

This issue here is that Facebook exists, has constructed this system, exploitative of human behaviour and psychology, and collected this data.

Think back to the Chamath and Parker stories a few months ago. This is a much bigger issue than the doings of a single political campaign.

Are we just going to leave it up to Zuck and Sheryl to work out how they can best profit from this system and data while hoping they don't destroy society in the process?

What if Zuckerberg were to die in a plane crash tomorrow and an enfant terrible, a young Maxima Rex were to subsequently rise to the throne while holding political views polar opposite to both you and her father, would you be just as enthusiastic about her deciding what are and aren't "authorizable" uses of this data?

#deletefacebook

Fun fact: most fiscal policies have as a goal to get people to invest their money and get growth back in. Their effect is psychological. If the effects sound like they will have a positive effect in my little bubble I will start spending and investing, as I feel the Big Brother is ensuring a positive future for me. In fact, I as an individual impact the economy and not the Big Brother directly, as i) I spread the positive feeling and ii) invest. Hence, the consensus of the market is positive. See Keyene's "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" (http://cas2.umkc.edu/economics/people/facultypages/kregel/co...) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_Theory_of_Employme...) chapter 12. The average per person confidence for the short term affects the long term progress. People usually find no precedence to connect their privacy to the economic or political success. Now events start rolling stating otherwise. This article for instance states claims that their lack of privacy might have impacted the election, a matter most people feel affects their bubble. And rightly so. Thus why the mild reactions.

Example 2: People in security world/academia have been paranoid about what NSA was doing. The average Joe did not care about their data till the E. Snowden fiasco. The "mob reaction" told them to care. Then it subsided a bit again. Fortunately, it left the average person maybe a bit more aware on average. The impact was more money flowing towards security research and the rest of the world took note.

As a last (desperate) solution, I hope events like this hit the public where it hurts. Equifax was not enough, but it was a wake up call for some. This Facebook scandal probably will not do the job for the average Jane/Joe, but maybe the next one will. At that point people will either have to take a step or we will wake up in an Orwellian world.

We may need an event so drastic that relates people's privacy with their bubble and fast. Remember the "sudden" economic/social disasters of today are usually decades in the making (1920s, 2007, Russian revolution, most likely "x (social) revolution", where x is your country).

See: https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2017/Q4...