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Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

theguardian.com

281–290 of 487 posts

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#281

The tenor, the awareness, the culture of questions that 70-year-old senators are turning to Zuckerberg at the congress would make you cheer for Facebook. Even if you previously hated it.

Most citizens don't care about the details of any technology they use on a day to day basis, they only want it to work correctly and enrich their lives. Do you understand all the mechanics of an automobile? Ever worked on installing a new suspension for your car? Most people go to a shop to get this work done and even though they don't know details of the process they trust the mechanic to get the job done right. How…

I do actually, and in fact through the beauty of the internet a layman could have a pretty good conceptualization of how to do so with their own vehicle through Wikipedia, YouTube, etc.

Nobody is forcing you to use Facebook. Everyone has their own agency in this world. There is no part of the world that is locked out because you don't use Facebook.

These senators are clearly completely clueless for the most part. Many of them so far removed from basic internet and computer literacy it is embarrassing.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take free speech. Who do you think you are? Who gets to draw the line between what is hate and what is not? You? Certainly not YOU! The opinions and the cultural fads you chase do not lend you any moral superiority. YOU have no right to judge. I piss all over your self-seeking ideology. Would you send me to the gulag if you could?

How may one speak to your children when you're not around? In other words, nearly every moment on the web...? Where is the red line? I think people are realizing just how much the web is shared.

I'll take my free speech instead, nanny.

I'll raise my own kids and they'll grow up just fine, you freedom-hating, thought-policing busybody, YOU!

The future you yearn for is a hellscape.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#283

Mark Zuckerberg does not believe he has a monopoly. He believes there is an alternative to Facebook in the way that different car manufacturers have different competitors. Surely he can't mean this, right?

Why didn't telephone companies suffer from a similar network effect, and isn't there a monopolist in telephony? Can we apply the same principles in the case of Facebook?

They did suffer from a similar network effect, which was only broken when AT&T accepted a consent decree to spin off all its regional providers.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#284

Some poor Senator just went on a rabbit hunt to discuss FB's bug bounty program. Who are these Congressional staffers? Tech illiteracy is on full-display; we're not even talking 'power-users' (who were on UseNet, btw), these people are lost. Zuckerberg had to be gracious and say his team would follow-up on many things that it was clear the Senator didn't even understand. This is supposed to be our smart chamber.

Disagree. Several controversial questions were dodged by saying his team would follow up. While it's attractive to paint politicians as incompetent buffoons, let's not forget each of them has their own staff and understands what it means to delegate to your staff and not have answers immediately on hand that only a staff expert would understand.

That doesn't make any sense.

If you're receiving questions that weren't published prior to the interview it's perfectly understandable that not all questions can be answered immediately. In fact, I'd be more suspicious if he answered everything without needing to follow up. If however you're the one raising a question, I think it's your responsibility to ensure that you or someone on your team someone does some basic research and due diligence beforehand.

Saying that oh look it's okay they're not incompetent, it's just they just delegated to people who were incompetent doesn't make it any better.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#285
post #91

Sen. Durbin just talked Zuckerberg out of a qualification that certain children's data "in general" will not be shared with third parties. He pinned Zuck to a no, because "as a lawyer" he picked up on it. There's a perfectly valid reason for the "in general" qualification! If your child is using the app and police obtain a warrant for the data, Facebook will likely have to release it! I wonder how much Zuck's desire…

My impression was that he wasn't under oath for the hearing. Honestly, for the level of technical complexity they are discussing (often in very non-specific and general terms), I don't think they'd be able to have a conversation at all if every statement Zuck made had to be legally bulletproof.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#287

Some poor Senator just went on a rabbit hunt to discuss FB's bug bounty program. Who are these Congressional staffers? Tech illiteracy is on full-display; we're not even talking 'power-users' (who were on UseNet, btw), these people are lost. Zuckerberg had to be gracious and say his team would follow-up on many things that it was clear the Senator didn't even understand. This is supposed to be our smart chamber.

Disagree. Several controversial questions were dodged by saying his team would follow up. While it's attractive to paint politicians as incompetent buffoons, let's not forget each of them has their own staff and understands what it means to delegate to your staff and not have answers immediately on hand that only a staff expert would understand.

Appearing incompetent usually happens because they are actually incompetent.

The fact that they were prepared with these questions only makes the matter worse with the majority being irrelevant and aimless shots in the dark. They are the designated lawmakers with the power here, they absolutely need to do a better job.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#288

I call BS on actual deleting all user data when someone deletes his account. If some whistle blower proves otherwise is he liable for prosecution for perjury?

Define deleted. Do you mean the data itself is purged, or simply marked as deleted and rendered inaccessible? If you mean purged, then do you also mean that it is zeroed off of the disk by a multiple low-level pass? This would be hard to prosecute for perjury as the definition of "deleted" can be construed in many ways.

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#289
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook doesn't delete all cookies (for instance, there's an `sb` cookie still set) in their logout response. They may choose not to do anything with the cookies that remain, but the technical answer to the question is yes. And even if they currently did delete all cookies, there's nothing from preventing them from introducing cookies that do remain. Zuck knows this is generally feasible - he's a talented software e…

> They may choose not to do anything with the cookies that remain, but the technical answer to the question is yes. I think you could say the same thing about IP addresses. A website might log the IP addresses of people who visit them, or they might not, but quite a lot of tracking is feasible. The problem with focusing on feasibility there, is that you end up with an answer like "yes, just like every other website i…

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take free speech. Who do you think you are? Who gets to draw the line between what is hate and what is not? You? Certainly not YOU! The opinions and the cultural fads you chase do not lend you any moral superiority. YOU have no right to judge. I piss all over your self-seeking ideology. Would you send me to the gulag if you could?

How may one speak to your children when you're not around? In other words, nearly every moment on the web...? Where is the red line? I think people are realizing just how much the web is shared.

I love the desperate "think of the children" attempts to rescue your comrade, by the way.

Can't appeal to logic with your arguments so you alternate between dictatorship and clutching a purse.

Stick to dictating how others shall or shall not live, it's more authentically YOU!

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