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Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

theguardian.com

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#291

Post by ezekg »

paxys wrote: post #223
ezekg wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This question (like many others) was frustrating, because it was worded in such a way that was incredibly easy for Zuck to dodge. Of course FB isn't using your encrypted messages for ad purposes, because they can't . But messages sent from FB Messenger, not from WhatsApp, are unencrypted and so are likely used for ad purposes -- but of course the question wasn't worded in that way. The way they scoped that question t…

Of course it was deliberate. Him admitting they serve ads based on Messenger content means nothing, we already know that they do. WhatsApp is sold as an E2E encrypted service, and an admission that WhatsApp message data (or even metadata) is somehow used for advertising as well would be a huge admission.

Maybe. But I believe the conversation at the time was about how FB tracks its users and what data it uses for advertising purposes, not about WhatsApp's encryption, or lack thereof. I meant deliberate in the sense that the question was worded in a way that made it easily dodge-able with a "no, we don't use your encrypted WhatsApp messages for advertising purposes", instead of "yes, we read the content of your FB messages for advertising purposes."

> Him admitting they serve ads based on Messenger content means nothing, we already know that they do.

I don't think that has been confirmed (source if so?), and I think that's what the question should have attempted to confirm.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#292

Post by stevenwoo »

dusing wrote: post #165
Zimahl wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet he only asked about conservative causes and people that were affected by Facebook policies. It gives the appearance that Facebook is only policing conservative content. I'm sure if one looked, you could find liberal causes and people that were policed as well.

Zuck had himself just said that people living in silicon valley are overwhelmingly left leaning. So when he says they have 20k back home policing content it would makes sense to assume those 20k people are included in the group Zuck summarizes as overwhelmingly left leaning. Worth asking about.

There was something I read last year that interviewed outsourcing content monitors - a sizeable percentage of monitors were in the Philippines for US/UK English Facebook posts.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#293

Post by saudioger »

baalimago wrote: post #54

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?

Well he's certainly not going to testify that he thinks he does.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#295

Post by kerng »

fbonetti wrote: post #87
_bxg1 wrote: post #48

It's pretty cringe-y so far. From The Verge's liveblog: "I would liken this hearing so far to a precocious college junior explaining his major to his grandparents at Thanksgiving"

It's a really odd line of questioning from people who don't seem to understand the subject matter. This gem made me laugh out loud: Senator: How do you sustain a business model in which users don't pay for your service? Zuckerberg (in a disdainful tone): Senator, we run ads. https://clips.twitch.tv/FantasticCrowdedDelicataPipeHype Edit: I directly transcribed the exchange

I think question like this are important for the record

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#296

Post by adventured »

nopriorarrests wrote: post #238
lakechfoma wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he was trying to get at something here though: can you run a business that is free for some people and isn't ad based? To which I think the answer could be nuanced. Maybe a large enough population pays $4/month and can thus subsidize some part of the population that doesn't have that privilege. Note I'm not actually advocating that, just saying I want to give the guy a benefit of the doubt that he was trying…

>large enough population pays $4/month and can thus subsidize some part of the population Just in case, FB ARPU in US in Q4 2017 was $27. People who talk about "i ready to pay 10$ per year if im not tracked and not exposed to ads" _seriously_ underestimate FB money-printing ability. Think about it, FB makes almost as much as NFLX per US user (admittedly in Q4, the hottest quarter in advertising), but you dont need to…

Indeed. At the rate their monetization is likely to grow as advertising & economy (retail etc) continues to shift online, just continuing the existing growth trend and assuming a slow-down over time, it's extremely likely Facebook will reach a ~$200 per year ARPU in the US/Canada market within five years or so.

There is no large audience in any developed market willing to pay $15+ per month for Facebook just to remove ads.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#297

Post by Balgair »

Silhouette wrote: post #247
wuunderbar wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is the sort of word game that surely wouldn't last ten seconds in any courtroom. "Did you delete the data or not?" "Yes, we deleted the data." "Then how is it that we're all sitting here looking at it?" This modern fiction of pretending something is deleted just because someone set a flag called "deleted" has about as much relevance to actual deletion as the evil bit in an IPv4 header has to actual Internet secu…

Thank you. Judges and Senators are not happy when you try to play these word games with them. And you don't want to make a judge or a senator unhappy.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#298

Post by Karrot_Kream »

andromeduck wrote: post #284
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Right so I'm not expecting him to answer _every_ question without referring to his staff. There were, however, key controversial questions which he did not answer by claiming he didn't know something immediately.

> 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.

Zuck was brought in front of the committee to discuss troubling behavior and troubling allegations. While you don't want to ask a nonsensical question, I don't think there's a requirement to be very informed about the subject matter. A number of questions by the committee seemed exploratory or seemed to be simply looking to clarify some rumor/allegation, some were indeed technically misinformed or misunderstood questions, but by and large a lot of the questions that were asked were competent and necessary.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#299

Post by ibejoeb »

dljsjr wrote: post #198
ibejoeb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>User data was obtained via means not allowed by Facebook That's what I'm asking. 1) Is it alleged that CA found a flaw in FB's design and 2) did something illegal with it? I've seen accounts alluding to that, but that makes me think that it is entirely by design and it's just be framed negatively for the greatest political impact.

It's illegal for foreign nationals to make direct or indirect contributions to US politics. So the line that has to be drawn is one connecting that law to the CA scandal and its alleged use to drive the strategies of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. I don't know for sure if Facebook can be seen as being complicit in breaking US election law. I think their issues are completely domestic as it stands right…

It's all fascinating. How do we reconcile a facebook bot account that may be, at best, loosely tied to Russia, according to some speculators with a foreign national and intelligence officer, Richard Steele, compiling a op report on the Republican presidential candidate?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#300

Post by BinaryIdiot »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #263
18pfsmt wrote: post #203

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.

I'm pretty sure both of you are correct. There was a large amount of tech illiteracy on display but, at the same time, Mark dodged TONS of questions and spoke indirectly like a professional.

That entire testimony was very unsatisfying, in my opinion.

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