Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 487 posts

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#341

Post by atsushin »

The senators involved with the hearing certainly had some good questions, but some of the topics appeared scattershot and could have benefited from a narrower focus on FB's data collection and technical issues, though obviously the Senators and staff would need to understand the issues at a deeper level. However, touching on the issue of data ownership and the terms of service for both FB and Kogan's app was a somewhat interesting and satisfying portion of the hearing.

By far the dumbest questions through the entire meeting, though:

  Sasse: "Do you hire consultants to tell you how to tap into dopamine feedback loops to keep people addicted?"
and (this one had me rolling)

  Senator Deb Fischer: "How many categories of data do you collect for all 2bn users?"

  Zuckerberg: [acts confused]
That said, perhaps Zuckerberg's vague and generic answers could have been a result of ill preparation on -his- side, too. The CEO, while the head of a company is only involved so much in the day-to-day issues and goings-on. As the spokesperson, he didn't do much by way of transparency or work to improve FB's reputation today. Maybe some technical staff should additionally be interviewed. A list of potential topics prepared by staffers, to be discussed at the hearing would help Zuckerberg in figuring out what information he should know.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#343

Post by ggregoire »

kgc wrote: post #334
ggregoire wrote: post #268

Did he just say that when an account is deleted, all the data are hard deleted (not just a boolean in a column)? It's really hard to believe.

The reason that this is hard to believe is that most people only end up deactivating their accounts, not deleting them. This results in a surprise when they return and all their info is still there.

No. That’s hard to believe because I don’t known any company that hard deletes user data.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#344

Post by EpicEng »

manigandham wrote: post #280
rdiddly wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question and its answer succeed in getting Zuckerberg on record (in the Congressional Record, no less) as saying that his business model depends on advertising, with all that that implies about the relationship between Facebook and its users. Think of it as like when you're on the witness stand and the attorney asks you a question. It's not because he doesn't know the answer. It's because he wants you to say the…

> Zuckerberg on record (in the Congressional Record, no less) as saying that his business model depends on advertising This has never been secret and has been "on record" for a very long time. I think most people will see the absolutely dismal lack of technical understanding by Congress rather than any arrogance by Facebook as they too get fed up with these aimless questions.

>I think most people will see the absolutely dismal lack of technical understanding by Congress

You really think most people have more technical understanding than these senators?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#345

Post by dsacco »

r00fus wrote: post #68
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?

Mark has always thought his primary competitor is email. Let that kind of hubris sink in for a moment. He's smart and capable but I don't think he has perspective. Perhaps he never did.

What hubris?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#346

Post by cookiecaper »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #300
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.

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.

Politics is always a performance.

Regardless of the technical literacy of the individuals, they need to ask questions that their constituents will want to know they asked. They are covering their bases so that the media can't play a "Gotcha!" game and say "You were representing the people of the Great State of $YOUR_STATE_HERE, and you didn't even ask Facebook why they invite hackers into their own systems?!". This would look bad for the politician if, by some crazy happenstance, the bug bounty becomes implicated in the boogeyman of the big bad "Russian hackers".

While I don't discount the possibility that many such lines of questioning were borne out of sincere ignorance, the public perception is what matters, regardless of individual competence, knowledge, or ability.

These committee events are just exhibitions to allow politicians to score points back home. Any real work will be done by grossly overpaid lobbyists writing policy that benefits their clients, and grossly underpaid Congressional staffers just trying to work it through the session while protecting Their Guy from potential damage/backlash.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#347

Post by chenning »

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.

I would also argue that a healthy dose of tech illiteracy (if that's what you want to call it) is precisely what we need in this situation. Tech minded people will always find a way to decide in favor of technology. They are loyal to the technology. We need people who can look at all of this from the unbiased perspective.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#348

Post by manigandham »

EpicEng wrote: post #344
manigandham wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Zuckerberg on record (in the Congressional Record, no less) as saying that his business model depends on advertising This has never been secret and has been "on record" for a very long time. I think most people will see the absolutely dismal lack of technical understanding by Congress rather than any arrogance by Facebook as they too get fed up with these aimless questions.

>I think most people will see the absolutely dismal lack of technical understanding by Congress You really think most people have more technical understanding than these senators?

That's not necessary to realize that these senators do not.

Also yes, based on their questions and age, I do think most people have a better understanding. Just the expressions of the other audience members and staff in the room shows the frustration.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#349

Post by bordercases »

sincerely wrote: post #138
Consultant32452 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But the real issue here is that Facebook was complicit in electing Donald Trump. It's political. This bit is really terrifying to me. I don't support Trump, but the idea that we're going to make it even harder for "unapproved" political candidates should make everyone's skin crawl.

I thought the issue was that foreign actors were able to use Facebook to push for their candidate of choice, not that Trump was "unapproved" (why do you use quotes? that phrase doesn't appear anywhere in the comment you're responding to).

> foreign actors

First it's Russia and now it's Cambridge Analytica. Unless you can trace CA's business activities to foreign hires or somehow devaluing the influence of the former for the latter, even though the Russian angle was what was being pushed around for a good while as The Reason Trump became so favoured (rather than actual failures of the Democratic party!), methinks it's just the alphabet agencies and co. looking for excuses.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#350

Post by hyperdimension »

andromeduck wrote: post #319
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 claimi…

> I don't think there's a requirement to be very informed about the subject matter. Why would you think that? This is a time limited, one day high profile public hearing.

I think it's actually two days. That's what they said on the CSPAN radio stream, anyway.
Post reply on HN