Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress • Hacker News Board

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#381

Post by home_boi » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:19 AM UTC

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…

Technically users are entering their credit card information somewhere down the line after an ad click, many times on a website "shadier" than Facebook because sane advertisers make more money than they spend.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#382

Post by robryan » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:21 AM UTC

terminado wrote: post #326

mortdeus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all supposed to be politically scary and demonstrative of the fact that very few people actually knows what is going on. Which all the more scary to me because these are the people who are supposed to understand what's going on so they can have proper oversight. This entire issue reminds me of the time the supreme court tried to wrap their brains around the (finger quotes) "the cloud". What's really sad is th…

...with just 500 likes the social network can insinuate more of your personality than your lover. ...and get absolutely everything wrong with such assumptions in the process, including whether or not it's possible to lie when using the Like button.

For advertising purposes it really only depends as a whole how truthful a picture the likes tell. If the likes are on average 70% truthful it is still going to be more effective targeting than not using them at all.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#383

Post by cjhopman » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:24 AM UTC

drb91 wrote: post #335

Silhouette wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, you could also encrypt the data with a per-user key and throw that away when you delete the user. No the data was not deleted, but access to it is. There are ways to design data retention around deletable constraints like this. The bigger question is more like “do we trust facebook to agree with us on what deleting an account acually means?” For isntance, i’m curious if you delete your account whether they stil…

But what does it mean to "throw [the key] away"?

Are you operating at scale? I hope you have a very robust backup system (including enough that you can even recover from something like the Sony hack), and so you're going to need to ensure that you delete it from those systems. And then, you're dealing with 100s (1000s? 10000s?) of these deletions a day. Do you want that to be instant? Are you really that confident in your deletion that you want it instantly overwriting your backups? How are you resistant to the Sony hack in that case? ...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#384

Post by tim333 » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:24 AM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #176

chmln wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hate speech" and "objective" don't belong in the same sentence. It is a subjective term open to interpretation, which is why it's dangerous.

It has a definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech

>Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, or gender.

So if I say frat bros are idiots am I guilty? There are grey areas.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#385

Post by yemper » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:27 AM UTC

Yeah, I saw this. It's crazy, went trending on twitter too. wew.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#386

Post by salt-licker » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:37 AM UTC

theptip wrote: post #366

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…

> There were, however, key controversial questions which he did not answer Can you give some examples please? Having not watched much of this live, nor read the paraphrased feed, I'm interested to know what controversial areas you think were dodged.

- Roger Wicker asks whether Facebook can track browsing activity even when a user is logged out of Facebook. Zuckerberg responds that he's not aware and he'll have his staff follow up, then later admits that cookies exist. They obviously do track this, as stated in their documentation: https://www.facebook.com/help/186325668085084

- John Cornyn asks whether all of a user's data is deleted when their account is deleted. Zuckerberg says, "We should delete all your information." Cornyn: "Should, or do??". Zuckerberg: "We do".

- Later on, Cory Gardner reads parts of Facebook's terms of service stating that backup copies of data may persist for some time after an account has been deleted. Zuckerberg pulls the old, "I'm not sure how it works, I'll have my team follow up". He really seems to want to avoid saying outright that 100% of your data is deleted, because it isn't, "log records" (open to broad definition) are only somewhat anonymized: https://www.facebook.com/help/125338004213029

- Gardner also asks whether Zuckerberg thinks users are aware that they are tracked every time they are logged in in another tab and visit a website with a Like button on it. Zuckerberg says, he thinks people are aware, they should be able to infer that from the context we show them about their friends liking the page.

- During questioning by Sheldon Whitehouse, Zuckerberg says users can download all data Facebook has about them. This is false. The "download your data" button only gives you data from your direct interaction with Facebook, and definitely does not include the sites they've tracked you on around the Internet.

Not sure whether any of these dodges bordering on lies could be prosecuted for lying to Congress, but sure would be interesting to see that tried.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#387

Post by propman » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:44 AM UTC

paulie_a wrote: post #205

Slansitartop wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are there are job offers on Facebook? (That's a genuine question; I don't have an account.) IIRC, they're trying to become the blue collar linkedin. https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/28/facebook-job-posts/

Hahaha, I can't even begin to wonder how bad that experience will be considering how awful marketplace is.

It's actually pretty good. One of the only things I'm really proud about pertaining to Facebook. Many blue collar workers, especially those out of the workforce need any assistance they need and it's HARD to gain motivation to apply via LinkedIn or individually find places. From this, it's right on Facebook, they understand the UI and the first initial step in the job process becomes a lot easier and then it cascades after that. I like how it's targeted to blue collar work as well.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#388

Post by dillondoyle » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:45 AM UTC

0x00000000 wrote: post #186

misiti3780 wrote: post #41

"Is it true facebook can track user browsers even after they are logged out of facebook?" Zuck: "I need to get back to you on that"

I do not have the facebook app on my phone. I downloaded Instagram and it magically knew one of my email addresses (not the one used with my facebook account). I deleted it, mashed the keyboard for the new email address, declined syncing contacts, blocked the permission as well as every other permission, and lo and behold it still shows all of my facebook friends on instagram as suggestions. Fucking creepy.

Lots of ways this could happen but people often forget about GPS/location services which are very accurate. I'm not sure if you have never had FB app on your phone, but even if you never installed FB app on your phone there could still be geo-associations inferred.

Think about the times your phone is near your friends phones, how your phone probably sits in the same space every night, the overlap between your IP location to whatever other devices connect behind your NAT which also send data to FB.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#389

Post by dudzik » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:47 AM UTC

cmurf wrote: post #211

Lindsay Graham and Mark Zuckerberg colluding together in favor of regulatory capture. Graham asks Zuckerberg if he would kindly offer some regulatory suggestions to the committee. And Zuckerberg gleefully responds in the affirmative. Yeah, great idea. The regulated become the authors of the regulations. What could possibly go wrong with that.

“GRAHAM: […] So would you work with us in terms of what regulations you think are necessary in your industry?

ZUCKERBERG: Absolutely.

GRAHAM: OK. Would you submit to us some proposed regulations?

ZUCKERBERG: Yes. And I’ll have my team follow up with you so, that way, we can have this discussion across the different categories where I think that this discussion needs to happen.”[0]

If facebook manages to introduce regulation that requires expensive processes it could stifle competition and increase their moat.

There was a planet money episode on that topic[1]

0: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/10...

1: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#390

Post by Overtonwindow » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:51 AM UTC

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.

Poorly paid, overworked, with an overblown sense of importance.[0]

[0].I work on Capitol Hill