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Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

theguardian.com

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#391

Post by Overtonwindow »

wtf_is_up wrote: post #315
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>That entire testimony was very unsatisfying, in my opinion. After watching dozens of hours of congressional hearings over the past 2 years, this is not at all surprising. These committees have no teeth.

He wasn’t even under oath

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#392

Post by Overtonwindow »

enraged_camel wrote: post #374
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>>That entire testimony was very unsatisfying, in my opinion. The goal was not satisfaction. The goal was to allow the Senators to be able to tell their constituents they did something about the Facebook problem, to the vast majority of whom "Congressional hearing" will sound serious and consequential. edit: The downvotes tell me that most people don't understand how these committees work. Here's a hint: they have no…

It’s all done for the media, soundbites, constituent communications, and fundraising. I once worked for the energy and commerce committee, and it’s a total crap show.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#393

Post by fiatpandas »

tenpies wrote: post #318
kahlonel wrote: post #312

I'm not from US, can someone explain how bad it is if anything that Zuckerberg said during the whole session proves to be false/lie/wrong later on? Is it considered perjury, or is perjury only specific for courts/legal matters?

He was not under oath, so even if he was caught lying it is legally inconsequential.

Not true. You can face sentencing for lying or concealing information in such a setting, even without taking an oath.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#394

Post by Retra »

boryas wrote: post #269
kevindqc wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Is the left jailing people for talking? That's news to me. As far as I know, people are still free to say what they want? Doesn't mean they don't get any consequences though. Or that other people are forced to give them an ear. Take Laura Ingraham. She's free to make fun of the Parkland survivors and she did. She's also losing her advertisers as a consequence of being a poor excuse of a human being.…

In the free society I want to live in, we ought to let people voice their opinions even when we disagree. There are limits to freedom of speech besides those put in place by the state. Taken to an extreme for purely rhetorical purposes: if you get fired, black-balled, and publicly shamed for voicing any opinion, then do you live in a society with freedom of speech? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Liberty#Of_the_libe…

If you live in a society where thoughtful, rational discourse is drowned in a sea of shouted opinions, then you do not have free speech either. Free speech is not the freedom to say anything you like, but the freedom to express any idea you like. You are not free to express it how you like to whoever you like.

And there aren't many liberals willing to censor people for controversial opinions presented in a self-aware, carefully worded, and relevant manner abounding in due consideration for the facts. They do censor people who like to peddle propaganda and wave their victimhood around like pariahs.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#395

Post by GreeniFi »

salt-licker wrote: post #386
theptip wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 delete…

Thanks. Very insightful. Hopefully UK parliament will pick up on his obfuscation and prevarication when they interview the CTO. For what it’s worth, I don’t think MZ was straight up today - and as legislators realize that, it makes it more likely FB will be broken up. If not by the US, then because the EU will force it. I’m seriously unimpressed that MZ has not grasped his situation.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#396

Post by noobermin »

robryan wrote: post #382
terminado wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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.

Which is the point. People need to stop seeing "better than a coin flip" as "knowing you better than your lover".

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#397

Post by jeffdavis »

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.

Have you ever written an introduction to a technical document before? You make statements in there that are obvious, not because the reader doesn't understand, but because you want to bring the reader into the right frame of mind with the right set of facts before them as context for the rest of the document.

Questions like this are really just asking Zuckerberg to introduce his business in a controlled way.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#398

Post by HumanDrivenDev »

rootusrootus wrote: post #258
nopriorarrests wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

If someone comes along with a service that fulfills the same niche that Facebook does, charges $9/month, and has a guaranteed (audited) enforcement of personal privacy ... I'd do it. I like being connected to my family & some friends. The problem is getting from zero to critical mass with that model. Though I guess that doesn't stop a lot of other companies with less plausible revenue sources from getting seemingly e…

9USD a month is a consequential amount of money for a huge chunk of the population of even developed countries.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#399

Post by some_account »

btown wrote: post #79
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"

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…

Cookies? I would assume Facebook is using the latest tracking techniques like canvas fingerprinting and other ways to identify users uniquely on the web.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress

#400

Post by some_account »

SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #378
btown wrote: 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…

Browser fingerprinting is already alright, even without world-class data centers with several server rooms the size of football fields, and world-class AI experts tuning those many rooms of servers to intelligently track and classify people online. Cookies are almost certainly irrelevant to FB's ability to track people, and Zuck certainly knows it. His response there was an unequivocal lie.

I was thinking the same thing. Why are we at hacker news focusing on cookies when we know about all the other more devious ways of tracking?
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