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Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

theguardian.com

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#241

Post by extra88 »

gregknicholson wrote: post #212
wyck wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America needs to look at citizen privacy laws like they have in Canada and the E.U. For example if I log into the Facebook business manager for a company I can see tons of data on Americans but not nearly as many details for Canadians, it's because of these laws. The new E.U. laws are even stricter with regards to personal data and how it's used, no matter who you are. Why there is no demand for this level of protect…

> Why there is no demand for this level of protection in the States by its citizens and representatives is crazy. The U.S. is culturally much more opposed to government interference in citizens' interactions, compared to Europe. The U.S. started as a rebellion against an authoritarian government. I suspect this is because a lot of the first Europeans who migrated to North America were the self-reliant type who actual…

Canada is still a constitutional monarchy so that's a difference from the U.S. that has shaped its culture.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#242

Post by extra88 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #175
mattnewton wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s assuming the regulations work instead of just throw obstacles in the way of new companies.

> That’s assuming the regulations work instead of just throw obstacles in the way of new companies. Not only that, laws have a tendency to set a particular model in stone. The model large companies use is to collect everything they possibly can and then use bureaucratic processes to control access. The model small companies and individuals use is to minimize the data they collect and use technical means to ensure tha…

> The model small companies and individuals use is to minimize the data they collect and use technical means to ensure that the company has no access to the customer's data at all.

There have been a zillion startups that have had collecting user data baked into their business model.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#243

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

panic wrote: post #210
dosycorp wrote: post #152

Mark is more like an Emperor come to visit affiliated crowns than a servant being questioned by his masters. Maybe the Senate’s deference in part is motivated by their belief he may run and win in a few years and they hope to win favor from a man they may end up working for. Secondly perhaps it is motivated by them not wanting to appear too knowledgeable nor too much of a threat to Mark, to put him at ease, lest they…

> Maybe the Senate’s deference in part is motivated by their belief he may run and win in a few years and they hope to win favor from a man they may end up working for. The US Senate doesn't work for the President. They're part of independent branches of government.

And it's beyond naive to think Zuckerberg could ever win for President.

Just because Trump could do it, doesn't mean Zuck could.

You have to be likeable. You have to be good on camera. He was the villain in his own movie for gods sake.

Conservatives hate him because he is a liberal nerd. Liberals hate him because he is a corporate tool.

We will accept stupid. We will accept dishonest. We will accept mean.

But we won't accept entitlement or arrogance. There is nothing less popular than a genius or wealthy person who knows they matter more than normal people and acts like it.

Trying to act like a "normal person" is the most important part of being a politician. He will never do that to an acceptable level.

He may have an advantage no one else does, with demographic info from Facebook. He may be the person who could basically appoint any person he wants to the office of the Presidency. But that doesn't mean he could appoint himself.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#244

Post by danans »

mkirklions wrote: post #220
danans wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regulation can be awful or insignificant. No benefits at all, really? Remember pre-regulation leaded gasoline and cars without seat belts?

I think both of those examples had regulation where industry had already moved forward. I dont know the history of leaded gasoline, but I worked in safety, and car companies were definitely moving toward safe vehicles.

From 1985:

"Auto makers, who have been fighting the introduction of air bags for nearly a decade as too costly and only marginally effective, have gone a long way toward their goal of bypassing the federal regulations. "

http://articles.latimes.com/1985-02-19/news/mn-546_1_seat-be...

From 1990:

"But the history of catalytic converters reveals another side of Detroit. The industry refined the technology only after Congress imposed strict limits and deadlines and foreign car makers threatened to develop cleaner engines."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/03/26/a...

From 1985:

"The American Petroleum Institute, a trade group, said that the refining industry had been making efforts in anticipation of today's rules to ''insure against future supply disruptions.

'But the announced lead-reduction schedule will create a substantial problem for the refining industry in providing motorists with adequate quantities of high-quality gasoline at reasonable costs,'' the institute's statement said."

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/05/us/epa-orders-90-percent-...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#245

Post by specialist »

ForHackernews wrote: post #222
specialist wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything about everybody, living or dead, is known in near real-time. We got a demo of Seisent, since bought by LexisNexus, mid-2000s. Our use case was to uniquely identify patients to improve record matching across heterogeneous databases. Back then, Seisent was just based on publicly available data. It spanned all of North America, The Caribbean, and a good portion of Central and South. In those regions, every si…

I really doubt this is true, given how poorly targeted advertising performs, how much stuff credit-reporting agencies get wrong, and how much stuff intelligence services miss. I'm sure they have a lot of data, but like anyone else, it's dirty data, and it's difficult to draw meaningful conclusions from it.

What measure of proof do you require?

PS- One of Seisent's selling points was helping to solve cold cases. The successful example I remember was matching MOs from a set of crimes in multiple areas and then identifying all the persons matching the profile who could also be in those areas at those times.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#246

Post by craftyguy »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #224
yodsanklai wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find particularly annoying in this kind of hearing is the condescending tone of the politicians. They are eager to put the blame on someone else when they are ultimately the ones who vote the laws.

You're not wrong, but on the flipside... do we really want them sitting around all the time thinking up laws they can enact to prevent every possible wrongdoing in society? It's a reasonable expectation that people self-govern with some morality and ethics and not look for every possible way to advance at the expense of someone else.

Company (mis)handling of user information is not exactly a new, one-off problem that came up just this one time. I would argue it's the exact problem they should be trying to curb with legislation, except for the fact they'll undoubtedly get it wrong since they'll look to "industry experts" like Mark Z for guidance.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#247

Post by Bartweiss »

e12e wrote: post #218
aphexairlines wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the Palantir section of the hearing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/10... SEN. MARIA CANTWELL (D-WASH): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome Mr. Zuckerberg. Do you know who Palantir is? ZUCKERBERG: I do. CANTWELL: Some people refer to them as a Stanford Analytica. Do you agree? ZUCKERBERG: Senator, I have not heard that. CANTWELL: Okay. Do you think Palantir taught Cambridge Analytica, a…

> CANTWELL: Have you heard of Total Information Awareness? Do you know what I'm talking about? > ZUCKERBERG: No, I do not. Hard to believe someone who has spent the past decade looking at how to monetize data has never heard of TIA.

I mean, it's probably more convincing than "I'm not really that familiar with what Palantir does".

Your average Ivy League CS grad is familiar with the bottom-line summary of what Palantir does - all the claims about secret projects aside, they do give tech talks and put product demos online. Zuckerberg is claiming he's not even familiar with that stuff?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#248

Post by chiefalchemist »

return1 wrote: post #240
chiefalchemist wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have been more clear: How long before FB pushes back? And what might that look like? Is Congress capable of regulating something like FB? They can't solve immigration / DACA.

Why would FB push back in the first place? Assuming their bottom line is not being hurt, they 'll be glad to be best buddies with the congress.

Ego. And power. Those drive a lot of history.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#249

Post by illwrks »

ryandrake wrote: post #203
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh and Sarah Jeong just now: "Going to tweet out amounts received by each Congressperson from Facebook since 2014 as they speak in this hearing" https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/984075571981266944 this is worth gold!

Sweet! There should be a rule where, whenever a politician is on TV talking about some subject, there needs to be a graphic in the corner showing the total dollar amount of donations that politician received from the 3 most relevant companies.

Like Amazon that Amazon prime feature, X-ray! That would be amazing.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#250

Post by davvolun »

mkirklions wrote: post #223
davvolun wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll tell you, I've worked for a business small enough to avoid needing to hire a "multi-thousand dollar legal team" and a few of the things that I know happened while I was there leave me very suspicious of the things I didn't know about. > Are you an internet user that thinks that what the government says won't be exploited? Nope, I'm a normal person, not actually a strawman. As long as there's government, it will…

>Can your kids' friends start a business now to compete with Facebook? No I disagree with this. I think at the current time they can.

I think you're overestimating how many people who don't read places like Hacker News actually care about this. But I'll admit I could be wrong on that.

In any case, the reason they might be able to at the current time is the blood in the water from the "reasonable regulations" people.

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