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Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

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Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#51

Post by Cthulhu_ »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #26
Y_Y wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least the format and the fact that a lot of the time was taken up asking long-winded questions was the fault of the European Parliament and not Zuck personally. Of course the idea that you can just drag the CEO up to account for whatever grievances you have against the company and hope to get anything out of it seems a bit misguided to me. Looks like more of a PR exercise.

> Of course the idea that you can just drag the CEO up to account for whatever grievances you have against the company and hope to get anything out of it seems a bit misguided to me. Well, we have to restore the long-forgotten idea of responsibility. The CEO is legally responsible for any wrongdoings of the company. He should also be morally responsible for all unethical activities. But Zuck's defense strategy so far…

That's because the ethics of what Facebook (and by extension, all online companies) do is a relatively new question and business model. Morally questionable maybe, but it's taken e.g. the EU over ten years to finally start realizing what's going on - bit too late if you ask me. Moral grey area, and legally anything happening to actual Facebook users - who agreed to the terms & conditions - is fine.

The non-facebook users (and by extension, anyone being picked up by any analytics tooling or other 3rd party) is a different matter however.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#52

Post by Vinnl »

ericdykstra wrote: post #21

If anything, this kind of regulation helps companies like Facebook keep their "monopoly", because it raises the monetary cost of starting a competitor. A number of smaller services and games have shut down due to increased cost of compliance, even for companies that don't have any privacy issues.

The regulation, after all, did not have as a goal to break up monopolies, but to protect user data.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#53

Post by siberianbear »

teekert wrote: post #12

Well, he made one friend [0], poor lady. [0] https://twitter.com/ceciliawikstrom/status/99898468946035916...

I feel much more sorry for the citizens of Sweden than I do for that "poor lady" who made a point of looking like Zuckerburg's tool. If Cecilia Wikström was my elected representative, I'd start investigating how to expatriate.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#54

Post by askvictor »

adrianN wrote: post #22
ericdykstra wrote: post #21

If anything, this kind of regulation helps companies like Facebook keep their "monopoly", because it raises the monetary cost of starting a competitor. A number of smaller services and games have shut down due to increased cost of compliance, even for companies that don't have any privacy issues.

What alternative do you propose? The free market obviously fails to address privacy issues, I don't see how anything besides stricter regulation can help the affected people here.

Thinking on the run here, but: the reason big companies have an advantage here is that they grew big before regulations, and their current size can deal with the regulations easily; while small companies don't have the resources to deal with the regulations. So how about a levy on these larger companies that goes straight to small companies to help with the regulatory burden of such regulations?

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#55

Post by thebradbain »

If worst comes to worst and EU tries to break up Facebook — and it seems likely they might — what would be Facebook’s best path forward?

Theoretically, would it send a stronger signal to US regulators if Facebook simply shut down all operation in the EU? A pop up message to all EU citizens along the lines of “You may no longer access Facebook from within the EU due to X Y and Z from your government. As such, all of your data is unavailable for download and no longer subject to GDPR privacy regulations.” Would that be safer for Facebook in protecting its child companies (which presumably make up a large part of its value) in the US as an effective way to grandstand? Eventually the EU would have to come up with a compromise solution then, too, right? I can’t imagine everyday citizens being happy with the EU if they perceive they’ve blocked them from Facebook.

I’m not saying I would be on Facebook’s side (I definitely wouldn’t), but the sheer scale of Facebook as a global company makes me question the effectiveness of current antitrust law.

I’ve never seen a trade war between a company and a government. And I don’t want to.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#56

Post by toomanybeersies »

ericdykstra wrote: post #21

If anything, this kind of regulation helps companies like Facebook keep their "monopoly", because it raises the monetary cost of starting a competitor. A number of smaller services and games have shut down due to increased cost of compliance, even for companies that don't have any privacy issues.

I think that's only a temporary thing.

If people actually start writing software from ground up where it's easy to handle GDPR requirements, such as user deletion, giving users access to their data, etc., then it shouldn't be hard to start compliant and stay compliant.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#57

Post by scaryclam »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #36
weinzierl wrote: post #19

Most press I’ve read so far in Europe is largely neutral or positive about Zuckerberg but very negative about the procedings, the parliament and conduct of the representatives. This is unusual but in my option justified. Here is one particularly devastating article (Google Translate): https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...

Looking at the Dutch media it's the complete opposite of what you say. It's mostly about Zuckerberg not saying much, to the frustration of the members of parliament.

Same here in the UK. Nothing positive about Zuckerberg so far, so I'm not sure what media the parent is reading.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#58

Post by stfwn »

Y_Y wrote: post #9
zaarn wrote: post #2

From what I gathered on news sources, most of the (german) MEPs are extremely pissed at Zuckerberg in regards to the question answered, the format of the Q&A and the refusal to livestream a real Q&A. He brought up the question about FB's monopoly on the market, stating that there are plenty of competitor products ("we might have a monopoly on cars but there are still planes, bikes and walking!"). Zuck didn't make fri…

At least the format and the fact that a lot of the time was taken up asking long-winded questions was the fault of the European Parliament and not Zuck personally. Of course the idea that you can just drag the CEO up to account for whatever grievances you have against the company and hope to get anything out of it seems a bit misguided to me. Looks like more of a PR exercise.

And a bad one at that. The first question I heard when I put on the livestream was something along the lines of: "answer yes or no to the following questions! (...) Will Facebook delete all fake accounts before $date and prevent all new ones from being created?", with the MEP putting on a stern look.

Zuckerberg is smart enough to show up and pretend to get a verbal beating, but I wish he would just point out to the governing bodies that if they want something they should pass laws. The GDPR is a start, but Facebook is not in the business of selling data under the table. They will get the consent they need and I'd be surprised if the percentage of users that make use of their right of access and to be forgotten is relevant to them.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#59

Post by Majestic121 »

weinzierl wrote: post #19

Most press I’ve read so far in Europe is largely neutral or positive about Zuckerberg but very negative about the procedings, the parliament and conduct of the representatives. This is unusual but in my option justified. Here is one particularly devastating article (Google Translate): https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...

I don't know about that, French media at least seems to point out a lot how empty Zuckerberg answers were, and indeed criticizing the format of the session.

But deputies are painted as informed and not mincing their words, which is exactly what I would expect of my deputy.

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