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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

#121

Post by repolfx »

raverbashing wrote: post #111
repolfx wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's both. Verhofstadt is a full-blown European federalist (people who want Europe to be united under a single government and single flag). The fortunes of that dream have not been good lately, and he's looking for people to blame that aren't people like himself. I find it pathetic. Verhofstadt and people like him are one of the things that turned me off the EU and turned me into a Brexit voter. They routinely descri…

While you're not wrong in spirit, it seems the current UK government (and its opposition) also downplay the major concerns of people. And I do agree with some of the concerns. (See Corbyn downplaying grooming gangs, antisemitism, etc and see the current gov ignoring the economic impact of Brexit)

Well, Corbyn has been taking a beating because of what he's ignoring. At this point in the electoral cycle Labour should be well ahead of the Conservatives. They should have cleaned up in the last round of council elections. Neither happened, and it's partly because Corbyn is seen as ignoring those sorts of things.

Meanwhile the current government isn't ignoring the economic impact. So far there has been none - the economy is growing and has little spare capacity, if you believe the 4-5% unemployment lower bound. As for future economic impact when the EU inevitably tries to block UK companies and trade, that's pretty much all the Tories are talking about these days. Very much not ignoring it. So I'm not sure I agree that the government is downplaying the concerns of the people.

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

#122

Post by zerostar07 »

TheGrumpyBrit wrote: post #63
kybernetikos wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone who runs a club recently told me he was moving all comms to Facebook because of the GDPR. He says that means that he is not collecting user data only Facebook is and so he doesn't have to worry about GDPR things. This is a bit awkward for me since I don't use Facebook.

He's going to find himself in for a shock. The platform he chooses to store data on is irrelevant, if he's processing that data then GDPR applies.

Nah, he would not be storing any data himself. He s not a processor or a controller.

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

#123

Post by ageek123 »

sparkling wrote: post #89
Roritharr wrote: post #86

What struck me as quite interesting was Guy Verhofstadts sideremarks. >"You have to ask yourself how you will be remembered," he said. "As one of the three big internet giants together with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who have enriched our world and our societies, or on the other hand, the genius that created a digital monster that is destroying our democracies and societies." I imagine you have to talk like this to a…

"Destroying democracies"? Oh please. Im pretty sure the fall of the EU has little to do with Facebook. Maybe these EU officials should look at their own parlament for blame for once. Perhaps stop robbing your people by artificially devaluing your currency, stop the influx of illegal refugees into the welfare states, stop passing silly laws regulating the form of cucumbers etc. - i could go on and on.

The issue isn't the (alleged) "fall" of the EU as much as the fact that the EU (and, to a lesser extent, US Congress) wants to shut down platforms that host content that is not aligned with their political viewpoint. None of this hysteria would be happening if 55,000 fewer Americans had voted for Trump (and thus Clinton won), or about a million people who voted for Leave instead had voted for Remain. The obvious partisanship behind the Facebook frenzy is galling and should negate it on its face.

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

#124

Post by skummetmaelk »

patio11 wrote: post #112
Roritharr wrote: post #86

What struck me as quite interesting was Guy Verhofstadts sideremarks. >"You have to ask yourself how you will be remembered," he said. "As one of the three big internet giants together with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who have enriched our world and our societies, or on the other hand, the genius that created a digital monster that is destroying our democracies and societies." I imagine you have to talk like this to a…

Presumably Zuckerberg has learned the lesson of Bill Gates: Europe periodically discovers a reason to fine American tech companies large-but-relatively-immaterial amounts of money. Then you eventually graduate to being Old Money, and Europe reminisces fondly about you.

What a load of crap.

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

#125

Post by fvdessen »

gambiting wrote: post #93
sparkling wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Destroying democracies"? Oh please. Im pretty sure the fall of the EU has little to do with Facebook. Maybe these EU officials should look at their own parlament for blame for once. Perhaps stop robbing your people by artificially devaluing your currency, stop the influx of illegal refugees into the welfare states, stop passing silly laws regulating the form of cucumbers etc. - i could go on and on.

>>Im pretty sure the fall of the EU has little to do with Facebook Wait, what? EU is doing better than ever and it looks like after Brexit we will enjoy greater integration, and hopefully a full financial and political union in the future. If this is what a "fall" looks like to you, then I don't really know what to say to you - but from the rest of your sentence it seems like you don't like EU as an institution, so I…

Maybe the EU is doing better than ever on some metrics, but I find it quite scary how over the last 20 years, Europe has completely missed the train on technology. We are now in a vassal position where we have to beg foreign CEOs to have some sort of view / control over the technology that runs our society. And it's not getting any better.

GDPR is too little too late, and may even be counterproductive[1]. It would have been vastly preferable to have healthy European competitors to Microsoft / Apple / Google / Facebook. But we don't, and probably will never have.

The situation with Microsoft in the 90's should have made it obvious of what was to come. Our politicians ignored it entirely. They are now making grand statements about democracy that leave me less than impressed.

[1] Some say that GDPR will cement Google / Facebook's advertising monopoly as they are in a much better position to gather data sharing consent from their users than their smaller competitors.

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

#126

Post by zerostar07 »

nodesocket wrote: post #31

How is TechCrunch still making the front page of HN? They are the masters of incendiary and polarizing "news" with the only goal to generate "outrage" and clicks and thus revenue. Hacker News audience still eats it up I guess. Have we not learned anything by exposing the Russian mind-warfare ads that targeted US citizens? They played both-sides, with the goal of polarization, destabilization, and control. The same ca…

TC is fine

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

#127

Post by ageek123 »

mns wrote: post #101
sparkling wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Destroying democracies"? Oh please. Im pretty sure the fall of the EU has little to do with Facebook. Maybe these EU officials should look at their own parlament for blame for once. Perhaps stop robbing your people by artificially devaluing your currency, stop the influx of illegal refugees into the welfare states, stop passing silly laws regulating the form of cucumbers etc. - i could go on and on.

I thought we are on hackernews here, and not some bullshit propaganda spreading site. Can you provide a documented example of devaluing your currency? Can you provide the number of illegal refugees that came to welfare states (can you name those welfare states?), regulating the form of cucumbers? Who are you, Nigel Farage? https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/straight-cucumbers/

> I thought we are on hackernews here, and not some bullshit propaganda spreading site.

I had the same wonder after I read the first few paragraphs of the ridiculous article that this thread is about!

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

#128

Post by plopilop »

patio11 wrote: post #112
Roritharr wrote: post #86

What struck me as quite interesting was Guy Verhofstadts sideremarks. >"You have to ask yourself how you will be remembered," he said. "As one of the three big internet giants together with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who have enriched our world and our societies, or on the other hand, the genius that created a digital monster that is destroying our democracies and societies." I imagine you have to talk like this to a…

Presumably Zuckerberg has learned the lesson of Bill Gates: Europe periodically discovers a reason to fine American tech companies large-but-relatively-immaterial amounts of money. Then you eventually graduate to being Old Money, and Europe reminisces fondly about you.

By large-but-immaterial, do you mean the money escaped via tax fraud and illegal tax cuts?

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

#129

Post by gpvos »

Roritharr wrote: post #86

What struck me as quite interesting was Guy Verhofstadts sideremarks. >"You have to ask yourself how you will be remembered," he said. "As one of the three big internet giants together with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who have enriched our world and our societies, or on the other hand, the genius that created a digital monster that is destroying our democracies and societies." I imagine you have to talk like this to a…

"It's nearly impossible to get someone to understand something when their livelihood depends on them not understanding it." -- someone I forgot

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

#130

Post by jules »

mns wrote: post #101
sparkling wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Destroying democracies"? Oh please. Im pretty sure the fall of the EU has little to do with Facebook. Maybe these EU officials should look at their own parlament for blame for once. Perhaps stop robbing your people by artificially devaluing your currency, stop the influx of illegal refugees into the welfare states, stop passing silly laws regulating the form of cucumbers etc. - i could go on and on.

I thought we are on hackernews here, and not some bullshit propaganda spreading site. Can you provide a documented example of devaluing your currency? Can you provide the number of illegal refugees that came to welfare states (can you name those welfare states?), regulating the form of cucumbers? Who are you, Nigel Farage? https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/straight-cucumbers/

I assume he is referring to the ECBs bond buying program and to the migrant crisis. He is not wrong that this is the source of dislike of the EU and not Facebook. HN is one of the most extreme echo chambers on this topic.
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