Mark Zuckerberg still doesn't get it • Hacker News Board

Re: Mark Zuckerberg still doesn't get it

#51

Post by willis936 » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #50

willis936 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this somehow isn’t evidence of the effectiveness of undisclosed campaigns based around lies presented as truth? All Clinton did wrong was not involve foreign governments to operate guerrilla smear campaigns. Oh wait. That isn’t wrong. What are you arguing in favor of again?

Clinton not winning the election isn’t proof of Russian interference.

It isn’t not proof either. It seems rather strange to posit that dollars spent is the only factor dictating the effectiveness of marketing.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg still doesn't get it

#52

Post by jakelazaroff » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #33

jakelazaroff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's been no proof whatsoever that Russia had any impact via FB on the 2016 election. This is false. Facebook themselves announced that Russia spent $100,000 on ads aimed at U.S. voters. Posts from six Russian propaganda accounts were shared hundreds of millions of times. [1] Effort doesn't equal impact, I suppose, but there's no way of proving the latter and the former is still extremely disturbing. [1] https:/…

I don't find $100k ad spend on FB disturbing at all, that's not even minuscule. As we both said, there was no measurable impact. To put things in perspective Clinton raised $1.2B for her campaign. I find that much more disturbing than $100k spent on memes. https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidentia...

You are framing my words as if I'm saying that the impact of Russian advertising was so small as to be immeasurable, when I'm saying the opposite: it's not measurable so we don't know how large it is. And we're just going to skip over the Russian propaganda that wasn't use paid advertising?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg still doesn't get it

#53

Post by dimator » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #33

jakelazaroff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's been no proof whatsoever that Russia had any impact via FB on the 2016 election. This is false. Facebook themselves announced that Russia spent $100,000 on ads aimed at U.S. voters. Posts from six Russian propaganda accounts were shared hundreds of millions of times. [1] Effort doesn't equal impact, I suppose, but there's no way of proving the latter and the former is still extremely disturbing. [1] https:/…

I don't find $100k ad spend on FB disturbing at all, that's not even minuscule. As we both said, there was no measurable impact. To put things in perspective Clinton raised $1.2B for her campaign. I find that much more disturbing than $100k spent on memes. https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidentia...

Just by way of example, operation Ajax cost "$100,000 to $20 million." Surely this is not a lot of money compared to what Iran could have spent against it, but it was effective nonetheless. The point being that precision spending is more effective comparatively. You're stuck on the dollar amount while ignoring its precision and network effect.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg still doesn't get it

#54

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

cobweb2 wrote: post #8

wnmurphy wrote: post #4

Facebook was used in 2016 by the Kremlin for disinformation warfare with the express purpose of swaying the results of our presidential election. Facebook recently adopted an official policy that they will not remove political ads which are blatantly, demonstrably false. This policy was drafted by Katie Harbath, Facebook's Public Policy Director of Global Elections, who was previously Chief Digital Strategist for the…

Are you not beginning to struggle with the contradictions of your political ideas? You want a central authority to ban the spread of "blatantly false" ideas that you fear may cause plebians to vote the wrong way, yet you support affording plebians with the full right to vote? Would it not be simpler to bans plebians from voting, and therefore remove your worry entirely that they may vote the wrong way when hearing "b…

[deleted]

Re: Mark Zuckerberg still doesn't get it

#55

Post by yousajoe » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #47

yousajoe wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Facebook was used in 2016 by the Kremlin for disinformation warfare with the express purpose of swaying the results of our presidential election As if a $100k ad buy [1] will sway voters. $100K is insignificant for social media ad spend and won't influence anything and marketers knows this, but the masses do not. Both candidates spent $81 Million on facebook ads [3] and $100K is a joke representing 0.05 of ad-spend.…

If Russia was really able to have significant influence with $100k vs $81M the techniques they used could be studied and duplicated. Every startup would love to have marketing that effective. The truth is it had no measurable effect exactly as you’d expect.

this is not a popular opinion with people who's heard their political party and media outlets constantly repeat the same thing over and over for years.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg still doesn't get it

#56

Post by pbreit » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #17

cobweb2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not beginning to struggle with the contradictions of your political ideas? You want a central authority to ban the spread of "blatantly false" ideas that you fear may cause plebians to vote the wrong way, yet you support affording plebians with the full right to vote? Would it not be simpler to bans plebians from voting, and therefore remove your worry entirely that they may vote the wrong way when hearing "b…

We are being attacked with foreign propaganda by our long-term enemies. They are succeeding in destroying our position on the world stage. It's not something that can be turned a blind eye to under the guise of free speech (which it isn't).

Are they really a long time enemy? They were a core ally in the 40s. We operate a space station together. Did they really “attack” us by purchasing a few ads supporting the candidate most of us (outside California) voted for? It’s an extremely difficult argument that Russia had an impact on election.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg still doesn't get it

#57

Post by deepakhj » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #47

yousajoe wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Facebook was used in 2016 by the Kremlin for disinformation warfare with the express purpose of swaying the results of our presidential election As if a $100k ad buy [1] will sway voters. $100K is insignificant for social media ad spend and won't influence anything and marketers knows this, but the masses do not. Both candidates spent $81 Million on facebook ads [3] and $100K is a joke representing 0.05 of ad-spend.…

If Russia was really able to have significant influence with $100k vs $81M the techniques they used could be studied and duplicated. Every startup would love to have marketing that effective. The truth is it had no measurable effect exactly as you’d expect.

You’re repeating the same thing in multiple threads. The fact is Russian interference had an effect on the election.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/08/biparti...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg still doesn't get it

#58

Post by zachguo » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

Polarization and misinformation are inherent flaws of free speech, the advents of cable TVs and internet only amplified them.

But you don't need to act like the Politburo of the Communist Party to fix them. There may be solutions without fundamentally underming the value.

How about teaching kids critical thinking and how to differentiate misinformation in schools? https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/how-finland-is-fighti...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg still doesn't get it

#59

Post by aeturnum » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 6:06 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #43

aeturnum wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your comment and Zuckerberg’s framing of the issue hides the ball in a way that appears dishonest, though I do not think that is your intent. For instance, what do you mean by this?: > But I do think that any cure will be worse than the disease Because it all depends on what "cure" and "disease" mean, right? Free speech is good is blithe and techno-utopian in the sense that it makes a blanket statement that r…

How could you possibly ever accuse a website of being “used for ethnic cleansing”?

To answer your question directly: if groups engage in ethnic cleansing use a website to plan, coordinate or communicate about how and where to carry out their actions, they are using a website for ethnic cleansing.

I encourage you to look into the situation in Myanmar: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg still doesn't get it

#60

Post by chrismcb » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 6:06 PM UTC

leftyted wrote: post #3

"Free speech is good" is not a "blithe techno-utopian narrative". The internet makes people uncomfortable because it lives somewhere in between the realm of public discourse (heavily regulated) and private discourse (mostly unregulated). On the internet, these realms mix, and people (especially in the press) have a hard time sorting out which is which. I don't know if "free speech is good" or if it "leads inexorably…

Free speech is the cornerstone to a free society. You can't have freedom without free speech. Free speech is good, and everyone should strive to keep speech free.