The Mark Zuckerberg Is a Lot Less Impressive Than the Movie Version • Hacker News Board

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Is a Lot Less Impressive Than the Movie Version

#21

Post by signal11 » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 11:23 AM UTC

ohduran wrote: post #12

patio11 wrote: post #4

Movie dialogue is scored on being interesting but there are a lot of interesting responses to Congressional inquiry, including interesting and true responses, which pessimize for your tactical or strategic goals. They also plausibly pessimize for Congress' goals. If you wanted to learn when Zuckerberg learned of a topic, you could send him a letter, and he would check his notes and send you a letter, and then you wou…

Congressional inquiries haven't been about finding truth since TV was invented. They are a platform for the parties involved to signal their positions. MZ is talking to his investors, AOC to her constituents. My point is: there is no conversation going on. Just people talking.

This is very true -- there are also echoes of how politicians prepare talking points in response to journalists' questions these days. The person being quizzed isn't actually prepared to answer questions, they come prepared with a set of themes to talk about and will seek to massage their answer to almost any question to one of those prepared themes.

The other interesting thing specifically about televised Congressional hearings is that Congresspeople have very little time -- AOC had 5 minutes, if I recollect correctly. This gives the person being grilled an advantage -- by simply taking his time with his answers he can run down the clock and be done with AOC's questions.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Is a Lot Less Impressive Than the Movie Version

#22

Post by codetrotter » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 11:24 AM UTC

bertil wrote: post #19

carloswilson wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate that answering questions in a grilling interview is more difficult than asking questions, but ... > “You don’t know? This was the largest data scandal with respect to your company, that had catastrophic impacts on the 2016 election. You don’t know?” ... but at the same time, I would certainly expect the chairman and CEO of a company to be more prepared to answer these difficult questions than what is rep…

> This was one of the biggest scams related to Facebook. It actually wasn’t but no one will listen to people familiar with what happened.

Please elaborate.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Is a Lot Less Impressive Than the Movie Version

#23

Post by chrisweekly » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 11:33 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #4

Movie dialogue is scored on being interesting but there are a lot of interesting responses to Congressional inquiry, including interesting and true responses, which pessimize for your tactical or strategic goals. They also plausibly pessimize for Congress' goals. If you wanted to learn when Zuckerberg learned of a topic, you could send him a letter, and he would check his notes and send you a letter, and then you wou…

"pessimize"?

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Is a Lot Less Impressive Than the Movie Version

#24

Post by iagovar » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 11:35 AM UTC

carloswilson wrote: post #10

davidhyde wrote: post #5

Preparing and asking a bunch of interview questions is a lot easier than being on the receiving end and having to think though the legal ramifications about what you’re about to answer. Contrasting the slickness of the interviewer with the interviewee and drawing conclusions based on that is not accurate.

I appreciate that answering questions in a grilling interview is more difficult than asking questions, but ... > “You don’t know? This was the largest data scandal with respect to your company, that had catastrophic impacts on the 2016 election. You don’t know?” ... but at the same time, I would certainly expect the chairman and CEO of a company to be more prepared to answer these difficult questions than what is rep…

I've worked in marketing for an Agency. If Facebook had to check everything we did, they'd really had a hard time. We had multiple clients with multiple banners with multiple landing pages and all of this with a software rotating stuff with A/B tests and regressions. If a political party came to hire us, I'm sure we'll do it. This was in Spain, so I guess that there will be a lot more companies doing this in the US.

Checking all of this within an acceptable timeframe for advertisers requires a lot of labor. That comes with another wide set of problems. Loosy boundaries, arbitrary bans, increased cost of ads etc etc. I have no special sympathy for Facebook, but we have to understand that this is a really hard problem to solve, and maybe there won't be any solution that satisfies the public.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Is a Lot Less Impressive Than the Movie Version

#25

Post by lifestyleguru » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 11:37 AM UTC

I have to admit that there was something surreal in the short videos of hearing I saw on the internet. Congressmen/women, people of power, whom we stereotype as poker-faced, cynical, and manipulative, having people-like problems - e.g. "my granddaughter played with a mobile phone and then some creepily relevant ads started to appear", against a youngster without any formal power who cuts them off with laconic responses.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Is a Lot Less Impressive Than the Movie Version

#26

Post by Nasrudith » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 11:37 AM UTC

carloswilson wrote: post #10

davidhyde wrote: post #5

Preparing and asking a bunch of interview questions is a lot easier than being on the receiving end and having to think though the legal ramifications about what you’re about to answer. Contrasting the slickness of the interviewer with the interviewee and drawing conclusions based on that is not accurate.

I appreciate that answering questions in a grilling interview is more difficult than asking questions, but ... > “You don’t know? This was the largest data scandal with respect to your company, that had catastrophic impacts on the 2016 election. You don’t know?” ... but at the same time, I would certainly expect the chairman and CEO of a company to be more prepared to answer these difficult questions than what is rep…

Have you seen or heard of the Night Trap hearings? They refused to hear answers to accusations of lurid content that "wasn't even remotely in the goddamn game".

The have proven that they will refuse to listen to any answer that they can't grandstand about. I think Zuckerberg and Facebook is shady as hell and even I feel sympathy for him here and suspect he may be drugging himself to not snap at the hours of stupid and dishonest questions. Since it wouldn't be good for the company long term to make enemies by shaming them during their grandstand hours with many choice lines.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Is a Lot Less Impressive Than the Movie Version

#27

Post by lotsofpulp » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 11:41 AM UTC

signal11 wrote: post #21

ohduran wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congressional inquiries haven't been about finding truth since TV was invented. They are a platform for the parties involved to signal their positions. MZ is talking to his investors, AOC to her constituents. My point is: there is no conversation going on. Just people talking.

This is very true -- there are also echoes of how politicians prepare talking points in response to journalists' questions these days. The person being quizzed isn't actually prepared to answer questions, they come prepared with a set of themes to talk about and will seek to massage their answer to almost any question to one of those prepared themes. The other interesting thing specifically about televised Congressio…

The whole "grilling" format is just publicity for politicians. If they were really interested in answers, they would send an email and get a response back, and if they didn't they'd send a subpoena or start court proceedings.

And if they really wanted to do something, they would pass legislation. But of course, you can't do that and get paid by lobbyists and/or get favors from businesses at the same time. This grilling format solves all interests. Politicians get to look like they're doing something, many gullible voters think the politicians are doing something, and the businesses being looked into get to look like there is something being done about them.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Is a Lot Less Impressive Than the Movie Version

#28

Post by toddmorey » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 11:47 AM UTC

“No one had any doubts who the adult in the room was Wednesday,” ends the article. Right before the promoted content “This deadly sex habit is killing seniors!”

I know that’s a bit off topic, but does speak towards the current environment of not just Facebook, but the entire internet.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Is a Lot Less Impressive Than the Movie Version

#29

Post by ThomPete » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 11:48 AM UTC

carloswilson wrote: post #10

davidhyde wrote: post #5

Preparing and asking a bunch of interview questions is a lot easier than being on the receiving end and having to think though the legal ramifications about what you’re about to answer. Contrasting the slickness of the interviewer with the interviewee and drawing conclusions based on that is not accurate.

I appreciate that answering questions in a grilling interview is more difficult than asking questions, but ... > “You don’t know? This was the largest data scandal with respect to your company, that had catastrophic impacts on the 2016 election. You don’t know?” ... but at the same time, I would certainly expect the chairman and CEO of a company to be more prepared to answer these difficult questions than what is rep…

I think there is something else going on here.

Claiming that Cambridge Analytica had a catastrophic impact on the 2016 election. It's hard to know what to answer to such a thing.

If you get into a debate with her on whether her completely unproven claim is true or false you are guilty, if you try to avoid it you are basically saying she is right and are guilty.

This kind of questioning only works because it's not a courtroom. This would never be allowed as an actual question.

Re: The Mark Zuckerberg Is a Lot Less Impressive Than the Movie Version

#30

Post by DrScientist » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 11:52 AM UTC

iagovar wrote: post #24

carloswilson wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate that answering questions in a grilling interview is more difficult than asking questions, but ... > “You don’t know? This was the largest data scandal with respect to your company, that had catastrophic impacts on the 2016 election. You don’t know?” ... but at the same time, I would certainly expect the chairman and CEO of a company to be more prepared to answer these difficult questions than what is rep…

I've worked in marketing for an Agency. If Facebook had to check everything we did, they'd really had a hard time. We had multiple clients with multiple banners with multiple landing pages and all of this with a software rotating stuff with A/B tests and regressions. If a political party came to hire us, I'm sure we'll do it. This was in Spain, so I guess that there will be a lot more companies doing this in the US.…

Exactly.

Facebook et all grew on the fact that they could automate the process - but in reality they have only automated part of it - the easy part of taking the money and placing the ad - not checking the content.

If they can't check the content in an automated way ( very hard because people will be actively working against you ) and the remedy is to have an army of people checking content then their competitive edge over the traditional business model largely disappears.

The other way to fix this - which I'd imagine Facebook and Google might want to push - is to put the responsibility onto the generator of the content. Google and Facebook could easily help automate the the shifting of responsibility if everyone is identifiable.

Imagine the CASE act - but automated for everyone who breaches copyright on youtube... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/house-votes-favor-disa...

That would be like a newspaper not taking responsibility for a story being wrong - simply passing the legal blame onto a source - while there is some justice here as the source has a responsibility also, it is ignoring the fact that the platforms play a role in placing and promoting the content.