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

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

#71

Post by roenxi »

nicoburns wrote: post #60
roenxi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having watched quite a bit of parliamentary footage, the style of question that can be asked could reasonably include such curly ones as "Research suggests that Facebook harms the mental development of adolescents. Did you stop to think about the potential damage to teenage girls when you were crafting your extractive corporate empire?" Now in theory someone asked that could answer without accidentally agreeing that…

> Now in theory someone asked that could answer without accidentally agreeing that their company is extractive/they are harming young girls/they are recklessly not considering the impacts of their work. The right answer to this question is to accept that the company is extracting / harming people. And admit that they didn't stop to think about that when they were building it. That's understandable - they had no idea…

> The right answer to this question is to accept that the company is extracting / harming people.

If the answer is predetermined and known it isn't a question. It is some sort of formal whipping and there is no point giving any answer.

From the peanut gallery it is plausible that Facebook is a net win or a net loss for adolescents and it is possible that the company has a staff psychologist who has actually thought about its impacts. That question is so hard to answer in the negative I seem to have 2 people answering in this comment chain as though the frame is obviously correct and Zuckerberg needs to answer yes then atone for his sins. Public hearings are not the place to engage with these sorts of questions (there might be consequences if he makes a mistake in his answers).

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

#72

Post by [deleted] »

lonelappde wrote: post #54
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.

It's not symmetric, though. The congresspeople are there to stir trouble, and the CEO is there to dodge it. For all of Zuck's misdeeds (or those of anyone dragged in), at a congressional hearing, the participant is a victim of a punishment, not an agent of their agenda.

[deleted]

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

#73

Post by bertil »

Traster wrote: post #46
bertil wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no clear separation of “political ads”: - candidates can be serious or not so much, but it’s unclear where the line is between the GOP and Vermin Supreme. - PACs represent the bulk of “political” spending: it’s also unclear where you set the line there; clear attack ads are not the same as a more generic charity defending the environment and supporting a candidate; you can’t ban one without banning the other,…

>- PACs represent the bulk of “political” spending: it’s also unclear where you set the line there; clear attack ads are not the same as a more generic charity defending the environment and supporting a candidate; you can’t ban one without banning the other, or you have to define clear rules that allow “Vote for a candidate that supports your values” but not anything more specific, where using the same symbol, colour…

You would think so but tell that to anyone advertising to say, for instance, that Greta Thunberg is right or selling t-shirts insulting Trump and they'll be outraged--claiming that this is not political but essential.

More generally, you would see a lot of people unwilling to provide documentation that they are not a 527, or a foreign entity.

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

#74

Post by ThomPete »

Udik wrote: post #50
ThomPete wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

> Claiming that Cambridge Analytica had a catastrophic impact on the 2016 election. It's hard to know what to answer to such a thing. "Congresswoman, half of this country thinks that your statement about the impact of Cambridge Analytica in the last election is factually false. In case you wanted to publish an ad that mentioned it, should Facebook reject it?"

That would expose him for not taking responsibility.

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

#75

Post by fungicide »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #62
seanwilson wrote: post #53

I agree his answers about why political ads shouldn't be fact checked weren't good, but I found some of these "zinger" clips on Twitter really silly. > Mr. Zuckerberg, what year and month did you personally first become aware of Cambridge Analytica?” Unless I missed that the hearing was highly related to this, why would he remember this exact date offhand? You'd be better declining to answer this question than guess…

> Unless I missed that the hearing was highly related to this, why would he remember this exact date offhand? Because it is one of the biggest scandals affecting Facebook in probably its entire history, and he's been grilled about it before? You'd think that once they found out his staff and advisors would make sure to tell him every single detail about it. Likewise, it should be the thing that occupies him for month…

Fun fact: The "oid" suffix in factoid means "like", or "resembling". So a factoid is not a true fact, but a statement resembling a fact. The word "factoid" was coined by Norman Mailer to mean "an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print." So it is a source of great irony that the meaning of the word has been inverted by the press to mean a trivial but true fact. Historians of the future may have a fun time trying to figure out if our factoids are a true fact that we consider trivial, or a fact that we know is false but is believed to be true.

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

#76

Post by randallsquared »

criddell wrote: post #56
roenxi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having watched quite a bit of parliamentary footage, the style of question that can be asked could reasonably include such curly ones as "Research suggests that Facebook harms the mental development of adolescents. Did you stop to think about the potential damage to teenage girls when you were crafting your extractive corporate empire?" Now in theory someone asked that could answer without accidentally agreeing that…

> without accidentally agreeing that their company is [...] I'm saying maybe Zuckerberg should acknowledge the nature of his company. Then openly try to fix it.

The example question may have fallen too close to actual beliefs to be properly illustrative. If you mentally substitute something that you believe Facebook is not doing which would definitely be harmful, the "no short, truthful answer" result may be clearer.

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

#77

Post by specialist »

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…

Public meetings are performance art. Town halls, hearings, Q&As, etc. Good ones are scripted, controlled.

All the discovery, negotiation happens beforehand. The testimony and whatever votes occur are kabuki.

As a citizen with a little bit of experience, I now enthusiastically support how the game works. How else could it work? I've seen what happens when yahoos or saboteurs are allowed to take the dialog off script.

As an activist, I was once allowed to speak unscripted. The body suspended the rules to allow my testimony. What harm could be done? I revealed evidence that spiked the appropriation under consideration. (Vendor receiving the contract was actually out of business.) Whoops! Made the local news.

Neither side made that mistake again.

I now have a much greater appreciation for lobbying, engaging sympathetic representatives (or more likely, their staff) face-to-face, long before any decisions are made.

I'm by no means an expert in these things. So don't base your actions on my experiences.

FWIW, A similar exchange, Feynman's revelation about the O-rings failing leading to the lose of the Challenger and it's crew, is related in Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr Feynman.

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

#78

Post by criddell »

mattferderer wrote: post #64
roenxi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having watched quite a bit of parliamentary footage, the style of question that can be asked could reasonably include such curly ones as "Research suggests that Facebook harms the mental development of adolescents. Did you stop to think about the potential damage to teenage girls when you were crafting your extractive corporate empire?" Now in theory someone asked that could answer without accidentally agreeing that…

Is it just me or do yes/no questions that don't allow a response make the person asking the question look even worse than the person replying? If the person doesn't answer the question, go ahead & berate them. Just don't expect a complicated question to be answered with a simple yes/no. Likewise it's terrible to judge a politician based on their yes/no voting record without understanding why they voted for/against so…

Most of the time it seems like a question is complicated only if you realize that what you are doing is wrong, but it makes you a lot of money so you don't want to change.

One example, Ocasio-Cortez asked: Can a politician lie about Election Day on a Facebook ad?

The answer is clearly yes. It isn't complicated.

Or this one: Does Facebook see a problem with its lack of fact-checking capabilities?

How can the answer to this be anything except yes?

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

#79

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

roenxi wrote: post #71
nicoburns wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now in theory someone asked that could answer without accidentally agreeing that their company is extractive/they are harming young girls/they are recklessly not considering the impacts of their work. The right answer to this question is to accept that the company is extracting / harming people. And admit that they didn't stop to think about that when they were building it. That's understandable - they had no idea…

> The right answer to this question is to accept that the company is extracting / harming people. If the answer is predetermined and known it isn't a question. It is some sort of formal whipping and there is no point giving any answer. From the peanut gallery it is plausible that Facebook is a net win or a net loss for adolescents and it is possible that the company has a staff psychologist who has actually thought a…

I haven’t seen any studies showing Facebook is a net win for anyone. But I search pubmed and see page after page showing it actively harms those that use it. A close analog is the literature for tobacco smoking.

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

#80

Post by bigred100 »

toddmorey wrote: post #28

“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.

Not sure how much the idea makes sense, but these days I feel that rather than education, looks, status, etc. being the rare and difficult-to-attain markers or benefits of being of a higher class, being a generally sane person with a coherent worldview and some degree of emotional control is.
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