For just a fleeting moment yesterday, wondered if he had the capacity & cojones to cease operations unilaterally.
Shame. A billion couldn't buy that cred.
Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
201–210 of 699 posts
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#202> Now that today's testimony is over, I wanted to reflect on the public debate we're in. I'm sure many of you have found the recent coverage hard to read because it just doesn't reflect the company we know. Yeah, we know you don't know, because you're looking at it from on top of a mountain of 100 billion dollars, Mark. There isn't a single damned thing that can change your picture of it being the absolute greatest t…
> I'm sick of billionaires with megaphones blaring their virtues
As a society, the US has shifted its values from intellectually sound principles, to what ever rich people shout out.
I vomit in my mouth when I see videos of people showing currency, of people talking to you about "doing the hustle", etc etc.
US has fallen into an abyss of moral decline, where the value of your words are directly proportional to the amount of wealth you have managed to gather, no matter the means.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which points made you stop and think
For example: > In fact, in 11 of 12 areas on the slide referenced by the Journal -- including serious areas like loneliness, anxiety, sadness and eating issues -- more teenage girls who said they struggled with that issue also said Instagram made those difficult times better rather than worse. All the reporting has been about how the research found that Instagram was so terrible for teenage girls, but that seems to b…
Is there a link to the actual findings of the study? I feel like that statement is cherry picking, and without context there's not much weight to it.
The ultimate issue here (unless I'm misunderstanding the controversy) is about whether Facebook decided to act on the findings of the study which showed Facebook/Instagram was causing harm to teenagers. This sentence from Zuckerberg seems to be disputing the findings of the study, and implying that everything everyone is saying is wrong and/or a lie (or a "mischaracterization" as you called it)
Zuckerberg has zero credibility in my eyes, so I am inclined to call bullshit on that. But if the actual original study is out there, I might skim through it to see if this is just another one of his lies.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#204I'm having a hard time reconciling all this right now. On the one hand, from the outside, I can see the actions that Facebook takes and they seem awfully guilty of what they are accused of. But on the other hand, I personally know and have previously worked with some of the people who work on trust and safety, specifically for kids. Good people who have kids of their own and who care about protecting people, especial…
I don't think it's an emergent property, I think it's a by-product of the constraints. It's all well and good that they want to make Facebook safe and healthy, and I honestly believe plenty of people working there are trying to do just that. However, they are operating under the constraint that they cannot move backwards on profits, and therefore engagement. Imagine if you were trying to fix climate change, but under…
There is geoengineering! :-)
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#205The quality of this comment section is like Facebook or Reddit level. Practically no deep discussion of the actual topic at hand just dunks on Zuck.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#206They Do Not Want to Weaken Facebook, Just Commandeer its Power to Censor:
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-...
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The real explanation must lie in other aspects of US culture, or the US political system First-past-the-post voting leads to a two party system which leads to more polarization. If you have multiple political parties, polarization can only go so far because there will be centrist groups working against polarization. In the US, there is no force pushing for centrism.
I despise first-past-the-post, but it does not force two party systems. Look at the UK and Canada, who have two parties able to form a government, but multiple viable parties. If you want a culprit, blame the lack of whipping that both US parties do as a matter of political culture. Since you have historically had all these cuckoo crazy subgroups within both parties, it has meant that other parties simply do not have…
First-past-the-post voting is the primary cause in the US. It doesn't automatically result in a two party system everywhere if there are other features of the government that work against it. The biggest reason Canada is different is that they have a parliamentary system that elects their Prime Minister while the US has the Electoral College which elects our President.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The real explanation must lie in other aspects of US culture, or the US political system First-past-the-post voting leads to a two party system which leads to more polarization. If you have multiple political parties, polarization can only go so far because there will be centrist groups working against polarization. In the US, there is no force pushing for centrism.
I agree that this is the likely biggest contributor but it also makes me incredibly sad because I don't see anyway that this is fixed. There is absolutely no way either political party will allow a multi-party system to ever exist.
>There is absolutely no way either political party will allow a multi-party system to ever exist.
I've suspected for a while that the real secret to getting PR/MMP (=> multiparty) in the US is getting the Catholics on board. They're sick of the Trumpists and libertarians in the Republican Party but they'll never support the vehemently pro-choice Democrats. They should be obvious fans of a multiparty movement, and they have the political and media heft to move the needle.
Alas, I'm not Christian and my views are quite a bit left of theirs, so I don't think they'll listen to me. And most PR advocates have more in common with me than with the modal Catholic American.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#209Seriously, as someone who does not use Facebook because I think it is harmful, I think we should put ourselves in his shoes for a second. There is no right way to answer Facebook scale questions, seriously.
What would you do?
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#210Good riddance. Like any tech company, the topic has nuance. FB provides utility, no doubt about it. It's also a massive double-edged sword with nasty trade-offs.
What is finally coming to light through this is the anger that's existed forever with individuals who want to opt out, but can't. Individuals who do not want this moralizing, tone-deaf inevitability projected by Zuck/Sandberg/supporters. Every parent that's had to fight their PTA, citizen that's fought their community group, or parent even countering own parents about wanting to participate in those critical aspects of civic life, but not doing it on Facebook - "no, you can't post a picture of my kid on there." This is putting aside the Q, the DJT, the absurd Hurricane Maria VR tour Zuck took, the "Lean In" paired with insta body shaming....the everything of the last 4+ years.
FB is not some corner of the internet, it's not like privacy/encryption/crypto types you can sort of ignore and leave it at that. It wormed its way into so many aspects of life, and the only way to live a "normal" life and avoid it is to be sort of an abrasive a-hole to people you love. I'm so glad this anger is finally getting a voice. If this turns south, the company has what's coming to it.