Why is Zuck's user id "4"? Why isn't he "1"?
Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
321–330 of 699 posts
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#322This was my favorite: “If we wanted to ignore research, why would we create an industry-leading research program to understand these important issues in the first place”
I can't believe his PR handlers let that get out. As someone else said in the comments already, today's testimony wasn't about whether or not Facebook does research, it was about them hiding the results when they didn't support whatever drivel FB marketing puts out about changing the world for the good of all mankind. This is so incredibly on brand for Zuckerberg (and Sandberg). This sort of gaslighting FUD is exactl…
Let's not forget Zuckerberg called his users "dumb f*cks."
But, we're supposed to believe his contempt is gone and he cares now.
If anything his arrogance is probably far higher nowadays than it was before because he has so much power.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#323> then why are we seeing polarization increase in the US while it stays flat or declines in many countries
I wanna see some numbers on this - cause from where I'm sat all I see is countries get more and more polarised, _not less_.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#324> And if social media were as responsible for polarizing society as some people claim, then why are we seeing polarization increase in the US while it stays flat or declines in many countries with just as heavy use of social media around the world? That's a point I've made myself before, and I think there is some truth to it. Social media can't explain the high and increasing degree of US political polarisation, beca…
Is it true that polarization has not increased in other countries? Is there published data on it? Would be interesting to see which countries are experiencing historically high levels of polarization.
NBER have a working paper on this question: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26669/w266...
Their main results are on the page numbered 20 (page 21 of the PDF) – their data shows political polarisation has grown (over the period 1980-2020) in six OECD countries and declined in six OECD countries. The six countries where it is has grown (in order from greatest to smallest growth) are the US, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Canada, and New Zealand. The six countries where it has declined (in order from greatest to smallest decline) are (West) Germany, Sweden, Norway, Britain, Australia and Japan.
They don't have any direct measures of social media use in their source data; the closest things they have are Internet penetration and consumption of online news, but they found no statistically significant correlation between those and polarisation. The only clearly statistically significant correlation they could find was a positive correlation between polarisation of societal elites and that of the general population (p=0.011). They also found a positive correlation between increasing racial diversity and political polarisation which was of borderline statistical significance (p=0.052).
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#325> And if social media were as responsible for polarizing society as some people claim, then why are we seeing polarization increase in the US while it stays flat or declines in many countries with just as heavy use of social media around the world?
History is literally repeating itself. Just like 2016 US elections, he’s denying FB’s role again
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly the point Frances Haugen is making, and it's why this is so different and so much more significant than the other Facebook scandals and leaks in the past. Haugen repeated over and over again her testimony today that Facebook is full of smart, thoughtful, kind, well-intentioned people, and that she has great empathy for them, even Mark Zuckerberg. Her point is that they have created a system of incenti…
"Facebook has created a system of incentives that are inexorably leading to harmful outcomes" Exactly right. The solution baffles me. "Force Facebook to reveal and permit research so we understand the system and fix it" Basically keep the harmful system in place, but pass the reins to an unspecified cabal hiding under the innocuous word "we". Hard pass.
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Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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, especially children. Those same people are protecting their children with $300k+ salaries and buying property in area where they can send their children to Gunn HS. While I empathize with these people the direct opportu…
> Do you they know deep down inside that the only way to fix these things is to hurt Facebook financially? Probably. The crazy thing is that FB has taken steps to improve things in past that also hurt them financially (eg post cambridge analytica) . They just make so much money and so fast that its like 1 or 2 bad quarters and its over. So (1) mark being all powerful means he alone can decide its worth lower profits…
Without all the bullshit facebook is just AOL messanger and a group calandar, they need it
people need to interact with facebook non-stop for it to remain relavant
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#328Earlier 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 thought that a 2 party system means that both parties attempt to occupy the center, because there are so few swing voters.
This. The result is what I call the democratic (small d) wobble. Each party gives just enough to win (in their judgement) and the independents choose.
The result is a wobble left for awhile, then a wobble right.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#329Would Ethiopia be in war now without nowadays radicalization web 'social' platforms?
Its government shut down the Internet several times: officially to save lifes, while oppositors says it's just to perpetuate violence.
We are facing big challenges here, where the danger to arm kids is just a small part.
Re: Statement from Mark Zuckerberg
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is called the Banality of Evil. Look up Hannah Arendt. It is a well established idea.
> It is a well established idea. If by "established" you mean that it's well known, then yes, you're right. If instead you mean that it's agreed-upon or widely accepted, you'd be wrong. There's a lot of great debate / critique, both about how well the phrase actually applied to Adolf Eichmann himself (Arendt was famously only at the trial for like 5 days), and whether evil in general is ever, in fact, all that banal.…
>"Arendt was famously only at the trial for like 5 days..."
Besides David Cesarani's "Becoming Eichmann" book from the mid 2000s where he stated Arendt had "only saw Eichmann in action for four days", are there any other references that support this? I've not been able to find any. Also the "in action" in that context specifically refers to Eichmann's testimony not that amount of time Arendt spent in the court room. I'm not sure how "famous" this is. Elsewhere her correspondance with her former teacher Karl Japsers indicates she was there for 10 weeks. That would be about a third of the 8 month trial.