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Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content

politico.com

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Re: Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content

#111

Post by mike_hearn »

EasyMark wrote: post #97
mike_hearn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitter's community notes are quite effective but they are simply very low bandwidth That's why they are effective. I review Community Notes sometimes and the right assessment is almost always "no note needed". A lot of attempted CNs are just arguing with the poster's opinion, which belongs in replies. CN is meant to be for correcting cases where something is objectively false or missing critical context, and it do…

If said activists are part of a company that approves of their activities why isn’t their censorship legitimate? Commenters/posters are free to take their comments and posts somewhere else. Why don’t the “censors” get a say on what goes up on their platform?

The activists aren't a part of the company. Facebook outsources fact checking to third parties.

Re: Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content

#112

Post by _heimdall »

andy_ppp wrote: post #109

I wonder if this is coming up just before the election because of the Harris campaign’s suggested policy of capital gains tax on unrealised gains for people who have over $100m in assets? I think this is a great idea personally given what these people are doing to avoid paying tax including taking out loans against their own share portfolios. Worth thinking about what people are willing to do to not pay billions of d…

I'd much prefer seeing us close up the tax loop holes than create an even more complex system.

Taxing unrealized gains will be extremely complex, and given that they aren't allowing us to deduct unrealized losses its a pretty shitty setup for the taxpayer.

We need to drastically simplify our tax code rather than further increase its complexity.

Re: Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content

#113

Post by bitcharmer »

chasd00 wrote: post #46

When the platforms starting censoring during the pandemic and last election cycle I remember saying they better get it right 100% of the time because the moment they get it wrong their credibility is shot. Hear we are. Censorship, beyond what’s required by law, is doomed to fail.

[flagged]

Re: Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content

#115

Post by cempaka »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71
mypastself wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t find the claim about the statement not being political anywhere in the linked article. But there’s this: > Meta’s CEO aired his grievances in a letter Monday to the House Judiciary Committee in response to its investigation into content moderation on online platforms Sounds like he wasn’t the initiator of the discussion, but I may be misreading the paragraph.

And it’s in the news because it’s being made newsworthy, not because it’s new. “A U.S. federal judge,” in 2023 “restricted some agencies and officials of the administration of President Joe Biden from meeting and communicating with social media companies to moderate their content” [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/judge-blocks-us-officials-comm...

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Re: Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content

#116

Post by techostritch »

The thing I'm getting out of this Zuckerberg letter is that we've basically learned nothing. It's a nakedly partisan letter designed to signal to Republicans that he's not taking sides. Which I guess is fine, but I'm thinking about Paul Graham's recent tweet about the next round of social networks being designed to be built in to combat trolling, and it makes me think.

This time there was valid concern about issues like the lab leak theory being censored on social media, I predict in the next crisis, social media will be useless adjacent for almost everything.

Re: Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content

#117

Post by normalaccess »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #59
chasd00 wrote: post #46

When the platforms starting censoring during the pandemic and last election cycle I remember saying they better get it right 100% of the time because the moment they get it wrong their credibility is shot. Hear we are. Censorship, beyond what’s required by law, is doomed to fail.

They were already doing censorship, just for different things - there was never a free for all because that eventually ends up like 4chan which is not advertiser-friendly. So you can lose credibility two ways, one by not doing any censorship because people on the internet will be the worst if you let them. Doing too much censorship is also bad because people don't like that either. Of the big causes of censorship cur…

Commenting on YouTube:

Massive content sites like YouTube have a problem, the owners are a vanishingly small minority when compared to the population. If they ever have a proper public outcry they would lose in an instant. The "Algorithm" and "Automated Systems" are put in place by design to create a buffer in the minds of the people between content creators and staff. That's also why the rules are vague and sometimes randomly applied. When content creators don't know all the rules around what will hurt or help them then they are motivated to be as passive as possible via learned helplessness. A system of random punishment and ever changing rewards will keep people guessing what the "algorithm" wants and what causes strikes. How YouTube operates is a master class in mass manipulation. YouTube MUST randomly abuse people to instill a source-less fear to maintain control.

Further Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_bonding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battered_woman_syndrome

Re: Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content

#118

Post by appplication »

_heimdall wrote: post #112
andy_ppp wrote: post #109

I wonder if this is coming up just before the election because of the Harris campaign’s suggested policy of capital gains tax on unrealised gains for people who have over $100m in assets? I think this is a great idea personally given what these people are doing to avoid paying tax including taking out loans against their own share portfolios. Worth thinking about what people are willing to do to not pay billions of d…

I'd much prefer seeing us close up the tax loop holes than create an even more complex system. Taxing unrealized gains will be extremely complex, and given that they aren't allowing us to deduct unrealized losses its a pretty shitty setup for the taxpayer. We need to drastically simplify our tax code rather than further increase its complexity.

Put simply, people in these brackets don’t need more options for tax breaks.

Re: Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content

#119

Post by Terretta »

andy_ppp wrote: post #109

I wonder if this is coming up just before the election because of the Harris campaign’s suggested policy of capital gains tax on unrealised gains for people who have over $100m in assets? I think this is a great idea personally given what these people are doing to avoid paying tax including taking out loans against their own share portfolios. Worth thinking about what people are willing to do to not pay billions of d…

Do "these people" include entrepreneurs with equity in startups with rapidly increasing value but no way to take money off the table? It doesn't take much to cross "$100m in assets" as a startup, say, $2.5M in revenue at 40x valuation (or $5M at 20x, etc.), even while loss-making.

How should the founders and equity investors in a bootstrapped high growth unicorn that is neither public nor profit-making handle this proposed capital gains tax? Does this mean VC funds would need to set aside arbitrary amounts of cash to cover impossible-to-predict taxes on cap gains during, say, a 7 year window?

It could also make it harder to attract and keep talent, since the earliest stage employees often rely on equity grants as part of their compensation. Does this mean every early stage employee has to have deep enough pockets to cover cap gains tax pre-revenue? And what happens when the company implodes past the look-back for recouping tax overpayment?

It might make sense to focus on closing existing loopholes without creating new burdens and cash flow barriers that could disrupt the innovation and growth ecosystem with unintended second and third order consequences.

---

Edit to add:

It's true that a peeved Wall St donated a fraction to Biden this season relative to the past, and — surely entirely unrelatedly — partnerships and private equity were taken out of the latest incarnation, leaving in publicly traded and the $100M holdings.

If passed, this will be tinkered with, encircling ever more to offset the loopholes inevitably used.

Re: Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content

#120

Post by andy_ppp »

Terretta wrote: post #119
andy_ppp wrote: post #109

I wonder if this is coming up just before the election because of the Harris campaign’s suggested policy of capital gains tax on unrealised gains for people who have over $100m in assets? I think this is a great idea personally given what these people are doing to avoid paying tax including taking out loans against their own share portfolios. Worth thinking about what people are willing to do to not pay billions of d…

Do "these people" include entrepreneurs with equity in startups with rapidly increasing value but no way to take money off the table? It doesn't take much to cross "$100m in assets" as a startup, say, $2.5M in revenue at 40x valuation (or $5M at 20x, etc.), even while loss-making. How should the founders and equity investors in a bootstrapped high growth unicorn that is neither public nor profit-making handle this pr…

> Do "these people" include entrepreneurs with equity in startups

No it doesn’t, you’re arguing using a straw man here. They need to be publicly traded securities to be taxed as I understand it. Also paying taxes is a public good, even if you’re exceptionally wealthy.

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