Live data from Hacker News

Zuckerberg claims regret on caving to White House pressure on content

politico.com

201–210 of 1001 posts

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

#201
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if this leads to decrease of censorship, i m not complaining

Tech billionaires kissing up to the far right isn't going to decrease censorship. Maybe make it more palatable to you.

a coalition that contains RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard and Elon Musk are now far right?

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

#202

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 feel an exchange tax that included loans would probably be a much better approach. Taxing seated/parked assets, especially on the very wealthy seems like a recipe for disaster. So you have to sell, or leverage the property to pay taxes. What would trying to sell billions in stock at once, or leverage hundreds of thousands of rental properties look like to the larger economy, and what would the effect be? Also, who…

I love your consideration for the financial problems of some of the most privileged people in all of human history. I just don’t really care that much if they get a big tax bill (I’m sure they’ll find a way to pay) and for a variety of reasons it will be good for society.

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

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where I really feel my age. Every message board and chatroom (bbs, forums, irc, icq, aol, et all) on the young internet was virtually uncensored and a 100% free for all, yet we all mostly got by. You went to the places you knew to go to. The communities mostly self moderated by kicks/bans. It worked really well. So whats changed? Well, I have my thoughts, but one thing is for sure, as soon as the platform its…

>on the young internet was virtually uncensored and a 100% free for all, yet we all mostly got by boys did. the girls left those spaces (and the internet more generally, until social media became mainstream) because all the public spaces were disgusting, and all the boys sat around posting vulgarity, laughing, and wondering why there were no girls in our online spaces. Those spaces were/are absolutely appalling sausa…

I wonder if that was the secret sauce. Just kidding, I don’t remember that happening at all. There were plenty of girls on the internet back in the day. Maybe not as far back as the 90s but definitely starting 2000. That’s how I met most of them!

That being said, as a male I was on the receiving end of the same kind of garbage back then. I had a guy who was sending my mother very creepy emails with her real information just to screw with me, and this was in 98. It affected me worse than it did her, I thought he was going to ruin my life as a kid. Another guy got my email account deleted when I was 14 because I drew a picture that made fun of his art as a joke. I knew it was him because he emailed me saying he was going to do it.

I still would rather trade this internet for that one. It’s too Orwellian now.

I don’t think it’s correct to claim a sense of victimhood over your sex. Shitty people are going to be a problem for you one way or another.

I also found many more great positive experiences back then with people online than more recently. You had downs but a lot of ups. People you meet online these days tend to be more busy, edgy, creepy, or too arrogant to grace you with acknowledgement. There’s also a noticeable degree of mental illness, which lines up with the statistical trends. Which is fine but you really never know what kind of mental illness it is until it’s too late (can be genuinely dangerous). The good people are around but mostly keep to themselves.

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

#204
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn't this "close" the tax loophole in which holders of tradable assets can take out loans against those assets in perpetuity, never paying taxes on any of it?

Not necessarily, though that is the hope. This wouldn't directly close the loophole, its meant to be attempt to block it without actually closing it.

A huge question I have here is how unrealized gains on nonfinancial assets would be handles. How would the government determine the fair market value of a multimillion dollar mansion, for example?

More broadly, how would we justify only taxing unrealized gains on individuals? Or would this apply to corporations, banks, and financial institutions as well?

My point isn't actually any specific issue in the proposal, these are just examples of what could be a problem. Our tax code is massive and incomprehensible to almost everyone. Adding further caveats and stipulations just makes it worse. Taking an axe to much of the tax code seems like a much more reasonable approach in my book.

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

#205

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.

I've wondered if it wouldn't be better to shift the tax code to bias companies toward paying dividends, as used to be more universal among profitable firms. Then the shareholders will have the appropriate progressive income tax bracket applied.

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

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. If you look at every attempt to create "The Uncensored Free Speech Version Of [ANY_SERVICE]," they all, inevitably turned into a 4chan-like trashfire. You've got to have some kind of moderation.

This is where I really feel my age. Every message board and chatroom (bbs, forums, irc, icq, aol, et all) on the young internet was virtually uncensored and a 100% free for all, yet we all mostly got by. You went to the places you knew to go to. The communities mostly self moderated by kicks/bans. It worked really well. So whats changed? Well, I have my thoughts, but one thing is for sure, as soon as the platform its…

> young internet was virtually uncensored and a 100% free for all > The communities mostly self moderated by kicks/bans.

Kicking people off was and still is censorship and moderation. Services really try hard to not kick people off now and just police the content instead.

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

#207

[flagged]

Please look up what "fascism" means, it will improve the discussion. Don't get me wrong, you have the right to say what you want, even if it is wrong. But I guess it is not so much about saying what we want anyway but meaning what we want, isn't it?

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

#208
post #30

Bet he'll do it again. "This time it's different." Assuming the man has any principles at all, he already demonstrated his willingness to violate them. He'll do it again.

There is zero doubt at this point about Zuckerberg's principles. He has none. He hasn't even stayed consistent on anti-Semitism, which you'd think would be close to his heart. I will also say, to be fair, that none of the other influential billionaires in the tech world (PayPal Mafia, Jack Dorsey, Andreesen, Horowitz, etc.) seem to have consistent principles either.

To be fair, consistency can also be called stubbornness. It depends on how you slice things, but growing and changing your mind as new data comes in is not a bad thing.

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

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems like DNC party policies always move in the direction of what improves the job market for lawyers and bureaucrats. More complex legal code, more complex maneuvers to get around it. Tax and finance lawyers for the wealthy are going to see a salary bump if this law passes.

I don't actually see it as a left/right or DNC/RNC decide. The policies often look different on the surface, but in the US today both sides of either "divide" lean heavily into increasing federal authority and regulation.

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

#210

[flagged]

> The Hunter Biden "story" was merely revenge porn of a private citizen gained by hacking a private laptop, they were right to censor it, they would do so for any other private citizen

But this wasn't their stated reason for it. They claimed it was "Russian propaganda" or a fabricated story knowing full well it was not. Then they try and gaslight you into thinking they did the censorship for principled reasons rather than a cynical ploy to hold onto power. Some people fall for it, others learn not to trust those who consistently lie about their manipulative behavior.

Post reply on HN