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Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

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Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#71

Post by samstave »

rayiner wrote: post #28
zachrose wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just because Zuckerburg has personal wealth. It's also because Facebook directly employs thousands of people, pays corporate taxes, enables new markets that rely on Facebook, and sells advertising to all those other corporations. His age has nothing to do with it.

"It's also because [] directly employs thousands of people, pays corporate taxes, enables new markets that rely on []..." Insert {Halliburton, Exxon, AT&T, Comcast, BP, etc} into those brackets and you'll get a much better idea of the nature of political influence and lobbying in the U.S. This is why I think all the bluster around Citizens United and the influence of money in politics is overblown. Because at the end…

Unless i am beng obtuse; i think youre missing the point:

Its not that any of these large companies should not have some influence; the problem is that having shit-tons of money is the seemingly only requisite to have ANY influence in government currently.

The term "oligarchy" has real and important meaning.

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#72

Post by cottonseed »

nostromo wrote: post #49
aaron-lebo wrote: post #21

I'm sorry, coming from Zuck, this statement means very little to me. I guess I'm old school, but Zuck has shown disdain for the privacy of users in the past, FB actively tracks the movement of users across the net (likely without many realizing), and I'm under the impression that this culture that emphasizes sharing every fucking thing is more dangerous to people than the US government trying to get at data that they…

I'm more afraid of government than private industry. Facebook will never have a Gitmo. It'll never send someone to a torture camp in Egypt. It'll never invade a country. It'll never confiscate property. It'll never put someone on the no-fly list. It'll never harass you at the border. Yes, we should be openly critical of powerful corporations. But the downsides of misguided governance are much worse than even the most…

It will never lobby for laws that impose severe penalties for non-violent crimes. It will never sue and bankrupt individuals and small businesses to grow, protect and solidify its market position. It will lobby for laws that literally steal trillions of dollars of value from the public domain. It won't influence international policy. It won't fight against legal reform in a country that rivals the most horrific, repressive regimes for incarceration.

If the government is misguided, it's because powerful corporations are leading it by the nose.

God, I sound paranoid conspiracy theorist.

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#73

Post by TrevorJ »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. This is why I am leaving government. I am about the same age as Zuck and have been working in government at many levels for about 12 years now and I work with people who have been working policy for over 40 years. The president couldn't care less what most of us think think...but because Zuck has sh…

I think Zuckerburg just wants to make sure he can maintain a corner on the user data market....

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#74

Post by mullingitover »

rhizome wrote: post #60
zachrose wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just because Zuckerburg has personal wealth. It's also because Facebook directly employs thousands of people, pays corporate taxes, enables new markets that rely on Facebook, and sells advertising to all those other corporations. His age has nothing to do with it.

Here's a thought experiment: what damage would be done if Facebook up and disappeared tomorrow? To society, to business, to the economy, whatever. I'll take the "almost none" position, comparable to the season finale of "Friends."

Playing devil's advocate, for starters, you can consider the effects of having 175 billion dollars (FB's market cap) vanish from the economy, and the effects that would have on confidence in the market.

Not that I disagree with the overall premise that FB doesn't really add anything of much value (or at least anything that couldn't be quickly and easily replaced).

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#75

Post by lukifer »

cottonseed wrote: post #72
nostromo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more afraid of government than private industry. Facebook will never have a Gitmo. It'll never send someone to a torture camp in Egypt. It'll never invade a country. It'll never confiscate property. It'll never put someone on the no-fly list. It'll never harass you at the border. Yes, we should be openly critical of powerful corporations. But the downsides of misguided governance are much worse than even the most…

It will never lobby for laws that impose severe penalties for non-violent crimes. It will never sue and bankrupt individuals and small businesses to grow, protect and solidify its market position. It will lobby for laws that literally steal trillions of dollars of value from the public domain. It won't influence international policy. It won't fight against legal reform in a country that rivals the most horrific, repr…

Conspiracy #0: Associate the very notion of conspiracy with insanity.

"Two men of the same trade seldom meet but for the purpose of deceiving the public." - Adam Smith

(Maybe we should start calling them "collusion theories".)

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#76

Post by rayiner »

samstave wrote: post #71
rayiner wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's also because [] directly employs thousands of people, pays corporate taxes, enables new markets that rely on []..." Insert {Halliburton, Exxon, AT&T, Comcast, BP, etc} into those brackets and you'll get a much better idea of the nature of political influence and lobbying in the U.S. This is why I think all the bluster around Citizens United and the influence of money in politics is overblown. Because at the end…

Unless i am beng obtuse; i think youre missing the point: Its not that any of these large companies should not have some influence; the problem is that having shit-tons of money is the seemingly only requisite to have ANY influence in government currently. The term "oligarchy" has real and important meaning.

You are missing the point, because the grandparent post didn't mention money, he mentioned jobs and tax revenue. That's the real leverage big companies have over Washington, not the campaign donations which is what everyone harps about.

Take, for example, the last debate between Obama and Romney, where they took turns trying to show who was more pro-coal. You think it was because of campaign donations? Or all the coal mining/fracking jobs in key states like Pennsylvania?

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#77

Post by SilasX »

rayiner wrote: post #13

Tech companies are in a very awkward situation with regards to surveillance. It's hard to argue that individuals have an "expectation of privacy" in their Facebook content, when their thousand closest friends at Facebook are mining that information to sell them advertising. Indeed, you have the opposite of an expectation of privacy: you expect that your information will not be private.[1] The business model built on…

This is what I like to call the "slut" defense. "Ah, come on, don't give me that line, you were showing your stuff all around, flaunting it, putting it out there, and now you're claiming you didn't want me to use it? lol"

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#79

Post by godgod »

As a person who hates facebook and their obvious cooperation with the NSA, let me just say #FUCKZUCK. He's gotten rich off playing ball with the surveillance state. He plays dumb but is all to aware that his company is being used to spy facebook users.

Facebook CEO Admits To Calling Users 'Dumb Fucks'

Re: Zuckerberg Expresses Frustration Over Surveillance

#80

Post by cottonseed »

lukifer wrote: post #75
cottonseed wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will never lobby for laws that impose severe penalties for non-violent crimes. It will never sue and bankrupt individuals and small businesses to grow, protect and solidify its market position. It will lobby for laws that literally steal trillions of dollars of value from the public domain. It won't influence international policy. It won't fight against legal reform in a country that rivals the most horrific, repr…

Conspiracy #0: Associate the very notion of conspiracy with insanity. "Two men of the same trade seldom meet but for the purpose of deceiving the public." - Adam Smith (Maybe we should start calling them "collusion theories".)

Hadn't heard that quote before. From https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adam_Smith:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary."

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