11–20 of 266 posts
Facebook gets a lot of slack here on HN, and I share some critisism, but find this article by Zuckerberg is a step in right direction. One only hopes there is some free room for small companies from regulation, so this helpful regulation doesnt end as a moat for FB and others.
Translation: the deep state is very concerned the internet allows people to bypass the establishment media and create influence that affects the outcomes of democratic elections in ways that upset the elite.
They are not worried about the elections ..
I'd love to hear about the behind-the-scenes politicking that led to this mode of public outreach.
[1] https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/building-glob...
Facebook gets a lot of slack here on HN, and I share some critisism, but find this article by Zuckerberg is a step in right direction. One only hopes there is some free room for small companies from regulation, so this helpful regulation doesnt end as a moat for FB and others.
One of the most interesting parts of this column is that it is published in the Washington Post. You can't ignore the fact that this was likely run past Jeff Bezos, and Zuckerberg knows that. In almost all other circumstances, opinion columns from Mark were published on his public Facebook profile (example: "Building Global Community" [1]). The context of releasing this on WaPo is important as it represents an explic…
Facebook gets a lot of slack here on HN, and I share some critisism, but find this article by Zuckerberg is a step in right direction. One only hopes there is some free room for small companies from regulation, so this helpful regulation doesnt end as a moat for FB and others.
Did you mean to write 'Facebook gets a lot of flack '? That would seem to make more sense given the rest of the sentence.
* harmful content * election integrity * privacy * data portability
I think Zuckerberg's intent is to dilute the real issue (privacy) with these other three points. FB has a bad record when it comes to privacy and they are actively taking measures against it. For example, they lobby against privacy laws [1]. They create shadow profiles and they make it difficult or impossible to delete your account.
Harmful content is a tough one because you either have free speech or you don't. Judging content is a slippery slope that every generation before us has warned us about.
Election integrity is a media hysteria. Nobody is forcing anyone to vote in a particular way.
Data portability is always good for the consumers I don't think anyone would argue against that.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/02/facebook-...
[2] https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-...
One of the most interesting parts of this column is that it is published in the Washington Post. You can't ignore the fact that this was likely run past Jeff Bezos, and Zuckerberg knows that. In almost all other circumstances, opinion columns from Mark were published on his public Facebook profile (example: "Building Global Community" [1]). The context of releasing this on WaPo is important as it represents an explic…
Facebook gets a lot of slack here on HN, and I share some critisism, but find this article by Zuckerberg is a step in right direction. One only hopes there is some free room for small companies from regulation, so this helpful regulation doesnt end as a moat for FB and others.
I just checked the article. Proposal #1 is primarily there to limit Facebook’s liability. That said, it is incompatible with the First Amendment. A government or government sponsored regulatory body deciding what is socially harmful speech is precisely what the First Amendment guards against. You would have to go with a corporate governed body on a corporate volunteer basis for it to be a meaningful proposal. Essentially, Facebook can ban le Nazis, but the US Government can’t.
2 is arguably a good proposal, but it isn’t a new proposal. To the extent that the People in Power give a damn about protecting the integrity of elections, it is to protect their own seats. When election integrity is inconvenient, it gets pushed down as a non-issue. The real goal here is to force Facebook’s ad competitors to play on the same playing field as Facebook has been pressured into to stave off further regulation. This is regulation to protect their business, and if it happens to also protect what is left of the integrity of our elections, elections that the Russians didn’t make a considerable dent in the last time around despite their best efforts, great. There are however more effective measures to defend the integrity of our elections, if we care to.
3 and 4 are both items that Facebook could roll out globally if they cared, so I’m inclined to believe that on Facebook’s political calculus, they have determined that it is politically expedient for them to come out for GDPR-style rules globally, even if they could already provide their global user base the same tools, rights and privileges afforded their European users by GDPR. Data portability is a technical challenge that is relatively easily resolved. The primary politics involved in preventing this are corporate, not governmental, and back when Web 2.0 was hot stuff, open standards were both expected and the default. Facebook played an enormous role in data portability backsliding on the web.
If Facebook wants to bring out data privacy protections and data portability, then I’ll believe it when I see it. There aren’t any laws preventing this now.
There is no such thing as harmful content. There are only harmful consumers of content. Removal of any amount or type of content can not rehabilitate these harmful consumers. For as long as they lack the motive and personal integrity to practice critical thinking on a constant and ongoing basis, no content can ever be safe from them. They will be harmed by even the most direct, fact-based, and honest content. Their i…
How do you reconcile this opinion with the knowledge that copycat crime¹ occurs.
One would imagine that an adult with critical thinking skills ought be able to observe that some people are easily influenced at least some of the time. Elsewise we wouldn't be here having this conversation.