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I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

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Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#101

Post by AndrewBissell »

prolepunk wrote: post #88
ekianjo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook doesn't care about users, laws, and lacks any sense of moral or ethical standards. its difficult to say with a straight face that a government that runs trillions of deficits, spies constantly on its population, and engages in so called defensive wars abroad, cares about its citizens. The lack of responsibility is rampant among government figures.

You are comparing badly functioning government with businesses functioning as intended. At least there's ability to enforce governmental responsibility through elections and free press. Facebook can be leveraged in no other way then through government regulation, even if you opt out from facebook it still watches you, and good luck even understanding of what's going on if you're not a technical person.

> At least there's ability to enforce governmental responsibility through elections and free press.

Yes, for example, voters in the U.S. elect presidential candidates who promise to scale back our military presence overseas, and then it happens! Voters also get what they want when they elect candidates promising to reform Wall Street, make government more transparent, or end the culture of graft & corruption in Washington.

Or take the issue of NSA surveillance, mentioned above. Since there were zero candidates on offer from either major party who promised even a sliver of reform, and no major media outlet even raised the issue, we can conclude that the voters have "opted in" to this program, and we should all learn to just live with it.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#102

Post by Consultant32452 »

adamnemecek wrote: post #96
Consultant32452 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As bad as Trump is, as bad as the potential foreign propaganda affecting election outcomes is, I'm worried the solution will be worse than the problem. I suspect the two incumbent parties will use this as an opportunity to further cement the two-party system, making it more difficult for third parties or political "outsiders" to have successful campaigns. Russian spending on FB ads was a drop in the ocean compared to…

I share some of your concerns. However re Russian spending, I think that that the current spending estimates are on the lower end. Also the money was spent less wastefully so it might have ended up having larger effect than assumed.

>Also the money was spent less wastefully so it might have ended up having larger effect than assumed.

My understanding is the opposite. First, money was spent on both sides. Yes, the majority was in favor of Trump but at least two anti-Trump rallies were allegedly started by Russians. Second, not all the money was spent in swing states. Third, at least according to one FB executive more than half was spent after the election.

I'm not suggesting that Russian ads didn't affect the outcome, this was such a close election that even small things could have swayed it one way or the other. At the same time we don't need to exaggerate what really happened.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#104

Post by osteele »

Barjak wrote: post #43

Am I alone in thinking this isn't heresy? A country or federal state is just a company with a monopoly over law in a certain geographical region. Facebook's "monopoly" is at least subject to the whim of the market, as the Delete Facebook campaign shows. Look at last week. The senate was on their high-horse, admonishing facebook for privacy infringements, totally unaware of the irony they are an appendage of the same…

“Would it not be a great satisfaction to the king to know at a designated moment every year the number of his subjects, in total and by region, with all the resources, wealth & poverty of each place; [the number] of his nobility and ecclesiastics of all kinds, of men of the robe, of Catholics and of those of the other religion, all separated according to the place of their residence? … [Would it not be] a useful and necessary pleasure for him to be able, in his own office, to review in an hour’s time the present and past condition of a great realm of which he is the head, and be able himself to know with certitude in what consists his grandeur, his wealth, and his strengths?” — Marquis de Vauban, proposing an annual census to Louis XIV in 1686.[1]

Others have noted powers that a country has, that a company doesn't.

The converse holds too.

It's interesting to re-read James C. Scott's "Seeing Like a State" with social networks in mind. Facebook can “read” its users (and many non-users) in ways that states only wish they could.

“Filipinos were instructed by the decree of November 21, 1849, to take on permanent Hispanic surnames.[…] Filipinos generally lacked individual surnames, which might ‘distinguish them by families,’ and that their practice of adopting baptismal names drawn from a small group of saints’ names resulted in great ‘confusion.’ The remedy was the catalogo, a compendium not only of personal names but also of nouns and adjectives drawn from flora, fauna, minerals, geography, and the arts and intended to be used by the authorities in assigning permanent, inherited surnames. Each local official was to be given a supply of surnames sufficient for his jurisdiction, ‘taking care that the distribution be made by letters [of the alphabet].’ In practice, each town was given a number of pages from the alphabetized catalogo, producing whole towns with surnames beginning with the same letter. […] the traces of this administrative exercise are still perfectly visible across the landscape: ‘For example, in the Bikol region, the entire alphabet is laid out like a garland over the provinces of Albay, Sorsogon, and Catanduanes which in 1849 belonged to the single jurisdiction of Albay. Beginning with A at the provincial capital, the letters B and C mark the towns along the coast beyond Tabaco to Tiwi. We return and trace along the coast of Sorsogon the letters E to L; then starting down the Iraya Valley at Daraga with M, we stop with S to Polangui and Libon, and finish the alphabet with a quick tour around the island of Catanduanes.‘”[2]

The modern corporation doesn't require the cooperation, or even permission, of local officials in order to index the populace.

Mark Koyama criticizes[3] Scott: “It is hard to avoid the impression that Scott underrates the adaptability and flexibility of markets. Yes, markets can result in homogeneity; but the market process is also a driver of creative experimentation and innovation. Too much bland standardization, and markets provide incentives for entrepreneurs to create products that appear idiosyncratic or unusual. The market as a process can certainly appear ruthless and much that is valuable can be lost as a result in the hurly burly of the market place. But everyday experience provides pretty convincing evidence that markets tend to be more capable of self-correction than are state planners and bureaucrats.”

Maybe there's a case to be made that the market is working in the case of Facebook, but it's not obvious.

[1] James C. Scott, _Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed_. Yale University Press (March 30, 1998). p. 11. Excerpt https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/sc....

[2] Ibid, p. 67

[3] Mark Koyama, "Some Thoughts on “Seeing Like a State”", Medium (July 13, 2017). https://medium.com/@MarkKoyama/some-thoughts-on-seeing-like-...

[4] Bradford Delong, October 24, 2007. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/10/james-scott-and.html

[5] Scott Alexander, “Book Review: Seeing Like a State”. March 16, 2017. http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-like...

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#105

Post by rememberlenny »

Web platforms are governments.

  "Facebook is a government. Facebook's users are citizens,
  and Facebook's applications developers are the private 
  companies that drive much of the economy. Apple. Twitter, 
  Myspace, Craigslist, Foursquare, Tumblr and every other 
  large network of engaged users (including some services of 
  Google) plays a similar role. We have always tacitly 
  acknowledged this. We talk about these networks as 
  communities, communities have governments."

  "Once you start thinking about large web platforms as 
  governments, the logical question is what kind of government 
  are they. One thing is for sure - none of these platforms 
  are democracies. They are oligarchies controlled by 
  founders, investors or shareholders. That may not be at all 
  bad. As long as citizens (users) can move freely from one 
  government to another with little switching cost, there is 
  no reason to burden these polities with the inherent 
  inefficiencies of popular democracy. But that does put a 
  special premium on emigration policies and property rights. 
  Do I own my data, can I export it freely? It also suggests 
  that large networks that have strong network effects may 
  someday need other incentives to act in the best interests 
  of their citizens."
http://www.usv.com/blog/web-services-as-governments

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#106

Post by s73v3r_ »

adamnemecek wrote: post #23
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People sounded the alarm many years ago. EFF from 2009 "predicted" a CA-like event would happen as a direct result of FB policy changes: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-... Rest assured, not everyone in technology openly embraced the externality-disregarding "move fast and break things" ideology that took hold of SV in the last decade or so.

> Rest assured, not everyone in technology openly embraced the externality-disregarding "move fast and break things" ideology that took hold of SV in the last decade or so. To be honest tho, like I can't blame them, I dont think they were aware of the consequences this might have.

They might not have been aware, but to me, that just indicates that they didn't think about the consequences. Other people, who did, fairly accurately predicted that something like CA would happen.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#107

Post by s73v3r_ »

pcunite wrote: post #25
HenryBemis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies to USA's readers, no disrespect, I am merely trying to put some sense into throwaway2048's brain :) Dear TA2048, In some/many parts of this planet we don't give a poop about who is the President of the US-of-A. But we care for our own elections (see UK referendum, Greek referendum, Catalonia referendum, elections in Austria, Hungary, Italy, etc.) The problem surfaced NOW, and NOW we are dealing with it. We…

Why did it surface now? Everyone knew.

Can you provide a citation for that? Everyone who ever used FB knew exactly what was going on?

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#108

Post by ASalazarMX »

rememberlenny wrote: post #105

Web platforms are governments. "Facebook is a government. Facebook's users are citizens, and Facebook's applications developers are the private companies that drive much of the economy. Apple. Twitter, Myspace, Craigslist, Foursquare, Tumblr and every other large network of engaged users (including some services of Google) plays a similar role. We have always tacitly acknowledged this. We talk about these networks as…

Except governments should watch the interests of their citizens, not only those of their shareholders.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#109

Post by wybiral »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #54
wybiral wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes counter to the idea of a globally connected internet though. Without a degree of oppression of free speech you can't stop the flow of culture and ideas no matter how big of a wall you build.

As it turns out, the actual effect of a "globally connected internet" was to make it easier for the Russian state to exploit its own underemployed citizens to pretend to be Texans and stoke racial tensions in Texas. Meaningful human connection requires some amount of basic honesty.

Yes it makes propaganda easier, but so did the printing press and I still believe that it had a positive net effect on the world.

By coincidence I am a Texan and I've had some really interesting conversations on the internet and have been exposed to a wide variety of viewpoints and information sources that vastly outweigh that of Putin's little troll farms.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#110

Post by nickpp »

prolepunk wrote: post #88
ekianjo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook doesn't care about users, laws, and lacks any sense of moral or ethical standards. its difficult to say with a straight face that a government that runs trillions of deficits, spies constantly on its population, and engages in so called defensive wars abroad, cares about its citizens. The lack of responsibility is rampant among government figures.

You are comparing badly functioning government with businesses functioning as intended. At least there's ability to enforce governmental responsibility through elections and free press. Facebook can be leveraged in no other way then through government regulation, even if you opt out from facebook it still watches you, and good luck even understanding of what's going on if you're not a technical person.

Taking an average over the world, most governments are badly functioning and they've been that way for years if not centuries.

Business on the other side, tend to be punished by the markets when misbehaving and then course-correct.

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