Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mark Zuckerberg Lied to Congress. We Can't Trust His Testimony

dispatch.techoversight.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 342 posts

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Lied to Congress. We Can't Trust His Testimony

#131

Post by pinkmuffinere »

charles_f wrote: post #124

One thing that I would recommend is to avoid weaving the actual lies with statements that are subject to judgement. For example, the first two rows are about the level of investment in protection tools, and are claimed as lies because of the ineffectiveness of these tools. Both sides can be true simultaneously. You can invest a lot and produce no results. When I read that, I thought they were grasping at straws. Then…

Ya, strongly agree. For those that don’t read the article, here are some of the more concerning ones imo

- Mark said “We don't allow sexually explicit content on the service for people of any age.” But they had a 17-strike policy, and 79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms. :(. Edit: the 79% claim is overstated. If you read the linked report[1], it is actually “65% of child sex trafficking victims recruited _on social media_ were recruited from Facebook, with 14% being recruited on Instagram” (emphasis mine). Thanks kstrauser for investigating

- Mark said “Mental health is a complex issue and the existing body of scientific work has not shown a causal link between using social media and young people having worse mental health outcomes.” But internal study found users who stopped using Facebook and Instagram for a week showed lower rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Meta halted the study and did not publicly disclose the results – citing harmful media coverage as the reason for canning the study. I suppose he might debate whether this is a “causal” link, but it’s fairly damning.

- Instagram head Adam Mosseri told reporters that research he had seen suggests the app’s effects on teen well-being is likely “quite small.” An internal 2019 study titled “Teen Mental Health: Creatures of Habit” found (1) “Teens can’t switch off Instagram even if they want to.” (2) “Teens talk of Instagram in terms of an ‘addicts narrative’ spending too much time indulging in compulsive behavior that they know is negative but feel powerless to resist.” (3) “The pressure ‘to be present and perfect’ is a defining characteristic of the anxiety teens face around Instagram. This restricts both their ability to be emotionally honest and also to create space for themselves to switch off.”

[1] https://techoversight.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/08-2023...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Lied to Congress. We Can't Trust His Testimony

#132

Post by jacobsimon »

rkangel wrote: post #55
jacobsimon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook causes harm, disproportionately so for younger people I think I disagree with this step. Facebook causes a kind of indirect harm here, and is used willingly by teens and parents, who could simply choose not to use it. That's different from, say, a factory polluting a river with toxic chemicals, which needs government regulation. Basically "negative externalities".

> who could simply choose not to use it There is an inherently addicting aspect to it though - carefully evolved over the years by optimising for "engagement". One (imperfect) analogy is gambling - anyone can in theory choose not to gamble, but for some people addiction gets in the way and they don't make the choice that can be good for them. So (in the UK) the gambling industry is regulated in terms of how it advert…

Yeah that’s a good counterpoint. I guess it hinges on whether you can define a clear boundary around what is harmful or unharmful social media.

Like to me “online shopping addiction” is probably a more realistic and analogous problem to gambling, so maybe online advertising to teens could be regulated, but the jump to child abuse is so far outside Meta’s actual business model that it feels over-reaching to go there.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Lied to Congress. We Can't Trust His Testimony

#133

Post by nullhole »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #36
thunfischtoast wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time a rich and/or famous person faced actual repercussions for their bad actions? Actions that, would they be comitted by the lower 99,9% of the world, would yield at least a fine that actually hurts, or jail. Serious jail, not "house arrest" in a big mansion. Jail time that actually lasted to the end and was not prematurely lifted after 6 months? When the current systems are failing the solution i…

SBF? Epstein? Weinstein?

Madoff as well

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Lied to Congress. We Can't Trust His Testimony

#134

Post by FrustratedMonky »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #121
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like apples/fruit from medieval times were tart and sour and full of seeds, and through generations of selective breeding are now super sweet and not necessarily still good for you. The old town crier is very removed from todays social media. Yes, a newspaper from 1800's was pretty biased. But does that justify todays hyper targeted algorithms as a-ok? That something happened in the past is not a good argument t…

I never said it was okay; it's just not new.

Got it.

Perhaps I read too much into your comment.

Since I have seen a lot of people use the argument "old newspapers were biased, thus social media is ok".

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Lied to Congress. We Can't Trust His Testimony

#135

Post by deaux »

safety1st wrote: post #113
bronco21016 wrote: post #39

I haven't paid a lot of attention to this issue but after reading some of the statements in the article I can't help but agree with Tech Oversight's conclusions. It's just anecdotal but recently, when mindlessly scrolling reels, (yes, bad enough already) I came across a reel that was unquestionably sexually explicit (in USA, I think policy varies on locale). I reported the account and reel because after clicking on t…

When you pick apart what's actually going on in Meta's revenue pipeline it's hideous. Think about this and compare it to what the world was like say 30 years ago: * There are literally thousands of IG profiles that are essentially softcore porn which serves as a lead gen device for an OnlyFans account. Meta promotes these profiles to its users heavily because sex sells. Meta profits from the engagement with the profi…

Oh sweetie, Meta's revenue pipeline has included knowingly playing a crucial supporting and fomenting role in a genocide in Myanmar, and continues to rely on a huge number of actual scam ads from China that are intentionally ignored to protect revenue. Besides of course the "developing algorithms that detect when teen girls are at their most vulnerable to manipulate them".

But you're right. Ellison and Thiel get all the attention, while Zuckerberg has caused magnitudes more societal destruction than both combined. Not because the former two are better people, far from it, just hard real-world impact from the companies they've founded.

In tech, nothing comes close to the damage of Meta. Not even the most despicable of companies like ClearView, as while their products might be worse on paper their actual impact pales in comparison.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Lied to Congress. We Can't Trust His Testimony

#136

Post by kwanbix »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #131
charles_f wrote: post #124

One thing that I would recommend is to avoid weaving the actual lies with statements that are subject to judgement. For example, the first two rows are about the level of investment in protection tools, and are claimed as lies because of the ineffectiveness of these tools. Both sides can be true simultaneously. You can invest a lot and produce no results. When I read that, I thought they were grasping at straws. Then…

Ya, strongly agree. For those that don’t read the article, here are some of the more concerning ones imo - Mark said “We don't allow sexually explicit content on the service for people of any age.” But they had a 17-strike policy, and 79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms. :(. Edit: the 79% claim is overstated. If you read the linked report[1], it is actually “65% of child sex traffick…

I reported many times sexual profiles, and they allways came rejected.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Lied to Congress. We Can't Trust His Testimony

#139

Post by baby »

bronco21016 wrote: post #39

I haven't paid a lot of attention to this issue but after reading some of the statements in the article I can't help but agree with Tech Oversight's conclusions. It's just anecdotal but recently, when mindlessly scrolling reels, (yes, bad enough already) I came across a reel that was unquestionably sexually explicit (in USA, I think policy varies on locale). I reported the account and reel because after clicking on t…

When is the last time reporting led to an actual good outcome? I must have reported 100 tweets and nothing ever happened

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Lied to Congress. We Can't Trust His Testimony

#140

Post by xg15 »

jacobsimon wrote: post #34
rkangel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which step in this logic do you not accept? When profit for a company is in conflict with human good, regulation is needed (e.g. health and safety rules) Facebook causes harm, disproportionately so for younger people Meta is aware of this, but due to a profit motive does not take serious steps to do anything about it (only token efforts) Meta (and other social media) needs regulation

> Facebook causes harm, disproportionately so for younger people I think I disagree with this step. Facebook causes a kind of indirect harm here, and is used willingly by teens and parents, who could simply choose not to use it. That's different from, say, a factory polluting a river with toxic chemicals, which needs government regulation. Basically "negative externalities".

From the article, which quotes an internal study of Facebook itself on this:

> An internal 2019 study titled “Teen Mental Health: Creatures of Habit” found the following:

- “Teens can’t switch off Instagram even if they want to.”

- “Teens talk of Instagram in terms of an ‘addicts narrative’ spending too much time indulging in compulsive behavior that they know is negative but feel powerless to resist.”

- “The pressure ‘to be present and perfect’ is a defining characteristic of the anxiety teens face around Instagram. This restricts both their ability to be emotionally honest and also to create space for themselves to switch off.”

Post reply on HN