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Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

theguardian.com

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#201

Post by newscracker »

pi-squared wrote: post #70
Dowwie wrote: post #42

I have had enough of the latest anti-Facebook vitriole. A lot of people want to see someone, preferably Zuck, drawn and quartered, but I don't. He has accepted responsibility for mistakes and has agreed to do more to protect its users. I believe him. I also believe he has earned a chance to redeem himself, considering the value that Facebook has created for society at little to no cost to its users. Most of the Hacke…

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#202

Post by simonh »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #164
jacquesm wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook never was part of 'the free internet', in fact it is a force strongly against the free internet.

> Facebook never was part of 'the free internet', in fact it is a force strongly against the free internet. That's the point. Imagine the result of all this is a piece of legislation that doesn't hamper Facebook in any significant way but imposes large fixed compliance costs on tech companies. Facebook is huge, they pay the costs without even noticing. People who want to dethrone Facebook, or replace it with some dec…

Ok so what’s the solution? Is the only other option no regulation and accepting the fact that what Cambridge Analytica did is going to be the way things are done from now on? Just wondering what the constructive path for advocacy is now.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#203

Post by ryandrake »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #179
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it was a sham because asking hard questions would require them to admit FB being an important asset for US own intelligence operations. If they drill too deep they'd need to face very uncomfortable questions about other platforms too, e.g Palantir (Thiel was right there lurking ;)). Facebook is the Internet in many countries (making them less resilient and even more prone to meddling than the US). And so looking at i…

oh and Sarah Jeong just now: "Going to tweet out amounts received by each Congressperson from Facebook since 2014 as they speak in this hearing" https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/984075571981266944 this is worth gold!

Sweet! There should be a rule where, whenever a politician is on TV talking about some subject, there needs to be a graphic in the corner showing the total dollar amount of donations that politician received from the 3 most relevant companies.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#204

Post by davvolun »

mkirklions wrote: post #186
davvolun wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Measures to protect users' data and privacy will not strictly kill a "free" internet -- there are lots of reasonable caveats such as number of active users, total revenue, number of employees that would allow a small business to compete.

I always wonder who is saying things like "reasonable regulations" Do you run your own company and find the regulations dont require you to hire a multi-thousand dollar legal team at every turn? Are you an internet user that thinks that what the government says wont be exploited? I worry that my kids will be unable to start businesses due to regulations, or rather their friends wont be able to start businesses. I am…

I'll tell you, I've worked for a business small enough to avoid needing to hire a "multi-thousand dollar legal team" and a few of the things that I know happened while I was there leave me very suspicious of the things I didn't know about.

> Are you an internet user that thinks that what the government says won't be exploited?

Nope, I'm a normal person, not actually a strawman. As long as there's government, it will be exploited; but, you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater by arguing that because people will exploit loopholes, we should eliminate (all) regulations. Instead of supporting a representative that tries to eliminate two regulations for every new one, how about supporting a half-intelligent representative?

You're worried people won't be able to start businesses? Where is Facebook's big competition? Can your kids' friends start a business now to compete with Facebook? No -- so why are you worried that they won't be able to do something in the future that they can't do now?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#205

Post by guessmyname »

pi-squared wrote: post #70
Dowwie wrote: post #42

I have had enough of the latest anti-Facebook vitriole. A lot of people want to see someone, preferably Zuck, drawn and quartered, but I don't. He has accepted responsibility for mistakes and has agreed to do more to protect its users. I believe him. I also believe he has earned a chance to redeem himself, considering the value that Facebook has created for society at little to no cost to its users. Most of the Hacke…

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#206

Post by drawkbox »

spacehome wrote: post #5

I was struck that on the surface it looked quite adversarial. Senators were trying to ask fairly pointed questions (despite any technical ignorance). But underneath the surface, the two parties here have fairly well aligned goals -- less freedom on the Internet. The senators want to show that they're doing something, and Facebook welcomes regulation in order to suffocate would-be competitors with it. I'm sure they're…

We really do need an Internet Party, the basis of the party is a fair open internet market.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#207

Post by ianseyer »

aphexairlines wrote: post #183
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it was a sham because asking hard questions would require them to admit FB being an important asset for US own intelligence operations. If they drill too deep they'd need to face very uncomfortable questions about other platforms too, e.g Palantir (Thiel was right there lurking ;)). Facebook is the Internet in many countries (making them less resilient and even more prone to meddling than the US). And so looking at i…

Here's the Palantir section of the hearing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/10... SEN. MARIA CANTWELL (D-WASH): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome Mr. Zuckerberg. Do you know who Palantir is? ZUCKERBERG: I do. CANTWELL: Some people refer to them as a Stanford Analytica. Do you agree? ZUCKERBERG: Senator, I have not heard that. CANTWELL: Okay. Do you think Palantir taught Cambridge Analytica, a…

The initial section about Palantir was very well rehearsed - Zuckerberg immediately clammed up.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#208

Post by bArray »

It seems as though everybody in the room has a very different agenda and even more different level of education on the subject. Some seem to be using it to grill Zuckerberg, some to setup discussion and some to air dirty laundry. It's a bit of a circus in there.

Current hearing live on Youtube: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16812334

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#209

Post by danans »

mkirklions wrote: post #187
simias wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying that regulatory capture doesn't happen, I'm saying that it doesn't necessarily happen every time a new piece of regulation is introduced. Saying that any hypothetical regulation introduced after this Facebook fiasco (and all the other data breaches of late) will benefit Facebook and hurt competitors is not exactly what I would call level-headed skepticism. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't be very careful…

Easy to say without seeing the proposals. Regulation can be awful or insignificant. My state requires strippers to fill out a license and pay 50$. Changed nothing. However, my state also requires you to put down 1M to start a bank. Thats definitely regulatory capture. Its too soon to know whats going to be required of data. Databases might become significantly worse to program and require teams to maintain at governm…

> Regulation can be awful or insignificant.

No benefits at all, really?

Remember pre-regulation leaded gasoline and cars without seat belts?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#210

Post by panic »

dosycorp wrote: post #152

Mark is more like an Emperor come to visit affiliated crowns than a servant being questioned by his masters. Maybe the Senate’s deference in part is motivated by their belief he may run and win in a few years and they hope to win favor from a man they may end up working for. Secondly perhaps it is motivated by them not wanting to appear too knowledgeable nor too much of a threat to Mark, to put him at ease, lest they…

> Maybe the Senate’s deference in part is motivated by their belief he may run and win in a few years and they hope to win favor from a man they may end up working for.

The US Senate doesn't work for the President. They're part of independent branches of government.

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