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

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

#241

Post by nephihaha »

u02sgb wrote: post #68
nephihaha wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It already does for me because I live here. Keir Starmer is desperately unpopular and yet he wants to suppress why people do hate him. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/27/starmer-leas...

The existence of that article surely suggests there is no censorship of the information about his unpopularity?

Please see elsewhere on HN. Lots of threads about the increasing crackdown on free expression online in the UK, and forcing through digital ID online (alongside the EU, Canada, Australia etc).

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

#242

Post by pibaker »

raincole wrote: post #23

> > The only way to outlaw Meta’s dangerous and egregious behavior is to pass legislation, like the Kids Online Safety Act Really? Even if we ignore all the implication of censorship and surveillance state, lying to the congress is already a crime. It's already regulated. If he can get away with it why another act would be different?

Go look at the people behind this "tech oversight" website and behold their long history of partisan campaign work.

https://techoversight.org/our-team/

> Sacha is a veteran of political campaigns all over the country and has worked at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House Majority PAC, and on Capitol Hill.

> Kyle is a strategic communicator who has served as a senior advisor to members of Congress, Democratic campaigns, and progressive organizations.

> Marjorie is a strategic communicator whose experience spans government, advocacy, and media. She has led high-impact communications campaigns and advised policymakers on key health and tech policy issues, distilling intricate topics into clear, persuasive messaging that resonates with diverse audiences.

Notice how NONE of the people in charge have any experience working with child protection, nor do they work in related fields like social work, law, law enforcement or mental health. They are political "communicators" first and foremost. In other words, they are here to push policies and they are NOT coy about it.

This is not a project led by people who actually care about "kid safety", whatever that means. This is a barely concealed astroturfing campaign run by professional campaigners trying to turn public sympathy for victims of abuse into support for censorship bills that will do nothing to prevent actual harm and everything

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

#243

Post by isk517 »

vladms wrote: post #158
safety1st wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Far fewer young men had ED Do you have some reference? The one (rather simple/incomplete) that I could find at : https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/erectile-... shows that overall ED dropped, maybe it is different for young men but would be curious to see an actual study.

If there was any increase of reported incidents of ED over the 30 years I would hazard to guess that it would have to do with the fact that various medications have been released over the last 30 years to address it. Fewer people will report an embarrassing issue when there is a narrow chance it can even be fixed.

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

#244

Post by jobs_throwaway »

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #105
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a stretch to see a direct connection to mental health issues and suicide

It's certainly a stretch to describe that as killing people. You can argue it's a an acceptable stretch, or that it's still very bad even if described more accurately, but it is plainly not what 'killing people' traditionally means

"this product leads to elevated suicide rates among users" being equated to "this is killing people" is not a stretch

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

#245

Post by dfxm12 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #153
dfxm12 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The uproar was specifically about the implemented ID checks. KOSA hasn't been passed in any form & its most recent forms introduced to the House & Senate don't include ID checks. To imply that KOSA includes some kind of ID check or that the only way to provide any type of protections is via an ID check is ignorant.

Ignorant? Hardly. It's ignorant to assume anything but the worst from proposed regulation until proven otherwise. Particularly if past proposals from the same people included ID checks. It falls to the people proposing regulation to clearly demonstrate to everyone else that they aren't up to no good. (Spoiler, they usually are up to no good.)

It's awfully convenient that you require others to prove or clearly demonstrate things, while you allow yourself to merely assume things :)

I know you've already made up your mind, but just humor me. What can the government do to clearly demonstrate to everyone else that they aren't up to no good?

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

#246

Post by noslenwerdna »

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…

"But internal study found users who stopped using Facebook and Instagram for a week showed lower rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness."

This isn't causal though. The users who quit were not randomly selected. Maybe they were receiving some kind of mental health treatment, and as part of that they stopped. Then the recovery could have been from the treatment or it could have been from stopping.

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

#247

Post by Aurornis »

dfxm12 wrote: post #235
Aurornis wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The uproar was specifically about the implemented ID checks. I disagree. The uproar was clearly that ID checks were going to be required at all. All of the "Discord alternative" articles were about platforms that didn't require ID checks. > To imply that KOSA includes some kind of ID check or that the only way to provide any type of protections is via an ID check is ignorant. KOSA has specific language about minors…

KOSA has regulations regarding "users that the covered platform knows is a minor". Nothing in KOSA suggests that a platform has to proactively maintain each user's age or that ID checks have to be used. If you're still curious, Meta has a page talking about how they might determine a user's age, specifically without ID: https://about.fb.com/news/2021/07/age-verification

Discord also announced that they would use algorithmic decision making to decide which accounts are old enough to not require ID. This didn't change the uproar at all.

If you think KOSA style regulations would allow social networks to avoid ID checks, I don't think you're paying attention. Just read the article we're all commenting on to see how people are willing to attack Facebook for even having internal statistical ideas about problems. If a KOSA style law was passed and Facebook could be shown to have knowledge that some percentage of minors were evading their algorithm, they would be pulled in front of Congress again.

There is no way to reasonably look at these laws and think that it would not result in ID check requirements. We don't even have these laws yet and platforms like Discord are already rolling out ID verification.

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

#248

Post by Lerc »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #234
amluto wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4 out of 5 child sex slaves exist thanks to Facebook's policies. Even if your 79% number is correct, this does not follow. It like if someone said, 30 years ago, that 95% of total advertisements were in the classified section that 9 out of 10 retail sales happened thanks to the classifieds. (I’m not trying to excuse Facebook’s behavior. But maybe criticisms of Facebook would be more effective if they stayed on trac…

Observer take: until your parenthetical it looks like you're supporting Facebook's actions by nitpicking weird edge cases.

There lies much of the problem.

Nobody in Salem wanted to be seen to stand up for witches.

I have never had a Facebook account because I never liked what they do, but this 'evidence' against them seems like they are relying on the seriousness of the allegations more than the accuracy.

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

#249

Post by saalweachter »

kstrauser wrote: post #239
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim is made in the main article, supported by this link [1]. But I agree, I suspect it’s sensationalized, just because that number is _so high_. [1] https://techoversight.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/08-2023...

Oh! Wow, so it is. Thanks! > [the report] found that 65% of child sex trafficking victims recruited on social media were recruited from Facebook Even in 2020, I'm very skeptical that so many children were on Facebook that it could account for 2/3 of recruitment. My own kids say that they and their friends are all but allergic to Facebook. It's the uncool hangout for old people, not where teens want to be. I may be wr…

You don't really need a majority of potential victims to go to location X for victims from location X to make up a majority of victims; that just means that location X is a low-risk, high-reward place for criminals to lurk looking for victims.

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

#250

Post by devsda »

retsibsi wrote: post #216
devsda wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the source it cites actually says 79% of online social media cases I'm curious about what other conclusion you may have reached when reading "on Meta's platforms". Offline by nature cannot happen on Meta's platforms right and any site that facilitates interaction can be considered social media.

> I'm curious about what other conclusion you may have reached when reading "on Meta's platforms". The claim was "79% of all child sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta’s platforms", so they probably took it to mean that 79% of all sex trafficking in 2020 occurred on Meta's platforms. I don't mean to be a smartarse (well maybe a little). But why wouldn't they interpret it that way, when that's exactly what it says…

> But why wouldn't they interpret it that way, when that's exactly what it says

I assumed online by default because honestly 79% of all trafficking happening on Meta's platform sounded so implausible I didn't even consider it.

I mean if that number were really true then FB/Insta would rival the dark web or whatever it is called these days. Didn't think they were gone that far.

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