Does Even Mark Zuckerberg Know What Facebook Is?

Post by owebmaster » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 2:37 PM UTC

davesque wrote: post #38

FabHK wrote: post #22

> “We have been working to ensure the integrity of the German elections this weekend,” Zuckerberg writes. Excuse me, what? As an advertising company, you don't ensure the integrity of a sovereign nation's election. You can at most abstain from unduly interfering with it (and of course you should, it's not particularly laudable or supererogatory).

I can imagine a lot of ways this could be done ethically. Maybe they tried to keep the bot activity to a minimum. Maybe they kept a lookout for non-German (and especially Russian) accounts trying to buy political ads. Either way, I think it ought to be pretty clear that the free market, hands off approach doesn't work.

Post by panarky » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #22

> “We have been working to ensure the integrity of the German elections this weekend,” Zuckerberg writes. Excuse me, what? As an advertising company, you don't ensure the integrity of a sovereign nation's election. You can at most abstain from unduly interfering with it (and of course you should, it's not particularly laudable or supererogatory).

Post by zghst » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 2:57 PM UTC

owebmaster wrote: post #39

projectant wrote: post #32

Quote of the year: > But if Facebook is bigger, newer, and weirder than a mere company, surely his trip is bigger, newer, and weirder than a mere presidential run. Maybe he’s doing research and development, reverse-­engineering social bonds to understand how Facebook might better facilitate them. Maybe Facebook is a church and Zuckerberg is offering his benedictions. Maybe Facebook is a state within a state and Zucke…

Maybe someone is behind Zuckerberg? I don't find him too smart, really.

Post by FabHK » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 3:24 PM UTC

panarky wrote: post #43

FabHK wrote: post #22

> “We have been working to ensure the integrity of the German elections this weekend,” Zuckerberg writes. Excuse me, what? As an advertising company, you don't ensure the integrity of a sovereign nation's election. You can at most abstain from unduly interfering with it (and of course you should, it's not particularly laudable or supererogatory).

This is one of the best articles I've read recently. Another recent article that I can't stop thinking about also covered the malign naïveté of Facebook -- "Zuckerberg's Preposterous Defense of Facebook" by Zeynep Tufecki [0]. The entire thing is so well reasoned it's hard to choose just one snip, but here's one: For those of us who are tolerant of a wide range of ideas and arguments, but would still like deception a…

Post by T-hawk » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 3:32 PM UTC

dogruck wrote: post #30

Digit-Al wrote: post #21

I can see a number of potential reasons why Zuck wouldn't want to be US president. Firstly, it seems to me that it could potentially poison his brand overseas. Everyone knows that Facebook can potentially exert a lot of influence in very subtle ways. How many countries would want most of their citizens under the potential influence of a company owned by the president of a potentially hostile country? It could cause F…

I disagree that the head of an online advertising company has more power than the POTUS.