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Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

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Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#51

Post by orgop »

rock_hard wrote: post #2

Is there a official confirmation that he really mentored him? All I saw once is a statement that he knows him

Roger's a nice guy and a cool Deadhead, however it's hard to get the guy to stop talking at times. He was interested in a company I created at one point and in the few times we chatted (2-3) he dropped Zuck's name a few too many times in normal conversation. I don't know if it's true or not, but I frequently wondered to what extent he mentored him, like they chatted frequently for a few months? It seemed to me at the time that he was trying to position it as, "would you like to be the next person I mentor post-Zuck?" Lots of weird red flags all-around in those talks, which later fizzled out.

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#52

Post by nrb »

smsm42 wrote: post #45
nrb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about changing minds, it’s about making sure people get out the vote by appealing to people’s emotions through misleading statements or outright lies (they are taking away your guns, they are prdophiles!)

Wait, I though getting people to vote is a good thing? I am seeing a wave of propaganda to vote each time elections are near, registration drives, celebrity appeals, etc. Everybody is talking about how voting is good, not voting is bad and "suppressing" somebody's vote (including convincing them not to vote) is plain awful. There's a case where judge threatened a person with jail unless they vote: https://www.wkyc.co…

I guess that depends on whether you think appealing to outrage and fear through lies and disinformation is good for Democracy.

When a candidate/politician tells a lie, they can be called out on it and are (until recently) accountable to their words and actions.

However, fake news purveyors can practically anonymously blanket the internet to such a degree that mass manipulation can occur with no real way to counter it.

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#53

Post by simmanian »

smsm42 wrote: post #39
simmanian wrote: post #20

Is it feasible to create a corporate structure that would encourage it to act with the public interest in mind? Are there any known patterns, research, or tries? My very ill-informed mind is thinking of a parent-child structure where the parent gets to veto and only veto decisions made by its children that may be harmful for the general public.

What's "public interest"? Why do you think everybody among the public has the same interest and this interest is easily identified and not subject to gaming and corruption by whoever is selected to identify it?

I don't think we need to define what public interest is in a perfect way, because different ideas undergo competition and selection process to be classified as public interest by the society at large. This is what happens today. When people care about global warming, reducing homelessness, etc., it's because these ideas became selected. What I'm wondering is if there's a structural way for these to be seriously considered when a company makes business decisions. Any system can be gamed, of course. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have any system.

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#54

Post by freshhawk »

smacktoward wrote: post #29

> Zuck has always believed that connecting everyone on earth was a mission so important that it justified any action necessary to accomplish it. Anytime someone starts telling you that their end is so noble it justifies any means, you should run away from them as fast as you possibly can.

Anyone who tries to tell me that forcing me to use them as a middleman to talk to someone is "connecting" me to that someone is an idiot or think I am an idiot.

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#55

Post by freshhawk »

simmanian wrote: post #20

Is it feasible to create a corporate structure that would encourage it to act with the public interest in mind? Are there any known patterns, research, or tries? My very ill-informed mind is thinking of a parent-child structure where the parent gets to veto and only veto decisions made by its children that may be harmful for the general public.

You're getting awfully close to suggesting "democracy in the workplace" on HN aren't you?

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#56

Post by Pokepokalypse »

simmanian wrote: post #20

Is it feasible to create a corporate structure that would encourage it to act with the public interest in mind? Are there any known patterns, research, or tries? My very ill-informed mind is thinking of a parent-child structure where the parent gets to veto and only veto decisions made by its children that may be harmful for the general public.

there's this thing called a "non-profit" - it's a good start.

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#57

Post by Pokepokalypse »

rescripting wrote: post #22
simmanian wrote: post #20

Is it feasible to create a corporate structure that would encourage it to act with the public interest in mind? Are there any known patterns, research, or tries? My very ill-informed mind is thinking of a parent-child structure where the parent gets to veto and only veto decisions made by its children that may be harmful for the general public.

Sounds like government regulations? Thats typically been the way we've managed these kinds of threats/bad actors, but technology is changing so fast and policy makers are hamstrung by bureaucracy, incompetence, apathy or all three.

The legal fiction known as a "corporation" is a government regulation. So there's that.

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#58

Post by smsm42 »

nrb wrote: post #52
smsm42 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, I though getting people to vote is a good thing? I am seeing a wave of propaganda to vote each time elections are near, registration drives, celebrity appeals, etc. Everybody is talking about how voting is good, not voting is bad and "suppressing" somebody's vote (including convincing them not to vote) is plain awful. There's a case where judge threatened a person with jail unless they vote: https://www.wkyc.co…

I guess that depends on whether you think appealing to outrage and fear through lies and disinformation is good for Democracy. When a candidate/politician tells a lie, they can be called out on it and are (until recently) accountable to their words and actions. However, fake news purveyors can practically anonymously blanket the internet to such a degree that mass manipulation can occur with no real way to counter it…

> I guess that depends on whether you think appealing to outrage and fear through lies and disinformation is good for Democracy

Given how much it is done by top politicians, and they are still getting elected and re-elected for decades, I think most of the electorate is OK with that.

> When a candidate/politician tells a lie, they can be called out on it and are (until recently) accountable to their words and actions.

Or not. But I don't see how it is related to the topic under discussion. You said the main effect of fake news is getting people to vote. But getting people to vote is considered to be a good thing, so what is the bad thing then? That they are lies? Politician lie all the time, nothing changed. Democracy survived it.

> However, fake news purveyors can practically anonymously blanket the internet

Do you realize the size of the modern internet? Nobody can "blanket" it.

> to such a degree that mass manipulation can occur with no real way to counter it.

So we're back to the original question - is there any evidence of mass manipulation actually occurring, and if so - who is being manipulated and to do what? So far the hypothesis was that the people are manipulated to vote more - but, as I noted, people are manipulated to vote on every election, this has nothing to do with "fake news", literally everybody is trying to manipulate their supporters to vote more (and their opponents to vote less). Is there any data that fake news makes a noticeable effect on this? I certainly haven't seen any, and neither of the MSM articles mentioning this as an obvious fact that everybody knows is happening provides any. It looks more like the routine moral panic than something factual.

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#59

Post by smsm42 »

kelnos wrote: post #47
smsm42 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, I though getting people to vote is a good thing? I am seeing a wave of propaganda to vote each time elections are near, registration drives, celebrity appeals, etc. Everybody is talking about how voting is good, not voting is bad and "suppressing" somebody's vote (including convincing them not to vote) is plain awful. There's a case where judge threatened a person with jail unless they vote: https://www.wkyc.co…

So if fake news drive people to vote it should be a good thing Absolutely not. I would rather people not vote at all than vote based on incorrect information.

But you must know tons of people are voting based on incorrect information already. Just read any public politics forum, you'll encounter thousands of them. Nobody says "please vote only if you are sure you have correct information". Everybody says "please vote" without any qualifications. Nobody says "we'd make a voter registration drive, but before registering every voter we'd double check they have correct information with this easy 20-minute exam". It's always unconditional "voting is good, no matter what". So, is it one or the other? Is it always good or only good if you have "correct information"? And who's gonna decide that information is correct, given how wildly different information providers disagree even about basic questions of the policy? Even if we look at the same person position in 5 years, they may be saying something diametrically opposite to what they said 5 years ago - so which information is correct? Should we discourage people that we think have incorrect information from voting, and if it's a good thing, why is nobody doing it?

Re: Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook

#60

Post by smsm42 »

kelnos wrote: post #48
avn2109 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The waters are further muddied by the fact that nobody can agree on a definition of "fake news." It's meaningless, sensational claims all the way down.

Sure we do: fake news is the dissemination of incorrect information purporting to be the truth (and not someone's opinion).

That's "lying" (if intentional) or "being mistaken" (if sincere). People do it all the time since speech was invented (and probably before that too - I've read about some animals being capable of lying).
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