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Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

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Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#91

Post by javert »

snarf21 wrote: post #89
blhack wrote: post #28

Let me give a preview for anybody who can’t tune in: Democrats all say that disinformation is a threat to democracy. Republicans say that freedom of speech is essential to our democracy. Jack and Mark preface every answer with “senator thank you for this question” and don’t answer anything. They both insist that the humans making editorial decisions are somehow impartial. Republicans yell a lot. Somethings they say d…

The greatest trick social ever played was convincing everyone their neighbor is the enemy while the rich and powerful silently rape this country.

It's hard to think of rich people who are doing more harm than good. Sure, you could argue that for Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and the Sackler family if you want to. But they are a tiny fraction of all rich people.

"Silently rape" is a pretty harsh thing to say.

Would you prefer we had no rich people? There are places like that.

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#92

Post by crusso »

elicash wrote: post #87
crusso wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Left and the Right used to agree that freedom of speech was fairly sacrosanct.

What's funny about this comment is you can read it as claiming either side doesn't value free speech. One side says the right wants to use force of government threaten breaking up companies whose speech policies they disagree with. The other side arguing that left-wing social media companies have so much power they can essentially censor opposing views. Edit: clarity

If you watch the hearings, you'd know that both of your contentions are strawmen of what each side claims to want.

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#93

Post by michaelt »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #42
greesil wrote: post #2

I'm curious what other people think the informational value of these hearings are. It seems like it is either posturing and grandstanding, or reasonable questions to which evasive or non-answers are given. Edit: Oh no it's Lindsey Graham, so probably more grandstanding. Edit 2: Editorializing here, they're threatening to take away section 230 safe harbor protections as a punishment for "censoring" right wing content…

> I'm curious what other people think the informational value of these hearings are. I want to hear from conservatives why they think most of (if not all) of big tech is "in the pockets of the Democrats". Why do all of these software engineers/IT field workers typically end up as left-leaning? Is it a matter of education/intelligence? Empathy? I feel like the split has to be at least 85% Democrat / 15% Republican in…

I'm not a conservative, but I suspect the answer would be along the lines of:

1. "Actually you under-estimate the number of conservatives in tech, they just keep quiet about it because conservative opinions are being oppressed"

2. "For example, a great many twitter posts by Donald Trump have been flagged as false or inciting violence. This shows tech companies won't let you say the things half the population thinks!"

3. "Larry Ellison and Elon Musk love Trump's policies!"

4. "Tech workers often support conservative policies like freedom, opposing government waste and avoiding needless over-regulation. Many tech companies like Uber embody conservative ideals, as do Silicon Valley voters through Prop 13 and Prop 22"

5. "Tech workers often oppose liberal policies like rent control, mandatory hiring diversity, and inheritance taxes on multi-million-dollar homes"

6. "Claims the party is anti-intellectual and anti-science are fake news, how could so many republicans run successful campaigns if they weren't smart? Anyone who seems stupid is actually a genius making a 2000-IQ five-dimensional-chess move. Sadly a lot of tech workers have fallen for the lies of the fake news media."

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#94

Post by whatshisface »

leftyted wrote: post #48
whatshisface wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They need to get the cameras out of congress. Everyone involved in these hearings is mining them for clips for their campaign ads and it's sickening. It is the cameras you have to thank for finding out that they are posturing and grandstanding.

Without the cameras they have no reason to posture. They posture so they can cut a clip, publish it, and say: "Look! Here's me standing up to the evil Republicans|Democrats|tech CEOs who want to steal your precious bodily fluids!" In the presence of cameras, politicians become instagram celebrities.

If their motivations were to do their real jobs, they would do their real jobs regardless of the cameras. The presence of the cameras reveals that they prefer posturing to doing their jobs, but that does not imply that doing their jobs is the priority immediately below posturing. If the cameras were gone, do you think they would ask real questions, or would they start doing things far worse than posturing in front of the public?

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#95

Post by gizmo385 »

blhack wrote: post #69
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were to write three questions for someone on that panel, what would they be and why?

1) We require food manufacturers to list on the side of their products the ingredients, as well as the nutrition facts so people can make an informed decision about what they are putting in their body. There is a growing pressure to require your companies to do something similar, and publish the algorithms and metrics you use to keep people on your services longer. Would you support this movement? 2) Do you believe y…

> There is a growing pressure to require your companies to do something similar, and publish the algorithms and metrics you use to keep people on your services longer.

Growing pressure from who? I've occasionally seen these suggestions within niche tech communities, but I've never heard a layperson suggest something remotely similar to this. I'm also unsure how useful it would be. How detailed would such disclosures be? Even if they list "We use this machine learning algorithm", that algorithm description seems like it would be largely meaningless without the training data (which I don't think you could convince them to publish at all).

> Do you believe your products are addictive?

What company CEO _wouldn't_ say yes to this? It feels, to me at least, like a fluff question that you already know the answer to and won't yield any interesting insight into the company or how the CEO thinks about the product.

> What does it mean to you for something to be true? Could you give an example of something that you find to be uncontroversially true?

I think this is a much better question, although I worry that it might yield itself to some "gotcha" moments from Senators. For example, if one of the CEOs were to say "The sky is blue", I think you might get a lot of Senators saying "Well what if it's raining". That might not be the best example, but just something off the top of my head.

I agree that it might be hard to come up with a unequivocal definition of what is and is not true, as that's ultimately a complicated philosophical question, but I think we can approximate truth by relying on a variety of sources who we know will do their due-diligence on research and are examining the full context of issues.

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#96

Post by dundarious »

the-dude wrote: post #46
blhack wrote: post #28

Let me give a preview for anybody who can’t tune in: Democrats all say that disinformation is a threat to democracy. Republicans say that freedom of speech is essential to our democracy. Jack and Mark preface every answer with “senator thank you for this question” and don’t answer anything. They both insist that the humans making editorial decisions are somehow impartial. Republicans yell a lot. Somethings they say d…

Why are you posting this?

Seems like a lamentation on US political economy and its misplaced priorities -- and how this hearing is just continued pageantry that does not meaningfully seek to discover or improve anything. It's a perspective that might be very interesting to people who are vested in party politics, which is an increasing amount of people in the US.

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#97

Post by javert »

Aunche wrote: post #78
elicash wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nothing happens" mostly because people disagree about things. As a result, seems like a good thing that these hearings broadcast different views on these issues so that the public can know how those views differ. Then, after knowing those views, people get to weigh in during election seasons. In this very recent election, of course, the public weighed in and likely delivered divided government, so we can expect some…

If the Senators spent their time asking meaningful questions that don't know the answer to rather than grandstanding, they might be able to find something they can mutually agree on.

They are behaving based on what they are rewarded for. Almost all of these people will be re-elected.

We need to break out of the GOP/Dem stranglehold if we want to change this behavior. That stranglehold is not desired by the electorate and is also not up for a vote.

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#98

Post by vb6sp6 »

blhack wrote: post #69
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were to write three questions for someone on that panel, what would they be and why?

1) We require food manufacturers to list on the side of their products the ingredients, as well as the nutrition facts so people can make an informed decision about what they are putting in their body. There is a growing pressure to require your companies to do something similar, and publish the algorithms and metrics you use to keep people on your services longer. Would you support this movement? 2) Do you believe y…

These CEOs seems really skilled at using a lot of words to say and commit to very little and it seems like all these questions could be pretty easily dodged.

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#99

Post by elicash »

crusso wrote: post #92
elicash wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's funny about this comment is you can read it as claiming either side doesn't value free speech. One side says the right wants to use force of government threaten breaking up companies whose speech policies they disagree with. The other side arguing that left-wing social media companies have so much power they can essentially censor opposing views. Edit: clarity

If you watch the hearings, you'd know that both of your contentions are strawmen of what each side claims to want.

I just edited for clarity, so maybe that helps?

My entire point is that you were using such a vague straw man that it's impossible to know which direction you meant it. That's why I intentionally showed how it can be a straw man in either direction.

Also, I've been watching the hearing. So you're correct, I suppose -- that's how I was able to accurately summarize. I'm assuming from comment history that you have a libertarian bent, so I'd imagine you're on this side of government staying the hell out of regulating social media companies? But who knows? That's my point.

Re: Watch live: Zuckerberg, Dorsey testify before Senate [video]

#100

Post by CodeGlitch »

vb6sp6 wrote: post #98
blhack wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) We require food manufacturers to list on the side of their products the ingredients, as well as the nutrition facts so people can make an informed decision about what they are putting in their body. There is a growing pressure to require your companies to do something similar, and publish the algorithms and metrics you use to keep people on your services longer. Would you support this movement? 2) Do you believe y…

These CEOs seems really skilled at using a lot of words to say and commit to very little and it seems like all these questions could be pretty easily dodged.

I bet they've had training on this. If you watch Zuck's earlier interviews, he really squirms.
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