Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was an utter sham
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/11/mark-zuckerbergs-facebook-hearing-shamMark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was an utter sham
Zephyr Teachout
Wed 11 Apr 2018 07.00 BST
On Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in the hot seat. Cameras surrounded him. The energy in the room and on Twitter was electric. At last, the reluctant CEO is made to answer some questions! Except it failed. It was designed to fail. It was a show designed to get Zuckerberg off the hook after only a few hours in Washington DC. It was a show that gave the pretense of a hearing without a real hearing. It was designed to deflect and confuse.
Each senator was given less than five minutes for questions. That meant that there was no room for follow-ups, no chance for big discoveries and many frustratingly half-developed ideas. Compare that to Bill Gates hearing on Microsoft, where he faced lawyers and staff for several days, or the Kefauver hearings, which were over a year. By design, you cant do a hearing of this magnitude in a day.
The worst moments of the hearing for us, as citizens, were when senators asked if Zuckerberg would support legislation that would regulate Facebook. I dont care whether Zuckerberg supports Honest Ads, or privacy laws, or GDPR. By asking him if he would support legislation, the senators elevated him to a kind of co-equal philosopher king whose view on Facebook regulation carried special weight. It shouldnt.
(snip)
The best senators understood this was a show, and used it as such. Your user agreement sucks, said Senator John Kennedy. Are you a monopoly? asked Senator Lindsey Graham (Zuckerberg comically responded that he didnt feel like it.) Senator Richard Blumenthal said we needed laws, not promises or apologies.
Because each senator was limited to under five minutes, Zuckerberg tried to run the clock by talking about mission, or philosophy, or what he believed in. There were some good questions, but there was little chance for follow up. You could almost see him, well-trained to count the minutes, playing for time when things got a little hot.
Senators Hironi and Booker, for instance, both pointed out the damning reporting by Julia Angwin at ProProblica, which showed that employers and landlords were using Facebook for discriminatory ads. Zuckerberg defended the company by saying they were hard to flag, and that they depend on community flagging to stop them.
(snip)
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Colour me fucking shocked!
Deb
(3,742 posts)One Senator even coquettishly mentioned his grandson by name, as if getting his name recorded on the official record during the "Facebook" hearing was appropriate. Gag. There are times I really miss Pres. Gore.
FSogol
(45,579 posts)Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)We expected anything other than this?
Oppaloopa
(867 posts)Mike Nelson
(9,980 posts)...rule limit (5 min) is bad during many hearings. I don't think he spoke much at all... the questioners decided to make "statements" instead. Also, most of them were obviously not familiar with social media - I don't think they've ever used Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, YouTube, etc...
Beearewhyain
(600 posts)and that they depend on community flagging to stop them."
So not only are we the "product" to be bought and sold on their whims, we are required to do the work for them. And if it all goes south then I guess we did not work hard enough?
The most insidious thing the corporate world has done is shift responsibility down to the consumer.
ancianita
(36,204 posts)They disagree with the supportive evidence you provide, but themselves don't provide proof that the account is not fake, and then tell you to simply block the account.
They know very well that the consumers who try, in good faith, to help weed out bots and fake accounts, will give up eventually.
Pobeka
(4,999 posts)paraphrasing -- "we asked CA to delete the data, they said they did, and we trusted their answer".
So, see, facebook was a victim too, they were lied to by CA!
I don't buy it for a millisecond. That data *is* facebook's entire value. I'm betting facebook had a team of attorneys who specialzed in intellectual property and knew that CA was suspicious and may have recommended an audit. But why would facebook mgmt not audit CA bac at that time as Zuckerberg says they now know they should have?
The answer could be you knew that CA holding that data would inevitibly lead to more advertising revenue for facebook, even if the advertising was shady, misguided, whatever.
I'm also betting that CA allowed easy access to the data for the Russian hackers. Allowing the hackers access means the hackers could very specifically target eliminating democratic voters from databased in key states. And by CA allowing that to happen, CA could take public credit for the Trump win, which leads to more business for CA.
Except CA got caught...
There is a potential insidious money trail linking all this together...
stuffmatters
(2,574 posts)That's what we learned from the 60 Minutes piece. All three parties physically, ideologically and financially came together to win the election for Trump/Russia via CA's FB supplied psychograhics (psychological warfare) on Americans. Did this even come up during this superficial show hearing?