8 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg is ‘dictator’ of Facebook ‘nation’: The Pirate Bay founder

93 points by Jerry2 10y ago

meeper16 10y ago
I remember when he called his users 'dumb fu*ks'. That told me everything I needed to know about the DNA of that company.
- Disruptive_Dave 10y ago
  If I were held responsible for snippets of casual conversations had amongst peers behind closed doors and as a very young adult...best case scenario I'd be flipping burgers, worst case I'd be behind bars.
  - mjgoins 10y ago
    If Mark Zuckerberg were held responsible for snippets of casual conversations had amongst peers behind closed doors and as a very young adult...best case scenario he'd be flipping burgers, worst case he'd be behind bars.
    - meeper16 10y ago
      You just showed us an exmample of facebook astroturfing
  - emsy 10y ago
    Regardless, it was about trusting him with personal data. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg (first quote)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- icebraining 10y ago
  I never had a FB account, and I've tried to discourage people from using it every since Beacon came to light, back in 2007/8. FB is a scourge on the web. That said, I never really understood why here of all places he gets grilled over that phrase. I mean, he was right - they were dumb for uploading personal data and pictures to some unknown site owned by some unknown kid. Should he pretend otherwise? Is hypocrisy or stupidity a requirement for running a social network? It reminds me of the quote from Red Mars, "It was a mistake to speak one's mind at any time, unless it perfectly matched your political purpose; and it never did."
  - Js20 10y ago
    You should run for President.
  - Natsu 10y ago
    It's because it's evidence that he's knowingly screwing the users over, rather than it being subject to Hanlon's Razor. I had the opportunity to make an account back in the day when you needed a .edu email address, but to this day I have never made one.
  - wutbrodo 10y ago
    > That said, I never really understood why here of all places he gets grilled over that phrase. I mean, he was right - they were dumb for uploading personal data and pictures to some unknown site owned by some unknown kid. Should he pretend otherwise? Because everything he says and everything he indicates about his beliefs is that sharing is a net good and everybody should be doing it as much as possible (I'm simplifying a little bit, of course). Just because you (and many here) feel differently doesn't mean it's impossible that someone could genuinely believe in the mission of connecting everyone, as opposed to thinking people are "dumb fucks" for wanting to do so. Listen to Larry Page speak enough times and you'll get the same sense: he genuinely believes (to at least some degree) 1) organizing all the world's information from every possible source does powerful good that is more than worth the risks/costs and 2) advertisements are effectively a human-curated addendum to information-seeking and thus entirely consistent with the "organizing information" goal. The fact that you or I may disagree with those ideas doesn't make him a hypocrite for his true-believer status. > Is hypocrisy or stupidity a requirement for running a social network? This is a beyond-bizarre assertion. Loudly and constantly extolling the value of less and less barriers to oversharing when you in fact agree with many people that those doing so are dumb _is_ hypocrisy. To use the same analogy, it's as if there were early records of Larry Page saying something like "once everyone gets their information filtered through us, we can nudge them into believing whatever we want". Do you think the absence of such records indicates that LP is a hypocrite?
hasenj 10y ago
> if you look at it from a democracy standpoint, Mark Zuckerberg is a dictator. I did not elect him. He sets the rules You kind of did, when you signed up. > And really you can't opt out of Facebook. I'm not on Facebook but there are a lot of drawbacks in my offline world. No party invitations, no updates from my friends, people stop talking to you, because you're not on Facebook. So it has real life implications. Oh yes you can. Facebook is just about the worst place for actually expanding your social life. When I was there, when I would make a post, it often felt like I was talking to everyone and no one at the same time.
- capote 10y ago
  I agree with your second point. Not being on Facebook affects none of my life, 'real' or not. And as far as I know, even those in my small friend group who are on Facebook don't really use it much. I don't think Facebook runs the lives of those around me as much as many people seem to think it does. Maybe it does in other social circles, but it's still on you. If you're dependent on Facebook, that's your problem and it's not really hard to put an end to it. I hear people talking about Facebook a lot in a tone that sounds like they are making excuses. At the end of the day, if you really think you need it, that's fine but it's on you.
- megalodon 10y ago
  > You kind of did, when you signed up. Problem is many people signed up years ago and I bet they've changed their ToS and privacy policy 100 times since then without people noticing. Facebook satisfied our needs to connect with our friends when it arrived. Now it's 100% ads. I used to have real discussions with friends, but the comment quality today is basically on par with youtube (if not worse).
  - simonsarris 10y ago
    > Problem is many people signed up years ago and I bet they've changed their ToS and privacy policy 100 times since then without people noticing. Honestly that sounds functionally like democracy still. People (not I) voted for policies years ago have have changed a thousand times since, with or without people noticing. Officials campaign promising to serve constituents in some way (we can call this their Terms of Service), people elect them, then they change those terms often, sometimes dramatically, sometimes on day 0. Whether people notice or not seems to have little effect.
jbob2000 10y ago
"And really you can't opt out of Facebook. I'm not on Facebook but there are a lot of drawbacks in my offline world. No party invitations, no updates from my friends, people stop talking to you, because you're not on Facebook. So it has real life implications." I've never experienced this. Perhaps if you are some ultra-socialite, yes, but I have a couple close friends and we reach out to each other in various ways which mostly don't involve facebook. I think this is a phrase that just gets repeated without people actually thinking about their own situation.
- lmm 10y ago
  I am very conscious that I've stopped inviting semi-friends who aren't on Facebook to my events. My closest friends I'll still invite in person, but it's so much more effort to invite someone not via Facebook that in the marginal case it easily tips them from "may as well invite" to "I can't be bothered".
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- joering2 10y ago
  If someone stops talking to me or befriending because I'm less on facebook or not visiting the site at all, then by all means please I definitely want to lose that "friend".
  - icebraining 10y ago
    When people say "friends", they often don't mean just in the "Friends Will Be Friends" sense, they also mean it to include "acquaintances I'd like to keep in touch with", "cute people I'd like to get to know better", "ex-coworker who I got well along with", etc.
  - dghughes 10y ago
    My workplace has said unfriending someone on Facebook is considered bullying. I deactivated Facebook long before that rule for work reasons. But I do find since then I am socially isolated. I'm not a social person at all (4 years since I went out anywhere) but the one good thing Facebook did was keep me in the social world. I know I've missed a few wedding invitations, gatherings of friends, lots of things I find out about later but things I'm sure I never will know about.
simplicio 10y ago
We need a corollary to Betteridges law for headlines with more than one set of scare quotes in them.
tayloormon 10y ago
Mark Zuckerberg is not white, he's Jewish. Big difference. He's obviously in it for the shekels, and shekels are bestowed whenever you use his cancerous product.
jessaustin 10y ago
s/:/, says / That is a confusing headline!
- drivers99 10y ago
  It should be other way around, like speaker: what_they_said So it would be: The Pirate Bay founder: Mark Zuckerberg is ‘dictator’ of Facebook ‘nation’
- sndean 10y ago
  I agree, but I see this all the time in news articles headlines. Wonder why?
kruhft 10y ago
Facebook is a 'free'[1] community and every community has some form of leader. Sometimes those with direction are dictators (sometimes), as in they dictate orders so that others can follow the direction. Facebook is very successful and I don't see how this leadership style is failing them, yet. [1] Yes, I understand 'you are the product' on free sites like this.
zxcvcxz 10y ago
Well I agree I don't know why people trust big tech companies. I guess most people don't trust them they just put up with the abuse. Even if you trust facebook then you have to trust their employees and the third parties they share your information with. Everything you do online probably exists on many different servers, some of which are insecure, allowing the many world governments (china, russia, five-eyes) to extract everything they want, thus putting it on more insecure servers, where it falls into the hands of criminals and gets sold on the dark web for bitcoin.
- dhimes 10y ago
  Tragedy of the commons. It's not worth it for individuals to withdraw.
Lasher 10y ago
Is this article for real? I start a website and it becomes insanely popular then someone suggests it is wrong that I "wasn't elected" to be the leader of it. Only in Europe... Facebook has its issues and is ready to be replaced any day now, but it's still a private site with private rules and use of it is optional.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
benbenolson 10y ago
> Mark Zuckerberg is a rich white dude from a really privileged background Since when does this mean that he knows nothing of culture? I feel like he's making a lot of generalizations: Europe is a giant continent with over 50 countries, most of which contain white people. How can he claim that Zuckerberg is "interfering with our local culture" of ALL of Europe? Seems fishy. Still, Facebook's privacy policy, as well as its usage, are quite annoying, and comprise the reason that I don't use the service. It's extremely easy to avoid: simply tell people that you know that you don't have a Facebook, and they communicate with you via SMS, calls, etc.
- bordercases 10y ago
  "Our" might be a stretch; the children of Mother Europa are quite diverse unto themselves, so one person claiming to be "European" only begins to make sense under "enemy of my enemy..." conditions. But "all of Europe" seems feasible to me. Facebook does have a massive outreach coming from the Internet, after all.
- Pica_soO 10y ago
  They do only so for events where they explicitly think about your invitation. Which are rare. General Group invitations will miss you.
iaw 10y ago
>"We censor a lot of things, why not censor Facebook?" That seems like a really odd sentiment for the founder of The Pirate Bay. I was hoping he'd have a more creative solution than censorship given the history of his site.
smashingmachine 10y ago
The resemblance of Zuck to Ceasar is striking......
godgod 10y ago
Based on all that we know about Facebook and how they collect and use all our personal private data, why anyone uses still Facebook is beyond me. Facebook is a giant spy platform where YOU submit all the your private thoughts and private info putting complete trust in Facebook. We now now they censor. We now know their apps spy on you enabling your microphone eavesdropping in on your private conversations. We know that whatever you type into their input boxes, they collect even if you never hit the send button. Get off Facebook. If it's free, you are the product.
methodover 10y ago
Why would democracy be better in this case? When it comes to a business, I don't know if I would prefer mob rule to a benevolent dictator.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

93 points by Jerry2 10y ago

I remember when he called his users 'dumb fu*ks'. That told me everything I needed to know about the DNA of that company.

Disruptive_Dave 10y ago
If I were held responsible for snippets of casual conversations had amongst peers behind closed doors and as a very young adult...best case scenario I'd be flipping burgers, worst case I'd be behind bars.
- mjgoins 10y ago
  If Mark Zuckerberg were held responsible for snippets of casual conversations had amongst peers behind closed doors and as a very young adult...best case scenario he'd be flipping burgers, worst case he'd be behind bars.
  - meeper16 10y ago
    You just showed us an exmample of facebook astroturfing
- emsy 10y ago
  Regardless, it was about trusting him with personal data. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg (first quote)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
icebraining 10y ago
I never had a FB account, and I've tried to discourage people from using it every since Beacon came to light, back in 2007/8. FB is a scourge on the web. That said, I never really understood why here of all places he gets grilled over that phrase. I mean, he was right - they were dumb for uploading personal data and pictures to some unknown site owned by some unknown kid. Should he pretend otherwise? Is hypocrisy or stupidity a requirement for running a social network? It reminds me of the quote from Red Mars, "It was a mistake to speak one's mind at any time, unless it perfectly matched your political purpose; and it never did."
- Js20 10y ago
  You should run for President.
- Natsu 10y ago
  It's because it's evidence that he's knowingly screwing the users over, rather than it being subject to Hanlon's Razor. I had the opportunity to make an account back in the day when you needed a .edu email address, but to this day I have never made one.
- wutbrodo 10y ago
  > That said, I never really understood why here of all places he gets grilled over that phrase. I mean, he was right - they were dumb for uploading personal data and pictures to some unknown site owned by some unknown kid. Should he pretend otherwise? Because everything he says and everything he indicates about his beliefs is that sharing is a net good and everybody should be doing it as much as possible (I'm simplifying a little bit, of course). Just because you (and many here) feel differently doesn't mean it's impossible that someone could genuinely believe in the mission of connecting everyone, as opposed to thinking people are "dumb fucks" for wanting to do so. Listen to Larry Page speak enough times and you'll get the same sense: he genuinely believes (to at least some degree) 1) organizing all the world's information from every possible source does powerful good that is more than worth the risks/costs and 2) advertisements are effectively a human-curated addendum to information-seeking and thus entirely consistent with the "organizing information" goal. The fact that you or I may disagree with those ideas doesn't make him a hypocrite for his true-believer status. > Is hypocrisy or stupidity a requirement for running a social network? This is a beyond-bizarre assertion. Loudly and constantly extolling the value of less and less barriers to oversharing when you in fact agree with many people that those doing so are dumb _is_ hypocrisy. To use the same analogy, it's as if there were early records of Larry Page saying something like "once everyone gets their information filtered through us, we can nudge them into believing whatever we want". Do you think the absence of such records indicates that LP is a hypocrite?

hasenj 10y ago

> if you look at it from a democracy standpoint, Mark Zuckerberg is a dictator. I did not elect him. He sets the rules You kind of did, when you signed up. > And really you can't opt out of Facebook. I'm not on Facebook but there are a lot of drawbacks in my offline world. No party invitations, no updates from my friends, people stop talking to you, because you're not on Facebook. So it has real life implications. Oh yes you can. Facebook is just about the worst place for actually expanding your social life. When I was there, when I would make a post, it often felt like I was talking to everyone and no one at the same time.

capote 10y ago
I agree with your second point. Not being on Facebook affects none of my life, 'real' or not. And as far as I know, even those in my small friend group who are on Facebook don't really use it much. I don't think Facebook runs the lives of those around me as much as many people seem to think it does. Maybe it does in other social circles, but it's still on you. If you're dependent on Facebook, that's your problem and it's not really hard to put an end to it. I hear people talking about Facebook a lot in a tone that sounds like they are making excuses. At the end of the day, if you really think you need it, that's fine but it's on you.
megalodon 10y ago
> You kind of did, when you signed up. Problem is many people signed up years ago and I bet they've changed their ToS and privacy policy 100 times since then without people noticing. Facebook satisfied our needs to connect with our friends when it arrived. Now it's 100% ads. I used to have real discussions with friends, but the comment quality today is basically on par with youtube (if not worse).
- simonsarris 10y ago
  > Problem is many people signed up years ago and I bet they've changed their ToS and privacy policy 100 times since then without people noticing. Honestly that sounds functionally like democracy still. People (not I) voted for policies years ago have have changed a thousand times since, with or without people noticing. Officials campaign promising to serve constituents in some way (we can call this their Terms of Service), people elect them, then they change those terms often, sometimes dramatically, sometimes on day 0. Whether people notice or not seems to have little effect.

jbob2000 10y ago

"And really you can't opt out of Facebook. I'm not on Facebook but there are a lot of drawbacks in my offline world. No party invitations, no updates from my friends, people stop talking to you, because you're not on Facebook. So it has real life implications." I've never experienced this. Perhaps if you are some ultra-socialite, yes, but I have a couple close friends and we reach out to each other in various ways which mostly don't involve facebook. I think this is a phrase that just gets repeated without people actually thinking about their own situation.

lmm 10y ago
I am very conscious that I've stopped inviting semi-friends who aren't on Facebook to my events. My closest friends I'll still invite in person, but it's so much more effort to invite someone not via Facebook that in the marginal case it easily tips them from "may as well invite" to "I can't be bothered".
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
joering2 10y ago
If someone stops talking to me or befriending because I'm less on facebook or not visiting the site at all, then by all means please I definitely want to lose that "friend".
- icebraining 10y ago
  When people say "friends", they often don't mean just in the "Friends Will Be Friends" sense, they also mean it to include "acquaintances I'd like to keep in touch with", "cute people I'd like to get to know better", "ex-coworker who I got well along with", etc.
- dghughes 10y ago
  My workplace has said unfriending someone on Facebook is considered bullying. I deactivated Facebook long before that rule for work reasons. But I do find since then I am socially isolated. I'm not a social person at all (4 years since I went out anywhere) but the one good thing Facebook did was keep me in the social world. I know I've missed a few wedding invitations, gatherings of friends, lots of things I find out about later but things I'm sure I never will know about.

simplicio 10y ago

We need a corollary to Betteridges law for headlines with more than one set of scare quotes in them.

tayloormon 10y ago

Mark Zuckerberg is not white, he's Jewish. Big difference. He's obviously in it for the shekels, and shekels are bestowed whenever you use his cancerous product.

jessaustin 10y ago

s/:/, says / That is a confusing headline!

drivers99 10y ago
It should be other way around, like speaker: what_they_said So it would be: The Pirate Bay founder: Mark Zuckerberg is ‘dictator’ of Facebook ‘nation’
sndean 10y ago
I agree, but I see this all the time in news articles headlines. Wonder why?

kruhft 10y ago

Facebook is a 'free'[1] community and every community has some form of leader. Sometimes those with direction are dictators (sometimes), as in they dictate orders so that others can follow the direction. Facebook is very successful and I don't see how this leadership style is failing them, yet. [1] Yes, I understand 'you are the product' on free sites like this.

zxcvcxz 10y ago

Well I agree I don't know why people trust big tech companies. I guess most people don't trust them they just put up with the abuse. Even if you trust facebook then you have to trust their employees and the third parties they share your information with. Everything you do online probably exists on many different servers, some of which are insecure, allowing the many world governments (china, russia, five-eyes) to extract everything they want, thus putting it on more insecure servers, where it falls into the hands of criminals and gets sold on the dark web for bitcoin.

dhimes 10y ago
Tragedy of the commons. It's not worth it for individuals to withdraw.

Lasher 10y ago

Is this article for real? I start a website and it becomes insanely popular then someone suggests it is wrong that I "wasn't elected" to be the leader of it. Only in Europe... Facebook has its issues and is ready to be replaced any day now, but it's still a private site with private rules and use of it is optional.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

benbenolson 10y ago

> Mark Zuckerberg is a rich white dude from a really privileged background Since when does this mean that he knows nothing of culture? I feel like he's making a lot of generalizations: Europe is a giant continent with over 50 countries, most of which contain white people. How can he claim that Zuckerberg is "interfering with our local culture" of ALL of Europe? Seems fishy. Still, Facebook's privacy policy, as well as its usage, are quite annoying, and comprise the reason that I don't use the service. It's extremely easy to avoid: simply tell people that you know that you don't have a Facebook, and they communicate with you via SMS, calls, etc.

bordercases 10y ago
"Our" might be a stretch; the children of Mother Europa are quite diverse unto themselves, so one person claiming to be "European" only begins to make sense under "enemy of my enemy..." conditions. But "all of Europe" seems feasible to me. Facebook does have a massive outreach coming from the Internet, after all.
Pica_soO 10y ago
They do only so for events where they explicitly think about your invitation. Which are rare. General Group invitations will miss you.

iaw 10y ago

>"We censor a lot of things, why not censor Facebook?" That seems like a really odd sentiment for the founder of The Pirate Bay. I was hoping he'd have a more creative solution than censorship given the history of his site.

smashingmachine 10y ago

The resemblance of Zuck to Ceasar is striking......

godgod 10y ago

Based on all that we know about Facebook and how they collect and use all our personal private data, why anyone uses still Facebook is beyond me. Facebook is a giant spy platform where YOU submit all the your private thoughts and private info putting complete trust in Facebook. We now now they censor. We now know their apps spy on you enabling your microphone eavesdropping in on your private conversations. We know that whatever you type into their input boxes, they collect even if you never hit the send button. Get off Facebook. If it's free, you are the product.

methodover 10y ago

Why would democracy be better in this case? When it comes to a business, I don't know if I would prefer mob rule to a benevolent dictator.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]