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A Q&A with Mark Zuckerberg About Data Privacy

158 points by username223 9y ago

nikofeyn 9y ago
i just can’t believe facebook’s telling of the story. they are essentially saying that one of the most powerful companies in the world basically just asked pretty please for an offender to delete data amongst other requests and then just took their word for it. they’re painting it as if they did their darnedest, but i think they just don’t actualy care or something more serious. this entire interview is basically zuckerberg just spewing damage control and explaining that facebook doesn't understand how people are using and abusing their data, with regards to developers, governments, etc. that latter point is either just pure neglect or willful ignorance in turning their head until it hurts them.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- zinckiwi 9y ago
  If you sent me a file and then insisted I delete it, how exactly would you expect me to prove that I had?
  - asveikau 9y ago
    Should have put it on Stories. Deletes in 24 hours.
- jim_d 9y ago
  I think it's even worse than that, I suspect there have been a lot of companies like CA that have had their access cut off and have retained the data. FB probably has never done a serious investigation of most of them. This one is only important because it's gotten so much media attention. If it wasn't related to the election it would have been business as usual and nobody would care or know about CA.
akerro 9y ago
you put some content into a service, whether it’s a photo or a video or a text message — whether it’s Facebook or WhatsApp or Instagram — and you’re trusting [you dumb fuck] that that content is going to be shared with the people you want to share it with.
canoebuilder 9y ago
Here's a question, Cambridge Analytica gets 50 million of these highly robust personal data profiles, and that's a "scandal"! But facebook has something on the order of a billion of these (even more) highly robust personal data profiles, and that's, not a scandal but a multi-hundred billion dollar corporation? Can it be said the collection of these profiles is a net positive for the world? Or is this mass societal exploitation for private profit? Note this isn't asking about the existence itself of facebook, just the collecting of these profiles, fb could function in some way without collecting these profiles.
mch82 9y ago
This interview was much better than I expected. Some confidence restored (long way to go)... will be interesting to see how the questions and answers evolve over the next few weeks. To me, there is a difference between buying targeted advertisements on Facebook without having direct access to private data and exporting private data for use in military-style information operations. This interview seems to indicate Facebook plans to stick closer to on-platform targeted advertising in the future.
- gt_ 9y ago
  What about it gives you that indication? Are you just reading it at face value?
harry8 9y ago
Was this access to Zuck why the NYT silently changed their story to make Sandberg look less culpable yesterday? It worries me.
- harry8 9y ago
  I couldn't find the HN link. This was the story iirc. https://lawandcrime.com/exclusive/facebook-forces-nyt-to-quietly-delete-unflattering-reference-to-sheryl-sandberg-in-story-about-russian-trolls/ https://lawandcrime.com/exclusive/facebook-forces-nyt-to-qui... [edit] It had dropped a long way down https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16632743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16632743
- artemisyna 9y ago
  The NYT's report update was becaese Alex Stamos tweeted pointing out how they were wrong. https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/975926737111367680 https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/975926737111367680 https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/976175174314635264 https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/976175174314635264 You'd think the news sites would maybe be a little bit more transparent given all this fake news rabble, but they can't even bother to update with primary sources apparently...
  - mliker 9y ago
    I actually find it disturbing that Trump is kind-of right: NYTimes is #fakenews. :( What an age we live in.
    - azemetre 9y ago
      Newspapers and agencies issue retractions on stories all the time. Claiming that they are all fake news is massively disingenuous where you have other major media companies that don't make retractions at all.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    Yea and also the tweet doesn't contradict the original published content. "Losing a debate" and being "discouraged" are not mutually exclusive.
Alterlife 9y ago
He is a CEO in damage control mode. The cynic in me wants me to ignore everything he says right now. The ashes of the privacy debate will be swept under the rug the once the fire is out. History says making money is more important to fb than being ethical.
- username223 9y ago
  The cynic in me thinks he spent a few days using the world's biggest surveillance/analytics apparatus to gauge public sentiment, then came up with talking points and proposals that would cause minimal damage to his business. For example, it sounds good that there will be some notification for the 50 million people whose data was scraped without their knowledge. Will that be a simple email, or a page buried deep in the FB settings menu? How about all of the other companies doing exactly the same scraping? Are their victims notified as well? And then there was the "after the first billion, people can't afford it, so surveillance is the answer" line. Really? From a man who extracted $50 billion from that business? Here's a thought: pay them.
  - adventured 9y ago
    Your end criticism of Zuckerberg has a very big problem: he's going to give away his fortune, the ~$69 billion, like Gates and Buffett before him. Here's what would have to really scare you, if I'm gauging your views correctly: Zuckerberg actually believes in what he's doing and based on his behavior the last 14 years he isn't very interested in the money. He has never acted like a Saudi prince or gilded age tycoon. He never hoarded Facebook equity, he took vast perpetual dilution (despite entirely controlling the Facebook corporation), and produced thousands of millionaires. He spread the wealth around, that's why he only owns ~14% of a company that went public less than six years ago. Larry Ellison by contrast, still owns 27% of Oracle after 40 years. How about all of those millionaires that got rich on Facebook stock? All those teacher pensions that got massive returns on it? The thousands of Facebook employees that have yielded 1%er salaries and wealth. The tens of thousands of average investors that rode the Facebook giant and made most of the money on it. Zuckerberg made a lot of money. Everybody else combined made more by a factor of ~8x or more. What's their guilt in having profited on all of this? Hitting someone with the wealth seeker tag, is the easy way out. The easiest, cheapest negative label there is: the profit motive. Unfortunately for your premise, criticizing him about money, makes very little sense.
joering2 9y ago
Who saw the CNN "interview" ? Was it green-boxed? - never seen both interviewer and Zuck together in a photo op. News stations usually do that and show together photo before or after the interview take place (or during sitting together) so that everyone knows it actually took place; - Zuck eyes were running back and forth like he was reading from teleprompter; - weird pauses felt like he is waiting for teleprompter to update; - first time ever seen any interview - not to mention on a so-called professional news station - that camera angle will be shooting at interviewer's back of his/her head; - journalist interviewing Zuck did not look at his face or his eyes, but somewhere behind him. Unless its just my tin foil hat thinking for me...
- make3 9y ago
  wtf are you even suggesting, that the interview didn't take place?
- loriverkutya 9y ago
  Take off your tinfoil hat, he is on the Autism spectrum, these are traits.
- gressquel 9y ago
  /r/the_donald this way ---->
standardcitizen 9y ago
I’m completely at a lack of words as why people think giving their data to someone means it’s safe or won’t be used for harm. Anything I post on social media, I assume the worst. I’m unsure how anyone else can assume any different.
- TaylorAlexander 9y ago
  I would imagine these companies put great effort in to assuring users that their data is safe. The privacy protections Facebook implements look secure to a lot of people. I’m right there with you that I assume everything I say on these platforms could be made public, but you and I are more informed on data security issues. For many people, they just want to share photos and chat with friends. The deep privacy implications are beyond most people.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  >I’m unsure how anyone else can assume any different The vast majority of FB users are tech illiterate. They have no idea about the capabilities of algorithms and how they can be turned into automated weapons which can target entire populations with psychological warfare. So I think it's a problem of them not understanding how their data can be so easily and effectively weaponized against them and everyone they know.
duxup 9y ago
That first question is a good one. Not that it got an answer. Considering the data is what is valuable to them I would find it hard to belive they didn't know how much they had been sharing in the past.
thinkcomp 9y ago
Mark has known about this issue since I fought with him over it in 2005. https://twitter.com/AaronGreenspan/status/975957889767505920 https://twitter.com/AaronGreenspan/status/975957889767505920 https://twitter.com/AaronGreenspan/status/976331044084264960 https://twitter.com/AaronGreenspan/status/976331044084264960 As I have said time and again, Mark is not trustworthy and never has been.
- spitfire 9y ago
  So that's very interesting. For any future litigation it establishes a clear timeline of when he was aware of these issues. So if it turns out he has any liability for the data breaches they don't have much to stand on.
- hunterjrj 9y ago
  Presumably Zuckerberg did not consent to this conversation being captured/recorded and shared. Do you feel even the slightest bit of embarrassment at the irony and hypocrisy of using this content, that you acquired without consent, to further your argument against the trustworthiness of this guy?
htaunay 9y ago
"Now, the good news here is that these problems aren’t necessarily rocket science." "If you had asked me, when I got started with Facebook, if one of the central things I’d need to work on now is preventing governments from interfering in each other’s elections, there’s no way I thought that’s what I’d be doing" These are just two examples, but quite a few quotes from this interview are verbatim from the CNN interview. Where has Mark been the last days? Probably rehearsing.
- roymurdock 9y ago
  CEOs presidents and actors have a lot in common. Much of their job is performance/comedy/tragedy/entertainment. I wouldn’t expect anything substantive to ever surface in a public facing interview
  - privacypoller 9y ago
    So I guess that makes Trump one of the worst improv actors I've ever seen?
feelin_googley 9y ago
"Zuckerberg: We took action immediately at that point. We banned Kogan's app from the platform, we demanded that Kogan and Cambridge Analytica and a couple other parties that Kogan had shared the data with would legally certify that they didn't have the data, and weren't using it in any of their operations. They gave us that formal certification. At the time, they told us they never had gotten access to raw Facebook data, so we made that decision. Zuckerberg: Yes. They gave us a formal and legal certification, and it seems at this point that that was false." Does it matter whether CA breached some form of "agreement" with FB? What is the consequence of that? CA losing their FB privileges going forward? Does that really address the harm done? Does "formal and legal certification" mean anything if FB is not going to take legal action against CA? (Maybe FB is worried about FTC and violating their 2011 consent decree, i.e. self-preservation.) If anyone should be requiring "formal and legal certification" that data was destroyed and that there was no unauthorized usage or transfer, it is the owners of the data: FB users. Why are FB users upset with FB. Shouldnt they be upset with CA. There must be a reason that there is so much focus on FB as the problem and not only on CA. What is it?
- kaennar 9y ago
  I'm going to bet Facebook is bigger and everyone uses it and CA is based in the UK and not in the US. Who the hell even knew Cambridge Analytica before any of this? It's fun to hate big companies with recognizable names and blame that big company for electing someone that Americans are increasingly displeased with.
  - mliker 9y ago
    I'm surprised to see someone tell it for what it really is. This is just like the Uber "scandal" from last year in that things got blown way out of proportion in some aspects, but positive changes were made.
    - TAForObvReasons 9y ago
      In this case, people have, both publicly and privately, warned Facebook about this issue for years. At some point, after having been warned about the situation, inaction is in fact a conscious decision.
creo 9y ago
He's not doing shit. Year after year he's making the same comment over privacy. What is Facebook suppose to do? Stop collecting data? Ridiculous its the core business model of every branch of that disgusting data leech. It's not about the Cambridge Analytica or russian manipulation campaign. It's about our basic right to privacy, that is constantly violated every time You look at that page or any other connected to it.
brylie 9y ago
This is a good opportunity to join and/or recommend friends to join decentralized networks, like Mastadon: https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/ https://instances.social/ https://instances.social/
pitt1980 9y ago
Where were these worries four years ago for the much larger and arguably more manipulative effort by the Obama campaign? Instead of using a personality quiz, the Obama campaign merely got a portion of its core supporters to use their Facebook profiles to log into a campaign site. Then they used well-tested techniques of gaining consent from that user to harvest all their friends’ data. Sasha Issenberg gushed about how the Obama campaign used the same permissions structure of Facebook to extract the data of scores of millions of Facebook users who were unaware of what was happening to them. Combining Facebook data with other sources such as voter-registration rolls, Issenberg wrote, generated “a new political currency that predicted the behavior of individual humans. The campaign didn’t just know who you were; it knew exactly how it could turn you into the type of person it wanted you to be.” The level of data sophistication was so intense that Issenberg could describe it this way: "Obama’s campaign began the election year confident it knew the name of every one of the 69,456,897 Americans whose votes had put him in the White House. They may have cast those votes by secret ballot, but Obama’s analysts could look at the Democrats’ vote totals in each precinct and identify the people most likely to have backed him. Pundits talked in the abstract about reassembling Obama’s 2008 coalition. But within the campaign, the goal was literal. They would reassemble the coalition, one by one, through personal contacts." Today’s Cambridge Analytica scandal causes our tech chin-strokers to worry about “information” you did not consent to share, but the Obama team created social interactions you wouldn’t have had. They didn’t just build a psychological profile of persuadable voters, and algorithmically determine ways of persuading them, but actually encouraged particular friends — ones the campaign had profiled as influencers — to reach out to them personally. In a post-election interview, the campaign’s digital director Teddy Goff explained the strategy: “People don’t trust campaigns. They don’t even trust media organizations,” he told Time’s Michael Sherer, “Who do they trust? Their friends?” This level of manipulation was celebrated in the press. How did Facebook react to the much larger data harvesting of the Obama campaign? The New York Times reported it out, in a feature hailing Obama’s digital masterminds: "The campaign’s exhaustive use of Facebook triggered the site’s internal safeguards. “It was more like we blew through an alarm that their engineers hadn’t planned for or knew about,” said [Will] St. Clair, who had been working at a small firm in Chicago and joined the campaign at the suggestion of a friend. “They’d sigh and say, ‘You can do this as long as you stop doing it on Nov. 7.’ ”" In other words, Silicon Valley is just making up the rules as they go along. Some large-scale data harvesting and social manipulation is okay until the election. Some of it becomes not okay in retrospect. They sigh and say okay so long as Obama wins. When Clinton loses, they effectively call a code red. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/cambridge-analytica-social-media-panic/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/cambridge-analytica-s...
belorn 9y ago
I did not expect that New York Times would do this, but how wonderful would it not be if they had asked directly if either of the political parties in 2016 was given access to use Facebook data in order to create social graphs and use it in their campaigns.
creato 9y ago
> The point of what we’re trying to do here is to create a situation where we have a real person-to-person relationship with any developer who is asking for the most sensitive data. Why is Facebook so dead set on sharing data at all? People keep lumping Facebook in with the rest (Google/Amazon/Microsoft?/other data mining companies) but my impression was that these companies do not do this. It seems reckless to the point of absurdity. Some other event like this will happen again in the future as long as they continue to insist on this, it is inevitable.
- M_Bakhtiari 9y ago
  >Why is Facebook so dead set on sharing data at all? What else are they supposed to do to keep their massive infrastructure running? People would clearly rather invite the likes of CA into their private lives than pay even the tiniest little fee to keep their contacts and pictures in the cloud together with those of their friends. I unsubscribed from Facebook years ago, because it just didn't seem like a good deal to me.
  - creato 9y ago
    What I thought Facebook and every other data company did: build tools to sell ads based on the data, but not actually share the data itself.
- cynicalreason 9y ago
  ahm .. you mean SELLING, that's what FB does, they have no other product besides their userbase ? google has been scrutinized in the past, one big difference is google doesn't offer this data to private companies (yeah yeah .. NSA ) and their model never really allowed someone like CA to get their data. google's original product was search, from that they were able to extrapolate insane amounts of user data that they then used in their biggest product: ADS. but they never provided the USER data, they provided an interface for their ad customers to better target their ads. so in a way google uses the data to create products around it while for facebook users and their data ARE the product.
- cjhopman 9y ago
jzl 9y ago
In response to a question about Alex Stamos leaving: "So we’re going to double the amount of people working on security this year. We’ll have more than 20,000 people working on security and community operations by the end of the year, I think we have about 15,000 now. So it’s really the technical systems we have working with the people in our operations functions that make the biggest deal." Huh? 20,000 people? This seems like a wildly misleading number. He's grouping security and "community operations" together, whatever that is. That must include masses of people doing manual video and ad reviews, or something like that. That has nothing to do with the question. It's like you asked the president about the Secret Service and he said "Between the Secret Service and US Army we have over a million people and that number is going up this year!"
- camillomiller 9y ago
  He does that all the time. After the hate posts scandals in Germany he promised that a team of hundreds of moderators would be working from Berlin to address the issue. It claimed it in a way as to suggest that they were Facebook employees. No way: they are employees of a very well known multinational contractor who are paid minimum wage salaries to spend all day reading and watching the worst humanity has to offer—without any formal psychological support or training. Source: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/exklusive-sz-magazin-recherche-inside-facebook-1.3297138 http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/exklusive-sz-magazin-rech...
- wepple 9y ago
  There are rumors he’s considering going into politics. With non-sequitur answers coming as naturally as that, I think he’s nearly ready!
- overthemoon 9y ago
  How is this even a security issue? This wasn't a "breach", right? This is just Facebook pleading with CA to not do naughty things with their data, and CA refusing.
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    It's security theater.
Khaine 9y ago
What does Zuckerberg know about user's privacy. He does not believe in the concept[1][2]. I remember when this chart[3] first made the rounds. If this didn't convince people that facebook is evil. I don't know what will [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jan/11/facebook-privacy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jan/11/facebook-... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerbergs-statements-on-privacy-2003-2018.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg... [3] http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/ http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  RE [3], I'd like to see data for post-2010. I can't comment on times before, since I've not been on Facebook then, but since early 2010s, I remember that the defaults kept getting annoyingly more private over time, with Facebook constantly reminding me that I can restrict visibility of stuff.
  - scoggs 9y ago
    I always got the vibe that they pushed things like that so hard and in your face in order to find out more about you. If you are the type to set your privacy a certain way they corral you into a group where you are looked at in a different way than users who don't toy with their privacy settings in a way where it draws attention to the fact that you actually seriously care about your privacy. This is just a hunch but with their endless data points and the internal teams involved with making these decisions not only decide what privacy options we are shown, how, and why but what the inverse effect would be in terms of how to treat and monitor those specific customers in order to harvest and obtain the types of data that were essential to providing useful and actionable information to those looking to buy that information. Something about how in your face their privacy awareness campaigns seemed to be while all the while everyone in tech or paying any attention knew that Facebook is in the business of selling personal / private information. I think what you don't say, don't do, and don't want them to see creates just as much of a profile about you as anything you do voluntarily give up to them. I feel they wouldn't be successful if they weren't the type of company that thought that deeply into it. All that said one of the scenarios in my mind that I figured applies to this, which is very apt right now with the goings-on of Facebook / Cambridge Analytica is when a user is flagged as the type who has locked down their privacy, thus being corralled into the group of "Members who care about personal internet privacy" that would be their cue to needing to harvest your data points via your friend circle or 3rd party Facebook tools / features (like external Like buttons) in order to obtain those data points while still sticking to their "Privacy Manifesto". Maybe that's when they start serving you lots of ads interesting you in dating on Tinder, using external photo sharing apps like Instagram, or external messaging apps like Messenger or WhatsApp. Who knows, really? But they and we know they've had many ways to skin a cat all along. Maybe I'm paranoid but I'd rather be paranoid and a bit fanatical than ignorant. PS. Not calling anyone out there ignorant. Just ranting is all.
forgotmypw 9y ago
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks
- jd20 9y ago
  That IM exchange was mentioned in a news article (I knew it sounded familiar): http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims... When I signed up for Facebook (back when it was just Harvard-only) I made up a new never-before-used password, because going thru other students' passwords was just the sort of thing I'd imagine Mark doing in his spare time...
  - PaulStatezny 9y ago
    > When I signed up for Facebook (back when it was just Harvard-only) I made up a new never-before-used password, because going thru other students' passwords was just the sort of thing I'd imagine Mark doing in his spare time... Did you know Mark personally? What gave you that impression?
    - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
      Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask. Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
    - jd20 9y ago
      Not personally, I just don't think I would login using my real password on any website running from another student's dorm room.
paulus_magnus2 9y ago
He's in damage control mode / managing expectations. Come on, when your data is the product, who do you think will buy it and what can/will they do with it other than bad things. I can't think of a legitimate use for such detailed profiling of people.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  Apparently the legitimate use in 2018 is to provide incredibly targeted and but amazingly low quality ads.
sAbakumoff 9y ago
Now Mr. Trump is indirectly bragging about exploitation of Facebook data [1] : "Remember when they were saying, during the campaign, that Donald Trump is giving great speeches and drawing big crowds, but he is spending much less money and not using social media as well as Crooked Hillary’s large and highly sophisticated staff. Well, not saying that anymore!" Ok this guy is out of his mind, but Murky Marc should probably go and hand over the company to Sheryl. She knows what to do. [1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/976770619424563200 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/97677061942456320...
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"Ok this guy is out of his mind, but Murky Marc should probably go and hand over the company to Sheryl. She knows what to do" Do you believe that the number 2 executive officer at FB had no part in any of the bad decisions FB have made recently?
- cynicalreason 9y ago
  Had to triple check it's not a satire account .. nope, it's real
  - sAbakumoff 9y ago
    Yep, the media is now busy with another message of Mr. Trump with which he attacked Mr. Biden[1], but soon they will discover the social media thing and it might cause more unpleasant questions for Facebook. [1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/976765417908776963 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/97676541790877696...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tobmlt 9y ago
Here's a piece of speculation. If you have no time for these harsh words, I'm sure you have your mouse at the ready. I am sorry you cannot crumple the page and toss this into the wastebasket if you'd like. Anything except more hand wringing on the internet. Without further ado... The US propaganda machine has been telling everyone who will listen that "the Russians influenced the election" endlessly for the past year. Are there hard statistics on this? Is there a methodology, mechanism, or theory describing how effective this manipulation has been, and exactly how we get from a survey to a Trump? I am asking honestly. Because please, please, let's focus on what is quantifiable, if we focus on anything there. Lose talk, anecdotes, and accusations are not sufficient, nor even necessary, if there are hard statistics on the mechanisms of manipulation. Let's talk about those, then, and cease this glib gab and mindless anger at what we already know is a pretty shitty business. (Facebook) My guess is that there are no hard facts. If Facebook didn't want regulation, they might argue forcefully this way - that the troll C.A. did not effectively do much of anything to influence the election. My guess is that Facebook wants to be regulated. It will gain cultural validity, put up a barrier to entry against competitors, and cement for the history books this story that "unregulated social media"/"the unregulated internet" "used to allow bad actors to influence our democratic process." From then on we will have one social network, Facebook, and everyone will be taught from high school to law school, that such regulations are necessary to protect our free society from undo influence. Few will question this. The machine will grow. It feeds on ignorance. (What I really think is that even if C.A. did effect the election, we still should not allow Facebook regulatory capture as incumbent. It is worth the cost of manipulation to have the possibility of Facebook being wiped out in the future. - And above all, to avoid having it enshrined and regulated at the same time as a valid, trusted news source. Then it will really reach its full "potential" ... as a propaganda piece for the US rich and powerful.) Back to the present: This Cambridge Analytica (C.A.) story breaks, and almost nobody is talking about whether or not it had any measurable effect on the election at all. Wired ran a companion piece that I can no longer find - a sideline story, stating that "it" (C.A.'s actions) basically had no effect on the election, but this story was not marketed or highlighted. What was marketed was this "big story" that C.A. took user data. The fact that it did nothing of consequence (that I have seen) is a tiny link at the bottom. I can no longer find it in the barrage of stories talking about what happened in broad, anecdotal, scared up, strokes. (And again, even if C.A. did make an impact, Facebook regulatory capture and validity enshrinement is the one of the worst outcomes imaginable. ) These are war drums we are hearing. And the marching orders are against freedom of information on the internet generally. Facebook will come out regulated, "made safer" (and it will in turn become a better shill for the powers that be) but the real prize is that the rest of the internet is supposed to be regulated too, and the regulators will have unfettered access to whatever they want. The NSA has nothing like what it will have once the hand wringers make the internet safe for democracy. That is the game plan. New articles on "bad facebook" "bad Russia" and "bad cambridge analytica" (the last, just next week's scapegoat once facebook is whitewashed and regulated) is all theater in order to get us there. I recommend everyone stop talking about, and stop worrying about, this stupid sideshow and pay attention to what they are trying to really do to us. To be clear, I can't really think less of Facebook. It's a social hack which sweeps up data.... for entities that find it useful... But I'd expect it's use in manipulating elections to go up, with increasing regulation (increase in perceived validity). The biggest manipulator is and always will be our political-media machine. Facebook is just going through the process of being publicly inducted. Facebook is going to come out stronger from this. The narrative will say "after fire and brimstone, years in doubt, Facebook goes through the trial of its life, and comes out smarter, nicer, and above all, more regulated, for the benefit of us all." In practice, society will have Facebook as the permanent social media app, and others basically banned as dangerous. If that is what you want, then keep up the hand wringing over Cambridge Analytica. This sort of thing went stale for me a long time ago. If you cry out "fix it" "fix it" to the government, they will fix it alright. Fixed. As in permanent, unchangeable, and all powerful. Facebook. The only safe social news platform. Good luck to you.
JoshMnem 9y ago
> "Whenever there’s an issue where someone’s data gets passed to someone who the rules of the system shouldn’t have allowed it to, that’s rightfully a big issue and deserves to be a big uproar" That statement describes Facebook itself. Most users don't understand what data they are sharing, so they are not able to give permission.

158 points by username223 9y ago

i just can’t believe facebook’s telling of the story. they are essentially saying that one of the most powerful companies in the world basically just asked pretty please for an offender to delete data amongst other requests and then just took their word for it. they’re painting it as if they did their darnedest, but i think they just don’t actualy care or something more serious. this entire interview is basically zuckerberg just spewing damage control and explaining that facebook doesn't understand how people are using and abusing their data, with regards to developers, governments, etc. that latter point is either just pure neglect or willful ignorance in turning their head until it hurts them.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
zinckiwi 9y ago
If you sent me a file and then insisted I delete it, how exactly would you expect me to prove that I had?
- asveikau 9y ago
  Should have put it on Stories. Deletes in 24 hours.
jim_d 9y ago
I think it's even worse than that, I suspect there have been a lot of companies like CA that have had their access cut off and have retained the data. FB probably has never done a serious investigation of most of them. This one is only important because it's gotten so much media attention. If it wasn't related to the election it would have been business as usual and nobody would care or know about CA.

akerro 9y ago

you put some content into a service, whether it’s a photo or a video or a text message — whether it’s Facebook or WhatsApp or Instagram — and you’re trusting [you dumb fuck] that that content is going to be shared with the people you want to share it with.

canoebuilder 9y ago

Here's a question, Cambridge Analytica gets 50 million of these highly robust personal data profiles, and that's a "scandal"! But facebook has something on the order of a billion of these (even more) highly robust personal data profiles, and that's, not a scandal but a multi-hundred billion dollar corporation? Can it be said the collection of these profiles is a net positive for the world? Or is this mass societal exploitation for private profit? Note this isn't asking about the existence itself of facebook, just the collecting of these profiles, fb could function in some way without collecting these profiles.

mch82 9y ago

This interview was much better than I expected. Some confidence restored (long way to go)... will be interesting to see how the questions and answers evolve over the next few weeks. To me, there is a difference between buying targeted advertisements on Facebook without having direct access to private data and exporting private data for use in military-style information operations. This interview seems to indicate Facebook plans to stick closer to on-platform targeted advertising in the future.

gt_ 9y ago
What about it gives you that indication? Are you just reading it at face value?

harry8 9y ago

Was this access to Zuck why the NYT silently changed their story to make Sandberg look less culpable yesterday? It worries me.

harry8 9y ago
I couldn't find the HN link. This was the story iirc. https://lawandcrime.com/exclusive/facebook-forces-nyt-to-quietly-delete-unflattering-reference-to-sheryl-sandberg-in-story-about-russian-trolls/ https://lawandcrime.com/exclusive/facebook-forces-nyt-to-qui... [edit] It had dropped a long way down https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16632743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16632743
artemisyna 9y ago
The NYT's report update was becaese Alex Stamos tweeted pointing out how they were wrong. https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/975926737111367680 https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/975926737111367680 https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/976175174314635264 https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/976175174314635264 You'd think the news sites would maybe be a little bit more transparent given all this fake news rabble, but they can't even bother to update with primary sources apparently...
- mliker 9y ago
  I actually find it disturbing that Trump is kind-of right: NYTimes is #fakenews. :( What an age we live in.
  - azemetre 9y ago
    Newspapers and agencies issue retractions on stories all the time. Claiming that they are all fake news is massively disingenuous where you have other major media companies that don't make retractions at all.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  Yea and also the tweet doesn't contradict the original published content. "Losing a debate" and being "discouraged" are not mutually exclusive.

Alterlife 9y ago

He is a CEO in damage control mode. The cynic in me wants me to ignore everything he says right now. The ashes of the privacy debate will be swept under the rug the once the fire is out. History says making money is more important to fb than being ethical.

username223 9y ago
The cynic in me thinks he spent a few days using the world's biggest surveillance/analytics apparatus to gauge public sentiment, then came up with talking points and proposals that would cause minimal damage to his business. For example, it sounds good that there will be some notification for the 50 million people whose data was scraped without their knowledge. Will that be a simple email, or a page buried deep in the FB settings menu? How about all of the other companies doing exactly the same scraping? Are their victims notified as well? And then there was the "after the first billion, people can't afford it, so surveillance is the answer" line. Really? From a man who extracted $50 billion from that business? Here's a thought: pay them.
- adventured 9y ago
  Your end criticism of Zuckerberg has a very big problem: he's going to give away his fortune, the ~$69 billion, like Gates and Buffett before him. Here's what would have to really scare you, if I'm gauging your views correctly: Zuckerberg actually believes in what he's doing and based on his behavior the last 14 years he isn't very interested in the money. He has never acted like a Saudi prince or gilded age tycoon. He never hoarded Facebook equity, he took vast perpetual dilution (despite entirely controlling the Facebook corporation), and produced thousands of millionaires. He spread the wealth around, that's why he only owns ~14% of a company that went public less than six years ago. Larry Ellison by contrast, still owns 27% of Oracle after 40 years. How about all of those millionaires that got rich on Facebook stock? All those teacher pensions that got massive returns on it? The thousands of Facebook employees that have yielded 1%er salaries and wealth. The tens of thousands of average investors that rode the Facebook giant and made most of the money on it. Zuckerberg made a lot of money. Everybody else combined made more by a factor of ~8x or more. What's their guilt in having profited on all of this? Hitting someone with the wealth seeker tag, is the easy way out. The easiest, cheapest negative label there is: the profit motive. Unfortunately for your premise, criticizing him about money, makes very little sense.

joering2 9y ago

Who saw the CNN "interview" ? Was it green-boxed? - never seen both interviewer and Zuck together in a photo op. News stations usually do that and show together photo before or after the interview take place (or during sitting together) so that everyone knows it actually took place; - Zuck eyes were running back and forth like he was reading from teleprompter; - weird pauses felt like he is waiting for teleprompter to update; - first time ever seen any interview - not to mention on a so-called professional news station - that camera angle will be shooting at interviewer's back of his/her head; - journalist interviewing Zuck did not look at his face or his eyes, but somewhere behind him. Unless its just my tin foil hat thinking for me...

make3 9y ago
wtf are you even suggesting, that the interview didn't take place?
loriverkutya 9y ago
Take off your tinfoil hat, he is on the Autism spectrum, these are traits.
gressquel 9y ago
/r/the_donald this way ---->

standardcitizen 9y ago

I’m completely at a lack of words as why people think giving their data to someone means it’s safe or won’t be used for harm. Anything I post on social media, I assume the worst. I’m unsure how anyone else can assume any different.

TaylorAlexander 9y ago
I would imagine these companies put great effort in to assuring users that their data is safe. The privacy protections Facebook implements look secure to a lot of people. I’m right there with you that I assume everything I say on these platforms could be made public, but you and I are more informed on data security issues. For many people, they just want to share photos and chat with friends. The deep privacy implications are beyond most people.
wu-ikkyu 9y ago
>I’m unsure how anyone else can assume any different The vast majority of FB users are tech illiterate. They have no idea about the capabilities of algorithms and how they can be turned into automated weapons which can target entire populations with psychological warfare. So I think it's a problem of them not understanding how their data can be so easily and effectively weaponized against them and everyone they know.

duxup 9y ago

That first question is a good one. Not that it got an answer. Considering the data is what is valuable to them I would find it hard to belive they didn't know how much they had been sharing in the past.

thinkcomp 9y ago

Mark has known about this issue since I fought with him over it in 2005. https://twitter.com/AaronGreenspan/status/975957889767505920 https://twitter.com/AaronGreenspan/status/975957889767505920 https://twitter.com/AaronGreenspan/status/976331044084264960 https://twitter.com/AaronGreenspan/status/976331044084264960 As I have said time and again, Mark is not trustworthy and never has been.

spitfire 9y ago
So that's very interesting. For any future litigation it establishes a clear timeline of when he was aware of these issues. So if it turns out he has any liability for the data breaches they don't have much to stand on.
hunterjrj 9y ago
Presumably Zuckerberg did not consent to this conversation being captured/recorded and shared. Do you feel even the slightest bit of embarrassment at the irony and hypocrisy of using this content, that you acquired without consent, to further your argument against the trustworthiness of this guy?

htaunay 9y ago

"Now, the good news here is that these problems aren’t necessarily rocket science." "If you had asked me, when I got started with Facebook, if one of the central things I’d need to work on now is preventing governments from interfering in each other’s elections, there’s no way I thought that’s what I’d be doing" These are just two examples, but quite a few quotes from this interview are verbatim from the CNN interview. Where has Mark been the last days? Probably rehearsing.

roymurdock 9y ago
CEOs presidents and actors have a lot in common. Much of their job is performance/comedy/tragedy/entertainment. I wouldn’t expect anything substantive to ever surface in a public facing interview
- privacypoller 9y ago
  So I guess that makes Trump one of the worst improv actors I've ever seen?

feelin_googley 9y ago

"Zuckerberg: We took action immediately at that point. We banned Kogan's app from the platform, we demanded that Kogan and Cambridge Analytica and a couple other parties that Kogan had shared the data with would legally certify that they didn't have the data, and weren't using it in any of their operations. They gave us that formal certification. At the time, they told us they never had gotten access to raw Facebook data, so we made that decision. Zuckerberg: Yes. They gave us a formal and legal certification, and it seems at this point that that was false." Does it matter whether CA breached some form of "agreement" with FB? What is the consequence of that? CA losing their FB privileges going forward? Does that really address the harm done? Does "formal and legal certification" mean anything if FB is not going to take legal action against CA? (Maybe FB is worried about FTC and violating their 2011 consent decree, i.e. self-preservation.) If anyone should be requiring "formal and legal certification" that data was destroyed and that there was no unauthorized usage or transfer, it is the owners of the data: FB users. Why are FB users upset with FB. Shouldnt they be upset with CA. There must be a reason that there is so much focus on FB as the problem and not only on CA. What is it?

kaennar 9y ago
I'm going to bet Facebook is bigger and everyone uses it and CA is based in the UK and not in the US. Who the hell even knew Cambridge Analytica before any of this? It's fun to hate big companies with recognizable names and blame that big company for electing someone that Americans are increasingly displeased with.
- mliker 9y ago
  I'm surprised to see someone tell it for what it really is. This is just like the Uber "scandal" from last year in that things got blown way out of proportion in some aspects, but positive changes were made.
  - TAForObvReasons 9y ago
    In this case, people have, both publicly and privately, warned Facebook about this issue for years. At some point, after having been warned about the situation, inaction is in fact a conscious decision.

creo 9y ago

He's not doing shit. Year after year he's making the same comment over privacy. What is Facebook suppose to do? Stop collecting data? Ridiculous its the core business model of every branch of that disgusting data leech. It's not about the Cambridge Analytica or russian manipulation campaign. It's about our basic right to privacy, that is constantly violated every time You look at that page or any other connected to it.

brylie 9y ago

This is a good opportunity to join and/or recommend friends to join decentralized networks, like Mastadon: https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/ https://instances.social/ https://instances.social/

pitt1980 9y ago

Where were these worries four years ago for the much larger and arguably more manipulative effort by the Obama campaign? Instead of using a personality quiz, the Obama campaign merely got a portion of its core supporters to use their Facebook profiles to log into a campaign site. Then they used well-tested techniques of gaining consent from that user to harvest all their friends’ data. Sasha Issenberg gushed about how the Obama campaign used the same permissions structure of Facebook to extract the data of scores of millions of Facebook users who were unaware of what was happening to them. Combining Facebook data with other sources such as voter-registration rolls, Issenberg wrote, generated “a new political currency that predicted the behavior of individual humans. The campaign didn’t just know who you were; it knew exactly how it could turn you into the type of person it wanted you to be.” The level of data sophistication was so intense that Issenberg could describe it this way: "Obama’s campaign began the election year confident it knew the name of every one of the 69,456,897 Americans whose votes had put him in the White House. They may have cast those votes by secret ballot, but Obama’s analysts could look at the Democrats’ vote totals in each precinct and identify the people most likely to have backed him. Pundits talked in the abstract about reassembling Obama’s 2008 coalition. But within the campaign, the goal was literal. They would reassemble the coalition, one by one, through personal contacts." Today’s Cambridge Analytica scandal causes our tech chin-strokers to worry about “information” you did not consent to share, but the Obama team created social interactions you wouldn’t have had. They didn’t just build a psychological profile of persuadable voters, and algorithmically determine ways of persuading them, but actually encouraged particular friends — ones the campaign had profiled as influencers — to reach out to them personally. In a post-election interview, the campaign’s digital director Teddy Goff explained the strategy: “People don’t trust campaigns. They don’t even trust media organizations,” he told Time’s Michael Sherer, “Who do they trust? Their friends?” This level of manipulation was celebrated in the press. How did Facebook react to the much larger data harvesting of the Obama campaign? The New York Times reported it out, in a feature hailing Obama’s digital masterminds: "The campaign’s exhaustive use of Facebook triggered the site’s internal safeguards. “It was more like we blew through an alarm that their engineers hadn’t planned for or knew about,” said [Will] St. Clair, who had been working at a small firm in Chicago and joined the campaign at the suggestion of a friend. “They’d sigh and say, ‘You can do this as long as you stop doing it on Nov. 7.’ ”" In other words, Silicon Valley is just making up the rules as they go along. Some large-scale data harvesting and social manipulation is okay until the election. Some of it becomes not okay in retrospect. They sigh and say okay so long as Obama wins. When Clinton loses, they effectively call a code red. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/cambridge-analytica-social-media-panic/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/cambridge-analytica-s...

belorn 9y ago

I did not expect that New York Times would do this, but how wonderful would it not be if they had asked directly if either of the political parties in 2016 was given access to use Facebook data in order to create social graphs and use it in their campaigns.

creato 9y ago

> The point of what we’re trying to do here is to create a situation where we have a real person-to-person relationship with any developer who is asking for the most sensitive data. Why is Facebook so dead set on sharing data at all? People keep lumping Facebook in with the rest (Google/Amazon/Microsoft?/other data mining companies) but my impression was that these companies do not do this. It seems reckless to the point of absurdity. Some other event like this will happen again in the future as long as they continue to insist on this, it is inevitable.

M_Bakhtiari 9y ago
>Why is Facebook so dead set on sharing data at all? What else are they supposed to do to keep their massive infrastructure running? People would clearly rather invite the likes of CA into their private lives than pay even the tiniest little fee to keep their contacts and pictures in the cloud together with those of their friends. I unsubscribed from Facebook years ago, because it just didn't seem like a good deal to me.
- creato 9y ago
  What I thought Facebook and every other data company did: build tools to sell ads based on the data, but not actually share the data itself.
cynicalreason 9y ago
ahm .. you mean SELLING, that's what FB does, they have no other product besides their userbase ? google has been scrutinized in the past, one big difference is google doesn't offer this data to private companies (yeah yeah .. NSA ) and their model never really allowed someone like CA to get their data. google's original product was search, from that they were able to extrapolate insane amounts of user data that they then used in their biggest product: ADS. but they never provided the USER data, they provided an interface for their ad customers to better target their ads. so in a way google uses the data to create products around it while for facebook users and their data ARE the product.
cjhopman 9y ago

jzl 9y ago

In response to a question about Alex Stamos leaving: "So we’re going to double the amount of people working on security this year. We’ll have more than 20,000 people working on security and community operations by the end of the year, I think we have about 15,000 now. So it’s really the technical systems we have working with the people in our operations functions that make the biggest deal." Huh? 20,000 people? This seems like a wildly misleading number. He's grouping security and "community operations" together, whatever that is. That must include masses of people doing manual video and ad reviews, or something like that. That has nothing to do with the question. It's like you asked the president about the Secret Service and he said "Between the Secret Service and US Army we have over a million people and that number is going up this year!"

camillomiller 9y ago
He does that all the time. After the hate posts scandals in Germany he promised that a team of hundreds of moderators would be working from Berlin to address the issue. It claimed it in a way as to suggest that they were Facebook employees. No way: they are employees of a very well known multinational contractor who are paid minimum wage salaries to spend all day reading and watching the worst humanity has to offer—without any formal psychological support or training. Source: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/exklusive-sz-magazin-recherche-inside-facebook-1.3297138 http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/exklusive-sz-magazin-rech...
wepple 9y ago
There are rumors he’s considering going into politics. With non-sequitur answers coming as naturally as that, I think he’s nearly ready!
overthemoon 9y ago
How is this even a security issue? This wasn't a "breach", right? This is just Facebook pleading with CA to not do naughty things with their data, and CA refusing.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  It's security theater.

Khaine 9y ago

What does Zuckerberg know about user's privacy. He does not believe in the concept[1][2]. I remember when this chart[3] first made the rounds. If this didn't convince people that facebook is evil. I don't know what will [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jan/11/facebook-privacy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jan/11/facebook-... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerbergs-statements-on-privacy-2003-2018.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg... [3] http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/ http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/

TeMPOraL 9y ago
RE [3], I'd like to see data for post-2010. I can't comment on times before, since I've not been on Facebook then, but since early 2010s, I remember that the defaults kept getting annoyingly more private over time, with Facebook constantly reminding me that I can restrict visibility of stuff.
- scoggs 9y ago
  I always got the vibe that they pushed things like that so hard and in your face in order to find out more about you. If you are the type to set your privacy a certain way they corral you into a group where you are looked at in a different way than users who don't toy with their privacy settings in a way where it draws attention to the fact that you actually seriously care about your privacy. This is just a hunch but with their endless data points and the internal teams involved with making these decisions not only decide what privacy options we are shown, how, and why but what the inverse effect would be in terms of how to treat and monitor those specific customers in order to harvest and obtain the types of data that were essential to providing useful and actionable information to those looking to buy that information. Something about how in your face their privacy awareness campaigns seemed to be while all the while everyone in tech or paying any attention knew that Facebook is in the business of selling personal / private information. I think what you don't say, don't do, and don't want them to see creates just as much of a profile about you as anything you do voluntarily give up to them. I feel they wouldn't be successful if they weren't the type of company that thought that deeply into it. All that said one of the scenarios in my mind that I figured applies to this, which is very apt right now with the goings-on of Facebook / Cambridge Analytica is when a user is flagged as the type who has locked down their privacy, thus being corralled into the group of "Members who care about personal internet privacy" that would be their cue to needing to harvest your data points via your friend circle or 3rd party Facebook tools / features (like external Like buttons) in order to obtain those data points while still sticking to their "Privacy Manifesto". Maybe that's when they start serving you lots of ads interesting you in dating on Tinder, using external photo sharing apps like Instagram, or external messaging apps like Messenger or WhatsApp. Who knows, really? But they and we know they've had many ways to skin a cat all along. Maybe I'm paranoid but I'd rather be paranoid and a bit fanatical than ignorant. PS. Not calling anyone out there ignorant. Just ranting is all.

forgotmypw 9y ago

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks

jd20 9y ago
That IM exchange was mentioned in a news article (I knew it sounded familiar): http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims... When I signed up for Facebook (back when it was just Harvard-only) I made up a new never-before-used password, because going thru other students' passwords was just the sort of thing I'd imagine Mark doing in his spare time...
- PaulStatezny 9y ago
  > When I signed up for Facebook (back when it was just Harvard-only) I made up a new never-before-used password, because going thru other students' passwords was just the sort of thing I'd imagine Mark doing in his spare time... Did you know Mark personally? What gave you that impression?
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask. Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
  - jd20 9y ago
    Not personally, I just don't think I would login using my real password on any website running from another student's dorm room.

paulus_magnus2 9y ago

He's in damage control mode / managing expectations. Come on, when your data is the product, who do you think will buy it and what can/will they do with it other than bad things. I can't think of a legitimate use for such detailed profiling of people.

paulie_a 9y ago
Apparently the legitimate use in 2018 is to provide incredibly targeted and but amazingly low quality ads.

sAbakumoff 9y ago

Now Mr. Trump is indirectly bragging about exploitation of Facebook data [1] : "Remember when they were saying, during the campaign, that Donald Trump is giving great speeches and drawing big crowds, but he is spending much less money and not using social media as well as Crooked Hillary’s large and highly sophisticated staff. Well, not saying that anymore!" Ok this guy is out of his mind, but Murky Marc should probably go and hand over the company to Sheryl. She knows what to do. [1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/976770619424563200 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/97677061942456320...

bogomipz 9y ago
>"Ok this guy is out of his mind, but Murky Marc should probably go and hand over the company to Sheryl. She knows what to do" Do you believe that the number 2 executive officer at FB had no part in any of the bad decisions FB have made recently?
cynicalreason 9y ago
Had to triple check it's not a satire account .. nope, it's real
- sAbakumoff 9y ago
  Yep, the media is now busy with another message of Mr. Trump with which he attacked Mr. Biden[1], but soon they will discover the social media thing and it might cause more unpleasant questions for Facebook. [1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/976765417908776963 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/97676541790877696...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tobmlt 9y ago

Here's a piece of speculation. If you have no time for these harsh words, I'm sure you have your mouse at the ready. I am sorry you cannot crumple the page and toss this into the wastebasket if you'd like. Anything except more hand wringing on the internet. Without further ado... The US propaganda machine has been telling everyone who will listen that "the Russians influenced the election" endlessly for the past year. Are there hard statistics on this? Is there a methodology, mechanism, or theory describing how effective this manipulation has been, and exactly how we get from a survey to a Trump? I am asking honestly. Because please, please, let's focus on what is quantifiable, if we focus on anything there. Lose talk, anecdotes, and accusations are not sufficient, nor even necessary, if there are hard statistics on the mechanisms of manipulation. Let's talk about those, then, and cease this glib gab and mindless anger at what we already know is a pretty shitty business. (Facebook) My guess is that there are no hard facts. If Facebook didn't want regulation, they might argue forcefully this way - that the troll C.A. did not effectively do much of anything to influence the election. My guess is that Facebook wants to be regulated. It will gain cultural validity, put up a barrier to entry against competitors, and cement for the history books this story that "unregulated social media"/"the unregulated internet" "used to allow bad actors to influence our democratic process." From then on we will have one social network, Facebook, and everyone will be taught from high school to law school, that such regulations are necessary to protect our free society from undo influence. Few will question this. The machine will grow. It feeds on ignorance. (What I really think is that even if C.A. did effect the election, we still should not allow Facebook regulatory capture as incumbent. It is worth the cost of manipulation to have the possibility of Facebook being wiped out in the future. - And above all, to avoid having it enshrined and regulated at the same time as a valid, trusted news source. Then it will really reach its full "potential" ... as a propaganda piece for the US rich and powerful.) Back to the present: This Cambridge Analytica (C.A.) story breaks, and almost nobody is talking about whether or not it had any measurable effect on the election at all. Wired ran a companion piece that I can no longer find - a sideline story, stating that "it" (C.A.'s actions) basically had no effect on the election, but this story was not marketed or highlighted. What was marketed was this "big story" that C.A. took user data. The fact that it did nothing of consequence (that I have seen) is a tiny link at the bottom. I can no longer find it in the barrage of stories talking about what happened in broad, anecdotal, scared up, strokes. (And again, even if C.A. did make an impact, Facebook regulatory capture and validity enshrinement is the one of the worst outcomes imaginable. ) These are war drums we are hearing. And the marching orders are against freedom of information on the internet generally. Facebook will come out regulated, "made safer" (and it will in turn become a better shill for the powers that be) but the real prize is that the rest of the internet is supposed to be regulated too, and the regulators will have unfettered access to whatever they want. The NSA has nothing like what it will have once the hand wringers make the internet safe for democracy. That is the game plan. New articles on "bad facebook" "bad Russia" and "bad cambridge analytica" (the last, just next week's scapegoat once facebook is whitewashed and regulated) is all theater in order to get us there. I recommend everyone stop talking about, and stop worrying about, this stupid sideshow and pay attention to what they are trying to really do to us. To be clear, I can't really think less of Facebook. It's a social hack which sweeps up data.... for entities that find it useful... But I'd expect it's use in manipulating elections to go up, with increasing regulation (increase in perceived validity). The biggest manipulator is and always will be our political-media machine. Facebook is just going through the process of being publicly inducted. Facebook is going to come out stronger from this. The narrative will say "after fire and brimstone, years in doubt, Facebook goes through the trial of its life, and comes out smarter, nicer, and above all, more regulated, for the benefit of us all." In practice, society will have Facebook as the permanent social media app, and others basically banned as dangerous. If that is what you want, then keep up the hand wringing over Cambridge Analytica. This sort of thing went stale for me a long time ago. If you cry out "fix it" "fix it" to the government, they will fix it alright. Fixed. As in permanent, unchangeable, and all powerful. Facebook. The only safe social news platform. Good luck to you.

JoshMnem 9y ago

> "Whenever there’s an issue where someone’s data gets passed to someone who the rules of the system shouldn’t have allowed it to, that’s rightfully a big issue and deserves to be a big uproar" That statement describes Facebook itself. Most users don't understand what data they are sharing, so they are not able to give permission.