13 ms·

Facebook's Zuckerberg will not appear before British MPs

239 points by AJRF 9y ago

notafxn 9y ago
I hope this hate on FB ends already, I'm tired of seeing the home page of HN polluted by it. We all knew what was going on on FB, so acting surprised is silly. And we all know this won't change nothing because most people don't care and will happily keep using FB. And we also know even if people stop using FB they will keep using WA/IG. So what's the point? Is this only a problem now that Trump took advantage of it?
- cmorgan31 9y ago
  Well GDPR is going to have teeth soon and Facebook is a prime case to test its boundaries and prove those base fines will be enforced. It's important to see the outcome and sentiment of the EU and UK in regards to Facebook from a legal standpoint as it helps inform smaller companies of where the proverbial line in the sand is drawn. I think it is likely in their best interest to keep Facebook in the news so as to improve the optics when the inevitable GDPR violations trickle into the Data Protection Agencies of the EU.
- AJRF 9y ago
  Who is acting surprised? Why do you think it is inevitable that people would use WhatsApp or Instagram if they decide to leave Facebook? Is that really as obvious as you are making it out to be? Is there any evidence of that? The point is that finally, FINALLY the mainstream is paying attention to the potential ramifications of having a consolidated identity on social media, and how they potentially could have their perception of reality distorted by using such services. Now is the time to embrace changes if they come, not to get complacent at the news cycle based on ones own personal cognitive biases.
  - notafxn 9y ago
    I live in Western Europe and I'd say 99.9999% of owners of smartphones have either a FB, WA or IG account and use it every day. Everybody uses WA, older people use FB, younger people use IG. If you refuse to use WA you are an outcast, and many people got a smartphone just for WA. The media likes to drives us with rage because that attracts clicks, and once a new big thing happens this will be forgotten by everybody forever.
  - tjomk 9y ago
    The problem is not only Facebook that distorts the reality, it's most of the media. Look at mainstream media like CNN or RT which favour one side and totally ignore the arguments of the other. All of that will continue to happen no matter what until people start to think critically and question all the information they get, be it from their parents, school teachers, news outlets or social media. In my circle of friends in fact a lot of people are using IG and WA and ditched Facebook long ago. I use all of the three solely because my business generates a lot of sales through these channels. So I think yes, people will continue to use it in the foreseeable future. But this opinion is based solely on my bubble that I live in.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      RT is not "mainstream media" in any sensible way, it's Russian state propaganda TV.
    - matwood 9y ago
      > Look at mainstream media like CNN Lets be honest, CNN is just a tabloid now. All they want to talk about is Trumps sexcapades when there are so many other things they can focus on that really matter.
- pjc50 9y ago
  There's an awful lot of people posting "we knew it was bad already, why do you care now?" Remarkably consistently across all articles relating to Facebook. Clearly you want nothing done about this and are happy with this low level of privacy. But on the other hand a lot of people have been unhappy with it for a long time; suddenly the dam has broken and the public discussion in the media is taking an interest. This happens with many scandals. I'm reminded of LIBOR "rigging", which all the participants thought was entirely normal.
  - notafxn 9y ago
    I'm not happy with this level of privacy, that's why I don't use Facebook. :-)
  - babuskov 9y ago
    > Clearly you want nothing done about this and are happy with this low level of privacy. Facebook already locked down their platform in 2014-2015. There's no use asking Facebook to do anything now. What needs to be done is to hunt down the companies that extracted the data, one by one, trace every copy of it and delete it. But that is really hard to do. It's easier to just keep attacking Facebook.
    - Slansitartop 9y ago
      That covers only part of the scandal, which IMHO has at least two parts: 1) Facebook data was widely shared to all kinds of 3rd parties. 2) Facebook data can be used to manipulate individuals and inappropriately influence the political process. Even if Facebook fixes #1, #2 is still a problem (either by Facebook itself, or those using its platform).
OrganicMSG 9y ago
I wonder if this will affect their tax arrangements, as they have been treated rather nicely up till now. In 2014, Facebook paid £4,327 in tax to the UK. The next year, they paid £4.16 million, which seems to be an improvement but then in the same year they were given an £11 million tax credit, so not so much.
hanoz 9y ago
This was obviously never going to happen and is absolutely the right decision for Zuckerberg and Facebook. House of Commons select committees bagging a big scalp invariably turn into show trials, with MPs possessing a completely deluded sense of their own insight into a subject queuing up to play to the cameras. The spectacle of having Zuckerberg there would have been absolutely excruciating. So, much as I'd like to see Facebook deleted from the internet, at least we'll be spared the embarrassment of the world witnessing the caliber of our elected representatives.
- whatok 9y ago
  So really not that much different than US Congress where he's still potentially going to appear?
  - paulddraper 9y ago
    > still potentially going to appear ...and if I were a betting man, "not going to appear." Zuckerburg's strength is not PR or public conversations. It makes zero sense to me why he would represent Facebook to US Congress.
- bitxbit 9y ago
  I actually think this is absolutely the wrong move for him if he already came clean. In my estimate, he is being legally advised not to show up to these hearings for reasons unclear to us at the moment. Perhaps there's more to the story than what has been revealed thus far.
  - CaveTech 9y ago
    There is no conspiracy here. Being publicly scrutanized is not good for business, there is no win for Facebook to be had in this format.
    - bitxbit 9y ago
      Perhaps not but there is a big difference between going on TV and taking out an apology ad vs. appearing in sworn-in hearings. Recall this is a part of an ongoing issue that they have been carefully trying to manage for the past few years. Unfortunately for Facebook, they are very much in the public space by design. If they cannot withstand this level of public scrutiny, then they are effectively conceding that they "don't deserve" to serve the public.
maxehmookau 9y ago
Coward.
Silhouette 9y ago
Not a complete surprise, but I suspect this is a strategic mistake from Zuckerberg. It's going to send the wrong message, at a time when Facebook is already under pressure and regulators in the EU are about to be given the most powerful privacy tools (and the most heavy penalty regime) they've ever had to work with.
- kazen44 9y ago
  I wonder if regulators will just decide the split up facebook. It would take a ton of leverage and political goodwill across both the EU and the US, but i have no doubt it could happen.
  - babuskov 9y ago
    > I wonder if regulators will just decide the split up facebook. I keep hearing this suggestion and it makes no sense. Split into what? It would be like asking to split Google into one company doing the search and another one doing the ads. You're talking about loss leader strategy here and you cannot have a company whose only product is a loss leader. Majority of users won't pay to have search or social network. They value their privacy much lower and would trade it to get the services without direct monetary compensation.
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > Split into what? Here’s an easy start: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp.
    - Slansitartop 9y ago
      > I keep hearing this suggestion and it makes no sense. Split into what? Instagram, WhatsApp, and multiple competing Facebook copies (say Facebook Red, Facebook Green, and Facebook Orange) with a mandate to interoperate with each other and with other networks. Existing accounts are divided randomly and evenly between the copies.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      An advertising company and the various communications platforms.
d3ckard 9y ago
Wrong time to chicken out. That will probably have serious consequences for FB in Europe and will help with convincing people to regulations like revenue-based taxation.
gianmaro 9y ago
It feels like Zuck is in panic and listening too much to his PR advisors who are likely telling him to stay out of the public until the storm settles. Not a smart move on this particular case
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  To be fair being called in front of MP's is like a ritualised grilling, nothing ever comes out of it other than total humiliation for the victim.
  - chrisseaton 9y ago
    Yes is this a new thing? I don't remember in the past the committees being so publicly snide and unpleasant like they seem to be now. Maybe it wasn't televised so prominently before? And the most strange part is how they now have celebrity appearances as well - comedians and actors?
    - cbzbc 9y ago
      They always let loose a little - you can go back and look at old transcripts and see much the same thing. There's a certain element of it becoming slightly worse due to being televised. In an era where there is a huge gap between government rhetoric and practice, it can be a useful way to signal ones 'principles' even as one files obediently through the government lobby when it comes to voting on actual legislation.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - rimliu 9y ago
    I would not mind in this case. Some people may need that to see the new perspective.
  - techer 9y ago
    Rupert Murdoch somehow managed to survive. They aren’t as savage in person as they appear to be. Indeed, who knows what info Facebook/whatsapp they have on the MPs and their families! What a mess.
martinald 9y ago
Facebooks PR seems all over the place. It seems to go like this: 1) Blame users/say it wasn't as bad/not a breach 2) Controversy gets worse 3) Apologise, say we got it wrong, working on it I think this is especially dumb as FB took out a personally-signed-by-Zuckerberg letter in 6 UK sunday papers last weekend. It looks very fake.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > FB took out a personally-signed-by-Zuckerberg letter in 6 UK sunday papers last weekend Were they identically worded?
  - martinald 9y ago
    Yes, but it wasn't signed by the CPO, the board, or anyone, they were all signed by Zuckerberg so I think it looks especially fake to take out those ads (which are especially targeted at the 'political class' IMO) and then refuse to come before MPs. Source: https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180325071038-01-facebook-apology-note-exlarge-169.jpg https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180325071038-01-faceb...
    - mtreis86 9y ago
      That letter is pure narcissism. Blame someone else, promise to change, play the victim.
    - throwawayReply 9y ago
      That makes it sound like people are upset about an isolated incident, trying to play this off as an isolated incident is going to blow up very badly as people "discover" just how much of their data is everywhere, whether they gave permission or not this isn't about a single breach.
- paulddraper 9y ago
  Should we assume that people can only hold one thought in their head at a time? (1) It was a breach of contract by an app developer. (2) Facebook now has more limited permissions. (3) Facebook is looking at more ways to limit the consequences when #1 happens. --- The bizarre thing is how differently the public treats this from Obama for America.
benevol 9y ago
What else would the world expect from a spineless little jerk?
flexie 9y ago
Arrogant little boy king. This is a major PR blunder. It's hard to imagine such attitude will make the parliament more lenient. Facebook just played a vital role in the manipulation of British democracy in one of the most important decisions in a century. But the CEO responsible couldn't care to fly over and explain himself. If what Facebook wanted was to be forgiven (or at least forgotten), and to secure more accommodating regulation, they just made that a lot harder for themselves.
- fancyfacebook 9y ago
  Normally I'd think this comment is a bit too lowbrow for the orange site, but I think it's justified in light of just how fundamentally the world shifted due to the Brexit vote. If this breach was part of that then people should be incredibly angry.
  - gluelogic 9y ago
    Facebook ads are not responsible for the Brexit vote.
Agebor 9y ago
Reading comments lately on HN feels like an expression of Two Minutes Hate.
- codq 9y ago
  HN is highly critical of everything, especially closed-gardens and data manipulation. Of course there’s a distaste for FB.
techer 9y ago
Coward of cowards.
mrleiter 9y ago
Saying this is a strategic mistake may be a bit too early to tell. It depends on whether this issue will slowly disappear in the media and minds of people (like most things). He has no legal obligation to appear if I understand correctly. The select committee mainly consists of MPs who objected Brexit. Of course they try to make their point that the vote was skewed or manipulated. If, on the other hand, the pressure stays on, it may very well be a strategic mistake not to appear.
- Milner08 9y ago
  What on earth does their stance on Brexit have to do with there position in the select committee?!
  - alistairSH 9y ago
    Brexit is relevant, because like the election of Trump, it appears nefarious actors (likely Russians in both cases) used Facebook to drive votes in a particular direction (pro-Trump, pro-Brexit).
    - darepublic 9y ago
      Some people posted fake content on Facebook? And that is responsible for the election of Trump and Brexit? If you actually believe that there's some pop up internet ads I have ready for you...
      - Veen 9y ago
        Not so long ago, Zuckerberg said it was "crazy" to think that Facebook influenced the US election. I don't think he's quite so confident of that today.
        darepublic 9y ago
        Zuck could be "persuaded" of anything I'm sure to placate the scapegoating whiners of the western world. The thing is if you're vacuous enough to invest a lot of yourself on fb you are equally vacuous to join the pitchfork mobs at the prompting of mass media.
amelius 9y ago
Come on Zuck, think about how this will make you look in the sequel of "The Social Network".
- majewsky 9y ago
  "The Antisocial Network"?
  - inetknght 9y ago
    That title is a slap on the face for us Americans who confuse antisocial with asocial. Perfect.
rndmio 9y ago
As someone from the UK I am not at all surprised, there is no upside to him doing so. There is nothing he can say that will help, the committee will absolutely rip into him as their primary audience is the press and people of the UK, they don't really care about his answers to their questions. The problem is that the story isn't about FB making mistakes, or being hacked, or doing something they said they wouldn't. It's that people are working out what it is they've agreed to to use the service, and there is no spinning that.
- OrganicMSG 9y ago
  >It's that people are working out what it is they've agreed to to use the service If the vast majority of users are only working out what they have signed up for now, after using the service for years, then it would be hard to argue that Facebook's users have given informed consent to a contract, which is generally a legal requirement here for it to be said that you have agreed to something.
  - dwringer 9y ago
    When I and a lot of people I know signed up, an active .edu email was required. It was like the unprofessional kids' version of LinkedIn. The implicit conditions of the agreement to sign up for an account - that only other students and academic faculty could use the service and engage with content - were completely abandoned after they had cornered a part of their "social graph".
iwannasay 9y ago
No matter how much of a mistake Facebook make with their PR, they're gonna get away with it. Primarily because a majority of the public can't sustain their interest in the subject beyond their day-to-day concerns in life. I mean the whole argument here is that stolen user data from Facebook led a marketing agency to enable a political party with a certain agenda to deceive the public and win a democratic vote. Gathering so much power is a big victory in the first place, that is not so easy to ignore / forget / undo very easily, especially when most people continue to use Facebook products the way they did because the news slowly becomes old and people forget and move on. This subject is bigger than Facebook, it reveals shortcomings of a democratic vote and how power in the capitalist system can render a democracy to be an illusion. Facebook's victory is to have accumulated so much power in the first place. Power aka most personal user data any institute has ever gathered. Never mind they used shady sly tactics to take permissions in the first place.
noir-york 9y ago
No representation without taxation. Why should Facebook send Zuckerberg when Facebook paid a grand total of £2.6 million taxes to the UK in 2017. If the British parliament wants Zuckerberg to attend, make the UK relevant to Facebook. Tax it. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/04/facebook-uk-corporation-tax-profit https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/04/facebook-...
- bambataa 9y ago
  Did you read the linked article? Facebook deliberately structure their operations to try and avoid paying UK tax. So it seems odd to then cite that as a reason for him not attending.
  - noir-york 9y ago
    Yes, of course I read the article. If there was political will, Facebook would pay taxes in the UK. The article I linked to in my comment showed that FBK paid (slightly) more taxes in 2017 than in 2016 following a public outcry. Political pressure and HMRC's best and brightest could surely find ways to make Facebook pay a just level of taxes.
    - bambataa 9y ago
      But their current arrangements are partly a result of political lobbying. So if they’re politically engaged enough to lower their taxes why aren’t they politically engaged enough to answer to this?
- Silhouette 9y ago
  If Facebook and Zuckerberg cross the invisible line here -- and they may be doing that with this decision -- then political will is going to turn sharply against them. It wouldn't be at all surprising if their tax situation became dramatically worse shortly afterwards. It's basically free money for the government and free political points too.
- briandear 9y ago
merinowool 9y ago
What happens if someone decided to commit a crime using SaaS platform, then requests data to be deleted. Police then go to SaaS provider and such provider can't give any data. Is SaaS provider going to be blamed?
simonbarker87 9y ago
I said it in a previous post but if the congress/senate were allowed to summon Tony Hayward, BP CEO, over the Deep Water Horizon disaster then the UK Parliament are well in their rights to summon, and expect attendance, of Zukerberg over this.
- chrisseaton 9y ago
  > the UK Parliament are well in their rights to summon, and expect attendance, of Zukerberg over this But they aren't within their rights to summon him. That's not a power they have. They can invite him, and they did, but he doesn't have to go and speak to a committee if he doesn't want to.
  - jkaplowitz 9y ago
    Facebook has enough ties to the UK that he wouldn't ignore a subpoena compelling him to appear. He might try to challenge it first, depending on how it would affect the optics of the situation, appearing only if he lost that challenge.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - walshemj 9y ago
    I believe they (select committees) can compel witnesses within the UK so visiting the UK might be a problem. Its never been done recently - though god knows what old laws are still on the books that could be applied.
    - chrisseaton 9y ago
      An opinion on rules is here (I think like a lot of old systems these rules are based on unwritten convention) https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmliaisn/697/697we36.htm https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmli.... And yes of course they can't compel anyone outside the UK to do anything they don't want to do.
fwdpropaganda 9y ago
Keep digging, Mark.
nealdt 9y ago
Aside from everything, I find it remarkable that the media are gunning for facebook right now (referencing all those shady algorithms / shady partnerships etc etc) to the extent that facebook is a 'dirty word' and yet the newspapers are evidently quite happy to accept payment for full page ads in their publications from ... facebook.
andy_ppp 9y ago
Can one of the mods explain the dramatic killing of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16687588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16687588 its a perfectly valid discussion with an article by a reasonable publication?
mhh__ 9y ago
Has Zuckerberg done any thing like this before (e.g. Microsoft vs. United States style things)
chrischen 9y ago
> "You have a wealthy company from a developed nation going into an economy or democracy that's still struggling to get its feet on the ground - and taking advantage of that to profit from that," he told MPs. Christopher Wylie (ex-Facebook whistleblower) just gave the primary reason why Facebook is blocked in China.
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  >> "You have a wealthy company from a developed nation going into an economy or democracy that's still struggling to get its feet on the ground - and taking advantage of that to profit from that," he told MPs. > Christopher Wylie (ex-Facebook whistleblower) just gave the primary reason why Facebook is blocked in China. No. China isn't a "democracy that's still struggling to get its feet on the ground," China is a country run by anti-democratic authoritarians who want to protect their power by controlling the information their people see. It's also rather protectionist, and does not want foreign companies to be major players on its internet. The way Facebook makes its money has nothing to do with why it's blocked there.
  - chrischen 9y ago
    So you think the Chinese government's motivation for protectionism is purely because they are undemocratic evil-doers hell-bent on preserving their power. I disagree and believe they have other motivations behind protectionism, limiting democracy, and authoritarianism. It seems you probably don't have background in Chinese history. There was a period pre-WWII where China was divvied up by colonial powers and humiliated in defeats for over a century (primarily due to a weak navy). The country was addicted at that time not to Facebook but to opium, which was imposed upon by foreign influence. Both nationalist and communist parties recognized this and vowed to unify and expel foreign power. The communists ended up essentially winning, but the legacy of weariness towards foreign influence persisted. I can assure you the #1 and #2 things in China's mind when banning facebook and google are to #1 prevent a backdoor for the US into massive data collection and #2 nurture homegrown technology companies to prevent spilling wealth out. You might consider #2 to be unfair, but you'd also have to consider that the US was a fully developed economy, and China's developing economy would not be fairly competing against foreign tech companies. The decision has nothing to do with free speech as facebook would simply have to comply with local laws and would have gladly censored at the request of China—but that wasn't the issue. That being said, protectionism isn't exclusive to China. It's adopted heavily in Japan too, as well as in the US. You can't really argue for or against it as it's a matter of sovereign policy as foreign citizens do not have a natural right to exploit a sovereign market. Regarding democracy and authoritarianism, keep in mind the the country was super poor and uneducated. Ceding power democratically across the country would have probably resulted in massive corruption. The country is not a dictatorship though, but it is governed by a subset of the population who are communist party members. While they probably want to keep power to themselves, they'll also in theory be better governors than the general public. Believe it or not the population of China overwhelmingly supports their government. The authority and legitimacy of a government does not come from democracy per se (nor from opinions of people half-way around the world), but from the people. Democracy is a great way to represent the power of the people, but as long as the population approves and delegates power to the government (by not rebelling), then it has legitimacy. So no there's no democracy, but if they did have a vote right now the people would side with their government, and not the poorly informed foreign distant opinions from people like yourself. It just so happens their form of government does not delegate decisions of governance at the same granularity to the people as we do in America, but then again we don't have much granularity either through our representative form of government (we don't even pick the president!). They pick their premier through rules of the communist party. We pick our president through a set of complex rules masking the fact that an electoral college actually selects the president (with things like super-delegates, which were enacted to reduce the power of the average voter since one election the democratically elected candidate didn't satisfy the DNC party expectations). In the end they have one party, we have only two real parties. There's not much difference except we directly elect a few more representatives than they do.
AngeloAnolin 9y ago
Mark was invited and he declined. What's really wrong with that? His wisdom and personal belief (including legal and lawyer suggestions) tells him that coming over to the invitation would not do him (nor his company) any good. And, given with all the information he has supposedly with people, he may already have some knowledge of the personality of the MPs who are going to grill him that he may think otherwise that appearing before them would tantamount into a gong show.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  Legally speaking, there might not be anything wrong with it. Practically speaking, he just snubbed an influential, cross-party group of MPs, and the House of Commons where those MPs and their colleagues sit has the closest thing to absolute power that exists within our legal system. These are people who could pass emergency legislation imposing a windfall tax on Facebook amounting to 100% of everything it does or owns in UK territory and authorising HMRC to immediately seize assets accordingly. They could pass laws requiring all UK-based ISPs to filter Facebook traffic any way they want. They could pass laws imposing an extremely privacy-focussed data protection regime, even more so than the GDPR that is already due to come into effect in a couple of months. Now, obviously such extreme reactions are unlikely in response to this snub, even given the history here. But there is a whole scale of possible responses to Facebook's current situation, and large fines and/or some of the people involved actually going to prison are not out of the question. Tempting fate may not be the smartest business move Facebook could make.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
liberte82 9y ago
What the fuck, zuck.
bowlofpetunias 9y ago
This is the ultimate act of Silicon Valley arrogance, at it will backfire hard. Not just on Facebook, and not just in the UK. This crosses a line all democratic nations in which SV companies have significant interests and even more significant influence will take note of. SV and apparently large parts of HN are completely delusional if they think this won't have serious consequences.

239 points by AJRF 9y ago

I hope this hate on FB ends already, I'm tired of seeing the home page of HN polluted by it. We all knew what was going on on FB, so acting surprised is silly. And we all know this won't change nothing because most people don't care and will happily keep using FB. And we also know even if people stop using FB they will keep using WA/IG. So what's the point? Is this only a problem now that Trump took advantage of it?

cmorgan31 9y ago
Well GDPR is going to have teeth soon and Facebook is a prime case to test its boundaries and prove those base fines will be enforced. It's important to see the outcome and sentiment of the EU and UK in regards to Facebook from a legal standpoint as it helps inform smaller companies of where the proverbial line in the sand is drawn. I think it is likely in their best interest to keep Facebook in the news so as to improve the optics when the inevitable GDPR violations trickle into the Data Protection Agencies of the EU.
AJRF 9y ago
Who is acting surprised? Why do you think it is inevitable that people would use WhatsApp or Instagram if they decide to leave Facebook? Is that really as obvious as you are making it out to be? Is there any evidence of that? The point is that finally, FINALLY the mainstream is paying attention to the potential ramifications of having a consolidated identity on social media, and how they potentially could have their perception of reality distorted by using such services. Now is the time to embrace changes if they come, not to get complacent at the news cycle based on ones own personal cognitive biases.
- notafxn 9y ago
  I live in Western Europe and I'd say 99.9999% of owners of smartphones have either a FB, WA or IG account and use it every day. Everybody uses WA, older people use FB, younger people use IG. If you refuse to use WA you are an outcast, and many people got a smartphone just for WA. The media likes to drives us with rage because that attracts clicks, and once a new big thing happens this will be forgotten by everybody forever.
- tjomk 9y ago
  The problem is not only Facebook that distorts the reality, it's most of the media. Look at mainstream media like CNN or RT which favour one side and totally ignore the arguments of the other. All of that will continue to happen no matter what until people start to think critically and question all the information they get, be it from their parents, school teachers, news outlets or social media. In my circle of friends in fact a lot of people are using IG and WA and ditched Facebook long ago. I use all of the three solely because my business generates a lot of sales through these channels. So I think yes, people will continue to use it in the foreseeable future. But this opinion is based solely on my bubble that I live in.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    RT is not "mainstream media" in any sensible way, it's Russian state propaganda TV.
  - matwood 9y ago
    > Look at mainstream media like CNN Lets be honest, CNN is just a tabloid now. All they want to talk about is Trumps sexcapades when there are so many other things they can focus on that really matter.
pjc50 9y ago
There's an awful lot of people posting "we knew it was bad already, why do you care now?" Remarkably consistently across all articles relating to Facebook. Clearly you want nothing done about this and are happy with this low level of privacy. But on the other hand a lot of people have been unhappy with it for a long time; suddenly the dam has broken and the public discussion in the media is taking an interest. This happens with many scandals. I'm reminded of LIBOR "rigging", which all the participants thought was entirely normal.
- notafxn 9y ago
  I'm not happy with this level of privacy, that's why I don't use Facebook. :-)
- babuskov 9y ago
  > Clearly you want nothing done about this and are happy with this low level of privacy. Facebook already locked down their platform in 2014-2015. There's no use asking Facebook to do anything now. What needs to be done is to hunt down the companies that extracted the data, one by one, trace every copy of it and delete it. But that is really hard to do. It's easier to just keep attacking Facebook.
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    That covers only part of the scandal, which IMHO has at least two parts: 1) Facebook data was widely shared to all kinds of 3rd parties. 2) Facebook data can be used to manipulate individuals and inappropriately influence the political process. Even if Facebook fixes #1, #2 is still a problem (either by Facebook itself, or those using its platform).

OrganicMSG 9y ago

I wonder if this will affect their tax arrangements, as they have been treated rather nicely up till now. In 2014, Facebook paid £4,327 in tax to the UK. The next year, they paid £4.16 million, which seems to be an improvement but then in the same year they were given an £11 million tax credit, so not so much.

hanoz 9y ago

This was obviously never going to happen and is absolutely the right decision for Zuckerberg and Facebook. House of Commons select committees bagging a big scalp invariably turn into show trials, with MPs possessing a completely deluded sense of their own insight into a subject queuing up to play to the cameras. The spectacle of having Zuckerberg there would have been absolutely excruciating. So, much as I'd like to see Facebook deleted from the internet, at least we'll be spared the embarrassment of the world witnessing the caliber of our elected representatives.

whatok 9y ago
So really not that much different than US Congress where he's still potentially going to appear?
- paulddraper 9y ago
  > still potentially going to appear ...and if I were a betting man, "not going to appear." Zuckerburg's strength is not PR or public conversations. It makes zero sense to me why he would represent Facebook to US Congress.
bitxbit 9y ago
I actually think this is absolutely the wrong move for him if he already came clean. In my estimate, he is being legally advised not to show up to these hearings for reasons unclear to us at the moment. Perhaps there's more to the story than what has been revealed thus far.
- CaveTech 9y ago
  There is no conspiracy here. Being publicly scrutanized is not good for business, there is no win for Facebook to be had in this format.
  - bitxbit 9y ago
    Perhaps not but there is a big difference between going on TV and taking out an apology ad vs. appearing in sworn-in hearings. Recall this is a part of an ongoing issue that they have been carefully trying to manage for the past few years. Unfortunately for Facebook, they are very much in the public space by design. If they cannot withstand this level of public scrutiny, then they are effectively conceding that they "don't deserve" to serve the public.

maxehmookau 9y ago

Coward.

Silhouette 9y ago

Not a complete surprise, but I suspect this is a strategic mistake from Zuckerberg. It's going to send the wrong message, at a time when Facebook is already under pressure and regulators in the EU are about to be given the most powerful privacy tools (and the most heavy penalty regime) they've ever had to work with.

kazen44 9y ago
I wonder if regulators will just decide the split up facebook. It would take a ton of leverage and political goodwill across both the EU and the US, but i have no doubt it could happen.
- babuskov 9y ago
  > I wonder if regulators will just decide the split up facebook. I keep hearing this suggestion and it makes no sense. Split into what? It would be like asking to split Google into one company doing the search and another one doing the ads. You're talking about loss leader strategy here and you cannot have a company whose only product is a loss leader. Majority of users won't pay to have search or social network. They value their privacy much lower and would trade it to get the services without direct monetary compensation.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > Split into what? Here’s an easy start: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp.
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    > I keep hearing this suggestion and it makes no sense. Split into what? Instagram, WhatsApp, and multiple competing Facebook copies (say Facebook Red, Facebook Green, and Facebook Orange) with a mandate to interoperate with each other and with other networks. Existing accounts are divided randomly and evenly between the copies.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    An advertising company and the various communications platforms.

d3ckard 9y ago

Wrong time to chicken out. That will probably have serious consequences for FB in Europe and will help with convincing people to regulations like revenue-based taxation.

gianmaro 9y ago

It feels like Zuck is in panic and listening too much to his PR advisors who are likely telling him to stay out of the public until the storm settles. Not a smart move on this particular case

tonyedgecombe 9y ago
To be fair being called in front of MP's is like a ritualised grilling, nothing ever comes out of it other than total humiliation for the victim.
- chrisseaton 9y ago
  Yes is this a new thing? I don't remember in the past the committees being so publicly snide and unpleasant like they seem to be now. Maybe it wasn't televised so prominently before? And the most strange part is how they now have celebrity appearances as well - comedians and actors?
  - cbzbc 9y ago
    They always let loose a little - you can go back and look at old transcripts and see much the same thing. There's a certain element of it becoming slightly worse due to being televised. In an era where there is a huge gap between government rhetoric and practice, it can be a useful way to signal ones 'principles' even as one files obediently through the government lobby when it comes to voting on actual legislation.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- rimliu 9y ago
  I would not mind in this case. Some people may need that to see the new perspective.
- techer 9y ago
  Rupert Murdoch somehow managed to survive. They aren’t as savage in person as they appear to be. Indeed, who knows what info Facebook/whatsapp they have on the MPs and their families! What a mess.

martinald 9y ago

Facebooks PR seems all over the place. It seems to go like this: 1) Blame users/say it wasn't as bad/not a breach 2) Controversy gets worse 3) Apologise, say we got it wrong, working on it I think this is especially dumb as FB took out a personally-signed-by-Zuckerberg letter in 6 UK sunday papers last weekend. It looks very fake.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> FB took out a personally-signed-by-Zuckerberg letter in 6 UK sunday papers last weekend Were they identically worded?
- martinald 9y ago
  Yes, but it wasn't signed by the CPO, the board, or anyone, they were all signed by Zuckerberg so I think it looks especially fake to take out those ads (which are especially targeted at the 'political class' IMO) and then refuse to come before MPs. Source: https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180325071038-01-facebook-apology-note-exlarge-169.jpg https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180325071038-01-faceb...
  - mtreis86 9y ago
    That letter is pure narcissism. Blame someone else, promise to change, play the victim.
  - throwawayReply 9y ago
    That makes it sound like people are upset about an isolated incident, trying to play this off as an isolated incident is going to blow up very badly as people "discover" just how much of their data is everywhere, whether they gave permission or not this isn't about a single breach.
paulddraper 9y ago
Should we assume that people can only hold one thought in their head at a time? (1) It was a breach of contract by an app developer. (2) Facebook now has more limited permissions. (3) Facebook is looking at more ways to limit the consequences when #1 happens. --- The bizarre thing is how differently the public treats this from Obama for America.

benevol 9y ago

What else would the world expect from a spineless little jerk?

flexie 9y ago

Arrogant little boy king. This is a major PR blunder. It's hard to imagine such attitude will make the parliament more lenient. Facebook just played a vital role in the manipulation of British democracy in one of the most important decisions in a century. But the CEO responsible couldn't care to fly over and explain himself. If what Facebook wanted was to be forgiven (or at least forgotten), and to secure more accommodating regulation, they just made that a lot harder for themselves.

fancyfacebook 9y ago
Normally I'd think this comment is a bit too lowbrow for the orange site, but I think it's justified in light of just how fundamentally the world shifted due to the Brexit vote. If this breach was part of that then people should be incredibly angry.
- gluelogic 9y ago
  Facebook ads are not responsible for the Brexit vote.

Agebor 9y ago

Reading comments lately on HN feels like an expression of Two Minutes Hate.

codq 9y ago
HN is highly critical of everything, especially closed-gardens and data manipulation. Of course there’s a distaste for FB.

techer 9y ago

Coward of cowards.

mrleiter 9y ago

Saying this is a strategic mistake may be a bit too early to tell. It depends on whether this issue will slowly disappear in the media and minds of people (like most things). He has no legal obligation to appear if I understand correctly. The select committee mainly consists of MPs who objected Brexit. Of course they try to make their point that the vote was skewed or manipulated. If, on the other hand, the pressure stays on, it may very well be a strategic mistake not to appear.

Milner08 9y ago
What on earth does their stance on Brexit have to do with there position in the select committee?!
- alistairSH 9y ago
  Brexit is relevant, because like the election of Trump, it appears nefarious actors (likely Russians in both cases) used Facebook to drive votes in a particular direction (pro-Trump, pro-Brexit).
  - darepublic 9y ago
    Some people posted fake content on Facebook? And that is responsible for the election of Trump and Brexit? If you actually believe that there's some pop up internet ads I have ready for you...
    - Veen 9y ago
      Not so long ago, Zuckerberg said it was "crazy" to think that Facebook influenced the US election. I don't think he's quite so confident of that today.
      - darepublic 9y ago
        Zuck could be "persuaded" of anything I'm sure to placate the scapegoating whiners of the western world. The thing is if you're vacuous enough to invest a lot of yourself on fb you are equally vacuous to join the pitchfork mobs at the prompting of mass media.

amelius 9y ago

Come on Zuck, think about how this will make you look in the sequel of "The Social Network".

majewsky 9y ago
"The Antisocial Network"?
- inetknght 9y ago
  That title is a slap on the face for us Americans who confuse antisocial with asocial. Perfect.

rndmio 9y ago

As someone from the UK I am not at all surprised, there is no upside to him doing so. There is nothing he can say that will help, the committee will absolutely rip into him as their primary audience is the press and people of the UK, they don't really care about his answers to their questions. The problem is that the story isn't about FB making mistakes, or being hacked, or doing something they said they wouldn't. It's that people are working out what it is they've agreed to to use the service, and there is no spinning that.

OrganicMSG 9y ago
>It's that people are working out what it is they've agreed to to use the service If the vast majority of users are only working out what they have signed up for now, after using the service for years, then it would be hard to argue that Facebook's users have given informed consent to a contract, which is generally a legal requirement here for it to be said that you have agreed to something.
- dwringer 9y ago
  When I and a lot of people I know signed up, an active .edu email was required. It was like the unprofessional kids' version of LinkedIn. The implicit conditions of the agreement to sign up for an account - that only other students and academic faculty could use the service and engage with content - were completely abandoned after they had cornered a part of their "social graph".

iwannasay 9y ago

No matter how much of a mistake Facebook make with their PR, they're gonna get away with it. Primarily because a majority of the public can't sustain their interest in the subject beyond their day-to-day concerns in life. I mean the whole argument here is that stolen user data from Facebook led a marketing agency to enable a political party with a certain agenda to deceive the public and win a democratic vote. Gathering so much power is a big victory in the first place, that is not so easy to ignore / forget / undo very easily, especially when most people continue to use Facebook products the way they did because the news slowly becomes old and people forget and move on. This subject is bigger than Facebook, it reveals shortcomings of a democratic vote and how power in the capitalist system can render a democracy to be an illusion. Facebook's victory is to have accumulated so much power in the first place. Power aka most personal user data any institute has ever gathered. Never mind they used shady sly tactics to take permissions in the first place.

noir-york 9y ago

No representation without taxation. Why should Facebook send Zuckerberg when Facebook paid a grand total of £2.6 million taxes to the UK in 2017. If the British parliament wants Zuckerberg to attend, make the UK relevant to Facebook. Tax it. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/04/facebook-uk-corporation-tax-profit https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/04/facebook-...

bambataa 9y ago
Did you read the linked article? Facebook deliberately structure their operations to try and avoid paying UK tax. So it seems odd to then cite that as a reason for him not attending.
- noir-york 9y ago
  Yes, of course I read the article. If there was political will, Facebook would pay taxes in the UK. The article I linked to in my comment showed that FBK paid (slightly) more taxes in 2017 than in 2016 following a public outcry. Political pressure and HMRC's best and brightest could surely find ways to make Facebook pay a just level of taxes.
  - bambataa 9y ago
    But their current arrangements are partly a result of political lobbying. So if they’re politically engaged enough to lower their taxes why aren’t they politically engaged enough to answer to this?
Silhouette 9y ago
If Facebook and Zuckerberg cross the invisible line here -- and they may be doing that with this decision -- then political will is going to turn sharply against them. It wouldn't be at all surprising if their tax situation became dramatically worse shortly afterwards. It's basically free money for the government and free political points too.
briandear 9y ago

merinowool 9y ago

What happens if someone decided to commit a crime using SaaS platform, then requests data to be deleted. Police then go to SaaS provider and such provider can't give any data. Is SaaS provider going to be blamed?

simonbarker87 9y ago

I said it in a previous post but if the congress/senate were allowed to summon Tony Hayward, BP CEO, over the Deep Water Horizon disaster then the UK Parliament are well in their rights to summon, and expect attendance, of Zukerberg over this.

chrisseaton 9y ago
> the UK Parliament are well in their rights to summon, and expect attendance, of Zukerberg over this But they aren't within their rights to summon him. That's not a power they have. They can invite him, and they did, but he doesn't have to go and speak to a committee if he doesn't want to.
- jkaplowitz 9y ago
  Facebook has enough ties to the UK that he wouldn't ignore a subpoena compelling him to appear. He might try to challenge it first, depending on how it would affect the optics of the situation, appearing only if he lost that challenge.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- walshemj 9y ago
  I believe they (select committees) can compel witnesses within the UK so visiting the UK might be a problem. Its never been done recently - though god knows what old laws are still on the books that could be applied.
  - chrisseaton 9y ago
    An opinion on rules is here (I think like a lot of old systems these rules are based on unwritten convention) https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmliaisn/697/697we36.htm https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmli.... And yes of course they can't compel anyone outside the UK to do anything they don't want to do.

fwdpropaganda 9y ago

Keep digging, Mark.

nealdt 9y ago

Aside from everything, I find it remarkable that the media are gunning for facebook right now (referencing all those shady algorithms / shady partnerships etc etc) to the extent that facebook is a 'dirty word' and yet the newspapers are evidently quite happy to accept payment for full page ads in their publications from ... facebook.

andy_ppp 9y ago

Can one of the mods explain the dramatic killing of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16687588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16687588 its a perfectly valid discussion with an article by a reasonable publication?

mhh__ 9y ago

Has Zuckerberg done any thing like this before (e.g. Microsoft vs. United States style things)

chrischen 9y ago

> "You have a wealthy company from a developed nation going into an economy or democracy that's still struggling to get its feet on the ground - and taking advantage of that to profit from that," he told MPs. Christopher Wylie (ex-Facebook whistleblower) just gave the primary reason why Facebook is blocked in China.

Slansitartop 9y ago
>> "You have a wealthy company from a developed nation going into an economy or democracy that's still struggling to get its feet on the ground - and taking advantage of that to profit from that," he told MPs. > Christopher Wylie (ex-Facebook whistleblower) just gave the primary reason why Facebook is blocked in China. No. China isn't a "democracy that's still struggling to get its feet on the ground," China is a country run by anti-democratic authoritarians who want to protect their power by controlling the information their people see. It's also rather protectionist, and does not want foreign companies to be major players on its internet. The way Facebook makes its money has nothing to do with why it's blocked there.
- chrischen 9y ago
  So you think the Chinese government's motivation for protectionism is purely because they are undemocratic evil-doers hell-bent on preserving their power. I disagree and believe they have other motivations behind protectionism, limiting democracy, and authoritarianism. It seems you probably don't have background in Chinese history. There was a period pre-WWII where China was divvied up by colonial powers and humiliated in defeats for over a century (primarily due to a weak navy). The country was addicted at that time not to Facebook but to opium, which was imposed upon by foreign influence. Both nationalist and communist parties recognized this and vowed to unify and expel foreign power. The communists ended up essentially winning, but the legacy of weariness towards foreign influence persisted. I can assure you the #1 and #2 things in China's mind when banning facebook and google are to #1 prevent a backdoor for the US into massive data collection and #2 nurture homegrown technology companies to prevent spilling wealth out. You might consider #2 to be unfair, but you'd also have to consider that the US was a fully developed economy, and China's developing economy would not be fairly competing against foreign tech companies. The decision has nothing to do with free speech as facebook would simply have to comply with local laws and would have gladly censored at the request of China—but that wasn't the issue. That being said, protectionism isn't exclusive to China. It's adopted heavily in Japan too, as well as in the US. You can't really argue for or against it as it's a matter of sovereign policy as foreign citizens do not have a natural right to exploit a sovereign market. Regarding democracy and authoritarianism, keep in mind the the country was super poor and uneducated. Ceding power democratically across the country would have probably resulted in massive corruption. The country is not a dictatorship though, but it is governed by a subset of the population who are communist party members. While they probably want to keep power to themselves, they'll also in theory be better governors than the general public. Believe it or not the population of China overwhelmingly supports their government. The authority and legitimacy of a government does not come from democracy per se (nor from opinions of people half-way around the world), but from the people. Democracy is a great way to represent the power of the people, but as long as the population approves and delegates power to the government (by not rebelling), then it has legitimacy. So no there's no democracy, but if they did have a vote right now the people would side with their government, and not the poorly informed foreign distant opinions from people like yourself. It just so happens their form of government does not delegate decisions of governance at the same granularity to the people as we do in America, but then again we don't have much granularity either through our representative form of government (we don't even pick the president!). They pick their premier through rules of the communist party. We pick our president through a set of complex rules masking the fact that an electoral college actually selects the president (with things like super-delegates, which were enacted to reduce the power of the average voter since one election the democratically elected candidate didn't satisfy the DNC party expectations). In the end they have one party, we have only two real parties. There's not much difference except we directly elect a few more representatives than they do.

AngeloAnolin 9y ago

Mark was invited and he declined. What's really wrong with that? His wisdom and personal belief (including legal and lawyer suggestions) tells him that coming over to the invitation would not do him (nor his company) any good. And, given with all the information he has supposedly with people, he may already have some knowledge of the personality of the MPs who are going to grill him that he may think otherwise that appearing before them would tantamount into a gong show.

Silhouette 9y ago
Legally speaking, there might not be anything wrong with it. Practically speaking, he just snubbed an influential, cross-party group of MPs, and the House of Commons where those MPs and their colleagues sit has the closest thing to absolute power that exists within our legal system. These are people who could pass emergency legislation imposing a windfall tax on Facebook amounting to 100% of everything it does or owns in UK territory and authorising HMRC to immediately seize assets accordingly. They could pass laws requiring all UK-based ISPs to filter Facebook traffic any way they want. They could pass laws imposing an extremely privacy-focussed data protection regime, even more so than the GDPR that is already due to come into effect in a couple of months. Now, obviously such extreme reactions are unlikely in response to this snub, even given the history here. But there is a whole scale of possible responses to Facebook's current situation, and large fines and/or some of the people involved actually going to prison are not out of the question. Tempting fate may not be the smartest business move Facebook could make.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

liberte82 9y ago

What the fuck, zuck.

bowlofpetunias 9y ago

This is the ultimate act of Silicon Valley arrogance, at it will backfire hard. Not just on Facebook, and not just in the UK. This crosses a line all democratic nations in which SV companies have significant interests and even more significant influence will take note of. SV and apparently large parts of HN are completely delusional if they think this won't have serious consequences.