8 ms·

Facebook's Zuckerberg Says the Age of Privacy Is Over (2010)

274 points by ProAm 9y ago

scrooched_moose 9y ago
Mark Zuckerberg Just Spent More Than $30 Million Buying 4 Neighboring Houses For Privacy (2013) http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-buys-4-homes-for-privacy-2013-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-buys-4-homes-...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  I find this part interesting: > Zuckerberg reportedly took action after he learned that a developer wanted to purchase one of his neighbor's homes and use the fact that Zuckerberg lived close by as a marketing tactic. He started purchasing the homes last December. Zuckerberg will lease the four homes he just bought back to its current residents. I honestly believe I would do the same. That developer sounds like a jerk. Edit: Assuming I had the millions to do it, that is.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    Sure, but I think the point is that it is hypocritical to declare that privacy is over -- for other people, like your users -- and guard your own privacy jealously. "Do as I say, not as I do."
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - 411mrc 9y ago
      In the words of John Belushi, "you effed up - you trusted us" http://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-calling-users-dumb-fucks http://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-calling-use...
  - p49k 9y ago
    In other words, he was uncomfortable about someone using his personal information for advertising purposes.
    - JustSomeNobody 9y ago
      Oh, I completely get the point, I'm just saying I'd do it, too. My family, my house, heck yeah.
      - YesNoYesNoNo101 9y ago
        And it would be relevant if you run a multi billion dollar company that sells private information and claims there is no privacy so just relax.
    - victor106 9y ago
      This is hilarious. (Sorry I hate to add comments that don't add value but I had to say this..)
- vkou 9y ago
  This is also the man who built a mile-long six-foot wall around his Hawaii estate. This is his idea of 'planting roots and joining the community.' [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/mark-zuckerberg-hawaii-land-lawsuits-kauai-estate https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/mark-zuck...
  - pishpash 9y ago
    To be fair he's not prohibiting you from building your own walls around your house. We're talking about FB. The problem there is, I'd imagine his account is specialized in a way that he has access to all the knobs so he can turn it all the way to zero. In that way he suffers the same problem as all people in power -- they don't see the problems faced by the plebs they talk down to.
    - wruwew8uu9 9y ago
      I can't afford a house let alone a wall
- 411mrc 9y ago
  He also notably tapes over his webcam and microphone - you'd infer he thinks he could be surveiled that way. I wonder why.
  - icc97 9y ago
    To be fair he is much more likely to be under surveillance than any of us.
    - 411mrc 9y ago
      If he has something to hide, he really shouldn't be on the internet, because the age of privacy is over.
AboutTheWhisles 9y ago
Not if you are a government.
feelin_googley 9y ago
"Facebook Inc. faces a massive uphill task to win back the general public's trust, results from two separate opinion polls, reported on by Reuters, have shown. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Sunday, just 41 percent of Americans now trust Facebook to obey laws that protect their personal information. In contrast, of the 2,237 respondents to the poll, which ran from Wednesday through Friday, 66 percent, 62 percent and 60 percent, respectively, believe that Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc's Google and Microsoft Corp. will do a better job of respecting their privacy. A separate survey released the same day by Germany's largest-selling Sunday paper, Bild am Sonntag, delivered a much more damaging assessment, revealing that 60 percent of Germans believe that Facebook and other social networks have a negative impact on democracy." Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-apology/americans-less-likely-to-trust-facebook-than-rivals-on-personal-data-idUSKBN1H10AF https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analyt... Zuck: They "trust me" Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg
- ironjunkie 9y ago
  Happy to see that the greater public understands what Facebook really is. But we still have work to do regarding Google. They are even worse IMO. For those two, you are the product. Amazon and Microsoft don't have business selling your data (or at least it is not central), you are not the product.
  - Raphmedia 9y ago
    Microsoft: https://advertising.microsoft.com/home https://advertising.microsoft.com/home Amazon: https://advertising.amazon.ca/ https://advertising.amazon.ca/ ... You are the product.
    - ironjunkie 9y ago
      At least it is not central to their business. In other words, the company is not rotten to it's core.
reaperducer 9y ago
>Facebook's Zuckerberg Says the Age of Privacy Is Over Awesome. So he's going to give everyone his e-mail login and password, right? Because nobody gets privacy anymore and he's going to lead by example, for sure. Oh, wait. He means the age of privacy is over, except for hypocrites and rich people who can afford to pay for it.
- TremendousJudge 9y ago
  He should just start walking around naked and shitting with the stall door open in order to demonstrate how "over" the age of privacy is. People don't care about privacy anymore, which is exactly why everyone just masturbates in public all the time
- wilsonnb 9y ago
  That's an extremely uncharitable reading of this article - he says nothing that suggests he wants everyone to publicly post their email logins and passwords. This kind of hyperbole is not conducive to productive conversation about Facebook or privacy in general.
oconnor663 9y ago
It sounds a lot less Orwellian if we summarize it as "Zuckerberg says Facebook should've been more like Twitter."
mfringel 9y ago
In general, if an executive says "The future is X", a good first translation is "My life will get a whole lot easier if X is true."
- osrec 9y ago
  Yes indeed. So many influential people use their influence to sow the seeds of the future they want in the public's mind. They do this by prophecising the future, and their followers do their best to make the prophecy a reality (often subconsciously).
mtgx 9y ago
Could this be used against Facebook in court eventually? Like showing this as evidence that Facebook has been maliciously trying to abuse its users' privacy? Zuckerberg said that because that would have benefited Facebook if it became true. It's like IBM now saying "forget Intel and transistors, quantum computers are the future!" (because we happen to make them and be ahead of everyone else in this).
- rhizome 9y ago
  When's the last time he said, "you own your data?" That could be construed as fraud, at least in my imagination.
- prostoalex 9y ago
  The FTC investigation regarding default privacy settings and privacy settings attributable to past posts has been settled https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/11/facebook-settles-ftc-charges-it-deceived-consumers-failing-keep https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/11/faceb... so very unlikely.
brandon272 9y ago
There are things about Facebook's privacy policies and respect for its users that are perpetually in the news that it seems like they could easily nip in the bud to garner some goodwill. Their dark patterns around deleting your account is one example. Why not just allow people to quickly and easily delete their accounts? Not "deactivate" while they send you photos of your friends, telling you how much they'll miss you. Not soft delete. Hard delete. Commit to allowing users to just leave if they aren't finding value in the platform. Why do they resist dealing with that kind of low hanging fruit? Do they view offering easy opt-out functionality to present a major risk to the business?
- pishpash 9y ago
  As a company why would you prioritize your developer's time on that? At best it sits low on the backlog. Your performance reviews aren't based on how much you make it easy for people to leave. The only way that stakeholders can drive behavior is if they actually had any power, but Facebook users don't sit on the board.
  - brandon272 9y ago
    > As a company why would you prioritize your developer's time on that? Because as a leader within the org you're watching the company's reputation and share value erode, and having them spend some time on those items would gesture to the community and world that you take the public's concerns seriously. I'm sure they are already prioritizing developer time on many different privacy fronts, including auditing old apps to see what data they siphoned off. (As was implied by Zuckerberg's interview on CNN)
pishpash 9y ago
It has been known forever that Zuckerberg advocates for radical unprivacy, i.e. technological breakdown of the barriers guarding human internals. Sort of alluded to in dramatized fashion in the movie and given a psychological background, but that aside, it is public knowledge.
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  > It has been known forever that Zuckerberg advocates for radical unprivacy... Well, for everyone but him (see the other thread regarding his house)
crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
Let's assume the age of privacy IS over. How might we go about deweaponizing information? Does it require anarchical self governance and radical transparency or is there another way? I propose one key: teaching the world to be emotionally responsible at an individual level. Nonviolent communication provides a clear structure and set of principles to practice to this end.
- rocqua 9y ago
  How is information anything but the most powerful weapon. Consider the quote "All warfare is deception". In other terms, all warfare is about information asymmetry. To get around this, you'd need the opposing side of the deal to share much more. The end result is a world with a lot more openness. This only works if we turn of the outrage and shame, but that seems like it can't work with human nature. Really, we either accept that facebook and similar have this advantage, or we do something to keep our information from them. The other alternative is to run a misinformation campaign against them. Something tor-like but with likes. That'd break the core monetization concept of these kinds of sites though.
  - crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
    Nonviolent communication is all about hacking shame, anger, blame, judgment, criticism, etc. out of our language and minds. It sounds like teaching this to people may be a longer, yet more sustainable path. Hack the culture.
    - rocqua 9y ago
      In the end, people are going to judge, if only to see who is most suitable to some task or best given something. Politics is also an invariant, people are going to lobby to get things themselves, given scarcity, this is at the expense of others. These things combine to mean that it will always be problematic for everyone to be completely open. The only way to make this a non-issue is to have all judgements made be completely accurate, but that seems like it takes way too much information.
interlocutor 9y ago
Google is no better. Eric Schmidt, while was Google's CEO suggested that young people should change their name upon reaching adulthood (as opposed to something like a "right to be forgotten" that EU citizens enjoy today): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-will-have-to-change-names-to-escape-cyber-past-warns-Googles-Eric-Schmidt.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-...
734786710934 9y ago
Zuckerberg changed his mind on this in an interview in 2014: "I don't know if the balance has swung too far, but I definitely think we're at the point where we don't need to keep on only doing real identity things," he says. "If you're always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden." https://www.csoonline.com/article/2226288/microsoft-subnet/as-facebook-turns-10--zuckerberg-changes-his-mind-about-anonymity.html https://www.csoonline.com/article/2226288/microsoft-subnet/a...
- dictum 9y ago
  He still wants all public-facing identities tied to a real identity he can track and analyze. That encourages even greater abandon of one's privacy, as you worry less about tying your real name to still-monetizable private thoughts.
dictum 9y ago
Remember when influential people and institutions encouraged (or outright required) the use of a platform made by the man who said the age of privacy is over?
pacala 9y ago
Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, 2009 > Yesterday, the web was buzzing with commentary about Google CEO Eric Schmidt's dangerous, dismissive response to concerns about search engine users' privacy. When asked during an interview for CNBC's recent "Inside the Mind of Google" special about whether users should be sharing information with Google as if it were a "trusted friend," Schmidt responded, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-dismisses-privacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmid...
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." To what degree does Apple's privacy stance come from selling hardware versus Tim Cook, as a gay man born in Mobile, Alabama in 1960 [1], instinctively understanding why people need privacy? There were opportunities for Apple to pivot away from privacy. (They no longer just sell hardware. In the quarter ending December 30th, 2017, Apple earned 18% of their net sales from services [2].) But privacy remains a value they choose to ensure they remain incentivized to protect. That isn't the case at Facebook. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cook [2] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000032019318000007/a10-qq1201812302017.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/0000320193180... MD&A
  - ocfx 9y ago
    One could make the argument that gay people being private just lengthened society's path to acceptance of their sexuality. For the individual that has to deal with this it sucks, but it is for the greater good in the long run. The main cases I have for privacy are protecting access to my finances and my porn history. I don't look at anything illegal but people might think I was weird still.
- ironjunkie 9y ago
  Funny how they managed to turn around and rebrand themselves as privacy-conscious. The reality is probably very very very far away from that. I will give it to them, they are extremely good in PR and Marketing.
_RPM 9y ago
Zuckerberg is a grimy one. Reading his FB posts make me want to throw up. He's so full of shit. Edit: Before this is censored. Do you honestly believe he is on a mission to make the world more open and connected?
issan5iiivkivb 9y ago
6666666666
commandlinefan 9y ago
One way or another, bad or good, right or wrong, he's probably right. Even if you decide to go "off the grid", you'll probably never find work in a society that considers lack of social media footprint evidence that you're "hiding" something.
valeg 9y ago
Not so fast, Zucc. It was a very hypocritical and self-serving claim.
georgeecollins 9y ago
Says the guy who bought the houses around his house.
robotkdick 9y ago
Does anyone get the feeling that Facebook friendlies are monitoring posts like this one and steering the conversation? Yes, other CEOs may have made similar statements, but they didn't volunteerily give millions of customers data to unscrupulous partners because that's clearly wrong to do. It's the statement with the action that's enlightening, not just the statement. The lack of any sense of right and wrong within FB's leadership is astounding.
brandonmenc 9y ago
"privacy is over" was cool until it got Trump elected.
39d3493I93 9y ago
Just take that in for a second. We have no idea who much the left, and others, has essentially capitulated to the 21st century's version of the particular authoritarian socialists that called themselves National Socialists in that incarnation. What people don't realize is that just like the cancer of communism did not die with the fall of the Soviet Union, the authoritarian socialist brethren did not die with the fall fo the National Socialist or Italian Fascists in Europe. Fact of the matter is that they became even more dangerous through the cure illusion, the delusion that the problem is solved, the illness is gone after stabilization through medication or treatment has been achieved. We thought that communism died with the fall of the USSR and socialist authoritarianism died with the Nazis and Fascists, but reality is that we simply ignored them and acted as though everything was fine again, and as we took our eye and attention off them, they grew even more perniciously and secretly than they ever could when they were as overt and blunt and brutish about it. The communists and socialists are at the gates and the mentally ill and delusional and feeble minded liberals of western society are throwing open the gates in a state of utter manic derangement. This will all not work out the way people fantasize. There will be no happy happy fun time under a fantasy lie of sharing and caring and singing kumbaya together. At best, the elite will totally and utterly dominate and control the world and the people in it far more akin to how the elites did so before the American Revolution; worst case is that the elite ... as they always do ... push the structures of society beyond their breaking point and total and utter collapse and destruction results. It never seems to dawn on anyone that the elite, the "educated", the academics, the scholars, the "learned", the technocrats, the atheists are always the ones that cause the sheet destruction they always do. It's never the common people. There's not a single example of regular, common people that the aforementioned have such distain and contempt for that have every in all of human history every caused even remotely the level of destruction and depravity as the elite and their sycophantic ilk.
Browun 9y ago
Not to beat a dead horse too much but ultimately I would believe that he was swayed by the amount of money the company could make by sharing it. A sad thing to see happening to all too many aspects of life! The clip starts at around 2:30 if you want to see it: https://youtu.be/LoWKGBloMsU https://youtu.be/LoWKGBloMsU

274 points by ProAm 9y ago

Mark Zuckerberg Just Spent More Than $30 Million Buying 4 Neighboring Houses For Privacy (2013) http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-buys-4-homes-for-privacy-2013-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-buys-4-homes-...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
I find this part interesting: > Zuckerberg reportedly took action after he learned that a developer wanted to purchase one of his neighbor's homes and use the fact that Zuckerberg lived close by as a marketing tactic. He started purchasing the homes last December. Zuckerberg will lease the four homes he just bought back to its current residents. I honestly believe I would do the same. That developer sounds like a jerk. Edit: Assuming I had the millions to do it, that is.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Sure, but I think the point is that it is hypocritical to declare that privacy is over -- for other people, like your users -- and guard your own privacy jealously. "Do as I say, not as I do."
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - 411mrc 9y ago
    In the words of John Belushi, "you effed up - you trusted us" http://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-calling-users-dumb-fucks http://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-calling-use...
- p49k 9y ago
  In other words, he was uncomfortable about someone using his personal information for advertising purposes.
  - JustSomeNobody 9y ago
    Oh, I completely get the point, I'm just saying I'd do it, too. My family, my house, heck yeah.
    - YesNoYesNoNo101 9y ago
      And it would be relevant if you run a multi billion dollar company that sells private information and claims there is no privacy so just relax.
  - victor106 9y ago
    This is hilarious. (Sorry I hate to add comments that don't add value but I had to say this..)
vkou 9y ago
This is also the man who built a mile-long six-foot wall around his Hawaii estate. This is his idea of 'planting roots and joining the community.' [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/mark-zuckerberg-hawaii-land-lawsuits-kauai-estate https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/mark-zuck...
- pishpash 9y ago
  To be fair he's not prohibiting you from building your own walls around your house. We're talking about FB. The problem there is, I'd imagine his account is specialized in a way that he has access to all the knobs so he can turn it all the way to zero. In that way he suffers the same problem as all people in power -- they don't see the problems faced by the plebs they talk down to.
  - wruwew8uu9 9y ago
    I can't afford a house let alone a wall
411mrc 9y ago
He also notably tapes over his webcam and microphone - you'd infer he thinks he could be surveiled that way. I wonder why.
- icc97 9y ago
  To be fair he is much more likely to be under surveillance than any of us.
  - 411mrc 9y ago
    If he has something to hide, he really shouldn't be on the internet, because the age of privacy is over.

AboutTheWhisles 9y ago

Not if you are a government.

feelin_googley 9y ago

"Facebook Inc. faces a massive uphill task to win back the general public's trust, results from two separate opinion polls, reported on by Reuters, have shown. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Sunday, just 41 percent of Americans now trust Facebook to obey laws that protect their personal information. In contrast, of the 2,237 respondents to the poll, which ran from Wednesday through Friday, 66 percent, 62 percent and 60 percent, respectively, believe that Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc's Google and Microsoft Corp. will do a better job of respecting their privacy. A separate survey released the same day by Germany's largest-selling Sunday paper, Bild am Sonntag, delivered a much more damaging assessment, revealing that 60 percent of Germans believe that Facebook and other social networks have a negative impact on democracy." Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-apology/americans-less-likely-to-trust-facebook-than-rivals-on-personal-data-idUSKBN1H10AF https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analyt... Zuck: They "trust me" Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg

ironjunkie 9y ago
Happy to see that the greater public understands what Facebook really is. But we still have work to do regarding Google. They are even worse IMO. For those two, you are the product. Amazon and Microsoft don't have business selling your data (or at least it is not central), you are not the product.
- Raphmedia 9y ago
  Microsoft: https://advertising.microsoft.com/home https://advertising.microsoft.com/home Amazon: https://advertising.amazon.ca/ https://advertising.amazon.ca/ ... You are the product.
  - ironjunkie 9y ago
    At least it is not central to their business. In other words, the company is not rotten to it's core.

reaperducer 9y ago

>Facebook's Zuckerberg Says the Age of Privacy Is Over Awesome. So he's going to give everyone his e-mail login and password, right? Because nobody gets privacy anymore and he's going to lead by example, for sure. Oh, wait. He means the age of privacy is over, except for hypocrites and rich people who can afford to pay for it.

TremendousJudge 9y ago
He should just start walking around naked and shitting with the stall door open in order to demonstrate how "over" the age of privacy is. People don't care about privacy anymore, which is exactly why everyone just masturbates in public all the time
wilsonnb 9y ago
That's an extremely uncharitable reading of this article - he says nothing that suggests he wants everyone to publicly post their email logins and passwords. This kind of hyperbole is not conducive to productive conversation about Facebook or privacy in general.

oconnor663 9y ago

It sounds a lot less Orwellian if we summarize it as "Zuckerberg says Facebook should've been more like Twitter."

mfringel 9y ago

In general, if an executive says "The future is X", a good first translation is "My life will get a whole lot easier if X is true."

osrec 9y ago
Yes indeed. So many influential people use their influence to sow the seeds of the future they want in the public's mind. They do this by prophecising the future, and their followers do their best to make the prophecy a reality (often subconsciously).

mtgx 9y ago

Could this be used against Facebook in court eventually? Like showing this as evidence that Facebook has been maliciously trying to abuse its users' privacy? Zuckerberg said that because that would have benefited Facebook if it became true. It's like IBM now saying "forget Intel and transistors, quantum computers are the future!" (because we happen to make them and be ahead of everyone else in this).

rhizome 9y ago
When's the last time he said, "you own your data?" That could be construed as fraud, at least in my imagination.
prostoalex 9y ago
The FTC investigation regarding default privacy settings and privacy settings attributable to past posts has been settled https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/11/facebook-settles-ftc-charges-it-deceived-consumers-failing-keep https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/11/faceb... so very unlikely.

brandon272 9y ago

There are things about Facebook's privacy policies and respect for its users that are perpetually in the news that it seems like they could easily nip in the bud to garner some goodwill. Their dark patterns around deleting your account is one example. Why not just allow people to quickly and easily delete their accounts? Not "deactivate" while they send you photos of your friends, telling you how much they'll miss you. Not soft delete. Hard delete. Commit to allowing users to just leave if they aren't finding value in the platform. Why do they resist dealing with that kind of low hanging fruit? Do they view offering easy opt-out functionality to present a major risk to the business?

pishpash 9y ago
As a company why would you prioritize your developer's time on that? At best it sits low on the backlog. Your performance reviews aren't based on how much you make it easy for people to leave. The only way that stakeholders can drive behavior is if they actually had any power, but Facebook users don't sit on the board.
- brandon272 9y ago
  > As a company why would you prioritize your developer's time on that? Because as a leader within the org you're watching the company's reputation and share value erode, and having them spend some time on those items would gesture to the community and world that you take the public's concerns seriously. I'm sure they are already prioritizing developer time on many different privacy fronts, including auditing old apps to see what data they siphoned off. (As was implied by Zuckerberg's interview on CNN)

pishpash 9y ago

It has been known forever that Zuckerberg advocates for radical unprivacy, i.e. technological breakdown of the barriers guarding human internals. Sort of alluded to in dramatized fashion in the movie and given a psychological background, but that aside, it is public knowledge.

Analemma_ 9y ago
> It has been known forever that Zuckerberg advocates for radical unprivacy... Well, for everyone but him (see the other thread regarding his house)

crawfordcomeaux 9y ago

Let's assume the age of privacy IS over. How might we go about deweaponizing information? Does it require anarchical self governance and radical transparency or is there another way? I propose one key: teaching the world to be emotionally responsible at an individual level. Nonviolent communication provides a clear structure and set of principles to practice to this end.

rocqua 9y ago
How is information anything but the most powerful weapon. Consider the quote "All warfare is deception". In other terms, all warfare is about information asymmetry. To get around this, you'd need the opposing side of the deal to share much more. The end result is a world with a lot more openness. This only works if we turn of the outrage and shame, but that seems like it can't work with human nature. Really, we either accept that facebook and similar have this advantage, or we do something to keep our information from them. The other alternative is to run a misinformation campaign against them. Something tor-like but with likes. That'd break the core monetization concept of these kinds of sites though.
- crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
  Nonviolent communication is all about hacking shame, anger, blame, judgment, criticism, etc. out of our language and minds. It sounds like teaching this to people may be a longer, yet more sustainable path. Hack the culture.
  - rocqua 9y ago
    In the end, people are going to judge, if only to see who is most suitable to some task or best given something. Politics is also an invariant, people are going to lobby to get things themselves, given scarcity, this is at the expense of others. These things combine to mean that it will always be problematic for everyone to be completely open. The only way to make this a non-issue is to have all judgements made be completely accurate, but that seems like it takes way too much information.

interlocutor 9y ago

Google is no better. Eric Schmidt, while was Google's CEO suggested that young people should change their name upon reaching adulthood (as opposed to something like a "right to be forgotten" that EU citizens enjoy today): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-will-have-to-change-names-to-escape-cyber-past-warns-Googles-Eric-Schmidt.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-...

734786710934 9y ago

Zuckerberg changed his mind on this in an interview in 2014: "I don't know if the balance has swung too far, but I definitely think we're at the point where we don't need to keep on only doing real identity things," he says. "If you're always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden." https://www.csoonline.com/article/2226288/microsoft-subnet/as-facebook-turns-10--zuckerberg-changes-his-mind-about-anonymity.html https://www.csoonline.com/article/2226288/microsoft-subnet/a...

dictum 9y ago
He still wants all public-facing identities tied to a real identity he can track and analyze. That encourages even greater abandon of one's privacy, as you worry less about tying your real name to still-monetizable private thoughts.

dictum 9y ago

Remember when influential people and institutions encouraged (or outright required) the use of a platform made by the man who said the age of privacy is over?

pacala 9y ago

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, 2009 > Yesterday, the web was buzzing with commentary about Google CEO Eric Schmidt's dangerous, dismissive response to concerns about search engine users' privacy. When asked during an interview for CNBC's recent "Inside the Mind of Google" special about whether users should be sharing information with Google as if it were a "trusted friend," Schmidt responded, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-dismisses-privacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmid...

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." To what degree does Apple's privacy stance come from selling hardware versus Tim Cook, as a gay man born in Mobile, Alabama in 1960 [1], instinctively understanding why people need privacy? There were opportunities for Apple to pivot away from privacy. (They no longer just sell hardware. In the quarter ending December 30th, 2017, Apple earned 18% of their net sales from services [2].) But privacy remains a value they choose to ensure they remain incentivized to protect. That isn't the case at Facebook. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cook [2] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000032019318000007/a10-qq1201812302017.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/0000320193180... MD&A
- ocfx 9y ago
  One could make the argument that gay people being private just lengthened society's path to acceptance of their sexuality. For the individual that has to deal with this it sucks, but it is for the greater good in the long run. The main cases I have for privacy are protecting access to my finances and my porn history. I don't look at anything illegal but people might think I was weird still.
ironjunkie 9y ago
Funny how they managed to turn around and rebrand themselves as privacy-conscious. The reality is probably very very very far away from that. I will give it to them, they are extremely good in PR and Marketing.

_RPM 9y ago

Zuckerberg is a grimy one. Reading his FB posts make me want to throw up. He's so full of shit. Edit: Before this is censored. Do you honestly believe he is on a mission to make the world more open and connected?

issan5iiivkivb 9y ago

6666666666

commandlinefan 9y ago

One way or another, bad or good, right or wrong, he's probably right. Even if you decide to go "off the grid", you'll probably never find work in a society that considers lack of social media footprint evidence that you're "hiding" something.

valeg 9y ago

Not so fast, Zucc. It was a very hypocritical and self-serving claim.

georgeecollins 9y ago

Says the guy who bought the houses around his house.

robotkdick 9y ago

Does anyone get the feeling that Facebook friendlies are monitoring posts like this one and steering the conversation? Yes, other CEOs may have made similar statements, but they didn't volunteerily give millions of customers data to unscrupulous partners because that's clearly wrong to do. It's the statement with the action that's enlightening, not just the statement. The lack of any sense of right and wrong within FB's leadership is astounding.

brandonmenc 9y ago

"privacy is over" was cool until it got Trump elected.

39d3493I93 9y ago

Just take that in for a second. We have no idea who much the left, and others, has essentially capitulated to the 21st century's version of the particular authoritarian socialists that called themselves National Socialists in that incarnation. What people don't realize is that just like the cancer of communism did not die with the fall of the Soviet Union, the authoritarian socialist brethren did not die with the fall fo the National Socialist or Italian Fascists in Europe. Fact of the matter is that they became even more dangerous through the cure illusion, the delusion that the problem is solved, the illness is gone after stabilization through medication or treatment has been achieved. We thought that communism died with the fall of the USSR and socialist authoritarianism died with the Nazis and Fascists, but reality is that we simply ignored them and acted as though everything was fine again, and as we took our eye and attention off them, they grew even more perniciously and secretly than they ever could when they were as overt and blunt and brutish about it. The communists and socialists are at the gates and the mentally ill and delusional and feeble minded liberals of western society are throwing open the gates in a state of utter manic derangement. This will all not work out the way people fantasize. There will be no happy happy fun time under a fantasy lie of sharing and caring and singing kumbaya together. At best, the elite will totally and utterly dominate and control the world and the people in it far more akin to how the elites did so before the American Revolution; worst case is that the elite ... as they always do ... push the structures of society beyond their breaking point and total and utter collapse and destruction results. It never seems to dawn on anyone that the elite, the "educated", the academics, the scholars, the "learned", the technocrats, the atheists are always the ones that cause the sheet destruction they always do. It's never the common people. There's not a single example of regular, common people that the aforementioned have such distain and contempt for that have every in all of human history every caused even remotely the level of destruction and depravity as the elite and their sycophantic ilk.

Browun 9y ago

Not to beat a dead horse too much but ultimately I would believe that he was swayed by the amount of money the company could make by sharing it. A sad thing to see happening to all too many aspects of life! The clip starts at around 2:30 if you want to see it: https://youtu.be/LoWKGBloMsU https://youtu.be/LoWKGBloMsU