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Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress
- sp332 8y agoSome bingo cards: https://twitter.com/libshipwreck/status/983358587723505666 https://twitter.com/libshipwreck/status/983358587723505666 https://twitter.com/Gizmodo/status/983780434621489153 https://twitter.com/Gizmodo/status/983780434621489153 https://twitter.com/qz/status/983754216861822977 https://twitter.com/qz/status/983754216861822977
- danso 8y agoThere seem to be multiple feeds with different angles. The one posted by the Guardian is currently pointed at the current person speaking, e.g. the Senators. Bloomberg, though, has a feed in which the camera is focused on Zuckerberg's face for the entirety of the hearing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyJosQBtzsw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyJosQBtzsw
- mercer 8y agoThe PBS News Hour feed puts them side by side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAZiDRonYZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAZiDRonYZI
- mxfh 8y agoLooks like it's the one from C-SPAN, which also has a searchable transcript of the closed captions https://www.c-span.org/video/?443543-1/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-testifies-data-protection&live https://www.c-span.org/video/?443543-1/facebook-ceo-mark-zuc...
- xur17 8y agoIt's lovely that they put the Facebook stock ticker on top of the video...
- baalimago 8y agoI smell a "The Social Network 2.0" in the making
- pfarrell 8y ago"Mad Mark: Beyond The Capitol Dome"
- sudouser 8y agoFacebook VII: oops i f up again
- yellowapple 8y agoTwo networks enter! One network leaves!
- sudouser 8y agoYup, just hire the same actors for the trilogy
- paxys 8y agoWell, same actor. I don't think the rest of the cast is quite relevant anymore.
- IIAOPSW 8y agoelectric boogaloo
- komali2 8y agoSay what you will about the intelligence of agreeing to do this hearing at all, at least Zuckerberg is clearly reading from a well-prepared speech. Winging it would have been, er, inadvisable.
- AndrewKemendo 8y agoThat is how these proceedings go at this point (when you posted). Prepared Statements from the Chairperson, then members of the committee, then the "witness" are read then open questioning is where the "winging it" happens. MZ basically read an abridged version of his formal submission - which is part of the process for the record. http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20180411/108090/HHRG-115-IF00-Wstate-ZuckerbergM-20180411.pdf http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20180411/108090/HHRG-...
- danso 8y agoThat was just the opening statement. He is taking questions from Congress committees, with each member having up to 4 minutes to question him. https://www.npr.org/2018/04/10/600917264/facebook-in-congress-what-to-expect-when-zuckerberg-goes-to-capitol-hill https://www.npr.org/2018/04/10/600917264/facebook-in-congres...
- jasode 8y ago>about the intelligence of agreeing to do this hearing at all, If MZ didn't voluntarily offer himself to testify, Congress could proceed to formally subpoena him. MZ could then ignore the subpoena but then he could theoretically go to jail for "contempt of Congress".
- hinkley 8y agohe could theoretically go to jail for "contempt of Congress". Oh shit, I’m a criminal.
- isoprophlex 8y agoOf course that glib leech has a thousand advisors backing him, meticulously prepping him for these occasions. He's too big to fail.
- Simulacra 8y agoMZ has been well prepared it seems. They pay a LOT for their lobbyists, and his answers have the very cogent, clear, forceful sound of someone who has been well prepared.
- ironjunkie 8y agoI giggled a bit when Zuck told the chairman which is from a previous generation how the API authorization works.
- snissn 8y agoAnother stream: https://www.bloomberg.com/live https://www.bloomberg.com/live
- bbimbop 8y agoHow do you think this will impact the stock?
- saagarjha 8y agoIt's been going up for now.
- HoppedUpMenace 8y agoMZ: "You control and own the content you post on Facebook" Something seems just a tad bit disingenuous about this.
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y agoYes and the congressman totally let the line of questioning go on that response. The problem seems to be that (1) many of the congressman are just too unfamiliar to pry at Zuck's bad answers and (2) 5 minutes just isn't long enough to build up a damning line of questions.
- Slansitartop 8y agoIsn't this a two day hearing? Maybe they can consult with their aides who actually understand this and pick at the bad answers tomorrow.
- jvreeland 8y agoIt was an answer to a question that wasn't asked. The senator was asking whether facebook owns that data it has about a person, and the answer was that you own what you post. Those are very different sets. A follow up to answer whether facebook believes it owns the data it's accumulated about you would've been great.
- Jare 8y agoThe lack of strong followup questions is the best indicator that there is very little about this hearing that is spontaneous and not defined in advance. As I write this, Ms Cantwell starts her questioning and it is a markedly different style. Interesting
- 18pfsmt 8y agoHow could Zuckerberg know less than Wikipedia about Palantir considering Thiel's involvement with both FB and Palantir? He seems to merely know of the existence of Palantir.
- dejawu 8y agoI'm pretty impressed with how well the chairmen are grilling Mark. He's dodging a bit and they're not having any of it. I've never seen a hearing on this sort of thing before, but given the generational gap and the news that Facebook had donated to the campaigns of almost all of the people on the committee, I was expecting Zuck to get off early.
- Clanan 8y agoThis is him getting off easy. If the congresspeople really wanted to grill him, they would have put him under oath.
- ibejoeb 8y agoI guess I'm still confused about this matter. As I understand it, nothing was exploited. A company used intrinsic capabilities of the system to do a job. Are we just raising the question of whether this is an appropriate business model? I suppose that's a good discussion to have. I'm just a bit miffed that we're effectively holding another obscenities hearing while the only thing going on with the Equifax debacle is that a tech manager has been charged with insider trading.
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- dfxm12 8y agonothing was exploited Assuming you're only considering the computer security definition of "exploit", I'm not totally sure why this matters. User data was obtained via means not allowed by Facebook. Facebook realized this & didn't disclose it to the US government or its users, as required (or, at the very least questionably required) by its consent decree with the FTC. Based on this, it's not out of line for the government to question Facebook about this.
- ibejoeb 8y ago>User data was obtained via means not allowed by Facebook That's what I'm asking. 1) Is it alleged that CA found a flaw in FB's design and 2) did something illegal with it? I've seen accounts alluding to that, but that makes me think that it is entirely by design and it's just be framed negatively for the greatest political impact.
- dljsjr 8y agoIt's illegal for foreign nationals to make direct or indirect contributions to US politics. So the line that has to be drawn is one connecting that law to the CA scandal and its alleged use to drive the strategies of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. I don't know for sure if Facebook can be seen as being complicit in breaking US election law. I think their issues are completely domestic as it stands right now. But I'm not a lawyer.
- tareqak 8y agoI’m streaming it along side graphs of Facebook’s stock price here: https://twitch.tv/tareqak https://twitch.tv/tareqak and I posted it on HN earlier here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16803453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16803453 .
- tareqak 8y agoThanks to all who came to watch. I stopped the stream now because it’s been over 20 minutes since the markets have closed and I’m not adding value at this point. The links to my sources are still live. They just took a brief break as well. Thanks again.
- tareqak 8y agohttps://www.twitch.tv/washingtonpost https://www.twitch.tv/washingtonpost is continuing to stream the testimony. Some of the questioning sounds tougher now, so it's a shame that markets are closed.
- tareqak 8y agoI found that CNBC offers some after market data. It's not good as what I had before, but it's better nothing, so I'm streaming again here: https://twitch.tv/tareqak https://twitch.tv/tareqak .
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- koolba 8y agoLive from the testimony, emphasis mine: > MZ: "There will always be a version of Facebook that is free. Coming soon, Facebook Pro(TM)! Literally putting a price on your privacy.
- HoppedUpMenace 8y agoI caught that too, can only imagine what the public at large will think of this were it to happen.
- TAForObvReasons 8y agoFrom how the stock market is reacting, some people clearly don't think the public at large will care
- cremp 8y agoThey won't; people spend a lot of money to farm virtual crops. That same group of people will do whatever it takes to keep farming.
- prolikewhoa 8y agoNothing. The general public doesn't care, only us nerds on websites like this do and when you think about it, it's a very sad and disturbing reality.
- jakebasile 8y agoI mean, it's trumpeted from the rooftops here that if you don't pay you are the product. What is the alternative if not charge the user for the service?
- nfoz 8y agoPaying for the service doesn't automatically mean you aren't the product.
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- mercer 8y agoWow. I didn't expect that he'd speak in favor of 'special features like facial recognition' by arguing that it's how we can be competitive with 'other regimes like China'. That seems like a comparison I'd avoid if I was facebook.
- eridius 8y agoWashington Post is streaming this on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/washingtonpost https://www.twitch.tv/washingtonpost
- ship_it 8y ago@off: Mr. Hatch seems like a really smart man.
- kzrdude 8y agoDo you mean that you agree with him?
- Raphmedia 8y agoThe people I admire the most are often those I disagree the most with. I fail to see how thinking somebody is smart gives any hint as to whether he likes or dislikes him.
- cmurf 8y agoWhile not suggesting he is not smart, do keep in mind that senators have substantial staff, to such a degree they have specialties. And they contribute substantially to the preparation of their boss.
- 18pfsmt 8y agoFor a low bitrate (~40kbps), audio only stream, check out C-SPAN: https://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/api/livestream-redirect/CSPANRADIO.mp3 https://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/api/livestream-red...
- Simulacra 8y agoIs it just me, or does he sound condescending every time he responds, like he's educating a subordinate he's frustrated with.
- misiti3780 8y ago"Is it true facebook can track user browsers even after they are logged out of facebook?" Zuck: "I need to get back to you on that"
- ryaneager 8y agoTimestamp? Edit: Found it, Question from Mr. Wicker ~1:36 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAZiDRonYZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAZiDRonYZI
- mortdeus 8y agoI think the issue they are talking about is called fingerprinting.
- baalimago 8y agoThere's so many "I need to get back to you on that".
- oh_sigh 8y agoIt's a good strategy, all the media coverage is about his actual testimony today, whereas when he sends an update to the committee next week, it will not make as big of a splash as this one.
- refurb 8y agoExactly. Far better to admit to something in a follow-up letter to Congress than admit to it on live TV.
- 18pfsmt 8y agoDoes anybody know if any of these folow-ups make it into the Congressional Record at a later time?
- Slansitartop 8y ago
- matte_black 8y agoFB stock rising, last chance to get in at these price levels, though you should have bought in around 150s. 210 price target.
- AngeloAnolin 8y agoWaiting for official transcripts of this session so I could read and understand better the discussion.
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y agoTotal dodge on the question about shadow profiles. Here's hoping someone follows up on that.
- _bxg1 8y agoIt's pretty cringe-y so far. From The Verge's liveblog: "I would liken this hearing so far to a precocious college junior explaining his major to his grandparents at Thanksgiving"
- fbonetti 8y agoIt's a really odd line of questioning from people who don't seem to understand the subject matter. This gem made me laugh out loud: Senator: How do you sustain a business model in which users don't pay for your service? Zuckerberg (in a disdainful tone): Senator, we run ads. https://clips.twitch.tv/FantasticCrowdedDelicataPipeHype https://clips.twitch.tv/FantasticCrowdedDelicataPipeHype Edit: I directly transcribed the exchange
- merouan 8y agoI think you're misunderstanding the intent: obviously they are aware of that. Hearings commonly involve asking basic questions
- fbonetti 8y agoI know that was probably the intent, but the senator sounded genuinely confused. It didn't sound like a deposition-style question.
- drchiu 8y agoAgreed. I’ve been involved in a few of these regulator type of questioning and they all speak the same way. It has the effect of making the (obvious) answer seem criminal. People in real life don’t talk that way because it can come across as rude.
- komali2 8y agoI see so many lawyers adopt this same tone. Something about crafting a narrative or something - maybe to get the interviewee to be a little more open than they normally would because they underestimate the knowledge of their interviewer, or just to make the interviewee make the mistake of thinking the interviewer is generally ignorant/stupid.
- kyleblarson 8y agoAs if any of these politicians actually give a shit about the privacy of American citizens. Pure theater.
- hinkley 8y agoTerry Crews 2020: Not the President we need, but the one we deserve.
- Apocryphon 8y agoAnd Facebook does?
- spurcell93 8y ago"Are you a monopoly?" "Doesn't feel that way" (laughter)
- ragequitta 8y agoActual question: am I missing something? I get that facebook is big and powerful, and way too many people use it for their own good, but I'm sitting here talking to a bunch of people on another platform right now. A large chunk of which (probably) don't use facebook after recent events. Maybe it's just because I haven't had facebook in well over 5 years, but I don't see them as a monopoly on anything at all. Everyone has thousands of choices on how to share their data if they don't want to use facebook/instagram/whatsapp. Does the mere fact that they don't use those other choices make the 1 choice a monopoly?
- baalimago 8y agoMark Zuckerberg does not believe he has a monopoly. He believes there is an alternative to Facebook in the way that different car manufacturers have different competitors. Surely he can't mean this, right?
- raker 8y agoThere's other ways to communicate with other people online, you see? That's overlap! /s
- babaganoosh89 8y agoWeird because he does everything he can to protect his monopoly by buying promising social companies while they're young.
- robsun 8y agoHe bought Instagram because they are talented developers, not because they are a competitor. /sarcasm
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- r00fus 8y agoMark has always thought his primary competitor is email. Let that kind of hubris sink in for a moment. He's smart and capable but I don't think he has perspective. Perhaps he never did.
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- Diggity 8y agoI would not be surprised if Zuckerberg were given a script of certain senators questions prior to this hearing. A majority of the questioning seems targeted at inspiring consumer confidence in facebook. This isn't about serving the American people, this is about protecting corporation's ability to sell citizens personal data.
- r00fus 8y agoThrowing around some "call options on campaign support" be the best investment FB could make right now, to be honest (yes I'm jaded to the idea of an uncorrupted democracy).
- komali2 8y agoYou believe the Senators are conspiring with Facebook to protect their profit margin? Why do you believe this? What would you believe if the questioning was harmful to facebook? Would you believe that Senators are conspiring with Snapchat to target facebook?
- goalieca 8y ago>Of the 11 senators up for re-election this year who will be questioning Mr. Zuckerberg, nine of them have received campaign contributions from Facebook’s political action committee since the 2016 cycle https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-live-coverage/card/1523382509 https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-li...
- mrlala 8y agoChrist do you work at a tinfoil hat company?
- sctb 8y agoWe ban accounts that won't post civilly and substantively. Could you please read the guidelines and start following them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mmsimanga 8y agoAm I missing something? Take the Senator who spoke about monopolies. An oil monopoly is bad because we all need to get to work and trains need to run. Microsoft monopoly, arguable but I can see how it can be bad. All companies end up using Microsoft and this affects everyone, hospitals, schools ... Facebook is optional, we won't starve, hospitals won't close, aeroplanes will continue if we delete Facebook. Is this an acceptance that modern man cannot but keep up with the Jones. Just because my neighbour and school friends are on Facebook, I need to be on Facebook. Don't mind though me as an African we have some way to go before this becomes a burning issue.
- Irishsteve 8y agoHe failed to answer a simple question of who can their users migrate over to when they are not happy. Wonder if that will come back to hurt him.
- mmsimanga 8y agoIt probably will come back to haunt him. I just feel all sorts of other issues are being blamed on Facebook. Humans can be horrible, there was a genocide in Rwanda. Facebook wasn't needed (not sure it was around back then). If we going to blame Facebook we might as well blame the Mobile phones for enabling us to have Facebook. I feel they should stick to the privacy issues which are true issues.
- EpicEng 8y ago>Humans can be horrible, there was a genocide in Rwanda. Facebook wasn't needed Sure, but that doesn't mean we don't evaluate new issues as they crop up. If FB is unwittingly aiding in a genocide then it's reasonable to ask questions. People killed other people before nuclear bombs were invented, but they changed the playing field and allowed for far more destruction than was previously possible.
- mmsimanga 8y agoI agree with you. I just felt the manner in which the question was asked implied that Facebook was responsible for the Rohingya crissis. Even if Facebook wasn't available the Rohingya crissis would still have happened. Groups of people have been prejudiced against other groups for thousands of years. Sure Facebook could implement some system that uses AI and humans to catch hate speech. Then the debate shifts to what exactly is hate speech, should Facebook a private company be determing what hate speech is? Truth be told it is the Senators who should be determining what hate speech is and providing the laws that balance freedom of expression and hate speech. It isn't Facebook's job. Yes it should be discussed. I felt Senator didn't think through or didn't know what the implications of allowing Facebook to determine what content is allowed and what content isn't allowed.
- ssalazars 8y ago"Will you be comfortable stating the hotel you stayed last night?"
- jonbarker 8y agoCan we stop referring to 'controls in plain English'? ML models that microtarget people cannot easily be explained in plain English, and that is what they are doing.
- mercer 8y agoInteresting. I think what the last guy was trying to ask was whether the data from apps that have facebook analytics (pixel?) installed is cross-referenced with your facebook account. It's a shame he didn't ask it more clearly and allowed Zuck to dodge by saying apps are 'isolated' on the phone.
- koolba 8y ago> Senator: Would you feel comfortable sharing with us what hotel you stayed at last night? > awkward pause > MZ: No. I like where this is going.
- piker 8y agoSen. Durbin just talked Zuckerberg out of a qualification that certain children's data "in general" will not be shared with third parties. He pinned Zuck to a no, because "as a lawyer" he picked up on it. There's a perfectly valid reason for the "in general" qualification! If your child is using the app and police obtain a warrant for the data, Facebook will likely have to release it! I wonder how much Zuck's desire to be "straightforward" and answer questions unequivocally here is causing Facebook counsel to cringe.
- ccostes 8y agoMy impression was that he wasn't under oath for the hearing. Honestly, for the level of technical complexity they are discussing (often in very non-specific and general terms), I don't think they'd be able to have a conversation at all if every statement Zuck made had to be legally bulletproof.
- ethbro 8y agoCSPAN stream: https://www.c-span.org/video/?443543-1/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-testifies-data-protection&live https://www.c-span.org/video/?443543-1/facebook-ceo-mark-zuc...
- shiado 8y agoIn case you want to check if a speaker has accepted contributions from FB (read "corrupt and failed to disclose conflict of interest") https://www.opensecrets.org/search?q=facebook&type=orgs https://www.opensecrets.org/search?q=facebook&type=orgs
- Macuyiko 8y agoThe point about "not selling data to advertisers" and how Facebook is so totally different was so cringy. Just one follow-up question was needed: if I take out 100 ads microtargeting users, what happens then?
- dbbk 8y agoHe is right. Even if you did the most microtargeting possible, Facebook is still not selling that user's data, the advertiser gets no data whatsoever on the individual that sees or clicks on the ad. The most you could glean is if you targeted an ad to one person, then that person clicked on the ad, you know that that one person clicked on the ad. You don't learn anything else about that person.
- Macuyiko 8y agoI wasn't claiming that he isn't right. That is exactly the point: he is right/correct in all his answers, but the questions are not specific/technically informed enough.
- gcatalfamo 8y agoThe tenor, the awareness, the culture of questions that 70-year-old senators are turning to Zuckerberg at the congress would make you cheer for Facebook. Even if you previously hated it.
- written 8y agoThat's probably why he seems to enjoy it so much.
- almost_usual 8y agoMost citizens don't care about the details of any technology they use on a day to day basis, they only want it to work correctly and enrich their lives. Do you understand all the mechanics of an automobile? Ever worked on installing a new suspension for your car? Most people go to a shop to get this work done and even though they don't know details of the process they trust the mechanic to get the job done right. How does this compare to Facebook? Well when you use Facebook you're entrusting the company with your private information, you expect nothing will go wrong and the product will enrich your life. There isn't really a "Yelp" for Social Media to know how many breaches they've had or if a competitor handles their data better than another. It's a lot easier to find a better mechanic shop based on a Yelp review than another Facebook. > The tenor, the awareness, the culture of questions that 70-year-old senators are turning to Zuckerberg at the congress would make you cheer for Facebook. Even if you previously hated it. I feel the opposite, these senators represent our citizens who want to know how their data is being handled. Disregarding their concerns because they lack knowledge into the technology isn't fair, it's elitist.
- shiftpgdn 8y agoI do actually, and in fact through the beauty of the internet a layman could have a pretty good conceptualization of how to do so with their own vehicle through Wikipedia, YouTube, etc. Nobody is forcing you to use Facebook. Everyone has their own agency in this world. There is no part of the world that is locked out because you don't use Facebook. These senators are clearly completely clueless for the most part. Many of them so far removed from basic internet and computer literacy it is embarrassing.
- sumoboy 8y agoSenators ranting on terms of service, nobody reads or understands these documents for products or services.
- Zimahl 8y agoTed Cruz clearly showing that he's a partisan hack. Didn't give a crap about users' privacy or the issues at hand, he had to make it about 'liberal Silicon Valley' and 'conservative persecution'. What a joke.
- dusing 8y agoI believe others had been covering privacy pretty well. When it comes to 20k people manually policing content - it is probably good that the group be neutral.
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- Zimahl 8y agoYet he only asked about conservative causes and people that were affected by Facebook policies. It gives the appearance that Facebook is only policing conservative content. I'm sure if one looked, you could find liberal causes and people that were policed as well.
- dusing 8y agoZuck had himself just said that people living in silicon valley are overwhelmingly left leaning. So when he says they have 20k back home policing content it would makes sense to assume those 20k people are included in the group Zuck summarizes as overwhelmingly left leaning. Worth asking about.
- kevindqc 8y agoAre people doing the policing in Silicon Valley though? Why pay that much for people if someone remote/outsourced can do it for much cheaper?
- setr 8y agoThe people laying down the policies, managing the remote workers output, checking potentially controversial policing, etc are presumably at some point in the chain landing in SV. Presumably, the decisions aren't being left solely to the discretion of the grunts.
- baalimago 8y agoI wonder if MZ have targeted adds on his own facebook account. There seems to be some special rules for him (and probably other 'higher ups' in the facebook hierarchy), thinking primarily about: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-to-let-users-unsend-messages-after-mark-zuckerberg-caught-2018-4?r=US&IR=T&IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-to-let-users-unsend-....
- randomsearch 8y agoAnyone who doesn't think Facebook has a monopoly should read "Zero to One" by Peter Thiel. Seems people are missing some of the basics.
- drexlspivey 8y agoI call BS on actual deleting all user data when someone deletes his account. If some whistle blower proves otherwise is he liable for prosecution for perjury?
- wuunderbar 8y agoDefine deleted. Do you mean the data itself is purged, or simply marked as deleted and rendered inaccessible? If you mean purged, then do you also mean that it is zeroed off of the disk by a multiple low-level pass? This would be hard to prosecute for perjury as the definition of "deleted" can be construed in many ways.
- Silhouette 8y agoThis is the sort of word game that surely wouldn't last ten seconds in any courtroom. "Did you delete the data or not?" "Yes, we deleted the data." "Then how is it that we're all sitting here looking at it?" This modern fiction of pretending something is deleted just because someone set a flag called "deleted" has about as much relevance to actual deletion as the evil bit in an IPv4 header has to actual Internet security. It's not deleted in any technical sense, nor in the common English meaning of the word.
- Balgair 8y agoThank you. Judges and Senators are not happy when you try to play these word games with them. And you don't want to make a judge or a senator unhappy.
- bhhaskin 8y agoBut the reality is that is exactly what is happening when you delete a file. It sets a flag as deleted in the file system. The data reminds there until overwritten. Computers have worked this way since forever. Also if you look at the definition of delete it matches this. To remove by striking out or canceling, not to remove all remove all traces.
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- aviv 8y agoHe was very evasive about Facebook tracking users outside of their FB site and mobile apps. Kept saying he doesn't understand the question and "team will get back to you". It's unfortunate no one (that I've seen) brought up the presence of the Like button and Facebook comments on a large portion of the web, which means Facebook knows pretty much most of the sites and pages you visit (even if the site you visit doesn't include any FB widgets, but the next one you click to does, since they also track the referrer header).
- kzrdude 8y ago"What a story, only in America right?" [About facebook's origin] Zuck: "Well, senator there are big Chinese internet compani.." "The answer is yes, you're supposed to say yes". So much about China. Only in America. The answer is mandatory, it's "Yes".
- justinator 8y agoIMHO that was a completely inappropriate comment, as Mr. Zuckerberg's wife is of Chinese descent. I cringed.
- fastball 8y agoHow is the ethnicity of Zuck's wife relevant?
- justinator 8y agoThe scenario is this: say my wife is a first generation Italian and I am the CEO of a really great new car company. If someone says, "This is a great car, I could never say, seeing an ITALIAN making such a car!" I would be embarrassed for the person saying this, as they don't know my family history (maybe I don't look Italian, I look like a viking, if one was to guess - which you shouldn't), and to be perfectly honest, it seems like Italians make fine cars (for a def. of, "fine") Switch "Italian" with a minority with a current history of dealing with racism - and this scenario gets ugly, fast. No one has a problem with that? If I was the person asking the question - or should I say, the person who looks over that dude's notes, I'd cross that stupid intro out. It bombed, anyways.
- Teichopsia 8y agowhat does it matter? If the intent was from a good place, just let it go.
- justinator 8y agoI'm kind of the opinion that when you're brought up to a hearing in D.C. about some pretty serious shit, any pleasantries like this are merely there in an attempt to manipulate the person being questioned.
- sumoboy 8y agoZuck, "In general, I agree with you ..."
- 18pfsmt 8y agoSome poor Senator just went on a rabbit hunt to discuss FB's bug bounty program. Who are these Congressional staffers? Tech illiteracy is on full-display; we're not even talking 'power-users' (who were on UseNet, btw), these people are lost. Zuckerberg had to be gracious and say his team would follow-up on many things that it was clear the Senator didn't even understand. This is supposed to be our smart chamber.
- kzrdude 8y agoThis might come across as naive, but I think it is impressive that 1) A lot of politicians are getting their talking time, some more knowledgeable than others, 2) the politicians engage overwhelmingly in good faith on their own level, without being intimidated
- decebalus1 8y ago> Zuckerberg had to be gracious and say his team would follow-up on many things that it was clear the Senator didn't even understand IMO on way too many things, even when it was clear that the senators did understand what they were asking.. and it wasn't because of grace or politeness, it was the new 'I plead the fifth'
- Karrot_Kream 8y agoDisagree. Several controversial questions were dodged by saying his team would follow up. While it's attractive to paint politicians as incompetent buffoons, let's not forget each of them has their own staff and understands what it means to delegate to your staff and not have answers immediately on hand that only a staff expert would understand.
- andromeduck 8y agoThat doesn't make any sense. If you're receiving questions that weren't published prior to the interview it's perfectly understandable that not all questions can be answered immediately. In fact, I'd be more suspicious if he answered everything without needing to follow up. If however you're the one raising a question, I think it's your responsibility to ensure that you or someone on your team someone does some basic research and due diligence beforehand. Saying that oh look it's okay they're not incompetent, it's just they just delegated to people who were incompetent doesn't make it any better.
- cmurf 8y agoLindsay Graham and Mark Zuckerberg colluding together in favor of regulatory capture. Graham asks Zuckerberg if he would kindly offer some regulatory suggestions to the committee. And Zuckerberg gleefully responds in the affirmative. Yeah, great idea. The regulated become the authors of the regulations. What could possibly go wrong with that.
- dudzik 8y ago“GRAHAM: […] So would you work with us in terms of what regulations you think are necessary in your industry? ZUCKERBERG: Absolutely. GRAHAM: OK. Would you submit to us some proposed regulations? ZUCKERBERG: Yes. And I’ll have my team follow up with you so, that way, we can have this discussion across the different categories where I think that this discussion needs to happen.”[0] If facebook manages to introduce regulation that requires expensive processes it could stifle competition and increase their moat. There was a planet money episode on that topic[1] 0: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/10/transcript-of-mark-zuckerbergs-senate-hearing/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/10... 1: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=592376568 https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...
- drblast 8y agoReading the transcripts there seems to be a lot of grandstanding. While it makes for a nice drama, if these people were serious about protecting privacy (haha), we'd be talking about meaningful privacy laws instead. This reads like a group of senators begging Mark Zuckerberg to respect privacy.
- husmo 8y agoJust witnessed a Freudian slip https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4722688/freudian-slip https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4722688/freudian-slip
- zamalek 8y agoI'm an extremely reluctant Facebook user (having recently moved countries, my whole family and all my friends are on it). I strongly dislike the company; I don't trust the CEO. My use of the platform is in moderation and occurs within a Firefox container. > Zuckerberg (opening testimony): I failed. I'm sorry. All of that being said, that's some serious growth in maturity, and I'd like to see more of it across the tech industry.
- munk-a 8y agoA good friend of mine once told me to "stop apologizing and fix it" when I was in middle school. Reflecting on that made me realize how empty apologies can be and spurred some self improvement. It's not as if Zuckerberg could've shown up today with a patch file and gone through how he hacked the problems out of the platform last night with some red bull. But the apologies need to be seen as empty and we've all got to make sure things actually change.
- zamalek 8y agoI agree completely - this is why my opinion of Facebook hasn't yet changed. However, you have to admit fault before you can resolve it. The alternative would have been "we are giving users a sense of pride and accomplishment with their likes."
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoIndeed. "fixing it" isn't an alternative to admitting fault. It's just the next step.
- gkanai 8y ago> that's some serious growth in maturity My issue is that Zuckerberg has been apologizing about privacy lapses at his firm since the inception of the firm. His company's business is built on sharing the data of the users. I am a reluctant user of FB. I have stopped posting new content to my feed and do not plan to do so in the future.
- vubuntu 8y agoSome more important questions to ask : Facebooks customers are the ad buyers. I and my data is the product. Mark says I should have control over which of my personal data is shared to whom. 1) But can I control which of my behavioral data (ad clicks, etc) can be collected and used by facebook and provided to the ad buyers? Can I say nothing be collected , even in anonymized manner? 2) Primary selling point to ad buyers is facebook provides them ability to do targeted advertisement. Granted over time facebook has limited discriminatory targeting (Race based, political inclination based) etc to comply with anti-discrimination laws. But as a user, do I have control over how I can be classified, what legal category labels facebook can apply on me and my data? And whether I want to be classified into any category at all ?
- Zimahl 8y agoAds and the data used for those ads aren't the really the issue, and that's a problem that people don't realize. The issue is that entities can utilize the Facebook platform to target specific individuals (or specific groups of individuals) and bombard them with disinformation that looks like legitimate information.
- idunno246 8y ago1) The only thing they really provide(non-aggregated) to advertisers is query params that say you arrived at the advertisers website through a click on a fb ad. They also claim to recognize adchoices optouts 2) Yes. https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_s...
- Codestare 8y agoUS senators demonstrating they are embarrassingly out of touch with the current age. Also sad to see a senator resorting to dramatic effects like taking off his glasses before making a grand statement. These people are running your country?
- 2_listerine_pls 8y agoIt's not a meritocracy
- f4rker 8y agoYou sound new
- paulddraper 8y agoHe wasn't just near sighted?
- partycoder 8y agoSome months ago I saw an job search website ad. I clicked "Why are you seeing this ad?", and it said it was targeted towards users between 24 and 37. How is this not enabling age discrimination? Connecting people can be a good thing, but connecting people through discrimination is a completely different thing.
- partycoder 8y agoSome people have reported seeing real estate apps targeting a specific race, and noticed this using the "Why are you seeing this ad?" functionality as well. There's legislation that prohibits this kind of discrimination.
- chatmasta 8y agoIs it discrimination if the company still accepts and fairly considers applications from other races? Or if the real estate agent will happily sell a house to anyone no matter their race? Whom you advertise to is not the same as from whom you accept applications. Even if an ad targeted “everyone,” it would still only be targeted to everyone on Facebook, so non-Facebook users could not see it. Is that discriminating against the protected classes that tend not to use Facebook? At a certain point you’re eliminating the ability to advertise at all. As long as the job/house listing is equally accessible to all applicants, there is no discrimination. The only variable advertising changes is the visibility of the listing. Visibility and accessibility are not measured in the same way. It is a very interesting discussion though.
- partycoder 8y agoI disagree. Advertising is one of the inputs to your sales pipeline. Filtering advertising audience by race and filtering applications by race in the end has the same result: having more applicants of a specific race. I do not think race should be a factor when it comes to choosing your audience. Interests or geographic location might be OK, race is not. And remember: there's legislation for this when it comes to real estate.
- ggregoire 8y agoDid he just say that when an account is deleted, all the data are hard deleted (not just a boolean in a column)? It's really hard to believe.
- Pfhreak 8y agoHe definitely did say that -- all of your data does not exist in any archive.
- ggregoire 8y agoHe just confirmed they remove the data from the backups.
- kgc 8y agoThe reason that this is hard to believe is that most people only end up deactivating their accounts, not deleting them. This results in a surprise when they return and all their info is still there.
- ggregoire 8y agoNo. That’s hard to believe because I don’t known any company that hard deletes user data.
- coupdejarnac 8y agoZuckerberg appeared to enjoy testifying. Nobody appeared able to match wits with him, and if questions got difficult, he had well rehearsed escape routes.
- fatjokes 8y agoHonest question: are hearings before congress, particularly from tech companies, any more than opportunities for politicians to grandstand and demand business leaders "kiss the ring"? I.e., is anything consequential ever done as a result?
- arosier 8y ago"Mr. Suckerberg" by the Chairman in his closing remarks was my favorite part!
- Balgair 8y agoNow that it's all over, my take away is less cynical. To me, even the Rep. senators know what this meeting was all about: Donny. Zuck came in, said that this whole fiasco with Donny is not going to happen again. The senators got him on record telling them as such, so that they have leverage on him to actually follow through. Yes, they talked a lot about other stuff too, but we are unlikely to see the mess of the 2016 election again. Also, they seemed to favor having FANG write the laws about these data service. This will entrench them nearly permanently as competitors will then have to go through all the hoops of complying with regulation, something too costly for a start-up. When that happens, that's the end of Web 2.0.
- BinaryIdiot 8y agoSo this isn't exactly related to the testimony but I'm genuinely curious: is it normal for someone giving testimony to use a booster like seat? I mean it was a pretty thick cushion. I was surprised to see Zuck using one especially since the seat is already padded.
- kahlonel 8y agoI'm not from US, can someone explain how bad it is if anything that Zuckerberg said during the whole session proves to be false/lie/wrong later on? Is it considered perjury, or is perjury only specific for courts/legal matters?
- tenpies 8y agoHe was not under oath, so even if he was caught lying it is legally inconsequential.
- fiatpandas 8y agoNot true. You can face sentencing for lying or concealing information in such a setting, even without taking an oath.
- a2tech 8y agoAnd he brought a booster seat! It’s hard to believe a billionaire has such thin skin that he cares a whit about what people think about his height.
- mtremsal 8y agoHis notes are quite fascinating: https://mobile.twitter.com/becket/status/983846618263891968?s=21 https://mobile.twitter.com/becket/status/983846618263891968?... I wouldn't read too much on the comment that they don't already comply with GDPR. It's likely it only means they would not comply with an Access Request before the effective date (5/25).
- dingo_bat 8y agoIs there a youtube video to watch the full thing beginning to end? It's really hard to read the article that is linked. It is interspersed with so many ads. Kind of ironic.
- atsushin 8y agoThe senators involved with the hearing certainly had some good questions, but some of the topics appeared scattershot and could have benefited from a narrower focus on FB's data collection and technical issues, though obviously the Senators and staff would need to understand the issues at a deeper level. However, touching on the issue of data ownership and the terms of service for both FB and Kogan's app was a somewhat interesting and satisfying portion of the hearing. By far the dumbest questions through the entire meeting, though: Sasse: "Do you hire consultants to tell you how to tap into dopamine feedback loops to keep people addicted?" and (this one had me rolling) Senator Deb Fischer: "How many categories of data do you collect for all 2bn users?" Zuckerberg: [acts confused] That said, perhaps Zuckerberg's vague and generic answers could have been a result of ill preparation on -his- side, too. The CEO, while the head of a company is only involved so much in the day-to-day issues and goings-on. As the spokesperson, he didn't do much by way of transparency or work to improve FB's reputation today. Maybe some technical staff should additionally be interviewed. A list of potential topics prepared by staffers, to be discussed at the hearing would help Zuckerberg in figuring out what information he should know.
- davvolun 8y agoThank you. Sasse, in particular, really likes to sound smart, but hasn't done anything worth a damn.
- tek-cyb-org 8y agoI summon "Megadata"!!
- yemper 8y agoYeah, I saw this. It's crazy, went trending on twitter too. wew.
- askari01 8y agoi think he will be cleared and nothing will happen, the current testimony was a joke.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dotheright253 8y agoSenator Schatz has no idea what encryption is.
- dotheright253 8y agoIts clear that Senator Schatz has no idea what encryption is. Also what is a "data category"? I'm sorry but Zuckerberg has no idea what you are talking about because your question makes absolutely no sense.
- robin_reala 8y agoThis image from Reddit purports to be Mark’s notes from the meeting: https://i.redd.it/egi0jlf096r01.jpg https://i.redd.it/egi0jlf096r01.jpg . Some interesting stuff in there if true.
- denzil_correa 8y ago“Don’t say we already do what GDPR requires” “Lots of stories about apps misusing Apple Data. Never heard of Apple notifying anyone”
- PascLeRasc 8y agoThat's funny when Tim Cook immediately addressed concerns about FBI backdoors and there's a wealth of information on Apple's website about how they use local data protection with the secure enclave, and iOS 11 gives you information on protecting your personal information when you install it.
- cynoclast 8y agoI did not expect Lindsey Graham to rake him over the coals over their lack of a competitor. I'm not normally a fan of Graham having lived under his 'representation' for almost nine years. But I had to respect him for that bit.
- dschuetz 8y agoWhen you ask general questions you get "We did not do anything illegal, we did something wrong though; but, people do not read Terms Of Use/Privacy, and they do not read manuals" When you ask very specific questions you get "I need to get back to you on that", right? There is clearly a conflict of interest there. In a public hearing the CEO of his own company is basically forced into giving up their trade secrets on how and why his company even got so successful in the business of ad targeting. The question is: In his place, what would you do? Tell everything and potentially break your own company, your system, life achievement, whatever? Or be careful and vague to save it? I'm not trying to defend his position, but rather to understand it. In any case, he maneuvered himself and his company in a situation where it'll be impossible to keep secrets anymore. Nothing will ever be the same, and he is responsible for it, because it was his idea and his intention behind enabling his company to connect people by selling ads.
- exergy 8y agoIt's a crass kind of life achievement if all of his life has lead up to adtech. I refuse to believe that there is no middle ground between what facebook is doing and what the average user would like to see them doing.
- dschuetz 8y agoWell that's an interesting juxtaposition. His life achievement would then be "he connected people all over the world" but what he essentially did "was selling ads and he was good at it". There's always a middle ground. You give up a bit of privacy and benefit from some product "free of charge". See? The questions are how much is "a bit", who decides what is in it and who decides who gets what? To agree on middle ground there need to be ground rules/terms. So, the problem is that Facebook alone is deciding upon which rules users get to use their services.
- croon 8y agoThere's no business incentive to scale down your ad sales even if you charged your users for the service. I agree with you that there needs to be ground rules/terms, but in the form of regulation. If Google chose a middle ground, they'd give away the Pixel phones for free, or at least heavily subsidized. But they don't have to, so they don't. If no one stops you, sell on both ends.
- peter303 8y agoThe idiot should have used a lawyer to OK every answer. He made several huge legal errors by accepting full responsibility for content, always debatable for a protected media carrier. I am indifferent to whether Facebook survives, since I saw the poor privacy control since the beginning. High flying social competitors like GeoCities and MySpace died in the past. This could happen to Facebook too.
- cynoclast 8y agoYou can watch the whole thing here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?443543-1/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-testifies-data-protection&live https://www.c-span.org/video/?443543-1/facebook-ceo-mark-zuc... My thought so far: * he's fielding questions pretty well, honestly. * He's donated to 46/55 of them: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/04/07/2326242/facebook-donated-to-46-of-55-members-on-committee-that-will-question-zuckerberg https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/04/07/2326242/facebook-do... * Facebook mostly funds democrats: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000033563&type=P&cycle=A https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000033563&ty... * Every single Democrat senator has brought up Russia * This is being used to further the Russiagate narrative that benefits the DNC by distracting from [Democrat corruption](http://observer.com/2016/07/clinton-rewards-wasserman-schultzs-shady-behavior-with-new-job/ http://observer.com/2016/07/clinton-rewards-wasserman-schult...) tl;dr: More protection of the establishment in what is superficially the grilling of a tech giant
- real-hacker 8y agoYes, the hearing is a show. But... Yesterday, a major social network app in China (Neihan), with hundreds of millions of users get shut down perpetually by government orders. In the meantime, several major social products are removed from China mobile app stores. Just feel lucky you still have a hearing.