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I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter
- pont 8y agoI don't see the problem. Now, "companies over people" is another.
- TwoNineA 8y agoI thought his early motto was "Dumbfucks".
- NeonVice 8y agoI was hoping that a congressman would ask Zuckerberg if he still viewed his users this way. I'm sure he had a well-prepared response to this exact question, just in case.
- parthdesai 8y agoLook, i really don't like fb's practices as much as the next guy here ( you can check my history if you want to) but are you really going to hold someone accountable for something they said when they were 19-21?
- Semirhage 8y agoYes. You can be tried as an adult, go to war, vote, and drink, marry, have children, and so on. You’re an adult, and fully accountable.
- parthdesai 8y agoSure, but majority of us have done and said stupid things back when we were in Uni. Doesn't mean a person hasn't matured/changed since then. Also, you are reaching if you are equating getting tried as an adult to someone labelling users as dumb-fucks.
- Semirhage 8y agoI’m equating nothing, I’m saying that you can be held to account for words and deeds as an adult. In Zuckerberg’s case, it seems he hasn’t changed much either, so why give him a pass? He treated people like dumbfucks then, and now. Getting coached to appear like less of a prick and wearing a suit didn’t change him either. His business practices speak for him.
- carapace 8y agoIt's pointing out that he's not some cyber-saint. What can we look at that would stand as evidence that he's not a huge douche-bag? Renaming the SF General Hospital after himself? His recent behavior in front of Congress? Show me the evidence that he's a good person, please.
- parthdesai 8y agoOnly thing i said is, to judge him based on something he said when he was somewhere between 19 and 21 years old in Uni is a stupid thing to do. A majority of us have said and done stupid things in uni.
- carapace 8y agoYes, and you're right about that. It is stupid and unfair to judge somebody based on one thing they said when they were young.
- ashleyn 8y agoThe rise of nationalist populism, although something I still disagree quite contentiously with, really begins making more sense when opinions like this start leaking out.
- wybiral 8y agoIt goes counter to the idea of a globally connected internet though. Without a degree of oppression of free speech you can't stop the flow of culture and ideas no matter how big of a wall you build.
- nabc45 8y agoBut you can teach people which ideas are toxic, and you can make sure toxic ideas don't get air time. I think people overestimate the power of the Internet compared to schooling/telly/etc.
- creaghpatr 8y agoExcept facebook does stop the flow of culture and ideas, per their community guidelines.
- rayiner 8y agoPeople are people even when they’re on the Internet, and people are tribal. If anything the Internet makes tribalism easier.
- jrs95 8y agoHow does respecting national sovereignty rather than letting your government be trampled over by international corporations run counter to a globally connected internet? This sort of attitude might seem like "nationalist populism" now, but it wasn't that long ago that "the left" was on the same page. I still am personally, but there seems to be a disturbing trend where anti-Trump sentiment is being leveraged to promote a corporate agenda.
- wybiral 8y agoI'm not arguing against populism, more so the nationalist aspect of the "nationalist populism". Particularly the idea that "diversity is the root of our problems" and "immigration is inherently bad". These ideas seem central to most of the nationalist movements in western society recently.
- adamnemecek 8y agoI feel like early FB culture had quite a few of the signs of a cult. Like legit, almost religious, cult.
- return1 8y agoIt wasn't just FB. the trend was "openness", let the world know everything you do. It was actively pushed by all the media who are today accusing FB of going to far. When facebook was doing everything in and out of the books to grow faster and faster (such as allowing zynga to force-invite your friends to their games) , they were all looking the other way, because they saw a massive source of traffic that they could control themselves (facebook was giving untapped access to likes/followers back then).
- TAForObvReasons 8y agoPeople sounded the alarm many years ago. EFF from 2009 "predicted" a CA-like event would happen as a direct result of FB policy changes: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-changes-good-bad-and-ugly https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-... Rest assured, not everyone in technology openly embraced the externality-disregarding "move fast and break things" ideology that took hold of SV in the last decade or so.
- adamnemecek 8y ago> Rest assured, not everyone in technology openly embraced the externality-disregarding "move fast and break things" ideology that took hold of SV in the last decade or so. To be honest tho, like I can't blame them, I dont think they were aware of the consequences this might have.
- Consultant32452 8y agoAs bad as Trump is, as bad as the potential foreign propaganda affecting election outcomes is, I'm worried the solution will be worse than the problem. I suspect the two incumbent parties will use this as an opportunity to further cement the two-party system, making it more difficult for third parties or political "outsiders" to have successful campaigns. Russian spending on FB ads was a drop in the ocean compared to the total spend. Congress clearly doesn't care about our privacy as evidenced by the domestic spying programs. Without trying to go too far down the conspiracy rabbit hole, we need to figure out what their real motivation is here. My personal opinion is that they will make it harder for outsiders, including other political parties, to gain any traction.
- harigov 8y agoI wonder when Facebook would start incorporating some of the democratic processes in its decision making and potentially let users elect 'directors' to oversee some of the decision making. I guess never. I don't think capitalism and social media, that would be good for the society, cannot go together.
- pcunite 8y agoQuote from the article: Cambridge Analytica is a scandal that isn’t a scandal: Everyone who has ever worked on or with the Facebook platform knew that for several years, the platform made data available to third-party developers by design. Why is this news and a problem now? What made the sky fall? If everyone knew, then why has someone been picked to be the bad guy now?
- throwaway2048 8y agoReducing this problem to tribalistic "oh u mad because trump won!!" is infantile and absurdly counterproductive. Which is of course why its brought up so much...
- HenryBemis 8y agoApologies to USA's readers, no disrespect, I am merely trying to put some sense into throwaway2048's brain :) Dear TA2048, In some/many parts of this planet we don't give a poop about who is the President of the US-of-A. But we care for our own elections (see UK referendum, Greek referendum, Catalonia referendum, elections in Austria, Hungary, Italy, etc.) The problem surfaced NOW, and NOW we are dealing with it. We can't turn back time. Not even slow it down. But we can try/make sure it won't happen again, or at least reduce its impact. Kind regards, Someone-who-believes-in-democracy
- arvinjoar 8y agoI got really stressed out by Trump winning, but I still think the backlash against social media and tech companies has a lot to do with the establishment being afraid of losing power. When the Arab Spring happens, the free flow of information is an unalloyed good, but when Trump gets elected we suddenly need to curtail "troll factories", and ensure Fake News is being fact checked, and see to it that personal data isn't being used to influence elections. I'm the first person to admit that I'm not impressed by my peers when it comes to electing suitable leaders, but it worries me much more that we're now falling for the temptation of reasoning for them, and protecting them from themselves. I think this straitjacket that we're so eagerly putting on our fellow man for his own good may very well be put on us, or perhaps the truly original thinkers that we yet don't know about. So no, comments like these aren't infantile, they're crucial for maintaining the liberty that we've thus enjoyed on the internet, and that I would very much like to keep enjoying, even if I don't always agree with how people tend to use that freedom.
- cwaffler 8y agoTitle is a little clickbaity, but it still stands that FB is some deep shit right now. Zuckerberg's child like competitiveness, coupled with silicon valleys hyper capatalist nature has created a serious problem for current and future generations...
- mistrial9 8y ago.. that is how the snowball started rolling.. and that was years ago !
- Nav_Panel 8y ago> why should the world trust Facebook or Zuckerberg to shape and manage this new global meta-society? Could Zuckerberg, who wields considerable power over Facebook’s share structure, develop the self-awareness and responsibility to manage it? > it’s time to set real limits on Facebook’s power Makes me wonder: who will be setting those limits, and how can we know they will have the "self-awareness and responsibility" to handle it?
- jeffdavis 8y agoExactly. Freedom is not just a set of laws, it's an attitude and a culture that can step back from popular convenient choices and avoid ones that concentrate power. Crucially, individuals need to be willing to sacrifice something -- usually a moderate amount of money or safety -- or it's not ever going to work.
- _bxg1 8y agoOr, increasingly, simple convenience
- fakescience 8y agoUsers are the only people who will be able to set limits on Facebook's power, and the only way to do that will be to form some kind of union to organize collective action. Feel like there's a learned helplessness effect, though, that has settled into people.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> who will be setting those limits The same ones who set the limits on the railroads and oil tycoons, after they abused their power, or on AT&T, after it abused its power, et cetera. This is why we have government.
- Nav_Panel 8y agoThe situations you mention involve antitrust law and unfair competition, with the intent that consumers would benefit from increased competition. Internet companies are different, and specifically Facebook is different, because its customers are advertising companies and its product is the eyeballs of its users. Ironically, the closest contemporary internet analogy to your examples is Net Neutrality... Any legislation around Facebook and similar is going to look fundamentally different than antitrust law. It's more likely to look like some sort of "consumer protection" suit rather than a monopoly takedown. I don't trust our lawmakers to successfully figure out the incentive structures; they'll likely seize this opportunity to appeal to their voter base. The results might not be what they intend.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Invictus0 8y agoI'm sure there were plenty of people that had second thoughts about privacy in the early days; but, like the author, they probably chose not to question it and said nothing.
- loxs 8y agoTL;DR "I was very concerned but the sex was good. But now I scream 'rapist' because the political climate is right."
- anonu 8y agoZuckerberg espouses some sort of utopian idealism and is pushing his Facebook experiment on the world. The capitalist underpinnings of his project completely denigrate those views. I've heard the same thing from him and his apparatchiks consistently - and in his written testimony to Congress: "My top priority has always been our social mission of connecting people, building community and bringing the world closer together." The scary thing is - some kid in Silicon Valley has decided that he will wield his power in this way. Government is bad. Monolithic companies are good. Community is about getting behind your smartphone and liking a picture and posting a meme (hyperbole - but ultimately the vast majority of online interactions are such...) It's always good to challenge the status quo - especially so if its about how the world works and how people interact. But the underlying capitalist values of Facebook denigrate any of those ideals.
- saas_co_de 8y agoFacebook only exists as a surveillance and control tool. Everything else is just a means to an end. Zuckerberg is just the front man. Once they are done with him he will be in the ditch like Travis.
- hunterjrj 8y agoCan you clarify? Assuming you are talking about Travis Kalanick, are you implying he was ousted by a 3rd party with an interest in surveillance/control?
- JoeDaDude 8y agoThis is just corporate-speak to motivate the minions. What he meant was "My top priority has always been to increase profits and shareholder value by bringing in more eyeballs that we could sell to marketing and advertising agencies. By getting the eyeballs to share their private information, the value of our platform - and our revenue - increases", which is in line with his job as CEO of a publicly traded corporation.
- agumonkey 8y agomaybe that's the future .. globalization reduced borders and culture meaningfulness. Lots of global social structures are results of large companies and not nations. If Musk martian fantasy succeed it may even be earth vs planets in a way.
- polskibus 8y agoSounds straight from a dystopian cyberpunk novel. Corporations rule the world!
- stochastic_monk 8y agoIt’s also straight out of Mussolini’s Italy.
- 52-6F-62 8y agoClearly you haven't yet seen Network: https://youtu.be/yuBe93FMiJc?t=19s https://youtu.be/yuBe93FMiJc?t=19s (I highly recommend the film if you haven't seen it)
- Barjak 8y agoAm I alone in thinking this isn't heresy? A country or federal state is just a company with a monopoly over law in a certain geographical region. Facebook's "monopoly" is at least subject to the whim of the market, as the Delete Facebook campaign shows. Look at last week. The senate was on their high-horse, admonishing facebook for privacy infringements, totally unaware of the irony they are an appendage of the same entity which created the NSA and continues to eavesdrop on all of our conversations. We can all opt out of Facebook. Thankfully many have. But NSA surveillance is involuntary. Why are we more worried about a voluntary and foreseeable risk than an involuntary rights violation? Don't interpret this as saying Facebook acted appropriately.
- leggomylibro 8y ago>We can all opt out of Facebook. Thankfully many have. I'm pretty sure that is not accurate. We can't opt out of Facebook without significant effort which most people aren't even aware is possible and which can prevent some websites from working (NoScript, router rules, etc). They use the 'share' buttons built into most websites to collect information about and profit off of people who never signed up for the service, never agreed to their EULA, and never consented to interact with the company.
- mannykannot 8y agoFor example, someone could tag your face in a photograph even if you don't have a Facebook account.
- reaperducer 8y agoAnd they don't even have to tag a face. Facebook does facial recognition on every face in a photograph. So you could be in the background of a picture taken in a restaurant by someone else and now suddenly you have a profile. Appear in the background of enough photos and Facebook can use other data to eventually figure out who you are, even if don't have a computer or smartphone.
- 8y ago
- xerxex 8y agoAnother capitalist libertarian scum..
- textmode 8y ago"But Cambridge Analytica is a scandal that isn't a scandal: Everyone who has ever worked on or with the Facebook platform knew that for several years, the platform made data available to third-party developers by design. The scandal is that the world finally understands the ramifications of that state of affairs." But could the world "understand the ramifications" based on reading terms of service and click-through permissions or did the world come to understand the ramifications through disclosures from "whistleblowers" and investigative journalism? "We don't sell people's data. Period." - David Baser, Facebook https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/data-off-facebook/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/data-off-facebook/ According to the former Zuckerberg speechwriter, Facebook shares access to people's data with third-party app developers. Does Facebook share people's data with academic researchers? Why? Can users opt-out of this sharing? Are they opted-in by default? How much data has Facebook shared in the past? Do Mr. Zuckerberg, Ms. Sandberg, Mr. Baser and others at Facebook believe people would only be concerned with "sale" of their data, but not with sharing access to it with unidentified third parties?
- rememberlenny 8y agoWeb platforms are governments. "Facebook is a government. Facebook's users are citizens, and Facebook's applications developers are the private companies that drive much of the economy. Apple. Twitter, Myspace, Craigslist, Foursquare, Tumblr and every other large network of engaged users (including some services of Google) plays a similar role. We have always tacitly acknowledged this. We talk about these networks as communities, communities have governments." "Once you start thinking about large web platforms as governments, the logical question is what kind of government are they. One thing is for sure - none of these platforms are democracies. They are oligarchies controlled by founders, investors or shareholders. That may not be at all bad. As long as citizens (users) can move freely from one government to another with little switching cost, there is no reason to burden these polities with the inherent inefficiencies of popular democracy. But that does put a special premium on emigration policies and property rights. Do I own my data, can I export it freely? It also suggests that large networks that have strong network effects may someday need other incentives to act in the best interests of their citizens." http://www.usv.com/blog/web-services-as-governments http://www.usv.com/blog/web-services-as-governments
- suyash 8y agoGreat analogy that makes a lot of sense, never thought about it like that before.
- laythea 8y agoIn my opinion it is ridiculous to equate a web platform to a government, regardless of scale. One is a web-platform, the other is a government. The difference is clear to me.
- ASalazarMX 8y agoExcept governments should watch the interests of their citizens, not only those of their shareholders.
- gm-conspiracy 8y agoYet, we have governments watching the interest of the corporations.
- tango12 8y agoI think having a military force that helps a set of people enforce an us vs them and ‘own’ resources (natural or otherwise) makes a country a country. A company, unless it has physical power, will never be like a country.
- cryptonector 8y ago"Companies over countries" is tolerable speech, but nation states will not find it tolerable as policy. As a citizen, I don't find "companies over countries" a tolerable policy. I get a say in how my country is run. I get NO say in how Facebook is run.
- onetimemanytime 8y agoFB should be stopped, along with Google, and maybe Amazon. One way or another. But, is it me, or speech writers and close advisors should not be spilling all private stuff? Maybe she was not paid for it but it's almost like a attorney-client thing. Or it should be.
- kelukelugames 8y agoHow can Zuck's speehwriter write about experience without violating her NDA? This post reminds me of Gavin Belson's blood boy. I assumed CEOs locked down the people close to them with NDAs.