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Facebook: Let Us Be Part of the Hearing
- quickben 8y agoBeing somewhat aware of how EU politics works, this is worse for him than a public hearing.
- throwaway76524 8y agoExplain
- dmoy 8y agoNo showboating (like what we saw with the US hearings, a lot of senators went on random tangents to placate their voter base). More likely they'll just be talking specific difficult/uncomfortable positions for zuck and staying focused on it. None of this getting a canned answer that half dodges the question and moving on, instead getting an answer that picks apart more of the nuance.
- jessriedel 8y agoIsn't this just a property of closed-door hearings, rather than anything specific to the EU? ("Being somewhat aware of how EU politics works...")
- amelius 8y agoIt would still be nice if they let a couple of people from e.g. Mozilla attend the hearing, and ask some questions.
- yeukhon 8y agoWhy should Mozilla be the representative? Why not X organization?
- yeukhon 8y agoI am not sure if that’s really true. I think EU meeting like having a meeting at work: looks serious, but often are ineffective. For show. If you know how EU politic works, you might be aware of the defeated device of VW and other Europrean car manufacturers. EU’s own poulltion level is getting worse each other because of governments covering their own domestic manufacturer’s ass. See Netflix’ documentary.
- ppaattrriicckk 8y agoI have great respect for Mozilla, and as an EU citizen I find it odd that a meeting that is taking place on behalf of the public is held for closed doors. However, I can't help thinking that this partition for openness lacks openness itself: The site contains very little information about to whom and how the signatures will be presented to drive this change. Also about the number of signatures collected, which is otherwise commonplace to have a counter for. ... Or am I missing something entirely?
- zerostar07 8y ago> I find it odd that a meeting that is taking place on behalf of the public is held for closed doors That is not at all odd in the EU. In fact most are, and this lack of transparency is by design: If EU was left to the caprices of the heterogeneous electorates of its countries, they would break it up.
- freeone3000 8y agoSo Europe actually IS ruled by a shadowy cabal, furthering "the greater good" even if it's something no country wants, keeping citizens in the dark "for their protection"?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- hartator 8y agoThe “common good”. EU will be the next buble. Institutions are sturated by debt while overflowing the “free” economy with new regulatio.
- swsieber 8y agoWell, that seems like the only way to get things done for a large group of countries or states. An example of this: it is how the constitution of the United States was formed.
- sqdbps 8y agoWhat else do you want from the guy? this has nothing to do with illumination, at this point it's just an exercising in public humiliation. There is more than a hint of antisemitism to the blood thirst directed at him and to this repeating ritual.
- RhodesianHunter 8y agoLet me make sure I have what you're saying correct. You think the basis of all of this backlash stems from anti-Semitism rather than: Blatant political corruption Selling/distributing of user data to shady third parties Poor protection of user data Privacy invasion beyond what's reasonable to sell people adds Tracking of individuals who do not have accounts ... Do I have that right? If so I find it hard to agree with your conclusion. Edit: OP edited the anti-semitism bit out of their comment.
- sqdbps 8y agoI don't see the "political corruption"" angle. The rest (your distortions aside) was already addressed by him and the company on many occasions still the animus directed at him is extraordinary.
- gcthomas 8y agoHe sent his CTO to the Commons Committee in the UK, and he failed to answer a whole host of questions satisfactorily: 'Damian Collins, the chair of the DCMS committee, said: “We asked them to look for evidence of Russian influence and they came back and told us something we now know appears misleading. And we’re still waiting for answers to 40 questions that Mike Schroepfer was unable to answer, including if they have any record of any dark ads. “It could be that these adverts are just the tip of the iceberg. It’s just so hard getting any sort of information out of them, and then not knowing if that information is complete.” ' from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/12/facebook-brexit-russia-unresolved-40-questions https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/12/facebook-...
- pteredactyl 8y ago
- marcoperaza 8y agoGiven how public hearings just turn into opportunities for political grandstanding, empty soundbites, and gotchas, this is probably a good thing.
- zerostar07 8y agoIn this case i would like to see it, not to hear Zuck's opinions (we know them), but to see the lawmakers opinions and knowledge on the matter, because i have some doubts based on reading legislation they passed.
- madeofpalk 8y agoThis sort of thing just doest really happen in Europe, or elsewhere for that matter.
- hartator 8y agoMaybe that’s the reason the US rank higher in democracy index than the main EU countries.
- tpush 8y agoActually, the US is ranked as a „flawed democracy“[1], as opposed to „full democracy“ like Germany, Netherlands, UK etc. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
- dghughes 8y agoI find it really bizarre to be living in an age that such a thing happens. And by that I mean I couldn't imagine back in the early 1990s that owners of websites would be meeting leaders of nations to discuss the rights of citizens of the world.
- fipar 8y agoIt's not owners of websites, it's owners of big companies. I don't think owners of big companies meeting leaders of nations to discuss the rights of citizens of the world is a new thing (sadly, I would add).
- obelix_ 8y agoPlus this particular boy wonder very confidently stood up in front of everyone and said fake news is BS right after the elections.
- wyldfire 8y agoWas that really the case? I believe you, I just don't recall hearing that. I wonder how he was convinced.
- paulddraper 8y agoIDK if this is what the OP is thinking, but Zuckerberg said something like "Anyone who thinks the election was rigged is missing the message that American voters had for the country." EDIT: > Mark Zuckerberg has rejected the notion that fake news on Facebook influenced the outcome of the US election, describing it as a “pretty crazy idea”. > “Voters make decisions based on their lived experience,” he said at the Techonomy conference near San Francisco on Thursday. > “There is a profound lack of empathy in asserting that the only reason someone could have voted the way they did is because they saw fake news,” he said, and anyone who believes that has “failed to internalize” the message supporters of Donald Trump sent during the election. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/10/facebook-fake-news-us-election-mark-zuckerberg-donald-trump https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/10/facebook-... He didn't say fake news doesn't exist; he said it did not determine the American president.
- tmsldd 8y agoCould Zuckerberg be jailed as a result of this hearing? For instance, in case of him being previously aware of Europeans data leakage or deliberately lying about it?
- yani 8y agoRight
- ship_it 8y agoOh, a setup.
- pvg 8y agoNo.
- johnnyfaehell 8y ago"No." is a very short answer for something as complex as could someone become imprisoned. While the EU parliament doesn't jail people, there are lots of countries that do. If he admits to breaking the law during the meeting any one of the EU countries could issue an EU arrest warrant for him. Then he would be held within that country to be extradited. If I was in charge of the British Parliament committee that wants to question him, I would issue an EU arrest warrant for one of the many crimes that are being levelled at Cambridge Analytic with him being part of it. Then question him about it. But I am petty and would want to show that just because he's American he isn't always out of reach.
- pvg 8y agoIt's not a complex thing at all. No, there is zero chance, short of stabbing someone on the mean streets of Brussels on the way there that Mark Zuckerberg or anyone else voluntarily appearing before the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament will be jailed as a consequence.
- 8y ago
- dingo_bat 8y agoYeah let us, Google's proxy, be one of the interrogators when we fight for the privacy of internet users. BTW did you see the super cool world domination mind control fantasizing internal video? Amazing stuff!
- mintplant 8y agoMozilla is hardly "Google's proxy".
- gaius 8y agoAren’t they almost entirely funded by Google?
- dingo_bat 8y ago97% by their last financial report.
- JackCh 8y agoSometimes. My impression is that sometimes they're mostly funded by Yahoo instead, and other times perhaps Bing. But one way or the other they're always getting most of their money from one of the major search engines. So even when they have a contract with Yahoo, they have a financial interest in staying cozy with Google because when their contract with Yahoo expires they're going to take offers from both Yahoo and Google and, even if they ultimately decide to sign another contract with Yahoo, the offer they get from Yahoo will doubtlessly be competitive with whatever offer they receive from Google.
- detaro 8y agoI believe there's currently no public information about that. They didn't get search engine payments from Google for several years, but with them replacing Yahoo with Google for US customers again it seems likely there's a new contract (although there were reports that the Yahoo contract had clauses that force Yahoo to continue paying them until 2019, so it's possible they just use that money right now)
- bogomipz 8y agoThis petition seems to be addressed to FB. Does anyone know if FB requested a closed door hearing or did the EU?
- anonu 8y agoDrop Facebook. It won't happen overnight and it's up to people in the tech community to innovate and ideate around new social tech that isn't monolithic and centrally planned.
- John_KZ 8y agoYou can produce a viable alternative for Facebook for less than $1M upfront and pretty low running costs. Maybe $10/user/month or less. However, nobody has done it. Why? Because it doesn't make any profit. Everyone needs it, it would save a lot of resources otherwise wasted on useless products and bad political choices, and it would make public discourse much better, but nobody will pay for it. This is the classic example of when the government should step in. We need to either create a Facebook tax (let people choose who to fund with it, but make sure they pay for it) or make FBs business model illegal. Both would work. People know their long-term interests but they can't act on them unless corner-cutting is made illegal. And the governments would have fixed the problem by now, only if Facebook wasn't offering politicians a cheap way to get reelected. I'm open to new approaches but I can't figure out a solution for this to get funded.
- amelius 8y agoSolution: ban targeted advertising. Then even Facebook can't fund Facebook.
- calimac 8y agoWhat a joke! Mozilla is completely compromised. Facebook has never had any concern for privacy of any sort. Idiots. Useful they are.