6 ms·

The guy who broke every single rule in his ruthless conquest of the internet is now asking for new rules. You have to admire the sheer audacity of this play. I

The guy who broke every single rule in his ruthless conquest of the internet is now asking for new rules. You have to admire the sheer audacity of this play. It does make sense though. He can finally see the tide of public opinion turning against him. Facebook's business metrics will be fine for a while but the pace at which they are losing people's trust is increasing. He needed to make a grand statement now while there are still large swaths of the population that view him as somewhat credible. [Edit] Also note the timing. This op-ed comes literally one day after Facebook made headlines for "mistakenly deleting" a bunch of Zuckerberg's early posts, including all his posts from 2007-2008. Which is completely absurd on the face of it. (Yesterday's HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19527200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19527200) Luckily, one way to ensure people don't ask too many questions about this story is to make some new headlines. Sure enough, google news is linking yesterday's story and today's post under the same "Full Coverage" page. As I write this, the "mistaken deletion" story is indeed getting buried under the avalanche of new coverage: https://news.google.com/stories/CAAqOQgKIjNDQklTSURvSmMzUnZjbmt0TXpZd1NoTUtFUWpZMnRiaWpZQU1FVEd0bzlGbWVvSFZLQUFQAQ?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen https://news.google.com/stories/CAAqOQgKIjNDQklTSURvSmMzUnZj...

megous 8y ago
I think, he asks for the rules himself in order to attempt to control what's comming.
- koboll 8y ago
  Yes. Of course he wants new standards set, as long as he gets a hand in crafting them. Much better than Congress imposing them on him.
system2 8y ago
I think Zuckerberg is just helping the internet to learn and evolve. Without his evil products, we wouldn't understand the psychological harm of the internet. These will clear up in the next 5-10 years.
- BucketSort 8y ago
  Every evil person out there, this is your road to salvation. Just say it was a lesson and fully expose every way you've exploited the system and the way others can do the same. Actually, isn't this a common thing? Where people get rich then support laws against doing what they did to get rich?
  - fastball 8y ago
    In particular, you might be thinking of Joseph Kennedy, who made his fortune with insider trading and was later made SEC Chairman by FDR, where he outlawed the methods he used to build his own fortune.
- mindgam3 8y ago
  My bad. I didn’t realize we should be thanking him for making billions off of evil products while teaching us a lesson about psychological harm on the internet. Lesson learned! /s Edit: Sorry for the snark. The idea that Zuckerberg is “helping” us with his lack of integrity is so absurd that I assumed you were trolling. It’s not just absurd but dangerous as the other reply to your comment stated better than I did.
  - sagebird 8y ago
    Thanking him would be wrong. But I acknowledge that Facebook has provided early example into the real harms of social networking + data collection + psychological manipulation via ux. If Facebook became prominent later, after stronger ai was available to trap users attention, it could be a disaster. Are we inoculated? I am not sure. Also not sure why you are being downvoted, I think your comment makes a salient point and some snark is fine as long as it is not a personal attack.
usrusr 8y ago
I would not generally rule out an element of the alcoholic asking for locks to be put on the liquor cabinet.
- mindgam3 8y ago
  It’s kind of like that, except the reason he’s asking for the locks is so you don’t discover the kegs of Jagermeister hidden in the closet.
doctorcroc 8y ago
Another point to consider is that the more the internet is regulated, the more difficult it is for new entrants to compete , as they have to comply first with existing laws. This is an easy way for incumbents to protect themselves from potentially swift-footed competitors.
- mindgam3 8y ago
  Fair point and agreed. Also discussed in an earlier comment thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19531722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19531722
- ardy42 8y ago
  > Another point to consider is that the more the internet is regulated, the more difficult it is for new entrants to compete , as they have to comply first with existing laws. This is an easy way for incumbents to protect themselves from potentially swift-footed competitors. Perhaps the regulations could be written to be more onerous for the incumbents to implement? E.g. a new entrant below a certain size is allowed to get away with a good-faith effort and only subject to small fines, while an incumbent is required to have a massive and empowered internal compliance bureaucracy and is subject to massive fines when non-compliant.
  - syshum 8y ago
    That is generally how they are written it is false way to claim you are pro small business by exempting small business from the regulation All that does however is ensure the competition will ALWAYS be small. where I am There are alot of employment regulations that kick in when you hire your 51st employee, under 50 and you are exempt, so guess what there are CRAP ton of businesses that can not expand beyond the 50 employee mark, they would love to higher more people but the burdens placed on them once they did would likely cause huge amounts of harm to the business, increase costs and revenue where they would no longer be able to afford that new employee.... Generally it makes is hard for a business to go from 50 to about 75 or 100 employees where the extra burdens no longer matter. So unless a business can double in size it is hard for those business to grow, they end up stagnate and often fail as a result
cjhopman 8y ago
> Also note the timing. This op-ed comes literally one day after Facebook made headlines for "mistakenly deleting" a bunch of Zuckerberg's early posts Under what circumstances is a company evil for not allowing a user to delete posts? and under what circumstances are they evil for the reverse?

megous 8y ago

I think, he asks for the rules himself in order to attempt to control what's comming.

koboll 8y ago
Yes. Of course he wants new standards set, as long as he gets a hand in crafting them. Much better than Congress imposing them on him.

system2 8y ago

I think Zuckerberg is just helping the internet to learn and evolve. Without his evil products, we wouldn't understand the psychological harm of the internet. These will clear up in the next 5-10 years.

BucketSort 8y ago
Every evil person out there, this is your road to salvation. Just say it was a lesson and fully expose every way you've exploited the system and the way others can do the same. Actually, isn't this a common thing? Where people get rich then support laws against doing what they did to get rich?
- fastball 8y ago
  In particular, you might be thinking of Joseph Kennedy, who made his fortune with insider trading and was later made SEC Chairman by FDR, where he outlawed the methods he used to build his own fortune.
mindgam3 8y ago
My bad. I didn’t realize we should be thanking him for making billions off of evil products while teaching us a lesson about psychological harm on the internet. Lesson learned! /s Edit: Sorry for the snark. The idea that Zuckerberg is “helping” us with his lack of integrity is so absurd that I assumed you were trolling. It’s not just absurd but dangerous as the other reply to your comment stated better than I did.
- sagebird 8y ago
  Thanking him would be wrong. But I acknowledge that Facebook has provided early example into the real harms of social networking + data collection + psychological manipulation via ux. If Facebook became prominent later, after stronger ai was available to trap users attention, it could be a disaster. Are we inoculated? I am not sure. Also not sure why you are being downvoted, I think your comment makes a salient point and some snark is fine as long as it is not a personal attack.

usrusr 8y ago

I would not generally rule out an element of the alcoholic asking for locks to be put on the liquor cabinet.

mindgam3 8y ago
It’s kind of like that, except the reason he’s asking for the locks is so you don’t discover the kegs of Jagermeister hidden in the closet.

doctorcroc 8y ago

Another point to consider is that the more the internet is regulated, the more difficult it is for new entrants to compete , as they have to comply first with existing laws. This is an easy way for incumbents to protect themselves from potentially swift-footed competitors.

mindgam3 8y ago
Fair point and agreed. Also discussed in an earlier comment thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19531722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19531722
ardy42 8y ago
> Another point to consider is that the more the internet is regulated, the more difficult it is for new entrants to compete , as they have to comply first with existing laws. This is an easy way for incumbents to protect themselves from potentially swift-footed competitors. Perhaps the regulations could be written to be more onerous for the incumbents to implement? E.g. a new entrant below a certain size is allowed to get away with a good-faith effort and only subject to small fines, while an incumbent is required to have a massive and empowered internal compliance bureaucracy and is subject to massive fines when non-compliant.
- syshum 8y ago
  That is generally how they are written it is false way to claim you are pro small business by exempting small business from the regulation All that does however is ensure the competition will ALWAYS be small. where I am There are alot of employment regulations that kick in when you hire your 51st employee, under 50 and you are exempt, so guess what there are CRAP ton of businesses that can not expand beyond the 50 employee mark, they would love to higher more people but the burdens placed on them once they did would likely cause huge amounts of harm to the business, increase costs and revenue where they would no longer be able to afford that new employee.... Generally it makes is hard for a business to go from 50 to about 75 or 100 employees where the extra burdens no longer matter. So unless a business can double in size it is hard for those business to grow, they end up stagnate and often fail as a result

cjhopman 8y ago

> Also note the timing. This op-ed comes literally one day after Facebook made headlines for "mistakenly deleting" a bunch of Zuckerberg's early posts Under what circumstances is a company evil for not allowing a user to delete posts? and under what circumstances are they evil for the reverse?