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Zuckerberg’s Rules Would Hurt Everyone but Facebook

592 points by howard941 8y ago

sagebird 8y ago
If Facebook wants to get ahead of and control privacy regulation, Zuckerberg needs to create an arrangement with a third party to push his agenda. IE - a charismatic CEO from another company that has a good public image. If it was done correctly, he could be pushing the exact same agenda and be getting kudos instead of (completely justifiable) skepticism. Politicians will be especially susceptible to this kind of proxy-ism.
NickBusey 8y ago
".. forcing competitors to make their own data exportable to Facebook would in all likelihood benefit Facebook" What competitors is the author even talking about here? There are, as far as I'm aware, essentially no competitors left to Facebook anymore. That being the case, I'm not sure that statement is correct at all. On the contrary, it seems like if FB were required to offer an easily exportable data format, that other services would pop up overnight to try and lure people away from FB onto their (hopefully) more privacy conscious platforms. It would also lower the bar for people to make the switch to something else, as they know their friends can switch just as easily without losing their data. I agree with the rest of the points of the article, but I don't see how data portability can be anything but a net positive for the consumer.
- nradov 8y ago
  There are several active competitors depending on how you define the market. WeChat, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service#Largest_social_networking_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service#Larg...
  - NickBusey 8y ago
    The 3 key features that most people I know who still use Facebook are Photo Sharing, Event Organizing, and Messaging. The things you listed do one or two, but I don't think any of them do all 3.
    - gberger 8y ago
      I'm pretty sure WeChat does all 3...
    - ben509 8y ago
      If company A is selling hot dogs and ice cream, and B is selling hot dogs and C is selling ice cream, does that mean A has no competitors?
    - nradov 8y ago
      By that standard you could claim that the Honda Civic has no competitors because no other vehicle has its particular combination of features.
    - intopieces 8y ago
      WeChat does all three of those, plus payments and food ordering. Basically everything Facebook wishes they could do, WeChat does it for about 1B people.
      - dymk 8y ago
        WeChat doesn't have a significant presence in Western markets, and Facebook doesn't have a significant presence in China. They don't really compete with each other, even though they provide a lot of the same features.
- return0 8y ago
  Dating sites
- dane-pgp 8y ago
  If "data portability" were interpreted widely enough, it would mean that people using other social networks could have a "proxy" Facebook account which is automatically synched with their main (non-Facebook) account. Ideally, any posts that your Facebook account could see would be fetchable by your non-FB account, and anything you post on your non-FB account would be re-posted on FB for you. This way, as far as your friends are concerned, you are a normal Facebook user, but you would never actually browse the site (or use the app). That would allow competition in how the UI works, but also less ad revenue for Facebook (and more engineering work, which they would presumably claim is unfair).
- coldacid 8y ago
  There are still ten or so of us on Diaspora.
- throwaway284721 8y ago
  > That being the case, I'm not sure that statement is correct at all. On the contrary, it seems like if FB were required to offer an easily exportable data format, that other services would pop up overnight to try and lure people away from FB onto their (hopefully) more privacy conscious platforms. It would also lower the bar for people to make the switch to something else, as they know their friends can switch just as easily without losing their data. The problem with this is that it presupposes a certain data-format, that doesn't allow for innovation. How exactly would you export facebooks data to twitter or vice versa? For a start, facebook doesn't have a character limit, twitter does. Twitter threads can be nested infinitely, facebook's can't, etc.
samstave 8y ago
Maybe he has an escape hatch from the internet into the hollow earth, from the restroom in his office?
dannykwells 8y ago
It's almost comic villainy - like, everything they say, do, propose, etc. is always evil in some way. Can anyone on the inside give some insight into current morale? Is the constant deluge of negative press cutting through the indoctrination or nah?
- rusk 8y ago
  From what I've heard, they have nice cushions of dollar bills to block out any negative thoughts ..
- themagician 8y ago
  It’s the same as it’s always been, and the same at most of the big tech companies: Everyone believes they are changing the world for the better while extracting value through some kind of exploitation. Morale is high because paychecks are high. How much you get paid is the key indicator of how much you are worth as a human being. That’s the game we play.
  - rifung 8y ago
    > It’s the same as it’s always been, and the same at most of the big tech companies: Everyone believes they are changing the world for the better while extracting value through some kind of exploitation. I'm curious what your experience is with this? I've worked at Google and AWS and I don't think I've met a single person who thought they were "changing the world". The closest it ever got to that was when I once remarked to my lead that I wish I felt like the work I do mattered to which he replied something along the lines of, "We play but a small part in the grand movement that is the progress of technology, but don't forget we do play a part." Pretty much everyone I know just does their job because they want to retire or support their families. This is also the same for almost every employee I've seen in other sized companies. > How much you get paid is the key indicator of how much you are worth as a human being. That’s the game we play. Some people may think this way but it's a choice to surround yourself with those kinds of people.
    - swagasaurus-rex 8y ago
HeWhoLurksLate 8y ago
Why am I not surprised? At this point I have no trust in that company. It would be very unwise to listen to them, and very unfortunate for someone like Senator Warren and those who want to break them up to adopt their policies.
gopher2 8y ago
> Facebook exacerbates poisonous politics by creating filter bubbles of like-minded partisans, spreading hoaxes and inaccuracies, inducing anxiety and paranoia, rewarding clickbait and outrage, and so on The irony is that the media is doing this now, with respect to anything related to Facebook. Facebook is a website with 99.9% benign user generated content. The news media has been spreading outrage and paranoia and trying to get 'engagement' since before Facebook was born.
- bshipp 8y ago
  That's a little disingenous. No doubt you are correct that 99.9% of the user-generated content is benign, but that 99.9% of user-generated content would likely not represent 99.9% of viewer traffic. If only 0.01% of toxic content by terms of volume is receiving disproportionate attention and focus, not only permissible but actively encouraged by complex opaque algorithms, then it is certainly a much bigger problem then it's meagre character count would otherwise suggest.
  - ptero 8y ago
    > If only 0.01% of toxic content ... is receiving disproportionate attention and focus, not only permissible but actively encouraged by complex opaque algorithms, then it is certainly a much bigger problem To me, this needs to be split into two use cases. The fact that .01% of content gets viewed a lot more than average is not a bad thing. Much of user content is junk with a heavy dose of ads for a seasoning. It is perfectly reasonable that original or thoughtful posts, even if unpleasant or provocative, get much higher traffic. The problem is the algorithmic reinforcement that encourages those making short-term sensationalist statements. Let's still allow folks to voice their opinions, whichever they are, and advertise them by the digital age equivalents to "word of mouth". Just keep it human, not algorithm driven. My 2c.
    - bshipp 8y ago
      I agree, that's a very useful and necessary distinction that I neglected to include in my original comment. Without those spontaneous user-composed opinions and anecdotes, the platform would quickly become (or perhaps already has become) plastic and artificial. As anyone having to relate information through a bureaucratic communications department has certainly experienced, even the most unique, interesting and useful story in the world stands little chance against an eager team of copy editors and PR representatives.
thepangolino 8y ago
As far as I'm concerned, the Internet has and always will have only one set of rules: https://archive.org/stream/RulesOfTheInternet/RulesOfTheInternet..txt https://archive.org/stream/RulesOfTheInternet/RulesOfTheInte...
- izzydata 8y ago
  And you already broke them just by linking them.
  - aepiepaey 8y ago
    Rules 1 and 2 only apply during raids (on another site), and no-one is raiding this comment section, so no, they did not break the rules.
    - izzydata 8y ago
      That rule is not in the rules.
manfredo 8y ago
To be fair, Facebook has said since the beginning that regulation had a strong possibility of making competition harder and entrenching established players.
- harry8 8y ago
  To be fair, Zuckerberg has said anyone who trusts him in any way is an idiot.
  - trpc 8y ago
    https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg#Quotes https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg#Quotes
jedberg 8y ago
Most government regulation benefits large companies at the expense of small companies, because large companies have more resources to make sure they are in compliance and have the lobbyists who help write the rules. So it's no surprise that new regs here would be helpful to big companies and harmful to small ones.
CharlesColeman 8y ago
Here's a regulation that I'd like considered: a default licensing scheme for personal data, that stipulates a 50% revenue share with the user of any money made from the use or sale of their data. The regulation would stipulate the scheme can only be renegotiated in a way that would be impractical to implement at scale (to avoid easy circumventions through TOS and click-throughs). This would hit the privacy-invading companies where it hurts, in their pocketbooks.
- no1youknowz 8y ago
  Profits based on the sale of data has been discussed a few times on HN. However, the price for it is so low on a per user basis. That said, there should be a law on the books that disallow the sale of data between companies. I'd wager this is the bulk of where Facebook makes it's money. That's where we should be targeting with legislation. The use of data should be fine. As the end-user or end-company never actually get their hands on the data. They just use a UI with categories and filters and put up ads based on the options available.
  - gaogao 8y ago
    Facebook makes its money from selling ads. You can see this in its revenue report, https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2018/Facebook-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2017-Results/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/... Of course, these ads are highly targeted using all sorts of personal data, but they aren't actually selling the data, as that's also just less profitable.
    - no1youknowz 8y ago
      I know that. But is there a distinction in advertising between: 1) Allowing users to use the data for making ads. 2) Selling the data to companies such as Apple for other means. There isn't any visibility. This is what I'm trying to get at.
      - 8y ago
revscat 8y ago
Anyone want my Facebook password? I haven't used it in a while, but don't trust them to actually delete anything. Might as well poison the well. edit: u: james.childers@gmail.com , p: zaZLc&ncedu%X8apb$j9 Have at it.
- awakeasleep 8y ago
  I just reset your password, and logged out all active sessions. I appreciate the gesture you made, but you're exposing your friends and families to the random dregs of the Internet by giving away your account like that.
  - revscat 8y ago
    Thanks, I guess? > I appreciate the gesture you made, but you're exposing your friends and families to the random dregs of the Internet by giving away your account like that. That's kind of the point. FB isn't going to change until it starts to suffer, and the a good way to cause it to suffer is to reduce its usefulness. The best way to do that is to make the feed useless. shrug Whatever. The account's locked now and I don't really care enough to unlock it. Interesting experiment.
    - Loughla 8y ago
      Real question. How does making your family deal with extra bullshit from the awful parts of the internet make facebook suffer? I don't understand your logic with this.
      - revscat 8y ago
        a) It's debatable how much people "suffer" from fucking with Facebook. Facebook is evil. Fucking with them is good. b) Facebook will only suffer if the feed becomes (more) useless. I don't understand how you don't see the logic. Bad feed -> worse FB experience -> decreased usage.
        8y ago
johnny313 8y ago
This seems like an attempt at classic regulatory capture. "Regulatory capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- samstave 8y ago
  EXACTLY. Here is a surmised sequence of events: CONGRESS: Zuck come testify in front of us ZUCK: Crap! I am not comfortable with that PUBLIC: Zuck looks like a fucking android/alien, also screw FB for messing up our PII CONGRESS: You keep messing with privacy concerns of the public through ways and means we don't understand because we are dinosaurs, corrupt ones at that; how can we make money from you? ZUCK: (to FB C-suite++ legal a-team); HOW THE HELL CAN YOU MAKE ME LOOK SO STUPID! Buy them ASAP LEGAL-A-TEAM: (to the PUBLIC) "Zuck would like to make the internet more connected to our [ZUCK'S] vision of a more secure [FOR ZUCK] internet, which serves the needs [OF ZUCK's] users' privacy [CONTINUED ADDITION OF PII TO FB FOR THE PROFIT AND CONTROL OF FB AND NOW THROUGH THIS, EXTENDING TO TENTACLES IN THE .GOV] (On todays episode of "Zuck learns from GoldmanSachs")
  - tsunamifury 8y ago
    Genuine question: Is it just me or does this reddit-style mugging for karma not really belong on HN?
    - kadendogthing 8y ago
      It doesn't belong anywhere.
    - klank 8y ago
      How would you describe a "reddit-style mugging for karma"? I didn't find the post you're referring to as having added anything additional to the conversation and I also didn't find it entertaining, which I believe was the poster's goal. However, I wasn't struck with some kind of "this is a bad thing from other platform" vibe.
notTyler 8y ago
On the one hand it's nice to see FB admitting to not being able to come up with a solution for their hate speech problem. On the other hand, putting it on the government when the government is struggling financially and FB is rolling in money, well, I don't know about that. They ought to reap the whirlwind they created and implode as things like the NZ attack become more common.
max76 8y ago
I'm not even upset that Facebook is lobbying for their own self interest. I just wish such a blatant attempt would have a lower chance of success.
- freejak 8y ago
  You just quashed your own fears. Fortunately this is going nowhere because it's so blatant.
  - TAForObvReasons 8y ago
    That was said about many deeply unpopular pieces of legislation over the last few years (the Friday Night Tax Bill comes to mind).
  - maratd 8y ago
    How are you so sure about this?
    - freejak 8y ago
      I'm not but Zuck isn't winning any popularity contests in congress or among the general public these days. Odd time for him to publish this piece IMO.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    The problem is blatant isn't a guarantee of not doing something - nor being a spectacularly bad idea.
  - munk-a 8y ago
    It may be blatant to us but America has demonstrated an amazing ability to buy into delusions lately.
- summerOf1999 8y ago
  When I think about Facebook, who they are, and what they do, I try to remember that Facebook's version of The Internet is like what music was like during the summer of 1999. As a corollary for The Internet, they're about that talented and tasteful themselves, and they appeal to the same audience, owing to their success. To put that into perspective, look through the following list, and let it sink in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_music If you like that list, great. Kepp using Facebook. If you don't, fight it tooth and nail.
MagicPropmaker 8y ago
Imagine not being able to start a little grass-roots, home-grown social network without millions in capitalization for compliance. That's exactly what Zuckerberg wants.
pliny 8y ago
>Inviting the government to arbitrate what qualifies as “harmful” speech is a legal and ethical minefield, while establishing a third-party system to do the same would amount to offloading corporate responsibility. There’s no reason to expect every platform to adhere to the same content policies, but every reason to want them to exercise judgment and accept accountability. Is there a term for when journalists forgo making an argument about why something is bad in favor of just making a bunch of assertions + some negative sentiment words? Why is deciding what speech / UGC should be allowed in social media a 'corporate responsibility' such that letting the government or some 'impartial' NGO arbitrate this a bad thing? Why would you want every platform to have it's own content policy? Why do you want corporations to 'exercise judgement' and to be accountable (to the state? to journalists?) if you also don't want there to be some formal guidelines about what is or isn't allowed on social media?
- horsawlarway 8y ago
  That line was exactly where I lost interest as well. This author is stating that Facebook should make it's own decisions about harmful content, and that facebook should ALSO be accountable to some other entity for those decisions (presumably the government, but who fucking knows based on the content of the article...). While happily saying that creating any sort of governmental guidance on that issue is "a legal and ethical minefield". That's bullshit. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either create guidelines that steer company decisions here and apply them, or accept that companies will make decisions that do not match the author's idea of morality. You cannot judge a company without setting standards. You cannot let a company judge itself and expect them to make the decisions you think are correct.
  - laughinghan 8y ago
    Well, legal accountability isn't the only kind of accountability. This is Bloomberg we're talking about, after all. This article links to their piece criticizing GDPR, which they say is all wrong because the solution to privacy problems is "transparent pricing and more competition". So I think maybe what they're saying here is that Facebook needs to exercise judgement and be accountable to the market. I don't think I really agree with them, but it's a coherent, internally consistent point, and on-brand for Bloomberg.
ryanmarsh 8y ago
I just want to know if anyone is surprised by this.
Matticus_Rex 8y ago
As usual, big business doesn't support free markets -- it supports regulations that it can deal with more easily than its competitors.
Chutzpah3 8y ago
This is very similar to Amazon pushing for higher minimum wage. Big lawyers of Facebook can deal with any regulation and no regulation would pass without Facebook's approval. This essentially is rent seeking behaviour and that is why I have stopped using Facebook. I only need to move away from Whatsapp now.
trpc 8y ago
Zuckerberg ruined the web, made sure that Facebook becomes synonymous with the internet for billions of people to make profit for himself using all means and created a generation of mentally unstable teenagers. This alone makes him among the worst criminals of the 21st century.
ancorevard 8y ago
Look, most government regulations ultimately favors the incumbent while making it much harder for new entrants to challenge the large organizations. Thus creating less competition which ultimately solidifies the status quo.
daenz 8y ago
The CEO has fiduciary duties related to not making any decision that would hurt the corporation. That's really all you should need to know about Zuck and the regulations he proposed.
lgleason 8y ago
I say repeal the law that exempts them from liability. It has had an un-intended consequence of allowing large pseudo monopolies to emerge. It has also given them an un-fair advantage over TV and newspapers who are liable for their content.
- mathattack 8y ago
  Revoking the abilities of companies to limit their liabilities is very hard. Very few companies could exist (certainly no public ones) if there was no bottom to what personal assets could be clawed back in a corporate bankruptcy. I’m not arguing that limited liability is perfect - just that we’ve built much of capitalism (including our ability to invest) on top of it.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  If you apply that standard be careful with any walls on your house because you would be liable for death threats spray painted on it. Look at Gawker - they are liable for /their/ content. Not user content.
mic47 8y ago
So data portability is now bad, because Facebook is suggesting it.
skrebbel 8y ago
This article tries to make the case that, among other things, the GDPR "hurts everyone except Facebook". Wait, what? The GDPR is a net positive for citizen privacy. This article's attempt to spin it as an anticompetitive bigco-driven monstrosity is factually wrong and ignorant of the GDPR's history. I have similar (but less strong) doubts about this article's case that automated censorship is obviously better for "everyone except Facebook" if the rules about what to censor were set by tech molochs and not governments. I'm wary of any kind of censorship, but if we have to have it, I prefer the rules to be set in a public parliament and not some boardroom somewhere. "Corporate responsibility" my ass. At this scale, Facebook are public infrastructure and should be regulated as such. I'll gladly believe the author that Zuckerberg will always and only do things that benefit Facebook. Zuckerberg has shown time and time again that every single public initiative he takes turns out to be in Facebook's direct benefit and often in everybody else's disadvantage. Of course there's a hidden agenda here, there always is. But the author hasn't found it.
- urNotImportant 8y ago
  Wait, what? Was this thing written by Google PR? No, The Washington Post is owned by Amazon.
zimablue 8y ago
I'm not a Facebook fan but nor do I agree with this article, the analysis seems pretty shallow. Zuck's rules seems like broadly positive things, and like they'd benefit the competition more than this article lets on. Harmful content => Any government regulation of harmful content will probably hurt small players more, since it's a big fixed cost of moderation. But everyone will realistically pay that cost anyway unless they're something decentralized like Mastodon. Elections => Nothing to do with size of platform I think, they're just saying that it's disingenuous since filter bubbles are more important. I disagree, election financing is super important and as another poster said filter bubbles are as old as print. Privacy => It says that GDPR is terrible for small companies, but without any evidence (or spec of "small") I think for anyone the size enough to be looking to challenge Facebook it's not a big deal, and broadly I like GDPR. "Don't store people's data unless you need to, and ask permission". Not a bad first effort to trying to fix surveillance capitalism. Making data portable => This definitely, definitely would hurt Facebook more than help it. Noone is sitting on Instagram thinking "I'd swap to Facebook if only it was easier". They're the monopolist with the inferior product + network effects, that narrative makes no sense at all.
- kreetx 8y ago
  I had the same sentiment. Not to be harsh against Bloomberg, but it for a few of these the journalist doesn't know what he is talking about. The "sophisticated tools" to make data portable for example: building it in to any new social network wouldn't be all that difficult, and perhaps adds even a little mental structure over the data since now there are two types of output: the website/app itself, and the portable data export. Sounds good to me.
  - chillacy 8y ago
    The crowd here is so cynical that I'd start to be suspicious that Zuckerberg is pulling a reverse psychology move on us.
- wavefunction 8y ago
  Making data portable means opening up our systems to Facebook, at least as far as I understand Zuckerberg's proposals.
fumar 8y ago
I have zero faith in Facebook as an organization doing the "right" thing. Their machine is fueled by highly targeted advertising. If you erode their targeting capabilities, then marketers will be quick to invest elsewhere. Funny enough, with ITP 2.1 and potentially a less cookie friendly Chrome, they are increasing FB's value prop to marketers. I am going to butcher this, I can't articulate it how I think it... Why do we need regulation for social network that is only as strong as its network. Is the network effect so strong users can't or will not leave on their own accord? I left FB and instagram a few years ago. It is just so funny to me that this entity (a people aggregator) is powerful but all we need to do is leave it. How many people in your network have to leave before it loses its value? Networks expand exponentially. Is the opposite true?
bitxbit 8y ago
I am quite surprised Sheryl Sandberg all but disappeared in the past few months from these discussions.
effnorwood 8y ago
Right!
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legitster 8y ago
All of the constant time in front of Congress is likely affecting their bottom line. The constant threat of regulation or breakup is getting to the point where it is harming the company more than any regulation would. It makes sense for Facebook to get in front of it. That said, obviously they shouldn't get to craft their own regulation. And any regulation setting the boundaries of an industry risks locking in the way it works (think how how awful dealerships are in the US). If we craft a set of rules for Facebook, we will almost guarantee that it continues to exist. My (very weak) opinion as someone who hates FB is that we keep the status quo - the constant pressure and hoop jumping and negative media cycles seem to do quite well at driving users away.
cxromos 8y ago
This article is wrong when it comes to GDPR. It could be a good thing. I friend invited me to MeWe via Twitter post and I accepted. I would like not to be able to export and if I wish delete my data. That would be my all of my data, including my contacts. I would import this data to MeWe, or what's possible. At the moment Contacts would do. Good for me and MeWe. This is what GDPR would allow. There is no open format for this exchange, but being on the market, someone will quickly come up with a service to convert the data, or MeWe guys could some up with import data from FB function.
shmerl 8y ago
I don't think anyone who built a network that exploits people's profiles for profit, should be setting privacy rules proposals.
madrox 8y ago
On the surface this isn’t shocking at all. And yet, when was the last time anyone really tried to compete with Facebook? Sure, they’re in the ad business like everyone else, but no one really competes with them on product. Yet whenever we hear about Facebook culture, it’s about move fast and break things. Is that really a culture equipped for coping with regulatory compliance? In my experience, the answer is no. So I’m really left scratching my head on this one.
- ben_jones 8y ago
  You can't compete with Facebook unless you commit the same invasive acts that allowed them to collect their data in the first place. Nobody is going to willing enter their phone-number, address, all their friends, all their contacts, all their meta data, at world-scale, anytime soon to some new start-up.
  - madrox 8y ago
    That's kind of my point. If no one else is willing to compete, why bother advocating regulation that makes your incumbent advantage harder to maintain?
lostlogin 8y ago
According to the article ‘Zuckerberg deserves a hearing’. He didn’t show when called before the UK parliament, and if he doesn’t appear when it suits him, does he deserve a hearing? https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/mark-zuckerberg-parliament-uk-canada-westminster-dcms-select-committee-a8609996.html%3famp https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-st...
- throwaway284721 8y ago
  I think you should show up at my home to justify yourself for this comment in person, otherwise I don't think you deserve a hearing either.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    That’s not even remotely similar. His company interfered with an election and was asked to explain. He didn’t show. Why was your comment made with a throw away?
alexandercoward 8y ago
Maybe Facebook should convert into a Benefit Corporation. There's a petition for this here: https://www.change.org/p/mark-zuckerberg-convert-facebook-into-a-public-benefit-corporation https://www.change.org/p/mark-zuckerberg-convert-facebook-in...
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Animats 8y ago
Yes, that was pretty obvious. The elephant in the room is advertising. This is all about ad targeting. Zuckerberg's "rules" totally ignore that. Of course.
aylmao 8y ago
I don't doubt regulation would help Facebook in some respects, but (in usual Bloomberg fashion) this article is also stretching some things a bit. For example: > Start with harmful content, which Zuckerberg defines as “terrorist propaganda, hate speech and more.” Facebook would prefer that someone else decide what constitutes such content and should thus be taken down. I agree with this. Having a private corporation that's invested in engagement, which is also headquartered in the US (very far geographically and culturally from some of the places it moderates) be in charge of defining what's right and what's wrong, is and has been a recipe for disaster— let alone the implications it could have around the sovereignty of nations. > But it’s hard to see how this would benefit anyone but Facebook. Excuse me, what? > Inviting the government to arbitrate what qualifies as “harmful” speech is a legal and ethical minefield, while establishing a third-party system to do the same would amount to offloading corporate responsibility. Isn't this the government's job though? To define what is a crime/wrong and what isn't, and to deal with the moral aspect of legal codes? Isn't this why we have laws? I don't think anyone is vouching for "big brother" type government control here, but governments always have a principal role in civil rights, inclusion and the moral development of a nation. It's part of their job, and the reason people care to have leaders with strong moral compasses as public servants. Has this view of government been lost in the US? > There’s no reason to expect every platform to adhere to the same content policies, but every reason to want them to exercise judgment and accept accountability. I'm there's things that should clearly be blocked or allowed. But the gray areas are what's being discussed here, and honestly I don't think that should be Facebook's job (or any private, American, for-profit corporation for that matter).
- duxup 8y ago
  I think there's a bit of a disconnect when it comes to "harmful" speech, and "illegal". The US government isn't going to decide what is "harmful" at least not for long as a legal challenge would quickly do away with any such rules. In the end the platforms have to decide for themselves and police themselves unless they want to be 4chan or whatever the next "post anything" kinda place is now a days. Right or wrong they're the only folks who can do it.
  - 8y ago
slim 8y ago
There's no need to "regulate the internet", we only need to regulate social network operators. Regulation should look like this : * no ban of any user whatsoever * obligation to provide a public unlimited read only acess to standardized api for all the data * no private messaging and let a million better Facebooks emerge. The content policing problem will solve itself
adrian_mrd 8y ago
> On privacy, Zuckerberg has become an exponent of Europe’s behemoth rulebook, known as the General Data Protection Regulation. That approach is badly flawed in its own right: It undermines innovation, burdens companies, annoys users, and offers few benefits. Outside of the authors' views on Zuck.co, this is a myopic view of GDPR. In reality, GDPR empowers, rather than annoys users, and the regulations actually gives EU citizens some degree of control over their data - which is of increasingly huge benefit, especially their interactions with Orwellian companies like Facebook.
- arendtio 8y ago
  Well, I am sure there are some aspects which annoy users (e.g. having to search for the opt-out button on every page you visit), but AFAIK those are actually bad implementations. Sure, some things could have been done better, but ultimately the GDPR is a huge step in the right direction. It is good this article is posted as 'opinion' as it is quite opinionated (doesn't reflect my opinion though).
40acres 8y ago
Facebook knows regulation in coming and is transitioning from being anti-regulation to regulation on their terms (ie. regulatory capture). Unfortunately, I don't have much faith in our government to properly regulate technology, for one Congress seems totally unaware of how Facebook works ("Senator... we sell ads") and judging by the diasaters that were the great recession and the Boeing crashes, even a well known "strong" regulator isn't enough to curtail the biggest companies
return0 8y ago
This is exactly why regulation is needed: Articles like this, spreading misinformation and clickbait should not be allowed to be published.
3xblah 8y ago
"Zuckerberg deserves a hearing, but it's rarely a good idea to outsource regulation to the enterprise that most needs to be regulated." This sentence implies there are instances (albeit "rare") when it is a good idea to outsource regulation to the enterprise that most needs to be regulated. Can anyone cite a few examples?
am33 8y ago
I hate zuck as much as the next guy, but this writer is being dishonest. Data portability is the first step in allowing other companies to compete with FB and takes away a huge advantage they have (switching costs). Call a spade a spade.
emiliobumachar 8y ago
"Facebook would prefer that someone else decide what constitutes such content and should thus be taken down. But it’s hard to see how this would benefit anyone but Facebook." I can actually get behind this. As I said before, I'm wary of Fb and Google becoming judge and jury of what is or isn't acceptable speech. It's against their will now, but they may well grow to like it.
product50 8y ago
This is absolutely true. We all need to realize that regulations such as European GDPR, Article 13 etc. hurt newcomers a lot more vs. incumbents big players such as Facebook. Facebook will one way or the other nudge/influence/incentivize users to click on that "Agree" button to opt into sharing data with them. However, new players who don't have a surface where users come frequently enough, will be at a loss. And there will be no way they would be able to use growth tactics such as Facebook does to drive opt in. Please wake up and smell the coffee. Regulations are needed but GDPR is absolutely not the answer.
artemisyna 8y ago
All of this moderation stuff feels like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for Facebook. People have been crapping on Facebook for making judgement calls on what's allowed on its platform. When Facebook does so without government backing, people get up-in-arms saying that it should be the government's role to decide free speech. But when the company goes and requests that government start doing that, people get up-in-arms about how it'll be "regulatory capture". I can't predict what the outcome of all of this will be. I can however, predict that there will be an angsty article (Bloomberg? New York Times? Wall Street Journal?) decrying how Facebook is awful, evil, and incompetent.
- ma2rten 8y ago
  I feel like this entire opinion piece is just a knee-jack reaction against anything what Mark Zuckerberg has to say. I was giving it the benefit of the doubt until it started talking about how bad GDPR is. GDPR has some short-comings, but it's a bit less black-and-white than what this article makes it out to be. Maybe what Mark Zuckerberg saying really is self-serving but this article doesn't make any good arguments for it. It's just making assertions which it doesn't back up. I don't know if it's just me getting old, but I started noticing this kind of intellectual dishonesty more and more recently in the media and even here on HN.
  - chillacy 8y ago
    I think a lot of psychological research confirms that people start with the opinion or position and find evidence (any will do) to back it up, not the other way around. So it's not surprising it shows up in lots of debates between people.
scotty79 8y ago
He just asks government to make some laws so he can just obey them and forget about the whole thing. He can't figure how to be good so he asks for explicit rules to be legal. Because business only needs to be legal to continue.
phillpot 8y ago
The article starts by saying that inviting the government to arbitrate is a legal and ethical nightmare, and establishing a third party is offloading corporate responsibility. It finishes saying that it's rarely a good idea to outsource regulation to the enterprise that needs it. So which is it? Gov regulation is no good, and self regulation is no good!
ddingus 8y ago
Is there any surprise? None. It is good to see this being discussed. I am not making light of that. The more I see the market shape our Internet, the more I feel some baseline law, to set reasonable, ethical norms, makes great sense.
choicenotchance 8y ago
That article seems to be written by someone running out of ideas.
duchenne 8y ago
> Facebook exacerbates poisonous politics by creating filter bubbles of like-minded partisans, spreading hoaxes and inaccuracies, inducing anxiety and paranoia, rewarding clickbait and outrage, and so on. An interesting example is the yellow vest protest in France. The mass media heavily emphasized the violence of the protesters. But, on social networks, people mainly shared videos of violence from the police. (ex: https://twitter.com/Albirew/status/1104799813076508673 https://twitter.com/Albirew/status/1104799813076508673 ) Another interesting news that was discovered thanks to social networks was that the public TV photoshoped a picture of the protest, changing a text from "Macron get out" to just "Macron" [1] The contrast between those two sources of information is striking. Both top-down mass media, and bottom-up social networks bring interesting news, but both are biased and inaccurate. [1] https://www.lesinrocks.com/2018/12/16/actualite/quand-france-3-censure-une-pancarte-anti-macron-111152498/ https://www.lesinrocks.com/2018/12/16/actualite/quand-france...
- baby 8y ago
  > But, on social networks, people mainly shared videos of violence from the police It was actually both.

592 points by howard941 8y ago

If Facebook wants to get ahead of and control privacy regulation, Zuckerberg needs to create an arrangement with a third party to push his agenda. IE - a charismatic CEO from another company that has a good public image. If it was done correctly, he could be pushing the exact same agenda and be getting kudos instead of (completely justifiable) skepticism. Politicians will be especially susceptible to this kind of proxy-ism.

NickBusey 8y ago

".. forcing competitors to make their own data exportable to Facebook would in all likelihood benefit Facebook" What competitors is the author even talking about here? There are, as far as I'm aware, essentially no competitors left to Facebook anymore. That being the case, I'm not sure that statement is correct at all. On the contrary, it seems like if FB were required to offer an easily exportable data format, that other services would pop up overnight to try and lure people away from FB onto their (hopefully) more privacy conscious platforms. It would also lower the bar for people to make the switch to something else, as they know their friends can switch just as easily without losing their data. I agree with the rest of the points of the article, but I don't see how data portability can be anything but a net positive for the consumer.

nradov 8y ago
There are several active competitors depending on how you define the market. WeChat, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service#Largest_social_networking_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service#Larg...
- NickBusey 8y ago
  The 3 key features that most people I know who still use Facebook are Photo Sharing, Event Organizing, and Messaging. The things you listed do one or two, but I don't think any of them do all 3.
  - gberger 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure WeChat does all 3...
  - ben509 8y ago
    If company A is selling hot dogs and ice cream, and B is selling hot dogs and C is selling ice cream, does that mean A has no competitors?
  - nradov 8y ago
    By that standard you could claim that the Honda Civic has no competitors because no other vehicle has its particular combination of features.
  - intopieces 8y ago
    WeChat does all three of those, plus payments and food ordering. Basically everything Facebook wishes they could do, WeChat does it for about 1B people.
    - dymk 8y ago
      WeChat doesn't have a significant presence in Western markets, and Facebook doesn't have a significant presence in China. They don't really compete with each other, even though they provide a lot of the same features.
return0 8y ago
Dating sites
dane-pgp 8y ago
If "data portability" were interpreted widely enough, it would mean that people using other social networks could have a "proxy" Facebook account which is automatically synched with their main (non-Facebook) account. Ideally, any posts that your Facebook account could see would be fetchable by your non-FB account, and anything you post on your non-FB account would be re-posted on FB for you. This way, as far as your friends are concerned, you are a normal Facebook user, but you would never actually browse the site (or use the app). That would allow competition in how the UI works, but also less ad revenue for Facebook (and more engineering work, which they would presumably claim is unfair).
coldacid 8y ago
There are still ten or so of us on Diaspora.
throwaway284721 8y ago
> That being the case, I'm not sure that statement is correct at all. On the contrary, it seems like if FB were required to offer an easily exportable data format, that other services would pop up overnight to try and lure people away from FB onto their (hopefully) more privacy conscious platforms. It would also lower the bar for people to make the switch to something else, as they know their friends can switch just as easily without losing their data. The problem with this is that it presupposes a certain data-format, that doesn't allow for innovation. How exactly would you export facebooks data to twitter or vice versa? For a start, facebook doesn't have a character limit, twitter does. Twitter threads can be nested infinitely, facebook's can't, etc.

samstave 8y ago

Maybe he has an escape hatch from the internet into the hollow earth, from the restroom in his office?

dannykwells 8y ago

It's almost comic villainy - like, everything they say, do, propose, etc. is always evil in some way. Can anyone on the inside give some insight into current morale? Is the constant deluge of negative press cutting through the indoctrination or nah?

rusk 8y ago
From what I've heard, they have nice cushions of dollar bills to block out any negative thoughts ..
themagician 8y ago
It’s the same as it’s always been, and the same at most of the big tech companies: Everyone believes they are changing the world for the better while extracting value through some kind of exploitation. Morale is high because paychecks are high. How much you get paid is the key indicator of how much you are worth as a human being. That’s the game we play.
- rifung 8y ago
  > It’s the same as it’s always been, and the same at most of the big tech companies: Everyone believes they are changing the world for the better while extracting value through some kind of exploitation. I'm curious what your experience is with this? I've worked at Google and AWS and I don't think I've met a single person who thought they were "changing the world". The closest it ever got to that was when I once remarked to my lead that I wish I felt like the work I do mattered to which he replied something along the lines of, "We play but a small part in the grand movement that is the progress of technology, but don't forget we do play a part." Pretty much everyone I know just does their job because they want to retire or support their families. This is also the same for almost every employee I've seen in other sized companies. > How much you get paid is the key indicator of how much you are worth as a human being. That’s the game we play. Some people may think this way but it's a choice to surround yourself with those kinds of people.
  - swagasaurus-rex 8y ago

HeWhoLurksLate 8y ago

Why am I not surprised? At this point I have no trust in that company. It would be very unwise to listen to them, and very unfortunate for someone like Senator Warren and those who want to break them up to adopt their policies.

gopher2 8y ago

> Facebook exacerbates poisonous politics by creating filter bubbles of like-minded partisans, spreading hoaxes and inaccuracies, inducing anxiety and paranoia, rewarding clickbait and outrage, and so on The irony is that the media is doing this now, with respect to anything related to Facebook. Facebook is a website with 99.9% benign user generated content. The news media has been spreading outrage and paranoia and trying to get 'engagement' since before Facebook was born.

bshipp 8y ago
That's a little disingenous. No doubt you are correct that 99.9% of the user-generated content is benign, but that 99.9% of user-generated content would likely not represent 99.9% of viewer traffic. If only 0.01% of toxic content by terms of volume is receiving disproportionate attention and focus, not only permissible but actively encouraged by complex opaque algorithms, then it is certainly a much bigger problem then it's meagre character count would otherwise suggest.
- ptero 8y ago
  > If only 0.01% of toxic content ... is receiving disproportionate attention and focus, not only permissible but actively encouraged by complex opaque algorithms, then it is certainly a much bigger problem To me, this needs to be split into two use cases. The fact that .01% of content gets viewed a lot more than average is not a bad thing. Much of user content is junk with a heavy dose of ads for a seasoning. It is perfectly reasonable that original or thoughtful posts, even if unpleasant or provocative, get much higher traffic. The problem is the algorithmic reinforcement that encourages those making short-term sensationalist statements. Let's still allow folks to voice their opinions, whichever they are, and advertise them by the digital age equivalents to "word of mouth". Just keep it human, not algorithm driven. My 2c.
  - bshipp 8y ago
    I agree, that's a very useful and necessary distinction that I neglected to include in my original comment. Without those spontaneous user-composed opinions and anecdotes, the platform would quickly become (or perhaps already has become) plastic and artificial. As anyone having to relate information through a bureaucratic communications department has certainly experienced, even the most unique, interesting and useful story in the world stands little chance against an eager team of copy editors and PR representatives.

thepangolino 8y ago

As far as I'm concerned, the Internet has and always will have only one set of rules: https://archive.org/stream/RulesOfTheInternet/RulesOfTheInternet..txt https://archive.org/stream/RulesOfTheInternet/RulesOfTheInte...

izzydata 8y ago
And you already broke them just by linking them.
- aepiepaey 8y ago
  Rules 1 and 2 only apply during raids (on another site), and no-one is raiding this comment section, so no, they did not break the rules.
  - izzydata 8y ago
    That rule is not in the rules.

manfredo 8y ago

To be fair, Facebook has said since the beginning that regulation had a strong possibility of making competition harder and entrenching established players.

harry8 8y ago
To be fair, Zuckerberg has said anyone who trusts him in any way is an idiot.
- trpc 8y ago
  https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg#Quotes https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg#Quotes

jedberg 8y ago

Most government regulation benefits large companies at the expense of small companies, because large companies have more resources to make sure they are in compliance and have the lobbyists who help write the rules. So it's no surprise that new regs here would be helpful to big companies and harmful to small ones.

CharlesColeman 8y ago

Here's a regulation that I'd like considered: a default licensing scheme for personal data, that stipulates a 50% revenue share with the user of any money made from the use or sale of their data. The regulation would stipulate the scheme can only be renegotiated in a way that would be impractical to implement at scale (to avoid easy circumventions through TOS and click-throughs). This would hit the privacy-invading companies where it hurts, in their pocketbooks.

no1youknowz 8y ago
Profits based on the sale of data has been discussed a few times on HN. However, the price for it is so low on a per user basis. That said, there should be a law on the books that disallow the sale of data between companies. I'd wager this is the bulk of where Facebook makes it's money. That's where we should be targeting with legislation. The use of data should be fine. As the end-user or end-company never actually get their hands on the data. They just use a UI with categories and filters and put up ads based on the options available.
- gaogao 8y ago
  Facebook makes its money from selling ads. You can see this in its revenue report, https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2018/Facebook-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2017-Results/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/... Of course, these ads are highly targeted using all sorts of personal data, but they aren't actually selling the data, as that's also just less profitable.
  - no1youknowz 8y ago
    I know that. But is there a distinction in advertising between: 1) Allowing users to use the data for making ads. 2) Selling the data to companies such as Apple for other means. There isn't any visibility. This is what I'm trying to get at.
    - 8y ago

revscat 8y ago

Anyone want my Facebook password? I haven't used it in a while, but don't trust them to actually delete anything. Might as well poison the well. edit: u: james.childers@gmail.com , p: zaZLc&ncedu%X8apb$j9 Have at it.

awakeasleep 8y ago
I just reset your password, and logged out all active sessions. I appreciate the gesture you made, but you're exposing your friends and families to the random dregs of the Internet by giving away your account like that.
- revscat 8y ago
  Thanks, I guess? > I appreciate the gesture you made, but you're exposing your friends and families to the random dregs of the Internet by giving away your account like that. That's kind of the point. FB isn't going to change until it starts to suffer, and the a good way to cause it to suffer is to reduce its usefulness. The best way to do that is to make the feed useless. shrug Whatever. The account's locked now and I don't really care enough to unlock it. Interesting experiment.
  - Loughla 8y ago
    Real question. How does making your family deal with extra bullshit from the awful parts of the internet make facebook suffer? I don't understand your logic with this.
    - revscat 8y ago
      a) It's debatable how much people "suffer" from fucking with Facebook. Facebook is evil. Fucking with them is good. b) Facebook will only suffer if the feed becomes (more) useless. I don't understand how you don't see the logic. Bad feed -> worse FB experience -> decreased usage.
      - 8y ago

johnny313 8y ago

This seems like an attempt at classic regulatory capture. "Regulatory capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

samstave 8y ago
EXACTLY. Here is a surmised sequence of events: CONGRESS: Zuck come testify in front of us ZUCK: Crap! I am not comfortable with that PUBLIC: Zuck looks like a fucking android/alien, also screw FB for messing up our PII CONGRESS: You keep messing with privacy concerns of the public through ways and means we don't understand because we are dinosaurs, corrupt ones at that; how can we make money from you? ZUCK: (to FB C-suite++ legal a-team); HOW THE HELL CAN YOU MAKE ME LOOK SO STUPID! Buy them ASAP LEGAL-A-TEAM: (to the PUBLIC) "Zuck would like to make the internet more connected to our [ZUCK'S] vision of a more secure [FOR ZUCK] internet, which serves the needs [OF ZUCK's] users' privacy [CONTINUED ADDITION OF PII TO FB FOR THE PROFIT AND CONTROL OF FB AND NOW THROUGH THIS, EXTENDING TO TENTACLES IN THE .GOV] (On todays episode of "Zuck learns from GoldmanSachs")
- tsunamifury 8y ago
  Genuine question: Is it just me or does this reddit-style mugging for karma not really belong on HN?
  - kadendogthing 8y ago
    It doesn't belong anywhere.
  - klank 8y ago
    How would you describe a "reddit-style mugging for karma"? I didn't find the post you're referring to as having added anything additional to the conversation and I also didn't find it entertaining, which I believe was the poster's goal. However, I wasn't struck with some kind of "this is a bad thing from other platform" vibe.

notTyler 8y ago

On the one hand it's nice to see FB admitting to not being able to come up with a solution for their hate speech problem. On the other hand, putting it on the government when the government is struggling financially and FB is rolling in money, well, I don't know about that. They ought to reap the whirlwind they created and implode as things like the NZ attack become more common.

max76 8y ago

I'm not even upset that Facebook is lobbying for their own self interest. I just wish such a blatant attempt would have a lower chance of success.

freejak 8y ago
You just quashed your own fears. Fortunately this is going nowhere because it's so blatant.
- TAForObvReasons 8y ago
  That was said about many deeply unpopular pieces of legislation over the last few years (the Friday Night Tax Bill comes to mind).
- maratd 8y ago
  How are you so sure about this?
  - freejak 8y ago
    I'm not but Zuck isn't winning any popularity contests in congress or among the general public these days. Odd time for him to publish this piece IMO.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  The problem is blatant isn't a guarantee of not doing something - nor being a spectacularly bad idea.
- munk-a 8y ago
  It may be blatant to us but America has demonstrated an amazing ability to buy into delusions lately.
summerOf1999 8y ago
When I think about Facebook, who they are, and what they do, I try to remember that Facebook's version of The Internet is like what music was like during the summer of 1999. As a corollary for The Internet, they're about that talented and tasteful themselves, and they appeal to the same audience, owing to their success. To put that into perspective, look through the following list, and let it sink in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_in_music If you like that list, great. Kepp using Facebook. If you don't, fight it tooth and nail.

MagicPropmaker 8y ago

Imagine not being able to start a little grass-roots, home-grown social network without millions in capitalization for compliance. That's exactly what Zuckerberg wants.

pliny 8y ago

>Inviting the government to arbitrate what qualifies as “harmful” speech is a legal and ethical minefield, while establishing a third-party system to do the same would amount to offloading corporate responsibility. There’s no reason to expect every platform to adhere to the same content policies, but every reason to want them to exercise judgment and accept accountability. Is there a term for when journalists forgo making an argument about why something is bad in favor of just making a bunch of assertions + some negative sentiment words? Why is deciding what speech / UGC should be allowed in social media a 'corporate responsibility' such that letting the government or some 'impartial' NGO arbitrate this a bad thing? Why would you want every platform to have it's own content policy? Why do you want corporations to 'exercise judgement' and to be accountable (to the state? to journalists?) if you also don't want there to be some formal guidelines about what is or isn't allowed on social media?

horsawlarway 8y ago
That line was exactly where I lost interest as well. This author is stating that Facebook should make it's own decisions about harmful content, and that facebook should ALSO be accountable to some other entity for those decisions (presumably the government, but who fucking knows based on the content of the article...). While happily saying that creating any sort of governmental guidance on that issue is "a legal and ethical minefield". That's bullshit. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either create guidelines that steer company decisions here and apply them, or accept that companies will make decisions that do not match the author's idea of morality. You cannot judge a company without setting standards. You cannot let a company judge itself and expect them to make the decisions you think are correct.
- laughinghan 8y ago
  Well, legal accountability isn't the only kind of accountability. This is Bloomberg we're talking about, after all. This article links to their piece criticizing GDPR, which they say is all wrong because the solution to privacy problems is "transparent pricing and more competition". So I think maybe what they're saying here is that Facebook needs to exercise judgement and be accountable to the market. I don't think I really agree with them, but it's a coherent, internally consistent point, and on-brand for Bloomberg.

ryanmarsh 8y ago

I just want to know if anyone is surprised by this.

Matticus_Rex 8y ago

As usual, big business doesn't support free markets -- it supports regulations that it can deal with more easily than its competitors.

Chutzpah3 8y ago

This is very similar to Amazon pushing for higher minimum wage. Big lawyers of Facebook can deal with any regulation and no regulation would pass without Facebook's approval. This essentially is rent seeking behaviour and that is why I have stopped using Facebook. I only need to move away from Whatsapp now.

trpc 8y ago

Zuckerberg ruined the web, made sure that Facebook becomes synonymous with the internet for billions of people to make profit for himself using all means and created a generation of mentally unstable teenagers. This alone makes him among the worst criminals of the 21st century.

ancorevard 8y ago

Look, most government regulations ultimately favors the incumbent while making it much harder for new entrants to challenge the large organizations. Thus creating less competition which ultimately solidifies the status quo.

daenz 8y ago

The CEO has fiduciary duties related to not making any decision that would hurt the corporation. That's really all you should need to know about Zuck and the regulations he proposed.

lgleason 8y ago

I say repeal the law that exempts them from liability. It has had an un-intended consequence of allowing large pseudo monopolies to emerge. It has also given them an un-fair advantage over TV and newspapers who are liable for their content.

mathattack 8y ago
Revoking the abilities of companies to limit their liabilities is very hard. Very few companies could exist (certainly no public ones) if there was no bottom to what personal assets could be clawed back in a corporate bankruptcy. I’m not arguing that limited liability is perfect - just that we’ve built much of capitalism (including our ability to invest) on top of it.
Nasrudith 8y ago
If you apply that standard be careful with any walls on your house because you would be liable for death threats spray painted on it. Look at Gawker - they are liable for /their/ content. Not user content.

mic47 8y ago

So data portability is now bad, because Facebook is suggesting it.

skrebbel 8y ago

This article tries to make the case that, among other things, the GDPR "hurts everyone except Facebook". Wait, what? The GDPR is a net positive for citizen privacy. This article's attempt to spin it as an anticompetitive bigco-driven monstrosity is factually wrong and ignorant of the GDPR's history. I have similar (but less strong) doubts about this article's case that automated censorship is obviously better for "everyone except Facebook" if the rules about what to censor were set by tech molochs and not governments. I'm wary of any kind of censorship, but if we have to have it, I prefer the rules to be set in a public parliament and not some boardroom somewhere. "Corporate responsibility" my ass. At this scale, Facebook are public infrastructure and should be regulated as such. I'll gladly believe the author that Zuckerberg will always and only do things that benefit Facebook. Zuckerberg has shown time and time again that every single public initiative he takes turns out to be in Facebook's direct benefit and often in everybody else's disadvantage. Of course there's a hidden agenda here, there always is. But the author hasn't found it.

urNotImportant 8y ago
Wait, what? Was this thing written by Google PR? No, The Washington Post is owned by Amazon.

zimablue 8y ago

I'm not a Facebook fan but nor do I agree with this article, the analysis seems pretty shallow. Zuck's rules seems like broadly positive things, and like they'd benefit the competition more than this article lets on. Harmful content => Any government regulation of harmful content will probably hurt small players more, since it's a big fixed cost of moderation. But everyone will realistically pay that cost anyway unless they're something decentralized like Mastodon. Elections => Nothing to do with size of platform I think, they're just saying that it's disingenuous since filter bubbles are more important. I disagree, election financing is super important and as another poster said filter bubbles are as old as print. Privacy => It says that GDPR is terrible for small companies, but without any evidence (or spec of "small") I think for anyone the size enough to be looking to challenge Facebook it's not a big deal, and broadly I like GDPR. "Don't store people's data unless you need to, and ask permission". Not a bad first effort to trying to fix surveillance capitalism. Making data portable => This definitely, definitely would hurt Facebook more than help it. Noone is sitting on Instagram thinking "I'd swap to Facebook if only it was easier". They're the monopolist with the inferior product + network effects, that narrative makes no sense at all.

kreetx 8y ago
I had the same sentiment. Not to be harsh against Bloomberg, but it for a few of these the journalist doesn't know what he is talking about. The "sophisticated tools" to make data portable for example: building it in to any new social network wouldn't be all that difficult, and perhaps adds even a little mental structure over the data since now there are two types of output: the website/app itself, and the portable data export. Sounds good to me.
- chillacy 8y ago
  The crowd here is so cynical that I'd start to be suspicious that Zuckerberg is pulling a reverse psychology move on us.
wavefunction 8y ago
Making data portable means opening up our systems to Facebook, at least as far as I understand Zuckerberg's proposals.

fumar 8y ago

I have zero faith in Facebook as an organization doing the "right" thing. Their machine is fueled by highly targeted advertising. If you erode their targeting capabilities, then marketers will be quick to invest elsewhere. Funny enough, with ITP 2.1 and potentially a less cookie friendly Chrome, they are increasing FB's value prop to marketers. I am going to butcher this, I can't articulate it how I think it... Why do we need regulation for social network that is only as strong as its network. Is the network effect so strong users can't or will not leave on their own accord? I left FB and instagram a few years ago. It is just so funny to me that this entity (a people aggregator) is powerful but all we need to do is leave it. How many people in your network have to leave before it loses its value? Networks expand exponentially. Is the opposite true?

bitxbit 8y ago

I am quite surprised Sheryl Sandberg all but disappeared in the past few months from these discussions.

effnorwood 8y ago

Right!

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legitster 8y ago

All of the constant time in front of Congress is likely affecting their bottom line. The constant threat of regulation or breakup is getting to the point where it is harming the company more than any regulation would. It makes sense for Facebook to get in front of it. That said, obviously they shouldn't get to craft their own regulation. And any regulation setting the boundaries of an industry risks locking in the way it works (think how how awful dealerships are in the US). If we craft a set of rules for Facebook, we will almost guarantee that it continues to exist. My (very weak) opinion as someone who hates FB is that we keep the status quo - the constant pressure and hoop jumping and negative media cycles seem to do quite well at driving users away.

cxromos 8y ago

This article is wrong when it comes to GDPR. It could be a good thing. I friend invited me to MeWe via Twitter post and I accepted. I would like not to be able to export and if I wish delete my data. That would be my all of my data, including my contacts. I would import this data to MeWe, or what's possible. At the moment Contacts would do. Good for me and MeWe. This is what GDPR would allow. There is no open format for this exchange, but being on the market, someone will quickly come up with a service to convert the data, or MeWe guys could some up with import data from FB function.

shmerl 8y ago

I don't think anyone who built a network that exploits people's profiles for profit, should be setting privacy rules proposals.

madrox 8y ago

On the surface this isn’t shocking at all. And yet, when was the last time anyone really tried to compete with Facebook? Sure, they’re in the ad business like everyone else, but no one really competes with them on product. Yet whenever we hear about Facebook culture, it’s about move fast and break things. Is that really a culture equipped for coping with regulatory compliance? In my experience, the answer is no. So I’m really left scratching my head on this one.

ben_jones 8y ago
You can't compete with Facebook unless you commit the same invasive acts that allowed them to collect their data in the first place. Nobody is going to willing enter their phone-number, address, all their friends, all their contacts, all their meta data, at world-scale, anytime soon to some new start-up.
- madrox 8y ago
  That's kind of my point. If no one else is willing to compete, why bother advocating regulation that makes your incumbent advantage harder to maintain?

lostlogin 8y ago

According to the article ‘Zuckerberg deserves a hearing’. He didn’t show when called before the UK parliament, and if he doesn’t appear when it suits him, does he deserve a hearing? https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/mark-zuckerberg-parliament-uk-canada-westminster-dcms-select-committee-a8609996.html%3famp https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-st...

throwaway284721 8y ago
I think you should show up at my home to justify yourself for this comment in person, otherwise I don't think you deserve a hearing either.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  That’s not even remotely similar. His company interfered with an election and was asked to explain. He didn’t show. Why was your comment made with a throw away?

alexandercoward 8y ago

Maybe Facebook should convert into a Benefit Corporation. There's a petition for this here: https://www.change.org/p/mark-zuckerberg-convert-facebook-into-a-public-benefit-corporation https://www.change.org/p/mark-zuckerberg-convert-facebook-in...

deleted 8y ago

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Animats 8y ago

Yes, that was pretty obvious. The elephant in the room is advertising. This is all about ad targeting. Zuckerberg's "rules" totally ignore that. Of course.

aylmao 8y ago

I don't doubt regulation would help Facebook in some respects, but (in usual Bloomberg fashion) this article is also stretching some things a bit. For example: > Start with harmful content, which Zuckerberg defines as “terrorist propaganda, hate speech and more.” Facebook would prefer that someone else decide what constitutes such content and should thus be taken down. I agree with this. Having a private corporation that's invested in engagement, which is also headquartered in the US (very far geographically and culturally from some of the places it moderates) be in charge of defining what's right and what's wrong, is and has been a recipe for disaster— let alone the implications it could have around the sovereignty of nations. > But it’s hard to see how this would benefit anyone but Facebook. Excuse me, what? > Inviting the government to arbitrate what qualifies as “harmful” speech is a legal and ethical minefield, while establishing a third-party system to do the same would amount to offloading corporate responsibility. Isn't this the government's job though? To define what is a crime/wrong and what isn't, and to deal with the moral aspect of legal codes? Isn't this why we have laws? I don't think anyone is vouching for "big brother" type government control here, but governments always have a principal role in civil rights, inclusion and the moral development of a nation. It's part of their job, and the reason people care to have leaders with strong moral compasses as public servants. Has this view of government been lost in the US? > There’s no reason to expect every platform to adhere to the same content policies, but every reason to want them to exercise judgment and accept accountability. I'm there's things that should clearly be blocked or allowed. But the gray areas are what's being discussed here, and honestly I don't think that should be Facebook's job (or any private, American, for-profit corporation for that matter).

duxup 8y ago
I think there's a bit of a disconnect when it comes to "harmful" speech, and "illegal". The US government isn't going to decide what is "harmful" at least not for long as a legal challenge would quickly do away with any such rules. In the end the platforms have to decide for themselves and police themselves unless they want to be 4chan or whatever the next "post anything" kinda place is now a days. Right or wrong they're the only folks who can do it.
- 8y ago

slim 8y ago

There's no need to "regulate the internet", we only need to regulate social network operators. Regulation should look like this : * no ban of any user whatsoever * obligation to provide a public unlimited read only acess to standardized api for all the data * no private messaging and let a million better Facebooks emerge. The content policing problem will solve itself

adrian_mrd 8y ago

> On privacy, Zuckerberg has become an exponent of Europe’s behemoth rulebook, known as the General Data Protection Regulation. That approach is badly flawed in its own right: It undermines innovation, burdens companies, annoys users, and offers few benefits. Outside of the authors' views on Zuck.co, this is a myopic view of GDPR. In reality, GDPR empowers, rather than annoys users, and the regulations actually gives EU citizens some degree of control over their data - which is of increasingly huge benefit, especially their interactions with Orwellian companies like Facebook.

arendtio 8y ago
Well, I am sure there are some aspects which annoy users (e.g. having to search for the opt-out button on every page you visit), but AFAIK those are actually bad implementations. Sure, some things could have been done better, but ultimately the GDPR is a huge step in the right direction. It is good this article is posted as 'opinion' as it is quite opinionated (doesn't reflect my opinion though).

40acres 8y ago

Facebook knows regulation in coming and is transitioning from being anti-regulation to regulation on their terms (ie. regulatory capture). Unfortunately, I don't have much faith in our government to properly regulate technology, for one Congress seems totally unaware of how Facebook works ("Senator... we sell ads") and judging by the diasaters that were the great recession and the Boeing crashes, even a well known "strong" regulator isn't enough to curtail the biggest companies

return0 8y ago

This is exactly why regulation is needed: Articles like this, spreading misinformation and clickbait should not be allowed to be published.

3xblah 8y ago

"Zuckerberg deserves a hearing, but it's rarely a good idea to outsource regulation to the enterprise that most needs to be regulated." This sentence implies there are instances (albeit "rare") when it is a good idea to outsource regulation to the enterprise that most needs to be regulated. Can anyone cite a few examples?

am33 8y ago

I hate zuck as much as the next guy, but this writer is being dishonest. Data portability is the first step in allowing other companies to compete with FB and takes away a huge advantage they have (switching costs). Call a spade a spade.

emiliobumachar 8y ago

"Facebook would prefer that someone else decide what constitutes such content and should thus be taken down. But it’s hard to see how this would benefit anyone but Facebook." I can actually get behind this. As I said before, I'm wary of Fb and Google becoming judge and jury of what is or isn't acceptable speech. It's against their will now, but they may well grow to like it.

product50 8y ago

This is absolutely true. We all need to realize that regulations such as European GDPR, Article 13 etc. hurt newcomers a lot more vs. incumbents big players such as Facebook. Facebook will one way or the other nudge/influence/incentivize users to click on that "Agree" button to opt into sharing data with them. However, new players who don't have a surface where users come frequently enough, will be at a loss. And there will be no way they would be able to use growth tactics such as Facebook does to drive opt in. Please wake up and smell the coffee. Regulations are needed but GDPR is absolutely not the answer.

artemisyna 8y ago

All of this moderation stuff feels like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for Facebook. People have been crapping on Facebook for making judgement calls on what's allowed on its platform. When Facebook does so without government backing, people get up-in-arms saying that it should be the government's role to decide free speech. But when the company goes and requests that government start doing that, people get up-in-arms about how it'll be "regulatory capture". I can't predict what the outcome of all of this will be. I can however, predict that there will be an angsty article (Bloomberg? New York Times? Wall Street Journal?) decrying how Facebook is awful, evil, and incompetent.

ma2rten 8y ago
I feel like this entire opinion piece is just a knee-jack reaction against anything what Mark Zuckerberg has to say. I was giving it the benefit of the doubt until it started talking about how bad GDPR is. GDPR has some short-comings, but it's a bit less black-and-white than what this article makes it out to be. Maybe what Mark Zuckerberg saying really is self-serving but this article doesn't make any good arguments for it. It's just making assertions which it doesn't back up. I don't know if it's just me getting old, but I started noticing this kind of intellectual dishonesty more and more recently in the media and even here on HN.
- chillacy 8y ago
  I think a lot of psychological research confirms that people start with the opinion or position and find evidence (any will do) to back it up, not the other way around. So it's not surprising it shows up in lots of debates between people.

scotty79 8y ago

He just asks government to make some laws so he can just obey them and forget about the whole thing. He can't figure how to be good so he asks for explicit rules to be legal. Because business only needs to be legal to continue.

phillpot 8y ago

The article starts by saying that inviting the government to arbitrate is a legal and ethical nightmare, and establishing a third party is offloading corporate responsibility. It finishes saying that it's rarely a good idea to outsource regulation to the enterprise that needs it. So which is it? Gov regulation is no good, and self regulation is no good!

ddingus 8y ago

Is there any surprise? None. It is good to see this being discussed. I am not making light of that. The more I see the market shape our Internet, the more I feel some baseline law, to set reasonable, ethical norms, makes great sense.

choicenotchance 8y ago

That article seems to be written by someone running out of ideas.

duchenne 8y ago

> Facebook exacerbates poisonous politics by creating filter bubbles of like-minded partisans, spreading hoaxes and inaccuracies, inducing anxiety and paranoia, rewarding clickbait and outrage, and so on. An interesting example is the yellow vest protest in France. The mass media heavily emphasized the violence of the protesters. But, on social networks, people mainly shared videos of violence from the police. (ex: https://twitter.com/Albirew/status/1104799813076508673 https://twitter.com/Albirew/status/1104799813076508673 ) Another interesting news that was discovered thanks to social networks was that the public TV photoshoped a picture of the protest, changing a text from "Macron get out" to just "Macron" [1] The contrast between those two sources of information is striking. Both top-down mass media, and bottom-up social networks bring interesting news, but both are biased and inaccurate. [1] https://www.lesinrocks.com/2018/12/16/actualite/quand-france-3-censure-une-pancarte-anti-macron-111152498/ https://www.lesinrocks.com/2018/12/16/actualite/quand-france...

baby 8y ago
> But, on social networks, people mainly shared videos of violence from the police It was actually both.