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> The right answer to this question is to accept that the company is extracting / harming people. And admit that they didn't stop to think about that when they
by DuskStar 7y ago
> The right answer to this question is to accept that the company is extracting / harming people. And admit that they didn't stop to think about that when they were building it. That's understandable - they had no idea the impact that facebook would have on society when they were building it.
The right answer to "have you stopped beating your wife?" is not "yes" if you don't actually beat your wife.
Similarly, the answer to "did you know the thing you were doing was evil?" is not "no" if the thing you did was not evil. Answering like that is conceding the point.
- criddell 7y ago> Answering like that is conceding the point. But they have conceded the point. I think that's why things like Cambridge Analytica were mentioned so many times during the hearing.
- DuskStar 7y agoThere's a difference between "yes, Cambridge Analytica used our platform to do bad things and we facilitated that" and "our platform is fundamentally bad for you", though.
- nicoburns 7y agoBut if you can't give a convincing answer to "What are you doing to prevent that happening again?", then everyone's going to make that conclusion anyway.
- nicoburns 7y agoIf everyone knows you're in the wrong, then it's better to concede the point than stubbornly go on pretending like everything's ok. If you do the latter then it might help you in the short-term, but it's a great big red flag telling everyone that you can't be trusted.