7 ms·

Y'know, I'd like to believe I'd do that in this situation, too. But people are more generous in theory than in practice. You have to realize: Mark Zuckerberg is

by scythe 13y ago

Y'know, I'd like to believe I'd do that in this situation, too. But people are more generous in theory than in practice. You have to realize: Mark Zuckerberg isn't just looking out for Mark Zuckerberg by posting what he did. He has a family, a social life, and a whole lot of people at Facebook who depend on him. To whom, perhaps, it would not be fair for Zuck to martyr himself on the great gallows of the United States of Atrocity in futile protest of its horrifying surveillance subterfuge. It's very easy to ignore this sort of thing when it's not your ass on the line. Bradley Manning had a different kind of freedom, the kind that comes with nobody around you who can get hurt. The feds turned Sabu, the infamous LulzSec hacker, by threatening his three-year-old daughter. The United States government is not above such tactics. I don't, frankly, believe that Arrington himself would behave much differently in the same situation. Life is not that easy. Or, in the timeless words of Robert Oppenheimer: "I am become Death, destroyer of worlds."

treeface 13y ago
I think the point the OP is making is that if it were someone like Mark Zuckerberg, the protest wouldn't be futile. It would likely trigger a nationwide debate about the constitutionality of the program and it would possibly be overturned in court.
- scythe 13y ago
  The point of my post is that these people are surrounded by other people to whom they have obligations. You can't respond to two words without considering the context of the paragraph! It should be obvious that even a so-called "successful" action comes with extreme stress on one's associates. It means subjecting other people to risk. This cannot be considered lightly.
  - cerebrum 13y ago
    I don't get your point on obligations. He has a family ok, but nothing would prevent him from resigning from Facebook and writing a post explaining his reasons for doing so(unwillingness to spy on its users). He would still be a rich man able to provide for his family and there are tons of others who could step into his place. I'm not saying he should do that but with the amount of money he has he can afford to lose a job and still don't worry about his financial future.
    - peterjancelis 13y ago
      The government would go after Facebook as an entity when Zukerberg speaks out. This means other FB directors could be held liable, shareholders could sue him for breaching his fiduciary duty, his life could be made hell even if PR wise it's impossible to arrest him, etc. We are talking about the most powerful monopoly on force humanity has even seen here, a group of people who consider it their right to kill people or detain them indefinitely without a trial. I support what you say in theory, but a sign of intelligence is to take longer term approaches to solving the issue. (I would hope they are furious at the government for doing this or at least for hurting their business, I know I would be.)
      - glogla 13y ago
        There is no evidence of anyone taking longer term approaches. There is much evidence of Zuckenberg, Page and other just surrendering. It works the other way around than you say. Surrendering is short term win at the price of long term loss. Taking short term win at price of dooming us all is not nice behavior, even if being a dick might be intelligent.
      - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
        >The government would go after Facebook as an entity when Zukerberg speaks out. You honestly think the government is going to go after a multibillion dollar international corporation? Doing that is what gets the government into trouble, because the corporation has the resources to defend itself. And they're clearly not going to destroy Facebook and Google in any event -- can you imagine the public outrage, to say nothing of the economic damage? Governments retain power through leverage. They don't actually have the power to destroy everyone, but they have the power to destroy one person, and the power to threaten everyone with the risk of being that one person. When the government is wrong, this relies on everyone being too afraid to do the right thing, and people not talking to each other and working together. This is pretty basic stuff. If you stand up and no one else does, you die now. If no one stands up, you die later. If everyone stands up, you win. Which would you rather do?
        13y ago
Qz 13y ago
The whole reason we even know about all this is because someone did have that courage.
- peterjancelis 13y ago
  Yes, but do we really think that person will lead a long and untroubled life now?
  - e_w 13y ago
    Isn't this exactly the reason why these companies, which are infinitely more influential than the person who leaked it, have a civic obligation to take a stand?
  - pbz 13y ago
    And this summarizes everything that's wrong with the current ethos. We expect everything to be safe, and we expect everything to be easy. Nothing is above our comfort level and safety. Maybe the knife hasn't cut deep enough, or maybe we don't have the stamina to get off our couch. Either way, sad.
    - peterjancelis 13y ago
      I see nothing with this ethos and I'm a full blown anarcho-capitalist so it's not a lack of scepticism towards government that is to blame. The reason is that internet is winning over the state, which is now forced to a reactionary role adapting with regards to new technologies that come out at an accelerating pace. Some examples: Youtube and social media make war crimes more difficult to hide, Silk Road makes the war on drugs irrelevant, Bitcoin will make monetary policy irrelevant, open transactions will make the law system irrelevant, 3D printing will make border tariffs irrelevant, etc. Every software commit is a sign of progress, a log of someone trying to make the world a more voluntary, peaceful and decentralized place. Given all of this, please excuse me in not caring about the idiots in Washington, London, Brussels, Paris, Moscow and Bejing who want to make me believe they are worth my time and emotional investment.
  - 13y ago
s00pcan 13y ago
Or, in the timeless words of Robert Oppenheimer: "I am become Death, destroyer of worlds." meaningless, irrelevant words.
drivebyacct2 13y ago
Or they simply know more than we do. Maybe they've gotten the answers to "Why?" that we want and that convinced them? That's the "conspiracy" that almost worries me more. Not that I hold any real faith in such a thought.
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  That conclusion requires three things to be true simultaneously: 1) The government has some actual legitimate reason to do all of this which outweighs the danger of excessive government power. 2) Disclosing the reason to the public would eviscerate its effectiveness. 3) Allowing the government to say "trust us, we're the government" about anything from now on and get a free pass, because it could be this situation, will not result in the outrageous atrocities that governments have been known to commit when government accountability to the public is literally prohibited by law. I don't even buy the first two as being especially plausible, but the third is why this cannot stand.
  - drivebyacct2 13y ago
    I 100% completely agree with you. Everything else aside, as I said elsewhere, I'm tired of being treated like a child and told to shut up and not question things. That's what repressive governments do. "Just trust us, we know what's best for your "safety"".
- Zigurd 13y ago
  In how many instances in history has "We don't tell you for your own good." ever worked out to be true once the facts come out?
css771 13y ago
Sorry to go OT but those lines are not Oppenheimer's originally. They are from the Bhagavad Gita.
fijal 13y ago
"First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."
- Chris2048 13y ago
  That's a reply to who you should fight for things that don't effect you (or your group), not for when individuals don't want to join a greater fight for the sake of their dependants.
- jamespo 13y ago
  This isn't reddit. It also isn't particularly relevant.
  - bernardlunn 13y ago
    This story is no longer just a tech story.
- conroe64 13y ago
  That quote should be, "I didn't speak out because I saw what happens to those that do."
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    But that's kind of the point; if you don't speak out, it WILL happen to you anyway. As they say, if you don't deal with politics, politics will deal with you.
gingerjoos 13y ago
Just FYI : Oppenheimer was quoting the Bhagavad Gita. see http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer#Quotes http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer#Quotes
- einhverfr 13y ago
  Not a bad quote in context considering how things go for the Pandavas after the great battle that follows the Gita. That really is the sort of turning point from the harsh but adventurous world of the virtuous heros to the fallen world when the Pandavas fall from Dharma. Even Yudhisthira cannot stand by his principles to win the battle, and they suffer greatly as a result.
dasil003 13y ago
Whoah, hold on, I don't think anyone is saying this is easy or there aren't risks for Zuckerberg. However to say he shouldn't stand up against tyranny and abuse of government power because he has responsibility to parties x, y and z is exactly the line of thinking that allows totalitarian governments to thrive. Government power is not absolute, that power is derived from the people. No one person can stand up to the government, but the government can't fight everyone, and if Google, Facebook, et al stood up to them and signed some light on this issue it would not be so easily papered over by the spooks. Beyond that, in terms of public surveillance, Zuckerberg has real power in this sphere. You could even argue that he has more power than any individual has ever had. Certainly there is no bigger global database of personal information than Facebook. It doesn't matter if Arrington is being a hypocrite. It doesn't matter if I'm being a hypocrite. Zuckerberg, and indeed all technologists should stand up on this issue. If we love what computers can do, we owe it to the world to fight so that they don't become the Orwellian tool of control that totalitarian regimes have always dreamed of. We can't put the genie back in the bottle—data is going to be out there—but we can force the government to be more transparent. We can stand up and say that a handful of isolated terrorist attacks is not justification to ratchet up governmental power to something a thousand times more terrifying than any homicidal extremist ever could be. This is fundamentally one of the most important issues of our time, certainly far more important than the fate of any one company.
- vadiml 13y ago
  Risking one’s own well being to help the community is basically a definition of an altruistic behaviour. Nobody and i mean NOBODY can reach and keep the position of CEO of big international corporation by exhibiting altruistic tendencies. The environment is too competitive and it promotes egoism and punishes altruism. (BTW, The same reasoning stand for political leadership too). So, I don’t think we can really expect this call to be heard…
  - einhverfr 13y ago
    That is a problem to be solved then.
Ygg2 13y ago
If a man of such power and influence can't speak up, then what hope is there for others? Guess only those that have nothing to lose can speak.
lazyjones 13y ago
> He has a family, a social life, and a whole lot of people at Facebook who depend on him. He also has more means to defend himself, move out of harm's way, get active support from other people. > Bradley Manning had a different kind of freedom, the kind that comes with nobody around you who can get hurt. This is just nonsense. Manning has a family too (parents).
robomartin 13y ago
> You have to realize: Mark Zuckerberg isn't just looking out for Mark Zuckerberg by posting what he did. He has a family, a social life, and a whole lot of people at Facebook who depend on him. To whom, perhaps, it would not be fair for Zuck to martyr himself on the great gallows of the United States of Atrocity in futile protest of its horrifying surveillance subterfuge. He also has over a billion people who would raise hell if the US Government came down hard on him for doing nothing more than tell the truth about a government program and laws that few people would agree make sense. Having him put it all on the table to defend his user's privacy would say more about the company than any marketing or press release ever could. We, as individuals, are utterly powerless against our government. That's a fact. Just try to go up against the IRS or even your local Labor Board. People like him have the ability to really disrupt the surveillance state in ways we cannot. What would happen if all major 'net CEO's and founders agreed to tell the government to stuff it? They are going to arrest all of them? They woukd have angry mobs burning down Congress. These CEO's have real power. Perhaps it's high time they start exercising it.
- FajitaNachos 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure most of the one billion people you are referencing wouldn't give a shit if Mark Zuckerberg was in jail so long as Facebook was still up and running.
- hobs 13y ago
  >Having him put it all on the table to defend his user's privacy ... Defend their privacy so he can immediately sell it to the highest bidder?
- gcv 13y ago
  To be fair, Khodorkovsky was a billionaire, too. He'll get a third prison sentence on more trumped-up charges shortly. The existence of various kangaroo courts ("military tribunals") in the US security apparatus since the Bush 43 administration suggests that Zuckerberg's money and influence are nowhere near enough to protect him. The buck for such decisions stops at the Oval Office, and its current occupant has no reelection campaigns to worry about.

by scythe 13y ago

treeface 13y ago

I think the point the OP is making is that if it were someone like Mark Zuckerberg, the protest wouldn't be futile. It would likely trigger a nationwide debate about the constitutionality of the program and it would possibly be overturned in court.

scythe 13y ago
The point of my post is that these people are surrounded by other people to whom they have obligations. You can't respond to two words without considering the context of the paragraph! It should be obvious that even a so-called "successful" action comes with extreme stress on one's associates. It means subjecting other people to risk. This cannot be considered lightly.
- cerebrum 13y ago
  I don't get your point on obligations. He has a family ok, but nothing would prevent him from resigning from Facebook and writing a post explaining his reasons for doing so(unwillingness to spy on its users). He would still be a rich man able to provide for his family and there are tons of others who could step into his place. I'm not saying he should do that but with the amount of money he has he can afford to lose a job and still don't worry about his financial future.
  - peterjancelis 13y ago
    The government would go after Facebook as an entity when Zukerberg speaks out. This means other FB directors could be held liable, shareholders could sue him for breaching his fiduciary duty, his life could be made hell even if PR wise it's impossible to arrest him, etc. We are talking about the most powerful monopoly on force humanity has even seen here, a group of people who consider it their right to kill people or detain them indefinitely without a trial. I support what you say in theory, but a sign of intelligence is to take longer term approaches to solving the issue. (I would hope they are furious at the government for doing this or at least for hurting their business, I know I would be.)
    - glogla 13y ago
      There is no evidence of anyone taking longer term approaches. There is much evidence of Zuckenberg, Page and other just surrendering. It works the other way around than you say. Surrendering is short term win at the price of long term loss. Taking short term win at price of dooming us all is not nice behavior, even if being a dick might be intelligent.
    - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
      >The government would go after Facebook as an entity when Zukerberg speaks out. You honestly think the government is going to go after a multibillion dollar international corporation? Doing that is what gets the government into trouble, because the corporation has the resources to defend itself. And they're clearly not going to destroy Facebook and Google in any event -- can you imagine the public outrage, to say nothing of the economic damage? Governments retain power through leverage. They don't actually have the power to destroy everyone, but they have the power to destroy one person, and the power to threaten everyone with the risk of being that one person. When the government is wrong, this relies on everyone being too afraid to do the right thing, and people not talking to each other and working together. This is pretty basic stuff. If you stand up and no one else does, you die now. If no one stands up, you die later. If everyone stands up, you win. Which would you rather do?
      - 13y ago

Qz 13y ago

The whole reason we even know about all this is because someone did have that courage.

peterjancelis 13y ago
Yes, but do we really think that person will lead a long and untroubled life now?
- e_w 13y ago
  Isn't this exactly the reason why these companies, which are infinitely more influential than the person who leaked it, have a civic obligation to take a stand?
- pbz 13y ago
  And this summarizes everything that's wrong with the current ethos. We expect everything to be safe, and we expect everything to be easy. Nothing is above our comfort level and safety. Maybe the knife hasn't cut deep enough, or maybe we don't have the stamina to get off our couch. Either way, sad.
  - peterjancelis 13y ago
    I see nothing with this ethos and I'm a full blown anarcho-capitalist so it's not a lack of scepticism towards government that is to blame. The reason is that internet is winning over the state, which is now forced to a reactionary role adapting with regards to new technologies that come out at an accelerating pace. Some examples: Youtube and social media make war crimes more difficult to hide, Silk Road makes the war on drugs irrelevant, Bitcoin will make monetary policy irrelevant, open transactions will make the law system irrelevant, 3D printing will make border tariffs irrelevant, etc. Every software commit is a sign of progress, a log of someone trying to make the world a more voluntary, peaceful and decentralized place. Given all of this, please excuse me in not caring about the idiots in Washington, London, Brussels, Paris, Moscow and Bejing who want to make me believe they are worth my time and emotional investment.
- 13y ago

s00pcan 13y ago

Or, in the timeless words of Robert Oppenheimer: "I am become Death, destroyer of worlds." meaningless, irrelevant words.

drivebyacct2 13y ago

Or they simply know more than we do. Maybe they've gotten the answers to "Why?" that we want and that convinced them? That's the "conspiracy" that almost worries me more. Not that I hold any real faith in such a thought.

AnthonyMouse 13y ago
That conclusion requires three things to be true simultaneously: 1) The government has some actual legitimate reason to do all of this which outweighs the danger of excessive government power. 2) Disclosing the reason to the public would eviscerate its effectiveness. 3) Allowing the government to say "trust us, we're the government" about anything from now on and get a free pass, because it could be this situation, will not result in the outrageous atrocities that governments have been known to commit when government accountability to the public is literally prohibited by law. I don't even buy the first two as being especially plausible, but the third is why this cannot stand.
- drivebyacct2 13y ago
  I 100% completely agree with you. Everything else aside, as I said elsewhere, I'm tired of being treated like a child and told to shut up and not question things. That's what repressive governments do. "Just trust us, we know what's best for your "safety"".
Zigurd 13y ago
In how many instances in history has "We don't tell you for your own good." ever worked out to be true once the facts come out?

css771 13y ago

Sorry to go OT but those lines are not Oppenheimer's originally. They are from the Bhagavad Gita.

fijal 13y ago

"First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."

Chris2048 13y ago
That's a reply to who you should fight for things that don't effect you (or your group), not for when individuals don't want to join a greater fight for the sake of their dependants.
jamespo 13y ago
This isn't reddit. It also isn't particularly relevant.
- bernardlunn 13y ago
  This story is no longer just a tech story.
conroe64 13y ago
That quote should be, "I didn't speak out because I saw what happens to those that do."
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  But that's kind of the point; if you don't speak out, it WILL happen to you anyway. As they say, if you don't deal with politics, politics will deal with you.

gingerjoos 13y ago

Just FYI : Oppenheimer was quoting the Bhagavad Gita. see http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer#Quotes http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer#Quotes

einhverfr 13y ago
Not a bad quote in context considering how things go for the Pandavas after the great battle that follows the Gita. That really is the sort of turning point from the harsh but adventurous world of the virtuous heros to the fallen world when the Pandavas fall from Dharma. Even Yudhisthira cannot stand by his principles to win the battle, and they suffer greatly as a result.

dasil003 13y ago

Whoah, hold on, I don't think anyone is saying this is easy or there aren't risks for Zuckerberg. However to say he shouldn't stand up against tyranny and abuse of government power because he has responsibility to parties x, y and z is exactly the line of thinking that allows totalitarian governments to thrive. Government power is not absolute, that power is derived from the people. No one person can stand up to the government, but the government can't fight everyone, and if Google, Facebook, et al stood up to them and signed some light on this issue it would not be so easily papered over by the spooks. Beyond that, in terms of public surveillance, Zuckerberg has real power in this sphere. You could even argue that he has more power than any individual has ever had. Certainly there is no bigger global database of personal information than Facebook. It doesn't matter if Arrington is being a hypocrite. It doesn't matter if I'm being a hypocrite. Zuckerberg, and indeed all technologists should stand up on this issue. If we love what computers can do, we owe it to the world to fight so that they don't become the Orwellian tool of control that totalitarian regimes have always dreamed of. We can't put the genie back in the bottle—data is going to be out there—but we can force the government to be more transparent. We can stand up and say that a handful of isolated terrorist attacks is not justification to ratchet up governmental power to something a thousand times more terrifying than any homicidal extremist ever could be. This is fundamentally one of the most important issues of our time, certainly far more important than the fate of any one company.

vadiml 13y ago
Risking one’s own well being to help the community is basically a definition of an altruistic behaviour. Nobody and i mean NOBODY can reach and keep the position of CEO of big international corporation by exhibiting altruistic tendencies. The environment is too competitive and it promotes egoism and punishes altruism. (BTW, The same reasoning stand for political leadership too). So, I don’t think we can really expect this call to be heard…
- einhverfr 13y ago
  That is a problem to be solved then.

Ygg2 13y ago

If a man of such power and influence can't speak up, then what hope is there for others? Guess only those that have nothing to lose can speak.

lazyjones 13y ago

> He has a family, a social life, and a whole lot of people at Facebook who depend on him. He also has more means to defend himself, move out of harm's way, get active support from other people. > Bradley Manning had a different kind of freedom, the kind that comes with nobody around you who can get hurt. This is just nonsense. Manning has a family too (parents).

robomartin 13y ago

> You have to realize: Mark Zuckerberg isn't just looking out for Mark Zuckerberg by posting what he did. He has a family, a social life, and a whole lot of people at Facebook who depend on him. To whom, perhaps, it would not be fair for Zuck to martyr himself on the great gallows of the United States of Atrocity in futile protest of its horrifying surveillance subterfuge. He also has over a billion people who would raise hell if the US Government came down hard on him for doing nothing more than tell the truth about a government program and laws that few people would agree make sense. Having him put it all on the table to defend his user's privacy would say more about the company than any marketing or press release ever could. We, as individuals, are utterly powerless against our government. That's a fact. Just try to go up against the IRS or even your local Labor Board. People like him have the ability to really disrupt the surveillance state in ways we cannot. What would happen if all major 'net CEO's and founders agreed to tell the government to stuff it? They are going to arrest all of them? They woukd have angry mobs burning down Congress. These CEO's have real power. Perhaps it's high time they start exercising it.

FajitaNachos 13y ago
I'm pretty sure most of the one billion people you are referencing wouldn't give a shit if Mark Zuckerberg was in jail so long as Facebook was still up and running.
hobs 13y ago
>Having him put it all on the table to defend his user's privacy ... Defend their privacy so he can immediately sell it to the highest bidder?
gcv 13y ago
To be fair, Khodorkovsky was a billionaire, too. He'll get a third prison sentence on more trumped-up charges shortly. The existence of various kangaroo courts ("military tribunals") in the US security apparatus since the Bush 43 administration suggests that Zuckerberg's money and influence are nowhere near enough to protect him. The buck for such decisions stops at the Oval Office, and its current occupant has no reelection campaigns to worry about.