4 ms·

No matter how many times people bring up privacy issues or the "haha users are dumb fucks" quote in order to characterize Zuckerberg as evil, the fact remains t

by Sagat 13y ago

No matter how many times people bring up privacy issues or the "haha users are dumb fucks" quote in order to characterize Zuckerberg as evil, the fact remains that he has absurd amounts of money and power and is likely to remain that way for a very, very long time if medical science continues to advance in leaps and bounds. It's his company, and he can do what he wants. Your opinions are insignificant to him. We as a society need to start learning how to deal with this, accept our place in the food chain, and obey those more fortunate. We created Zuckerberg ourselves by collectively choosing to use Facebook to regulate our social lives; we must now accept the consequences and embrace the loss of our rights. Zuckerberg will forever win, and you will forever lose. He will own you for the entire duration of your life. You won't enjoy it, and neither will I, but it is a fact as immutable as the human condition itself.

antoko 13y ago
Or you know, you can just not use facebook. I closed my account 4 years ago. Never looked back.
- Sagat 13y ago
  You might not use it, but the websites you frequent and the people you socialize with will do so, and in some cases will be unable to live without it. You can try to escape, but you will still be within Zuckerberg's grasp, no matter how far you hide. He will hang over your life like a digitized sword of Damocles. Deep down, no matter what you tell yourself, you know you belong to him. His shadow will color every single thought you will ever conceive and every movement you will ever make. If you want a vision of the future, imagine Zuckerberg's boot stamping on a human face - forever.
  - de_monkey 13y ago
    no offence, but you sound like you've been brainwashed
    - Sagat 13y ago
      I should have indicated that my post was sarcasm, but I think the underlying point is correct. Most of our lives are determined by extremely powerful people because power and wealth are distributed in extremely unequal ways. The point being that HN posters complaining about Zuckerberg and his hypocritical views on privacy is not unlike an ant complaining about the kid who owns the ant farm. What are they gonna do about it?
jbail 13y ago
Well said. Not sure why you got downvoted. The fact that this is making news at all is silly. This is business as usual for Facebook and business as usual for a billionaire. FB doesn't care about your privacy and a rich guy bought some houses. I'm shocked!
_delirium 13y ago
In Europe, we are looking to take an alternative approach...
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  What are you referring to ?
  - _delirium 13y ago
    In regards to: > It's his company, and he can do what he wants. In any country, this is of course only true to the extent that he follows the applicable laws. In Europe, these laws are increasingly including provisions about data privacy. Therefore Facebook's attitude towards data privacy is not solely up to him, but also restrained by the democratic process. How effective this will be remains to be seen, admittedly.
    - Sagat 13y ago
      So far, laws that have tried to rein in software and the persons using them have been laughably impotent. Take Hadopi for instance. The legal profession and the people elected to the government are light years behind the current tech development. My post was partly sarcastic, but I was trying to illustrate just how little the opinions of 95% matter to "winners", i.e. powerful magnates and people who own entire industries.
    - johnchristopher 13y ago
      Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification.
Samuel_Michon 13y ago
> It's his company, and he can do what he wants. Facebook is a publicly held company. Mark Zuckerberg has less than 30% of its shares. > We created Zuckerberg ourselves by collectively choosing to use Facebook to regulate our social lives And people will let it until they lose trust in Facebook or if an alternative comes along that serves their needs better. AOL, Friendster, and MySpace came before, they screwed up, and are insignificant now.
- selmnoo 13y ago
  He's still pretty much the decision maker though. And anyway, I've always thought that the title 'publicly held company' is a bit of a misnomer. The word 'public' (to some people) almost implies a connotation of public interest and true public ownership... when the reality of it is actually the opposite in a lot of cases.
  - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
    Understood, but as a publicly held company, anyone with enough money can swoop in and buy enough shares to get a seat at the table, whether Zuckerberg likes it or not (people like Carl Icahn come to mind).
- belandrew 13y ago
  It's not that simple. Facebook has two classes of shares. While Zuckerberg only kept 28% of the shares, he kept 57% of the voting rights. So it's still entirely his decisions.
  - seiji 13y ago
    It's amusing and tragic how the big money people figured out how to subvert the stock = ownership = voting rights equation. It feels technically legal, but actually wrong on a couple levels. Their entire premise is "We're smarter than the rest of the world and you poor people can't be trusted with the big important decisions of us billionaires." This is social media on the internet after all—the most important advancement in humanity's collective history.
glesica 13y ago
Assuming you weren't being sarcastic, this is one of the most brain-dead things I've ever read on HN. Pointing out irony or hypocrisy is important because doing so helps to weaken false arguments put forth by those in power. For example, when someone like Zuckerberg claims that privacy isn't really important in the modern age (I may be mixing him up with one of the Google guys, the point is the same), then acts to increase his privacy, it tells people that perhaps he isn't being entirely honest. I will admit, though, that the HN crowd probably already knew these particular arguments were false, so perhaps the value of this link on this particular site is somewhat diminished. > We as a society need to start learning how to deal with this, accept our place in the food chain, and obey those more fortunate. This struck me as incredibly anti-market. Since when should any free market actor "accept" her place? Fuck that. If you don't like the way things are "change the world"! Isn't that what Silicon Valley does? I mean, the world usually ends up just as lousy as it was when things got started, but it sure is different! To me, there is no reason to think that Zuckerberg and Facebook will be unassailable for decades to come, to believe this would be to ignore the entire history of computing.
- Sagat 13y ago
  The post was overly dramatic and mostly sarcastic, but not entirely. My point is that we are under the illusory impression that our opinions matter. If you are like 95% percent of the population who don't have a significant amount of capital (whether political, social or economic) then what you think is largely irrelevant and it's delusional to think the contrary. As you said, the world usually ends "just as lousy" as before when things change. By lousy I mean that there will be a strict hierarchy of a few unimaginably powerful people exercising their will over the rest. Whether it's in a libertarian's wet dream or in the most claustrophobic dictatorial society, this will always be true. The average standard of living improves over time but the distribution remains the same. It's inevitable. Let's say you hate Facebook and its privacy violations. What can you do about it? Nothing at all. You may try to stage protests or send angrily worded letters to your representative, but at the end of the day, to people like Zuckerberg you will be the equivalent of a pesky bug, soon squished and forgotten. So go ahead and impress me! Change the world. You might think, "What about those people who didn't give up their dreams and changed history in the process?" Well, unless you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and armed with the right idea, it's extremely unlikely that you will have any impact at all on the world; hard work will never be enough. I want to change society as well, and I am constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to do so, but I also try to keep my expectations grounded in reality. I know I am not a protagonist according to whose life the story of the species evolves. It's highly possible, though not certain, that my life will be insignificant. I keep hoping it won't, but life isn't fiction and there are limits. I keep the glimmer of hope alive but I am fully aware that it emits only a pale light. tl;dr Stop being outraged about the hypocrisy of powerful people and don't convince yourself that you have the moral high ground; you will only hurt yourself. Might makes right.
ams6110 13y ago
Please. Zuckerberg cares about you to the extent he can advertize to you. That's it.
keithpeter 13y ago
"It's his company, and he can do what he wants. Your opinions are insignificant to him. We as a society need to start learning how to deal with this, accept our place in the food chain, and obey those more fortunate." I trust this was dark humour. On the offchance that it was meant seriously, try reading some history. Especially European, and especially in the period 1914 to 1945.

by Sagat 13y ago

antoko 13y ago

Or you know, you can just not use facebook. I closed my account 4 years ago. Never looked back.

Sagat 13y ago
You might not use it, but the websites you frequent and the people you socialize with will do so, and in some cases will be unable to live without it. You can try to escape, but you will still be within Zuckerberg's grasp, no matter how far you hide. He will hang over your life like a digitized sword of Damocles. Deep down, no matter what you tell yourself, you know you belong to him. His shadow will color every single thought you will ever conceive and every movement you will ever make. If you want a vision of the future, imagine Zuckerberg's boot stamping on a human face - forever.
- de_monkey 13y ago
  no offence, but you sound like you've been brainwashed
  - Sagat 13y ago
    I should have indicated that my post was sarcasm, but I think the underlying point is correct. Most of our lives are determined by extremely powerful people because power and wealth are distributed in extremely unequal ways. The point being that HN posters complaining about Zuckerberg and his hypocritical views on privacy is not unlike an ant complaining about the kid who owns the ant farm. What are they gonna do about it?

jbail 13y ago

Well said. Not sure why you got downvoted. The fact that this is making news at all is silly. This is business as usual for Facebook and business as usual for a billionaire. FB doesn't care about your privacy and a rich guy bought some houses. I'm shocked!

_delirium 13y ago

In Europe, we are looking to take an alternative approach...

johnchristopher 13y ago
What are you referring to ?
- _delirium 13y ago
  In regards to: > It's his company, and he can do what he wants. In any country, this is of course only true to the extent that he follows the applicable laws. In Europe, these laws are increasingly including provisions about data privacy. Therefore Facebook's attitude towards data privacy is not solely up to him, but also restrained by the democratic process. How effective this will be remains to be seen, admittedly.
  - Sagat 13y ago
    So far, laws that have tried to rein in software and the persons using them have been laughably impotent. Take Hadopi for instance. The legal profession and the people elected to the government are light years behind the current tech development. My post was partly sarcastic, but I was trying to illustrate just how little the opinions of 95% matter to "winners", i.e. powerful magnates and people who own entire industries.
  - johnchristopher 13y ago
    Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification.

Samuel_Michon 13y ago

> It's his company, and he can do what he wants. Facebook is a publicly held company. Mark Zuckerberg has less than 30% of its shares. > We created Zuckerberg ourselves by collectively choosing to use Facebook to regulate our social lives And people will let it until they lose trust in Facebook or if an alternative comes along that serves their needs better. AOL, Friendster, and MySpace came before, they screwed up, and are insignificant now.

selmnoo 13y ago
He's still pretty much the decision maker though. And anyway, I've always thought that the title 'publicly held company' is a bit of a misnomer. The word 'public' (to some people) almost implies a connotation of public interest and true public ownership... when the reality of it is actually the opposite in a lot of cases.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  Understood, but as a publicly held company, anyone with enough money can swoop in and buy enough shares to get a seat at the table, whether Zuckerberg likes it or not (people like Carl Icahn come to mind).
belandrew 13y ago
It's not that simple. Facebook has two classes of shares. While Zuckerberg only kept 28% of the shares, he kept 57% of the voting rights. So it's still entirely his decisions.
- seiji 13y ago
  It's amusing and tragic how the big money people figured out how to subvert the stock = ownership = voting rights equation. It feels technically legal, but actually wrong on a couple levels. Their entire premise is "We're smarter than the rest of the world and you poor people can't be trusted with the big important decisions of us billionaires." This is social media on the internet after all—the most important advancement in humanity's collective history.

glesica 13y ago

Assuming you weren't being sarcastic, this is one of the most brain-dead things I've ever read on HN. Pointing out irony or hypocrisy is important because doing so helps to weaken false arguments put forth by those in power. For example, when someone like Zuckerberg claims that privacy isn't really important in the modern age (I may be mixing him up with one of the Google guys, the point is the same), then acts to increase his privacy, it tells people that perhaps he isn't being entirely honest. I will admit, though, that the HN crowd probably already knew these particular arguments were false, so perhaps the value of this link on this particular site is somewhat diminished. > We as a society need to start learning how to deal with this, accept our place in the food chain, and obey those more fortunate. This struck me as incredibly anti-market. Since when should any free market actor "accept" her place? Fuck that. If you don't like the way things are "change the world"! Isn't that what Silicon Valley does? I mean, the world usually ends up just as lousy as it was when things got started, but it sure is different! To me, there is no reason to think that Zuckerberg and Facebook will be unassailable for decades to come, to believe this would be to ignore the entire history of computing.

Sagat 13y ago
The post was overly dramatic and mostly sarcastic, but not entirely. My point is that we are under the illusory impression that our opinions matter. If you are like 95% percent of the population who don't have a significant amount of capital (whether political, social or economic) then what you think is largely irrelevant and it's delusional to think the contrary. As you said, the world usually ends "just as lousy" as before when things change. By lousy I mean that there will be a strict hierarchy of a few unimaginably powerful people exercising their will over the rest. Whether it's in a libertarian's wet dream or in the most claustrophobic dictatorial society, this will always be true. The average standard of living improves over time but the distribution remains the same. It's inevitable. Let's say you hate Facebook and its privacy violations. What can you do about it? Nothing at all. You may try to stage protests or send angrily worded letters to your representative, but at the end of the day, to people like Zuckerberg you will be the equivalent of a pesky bug, soon squished and forgotten. So go ahead and impress me! Change the world. You might think, "What about those people who didn't give up their dreams and changed history in the process?" Well, unless you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and armed with the right idea, it's extremely unlikely that you will have any impact at all on the world; hard work will never be enough. I want to change society as well, and I am constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to do so, but I also try to keep my expectations grounded in reality. I know I am not a protagonist according to whose life the story of the species evolves. It's highly possible, though not certain, that my life will be insignificant. I keep hoping it won't, but life isn't fiction and there are limits. I keep the glimmer of hope alive but I am fully aware that it emits only a pale light. tl;dr Stop being outraged about the hypocrisy of powerful people and don't convince yourself that you have the moral high ground; you will only hurt yourself. Might makes right.

ams6110 13y ago

Please. Zuckerberg cares about you to the extent he can advertize to you. That's it.

keithpeter 13y ago

"It's his company, and he can do what he wants. Your opinions are insignificant to him. We as a society need to start learning how to deal with this, accept our place in the food chain, and obey those more fortunate." I trust this was dark humour. On the offchance that it was meant seriously, try reading some history. Especially European, and especially in the period 1914 to 1945.