Facebook CEO Accused of Securities Fraud

Precision noted that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg turned 26 last week, and gets to celebrate by being accused of securities fraud. This goes back to the old Facebook legend that Zuckerberg stole code from other Harvard students.

Comments

And, just like that, you see the message:

[ultraexactzz]

"You and 54,972 others like this."

Re:And, just like that, you see the message:

[Lumpy]

"big bad bubba poked you. -- poke back"

I don't suggest poking bubba back. He's more of a Top.

Re:And, just like that, you see the message:

[_xeno_]

Nope, only 11 people liked this as of the time I checked.

Because don't forget, even with all the whining about Facebook on Slashdot, Slashdot is on Facebook.

Although, strangely enough, this story didn't appear in my Facebook news feed, I had to go to the Slashdot page to see it. Hmmmm...

Re:And, just like that, you see the message:

[AltairDusk]

But how many Slashdotters follow Slashdot on Facebook rather than going straight to slashdot.org?

I've stopped using my Facebook account for the most part, it has the minimal amount of information allowed on it and will probably get deleted soon unless I actually think Facebook has had a change of heart about privacy (about as likely as me buying the Brooklyn Bridge).

Re:And, just like that, you see the message:

[turbotroll]

"You and 54,972 others like this."

Thanks to AdBlock I no longer see "I like" nor any other web bugs from Facebook.

Note to Owen Thomas

[smooth wombat]

The fin on top of your head doesn't do what you think it does.

Re:Note to Owen Thomas

[T Murphy]

Agreed. Wearing a Swede on your head is much more fashionable.

Remember, folks

[palegray.net]

While Facebook certainly has been in the press an awful lot lately given growing concerns over privacy issues, this is an accusation, not a conviction. From the article:

The latest unwelcome gift: accusations of securities fraud from former Harvard schoolmates who say he and other Facebook executives tricked them into a supposed $65 million settlement that was actually worth far less.

He may or may not be guilty of anything, so let's try to keep a cool head in the meantime.

Re:Remember, folks

[JustOK]

keep checking his status

Re:Remember, folks

[somersault]

He may or may not be guilty of anything

I've never actually done any research into the guy, but from all the stories up here I can pretty much tell he's a douche.

Re:Remember, folks

[palegray.net]

At least in the court of public opinion, I think you've got an accurate statement there :).

Re:Remember, folks

[Bieeanda]

Damn you, voice of reason!

Re:Remember, folks

[Pojut]

I gotta say, I'm not all that surprised...think about it, you're just an average college student, and not a few years later you're a billionaire. That's gonna fuck with your ego, no matter who you are.

Re:Remember, folks

[ElectricTurtle]

Oh to be so burdened.

Re:Remember, folks

[Opportunist]

In other words, either an effing HUGE group of people is out to slander that guy into oblivion or at the very least some of the accusations have to be true.

Occam's Razor tells me which one is more likely.

Re:Remember, folks

[palegray.net]

Or there are some people who really want to get their hands on more money, which also qualifies as a pretty simple explanation. We don't really know either way, and that's why we have a court system.

Re:Remember, folks

[nedlohs]

"Accused" is in the title.

Now I realize this is slashdot and people don't read the articles, or even the summaries sometimes. But I think we can assume they read the fucking title.

Re:Remember, folks

[TooMuchToDo]

He's a billionaire *on paper*. That *worth* could be wiped away in seconds.

Re:Remember, folks

[lorenlal]

Especially when you make that money by screwing other people over in the first place (allegedly).

BTW - I'm not a huge fan of the fact that the summary refers to the allegations as "legend." That strongly implies that it never happened... And there's decent indication that it may have.

Re:Remember, folks

[dAzED1]

yeah, the worst-case scenario could happen, and he could be reduced to just a couple hundred mill. Wouldn't that be a shame :/ I can't imagine trying to live off that much as a 26yo; ramen every day, yuck!

Do you *really* think that he hasn't diversified at least a little by now?

Re:Remember, folks

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do you *really* think that he hasn't diversified at least a little by now?"

He has. Into securities fraud.

Re:Remember, folks

[TooMuchToDo]

26 year old with a company's worth based on expectations alone? No, I doubt he's diversified a huge amount. And if he doesn't get lucky and sell like Myspace, he'll end up with something worthless when the next social whathaveyou comes around.

Re:Remember, folks

[blind biker]

He was not yet a billionaire when he called the Facebook users "dumb fucks". That's right, he was 19, long before those billions would have hit his ego too hard, and already calling the users of his service dumb fucks.

Once that sinks in, I think we can conclude that he has been a douche all along.

Re:Remember, folks

[schmidt349]

The key word there is the "allegedly." And no, there is absolutely no truth to the allegation. The Winklevosses are upset about how the settlement turned out for them and they're rattling the cage to see if any more money will fall out. They're being dunned by their lawyers for non-payment of legal fees.

Re:Remember, folks

[palegray.net]

Man, I don't assume anything about Slashdot, having seen people manage to screw up just about every aspect of a story.

Re:Remember, folks

[palegray.net]

Kinda like some trader accidentally entering "B" instead of "M" ;) ?

Re:Remember, folks

[AthleteMusicianNerd]

I don't think he was an average college student. I'm sure he was a privileged college student.

You'd think people would learn from the dot bomb that the technology for this company can be recreated relatively easily and also see that myspace was the place to be just a year or two ago and like a flip of a switch it evaporated.

Re:Remember, folks

[Lumpy]

no. 26yr old = not enough experience in the world.

It's why he's know as a raging ass to many that deal with him. he's outright cocky and it will bite him in the butt.

Honestly, after reading the accidental billionaires book http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/books/20maslin.html
  I am certain that I would not want to have ever had to deal with the man. Every account of him makes him feel "slimey" and sets off all my red flags.

Re:Remember, folks

[postbigbang]

It's not like his investment is liquid.

But perhaps if he gets smacked around, the investors get cold feet, maybe Microsoft or Oracle or who knows buys it and makes him kind of rich. As in way-rich. The financing that he has means his share is still pretty good..... that is, until whatever comes after Facebook arrives. Facebook arrived after MySpace, which came after various GeoCities, and so on.

Facebook has immense number of users that might be happy to find a subsequent provider that does something more, like hosts as many photos as they can upload (people are obsessive about pics) or does something else, like rents them movies or something. Facebook has no monopoly, just massive success. It could evaporate in a single quarter. Apple knows this very well.

Re:Remember, folks

[Lumpy]

The funny part is that he has pissed off all his users enough that as soon as there is something that is even just as good as facebook, they will flock to it like crazy leaving him with nothing.

The only reason most people I know are on facebook are because of friends. and when friends start flocking elsewhere to a interface that has less suckage as facebook.... suddenly his empire becomes a moist turd in the bottom of a subway toilet.

Re:Remember, folks

[elrous0]

The evidence is pretty clear that he stole code from UConnect. They even caught him openly bragging about it (which also provides further evidence that he wasn't bright enough to code in the first place). If you're going to steal, at least put some distance between yourself and the people you stole from--and keep your mouth shut about it.

Re:Remember, folks

[jgs]

leaving him with nothing.

... except a lousy few billion in the bank, assuming he's had enough sense to diversify.

Yeah, the laugh will definitely be on him.

Re:Remember, folks

[CapnStank]

By the time people are 19 or 20 their personalities for the remainder of their lives are pretty much set. It takes some catastrophic event to change it (and rarely occurs). So yes, you're right. He was a douche all along: he just needed a reason to be extroverted about it. That reason happened to be fame and money.

Once a douche always a douche.

Re:Remember, folks

[Yakasha]

He's a billionaire *on paper*. That *worth* could be wiped away in seconds.

Oh, well, in that case, I'll just stick with my ... $26.31.

Re:Remember, folks

[palegray.net]

I don't think this case is about stolen code; it's described as being about a dispute regarding the settlement that resulted from the previous dispute over that (round and round and round we go I guess).

Re:Remember, folks

[ClosedSource]

"And no, there is absolutely no truth to the allegation."

And you know this how?

Re:Remember, folks

[dzfoo]

Oh HAI!

Muz be ur frist time heer!

Welcom to /. I hope u liek it.

      KTHXBAI

Re:Remember, folks

[dward90]

I've always hated everyone harping on this comment. He was 19. He had no idea that Facebook was going to become the culture-altering phenomenon, or even that almost everyone in his country would know who he is.

I make comments like this. All the time. And I'm older than 19. I made a system this spring that controls a distributed computing environment. I had control over every single machine on a major university campus. I said something like "Wow, the Computer Science department is full of morons for letting me do this."

Zuckerberg may be an ass, but an informal conversation he had when he had no clue what the implications of his work would be is not a valid point for proving it.

Re:Remember, folks

[fishexe]

I gotta say, I'm not all that surprised...think about it, you're just an average college student, and not a few years later you're a billionaire. That's gonna fuck with your ego, no matter who you are.

Actually, from what I hear he had that kind of ego from the beginning. Read some of the leaked emails if you don't believe me.

Re:Remember, folks

[palegray.net]

Slashdotters tend to confuse those terms, time and time again. Just have a look at any given story about someone being accused of a crime.

Re:Remember, folks

[dreampod]

I'll acknowledge that the 'legend' in the summary made me automatically suspicious of the article.

While the allegations may or may not be true from a criminal or cival standpoint but based on the publicly acknowledged facts Zuckerberg (at best) was a deceitful douchebag. He failed to follow through on his contracted obligations while simultaneously developing a competing platform using many of the same ideas. Whether he actually took code from the project and used it in facebook is unproven either way (from a real standpoint not a legal one) and irrelevant. It would be like claiming that O.J. killing his wife was a 'legend', while he may not have a claim that it is a legend implies that there is no reasonable way an informed individual might conclude that.

Re:Remember, folks

[oddTodd123]

Do you *really* think that he hasn't diversified at least a little by now?

He hasn't had much chance. Facebook is still a private company after all. Estimates of his net worth are based on his share of Facebook ownership, which is valued at whatever the latest investor valued it at. Unless he has sold more of Facebook (which he hasn't), his worth is theoretical, short of whatever salary he takes (which is probably pretty generous).

Re:Remember, folks

[gyrogeerloose]

Oh to be so burdened.

Yeah. I'd love the chance to prove that becoming a billionaire wouldn't fuck with my ego...

Re:Remember, folks

[oddTodd123]

http://topnews.us/content/24335-forbes-billionaire-list-no-longer-figures-mark-zuckerberg-leading-vcs

It's already started! Yay!

Re:Remember, folks

[gyrogeerloose]

Now I realize this is slashdot and people don't read the articles, or even the summaries sometimes. But I think we can assume they read the fucking title.

Are you kidding? A lot of them don't even read the comments. It's the only explanation for many of the replies I've gotten some of my own posts--replies that show a complete disregard for or ignorance of what I actually said.

Re:Remember, folks

[JustOK]

they wouldn't have been accused if they were guilty. You must be a terrorist.

Re:Remember, folks

[spire3661]

"The measure of a man is what he does with power" - Plato. As true 2000 years ago as it is today.

Re:Remember, folks

[schmidt349]

Well, I mean, a judge called the alleged contractual obligations "evanescent.". But you seem to be taking them as factual, and that they happened more or less the way the Winklevosses claim they did. Why are you doing that?

What I'm espousing here basically amounts to critical reasoning skills. Who's making these claims? What is their motivation for doing so? What other possible explanations exist for the alleged facts, and are they more or less credible than what is being claimed? What's the background to this accusation?

Whenever I have a "gut feeling" about something I always do my damnedest to try to disprove it, because "gut feelings" are invariably based in emotions rather than rationality.

Re:Remember, folks

[palegray.net]

I'm not saying JustOK raped and murdered a young girl in 1990, but I don't hear him denying it.

;-)

Re:Remember, folks

[jgs]

Prove to me he has billions in the bank.

I thought I was clear -- "assuming he's had enough sense to diversify".

I'm certain he does not considering his lifestyle.

It must be nice to be so sure of things!

Re:Remember, folks

[jgs]

enough sense to diversify.

Ah, I hadn't realized FB hasn't IPO'd. So GP is right, he could end up with the short end of the stick.

Re:Remember, folks

[yelirekim]

I'm not one to take the word of a New York times columnist as absolute fact, but the review you yourself have posted of that book clearly indicates that it's horribly embellished.

Re:Remember, folks

[JustOK]

Bastard! I was covering up for you. You were so sweet pre-op and now look at you.

Re:Remember, folks

[palegray.net]

/me hangs his head in shame from the effects of i-just-cant-resist-itis :)

Re:Remember, folks

[Hurricane78]

It’s always easy to become a billionaire, if you don’t have any moral values (aka “soul“) whatsoever.
Others in this line of “success“ reach from Bill Gates to Adolph Hitler*.

* And with that I am closing this discussion. ;)

Re:Remember, folks

[quanticle]

I've never actually done any research into the guy, but from all the stories up here I can pretty much tell he's a douche.

That's true, but, most highly successful people are no better. Look at Steve Jobs. Or Steve Ballmer. Or Larry Ellison. I think it takes a special form of ambition to take an idea and turn it into a successful business. Unfortunately, for many people that drive warps other aspects of their personality and turns them into douches.

Re:Remember, folks

[tehcyder]

He's a billionaire *on paper*. That *worth* could be wiped away in seconds.

Well if a paper billionaire can't work out a way to salt away at least a few millions in real money, he's a fucking moron. I seriously doubt he'll ever be out begging for change and living in a cardboard box, however amusing the image.

Re:Remember, folks

[rtb61]

This securities fraud investigation still does make you stop and think about how these social networks could be used to data mine the employees of companies to gain early financial knowledge about a company to effectively engage in insider trading.

Not just Facebook, but M$, Google, MySpace et at, all of them could likely make a killing in investments by data mining company information, especially when you start looking at cloud services. Billions of dollars can be up for grabs in insider trading a temptation that your typical corporate executive will find impossible to resist.

The FCC in wanting to secure internet data traffic and prevent monitoring and filtering by carriers especially considering VOIP could be a step ahead of the SEC in preventing telecoms and ISPs from data mining their customers for an enormous investment advantage. I am wandering if the incumbents do not also have this in mind when they are so actively fighting against net neutrality. Ahh, sociopath corporate executives you can't live with them and you can't live without, oh wait, everyone can actually live much better without them.

And you know what they say

[Thanshin]

Those who desire to steal securities in order to gain freedom will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.

Re:And you know what they say

[gyrogeerloose]

+5 Funny but gong-worthy!

True, but how can something be so funny at the same time it tortures the language so badly that it makes my head hurt just to read it?

All i can say is

[Combatso]

I bet he will regret the 'Poke' feature if he does time

Re:All i can say is

[blackraven14250]

It's much funnier when the guy is in jail for committing a crime, and not just randomly walking around on the street.

Re:All i can say is

[cosm]

With freedom of speech inherently comes the right to be offended occasionally. Deal with it. Or curl into a ball of sensitivity, write your congress to have more 'sensitivity laws' passed and more anti-obscene social mores proliferated so we can be more polysocially-correctified into dull, dreary, non-offensive, bubbles and fairies and sunshine oblivion.

Re:All i can say is

[izomiac]

Well, I, for one, think having a dark sense of humor is a lot better than ignoring an issue entirely. Nobody really wants to dwell on such things, so if it weren't for humor they likely wouldn't be brought to public attention much at all.

Time to Friend Martha Stewart

[codeAlDente]

I bet Pakistan is behind this - shut down the site, and shut down the man.

Where's the Securities Fraud?

[darkmeridian]

I didn't see anything in the article that suggests he was accused of securities fraud, which generally means an accusation from the SEC for something like insider trading. Ripping off counterparties in a settlement deal may not be great behavior (even though the plaintiffs' lawyers should have realized this a lot sooner than they did) but it is not the same as saying there was securities fraud. Again, it sounds like the article is flamebait or the author just has no idea what he's talking about.

Re:Where's the Securities Fraud?

[dward90]

FTFA: " The latest unwelcome gift: accusations of securities fraud from former Harvard schoolmates" He's being accused by people, not by the SEC, but it's pretty clear that article suggests he was accused.

Re:Where's the Securities Fraud?

[Fnkmaster]

I am not a securities lawyer, but the SEC 1934 Act allows private civil suits regarding securities fraud. This act has been amended and reformed and affected by case law, but you can get the basic gist of modern requirements for civil securities fraud lawsuites here.

The securities don't have to be publicly traded. You don't have to sit around and wait for the SEC to investigate. If somebody made material misrepresentations in connection with the sale of securities, that's enough to meet the basic threshold of being subject to this law and open to civil suits. Then there are just a series of bars to get over regarding showing that the person knowingly caused you to lose money and had the intention of screwing you.

These things are expensive to litigate, so the stakes have to be high. Your average $250k angel investment gone wrong isn't going to be something you bring to court. A class action representing thousands of shareholders who each lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a publicly traded company, however, has enough money at stake to see this sort of lawsuit fairly frequently.

This case is only unusual in that most parties to large private investments on this scale (tens of millions of dollars) are private equity firms or venture capital funds and they generally can do their own due diligence on transactions in the tens of millions of dollars and can afford to write off the expected percentage of complete losses and partial losses. In this case, the suing party took securities that may have been misrepresented as settlement for a lawsuit, and presumably didn't have the resources on hand to conduct their own due diligence.

So I can't say for certain whether a judge will allow this case - are securities offered as part of a settlement being "offered for purchase or sale"? You'd have to ask a lawyer to tell you whether that is technically the case, but if they accepted the securities in lieu of cash, there might be a case for that.

But just because you don't hear about this kind of case terribly frequently doesn't mean it's total bullshit or that the author is flaming or an idiot.

Re:Where's the Securities Fraud?

[elrous0]

The plaintiffs are alleging that he knowingly overstated the value of Facebook stock in his earlier settlement. That's definitely a SEC no-no.

Re:Where's the Securities Fraud?

[UnknowingFool]

Unfortunately this might take a while to settle. Even if the terms of the settlement was all written down in clear language: "Party 1 shall receive common stock" ie, lawyers can argue for years about it. See Novell v SCO.

Re:Where's the Securities Fraud?

[darkmeridian]

First of all, I doubt that the author recognized a private cause of action. More importantly, this isn't a securities fraud case because there hasn't been a material misstatement about the stock. They told the opposing party exactly what was going on. They used their own valuation but it's not like they made up fake information or deceived the counterparty about what was going on.

Re:Where's the Securities Fraud?

[quanticle]

Well, according to the article, there were two valuations - one for the preferred shares, and one for common shares. The valuation of the settlement was made on the basis of the value of preferred shares, whereas the settlement itself was conducted in common shares. As far as I can tell, that's the basis for the plaintiffs' case - they were promised one thing (preferred shares) but were given something else (common shares).

Zucked!

[Cigarra]

How ugly could things turn to Mark Zuckerberg and fb? Will we witness facebook's untergang?

Bill Gates stole code for from the dumpster...

[number6x]

Bill Gates stole code for from the dumpster for his BASIC compiler that he based his fortune on, why should Zuckerberg be investigated when Gates isn't?

When will billionaires ever get a fair shake in this world?

Re:Bill Gates stole code for from the dumpster...

[UninformedCoward]

Because the dumpsters litigation was trash...

Re:Bill Gates stole code for from the dumpster...

[CastrTroy]

In the end, it's not really the code that matters much anyway. Apple has much better code than Microsoft, and yet Microsoft has the largest market share. IE has huge marketshare, even though it's been the worst browser for many years, it's only now starting to fail. Red hat and Mandriva both have Linux at the core (Mandriva actually started as a fork of Redhat) yet Redhat is doing well, and Mandriva is approaching bankruptcy. Code matters very little in the end, and there's a lot more to creating a good business than just having the code.

Re:Bill Gates stole code for from the dumpster...

[fishexe]

...why should Zuckerberg be investigated when Gates isn't?

When will billionaires ever get a fair shake in this world?

Gates was investigated, then when we got an irrationally pro-business president in the WH the DoJ dropped the case even though they were winning.

Billionaires will get fairly cut down to size when we stop electing Republicans.

Re:Bill Gates stole code for from the dumpster...

[Hurricane78]

That’s like saying: Why should Hitler be investigated, when Attila wasn’t. One wrong does not make another wrong right.

Re:Bill Gates stole code for from the dumpster...

[ultranova]

That's like saying: Why should Hitler be investigated, when Attila wasn't.

If Hitler and Attila both lived under the same jurisdiction, and were suspected of similar crimes, then yes, either both should be investigated or neither should. This is because everyone is supposed to be equal before law, rather than law being something some people are subjected to and others not. Selective enforcement is not acceptable.

One wrong does not make another wrong right.

However, saying that someone else was allowed to get away with similar crimes is a perfectly valid defence. I believe the legal term is "doctrine of precedent", or "equality before law".

Re:He's getting what he's due.

[Pojut]

People. You don't have to use a dash when writing "god". That is used when writing god's name on paper, because you aren't technically supposed to physically destroy god's name.

It is irrelevant when written on a computer.

Oh noes

[hsmith]

How could anyone settle for only $65mil? God I don't think I'd be able to live with that small sum of cash.

Re:Oh noes

[BenFenner]

The plaintiff(s) accuse him of not delivering on the promised (hello get it in writing?!) $65m but delivering less.

Re:Oh noes

[CharlyFoxtrot]

They're Harvard graduates coming from a family that's very chummy with the Fortune 100 and can apparently afford lawyers that can take on a billion dollar company. $65 million is probably chump change for them. The overprivileged fighting among themselves for a bigger piece of the pie; couldn't care less.

Hating facebook

[goombah99]

How we humans love to tear down success. It's in our social nature. So it's perhaps ironic that Facebook, the top predator in the land of social acceleration, is having a bad week and we are all enjoying the schadenfreude.

That observed, one can realize there are good reasons to hate face book, and overblown ones. Facebook is changing social norms, including privacy norms, faster than the older generations are comfortable with. This could be good in some cases, but there's also can be excellent reasons why traditions became traditions. For example I try to keep a tight hold on my personal information but I can't exactly tell you why I care so much. I just innately think it could come back and bite me. Also it seems a little unseemly to burden others with oversharing. Also people are mean.

My hope is that as the bad reasons get debunked we don't lose sight of the good reasons for hating facebook.

Re:Hating facebook

[mikael_j]

Well, to be honest Facebook really wasn't the first "community" website, or the first site to have the features that it has, it just happened to manage to become the biggest.

Personally I don't mind congratulating and rewarding whoever first came up with an idea (although almost everything "new" is built on what came before it in one way or another, I doubt there was some caveman who woke up one morning, had some leftovers from yesterday's hunt and then figured out the theory of relativity) but why should we all smile and pretend we admire Zuckerberg just because his site happened to become the biggest? By the same logic no one should be criticizing Microsoft because they, after all, managed to become the biggest. Or IBM for that matter, or any other industrial, political or military giants. Hell, we should all have been congratulating the soviets on a job well done when their nuclear arsenal surpassed the US one (and if some brownnosing people had their way we'd also be rewriting the history books to ignore any US achievements in building nuclear weapons that came prior to the soviet equivalents).

A lot of what is considered "business savvy" these days is really just a matter of some decent knowledge of a subject (but not "OMG NEW EINSTEIN!!1" knowledge, just solid knowledge) combined with luck and timing (and you can get lucky when it comes to the timing, your idea might have been tried by some other guy a year ago when the market wasn't ready for it but now the market is ready for it and since you were unaware of the other guy's failure you take another stab at it, or maybe you simply took longer to complete your product/service and the other guy was actually better than you but ignored by customers/users because the market wasn't ready yet, just because you're "first to market" isn't a guaranteed path to profit).

Re:Hating facebook

[spun]

Humans do not hate success. Humans love a winner. We love deserved success, success that comes from hard work, determination, and smarts. We hate undeserved success, that comes from taking advantage of others. We are social animals, born with an innate sense of fairness. We don't hate success, we hate injustice and unfairness.

Re:Hating facebook

[jeffmeden]

Facebook pandered to privacy-ignorant college students by offering very unique features. Remember how it used to tell you and all your friends your very physical location when you signed on, and by default no less! People ate that stuff up, and when they realized how bad of an idea that was it was too late; everyone was on facebook, it was the defacto social network for college students.

Re:Hating facebook

[betterunixthanunix]

"Facebook is changing social norms, including privacy norms, faster than the older generations are comfortable with."

Older generations? I do not consider myself to be part of the "older generation," having gone to elementary school in the 90s, and I am not comfortable with the effect Facebook has had on privacy.

Re:Hating facebook

[goombah99]

Isn't there a huge difference between the companies you list (IBM and MS) and Facebook? IBM and Microsoft got big through hard work and smart business behavior and it took them a quite a long time and a lot of persistence. In the case of MS the products may have been crap but they were crap people wanted. for example, to carnoivres steaks are great but they take skill to prepare so there is actually a lot more revenue in hot dogs which we all know are crap but what we love. MS made crappy software but it did in a way that let oem equipment makers mass market the PC at cheap prices. You got what you paid for, but it was designed carefully to be what you were willing to buy.

Facebook seems to have gotten big mainly by chance. like being the only bacteria in the pietry dish. The only savvy they had was realizing the peitre dish was available and rushing to get there first. But because it happened so fast-- basically just at the moment it was technically possible it happened-- we suspect that maybe even they did not realize it. It's like Yahoo, ebay or craigslist. Someone was going to do it. One lucky bacteria got there first.

Re:Hating facebook

[TerranFury]

born with an innate sense of fairness.

More on this: The Moral Life of Babies.

Re:Hating facebook

[loudmax]

Personally, what I find worthy of hate isn't the lack of privacy, it's their locked-in system. Users create a web of friends in Facebook, and that web only exists inside FB's servers. Within Facebook you can't link to friends on LinkedIn or Myspace or Buzz or whatever. Protocols need to be used that allow users to link identity across social networks.

As far as privacy goes, it's really a question of how you use their service. For now, you really need to assume that anything you post on FB will be shared with the entire internet. Just as Microsoft eventually figured out how to make Windows reasonably secure, Facebook will probably figure out how to make their privacy settings reasonably simple. Assuming they get it right, what's left to hate? Same as MS: monopoly lock-in.

Re:Hating facebook

[Eponymous Coward]

To be fair though, back in the days when it required an .edu address to join, Facebook was much more private than it is now. Now, they constantly change their terms of service and make public what was once private. I think that's what has a lot of people upset.

Re:Hating facebook

[schmidt349]

No, humans pretty much hate seeing other humans succeed in general, deserved or not. It's an emotion allied with envy. The Germans actually have a word for the good feeling you get from seeing successful people screw up: "Schadenfreude."

You're trying to rationalize your emotional reaction to this news rather than interrogate its validity.

Re:Hating facebook

[jeffmeden]

Except they quickly beat out Myspace and Friendster; two services that were also free, somewhat popular and relatively equal in basic features. Facebook had an angle (college kids) and they exploited that extremely well, and followed it up by tacking on more mass market features (open apps that led to mafia wars and all the rest).

Lucky? Yes, but then do you think Henry Ford got along on his luck alone?

Re:Hating facebook

[spun]

Modern games theory experiments have shown that people will accept harm to themselves in order to punish unfairness and reward reciprocity. We are not selfish actors, we are social beings. Only when everyone around them is acting unfairly, and they have no opportunity to punish unfairness, will most people act selfishly.

Re:Hating facebook

[spun]

I don't have an emotional reaction to this news, sorry. And you'll have to do a better job of convincing me that humans hate success. Why do we idolize the rich? Why do we love celebrities, sports stars, great artists, and musicians? I just don't see it, and I think perhaps YOU hate success, and are justifying it with the 'everybody does it' line.

Re:Hating facebook

[geminidomino]

Modern games theory experiments have shown that people will accept harm to themselves in order to punish unfairness and reward reciprocity. We are not selfish actors, we are social beings. Only when everyone around them is acting unfairly, and they have no opportunity to punish unfairness, will most people act selfishly.

Interesting. Not quite sure that's borne out by my experience, but it would be nice to believe anyway.

Any more specific references to any of these experiments?

Re:Hating facebook

[Artifakt]

There's always a certain amount of creativity, skill, and knowledge in a success story. There's always a certain amount of luck and outside support as well. When people get successful, they have a strong tendency to overate how much was skill or creativity, and how little came from their origins, their supporters or just dumb luck.
      It's the ultimate version of the self made man myth "I taught my teachers everything they knew how to teach me. I invented writing so I could learn things faster, then wrote all the books. I created money just so I could have a way to keep track of my successes. Then I built this company into the giant of the fountain pen nib industry it is today."

Re:Hating facebook

[Rival]

You make some good points, though I doubt you'll be modded insightful given the current (and fairly earned) dislike for Zucker and his ethics.

I can't speak for everyone, but I keep an eye on my personal information because I resent its use by strangers. When I share something with friends, it is not intended to be available to people who I do not know. It should not be for sale to marketers. It should not be used for decisions of worthiness of credit or employment. It most certainly should not be avalailable to identity thieves.

Unfortunately, that's not the current trend. Businesses are out to make money, and to many people the idea of being asked to keep a confidence is an antiquated imposition.

But what to do? Staying off of social networks is not a perfect solution, since a partial online identity will likely be created for you by proxy -- created from an amalgam of pictures and posts by friends and acquaintances, and pages made by other people who share your name. I think it is better to maintain a simple web presence with accurate public information and minimal private information. Consider what you say and post before doing so, and try not to embarrass your future self. If nothing else, showing responsible use is a better testimony to your character than either immature wild abandon or paranoid avoidance.

Re:Hating facebook

[spun]

Wiki is always a good place to start, but check the references given on the pages, of course.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictator_game

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_goods_game

Re:Hating facebook

[FoolishOwl]

Indeed. I have a hard time believing any generation is okay with, "We will publish your personal information, even if you ask us not to, and lie to you about it."

Re:Hating facebook

[corbettw]

Facebook seems to have gotten big mainly by chance. like being the only bacteria in the pietry dish. The only savvy they had was realizing the peitre dish was available and rushing to get there first.

You're right, no one ever thought of social sites before Facebook.

Re:Hating facebook

[dkleinsc]

Speaking from experience working with kids, while I'm not entirely sure about babies, you can be darn sure that 10-year-old kids will call you out if they think you're playing favorites. If you set a rule, it had better be the same rule for everybody, or they will walk all over you trying to get special treatment. The good news is that if you are playing fairly by everybody, these same kids will actually hold each other to the same rules. And that basic sense doesn't go away in adolescence - I've watched 15-year-old boys enforce my rules for me because they were convinced that the rules were reasonable and fair.

So whether it's innate, or learned at a very young age, both parent and GP are right on the money.

Re:Hating facebook

[LoSt180]

I think it's more of a double edged sword. We idolize the rich and building up celebrities, stars, etc. But then we pounce at the change to bring them down and drag 'em through the mud. See all the celebrity gossip mags and how much attention is given to Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan's fall from grace.

So we love success (mainly because we hope to succeed our selves), but then love to tear people down from their pedestal.

Re:Hating facebook

[spun]

Right, when celebrities and the rich prove to us that their success is undeserved, we tear them down. Your examples only prove my point.

Re:Hating facebook

[AltairDusk]

I actually didn't mind sharing some things as much when it was only for college students. Then they opened up the floodgates and in my opinion it's been going downhill ever since. Not to mention the contents of your Facebook profile could prevent you from being hired for a job.

What business a company has prying into your personal life when deciding whether to hire you I don't know but Facebook did nothing to stop it.

Re:Hating facebook

[Wiarumas]

I read a research article recently (although, may be flawed) stating that a large portion of teenage girls included Facebook in the top 3 most important things in their lives. For boys, it was drastically smaller and replaced with money. Not really relevant to the topic, but I thought it was a neat little tidbit in how technology is blowing up the social importance of our youth - and how the younger generation is going to never know the world without being nearly completely integrated with their peers.

Re:Hating facebook

[AltairDusk]

Any evidence or studies you can cite suggesting this? In my own personal experience and observations of others around me a Schadenfreude reaction happens when you feel that person did not deserve their success in the first place. Corrupt politician exposed and dragged down? Schadenfreude. Wildly successful Olympic athlete injured? Definitely not.

My take on it is people hate undeserved success or success through corrupt means. Seeing people we hate suffer is what brings on that feeling.

Re:Hating facebook

[blind biker]

Oh, the "good old times", when Zuckerberg sold the information of 4000 Harvard accounts?
Sure, back then Facebook was so much better, mindful of people's privacy and all.

Re:Hating facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll tell you why I value my privacy...

My ex-girlfriend is on Facebook. She's a lot more open about commenting and sharing pictures and (in my mind) personal information. This other girl I was flirting with is on Facebook. I dated her sister for a while. My wife is on Facebook. Some of my friends are lesbians. Some of their friends are very, very gay. Hey, you know, the last thing I care about is some other man's sexual preferences, but to some of my other friends, gayness is a mortal sin. I like anime, BtVS, prepper/survival shows, Heather Graham, new age mysticism (though most of the practitioners are kooks), competition long rifle and practical shooting, and armchair environmentalism.

I'm not ashamed of any of these interests. I'm not ashamed of my friends. I'm not ashamed of my ongoing devotion to Heather Graham. But as you said, no one needs to be burdened with any of this *personal* information. The day I started seeing ads for Aqua Girl and Tea Party conventions while browsing for electronics was the day I decided that Facebook knew too much about me.

Re:Hating facebook

[fustakrakich]

What business a company has prying into your personal life when deciding whether to hire you...

That's where the outrage should be directed. "Leave Facebook ALONE!"

Really, we should want all the info to flow freely, but hammer hard on anybody who tries to use it against us..

Re:Hating facebook

[Wyatt Earp]

Humans love success.

They also love to see someone fail when they foul up.

Take Tiger Woods for example, if it'd not come out that he was a lying, cheating whoremonger, everyone would have continued to love him. If his car accident had been for medical reasons or if his wife had chased him around with a golf club because of something she did, all the Tiger Wood fans would have respected and supported him. But it turned out that someone who has been a major player in golf for 15 years was a jackass and his problems are his fault, people will continue to watch him fail and many will hope for continued failure.

Robert Downey Jr is the opposite side to that coin, he was successful and then had a drug problem that screwed his life up. No one felt good about that, but now that he is cleaned up and recovering folks like going to his films. "I'm glad he got his act together" is common when people talk about Robert Downey Jr. Now if people were like what you think they are, they'd be avoiding his movies and saying "Goddamned drug addict, why is he in movies still?"

Re:Hating facebook

[Znork]

Facebook is changing social norms, including privacy norms,

I don't see much of facebook changing any social norms; people seem to share more or less what they've always done. Facebook is just a whole lot more promiscuous about who they decide you should be social with, and over what time periods they do it.

The lack of easy granularity and difficulty of controlling information spread mainly means many tend to spew things ranging from the banal and inane that most their friends don't give a crap about to the too personal that they would rather not know. Things that have a time and a place, things that were appropriate under some circumstances but not others merge into something somewhat akin to a garbage heap of human interaction.

For example I try to keep a tight hold on my personal information but I can't exactly tell you why I care so much. I just innately think it could come back and bite me.

Well, that's what you use your half-dozen facebook accounts for; as the site doesn't lend itself to appropriate social separation, do it yourself. Where do you think facebooks inflated numbers of accounts come from...

Also it seems a little unseemly to burden others with oversharing.

Indeed it is. Even if it might not come back and bite you in a bad way, it can certainly put sand in the social machinery and make relations with people you can't avoid associating with, such as relatives and co-workers, more difficult.

Re:Hating facebook

[centuren]

No, humans pretty much hate seeing other humans succeed in general, deserved or not. It's an emotion allied with envy. The Germans actually have a word for the good feeling you get from seeing successful people screw up: "Schadenfreude."

You're trying to rationalize your emotional reaction to this news rather than interrogate its validity.

You're stretching the definition of the word "Schadenfreude" to fit your point: it does not. Schadenfreude has no connection to success or successful people, and it's hardly on the same page as envy. You would be better off applying it to the popularity of "America's Funniest Home Videos" than you would using it to illustrate the concept that people don't like a winner.

Re:Hating facebook

[schmidt349]

On this same comment thread you just cited a bunch of games theory (the ultimatum game, etc.) to prove that human beings are inherently irrational actors and that they irrationally (i.e., emotionally) punish unfairness even when it's to their detriment to do so. Then you spin around to tell me that you don't have an emotional reaction to this news, even though you justified yourself by saying "We hate undeserved success." Hate is an emotion, last I checked, and unless you don't count yourself as part of the "we" (i.e. a human being) you're subject to your own claim.

I don't pretend I'm not a human being and that I can emotionlessly evaluate controversial issues. I happen to like Facebook and agree with the motives of its CEO. The difference between us is that I'm at least capable of pushing past my initial "gut feeling" to find out more about the issues involved. In this instance it appears as though this "securities fraud" is another salvo in a case that was supposed to have been settled. The adverse party is trying to drum up some publicity by making Facebook's board look greedy and manipulative. You seem to have fallen for that hook, line, and sinker.

"We hate undeserved success" sounds more like a CPUSA slogan than an anthropological or social-psychological principle. Given your comment history I can't say I'm surprised. I'm sure your definition of "undeserved" encompasses more or less any highly successful business venture.

As a last point, I think it's telling that among the people society "loves" you didn't include engineers, builders, innovators, inventors, captains of industry, or any of the other real drivers of human progress.

Re:Hating facebook

[e2d2]

This whole "social paradigms are changing" nonsense is just that, nonsense. Blasting intricate details of your life to strangers will always be stupid.

Re:Hating facebook

[spun]

Please learn to read and use logic before attempting to reply. Please explain how you see any logical contradiction between my two statements, "I have no feelings about this news," and "I hate undeserved success." I never said I don't feel emotion, but I have no horses in this race. I neither hate nor like Facebook. It's existence is absolutely irrelevant to me.

I gave evidence that my claims are true, sound sociological and anthropological principles, now widely accepted in their field. You have not. And while I admire engineers, builders, innovators, and inventors ('captains of industry' do not drive innovation, they stifle it to protect their profits) I did not feel that those professions were good examples of the general population loving success, as I couldn't think of any that get enough publicity to qualify. But sure, we can use them too. Anyone hate Stephen Hawking? No? What about Einstein? No? Weird, huh?

Oh, and highly successful business ventures success almost always comes about from extra-market coercion, outright fraud, and human rights violations. But when it does not, I am incredibly grateful and happy. For instance, Ben and Jerry's ice cream used to be a great success. The Newman's Own company is another example. And while I loathe their coffee, Starbucks is an example of another big corporation that does not feel the need to rape its employees, suppliers, and the environment.

But the biggest success that I love the most would have to be the Mondragon Cooperative. A Spanish priest and an engineer took a poor region of Spain and turned it into an industrial powerhouse in under fifty years. Using socialism and cooperatives. Maybe you should look it up. Or not, I imagine knowing too much about it would destroy your carefully protected world view.

Re:Hating facebook

[kz45]

"but why should we all smile and pretend we admire Zuckerberg just because his site happened to become the biggest?"

I just can't believe that Facebook is a result of "luck and timing". Myspace was around at the exact same time and it was crushing all other social networking sites. Most people were happy with Myspace at the time, but Facebook somehow managed to destroy it within a few years.

This isn't the result of luck or timing. It's the result of intelligent strategy and new features that were added to Facebook.

Zuckerberg wasn't lucky. He was smart. It's this difference that results in having the one of the most successful sites on the Internet.

"A lot of what is considered "business savvy" these days is really just a matter of some decent knowledge of a subject"

It's more than this. Having decent knowedge of a subject will not make you a success. Have you ever tried to run a successful business in a saturated market?

Your post leads me to believe that you think that a successful business mostly has to do with luck rather than skill. Luck is involved with anything we do in life, but it's closer to a 1% contributing factor rather than an 80% one.

Re:Hating facebook

[Timmmm]

Yes but those sites were shit.

Facebook took off precisely *because* people were concerned with privacy. You had to have a uni email address, and that meant that only other people at your university could see your details. Much more secure than any alternatives (at the time).

Of course, it helped that it didn't look like... well, like myspace.

Re:Hating facebook

[jimbolauski]

What business a company has prying into your personal life when deciding whether to hire you I don't know but Facebook did nothing to stop it.

So if I make bad decisions like doing meth and post photos of me doing meth on Facebook and make those photos public I may not have the best judgment that is more then a good enough reason not to hire me.

Re:Hating facebook

[BobMcD]

Shadenfraude is applied to humans of all levels, not just the rich. We seem to enjoy it just as much when it is the poor slob on the second episode of American Idol as we do Lindsey Lohan.

Re:Hating facebook

[jahudabudy]

Only when everyone around them is acting unfairly, and they have no opportunity to punish unfairness, will most people act selfishly.

One important quibble: Only when they believe that everyone around them is acting unfairly...

Combine this with the power of rationalization "He's not really smarter/better than me, just luckier. Or he cheated!" and you get a recipe for some rather vicious behavior from reasonable people.

Re:Hating facebook

[rxan]

There were plenty of social networking sites before Facebook. What I think Facebook brought to the table were two things: it was initially exclusive and it was not very customizable.

Exclusivity to universities and colleges made it gain popularity amongst those groups very quickly. Eventually everyone else was longing to join as well. All that was left to do was open the floodgates.

A lot of the other sites had way too much customization. Nothing was standardized because everyone had to create their 'own' drastically different MySpace page. While it's great for the computer literate, not everyone else likes that kind of thing.

Re:Hating facebook

[spun]

While I think you are right, and this does happen on occasion, nothing in the experiments I've seen demonstrates that kind of behavior. Of course, in the simplified world of these games, fairness and unfairness are pretty clear cut.

Another interesting finding of these experiments is that some small percentage of people will always act selfishly, but another, slightly larger group will always act fairly, despite what others are doing. Perhaps what you are seeing is the rationalization of the small group of sociopaths and narcissists who will always try to screw over others.

Or perhaps I am wrong and people are mean spirited, vicious creatures and everyone who succeeds deserves their success, while everyone who complains is just jealous. But honestly, I think that idea is just a rationalization people use to justify their own actions.

Re:Hating facebook

[Maestro4k]

Then again, once that happens, Facebook'll probably just turn into the crazy ex. I can see the popup ads: "I MISS YOU! WHAT ABOUT THE 235 FRIENDS WE HAD IN COMMON? ALL THE 21 LITTLE NOTES YOU LEFT ME?! I STILL HAVE 45 PICTURES OF US ON MY WALL!!!"

Too late, they already have that behavior down. I get a couple of E-mails a month from Facebook reminding me that various people I barely know invited me to join. I don't even bother reading them, and there's probably a way to opt-out of receiving them, but damn it, if I wanted to deal with Facebook I would have created an account already. How do they justify sending out those reminders for months and months and months? (It's been going on for over a year.) Needless to say this behavior's made me less inclined to sign up for Facebook than I was to start with. I don't particularly like Facebook's crusade to remove privacy for everyone but themselves (how many FB employees share everything they seem to want to force their userbase to share?), but sending me spammy "reminders" month and month just makes me think of them as... total scum.

Re:Hating facebook

[auLucifer]

"Facebook's like the hot but crazy GF that never knows what it wants and expects you to just deal with the madness because, well, you're together" Best . Quote . Ever

Re:Hating facebook

[stop bothering me]

And the Eternal September begins again.

Re:Hating facebook

[quanticle]

So instead of comparing Facebook to Microsoft, compare it to Apple. Both companies made themselves by creating and expanding new markets rather than dominating existing ones. It doesn't mean less work was involved. In fact, it was probably more work, since they couldn't pick apart others' accomplishments to see what they did wrong.

It's like Yahoo, ebay or craigslist. Someone was going to do it. One lucky bacteria got there first.

First mover advantage (especially in information technology) is never as powerful as one thinks it is. I mean, look at IBM. Sure, they invented the x86 personal computer, but they quickly lost the market to companies like Compaq and Dell, who looked and saw the mistakes that IBM made. Given that, the way Facebook has managed to stay in the lead against all its competition (e.g. MySpace, Friendster, and even newer competitors, like Google Buzz) is truly impressive.

Re:Hating facebook

[Sulphur]

Wes is that you?

Re:Hating facebook

[mikael_j]

First mover advantage (especially in information technology) is never as powerful as one thinks it is. I mean, look at IBM. Sure, they invented the x86 personal computer, but they quickly lost the market to companies like Compaq and Dell, who looked and saw the mistakes that IBM made. Given that, the way Facebook has managed to stay in the lead against all its competition (e.g. MySpace, Friendster, and even newer competitors, like Google Buzz) is truly impressive.

Of course, Facebook wasn't first. There were community websites with all the features Facebook had when it "took off" years before Facebook existed. Facebook didn't really create anything new, they just happened to manage to snag a large part of the market. As an example of one of the multitude of reasons why lots of people joined FB, here in Sweden most people seem to already be members of at least a couple of other community websites but in order to communicate with their foreign friends they sign up for FB since it's "not myspace" (around here the only opinion I've heard about myspace (except from musicians) is that it's for 13 year-olds, people looking for 13 year-olds to sleep with and garage bands) and their foreign friends have Facebook accounts. However, most people I know don't consider Facebook their "primary" community website, just the one where everyone is, it's the lowest common denominator.

Re:Hating facebook

[ultranova]

How we humans love to tear down success. It's in our social nature. So it's perhaps ironic that Facebook, the top predator in the land of social acceleration, is having a bad week and we are all enjoying the schadenfreude.

Hey, we've been taught since Reagan's time that it's okay to crush those weaker than you beneath your feet to act as a stairway to success, and the people most eager to preach this right-wing message have been the CEOs. Time and again have I heard that the weak deserve to starve, that the strong should not be forced to care for them, that it's okay to exploit other people for your benefit as long as you can get away with it. So why wouldn't we descend on a CEO like a pack of starving hyenas the second one shows any weakness? Live by greed, die by greed, or something to that effect.

Re:Hating facebook

[tehcyder]

I actually didn't mind sharing some things as much when it was only for college students.

That sort of bizarre intellectual snobbery will hopefully blow back right in your face someday, when one of those oh-so-special college students ruins your career with the amusing stories you didn't mind sharing with them.

Even if it was just a service for people with two or more PhD's it wouldn't guarantee anything about the members' discretion, taste or criminal propensities.

Re:Hating facebook

[tehcyder]

Only when everyone around them is acting unfairly, and they have no opportunity to punish unfairness, will most people act selfishly

Which is generally the case at work.

Re:Hating facebook

[tehcyder]

My ex-girlfriend is on Facebook. She's a lot more open about commenting and sharing pictures and (in my mind) personal information. This other girl I was flirting with is on Facebook. I dated her sister for a while. My wife is on Facebook. Some of my friends are lesbians. Some of their friends are very, very gay. Hey, you know, the last thing I care about is some other man's sexual preferences, but to some of my other friends, gayness is a mortal sin. I like anime, BtVS, prepper/survival shows, Heather Graham, new age mysticism (though most of the practitioners are kooks), competition long rifle and practical shooting, and armchair environmentalism.

It would have been hilarious if you had been logged in and accidentally not posted as Anonymous Coward.

Re:Hating facebook

[corbettw]

Reading comprehension FAIL on your part.

The OP made the claim that Facebook occurred in a vacuum, and that that was the only reason for their success. Of course Facebook did things better than others did, that's the point I was driving home in my post.

Re:Hating facebook

[rhendershot]

the scenario of the puppets where the middle puppet passes candy to each of two others and one of those keeps the candy but the other passes it back. then the baby is faced with those two having a pile of resources and is given the instruction to take a piece of it - an immoral act all of its own.

My conjecture would be that the baby which smacked the offending puppet was acting selfishly to prevent an obvious enemy from stealing from him or her in the future.

The baby obviously didn't have a problem with the act of absconding with somebody else's "stuff" or it would have objected on principle in some way or hesitating.

Too often we see what we want to see.

Re:Hating facebook

[AltairDusk]

That sort of bizarre intellectual snobbery will hopefully blow back right in your face someday, when one of those oh-so-special college students ruins your career with the amusing stories you didn't mind sharing with them.

Not sure what your issue with college students is that riles you up enough to refer to this as "bizarre intellectual snobbery". There is a big difference between minding if the entire world sees something and minding if a group of people you are around every day sees something. With the privacy controls at the time you could easily restrict it to your college and it became a great way to stay in contact and see what was going on around campus.

I suppose if I had mentioned any other type of local community you would still call it "bizarre intellectual snobbery" as it would have been equally useful were it specific to another group?

Re:Hating facebook

[Rosscott]

After seeing this article (and your post goombah) I wrote a comic about Facebook, it's ever growing nature and ever-shrinking privacy. http://www.notquitewrong.com/rosscottinc/2010/05/21/the-system-374-scariest-thing-about-facebook/

Re:Hating facebook

[jahudabudy]

Oh, I'm not suggesting that people are mean spirited, vicious creatures. Some people are mean spirited, but everyone (ok, almost everyone) can be vicious, and what I find interesting is the reason behind otherwise decent people behaving that way. I'm not familiar with the games theory experiments you mention, but I have read about behavioral experiments that indicate perception is an incredibly powerful factor in human behavior and experience. Dan Ariely has done some interesting work in this field, I think.

Personally, my opinion is that just about everybody has the potential for just about every human emotion and behavior inside of them, just to a greater or lesser degree. And humanity as a whole tends to fall on a bell curve. But it sounds like you are saying that there are experiments suggesting the bell curve is slightly skewed towards "good" away from "evil", which fits with my personal experience.

Re:Hating facebook

[Rosscott]

What's more scary are the ones who aren't upset or worse (and more likely) haven't noticed.

Re:Hating facebook

[spun]

I've traveled all over, and seen this trait everywhere. Definitely universal.

Re:Hating facebook

[spun]

It's a self reinforcing cycle. But there are still a few non-hierarchical societies, where everyone generally acts selflessly. Mostly isolated rainforest tribes, but they do exist.

Re:Hating facebook

[spun]

Yes, I agree completely, everyone has the potential for just about every human behavior, and it is perception and expectation that move us towards one form or another.

Re:Hating facebook

[gottebag]

As fucked up as the comment he made was. It says nothing in that article about him actually selling any information.

Will we see his face on a MUGSHOT soon?

[Joe The Dragon]

Will we see his face on a MUGSHOT soon?

Re:Will we see his face on a MUGSHOT soon?

[Opportunist]

What do you need a real mugshot for when we have Photoshop?

Re:He's getting what he's due.

[Qzukk]

But what if slashdot's servers die and the post is deleted?

Re:I FULLY EXPECT THIS TO HAPPEN...

[BradleyAndersen]

Bobby Fischer!! You ARE alive!!

Fetch the popcorn!

[Rogerborg]

A bunch of arrogant entitled Haaaarvard douches get butt-humped by the biggest douche amongst them, then spend the rest of their natural lives giving all of their money to lawyers until none of them have anything except crack habits and an autobiography in the bargain bin.

I mean, you can't buy entertainment like this. It's win-win, especially if they all lose.

Re:Fetch the popcorn!

[Hurricane78]

I just decided to change my job description to “Lawyer / crack dealer”...

Re:He's getting what he's due.

[nacturation]

Jewish day of rest. Means I don't work, I don't drive a car, I don't fucking ride in a car, I don't handle money, I don't turn on the oven, and I sure as shit don't fucking poke my friends!

Re:He's getting what he's due.

[ElectricTurtle]

So you think that ink on paper is more physical than the magnetic polarity on a HDD? Or the electrical polarity in SDRAM?

The whole idea is of course superstitious bullshit, but electric and magnetic forces are just as physical as solid matter.

The whole story

[schmidt349]

The title of this article is totally misleading. The Winklevosses agreed to a settlement involving a payment of cash and a quantity of Facebook stock assuming a certain valuation. That valuation was based on the Microsoft purchase of a small chunk of the company that, if you bought all the stock at the same price, would make it work $15 billion.

Obviously that valuation was unrealistic, but the Winklevosses agreed to it *because their lawyers told them to.* Their law firm didn't complete their due diligence or else they may have wanted to renegotiate the deal. But that's not even remotely Facebook's fault.

The reason for this accusation is that the Winklevosses have to pay their lawyers a contingency fee based on the higher valuation of the stock. This will result in a net loss to them. They're pissed off at this turn of events, so they're casting aspersions on Facebook's CEO and demanding a securities investigation. But don't forget that they're a pair of moneyed aristocrats from a family of moneyed aristocrats (read: spoiled brats). So don't think of them as wronged parties because they're not.

Facebook was no more the Winklevosses' idea than Windows Aero or Mac OS Aqua or Enlightenment or KDE were the ideas of Xerox PARC.

Re:The whole story

[nacturation]

Obviously that valuation was unrealistic, but the Winklevosses agreed to it *because their lawyers told them to.* Their law firm didn't complete their due diligence or else they may have wanted to renegotiate the deal. But that's not even remotely Facebook's fault.

If I'm reading the article correctly, it's not about the valuation but about what class of stock they receive:

"The settlement, however, was to be paid in common shares, not preferred shares, which Facebook itself valued at roughly 75 percent less for the purposes of calculating taxes on stock-based compensation — cutting the settlement’s offer roughly in half."

Re:He's getting what he's due.

[Spatial]

What if? The result of offending a god is always the same: nothing happens.

Some reasons

[AnonymousClown]

I just innately think it could come back and bite me.

Yes. Identity theft for one. A Facebook profile along with some intense Googling could glean enough information to steal your identity.

Or just sharing your profile. I have a family member that lists her religion as "Pastafarian" or whatever it is for the Flying Spaghetti Monster "religion" - basically Atheist. As we all know, being Atheist is the worst thing you can be in America to most people. If she applies for a job and the potential employer sees that she's an atheist and doesn't like it, she doesn't get a job (illegal?So what. She'll have to PROVE it and they'll just reject her for "lack of needed skills"). Or worse, they preach to her.

I have a hang up about born again Christians, myself. If I hear that someone is one, I run because I'm used to being preached to and harassed by those people to "save" me - and the lack of respect by some of those people for my own believes really pisses me off. Honestly, if I saw that a potential employee was one, I would be a bit hesitant to hire them. Yeah, I'm prejudiced against them, but I have been won over by some as being decent people and they didn't preach to me and they were respectful of my beliefs - at least to my face. But still, you get one kook and it's a bitch to get rid of them.

Re:He's getting what he's due.

[Lumpy]

Wow... what a superstition...

Re:He's getting what he's due.

[geminidomino]

http://verydemotivational.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/lawfulneutralp1.jpg

Re:He's getting what he's due.

[phantomfive]

It's a tradition that comes from the Hebrew use of the word for God, where they refuse to say it or write it correctly. They've done it so long that no one even knows how to pronounce the Hebrew word for God anymore. Christians just followed that habit; all this came presumably from the 10 commandments, where it says, " You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God" (the 10 commandments is also likely the original source for the muslims not portraying Mohammed in art, because it might be used as an idol).

In any case, the Jehova's witnesses have made an entire religion around the idea that we SHOULD use the name of God, reversing the traditional practice, and claiming that anyone who doesn't use it is sinning. They've also made their own translation of the bible that carefully uses the name of God in the original places. Like any part of Christianity, it is controversial.

there once was a time

[circletimessquare]

when friendster looked like it was going to take over the internet

there once was a time when myspace looked larger than google

and, in a few short years, someone will say something about facebook, probably as a joke, and someone else will say "facebook? what's that?"

the realm of social networking is true to what it is: an endless party, hosted by one rich kid whose parents are on vacation after another, no one claiming the right to say they are truly in control for very long, forever

what i envision is a permanent progression, every 5-10 years, a new friendster/myspace/facebook taking over the mantle of darling of the ball, and then rudely discarded and abandoned, in endless succession, forever

Re:there once was a time

[Hurricane78]

Not with the plans I have in mind... ...it will literally become impossible to create a “separate” site like this.
They will be part of a common (full-privacy-enabled) net, whether they want it or not. Even whether they buy a law against it or not.

Re:there once was a time

[Kattspya]

That's just because we're in the infancy of social networking sites or more generally in the infancy of the internet itself. At some point (which we may or may not have reached) things will stabilize and we'll see a single or a few large players that will dominate for a long time period. Compare this to any new industry, be it automobile or even personal computers. They all start out with insane diversity, shrink and stabilize to a few large players which usually gets complacent and/or makes mistakes and get taken to the cleaners by some upcoming company which will then be the new large player until they screw up.

Share the Wealth

[rwa2]

Yeah, sounds like someone is just trying to play their "Share the Wealth" card.

Incidentally, I just noticed that some time ago the game of Life(TM) had something of a makeover, and no longer has those little legal "Share the Wealth" and "Exemption" cards. Which I applaud for not teaching the next generation to be a bunch of litigious little bastards.

They've also done some interesting things with employment, salary, and education that helps randomize stuff up a bit, so whomever lands on the Doctor/Lawyer square early on isn't guaranteed to dominate the game.

Re:He's getting what he's due.

[fishexe]

People. You don't have to use a dash when writing "god". That is used when writing god's name on paper, because you aren't technically supposed to physically destroy god's name.

It is irrelevant when written on a computer.

I always thought it was because you weren't supposed to invoke God's name. But even if it is to avoid destroying it, this glowing-phosphor pattern of God's name will be just as destroyed when it scrolls off my screen as it would be on paper.

Facebook's future CEO

[thrillbert]

I hear Darl is really good at claiming stuff is his when it really isn't..

Re:Zuckerberg = a greedy Jew

[fishexe]

In the immortal words of Dick Cheney, "Go !@#$ Yourself"

There, fixed that for you.

Sounds like a case of...

[clo1_2000]

sour grapes to me. I wasn't smart enough to rip off my friends first and make millions before *that* guy did.

And to top it all off

[fishexe]

A bunch of arrogant entitled Haaaarvard douches get butt-humped by the biggest douche amongst them, then spend the rest of their natural lives giving all of their money to lawyers until none of them have anything except crack habits and an autobiography in the bargain bin.

I mean, you can't buy entertainment like this. It's win-win, especially if they all lose.

And to top it all off, the man's name means "sugar mountain".

Re:Facebook turned rotten years ago

[Justtaint]

Facebook turned rotten years ago. I didnt know that M$ paid for $15 billion worth of FB stock in 07. That just confirms it.

Microsoft paid $240 million for a 1.6% share of Facebook which yields the $15 billion valuation listed in the summary.

what about michael dell?

[circletimessquare]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dell

sure his company has acted douchey, but i don't think the guy can be called a douche. its been a long time since he founded dell in his dorm, and no one has any real dirt on the fellow. sure he's not a saint, but again, not a douche

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak

wozniak is pretty much the anti-douche. the woz is pure awesomeness. even steve jobs: yeah, your average apple cultist is pretty much the definition of upper middle class douchebag, but steve jobs himself seems like just a cold hard terse shrewd businessman, not a douchebag

to expand the realm outside technology and money, you can point to george clooney: not a douche, for every lindsay lohan, clearly a douchebag, literally and figuratively

there are many other examples of nondouchey massive successes at a young age

additionally, the corollary of your argument, that poverty and suffering somehow make you strong of character, is obviously wrong, because there are plenty of broke douchebags out there

no, the truth is, zuckerberg is, and always would have been, a douchebag, whether facebook happened or not. i'm certain you can find me an example of some nice guy who was destroyed by fame/ money, or some asshole who was redeemed by financial hardship, but for the most part, once a douchebag, always a douchebag, regardless of fame and fortune

i think its a pleasant myth people tell themselves (out of self-righteousness, a form of douchebaggery) that fame and fortune is somehow linked with moral terpitude or character pestilence. but its simply not true

Karma

[borza]

Wouldn't it be ironic if Mark "Privacy is Overrated " Zuckerberg ends up in the ultimate antithesis of privacy (i.e. jail-cell)? I don't gloat and I wish him happy and prosperous life, but, yes, Virginia, Karma is a bitch.

Re:Facebook turned rotten years ago

[Justtaint]

I should have included the link in my original reply:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/technology/24cnd-facebook.html?ex=1350964800&en=c27e6c86844c7723&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

You're just sorta evil, not of much consequence

[lotho brandybuck]

You haven't really arrived in business when you get subpeonaed by congress.

Lynch em, just to be sure..

[TiggertheMad]

He may or may not be guilty of anything, so let's try to keep a cool head in the meantime.

He is a CEO, how could he NOT be guilty of something?

Re:I FULLY EXPECT THIS TO HAPPEN...

[blind biker]

You can find this kind of corporate psychopaths in every nation, trust me. And there have been many, many Jews that have unselfishly given to humankind. A lot of scientists, artists and social activists were Jews.

oh, so avant garde

[luis_a_espinal]

ANY innate sense of fairness that we were born with was stomped out long ago with capitalism.

Uhmmm, really, I always thought that that was stomped a long time ago when nomadic human bands started doing warfare against each other for resources, not to mention slavery, ritual cannibalism, the development of class/cast systems, monarchism, feudalism, communism and all those other social systems that are/were either contemporaneous to capitalism or that preceded it by hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of years going back to the realization that 1) you could grab a stick, a bone or a rock and beat someone with it - as chimps do - and 2) you can/need to kill someone not related to your band who happens to be sitting on the only hunting ground available to your band.

But hey, trying to explain the naturally violent/unfair human nature by using simplistic references to capitalism (or any other single economic/social system) must be the avant garde thing to do to nowadays.

It's nice to think that we still retain such nobility's, but let's not kid ourselves.

We - as a predatorial, competitive species - never had or retained such nobility to begin with. Don't kid yourself.

Re:oh, so avant garde

[luis_a_espinal]

Also, don't confuse sociability with fairness.

Re:oh, so avant garde

[spun]

We are not a predatorial, combative species. We're more like the Bonobos (pygmy chimps) than chimps. They screw each other silly at the drop of a hat to smooth over social tensions. The traits you describe are a consequence of developing agriculture and a surplus, and then experiencing famine. Instead of moving on to more fertile grounds, we stayed until the surplus was exhausted, then used our newly developed societal organization to wage war on our neighbors. This resulted in a whole generation of brain damaged children (starvation does that) being raised by a whole generation of PTSD damaged (war does that) adults. Our selfish side was locked in culturally.

This is why you don't see walled cities before a certain point in history. No weapons exclusive to killing other humans as opposed to hunting, either. No mass graves, not until the time period when the Sahara dried up.

Science has shown that your view of human nature is fundamentally incorrect. Please see my post above yours for citations. It is human nature to be more concerned about fairness and reciprocity than self interest. But the opposite view excuses all sorts of unfair and non-reciprocal behaviors, and so it is still immensely popular with a certain set of privileged people, despite the evidence against it.

Re:oh, so avant garde

[spun]

Lol, but I've given enough information to look up and see that I'm right. Look up games theory, the dictator game, the public goods game, and so on. Read 'The Continuum Concept' and 'Saharasia.' Your theories are about twenty years out of date, my friend. Perhaps clinging to them excuses your violent and vengeful behaviors, in your own eyes.

Re:He's getting what he's due.

[Hurricane78]

It is irrelevant. Period.

There, fixed that for ya.

Remember: “god” is a word, used by the mentally ill.

Re:He's getting what he's due.

[Apple Acolyte]

Somewhat correct. Yes, Jews do hyphenate even the English equivalent of divine titles to avoid any potential desecration of the divine in written form. Yes, it is based on the commandment regarding not taking the divine name in vain. When not in prayer Jews don't pronounce Hebrew divine names in their normal form, either, using instead a permutation of them. However, hyphenation and permutations of the divine name are practices related to but separate from concern for protecting the Tetragrammaton, which was only spoken once a year by the High Priest on Yom Kippur and guarded zealously otherwise.

As for Muslims and their concern over pictures of Mohammed and others they regard as prophets, that has to do not with guarding divine names but instead with guarding against idolatry and graven images. That taboo in Islam is similar to but more stringent than the taboos found in Judaism over the same practice. Finally, the Witnesses do believe in pronouncing what they regard as a divine name, but they are unquestionably in error because the name they use was a mistranslation/misunderstanding of vowel pointings of the Tetragrammaton. Specifically, there are no vowels known for the Tetragrammaton, but in some copies of the Hebrew Scriptures vowels are inserted for the term Adonai to remind the reader to pronounce it instead of pronounce the consonants of the Tetragrammaton. Some translators and Christian groups misunderstood this point and incorrectly derived the name used by the Witnesses.

Yeah, that's how it works.

[abulafia]

You didn't mind when it seemed to have restrictive notions of where the data would go.

Now, maybe it has real conequences, and that sucks.

What business a company has prying into your personal life when deciding whether to hire you I don't know but Facebook did nothing to stop it.

Little help, that's the business FB is in. They monetize the people you talk to, the things you show interest in, the way you spend money. They don't stop it, because that would stop money from finding them.

What. The. Fucking. Fuck.

Why do people assume that anything FB does is anything different than, say, MS in the heyday of hating on them? FB is orders of magnitude worse. And they have the data to do it better.

Don't think you're special.

Re:Yeah, that's how it works.

[AltairDusk]

You didn't mind when it seemed to have restrictive notions of where the data would go.

Now, maybe it has real conequences, and that sucks.

Little help, that's the business FB is in. They monetize the people you talk to, the things you show interest in, the way you spend money. They don't stop it, because that would stop money from finding them.

Which I've long since realized, my account now is only a skeleton of the necessary information and the whole thing will likely be deleted soon. My point was more that at first there were enough privacy controls that you actually could control your information, and one of the things you could easily do was restrict things to your own college only.

Re:All I can do is cringe....

[Combatso]

you are right.. guess we'll cross prisoners off the list of things its okay to joke about.. for those keeping tabs, its NOT cool to joke about

Religion

Culture (i think its still okay to make fun of mexicans)

Prisoners

Hmm.. Seems the only thing we are allowed to make fun of is republicans.

oh and Americans.... which I am not

FB is anti-free speech

[linzeal]

Facebook already deleted and started disabling the accouunts of people who posted pics of Mohemed. The main group is gone as well.