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After Insisting For Years That Facebook Is Not a Media Company, Zuckerberg Says Just Not a 'Traditional' One (cnet.com)
Mark Zuckerberg is still trying to explain what his company does. The Facebook CEO said in August that the social-networking giant had no ambitions of being a content provider, insisting that Facebook is "a tech company, not a media company." On Wednesday, he appeared to retreat a bit on that statement, painting a slightly different portrait of his company during a Live video chat with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. From a report on CNET: "Facebook is a new kind of platform," Zuckerberg said during the video chat. "It's not a traditional technology company. It's not a traditional media company. You know, we build technology and we feel responsible for how it's used. We don't write the news that people read on the platform, but at the same time we also know that we do a lot more than just distribute the news, and we're an important part of the public discourse." His comments come amid increased criticism that Facebook's news feed algorithms -- the software that picks the first posts you see -- sometimes fan the flames of "fake news" and allow misinformation to thrive. Numerous allegations have been made that fake news shared on Facebook helped Trump win -- a suggestion Zuckerberg initially called "a pretty crazy idea."
Anything else they create is just to keep you on the site. Never forget that you, the user, are what is being sold to companies and govt agencies all around the world.
It's not that he can't describe what it is, it's that he won't describe what it is. If he comes out and says "Hey suckers, we're a platform centered around gathering every bit of information we can about you and bundling it up for the highest bidder." some people might actually start to wise up to the fact that Zuckerberg sees every single one of us a source of income and nothing more. I have no doubt that if was made clear to Facebook that they would not be allowed to harvest user data from their internet drones their altruistic product to unite the planet would run into unforeseen technically difficulties and be wrapped up. And I understand they're a business and have to make money, that's their prerogative. It's the underhanded way they go about it, acting as if they're trying to work for the greater good while often flat out lying to everyone about their business activities. Witness the WhatsApp acquisition. "We will not bind WhatsApp users to their Facebook data". After everything has settled down, "Yeah, about that....". And that's just the most recent example of many.
...responsibility. It's not just FB but all the major news media outlets that have dropped the ball on this one. It's simply a lack of fact checking, asking questions, and speaking truth to power, you know, the bit that requires the attention of skilled, experienced humans. We've seen what happens when we leave it up to algorithms. It's time to stop this race to the journalistic bottom and for media corporations to stop publishing and republishing click bait articles with little or no editorial control.
While I'm sure there are many who voted for him without regard for the fake news stories (which generally seemed laughably dumb) - when I talked with people in my own neighborhood that vote for Trump - none of them voted for Trump, they all voted against her in his name - and the reasons were a mixture of the best falsehoods (the ones with kernels of truth in them.) Things that had been repeatedly debunked.
In a sense you can't really blame Trump for being what he is. It's not like it was a surprise. Certain aspects of the GOP have been creating this problem for years. Think about this - there were NINE separate investigations.
One of them was the actual required investigation - which laid the blame on the State Department, Department of Defense, and somewhat on the CIA. This is exactly what you would expect. Clinton herself was cleared of any personal culpability, but as the head of the State Department she was ultimately responsible (and by extension the President.)
Then there were EIGHT more. All of them, one after the other, came to basically the same conclusions as the original - no evidence of 'wrong doing' by Clinton (although Susan Rice - the ambassador to the UN repeatedly came out looking like a dipsh*t - lol.)
That's more time and investigations THAN 9/11!
The best part was the senate and house Republicans were several times caught being dumb enough to admit on camera that these were political attacks on Hillary Clinton (each speaking about their own investigations - not others.)
It is clear an obvious to an objective observer that the entire purpose was to generate as much negative association with her as possible.
I am myself a fairly socially liberal and very fiscally conservative person - but I cannot stand dishonesty (from either side - don't get me started on Nancy the f*cking devil Pelosi) - and I found myself repeatedly having to stand up for the facts (remember those?) when people I know would just mouth whatever they'd recently heard on Fox News that was intentionally inaccurate, incomplete, and often incoherent. I don't subjectively like Hillary anyhow, so that that used to piss me off even more.
OF COURSE fake news helped Trump. It wasn't just Russian//whoever fakes news - it was fake outrage, fake interpretations of real events, fake evaluation of real facts, fake Fox News (MSNBC used to be almost as bad but I avoid both), et cetera.
Now the crazy shit that was coming out during Trump's campaign? It was so obviously fake that at some point you just have to realize that a large number of Americans are stupid. I love America, and I like my neighbors (really), but some of them are idiots. That's just the way things are, and now they're going to get exactly what they voted for.
It makes me sad for America, but we'll recover. The really sh*tty part is that I remember during the primary watching Kasich and thinking "there's a decent, centrist, reasonable man - who would likely be a two term president." I think Rubio could have done a solid job as well (and he would have probably been able to drain some of the swamp with his idealism as well.) To be honest, other than Cruz, Trump, and Carson (wtf?), the remaining candidates (even Bush) were not terrible if not great (although I don't care for Pence much, I think at the national level he'd actually turn out to be less appeasing of the base he currently has to deal with at home.)
Anywho - long story short. Of course the CEO of a publicly traded company will act stupidly unaware of something that's been brought to his attention for months and is obvious to all of us... He's legally required to (in a way.)
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