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Zuckerberg Grilled At Angry Facebook Shareholder's Meeting (mercurynews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Mercury News' report on Facebook's annual shareholder's meeting:
On Thursday in Menlo Park, one investor compared the social network's poor stewardship of user data to a human rights violation. Another warned that scandal is not good for Facebook's bottom line. And one advised Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to emulate George Washington, not Vladimir Putin, and avoid turning Facebook into a "corporate dictatorship." Facebook struggled to keep order, kicking one woman out of the meeting within the first few minutes for repeated interruptions. A plane zipped overhead pulling a banner that read "YOU BROKE DEMOCRACY" and advertising Freedom From Facebook, a group of privacy and anti-monopoly activists that are pressing the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to break up the company...
Zuckerberg repeated the same reassurances he used in front of U.S. and European lawmakers earlier this year: The company hasn't taken a broad enough view of its responsibility... "We're also very focused on being more transparent," Zuckerberg said, touting the fact that the company had just posted its policies on content moderation for the first time. Minutes earlier, the company announced that shareholder proposals for more transparency and oversight had failed, surprising no one. Zuckerberg controls the company through special stock that gives him more votes than other shareholders.
"Facebook said that just because the proposals were blocked, that didn't mean the company doesn't care about these issues."
Zuckerberg repeated the same reassurances he used in front of U.S. and European lawmakers earlier this year: The company hasn't taken a broad enough view of its responsibility... "We're also very focused on being more transparent," Zuckerberg said, touting the fact that the company had just posted its policies on content moderation for the first time. Minutes earlier, the company announced that shareholder proposals for more transparency and oversight had failed, surprising no one. Zuckerberg controls the company through special stock that gives him more votes than other shareholders.
"Facebook said that just because the proposals were blocked, that didn't mean the company doesn't care about these issues."
Stop waiting for the government to take action. If everyone wants to teach Facebook and the Zuck a lesson, all you have to do is to close your account. If millions of people left Facebook for good, it would implode under its own weight. But alas, too many people are addicted to it. Sometimes it's the people who scream the loudest that are the most addicted to it.
Micro-targeting of voters was used by Obama against Hillary.
But when Trump does it, suddenly Facebook has overstepped.
The problem is Facebook's shitty policies which allowed a researcher to obtain details of people who hadn't agreed to give them and the amount of people's whose details were gathered. Who used them is not the issue.
Zuckerberg Grilled At Angry Facebook Shareholder's Meeting
Oh, metaphorically grilled. Had my hopes up there for a minute. How disappointing.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Should have listened to Stallman. I mean seriously it's a sad reflection on society when 100 millions of people just give everything to an unaccountable company and then cry about it later. It's really hard to have sympathy but honestly what where these people thinking? IN 2018 gullibility, peer pressure, and naivety still rule human behavior.
In Obama's case an app was made and people OPTED INTO giving it their personal data. In Cambridge's case the data was taken without CONSENT.
See the difference and the line that was crossed? I capitalized them so it's easier for you to pick out from inside the blurry Fox bubble.
The solution is surely to restrict political advertising during elections. Other countries do this already.
We should certainly ban political advertising by foreigners near an election, just as we already ban campaign contributions from foreigners. Sadly, its the same politicians who enforce that ban, so it's not exactly strict.
But when it comes to Americans running political ads during elections, that's exactly what is meant by "freedom of the press". And freedom of the press should not be limited to the likes of Bezos, who can buy the Washington Post to get his opinion out there. Us peons who can only buy an ad, not the whole paper, also deserve freedom to express political dissent during an election.
Also, where's the line between an ad an an op-ed? Between an op-ed and selective reporting? If you follow through on your proposal, you're saying that CNN can run 24/7 anti-Trump coverage near an election, and in fact can't mention Trump negatively (or positively, as if) near the election at all. That's sort of the opposite of freedom of the press.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Facebook has posted guidelines on content moderation, now, for the first time? That kind of incompetence borders on being liable. Why have there not ALWAYS been formal guidelines?
No, freedom of the press was not regarding political ads. It was to ensure that the public could be informed by the press about government malfeasance without state reprisal.
Again, is the freedom to publish one's political view limited to the like of Bezos and Murdock, who can buy a newspaper corporation, or ordinary people who can only buy an ad?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
as a foreigner, why would i care about your laws and why should your "advertisement ban by foreigners" be in any way binding to me? i never in y life set foot on USA soil, and i dont intend to
That's great and all, but we're talking about the US government regulating US corporations, and US political campaigns.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Investors in a datamining company complaining about datamining. Sounds like those shareholders of Shell who were complaining about climate change.
I can't wait for the logical extension:
Shareholders of Smith and Weston complaining that people die due to bullets.
Shareholders of Ratheyon complaining that their products explode.
Shareholders of VW complaining that customers are able drive somewhere.
What's so amazing about it? PRISM didn't feel like a personal violation, just an overreach of authority. Cambridge felt like a violation of personal space.
Also PRISM didn't have wide spread abuse of said data. All the targets were considered "bad". But with Cambridge, it gave a stark example that people could relate to directly.
Finally PRISM was written off as benign "metadata". That didn't scare people. But with Cambridge+Facebook+Personal Data in one sentence, people got a concrete idea just what was used. Most likely far less than they think was actually used but that's not the perception.
But when it comes to Americans running political ads during elections, that's exactly what is meant by "freedom of the press".
Um, no. Freedom of the press was all about the government not being able to suppress editorial content, not regulation of paid content.
The baffling supreme court decision that the first amendment should be interpreted to classify money as speech wasn't from 1796, but 1976.
This, along with the "corporate personhood" doctrine, has subverted the constitution and amendments from what was the obvious intent to something completely different, eroding the safeties of the individual from abuse of power that the founding fathers clearly had in mind.
No it wasn't what people agreed to. Facebook's first response was that Cambridge violated the terms of use of said data access. Facebook did a piss poor job of enforcing data protection but that doesn't make this a "business as it was designed" situation.
Obama invented this strategy and won twice with it.
The facts haven't changed, its liberal opinions that change. It is a mental disorder .
When Nate silver was doing the same thing to announce ahead of time that Obama would win, he was a hero.
When Nate did the same thing again and said trump might win, he disappeared again.
The press is free to refuse to publish. You have no right to buy ads.
Write your own pamphlets, run your own private press - that is explicitly protected.
You're making a new argument, unrelated to the previous topic of the thread. The point was the government must not prevent you from buying political ads. And the broadcast media (OTA TV and radio) does not have the right to refuse to publish, because the airwaves are regulated by that same government. Heck, I remember DJs in Florida apologizing for political ads during the 2000 election, explaining this very thing - people would call in and yell at the station for the (woefully mistargeted) political ads they were running, but they had no choice.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Again, are you really arguing that an ordinary person, who can only afford to buy an ad, not a newspaper corporation, does not have the right to political expression? Are you sure you want to say "political speech is only protected for 1%ers"?
You're even implying (intentionally?) that a group of like-minded people can't pool their money to show a film critical of a political candidate. Did you mean to imply that, or have I misunderstood you?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
To put it another way: You deleted your FB. Is that the case?
I've never had a fb account, never will.
I'm not the OP, but your question implied that nobody could be without fb. I love not being on it. FB is "the mosh pit", full of people who absolutely need others to constantly acknowledge them... and it's gross and pathetic.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
That's great and all, but we're talking about the US government regulating US corporations, and US political campaigns.
That's not how the world works anymore - that started changing with the advent of radio, which doesn't recognize borders, and culminated with Internet. A media company headquartered in Ireland and an ad agency in Bucarest can present ads to an American public with the US government having no direct jurisdiction.
They can attempt to squash any US based operations a company may have in retaliation, but then they risk running afoul of constitutional protections.
Yes - that has always been the law.
Americans determine the government of America. Seems right to me. The Queen of England has the money to outspend everyone else in an American presidential election, but we fought a war to prevent exactly that sort of control.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I expect we have paid posters here sent to deflect conversations.
Again, are you really arguing that an ordinary person, who can only afford to buy an ad, not a newspaper corporation, does not have the right to political expression? Are you sure you want to say "political speech is only protected for 1%ers"?
No, I am not arguing that at all, as you well know. You're trying to construct a strawman here.
Every individual has and should have the right to political expression, but not the right to buy publishing. Buying publishing does not give equal right of expression, it gives more expression the deeper your pockets are, which favors the 1%'ers.
One system used by some countries is to only allow political ads paid for by the parties, using money received from the government based on the primary representation each party has. Any party that has enough signatures to run a ballot gets an allotment. Individuals are free to their political speech, as long as they do not pay for the publishing. I.e. if they can find a newspaper that accepts the speech as an unpaid editorial, it's fine. If they print their own pamphlets, or run their own blog, it's fine. But when money changes hands for the purpose of influencing others through advertising, it is no longer fine, as it favors the rich over the poor.
No it wasn't what people agreed to.
Like people know what they agree to.
Granted, most people didn't expect their data to be weaponized.
Facebook's first response was that Cambridge violated the terms of use of said data access.
Once your data is sold to someone, it is theirs. The idea that the seller can enforce how the buyer uses that data is cute.
Facebook did a piss poor job of enforcing data protection but that doesn't make this a "business as it was designed" situation.
It is business as it will be used. Zuckerberg cannot get out f his responsibility for this.
There is a saying, unfortunately attributed to Nikita Kruschev, that goes something like:
"The last capitalist would sell the hangman the rope used to string up his own mother."
Zuck does not actually care that he was caught, or the results of what he shares responsibility for. He cares that it might affect his bottom line, though.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I expect we have paid posters here sent to deflect conversations.
Your suspicions are correct. The over-reliance on howaboutism is one big clue.
Expect a reply to this something like "Well, Hillary and O'Blama used howaboutism"
Its howaboutism all the way down.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Every individual has and should have the right to political expression, but not the right to buy publishing.
OK, now I'm just confused. Bezos should not have the right to buy the Washington Post? Murdoch should not have the right to buy the but the Wall Street Journal, or to start Fox News?
You seem to be imagining a difference between "political expression" and "buying publishing" when it comes to freedom of the press, but I can't follow your argument. Would you limit freedom of the press to what one guy can do with a laser printer, handing out handbills on a corner?
If Murdoch want to reach a national audience with his political views, he buys the Wall Street Journal. If I want to reach a national audience with my political views, I buy an add in the Wall Street Journal. Either way it's political views in a national newspaper - words printed in the very same paper.
Where specifically is the line you're drawing here, if not restricting the freedom to the very rich? Ban both?
One system used by some countries is to only allow political ads paid for by the parties, using money received from the government
Yes, other countries don't have constitutionally protected freedom of the press. Many worldwide think that protection needless or even bad. I disagree. I stand firmly by the right of people to express their political views to whoever they can reach.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
At this point in time you no longer get to say that you're simply ignorant.
You are either too stupid to understand written text on a page or screen, or spoken language in a video...
OR... You are so ideologically bent on supporting Nazis - which makes you a Nazi.
Or both... that's a highly probable possibility as well. Nazis ARE immensely retarded, out of sheer necessity of their ideology.
Oh... and one more thing... just to underline your utter retardation...
Micro-targeting of voters was used by Obama against Hillary.
Really? In 2008? Do you even calendar, boy?
Facebook had around 100 million users in 2008 - GLOBALLY.
Might as well target pets.com users for all the good it would do you at that point.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Well, you're technically correct in a very narrow sense, which, I'm told, is the best kind of correct. You'd have a rough time convincing any humans that EULAs are informed consent, however, especially unpublicized opt-out data collection and third-party sharing. Besides that, no one consented to a shadow profile, or to the collection and sale of info from data brokers to facebook. This argument just doesn't hold up to any level of scrutiny.
People acting as a group have no rights. We have to take those rights to maintain rights for people acting alone.
Poe's Law in full effect here. But taking this as written, the First Amendment clearly says otherwise:
Congress shall make no law respecting ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
There's just no basis in the Constitution to argue that your rights as an individual are diminished when acting on concert with other individuals with those same rights. Meanwhile, it's a staple of totalitarian regimes that a group of people advocating for change is an illegal disruption of public order.
If the two of us together pool our money to buy an ad, then that should be illegal and we should be put in prison. That is collusion and conspiracy. However, it's fine for either one of us to buy an ad.
What about conjoined twins?
The New York Times is a publicly traded corporation, so not just a group of like-minded friends, but a group of strangers. Can it run political pieces, or not? Can it pay its distribution company to deliver papers containing political opinion, or not?
It's OK for one of the Koch brothers to buy the New York Times and have it print libertarian op-eds every day, but if they both buy it together, not OK?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Lots of democracies get by just fine with laws that regulate who can pay to influence election campaigns, and they seem to be much better democracies because of it.
Campaigning in the last US election cost 6.4 billion USD, or around 41 USD per registered voter.
Campaigning in the last UK election cost a total of 39 million GBP (0.05 billion USD), or around 1.15 USD per registered voter.
Interesting example. The UK looks to me like a totalitarian dystopia where a reporter espousing the wrong view gets dragged off the street, tried in secret, and convicted an imprisoned within 24 hours, then a gag order placed on the rest of the British media to prevent them from protesting or even mentioning the event. That's 2018 UK, though it reads like early 16th century UK, right down to the subject matter of criticizing the wrong religion.*
Is your view that the US system presented voters with a higher quality of information, allowing them to make a more informed choice as to their representatives and president? Do you feel that additional six billion dollars was well spent? Does the requirement for billion dollar campaigns not seriously undercut the fundamental principles of democracy?
I believe the US system makes its citizens more free, which is the end goal. Most adults in the US ignore all ads from long habit anyhow. Those who wish to be informed voters don't get their information from the TV. We both have the same internet after all (well, except for the secret list of sites the UK government doesn't let its people visit, of course.)
* OK, I'm blurring history a little bit here, as the Star Chamber was pretty much over by the time political violence started over religion. Bloody Mary didn't bother with the subtleties of secret trials, after all.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"I don't use Facebook" is the new "I don't own a TV".
Have you read my blog lately?