Slashdot Mirror
The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley (nytimes.com)
Kara Swisher, writing for The New York Times: I kept pressing Mr. Zuckerberg on how he personally felt about the damage his creation had done. [Editor's note: Ms. Swisher is referring to her recent interview with Mark Zuckerberg.] Was he beginning to understand the power that he held, and that the world that he controlled was not such a rosy place? Facebook was "probably," he admitted, "too focused on just the positives and not focused enough on some of the negatives." Fair enough. But it was impossible to get him to acknowledge any personal pain as both the creator and the destroyer. "I mean, my emotion is feeling a deep sense of responsibility to try to fix the problem," said Mr. Zuckerberg. "In running a company, if you want to be innovative and advance things forward, I think you have to be willing to get some things wrong. But I don't think it is acceptable to get the same things wrong over and over again."
It was a classic Silicon Valley engineer's roll-up-your-sleeves answer, which leaves many cold when it comes to, say, the manipulation of democracy. Fending off bad actors like the Russians has been and will be increasingly expensive; it may even be impossible. But Facebook could have done much more than it did, and it certainly needs to do more than it's doing. Mr. Zuckerberg is now trying to fend off talk in Washington of regulating his company like the thing he once told me it was: a utility. He has also spent the last month meeting over dinners with a range of academic experts on free speech, propaganda and more to try to understand where to go from here. Call it the education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley, but on the world's dime. How much that has -- and will -- cost is probably immeasurable.
It was a classic Silicon Valley engineer's roll-up-your-sleeves answer, which leaves many cold when it comes to, say, the manipulation of democracy. Fending off bad actors like the Russians has been and will be increasingly expensive; it may even be impossible. But Facebook could have done much more than it did, and it certainly needs to do more than it's doing. Mr. Zuckerberg is now trying to fend off talk in Washington of regulating his company like the thing he once told me it was: a utility. He has also spent the last month meeting over dinners with a range of academic experts on free speech, propaganda and more to try to understand where to go from here. Call it the education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley, but on the world's dime. How much that has -- and will -- cost is probably immeasurable.
All facebook is doing is letting stupid people be stupid.
This just exposes how dumb the average person is and how stupidly they make decisions on who to vote for.
Also, it was never proven that the Russians have had *any* impact on the outcome of the election.
So what damage are we talking about exactly?
What damage has facebook done?
Conspiracy nuts have always existed. Racists have always existed. Election propaganda has always existed.
Remember when the president of Mexico told americans not to vote for Trump?
Why isn't he arrested for election hacking?
Is anyone forcing you to use Facebook? Is using Facebook required to accomplish any task or job? Are there not alternatives to Facebook?
No?
Then WHO CARES.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Ultimately that's the problem.
Facebook is a data harvesting engine designed for maximum privacy violation.
It is designed to make money off the flow of information regardless of whether it is "true" or not.
There is far too much information to censor it reliably, and censorship carries it's own set of problems.
About the best they can do is go after fake accounts who's whole purpose is to relay false infomation. But that will be an arms race and FB will be behind most of the time.
Ultimately, they will make decisions based on the money they are making and will do whatever is legal. He's only worried about reputation as it directly affects the bottom line, which can be a little difficult to gauge.
Absolute statements are never true
Don't you love it when everything's back to normal? Us old folks who remember the good ol' days of the 70s and 80s were kinda miffed at those newfangled enemies. The only boogeyman that could hold a candle to the Russians were the terrorists, and they were kinda bland. Faceless, nameless, not something you could point at. The Russians were different. You knew where they were, you didn't have to wage war with them and lose young guys, but the cold war kept the military industrial complex well funded. Perfect war, great for the economy and nobody has to die.
Far better than that war with the terrorists where people actually get killed.
Plus, the Russians never sent anyone to our country, neither to blow shit up nor as refugees. They even made sure that everyone stayed where they belonged.
Yes, I long for our old, beloved enemies. It's good to see that they're coming back in style.
Could we phase out those other ones, those terrorists? I mean, we don't really need them now anymore, now that the Russians want to play again, and they get kinda pesky. Plus, they're SO completely nuts that our government doesn't have to pretend to be the good guys with them. That's something the Russians always managed to do really well for us.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
But it was impossible to get him to acknowledge any personal pain as both the creator and the destroyer.
I'm no Zuckerberg fan, but sheesh.
He's actually on your side politically, and he's saying that he wants to address your concerns, but you are in a tizzy because he won't say the "right" things about how he feels and he won't emote the way you want him to??
...including this one. The NY Times never complained when FB "manipulated" the election of Barak Obama in 2012 by letting the DNC volunteers send their friend graph to a vote analysis service which then recommended get-out-the-Democrat-vote messages back. Back then FB was hailed to high heaven as this digital force of nature and Republicans were clueless against the onslaught of the hip, digital natives.
And look where we are now. The hypocrisy just abounds.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
In short - we'd make up an enemy if required to keep the status quo in power.
I think HL Mencken had something to say about it:
"Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary."
Yep, that describes our (and most other) governments. Russia's done the same using us as the boogyman, North Korea...maybe it's why we don't like looking in the mirror much. It's the oldest trick in the book - hey, look, a bear is even more attention-getting than hey, look, a squirrel.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Why is no one in a tizzy about all of the many carefully planned protests for illegal immigration? That's 12 million unregistered foreign agents currently in country, actively demonstrating for governmental action. Mueller would call it a conspiracy and start issuing subpoenas, if they were Russians and helped the current narrative that Hillary should have won.
Go back a little further and notice no one complained when the Soviets were sending millions to fund the anti-Vietnam war effort. The Soviets sent more money to the US left during the Vietnam war then they did to the Viet-Cong. Not a whataboutism, just trying to educate.
The press has more to blame for 2016 by giving Donald so much screen time and then declaring Hillary the victor when the votes hadn't even been cast. Their certainty in a landslide probably did more to suppress the vote than anything else.
Too much hypocrisy in all of this. Too much irony as well, but it is bitter. Hillary lost twice by not understanding the process. She lost to Barrack in her first Presidential nomination run by not realizing how delegates get counted, which she fixed in the stupidest possible way in her second run. Then she lost to Donald because she couldn't grasp how the electoral college works.