Zuckerberg's Senate Committee testimony

"Do you plan to add an African-American to your leadership team?"

 

yeah, lol. That's relevant.

I mean, they do have an ad platform that allows buyers to target (or not target) users by race.

 

lank

 

edit - IDK what the specific line of questioning at that moment was though.

Edited April 11, 2018 by doublename

  On 4/11/2018 at 2:35 PM, MIXL2 said:

lol does anyone even use facebook anymore?

Not anymore. I quit nearly a month ago, right after Stephen Hawking died and right before this shit-storm. I deactivated my account, but didn't delete, in case I might be tempted to return to it one day. Regardless, I don't think anyone on my Friends list even noticed.

Zuck has been his own worst enemy really. If he had been more pro-active with self regulation within the company, he wouldn't be sat there today being grilled by a bunch of old folks who want government to regulate. Government regulation will be much more draconian (and costly to facebook) than if they'd done something themselves within the company. But that ship has sailed now.

 

I also agree with what Nebraska said. The problem is that Facebook is not interested in acting responsibly with the data they hold and users are not interested in acting responsibly with what they post. It's the very worst of both worlds.

So is zucc unusually small then? What's the booster seat all about?

  On 4/11/2018 at 2:35 PM, MIXL2 said:

lol does anyone even use facebook anymore?

lol i do... my objective was to make likes on my interests, movies, music, etc, and get their news in the news feed, and use it as kind of a personalized newspaper...

but unfortunately, facebooks sucks, it chooses what news are posted on the news feed according to where we click and how much times we click... and that's why i'm getting tired of it, sometimes i miss something new because it wasn't on the news feed, i have to go to a specific page if i want to read all the news they post...

i even tried making lists, thinking that that way there would be no algorithm judging what i like but no, it does the same shit...

  On 4/11/2018 at 5:25 PM, fumi said:

Yeah, I agree with you but what really irks me is that they want the incredible wealth but aren't willing to take any responsibility for how it is made. Today's questions seem much more probing. Honestly, for a CEO, Zuck doesn't seem to have a clue what is going on within his company. He's been too busy counting those dollars.

 

 

 

 

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Zuck, Sandberg and the others haven't really created anything apart from the facebook framework. Users create the content, for free which generates the profits. Zuck feels that he's not responsible for what is created but he's more than happy to take the money it generates.

 

It all needs regulation. 

 

 

i agree with some of what you said but not sure everything.

 

1. i think everyone wants wealth (or at the very least, a lot of us do). zucks and his wife have committed giving away a large portion of their shares of facebook to charity and even given $10 billion thru his wife's charity. zucks also drives non-fancy (cheap?) cars and only seems to allow himself the vice of real estate. personally if i was worth $55 billion, i'd right now be party on the moon pissing down on earth. 

 

i don't see facebook as owing anyone anything. 

 

2. you're right. facebook (the platform) isn't valuable. it's the data. zucks agree's with this- which is why the breach is so serious. if it wasn't for the data breach because it's got the data of 10 billion people around the planet.

 

3.you said zuck has created nothing and feels no responsibility about it but is happy to take their money. correct. what exactly should he be responsible for? if you use facebook, don't share data and you'll never have to worry about 3rd parities stealing your data. you could go further and not engage with the facebook platform.

 

i'm also not to sure about any business that feels responsible on how it's money is made but isn't more than happy to take it. that by definition is a business. it's a separate entity from a human being (who might have some morals or regrets about screwing people or whatever) but as a business, facebook is beholden to their shareholders

 

p.s. does anyone else get the feeling the congresswomen are drilling zucks much harder than the congressmen? 

  On 4/11/2018 at 6:05 PM, Amen Warrior said:

So is zucc unusually small then? What's the booster seat all about?

 

actually he's normal height. i think the booster seat has more to do with comfort whilst sitting for long hours getting drilled

I'm not sure I understand the issue.

 

A) Facebook as a platform allowed an app that gathered data from people's (a small amount of users, relatively speaking) conversations including from people that didn't download (consent) to the app. Friends of those that consented to downloading the app. Is that correct?

 

B) We all know Facebook was gathering most of our info + selling it or it was being used by intelligence or otherwise hacked/distributed anyways.

 

There's a disconnect there. Is it just that this is the first official proof or what? It seems like a non-issue to me. 

 

 

Editeditedit: how much of this information/privacy stuff is included in EULAs that everyone hits "I have read and agree" on that they didn't really read? Srs question. 

Edited April 11, 2018 by Bulk VanderHooj

lol @ congressman mcnerney

 

mcnerney: hey zucks, so i tried to get my secretary to download my entire history on facebook and nothing came up. WTF?

zucks: yeah, well, that means you have not shared anything on facebook

mcnerney: explain that to me

zucks: do you even have a fb account?

mcnerney: i'll have to follow that up with you

 

checked. mcnerney has a fb account, but it seems to be incredibly generic and probably made by some guy in his campaign trail that has long since been fired.

Edited April 11, 2018 by Nebraska

I've only seen a couple of CSPAN Twitter clips of this and only glanced at a few articles, but I'm pretty sure I've seen quotes of Zucky saying "I'm responsible" for lots of things. Just saying it doesn't really matter, of course, especially after the fact. It's just a part of the show for the shareholders and the users and the idiots in Congress who generally don't even understand half of what's happening. "Look, see all the headlines and photos? I sat there for days and answered their questions, can you leave us alone now?"

 

Meanwhile they've supposedly pushed back the Facebook smart speaker assistant whateverthefuck from its scheduled summer release because of all this mess, of course.

Yeah, "I'm responsible" doesn't equal being held responsible. Seems most of this is a bit of a show to placate the people really.

  On 4/11/2018 at 6:23 PM, Bulk VanderHooj said:

I'm not sure I understand the issue.

 

A) Facebook as a platform allowed an app that gathered data from people's (a small amount of users, relatively speaking) conversations including from people that didn't download (consent) to the app. Friends of those that consented to downloading the app. Is that correct?

 

B) We all know Facebook was gathering most of our info + selling it or it was being used by intelligence or otherwise hacked/distributed anyways.

 

There's a disconnect there. Is it just that this is the first official proof or what? It seems like a non-issue to me. 

 

 

Editeditedit: how much of this information/privacy stuff is included in EULAs that everyone hits "I have read and agree" on that they didn't really read? Srs question. 

 

a. correct. the app was created by a guy called aleksandr kogan. the app basically did what every app does: do you consent to using this app. we need access to your profile, your phonebook, your microphone. to see what why we need this data, real our TOS. thanks

 

since nobody reads to TOS, what they didn't know (maybe it wasn't even written in there) is that all this data would be sold to cambridge analytica. facebook found out about this in 2015 and asked cambridge analytica and any other data mining group that may have had access to this data to delete their data. they said "okay. we just did". facebook said "k thanks". that was not the case so damage control is in progress.

 

b. facebook says they collect data but they do not sell it. what they do is when an advertiser wants their product displayed, eg. to all farmers in stockton california, facebook takes all the data it has on people that like farmers or are farmers in stockton california and floods their asses with that advertisers product/service. 

 

so advertisers never have access to said data. facebook acts as the proxy betwix your data/information and the advertiser

  On 4/11/2018 at 6:36 PM, Nebraska said:

 

  On 4/11/2018 at 6:23 PM, Bulk VanderHooj said:

I'm not sure I understand the issue.

 

A) Facebook as a platform allowed an app that gathered data from people's (a small amount of users, relatively speaking) conversations including from people that didn't download (consent) to the app. Friends of those that consented to downloading the app. Is that correct?

 

B) We all know Facebook was gathering most of our info + selling it or it was being used by intelligence or otherwise hacked/distributed anyways.

 

There's a disconnect there. Is it just that this is the first official proof or what? It seems like a non-issue to me. 

 

 

Editeditedit: how much of this information/privacy stuff is included in EULAs that everyone hits "I have read and agree" on that they didn't really read? Srs question. 

 

a. correct. the app was created by a guy called aleksandr kogan. the app basically did what every app does: do you consent to using this app. we need access to your profile, your phonebook, your microphone. to see what why we need this data, real our TOS. thanks

 

since nobody reads to TOS, what they didn't know (maybe it wasn't even written in there) is that all this data would be sold to cambridge analytica. facebook found out about this in 2015 and asked cambridge analytica and any other data mining group that may have had access to this data to delete their data. they said "okay. we just did". facebook said "k thanks". that was not the case so damage control is in progress.

 

b. facebook says they collect data but they do not sell it. what they do is when an advertiser wants their product displayed, eg. to all farmers in stockton california, facebook takes all the data it has on people that like farmers or are farmers in stockton california and floods their asses with that advertisers product/service. 

 

so advertisers never have access to said data. facebook acts as the proxy betwix your data/information and the advertiser

 

 

Ah, I see. Important detail RE FB claiming not to sell data, I didn't realize that was part of their mantra. I always just assumed FB did sell it, or it was otherwise harvested by various orgs both for profit and intelligence reasons.

 

Just an assumption of mine I guess, is that when you put any information in the public domain like that, someone somewhere is either using it or trying to profit off it.

 

RE TOS/EULAs, are they even admissible as evidence these days? I thought it was trending towards not being legally binding or admissible - overly legalistic, lengthy documents that it is well known everyone skips over/doesn't read, that the average joe/jane wouldn't understand if they read it anyways. 

Edited April 11, 2018 by Bulk VanderHooj

  On 4/11/2018 at 6:42 PM, Bulk VanderHooj said:

Just an assumption of mine I guess, is that when you put any information in the public domain like that, someone somewhere is either using it or trying to profit off it.

 

correct. when you put something in the public domain: eg. your fb profile set the public it's impossible for fb to regulate a data mining company/organization from gathering that info. fb does use a lot of AI tools to gather information eg. when you join a certain group their AI technology will cross reference other things you have in common to better target ads to everyone in that group eg. everyone in this group likes hamburgers. now we all get carl's jr ads etc.

 

the problem is that tech is growing and advancing faster than humans can handle which means it's now possible for fb AI technology to find certain words you say or type in facebook chat to cross reference with people in your address book or other things you type when this app is running in the background. not malicious in intent, but you see how suddenly your compromised simply because you decided to search for something on google whilst waiting for a friend to reply to something you said on chat/messenger app.

 

zucks recommendation for this is to encrypt all your information/data- but of course that then means more research than the average consumer is willing to do hence a mixed bag: 1. tech is more advanced than regular humans can handle 2. artificial intelligence will be the end of humans

  On 4/11/2018 at 5:38 PM, fumi said:

"Do you plan to add an African-American to your leadership team?"

 

yeah, lol. That's relevant.

 

twitter has the upper edge on that demographic IIRC

  On 4/11/2018 at 7:46 PM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 4/11/2018 at 5:38 PM, fumi said:

"Do you plan to add an African-American to your leadership team?"

 

yeah, lol. That's relevant.

 

twitter has the upper edge on that demographic IIRC

 

 

yeah he was asked the same question yesterday by senator cory booker

Still watching this and thinking that Zuck is getting an easy-ride (relatively) because the people questioning him barely have a grasp of the technologies involved. Imagine if he was being grilled by fellow people in the tech industry. They would have crucified him by now.

He seemed to have more savoir faire in the hot seat than this guy, or maybe zuckerbeg wasn't properly grilled.

  On 4/11/2018 at 8:44 PM, fumi said:

Still watching this and thinking that Zuck is getting an easy-ride (relatively) because the people questioning him barely have a grasp of the technologies involved. Imagine if he was being grilled by fellow people in the tech industry. They would have crucified him by now.

 

yes- there were also repeat questions and questions which specifically had to do with rules congress put into place that make some of the things they're now asking for impossible. it's like they want to eat their cake and have it too.

 

also, loved the congressman who asked "hey, how about just hiring reviewers from middle america like bismark north dakota since california is such a lefty state? yuck yuck!"

 

zuck's answer was this

 

also, whoever is in charge of typing up those random "thank you for your question. this is a follow up" replies is going to have a rough 10 days. 

 

It strikes me as a bit ironic that a congressional testimony about collection of data and privacy is finished off with a comment about trusting the government, very conveniently forgetting to mention that the US government covertly allowed the NSA to collect information about pretty much anyone using any means necessary, and continues to allow them to do that.

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/world/how-the-nsa-is-tracking-people-right-now/634/

 

and uh...

  Quote

 

(Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill to renew the National Security Agency’s warrantless internet surveillance program, overcoming objections from privacy advocates and confusion prompted by morning tweets from President Donald Trump that initially questioned the spying tool.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-surveillance/house-passes-nsa-spying-bill-after-trump-tweets-cause-confusion-idUSKBN1F01XD

  Quote

 

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL): "Let me just cut to the chase," said Nelson, who is running a heated reelection campaign against GOP governor and dead-eyed shark Rick Scott. "If you and other social media companies do not get your act in order, none of us are going to have any privacy anymore. That is what we are facing."

...

Despite these concerns, Nelson has consistently supported the program. In 2014, he was the only Senate Democrat to vote against curtailing NSA spying. In 2015, he argued Section 702 should be "extended permanently" because he believes the program is necessary to fight "terrorism" at home and abroad despite the fact that the public has basically zero idea as to how many purported terror attacks, if any, have been prevented thanks to warrantless NSA spying.

...

In January, Nelson went a step further. Section 702 needs to be reauthorized every few years, but after repeatedly campaigning against Donald Trump and basically calling him an existential threat to American democracy, Nelson voted in favor of extending the NSA's spying programs through the rest of Trump's term. Nelson's vote helped hand the president the keys to the most powerful state-sponsored spying network in world history.

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/bill-nelson-criticizes-mark-zuckerberg-on-cambridge-analytica-10251997

Edited April 11, 2018 by Salvatorin

haha

Now it's finished, the last twenty-four hours feel like a missed opportunity. So many times, Zuck had no answer. It didn't help that he was being questioned by folks born in the 1940s who probably struggle to open their email.

 

Also this:

 

https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-will-follow-up/

  On 4/11/2018 at 8:44 PM, fumi said:

Still watching this and thinking that Zuck is getting an easy-ride (relatively) because the people questioning him barely have a grasp of the technologies involved. Imagine if he was being grilled by fellow people in the tech industry. They would have crucified him by now.

I’m not so sure about that - he’d be able to speak their language. I mean he might be an amoral fuck, but he’s undoubtedly a smart dude.

It might be more interesting for us, but for average Americans...well.

 

Edit: What I mean is, do we really need to know the technical specifications of the protocols the API was using, and whether or not sha-256 encryption is sufficient for messenger? Or do we need to understand facebook’s actions from a societal point of view?