Facebook doesn't delete all cookies (for instance, there's an `sb` cookie still set) in their logout response. They may choose not to do anything with the cookies that remain, but the technical answer to the question is yes. And even if they currently did delete all cookies, there's nothing from preventing them from introducing cookies that do remain.
Zuck knows this is generally feasible - he's a talented software engineer. The question was ambiguously worded, and Zuck could have clarified or answered that it's generally feasible but that Facebook has tight controls around the usage of that information. It's the panel's responsibility to not let him get away with that type of maneuver, and they don't have the type of real-time support that, say, a news anchor has (with earpiece and live research staff) to handle interviewing domain experts in an optimal way.
This is all supposed to be politically scary and demonstrative of the fact that very few people actually knows what is going on. Which all the more scary to me because these are the people who are supposed to understand what's going on so they can have proper oversight. This entire issue reminds me of the time the supreme court tried to wrap their brains around the (finger quotes) "the cloud".
What's really sad is that nobody has been addressing just how creepy the internet is getting. Like the fact that with just 500 likes the social network can insinuate more of your personality than your lover. Or how Google can predict what you will likely like to eat for breakfast tomorrow based on the kind of stuff you are buying at the store whenever you use reward cards that is gets cross referenced to your browsing habits that insinuate moods.
We are really over engineering the internet to the point that we have a "don't touch that red button" being installed into our lives where nobody knows what it does until it gets pressed, we end up wrecking our cars and are left wondering why the car manufacturers thought it was smart to install NOS in our cars without our knowledge in order to remain on the cutting edge (and thus competitive).
I'm deriving a perverse kind of pleasure from all this. Maciej Ceglowski has a fantastic talk called Haunted By Data, where he compares data to radioactive waste: we collect a lot of it, and ultimately don't know how to handle it safely and responsibly.
He ends the talk with a warning that unless the tech sector is careful, they will have their own Three Mile Island, and will forever afterwards be regulated into the ground. Facebook and Google are almost begging for it. May we see them become a shadow of their powerful selves in not too distant a future.
For advertising purposes it really only depends as a whole how truthful a picture the likes tell. If the likes are on average 70% truthful it is still going to be more effective targeting than not using them at all.
It's a reference to a study where they had an algorithm fed with a certain number of facebook likes compete against personal acquaintances (including spouses) in predictig personality traits. The algorithm won:
But what's the supposed ground truth that spouses and algorithms were tested against? Self reporting? Some other glorified coin flip algorithm that maybe just did the same mistakes as the "thumbs" algorithms? An export panel populated with people that, unlike the benchmarked spouses and acquaintances, used the same jargon as the algorithm authors?
(Glancing over the footnotes it seems to be (b), some other algorithm)
The beauty of adtech: it's perfectly fine to be wrong as long as advertisers think you are right.
On meta level, this "better than your lover" meme/study is surprisingly enlightening.
The parent's argument assumes though that this kind of accuracy is achieved regularly and consistently today, which is way different than the report of one study.
It doesn't need to be consistent in order to be horrifying.
The fear is that big data tech will become radioactive.
Imagine a bus full of school kids crashes because the driver was a recovering alcoholic who fell off the wagon.
Some smart SV engineer realizes their tech spotted the driver visited AA groups regularly & his wife just left him. The algorithm knows this data makes him an excellent target audience for _new alco-energy drink!_.
It doesn't really matter if the technology is even capable of that yet, what matters is that this is the sort of outcome that adtech engineers are trying to create.
> They may choose not to do anything with the cookies that remain, but the technical answer to the question is yes.
I think you could say the same thing about IP addresses. A website might log the IP addresses of people who visit them, or they might not, but quite a lot of tracking is feasible. The problem with focusing on feasibility there, is that you end up with an answer like "yes, just like every other website in the world, Facebook can track you when you're logged out." Assuming Zuckerberg has been coached to High Heaven not to gives answers like that, it seems fair to respond to the question as though it was asking about the internal details of what Facebook does with cookies / IP addresses / browser fingerprints.
While a website may be able to track you via IP address within itself, it can't track you across websites like FB can since their code gets injected to a lot of websites (which they do use to track you when you're signed in - my guess would be the same holds for when you're logged out).
Browser fingerprinting is already alright, even without world-class data centers with several server rooms the size of football fields, and world-class AI experts tuning those many rooms of servers to intelligently track and classify people online.
Cookies are almost certainly irrelevant to FB's ability to track people, and Zuck certainly knows it.
Cookies? I would assume Facebook is using the latest tracking techniques like canvas fingerprinting and other ways to identify users uniquely on the web.
Even if they can't track single users solely based on canvas fingerprinting, it gives them a big additional piece of information, to narrow down specific users.
I get the distinct impression that Zuckerberg has been briefed to say "I'll get back to you on that", on anything that might be controversial. Probably some wisdom in that as it defuses a lot of emotion that could arise if certain information comes out in this setting. But it's also disingenuous, even if it avoids a lynchmob for now.
"I'll get back to you" was essentially "On the advice of council, I would like to exercise my fifth amendment right". It was like a Chapelle skit at times.
Every time he said that or "This is a very important question", the honest way to finish the sentence would have been "..which I'm not going to provide an answer to".
I do not have the facebook app on my phone. I downloaded Instagram and it magically knew one of my email addresses (not the one used with my facebook account). I deleted it, mashed the keyboard for the new email address, declined syncing contacts, blocked the permission as well as every other permission, and lo and behold it still shows all of my facebook friends on instagram as suggestions.
Fucking creepy.
It was people who don't have my phone number or any other information including people who I am not friends with and only messaged once from a buy/sell group.
I am guessing because I used the app at some point on my phone it fingerprinted it, then Instagram goes and fingerprints it when you install and links your account even when you decline to do so.
Lots of ways this could happen but people often forget about GPS/location services which are very accurate. I'm not sure if you have never had FB app on your phone, but even if you never installed FB app on your phone there could still be geo-associations inferred.
Think about the times your phone is near your friends phones, how your phone probably sits in the same space every night, the overlap between your IP location to whatever other devices connect behind your NAT which also send data to FB.
If you previously had Facebook or Messenger installed on the phone it's possible they saved some user info on the device or in the cloud linked to your device ID.
Honestly is there anyway that he could explain the Facebook Pixel/ad network that wouldn't just be describing any ad network?
By definition, ad tracking (cookies etc...) is opaque to most people and explaining it publicly would make it seem like FB is doing something more nefarious than others.
It's an important discussion but his response would just make FB seem way worse on that specific issue than highlighting how the entire ad network ecosystem works.
This is a good point, but FB brings the "real name policy" to the data broker's world. Being able to link real people with real credit profiles, and real web browsing habits is a game changer. Many of us were ranting and raving all of over HN ~2010/2011 about the issues FB represented, but we were tinfoilers and haters.
Even those of us without FB accounts (with forgone networking opportunities) are at risk because we all have friends without the same cynicism.
The real name policy is kind-of irrelevant. Data brokers can see what FB account is logged in and link with your real name via credit card transaction codes and e-commerce tracking cookies.
> Honestly is there anyway that he could explain the Facebook Pixel/ad network that wouldn't just be describing any ad network
The only ad network in front of Congress today, was Facebook. 'Everyone else is doing it' or 'this is the nature of the business' doesn't qualify as an excuse. Perhaps it could have been good for the large public to know what goes on with ad networks these days.
> It's an important discussion but his response would just make FB seem way worse on that specific issue than highlighting how the entire ad network ecosystem works.
Any legislation that comes out of this hearing wouldn't apply only to Facebook. Facebook admitting the extent of its tracking could help clean up the "entire ad network ecosystem."
It's a good strategy, all the media coverage is about his actual testimony today, whereas when he sends an update to the committee next week, it will not make as big of a splash as this one.
It's pretty cringe-y so far. From The Verge's liveblog:
"I would liken this hearing so far to a precocious college junior explaining his major to his grandparents at Thanksgiving"
The question and its answer succeed in getting Zuckerberg on record (in the Congressional Record, no less) as saying that his business model depends on advertising, with all that that implies about the relationship between Facebook and its users.
Think of it as like when you're on the witness stand and the attorney asks you a question. It's not because he doesn't know the answer. It's because he wants you to say the answer, to make it part of the public record and to have the jury hear it.
Speaking of juries, the arrogance of Zuckerberg's answer wouldn't win any points with a jury, either. He walked into a trap right there.
It's fun to bust on our parents & politicos but I'm pretty sure anybody who managed to raise you, or especially get into the Senate, has a much more extensive and nuanced understanding of life (and politics) than you think.
> Zuckerberg on record (in the Congressional Record, no less) as saying that his business model depends on advertising
This has never been secret and has been "on record" for a very long time. I think most people will see the absolutely dismal lack of technical understanding by Congress rather than any arrogance by Facebook as they too get fed up with these aimless questions.
Have you ever written an introduction to a technical document before? You make statements in there that are obvious, not because the reader doesn't understand, but because you want to bring the reader into the right frame of mind with the right set of facts before them as context for the rest of the document.
Questions like this are really just asking Zuckerberg to introduce his business in a controlled way.
Alright that's fair, I guess I misinterpreted the original comment as if this was cleverly teasing the information out of him vs just repeating the fact as background for the hearing.
> This has never been secret and has been "on record" for a very long time.
Been a secret to "whom"? Not secret to technical people, no. There are plenty of non-technical people who still don't understand the "you are the product not a customer" trope. They see this free "talk to your family" service which sometimes shows ads which they ignore. They might answer the "how FB makes money question?" with "I don't know, maybe some people pay for it. Or maybe they are just nice and give it away for free".
Other questions might have been stupid but that particular one was typical of how a police investigator might start questioning or how a lawyer might cross examine a witness.
> I think most people will see the absolutely dismal lack of technical understanding by Congress
Back in the day I used to think of lawyers asking witness questions on the stand the same way: "Why do you ask him if he knows the victim, of course he does, these lawyers are sure not very bright..."
That's not necessary to realize that these senators do not.
Also yes, based on their questions and age, I do think most people have a better understanding. Just the expressions of the other audience members and staff in the room shows the frustration.
I doubt the hearing audience represents the general population, and I have yet to meet anyone not involved in software development who understands anything about how it works outside of niche, semi-related circles.
I've said this before, but I think most people don't have a problem with advertising, per se, but with the tracking required for super effective advertising.
When Google first showed up and just tossed some ads at the top of your search results based solely on the search terms, that was actually helpful. It wasn't something that people were creeped out by until they were tracking you everywhere to sell even more targeted ads.
Since newspapers and TV don't have that tracking capability, the advertisements are annoying but not unsettling, I think.
It's fun to bust on our parents & politicos but I'm pretty sure anybody who managed to raise you, or especially get into the Senate, has a much more extensive and nuanced understanding of life (and politics) than you think
You say that, but I'd just like to remind you that Louie Gohmert (my home state fwiw) was a judge. And is now in the house.
I think he was trying to get at something here though: can you run a business that is free for some people and isn't ad based? To which I think the answer could be nuanced. Maybe a large enough population pays $4/month and can thus subsidize some part of the population that doesn't have that privilege. Note I'm not actually advocating that, just saying I want to give the guy a benefit of the doubt that he was trying to move the conversation somewhere new and creative.
I think a lot of these questions have been like that, but ultimately the senators couldn't figure out how to phrase what they were getting at and both sides floundered to understand what was going on.
edit: as an example was another senator, "mr funny guy", who was trying to ask if facebook tracks how people use other apps or devices, I'm still not sure, even when they aren't logged in or something. I saw 3 possible questions that he was trying to ask and they all would have been good but I don't think either of them understood what he was asking so they went back and forth uselessly. Could have been some hard hitting commentary on the bundling of permissions, or the bundling of fb with a phone, or the ability for fb to track other app usage, or the ability of fb to track users on websites even when not logged in. oh well.
>large enough population pays $4/month and can thus subsidize some part of the population
Just in case, FB ARPU in US in Q4 2017 was $27. People who talk about "i ready to pay 10$ per year if im not tracked and not exposed to ads" _seriously_ underestimate FB money-printing ability.
Think about it, FB makes almost as much as NFLX per US user (admittedly in Q4, the hottest quarter in advertising), but you dont need to enter your credit card. At all.
Indeed. At the rate their monetization is likely to grow as advertising & economy (retail etc) continues to shift online, just continuing the existing growth trend and assuming a slow-down over time, it's extremely likely Facebook will reach a ~$200 per year ARPU in the US/Canada market within five years or so.
There is no large audience in any developed market willing to pay $15+ per month for Facebook just to remove ads.
If someone comes along with a service that fulfills the same niche that Facebook does, charges $9/month, and has a guaranteed (audited) enforcement of personal privacy ... I'd do it. I like being connected to my family & some friends.
The problem is getting from zero to critical mass with that model. Though I guess that doesn't stop a lot of other companies with less plausible revenue sources from getting seemingly endless money thrown at them.
I agree. Like every other product in the world, I would base the price on what the local market supports.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think it would ever work, because I may value my privacy at more than a few bucks a month, but it's a near certainty that the vast majority of the population disagrees with me. They don't see the cost there, so they ignore it. By the time they ever realize what it was they gave up and for how little, it's too late.
> The problem is getting from zero to critical mass with that model.
But you just said you just need your family and some friends. That doesn't sound like critical mass is needed. Just convince your family and some friends to join with you, and enjoy the service together. Then your friends can invite their friends and family, and so on and so forth.
Technically users are entering their credit card information somewhere down the line after an ad click, many times on a website "shadier" than Facebook because sane advertisers make more money than they spend.
I wonder two things though. 1) would their operating costs be lower if their infrastructure wasn't designed around this user tracking and advertising model? 2) regardless of the answer to number #1 but especially if that answer is yes, do they _need_ an ARPU of $27 to get by? Could they survive on $10? (of course I recognize not everyone can pay that, it's a privilege etc)
Yeah I understand the goal of capitalist companies is to endlessly print more money for the shareholders and the promise of ever better advertising enables FB to keep pulling in the dough. But maybe something like social media shouldn't operate in that context.
It sounded like no one even proofread and edited their questions or lines of reasoning. There should be a panel of non-partisan people, not even experts, taking the dumb out of their questions before they engage. It was a waste of time. Even some strong questions and ideas were shutdown because they couldn't formulate it, and then the internet turned it into another way to laugh at congress.
Maybe there needs to be an old-lawyer to SME translator doing the talking too. This person questions a SME on behalf of the senators and they can speak up or seek clarification when needed. Proofread questions and competent speech.
I really liked your first post and building a platform to enable such things is completely simple. Please don't take the cynical/self-defeating attitude. Promotion is not my strong suit. Be careful with people that want to be the watchers of the watchers without laying out clear principles ahead of time.
> Maybe a large enough population pays $4/month and can thus subsidize some part of the population
That's how WhatsApp started to fund itself, I remember there being a nominal annual charge ( £1 ) for some users but not for all. There didn't seem to be any obvious rule as to who was pinged to pay-up, perhaps it really was random.
But that was discontinued after they were acquired.
I see so many lawyers adopt this same tone. Something about crafting a narrative or something - maybe to get the interviewee to be a little more open than they normally would because they underestimate the knowledge of their interviewer, or just to make the interviewee make the mistake of thinking the interviewer is generally ignorant/stupid.
Zuck actually deflected that one well, and didn't have to elaborate unfortunately (or the Senator was ill prepared). There's a lot more to facebook ads than just "we show ads". To which degree do they sell out users' info to the advertisers?
Agreed. I’ve been involved in a few of these regulator type of questioning and they all speak the same way. It has the effect of making the (obvious) answer seem criminal. People in real life don’t talk that way because it can come across as rude.
That senator, Orrin Hatch (R-UT), is 84 years old. He may be genuinely unaware of how sites like Facebook make money, though his expression after Zuckerberg answered seemed like he was entirely aware of how basic the question/answer was.
> It's a really odd line of questioning from people who don't seem to understand the subject matter.
Maybe but that particular quote "Zuckerberg (in a disdainful tone): Senator, we run ads." is not an example of it. Sometimes they ask really basic questions, not because they don't know the answer to it, but to enter it into the record. It's how a police or how cross examination starts, get them to admit basic stuff then later make them contradict themselves. Another reason for basic "stupid" questions is to provide information for others who many not be aware. We all know how FB makes money, but that might not extend to people who aren't proficient technically (think grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles...).
Interesting take. I actually read that as a 'softball question' from one supporter of adtech 'free as in beer products' to another. As in, aren't these people who are outraged funny? How else could we create something for free? It was in effect a signal 'don't worry, this won't turn into any meaningful regulation affecting your bottom line.' Don't be duped by people who 'play dumb'. There are many examples of people who don't understand technology in Congress, I don't think this is one of them.
This question (like many others) was frustrating, because it was worded in such a way that was incredibly easy for Zuck to dodge. Of course FB isn't using your encrypted messages for ad purposes, because they can't. But messages sent from FB Messenger, not from WhatsApp, are unencrypted and so are likely used for ad purposes -- but of course the question wasn't worded in that way.
The way they scoped that question to WhatsApp and not Messenger seemed quite deliberate.
Of course it was deliberate. Him admitting they serve ads based on Messenger content means nothing, we already know that they do.
WhatsApp is sold as an E2E encrypted service, and an admission that WhatsApp message data (or even metadata) is somehow used for advertising as well would be a huge admission.
Maybe. But I believe the conversation at the time was about how FB tracks its users and what data it uses for advertising purposes, not about WhatsApp's encryption, or lack thereof. I meant deliberate in the sense that the question was worded in a way that made it easily dodge-able with a "no, we don't use your encrypted WhatsApp messages for advertising purposes", instead of "yes, we read the content of your FB messages for advertising purposes."
> Him admitting they serve ads based on Messenger content means nothing, we already know that they do.
I don't think that has been confirmed (source if so?), and I think that's what the question should have attempted to confirm.
Exactly, the point is Facebook at anytime can change the client to show ads, or send some of the text up for analysis. The point being the user is not in control. It's all based on trust. Do you trust Facebook won't do it? Do you trust Facebook won't be hacked and does it, etc.. some of the senators attempted to highlight that. One guy asked if Zuckerberg could few is stuff, and Zuckerberg had to admit that technically he could.
I suppose there is some value to Zuckerberg dodging whether FB connects what it knows from WhatsApp data with their advertising platform. Even if it's metadata.
But they're probably doing so much more with Messenger and their 'shadow profiles'.
"The Facebook hearing is the greatest generational divide I’ve ever seen. It’s like watching WWII generals question somebody on drone strikes and cyberwarfare."
That's an entirely bullshit statement by the twitter user.
WW2 generals were very arguably some of the greatest military minds the world has ever seen. They rapidly adopted what was radically new military technology at the time and figured out how to use it extraordinarily effectively through understanding it.
I guess I'm still confused about this matter. As I understand it, nothing was exploited. A company used intrinsic capabilities of the system to do a job. Are we just raising the question of whether this is an appropriate business model? I suppose that's a good discussion to have.
I'm just a bit miffed that we're effectively holding another obscenities hearing while the only thing going on with the Equifax debacle is that a tech manager has been charged with insider trading.
Assuming you're only considering the computer security definition of "exploit", I'm not totally sure why this matters.
User data was obtained via means not allowed by Facebook. Facebook realized this & didn't disclose it to the US government or its users, as required (or, at the very least questionably required) by its consent decree with the FTC. Based on this, it's not out of line for the government to question Facebook about this.
>User data was obtained via means not allowed by Facebook
That's what I'm asking. 1) Is it alleged that CA found a flaw in FB's design and 2) did something illegal with it? I've seen accounts alluding to that, but that makes me think that it is entirely by design and it's just be framed negatively for the greatest political impact.
It's illegal for foreign nationals to make direct or indirect contributions to US politics. So the line that has to be drawn is one connecting that law to the CA scandal and its alleged use to drive the strategies of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
I don't know for sure if Facebook can be seen as being complicit in breaking US election law. I think their issues are completely domestic as it stands right now. But I'm not a lawyer.
It's all fascinating. How do we reconcile a facebook bot account that may be, at best, loosely tied to Russia, according to some speculators with a foreign national and intelligence officer, Richard Steele, compiling a op report on the Republican presidential candidate?
Ahh, the phantom downvotes. Would you like to address my point? Why is it okay that a foreign national campaigns for one candidate and another foreign national campaigns for another?
The way Cambridge Analytica's got its data was a little nefarious...as I understand it, they obtained data through ways Facebook discouraged (but still enabled).
Whether you consider that an 'exploit' or not is subjective. It's certainly not an 'exploit' in the more common infosec sense.
But the real issue here is that Facebook was complicit in electing Donald Trump. It's political.
>But the real issue here is that Facebook was complicit in electing Donald Trump. It's political.
This bit is really terrifying to me. I don't support Trump, but the idea that we're going to make it even harder for "unapproved" political candidates should make everyone's skin crawl.
I thought the issue was that foreign actors were able to use Facebook to push for their candidate of choice, not that Trump was "unapproved" (why do you use quotes? that phrase doesn't appear anywhere in the comment you're responding to).
I don't believe for a second that this much fuss would have been made over this issue if Trump had lost the election. Some law enforcement action may have been taken, but it wouldn't have been front page news. The reason for my quotes is that Trump is "unapproved" which is the explanation for the scale of the reaction. I don't particularly approve of him either, but considering the real motivations of the people writing regulation is important.
Of course there wouldn't be as much fuss about it. Trump losing the election would imply that the attempts at influencing people were unsuccessful. At a glance, that would indicate that regulation is unnecessary (though detailed analysis could show otherwise).
Foreign spending on political FB ads was a drop in the ocean. Especially when you consider it played to both sides (acknowledge it leaned towards Trump), was not all in swing states, and a lot of it was after the election. This is almost certainly not about them.
Why is it important that Facebook was the medium? Zuck just done saying that they identified 400-500 Russian accounts the were politically active. The "unapproved" in quotes part there is that these are Russians.
Simultaneously, there were tens of thousands of foreign nationals demonstrating in the streets of major cities all over the country, and this is "approved." This is why I'm left wondering: what are we after?
First it's Russia and now it's Cambridge Analytica. Unless you can trace CA's business activities to foreign hires or somehow devaluing the influence of the former for the latter, even though the Russian angle was what was being pushed around for a good while as The Reason Trump became so favoured (rather than actual failures of the Democratic party!), methinks it's just the alphabet agencies and co. looking for excuses.
1. FB users took a personality survey conducted by some researchers at Cambridge University.
2. Then one of those researchers sold the data they'd collected on FB users to the newly formed Cambridge Analytica.
3. The Trump campaign employed CA and CA used this data to directly message FB users who'd completed the personality survey
At some point, FB learned of this unapproved resale of this data and requested that CA delete the data set. But CA did not delete the data set.
Assuming I have the story right, what I don't quite get is: why didn't FB start aggressively suing people who'd taken this data and misused it? FB could have started with a lawsuit against the researcher who sold the data in the first place.
CA told Facebook that they did delete the data set. FB (if you believe their timeline) only discovered they lied when the scandal started circulating in the news.
So ... what about now? Wouldn't it be a good move for FB to start taking legal action against CA, the survey group, and anyone in sight in order to create the impression that they want to protect user data?
I'm thinking of corporations like Oracle, Microsoft, and Disney (very litigious corporations) -- isn't this a good time for FB to start acting more like those companies?
Facebook sent forensic auditors to investigate CA. There was a general public perception that this was sketchy (what if they're really trying to destroy evidence implicating themselves?), and they were asked to stand down by British law enforcement.
Facebook's position is that they should have done more to stop companies like CA from being in a position to abuse user data - and implicitly, that there's no need for strong regulations to make them do it. Suing everyone in sight would make it seem like they're trying to create a narrative where they did nothing wrong.
The survey was a decoy. By taking the survey, you got a screen that asked if you wanted to allow the survey to have access to your profile. If you said yes, it got all of your data from your facebook account, including all of the data on your friends that your account has access to. The survey itself was basically a trojan horse and irrelevant.
When you ask general questions you get "We did not do anything illegal, we did something wrong though; but, people do not read Terms Of Use/Privacy, and they do not read manuals"
When you ask very specific questions you get "I need to get back to you on that", right?
There is clearly a conflict of interest there. In a public hearing the CEO of his own company is basically forced into giving up their trade secrets on how and why his company even got so successful in the business of ad targeting.
The question is: In his place, what would you do? Tell everything and potentially break your own company, your system, life achievement, whatever? Or be careful and vague to save it? I'm not trying to defend his position, but rather to understand it. In any case, he maneuvered himself and his company in a situation where it'll be impossible to keep secrets anymore. Nothing will ever be the same, and he is responsible for it, because it was his idea and his intention behind enabling his company to connect people by selling ads.
Trade secret ? What would that be ? Is there a secret sauce to Facebook's success beyond the early mass adoption and dedication to adtech/attentioneconomy from the beginning ?
I believe so, yes. Why else would they be so successful? Any other attempt to replace Facebook (or even copy it) as a social network had failed or remained insignificant. Why? I think, because they cannot agree on how to finance their services on large scales. Facebook has vast monetary resources and they know to manage them.
I imagine the story of Facebook as this. In the beginning Facebook was just another campus project gone wild. But then there was an idea to grow beyond the campus, somehow. The question arose: where do we get the money? Answer: Well, we do online ads. Later: How do we grow world-wide? We need even more money, we need to bring in and convince investors, that we have a vast network of ads and that's basically a dead-sure cash cow. So, Facebook mutated from an innocent campus project into a cash cow, just because that's the way it goes. But, it doesn't mean that it's right. So, the question is: What does Facebook do to keep ahead of its competition (Apple, Google, ... as Zuck said)? It's a trade secret, right?
> Why else would they be so successful? Any other attempt to replace Facebook (or even copy it) as a social network had failed or remained insignificant.
Would this not be adequately explained by the first movers advantage (or maybe not the very first, but very early), coupled with the network effect?
> What does Facebook do to keep ahead of its competition
It's just the network effect. Google Plus was ahead of Facebook in multiple ways, but it just couldn't take off (sure the fact that Google set unrealistic goals and followed an awful strategy didn't help)
It's a crass kind of life achievement if all of his life has lead up to adtech. I refuse to believe that there is no middle ground between what facebook is doing and what the average user would like to see them doing.
Well that's an interesting juxtaposition. His life achievement would then be "he connected people all over the world" but what he essentially did "was selling ads and he was good at it".
There's always a middle ground. You give up a bit of privacy and benefit from some product "free of charge". See? The questions are how much is "a bit", who decides what is in it and who decides who gets what? To agree on middle ground there need to be ground rules/terms. So, the problem is that Facebook alone is deciding upon which rules users get to use their services.
It all revolves around what you define as 'a bit' and as long as there is a billion more to be earned by stretching that definition it will be stretched.
Wow. I didn't expect that he'd speak in favor of 'special features like facial recognition' by arguing that it's how we can be competitive with 'other regimes like China'. That seems like a comparison I'd avoid if I was facebook.
That's funny when Tim Cook immediately addressed concerns about FBI backdoors and there's a wealth of information on Apple's website about how they use local data protection with the secure enclave, and iOS 11 gives you information on protecting your personal information when you install it.
I did not expect Lindsey Graham to rake him over the coals over their lack of a competitor. I'm not normally a fan of Graham having lived under his 'representation' for almost nine years. But I had to respect him for that bit.
Am I missing something? Take the Senator who spoke about monopolies. An oil monopoly is bad because we all need to get to work and trains need to run. Microsoft monopoly, arguable but I can see how it can be bad. All companies end up using Microsoft and this affects everyone, hospitals, schools ... Facebook is optional, we won't starve, hospitals won't close, aeroplanes will continue if we delete Facebook. Is this an acceptance that modern man cannot but keep up with the Jones. Just because my neighbour and school friends are on Facebook, I need to be on Facebook. Don't mind though me as an African we have some way to go before this becomes a burning issue.
Are there are job offers on Facebook? (That's a genuine question; I don't have an account.)
Perhaps some service providers are only (or primarily) contactable for complaints via Facebook (and maybe Twitter and a couple of others), and therefore to contact them you need an account with one of those companies.
So perhaps to participate in society without a disadvantage, you need an account with Facebook Inc, or at least I think that's the idea.
(Also, there are alternatives to oil! If you don't like the service provided by Oil Inc, you can buy your energy from Electricity Ltd instead.)
It's actually pretty good. One of the only things I'm really proud about pertaining to Facebook. Many blue collar workers, especially those out of the workforce need any assistance they need and it's HARD to gain motivation to apply via LinkedIn or individually find places. From this, it's right on Facebook, they understand the UI and the first initial step in the job process becomes a lot easier and then it cascades after that. I like how it's targeted to blue collar work as well.
Not participating in facebook puts you on a social disadvantage (during an interview for a job, the question of a lack of facebook account came up and the interviewer noted negatively that they weren't able to confirm my CV that way, I didn't take that job)
Facebook as a monopoly is bad in the same way that Microsoft as a monopoly was/is bad because while you can still work on your computer using Linux, you'll have a hard time opening Word documents from the latest MS Office release that contain non-trivial formatting.
You can probably still use the document but you are disadvantaged.
It's a quasi-monopoly. They don't operate a resource necessary for survival, Microsoft never did either, but not participating in their quasi-monopoly puts you at a disadvantage.
It probably will come back to haunt him. I just feel all sorts of other issues are being blamed on Facebook. Humans can be horrible, there was a genocide in Rwanda. Facebook wasn't needed (not sure it was around back then). If we going to blame Facebook we might as well blame the Mobile phones for enabling us to have Facebook. I feel they should stick to the privacy issues which are true issues.
>Humans can be horrible, there was a genocide in Rwanda. Facebook wasn't needed
Sure, but that doesn't mean we don't evaluate new issues as they crop up. If FB is unwittingly aiding in a genocide then it's reasonable to ask questions. People killed other people before nuclear bombs were invented, but they changed the playing field and allowed for far more destruction than was previously possible.
I agree with you. I just felt the manner in which the question was asked implied that Facebook was responsible for the Rohingya crissis. Even if Facebook wasn't available the Rohingya crissis would still have happened. Groups of people have been prejudiced against other groups for thousands of years.
Sure Facebook could implement some system that uses AI and humans to catch hate speech. Then the debate shifts to what exactly is hate speech, should Facebook a private company be determing what hate speech is? Truth be told it is the Senators who should be determining what hate speech is and providing the laws that balance freedom of expression and hate speech. It isn't Facebook's job. Yes it should be discussed. I felt Senator didn't think through or didn't know what the implications of allowing Facebook to determine what content is allowed and what content isn't allowed.
Thanks to all who came to watch. I stopped the stream now because it’s been over 20 minutes since the markets have closed and I’m not adding value at this point. The links to my sources are still live. They just took a brief break as well.
https://www.twitch.tv/washingtonpost is continuing to stream the testimony. Some of the questioning sounds tougher now, so it's a shame that markets are closed.
I found that CNBC offers some after market data. It's not good as what I had before, but it's better nothing, so I'm streaming again here: https://twitch.tv/tareqak .
I mean, it's trumpeted from the rooftops here that if you don't pay you are the product. What is the alternative if not charge the user for the service?
I call BS on actual deleting all user data when someone deletes his account. If some whistle blower proves otherwise is he liable for prosecution for perjury?
This is the sort of word game that surely wouldn't last ten seconds in any courtroom.
"Did you delete the data or not?"
"Yes, we deleted the data."
"Then how is it that we're all sitting here looking at it?"
This modern fiction of pretending something is deleted just because someone set a flag called "deleted" has about as much relevance to actual deletion as the evil bit in an IPv4 header has to actual Internet security. It's not deleted in any technical sense, nor in the common English meaning of the word.
But the reality is that is exactly what is happening when you delete a file. It sets a flag as deleted in the file system. The data reminds there until overwritten. Computers have worked this way since forever. Also if you look at the definition of delete it matches this. To remove by striking out or canceling, not to remove all remove all traces.
But the reality is that is exactly what is happening when you delete a file. It sets a flag as deleted in the file system.
Sure, but no-one is testifying before a senior government committee that such files were "deleted" in a context where deletion is clearly understood to mean making permanently irretrievable. If the committee called any IT expert to give evidence and asked if data had really been deleted under those conditions, surely no-one who understood the technicalities would say yes.
Computers have worked this way since forever.
A lot of things have been done "since forever" in the computer age. The fact that some of those things might not be good ideas and public awareness has finally reached the point where something might actually be done about it is rather the point here.
The point people are trying to make is that properly practiced law can't be circumvented by these kinds of arguments.
If there was a requirement to do something with the data and it was not done then you failed, technical jargon and implementation details are irrelevant.
I really do not think this is accurate. I have been in a courtroom when a file was described as 'deleted' and then an expert witness 'recovered' the 'deleted' file, which was entered as evidence.
Delete is a technical word that has a specfiic meaning. Unlike most language, technical terms are (to some degree) clearly defined and should not change over time or with common usage. Whether people misinterpret the word arbitrarily is not important when experts are being consulted - they use the word as defined. The word delete means what it means, and any expert giving testimony about it would use the same definition. It certainly doesn't mean removing information completely from existence with no possibility of it surviving in any way or ever being retrieved.
Recovering a deleted file is identical to the concept of recovering a shredded document. Its more about intent and purpose rather than result. A shredded document is intended to be destroyed, but its obvious that it can be recovered if you got all the pieces. If you however put the paper in the basement and simply pretend to have destroyed it then I can see how a court would object.
Let think of an example where a government employee has a requirement to destroy documents and computer records as part of normal operations. Would marking the document as "destroyed" and then put in the basement be acceptable? Similarly, would marking the computer record in a database as "inaccessible" be enough? I personally doubt that the court would accept either method.
Respectfully, the fact that we're having this discussion means some participants aren't adhering to the technical definition. There's a meandering, geographically and socialogically heterogeneous definition that is non-technical. In court, I believe a technical expert would use the former, not the latter (unless specifically required to do otherwise).
What do you think that definition is? I've never seen a single, authoritative, technical definition of the term, nor anyone with the authority to write one.
English courts don't like to give specific technical meanings to words. They prefer to use the everyday meaning as understood by the reasonable person.
I understand this is perhaps a cultural difference to the US.
But the file system overrides the (former) file content eventually. You don't have a guarantee you can retrieve the content anymore. You'd need to use forensic tools for that anyway. I think any jury can understand this. Setting a flag in a database column is a big difference, as the data never becomes purged eventually.
Well, you could also encrypt the data with a per-user key and throw that away when you delete the user. No the data was not deleted, but access to it is.
There are ways to design data retention around deletable constraints like this. The bigger question is more like “do we trust facebook to agree with us on what deleting an account acually means?”
For isntance, i’m curious if you delete your account whether they still do the shadow account tracking. I’m betting they do.
Are you operating at scale? I hope you have a very robust backup system (including enough that you can even recover from something like the Sony hack), and so you're going to need to ensure that you delete it from those systems. And then, you're dealing with 100s (1000s? 10000s?) of these deletions a day. Do you want that to be instant? Are you really that confident in your deletion that you want it instantly overwriting your backups? How are you resistant to the Sony hack in that case? ...
I don’t know about a general purpose system for this, but it’s generally easier to proactively delete or make inaccessible something in a singe data store. Encryption reduces the problem to a single element in a single data store. You’re not wrong, but it’s a problem worth solving for the ability to not have to solve the problem 1000 times over for each bit of user data.
The question: "Whether or not Mr. Bennett knew of your relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, the statement that there was 'no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form, with President Clinton,' was an utterly false statement. Is that correct?"
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is," Clinton responded.
There is zero chance Zuckerberg is perjuring himself in front of the Senate. There is probably some obscure legal meaning of "delete" that Facebook follows.
I worked on this system. It takes several months because it's infeasible to purge old backups etc, but eventually it's all gone. The process for deleting accounts is separate from the normal content deletion process and is quite robust.
Some poor Senator just went on a rabbit hunt to discuss FB's bug bounty program. Who are these Congressional staffers?
Tech illiteracy is on full-display; we're not even talking 'power-users' (who were on UseNet, btw), these people are lost. Zuckerberg had to be gracious and say his team would follow-up on many things that it was clear the Senator didn't even understand. This is supposed to be our smart chamber.
Disagree. Several controversial questions were dodged by saying his team would follow up. While it's attractive to paint politicians as incompetent buffoons, let's not forget each of them has their own staff and understands what it means to delegate to your staff and not have answers immediately on hand that only a staff expert would understand.
I'm pretty sure both of you are correct. There was a large amount of tech illiteracy on display but, at the same time, Mark dodged TONS of questions and spoke indirectly like a professional.
That entire testimony was very unsatisfying, in my opinion.
Regardless of the technical literacy of the individuals, they need to ask questions that their constituents will want to know they asked. They are covering their bases so that the media can't play a "Gotcha!" game and say "You were representing the people of the Great State of $YOUR_STATE_HERE, and you didn't even ask Facebook why they invite hackers into their own systems?!". This would look bad for the politician if, by some crazy happenstance, the bug bounty becomes implicated in the boogeyman of the big bad "Russian hackers".
While I don't discount the possibility that many such lines of questioning were borne out of sincere ignorance, the public perception is what matters, regardless of individual competence, knowledge, or ability.
These committee events are just exhibitions to allow politicians to score points back home. Any real work will be done by grossly overpaid lobbyists writing policy that benefits their clients, and grossly underpaid Congressional staffers just trying to work it through the session while protecting Their Guy from potential damage/backlash.
>>That entire testimony was very unsatisfying, in my opinion.
The goal was not satisfaction. The goal was to allow the Senators to be able to tell their constituents they did something about the Facebook problem, to the vast majority of whom "Congressional hearing" will sound serious and consequential.
edit: The downvotes tell me that most people don't understand how these committees work. Here's a hint: they have no teeth. Nothing will happen as a result of this hearing.
It’s all done for the media, soundbites, constituent communications, and fundraising. I once worked for the energy and commerce committee, and it’s a total crap show.
If you're receiving questions that weren't published prior to the interview it's perfectly understandable that not all questions can be answered immediately. In fact, I'd be more suspicious if he answered everything without needing to follow up. If however you're the one raising a question, I think it's your responsibility to ensure that you or someone on your team someone does some basic research and due diligence beforehand.
Saying that oh look it's okay they're not incompetent, it's just they just delegated to people who were incompetent doesn't make it any better.
> If you're receiving questions that weren't published prior to the interview it's perfectly understandable that not all questions can be answered immediately. In fact, I'd be more suspicious if he answered everything without needing to follow up.
Right so I'm not expecting him to answer _every_ question without referring to his staff. There were, however, key controversial questions which he did not answer by claiming he didn't know something immediately.
> If however you're the one raising a question, I think it's your responsibility to ensure that you or someone on your team someone does some basic research and due diligence beforehand.
Zuck was brought in front of the committee to discuss troubling behavior and troubling allegations. While you don't want to ask a nonsensical question, I don't think there's a requirement to be very informed about the subject matter. A number of questions by the committee seemed exploratory or seemed to be simply looking to clarify some rumor/allegation, some were indeed technically misinformed or misunderstood questions, but by and large a lot of the questions that were asked were competent and necessary.
> There were, however, key controversial questions which he did not answer
Can you give some examples please? Having not watched much of this live, nor read the paraphrased feed, I'm interested to know what controversial areas you think were dodged.
- Roger Wicker asks whether Facebook can track browsing activity even when a user is logged out of Facebook. Zuckerberg responds that he's not aware and he'll have his staff follow up, then later admits that cookies exist. They obviously do track this, as stated in their documentation: https://www.facebook.com/help/186325668085084
- John Cornyn asks whether all of a user's data is deleted when their account is deleted. Zuckerberg says, "We should delete all your information." Cornyn: "Should, or do??". Zuckerberg: "We do".
- Later on, Cory Gardner reads parts of Facebook's terms of service stating that backup copies of data may persist for some time after an account has been deleted. Zuckerberg pulls the old, "I'm not sure how it works, I'll have my team follow up". He really seems to want to avoid saying outright that 100% of your data is deleted, because it isn't, "log records" (open to broad definition) are only somewhat anonymized: https://www.facebook.com/help/125338004213029
- Gardner also asks whether Zuckerberg thinks users are aware that they are tracked every time they are logged in in another tab and visit a website with a Like button on it. Zuckerberg says, he thinks people are aware, they should be able to infer that from the context we show them about their friends liking the page.
- During questioning by Sheldon Whitehouse, Zuckerberg says users can download all data Facebook has about them. This is false. The "download your data" button only gives you data from your direct interaction with Facebook, and definitely does not include the sites they've tracked you on around the Internet.
Not sure whether any of these dodges bordering on lies could be prosecuted for lying to Congress, but sure would be interesting to see that tried.
Thanks. Very insightful. Hopefully UK parliament will pick up on his obfuscation and prevarication when they interview the CTO. For what it’s worth, I don’t think MZ was straight up today - and as legislators realize that, it makes it more likely FB will be broken up. If not by the US, then because the EU will force it. I’m seriously unimpressed that MZ has not grasped his situation.
Yep. The amount of "my staff will follow up" was on par with Sessions' "do not recall" statements.
The fact that they called Zuck out on "what hotel did you stay at last night" and "if you messaged any friends in the last week, can you please share the first names of the people you messaged in the last week?"
and Zuck: "no I will not share that publicly"
Senator: "Well, thats the reason why we are here, isn't it?"
Appearing incompetent usually happens because they are actually incompetent.
The fact that they were prepared with these questions only makes the matter worse with the majority being irrelevant and aimless shots in the dark. They are the designated lawmakers with the power here, they absolutely need to do a better job.
Both politicians and Facebook have different incentives.
Facebook has to stay competitive and work with realities with the world. Politicians are paid from taxpayer money and don't have to pay for their decisions.
Politicians are not stupid. They can hire smart tech people to ask smart questions but it does not matter to them. Ted Cruz will still keep his job even if he asks stupid questions. Marc on other hand lose billions of dollars if he makes stupid decisions.
The politicians there do not care about privacy or you and me. That is just pretence. All they care about is how they can benefit from Facebook's $$$$. How can they use Facebook's success to gain more power.
Most of these politicians support unauthorised searches and snooping. These hearings are all farce and I hope Zuck comes out as a winner.
> Zuckerberg had to be gracious and say his team would follow-up on many things that it was clear the Senator didn't even understand
IMO on way too many things, even when it was clear that the senators did understand what they were asking.. and it wasn't because of grace or politeness, it was the new 'I plead the fifth'
This might come across as naive, but I think it is impressive that 1) A lot of politicians are getting their talking time, some more knowledgeable than others, 2) the politicians engage overwhelmingly in good faith on their own level, without being intimidated
I would also argue that a healthy dose of tech illiteracy (if that's what you want to call it) is precisely what we need in this situation. Tech minded people will always find a way to decide in favor of technology. They are loyal to the technology. We need people who can look at all of this from the unbiased perspective.
This is relevant to my comment below. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16806430 ) Don't make the mistake of thinking what's happening on the surface of this is what's really happening.
I'm pretty sure that he asked if someone found bias in an algorithmic implementation would they qualify for the bug bounty program? Mark deflected by saying devops? (maybe i'm confused)
The Senate is not supposed to be the "smart chamber" but the chamber that lessens the House's power to vote for the vagaries of the moment. This is also why the Senate but not the House confirms appointments and approves treaties.
Mark Zuckerberg does not believe he has a monopoly. He believes there is an alternative to Facebook in the way that different car manufacturers have different competitors.
>Mark Zuckerberg does not believe he has a monopoly.
I tend to agree with him. Facebook just happens to be the most popular Internet social network, right now, but there is nothing that makes it a monopoly.
Anyone could replace it, there is nothing actively stopping them from doing so.
I'm sure for decades the Ford Motor Company was thought of as a Monopoly... and then they went bankrupt, and that's just one company that comes to mind right now.
Ford was never considered a monopoly. GM and Chrysler have been around since the early days. And even in the Model T days there were plenty of other cars. Also, Ford never went bankrupt, you might be thinking of Chrysler or GM, both of which filed for bankruptcy in 2009, although neither ceased operations (so not "bankrupt" in the colloquial sense).
Facebook, on the other hand, what other network can I use? Twitter isn't really the same thing. Most people outside of China don't have WeChat (and why would I voluntarily give anything to the Chinese government). Same with LINE (Korea, Taiwan) and VK (Facebook for Russia). Instagram, which really isn't the same as Facebook is owned by Facebook, as is WhatsApp. The only competitor is Google+, and is that even still going? Is it really a competing social media network if no one I know is on it?
Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions."
If they were viable competitors like Instagram, Whatsapp or even Snapchat, FB would try to buy them out and become monopoly-like again. But there is no perception that the gov should question these mergers for this industry.
>Anyone could replace it, there is nothing actively stopping them from doing so.
Sure there is; all of the people on FB already. The fact that the software can be replicated is not the only consideration. If, in practice, they have a virtual monopoly due to user lock in then it's a reasonable debate to have.
I'm certainly out of my depth on the legal end of this, but your definition is far too simplistic.
But users aren't locked in. They have not paid a yearly fee which still has 11 months left, they don't have to pay a fee to leave, and they don't have to pay a fee to join the other network.
Users can come and go as they please, and there are alternatives they can use, if they choose.
If they don't want to use the other network because their friends aren't on it, that's just their choice, not "lock in".
Sure they are. I could go to some other social service... but literally no one I know will be there. In my mind, that's a form ot lock in. I'm not saying FB is evil because it has a large user base, but for many there really is no alternative. Note that MZ ducked this question in the hearing and there is a reason they bought whatsapp (and that reason isn't "talented developers")
Your premise only exists in a simulation where humans aren't human, where instead they're robots that think solely rationally and are not inconvenienced by anything. That's nearly the exact opposite of how people behave.
When you're actually dealing with human customers and users, it's nearly impossible to convince them to switch once they're comfortable with a product or service. Those people have to be tremendously inconvenienced to do so, while simultaneously being presented with a great alternative - often it requires a 10x-style superior product that isn't just great, it's a huge leap over what's already available.
Switching costs are immense with Facebook. If you have 100 friends on there, and you're the first to abandon their network and move to a new social network where none of your friends exists - that's a huge cost for the average person. It may or may not be a cost to you, it is an immense cost to most people. That also applies if you attempt to maintain profiles on both networks, it's a time and annoyance/inconvenience cost, people hate such.
> there is nothing that makes it a monopoly. Anyone could replace it, there is nothing actively stopping them from doing so.
While I don't entirely agree with this line of argument, it's usually argued that there is in fact a very massive cost in attempting to do so and that Facebook has a very large moat with its network effect. It's very difficult to unseat an entrenched & dominant company in any field first of all, second you need large amounts of capital to compete in such a set market. You have to change the minds of practically every adult American and switch them away from a product they already know and are comfortable with (that is also 'free' to use), that's beyond difficult.
Look at how much capital Facebook raised pre IPO, you will need more than that to unseat them; no venture capitalist is going to give you that (which is why nobody is seeding Facebook competitors with billions of dollars, despite the fact that they'll earn $20 billion in profit this year; it's the same reason nobody is seeding Google competitors by the thousands).
> I'm sure for decades the Ford Motor Company was thought of as a Monopoly... and then they went bankrupt
Ford Motor Company has never gone bankrupt. Perhaps you're thinking of GM, which has been dominant in the US over Ford since 1932.
If we're talking globally then Facebook is quite obviously not a monopoly.
Just within the US, I guess you have to conclusively define what it has a monopoly in, i.e. what is "social networking". For online messaging there is iMessage, Hangouts, Skype, Snapchat. Photo sharing - Snapchat again, Twitter, probably even just email. For videos there is YouTube. For maps and check-ins there is Foursquare, Yelp. And the concept of having an online identity tying all these services together is done by Google as well.
He should have responded with every company having a chat platform, social graph, and ad platform. So google, linkedin, twitter, apple, microsoft, and so on. Then consult with the grandkids for an explanation on how things actually work. Trying compare FB that has been around for 14 years vs. the automobile for over a 130 years was silly.
FB is about making $$ with ads, the social aspect is a drug for the eyeballs. Why didn't they just ask him if he considered himself the worlds digital drug dealer?
Congress acting all worried "you have our private information and going to use it against us", where were you when the net neutrality vote was the topic?
It was an answer to a question that wasn't asked. The senator was asking whether facebook owns that data it has about a person, and the answer was that you own what you post. Those are very different sets. A follow up to answer whether facebook believes it owns the data it's accumulated about you would've been great.
The lack of strong followup questions is the best indicator that there is very little about this hearing that is spontaneous and not defined in advance.
As I write this, Ms Cantwell starts her questioning and it is a markedly different style. Interesting
How could Zuckerberg know less than Wikipedia about Palantir considering Thiel's involvement with both FB and Palantir? He seems to merely know of the existence of Palantir.
> there is very little about this hearing that is spontaneous
but, isn't that pretty much always true about Congressional hearings?
it seems like they're just a platform for Senators and Congressional reps to get some high profile air time and maybe enhance their reputation amongst their voters.
and maybe, if they're lucky, some YouTuber will excerpt their "performance" and title it "Watch Senator XYZ DESTROY Mark Zuckerberg!!!"
> The senator was asking whether facebook owns that data it has about a person, and the answer was that you own what you post. Those are very different sets.
It answers by exception; specifically, the answer is “Yes, except for information consisting of content posted by that user or other users, which is owned by the user who posted it.” I don't think the answer was at all unclear.
It's obviously couches in a way which directs the attention of the inattentive to the most user friendly component of that answer because it's the only explicit part, but minimizing the PR fallout is literally Zuckerberg’s job, so expecting him not to anything less than the maximum he can in that regard without lying to Congress is expecting nonfeasance on his part.
Yes and the congressman totally let the line of questioning go on that response. The problem seems to be that (1) many of the congressman are just too unfamiliar to pry at Zuck's bad answers and (2) 5 minutes just isn't long enough to build up a damning line of questions.
Sen. Durbin just talked Zuckerberg out of a qualification that certain children's data "in general" will not be shared with third parties. He pinned Zuck to a no, because "as a lawyer" he picked up on it. There's a perfectly valid reason for the "in general" qualification! If your child is using the app and police obtain a warrant for the data, Facebook will likely have to release it! I wonder how much Zuck's desire to be "straightforward" and answer questions unequivocally here is causing Facebook counsel to cringe.
My impression was that he wasn't under oath for the hearing. Honestly, for the level of technical complexity they are discussing (often in very non-specific and general terms), I don't think they'd be able to have a conversation at all if every statement Zuck made had to be legally bulletproof.
Facebooks customers are the ad buyers. I and my data is the product. Mark says I should have control over which of my personal data is shared to whom.
1) But can I control which of my behavioral data (ad clicks, etc) can be collected and used by facebook and provided to the ad buyers? Can I say nothing be collected , even in anonymized manner?
2) Primary selling point to ad buyers is facebook provides them ability to do targeted advertisement. Granted over time facebook has limited discriminatory targeting (Race based, political inclination based) etc to comply with anti-discrimination laws. But as a user, do I have control over how I can be classified, what legal category labels facebook can apply on me and my data? And whether I want to be classified into any category at all ?
Ads and the data used for those ads aren't the really the issue, and that's a problem that people don't realize. The issue is that entities can utilize the Facebook platform to target specific individuals (or specific groups of individuals) and bombard them with disinformation that looks like legitimate information.
1) The only thing they really provide(non-aggregated) to advertisers is query params that say you arrived at the advertisers website through a click on a fb ad. They also claim to recognize adchoices optouts
Say what you will about the intelligence of agreeing to do this hearing at all, at least Zuckerberg is clearly reading from a well-prepared speech. Winging it would have been, er, inadvisable.
According to the Lobbying Disclosure Reports[0], if you add up outside council for Facebook, they're paying about $156,000 PER MONTH on lobbyists. You'll want to look at 2017 Q4 reports, as Q1 is not yet due and they don't file until it's absolutely due.
At less than $2,000,000/year, that's pocket change to FB ($30B in annual profit). Facebook probably spends more money on flavored seltzer water than that.
>about the intelligence of agreeing to do this hearing at all,
If MZ didn't voluntarily offer himself to testify, Congress could proceed to formally subpoena him. MZ could then ignore the subpoena but then he could theoretically go to jail for "contempt of Congress".
That is how these proceedings go at this point (when you posted).
Prepared Statements from the Chairperson, then members of the committee, then the "witness" are read then open questioning is where the "winging it" happens.
Of course i would. I'd also probably throw up beforehand, at least three times
I'm pretty worried and sour about monolithic things existing that are too big to fail, especially Facebook. It seems suboptimal, but I feel powerless. It mostly felt good to write 'glib leech'.
The tenor, the awareness, the culture of questions that 70-year-old senators are turning to Zuckerberg at the congress would make you cheer for Facebook. Even if you previously hated it.
Most citizens don't care about the details of any technology they use on a day to day basis, they only want it to work correctly and enrich their lives.
Do you understand all the mechanics of an automobile? Ever worked on installing a new suspension for your car? Most people go to a shop to get this work done and even though they don't know details of the process they trust the mechanic to get the job done right.
How does this compare to Facebook? Well when you use Facebook you're entrusting the company with your private information, you expect nothing will go wrong and the product will enrich your life. There isn't really a "Yelp" for Social Media to know how many breaches they've had or if a competitor handles their data better than another. It's a lot easier to find a better mechanic shop based on a Yelp review than another Facebook.
> The tenor, the awareness, the culture of questions that 70-year-old senators are turning to Zuckerberg at the congress would make you cheer for Facebook. Even if you previously hated it.
I feel the opposite, these senators represent our citizens who want to know how their data is being handled. Disregarding their concerns because they lack knowledge into the technology isn't fair, it's elitist.
I do actually, and in fact through the beauty of the internet a layman could have a pretty good conceptualization of how to do so with their own vehicle through Wikipedia, YouTube, etc.
Nobody is forcing you to use Facebook. Everyone has their own agency in this world. There is no part of the world that is locked out because you don't use Facebook.
These senators are clearly completely clueless for the most part. Many of them so far removed from basic internet and computer literacy it is embarrassing.
Deleted Facebook years ago, yes my world is fine without Facebook.
> I do actually, and in fact through the beauty of the internet a layman could have a pretty good conceptualization of how to do so with their own vehicle through Wikipedia, YouTube, etc.
You've missed the point of my analogy. Facebook is advertised as beneficial, Mark Zuckerberg claims it enriches lives and brings the world together. When a user begins engaging with the service under those pretenses they expect a product that will enrich their life. There are users who are forever tarnished by Facebook, even if they delete the service their data has been mishandled and leaked across the internet.
> These senators are clearly completely clueless for the most part. Many of them so far removed from basic internet and computer literacy it is embarrassing.
I think we're clueless for the most part. We're so entrenched in the internet and computer culture we forget about everyone else who isn't. Citizens deserve the right to own their data and have transparency into how it is handled by other services. Companies who don't support that initiative care more about their bottom line than their users.
I wouldn't read too much on the comment that they don't already comply with GDPR. It's likely it only means they would not comply with an Access Request before the effective date (5/25).
I'm an extremely reluctant Facebook user (having recently moved countries, my whole family and all my friends are on it). I strongly dislike the company; I don't trust the CEO. My use of the platform is in moderation and occurs within a Firefox container.
> Zuckerberg (opening testimony): I failed. I'm sorry.
All of that being said, that's some serious growth in maturity, and I'd like to see more of it across the tech industry.
A good friend of mine once told me to "stop apologizing and fix it" when I was in middle school. Reflecting on that made me realize how empty apologies can be and spurred some self improvement.
It's not as if Zuckerberg could've shown up today with a patch file and gone through how he hacked the problems out of the platform last night with some red bull. But the apologies need to be seen as empty and we've all got to make sure things actually change.
I agree completely - this is why my opinion of Facebook hasn't yet changed. However, you have to admit fault before you can resolve it. The alternative would have been "we are giving users a sense of pride and accomplishment with their likes."
My issue is that Zuckerberg has been apologizing about privacy lapses at his firm since the inception of the firm. His company's business is built on sharing the data of the users.
I am a reluctant user of FB. I have stopped posting new content to my feed and do not plan to do so in the future.
There seem to be multiple feeds with different angles. The one posted by the Guardian is currently pointed at the current person speaking, e.g. the Senators. Bloomberg, though, has a feed in which the camera is focused on Zuckerberg's face for the entirety of the hearing:
You believe the Senators are conspiring with Facebook to protect their profit margin?
Why do you believe this? What would you believe if the questioning was harmful to facebook? Would you believe that Senators are conspiring with Snapchat to target facebook?
>Of the 11 senators up for re-election this year who will be questioning Mr. Zuckerberg, nine of them have received campaign contributions from Facebook’s political action committee since the 2016 cycle
Throwing around some "call options on campaign support" be the best investment FB could make right now, to be honest (yes I'm jaded to the idea of an uncorrupted democracy).
Now that it's all over, my take away is less cynical. To me, even the Rep. senators know what this meeting was all about: Donny. Zuck came in, said that this whole fiasco with Donny is not going to happen again. The senators got him on record telling them as such, so that they have leverage on him to actually follow through. Yes, they talked a lot about other stuff too, but we are unlikely to see the mess of the 2016 election again.
Also, they seemed to favor having FANG write the laws about these data service. This will entrench them nearly permanently as competitors will then have to go through all the hoops of complying with regulation, something too costly for a start-up. When that happens, that's the end of Web 2.0.
The reason that this is hard to believe is that most people only end up deactivating their accounts, not deleting them. This results in a surprise when they return and all their info is still there.
Actual question: am I missing something? I get that facebook is big and powerful, and way too many people use it for their own good, but I'm sitting here talking to a bunch of people on another platform right now. A large chunk of which (probably) don't use facebook after recent events. Maybe it's just because I haven't had facebook in well over 5 years, but I don't see them as a monopoly on anything at all.
Everyone has thousands of choices on how to share their data if they don't want to use facebook/instagram/whatsapp. Does the mere fact that they don't use those other choices make the 1 choice a monopoly?
Honest question: are hearings before congress, particularly from tech companies, any more than opportunities for politicians to grandstand and demand business leaders "kiss the ring"? I.e., is anything consequential ever done as a result?
Lindsay Graham and Mark Zuckerberg colluding together in favor of regulatory capture. Graham asks Zuckerberg if he would kindly offer some regulatory suggestions to the committee. And Zuckerberg gleefully responds in the affirmative.
Yeah, great idea. The regulated become the authors of the regulations. What could possibly go wrong with that.
“GRAHAM: […] So would you work with us in terms of what regulations you think are necessary in your industry?
ZUCKERBERG: Absolutely.
GRAHAM: OK. Would you submit to us some proposed regulations?
ZUCKERBERG: Yes. And I’ll have my team follow up with you so, that way, we can have this discussion across the different categories where I think that this discussion needs to happen.”[0]
If facebook manages to introduce regulation that requires expensive processes it could stifle competition and increase their moat.
Interesting. I think what the last guy was trying to ask was whether the data from apps that have facebook analytics (pixel?) installed is cross-referenced with your facebook account. It's a shame he didn't ask it more clearly and allowed Zuck to dodge by saying apps are 'isolated' on the phone.
Ted Cruz clearly showing that he's a partisan hack. Didn't give a crap about users' privacy or the issues at hand, he had to make it about 'liberal Silicon Valley' and 'conservative persecution'. What a joke.
I believe others had been covering privacy pretty well. When it comes to 20k people manually policing content - it is probably good that the group be neutral.
Yet he only asked about conservative causes and people that were affected by Facebook policies. It gives the appearance that Facebook is only policing conservative content. I'm sure if one looked, you could find liberal causes and people that were policed as well.
Zuck had himself just said that people living in silicon valley are overwhelmingly left leaning. So when he says they have 20k back home policing content it would makes sense to assume those 20k people are included in the group Zuck summarizes as overwhelmingly left leaning. Worth asking about.
He also emphasized that the majority of their users are not speaking English or in the US, so their foreign workforce would not reflect the political views of SV nor the US.
> so their foreign workforce would not reflect the political views of SV nor the US.
However, at a minimum, the Facebook employees setting the polices those foreign workers follow will be in both the US and SV, so you can't assume their actions will be aloof from American politics.
There was something I read last year that interviewed outsourcing content monitors - a sizeable percentage of monitors were in the Philippines for US/UK English Facebook posts.
The people laying down the policies, managing the remote workers output, checking potentially controversial policing, etc are presumably at some point in the chain landing in SV.
Presumably, the decisions aren't being left solely to the discretion of the grunts.
I was very surprised by the poignancy of Sen. Hatch's interview questions around Facebook's clear intentions of harvesting data vs. its lack of transparency in its agreements and such. Of course, as a Republican, he stopped short of suggesting regulation around making EULAs under 50 words and written at a 6th grade level... too bad.
His line of questioning was designed to expose discrepancies in stated policies versus actual implementation, with the goal of eroding trust of Facebook in that half of electorate. Eroding trust was the whole point that the hearing was called, and in that regard Cruz probably had the best questions. His questions were met with denials rather than "I'll get back to you on that".
>Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, or gender.
So if I say frat bros are idiots am I guilty? There are grey areas.
Not really, if you use the definition of hate speech that commonwealth countries have written legislation about. I don't buy at all that it's dangerous.
I think a certain part of the far left can engage in hate speech against those who they view as intolerant of other's cultures or lifestyles (e.g. transgendered issues), and/or those who say things which they deem offensive (e.g. pronouns, triggering, rights movements, gender identity vs biology).
At the risk of stepping on a landmine given the thread above, consider using 'transgender' or 'trans' instead of 'transgenedered'. The two are subtly different, but that difference is important to some trans people.
Transgendered implies something happened to someone, rather than transgender, which is an attribute someone has. Many trans people consider the transgendered offensive, e.g. "No one/No thing transgendered me, I was always this way. It's who I am."
When someone says, "Hey, I prefer X for myself", I generally make an token effort to acknowledge and accommodate that preference because it seems like the sort of thing a decent human being does.
Right, but no one actually said to great_kraken, "I'd prefer it if you to say 'transgender' to 'transgendered'."
You just went full speech police because you felt so empowered. And what I'm telling you is that your dismissive attempt to shutdown discourse in the way you did is toxic.
What do you mean? Is the left jailing people for talking? That's news to me.
As far as I know, people are still free to say what they want? Doesn't mean they don't get any consequences though. Or that other people are forced to give them an ear.
Take Laura Ingraham. She's free to make fun of the Parkland survivors and she did. She's also losing her advertisers as a consequence of being a poor excuse of a human being. Also I would never invite her to come talk to anything I would organize (if I was organizing stuff). Would I be infringing on her free speech then by not giving her a platform? Why would I be obligated to give her a platform?
In the free society I want to live in, we ought to let people voice their opinions even when we disagree. There are limits to freedom of speech besides those put in place by the state.
Taken to an extreme for purely rhetorical purposes: if you get fired, black-balled, and publicly shamed for voicing any opinion, then do you live in a society with freedom of speech?
If you live in a society where thoughtful, rational discourse is drowned in a sea of shouted opinions, then you do not have free speech either. Free speech is not the freedom to say anything you like, but the freedom to express any idea you like. You are not free to express it how you like to whoever you like.
And there aren't many liberals willing to censor people for controversial opinions presented in a self-aware, carefully worded, and relevant manner abounding in due consideration for the facts. They do censor people who like to peddle propaganda and wave their victimhood around like pariahs.
No you aren't obligated to give her a platform. But if you go stage a protest so unruly that you block her from speaking at a College Campus for instance you have effectively negated her right to free speech. Are you really so infantile that hearing her words will ruin your life? Are they really so dangerous that you can't engage in a debate instead? I am a staunch liberal and the arguments about this coming from the left are truly mind boggling and very troublesome.
How may one speak to your children when you're not around? In other words, nearly every moment on the web...? Where is the red line? I think people are realizing just how much the web is shared.
Far left very much engages in hate speech. Kill all white people etc etc. You can try to true scotsman that, but you can do the same for the far right.
And before you say it wasn’t meant literally - very obviously what Nugent says isn’t literal either. He’s a crazy old man, but he said if you see a coyote you shoot it and allegorically compared this to verbally shutting down Democrats rather than engaging with them. In no way did he suggest shooting Democrats.
I feel fairly confident I don't need to use 'no true scotsman' to argue the fact that no one with a "D" after their name asking Zuckerberg a question today has ever said "Kill all white people."
On the other hand, Cruz wasted our time, and more importantly, the time any other member of Congress would have had to ask something important, asking Zuckerberg about a Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day page that was deleted for 12 hours, yet failed to mention the words "Cambridge Analytica." Hmmmm.
> Ted Cruz clearly showing that he's a partisan hack. Didn't give a crap about users' privacy or the issues at hand, he had to make it about 'liberal Silicon Valley' and 'conservative persecution'. What a joke.
Feel like there's a few different things going on in your comment, but I'll focus on -- who are you blaming for "shifting the goalposts"? I believe I'm trying to return focus on the "pure context" of the grandparent; it seems disingenuous to argue I'm, at the very least, the only one shifting the goal posts.
No? The hate speech by the left doesn’t have to be against the right. In fact I believe much of hate speech by the extreme left is targeted onto people who consider themselves on the left too; generally hate speech targets the vulnerable or at least the locally unpopular; no reason to think that skews left or right.
The far left does not hate speech, it just hates on speech, any speech - narrowing the cone on what is discusable, until all things are disgusthings. A controllfreak in denial is really so preferable to a out of controll freak - declaring its gut feelings to be a irrefutable, god-selected for truth?
Can i want to have none of these? Is there a third option, that opposes both?
He's a good representative to show how Facebook actually are politically bias to some degree, where they absolutely shouldn't be. I'm sure there are examples of similar actions to the 'left' also, and if there aren't now there might become in the future when the political winds change.
I think Cruz played his role as partial acknowledged politician very well.
He was very evasive about Facebook tracking users outside of their FB site and mobile apps. Kept saying he doesn't understand the question and "team will get back to you".
It's unfortunate no one (that I've seen) brought up the presence of the Like button and Facebook comments on a large portion of the web, which means Facebook knows pretty much most of the sites and pages you visit (even if the site you visit doesn't include any FB widgets, but the next one you click to does, since they also track the referrer header).
He is right. Even if you did the most microtargeting possible, Facebook is still not selling that user's data, the advertiser gets no data whatsoever on the individual that sees or clicks on the ad.
The most you could glean is if you targeted an ad to one person, then that person clicked on the ad, you know that that one person clicked on the ad. You don't learn anything else about that person.
I wasn't claiming that he isn't right. That is exactly the point: he is right/correct in all his answers, but the questions are not specific/technically informed enough.
The senators involved with the hearing certainly had some good questions, but some of the topics appeared scattershot and could have benefited from a narrower focus on FB's data collection and technical issues, though obviously the Senators and staff would need to understand the issues at a deeper level. However, touching on the issue of data ownership and the terms of service for both FB and Kogan's app was a somewhat interesting and satisfying portion of the hearing.
By far the dumbest questions through the entire meeting, though:
Sasse: "Do you hire consultants to tell you how to tap into dopamine feedback loops to keep people addicted?"
and (this one had me rolling)
Senator Deb Fischer: "How many categories of data do you collect for all 2bn users?"
Zuckerberg: [acts confused]
That said, perhaps Zuckerberg's vague and generic answers could have been a result of ill preparation on -his- side, too. The CEO, while the head of a company is only involved so much in the day-to-day issues and goings-on. As the spokesperson, he didn't do much by way of transparency or work to improve FB's reputation today. Maybe some technical staff should additionally be interviewed. A list of potential topics prepared by staffers, to be discussed at the hearing would help Zuckerberg in figuring out what information he should know.
Can we stop referring to 'controls in plain English'? ML models that microtarget people cannot easily be explained in plain English, and that is what they are doing.
I wonder if MZ have targeted adds on his own facebook account. There seems to be some special rules for him (and probably other 'higher ups' in the facebook hierarchy), thinking primarily about: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-to-let-users-unsend-....
Zuckerberg appeared to enjoy testifying. Nobody appeared able to match wits with him, and if questions got difficult, he had well rehearsed escape routes.
Some months ago I saw an job search website ad. I clicked "Why are you seeing this ad?", and it said it was targeted towards users between 24 and 37. How is this not enabling age discrimination?
Connecting people can be a good thing, but connecting people through discrimination is a completely different thing.
Some people have reported seeing real estate apps targeting a specific race, and noticed this using the "Why are you seeing this ad?" functionality as well.
There's legislation that prohibits this kind of discrimination.
Is it discrimination if the company still accepts and fairly considers applications from other races? Or if the real estate agent will happily sell a house to anyone no matter their race? Whom you advertise to is not the same as from whom you accept applications.
Even if an ad targeted “everyone,” it would still only be targeted to everyone on Facebook, so non-Facebook users could not see it. Is that discriminating against the protected classes that tend not to use Facebook?
At a certain point you’re eliminating the ability to advertise at all. As long as the job/house listing is equally accessible to all applicants, there is no discrimination. The only variable advertising changes is the visibility of the listing. Visibility and accessibility are not measured in the same way.
Advertising is one of the inputs to your sales pipeline. Filtering advertising audience by race and filtering applications by race in the end has the same result: having more applicants of a specific race.
I do not think race should be a factor when it comes to choosing your audience. Interests or geographic location might be OK, race is not. And remember: there's legislation for this when it comes to real estate.
Reading the transcripts there seems to be a lot of grandstanding. While it makes for a nice drama, if these people were serious about protecting privacy (haha), we'd be talking about meaningful privacy laws instead.
This reads like a group of senators begging Mark Zuckerberg to respect privacy.
That is what these testimonies always turn into. The big Apple tax evasion hearing a while ago was basically the senators taking turns to kiss Tim Cook's ass.
I'm not from US, can someone explain how bad it is if anything that Zuckerberg said during the whole session proves to be false/lie/wrong later on? Is it considered perjury, or is perjury only specific for courts/legal matters?
MZ has been well prepared it seems. They pay a LOT for their lobbyists, and his answers have the very cogent, clear, forceful sound of someone who has been well prepared.
The idiot should have used a lawyer to OK every answer. He made several huge legal errors by accepting full responsibility for content, always debatable for a protected media carrier.
I am indifferent to whether Facebook survives, since I saw the poor privacy control since the beginning. High flying social competitors like GeoCities and MySpace died in the past. This could happen to Facebook too.
Yes, the hearing is a show. But...
Yesterday, a major social network app in China (Neihan), with hundreds of millions of users get shut down perpetually by government orders. In the meantime, several major social products are removed from China mobile app stores.
I'm pretty impressed with how well the chairmen are grilling Mark. He's dodging a bit and they're not having any of it.
I've never seen a hearing on this sort of thing before, but given the generational gap and the news that Facebook had donated to the campaigns of almost all of the people on the committee, I was expecting Zuck to get off early.
So this isn't exactly related to the testimony but I'm genuinely curious: is it normal for someone giving testimony to use a booster like seat? I mean it was a pretty thick cushion. I was surprised to see Zuck using one especially since the seat is already padded.
Is there a youtube video to watch the full thing beginning to end? It's really hard to read the article that is linked. It is interspersed with so many ads. Kind of ironic.
While not suggesting he is not smart, do keep in mind that senators have substantial staff, to such a degree they have specialties. And they contribute substantially to the preparation of their boss.
The people I admire the most are often those I disagree the most with. I fail to see how thinking somebody is smart gives any hint as to whether he likes or dislikes him.
The scenario is this: say my wife is a first generation Italian and I am the CEO of a really great new car company. If someone says, "This is a great car, I could never say, seeing an ITALIAN making such a car!"
I would be embarrassed for the person saying this, as they don't know my family history (maybe I don't look Italian, I look like a viking, if one was to guess - which you shouldn't), and to be perfectly honest, it seems like Italians make fine cars (for a def. of, "fine")
Switch "Italian" with a minority with a current history of dealing with racism - and this scenario gets ugly, fast.
No one has a problem with that? If I was the person asking the question - or should I say, the person who looks over that dude's notes, I'd cross that stupid intro out. It bombed, anyways.
Here's the part of the transcript that's relevant:
SULLIVAN:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Zuckerberg, quite a story, right?
Dorm room to the global behemoth that you guys are. Only in America,
would you agree with that?
ZUCKERBERG:
Senator, mostly in America.
SULLIVAN:
You couldn't -- you couldn't do this in China, right?
Or, what you did in 10 years.
ZUCKERBERG:
Well -- well, Senator, there are -- there are some very
strong Chinese internet companies.
SULLIVAN:
Right but -- you're supposed to answer
"yes" to this question.
(LAUGHTER)
OK, come on, I'm trying to help you, right?
That was pretty awkward to even listen to. He tried to get Zuckerberg on his side, and it kinda blew up in his face.
I'm fine with people disagreeing with me, but IMHO, that was one of the most cringe-worthy parts of a junkshow hearing.
Oh. You’re not reading too much then. That is cringeworthy. Not necessarily from the jingoistic perspective (but that also), but mainly from how ignorant it is. There are countries where starting a multi-billion dollar business is virtually impossible. China is not among them.
I'm kind of the opinion that when you're brought up to a hearing in D.C. about some pretty serious shit, any pleasantries like this are merely there in an attempt to manipulate the person being questioned.
Zuck: "I need to get back to you on that"