Zuckerburg Senate Testimony

Discussion in 'Politicants' started by Tenacious D, Apr 11, 2018.

  1. TangoUniform

    TangoUniform Contributor

    how difficult is it really to answer the question, "does facebook have the ability to track browser usage AFTER a person has logged out of their facebook account?"

    a lot of the questioning I saw from day 1 (and I wasn't able to watch much) was legit. it's not just zuckerberg trying to explain tech to old congressmen... I'd wager that maybe half of Facebook's American users are not that tech savvy either... and simple questions like that (which came from both sides of the aisle) are exactly the questions a lot of people have. .... if the answer to the above question is not a simple yes or no, then he just needed to say that.. or he could have said "in some ways, yes"... his actual avoidance of the question told me the answer was a definite YES. maybe tech savvy people already knew that, but there are likely many folks who don't.
     
    IP likes this.
  2. GahLee

    GahLee Director of Conspiracy Theories, 8th Maxim

    tps://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006

    It certainly sounds like more than just one lowly employee going rogue.

    The way this reads, Facebook isn't a social platform but a news publisher pretending to be a social platform.
     
  3. Unimane

    Unimane Kill "The Caucasian"

    This line regarding those choices makes me not bothered at all at these choices:

    "Stories covered by conservative outlets (like Breitbart, Washington Examiner, and Newsmax) that were trending enough to be picked up by Facebook’s algorithm were excluded unless mainstream sites like the New York Times, the BBC, and CNN covered the same stories."

    Those conservative sites aren't as much news as right wing propaganda outlets. If they had kept those stories out and put in links to left wing propaganda outlets like Huffington Post, Daily Kos and similar, then I'd say there's an equivalency.
     
    gcbvol and IP like this.
  4. hohenfelsvol

    hohenfelsvol Beer run

  5. NorrisAlan

    NorrisAlan Founder of the Mike Honcho Fan Club

    What if, after having already gone back in time and accidentally helped Jack London become a writer, Data has come back in time again to accidentally started Facebook?
     
    hohenfelsvol likes this.
  6. GahLee

    GahLee Director of Conspiracy Theories, 8th Maxim

    Same could be said about CNN and the like, highly doubt they cross-refrence with Breitbart before inserting their agenda into everyones news feed.
     
  7. Unimane

    Unimane Kill "The Caucasian"

    There's a difference between bias and propaganda. Breitbart is a hack conservative site that services the echo chamber, like my aforementioned DailyKos and Huffington Post examples for the left.
     
  8. Volst53

    Volst53 Super Moderator

    Do they kill slate articles?
     
  9. IP

    IP Super Moderator

  10. GahLee

    GahLee Director of Conspiracy Theories, 8th Maxim

    And Im saying CNN is also a propaganda hack outlet.
     
  11. kidbourbon

    kidbourbon Well-Known Member

    But why did/do they need to? And let me preemptively note that "they can sell it for extra profit" is not an answer I find satisfying.
     
  12. kidbourbon

    kidbourbon Well-Known Member

    I'm if compiling a top ten most punchable faces list, he definitely makes the cut. Interestingly, the guy who played him in the movie is prolly in the mix as well.

    Can't stand Zuck. I respect that he's brilliant, but I dislike him on quite a few levels.
     
  13. kidbourbon

    kidbourbon Well-Known Member


    Yeah, he did well there. I'm on board with him on that issue.
     
  14. kidbourbon

    kidbourbon Well-Known Member


    Cruz would have been better off letting Zuckerberg answer the questions. He was firing away with questions without caring about the answers as if he were conducting cross examination. He would have been more effective in getting his point across had he taken a less adversarial approach. Just my take.
     
  15. kidbourbon

    kidbourbon Well-Known Member

    I'm all-in for free speech for the sake of free speech. Content regulation* is so fundamentally problematic, and the way it's done on college campuses all over the country rises to a level that it actually pisses me off.

    ____________
    *This is not in any way an indirect criticism on my inability to post pictures of Danielle Herrington on this site, or to devote a thread to what many refer to as the dirty. girl. smirk.
     
    warhammer likes this.
  16. kidbourbon

    kidbourbon Well-Known Member


    In fairness, I don't think anybody would have known what to do with it. It very quickly got sorta big.
     
    IP likes this.
  17. warhammer

    warhammer Chieftain

    You most likely won't find my answer satisfying. I would posit the data collected is not "extra" profit but near the core of what they do. The fact that they sell targeting advertising for zillions doesn't change that. Whether it's targeted advertising they control or selling your clicks, likes, places visited, reviews, etc as a part of annonymous metadata, it's pretty much the same shenanigan.
     
  18. Tenacious D

    Tenacious D The law is of supreme importance, or no importance

    You will no more like this than you will accept that an argument can be made that the Times, CNN and BBC are just as earnestly biased toward the left as Breitbart, Newsmax and the Washington Examiner are to the right.

    There’s no point in having the argument for the dozenth time, but I feel it needs to be said.

    But even that aside, surely we can agree that it’s potentially - if not outright - problematic to the First Amendment for the selection of one news outlet to be used as a standard by which to stifle another. That’s not freedom of the press, but freedom of only that press which you personally prefer and wish to pervade.

    Now, you can also say (and, frankly, I’m not sure that I wouldn’t join you in saying) that Facebook is a private company and can do whatever in the hell it wants. If someone doesn’t like how they operate their private business, they can find or build an alternative to it, or simply stop using it.

    But then, it seems impossible to both say and support that on one hand, in this instance, and while also requiring privately owned bakeries to make cakes for gay weddings, and when they do not personally prefer it.

    It doesn’t seem logically possible that both sides can (or should be allowed?) to have it in both and opposite ways...but we seem damned sure intent on trying to find it.

    Whether Facebook’s actions can give rise to a Constitutional question or not (I think it highly unlikely that it does) is a question for the law. But as a consumer of news, I instinctively distrust any company who claims to be unbiased and welcoming of all opinions in one breath (much less as loudly and boisterously as Facebook seems to love to do), and then details those voluntarily placed policies which intentionally do precisely the opposite.

    Ultimately, I think private businesses should be left alone and to their own selected course and fate - whether that’s Facebook subverting conservative news or a bakery not wanting to make a cake for The Gays to get hitched - absent a legitimate, provably demonstrative and discernible public harm.

    But, I’m also sure that there are likely dozens of readily available examples which would show my definition as being inadequate, and which I’m not smart enough to have foreseen on my own.

    I remain open to any helpful edits.
     
  19. Unimane

    Unimane Kill "The Caucasian"

    Again, 100% disagree on your statement of bias. The NY Times is not the Breitbart of the left. It's the WSJ of the left. Daily Kos is the Breitbart of the left. I know you don't like the lefty bent of the NY Times and Washington Post, but they are still legit news organizations (BBC and NPT probably the best), whereas the content of a Breitbart, Washington Examiner or Huffington Post is clearly of a different dimension.

    The First Amendment has zero part of this discussion as that relates to government restrictions, so there's nothing problematic in filtering news sources on a site. I also think there's a fundamental difference in, say, the anti-gay bakery and Facebook determining which stories it chooses to highlight. The bakery can choose to not make cakes for someone promoting certain ideologies, as well. They could opt out of making a cake for Neo-Nazis or a Pro-Choice group, but not doing so for someone for who they are is an entirely different story.
     
  20. Volst53

    Volst53 Super Moderator


    They shouldn't have to bake the cake if they don't want too. I'd say the same if Gays had a bakery and didn't want to make a cake for straight couples.

    You have the right to freedom of association, even if that choice makes you an asshole in others eyes.
     
    NYY and justingroves like this.

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