Topic: Comments: Facebook's Zuckerberg appears before Senate panel ... (Read 250 times)

Exactly my point.

Teenager type is the wrong word to cover everyone. The more accurate one are people who don't really have a care in the world outside their daily problems. Well, there are many different types of people.

Not that it makes a difference, but it is claimed that facebook has become the social media platform for old people. In any case, while most probably don't care how their data are used, the data is certainly used to for one push public opinion in a certain direction.

The problem is that FB pretty much caters, their main users are more of the vapid teenager types that really just care about presenting a happening image. When such a large portion of your user base is like this, the last thing they're going to even spend a second thinking off is anything serious in the news. They never have, so would not even know what using their data entails.

In my analysis facebook is nothing short of a front for Intelligence - and has been for years. I don't for one minute believe that Zuckerberg had a hard time before the Senate panel. It is just for show. Follow the money to see why I deem this to be the case. The mass collection, storage and use of private data for nefarious purposes have been with us for a long time - even outside of facebook. What they value most is the ability to manipulate public opinion. Beyond this purpose, the data of most people are pretty useless to them. This is why most people who have made use of facebook prior to the hearing are still making use of facebook. They have been brainwashed not to care.

It is like with cryptos. I am a strong advocate of decentralized, private tokens and token exchanges while it is something that are not important to others at all. They simply don't care. And yet, the direction in which we travel can have huge impact in terms of the destination we reach at the end of the day.

The testimony helped Facebook’s stock, but the price still needs time to recover. After hours of questions seems that the CEO did a good job as the price went up. But it is going to take more time and more actions to win the confidence of investor to reestablish its price. Looks like, it was a free and positive advertisement for the company.

Most people just care about the way Zuckerberg drank water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYuY2-uLwn8

He did a good job.

I found some of the parts that I saw quite amusing, ironically when I was scrolling through Facebook. I do agree with the need for better data protection (although I think it's too late for me, my autobiography could be written by a complete stranger), but the random questions that were getting thrown at him were bizarre. All it really did was emphasise the generation gap, and a complete ignorance of the modern world. Some of them must still be living in stone houses, cooking on wood fires and listening to stories about the good old days on that there wireless radio. Anyway, I'm going to go back and post what I just had for dinner on Facebook, it's been at least 6 minutes since I last posted.

AMEN, dude

I deleted my FB account in 2010 and never looked back.  I don't trust those motherfuckers with my data, and they had more of it than any other website in existence.  Personal photos, writings, demographic info, etc.  That's the business they're in.  Zuckerberg didn't create that website out of the goodness of his heart--and even if he DID, it's morphed into one of the biggest data collection services in existence, and I cannot be a part of that. 

Having said that, we'll see what the outcome of this is.  I'm not invested in its outcome, but for the sakes of everyone who has an account there I'm hoping for the best.  Screw Facebook.

Data mining is the "gold rush" of our era, except now instead of the earth being the scope of the mining work, it is you and me.

And without regulation in place, it is being conducted like strip mining, with no regard for the environment. And with the seeming regularity of large corporations suffering massive hacks--of, not money, but DATA.

And with the fairly recent Equifax hack, very sensitive data of millions of Americans was exposed, leaving them open to identity theft for the rest of their lives.

And while I don't believe Facebook has that sensitive of information to lose for most of its members, we're still experiencing the same senseless disregard for privacy in the insatiable quest for more data. And so I do believe it is past time for some consumer protections to be put it into place.

To address your questions about free speech, I think America is really struggling with the ramifications of free speech these days, mostly in that people only want free speech if people use free speech to say things they agree with.

However, today we live in a unique time where bullying probably occurs more frequently in the privacy of one's computer more often than in the public realm of the schoolyard. In a public arena, there is a least a chance of someone else interfering and telling the bully to knock it off. I don't really think Facebook should be held responsible for its users, so what then is the solution? I'm not really sure, but I do think it's something that needs to be brought out and discussed.

Thanks, Ben, for this beautiful insight. It's clear to me how those platforms are making huge profiles from the people's data and the market behind. That's why I don't use facebook  (I had a facebook profile once but I erased it in a month or so, for I truly despise the whole idea of being in there).
I believe, as you, that the future of social media should be decentralized. Even I have had some dreams about developing a system where anybody can interact with many other people by a decentralized platform and in where identity, ubication, phone number and this kind of stuff will never be required.
The problem I see here is the people, to be honest. For they are willing to share whatever information and they don't even care about if this information is related to someone else. The most important point for the people seems to be to receive some attention for their network "friends", to get some "likes" and to feel important for a second. This is truly sad, for Facebook is showing how people are desperate about feeling important for a while, doesn't matter the price (privacy), but the immediate result: "likes".

I think the Zuck trial is not going anywhere. There are those who claim to be in their right of using Facebook as they will. Many friends of me, even, said: "I don't care about privacy, for I have nothing to hide".
This is the most common though.
I followed the entire comparison on the internet stream and I was truly surprised about the questions. They don't even seem to have a real interest in the most concerning part of the Facebook mere existence:
- Shadow accounts. They were barely mentioned, even when it is clearly non-legal to collect data from non-users. They asked Zuck about it, but all the answers where vague an imprecise, and they didn't push out as they should.
- How to erase your data. Zuck claims again and again you can erase whatever you want whenever you desire, but it isn't true. If you want to completely delete your Facebook account is going to take almost a month, and if, by mistake, you push the like button in any other website (where facebook has many buttons like this) you will be push to wait longer and longer. So deleting your account doesn't happends when you whant, but when they want.

There are too many other points of concern. But the most concerning one, under my perspective, is the lack of interest in the common people. They just want their "Likes", they just want to feel important for a while, even when their friends and family privacy is compromised.
Ok, I don' t have a Facebook Account, I really believe in what you said about a decentralized blockchain-based social media, but if anybody takes a picture of me and uploads it to facebook I can do nothing, for I don't have an account and I can't ask for it to be removed.
This is serious. Really serious. We all are under vigilance by our own relatives who are willing to share even our information without our permission.
I can't be as optimistic as you. I truly believe only a few are going to use decentralized new platforms, for the people just want to have their likes, I repeat. Their soma, their drug. I don't want any picture of me on facebook, I don't want my face to be public but, nevertheless, there it is, for many relatives think I am exaggerating the question.

Terrible.

if Mark Zuckerberg get pissed with the senator Maybe He can Hover all the Hidden Messages That The senate convey to other, In Other words they cannot just Oppress Zuckerberg it will be a nightmare to them if all those secret message be revealed, so better to take their hands off to zuckerberg, a sincere suggestion.

Hi seoincorporation,

What you see happening in Congress today and tomorrow is what they call "Kabuki theater".  The fact is that in 2017, Facebook ($11.5 million) spent more on legislative lobbying to Congress than all tech companies except for two: Google ($18 million), and Amazon ($12.8 million).  Congress can't be counted on to be reliable in much, but I am willing to state something that I believe to be absolute: Congress will not bite the hand that feeds them.  Also, contributions from corporate PACs (they all have them) to candidate and/or multicandidate PACs are not included in that number, it only represents Lobbying Disclosure Act filings.

They will bully Mr. Zuckerberg and make them look tough, and him squirming.  They will let him avoid the tough questions with an "I don't recall" or "I'll have to get back to you", etc.  Then six months from now, expect nothing to be done -- or even worse, legislation to come out that endorses in some way what Facebook does.

Before I go further, please do not make the mistake of believing it is only Facebook that does these things.  Go through your phone's apps and the permissions that they have (i.e. contacts, sensors, camera, read messages, etc.).  Facebook, Google Search, Bing, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, Google Apps, Microsoft Outlook/Hotmail, WhatsApp, Kik, etc.  Pretty much every app and service makes use of the data you allow it to have to analyze and profile you.  Facebook is probably the worst offender for a few different reasons (type of information you explicitly provide to their platform, their aggressive apps and website widgets, and their huge appetite for integrating other sources of data, such as health records and credit reports, into their datasets), but they are not the only ones.

Facebook's business model depends on harvesting your data and using it to sell highly targeted advertising.  Want to target 25-year-old single men that live within 20 miles of a Texas Roadhouse restaurant and have interests in steak, grilling, barbeque, or other related topics?  No problem.  How about teenage mothers that seem to fit the profile of a girl/woman suffering from postpartum depression?  Easy peasy.  It's chilling how they've leveraged their dataset in combination with the disciplines of sociology, economics, and psychology to create a platform that can be used to influence thinking in nearly a weaponized fashion.

Given that current social media platforms depend on this type of data in order to sell ads that have high conversions, new platforms are really the only solution.  Is anyone really going to trust Facebook if tomorrow they say, "sorry, we tracked the average time you spent in the restroom, but we're not going to do that anymore".  Highly doubtful, I certainly wouldn't believe it.  Not unless Facebook was open source and I could prove they were running only that code, which is impossible.

My vision of future open platforms are ones that do not make as much money as Facebook because they do not profile people.  You can still sell advertising, indeed you have to find a way to pay the bills (just as they do here on the Bitcoin Forum), but you won't be able to command the same price as highly targeted ads.  You might be able to allow users to opt-in to some general demographic information so that, for example, men's products are shown to men and women's products to women.  I don't know, but I believe all sharing should be opt-in, with the platform completely locked down by default.  Corporate tendencies are precisely the opposite, but I believe user privacy must come first on social media services.  You must be able to both (a) ensure user control over privacy and use of their content and (b) still make a viable business model.

One of the projects we have in our incubation program is going to be a fully open-source social media platform that will eventually have services analogous to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Periscope.  You are going up against huge, many billion dollar industries and corporations, it's not an easy accomplishment.  Funding sources are more limited.  Just incubating our project to a robust MVP is going to take time and money.  But I strongly believe in strong-encryption, decentralized/peer-to-peer sharing, and censorship-proof (probably resistant, nothing is impossible) platforms.  In theory, any user could set up their own server and be the primary seed for their own content.  Not everyone will choose to do this, so some centralized infrastructure is needed, especially early on.  Some users (such as professional content creators, aka YouTube personalities, news organizations, etc.) will decide to run their own servers, thereby increasing the resilience of the network for everyone.  Advertising is one source of revenue, but completing distributed computing in the background is another source that I'm very interested in pursuing.  Subscriptions can also work, though most people don't want to pay subscriptions.  There are other opportunities to create revenue streams that are not based on shady profiling and tracking.

Ultimately, I think that social and other decentralized services will benefit from devices like the Bitseeds for Bitcoin nodes.  I imagine an appliance device that is "set it and forget it", and you can opt-in to the services you want to participate in and the system will automatically operate nodes for those services.  It has to be made as easy as a smartphone app to use, maybe have some advanced mode tweaking for people like us.  I could see someone purchasing a device like that if they received a benefit they don't now have.  Like a Kodi box but doing lots behind the scenes that the average user doesn't need to worry about.  People could choose to build their own, but many will just choose to buy a plug and play solution.

Social media, and other services, have abused the trust of their users for a long time.  New services are needed that purposely build in barriers to prevent that and are transparent and open-source.

Best regards,
Ben

all social networks use your data. android browsers are no exception. you do not use facebook. just have not to use a phone computer and so on ((

It is happening right now: Mark Zuckerberg is being asked by the Senate about the Facebook personal data issue.

Well, to me this is a historical event, where many stuff of matter is being discussed:
- The privacy of Facebook. When you open your Facebook account, there are several rules (nobody reads them, apparently) where it is specified that all the data you provide will be immediately belonging to Facebook. Even when you delete your account they still store some of your data, but to what end?
- The Facebook mobile app also asks you about having access to your phone data (contacts, ok, but also your personal call history). This is being discussed as I write these lines for, What's the point of doing so?
- The Cambridge Analytica scandal just has thrown some light upon the Facebook's lack of confidentiality. But the discuss having place right now is going much further. How can Facebook team accept the legal conditions of the Alexander Kogan's quiz, even when it was clearly breaking the Facebook "law"?

Mark Zuckerberg is clearly having a bad time in trying to persuade the Senators of the goodwill of his enterprise. But, to me, it goes really far, and I have many many questions:

- Is an enterprise as Facebook responsible for the content people publish on the platform? If I have a private message app, then can I be responsible for what kind of messenger the people sent to each other?
- Is the free of expression more important than the harm it can provoke? For instance, look at how many teenagers have committed suicide due to the cyberbullying they receive from other users. There is some kind of response from the developers?
 - If anyone is making rich by convincing people to share their personal data, can it be fraudulent in any sense?

Some previous thoughts:
- People do not read anymore. They just share whatever they want in order to get some recognition from the people surrounding. The "like" system is certainly sick, but the users and abusers of it are just as much sick as the concept itself. The people is not concerned about their own privacy or even their closed people one. So... Is it a company trouble or a social one?
- If I share anything on the internet, for sure it can be used in many ways. It is how the internet works. So, is the problem about Facebook, or this is just the tip of the iceberg and just shows how little society is prepared for this kind of platforms.

I don't use Facebook. I despise all related to the platform, but, in many ways, I believe this is a historical event. One of the biggest American entrepreneurs is on a trial for "selling data".

What do you think? I personally believe it can be a great debate about the use of the internet and the collect of data.


Nevertheless, It seems kind of ironic the US government is so against Facebook now, even when they ask you to show your social media app when you trespass their boards...
And also, all the senators questioning Zuckerbergs' platform use Facebook to their campaigns...