
Facebook: Let Us Be Part of the Hearing - dotcoma
https://foundation.mozilla.org/campaigns/let-us-be-part-hearing/
======
dghughes
I find it really bizarre to be living in an age that such a thing happens. And
by that I mean I couldn't imagine back in the early 1990s that owners of
websites would be meeting leaders of nations to discuss the rights of citizens
of the world.

~~~
fipar
It's not owners of websites, it's owners of big companies. I don't think
owners of big companies meeting leaders of nations to discuss the rights of
citizens of the world is a new thing (sadly, I would add).

~~~
obelix_
Plus this particular boy wonder very confidently stood up in front of everyone
and said fake news is BS right after the elections.

~~~
wyldfire
Was that really the case? I believe you, I just don't recall hearing that.

I wonder how he was convinced.

~~~
paulddraper
IDK if this is what the OP is thinking, but Zuckerberg said something like
"Anyone who thinks the election was rigged is missing the message that
American voters had for the country."

EDIT:

> Mark Zuckerberg has rejected the notion that fake news on Facebook
> influenced the outcome of the US election, describing it as a “pretty crazy
> idea”.

> “Voters make decisions based on their lived experience,” he said at the
> Techonomy conference near San Francisco on Thursday.

> “There is a profound lack of empathy in asserting that the only reason
> someone could have voted the way they did is because they saw fake news,” he
> said, and anyone who believes that has “failed to internalize” the message
> supporters of Donald Trump sent during the election.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/10/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/10/facebook-
fake-news-us-election-mark-zuckerberg-donald-trump)

He didn't say fake news doesn't exist; he said it did not determine the
American president.

~~~
pdpi
> He didn't say fake news doesn't exist; he said it did not determine the
> American president.

It's even more specific: Fake news might have had an actual effect on the
election, but blaming the election result on fake news fundamentally amounts
to not accepting responsibility for your own side's failures.

~~~
dane-pgp
That sounds like victim blaming.

If (as an extreme hypothetical) one side used lies and laundered foreign money
to win the election, and the other side didn't do that and lost, then the
losing side doesn't need to "accept responsibility for their own failures",
they need justice.

We don't yet know the full story of what actually happened in the last
American presidential campaign, though, so this is moot for now.

~~~
bmelton
But what if, extending your extreme hypothetical, both sides used lies and
laundered foreign money?

~~~
dane-pgp
Then instead of focusing on accepting responsibility for their own failure,
the losing side would need to focus on addressing their lack of ethics and
potential criminality. (Both sides would need to focus on that, regardless of
whether they won or loss).

Unfortunately I don't know what "justice" would look like in such a situation,
but perhaps re-running the process without the unethical and criminal elements
would be a good first order approximation.

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ppaattrriicckk
I have great respect for Mozilla, and as an EU citizen I find it odd that a
meeting that is taking place on behalf of the public is held for closed doors.
However, I can't help thinking that this partition for openness lacks openness
itself: The site contains very little information about to whom and how the
signatures will be presented to drive this change. Also about the number of
signatures collected, which is otherwise commonplace to have a counter for.

... Or am I missing something entirely?

~~~
atmosx
> [...] and as an EU citizen I find it odd that a meeting that is taking place
> on behalf of the public is held for closed doors.

This is how the EU works. There are WAY more serious discussions in Brussels
behind closed doors[1] than this one, it's not by accident, it's by design.

[1] [https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2016/03/30/the-eurogroup-
made...](https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2016/03/30/the-eurogroup-made-simple/)

~~~
Mirioron
It would allow Zuckerberg to talk more candidly. Public perception and opinion
is very important to any of these billion-dollar business leaders. If you have
an open hearing then there is a snowball's chance in hell that you will hear
anything that wasn't carefully planned by teams of PR guys and lawyers.

A closed hearing won't be picked apart and (mis)interpreted ever which way, so
the speaker can try to get their true point across. The speaker can also
acknowledge faults and mention some sensitive issues without making their
company's stock ride a rollercoaster.

~~~
jakelazaroff
_> It would allow Zuckerberg to talk more candidly._

This is exactly the problem. If he's not able to talk candidly in public, it
suggests that Facebook is doing things to which the public would object.

~~~
Cpoll
> A closed hearing won't be picked apart and (mis)interpreted ever which way,
> so the speaker can try to get their true point across.

In the same post, this is a very good counter-point, I think. Anything this
high-profile will be cherry-picked and de-contextualized a million times.
Including in Facebook posts, ironically. Speaking candidly is bad PR for
anyone that visible, no matter how virtuous.

~~~
girvo
The power differential between randoms taking something he says out of context
and that of Zuckerberg himself does not really garner much sympathy for him
and his company here.

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quickben
Being somewhat aware of how EU politics works, this is worse for him than a
public hearing.

~~~
throwaway76524
Explain

~~~
dmoy
No showboating (like what we saw with the US hearings, a lot of senators went
on random tangents to placate their voter base). More likely they'll just be
talking specific difficult/uncomfortable positions for zuck and staying
focused on it.

None of this getting a canned answer that half dodges the question and moving
on, instead getting an answer that picks apart more of the nuance.

~~~
jessriedel
Isn't this just a property of closed-door hearings, rather than anything
specific to the EU? ("Being somewhat aware of how EU politics works...")

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anonu
Drop Facebook. It won't happen overnight and it's up to people in the tech
community to innovate and ideate around new social tech that isn't monolithic
and centrally planned.

~~~
John_KZ
You can produce a viable alternative for Facebook for less than $1M upfront
and pretty low running costs. Maybe $10/user/month or less.

However, nobody has done it. Why? Because it doesn't make any profit. Everyone
needs it, it would save a lot of resources otherwise wasted on useless
products and bad political choices, and it would make public discourse much
better, but nobody will pay for it.

This is the classic example of when the government should step in. We need to
either create a Facebook tax (let people choose who to fund with it, but make
sure they pay for it) or make FBs business model illegal. Both would work.

People know their long-term interests but they can't act on them unless
corner-cutting is made illegal. And the governments would have fixed the
problem by now, only if Facebook wasn't offering politicians a cheap way to
get reelected.

I'm open to new approaches but I can't figure out a solution for this to get
funded.

~~~
amelius
Solution: ban targeted advertising. Then even Facebook can't fund Facebook.

~~~
chatmasta
So I have to run English ads and just hope whoever reads them speaks the
language?

~~~
JackCh
Buy advertisements from whatever publication you think your target audience is
most likely to read. That's how it used to work.

~~~
John_KZ
And it worked a lot better than what Google does. I remember buying things I
discovered through ads on my favorite magazines.

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marcoperaza
Given how public hearings just turn into opportunities for political
grandstanding, empty soundbites, and gotchas, this is probably a good thing.

~~~
madeofpalk
This sort of thing just doest really happen in Europe, or elsewhere for that
matter.

~~~
hartator
Maybe that’s the reason the US rank higher in democracy index than the main EU
countries.

~~~
tpush
Actually, the US is ranked as a „flawed democracy“[1], as opposed to „full
democracy“ like Germany, Netherlands, UK etc.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index)

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bogomipz
This petition seems to be addressed to FB. Does anyone know if FB requested a
closed door hearing or did the EU?

------
tmsldd
Could Zuckerberg be jailed as a result of this hearing? For instance, in case
of him being previously aware of Europeans data leakage or deliberately lying
about it?

~~~
pvg
No.

~~~
johnnyfaehell
"No." is a very short answer for something as complex as could someone become
imprisoned.

While the EU parliament doesn't jail people, there are lots of countries that
do.

If he admits to breaking the law during the meeting any one of the EU
countries could issue an EU arrest warrant for him. Then he would be held
within that country to be extradited.

If I was in charge of the British Parliament committee that wants to question
him, I would issue an EU arrest warrant for one of the many crimes that are
being levelled at Cambridge Analytic with him being part of it. Then question
him about it. But I am petty and would want to show that just because he's
American he isn't always out of reach.

~~~
pvg
It's not a complex thing at all. No, there is zero chance, short of stabbing
someone on the mean streets of Brussels on the way there that Mark Zuckerberg
or anyone else voluntarily appearing before the Conference of Presidents of
the European Parliament will be jailed as a consequence.

~~~
johnnyfaehell
So, you're saying, Mark Zuckerberg goes and admits to breaking several laws,
ones that are criminal in many EU countries, but because he was appearing
before Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament no one would issue
an EU arrest warrant for those crimes?

The entire assumption is Facebook isn't breaking any criminal laws and Mark
Zuckerberg isn't directly linked to those laws.

Chances of going to jail, slim. But it is still in the world of possibilities.

~~~
pvg
_you 're saying, Mark Zuckerberg goes and admits to breaking several laws_

I'm not saying that, you're saying it and it's not going to happen any more
than him stabbing someone or all of Belgium getting eaten by bears.

------
dingo_bat
Yeah let us, Google's proxy, be one of the interrogators when we fight for the
privacy of internet users. BTW did you see the super cool world domination
mind control fantasizing internal video? Amazing stuff!

~~~
mintplant
Mozilla is hardly "Google's proxy".

~~~
gaius
Aren’t they almost entirely funded by Google?

~~~
detaro
I believe there's currently no public information about that. They didn't get
search engine payments from Google for several years, but with them replacing
Yahoo with Google for US customers again it seems likely there's a new
contract (although there were reports that the Yahoo contract had clauses that
force Yahoo to continue paying them until 2019, so it's possible they just use
that money right now)

~~~
Blahah
The Mozilla Foundation is a US 501c3, all their finances are public record. I
believe the most recent filed financial statement is for 2016 [0]. See also
the summary document, the 2016 State of Mozilla Report, for higher level
information [1].

0:
[https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2016/2016_Mozilla_Au...](https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2016/2016_Mozilla_Audited_Financial_Statement.pdf)

1: [https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/foundation/annualreport/2016/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/foundation/annualreport/2016/)

~~~
detaro
Which is why we have no current information about this, since some of these
changes happened afterwards.

