
Mark Zuckerberg still doesn't get it - bookofjoe
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/mark-zuckerberg-still-doesnt-get-it
======
leftyted
"Free speech is good" is not a "blithe techno-utopian narrative".

The internet makes people uncomfortable because it lives somewhere in between
the realm of public discourse (heavily regulated) and private discourse
(mostly unregulated). On the internet, these realms mix, and people
(especially in the press) have a hard time sorting out which is which.

I don't know if "free speech is good" or if it "leads inexorably to truth and
progress". I doubt it. But I do think that any cure will be worse than the
disease. Democracy may not not "lead inexorably to progress" either, but does
that mean we should nix it?

~~~
aeturnum
I think your comment and Zuckerberg’s framing of the issue hides the ball in a
way that appears dishonest, though I do not think that is your intent.

For instance, what do you mean by this?:

> But I do think that any cure will be worse than the disease

Because it all depends on what "cure" and "disease" mean, right? Free speech
is good is blithe and techno-utopian in the sense that it makes a blanket
statement that refuses to get into the details and have opinions. Facebook
used for ethnic cleansing? Well, free speech is good and Facebook is all bout
free speech; the problem has to lie elsewhere. Guess we should fix that ethnic
cleansing problem somewhere else.

Sticking to a high-level generality implies that, because your basic aim is
good we must frame solutions or restrictions in a different way. We must
remedy the damage done with speech using ideas and methods that aren't related
to speech, somehow.

I don't know what is in Zuckerberg’s heart, but it strikes me that this
position is extremely kind to Facebook's business model. As long as everyone
is committed to unmoderated speech being central to digital spaces, they can
avoid expensive moderation. They can also distance themselves from the
consequences of the use of the platform they designed and provide. We should
not let them do either one of those things.

Edit:

To use a non-speech example: This seems to me like someone claiming that we
can't do anything about drunk driving because "people need to drive to work."
Of course, the statement is true and people do need to drive to work. It
simply glosses over all of the many changes we can make to how we let people
drive that can crack down on drunk driving. It refuses to engage with the
issue by asserting a general principle that, actually, does not present any
obstacle to regulation and is unresponsive to the critique.

~~~
repolfx
_Facebook used for ethnic cleansing?_

I'm not sure you should criticise others for hiding the ball or being
dishonest when phrasing it like that.

Facebook is a website, a pretty trivial one at that. It isn't attached to
flying weapons platforms, it doesn't command an army. It cannot be used for
ethnic cleansing in any sensible use of English, no more than paper and ink or
radio can be "used for ethnic cleansing".

So yes - your sarcastic statement is correct. If some African warlord goes
nuts and starts mass killing his ethnic rivals, Facebook has sweet FA to do
that with that, even if lots of his supporters are posting on Facebook. The
problem lies with the people pulling the trigger, the people command them to
pull the trigger. Don't try and spread it to Zuckerberg because unlike most
genocidal ethnic cleansers, he happens to be a meek American you think you can
influence.

 _We must remedy the damage done with speech using ideas and methods that aren
't related to speech, somehow._

Yes, exactly. Speech doesn't damage things. People damage things. The
conflation of speech with physical violence is exactly how you legitimise
thuggery on campus, where crazed students are engaging in actual physical
violence against people who are just presenting their opinion. And it's never,
never, never acceptable to shoot someone who is merely presenting their
opinion.

 _This seems to me like someone claiming that we can 't do anything about
drunk driving because "people need to drive to work."_

This is a strawman argument nobody ever makes. Drunk driving is a precisely
definable and measurable condition with precisely understood outcomes and is
trivially avoided. "Bad speech" has no definition at all and thus can't be
trivially avoided, as the ever-expanding horizon of what counts as offensive
so neatly demonstrates.

~~~
9935c101ab17a66
> Facebook is a website, a pretty trivial one at that.

I mean this is so objectively false that I hardly know where to start.
Facebook in its very early stages may have been “trivial”, but it isn’t know.
Not even close.

------
wayne_skylar
Oh I think he does get it. Facebook is a tool uniquely designed to influence
behavior. Before you had to advertise to a generic stereotype of a person
whereas now -- thanks to facebook's treasure trove of user data -- you can
target just the perfect audience to get your ideas spreading organically.

Facebook sells the ability to do this to anybody who will pay. This is the
core of how they make money. After a period of pretending to search for a
solution, Zuckerberg has finally ducked behind the notion of 'free speech' as
his excuse for doing nothing. He knows that the only way to stop it would be
to stop selling this ability to influence. And he's actually right that it
shouldn't be him deciding what are the good and bad uses of this powerful
tool.

The blind faith that increased connectivity is a net benefit is what got us
here. Seeing how social media is actually increasing depression makes me think
the opposite. The sad truth is that most people are too vulnerable to
misinformation and the older centralized distribution of information is
probably the best for stability.

~~~
basch
free speech is different than amplified speech. what people are allowed to say
on a platform shouldnt equal what people can pay to have amplified and
targeted towards peoples attention.

But I agree with you, that "he gets it" in the sense that as a leader and
figurehead his job is to inspire confidence. It may not be working for you,
but his mantra for a long time now has been to extol the virtues of what is
possible if people dream and focus on the benefits. Unlike much of the
userbase here, he chooses to project the public personification of his self as
a glass half full person, where optimism, hard work, engineering, and money
are put towards a better future. He knows that if he relaxes and steps back
from that ruse, charade, or whatever you want to call it, that it leads to a
crumbling house of cards. Not unlike a president, confidence in the system
starts with the top of the house. Don''t forget, his job is also to keep his
stock prices up for his shareholders, who are primarily himself. And despite
what the fifth estate and a subset of techies want to believe, facebook and
its suite of products are as popular as ever. Sure, growth has slowed, but
thats bound to happen once you count 1/3rd of the words population as those
that your tool serves.

------
ixtli
I actually subjected myself the the entire 30 minute video of his speech and
there’s little else I can say other than that it was embarrassing, bordering
on disgusting in its western chauvinism. And I don’t just mean castigation of
Chinese government policy: he quite literally said it’s in the worlds best
interest for Americans to continue controlling the censorship policies for the
entire internet.

~~~
PunchTornado
1) the GDPR is European and has a huge effect in changing policies for
internet giants

2) are you defending the government currently imprisoning millions of people
in indoctrination camps just because they believe in something?

~~~
bambax
The US has the highest incarceration rate _in the world_ , so they're not in a
position to lecture any other country about freedom.

~~~
dimator
This is what-about-ism and it's dishonest. The US's incarceration rate has
little to do with concentration camps where people are put _because they 're a
ethnicity the government doesn't like_. They can both be problems worth
pointing out.

~~~
ixtli
I actually can't tell if you're talking about China or the US. This is
currently happening on the US' southern border.

~~~
DuskStar
Pretty sure people aren't put there for their racial or religious
characteristics, but their nationality and/or legal status. Yes, there's a
difference.

~~~
ixtli
We are, at best, making the same leap of faith but in opposite directions. The
people who are there observably share a nationality but they also happen to be
a pretty small group of ethnicities. You’re choosing to believe that’s not
ultimately why they’ve been out there and that the state is trustworthy. I’m
choosing to disbelieve the state.

In any case, if were gonna both accept the premise that there are
concentration camps on the southern border for immigrants I’m really not that
interested in splitting hairs about why.

------
jacquesm
Zuck gets it just fine, he's following the money. If you think a guy running a
multi-billion dollar company doesn't understand something basic it is more
than likely that you are simply not understanding him.

What else is he going to do? Do the right thing and shut Facebook down
starting a year before any election?

------
lisper
I think Zuck "gets it" much more than the reporter does: being evasive and
dishonest can be extremely lucrative in today's world if you do it exactly
right. Zuck has always seemed to possess a natural talent in this regard, and
now has become a true master of the craft. That's why he travels in a private
jet while reporters fly coach.

~~~
Torwald
> I think Zuck "gets it" much more than the reporter does… This assumes the
> reporter is honest in his writing. Then, of course, it is apparent that
> Zuckerberg gets something the reporter doesn't understand, in the way you
> describe it.

But what if, not only is Zuckerberg "evasive and dishonest", but the reporter
as well? Is it not to the profit of the reporter to pretend in his writing to
not get what Zuckerberg is doing?

It very well is! That way the reporter gets to criticise Zuckerberg on the
grounds of his actions. That is a case much easier to defend. The reporter may
very well discern a form of pretending on the side of Zuckerberg, but how do
you prove this? Very hard to do so and risky. It is better writing to be
'dishonest' and call Zuckerberg out on the surface level of his actions.

OTOH, it could very well be that the reporter is naive and doesn't discern the
true motivations of Zuckerberg's actions. But how can we know?

------
wnmurphy
Facebook was used in 2016 by the Kremlin for disinformation warfare with the
express purpose of swaying the results of our presidential election. Facebook
recently adopted an official policy that they will not remove political ads
which are blatantly, demonstrably false. This policy was drafted by Katie
Harbath, Facebook's Public Policy Director of Global Elections, who was
previously Chief Digital Strategist for the National Republican Senatorial
Committee.

Freedom of speech is a straw man. It only applies to government interference
in the free speech of individuals. Facebook is a private platform, with no
obligation to protect the free speech of its users. They are using it as an
excuse to protect the spread of disinformation.

Yet another reason that Facebook is toxic.

~~~
cobweb2
Are you not beginning to struggle with the contradictions of your political
ideas? You want a central authority to ban the spread of "blatantly false"
ideas that you fear may cause plebians to vote the wrong way, yet you support
affording plebians with the full right to vote? Would it not be simpler to
bans plebians from voting, and therefore remove your worry entirely that they
may vote the wrong way when hearing "blatantly false" ideas?

~~~
CydeWeys
We are being attacked with foreign propaganda by our long-term enemies. They
are succeeding in destroying our position on the world stage. It's not
something that can be turned a blind eye to under the guise of free speech
(which it isn't).

~~~
malvosenior
All governments push propaganda. Russia's miniscule ad spend on FB had no
measurable effect (please provide proof if you think this is wrong).

Clinton and Trump spent many order of magnitude more on political advertising
than any foreign nation and even that didn't assure their win. People aren't
mindless robots, they vote for who they want to vote for.

~~~
willis936
That is a naively optimistic statement. If marketing didn’t work then billions
wouldn’t be spent on it.

~~~
malvosenior
Yet it was Clinton who spent far more than anyone on marketing and Russia
spent pretty much nothing. Only here we are talking about the impact "Russia"
had and ignoring that the tens of millions Clinton spent didn't accomplish her
goal.

~~~
willis936
And this somehow isn’t evidence of the effectiveness of undisclosed campaigns
based around lies presented as truth? All Clinton did wrong was not involve
foreign governments to operate guerrilla smear campaigns.

Oh wait. That isn’t wrong. What are you arguing in favor of again?

~~~
malvosenior
Clinton not winning the election isn’t proof of Russian interference.

~~~
willis936
It isn’t not proof either. It seems rather strange to posit that dollars spent
is the only factor dictating the effectiveness of marketing.

~~~
repolfx
Your position is unfalsifiable. If there had been Russian advertising at
scale, it's proof of foreign interference. If there's basically no spend at
all, that's still proof of foreign interference because dollar spend doesn't
matter.

Look, the whole Russia angle is a hoax. When put under enormous external and
internal political pressure (remember Twitter/FB are filled with Trump
haters), all they could come up with was a tiny number of ads labelled
"Russian" that appeared to support nobody in particular. Hardly anyone saw
them, so they can't have had much impact. And was that some plot directed by
Putin or just ads by people who happened to be Russian? It's never made clear.

Back when Obama was in power and there was Citizen's United, he said words to
the effect of "we must consider changing the constitution to limit political
spending" and the Clinton wing of politics was spitting bullets about how in
future Republicans would just buy elections outright.

Then Trump came along and beat Clinton, despite being outspent 2:1. Clinton's
campaign steamrollered Trump's financially yet still lost. The whole theory of
elections that had been pushed until that point, that marketing spend
determines victory, it was just completely invalidated overnight. Democrats
who couldn't psychologically explain voter disagreement via policy arguments
could no longer explain rejection as a function of ad spend either, so had to
come up something new - hence, this spectre of "foreign interference", as if
Putin has some kind of mind control rays.

------
mindgam3
Somewhat ironic that Zuck mentions free expression about a hundred times and
yet:

1\. took no questions from reporters

2\. Facebook Live chat was scrubbed of any critical comments by algorithmic
filters

[https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/ma...](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/mark-
zuckerberg-facebook-algorithms-negative-responses-free-speech-live-
street-a9161256.html)

------
yepteuedat
It’s pretty well debated throughout history that society is ultimately free to
put whatever constraints on behaviors that it decides are infecting it’s
organic agency. John Stuart Mill is the first name that comes to mind. Paulo
Freire discusses being forced to “import” a model of culture as authoritarian
in nature.

I don’t owe billionaires my emotional & political deference to some notion of
“in an objective vacuum”.

You can point at a method for counting that you agree with. I can still tell
you to get fucked.

That this is even a question of being within the purview of a society to
mitigate spooky action at a distance potential for telling the species “what’s
real” if you have the $$ to buy enough ads is absurd.

The tech scene is acting like the Boomers. Entitled to control of our work and
the problems we align to.

That’s not a politically defensible position. That’s exactly what religion
does. What a shock a culture with deeply puritanical origins continues to feel
we’re just a flock to be is emotionally curated. So much for objective views
of reality.

------
chrischen
If one wanted to make a news company that owned and ran both FOX News and
MSNBC, it’d be Facebook.

------
pbreit
I still think it’s the critics who don’t get it. The technology was always
going to obviously move in this direction. The critics confoundingly both
complain about the power of tech behemoths AND that they should be arbiting
freedom on their platforms.

------
benjaminjosephw
> _I have become convinced that, if our Silicon Valley overlords are to help
> solve the informational crisis they’ve created, the first thing they’ll need
> to lose is their blind faith that they can go on releasing new products, and
> profiting from them, and the net result will surely, in the long run, tend
> toward the good. This has always been a convenient self-justification. There
> has never been any solid reason to believe it._

This is an interesting point. I haven't been exposed to much advice on when
and how to start thinking about the broader impacts of a startup. Is that just
because I haven't looked hard enough or is there a general belief in the
invisible hands of the market being the best guide for how a business should
operate?

------
ronilan
_“Whatever Mark says, Sheryl is inclined to agree”_

------
zachguo
Polarization and misinformation are inherent flaws of free speech, the advents
of cable TVs and internet only amplified them.

But you don't need to act like the Politburo of the Communist Party to fix
them. There may be solutions without fundamentally underming the value.

How about teaching kids critical thinking and how to differentiate
misinformation in schools? [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/how-
finland-is-fighti...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/how-finland-is-
fighting-fake-news-in-the-classroom/)

------
hnuser54
The New Yorker slamming the printing press and the idea of the inevitable
march of progress was a bit of a surprise. Who's the "neo-reactionary" now?

------
kapnobatairza
Zuckerberg has successfully shifted the discourse to a discussion about free
speech, but I don't think that free speech is under attack here.

I don't care if Trump and pro-Trump supporters or organizations want to post
lies on their own feed. But if Facebook is getting PAID for political
ADVERTISING, that gives them a moral responsibility to regulate that content.
If they want to abdicate that responsibility, then I think the government has
an interest in preventing the corruption or the appearance of corruption in
our elections, so reasonable restrictions/regulations on political advertising
on social networks should be considered.

