
The Facebook Current - mercutio2
https://stratechery.com/2018/the-facebook-current/
======
randomsearch
I think a good outcome would be if Facebook were forced to sell WhatsApp and
Instagram.

It would punish Facebook and send a strong signal to other social networks.
But Zuckerberg continues to have his baby and can compete on fair terms with
rising social networks.

The US Government retains its mass surveillance tool, probably their main
concern.

Voters get to keep using Facebook and feel like something has been done. Their
representatives look like they’ve responded and everything goes back to
normal.

Users can vote with their feet if they still feel so inclined, and use
Instagram and WhatsApp instead.

New startups could compete in the space knowing that they weren’t facing one
behemoth.

~~~
fogzen
Punish them for what, exactly? Showing ads?

~~~
unethical_ban
That is both legally and morally up for debate. As the article describes,
popular opinion is swaying against the kind of cavalier use of personal data
for their benefit alone.

Legally, perhaps less so, but it is at least possible at this point that they
violated FTC agreements they had in place.

~~~
fogzen
So I used Facebook for years. Even if my personal information was
inadvertently accessed by advertisers, nobody was damaged by it.

I just don't understand the outrage.

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frgtpsswrdlame
One of the most interesting proposals to me was the concept of an information
fiduciary:

SCHATZ: In the time I have left, I want to — I want to propose something to
you and take it for the record. I read an interesting article this week by
Professor Jack Balkin at Yale that proposes a concept of an information
fiduciary.

People think of fiduciaries as responsible primarily in the economic sense,
but this is really about a trust relationship like doctors and lawyers, tech
companies should hold in trust our personal data.

Are you open to the idea of an information fiduciary and shrine and statute?

ZUCKERBERG: Senator, I think it's certainly an interesting idea, and Jack is
very thoughtful in this space, so I do think it deserves consideration.

So I went and dug up the paper they're talking about. [1] It's really
interesting and I think probably does a better job than most of the other
proposed regulations. Typical regulation is to set forth processes that
companies must follow. If instead we just tell companies that 'you're
responsible for not misusing this' we don't get all the bloat that can shut
out small businesses, it avoids first amendment issues and instead of being
antagonistic or alternative to anti trust action, it complements it.

[1]
[https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/49/4/Lecture/49-4_B...](https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/49/4/Lecture/49-4_Balkin.pdf)

------
tareqak
I'm currently watching Mark Zuckerburg give testimony to the US House, which
started at 10 AM EDT. It's available to watch on
[https://energycommerce.house.gov/hearings/facebook-
transpare...](https://energycommerce.house.gov/hearings/facebook-transparency-
use-consumer-data/) , which has some additional supporting documentation
(written testimony). It's also being streamed on Twitch by the Washington Post
([https://www.twitch.tv/washingtonpost](https://www.twitch.tv/washingtonpost)).
I also have a stream like yesterday alongside Facebook's stock information
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16811290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16811290)),
which I posted on HN earlier.

One thing that I noticed to be a sharp difference from yesterday is Mark
Zuckerburg's stance on GDPR-like protections for people everywhere. I might be
wrong about this account, but yesterday he said that GDPR protections will
only be available in Europe. Today, he said the GDPR-like protections will be
available for users everywhere. He said yesterday and today that Facebook was
already implementing portions of the GDPR for years. I don't have a clip for
the above yet, and I might have misheard.

12:42 PM: A Congressman (Mr. Lujan, New Mexico) just used the word "shadow
profiles", and is asking about how much information Facebook has on non-users.

~~~
lainga
I was wondering about this too: MZ's leaked cheatsheet said "... don't mention
we are GDPR-compliant already". GDPR-compliant, not GDPR-like. He never
brought that speaking point up. Does this mean FB _can_ comply with GDPR
everywhere but will choose not to?

~~~
tareqak
In terms of software, it usually takes more effort to segregate/separate
features (think like an having if-statement, "IF IP-address from EUROPE"
versus not), so I definitely think it's both possible and technically easier
to give GDPR protections to everyone. However, there might be data storage and
reporting requirements that I am unaware of and are onerous to deliver.
Cynically though, giving GDPR protections to all users will probably affect
the quality of their ad-targeting process, and therefore, Facebook's bottom
line.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
GDPR compliance seems pretty all-or-nothing. It wouldn't be sane to respond to
a "hello, are you complying with GDPR for my data" letter with "You aren't a
European citizen so we don't have to". If you're wrong, you get screwed over.
The only sane options IMHO is either set things up to be GDPR compliant or to
have zero business presence in Europe and tell them to pound sand.

------
vthallam
The fact that there's no worthy competitor to FB shows the power of the
network. Zuckerberg has been really smart to acquire instagram and WhatsApp to
avoid the possibility of irrelevance.

If not for the acquisitions, I think FB with this kind of heat would have
started being irrelevant to some of the users and many of the advertisers. The
govt should have had been keeping a tab about these things in the first place.
It's little too late for regulations.

Even breaking up them would not help. How do regulators would make sure that
the systems from different apps under FB umbrella are not sharing data with
each other?

~~~
prostoalex
> shows the power of the network

How do stories of MySpace, Orkut, Hi5, Mixi, StudiVZ, Bebo or LiveJournal fit
into this narrative?

They all had massive networks _and_ a first-mover advantage to boot.

------
r00fus
What really needs to happen is GDPR here in the US. To force the Facebooks and
Googles of the world to pay for the data breach liabilities (perhaps insurance
could cover a breach - it would at least force them to price it).

You want to profit off my data (esp. through shadow profiles)? I should have a
right as to whether you should and how.

This would inherently limit the utility of such breaches like CA and whatever
might happen with your Google data.

~~~
jimmaswell
Why should you "own" data that happens to be about you? If someone writes on a
piece of paper that they saw you on a street at some time, should the paper
now be your property? Going further, if we had the technology to selectively
erase memories, do you think someone should have the right to have other
people's memories erased pertaining to them?

I just can't get behind this premise at all. Nothing is being taken from you
when Facebook makes a shadow profile and you don't have any copyright or other
intellectual property rights over your name, the fact that you went to x high
school, the fact that you lived in town y, etc.

~~~
sametmax
So you are ok with me having a picture of your children naked on my CDN ? Or
you having sex with your wife ? I shadowed it by using the camera on your
phone, you gave permissions without reading.

~~~
rrrazdan
Appeal to Extremes? In a society where we interact with other people we are
okay with some information about us being 'out there'. I am okay with you
knowing my school, but not that I am uncircumcised.

Edit: Not that I am with OP on shadow profiles or what Facebook is doing. I
think it is okay to use people's data for advertisements and other monetary
benefit but you should tell that clearly to people and it should be a big opt-
in decision point with lots of information provided. I just wanted to point
out that your argument is a fallacious argument.

~~~
sametmax
Yes but where do you draw the line ? Fb would cross mine, and it's why i never
had an account.

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jonbarker
Because of unnatural time constraints nobody was able to press on his defense
of "you own your data because we made a download your data button" which is a
dramatic oversimplification of how the adtech ecosystem actually works. In
addition, I feel that the format and time constraints were carefully set up to
avoid this more important discussion, because Congress needs FB, and FB needs
Congress.

~~~
Pigo
Do they need each other because they hope to utilize them for re-elections, or
is it simply because they have so much money and Congress wants some too?

~~~
jonbarker
More of the former but probably a little bit of both.

------
alva
My biggest frustration is some of the questions came _close_ to forcing some
real answers, the biggest being data deletion. Zuckerberg was always extremely
careful when it came to questions of account deletion. One question asked
"when a user deletes their account do you erase the data", Zuckerberg visibly
tripped up and referred back to "data is deleted". There is quite a bit of
discussion online on whether FB simply marks the data in their database as
deleted or whether it is actually removed.

~~~
nemothekid
> _There is quite a bit of discussion online on whether FB simply marks the
> data in their database as deleted or whether it is actually removed._

This shouldn't be a discussion. I can't think of a single non-toy database
that actually deletes data when you press DELETE. All the LSM databases
(pretty much anything using Facebook's RocksDB) doesn't actually remove data
until a compaction event - and MySql/Postgres don't actually delete data until
you a VACUUM occurs. (then there's whole minefield of did the OS actually
remove the data, or did the filesystem just mark the affected area as deleted,
but didn't scrub the bits). Then theres the backups - FB may have a ton of
backups in cold storage that may have your data that wasn't removed.

The conversation about "FB simply marks the data in their database as deleted
or whether it is actually removed." is unfruitful. The answer is "no" for
almost every company on the planet, not just FB.

~~~
cozicoolmail
Exactly - and for all intents and purposes, that should be good enough. If the
data is marked "deleted" and then written over within some reasonable amount
of time (whatever their VACCUM cycle is to rewrite the immutable partition)
then that should be good enough.

Now as for backups, this is much harder. I don't know how reasonable it is to
ask them to discard backups in cold storage - seems like a compliance
nightmare that would absolutely punish smaller players that can't build
infrastructure to do that.

~~~
phn
Regarding backups, I think the answer might be: "keep the backups only as long
as you need".

Is it really reasonable for an active site to keep backups older than a couple
of months? A year?

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badloginagain
I find it odd that they're singling out the monopolistic nature of Facebook,
when monopolistic/oligarchic industries are the norm in America.

~~~
mieseratte
That it's the norm doesn't mean it isn't problematic.

------
timtas
The single strongest indicator of the inflection point where a giant company
begins to implode is when the CEO is hauled into Congress and people start
talking seriously about anti-trust and breakup. Standard Oil, A&P, General
Motors, IBM, Microsoft, etc, etc. Bigness breeds inertia, arrogance, myopia
and abuse. The only way to make a "monopoly" last is with strong government
protections.

------
oliviabishop27
Zuckerberg says he's making a lot of changes at Facebook and trying to make it
better for everyone. The real question is are they? With tremendous power that
Facebook has they can really topple governments or make new governments. Their
power needs to be kept in check.

~~~
codegladiator
One Man’s Tool Is Another Man’s Weapon

\- Bane

~~~
mfringel
But Killing Someone With A Lawn Chair Is Still Non-Intuitive.

-mfringel

------
Pigo
It seems comical to me that tech becomes a Congressional issue once the
average age of it's users are that of members of Congress.

~~~
tenpies
One of the questions has literally been "What is Facesmash and is it still
active?".

I am picturing that this person looked at his agenda last night, saw "Facebook
hearing", opened Netflix, and started watching the Social Network. He got
bored 20 minutes in and shut off his TV.

------
Nikita_Sadkov
Zuckerberg is a Russian puppet. I can prove that, because Facebook banned me
for anti-Putin poetry in Russian!

~~~
cozicoolmail
That's not proof of anything...

