
Facebook CEO speaks to select members of European Parliament - QueensGambit
https://www.politico.eu/article/mark-zuckerberg-european-parliament-hearing-live-blog/
======
Hasknewbie
One more prestigious date to add to the 14-years long (and counting)
"Zuckerberg Magic Apology Tour". Quite the show.

(For reference: [https://www.wired.com/story/why-zuckerberg-15-year-
apology-t...](https://www.wired.com/story/why-zuckerberg-15-year-apology-tour-
hasnt-fixed-facebook/))

~~~
stingraycharles
I liked how Guy Verhofstadt called him out on that, that he has apologised 15
or 16 times in the past years. I’m annoyed that I cannot vote for the guy for
EP elections because he lives in another country, one of the many weird things
about EU politics, but this man deserves a medal.

~~~
netsharc
If you read (and believe) Yanis Varoufakis' book "Adults in the Room", he's a
part of the group of assholes who was determined to bend Greece to their will,
mainly that "austerity will work!", never mind the economic squeeze means
hungry, homeless people and the rise of suicides.

Currently I love how the EU is making the British Brexit team look like a
bunch of clowns, but the EU is no saintly organization, the way they couldn't
let go of austerity politics made a lot of people suffer, and has indeed lead
to the rise of populism as well (the right wing in France, Germany, and
populism in Italy).

~~~
danmaz74
Verhovstad is just one mep, you can like him or not (i do on some issues, not
other ones) but he isn't in any way "the eu" :)

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DavideNL
The hearing was a big joke. Zuckerberg simply _avoided_ answering difficult
questions by talking about something else entirely...

~~~
GreeniFi
What did I deduce from today’s hearing: 1\. The weird question/answer format
was probably a negotiated condition of Zuckerberg appearing. 2\. This
underlines the power of Zuckerberg: setting conditions for the EU Parliament
is quite a show of force. 3\. This condition was probably set because
Zuckerberg is a very poor spokesperson. The end of the session was quite
frankly bizarre when Zuckerberg refused to take questions. 4\. There is quite
clearly a mood for heavy regulation and anti-trust action to break-up the
monopoly. Zuckerberg’s odd behavior will result in the sharpening of EU
swords, not their scabbarding. 5\. I have no idea what this type of activity
will mean for EU/US relations. The US will be keen to protect homegrown global
monopolies. The EU must break them before they break Europe. 5.

~~~
zerostar07
How can the EU break up foreign monopolies?

~~~
adventured
They can't. They can attempt to block access to the EU market in a situation
where they require a break-up of Facebook and Facebook refuses to comply. It
would require the EU to implement a draconian Chinese firewall to bring into
full effect.

The EU is 250m of Facebook's 2.2 billion users. They could easily drop all EU
business if they needed to (the business operations within the EU is the
easiest aspect for the EU regulators to target). Their profitability would
drop from ~$23 billion for 2018 to $19 billion or so at worst. That'd be made-
up for with one year of growth. Once Facebook's business operations in the EU
are shut down, Facebook could continue to operate the user accounts and leave
it to the EU to attempt to censor what their population is allowed to access
online.

Watching the EU attempt to install Chinese style repression and censorship to
limit what its people can access online, would be quite the comical circus.

~~~
shakna
If userbase was their only concern, Facebook would likely not have responded
to the EU Parliament's request for interview.

Facebook is still registered in Ireland, since 2010, which is still in the EU,
making Facebook an entity subject to them. (Ireland has also expressed a
desire to rejoin the EU, post-Brexit).

~~~
SeanMacConMara
The sovereign state called "The Republic of Ireland" is not leaving the EU as
part of Brexit.

The sovereign state called "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland" is leaving the EU as part of Brexit.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
The sovereign state named Eire, technically.

~~~
SeanMacConMara
baby steps ...

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schadom
there he goes
[https://www.flightradar24.com/C56X/11772b7f](https://www.flightradar24.com/C56X/11772b7f)

~~~
whitepoplar
cool! how'd you associate zuck to the jet?

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KenanSulayman
I was very surprised and suddenly pulled back into a feeling of tangible hope
when around the end of the plenary session a French / Belgian member of the
parliament went mad about unanswered questions.

He said: " ... There are a number of questions that have been put by other
colleagues that I want an answer to. That said, I'm anxious about this _brave
new world_ that Mr. Zuckerberg has presented us -- a brave new world what tens
and tens and tens of thousands of private people are scrutinizing us and are
saying _“what is fake news”_ and _“what is not fake news_ ”, _“what is hate
speech_ ” and _“what is not hate speech_ ”. _Don 't you think that this is a
public task?_"

He very subtly mentioned that the anti-trust bodies could mobilized to look
into this if questions wouldn't be answered [1] --
[https://youtu.be/bVoE_rb5g5k?t=5285](https://youtu.be/bVoE_rb5g5k?t=5285).

[1] _"... And competition for example: an anti-trust thing, that's important!
Do we need -- I think we're gonna push our anti trust agency to go into this
if there is no good answer to!"_

\---

Here's an interview with Guy Verhofstadt (thanks, repolfx! I wasn't aware of
who he is): [https://www.channel4.com/news/guy-verhofstadt-mep-on-mark-
zu...](https://www.channel4.com/news/guy-verhofstadt-mep-on-mark-zuckerberg-i-
doubt-he-will-apply-new-data-privacy-rules)

~~~
repolfx
That's Verhofstadt, the head of the EU Parliament.

I don't know what gave you hope about that. It's mafia tactics and confirms
the worst suspicions people have had about EU anti-trust enforcement.

What does privacy rules have to do with monopoly or anti-trust? As far as I
can tell, nothing. But the EU appears dangerously close to taking an official
policy that anti-trust fines are based on whether Guy Verhofstadt and his
friends personally like your answers at unrelated hearings. Make Guy happy or
you'll be inconveniently re-classified as a monopoly. Never mind the existence
of LinkedIn or Google+ or other competing networks.

~~~
pyrale
Things have always worked like that. Why do you think Google or FB are
escaping antitrust despite a behaviour much more egregious than Microsoft ever
was ?

Don't fool yourself ; the normal state of affair would have been for them to
be torn appart, and the current state is corrupt.

~~~
repolfx
Escaping it where - apparently not in the EU, although it's unclear what
monopolies they actually have.

In America they've escaped anti-trust attention because it's hard to prove any
consumers have been harmed by their activities.

~~~
pyrale
Well, maybe the EU will prove that such things are easier to see if you
actually take a look.

~~~
repolfx
They definitely won't because EU competition law doesn't care about whether
there was harm to consumers or not. It's based on different principles to
American law, arguably worse ones (harm to competitors, which is sort of the
point of competition to begin with).

~~~
vntok
You may build a faster car engine than your competitor's so that your team can
visit and close more prospects per day. You may not blow up the tires of your
competitor's car so the other team cannot visit anyone.

~~~
repolfx
Blowing up tires is physical damage and does not require any specific anti-
trust laws.

That's the problem with metaphors - sometimes they obscure the reality of
things. Anti-trust covers much vaguer and more debatable 'crimes'. For
instance Microsoft was rapped over bundling Internet Explorer although every
OS comes with a web browser these days and nobody considers it controversial
anymore. The main crime was giving exclusivity discounts to customers, but
that isn't specifically forbidden as far as I know. It's just an
interpretation.

At any rate, the EU doesn't require even the slightest analogue to 'blowing up
tires'. They went after Google Shopping although Google was providing search
referral and advertising to their own competitors - actually helping them, not
hindering them. The existence of other big product search engines like Amazon
didn't help, the EU fined them anyway. I didn't believe before that EU anti-
trust enforcement was based on the rule of law, and Verhofstadt appears to
have confirmed it today.

~~~
pyrale
> For instance Microsoft was rapped over bundling Internet Explorer

...And Google uses all of their products to tell you it's better to use
Chrome, frequently destroy businesses by offering their own services in cards
at the top of searches, which represent billions in free advertising, force
Google store with their android OEMs, etc.

If Microsoft has been condemned for leveraging their dominant position in a
market to get advantage in another market, Google should have been condemned
years ago, for the same reason.

------
textmode
"Guy Verhofstadt, who leads the Liberal ALDE group, says the activity of
fictional social media company the Circle in a 2014 novel seems "very near to
the reality" of Facebook's role today."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_(2017_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_\(2017_film\))

"German Christian democrat MEP Manfred Weber, who leads the centre-right EPP
group, ... asks Mark Zuckerberg why the company has not stopped access to user
data to all developers, not just Cambridge Analytica.

He says he would be interested in his arguments as to why, given Facebook's
power, its algorithms should not be made public.

He also asks Mr Zuckerberg to name a competitor it has in Europe, and asks him
to "convince him" with arguments as to why his company is not a monopoly that
should be broken up."

On issues raised relating to competition, [Zuckerberg] says that communication
is a "competitive space" where people have "many choices".

"It feels like there are new competitors coming up every day," he notes.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-
parliaments-44210...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-
parliaments-44210723)

~~~
gaius
_t feels like there are new competitors coming up every day_

Such as Instagram and WhatsApp? It's not competition if you just buy them up
as soon as they start to compete...

------
QueensGambit
I have a controversial view, correct me if I am wrong. I think democracy has a
major flaw, because, most people are selfish/unfair and most likely vote for
populist leaders. But, it has been so far saved by media because of the
elitist journalists who want the world to be a fair place and were able to
convince people to reject populist leaders. With social media, these
journalists are bypassed and the populist leaders are able to appeal to the
people's selfish tendencies directly. This is an irreversible change and I
expect the world to go backwards by several decades.

~~~
jedberg
It all has to do with education. Educated people are naturally more skeptical
of their media and what the sources are.

Before social media, it was admitted a lot harder for unreliable sources to
get an audience, so that skepticism was less critical.

But I think it will come back. Education is the antidote to social media news.
Deity willing, the next government will see that and push for better
education.

~~~
bachbach
> Educated people are naturally more skeptical of their media and what the
> sources are.

I have not found that to be the case and I think you should scrutinize that
assumption very carefully.

Perhaps a majority of intellectuals in the West thought the Soviet Union was a
step forward - again and again it's the 'smart' people who get the big things
wrong.

~~~
majewsky
> Perhaps a majority of intellectuals in the West thought the Soviet Union was
> a step forward

I wasn't there at the time, so I have no way of knowing, but this smells like
hindsight bias.

~~~
repolfx
No. It was obvious at the time that the USSR was bad news. George Orwell was
writing about the dystopian nature of Soviet society in 1948.

It had become obvious decades earlier that the Russian revolution had gone
horribly wrong, after western powers realised that Soviet lumber exports were
coming from forced labour camps.

And the fact that a Russian revolution would go wrong in this way was obvious
even at the turn of the century. Lenin was put on a train in Switzerland and
sent back to Russia _specifically to cause chaos_.

Going even further back, it was a constant frustration of Marx that the
working classes in the UK (where he lived) stubbornly refused to rise in
violent revolution. His ideology was well discussed in his own time but
somehow actual working people were too smart to believe in it. Only
intellectuals far removed from the real lower classes thought his theories
were good.

tl;dr it's widely known that academics and other intellectuals couldn't accept
the disastrous nature of communism long after supposedly more "stupid" people
had fully understood the nature of Marxist ideology.

Even shorter tl;dr - education often seems to make people dumber in important
ways, not smarter.

