

Why Mark Zuckerberg Needs to Come Clean About his Views on Privacy - mahipal
http://social.venturebeat.com/2010/05/13/zuckerberg-privacy/

======
wdewind
"He believes that people should have a single identity: “You have one
identity,” he emphasized three times in a single interview with David
Kirkpatrick in his book, “The Facebook Effect.” “The days of you having a
different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people
you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly.” He adds: “Having two
identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.”"

I think this is a pretty good example of zuck's both arrogance and privilege.
He's so insistent that people have "one identity" because he's a person who
CAN have one identity. When he projects who he is to everyone he takes zero
risk: he's a white, male, American, who has already made all his money: the
pinnacle of the upper class. Having your head in your asshole is an example of
lack of integrity.

------
Super74
Have you heard of the phrase, "When I see a bird that walks like a duck and
swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck."

Well even from the beginning of Facebook, within the Harvard campus, Mark
Zuckerberg has been surrounded with allegations ranging from questionable
personality traits, unethical behaviors and outright illegal activities.

Now with the release of a new "biography" detailing the early days of Facebook
in Silicon Valley, these instances continue to highlight character flaws that
seem to some to be quite disturbing. So why are we so surprised to witness
continued actions of betrayal and lack of customer-focused decisions on behalf
of a company that he runs and guides on a daily basis? "Zuck IS a duck!"

Personally, I totally agree with the concept of a more open society and the
need for a platform in which to exchange personal ideas and personal media
with friends and family. What I don't agree with are the blatant decisions
that manipulate that information in ways contrary to the users' choices.

Many times in the past year, I have been literally offended and personally
shocked at the amount of attacks to this information of mine and have
contemplated closing my account for those reasons.

Instead, I have controlled my privacy options as best as I can and have held
on to see where this all leads, in the hope that Facebook will finally get
their act together and re-focus their energy on connecting people, not causing
anguish those people who make them the billion dollar company that they are,
their customers.

With Zuck the duck in charge, I'm not so sure that this will happen.

~~~
dejb
> Mark Zuckerberg has been surrounded with allegations ranging from
> questionable personality traits, unethical behaviors and outright illegal
> activities.

It certainly seems he wouldn't fair well if he applied the concept of ‘radical
transparency’ to himself.

~~~
c1sc0
Now that would be an interesting distributed effort to see: try to build a
timeline of all of Zuck's questionable behaviour on a single site, we could
call it something like zucksucks.com ;-)

~~~
Super74
Absolutely brilliant! Just start with all of the articles citing direct
actions on his part. I'm sure the compilation would end any speculation as to
the nature of his character, if there ever was any.

~~~
frisco
What would that accomplish? _Please_ spend the time you could be slandering a
persona everyone loves to hate doing something more meaningful with your life.

No one ever claimed that Zuck is Zuck _because he's a good guy_ ; Zuck is Zuck
because he's _CEO of Facebook_.

~~~
Super74
Slander: a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report.

Since when did calling someone on their verifiable actions become slander?
When America becomes complacent to the lack of moral and ethical
accountability of our CEOs and business leaders, the end cannot be far away.

We must expect and demand a certain level of trust from the people who
safeguard our personal information. The possibilities offered within the
concept of "the cloud" will never come to fruition without this essential
component.

What if your bank decided to publish the activity on your accounts?

~~~
Silhouette
> What if your bank decided to publish the activity on your accounts?

As something of an advocate for privacy and data protection, I have found it
instructive to compare the recent behaviour at Facebook and Google with that
of Mint, whose entire business basically depends on people trusting them with
access codes to their bank accounts.

I'm not saying Mint's approach is perfect, but this is the first line in point
1 of their Privacy and Security Policy (<http://www.mint.com/privacy/security-
policy/>):

"Simply put, we do not and will not sell or rent your personal information to
anyone, for any reason, at any time."

(For the avoidance of doubt, I am in no way connected with Mint, Intuit or any
related organisation. I'm just an interested observer of how privacy and
security are handled by on-line businesses, and found them a useful example.)

~~~
jeebusroxors
Out of curiosity - did facebook have a similar policy and then go about
changing it? They also note they post changes on their website, but it does
not need to be on the front page, or other high traffic area.

I have seen this service before and really like it, however I just can't trust
them with my bank info.

~~~
Super74
Here's a great infographic (<http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/>)
highlighting Facebook's changes to their default policies regarding the stuff
the general public can view on your profile.

The trick they are pulling is to default "yes" for you when they update the
policies. You are then forced to go through the labyrinth of settings to
change everything back. Clever, no?

------
alanthonyc
I'm not sure what he needs to come clean about. His recent actions speak
louder than any words he can come up with now. It's pretty clear where he
stands on this.

~~~
falsestprophet
Facebook's position on privacy will be whatever maximizes shareholder value.

If jealously protecting user information will maximize shareholder value, then
we can expect that. But, it probably doesn't so we probably can't.

------
joecode
_“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity."_

This strikes me as an extremist viewpoint. Portraying oneself more
conservatively in less familiar company is often essential. Indeed, in some
cases (private thoughts, for instance) the only appropriate company with which
to share is oneself.

~~~
dejb
> Portraying oneself more conservatively in less familiar company is often
> essential.

People's reaction to the 'less conservative' aspects of each other would have
to change if there was no way of hiding them. It is rather analogous to gay
people 'coming out of the closet' and the whole gay rights movement but
applied to a whole spectrum of preferences and proclivities. People's
prejudices will eventually dissipate, especially when they are most likely
'coming out' in some way themselves. In fact those that genuinely are
conservative in every area will probably find themselves in a minority. Of
course if people have really bad secrets like they are a wife beater of
something then this is unlikely to be accepted and there would rightly be
moves to stop that behavior.

~~~
prodigal_erik
> People's reaction to the 'less conservative' aspects of each other would
> have to change if there was no way of hiding them.

Has this ever happened anywhere? We've already seen absence of privacy in
tribal societies, and those are exceptionally bad places to fail to conform.
Only cities are large and anonymous enough to allow eccentrics to go unnoticed
and thrive, which is what makes cities the wellsprings of prosperous liberal
societies.

> It is rather analogous to gay people 'coming out of the closet'

Some of whom were murdered for it. There are still only a few areas (large
cities, of course) where they are relatively safe. And it took them two
generations just to achieve that!

~~~
dejb
> Has this ever happened anywhere?

Probably whenever significant technological/social change occurs.

> We've already seen absence of privacy in tribal societies, and those are
> exceptionally bad places to fail to conform. Only cities are large and
> anonymous enough to allow eccentrics to go unnoticed and thrive, which is
> what makes cities the wellsprings of prosperous liberal societies.

I think you could argue this in many ways. Are you arguing that increased
privacy played a role in the development of civilisation? It's in interesting
idea but I don't see much supporting evidence.

> Some of whom were murdered for it. There are still only a few areas (large
> cities, of course) where they are relatively safe. And it took them two
> generations just to achieve that!

Should we go back and stop it?

------
knuckle_cake
We know what his views are. It's more interesting whether he tells the truth
about them publicly or not.

------
alttab
The chesshere lies through a smile you can't immediately refuse.

