
Lawmakers fed up with Zuckerberg - evo_9
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/19/democrats-facebook-privacy-rules-1039884
======
miracle2k
Say I am running a social network. I want to allow my users to give access to
their own damn data to third parties. I want them to be able to use third
party chat UIs.

Now, how do I do it in a non-evil way? I am presuming here that everyone
agrees that should be possible to make that work.

Apparently Facebook did it the wrong way. Why?

If the argument is "Users who agreed to this integration did not know what
they were doing because the permission dialog was not clear enough", then I
have a couple questions:

\- What was the permission dialog like, really? Does anyone have a source for
this?

\- Why does the New York Times not go into this? I mean, if that is the issue,
it seems kind of important?

\- Reading the latest Times piece, does anyone feel comfortable arguing that
the reader will understand what is apparently the issue - the permission
dialog was not clear enough? Or is it more likely that the reader is left with
the vague notion that Facebook just dumped all user's private messages over to
a bunch of other companies?

~~~
ALittleLight
If someone is always late to everything, and then one day they really do have
a flat tire and are late for good reason, and you doubt them when they say
they have a flat, and that person asks "What am I supposed to do to make you
believe me when I have a good reason?" The answer, though it may seem unfair
in this particular instance, is to not always be late to everything else.

If you have a pattern of abuse even legitimate behavior may appear as abuse.
The solution is to not engage in a pattern of abuse.

~~~
skybrian
While this happens, is it a good thing? Or should try to avoid logical
fallacies?

If you want an accurate understanding of what's going on in the world, then
you should probably believe that people who are habitually late do sometimes
also get flat tires. If they say they had a flat, the logical conclusion isn't
blind trust or being sure they're lying, but mild skepticism.

~~~
elefanten
GP's scenario poses that the late person asks in exasperation _what they need
to do to be believed_ \-- there's no logical fallacy in telling them why
perceptions are stacked against them. Or in your framing, why it's skepticism
instead of presumptive trust.

Yes, the goal should be for both parties to reach a correct understanding: not
at fault this time, but often is.

Facebook, to some, appears to be only loudly arguing about the specific
injustices they feel, without giving up much ground on their habitual
mistakes.

~~~
harlanji
I can empathize with FB leadership, not condone of course. 5 years in SF
consumer ad tech turned me into a shell of a person who was coming to accept
that reality is created by certain peoples’ wills, so the only lie was
deviating from the company message. “Air tight” stories and containment seemed
like the M.O. and with 5 figure severance packages and more, I have a hard
time seeing many people being the first to be vocal. Everyone wants that
money, and most will lie hard for it. Not saying I went full shill, but
memories of that time are interesting to reflect on. Surreal, disidentified. I
think my soul is growing back, thankfully.

------
SimonPStevens
I'm the first person to hate on Facebook, but for once I think this is hugely
overblown. They didn't sell peoples data, that made it possible to voluntarily
connect accounts.

It's the equivalent of complaining that hotmail sold your private email data
to Thunderbird when you used Thunderbird as your desktop email client. No.
They didn't, you gave them access to it because that is what connecting the
accounts does.

If should be fairly clear to anyone that if you connect accounts you are
exposing data between the accounts. The debate about the granularity of
permissions is neither here nor there, everyone should have a clear
expectation that connecting accounts = sharing lots of data. Unless it is
explicitly stated what is excluded the assumption should be that everything is
shared.

~~~
JeremyBanks
> everyone should have a clear expectation that connecting accounts = sharing
> lots of data.

That's amoral bullshit and we must demand better. It should be expected that
that connecting accounts means sharing little more than the subset of data
required for the integration. Companies that violation this expectation must
face consequences.

GDPR takes a step in this direction, prohibiting retention of PII for longer
than necessary for business purposes.

~~~
smallgovt
You make a lot of claims without providing reasoning.

> That's amoral bullshit and we must demand better.

Why is this amoral bullshit? It seems like a lot of the outrage around this
topic is born out of a 'feeling' that you have an instrinsic right to online
privacy. But, I don't see this right clearly defined in the constitution, so
where does it come from? Are you sure it exists?

> It should be expected that that connecting accounts means sharing little
> more than the subset of data required for the integration.

I think it's unrealistic to expect FB to expend resources to determine what
subset of data is 'required' for every app in its ecosystem. When inspecting
the utility/privacy frontier, the current model of requiring users to grant
permission to an app makes the most sense to me. The problem in this case is
that the permissions modal may not have been clear enough.

~~~
tk75x
With a name like "smallgovt" I would expect you to be pro-privacy in the real
world as well as online. Most people on this forum would likely agree that
privacy is a right (just because it's not defined in the constitution doesn't
mean we don't have that right. Did people not have the right to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness before the constitution?). Also, it is entirely
realistic to expect Facebook to at least do a cursory look-over of the types
of data app developers are requesting while running on their platform. No
reason every app needs access to every piece of data on its users.

~~~
smallgovt
I agree that we have a right to privacy, but to what extent?

When it's not defined by law, it's up for debate. And, my main point is that
in such a scenario, I don't think calls for moral condemnation are in order.

~~~
starbeast
I think you have your dependencies muddled.

~~~
smallgovt
Why? I’d like to be corrected if so.

~~~
starbeast
Laws generally follow the calls for moral condemnation or the relaxation of
those calls. And those calls are part of the debate on what should or
shouldn't be law. Asking for moral judgment to be removed from discussions
_because_ those things are legal, is putting the cart before the horse.

~~~
smallgovt
I see your point. I'm not calling for the removal of moral judgement from the
conversation. I'm calling for the removal of moral condemnation. That is, we
can have a discussion about what is right and wrong based on your value
system, but condemning someone is a destructive act which is harmful and
unnecessary.

~~~
starbeast
There's a popular idea that it is bad to judge others. I disagree. I think we
will judge others whether we like to admit it or not and also that many of the
people I have met who claim not to judge anyone have also happened to have
been some of the most hypocritical people I have ever met. I think the
important thing is to judge yourself and your own judgements on other people,
at least as harshly as you find yourself judging others. Put your own opinions
of other people up to the coldest possible light. Judge more, not less.

~~~
smallgovt
I disagree with that popular notion also. We're entitled to our opinions and
it's natural to judge others, but I think it crosses the line when that
judgement turns into action, and that action is net harmful.

In outrage scandals like this, we're so quick to condemn the actor and demand
punishment. I think the more constructive action is to condemn the action (not
the actor) and demand regulation (not punishment). Condemning the actor may
quench our thirst for justice, but I think it's often net harmful.

I get that calling for punishment is a good disincentive for future immoral,
unregulated activity, but the punishment has to fit the bill. FB lost, what,
$30B of value over this 'scandal'. Is that not a big enough fine?

~~~
yesenadam
_FB lost, what, $30B of value over this 'scandal'. Is that not a big enough
fine?_

Isn't that like when a rich/famous person evades punishment for a crime that
the average person would get a long jail sentence for, because from loss of
income etc they'd already got 'a big enough fine'? i.e. effectively only the
non-rich are punished for crimes.

------
nijave
Still holding out for someone to care about Equifax that arguably did far
worse by not only collecting large amounts of data, but failing to give
consumers any control over it. Their whole business model is collecting and
selling personal data and opting likely has financial penalties.

~~~
IggleSniggle
Thank you! For all the data collection of Facebook, it doesn’t even come close
to the non-agreed upon infringement into my personal life of the credit
bureaus, who, in turn, seem to have limitless ability to resell whatever they
might know about me to their hearts content...or, you know, just lose it to
even more nefarious agents

------
ilovecaching
They weren’t selling data. It was a series of API integrations for popular
sites that ended years ago. Users had to sign in to those services. I have way
less trust for our tech illiterate congress than I do for Facebook.

~~~
___alt
It was unclear to users what they consented to when they signed in. Because
Facebook doesn't give a damn about proper consent. The fact that Facebook
botched it up is not less problematic than Facebook selling data because the
outcome for users is more or less the same.

Turns out "move fast and break things" is a shitty policy when it comes to
privacy concerns.

~~~
razakel
>It was unclear to users what they consented to when they signed in.

I highly doubt anyone would consent to allowing third party companies to read
their private messages if that was actually made clear to them.

~~~
ikeboy
Plenty of people installed Facebook apps that required permission to read all
text messages

~~~
zyx321
Yes, but that doesn't mean that they consent to Facebook using that data.
Whatsapp for example asks "read SMS" permission to verify your phone number.
It also requires access to your contact list or else everyone's name will be
shown as a phone number.

The average user seems to assume that the information is used to provide the
service and nothing more. The last person I asked if they were worried about
how much information FB has about them replied something among the lines of
"Yes, but it's only things that I deliberately chose to share." (paraphrased)

------
ashelmire
"We don't sell data, we sell _access_ to data. And use of it. Big difference."

Basically how I imagine the rationality in Zuckerberg's statement.

~~~
tremon
And this is an important distinction, especially for investors. _Selling data_
is a one-time occurrence, and requires a lot of effort to maintain revenue.
_Selling access_ however uses a subscription model, and guarantees future
revenue with a lot less effort. It's the same with software sales vs software
subscription models (whether through cloud platforms or support contracts).

That distinction should not matter to lawmakers though.

~~~
hannasanarion
Nonsense. Changing the means of transfer or payment model doesn't mean
changing the product. This is like arguing that Dominos doesn't have to obey
health rules because they're not a restaurant, they're a food delivery.

You don't get to decide which parts of your product the law applies to, and
which don't. You can't bypass all firearms laws by selling holsters that just
so happen to have guns in them as a free bonus. If Facebook tries this in
court, the conversation will go something like this:

Court: Do you sell data?

Zuck: No, we sell access to data

Court: so if you took out the data, and gave only access to your systems,
completely blank and with nothing on them, people would still want to pay just
as much?

Zuck: No, our customers want the data

Court: Then you are selling data. Case closed. Go directly to jail, do not
pass go, do not collect 200 email addresses.

------
tempodox
> _Zuckerberg assured lawmakers that “we don 't sell data to anyone.”_

So he lied to Congress and now he's busted. I was wondering whether there
exists an audience that wouldn't buy his bullshit wholesale.

~~~
dylan604
The Zuck just needs to say he misspoke rather than lying. It worked well for
Clapper.

~~~
misiti3780
yes, and clapper still has a great career. he is a disgrace.

------
c649986ce4b3ba0
This is an amazing statement, I don't even know what to say about it (emphasis
added):

"Facebook also regarded these partners as _extensions of itself_ because they
committed to abide by its privacy guidelines, according to the Times report,
and therefore the company felt it did not need users' permission before
sharing their data."

------
sschueller
I don't like Facebook however I think people are blaming the wrong things.

Facebook should just come out and say it already. They sell and process data
like everyone else (what do people think credit card companies and Amazon do?
) . It isn't against the law and if people want it changed, change the laws.

This is mostly on lawmakers for not dealing with the issues for so many years.

~~~
marcosdumay
If they said that, lawmakers would need to deal with the problem, and Facebook
would be out of their revenue stream.

------
FlyingBears
I am not trying to imagine a conspiracy here, but are there any forces on the
investor side or outside of the company trying to unseat Zuck? The deluge of
bad press seems like a concerted effort.

~~~
starbeast
How come nearly everybody saying pretty much this exact thing on every FB
thread recently _also_ emphasizes that they are not trying to imagine a
conspiracy here? Now, I am not trying to imagine a conspiracy here...

~~~
FlyingBears
I haven't seen a breakdown of opposition from perspective of financial
interest. Privacy noise is just a tool to get to more money and control.
Unless this hole is explored, FB has plausible case to play victim.

~~~
starbeast
Yeah, but everyone has a plausible case to play victim if the evidence
threshold is 'scary things that could exist that we currently have no evidence
either way for'.

------
LMYahooTFY
The degree of grand standing over this issue leads me to wonder who among the
donor base is pushing for such action. Obviously many would welcome something
similar to "GDPR", and the question is always how such regulation can be
levied in favor of incumbents.

Our new digital footprints are much more detailed, but I've yet to understand
how they're fundamentally different from what media companies have been
selling for most of the last century.

I don't preclude the possibility that they might be, I've just not understood
it yet.

~~~
elliekelly
> Our new digital footprints are much more detailed, but I've yet to
> understand how they're fundamentally different from what media companies
> have been selling for most of the last century.

Thirty years ago a media company could say you subscribe to these two
magazines, this newspaper, and you're a 35 year old male. That means you
_probably_ watch these five TV shows and you're _likely_ to be interested in
X, Y, and Z. They could also say to advertisers, if you're looking for a 35
year old male who's interested in X, Y, and Z the most effective way to market
to them is _probably_ advertising on this radio station or during this T.V.
show. They tranched and profiled viewers as groups and sub-groups. Today, they
don't have to profile or make generalizations about trends among groups of
people. They have all of the information, for each and every one of us as
individuals, at their fingertips.

Thirty years ago they sold access to "35 year old males who like football."
Today they sell access to _you_.

~~~
rock_hard
If you ever used Facebook or Google Ads system you would know that this is
factually incorrect!

Neither platform sales access to a specific person! Instead what they sell is
access to “35 year old males who like football”!

~~~
reaperducer
Except that you could upload a list of e-mail addresses or phone numbers, or
even an e-mail address or phone number list of _one_ , and target that _one_
person.

~~~
jamiequint
Facebook, and almost all the other platforms which allow this type of
targeting, make it impossible to do this now by setting a minimum matched
audience size. This means that even if you upload a list of 9,999 fake email
addresses and 1 real email address it will not allow you to run ads against
that audience explicitly in order to make it impossible to do this.

~~~
longway2go
Is it not quite easy to use 9999 real email addresses you dont care about or
control?

E.g. targetted ad in english sent to 10k thai people and one english speaker?
Maybe even reduce costs depending on how the system works.

------
jhcl
The big companies are collecting and selling our personal data but since we
care more about sharing photographs of our lunch, dog and/or holiday we click
away all Terms of Services.

Not until congress is void of financial incentives can the US expect a
somewhat decent political solution like Europe tries to do. In the meantime
try not to act like part of the herd and don't post anything that makes you
their product.

------
resters
I posted an analysis of this situation the other day which got downvoted
harshly. I'd be curious to read any thoughtful rebuttals:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18716646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18716646)

------
btbuildem
Are we sure this isn't more about the fact that Zuckerberg has vast financial
resources, and has been showing an interest in a political career? With the
fallout from FB's role in the US election, I can see the establishment getting
a little uneasy.

This could be antibodies fighting a parasite, in their own lovely way.

------
flareback
Can't say I ever thought too much of Zuckerberg, but anyone who annoys
politicians can't be all bad.

------
CWuestefeld
Am I the only one feeling deja vu, relative to Comey's statements to Congress
claiming that the NSA wasn't monitoring our communications?

And given that nothing was ever done to Comey, or anybody else involved in
that spying, is there any reason to expect any repercussions for
Zuckerberg/FB?

------
lgleason
Lawmakers should be fed up with Facebook. That said, Google is an even bigger
issue that deserves more scrutiny. The only difference is that Google is
spending more money to buy off politicians on both sides of the isle.

------
JohnJamesRambo
Democracy is working, because we, the constituents, are too!

------
mindcrime
Dear Congress:

We don't need a law to protect our privacy from Facebook; we need one to
protect us from the US government.

~~~
kamarg
Why not both? Seems like my data should be protected from anyone that isn't me
until I decide to allow those in either the public or private sector to access
it.

~~~
mindcrime
Strictly speaking, I agree. The defining difference to me, though, is that
things like "using Facebook" are voluntary. I can choose to just not use
Facebook at all. I can't really opt out of being spied on by the US
government.

And even though I'm a radical libertarian, EFF supporter, etc., exactly the
kind of person you would normally expect to be very worked up over these kind
of privacy issues, I have a different take when it comes to sites like
Facebook. That is, I've _always_ assumed that anything I post on Facebook is
effectively public, and so anything that I don't want seen, I just don't post
to begin with. And I don't use Facebook Messenger for sensitive
conversations... to me, that's mainly for "hey what you doing this weekend",
"wanna catch a movie" chit-chat.

Of course I understand that other people are operating from different base
assumptions, and so they are going to react differently. Still, the USG
worries me more than Facebook, Twitter, Google, and their ilk.

------
throw7
we the people want to be secure in our papers... increasingly those papers are
virtual now and scattered all over the internet.

lawmakers need to catch up, setup hearings/panels with real digital privacy
advocates (not spectacles of the type we've been getting with zuck/pichai/et
al.).

------
gammateam
and the data brokers and adtech networks are still laughing at Zuck for being
the Face and fallguy

------
gerbilly
Facebook is a voluntary surveillance platform as well as a colossal waste of
time. Just leave!

------
resters
Keep in mind that Facebook entered the spotlight only after it was
alleged/found that it didn't do enough (in hindsight) to prevent Russian
meddling in the 2016 election.

What is often overlooked from the analysis is that the current president
successfully exploited the _intended_ behavior of the news feed algorithm to
obtain billions worth of free marketing/PR during the campaign.

The algorithm is essentially a virality detection sensor that finds "high
quality" content (measured by how much users will engage with it) and
distributes it to users in a way that maximizes the amount of ad revenue
generated by their consumption of the content.

There is also a mechanism that creates an exceptionally rich psychographic and
demographic profile of each user, so that ads can be targeted with great
precision (resulting in higher yield and thus higher ad spend by marketers).

However just as Twitter ran into scalability issues once celebrities started
using the platform, Facebook has run into a different kind of scalability
issue. The news feed algorithm had very unexpected behavior when large numbers
of users started sharing stories about Trump, commenting, liking/frowning,
aggressively, etc.

The unexpected behavior was that Trump content (specifically the content he
controlled because it was triggered by his deliberate crass remarks) suddenly
took over the news feeds of millions and millions of users, and the person
controlling the flow of such content was none other than the candidate
himself.

The Trump campaign used this mechanism successfully to reach undecided voters
-- just because someone posts a story criticizing something crass Trump did
doesn't mean the content doesn't reach a small percentage of their FB friends
who view the content in a positive light.

Another side effect was that all the newspapers and media outlets had been
increasingly measuring social media engagement as a signal of the
effectiveness of their content/editorial strategy. So by successfully creating
massively controversial stories which got shared on social media, Trump
effectively rewarded journalists for helping him control the focus of press
coverage of his campaign. One can imagine the praise reporters received for
stories that were shared millions of times which outlined some crass comment
or another.

The FB news feed algorithm is the way it is because it maximizes revenue for
Facebook. At present it is completely possible that Trump or another candidate
could use the same exact approach again in 2020 and beyond. As much as Trump
is beneficial to many establishment interests, he also endangers many, and
this is not a risk that those in power want to allow to happen.

So what US officials want is the ability to suppress content that would
otherwise have been promoted by Facebook's algorithm. The excuse we are
getting officially is that they want to suppress things like the Russian-
funded content (which was a very small factor in Trump's overall viral
success). But in actuality what they want is the ability to turn down the
volume on some political topics/discussion and turn up the volume on other
topics/discussion.

This is, in essence, the same goal as the Great Firewall of China, only it's
far more sophisticated because nobody will get any "451 content censored"
errors. Over time the public will just end up with slightly different
opinions, focal points, etc., than it would otherwise have had.

Keep in mind that Facebook has been gradually doing everything the officials
have requested, but Zuck cannot simply wave his wand and make all this
available to officials. If he did he might face employees protesting the
decision, etc. But officials view the timeline as extremely urgent and are
escalating by attempting to harm Facebook's market value so that Zuck gets
pressured by other sources to do as requested.

It's funny that we are seeing this peculiar turn of events as the build up to
the US having its own Great Firewall. But when you think about why certain
social media is banned in Egypt and Turkey, it's pretty clear that by
amplifying viral themes in ways that government can't control, the status quo
is endangered, and those in power stand to lose when that happens.

So in an ironic sense, Trump's social media strategy resulted in a "spring" of
sorts in the US, which ruffled a lot of feathers among power holders. Trump
has largely been contained and is not a threat, but there is great concern
about the risks that Facebook's algorithm poses to the political status quo.
That is what this harassment is about. The worst nightmare of US officials
would be someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez utilizing a similar strategy.

In much the way that the printing press was used to fuel social upheaval, the
same mechanism is at work with social media, but it is thousands of times more
powerful.

I think we need to ask ourselves what does a democracy look like in an era
where social media virality and herd mentality is "enhanced" by news feed
algorithms. Twitter started off without an algorithmic feed but adopted one
once profits became the sole focus. We think of the design of news feeds as
deep science, but it's equivalent to holding various cuts of meat in front of
hungry dogs. Human brains and emotions gravitate toward a small number of
emotionally potent themes, so algorithms have effectively reduced the
dimensionality of social media so that it mainly targets the centers of
addiction, the lizard brain, etc. These are the same parts of the brain
triggered by the platitudes and fear-mongering of politicians and government
officials, so of course they are taking notice and want to control it.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The worst nightmare of US officials would be someone line Alexandria Ocasio-
> Cortez utilizing a similar strategy

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is (or at least will be in a couple weeks) a US
official.

~~~
resters
True. There is a _risk_ that she will run for president without having had the
time to adapt her views to match one of the dominant political parties.

~~~
dragonwriter
> There is a risk that she will run for president without having had the time
> to adapt her views to match one of the dominant political parties.

She's a rising star in what has long been a major faction (and which may be
taking over as the dominant faction) of the largest, by self-identified
affiliation (and by vote total at some levels in recent election cycles,
though often strucurally disadvantaged in terms of the outcome that produces)
political party.

------
sjg007
Queue lobbyists.

------
dominotw
Isn't google more vicious and powerful in data gathering. Why is google being
given freepass.

~~~
toss1
Google isn't getting a freepass, but they are sending their CEO up to testify,
and he is apparently doing so truthfully.

In contrast, FB is often sending proxies instead of the CEO, and when the CEO
did appear, he was apparently not candid.

Not sure if this rises to the standard of felony lying to congress, but if so,
I'd not be sad to see Zuckerberg do time for that, considering the scale of
damage he's foisted on our society.

~~~
dominotw
> Google isn't getting a freepass, but they are sending their CEO up to
> testify, and he is apparently doing so truthfully.

We are discussing data privacy though, not algorithmic bias.

