
Mark Zuckerberg's Hoodie - pidge
http://quietbabylon.com/2013/mark-zuckerbergs-hoodie/
======
beatpanda
Based on the responses here on Hacker News, it seems like some of you didn't
get it.

This article is about social privilege, and how different the life
circumstances of the founder of Facebook are from many of the people using his
product.

It's underscoring the fact that Graph Search could only be built by someone
who doesn't understand the sometimes life-or-death importance of privacy, who
has never had to fear any real consequences from any expression of identity or
presenting the same face to all people.

A large segment of the readers of Hacker News have the same blind spots as
Mark Zuckerberg, and this comes out whenever any question of social privelege
as it relates to technology comes up here. This is a problem. The products
we're building have huge, and usually unexamined, social consequences, and I
don't think ignoring those consequences will work long term.

This is true in other fields that claim "neutrality" the way technologists do.
Most working U.S. journalists, for instance, work for pro-government, pro-
Capitalist news outlets. We call this "objective". Any deviation from that
norm is "bias".

Keeping identifying information in a centralized location that is subject to
subpoena by law enforcement is a norm now, too, one that has serious social
consequences. So your decision to roll your own auth system and saying "fuck
it, I'll just make them log in through Facebook" is about _a lot_ more than
how many keystrokes you have to enter and how much maintenance you're going to
have to do down the road.

We should start factoring social consequences in to our technical decisions,
like, ten years ago, and I'm afraid it's going to take a lynch mob empowered
by Graph Search for people to get this.

~~~
yuhong
I prefer people post under their real name if possible, but know that it is
not always possible. I do want these problems fixed eventually if possible
too.

~~~
cynest
But is that truly de-anonymizing? I share my legal name with several famous
people, and numerous SEO'd professionals. Barring more specific searching
knowing specific details I am relatively hard to identify. Same with just
about anyone who fits the (common first name, common last name) paradigm. On
the other hand (rare first name, rarer last name) is relatively easy to
uniquely identify.

~~~
michael_miller
For most purposes, it is de-anonymizing. There might be several famous people
who share your name, but is there more than one person with your name who is
currently an undergrad at Caltech studying CS? In most cases, a name combined
with a little bit of context will identify an individual.

~~~
vidarh
The difference, for me at least, is effort.

There's a vast difference from if people can do a search for your name, and
get page up and page down of stuff from every forum you might post on, vs. if
people need to track down your nym's.

In my case, my HN id is trivially easy to connect to my full name, but unless
you go to the effort, these comments won't show up.

My Reddit comments are still easy to connect to my full name if you try, but
it does not reflect my name directly, and it will take more searches for most
people. I don't care if people who know me figure it out - I've e.g. often
made clear statements that identify me in comments there, by e.g. replying in
threads when posts from my blog has been posted there. I don't care if the odd
person here and there make the connection, with or without my help.

I don't care if people who care enough to put effort into figuring out the
connections figure it out (though I'd find it rather creepy if someone thought
that worthwhile) - they'd find other avenues to get information about me
anyway.

But I _do_ somewhat care that off-hand comments I make that are more like a
casual chat than a serious debate or public statement does not end up ranking
at the top of a Google search for my name.

I "curate" my online life that way, by deciding what I post and what usernames
I use, depending on how much or little I care about tying a specific service
to my public identity.

~~~
icebraining
But you can only do that because HN, Reddit and other sites - unlike Facebook
and Google+ - allow you to create that chasm between the two identities.

There's nothing wrong with an individual choosing to use his legal name in his
profile, but we should be weary of making that decision for others.
Personally, I won't join any service that maintains such policy.

~~~
vidarh
Absolutely. I may join such services, but I will self-censor. I hardly use
Facebook, for example, because I don't _want_ all those personal details
spread to a lot of people I care less about that many people I only know by
handles, but feel social pressure to add. So my profile exist, but is pretty
much devoid of content, and it will remain that way.

------
kevinalexbrown
What a thoughtful essay. "But it uses a silly writing device to illustrate a
point it could have just made plainly!" Whoa there, critical-thinking-by-the-
numbers guy, maybe the article is also about fashion.

As a child, I considered style choices a silly and inconsequential distraction
from the beautiful truths of the universe: e^(ipi) + 1 doesn't care what I'm
wearing, so neither should I, therefore it doesn't matter, QED.

While today I still wish fashion would just go away so I could wear this
conference t-shirt in peace, I contend it offers a reflection of who we are.
Consider that while half the Senior Developers of the world can't program
their way out of a FizzBuzz test, and half the world can't even read at all,
_everyone_ can look at someone's dress and decide if it's fashionable for
their demographic. "No, it offers a reflection of what the establishment wants
us to be!" I'll leave it to the reader to reconcile those two views. "But I
just care about finishing Project Euler problems in APL so I just decide to
wear sandals and this old shirt like all my friends!" _Fashion mattering
doesn't depend on you caring._ Even you, APL-man, know Zuck couldn't wear his
hoodie working for Quinn Emanuel unless he owned it (real question: how many
people show up in suits at facebook?).

I was shopping for pretty scarves (!) with a product designer and suggested
that ads are the clearest reflection of what a given demographic _is_. He
agreed so quickly I wondered if I were late to the party. So when the
Scientology ad in the Atlantic showed up, I thought of my favorite TLP
quotation: if you're reading it, it's for you. The obvious question was "why
is the Atlantic publishing this!?" The more depressing question is "why am I
in Scientology's target demo?"

Fashion is an advertisement about yourself. "But the relationship is not
always so obvious!" Hence the hoodie the world's richest web geek refuses to
remove. "But I don't care what Zuckerberg wears!" If you're reading it, it's
for you.

~~~
kevinpet
"everyone can look at someone's dress and decide if it's fashionable for their
demographic."

You may have forgotten where you are discussing this topic. I certainly have
no clue whether something is fashionable. I'd be hard pressed to tell you if
two colors go together. I do no know if I dress more or less formally than my
coworkers, or if my normal clothes present any sort of image. My style is not
a conscious rejection of fashion, it is simply some clothes that I've
concluded aren't too far outside what I'm expected to wear and therefore don't
make me stand out.

~~~
petercooper
_You may have forgotten where you are discussing this topic._

I couldn't blame anyone for this stereotype but I don't think it's true. I
suspect quite a lot of people here are into or have a nose for fashion (though
not necessarily in the haute couture/catwalk sense).

~~~
vidarh
If nothing else, anyone who visits e.g. Silicon Valley and hangs out with
geeks there, will quickly start picking out the "geek uniform". I find it
funny when fellow geeks thinks they're clueless about fashion, and still
manage to dress in very specific ways that makes them recognisable as a group.
That _is_ fashion, even if they're not following _mainstream_ fashion.

The first time I visited the Bay Area, I stood out like a sore thumb because I
didn't fit into "Bay Area geek fashion" (I dressed too "smart" because it was
my first business trip abroad). I see that here in London too - e.g. if a
developer comes into the office in a shirt, it tends to elicit comments. There
are even small but noticeable differences between how the developers and
designers dress.

~~~
sopooneo
For my own clarification, do you mean that, in London, if a developer comes
into the office in a _dress shirt_ they stand out as overly formal? Or do you
mean if they come in with _only_ a shirt (ie no tie and jacket) they stand out
as under-dressed?

~~~
pyre
Maybe he worked in the London porn industry, and _any_ shirt is over-dressed.

------
argonaut
>People who know they’re being watched change their behaviour. In a world
awash in surveillance devices, hoodies are an element of fashion driven by an
architectural condition. They are a response to the constant presence of
cameras overhead. People who don’t want to be watched wear them. People who
want to be the kind of people who don’t want to be watched wear them. People
who want to look like the kind of people who don’t want to be watched wear
them.

>It is difficult to imagine a more suitable uniform for the notoriously
private CEO of a company dedicated to expanding our ideas of what should be
public.

>June 2, 2010, Zuckerberg, hoodie removed, begins answering Mossberg’s
question.

Honestly, this seriously reminds me of the kinds of essays that most students
fall into the trap of writing in English classes in school - fake certitude,
speaking in absolutes, a pervasive tone of academic hysteria, and drawing
parallels and implications by mere association. In my view, it tries to
dissemble a sense of profundity, however hollow.

The final sentence is a particularly egregious example of drawing an
association out of thin air. This essay may as well have introduced itself as
studying the symbolic motif of the hoodie and its role in the constant
conflict between privacy and surveillance in the literary work Facebook, by
Reality.

EDIT: I would like to lightheartedly add that these essays were always really
fun for me to write in school because I would get top marks for them despite
knowing how meaningless they were.

~~~
InclinedPlane
It also struck me as written by someone on the East Coast, which appears to be
the case (the writer lives in Toronto). Here in Seattle nobody would spend so
many words writing about the hoodie. People wear them. Business professionals
wear them. Sometimes even CEOs. It's not a symbol, it's just clothing.

~~~
pdog
You missed the entire point of the essay. 1) The hoodie is more than just an
article of clothing, and 2) it wasn't really about the hoodies.

~~~
InclinedPlane
No, I got it. It's overwrought symbolism posing as profundity.

------
gfodor
I've been telling my friends this: Graph Search is going to be the biggest
privacy shitstorm we've ever seen, by a large margin. The only way it's not
going to be is if Zuck et al cave quickly and lock it down to just search in
your own network before the media picks it up. Basically Graph Search is the
piece de resistance of Zuckerberg's vision for the world: ultimate
transparency aided by algorithms to surface "public" information (ie,
information the person posting it did not realize it was public.) It's the
last big piece of the puzzle and closes the loop. The current product launch
is just one "frontend" to these algorithms. Make no mistake the creation of
this search engine is a huge inflection point since now things can be built on
top of it.

The thesis (I think) has always been there would need to be a huge trial by
fire, teaching the public about what information is _actually_ public, and
what it means to be "on the Internet" not via privacy settings, or blog posts,
or tutorials, but by pure unadulterated necessity through fear. You will
_have_ to lock your shit down now or face the consequences of massive
dissemination of that information. There will be no more friction. There will
be causalities, and I think Facebook thinks it is an inevitability that
"privacy through obscurity" becomes a thing of the past, so might as well be
them to kill it. If you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet,
particularly one that is going to be made by _someone_ , so be it.

"Market efficiency" of social data is going to be achieved: just like when a
news report comes out about a company its stock price instantly updates to
reflect it, so to will the world itself, and the people in it, reflect the
publication of personal information thanks to the ability of the world to see
it via software like Graph Search. Anyone who wants to know anything about you
or what you do will be able to, instantly, unless you understand the scope of
the things you publish intimately.

~~~
philwelch
I have an easy solution to that, personally: I don't share my deepest darkest
secrets on social networking sites.

I can't imagine anything I've posted to Facebook being a problem if it was all
printed in tomorrow's New York Times. Maybe other people should take the same
approach.

~~~
icebraining
Let's hope other people don't post them for you. At least when email was the
main social network, the effects of indiscreet friends and acquaintances
didn't usually appear on Google.

~~~
philwelch
Maybe it's to my advantage that I'm not in any kind of closet, but I also
don't share my deepest darkest secrets with people I don't trust implicitly.

~~~
gfodor
It's not exactly your "deepest, darkest secrets" you need to be worried about.
Do you really want your boss to know your interests? Do you really want your
ex-girlfriend to know if you've moved somewhere nearby? Etc.

~~~
philwelch
Sure, why not? If there's anything like that I did care about, Facebook would
be none the wiser anyway.

------
etfb
"It's 1945. I sit in a Brooklyn kitchen, fascinated by an arrangement of cogs
on black velvet. I am sixteen years old. It is 1985. I am on Mars. I am fifty
six years old..."

That's what the style of this article instantly reminded me of. Like the
source I quote, the article was done very well indeed; well enough that I
picked up what was happening without the use of Dave Gibbons' art. Good
language, even good poetry. Impressive.

And the point he's making? Memorable. Doesn't matter if I agree with his point
or the connections he's drawing. This is quality stuff all round.

~~~
corporalagumbo
Damn, I gotta read Watchmen again soon.

------
neumann_alfred
"Making the world open"? Facebook doesn't even offer RSS feeds, so thanks for
the chuckle. "Making the world connected"? The world is connected anyway,
introducing middlemen into it makes it arguably less connected, that is, it
introduces more connectedness that sucks, instead of the kind that doesn't.
Thanks for honing my doublethink radar or something.

~~~
freshfunk
1B people disagree with you.

~~~
pdonis
1B people aren't even asking themselves those questions.

~~~
freshfunk
If people didn't think FB was making things more open and connected, then why
are they even on the site (and returning frequently)? It may not be YOUR
narrow definition of open and connected but clearly they are deriving value
from connecting and sharing with their friends and family.

~~~
pdonis
_clearly they are deriving value from connecting and sharing with their
friends and family._

Which they would be doing anyway if FB didn't exist. FB to them is
convenience, nothing more. Many of them probably think that FB _is_ "the
Internet", just as many AOL users thought that in the 90's. They are only
"connected" inside the walled garden; they have no idea of all the things that
are outside it.

~~~
freshfunk
Wow that's pretty condescending.

Yes, it is a convenience... Much like email is a convenience over snail mail
and Face Time is a convenience over meeting in person. Arguably the car is a
"convenience" over the horse.

Discounting the breakthrough in technology that spawned the term "social
networking" doesn't really help your position.

AOL may be a defunct company but in their hey day they brought millions of
people online. They deserve more than your mockery.

~~~
pdonis
I didn't say there was no value in convenience. Of course there is. I use
email. I'm posting here instead of xeroxing and snail mailing what I write.
But HN isn't trying to monetize my personal information, and it isn't trying
to be my only portal to the Internet.

Yes, AOL in its heyday brought lots of people online--and made them think that
going through AOL was the _only_ way to get online. Facebook has brought a lot
of people social networking--and has made them think that allowing Facebook to
monetize their private information is the _only_ way to do social networking.
They are encouraging people to choose short-term convenience at the expense of
long-term control over their own data and their own online lives.

My point is that saying "lots of people use Facebook" is not the same thing as
saying "Facebook is doing things that are good for its users, or the Internet,
or society, all things considered". Same for s/Facebook/AOL/.

------
corporalagumbo
This isn't wholly bad writing, but what he's published is really just an early
draft: ~version 0.3 in the writing process, the point where you've meandered
your way through your early thoughts, lost direction and momentum, then
squished all the loose ends and odd thoughts into a limp pseudo-conclusion,
because you generally don't have anything clear to say in your mind the first
time round. At this point I would be stepping back, taking some time to think
about and deconstruct what and why I was exactly interested in in the first
place, looking for the seeds of what really interests me. Then I'd strip it
down to its fundamentals, generate a potential argument, do some more
research, and start a new draft cycle. Usually I'm only getting to something I
would consider publishing around 3.0 or 4.0. Or I've realised that the ideas
didn't pan out and I've shelved the project - another very important skill for
writers! Anyway putting in this extra effort is hard work but worth it,
because otherwise your thoughts always come out like this: pretty, suggestive,
but directionless. Basically people need to learn to be patient and not rush
their ideas - a hard but necessary lesson in our times.

(I usually edit most of my comments here multiple times: written and posted
hastily, then subjected to extended consideration.)

------
nkwiatek
Poetic and engaging writing, but ultimately dishonest. It relies on the symbol
of the hoodie to carry the speech through pathos, and that does take it quite
far, but no argument is given. Are we expected to fear Zuckerberg, or the
consumer website Facebook? The author stirs drama but does not direct it, and
the resulting flatness feels disingenuous -- yet another Facebook piece that
feels important with no insight. The author has identified that there is
something significant to culture in Facebook's work that is also frightening,
but can't quite articulate it, because that is actually difficult to do given
how bleeding edge these issues are; instead, lazily, the author appears to
give up. Disappointing. I'd love something with more teeth.

~~~
beatpanda
It's giving you some things to think about without coming to a conclusion for
you, and it's interesting how disorienting you find this.

~~~
nkwiatek
Well, that's the thing: I don't find that interesting, I find it lazy. It's
_already_ lazy to write about Facebook, especially in a negative or fearful
tone. (How much of that mongering do you see in a day? One article on the
frontpage a day on average, yes?) When a writer chooses Facebook's ethos as a
topic I'm looking very critically for true insight, but most end up punting on
this -- this author included.

~~~
beatpanda
I don't think it was really about Facebook's ethos at all, and I think people
are going to continue writing about Facebook negatively until we all find some
way to solve the problems they're causing.

It's not just going to go away because it's a dead horse. That's like saying
that anti-war protesters should just stop showing up, "because, duh, we all
know war is bad, so just put your little placard down, already."

~~~
callum85
That's not a fair comparison. A protester's purpose is simply to make it known
that they are for/against a certain cause – to increment the number of visible
proponents/opponents.

A blog post needs to do a lot more than that if it is to be deemed a success.
Especially if it is quite long. It should bring some insight. @nkwiatek thinks
this particular blog post didn't bring much insight. If this is true, then
it's valid to use this as a criticism. A long blog post with a reflective tone
implicitly promises to bring something more to the table than "I think X is
wrong".

------
guptaneil
Based on the title, I thought this article would be about Zuck's fashion
choices, but it surprised me by diving into much deeper topics about
individual identity, privacy, and revolutions. Great writing.

------
ck2
Even billionaires need their security blankets.

------
junto
Very interesting. The linked UK Police (FIT) spotter cards, contain a well
known British personality, namely Mark Thomas. [http://quietbabylon.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/01/Police-sp...](http://quietbabylon.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/01/Police-spotter-card-002-500x367.jpg)

He can be seen on here on YouTube:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASPL8hlKJCk&list=PL06987B...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASPL8hlKJCk&list=PL06987B4A09FB8A8D)

Legend...

------
mturmon
Beautiful, suggestive theme. Nice work.

------
zevyoura
The site has gone over its bandwidth limit, so mirror time. Here's Google's
cached copy:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:quietba...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:quietbabylon.com%2F2013%2Fmark-
zuckerbergs-hoodie%2F)

------
privasectech
The sad part of an entire article about Mark's hoodie, is that the
significance to mark himself was missed. What is inside the back of his
hoodie?

~~~
ComputerGuru
The article wasn't really about the hoodie..

------
gench
Jobs had black turtlenecks as a signature style. I think Zuckerberg sees Jobs
as a role model and imitates his practice with hoodies. What else could he
choose to look "cool"?

------
chanux
Off topic but I've heard that Zuck has a cupboard full of same hoodie (or
t-shirt) so he doesn't have to worry about what he is going to wear in the
morning.

~~~
Karunamon
That's a pretty common trope - supposedly Steve Jobs was the same way.

I wonder how true it is.

~~~
corporalagumbo
I recently bought ~30 pairs of the same underwear which I prefer. I definitely
see locking down a set of favourite items for the basics of your daily
wardrobe, and then buying those items in bulk, as a big efficiency boost if
you have more important things to do with your mind than worry about the what
you're going to wear each day. Makes sense to focus on basic items: socks,
undies, t-shirts, pants, jerseys. Then you don't have to worry about needing
to do laundry all the time, running out of items you prefer, choosing between
different models, choosing when you go shopping again. Ultimately you would
want to extend this beyond clothes: food, household items etc. and automate it
as much as possible, so you don't even have to worry about re-buying - your
system is set up to order replacements on schedule as required.

Edit: just realised I'm in the process of doing basically the same thing with
discovering and standardising my favourite haircut.

------
mieubrisse
Very interesting writing style, and a wonderfully thought-provoking read!

------
meaty
When you grow up, the hoodie is replaced with a Berghaus fleece :)

