
Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s hardest year, and what comes next - dombili
https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17185052/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-interview-fake-news-bots-cambridge
======
chvid
"The Myanmar issues have, I think, gotten a lot of focus inside the company. I
remember, one Saturday morning, I got a phone call and we detected that people
were trying to spread sensational messages through — it was Facebook Messenger
in this case — to each side of the conflict, basically telling the Muslims,
“Hey, there’s about to be an uprising of the Buddhists, so make sure that you
are armed and go to this place.” And then the same thing on the other side."

Ok. So Facebook monitors Messenger (not just your public "wall" of Facebook)
which has the appearance of being private person to person communication and
detects that there are encouragements of violence in Myanmar (written I assume
in some language other than English).

That is some impressive operation they have going on.

No wonders that the Chinese did not let get them inside their country.

~~~
orbifold
The only thing I'm really amazed by is how the European countries still allow
them to operate, they should be fined until they exit the market and their
operation made illegal. Probably they provide sufficiently useful information
to the security services that governments don't do anything. In effect they
are a privatised Stasi.

~~~
emilsedgh
I don't think European people are OK with their politicians taking Facebook
from them.

~~~
orbifold
Nothing that can't be fixed by a bit of Psi Ops. Pretty much none of the
traditional media companies like Facebook and in most of Europe at least one
TV station per country is state controlled. So all that needs to happen is
~6-12 months of negative press in the tabloids and constant negative coverage
in national television. I think that could easily be arranged.

To paint a picture here are some headlines by BILD (largest German tabloid):

"ZUCKERBERG SCANDAL: So verdient Facebook mit Ihren Daten Geld", (ZUCKERBERG
SCANDAL: This is how Facebook earns money with your data), article based on a
report by German national television (ZDF)

"„SCHADEN FÜR DIE DEMOKRATIE“ 60 Prozent der Deutschen fürchten Facebook"
(DAMAGE TO DEMOCRACY, 60 Percent of Germans fear Facebook)

~~~
s3r3nity
Not that I feel strongly either way, but deliberately advocating for a strong,
centralized, negative propaganda campaign against a company you don't like
doesn't seem ethical to me.

~~~
black_puppydog
Seems totally ethical to me IFF you don't make stuff up. In fact, if you can
drive a strong, negative campaign solely with actual facts, I find it
imperative to do so.

Then again, you did say "propaganda" campaign, so I guess there was your
assumption of dishonesty.

~~~
s3r3nity
I think you're well meaning here, but I have two points in reaction:

1) "...[E]thical to me IFF you don't make stuff up." I think you can have
propaganda that uses only facts, but in a disingenuous manner. You just don't
mention _all_ the facts, and/or put a lens on the wrong perspective. Is that
"dishonest?" I'm not sure - maybe a misinterpretation?.

As an example, you can see this all the time with the arguments against global
warming: "some studies show that temperatures are not increasing." If you look
hard enough, you'll find data points and/or papers that argue against global
warming, but they're a very very minor # of studies, that it's not a fair
perspective or lens on the arguement.

2) "I find it imperative to do so." I am not a Facebook fan-person by any
means, but I'm not sure I find it morally _imperative_ that folks rally
against what they are doing. I have a hard time believing that the 1000's of
employees that work there are all evil people, but rather the majority are
probably well-intentioned and may just need a correction of direction. Can I
prove this? No, but if they were, say, selling nukes to ISIS or something at
that level, then I might agree with you a bit more.

~~~
black_puppydog
As I said: "propaganda" brings a whole set of assumptions to the table. My
point was that if you can sustain a campaign (not propaganda campaign, i.e.
just a real strong case) then you should, because that means there is a
genuine problem.

------
richsherwood
I’m just so done with Facebook. I know this is said time and time again here
on HN but Facebook (and google) provide a lot of stress to me for little value
in return. The majority of the stress comes from always having to be “on” and
watching for some ambiguously worded pop up, or constantly changing privacy
settings, or tracking pixels around the net. I spend more energy trying to run
away from fb and google then I so using their service. It’s constant and
fatiguing.

~~~
sova
Abstinence does little to help the masses who are still using it. We need good
regulation and laws to make it decent, not just abandon our friends and family
on it who may not be as aware of the perils

~~~
richsherwood
I agree with you on that. A service such as social media (the connecting part,
not the advertising part) could easily be seen as a necessary service being
that we are all social creatures by design. But at this point in time it’s a
massive Wild West where the laws haven’t been able to keep up with the
advances in tech. So now we are stuck in this situation where every step you
take is one in which you have to be very careful if you don’t want to have
your personal habits exploited against you. The truth is I have been doing my
best to educate the people close to me but up until very recently, with the
Facebook scandals, it all fell on deaf ears. And maybe that’s another reason
why I do find it so unnerving, as people are aware of these things going on
but either don’t care enough and in some cases fully support their extremely
private data being used on them for advertising. It’s also very conflicting
because in this day and age of big data, real change could be made but all we
seem to hear and experience is the opposite of positive change in this era.
(I’m not normally this much of a negative guy but this topic specifically
makes me feel very powerless)

~~~
sova
The European laws are actually having an effect. Provided we can get the old
hats in Congress to understand the right to privacy and the right to be
forgotten, we may be able to curb the tide of mass surveillance that's
currently being exploited to make more money and sell more goods

------
ahartmetz
I want a journalist to ask him what he thinks about the age of post-privacy
now, especially regarding his own privacy. But probably they are all scared to
cross him - Facebook is too powerful.

~~~
daodedickinson
Here's what he thinks of privacy: he had his own private paramilitary / police
force de facto arrest and detain a photographer on a public California road.
The photographer was taken to Facebook HQ for interrogation:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5563325/Mark-
Zuckerb...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5563325/Mark-Zuckerberg-
hypocrite-photographer-breached-CEOs-privacy.html)

~~~
timlod
> Here's what he thinks of privacy: he had his own private paramilitary /
> police force de facto arrest and detain a photographer on a public
> California road. The photographer was taken to Facebook HQ for
> interrogation:

> [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5563325/Mark-
> Zuckerb...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5563325/Mark-Zuckerb..).

Why inflate what actually happened that much? Checked you on that statement,
and even the daily mail article just mentioned it was a security guard who
told the photographer to go to HQ, where he was met by two executives. No
'paramilitary force'...

I like neither the company nor the person, but please don't spread false
information.

------
IBM
This was a good interview to listen to and Ezra Klein asked some good
questions. Unfortunately Zuckerberg's answers weren't satisfactory.

Responding to Tim Cook:

>You know, I find that argument, that if you’re not paying that somehow we
can’t care about you, to be extremely glib and not at all aligned with the
truth. The reality here is that if you want to build a service that helps
connect everyone in the world, then there are a lot of people who can’t afford
to pay. And therefore, as with a lot of media, having an advertising-supported
model is the only rational model that can support building this service to
reach people.

>That doesn’t mean that we’re not primarily focused on serving people. I think
probably to the dissatisfaction of our sales team here, I make all of our
decisions based on what’s going to matter to our community and focus much less
on the advertising side of the business.

>But if you want to build a service which is not just serving rich people,
then you need to have something that people can afford. I thought Jeff Bezos
had an excellent saying on this in one of his Kindle launches a number of
years back. He said, “There are companies that work hard to charge you more,
and there are companies that work hard to charge you less.” And at Facebook,
we are squarely in the camp of the companies that work hard to charge you less
and provide a free service that everyone can use.

>I don’t think at all that that means that we don’t care about people. To the
contrary, I think it’s important that we don’t all get Stockholm syndrome and
let the companies that work hard to charge you more convince you that they
actually care more about you. Because that sounds ridiculous to me.

The fact is advertising business models, like Facebook, have inherent
conflicts that Apple doesn't have. Paying directly for a product that you're
going to use creates a beautiful alignment of interests. Even Microsoft wasn't
as beautifully aligned as Apple was/is because Windows was sold to CIOs and IT
departments and not the person who was going to actually use it.

"Apple is for rich people" would have been excellent jujtsu if not for that
leaked memo, at least rhetorically. Unfortunately that memo laid bare for
everyone to see exactly what Facebook as an organization and a culture
prioritizes, and reveals that all of Facebook's public statements made after
privacy scandals over the years, as well as Zuckerberg's protestations that he
cares about the user over "connecting the world" (euphemism for increasing
engagement and thus ad growth), were complete bullshit. Ezra refers to Tristan
Harris' comment that Zuckerberg couldn't do anything that decreased engagement
by 50%, which is completely right and zeros right in on that inherent conflict
in ad business models.

On the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar and Facebook's role (I'm going to quote
Ezra because Mark's answer is garbage and a complete dodge):

>One of the scary stories I’ve read about Facebook over the past year is that
it had become a real source of anti-Rohingya propaganda in Myanmar, and thus
become part of an ethnic cleansing. Phil Robertson, who’s a deputy director of
Human Rights Watch in Asia, made the point that Facebook is dominant for news
information in Myanmar but Myanmar is not an incredibly important market for
Facebook. It doesn’t get the attention we give things that go wrong in
America. I doubt you have a proportionate amount of staff in Myanmar to what
you have in America. And he said the result is you end up being like “an
absentee landlord” in Southeast Asia.

>Is Facebook too big to manage its global scale in some of these other
countries, the ones we don’t always talk about in this conversation,
effectively?

This gets to the heart of the matter. Facebook (and Google with YouTube) are
just too big for them to even grasp what's going on on their platforms.
"Absentee landlord" is such an apt way to put it. These companies sneeze and
the ripples are massively world changing, from election meddling to fucking
ethnic cleansing.

The only real solution to this is regulation on a global scale. Antitrust,
privacy regulation, Germany's hate speech law applying to social networks
(this won't happen in the US for obvious reasons); all of it has to be on the
table.

~~~
seem_2211
Facebook reminds me of the story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - the
story of the utopian city whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of
a single child.

At its heart, Facebook can't be honest with what it is. Mark Zuckerberg can't
admit to himself that what's good for Facebook is bad for society. That's why
he says a lot about "community" and "connection" but never talks about
advertising or monetization. Look at his updates - they never talk about the
billions of dollars they make (money talk - that's taboo!)

Facebook doesn't make money via advertising. Advertising is a billboard, or a
TV commercial. Facebook makes money by selling your private data (oh you're
showing signs of depression - try some prozac!). Facebook is a surveillance
operation in a way that traditional advertising isn't.

I have a friend who worked on the newsfeed team at Facebook. Nice guy. Smart
guy. But he's unable to consider the broader ethical implications of what he's
doing. In the Facebook paradigm more engagement = good.

Facebook has contempt for the general public, and for that reason deserves
contempt from the general public.

~~~
aetherson
Facebook for the most part doesn't sell your data. They sell advertising. They
tell you, "If you want to put a billboard for Prozac in front of depressed
people, we'll do that for you." But they won't tell you who's depressed and
let you do it yourself.

There have been exceptions, but they are broadly speaking either from years
ago, or were mistakes in the first place. Facebook is generally uninterested
in giving away your information -- that is, after all, a big chunk of what
makes them valuable. If everyone had the same information, they wouldn't be as
able to sell ads.

~~~
lalos
What is the difference between an ad and abusing somebody who is in a weak
position? There is a difference and targeted ads are dancing on that line, if
you don't see this you should read on how people get recruited to sects. They
don't advertise, they target people who can be easily be taken advantage of
based on their behavior or emotions. I'm not saying it's wrong but there
should be a limit on how and what can you target with ads or at least be
transparent about it. "We have classified you as depressed" and see if users
are happy about it.

~~~
nlowell
I think the people selling anti-depressants would see themselves at helping
the person in a weak position, since the medicine could potentially relieve
them of some or all symptoms. The line of "abuse" is very hard to draw when
someone is willingly buying and using a product designed to have value.

------
neo4sure
To the people that think Facebook is going to go away you are are in for a
rude awakening. The fossil industry has been poisoning people and doing dirty
tricks for decades have they gone away? Ultimately they were required for the
nation. As the fossil industry loses strength over the coming decades they
will be replaced by the tech giants. The tech giants will get regulated but
the will never go away. The country needs them. They generate too much GDP.

------
KozmoNau7
Respect people's privacy, not sell their information to the highest bidder,
not spy on private conversations?

No? I'm still out, then. Good riddance.

------
SrslyJosh
> “We will dig through this hole, but it will take a few years.”

I think that pretty much sums it up.

------
golemotron
>That doesn’t mean that we’re not primarily focused on serving people. I think
probably to the dissatisfaction of our sales team here, I make all of our
decisions based on what’s going to matter to our community and focus much less
on the advertising side of the business.

When you use the word "community" to describe a user base of 2 billion people
you've stretched the word beyond all sense or recognition.

------
Dig1t
"The second category is state actors. That’s basically the Russian
interference effort. And that is a security problem. You never fully solve it,
but you strengthen your defenses. You get rid of the fake accounts and the
tools that they have."

Frankly, this is a weak answer. They don't have a good solution and this
approach is not going to prevent it from happening in future elections.

------
joejerryronnie
You know what comes next - some other scandal from some other area of the
economy (like the financial markets melting down again) and the vast majority
of people move on from this and continue using Facebook as they always have.
The only reason these issues are getting so much attention is because the mass
media is over-clocking their coverage and it's in everyone's face right now. I
suspect the media is using the same fear mongering tactics the alt-right
typically employs for more hits and increased ad revenue - i.e. "Hey everyone,
Facebook has used your private data to elect Trump!"

Does anything Facebook (or third party companies) do with your private data
actually have an impact in the day to day lives of the vast majority of the
world's population? Sure, hyper-targeted advertising and echo-chamber content
curation can have a negative impact to society, but these are macro issues.
People will generally follow the path of least resistance and if you give them
something of high utility for no cost and no immediate negative impact to
their daily lives, they will conveniently ignore many serious issues that
should otherwise be concerning.

~~~
collyw
Influencing elections would affect quite a number of people. When its the US
elections, then it likely does have an impact on the rest of the world.

~~~
joejerryronnie
Even the election of a US President you are viscerally opposed to doesn't
usually change long term behavior. What percentage of people that are
absolutely appalled at the election of Trump have adjusted their daily lives
to make a change - e.g. regularly volunteering for a political cause/candidate
(rage tweeting doesn't count)?

------
downrightmike
Good thing he decided to finally start doing is job as a new year's
resolution: [https://work.qz.com/1171876/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerbergs-
ne...](https://work.qz.com/1171876/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerbergs-new-years-
resolution-is-to-do-his-job/)

------
feelin_googley
"One thing that's very notable is, they agreed to do all this stuff back in
2011, and it looks like they didn't live up to the promises then. So the
question is, _what makes us believe them now_?

...

Yes, I mean, that's the problem, is that _they keep saying this, but, you
know, there 's this recidivism problem_. They keep not really doing anything.

And I think that the problem is that their model depends on accumulating data
and giving it to advertisers. And anything that comes close to threatening
that business model, they don't really seem that interested in doing something
_serious_ about it.

...

You know, I understand that, but _I think the time of "trust us" has got to be
over._

...

You know, the - fundamentally, Facebook is a surveillance machine. They get as
much data as they can, and they _promise advertisers_ that they're able to
manipulate us, and that is at the core. And so, you know, they started this by
saying, well, this wasn't really a data breach, this is our normal business
model, which I think should tell you something, and _then later said, well, it
's not so great_, and so forth.

But they're really showing an _unwillingness to do something more serious_
about this problem. And _it keeps happening over and over again_.

...

There is just something not right here with this company and their
_unwillingness to come clean_. And I think that the idea, well, just trust
because Zuckerberg wrote a message on Facebook, that _everything is going to
be fine_ is really something government investigators cannot trust.

...

And once again, I think the concern in Facebook's heart is that, at some
point, this will hurt their advertising revenue and the _promises they have
made investors_. And so they're unwilling to take _serious steps_.

...

And I think the fundamental problem is, they're all dependent on this _pure
advertising_ model, you know, nothing but trying to get as much data out of us
and sell as much as they can of our time and attention to other people.

And that just leads in very dark directions."

Source:

Tim Wu

[https://www.npr.org/2018/03/30/598208043/should-facebook-
use...](https://www.npr.org/2018/03/30/598208043/should-facebook-users-trust-
ceo-mark-zuckerbergs-apologetic-tone)

"You know, I find that argument, that if you're not paying that somehow we
can't care about you, to be extremely glib and not at all aligned with the
_truth_.

The reality here is that if you want to build a service that helps connect
everyone in the world, then there are a lot of people who can't afford to pay.
And therefore, as with a lot of media, having an advertising-supported model
is the _only rational model_ that can support building this service to reach
people.

...

I think now people are appropriately focused on some of the risks and
downsides as well. And I think we were too slow in investing enough in that.
_It 's not like we did nothing._ I mean, _at the beginning of last year_ , I
think we had 10,000 people working on security. But by the end of this year,
we're going to have 20,000 people working on security.

[ __% of total headcount at Facebook ]

In terms of resolving a lot of these issues, I _think_ it's just a case where
because we didn't invest enough, I _think_ we will dig through this hole, but
it will take a few years. I _wish_ I could solve all these issues in three
months or six months, _but_ I just think the reality is that solving some of
these questions is just going to take a longer period of time.

Now, _the good news there is_ that we really started investing more, at least
a year ago. So _if_ it's going to be a three-year process, then I think we're
about a year in already. And hopefully, by the end of this year, we'll have
really started to turn the corner on some of these issues."

------
jacquesm
Hardest year so far. The year isn't over.

