FACEBOOK EXEC: WE'RE NOT LIKE BIG TOBACCO BECAUSE SO MANY PEOPLE USE OUR PRODUCT; Vanity Fair, October 4, 2021

Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair; FACEBOOK EXEC: WE'RE NOT LIKE BIG TOBACCO BECAUSE SO MANY PEOPLE USE OUR PRODUCT

"“No one at Facebook is malevolent,” Haugen added, “but the incentives are misaligned.”

That, of course, speaks to the big issue facing Mark Zuckerberg: Though he insists that his platform is a force for good that is occasionally corrupted by the uglier parts of humanity, it may in fact be the case that the platform is corrupt by its very nature—and that talk of a safer Facebook, as Clegg suggested the company was working to deliver, is a bit like the “safer cigarettes” tobacco companies began marketing in response to health concerns more than half a century ago. That comparison, between Big Tech and Big Tobacco, has been made a lot recently, including by yours truly. But, asked by CNN’s Brian Stelter Sunday about the parallels, Clegg dismissed them out of hand as “misleading.”

“A part of me feels like I’m interviewing the head of a tobacco company right now,” Stelter said. “Part of me feels like I’m interviewing the head of a giant casino that gets rich by tricking its customers and making them addicted.”

“I think they’re profoundly false,” Clegg said of the analogies. “I don’t think it’s remotely like tobacco. I mean, social media apps, they’re apps. People download them on their phones, and why do they do that? I mean, there has to be a reason why a third of the world’s population enjoys using these apps.” 

His point about free will is well-taken; Zuckerberg obviously isn’t forcing anyone to scroll. But rejecting comparisons to an addictive product by pointing out how many people around the world use it hardly seems like a great defense; in fact, as NPR’s David Gura pointed out, the line actually made the parallels more pronounced."

Facebook runs the coward’s playbook to smear the whistleblower; The Verge, October 5, 2021

Elizabeth Lopatto, The Verge; Facebook runs the coward’s playbook to smear the whistleblower

 

"Facebook has chosen to respond to whistleblower Frances Haugen in the most cowardly way possible: by hiding Mark Zuckerberg, the man ultimately responsible for Facebook’s decisions, and beginning the process of trying to smear and discredit Haugen.

This is some Big Tobacco bullshit — precisely what sleazeball PR guru John Scanlon was hired to do when Jeffrey Wigand blew the whistle on tobacco company Brown and Williamson. Scanlon’s task was to change “the story of B&W to a narrative about Wigand’s personality.”

Of course, that strategy “backfired completely,” Vanity Fair reported in 2004. It probably won’t work here, either. One senator, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, has already called Haugen “a 21st-century American hero,” adding that “our nation owes you a huge debt of gratitude.”...

But the funniest part is the absence of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO and the only shareholder with the power to replace himself. Zuckerberg started Facebook as a Hot-or-Not clone — which almost certainly would negatively affect teen girls’ self-esteem. (At least he is consistent, I guess.) The decisions Haugen alleges, which put profits ahead of morals, have also enriched him more than anyone else. The buck stops, quite literally, with him. So where is he?"

Facebook whistleblower: The company knows it’s harming people and the buck stops with Zuckerberg; CNBC, October 5, 2021

Lauren Feiner, CNBC; Facebook whistleblower: The company knows it’s harming people and the buck stops with Zuckerberg

[Frances Haugen] also said she believes a healthy social media platform is possible to achieve and that Facebook presents “false choices ... between connecting with those you love online and your personal privacy.”...

‘Big Tobacco moment’

Opening the hearing Tuesday, Blumenthal called on Zuckerberg to come before the committee to explain the company’s actions. He called the company “morally bankrupt” for rejecting reforms offered by its own researchers.

Haugen said Zuckerberg’s unique position as CEO and founder with a majority of voting shares in the company makes him accountable only to himself.'

There are “no similarly powerful companies that are as unilaterally controlled,” Haugen said.

Blumenthal said the disclosures by Haugen ushered in a “Big Tobacco moment,” a comparison Haugen echoed in her own testimony. Blumenthal recalled his own work suing tobacco companies as Connecticut’s attorney general, remembering a similar time when enforcers learned those companies had conducted research that showed the harmful effects of their products.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Commerce Committee, called the hearing “part of the process of demystifying Big Tech.”"

Think Outside the Box, Jack; The New York Times, May 30, 2020

Maureen Dowd, The New York Times; Think Outside the Box, Jack: Trump, Twitter and the society-crushing pursuit of monetized rage.

"The Wall Street Journal had a chilling report a few days ago that Facebook’s own research in 2018 revealed that “our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness. If left unchecked,” Facebook would feed users “more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform.”

Mark Zuckerberg shelved the research...

“The shareholders of Facebook decided, ‘If you can increase my stock tenfold, we can put up with a lot of rage and hate,’” says Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

“These platforms have very dangerous profit motives. When you monetize rage at such an exponential rate, it’s bad for the world. These guys don’t look left or right; they just look down. They’re willing to promote white nationalism if there’s money in it. The rise of social media will be seen as directly correlating to the decline of Western civilization.”"

The Black-and-White World of Big Tech; The New York Times, October 24, 2019

Kara Swisher, The New York Times; The Black-and-White World of Big Tech

Mark Zuckerberg presented us with an either-or choice of free speech — either we have it or we’re China. Tech leaders have a duty to admit it’s much more complicated.

"Mr. Zuckerberg presented us with an either-or choice of free speech — either we have free speech or we’re China. “Whether you like Facebook or not, I think we need to come together and stand for voice and free expression,” he said with an isn’t-this-obvious tone.

But, as anyone who has lived in the real world knows, it’s much more complex. And that was the main problem with his speech — and it’s also what is at the crux of the myriad concerns we have with tech these days: Big Tech’s leaders frame the debate in binary terms. 

Mr. Zuckerberg missed an opportunity to recognize that there has been a hidden and high price of all the dazzling tech of the last decade. In offering us a binary view for considering the impact of their inventions, many digital leaders avoid thinking harder about the costs of technological progress."

Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t understand free speech in the 21st century; The Guardian, October 18, 2019

Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Guardian; Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t understand free speech in the 21st century

"The problem of the 21st century is cacophony. Too many people are yelling at the same time. Attentions fracture. Passions erupt. Facts crumble. It’s increasingly hard to deliberate deeply about complex crucial issues with an informed public. We have access to more knowledge yet we can’t think and talk like adults about serious things...

The thing is, a thriving democracy needs more than motivation, the ability to find and organize like-minded people. Democracies also need deliberation. We have let the institutions that foster discussion among well informed, differently-minded people crumble. Soon all we will have left is Facebook. Look at Myanmar to see how well that works."

Roger McNamee: ‘It’s bigger than Facebook. This is a problem with the entire industry'; The Observer via The Guardian, February 16, 2019

Alex Hern, The Observer via The Guardian; Roger McNamee: ‘It’s bigger than Facebook. This is a problem with the entire industry'

"Mark Zuckerberg’s mentor and an early investor in Facebook on why his book Zucked urges people to turn away from big tech’s toxic business model

Roger McNamee is an American fund manager and venture capitalist who has made investments in, among others, Electronic Arts, Sybase, Palm Inc and Facebook. In 2004, along with Bono and others, he co-founded Elevation Partners, a private equity firm. He has recently published Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe...

Is this a Facebook problem or a Mark Zuckerberg problem?
 
It’s bigger than Facebook. This is a problem with the entire internet platform industry, and Mark is just one of the two most successful practitioners of it.

This is a cultural model that infected Silicon Valley around 2003 – so, exactly at the time that Facebook and LinkedIn were being started – and it comes from a specific route.

Silicon Valley spent the period from 1950 to 2003 first with the space programme, and then with personal computers and the internet. The cultures of those things were very idealistic: make the world a better place through technology. Empower the people who use technology to be their best selves. Steve Jobs famously characterised his computers as bicycles for the mind.

The problem with Google and Facebook is that their goal is to replace humans in many of the core activities of life...

Do you think there’s a version of history in which we don’t end up in this situation? 

The culture into which Facebook was born was this deeply libertarian philosophy that was espoused by their first investor, Peter Thiel, and the other members of the so-called “PayPal mafia”.

They were almost single-handedly responsible for creating the social generation of companies. And their insights were brilliant. Their ideas about how to grow companies were revolutionary and extraordinarily successful. The challenge was that they also had a very different philosophy from the prior generations of Silicon Valley. Their notion was that disruption was perfectly reasonable because you weren’t actually responsible for anybody but yourself, so you weren’t responsible for the consequences of your actions.

That philosophy got baked into their companies in this idea that you could have a goal – in Facebook’s case, connecting the whole world on one network – and that goal would be so important that it justified whatever means were necessary to get there."

If Mark Zuckerberg Wants to Talk, Britain Is Waiting: Facebook leadership has a history of lashing out instead of opening up; The New York Times, January 22, 2019

Damian Collins, The New York Times; If Mark Zuckerberg Wants to Talk, Britain Is Waiting:

Facebook leadership has a history of lashing out instead of opening up

"Mr. Collins is a member of the British Parliament....

So much of our lives is organized through social media, and many people use social media platforms as the main source of information about the world around them. We cannot allow this public space to become a complete wild West, with little or no protection for the citizen user. The rights and responsibilities that we enjoy in the real world need to exist and be protected online as well."

Why Should Anyone Believe Facebook Anymore?; Wired, December 19, 2018

Fred Vogelstein, Wired;

Why Should Anyone Believe Facebook Anymore?

"Americans are weird about their tycoons. We have a soft spot for success, especially success from people as young as Zuckerberg was when he started Facebook. But we hate it when they become as super-rich and powerful as he is now and seem accountable to no one. We'll tolerate rogues like Larry Ellison, founder and CEO of Oracle, who once happily admitted to hiring investigators to search Bill Gates' trash. Ellison makes no effort to hide the fact that he's in it for the money and the power. But what people despise more than anything is what we have now with tech companies in Silicon Valley, especially with Facebook: greed falsely wrapped in sanctimony.

Facebook gave the world a great new tool for staying connected. Zuckerberg even pitched it as a better internet—a safe space away from the anonymous trolls lurking everywhere else online. But it’s now rather debatable whether Facebook is really a better internet that is making the world a better place, or just another big powerful corporation out to make as much money as possible. Perhaps the world would be happier with Zuckerberg and Facebook, and the rest of their Silicon Valley brethren, if they stopped pretending to be people and businesses they are not."

Facebook and the Fires; The New York Times, November 15, 2018

Kara Swisher, The New York Times; Facebook and the Fires

"Don’t Be Afraid of Self-Reflection

That man in the mirror is typically a man, and a young, white, privileged one, whose capacity for self-reflection is about as big as Donald Trump’s ability to stop hate-tweeting. But self-reflection is the hallmark of maturity and good decision-making. Of all the interviews I have done in Silicon Valley, I keep coming back to the one I did with Mr. Zuckerberg this summer, in which I pressed him to reflect on how his invention had caused deaths in places like India and Myanmar.

After trying several times to get an answer from him, I got frustrated: “What kind of responsibility do you feel?” I said I would feel sick to my stomach to know that people died possibly “because of something I invented. What does that make you feel like? What do you do when you see that? What do you do yourself? What’s your emotion?”

Mr. Zuckerberg’s answer left me cold. And also more than a little worried for the future of his company. It’s bad enough not to be able to anticipate disaster; it’s worse, after disaster strikes, to not be able to reflect on how it happened.

“I mean, my emotion is feeling a deep sense of responsibility to try to fix the problem,” he said. “I don’t know, that’s a … that’s the most productive stance.”

But it’s not the most productive stance. As with those California fires, putting out the flames is important. But understanding how they got started in the first place, to stop it from happening again, is what actually keeps us from hurtling over the edge."

The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley; The New York Times, August 2, 2018

Kara Swisher, The New York Times;

The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley

"All these companies began with a gauzy credo to change the world. But they have done that in ways they did not imagine — by weaponizing pretty much everything that could be weaponized. They have mutated human communication, so that connecting people has too often become about pitting them against one another, and turbocharged that discord to an unprecedented and damaging volume.

They have weaponized social media. They have weaponized the First Amendment. They have weaponized civic discourse. And they have weaponized, most of all, politics...

Because what he never managed to grok then was that the company he created was destined to become a template for all of humanity, the digital reflection of masses of people across the globe. Including — and especially — the bad ones.

Was it because he was a computer major who left college early and did not attend enough humanities courses that might have alerted him to the uglier aspects of human nature? Maybe."

Transcript of Mark Zuckerberg’s Senate hearing; Transcript courtesy of Bloomberg Government via The Washington Post, April 10, 2018

Transcript courtesy of Bloomberg Government via The Washington Post; Transcript of Mark Zuckerberg’s Senate hearing

"SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TEX): Thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg, for being here. I know in — up until 2014, a mantra or motto of Facebook was move fast and break things. Is that correct?

ZUCKERBERG: I don't know when we changed it, but the mantra is currently move fast with stable infrastructure, which is a much less sexy mantra.

CORNYN: Sounds much more boring. But my question is, during the time that it was Facebook's mantra or motto to move fast and break things, do you think some of the misjudgments, perhaps mistakes that you've admitted to here, were as a result of that culture or that attitude, particularly as it regards to personal privacy of the information of your subscribers?

ZUCKERBERG: Senator, I do think that we made mistakes because of that. But the broadest mistakes that we made here are not taking a broad enough view of our responsibility. And while that wasn't a matter — the “move fast” cultural value is more tactical around whether engineers can ship things and — and different ways that we operate.

But I think the big mistake that we've made looking back on this is viewing our responsibility as just building tools, rather than viewing our whole responsibility as making sure that those tools are used for good."

No, Mark Zuckerberg, we’re not really in control of our data; The Washington Post, April 12, 2018

Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Washington Post; No, Mark Zuckerberg, we’re not really in control of our data

"If Facebook wanted us to be in control of our data, it could put at the top of its home page a button that says “stop tracking me everywhere.” (I’d even pay a subscription fee for it.) There would be another one that says “reset my data.” But the reality is, if we all used those tools, it would probably be a disaster for Facebook’s business, which is based on having the largest pile of data to target its ads. Zuckerberg doesn’t want to talk about how his business is inseparable from its surveillance.

During one exchange, Rep. Anna G. Eshoo asked a question that cut to the core of the matter: “Are you willing to change your business model in the interest of protecting individual privacy?”

Zuckerberg replied, “I'm not sure what that means.”

I think he did."

The Most Important Exchange of the Zuckerberg Hearing; The Atlantic, April 11, 2018

Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic; The Most Important Exchange of the Zuckerberg Hearing

"As with all advertising, one has to ask: When does persuasion become manipulation or coercion? If Facebook advertisers crossed that line, would the company even know it? Dozens of times throughout the proceedings, Zuckerberg testified that he wasn’t sure about the specifics of his own service. It seemed preposterous, but with billions of users and millions of advertisers, who exactly could know what was happening?

Most of the ways that people think they protect their privacy can’t account for this new and more complex reality, which Kennedy recognized in his closing remark.

“You focus a lot of your testimony ... on the individual privacy aspects of this, but we haven’t talked about the societal implications of it ... The underlying issue here is that your platform has become a mix of ... news, entertainment, and social media that is up for manipulation,” he said. “The changes to individual privacy don’t seem to be sufficient to address that underlying issue.”

It’s not just America: Zuckerberg has to answer for Facebook’s actions around the world; The Washington Post, April 10, 2018

Karen Attiah, The Washington Post; It’s not just America: Zuckerberg has to answer for Facebook’s actions around the world

"In many countries around the world, Facebook is the Internet. And with little ability to influence how the social media site operates, such nations are vulnerable to any policy action — or inaction — the company decides to take.

So while Zuckerberg struggles to answer for how his company is affecting Americans, let’s not forget that he has a lot more to answer for...

Time will tell if countries outside of the United States will ever be able to compel Zuckerberg to appear before their citizens and lawmakers to answer for Facebook’s actions. He may never appear in say, Germany, India, or Nigeria on his whirlwind apology tour. Nevertheless, he should not be absolved from the global consequences of the digital empire that he has built."

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was an utter sham; The Guardian, April 11, 2018

Zephyr Teachout, The Guardian; Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was an utter sham

"On Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in the hot seat. Cameras surrounded him. The energy in the room – and on Twitter – was electric. At last, the reluctant CEO is made to answer some questions!

Except it failed. It was designed to fail. It was a show designed to get Zuckerberg off the hook after only a few hours in Washington DC. It was a show that gave the pretense of a hearing without a real hearing. It was designed to deflect and confuse...

In my view, we need to break up Facebook from Instagram and the other potential competitors that Facebook bought up. We need to – at a minimum – move towards opt-in, we need to hold Facebook responsible for enabling discrimination, and we need to require interoperability.

But that’s not enough. There is so much we don’t know about Facebook. We know we have a corporate monopoly that has repeated serious violations that are threatening our democracy. We don’t know how their algorithm treats news organizations or content producers, how Facebook uses its own information about Facebook users or how tracking across platforms works, to just give a few examples.

Now that the initial show trial is done, we need the real deal, one where no senator gets cut off after a few minutes. The real hearing would allow for unlimited questions from each of our senators, who represent millions of people. If it takes two months of sitting in Washington DC, let it take two months. This is our democracy."

Facebook’s boy billionaire leaves the tough stuff to the grown-ups; The Washington Post, April 10, 2018

Dana Milbank, The Washington Post; Facebook’s boy billionaire leaves the tough stuff to the grown-ups

"Where do the 87 million Facebook users who had their data scraped for Cambridge Analytica come from?

“We can follow up with your office.”

Does Facebook collect user data through cross-device tracking?

“I want to have my team follow up with you on that.”

Is Facebook a neutral forum or does it engage in First Amendment-protected speech?

“I would need to follow up with you on that.”

Zuckerberg was practically crying out for adult supervision.

Zuckerberg, of course, is no dummy. He was coached for the hearing by some of the best Washington hands money can buy. His professed ignorance, therefore, was most likely a calculation that he could avoid committing to much — and it wouldn’t come back to bite him.

He was probably right. Senators seemed as if they were less interested in regulating him than in gawking at him."

Senate fails its Zuckerberg test; CNN, April 11, 2018

Dylan Byers, CNN; Senate fails its Zuckerberg test

"Congress doesn't understand Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg emerged unscathed from Tuesday's Senate committee hearing, and he did so in large part because most of the senators who asked him questions had no clue how Facebook worked, what the solutions to its problems are, or even what they were trying to achieve by calling its CEO to testify, other than getting some good soundbites in.

What the first day of the Zuckerberg hearings made clear is that many American lawmakers are illiterate when it comes to 21st century technology."

Congress tried to crack Zuckerberg – but Facebook still has all the power; The Guardian, April 10, 2018

Julia Carrie Wong, The Guardian; Congress tried to crack Zuckerberg – but Facebook still has all the power

"In the end, it was Zuckerberg’s attitude toward his own privacy that was most revealing of the difference between the control that Facebook offers users and actual privacy. Zuckerberg said many times that he and his all his family used Facebook – a talking point we were apparently meant to take as proof that Facebook is safe.

Yet under questioning from Senator Dick Durbin, Zuckerberg expressed discomfort with revealing certain personal information, such as which hotel he was staying at while in Washington DC.

I’m a relatively well-informed Facebook user. I probably pay more attention than most people to privacy settings, and I consistently turn off things like location tracking. And yet, my Facebook data includes dozens of cases where the company has logged my location based on my IP address.

Zuckerberg may not want us to know where he slept last night, but his company sure as hell knows where the rest of us are sleeping."

Zuckerberg tells Congress ‘we didn’t do enough’ to prevent privacy crises that rock Facebook; Washington Post, April 10, 2018

Craig Timberg, Tony Romm and Elizabeth Dwoskin, Washington Post; Zuckerberg tells Congress ‘we didn’t do enough’ to prevent privacy crises that rock Facebook

"Another pointed exchange took place when Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), asked Zuckerberg what hotel he stayed at Monday night and the names of anyone he messaged this week. Zuckerberg, appearing somewhat amused by the question, declined to answer.

Durbin shot back, “I think that may be what this is all about: your right to privacy, the limits of your right to privacy and how much you give away in modern America in the name of quote, 'connecting people around the world.' ”"