Emattled and in over his head, Mark Zuckerberg should — at least — step down as Facebook chairman; The Washington Post, November 19, 2018

Margaret Sullivan, The Washington Post; Emattled and in over his head, Mark Zuckerberg should — at least — step down as Facebook chairman

"Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg once set out a bit of digital-world wisdom that became his company’s informal motto: “Move fast and break things.”

After the past week’s developments, the 34-year-old should declare mission accomplished — and find something else to do for the next few decades.

Because he’s shown that he’s incapable of leading the broken behemoth that is Facebook.

Leaders — capable leaders — don’t do what Zuckerberg has done in the face of disaster that they themselves have presided over.

They don’t hide and deny.

They don’t blame-shift."

Facebook deserves criticism. The country deserves solutions.; The Washington Post, November 18, 2018

Editorial Board, The Washington Post; Facebook deserves criticism. The country deserves solutions.

"WHAT HAPPENS now? That is the essential question following the New York Times’s troubling investigation into Facebook’s response to Russian interference on its platform. The article has prompted sharp criticism of the company from all quarters, and Facebook deserves the blowback. But Americans deserve solutions. There are a few places to start."

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."

From Arabic to AI: the ancient roots of the algorithm; The Guardian, September 20, 2018

Steven Poole, The Guardian; From Arabic to AI: the ancient roots of the algorithm

"To this day, algorithm is still just a fancy name for a set of rules. If this, then that; if that is true, then do this. In finance, especially, the word is often shortened to “algo”, which via “algae” evokes a sense of inexorable biological growth. But perhaps if we thought of algorithms as mere humdrum flowcharts, drawn up by humans, we’d be better able to see where responsibility really lies if, or when, they go wrong."

China’s influence on digital privacy could be global; The Washington Post, August 7, 2018

Tiffany Li, The Washington Post; China’s influence on digital privacy could be global

"China’s digital privacy practices have sounded alarms in the West for years. Recent headlines about China highlight the growing use of facial recognition surveillance, the rise of the controversial social credit system and the development of other privacy-invasive technologies, including brain-scanning helmets that some employers use to try to evaluate how hard employees are working.

It’s easy to distance ourselves from these accounts, but there’s a reason we should care about privacy in China. Its rapidly advancing technology industries and massive consumer market are already influencing norms around the world. China will likely impact the way privacy is understood and protected."

Facebook's pledge to eliminate misinformation is itself fake news ; The Guardian, July 20, 2018

Judd Legum, The Guardian; Facebook's pledge to eliminate misinformation is itself fake news

"The production values are high and the message is compelling. In an 11-minute mini-documentary, Facebook acknowledges its mistakes and pledges to “fight against misinformation”.

“With connecting people, particularly at our scale, comes an immense amount of responsibility,” an unidentified Facebook executive in the film solemnly tells a nodding audience of new company employees.

An outdoor ad campaign by Facebook strikes a similar note, plastering slogans like “Fake news is not your friend” at bus stops around the country.

But the reality of what’s happening on the Facebook platform belies its gauzy public relations campaign."

Pruitt is gone. Congress still doesn’t care about ethics.; The Washington Post, July 6, 2018

Walter M. Shaub Jr., The Washington Post; Pruitt is gone. Congress still doesn’t care about ethics.

"The damage to the executive branch ethics program is profound. A bad ethical tone from the top, which began with Trump’s refusal to divest his conflicting financial interests, continues to erode that program. Trump’s commendation of the departing Pruitt is as strong a statement as a leader can send to devalue the importance of ethics in government.

The foundational principle that public service is a public trust is now on the ropes. Those in Congress who share responsibility for Pruitt’s ethical failures will find it difficult to avoid looking hypocritical if they demand ethical conduct from appointees in this administration or the next. Gowdy is a notable exception, but he is leaving Congress. It is time for his colleagues to step up their oversight of this administration’s ethical failings. The road to redemption may require an acknowledgment of responsibility for failing to oversee the EPA’s administrator and a recommitment to enforcing government ethics. As for the executive branch, Trump can start by curtailing his praise of the current holder of the title “most unethical Cabinet member in modern history.”"

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."

Mark Zuckerberg posts a Facebook message as he heads into Senate hearing; CNN, April 10, 2018

CNN; Mark Zuckerberg posts a Facebook message as he heads into Senate hearing

"Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a message to his page just before he heads into the joint committee hearing in the wake of Facebook's data scandal.

"In an hour I’m going to testify in front of the Senate about how Facebook needs to take a broader view of our responsibility -- not just to build tools, but to make sure those tools are used for good," Zuckerberg wrote. "I will do everything I can to make Facebook a place where everyone can stay closer with the people they care about, and to make sure it's a positive force in the world.""

A Code Of Ethics In Research; Forbes, April 9, 2018

Scott McDonald, Forbes; A Code Of Ethics In Research

"A single-minded focus on matters of fact can still leave us blind to the ethical implications of our work...

What ethical guidelines guide the use of “secondary data” collected for some other purpose, but now used for research? What responsibility do researchers have to ensure that the data they are using were collected legally, without any deception? What rights do consumers have to know about and approve the uses to which their data are put? What obligations do researchers have to protect consumers from harm that might come from the misuse of their data? What ethical guidelines should govern profiling and highly-targeted communications?

The reality is that the ability of technology to collect data is outstripping the guidelines in place to ensure that sound business practices are being followed. Just because we can do something, it doesn’t mean we should. The Cambridge event is a reckoning, not a revelation.

Let me be clear. The issue is that we should establish and comply with ethical guidelines not to ward off government intervention, but because it is good for our business. Consumer data is not ours, it belongs to consumers, and if we possess it and use it any form, we have a responsibility to respect it – and the consumer who provided it.

To that end, the ARF has issued a call for development and establishment of guidelines and standards to govern consumer data collection and protection." 

Sorry, Facebook was never ‘free’; The New York Post, March 21, 2018

John Podhoretz, The New York Post; Sorry, Facebook was never ‘free’

[Kip Currier: On today's MSNBC Morning Joe show, The New York Post's John Podhoretz pontificated on the same provocative assertions that he wrote about in his March 21, 2018 opinion piece, excerpted below. It’s a post-Cambridge Analytica “Open Letter polemic” directed at anyone (--or using Podhoretz’s term, any fool) who signed up for Facebook “back in the day” and who may now be concerned about how free social media sites like Facebook use—as well as how Facebook et al enable third parties to “harvest”, “scrape”, and leverage—people’s personal data.

Podhoretz’s argument is flawed on so many levels it’s challenging to know where to begin. (Full disclosure: As someone working in academia in a computing and information science school, who signed up for Facebook some years ago to see what all the “fuss” was about, I’ve never used my Facebook account because of ongoing privacy concerns about it. Much to the chagrin of some family and friends who have exhorted me, unsuccessfully, to use it.)

Certainly, there is some level of “ownership” that each of us needs to take when we sign up for a social media site or app by clicking on the Terms and Conditions and/or End User License Agreement (EULA). But it’s also common knowledge now (ridiculed by self-aware super-speed-talking advertisers in TV and radio ads!) that these agreements are written in legalese that don’t fully convey the scope and potential scope of the ramifications of these agreements’ terms and conditions. (Aside: For a clever satirical take on the purposeful impenetrability and abstruseness of these lawyer-crafted agreements, see R. Sikoryak’s 2017 graphic novel Terms and Conditions, which visually lampoons an Apple iTunes user contract.)

Over the course of decades, for example, in the wake of the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments and other medical research abuses and controversies, medical research practitioners were legally coerced to come to terms with the fact that laws, ethics, and policies about “informed consent” needed to evolve to better inform and protect “human subjects” (translation: you and me).

A similar argument can be made regarding Facebook and its social media kin: namely, that tech companies and app developers need to voluntarily adopt (or be required to adopt) HIPAA-esque protections and promote more “informed” consumer awareness.

We also need more computer science ethics training and education for undergraduates, as well as more widespread digital citizenship education in K-12 settings, to ensure a level playing field of digital life awareness. (Hint, hint, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos or First Lady Melania Trump…here’s a mission critical for your patronage.)

Podhoretz’s simplistic Facebook user-as-deplorable-fool rant puts all of the blame on users, while negating any responsibility for bait-and-switch tech companies like Facebook and data-sticky-fingered accomplices like Cambridge Analytica. “Free” doesn’t mean tech companies and app designers should be free from enhanced and reasonable informed consent responsibilities they owe to their users. Expecting or allowing anything less would be foolish.]

"The science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein said it best: “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Everything has a cost. If you forgot that, or refused to see it in your relationship with Facebook, or believe any of these things, sorry, you are a fool. So the politicians and pundits who are working to soak your outrage for their own ideological purposes are gulling you. But of course you knew.

You just didn’t care . . . until you cared. Until, that is, you decided this was a convenient way of explaining away the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

You’re so invested in the idea that Trump stole the election, you are willing to believe anything other than that your candidate lost because she made a lousy argument and ran a lousy campaign and didn’t know how to run a race that would put her over the top in the Electoral College — which is how you prevail in a presidential election and has been for 220-plus years.

The rage and anger against Facebook over the past week provide just the latest examples of the self-infantilization and flight from responsibility on the part of the American people and the refusal of Trump haters and American liberals to accept the results of 2016.

Honestly, it’s time to stop being fools and start owning up to our role in all this."

Here are the internal Facebook posts of employees discussing today’s leaked memo; The Verge, March 30, 2018

Casey Newton, The Verge; Here are the internal Facebook posts of employees discussing today’s leaked memo

"The publication of a June 2016 memo describing the consequences of Facebook’s growth-at-all-costs triggered an emotional conversation at the company today. An internal post reacting to the memo found employees angry and heartbroken that their teammates were sharing internal company discussions with the media. Many called on the company to step up its war on leakers and hire employees with more “integrity.”...

Nearly 3,000 employees had reacted to Bosworth’s memo when The Verge viewed it, responding with a mixture of likes, “sad,” and and “angry” reactions."

Oscar Munoz's tough ride as United CEO; CNN, March 19, 2018

Julia Horowitz, CNN; Oscar Munoz's tough ride as United CEO

""There's something about the United culture that has employees making decisions that are not the right things to do," [John Strong, a professor of business administration at the College of William and Mary and an airline industry expert] said.

Another high-profile event could be the final straw, according to Reber. Even if Munoz isn't directly implicated, he could wind up taking the fall.

"History is littered with CEOs who have had to take a hit for a crisis that happened and was caused someplace else in the organization," Reber said."

The Bad Parent Caucus; New York Times, February 15, 2018

Timothy Egan, New York Times; The Bad Parent Caucus

"Let me try another take for you bad parents in office. Pretend you live in a pleasant, well-protected community of like-minded people, and you’re in charge. O.K., you don’t have to pretend. And let’s say there was a natural gas leak every three days in one of the homes in that community, a leak that killed entire families.

Your response would be to pray and do nothing. Or to pray and talk about everything except the gas leak. Or to pray and say you’re powerless to act because the gas company owns you. The response of those suffering would be to take control and kick you out. That’s what we have to do, and will, next November."

Duquesne University is embracing the future: We will help reinvent the region while instilling core values in the next generation of leaders; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 14, 2018

Ken Gormley, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Duquesne University is embracing the future: We will help reinvent the region while instilling core values in the next generation of leaders

"Ken Gormley is a former dean of the Duquesne University School of Law and has served as the university’s president since July 2016...

As the only Catholic, Spiritan university in the United States, we have a duty to address troublesome trends. Fewer students than ever enter college today with foundations in religious faith or possessing core values. Fewer students than ever have grown up in close-knit communities where respectful treatment of others is practiced and moral compasses are shaped.

Technology is amazing. Yet young people raised on smartphones, text messaging and Instagram often have stunted social skills and difficulty interacting with others. Shout-fests on cable TV and insensitive postings on social media have become the norm, in lieu of productive social discourse. If society is going to get a grip on today’s crisis of moral ambiguity, universities like Duquesne must play a larger and more creative role in shaping responsible, ethical leaders.

We also have a duty to help reinvent Western Pennsylvania...

Duquesne faces more daunting responsibilities than ever, and we’re prepared to shoulder them. We recently completed a five-year strategic plan that doubles down on Duquesne’s historic role in this region. Duquesne has a rich tradition of serving people of all faiths and backgrounds. We welcomed African-American students, Jewish students and women to our campus more than 100 years ago — long before most universities opened their doors to such diverse groups."

What did you expect from Trump?; Washington Post, August 15, 2017

Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post; What did you expect from Trump?

"We should be clear on several points. First, it is morally reprehensible to serve in this White House, supporting a president so utterly unfit to lead a great country. Second, John F. Kelly has utterly failed as chief of staff; the past two weeks have been the worst of Trump’s presidency, many would agree. He can at this point only serve his country by resigning and warning the country that Trump is a cancer on the presidency, to borrow a phrase. Third, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have no excuses and get no free passes. They are as responsible as anyone by continuing to enable the president. Finally, Trump apologists have run out of excuses and credibility. He was at the time plainly the more objectionable of the two main party candidates; in refusing to recognize that they did the country great harm. They can make amends by denouncing him and withdrawing all support. In short, Trump’s embrace and verbal defense of neo-Nazis and white nationalists should be disqualifying from public service. All true patriots must do their utmost to get him out of the Oval Office as fast as possible."

Trump doesn’t understand how to be president. The Comey story shows why.; Washington Post, June 7, 2017

E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post; Trump doesn’t understand how to be president. The Comey story shows why.

"Here are the things Trump still doesn’t get: (1) Comey is his own person concerned with his own reputation and standing. (2) A president, unlike a despot, can’t unilaterally change the rules that surround a legal investigation. (3) People in government don’t work only for the president; their primary obligation is to the public. (4) Personal relationships matter a great deal in government, but they aren’t everything; Comey could not go soft on Michael Flynn just because Trump likes Flynn or fears what Flynn might say. (5) Because of 1, 2, 3 and 4, Comey was not going to do what Trump asked, even if this meant being fired...

There has been a lively debate among Trump critics about whether he’s dangerous because he’s inclined toward authoritarianism or because he’s incompetent. The Comey episode allows us to reach a higher synthesis in this discussion: Trump is incompetent precisely because he believes he can act like an autocrat in a constitutional democracy. This doesn’t work, and it makes him do stupid things."

Where Are the United States Attorneys?; New York Times, June 6, 2017

Editorial Board, New York Times; 

Where Are the United States Attorneys?

"Three months after President Trump abruptly fired half of the nation’s 93 United States attorneys, following the resignations of the other half, he has yet to replace a single one.

It’s bizarre — and revealing — that a man who called himself the “law and order candidate” during the 2016 campaign and spoke of “lawless chaos” in his address to Congress would permit such a leadership vacuum at federal prosecutors’ offices around the country. United States attorneys are responsible for prosecuting terrorism offenses, serious financial fraud, public corruption, crimes related to gang activity, drug trafficking and all other federal crimes.

As is usually the case when confronted with his own incompetence, Mr. Trump has spent his time looking for somebody else to blame...

There are two other obvious, and perhaps simpler, explanations, and both may be correct. Mr. Trump does not actually believe in or care about his campaign claim of “lawless chaos” in our streets. And Mr. Trump is not a good manager — not of his businesses, certainly, and not of the vastly larger, more complex organization he now runs, the one that matters to the well-being of every American."

Trump’s Leaky Fate; New York Times, May 16, 2017

Frank Bruni, New York Times; 

Trump’s Leaky Fate

"This much leaking this soon in an administration is a powerful indication of what kind of president we have. He is so unprepared, shows such bad judgment and has such an erratic temper that he’s not trusted by people who are paid to bolster him and who get the most intimate, unvarnished look at him. Some of them have decided that discretion isn’t always the keeping of secrets, not if it protects bad actors. They’re right. And they give me hope."

The 25th Amendment Solution to Remove Trump; New York Times, May 16, 2017

Ross Douthat, New York Times; 

The 25th Amendment Solution to Remove Trump

"One does not need to be a Marvel superhero or Nietzschean Übermensch to rise to this responsibility. But one needs some basic attributes: a reasonable level of intellectual curiosity, a certain seriousness of purpose, a basic level of managerial competence, a decent attention span, a functional moral compass, a measure of restraint and self-control. And if a president is deficient in one or more of them, you can be sure it will be exposed.

Trump is seemingly deficient in them all. Some he perhaps never had, others have presumably atrophied with age. He certainly has political talent — charisma, a raw cunning, an instinct for the jugular, a form of the common touch, a certain creativity that normal politicians lack. He would not have been elected without these qualities. But they are not enough, they cannot fill the void where other, very normal human gifts should be."