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14 Years of Mark Zuckerberg Saying Sorry, Not Sorry (washingtonpost.com) 131

Do you trust Mark Zuckerberg? The Washington Post: From the moment the Facebook founder entered the public eye in 2003 for creating a Harvard student hot-or-not rating site, he's been apologizing. So we collected this abbreviated history of his public mea culpas. It reads like a record on repeat. Zuckerberg, who made "move fast and break things" his slogan, says sorry for being naive, and then promises solutions such as privacy "controls," "transparency" and better policy "enforcement." And then he promises it again the next time. You can track his sorries in orange and promises in blue in the timeline by The Washington Post. Mark Zuckerberg, in an interview with CNN Business on Tuesday: Zuckerberg resisted growing calls for changes to Facebook's C-suite, reiterated Facebook's potential as a force for good, and pushed back at some of the unrelenting critical coverage of his company after a year of negative headlines about fake news, election meddling and privacy concerns.

"A lot of the criticism around the biggest issues has been fair, but I do think that if we are going to be real, there is this bigger picture as well, which is that we have a different world view than some of the folks who are covering us," Zuckerberg told CNN Business' Laurie Segall at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California. "There are big issues, and I'm not trying to say that there aren't," he said. "But I do think that sometimes, you can get the flavor from some of the coverage that that's all there is, and I don't think that that's right either."

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14 Years of Mark Zuckerberg Saying Sorry, Not Sorry

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  • Can't read it. Fuck it. Do not track me!
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @01:23PM (#57680854)

    Plenty of people openly admit to not caring about privacy, because they don't think anything bad is going to happen because of all the shit they post on facebook.

    • by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @02:31PM (#57681224)

      True. And, they may be right!! See also, "I want to invest in the housing market in 2008". If enough people do a dumb thing, the government sometimes makes it not dumb retroactively.

      • True. And, they may be right!! See also, "I want to invest in the housing market in 2008". If enough people do a dumb thing, the government sometimes makes it not dumb retroactively.

        Even without government involvement, if, for example, every single job applicant for a position you're trying to fill has posted videos of themselves doing crazy, stupid or illegal things on Facebook, then you have to ignore that, or hire no one. There's a notion of "radical transparency" that says that if we can see all the details of everyone's lives, we'll realize that everyone is a screwup at least some of the time and stop paying attention to those screwups.

        That said, I don't post my own stupid mist

        • Yeah, radical transparency may work. But it'll be a generational thing. Maybe in 40-50 years it won't matter. Meanwhile, I'll also not post stupid shit online. My grandkids can benefit from radical transparency as free-riders.

    • I have more pressing concerns. I care about single payer healthcare (here's somebody who just died [youtube.com] because American doesn't do that). I care about ending the 8 bloody wars we're in, reigning in the CIA and ending our drug war.

      Privacy violation is a symptom of the disease of oligarchy. There are better places to attack our oligharch's abuses than Facebook.
  • by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @01:31PM (#57680910)
    No.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      And why should we?

      Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
      Zuck: Just ask
      Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
      Cuck: What? How'd you manage that one?
      Zuck: People just submitted it.
      Zuck: I don't know why.
      Zuck: They "trust me"
      Zuck: Dumb fucks

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      "Trust no one." --The X-Files

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @01:32PM (#57680916)
    ever. I might occasionally see eye to eye with them. But anyone with that much raw power shouldn't be trusted.

    We need to realize that past a certain point money isn't money anymore. It's power. And by allowing the 1% to have that much wealth we've given them the bulk of the power in this world. We've made them an aristocracy. Kings and Queens. This is one of the reasons why we had a top tax bracket of 90%. That power has to go somewhere. Ignoring that is naive to the point of madness.
    • Rather surprising to see a bit of insight on Slashdot with an appropriate mod. However, if there is no solution, then it isn't actually a problem, but rather it's just part of the universe as it is. You sort of hint that taxes are key, so let me throw in my suggested solution approach:

      Pro-freedom anti-greedom taxation.

      The basic idea is a progressive tax on corporate profits, but not on the size of the profits. The tax rate would increase based on market share. If a company controls too much market share, th

      • you're attacking. Problem A) is Facebook is too big and powerful. We already have ways to break up natural monopolies like that. We did it to AT&T until we stopped and they bought up all the bells we broke them up into.

        Problem B) is the real problem, e.g. that America has a ruling class and that we haven't been taking steps to reign them in (e.g. we let AT&T buy up all the old companies we spent so much effort splitting them up into).

        The solution there is more Democracy. Automatic voter regi
        • by shanen ( 462549 )

          I sort of think we're more in agreement than your tone indicates. However, I have to disagree with you about how well the anti-monopoly laws are working these days. Giant corporate cancers that are "too big too fail" is only one aspect of the pro-greedom taxation system. I don't even regard Facebook as "powerful" or profitable. More like "extremely harmful" and driven to be ever more so by delusional stock prices.

          Let me word it differently. The game of business is being rigged by the least ethical gamblers

  • Old News (Score:3, Informative)

    by bp2179 ( 765697 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @01:34PM (#57680932)
    The timeline article mentioned above is dated April 9, 2018. How is this new news?
  • -1 Flaimbait
  • Why spend time on privacy when he's so busy smoking meat! https://youtu.be/eBxTEoseZak [youtu.be]
  • by lophophore ( 4087 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @01:44PM (#57680986) Homepage

    They sell your privacy, piecemeal.

    Case in point: you can no longer see how other people view your profile. The "view as..." option quietly disappeared.

    Expect everything you post to be public, whether through your accident, Facebook's ineptness, or Facebook's greed.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      I'm pretty sure that feature was an attack vector for collecting information from profiles. So while it could be used to check up on the level of information that was displayed, it could also be used to extract information from random peoples profiles. Relevant article:

      https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]

  • by DavenH ( 1065780 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @01:46PM (#57680998)
    I'm not listening to anything from Washington Post that isn't pure and incontrovertible fact. Opinion pieces of any kind from such a biased and corrupted outlet are very close to propaganda. One simple example: if you advertise on WP, you will never get a hit piece no matter what you do. This is just Bezo's proxy in the information war.
    • by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @02:34PM (#57681246)

      I'm not listening to anything from Washington Post that isn't pure and incontrovertible fact, Opinion pieces of any kind from such a biased and corrupted outlet are very close to propaganda.

      First, the WP seems to have a lot of voices from both the liberal and conservative side (e..g. George Will.) Second, you think the fact that Zuckerburg doesn't care about privacy is in dispute??? I have a large amount of beachfront property in Arizona to sell you.

      • by DavenH ( 1065780 )

        To the first point, a balance of opinions between two particular zany polarities doesn't mean it's unbiased in other important ways. I meant more particularly the bias toward Amazon's interests, corporate interests, Bezos' interests.

        Second: That's completely beside the point. When WP oversamples a bunch of Facebook-negative stuff into a hitpiece, I think it's important to know why are they interested in manipulating public opinion and to whose gain.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Zuckerburg cares a great deal about privacy. In fact, his billions depend on your information remaining as private as possible, known only to you and Facebook.

        He must have been pissed when he found out Cambridge Analytica had been stealing from him.

      • WP is Jeff Bezos' personal blog and should be trusted about as much as a blogger. Seriously, can anyone read that "democracy dies in darkness" headline without busting out in laughter? The Washington Post, mouthpiece of the DC Establishment? The unelected government that thinks it is not under the control of the people?
  • Depends, what do I get to thrust him into?

  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @01:55PM (#57681040)
    their business model is not sustainable over the long term, but they have had a great ride. Even though some would argue Facebook and the other consumer social media sites are not absolute necessities and as individuals and businesses figure that out they are in deep trouble.
    The real niche I see for them are private family web sites so to speak for keeping in touch and grand kids pictures. Everything else is just fluff that is trying hard to pose as having value so Facebook can continue to mine and sell private personal and business information to any one willing to buy it.
    The best thing Zuck could do right now! Is sell and take cash and head in to the hills laughing all the way.

    But then I have never had a social media account, well at least on any of the normal(useless) consumer sites so maybe I am completely out of touch.

    Just my 2 cents ;)
    • what really created the "Adpocalypse" wasn't just that a few ads were shown on Neo-Nazi channels. The real cause was that the advertisers panicked and pulled their ads for week on end but then didn't notice any change in sales. It revealed that Youtube advertising doesn't work.

      Facebook could probably survive a blow like that (Youtube did) but it would hurt. OTOH I haven't seen that happen. They've still got plenty of Advertisers. It helps that you give Facebook _way_ more personal information. Even if t
    • I love how people in the /. echo chamber post articles like this, seemingly blissfully unaware that Facebook's revenue in the most recent quarter (yes, the one with all the negative coverage) showed double-digit growth, just like every quarter has since they became public.

      Unless some external factor occurs like anti-trust causing a breakup, Facebook is going to be the next trillion dollar company, and will be so within the next 12-18 months.

  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @02:08PM (#57681104)

    "A lot of the criticism around the biggest issues has been fair, but I do think that if we are going to be real, there is this bigger picture as well, which is that we have a different world view than some of the folks who are covering us,"

    My world view: I have a right to privacy and to control my own information

    Zuckerberg's world view: I will do my utmost to monetize you even if you do not have a Facebook account

  • by Anonymous Coward

    ...Zuckerberg has clearly embraced neoliberal corporate culture just like everyone else in Silicon Valley. They have all the empathy and moral responsibility of psychopaths, so of course they say sorry and show remorse and promise to mend their ways... every time they're caught out. Stop whining that they're liars and regulate them with the law. That's why we have a legal system.

  • I would like to see Zuck and company do a few things differently. I'd like to see changes to who can buy ads and target people. All political ads need to come to an end on that site; if its not something tangible, no ads. The news-feed needs to go.

    Facebook is not a place for news. I've never seen a productive political conversation on there. There is absolutely no reason foreign governments should be able to target individuals one by one on this level. Facebook needs to go back to serving up pic

  • Wired ran a similar story in April: Why Zuckerberg's 14-Year Apology Tour Hasn't Fixed Facebook [wired.com]

    In 2003, one year before Facebook was founded, a website called Facemash began nonconsensually scraping pictures of students at Harvard from the school's intranet and asking users to rate their hotness. Obviously, it caused an outcry. The website's developer quickly proffered an apology. "I hope you understand, this is not how I meant for things to go, and I apologize for any harm done as a result of my neglect to consider how quickly the site would spread and its consequences thereafter," wrote a young Mark Zuckerberg. "I definitely see how my intentions could be seen in the wrong light."

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