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Zuckerberg Urges the West To Counter China's 'Dangerous' Approach To Internet Regulation (cnbc.com) 73

Posted by BeauHD from the what-not-to-do dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Mark Zuckerberg has again sounded the alarm on China, calling out the country's approach to regulating internet services. The Facebook CEO on Monday said that he was worried about other countries that are looking to replicate the Chinese model, which he labeled "really dangerous." "What I worry about is, right now I think there are emerging two very different frameworks underpinned by very different sets of values," Zuckerberg said in a livestreamed discussion with EU official Thierry Breton.

"Just to be blunt about it, I think there is a model coming out of countries like China that tend to have very different values than Western countries that are more democratic," Zuckerberg said. He said Western countries should counter China's approach with a democratic alternative. He praised Brussels' 2018 overhaul of privacy laws, claiming the reforms have prompted Facebook to change its approach to data privacy around the world. The "best antidote" to China's approach "is having a clear framework that comes out of Western democratic countries and that can become a standard around the world," Zuckerberg said.
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Zuckerberg Urges the West To Counter China's 'Dangerous' Approach To Internet Regulation More

Zuckerberg Urges the West To Counter China's 'Dangerous' Approach To Internet Regulation

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  • Is he seriously so full of anosognosia he is oblivious to what his own product is doing?
    • I thought it was more a case of "don't try and reign in the mess that Fecebook has made of the Internet or its ability to make money from it".

      • don't try and reign in

        Rein in. It's about horses, not kings.

    • Which is worse government censorship or private company censorship?

      • That's like choosing between hiv or aids.

      • Government censorship.

        There's no such thing as "private company censorship." If you don't like the rules of a particular platform, or who profits from it, don't use it.

        • Oh look an ass-hole schilling for Facebook. Now fuck off and die.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Gonoff ( 88518 )

          There's no such thing as "private company censorship." If you don't like the rules of a particular platform, or who profits from it, don't use it.

          An unusually uninformed statement...

          In an unrestrained capitalist system, successful companies tend to drive alternatives out of business. If that doesn't work, they can be like Microsoft and buy them up or they can be like Apple and sue them out of existence. Yes, there is still Linux and I use it but most people are under the impression that what you pay for is better than what is free and what you pay even more for is best of all.

          Why don't people use an alternative to FB? There have been alternatives

      • Government.

        You can always choose to walk away from a computing platform.

        Walking away from a government is very difficult, sometimes impossible. Try to leave the United States if you have substantial income and assets and you will see this.

        Facebook is a pretty good way to keep in touch with friends and share my photographs with them. That's what I use it for. It's also pretty good for non-political special interest groups. As far as I know, there is no political component to Miami YouTube users or the Gr

      • He loves abusing and censoring people on Facebook just the way Chinese Internet companies censor their own. The only difference is that he doesn't want the government telling him how to do it, like China does. The actual act of censoring people online is A-OK with him.

  • Wrong approach (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This is not a technological problem nor a problem with laws. It's a difference between philosophies. It's going to be extremely hard if not impossible to impose your values on another culture, especially one as old as China.

    • Yep, and the philosophies are not really all that different when the rubber meets the road.

      Government has only 1 mode that it operates in and that is Grow and Survive Mode. This means take as much power as it can get and kill anything in the way if necessary to survive. Please do not confuse your version of necessary with theirs. You will find out what they consider to be necessary when they start killing folks. Like everything else, government makes mistakes and often goes too far becoming counter prod

      • It's sad some bend right over to justify tyranny instead of standing up to it.

        Sorry, but no. "Cultural differences" don't cut it, when they are abused as a claim of why a dictator gets to do his thing.

        And worse, your right to swing your arm ends at my nose. Culture cannot authorize you to punch me at your whim, against my wishes. By calling it culture, you are deliberately mislabling dictatorship, to the advantage of dictatorship.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • This coming from the company that put the WHO in charge of messages about the corona virus pandemic can't see that they've already invited China to censor their platform?

  • Zuckerberg lecturing me on "values" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 ) on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @08:10AM (#60077902)
    That also sounds like a pretty "dangerous" approach to me. I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy, so I remember an internet that didn't involve either Zuckerberg or China, that seemed to work just fine.
    • You just highlighted the point that if no one is capable to remember and write down history, history can, and will, be invented, for ill purposes.

    • That also sounds like a pretty "dangerous" approach to me. I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy, so I remember an internet that didn't involve either Zuckerberg or China, that seemed to work just fine.

      Ok, old guy. You realize all this disruptive freedom is ending, as the Internet is being put in chains and dragged under the eyes and control of the very people it was wonderful to be free from? Because it challenges their power?

      facebook censors because government is threatening to hurt it via 230 removal or breakup, or both. So they censor like a number of politicians and candidates demand they do, threatening these things, or in the case of Kamala Harris, direct unconstitutional legislation to punish t

      • Don't like FB? Don't use it, and shut the fuck up.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by rgmoore ( 133276 )

          If only it were that simple. I don't use Facebook, but that doesn't keep them from trying to spy on me. They have deals that let them put trackers on a large majority of websites. They made software platforms used by a huge number of app makers that include sending information back to Facebook. It is very difficult for an ordinary person to even figure out all the ways Facebook may be gathering their information, much less to stop them. Even if you somehow manage to avoid them snooping on you directly,

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • China out-Facebooks Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rho ( 6063 ) on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @08:12AM (#60077906) Journal

    Just to be blunt about it, I think there is a model coming out of countries like China that tend to have very different values than Western countries that are more democratic

    China is upfront about using government power to control information.

    We allow corporations to control information.

    We had an radical alternative--First Amendment protections and an open Internet. Now if you support either of those things you're a radical wackadoo.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by luttapi ( 312138 )

      China is upfront about using government power to control information.

      Far from being upfront, they massively abuse government power in the most non-transparent, secretive, sinister way.

    • We had an radical alternative--First Amendment protections and an open Internet. Now if you support either of those things you're a radical wackadoo.

      That's bullshit. You still have those, but freedom as they say is not free. No one is obligated to spend money giving you a platform. If you want a "first amendment" web hosting service where you can say what you want within the bounds of the law, then you'll have to pay for it. Try dreamhost for example (I'm a customer, partly for that reason even though I'm n

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rho ( 6063 )

        I already said "we allow corporations to control information," you don't have to say it again in a different way.

  • Cute (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @08:31AM (#60077974)

    Cute how he 's suddenly "concerned" about how the Internet runs.

    Profits must be in jeopardy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MikeKD ( 549924 )

      Cute how he 's suddenly "concerned" about how the Internet runs.

      Or Dr. Soong finished his conscience chip and Zuck just had it installed.

    • Facebook is blocked in China, and since it looks like tensions are only going to get worse, not better, might as well throw in.
  • It's debatable whose the worse offender of privacy rights. While Chinese certainly shamefully spymore of their own citizens --- the US spies more on everyone else's citizens Then some American nationalists have the Chutzpah to lecture the Chinese on spying? And the US isn't alone. Even my beloved Canada is part of the five eyes that helps the US spy on the planet. And there there is the 14 eyes too. If we want government spying to end in the west, we have to lead by example. Just self-righteous pointing f

  • Fuck Zuckerberg. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @08:52AM (#60078052)
    What a fucking hypocrite. Facebook is nothing but a big censor and surveillance machine

  • Follow the Money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by matt328 ( 916281 ) on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @08:59AM (#60078084)
    The only time rich people complain like this is when something threatens their ability to get richer. This guy orchestrated and got rich from one of the shittiest things that ever happened to the internet and now all the sudden we are supposed to believe his motives are altruistic?

    • At some point the Democrats decided they could get more mileage punching on facebook, even as it donates and tries to censor as they desire. And Republicans jump on board, too, for the opposite but exact same reason: threatening 230 because facebook is doing what the left wants (to appease the left.)

      Please look to the real problem: government wielding power it should not.

      • You know... I like your general take on this, Impy.

        My personal belief is that the natural order is for media to be politically biased because people are politically biased. The idea of neutral content providers or neutral platforms is a fantasy. Look back to the newspapers of colonial America and the early United States and they were all politically focused and nobody seemed to have a problem with this. This 20th century fantasy of unbiased media companies is hilarious... as if such a thing ever existed

  • Pot, meet kettle ... (Score:3)

    by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @09:00AM (#60078088)

    Zuckerberg Urges the West To Counter China's 'Dangerous' Approach To Internet Regulation

    Sure Mr. Zuckerberg, just as soon as we have dealt with the frightening amount of surveillance of the general public carried out by companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook, .... from what I have seen their mass surveillance tech is, if anything, far more professional and certainly more pervasive than any threat posed by the Chinese Communist regime.

    • I agree the surveillance conducted by major US tech players is disgusting. But that's nothing compared to oppressive regimes like China's government.

      Both need to be avoided.

      • Agreed. While corporate surveillance is a huge problem, it is a different class of animal from when the state, especially one with such little transparency, pairs it with all of their coercive powers (police, military, arrests, "re-education", barring entry, etc.).
  • And, mr. Zuckerberg, those values are law, order, and money.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Sikiriki! How dare you accuse Zuckerbook of having the same values as China! Zuckerberg is clearly focused on money, order, and law (as it suits them).

  • Zuckerberg is pretty much the last person on earth who should talk about this stuff. His respect for freedom of speech, privacy, and individual rights in general is renowned - for its absence.

    Still, a stopped clock is right twice a day.

  • Zuck's been trying to get into China for years he's finally realized it's a pipe dream.
  • Snowden papers at all? It's not like the west is any better than that, ..! :-/
  • 1. Fuck the Chinese Government and it's 'regulation' of it's own internal Internet access; it doesn't, and shouldn't, affect the rest of the world.
    2. Same goes for other authoritarian/dictatorship/oppressive countries.
    3. Likewise fuck Zuckerberg, because if you left the 'regulation' of the Internet up to him and Facebook, it'd make China look free and open comparatively speaking; hell, I'd lay odds that the Chinese Government takes lessons from Zuckerberg so far as surveiling people and collecting data go
  • I simply don't believe that he's sincere. Look at his audience. A European forum, being recorded? Of course he's going to be warm and fuzzy on western values.

    Don't get me wrong. Facebook isn't evil. It's just a regular company. Zuckerberg isn't any different than any other businessman. He's the CEO of a company that makes money selling ads and user-data. He's an ad-man. Take a quick look at Mad Men to get an idea of what's going under the hood. Yes, the platform may be different. Yes, women and minoriti
  • "Just to be blunt about it, I think there is a model coming out of countries like China that tend to have very different values than Western countries that are more democratic,"

    Are you fucking kidding me? China is a communist country, where the hell have you been for the past 71 years!

    Jesus people, China censoring what people can see and do is nothing knew. Just because China has Permanent Normal Trade Relations with the United States and U.S. corporations manufacturer goods in China does not elimin
  • Zuckerberg is doing some good here but I think this really needs some strong legal protections as well. The USA offers freedom of speech which comes in part with it's supremacy. It can afford freedom. When internet companies become multinationals however they start to impose one size fits all rules where the system would have to be compatible with authoritarian regimes such as France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China, North Korea, etc. When a company provides a single service to the entire world then th

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