Zuckerberg To Tell Congress Facebook's Success Is Patriotic (bloomberg.com) 53
Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is prepared with what he sees as a compelling argument for lawmakers ready to grill him on antitrust issues: hindering American technological innovation only helps China. From a report: Zuckerberg plans to portray his company as an American success story in a competitive and unpredictable market, now threatened by the rise of Chinese social media apps around the world -- and increasingly, at home, with the popularity of TikTok, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the CEO's remarks aren't yet public. The Facebook CEO is scheduled to testify at a hearing of the House antitrust subcommittee with CEOs from Amazon.com, Alphabet's Google and Apple. The hearing, postponed from Monday, has been rescheduled for July 29 at noon Washington time. Facebook's second-quarter earnings, which were scheduled for that day, have been pushed to Thursday, July 30.
[...] The broader argument the CEO plans to make is that any weakening of U.S. companies will cede territory to Chinese companies abroad, particularly in high-growth markets like India. Zuckerberg made a similar argument at a 2019 hearing about Libra, the now-renamed cryptocurrency. "China is moving quickly to launch a similar idea in the coming months," he warned. "If America doesn't innovate, our financial leadership is not guaranteed." Later that year, he said that it was important not to let China set the rules for the internet in the rest of the world, arguing that the country's values aren't democratic.
[...] The broader argument the CEO plans to make is that any weakening of U.S. companies will cede territory to Chinese companies abroad, particularly in high-growth markets like India. Zuckerberg made a similar argument at a 2019 hearing about Libra, the now-renamed cryptocurrency. "China is moving quickly to launch a similar idea in the coming months," he warned. "If America doesn't innovate, our financial leadership is not guaranteed." Later that year, he said that it was important not to let China set the rules for the internet in the rest of the world, arguing that the country's values aren't democratic.
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Re:Zuck will lie (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider the alternative to the failure of our social media platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram... et al. What would happen if like Tiktok, Americans at large got their news from Chinese owned and operated social media companies. You think they would be subject to congressional hearings? It is more national security than patriotic; but patriotic it is. Remember, in 2016 all the Russian interference was for buying ads and publishing false stories on social media. That would just increase 10-fold if the social media companies didn't care or worse... have to do it in concert with their CCP masters. Lets not also forget the resulting increase in the US / Chinese trade deficit and economic imbalance furthered by sending American advertising dollars to Beijing.
Thats even more cynical (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea that if Facebook had to stop spreading anti-masker conspiracy theories , anti-vaxxer lies, and all the other pseudoscientific nonsense that it is a primary conduit for in modern society, that somehow China would beat us in the marketplace, is not very convincing to me.
What seems more likely is that as countries understand TikTok is spyware garbage, they will ban it, lie India did. They will go looking for alternatives - they will see that Facebook is full of pseudoscientific lies that caused the US
Re: Thats even more cynical (Score:3)
That Facebook has pseudoscientific articles is no reason to ban or regulate it. To do so would be a violation the DMCA safe harbor provisions. Facebook must not regulate speech beyond what is obligated to as a matter of law. Doing so would make their content editorialized and subject them to libel and slander law suits. A marketplace of ideas is the best solution overall. Not perfect, but best.
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Wow. You are badly mixing your laws.
The DMCA is about Copyright.
The Communications Decency Act (47 USC Section 230) [cornell.edu] specifically allows censoring of materiel posted on their site which they consider to be "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable". It also states that they "shall not be treated as the speaker or publisher of any information provided by another information content provider." There is no provision in the law for losing this protection.
Tha
Re: Thats even more cynical (Score:2)
I stand corrected on the applicable law.
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In a country where The History Channel is regarded as "educational" by a large percentage of people? Facebook is the least of your worries.
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> What would happen if like... Americans at large got their news from Chinese owned and operated social media companies.
So instead of American owned Marxist propaganda it would be Chinese owned Marxist propaganda?
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So Facebook's algorithms create a narrative that is above and beyond what is in each individual post. In that sense, Facebook does actually create propaganda.
This is true of YouTube also, but less true of Twitter, because their alg
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It's a performance. Don't give it a second thought
Oh my god (Score:3)
How are officials to get political donations if they cannot threaten US companies because the Chinese ones will surpass them?
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does this sack of shit (Score:1)
does this sack of shit actually think The People's Bank of China would not have launched their cryptocurrency if Facebook had their own?
Some people think that the solution to China's rampant lawlessness is to empower our own selfish jackasses. But then we would have two problems.
World trade runs on US dollars, and that matters (Score:5, Interesting)
First, let me be clear - Zuckerberg is a fuckwad.
Having a that, let's look at what he saying about this particular issue. Just because somebody is a fuckwad doesn't mean everything they say is total crap.
Anybody can launch yet another cryptocurrency and that doesn't matter. We don't particularly care if China launches a cryptocurrency. We care WHOSE currency becomes the standard for international trade, if the US dollar loses that position. That what Zuck means when he says "our financial leadership is not guaranteed."
Oil, gold, etc are priced in US dollars. Foreign governments alone hold several trillion US dollars as their "savings accounts" (reserves) and that's essentially an interest-free loan of several trillion dollars to the United States. Corporations of course hold another trillion dollars or whatever.
Zuck is arguing that the world might move to a cryptocurrency, and if that happens we don't want it to be China's cryptocurrency that the world uses. That's reasonable so far.
His argument then suggests that if the world moves to a crypto currency, we'd want it to be an American cryptocurrency. Okay, yeah. And since Facebook is an American company, a Facebook-sponsored cryptocurrency is better than one run by the Chinese government. Maybe, that's arguable.
Further, if there are several competing cryptocurrencies backed by large organizations, that makes it harder for China to establish *THE* cryptocurrency of the future. Better to have several competing ones than have China controlling the one everybody uses.
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Which is all fair and reasonable until you realise that Facebook has been the single largest amplifier for Russian/Chinese disinformation campaigns designed to destabilise the US.
That makes Facebook an enemy of the US, not a friend. It's clear Zuckerberg gives not one shit about the US and US dominance, he only cares about money and his own power.
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> the US government (or any other government for that matter) would NEVER give their blessing for ANY cryptocurrency that isn't traceable
If your goal ia to track people, Facebook would be a good partner.
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Companies hold US dollars becuase it matters to them to maintain a specific value ratio to the US dollar. They can (and in-fact do) accoplish this by holding other currencies as well or instea
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> His argument, regardless of what it is, will be self serving
Yes, absolutely. Does that mean when Zuck says "there is a pandemic", that ends the pandemic, because the universe is the opposite of whatever words come out of his mouth? Of course not. He's pointing out some true facts for entirely self-serving reasons, then leaving one particular step of his reasoning unspoken to imply that the facts (which happen to be true) support his position.
Again, just because Zuckerberg mentions "there is a pandemi
Freedom is Slavery (Score:1)
Zuckerberg says:
"Censorship is patriotic!"
"Collecting mass amounts of data on users and spying into their lives is patriotic!"
"Doing China's bidding is patriotic!"
Free Hong Kong?
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Also as much as I know damned well it would probably cause worldwide chaos, I'd like to see a Chinese revolution and their current government thrown out on it's ear.
Lifelog (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone wanting to understand what Facebook is about needs to investigate the DARPA Lifelog project.
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Well it is a pretty good size...
Facebook's success is our failure: Trump v Biden (Score:2)
It's a great advertising platform, but aside from that, it is nothing but a global rumor mill, which wouldn't be so bad if people didn't believe that shit and fuck up their governments
Fuck Zuckerberg (Score:1)
Fuck Zuckerberg. Fuck Facebook. I'ts time he were on the receiving end.
Wat (Score:3)
Pick only one.
MySpace was innovation, it gave ALL the search tools to users to do as they pleased.
Facebook is a shoddy rip-off which tries to hoard all that data and sell it to the highest bidder and went on to destroy MySpace by removing all the search functions after buying them out.
Once Zuck wrapped himself up in the Flag... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Modern people? Were people more logical in the past?
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The first question is how to measure the logicalness. Do you measure their willingness to change their minds, or their formalistic approach? Do you subtract points for an appeal to emotion or other logical fallacy? Certainly people in all eras had emotions, so you wouldn't want to subtract for entertainment, like plays or musicals.
Most people in the past were not educated, but I think we can agree
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It is partially a logical argument: having dodgy US companies control the internet content is better than dodgy dictatorships controlling it, at least from the US perspective. It's kind of The Devil You Know argument.
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The record shows that scaring people with pictures of evil China or Russia works pretty well.
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"Facebook should be able to do whatever it wants!" (Score:3)
About imperialism (Score:1)
Translation: Invasion of privacy and surveillance of Americans is good until another imperialistic country does it.
That's what the debacle over TikTok / Huawei is really about.
Screw them. (Score:3)
By them, I mean congress. The last time he was up there, I think someone asked him if he thought something was a joke because he had that stupid smirk on his face. I really think his answer should have been, "No, *you're* the jokes. A 14% approval rating, nation-wide? Most of you were elected by a 10-20,000 vote margins. I have people coming to a site we built from the ground up by the HUNDREDS OF FUCKING MILLIONS every day. BY CHOICE. Most of those people would prefer to avoid being in the same room with you lying pieces of crap. You exist because laws say you *have* to exist."
All that said, I'm a proponent for actual integrity and all. If FB or anyone else gets caught knowingly lying about political ads, or outright false advertising, provably, fine the fuck out of them.
I can't believe I'm defending HIM...
offshored taxes (Score:2, Insightful)
If a company off shores for tax avoidance is it still an "American" company? More specifically should it be allowed to wrap itself in a flag it doesn't pay to support?
Yes.
He is hiding the problem (Score:3)
The real problem is the only competitors to facebook requires an enormous investment and direct government force to have a chance. He is correct that these are both evil but he is skipping around the fact that Facebook is so powerful they are needed. If there were lots of facebooks, at least a few of them would be in the US and that would be Patriotic!
It's what is best. Really. (Score:3)
Zuck claiming any moral high ground is laughable. That's like getting pimped out by your own parent and them claiming it is for your own good.
Facebook is not the problem. (Score:1)