In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg Took a Vow of User Privacy On Slashdot (slashdot.org) 68
If it weren't for Slashdot, Mark Zuckerberg wouldn't be facing a six-hour deposition over alleged involvement in the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, argues long-time Slashdot reader theodp:
In 2003, Harvard's student newspaper the Harvard Crimson reported that Zuck's programming skills attracted attention from the likes of Microsoft and others following a 2003 Slashdot post. That post — titled Machine Learning and MP3s — described how "Students at Caltech [freshman Adam D'Angelo, Quora CEO and co-founder] and Harvard [freshman Zuck] developed a system that analyzes playlists and learns people's listening patterns." The playlist-making software, Synapse AI, was Zuck's high school senior project at Phillips Exeter Academy.
Interestingly, in a modded-up comment ("Informative") on the post, Slashdot user Mark Zuckerberg vowed to protect user privacy. "And a note about privacy," promised Zuck. "None of your musical listening data will be available to anyone other than you. We hope to use massive amounts of data to aid in analysis, but your individual data will never be seen by anyone else."
Hey, things change. And Slashdot user SkyIce (apparently D'Angelo) added, "I'm not going to spam people. I promise." .
Zuckerberg was just 18 years old — and Steven Levy's 2020 book Facebook: The Inside Story recounts how all "the Slashdot attention was a boon." Zuckerberg heard from multiple companies interested in the student project, including Microsoft and AOL. Zuckerberg and D'Angelo got an offer approaching a million dollars from one of those suitors. But the payout would be contingent on Zuckerberg and D'Angelo committing to work for that company for three years. They turned it down.
That summer, back in Cambridge, young Mark Zuckerberg "thought it was interesting that I was so excited about Friendster," D'Angelo remembered in the book. Friendster was an earlier social network founded in 2002 (which eventually closed in 2018). D'Angelo remembered that Zuckerberg "wasn't into it as a user, but it was clear to him that there was something there...."
Interestingly, in a modded-up comment ("Informative") on the post, Slashdot user Mark Zuckerberg vowed to protect user privacy. "And a note about privacy," promised Zuck. "None of your musical listening data will be available to anyone other than you. We hope to use massive amounts of data to aid in analysis, but your individual data will never be seen by anyone else."
Hey, things change. And Slashdot user SkyIce (apparently D'Angelo) added, "I'm not going to spam people. I promise." .
Zuckerberg was just 18 years old — and Steven Levy's 2020 book Facebook: The Inside Story recounts how all "the Slashdot attention was a boon." Zuckerberg heard from multiple companies interested in the student project, including Microsoft and AOL. Zuckerberg and D'Angelo got an offer approaching a million dollars from one of those suitors. But the payout would be contingent on Zuckerberg and D'Angelo committing to work for that company for three years. They turned it down.
That summer, back in Cambridge, young Mark Zuckerberg "thought it was interesting that I was so excited about Friendster," D'Angelo remembered in the book. Friendster was an earlier social network founded in 2002 (which eventually closed in 2018). D'Angelo remembered that Zuckerberg "wasn't into it as a user, but it was clear to him that there was something there...."
Did he now? (Score:1)
It hasn't stopped him committing privacy goofs, let's be polite here, on an industrial scale. Oh, excuse me, "webscale".
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Perhaps, but it's clear that his promise was about the music listening data for Synapse, not a universal promise for all platforms for all time.
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Re:Did he now? (Score:5, Informative)
November 2003
After creating Facemash, a Harvard hot-or-not site.
“ This is not how I meant for things to go and I apologize for any harm done as a result of my neglect. ”
September 2006>br> After introducing News Feed, which exposed updates to friends in one central place.
“ We really messed this one up.
December 2007
After launching Beacon, which opted-in everyone to sharing with advertisers what they were doing in outside websites and apps.
“ We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it. People need to be able to explicitly choose what they share. ”
May 2010
After reporters found a privacy loophole allowing advertisers to access user identification.
“ Sometimes we move too fast. We will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services. ”
November 2011
After Facebook reached a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission for deceiving consumers about privacy.
“ I’m the first to admit that we’ve made a bunch of mistakes. Facebook has always been committed to being transparent about the information you have stored with us — and we have led the internet in building tools to give people the ability to see and control what they share. ”
July 2014
After an academic paper exposed that Facebook conducted psychological tests on nearly 700,000 users without their knowledge. (Apology by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg)
“ It was poorly communicated. And for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you. ”
December 2016
After criticism of the role of Facebook in spreading fake news about political candidates.
“ I think of Facebook as a technology company, but I recognize we have a greater responsibility than just building technology that information flows through. Today we’re making it easier to report hoaxes. ”
April 2017
After a Cleveland man posted a video of himself killing 74-year-old Robert Godwin Sr.
“ Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Robert Godwin Sr., and we have a lot of work — and we will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening. ”
September 2017
While revealing a nine-step plan to stop nations from using Facebook to interfere in one another’s elections, noting that the amount of “problematic content” found so far is “relatively small.”
“ I care deeply about the democratic process and protecting its integrity. It is a new challenge for internet communities to deal with nation states attempting to subvert elections. But if that’s what we must do, we are committed to rising to the occasion. ”
September 2017
After continued criticism about the role of Facebook in Russian manipulation of the 2016 election.
“ For the ways my work has been used to divide rather than to bring us together, I ask for forgiveness and I will work to do better. ”
January 2018
Announcing his personal challenge for the year is to fix Facebook.
“ This will be a serious year of self-improvement and I’m looking forward to learning from working to fix our issues together. ”
March 2018
After details emerged about Cambridge Analytica taking user data.
“ We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you. We will learn from this experience to secure our platform further and make our community safer for everyone going forward. ”
April 2018
After revealing Cambridge Analytica got unauthoriz
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Mark Zuckerberg is a pathological liar, and the Apology Tour just keeps rolling along.
Your list shows a few instances of bad behaviour/judgment (the FaceMash in particular). Though that's also exactly the kind of poor judgment young men often make (it just doesn't get recorded for prosperity usually).
But most of that stuff is him apologizing for 3rd parties finding exploits in FB.
September 2017
While revealing a nine-step plan to stop nations from using Facebook to interfere in one another’s elections, noting that the amount of “problematic content” found so far is “relatively small.”
“ I care deeply about the democratic process and protecting its integrity. It is a new challenge for internet communities to deal with nation states attempting to subvert elections. But if that’s what we must do, we are committed to rising to the occasion. ”
September 2017
After continued criticism about the role of Facebook in Russian manipulation of the 2016 election.
“ For the ways my work has been used to divide rather than to bring us together, I ask for forgiveness and I will work to do better. ”
So, in 2017, Zuckerberg is apologizing for Russia using FB to interfere in the US elections in 2016. Why is that evidence of Zuckerberg being a liar?
And remember, half the country hates FB for supposedly censoring c
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"You trusted me??? Dumbass."
Yep. Never trust a college dropout who runs a multi-billion dollar company that involves personal information.
Slashdot user #667482 (Score:2, Interesting)
Evil made its way into this site reasonably early...
Can we vote to remove his account from the database?
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It looks like he only made it to come here and lie about privacy. I suppose he might have posted as AC too, or have an alt account.
Re:Slashdot user #667482 (Score:4, Funny)
Yea, I don't have the karma to burn, but I found the comment delightfully funny at this hour of a Monday morning.
Scott
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Evil was here long before Zuck.
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User id 13405 [slashdot.org] - I'd say you're correct...
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ah yes, lets just cancel someone we do not like.. The solution to all our woke problems...
How about we ban the use of the term "traffic jam" and get that problem sorted also
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another classic /. deep thinker. We shouldn't ban Hitler either, doing so would not solve all the world's problems. Indeed, the answer is to live in a cesspool, after all its just "woke" problems.
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Hitler was an artist and a vegetarian. Sure sounds like a real snowflake SJW to me!
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yes surely banning Hitler from social media (or its equivalent) would have prevented the holocaust.
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Today I learned that Mark Zuckerberg is some high-UID newbie.
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Pot, kettle. ;p
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Ok, Ok, I'll get off your lawn.
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Just seeing his user number made me feel really old.
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Seems a number of us still check in from time to time. I only sort of tangentially knew Malda through the afterstep/enlightenment communities on IRC though (back even before slashdot started). No idea where most of those folks are these days.
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I still check /. daily during the workweek (4 days for me currently), great to see some old old-timers are still around :-)
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Can we vote to remove his account from the database?
If you decided to purge every worthless shit on Slashdot, you'd kill the site. People are only here for the comments, and the comments that are most popular are usually the ones shitting on the worthless ones.
Better still, why vote to remove his account? Instead elevate it, highlight it, advertise it, and above all hold him to account for the things he said. It's precisely why I'd be a huge advocate for eliminating anonymous posting since all that does is allow toxic people to unleash their inner shitness w
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Fair enough, you make very good points.
Zuck's Black Jesus moment on Slashdot (Score:4, Informative)
Mark Zuckerberg's other Slashdot comment, in reply to this one [slashdot.org], hopefully clears up the backstory behind the Black Jesus Algorithm.
Respecting privacy or profit (Score:2)
"Don't be evil" (yeah, I know that's from a different company) may look nice carved into granite in your office's lobby, but it isn't as pretty when it's on the financial reports that you give to your stockholders.
What I do find interesting about this story is even way-back-when, Zuck was dogfooding his idea about using real names on the internet. After seeing the guy on YouTube, you'd assume someone awkward as him would've valued his own privacy.
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"...Zuck was dogfooding his idea about using real names on the internet..."
Hard to imagine a more stupid takeaway. He was a greedy, sociopathic high school student interested in exploitation of others, "dogfooding" implies he had an organization to consume its own dog food. He didn't, he hadn't stolen anything yet (that we know of). And please, using real names was a Zuck idea? LOL
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You thought the person who created the world's largest social network didn't want anyone to know him? Of course he's always been trying to put his name out there and be famous.
But money (Score:2)
So much money
Fauxtistic nerds taking words at face value? (Score:2)
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Re:Fauxtistic nerds taking words at face value? (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
That's in the first few weeks of creating Facebook. Then, considering he managed to secure funding from Thiel many MONTHS later by apparently getting friendly, it's not hard to extrapolate the kind of qualities that Mark had (*cough* FaceMash *cough*) that Thiel liked.
Time to stop defending techbro celebrities.
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Sure, that's why he stole property before VC was even involved. Filled with aspirations, sure, the kind that came to fruition in his case.
Zuckerberg is the evil you describe, not a victim of it.
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Sure, that's why he stole property before VC was even involved. Filled with aspirations, sure, the kind that came to fruition in his case.
Zuckerberg is the evil you describe, not a victim of it.
It could be both. Humans are complicated, Zuckerberg could very well have been filled (and is still filled) with idealistic hopes and dreams, and at the same time he engaged in some extremely underhanded dealing.
What I do find it interesting that Zuckerburg isn't just a one-hit wonder and had a pre-FB success. If FB hadn't taken off he probably would have had a more modest success with a subsequent startup.
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Zuckerberg could very well have been filled (and is still filled) with idealistic hopes and dreams
Robots don't have hopes and dreams.
What's the issue? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've never used Facebook and I don't like the guy very much either, but what he said back then was about his project regarding MP3s, not about Facebook -- is there any evidence that he violated his promise with regard to this project back then?
This post appears to me to be nothing more than saying "someone very famous has a /. account".
Re:What's the issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read it carefully he seems to be saying that it DOES collect your listening data:
"None of your musical listening data will be available to anyone other than you. We hope to use massive amounts of data to aid in analysis, but your individual data will never be seen by anyone else."
It is collected but then anonymised to use for analysis. Given that even today most companies fail to properly anonymise data, and that he phrased it in this deliberately unclear but not technically untrue way, plus what Mark went on to do with Facebook, I think it's difficult to believe that he couldn't access an individual's listening data if he wanted to.
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"It is collected but then anonymised to use for analysis."
This was not claimed. Back then, there was likely little to no implementation, just a public-facing ideal which Zuck might have had no intention of honoring. "anonymised to use for analysis" is a lie Zuck hadn't even invented yet.
We know from FB that the intention all along was the opposite.
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I just appreciate seeing a Slashdot story from 2003 talking about how machine learning and AI are the new hot thing in IT. Some things never change...
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Yes, but back then they only had the preceding 40 years of overestimation of AI's power to base their overestimation of AI's power on.
We have another 19 years of overestimation of AI's power to work from.
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Are you trying to argue that Nazis are a more advanced intelligence than librarians ?
No longer relevant (Score:2)
Maybe back then, people cared about Slashdot.
Oversell much? (Score:2)
I doubt this /. comment has anything at all to do with any depositions Zuck faces these days. And Zuck didn't make a "vow of user privacy" the way that the summary is suggesting. He (co-) wrote a program that he claimed respected user privacy. That wasn't a vow as if he would always and forever respect user privacy (which he clearly hasn't since then). If he had said "user privacy needs to be respected, I will never take part in a project that would use user data in violation of their privacy", that's a vo
one to watch (Score:2)
Funny thing is one of the posts says "this guy is one to watch" and it was talking about Adam D'Angelo, not Zuckerberg.
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That was just a game of bang, marry, kill. At the time gay marriage wasn't as acceptable so he suggested Adam was one to "watch", Zuckerberg very much was nominated for kill.
Whoever had mod points that day (Score:2)
And didnt nuke this cancer in the bud :)
A 19 year old Slashdot post legal president? (Score:2)
Directly on the Topic portion starts 3 paragraphs later:
As I grew older, I found that I had to make compromises in my life, realign my morals, seeing that many things I use to feel strongly about in my past was actually just poisoning my soul, making my life more painful than having a victory would solve.
In this big messy world which I am part of, I have came to some peace with the fact that I am living a life that in some way is hypocritical to my beliefs. While I feel for me is is mostly good, as I feel m
ok, I'll start... (Score:2)
freakin' n00b.
yes, I know the avalanche of derision I just unleashed...
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Kids these days...
Slashcode is broken (Score:2)
How did you guys find that comment when:
https://slashdot.org/~Mark+Zuc... [slashdot.org]
says he has no comments?
What's the deal here? Need money for index space?
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If you click on comments on his profile, they show up.
https://slashdot.org/~Mark+Zuc... [slashdot.org]
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> If you click on comments on his profile, they show up.
Ah, thank you!
no contest (Score:2)
In a contest between money and truth, money wins every time.
FYI: that post was NOT about Facebook (Score:2)
Does he still read Slashdot? (Score:2)
I wonder if he's still reading Slashdot? Congratulations, Mark, on the part you played in ruining the internet. Do all those billions help you sleep at night?