Mark Zuckerberg Says He's Done Apologizing (techcrunch.com) 91
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The home of the Golden State Warriors was packed on Tuesday evening this week, but it wasn't to watch Steph Curry. Thousands of fans gathered at the Chase Center in downtown San Francisco to watch one of Silicon Valley's biggest ballers, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, sit down for a conversation with the hosts of the Acquired podcast, David Rosenthal and Ben Gilbert. Shortly after hopping onstage, Zuckerberg joked that he might need to schedule his next appearance in order to apologize for whatever he was about to say. After a beat, he added that he was just kidding and that, in fact, his days of apologizing are over.
Zuckerberg has had something of a rebrand recently. He raises cattle in Hawaii now, has long bouncy curls and a gold chain, and commissions Roman-style statues of his wife. Onstage, the Facebook founder wore a boxy T-shirt he designed himself alongside fashion designer Mike Amiri that read "learning through suffering" in Greek letters. The tongue-in-cheek comment about apologizing was a reference to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who himself addressed a flub he'd made on the Acquired podcast earlier this year, via a pre-recorded video on a screen hanging over the crowd. Huang's original comment -- that he never would have started Nvidia if he knew what he did today -- was grossly taken out of context, he said. In the video, he clarified that he absolutely would start Nvidia again, and that his comment was more about the blissful ignorance of startup founders.
While Zuckerberg's opening comment was just a friendly jab at Huang, it set the tone for Zuckerberg's new attitude toward life and business. The founder of Facebook has spent a lot of time apologizing for Facebook's content moderation issues. But when reflecting on the biggest mistakes of his career, Zuckerberg said his largest one was a "political miscalculation" that he described as a "20-year mistake." Specifically, he said, he'd taken too much ownership for problems allegedly out of Facebook's control. "Some of the things they were asserting that we were doing or were responsible for, I don't actually think we were," said Zuckerberg. "When it's a political problem there are people operating in good faith who are identifying a problem and want something to be fixed, and there are people who are just looking for someone to blame."
Zuckerberg has had something of a rebrand recently. He raises cattle in Hawaii now, has long bouncy curls and a gold chain, and commissions Roman-style statues of his wife. Onstage, the Facebook founder wore a boxy T-shirt he designed himself alongside fashion designer Mike Amiri that read "learning through suffering" in Greek letters. The tongue-in-cheek comment about apologizing was a reference to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who himself addressed a flub he'd made on the Acquired podcast earlier this year, via a pre-recorded video on a screen hanging over the crowd. Huang's original comment -- that he never would have started Nvidia if he knew what he did today -- was grossly taken out of context, he said. In the video, he clarified that he absolutely would start Nvidia again, and that his comment was more about the blissful ignorance of startup founders.
While Zuckerberg's opening comment was just a friendly jab at Huang, it set the tone for Zuckerberg's new attitude toward life and business. The founder of Facebook has spent a lot of time apologizing for Facebook's content moderation issues. But when reflecting on the biggest mistakes of his career, Zuckerberg said his largest one was a "political miscalculation" that he described as a "20-year mistake." Specifically, he said, he'd taken too much ownership for problems allegedly out of Facebook's control. "Some of the things they were asserting that we were doing or were responsible for, I don't actually think we were," said Zuckerberg. "When it's a political problem there are people operating in good faith who are identifying a problem and want something to be fixed, and there are people who are just looking for someone to blame."
So little has changed. (Score:5, Informative)
What a slime. He's never apologized for wrong he does do.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The little cunt wants an autocracy, where he's got influence over the laws not just the people. And he's happy to use misinformation that will kill people to levera
Re:So little has changed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: So little has changed. (Score:2)
I was surprised to learn that he has a Slashdot account [slashdot.org]...
Re:So little has changed. (Score:5, Interesting)
He's Musk, but more subtle.
I do not apologize for wanting to punch him in the face.
Not the same (Score:3, Insightful)
He's Musk, but more subtle.
He's no Musk. Regardless of whether you like him, Musk has at least produced several highly innovative companies, like SpaceX and Tesla, that are improving the world and giving us products and capabilites we've never had before. Zuckerberg, on the otherhand, created a website that has harmed individuals and society so he could make money.
To put it another way, if Zuckerberg had never been born we'd probably be a lot be better off as a civilisation right now. I do not think you can say the same for Musk.
Re: (Score:2)
He's Musk, but more subtle.
He's no Musk. Regardless of whether you like him, Musk has at least produced several highly innovative companies, like SpaceX and Tesla, that are improving the world and giving us products and capabilites we've never had before. Zuckerberg, on the otherhand, created a website that has harmed individuals and society so he could make money. To put it another way, if Zuckerberg had never been born we'd probably be a lot be better off as a civilisation right now. I do not think you can say the same for Musk.
As much as I dislike that obnoxious asshole that is Musk, I entirely agree with your assessment.
Re: (Score:2)
He's Musk, but more subtle.
He's no Musk. Regardless of whether you like him, Musk has at least produced several highly innovative companies, like SpaceX and Tesla, that are improving the world and giving us products and capabilites we've never had before. Zuckerberg, on the otherhand, created a website that has harmed individuals and society so he could make money.
I agree that Musk has done some super innovative stuff that Zuckerberg hasn't.
But I think Zuckerberg is fundamentally a relatively normal well-adjusted smart person just trying to do his thing. I don't think many folks would be morally opposed to founding something like Facebook, and once they got going it was kind of inevitable that they'd run into privacy issues and problems with algorithmic amplification of extremists.
Zuckerberg's problem isn't that he's a bad person, he seems to be a fairly good person,
Whose the bad person? (Score:2)
Re: Not the same (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
procured, not produced.
Re: (Score:1)
Give examples please and explain. If you take recent similar events like Zuckerberg FINALLY admitting to the censoring of information on his platform. Musk did the exact opposite, he provided access to a liberal journalist that exposed the hidden widespread censorship occurring at Twitter pre-purchase. (Which was very extensive)
Re: (Score:2)
he's happy to use misinformation
This is one of the scariest things, reaching and probably exceeding levels of 1984.
Agree or disagree, true statements are not misinformation. Things that are not reliably known to be false is not misinformation. Admitting to censoring things is not misinformation. Speech that contradicts the "party line" is not misinformation.
Are we most concerned about political fallout of admitting things he had done on behalf of the government?
This line of reasoning would also imply that COVID-19 lab leak theory or B
Re:So little has changed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Agree or disagree, true statements are not misinformation.
One of the most fundamental lessons of the past years we have to learn is that truth is statistical. If there are 10 billion falsehoods out there being spread by bots, you cannot simply use "more speech" to counter bad speech.
In the same way, true statements which are completely exceptional can be used to create misinformation. If you only tell people about the exceptions and you hide the information about the main case, people who hear from you will be misinformed and they will react incorrectly. If you say "Johnny hit Peter" and keep repeating it, people will think Johnny is bad. If, in fact Peter hits Johnny regularly and Johnny only hits Peter occasionally to stop Peter from hitting him.
This comes up with a bunch of push button political issues, for example rape by Trans-women in prisons. The major rape problem in prisons is men raping men. That is followed by women raping women, then various other combinations until far down the list is trans-women raping women. That disparity in attention gets exacerbated by people's general mathematical ignorance which seems to me means that people don't recognize the difference between statistical truths presented to them and specific rare cases where those statistical truths about unimportance are irrelevant because you are currently dealing with an exception. That ends with both sides of the debate spreading misinformation based almost entirely on true statements and misunderstandings of true statements.
Re: (Score:2)
Harris: "Wow, I'm facing a tight election... what to do, what to do. Wait, I know. Let's tax unrealized capital gains! ... Uh ... Mark? Elon? Anyone else with more than two dimes to rub together? Hello? Where'd you go?"
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
And it's been phenomenally effective, they've never been called to account. Big oil and similar could learn from him.
Re: (Score:3)
& Zuckerberg is just one of many. Because he was lucky & got very rich & powerful, True 'Muricans (TM) worship him. 'Muricans worship wealth & power. It seems as if they're really craving some kind of strong leader... you know... like an emperor?!
Since when? (Score:5, Insightful)
When has Mark Zuckerberg ever apologized for any of the evil shit he's done?
Re: (Score:2)
I do not think he has. Anybody got a reference?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He recently apologized in Congress for allowing the Biden admin to censor content that was inconvenient for them.
Per Politico:
Mark Zuckerberg says he regrets that Meta bowed to Biden administration pressure to censor content, saying in a letter that the interference was “wrong” and he plans to push back if it happens again.
There was no content censoring going on (Score:5, Informative)
It is sadly his right to publish that and thanks to section 230 he can get away with it. And I wouldn't trade section 230 for the handful of lives saved since losing that would basically kill the internet...
But it is absolutely galling to have the word censorship used in regards to anti-vaccine misinformation being removed from websites. The word censorship has a very specific connotation in American English. And that does not fall under it.
Re: (Score:2)
What reason do you have to attribute those deaths to a vaccination booster?
Re: There was no content censoring going on (Score:3)
It's the same logic by which this person still being alive is attributed to the 217 COVID shots he got.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/06/health/covid-217-shots-hypervaccination-lancet/index.html
Re: (Score:1)
You should actually learn to read, it included censorship on things that weren't about COVID at all, but criticism on the Biden admin in the context of. Even today, you still see false 'fact checks' and things still regularly get blocked.
Re: (Score:2)
Saying "I regret allowing the pretense of morality get in the way of my profits" is not really an apology.
Re: (Score:2)
It would be an honest statement though. Already a small but noticeable improvement.
classic material (Score:4, Insightful)
Does anyone here believe that pitting groups against each other is not the plan by the 1% elite to keep as many people as possible, shopping for fashion, hyperconsuming and ranting about politicians overreaching?
It's been working since 2016 with men staying politically about the same and women becoming 20% more liberal
https://wisconsinwatch.org/202... [wisconsinwatch.org]
Since 2014, polling has shown that women between the ages of 18 and 29 have steadily become more liberal each year, while young men have not, Daniel Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life, wrote in a Jan. 23, 2024, article.
Cox observed “at no time in the past quarter century has there been such a rapid divergence between the views of young men and women.”
--
And then the factoid which may be somehow correlated to this dramatic shift of women towards ever father edge of liberalism:
https://www.eviemagazine.com/p... [eviemagazine.com]
Over 50% of white liberal women under 30 have a mental health condition.
Irrationalism (Score:2)
Is this just a trend, that a rising number of persons in all demographics are more irrational and emotional driven than in the past?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, anti-rationality, anti-science and anti-insight have certainly made a big comeback. Probably because if you deny rationality or declare your own emotional and irrational behaviors are "rational" (to get the benefits of even more denial), you suddenly do not have to face a lot of unpleasant truths. One is that the average person understands very little and has very little control over their fate. Another is that you can do away with the mature approach of actually trying to understand things before for
Re: (Score:2)
I do not think it is a plan, but it is certainly something they are entirely fine with. I think the 1% are not actually capable enough to engineer this with any reliability though. People are more natural stupid and contrarian and tribal by themselves.
Re: (Score:2)
Mark Zuckerberg says he regrets that Meta bowed to Biden administration pressure to censor content
Heh. That reminds me of the following Family Guy episode (of Stewy apologizing to Brian). Because "regrets" is definitely not an apology.
Brian: Yeah, but, Stewie, this isn't about all the things you did wrong. It's about me apologizing.
Stewie: Okay, then apologize.
Brian: I just did.
Stewie: No, you didn't. You just said, "It's about me apologizing." That's not actually apologizing.
Brian: All right, Stewie, I'm sorry that I made you uncomfortable and put you in a situation that you clearly couldn't hand
Re: (Score:3)
When has Mark Zuckerberg ever apologized for any of the evil shit he's done?
I do not think he has. Anybody got a reference?
April 10-11, 2018: Mark Zuckerberg Apologizes for Facebook Data Misuse, Russian Interference During Senate Testimony [people.com]: 'We Didn't Do Enough'
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, so when backed into a corner, he will try a weak-ass apology. Fits.
Re: Since when? (Score:2)
The answer to that is simple. Never. People like Zuckerberg believe themselves to be above everyone else and think that the little people beneath their feet do not deserve an apology for the harm caused by him.
Mark Zuckerberg has only ever apologized for being caught.
When did he start? (Score:3)
A new phase (Score:5, Insightful)
He's entering the "I fucked you all over and became obscenely rich, now I'm going to start convincing you I'm a good guy" phase.
He is not, but he's so insulated from anyone important to him saying that, that he probably thinks he is and it's the world that has it wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, seems more to me like he's decided to just own being a bad guy. Maybe he finally got around to watching those Despicable Me flicks and sees himself as an anti-hero in his mind.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Come to think of it, Zuck doesn't really have to be taking a page out of Hollywood fiction. He could just be looking up to Musk, who recently told Taylor Swift she can either adopt one of his children or that he'll do the baby daddy deed himself, depending on how you interpret Musk's tweet.
You really don't get more owning being the bad guy than that.
"I'll get you my pretty, and your little cats, too!" - Musk, basically
Re:A new phase (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the most cringe posts in the history of the internet. We live in exciting times!
Re: (Score:2)
The summary at least read to me like he's done apologizing and is instead deflecting blame.
Re: (Score:2)
People like him tend to surround themselves with yes-men. Explains, for example, the complete disaster of the "Metaverse". Of course, that robs them of any chance at redemption, but the super-rich do not actually want to be good people. They just want to be perceived as such.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Honor (what you know about yourself) is what counts. Reputation (what others think they know about you) can make things harder or easier but is indeed overrated.
My take is that the super-rich usually do not understand that distinction and have no honor anyways. So they try to compensate by reputation. Obviously that does not help to make them better people.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't even know why they care. If I had his billions I'd give exactly zero fucks about what anyone else thought of me. Public perception is vastly overrated and the people who seek it reek of daddy issues, or whatever it's called these days. If you want to do good, then do good. If you require public approval for any of that you're a bigger asshole than any amount of money could ever cure.
Personally, I'd never want the billions Zuck has. And I know I'd never get it. Because there's a threshold where I could fuck off on away onto my own island and peace out on this artifice we pretend is a society.
Re: (Score:2)
weirdly I suspect this approach will net him more fans than otherwise, especially when Andrew Tate is locked away for 10 years.
Although how pathetic do you have to be to be a facebook fan?
Re: (Score:3)
yeah i feel like people don't realize how PR agency-cultivated every reported aspect of Zuck's life is.
any source other than public records got their "news" about Zuck from his own fucking press releases and the Zuck isn't dumb enough to get caught DWI like Justin Timberlake, not when he could pay for a limo and a prostitute with pocket change.
Re: (Score:1)
Gates's philanthropy is just there to make him look good. We learn that the hard way when one of his charities blocked one of the covid vaccines from going into the public domain (The moderna one I believe). If you're old enough to know the history of the polio vaccine that should be especially galling...
Re: (Score:3)
He just doesn't feel a need to lie anymore. "Being done apologizing" means he never meant it, but had to do it. It was a chore, and now he's done with it.
I'm sorry but I'm done being sorry. (Score:2)
Damn it! I'm sorry, I didn't mean that.
Done apologizing for this? (Score:3)
ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: what!? howâ(TM)d you manage that one?
ZUCK: people just submitted it
ZUCK: i donâ(TM)t know why
ZUCK: they âoetrust meâ
ZUCK: dumb fucks
In ASCII, for /. - what year is this? (Score:4, Informative)
ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: 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
Sooo.... (Score:1)
... he is going to do something effective about it now instead and kill himself? That seems a bit extreme. Adequate for the damage he has done though.
I'm too rich for this (Score:3)
Re: I'm too rich for this (Score:2)
Re:I'm too skeptical for this (Score:5, Informative)
Musk, J.K. Rowling, and Trump all have something in common: They won't put the fucking shovel down.
It's one thing to claim "the left goes too far with cancel culture" when some old photo of someone in blackface is dug up or they said something kind of homophobic one time back in high school, but the aforementioned wealthy folks have absolutely been doubling down on their rhetoric because they have fanbases that eat it up.
You can literally go on X right now and see that this isn't a case of people getting things wrong by some sort of media manipulation. It's all coming straight from the horses' mouths.
Re: (Score:2)
Chase Center nit (Score:3)
Chase Center is in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, not what any local would refer to as "downtown."
The author simply should have just said "in San Francisco." The qualifier is unnecessary.
Being rich means never having to say sorry (Score:5, Interesting)
You see all these guys do that once they are securely rich in money or power.
Sociopaths do that too. Have you noticed DT never said sorry even with tens of thousands of lies and misdeeds? It is a state of mind that says I have got what you don't and you'll never get and you should just learn to kiss up to me.
I don't think so (Score:2)
He should apologize for making this statement. (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Only joke? But when you get rich enough you become "right" by definition and never have to apologize. It must be the law?
He's just testing the waters, waiting on election (Score:3)
Seriously, since his comments a while back about regretting working with the Biden administration, he's debating going full Elon.
I don't believe for a second the guy actually has a personality or conviction anywhere in him. He's just not sure what persona let's him hang on to his dwindling power.
Re: (Score:3)
Zuck did once try to be relatable by releasing a video about smoking meats in his backyard, and the internet made a song poking fun at it. [youtube.com]
Humans 101 (Score:2)
That's life. It's rarely fair. With power comes responsibility. Nobody gets a 100% free lunch, not even zillionaires.
Why would anyone attend this? (Score:4, Insightful)
To me the weirdest part about this story is that thousands of people thought that watching Mark Zuckerberg interview for a podcast was an entertaining way to spend their evening. Surely the Bay area isn't that boring. I wonder how many of the audience members were Facebook employees.
Re: (Score:2)
The Bay Area is like Hollywood for wannabe tech billionaires.
good for him! (Score:2)
It took him 20 years to get to the point where he could be the emotional equivalent of a 25 year old normal human male. But he's finally done it. He's becoming a real boy.
And regulators are done with forgiving... (Score:1)
If he wants redemption (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Paul the apostle, for e.g.
Wait. What?
You want one delusional farkwit to follow the example of... another delusional farkwit?
This should end well
The paradox continues (Score:1)
America you can land monkeys on the moon and produce psychopathic cnuts like Zuck who built his wealth in the public toilet that is social media peddling hate and lies for ads, destroying trust, starting wars, cultivating fear and division.
Cows of Hawaii stampede, aim at the super twat with the perm, chase him into the sea.
This is such a weird thread (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been a /.'er since the beginning. This isn't even my original UID. I think that one was like 50k or so.
This site started off as somewhat libertarian anarchy. The old adage of, "We just move packets, any inspection of content is irrelevant" Granted, there is some content that is truly horrible, reprehensible, with IRL victims, but at the time of 1mbps internet connections it was deemed, "Too much overhead" for deep packet inspection.
Yet here we are close to 30 years later. 3 letter agencies routinely install their servers in ISP's to do just that. Speaking of ISP's, what ever happened to the 1000's we used to have? Seems like the choices either died out or were bought up. Internet is no longer an ala-cart option of free thought and speech, but rather the bourgeoisie hidden microphone installed on every computer, every phone, designed to listen to your every thought and whim. Even as I type this now, I have no doubt that somebody, somewhere, who is not /. is logging it as a part of the overall profile of t0qer, so they can sell that info to a marketeer.
We used to keep our thoughts and politics private. I never remember my parents, or my parents friends, or my friends parents talking about politics as much as we do now. It just seems like this thirst has been created in the collective consciousness that we have to share. Why? So a bunch of people we never met, or cared about prior to this, our facebook "friends" or our instagram "followers" can shower us with clicking a graphic of a thumb pointed up? The pavlovian response generated I guess in some ways can trace its roots back to here. It's to late for Karma, but if I had *just* commented when this article was hot, I'd be refreshing this comment to see if it got up or down votes.
I hope we can break free from this as a society.
Re: (Score:3)
McLuhan said, and I paraphrase : "everything turns into its opposite eventually"
In 1997 the internet was hailed as the greatest tool for freedom ever invented.
In 2017 the internet was hailed as the greatest tool for surveillance ever invented. Go figure.
I'll second what you're saying... our society is approaching what my dead relatives told me how they survived in com
Re: (Score:3)
>McLuhan said, and I paraphrase : "everything turns into its opposite eventually"
Truer words were never spoken. The "worker's party" becomes an oligarchy. Government for the people becomes government for the extremists. High quality in a business becomes cost cutting crap. I remember when cable tv started one promise was "since you are paying for it there will be no ads". Well that lasted about a week.
>You don't know who to trust. You self censor. Something you said 20 years ago can be held again
Re: (Score:2)
Are you implying that /. Karma begat social media? :hmmm: Maybe it was like a gateway drug?
Apology theater (Score:2)
I wish people would stop demanding apologies and people stop giving them constantly as a knee jerk response. 99% of the time they are just meaningless theater to genuflect to some group or the raging anonymous masses. I'd rather see some honesty, "Yup, I wanted to raise our profit margin. Next question?" "Yah, I cheated on my wife because this woman was hot and we worked on the same movie for 6 months." We want our celebrities and leaders to flog themselves for our approval until the next outrage cycle
Apologize for suppressing the Biden Lap story (Score:2)