Tag Archives: Mark Zuckerberg

Dangerous People, by Eric Peters

Posted on May 10, 2019 | 2 comments

The first question to ask is to which people are dangerous people dangerous? In most instance its to the government and its toadies. From Eric Peters at theburningplatform.com:

You’ve likely been following the suppression of speech by the big tech companies and may have noticed collusion – the real thing, unlike the asserted thing directed at the Orange Man.

The suppression is coordinated and even deploys the same verbiage against its targets. For example, Paul Joseph Watson has just been deleted from Gesichterbuch and labeled – here it comes – “dangerous.”

Just as I have been.

It’s unlikely this is coincidental.

And as in my case, what makes Paul “dangerous,” exactly, is never specified. That would enable him to at least respond, to defend himself and – what cannot be allowed – refute the charge.

Instead, a vague blanket indictment. Which is purposefully intended to be impossible to directly challenge.

The Jews are Our Misfortune.

Anyone remember that one?

It amounts to the same thing, in principle. People anathematized for no specific reason but just because they’re not liked.

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3 Reasons Why Facebook’s Zuckerberg Wants More Government Regulation, by Ryan McMaken

Posted on April 5, 2019 | Leave a comment

Business people love regulation when they can use it to their advantage. From Ryan McMaken at mises.org:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants more government regulation of social media. In a March 30 op-ed for The Washington Post, Zuckerberg trots out the innocent-sounding pablum we’ve come to expect from him:

I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators. By updating the rules for the Internet, we can preserve what’s best about it — the freedom for people to express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things — while also protecting society from broader harms.

But what sort of regulation will this be? Specifically, Zuckerberg concludes “we need new regulation in four areas: harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability.”

He wants more countries to adopt versions of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Needless to say, anyone hearing such words from Zuckerberg should immediately assume this newfound support for regulation is calculated to help Facebook financially. After all, this is a man who lied repeatedly to his customers (and Congress) about who can access users’ personal data, and how it will be used. He’s a man who once referred to Facebook users as “Dumb F-cks.” Facebook lied to customers (not to be confused with the users) about the success of Facebook’s video platform. The idea that Zuckerberg now voluntarily wants to sacrifice some of his own power and money for humanitarian purposes is, at best, highly doubtful. (Although politicians like Mark Warner seem to take it at face value.)

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Shocking NYT Expose Reveals Facebook’s Scramble To Label Liberal Critics Soros-Operatives While Trashing Google And Apple, by Tyler Durden

Posted on November 15, 2018 | Leave a comment

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg have no discernible principles. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

The New York Times has painted a 5,300 word picture of an out-of-control Facebook’s desperate and incompetent damage control measures in the wake of multiple scandals.

Based on interviews with over 50 current and former company executives, lawmakers, government officials, lobbyists and congressional staff members – most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity – the Times illustrates how Facebook resorted to mercenary tactics when it came to combatting criticism over everything from Russian ad-spending during the 2016 US election, to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, to the platform’s blind eye towards corrupt governments using the social network to commit atrocities around the world.

as evidence accumulated that Facebook’s power could also be exploited to disrupt elections, broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly campaigns of hate around the globe, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg stumbled. Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view. –NYT

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Democratic Congressman: “Looks Like Zuckerberg Lied To Congress”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on June 5, 2018 | Leave a comment

This probably won’t effect Mark Zuckerberg’s rumored plans to run for office. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Responding to a report in the New York Times which revealed Facebook gave at least 60 major device manufacturers unprecedented access to user data, Democratic Congressman David Cicilline (RI) tweeted on Sunday: “Sure looks like Zuckerberg lied to Congress about whether users have “complete control” over who sees our data on Facebook,” adding “This needs to be investigated and the people responsible need to be held accountable.

The Times reported Sunday evening that Facebook gave at least 60 major device manufacturers access to user data over the last decade – including Apple, Amazon, BlackBerry, Microsoft and Samsung – as part of a data-sharing partnership program which allowed the companies to integrate various features such as messaging and “like” buttons into their products.

The agreement has allowed manufacturers to access information on relationship status, calendar events, political affiliations and religion, among other things. An Apple spokesman, for example, said that the company relied on private access to Facebook data to allow users to post on the social network without opening the Facebook app, among other things.

Even more disturbing, the manufacturers were able to access the data of users’ friends without their explicit consent, despite Facebook declaring they would not let outside companies access user data. The catch? The NYT explains.

Facebook’s view that the device makers are not outsiders lets the partners go even further, The Times found: They can obtain data about a user’s Facebook friends, even those who have denied Facebook permission to share information with any third parties.

In interviews, several former Facebook software engineers and security experts said they were surprised at the ability to override sharing restrictions. –NYT

“It’s like having door locks installed, only to find out that the locksmith also gave keys to all of his friends so they can come in and rifle through your stuff without having to ask you for permission,” said Ashkan Soltani, a research and privacy consultant and former chief technologist for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

To continue reading: Democratic Congressman: “Looks Like Zuckerberg Lied To Congress”

 

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Commerzbank, Mozilla, Suspend Facebook Ad Campaigns As Advertisers Start Pulling Out, by Tyler Durden

Posted on March 22, 2018 | Leave a comment

The cries for government regulation of the big internet platforms have reached a crescendo. Meanwhile, the private sector is working out its own responses. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Update: first it was Mozilla, now Germany’s Commerzbank has also suspended a Facebook advertising campaign:

“Brand safety and data security are very important to us”, German daily Handelsblatt quotes Commerzbank brand management chief Uwe Hellmann as saying. “We want to give ongoing investigations enough space, and decide how to proceed at an appropriate time.”

A week ago, Commerzbank had launched a large-scale image campaign, which will be broadcast on selected TV channels as well as online, including on Facebook. It is the continuation of the new brand positioning of the Frankfurt company, which has been ongoing since 2012.

* * *

Facebook advertisers have threatened to abandon the platform in the wake of a massive data harvesting scandal which began after it was revealed that an app created by two psychologists – one of whom Facebook employs – gathered data on over 50 million Americans and then sold it to political data firm Cambridge Analytics and several others, who used it without consent.

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of the social media giant gave several interviews Wednesday after spending three days in hiding, ostensibly with a crisis management team which advised him not give wholly unsatisfactory answers to one of the largest data breaches in history.

The scandal is pushing some Facebook advertisers to consider dropping the platform, reports The Times. 

ISBA, a British group of advertisers that spend hundreds of millions of pounds a year on Facebook, demanded answers. It is understood that some of its 3,000 brands, which include those of the consumer goods companies Unilever and P&G, will not tolerate association with Facebook if it emerges that users’ data has found its way into the hands of brokers and political campaigners without authorisation. Sources close to the trade body said that if the company’s answers were not satisfactory, advertisers might spend their money elsewhere. ISBA will meet Facebook executives this week.

To continue reading: Commerzbank, Mozilla, Suspend Facebook Ad Campaigns As Advertisers Start Pulling Out

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Obama Pressures Facebook to Censor News; Zuckerberg Complies and Crushes Trump on Facebook, by Karin McQuillan

Posted on March 6, 2018 | Leave a comment

Facebook has become an instrument of the Democratic party. From Karin McQuillan at americanthinker.com:

Facebook has caved to Democrat political pressure and is censoring newsfeeds on users’ pages, as Mark Zuckerberg explains, for their own good.  The progressives at Facebook have gone nuclear.

We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us. That’s why we’ve always put friends and family at the core of the experience. Research shows that strengthening our relationships improves our well-being and happiness.  But recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.

Cutting through the Orwellian talk of connecting us together and ‘feedback from our community,’ this is an entirely political story.  After Donald Trump’s election, Zuckerberg came under tremendous pressure to use Facebook for the Democrats’ Resistance.  All the bludgeons were brought out – Russian bots, fake news, that Facebook handed an unearned victory to Trump.  And the greatest of all, the threat of government regulation.

At first Zuckerberg resisted the Resistance, but then he caved suddenly, following a personal intervention by Obama.

The results of Obama’s intervention are in:

Engagement on Donald Trump’s Facebook posts has dropped by approximately 45 percent since the platform introduced a new algorithm change, following a year of pressure from left-wing employees and the mainstream media for “allowing” the President to win the 2016 general election.

The most interesting aspect of the progressives’ victory has received almost no press.  It was Barack Hussein Obama himself who knuckled Zuckerberg, in a ‘chance’ encounter at an anti-poverty gathering of the glitterati, in Peru.   Obama openly told Zuckerberg he had to do something about the next presidential race.

To continue reading: Obama Pressures Facebook to Censor News; Zuckerberg Complies and Crushes Trump on Facebook

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Facebook To Start Ranking News Sources, Promote Only The “Most Trustworthy”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on January 20, 2018 | 1 comment

Facebook can feature any news sources it wants, but assume its news, or any other purveyor’s, is not trustworthy until long experience proves otherwise. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

One week after it emerged  that FaceBook has finally thrown in the towel on free speech, and would henceforth mute accounts it deems “untrustworthy”, leaving open the question of just how would Zuckerberg would decide who is or isn’t trustworthy, on Friday we got the answer.

In a blog post, the company revealed its plans to start ranking news sources in its feed based on user evaluations of credibility, in what Facebook said will be a step in its effort to fight “false and sensationalist information” which also will push the company even deeper into a role it has long sought to avoid— that of what the WSJ called  a “content referee”, and which we would define even simpler: the internet’s biggest censor.

This is how the company explained the biggest change in its content aggregation and distribution in years:

Last year, we worked hard to reduce fake news and clickbait, and to destroy the economic incentives for spammers to generate these articles in the first place. But there is more we can do. In 2018, we will prioritize:

  • News from publications that the community rates as trustworthy
  • News that people find informative
  • News that is relevant to people’s local community

To be clear, you can still decide which stories appear at the top of News Feed with our See First feature.

Last week, we announced major changes to News Feed that are designed to help bring people closer together by encouraging more meaningful connections on Facebook. As a result, people will see less public content, including news, video and posts from brands.

Today we’re sharing the second major update we’re making this year: to make sure the news people see, while less overall, is high quality.

Starting next week, we will begin tests in the first area: to prioritize news from publications that the community rates as trustworthy.

How? We surveyed a diverse and representative sample of people using Facebook across the US to gauge their familiarity with, and trust in, various different sources of news. This data will help to inform ranking in News Feed.

We’ll start with the US and plan to roll this out internationally in the future.

To continue reading: Facebook To Start Ranking News Sources, Promote Only The “Most Trustworthy”

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Criminals and Heroes from The Burning Platform

Posted on November 5, 2017 | Leave a comment

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/11/05/criminals-heroes/

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Facebook Exposed – “You” Are The Product, by John Lanchester

Posted on September 3, 2017 | 1 comment

This is a long but very worthwhile article about Facebook and Mark Zuckerbook. You are indeed their product. From John Lanchester at the London Review of Books, via zerohedge.com:

At the end of June, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook had hit a new level: two billion monthly active users. That number, the company’s preferred ‘metric’ when measuring its own size, means two billion different people used Facebook in the preceding month. It is hard to grasp just how extraordinary that is. Bear in mind that thefacebook – its original name – was launched exclusively for Harvard students in 2004. No human enterprise, no new technology or utility or service, has ever been adopted so widely so quickly. The speed of uptake far exceeds that of the internet itself, let alone ancient technologies such as television or cinema or radio.

Also amazing: as Facebook has grown, its users’ reliance on it has also grown. The increase in numbers is not, as one might expect, accompanied by a lower level of engagement. More does not mean worse – or worse, at least, from Facebook’s point of view. On the contrary. In the far distant days of October 2012, when Facebook hit one billion users, 55 per cent of them were using it every day. At two billion, 66 per cent are. Its user base is growing at 18 per cent a year – which you’d have thought impossible for a business already so enormous. Facebook’s biggest rival for logged-in users is YouTube, owned by its deadly rival Alphabet (the company formerly known as Google), in second place with 1.5 billion monthly users. Three of the next four biggest apps, or services, or whatever one wants to call them, are WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, with 1.2 billion, 1.2 billion, and 700 million users respectively (the Chinese app WeChat is the other one, with 889 million). Those three entities have something in common: they are all owned by Facebook. No wonder the company is the fifth most valuable in the world, with a market capitalisation of $445 billion.

To continue reading: Facebook Exposed – “You” Are The Product

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Mark Zuckerberg’s Big Crony Capitalist Stun, by Robert Wenzel

Posted on December 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

From Robert Wenzel at davidstockmanscontracorner.com:

Serious questions have been raised since Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would donate” 99% of his stake in Facebook shares to a new LLC he had formed with his wife Priscilla Chan.

Zuckerberg, perhaps surprised that everyone is not as gullible as the Winklevoss twins, has returned to Facebook with a clarifying statement about the “donation.”

With this clarification, it is clear that there is nothing special about the LLC. It is just a typical LLC where all income and capital gains recognized will flow through to Zuckerberg and his wife on their personal tax forms. Thus, the use of the term “donate,” is extremely odd and suggests a PR stunt gone bad.

Not only is this not a donation in the typical sense of the word where money is given up for good works, and generally where control of the funds donated are lost, but the money “donated” to the Zuckerberg LLC will be making many traditional investments.

To continue reading: Mark Zuckerberg’s Big Crony Capitalist Stunt

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