I have to say, as someone who's been somewhat critical of Facebook's dealings for the past years, I read the entire thing and I can't pick up on anything that doesn't seem like a reasonable thing to say to your team.
Is anyone able to educate me on why there seem to be some air of hawks swooping on Zuckerberg because of this?
I think it plays into "corporations control the government, there's no democracy" narrative.
Essentially means, it doesn't matter what's your position on immigration or gun laws or healthcare, what will determine the administration is the candidate's relationship with Facebook.
I think it feeds from the distrust towards the political system more than the distrust towards Zuckerberg.
If you think about it, the concerns are not entirely baseless. Facebook can analyze the public interest towards the candidates, analyze the candidates campaign and tweak Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp to boost the campaign of the friendly candidate when penalizing the other candidate's campaign. They can do this through tweaking colours, changing the mood of the public(they experimented with that), slowing down interactions that channels where the unfavoured candidates flourish, detect behaviour differences between the candidate supporters(maybe republican share more videos and democrats more written documents? facebook would know) and boost those, affecting the virality of the information flow. What are the users gonna do? Go use Friendster?
I mean, I don't say that FB does these but I can see how some people would want to sharpen their pitchforks when a corporation weights in a political debate.
I'd argue the press has always chosen the political winners (sometimes by accident by always talking negatively about them) and facebook as the new kingmaker is not much different than hearst, gannett, murdoch or soros anointing someone. the main difference is facebook actually abandoning any cohesively human choice in who they pick, shifting blame/responsibility towards an algorithm they write and control but want to remain sentientish in its own ways. i do see some reckless abandon in letting mathematical output get a nearly final say vs just admitting to and owning the existence of editorial discretion.
>changing the mood of the public
its the same type of thing the press has been doing since forever, just more targeted. the change is in scale (both more macro AND more micro) not kind.
> I'd argue the press has always chosen the political winners (sometimes by accident by always talking negatively about them) and facebook as the new kingmaker is not much different than hearst, gannett, murdoch or soros anointing someone.
There's an important difference you're missing: The press isn't monolithic and it's also self-consciously part of the American democratic political order. Facebook is monolithic and it seems to want to shirk its democratic responsibilities much of the time.
I'm not sure I see it as monolithic in its press displaying reach. Facebook, Twitter, GoogleSearch/GoogleNews/Android/Youtube, Apple each have their own way of controlling peoples attention and driving what sites people view, what apps people open. Facebook may or may not be the biggest of those four, but Facebook does not have a monopoly on peoples attention. One could argue Twitter is much smaller than Facebook, but its concentration of celebrities and journalists brings into question its overall utilitarian influence and impact, as opposed to just its raw MAU. The attention of one influential person may change way more in the world than 1000 nonfluencial people.
Because taking a single line out of context is great clickbait. The entire transcript on the verge was posted on HN yesterday and died with 10 upvotes and no comments. This story is much less interesting with context.
> "I don't want to have a major lawsuit against our own government... But look, at the end of the day, if someone's going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight," he said in the recording.
> "It doesn't make election interference less likely. It makes it more likely because now the companies can't co-ordinate and work together," he added.
Microsoft fought releasing data subpoenaed from its Irish data center. Apple fought backdooring iOS for the FBI. AT&T fought against being broken up in the 70s. So why is it surprising that Facebook would fight against it?
I read it as Zuckerberg considering democracy an existential threat to FB, more so than FB a threat to democracy, and thinking that might is right.
Sure, FB is nowhere near special in that, but just because it metastasized all over the place doesn't mean it's not cancer. It's reasonable, just like it was reasonable for Exxon to keep what they knew about fossil fuels and the climate on the down low, reasonable within what I would consider a pathological framework of values.
> I read it as Zuckerberg considering democracy an existential threat to FB
I don't understand how a reasonable person can read it that way.
Here's the full quote:
> That doesn’t mean that, even if there’s anger and that you have someone like Elizabeth Warren who thinks that the right answer is to break up the companies ... I mean, if she gets elected president, then I would bet that we will have a legal challenge, and I would bet that we will win the legal challenge. And does that still suck for us? Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to have a major lawsuit against our own government. I mean, that’s not the position that you want to be in when you’re, you know, I mean … it’s like, we care about our country and want to work with our government and do good things. But look, at the end of the day, if someone’s going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight.
I do not understand how you can interpret that to mean anything other than that the "existential threat" is "to break up the companies". And it would be a far stretch to somehow move the goalposts to say that breaking up the companies is somehow fundamentally an aspect of democracy.
Unless you are willing to tie opposition to anything that any elected official has ever proposed as opposition to democracy itself, I guess.
I read the whole thing, but thanks. And if you misrepresent my position without even asking for clarification, you not understanding it hardly comes as a surprise.
> other than that the "existential threat" is "to break up the companies"
The government derives its legitimacy from the people, and running a corporation is a privilege granted by said government. If it wants to split companies up because they became too powerful, that's perfectly fine. To get all "let's fight" about that is like a dog thinking it actually should sit on the couch because it has teeth.
> Unless you are willing to tie opposition to anything that any elected official has ever proposed as opposition to democracy itself, I guess.
It's not general "opposition" based on reasons that respect the reasons the other side has, it's pure self-interest. I, very much reasonably so, think that that meeting is the tip of an iceberg, and that when Zuck says "go to the mat", he means go to the mat.
> And it would be a far stretch to somehow move the goalposts to say that breaking up the companies is somehow fundamentally an aspect of democracy.
No, but the ability to do so very much is, and should be in no way dependant on the legal prowess or pocket depth of the company subject to that operation.
If you can't put a muzzle and a leash on companies that have the ability to fuck with democracy in a very real and serious way, especially if they show no sign of having any moral compunctions about doing so, you don't have a democracy, you have a theater group in a mall.
Sure, and if you believe that the ACLU and edward snowden are fighting against democracy, then I'll admit that your position is quite possibly logically consistent.
Because Zuckerberg already testified that election influence and interference was not a serious threat, it is newsworthy that he turns around here and says the opposite, that companies would not be able to control interference threats in the face of a breakup.
Also newsworthy is the existential nature of the legal battle he openly talks about, whether or not there is legitimate reason to be broken up as regulations do have a purpose. Especially since in the same audio he admits there are election influence threats to worry about, it seems to pit facebook directly opposed to the democratic system and regulations meant to uphold democracies. Saying we will use our deep pockets which are deeper than the U.S. regulators—to fight any regulatory action (which seems reasonable now) is like saying we will fight against democracy and being fairly regulated because we have more money and power than the people and government do in any legal battle. The rules, it seems, will not apply to FB or any company of similar size and power.
>There's no bombshell revelation in this leak but we get some good insights into Mark Zuckerberg's major preoccupations - regulation and new competitors.
It’s just a unique opportunity to be a fly on the wall in a high profile meeting.
Oh boy is that an understatement. Of course Zuck's strategy if the government attempts to break up Facebook for antitrust or whatever else they can spin together is to fight it legally. Of course his preference is going to be for a presidential candidate who hasn't made an overt commitment to force that break up.
When you are FB or Google or Amazon or you know... Microsoft... there are issues with how the government could ever effectively regulate such an industry with outsized funds (much larger than the fixed regulatory budgets) and power (influencing people and elections). The legal process was never designed to work effectively or efficiently at such a level. The legal process becomes such a war of attrition that you can weather any investigation as Microsoft did.
Microsoft was forced to pay a large fine and significantly change their business practices. The goal was never to destroy Microsoft, and even if the government could have somehow done so that wouldn't have benefited consumers.
Feh. It was a proverbial slap on the wrist. But you're absolutely right: it wasn't about destruction.
At the start of the trial, Microsoft "only" gave about $10K to political campaigns. By the end, they were giving $1M to BOTH parties each year. This was the real problem. The government extorted them for political cover. And it's not like they were picking on them; they just forced them to start paying into the system in proportion to their success, like everyone else is expected to at that level.
The outcome was a settlement as a slap on the wrist for a company that size and that arrogant (did you watch Gates’ testimony?). Really no significant business practices were forced to change either.
Yeah, when I first saw the headlines yesterday, I plunged, happy to have more fodder against a guy as consider really nefarious to the whole internet ecosystem.
But the actual quotes are underwhelming. "Warren wants to break our company. Well, we will go to the courts if she tries." is not exactly a shocking reaction. You don't exactly expect him to agree with Warren's position there.
The idea that Zuckerberg would have ever said anything in a company all hands meetings, that would be shocking if publicly revealed, would suggest a poor lack of planning. Though I suppose he likely speaks rather candidly at these weekly all hands, he has probably always considered this a possibility. That's why he had no issue taking ownership of it, when it leaked. It isn't that damning to say you'll go to bat for the company you founded, if necessary.
I agree completely. If you ignore the subttext that Facebook appears somewhat responsible for sniping elections/referendums with targeted (mis)information campaigns entirely; then this really shouldn’t shock anyone.
But I guess the issue is that the subtext is there.
The bigger thing is a mismatch between the employees of facebook and the management. These weekly meetings happen all the time, what is different is now the employees are recording them and releasing them to the press. This means at least one employee no longer thinks the interest of upper management and the workers align and she or he spent forethought in order to record the conversation and then spent time afterwards figuring out a way to contact the press.
This is a there there, even if the actual conversation transcript is banal and what you would expect from Zuck.
This is big news when the Facebook employees we are referring to starting salary is 120k a year and the median employee is 240k a year. [Note many people who work for facebook are some form of contract employees and thus do not make this, but it was also not a contract employee who recorded this conversation for they do not get to sit down with Mark in these weekly meetings.]
Even if you are not happy with everything about Facebook that income level often prevents this type of behavior for the incentives of company and worker align generally. And it is a big deal for this was a new thing, not a thing that never happens, but also not a thing that happens often that it becomes the new normal.
> This means at least one employee no longer thinks the interest of upper management and the workers align ...
That's strange. I interpreted it to mean that there was a worker that thought that the media was greatly misrepresenting facebook and facebook management's position and they released these extensive transcripts to show just how banal the reality was.
Seems like it doesn't contain anything surprising or terribly noteworthy.
Also, while FB, Instagram and Whats App being under the same umbrella is very questionable (and the Whats App acquisition should have been blocked by regulators), I'd argue breaking up Google or Amazon would be more important.
Is there any concern about the implications of breaking up big tech in an attempt to make US markets more competitive, but in so doing allow a foreign competitor to swoop in and become the de facto choice in some market? I imagine the US benefits substantially from the likes of Google and fb dominating competitors in foreign markets.
This concern does get expressed from time to time, but I think it is sacrificing the long-term for the short-term. Sure, you can prop up bad businesses through government intervention in the short term, and we do it all the time.
But in the long term, they're still bad businesses, and you end up with entire industries that are dysfunctional. Eventually, someone else eats your lunch.
In fact you can argue that's happening now, as the article hints: Zuck was able to assimilate Whatsapp and IG into his bloated empire, but he can't buy TikTok and its 500M users because it's from China. Maybe if FB has been forced to actually compete with its biggest American competitors instead of getting the greenlight from regulators to just buy them, it would be in a better position now.
Rarely are anti-trust measures needed to break up bad businesses. It's the good (well, good in the sense of effective, profitable, etc) businesses that tend to be the focus of those.
> Rarely are anti-trust measures needed to break up bad businesses. It's the good (well, good in the sense of effective, profitable, etc) businesses that tend to be the focus of those.
The same business can look good or bad depending on your perspective. Mylan is a great business from its shareholders perspective and a bad business from everyone else's, because it gouges consumers by charging $600 for some that costs ~$15.
It's a neutral business from my perspective (I've never needed a Mylan product). Medicine is a tricky space to operate in, and regulate, because monopolies exist almost by default (if your company finds a cure for something, the gov. grants 'monopoly' rights for 20 years). Also Pharma companies often service small markets, but of extremely loyal customers (because their life depends on it). The space is essentially anticompetitive by design; even if there was a bunch capable pharma companies in the same space, they couldn't provide competition without major regulator hurdles. Just ask Sanofi, and Teva...
Sanofi made AuviQ (EpiPen clone) but pulled out after regulators made Sanofi do a full-scale recall after several injector faults. Teva was set to provide its own generic version, but in the final stages of the review process, it was rejected by the FDA.
The solution was to create policy (and to punish Mylan for breaking policy that already existed). Conducting an antitrust break-up of Mylan would have only made things worse imo.
> He repeatedly refused to attend meetings with politicians in the UK, sending other Facebook representatives in his place. "I did hearings in the US. I did hearings in the EU," he said. "It just doesn't really make sense for me to go to hearings in every single country that wants to have me show up [...]"
It was flagged by users—correctly so, because this seems like just back-and-forth political ephemera, of the sort that the HN guidelines explain is off topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
The test on HN for whether a new development in an ongoing story counts as on topic is whether the new article adds significant new information: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... When that happens, it will surely be fully discussed on HN.
Dang, that is not a stringent test any of kind. It is highly arbitrary. It is a list of your previous decisions on whether a post is new information—most of which are simply declarations of your decision and provide no stringent rules to test.
It also doesn’t explain why the previous topic was locked and deleted. This new information had just been broken and not posted here before with the specific story coverage on Zuckerberg’s election interference comments. All that had been posted before was the raw audio leak/transcripts but not real journalism coverage of the significance like techcrunch. Theverge literally had one sentence of journalistic coverage on this: “In language that is often more candid than he typically uses in his public comments, Zuckerberg seeks to rally the company against Facebook’s competitors, critics, and the US government.”
And because it’s in every readers interest to be informed why certain actions are taken, I have no option but to show the community the rest of the conversation here which I don’t see you giving any attention to in your post (which is concerning).
>rollingdeep: Article is opinionated as many on HN but represents an important current news story to discuss. By all means the source can be substituted for a less opinionated one if an alternative source of similar coverage exists (I did not find any at the time). I have not found a negative comment that does not misquote the article, nor is anyone able to reply with correct info or bring more substance in response such as the disturbing history of antitrust lawsuits funded by Microsoft that surpass even the funding by the government.
>dang: This seems to me to be political back-and-forth of the moment and therefore off topic by the site guidelines. Sorry; I understand that interpretations of these things can differ.
Daniel (moderator)
>rollingdeep: So you are saying you would not have allowed the coverage of the Microsoft antitrust suits at the time on HN (if HN existed in the 1990’s and early 2000’s)? If find that difficult to believe.
>dang: I'm not saying that. What antitrust suit is happening right now? I was under the impression that there isn't one yet; just political sniping between advocates for either side of one which may or may not happen.
Daniel
>rollingdeep: Google and Facebook are currently being investigated by by 50 attorney generals (of 50 U.S. states) in an antitrust probe. That is more than political sniping. These new comments by Zuckerberg are a direct result of this regulatory action that is already in motion, which would obviously come under even closer scrutiny under a Warren presidency (she is the current leading candidate in the U.S. polls). The story here is:
1: Zuckerberg openly talks about funding a major legal battle that would very likely outsize any normal regulatory budgets (that are more or less fixed in size) to enforce U.S. antitrust regulations—similar to how Microsoft was able to escape regulatory interventions by funding a legal war of attrition against the U.S. government, even though the anticompetitive behavior was well known and evident.
2: Zuckerberg talks about not being able to control election influences in the face of a breakup. This is rather odd considering that he testified that nefarious election influence via facebook was not a serious threat. It implies there is power to influence elections and there are implications suggesting FB may use this power for their own purposes or as a bargaining chip in regulatory actions.
Again, this is more than political sniping.
>dang: When said antitrust probe generates significant new information, that will be on topic on HN and get lots of discussion. Articles about what candidates say during election campaigns, not so much. If we're to treat all those as on topic, there won't be room for anything else.
Warren said some stuff; Zuckerberg said some stuff; Warren said some more stuff. Politicians and CEOs say lots of things. I don't think that meets the bar for significant new information, and I'm pretty sure the bulk of the HN community would agree, which explains why the submission got flagged.
Daniel
>rollingdeep: Again, I find that very difficult to believe Daniel. If you feel so strongly that your are correct, please explain this time how this news not significant new information. You can’t just declare that and not present evidence of your declaration. I just summed up what was significant in what was said by Zuckerberg beyond any “back and forth” and you completely ignored that and hand waved it away without directly addressing any of the significance of that content.
You also appear to be appealing to whatever users would like to flag this news beyond it not being newsworthy. Just because there are users that dislike any negative news about FB whether it is newsworthy or not, does not prove a topic was appropriately flagged for being too political. I’m afraid your logic does not add up.
Please do a solid and present a comment from the discussion that you believe accurately articulates how this news is not at all significant, how there is not enough HN appropriate content (again, Microsoft would have been no different), and does not misquote or hand wave away the opposing points presented.
I’m confident you can’t present any such comment because they don’t exist—because they fail to meet a stringent set of stipulations and actual scrutiny. To be honest I feel your decisions here are not meeting any stringent standards of enforcing HN policy. This enforcement feels rather arbitrary.
>dang: I'm sorry it feels arbitrary. I think we're looking at this from different perspectives and continuing to argue about it will likely only be repetitive.
One thing's for sure: if antitrust action against Facebook or other big tech cos does go ahead, it will get thoroughly and repeatedly discussed on HN. So our positions will converge in the long run.
I just don't think "candidate says X" is substantive enough to meet the bar—keep in mind that front page space is the scarcest resource on HN, so every important story gets insufficient attention, and whatever story you care most about, it's always going to feel like it's starved for coverage. (I'm sure even Rust hackers feel the same way.) I appreciate your passion on the topic and the fact that you care enough about HN to take time to make a case about it.
Daniel
>rollingdeep: The only way this has been repetitive is that I have repeated my simple request for you to directly address the specific concerns instead of a general dismissal on your part. If you cared to directly engage the content, this would not be repetitive. Alas, I don’t believe you care about such news even if it is legitimately significant which you have failed demonstrate otherwise. Per my reasonable requests, you haven’t even attempted to directly engage the content and substance, but you have generally dismissed it.
I’m afraid because you have no interest in the significance of this kind of news, that the spread of such information is hampered. Do you realize that you are effectively influencing the spread of information, and this news is highly relevant to that and you? Just as Facebook has the power to influence the spread of information, so does HN. I see no reason to hamper/suppress this discussion as you are allowing, except perhaps the suppression of this information/discussion is preferable to you and Y Combinator.
On some level there is no guarantee of actual regulatory action without public education and public support of those issues and regulatory actions. Your decisions seem to support obstructing the spread of that information and letting the facts bubble to the surface of public consciousness.
Thus I completely disagree with your decisions on a factual basis.
That's actually the first time where Zuck officially acknowledges breaking up Fb and Google is a possibility, placing this onto the agenda for future (or even current) US administration and campaigns apart from Elizabeth Warrens plans. Fb should never have been allowed to buy WhatsApp, nor should've Google's DoubleClick and YouTube acquisition been allowed.
> "It just doesn't really make sense for me to go to hearings in every single country that wants to have me show up and, frankly, doesn't have jurisdiction to demand that."
While this is technically true, I am not quite sure that it is the way to manage this kind of relationship.
As European I am pretty pissed off just by this affirmation.
I think the EU showed how powerful it is, not it might not have jurisdiction over Facebook's headquarters but they certainly do have over their local businesses
> > Azerbaijan
> This is a very wide definition of Europe...
wtf? what definition of Europe doesn't include Azerbaijan?
> As European I am pretty pissed off just by this affirmation.
According to wikipedia, there are 50 countries in Europe. So are you truly pissed off that he would say that it doesn't make sense for him to go to Malta or Azerbaijan just because they want to parade him before some cameras? And that the company would be happy to send a representative that is senior/authorized to represent them in such legal proceedings.
Or maybe you just mean, well, you don't count those smaller countries. Just the big ones. In which case, the UK would be behind 4 other european countries by population. And if that's what you feel matters, maybe he should first go to the 7 chinese provinces with greater population and the 7 indian provinces. And all that would just be if we accept the UK as the very minimum of what he would have to go to if requested.
Really the whole idea is nonsense. The idea that the CEO of some company needs to be at the beck and call of every elected official in some podunk country is crazy.
> what definition of Europe doesn't include Azerbaijan?
From the Wikipedia article you mention: """The UN Statistics Department places Azerbaijan in Western Asia for statistical convenience: "The assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories." The CIA World Factbook places Azerbaijan in South Western Asia, with a small portion north of the Caucasus range in Europe. National Geographic and Encyclopædia Britannica also place Georgia in Asia."""
England is in Europe yet. I put that other thing in there to point out that he's not going to go to some random country not claiming (or non-claiming) that Azerbaijan is in Europe.
I'm sad about this. It appears to me that the original was buried, despite being interesting and extremely relevant for HN, because it doesn't fit the popular narrative of Zuckerberg being an uncaring evil robot. This BBC article appears to fit that narrative better, labeling him "combative" and "paranoid" despite his comments being perfectly reasonable IMO.
i'm not sure what a breakup can accomplish beside populist political goals. I meant to avoid losing the great societal benefits of the large networks the resulting post-breakup components/parts would have to be interoperational. Then why not enforce interoperability upon the too big players right now? Why not enforce that any client can be used for Twitter, that any player can federate/aggregate Twitter, and that any user can firehose its own data and the data of any users who gave permission? Why not enforce Facebook to allow firehose the data in similar manner and to accept posts/updates/etc. from other social networks, like posting Snaps into IG feed? Or Lyft (or some small unknown operator) ride requests routed through Uber.
Any "platform" should come with API gateway with legally enforced generous performance guarantees and providing read/write access to all the user data and user visible services of the "platform". That would increase competition, give small and innovative players a chance, decrease the "winner takes all" with associated excesses and distortions and provide even greater societal benefit of making those networks even larger without the networks controlled by any one "platform". Instead of costly and obsolete breakup approach, the enforcing of interoperability and data access must become the battle cry of progressives. That would be the infrastructure of the 21st century which would even allow to efficiently approach even the super-issues like healthcare.
It will naturally break apart just as news media broke apart along liberal and conservative, national and regional lines. There have been and continue to be attempts to consolidate news into as few orgs as possible. But beyond a 'tipping point' consolidation fails even though it's technically and economically more efficient. Because it's socially inefficient. (Same is true of religions and nations btw as population grows differences grow too and then things break). Even in democracies you can constantly see this breakage going as districts and counties across the world keep having their boundaries redrawn.
Many newspapers have died out because the more inter networked we get it's more efficient to consolidate. Info flows around gatekeepers as the network gets more and more connected. Yet notice how we have so many news sources divided along social differences. They resist merging with each other.
Those same forces resist consolidation of 6 billion people onto a single network.
This has already happened with China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, North Korea etc where the differences are stark. Many countries are already demanding local data centers. As soon as that happens it's guaranteed some political entity will misuse the data to hold onto power and further pressure builds.
Give it time and few more elections where one side has to loose (we will see many more Obama/Trump/Brexit type event where one group goes viral and beats another) and the pressure on the consolidated network will keep growing from the disappointed parties. This is still early days in the history of a social network.
Niall Ferguson's book The Square and the Tower is full of examples from history of how networks of people grown, merge and break apart. Highly recommended for anyone interested in this stuff.
As Chief Executive, it's his responsibility to prevent the dismantling of the company. Why would anyone expect him to roll over and accept it? It wouldn't be want shareholders would want.
Is anyone able to educate me on why there seem to be some air of hawks swooping on Zuckerberg because of this?