"Is it true facebook can track user browsers even after they are logged out of facebook?"<p>Zuck: "I need to get back to you on that"
It's pretty cringe-y so far. From The Verge's liveblog:
"I would liken this hearing so far to a precocious college junior explaining his major to his grandparents at Thanksgiving"
I guess I'm still confused about this matter. As I understand it, nothing was exploited. A company used intrinsic capabilities of the system to do a job. Are we just raising the question of whether this is an appropriate business model? I suppose that's a good discussion to have.<p>I'm just a bit miffed that we're effectively holding another obscenities hearing while the only thing going on with the Equifax debacle is that a tech manager has been charged with insider trading.
When you ask general questions you get "We did not do anything illegal, we did something wrong though; but, people do not read Terms Of Use/Privacy, and they do not read manuals"<p>When you ask very specific questions you get "I need to get back to you on that", right?<p>There is clearly a conflict of interest there. In a public hearing the CEO of his own company is basically forced into giving up their trade secrets on how and why his company even got so successful in the business of ad targeting.<p>The question is: In his place, what would you do? Tell everything and potentially break your own company, your system, life achievement, whatever? Or be careful and vague to save it? I'm not trying to defend his position, but rather to understand it. In any case, he maneuvered himself and his company in a situation where it'll be impossible to keep secrets anymore. Nothing will ever be the same, and he is responsible for it, because it was his idea and his intention behind enabling his company to <i>connect people</i> by selling ads.
Wow. I didn't expect that he'd speak in favor of 'special features like facial recognition' by arguing that it's how we can be competitive with 'other regimes like China'. That seems like a comparison I'd avoid if I was facebook.
This image from Reddit purports to be Mark’s notes from the meeting: <a href="https://i.redd.it/egi0jlf096r01.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.redd.it/egi0jlf096r01.jpg</a> . Some interesting stuff in there if true.
Am I missing something? Take the Senator who spoke about monopolies. An oil monopoly is bad because we all need to get to work and trains need to run. Microsoft monopoly, arguable but I can see how it can be bad. All companies end up using Microsoft and this affects everyone, hospitals, schools ... Facebook is optional, we won't starve, hospitals won't close, aeroplanes will continue if we delete Facebook. Is this an acceptance that modern man cannot but keep up with the Jones. Just because my neighbour and school friends are on Facebook, I need to be on Facebook. Don't mind though me as an African we have some way to go before this becomes a burning issue.
I’m streaming it along side graphs of Facebook’s stock price here: <a href="https://twitch.tv/tareqak" rel="nofollow">https://twitch.tv/tareqak</a> and I posted it on HN earlier here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16803453" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16803453</a> .
Live from the testimony, emphasis mine:<p>> MZ: "There will always be <i>a version</i> of Facebook that is free.<p>Coming soon, Facebook Pro(TM)! Literally putting a price on your privacy.
I call BS on actual deleting all user data when someone deletes his account. If some whistle blower proves otherwise is he liable for prosecution for perjury?
Some poor Senator just went on a rabbit hunt to discuss FB's bug bounty program. Who are these Congressional staffers?<p>Tech illiteracy is on full-display; we're not even talking 'power-users' (who were on UseNet, btw), these people are lost. Zuckerberg had to be gracious and say his team would follow-up on many things that it was clear the Senator didn't even understand. This is supposed to be our smart chamber.
Mark Zuckerberg does not believe he has a monopoly. He believes there is an alternative to Facebook in the way that different car manufacturers have different competitors.<p>Surely he can't mean this, right?
> Senator: Would you feel comfortable sharing with us what hotel you stayed at last night?<p>> <i>awkward pause</i><p>> MZ: No.<p>I like where this is going.
Sen. Durbin just talked Zuckerberg out of a qualification that certain children's data "in general" will not be shared with third parties. He pinned Zuck to a no, because "as a lawyer" he picked up on it. There's a perfectly valid reason for the "in general" qualification! If your child is using the app and police obtain a warrant for the data, Facebook will likely have to release it! I wonder how much Zuck's desire to be "straightforward" and answer questions unequivocally here is causing Facebook counsel to cringe.
Some more important questions to ask :<p>Facebooks customers are the ad buyers. I and my data is the product. Mark says I should have control over which of my personal data is shared to whom.<p>1) But can I control which of my behavioral data (ad clicks, etc) can be collected and used by facebook and provided to the ad buyers? Can I say nothing be collected , even in anonymized manner?<p>2) Primary selling point to ad buyers is facebook provides them ability to do targeted advertisement. Granted over time facebook has limited discriminatory targeting (Race based, political inclination based) etc to comply with anti-discrimination laws. But as a user, do I have control over how I can be classified, what legal category labels facebook can apply on me and my data? And whether I want to be classified into any category at all ?
Say what you will about the intelligence of agreeing to do this hearing at all, at least Zuckerberg is clearly reading from a well-prepared speech. Winging it would have been, er, inadvisable.
The tenor, the awareness, the culture of questions that 70-year-old senators are turning to Zuckerberg at the congress would make you cheer for Facebook. Even if you previously hated it.
His notes are quite fascinating: <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/becket/status/983846618263891968?s=21" rel="nofollow">https://mobile.twitter.com/becket/status/983846618263891968?...</a><p>I wouldn't read too much on the comment that they don't already comply with GDPR. It's likely it only means they would not comply with an Access Request before the effective date (5/25).
I'm an extremely reluctant Facebook user (having recently moved countries, my whole family and all my friends are on it). I strongly dislike the company; I don't trust the CEO. My use of the platform is in moderation and occurs within a Firefox container.<p><i>> Zuckerberg (opening testimony): I failed. I'm sorry.</i><p>All of that being said, that's some serious growth in maturity, and I'd like to see more of it across the tech industry.
There seem to be multiple feeds with different angles. The one posted by the Guardian is currently pointed at the current person speaking, e.g. the Senators. Bloomberg, though, has a feed in which the camera is focused on Zuckerberg's face for the entirety of the hearing:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyJosQBtzsw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyJosQBtzsw</a>
Washington Post is streaming this on Twitch <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/washingtonpost" rel="nofollow">https://www.twitch.tv/washingtonpost</a>
I would not be surprised if Zuckerberg were given a script of certain senators questions prior to this hearing.<p>A majority of the questioning seems targeted at inspiring consumer confidence in facebook.<p>This isn't about serving the American people, this is about protecting corporation's ability to sell citizens personal data.
US senators demonstrating they are embarrassingly out of touch with the current age.<p>Also sad to see a senator resorting to dramatic effects like taking off his glasses before making a grand statement.<p>These people are running your country?
Now that it's all over, my take away is less cynical. To me, even the Rep. senators know what this meeting was all about: Donny. Zuck came in, said that this whole fiasco with Donny is not going to happen again. The senators got him on record telling them as such, so that they have leverage on him to actually follow through. Yes, they talked a lot about other stuff too, but we are unlikely to see the mess of the 2016 election again.<p>Also, they seemed to favor having FANG write the laws about these data service. This will entrench them nearly permanently as competitors will then have to go through all the hoops of complying with regulation, something too costly for a start-up. When that happens, that's the end of Web 2.0.
Honest question: are hearings before congress, particularly from tech companies, any more than opportunities for politicians to grandstand and demand business leaders "kiss the ring"? I.e., is anything consequential ever done as a result?
Lindsay Graham and Mark Zuckerberg colluding together in favor of regulatory capture. Graham asks Zuckerberg if he would kindly offer some regulatory suggestions to the committee. And Zuckerberg gleefully responds in the affirmative.<p>Yeah, great idea. The regulated become the authors of the regulations. What could possibly go wrong with that.
Interesting. I think what the last guy was trying to ask was whether the data from apps that have facebook analytics (pixel?) installed is cross-referenced with your facebook account. It's a shame he didn't ask it more clearly and allowed Zuck to dodge by saying apps are 'isolated' on the phone.
Just witnessed a Freudian slip <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4722688/freudian-slip" rel="nofollow">https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4722688/freudian-slip</a>
For a low bitrate (~40kbps), audio only stream, check out C-SPAN: <a href="https://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/api/livestream-redirect/CSPANRADIO.mp3" rel="nofollow">https://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/api/livestream-red...</a>
Ted Cruz clearly showing that he's a partisan hack. Didn't give a crap about users' privacy or the issues at hand, he had to make it about 'liberal Silicon Valley' and 'conservative persecution'. What a joke.
He was very evasive about Facebook tracking users outside of their FB site and mobile apps. Kept saying he doesn't understand the question and "team will get back to you".<p>It's unfortunate no one (that I've seen) brought up the presence of the Like button and Facebook comments on a large portion of the web, which means Facebook knows pretty much most of the sites and pages you visit (even if the site you visit doesn't include any FB widgets, but the next one you click to does, since they also track the referrer header).
The point about "not selling data to advertisers" and how Facebook is so totally different was so cringy.<p>Just one follow-up question was needed: if I take out 100 ads microtargeting users, what happens then?
The senators involved with the hearing certainly had <i>some</i> good questions, but some of the topics appeared scattershot and could have benefited from a narrower focus on FB's data collection and technical issues, though obviously the Senators and staff would need to understand the issues at a deeper level. However, touching on the issue of data ownership and the terms of service for both FB and Kogan's app was a somewhat interesting and satisfying portion of the hearing.<p>By far the dumbest questions through the entire meeting, though:<p><pre><code> Sasse: "Do you hire consultants to tell you how to tap into dopamine feedback loops to keep people addicted?"
</code></pre>
and (this one had me rolling)<p><pre><code> Senator Deb Fischer: "How many categories of data do you collect for all 2bn users?"
Zuckerberg: [acts confused]
</code></pre>
That said, perhaps Zuckerberg's vague and generic answers could have been a result of ill preparation on -his- side, too. The CEO, while the head of a company is only involved so much in the day-to-day issues and goings-on. As the spokesperson, he didn't do much by way of transparency or work to improve FB's reputation today. Maybe some technical staff should additionally be interviewed. A list of potential topics prepared by staffers, to be discussed at the hearing would help Zuckerberg in figuring out what information he should know.
Can we stop referring to 'controls in plain English'? ML models that microtarget people cannot easily be explained in plain English, and that is what they are doing.
I wonder if MZ have targeted adds on his own facebook account. There seems to be some special rules for him (and probably other 'higher ups' in the facebook hierarchy), thinking primarily about: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-to-let-users-unsend-messages-after-mark-zuckerberg-caught-2018-4?r=US&IR=T&IR=T" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-to-let-users-unsend-...</a>.
Zuckerberg appeared to enjoy testifying. Nobody appeared able to match wits with him, and if questions got difficult, he had well rehearsed escape routes.
In case you want to check if a speaker has accepted contributions from FB (read "corrupt and failed to disclose conflict of interest") <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/search?q=facebook&type=orgs" rel="nofollow">https://www.opensecrets.org/search?q=facebook&type=orgs</a>
Some months ago I saw an job search website ad. I clicked "Why are you seeing this ad?", and it said it was targeted towards users between 24 and 37. How is this not enabling age discrimination?<p>Connecting people can be a good thing, but connecting people through discrimination is a completely different thing.
Reading the transcripts there seems to be a lot of grandstanding. While it makes for a nice drama, if these people were serious about protecting privacy (haha), we'd be talking about meaningful privacy laws instead.<p>This reads like a group of senators begging Mark Zuckerberg to respect privacy.
I'm not from US, can someone explain how bad it is if anything that Zuckerberg said during the whole session proves to be false/lie/wrong later on? Is it considered perjury, or is perjury only specific for courts/legal matters?
MZ has been well prepared it seems. They pay a LOT for their lobbyists, and his answers have the very cogent, clear, forceful sound of someone who has been well prepared.
The idiot should have used a lawyer to OK every answer. He made several huge legal errors by accepting full responsibility for content, always debatable for a protected media carrier.<p>I am indifferent to whether Facebook survives, since I saw the poor privacy control since the beginning. High flying social competitors like GeoCities and MySpace died in the past. This could happen to Facebook too.
Yes, the hearing is a show. But...
Yesterday, a major social network app in China (Neihan), with hundreds of millions of users get shut down perpetually by government orders. In the meantime, several major social products are removed from China mobile app stores.<p>Just feel lucky you still have a hearing.
I'm pretty impressed with how well the chairmen are grilling Mark. He's dodging a bit and they're not having any of it.<p>I've never seen a hearing on this sort of thing before, but given the generational gap and the news that Facebook had donated to the campaigns of almost all of the people on the committee, I was expecting Zuck to get off early.
So this isn't exactly related to the testimony but I'm genuinely curious: is it normal for someone giving testimony to use a booster like seat? I mean it was a pretty thick cushion. I was surprised to see Zuck using one especially since the seat is already padded.
Is there a youtube video to watch the full thing beginning to end? It's really hard to read the article that is linked. It is interspersed with so many ads. Kind of ironic.
You can watch the whole thing here: <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?443543-1/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-testifies-data-protection&live" rel="nofollow">https://www.c-span.org/video/?443543-1/facebook-ceo-mark-zuc...</a><p>My thought so far:<p>* he's fielding questions pretty well, honestly.<p>* He's donated to 46/55 of them: <a href="https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/04/07/2326242/facebook-donated-to-46-of-55-members-on-committee-that-will-question-zuckerberg" rel="nofollow">https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/04/07/2326242/facebook-do...</a><p>* Facebook mostly funds democrats: <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000033563&type=P&cycle=A" rel="nofollow">https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000033563&ty...</a><p>* Every single Democrat senator has brought up Russia<p>* This is being used to further the Russiagate narrative that benefits the DNC by distracting from [Democrat corruption](<a href="http://observer.com/2016/07/clinton-rewards-wasserman-schultzs-shady-behavior-with-new-job/" rel="nofollow">http://observer.com/2016/07/clinton-rewards-wasserman-schult...</a>)<p>tl;dr: More protection of the establishment in what is superficially the grilling of a tech giant
"What a story, only in America right?" [About facebook's origin]<p>Zuck: "Well, senator there are big Chinese internet compani.."<p>"The answer is yes, you're supposed to say yes".<p>So much about China. Only in America. The answer is mandatory, it's "Yes".