Facebook. What a mess. Mark Zuckerberg’s two day appearance before Congress has everyone riveted. He’s clearly been incredibly well prepped, expertly responding without answering.
Tons has been written about this, but here are three posts that stood out to me:
- Carolina Milanesi of Creative Strategies walks you through this reaction poll, asking questions about Facebook and trust.
One takeaway:
Only 15% of our panelists said there is nothing Facebook can do to regain trust as they are just ready to move on to something else.
I would have thought that number would be much higher.
- During Zuckerberg’s testimony, Associated Press photographer Andrew Harnik took this picture of MarkZ’s briefing notes. One subset of those notes were focused on Apple. John Gruber dug into those, with a post titled Regarding Mark Zuckerberg’s Unused Talking Points on Tim Cook and Apple.
First things first, this is absolutely worth reading. Gruber digs deep, deconstructs those talking points. Brilliant.
I have to say, I am surprised that no one in that room thought to bring up a comparison between Apple and Facebook when it comes to privacy. Would have been good to give some expert witnesses, who really understand the subtleties at play here, the chance to ask Zuckerberg some specific questions, to help guide the conversation.
- Finally, here’s a video (embedded below) from The Verge’s Russell Brandom, talking about Facebook, Zuckerberg’s testimony, and shadow profiles. It’s only 3:28 and well worth your time.
Even his use of the Bezos quote makes no sense. Amazon users are also Amazon customers. FB users, what this is all about here, are not FB’s customers.
I can’t remember the senator’s name but she read a question about “data points” that was obviously prepared by her staff and while the basic question was a good one, she had no clue what she was talking about and Zuck slipped out of it easily.
How many individual data points does FB record on each of its users (and users outside of FB)? For example, name, gender, location, etc.
Simple. Yes, she mucked it up and he slipped out of it.
We still don’t know and I doubt we’ll ever know.
And, given that I deleted my FB account many many years ago, do they still maintain a shadow account on me? How could I ever find out?
I’m looking forward to hearing about the implementation of the GDPR in May. At least a couple of folks I know might personally benefit from it.
I was not surprised by how many in the joint committee know so little about Facebook, its business model and the internet in general. (What other issues like health care are they similarly uneducated about? I suspect too many.)
What did surprise me a bit was how many in the joint committee thought the hearing was a suitable forum to ask Zuckerberg to assist their districts with broadband initiatives.
All many of them know how to do is fund-raising. Other skills are rare, or have atrophied.
And what’s the likelihood that those inquiring about broadband also receive PAC money from carriers who’ve stalled on promises to install broadband?
Good point about empty promises. Sad.
I wish someone had pointed out that most among the joint committee are actually Zuckerberg’s customers. As candidates, they buy services from Facebook during the election cycle.
The sky’s not falling, but the hearing demonstrated, to me anyway, that personal data protection has a long way to go…in the US.
All the senators have one thing in common. They’re old. And that’s why they have no real clue as to what Facebook does.
If we could have some young peo…but they don’t really care do they?
Much of what has been written about this enquiry is by oldies. It’d be interesting to hear what young people have to say about this.
Call me cynical but i think they’re more interested in the filter they choose for their next selfie or smashed avocado breakfast.
There are younger senators who care and actually asked legitimate questions, having researched this issue before the hearing. We don’t hear about them much, because the old fools are funnier than coverage of genuine policy-making.