Sorry, Mr Zuckerberg isn't in London that day. Or that one. Nope. I'd give up if I were you "Delay, deny and deflect." Turns out Facebook's strategy for dealing with major threats works pretty well for small fry too because Mark Zuckerberg has once again turned down MPs' advances. The UK's digital committee has been trying to get Mark Zuckerberg to have a chat with them since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in …
So maybe, as a government, you should apply a Chinese style model? You don't reply, we block you. Or maybe better, all UK users can still reach FB, but only through our MITM portal, which strips it of all nasties like revenue generating ads, kills data slurp, the sky is the limit. And then, if revenue falters and evaporates, then Zuck will be swimming to the white cliffs personally. I know, that comes close to state controlled censorship, but hey, you want to convince me we're in the clear completely today?
On a lot of levels. Think of it this way - when the press is on a witch hunt, and especially if you're partway guilty of what they want to hang on you - there is NOTHING you can say or do that will make it better, only worse, and your best option is just to shut up.
We have a rather well known politician on this side of the pond who hasn't yet figured this out....On the other hand, he has a lot less actual influence on most matters than MarkZ, other than captivating the press utterly, even or especially those who hate him most...I guess it's a trick to keep them out of other trouble.
And being the press they've either not figured this out yet, being even dumber - or they are using it to distract attention from something else they'd rather not have in the spotlight.
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Maybe they are taking transparency to a new level ...."what, you wanted to ask me questions in your committee? but I was there all day, didn't you see me?"
(For those with long memories of BBC R4 comedy then years ago one program (thanks to google - it was "Son of Cliche") had a recurring segment of the "on going adventures of captain invisible and his trusty side-kick the see through kid" with the humour based around captain invisible and the kid seeming to be completely unable to understand that no-one else could see them ... one of the best lines was "hey kid, I was on this toilet first"!)
@Mark 85 - Not just taxes, also blame. Lots of juicy blame. Blame that's well-deserved, alongside general scapegoating. The former is limited to what they do deserve; the latter is unlimited. Kind-of, the role telly played a generation ago in What's Wrong With Society.
Not that I want to defend them. I've never used them, and I'm not about to excuse their Enclosure of the Commons. But I do find it more than a bit ridiculous when posturing politicians make a big issue of wanting one particular individual from a bigco. If we apply an IR35-like test, $company should be free to send a face of its own choosing to do a particular job - like answering to the politicians. Unless we're going to claim Zuck is the government's employee and can't be substituted!
And thus begins the Facebook circular firing squad on the C-Suite floor.
Sheryl Sandberg appears to be toast at the moment. That might change, though. She might have photos.
From the NY Times article:
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, has overseen an aggressive campaign to fight critics and ward off regulation.
And she wants to be Prez.
Sheryl, honey, you just don't know when to stop.
Stack up on popcorn, this one's gonna be fun to watch.
Sigh, I'm sure I've heard it somewhere before... let me consult my reference sources... ah, there:
Kim Jong-il: (in English) Hans, you're breaking my balls here, Hans. You're breaking my balls!
Hans Blix: I'm sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me see your whole palace, or else...
Kim Jong-il: (in English) Or else what?
Hans Blix: Or else we will be very, very angry with you. And we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are.
Wow, them's fightin' words. The Zuck must be tremblin' in his boots.
Guys, how much are you worth already ? Put together ? Right.
And what can you do against him, exactly ? Right.
Let me spell it out for you : until you make refusing or evading an international committee "invitation" illegal and place it under the purview of an international warrant, he's got zero incentive to waste his time with you.
"Wow, them's fightin' words"
Oh, great. I set out to find the origin of a well known expression that I nonetheless fail to place as a quote, and of course I end up learning about Yet Another Reason "free speech" isn't.
....even makes the slightest indication that Apple could be in the right on something tangential to the story, you know you've gone over the line. On the other hand, the wild west that the Face Book, etc, have enjoyed for the past decade is ripe for taming. Mark and his ilk have made massive amounts of money monetizing and dehumanizing people, all in the guise of creating a digital utopia. To stay unanswerable for the consequences is unacceptable. In the past, when companies or industries have gotten too big or bold for their britches, the government has stepped in to (at least at first) bring some sanity about. It's true that many regulations and regulators have surpassed and vastly expanded their edicts, but that is another problem for another day. It would not hurt any of these companies to feel the real bite of law (if laws existed that governed them), nor hurt their "innovation" of making money selling ads to people. Some degree of genuine accountability is in order. The other side of the equation, of course, is over reaction by the government, but when applied to tech companies this has been either ineffectual or toothless in the long run, and thus not hurt them at all. A bit like telling your child to improve their grades or you'll reduce the data plan for their cellphone.
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