Mark Zuckerberg apologizes in full-page newspaper ads | Hacker News Reader

Mark Zuckerberg apologizes in full-page newspaper ads

theverge.com

47 pointsaylmao47 comments

> "We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can't, we don't deserve it."

There are 2 problems with this:

1. You didn't, so you don't.

2. Deserve it? What? Why would you deserve our information?? You don't deserve our information, or anything, really. This is a business transaction. You provide a service, that we pay for with our data. How much of our data is your service worth, is what needs to be discussed.

> deserve our information

Deserve the responsibility.

3. Don’t apologize if it’s obvious that you’re being incredibly insincere, unless you’re a great actor. People can smell that kind of non-apology a mile off, and they’ll hate you for it, and distrust any apology that comes later.

4. Don’t make a big show of being apologetic if it’s likely that there’s another shoe waiting to drop; that looks less like an apology and more like a coverup.

5. Don’t make obviously misleading, false, or self-serving statements in an apology.

This kinda feels to me like making a donation to a competing propaganda firm as if to smooth things over in the intra-politics of influence.

I mean, is he really trying to genuinely apologize to the victims here? Is this the most sincere idea FB had? Pretty lame.

I will repeat my previous post:

I expected a non-conditional apology but there he is blaming on a single app being able to extract data. We dont want apology for the breach, we want apology for collecting all the data for so many years. We want to FB to delete the data they have collected even if it means a massive reduction in advertisement revenues. But I guess none of his algorithms can foresee the end of FB.com in the western part of the world.

Good night sweet prince.

>We dont want apology for the breach, we want apology for collecting all the data for so many years.

Please don't feign surprise that facebook has been collecting your data. Everyone knew, but expected some level of privacy and security with the platform. That's what was breached here.

>We want to FB to delete the data they have collected even if it means a massive reduction in advertisement revenues.

That would be nice. The fact we all have to be very careful as to what we share with facebook makes it an almost unusable platform for privacy minded individuals.

>But I guess none of his algorithms can foresee the end of FB.com in the western part of the world. >Good night sweet prince.

Haha, if you think this marks the end of facebook... This is just, unfortunately, a larger political maneuver. Just watch.

Please don't feign surprise that facebook has been collecting your data. Everyone knew, but expected some level of privacy and security with the platform. That's what was breached here.

I’ve never had an account with them, but they buy records, they get to me through friends, family, and acquaintances. I expect some level of privacy when I don’t even use their sinking platform. I also expect that regulation is coming for FB, Uber, and the rest of Silicon Valley, and it’s about damned time. It’s too bad that it’s going to hurt people and companies that do nothing objectionable, but I prefer that to Facebook swaying elections and Uber killing people with their substandard SDV’s.

He used (newspaper) ads to "apologize" for allowing advertisers to use data gathered on his ad-supported info sharing platform to increase effectiveness of their ads.

Why did I quote the word apologize? Well, a sincere apology needs to be backed up by a change that reflects the apologiser's understanding of what he did wrong. I did not see any of that (yet), and I expect it to be a really hard thing to change in a huge business that make money off what he apologizes for.

So it's not a sincere apology, it is... an ad.

Wait. What's weird is that they already closed the vector that CA used three years ago when this was first reported. From the NYT interview from earlier this week, what FB is working on now is a feature that'll let you see what apps may have been able to see your data through a friend. I'm curious what else they're going to do.

I wonder if Zuck's gonna be like "Fuck it, no more apps. Fuck apps. No one can see your data but us and we're going to lock it down 100%."

Can anyone who regularly uses Facebook comment on what possible negative outcomes would come out of them shutting down apps or APIs that export your data?

I wonder if we'll end up with some solution that works for interested people but no one else. Another settings cog saying "Share this post with friends and friend apps". I think they like apps because they make sure people stay on Facebook and any extra data they can gather. Maybe they'll kill them all and come back with a rebranded version in 6 months.

A ton of their data is going to come from apps and third party sites embedding scripts from Facebook. Hell, even social auth gives them a _ton_ of data. ("Oh, you recently used Facebook to sign into weddingplanner.com? Here come the wedding ads... and the related ads to all of your friends.")

Curious why no one mentions this:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/15/mark-zuckerberg-could-be-run...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/27/mark-z...

Etc... Not so difficult to connect the dots IMO

Interesting he is using newspapers, he's trying to persuade the older folk. The people most likely to be in government and the most likely to be voters. Got to give it to him, he's smart.

> Got to give it to him, he's smart.

His PR people are smart.

If he were so smart, he would have had the foresight to understand that giving an app access to my friends' personal information just because I gave it access to mine wasn't such a great idea.

Foresight is 20/20. I don't think Zuckerberg (and FB devs) aren't smart or can imagine why giving such data is a bad idea. It's more likely that they thought not many would find out, care, or that when found out that it'd touch their bottom line much. In other words, I think they had plenty of optics and are losing the gamble. I also think they could also only be losing in the short term; I wouldn't bet against "everyone" forgetting about it all in a month and going back to using FB.

It's hard to imagine FB's stranglehold letting up. Some startup, prove me wrong.

Hindsight is 20/20.

Foresight requires awareness, attention and a moral compass.

Was it truly Facebook's decision? Maybe there was some CIA/NSA pressure being applied.

Also, he can't really use Facebook for it if his target audience is the people who stopped using Facebook (they wouldn't see it).

Also UK and US - where biggest investors are located.

50€ on this PR move having been suggested by his advisors at CA

There is also a view that he'll run for presidency some day.

Meanwhile, his second-in-command Sheryl Sandberg has been pushing FOSTA, and thus destroyed personal ads on craigslist. [1] When will they publish an apology for that?

[1] https://www.craigslist.org/about/FOSTA

A cyntic would say these are just hidden donations to opinion maker institutions. But then again this is the right channel to reach his target group of lawmakers and government employeers or whoever is still reading print newspapers.

Like when you slammed everyone's (already posted) profile picture into public visibility?

It's been downhill ever since.

(Yes, newer FB users; you used to be able to determine the visibility of your profile picture. The whole "my dog, my baby picture, this pretty flower,..." profile picture thing really took off at the time of this change. No "opt-out" on this change, either. Not to mention the "opt-in" type of change most users actually prefer.)

Facebook has always played fast-and-loose with the data. I don't want to get into specifics, but they actively ignored this shit, if it meant more user accounts being created.

Imagine a storekeeper giving you the key to the cash register if you ask him for change for a dollar. There are no cameras near the register, and no monitoring.

> "We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can't, we don't deserve it."

Then why don't you put your money where your mouth is and delete those 5 billion shadow profiles you collected, Mark?

Say what you will about the strategy, that they felt the need to shout mea culpa so publicly is telling. I doubt they're anywhere near crisis territory yet, but a scandal like this will have a corrosive effect on numerous business vectors.

My hypothesis—pure speculation based on nothing—is that Facebook has seen a sudden dip or collapse in advertising revenue. Think about it, would you risk associating your brand with Facebook micro-targeting right now?

This seems a pretty accurate guess. Many of the major advertisers (Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever) have already pulled back on spending with the platform as an ineffective use of advertising budget [0].

[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-cuts-more-than-100-million-...

It's so damn exciting to see the world unfold as I had hoped. The hard part is that you have to wait for the pressure to build and society as a whole to catch up.

Watching first-generation social internet services like Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter has been fascinating and I cannot wait to see the next generation.

Everyone on HN should be focused on building the replacements for these early attempts.

“If we can’t, we don’t deserve it.”

Ha even if you can, you don’t deserve it. Facebook’s insatiable desire for user data is so ingrained in their approach that they can’t distangle it even from their apologies.

It’d be like an alcoholic saying hey if I can’t hold my liquor I don’t deserve to drink.

Translation: "Dear customers, we're willing to sell your data for $$$$, and take newspaper ads out for $$ for the ONE TIME you came home to see our hand in the cookie jar.

We Promise not to take any more cookies."

Consider that he is likely trying to save his possible future as US President.

Shouldn't he have posted this directly on Facebook?

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