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Comment by pfarnsworth | Hacker News Reader

Did they send the leaders of those 10 countries, or just the representatives?

Are you seriously trying to equate the CEO of Facebook to 10 heads of state? Just how high of a pedestal do you put FB on?

I’m sure if Heads of State were in attendance Zuckerberg would be delighted to attend. As it is he has nothing to gain from attending a civil servants ego stroking summit. It’s not about what other people think of Zuckerberg, it’s what he thinks because he can do it. The Canadian government is not going to try and prosecute him or shut down Facebook.

Do civil servants frequently serve in parliament where you're from? In my country, you're proscribed from running in any significant elections (state legislature/national legislature) if you're a serving civil servant. I may be wrong, but I presumed that was the case more places than not. I know that it is the case in Britain, which may be relevant to Canada. (An office of profit under the crown disqualifies one from parliament).

> Just how high of a pedestal do you put FB on?

It's not about any of their hierarchical importance, it's about how useless that idea is.

The CEO sure has the last word on everything (and even that isn't true), but he isn't the actual expert on its platform.

Having the head of state would make no sense there, they have better things to do and sending countries representatives that actually have time to learn and understands the actual matters make much more sense.

Just like sending CEO doesn't make sense, sending actual experts that can answers theses questions much better make much more sense.

It depends, are you trying to say a head of state is better than an American citizen? Does not every man have equal intrinsic worth? Are you trying to imply that some foreign underling ought to have power to summon a sovereign American at his beck and call?

Your sovereignty ends at your border. If you want to operate a business in someone else’s country, you have to be prepared to answer to their government. If that government doesn’t like you — even if the reason is dumb — their sovereignty allows them to stop your business from doing business in their country.

Do they need to? On paper [1] a country is sovereign and a company is subservient to every nation it operates in.

[1] sure, in practice they’d rank 80/186 by GDP (IMF 2018) if they were a nation, but they aren’t that kind of entity.

Facebook has money but countries have police.

Since the biggest democracy whose leader fits into a stadium is St. Vincent and the Grenadines, representatives will have to do.

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