Comment by phlux | Hacker News Reader

Comment by phlux | Hacker News Reader

we are in for a really rude awakening when it comes to the political pull a site like facebook can really have.

Here we have a company with a very very large cross section of just about every culture and country on earth. It has massive amounts of personal. intimate. detailed data on its users, their relationships, their interests and activities.

We have a CEO who is young, idealistic, ego-centric and in certain ways, impressionable. Not in a petty sense - but in a way where providing the opportunity to feel as though he really is changing the world, he will assume that he is -- and for the better. The problem is that, I believe, he (and facebook) will be manipulated.

Regardless of Mark's ideals and lofty goals - politics is politics. It is a system of control in its basest form. Facebook is the perfect venn between social utility and totalitarian encroachment.

Sadly - the social utility for its users currently outweighs its encroachment and it will be ratcheted further into a position where we cannot separate our daily activities from it.

Mark Zuckerberg is the #1 target for manipulation of every intelligence agency and influence centre on earth.

His 26 year old mind is up against the intelligence apparatus of multiple nation states that want to use his possessions.

He has no chance. All of his meetings with various power brokers and law enforcement representatives are well known. The fight is over. He's a unwitting puppet. All of the information that reaches him is carefully monitored by tens if not hundreds of professionals in the business of information trafficking and control.

Something with the value of Facebook either survives through rigid ideological principles upheld by a mesh of ideologues, or it falls to outside influence.

I think Google's built in iconoclastic values gave it some level of inoculation against government influence.

But Facebook has no values aside from power and money. Zuck is the classic power monger geek, a true successor to Bill Gates, except Bill Gates was not nearly as much of an obvious target because the stakes were not understood at the time.

Some say that playing ball with the oligarchs can provide substantial access to capital. Interesting that they have enjoyed unprecedented private investment and valuations.

Note that these information agencies that you refer to are in competition. That makes manipulating Zuckerburg a lot more difficult, doesn't it?

Also, his '26 year old mind' is not alone. He's not the only guy that wants to support his ideals.

I'm not saying that he can resist manipulation, but I don't think it's as easy as the parent of my comment makes it seem at all. If anything, it's a war for Zuck; it's not a war on Zuck.

For example, the US and say, North Korea are not going to be working together for control of Zuckerburg; they're going to be competing for it.

note to throwaway40m, your comments are showing up as dead. 99% won't be able to see them.

"Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard, just ask. I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS. People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks."

So when did Zuckerberg develop these "lofty goals" and "ideals"?

Is it so difficult to believe that that was a joke?

I can see myself making that sort of joke in person, but after seeing what's happened to Zuckerburg, I would treat the internet as a press conference.

Zuckerburg has been described as socially awkward more times than he's been described -- you can't be sure that he wasn't just going too far with a joke. That's very common for the stereotypical logical type -- doubly when he's talking to a friend that would be fine with the joke.

But suppose it were not a joke. This guy has changed the world forever in an incredibly short period of time. I'd be surprised if he didn't change his philosophy somewhat, if not drastically.

Few people have to adjust to being one of the most influential human beings in the world, especially in their mid-twenties.

To be clear, when I said "Regardless of Mark's ideals and lofty goals - politics is politics." -- I was in no way implying that he had lofty goals and ideals that were good... quite to the contrary.

I do not and shall not ever have an account on the book for many reasons - my distrust of the founder and company ethos are but just two...

What's to stop an acquaintance of yours impersonating you?

I think that there is a clear argument that intelligence agencies have a substantial home field advantage when dealing with business.

Consider the homegrown competition in China. Xiaonei/Renren is pretty much a facebook clone with 70M+ users, and Sina Weibo is a microblogging service ala Twitter.

Agreed, that was exactly my thought as well - thanks for sharing them so succinctly.

Especially regarding Gates -- We can obviously see the outcome of his position these days given his efforts to give his wealth away.

The conspiracy theorist in me wants to wonder about that dark room that people get pulled into when they reach a certain level of finance/power/influence and are informed about "the way things are" and this is how you will play the game if you and everyone you care about doesnt want to die in such a tragic plane crash...

There are worse things like... Fox News?

I for one would love to see a powerful counter-force to Rupert Murdoch in this world.

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