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Comment by dcgudeman | Hacker News Reader

Honest question, what did Mark Zuckerberg do that makes you think he has “no integrity”?

Stealing the idea for Facebook probably is a good place to start, followed by every single thing he's ever done since then.

You could probably write a book about that, here is my favorite:

Illegally using Facebook log data to breach the accounts of journalists who he did not like.

I'll use the gawker article[0] about what he thinks of his users:

[0] https://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-calling-us...

I am certainly no fan of FB or MZ, but if I am being open-minded and fair, that article doesn’t seem so bad. I’ve said stuff like that sarcastically/ironically that would sound really bad if taken out of context.

You’re not the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.

He wasn’t either when he said it.

That's something said by a 19 year old in an instant message. It doesn't mean anything, especially 17 years later.

it means he was an asshole then. Thus, higher probability he is an asshole today.

Every 19 year old is an asshole, even the nice ones.

Not so. The vast majority of people at that age do not talk about people the way Zuck did.

I would say that when someone tells you who they are, you should believe them.

I would generally agree. Don’t understand why your comment is getting downvoted either...

When you're 36, you're not really the same person you were at 19.

(hopefully)

In this case it’s something expressed by a developing brain over instant messages. The way it comes across to me is as posturing by a very insecure person.

Something I’ve learned by observing judgments people around me make about others is that I’d rarely deserve or want to be judged the same way, and that the people making judgments would typically feel the same. If I were Mark being judged by messages sent online as a teenager/young adult, I don’t think I’d feel like it was rational or kind, and more opportunistic rather than necessary, productive, or helpful at all.

Having said that, evaluating him by more recent information doesn’t make me feel great about him by any means. I’m not defending him. I just don’t believe the messages are very useful information anymore - even if at the time they were perhaps an indicator of what’s to come. It’s probably more useful to look to current events to understand who he is in the present.

I see these messages passed around and referenced often and frankly it has begun to appear like a crutch for trashing the guy. Given his position in society and the amount of information available, we should all be able to collect and reference more recent and relevant information.

secretely retracting messages he sent to others from their inboxes, a feature exlcusively made available to him[1], with a straight face telling people that discourse on his website does not have influence on elections, tying his donations to having his name put on a hospital which is petty as hell, I mean pick your poison

[1]https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/6/17203114/facebook-mark-zuc...

> tying his donations to having his name put on a hospital

Isn't that normal? There's a reason so many buildings have a person's name on them. Carnegie Hall, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Guggenheim Museum, The Getty, The DeYoung, Coit Tower, ...

AFAIK Half the buildings on any college campus are named after the donor that paid for it.

You want hospitals, how about the Huntington Hospital, Sutter Hospital, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, Helen Diller Medical Center, I'm too lazy to go look up more

Yes, that's just one of your points but if you're reaching that deep to find fault it detracts from your other points as it makes them suspect.

Yes, it is a question of vanity, not necessarily integrity. Even worse is when politicians do this, so you have Erdoğan University, or Nur-Sultan city.

Vanity not integrity - anthony bourdain - most honest and inspiring man if all time

Yes it is normal, for people with the net worth of Zuckerberg most of which are full of themselves. Doesn't really detract from my point as much, it just means he's not the only guy in the club, and it's a boys club btw, I don't see McKenzie Bezos putting her name on everything.

Maybe you and I and countless of other people chip in some money at the end of the year. (in fact in proportion to our income we donate more), and I don't see ordinary people forming a union to name a hospital, we just click the donate button and go on with our lives. Like Chuck Feeney btw, to name one very wealthy person that is way less vain.

Lying to congress?

The Zuck says that privacy is a thing of the past, yet he buys all of the houses around his so he can have private home life.

How about his “copy, acquire, kill” strategy for startups and how he even pretends it’s even remotely fair for a fledging startup to compete with a multi billion dollar company?

I think it’s easy for him to convince himself of this because he started Facebook from nothing. I’m not saying he’s right, but he can point to that and say “why can’t anyone else do that?”

It’s something I’ve witnessed a lot of successful people doing.

He didn’t really start Facebook from nothing though. Peter Theil pumped half a million in it right from the start and it always had VC backing to the tune of hundreds of millions. Having a rich backer fund your startup is far from starting at nothing.

Lol!

I agree. I should have chosen words more carefully. I think essentially all success on a large scale occurs due to chance, incredible fortune, and various forms of charity or luck. Whether that be cash injection in a startup or having loyalty from a great team who empowers you to accomplish your goals. No one does any of this alone.

How about this one for a start?

https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-im...

There are so many problems surrounding Facebook and its CEO Zuckerberg that it's pretty difficult to choose one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAgbIiQSzEk

That's the peak of cynicism that could only compare to politicians like Putin.

At least for me my impression of Mark Zuckerberg lowered significantly once I learned the details of him pressuring native hawaiian people via lawsuits from their ancestral lands so he can have an island to himself.

It sounds a bit less clear-cut than that. It seems that, through inheritance, 138 relatives each owned a tiny share of 2.35 acres of land, with one of the relatives, Carlos Andrade, owning a larger share and having been the only one living on the land. Andrade sued his relatives to force them to sell and compensate them for their shares. Zuckerberg sided with Andrade. I'm not sure of the details, but it sounds like he doesn't have the island to himself, since Andrade is living there, and it sounds like the other relatives weren't using the land.

Pretty much everything he does makes me think he has no integrity.

[flagged]

Conducting psychological research on users without consent or IRB approval.

You mean A/B testing?

Published research in PNAS: https://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788

No, I mean the paper the other user linked where they were turning dials so Zuck could cosplay as The Mule.

If FB had intuitively decided that too many positive posts had a negative effect on users (as contemporary research was suggesting) and amplified negative post visibility, there’d be no controversy. If FB decided intuitively that positive posts were good and they should reduce visibility on negative posts, there’d be no controversy.

Since FB A/B tested the effect of both and let academics analyze the data, that somehow means they are demonic.

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/22/10723

But the question was about integrity, not demonic possession.

Grandstanding about transferring all his wealth for tax purposes under the guise of it being "charity", obnoxious attempts to man-in-the-middle most of India's internet connectivity, screwing over users with "privacy zuckering" that causes settings to revert, etc.

The joy of my life was seeing Zuckerberg getting absolutely owned on his own Facebook page by thousands and thousands of Indian people who wanted nothing to do with his money-grubbing initiatives.

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