Filmmaker Ken Burns calls Mark Zuckerberg an `enemy of the state' (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Filmmaker Ken Burns calls Mark Zuckerberg an `enemy of the state' (2021)

independent.co.uk

35 points1vuio0pswjnm715 comments

There is a documentary released this year on Zuckerberg, not by Burns of course, that shows that he once referred to himself publicly, on his Facebook pages, as "Founder, Master and Commander, Enemy of the State". Funny coincidence.

There is room for sarcastic interpretation considering the hit movie in 98 was still fresh in his mind. However, If he is an enemy of anything it is mental health. He single handedly ushered in generations of classically conditioned mouth breathers that fail to understand Pavlov.

And lets not forget Facebook’s compliance in the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya from Myanmar.

s/compliance/negligence/

I agree completely, but it's less because of Facebook but more of just him personally. He has never done anything that I would say is a positive contribution to society, quite the contrary, his ego, arrogance, and greed has and continues to harm everyone. Facebook is a good thing for millions of people who really enjoy it, but Zuckerberg uses Facebook in a very very dirty and nefarious way. His behavior since day one is of someone who cannot be trusted, and should not be glorified or supported in any way

I think one could attribute the development of Llama, React, Graph Search and possibly some other things too to him... Credit where credit is due (and that's coming from someone who doesn't hold him in high regard).

None of those things make him an “enemy of the state”, just a jerk.

He isn't wrong. Zuck was more instrumental than Bannon and Stone in bending reality into a shape useful for today's post-truth mess. And him and his ilk did it on a global scale.

> Last month, Burns was interviewed on MSNBC, where he said that Zuckerberg allowed "misinformation" to spread on Facebook during the “most fraught time” in US history.

> In this same interview, he spoke about “Soviet style disinformation.”

More accurate to say FB and any platform that uses Like/View/Follower/Click counts as a Signal of High Quality to the entire population automatically has no control over what emerges.

People have been talking about this for 15+ years now, without proposing an alternate Signal of Quality.

It's probably not possible if you give everyone, as social media did, the ability to Broadcast to the whole planet. For free.

No one had this ability in the past. You had to buy spectrum or a news paper or TV studio or satellites etc.

So we have everyone broadcasting contributing massive noise and a highly unreliable mechanism to Signal quality.

We can crucify Zuck but it won't change the fact no one is proposing alternate info flow architecture for the net.

The root cause IMHO is not an individuals ability to broadcast to their connections, but the ability to micro target an audience as a business model. And doing so without any regulation of where that money comes from. So yes it's the platform and the people who run it.

Trump or whichever panderer will get the like/view/clicks anyways

Since platforms signal to everyone popularity or engagement = quality. And no one is proposing anything better. As content/noise explodes with everyone broadcasting, the pressure will keep growing for mechanisms that generate signals of quality. If the mechanisms are poor, random and chaotic things will keep Emerging out of these systems.

Microtargeting is an added bonus for the attention seekers and panderers. You can regulate micro targetting and it won't reduce the things that get propped up by the algos.

There is a reason radio spectrum is regulated. If everyone broadcasts without any coordination all you get is massive noises where no one can hear anything anyone else is saying. And that's pretty much what's happening now. Mechanisms to increase signal and reduce noise are half baked.

You’re right, we’re have been much better off not letting people we disagree with talk to each other. That’s the enlightened path.

OK now do investor Elon

Back in 2008, Facebook was hailed as the tool that would set democracy free.

> The Web, a perfect medium for genuine grass-roots political movements, is transforming the power dynamics of politics. There are no barriers to entry on sites like Facebook and YouTube. Power is diffused because everybody can participate. The Web is being leveraged not only for vote-getting but—as the Obama campaign demonstrated—for grass-roots fundraising, too. The Web can be a formidable electoral money-pump.

So why the change now? Oh I'm sure Ken Burns will give you an ostensible reason.

But I think the real reason is that the very aspects of the internet being praised above--grass roots, power to individuals and the unheard--started being used by right-wingers.

When left-wingers used it, it's called empowering, triumphant, reaching out to the voiceless.

And when right-wingers did the same thing, it's the end of democracy.

Burns is upset about misinformation, but be is coming at a very inopportune time to make that claim. That covid very well might have actually been man made seems plausible now[2]. Yet, that's exactly the misinformation that was censored in 2020.

But, I'm sure Burns & ilk had no problem with 'if you like your healthcare, you can keep it', rated lie of the year by Politifact.[3]

I happen to think much of rhe outrage over Facebook is because Trump supporters used it effectively. That's why there are constant calls for Facebook to do something.

Aside from the bias, I think this is a mistake. We shouldn't expect Facebook to be a government or arbiter of truth. The purpose of Facebook is not to take the words of the president (whether that's about the affordable care act or about effectiveness of masks) and decide the truth. Facebook isn't meant to be a government. It isn't meant to be the arbiter of reality.

Burns talks about 'Soviet style disinformation' but he seems to think the solution is 'Ministry of truth', an equally abhorrent idea.

[1] https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barack-ob...

[2] I do not actually know Burns' thoughts on the covid lab leak theory in particular, and I cant find any statements where he clarifies exactly what misinformation he is talking about. But this was, in my opinion, the single biggest claim that was labeled misinformation around 2021 when this was published. Also, I happened to think the lab leak theory was just a bunch of conspiracy nonsense at the time and paid little attention to it. It looks like I may have been wrong to do that. It's taken me a long time to realize that and eat my humble pie.

[3] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/12/13/250694372...

The “good for democracy” narrative both sprouted and broke with the Arab Spring.

And yeah, electing someone from a demographic that literally couldn’t vote a generation earlier does ring a bit differently than electing someone who is now claiming absolute immunity from any legal repercussions, declaring he’ll be a dictator on day one of his second term, and refusing to agree not to use political power to go after personal opponents.

One of those is a democratic achievement and the other is not. It’s only confusing if you squint so hard that “I’ll be a dictator on day one” doesn’t read as antidemocratic.

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