Hacker News Reader

common_on Palantir is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens

Pop Quiz: Which two companies had their first office at 101 University Avenue in Palo Alto?

The answer says quite a lot, I think.

common_on Mark Zuckerberg Is Either Ignorant or Deliberately Misleading Congress

He started X.com. The founders of PayPal were forced by their VCs to merge the two companies, because X.com had a massive cash position, and a banking license.

common_on Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works

This isn't just basic cookie tracking. They have an actual profile on you, without your consent, with the people who have you in their address book and even potentially your purchasing habits, from the data they purchase from data brokers like Datalogix. They maintain this profile on you separately from other users, and they make immediate use of it if you create an account.

That's why it's called a shadow profile.

common_on Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works

Here's how Zuckerberg's testimony works:

1. When he says he doesn't know, he actually knows.

2. When he says he knows, and that the answer is "more AI," he doesn't actually know.

common_on The high modernism of social media companies

Facebook and Zuckerberg will tell you that they disagree with Boz's comments.

He wasn't fired.

He wasn't demoted.

He was promoted.

His responsibilities were expanded.

If that's not a silent endorsement, a message to the rank and file about where the company's values stand, I don't know what is.

common_on Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator

Not sure why this has been posted here. The app is nearly abandoned and dead at this point.

I know we all want alternatives to the status quo, but you're not going to find it among a bunch of copycat services that haven't solved any of the fundamental problems causing us so much trouble today.

common_on Dapps

So much of VC funding is just about being in the right place at the right time. A lot of these guys seem like geniuses because of winning bets, but that's because nobody talks about their flops.

It's entertaining watching all of the VCs who have made a major bet on crypto, who are now doubling down on what looks more like an overheated casino losing steam. Fred Wilson might end up watching the tide go out on this one. Maybe people will finally remember that he was part of Twitter's clueless board, the one that didn't think it was important to buy Instagram?

common_on Based on his testimony today, Mark Zuckerberg puts users last during a crisis

Experian et al do not have a two-way channel they can use to run psychological experiments based on your usage data and communications with others. Facebook can, and does.

These hearings are just the tip of the iceberg. You're like the guy saying Bitcoin has hit its peak at $100.

common_on Mark Zuckerberg Can Still Fix This Mess

> Facebook does contribute to efforts to improve our digital lives, including one on youth education at the center I co-founded.

Why isn't this disclosed at the top of the article?

common_on China's global kidnapping campaign may now be reaching inside U.S. borders

Actually, irrelevant. There would be more articles that are critical of China if newspaper publishers weren't paranoid about losing a shot at a payday buyout from a Chinese media firm.

common_on Friendica – A Decentralized Social Network

All communities have leaders, whales, whatever you want to call them. Even Bitcoin is now controlled by a small group of mostly Chinese people. Decentralization does nothing other than put control in the hands of an unpredictable and potentially unaccountable group of people, whereas centralized systems have people you can point to and hold accountable (or so we hope). There is a reason it's never worked throughout history, and why decentralized systems always collapse into a more efficient centralized form.

common_on ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018 review: The only laptop in a professional’s paradise

Any experience on how well these things run Linux?

common_on How Facebook Helps Shady Advertisers Pollute the Internet

This actually seems more damaging and disgusting than all of the Cambridge Analytica news. Facebook employees actively working to help scammers get billions of dollars out of uneducated poor users. Despicable.

common_on Facebook Goes on a Hiring Spree for Washington Lobbyists

Albee started lobbying for the company on Oct. 30 -- two days before his former boss, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, grilled Colin Stretch, the company’s general counsel, in a hearing.

Yeah, that's not suspicious.

common_on Facebook will hold emergency meeting to let employees ask questions about CA

> The meeting, which is scheduled for 10AM PT, will be led by Paul Grewal, the company’s deputy general counsel.

What? Paul Grewal was a judge who presided over Facebook court cases. How is that legal?

common_on Deliveroo raises $385M in new funding

Alternative headline: for $385M, investors buy option for a large stake in Deliveroo if they don't surpass a valuation 'over $2B.'

common_on Mark Zuckerberg's Political Awakening

Seems like the real Mark Zuckerberg comes out at the end of that article.

common_on When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

I'm not American, and I'm not middle class. Thanks.

common_on We Are At War For A Free And Open Internet

"Free and Open Internet"

You mean, the network created by the US government for the use of military and research institutions? The idea of the Internet as an anarchist state is a far more temporary concept than that of the Internet as a regulated environment where people are supposed to act with a sense of decency. Anyone who argues otherwise is too young, or too ignorant, to know what they're talking about ... And it doesn't surprise me that most of these Internet trolls whining about censorship were born in the 1980s and later.

common_on When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

There is only one real tax on the wealthy: a revolution in which all property rights are reset. Everything else is a war between the wealthy themselves to redistribute things in their favor.

common_on Uber's New CEO

My point is that these are not people who can be trusted to keep secrets.

common_on Uber's New CEO

> Without question Uber has been horrifically served by its board of directors — all of them.

Some of them are VCs. If you are raising funding, don't tell them anything confidential.

common_on Don't Over-React to the Facebook Patents License

> I do represent Facebook on open source matters, but I did not draft the BSD+patents license grant.

On what planet is this not a conflict of interest? Why isn't this at the top of the article?

Are there any people out there who don't work for Facebook or use React code who are willing to defend the patent license? I don't think so.