Zuckerberg Lays it On the Line

zephcom

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In an article from CNBC Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg is said to take the American government to task for it's inaction of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Here is his comments:

"As a private company we don’t have the tools to make the Russian government stop. We can defend as best as we can, but our government is the one that has the tools to apply pressure to Russia, not us.

One of the mistakes that I worry about is that after 2016 when the government didn’t take any kind of counteraction. The signal that was sent to the world was that “O.K. We’re open for business.” Countries can try to do this stuff and our companies will try their best to try to limit it, but fundamentally, there isn’t going to be a major recourse from the American government.

Since then, we’ve seen increased activity from Iran and other countries, and we are very engaged in ramping up the defenses. The amount that we spend on safety and security now as a company is billions of dollars a year. It is greater than the whole revenue of our company was when we went public earlier this decade.

We’ve ramped up massively on the security side, but there’s very little that we can do on our own to change the incentives for nation states to act. That’s something that is a little bit above our pay grade."

That pretty much lays it on the line. If you 'do Facebook' expect that foreign nations are attempting to influence the way you vote in American elections.

Article link: Mark Zuckerberg: We can't stop Russian election interference by ourselves, US government must help
 
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chevyontheriver

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In an article from CNBC Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg is said to take the American government to task for it's inaction of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Here is his comments:

"As a private company we don’t have the tools to make the Russian government stop. We can defend as best as we can, but our government is the one that has the tools to apply pressure to Russia, not us.

One of the mistakes that I worry about is that after 2016 when the government didn’t take any kind of counteraction. The signal that was sent to the world was that “O.K. We’re open for business.” Countries can try to do this stuff and our companies will try their best to try to limit it, but fundamentally, there isn’t going to be a major recourse from the American government.

Since then, we’ve seen increased activity from Iran and other countries, and we are very engaged in ramping up the defenses. The amount that we spend on safety and security now as a company is billions of dollars a year. It is greater than the whole revenue of our company was when we went public earlier this decade.

We’ve ramped up massively on the security side, but there’s very little that we can do on our own to change the incentives for nation states to act. That’s something that is a little bit above our pay grade."

That pretty much lays it on the line. If you 'do Facebook' expect that foreign nations are attempting to influence the way you vote in American elections.

Article link: Mark Zuckerberg: We can't stop Russian election interference by ourselves, US government must help
Is Mr. Zuckerberg committed to defeating Trump by whatever means it has at it's disposal? Will he manipulate his platform to that end? How much power does he have in that regard?
 
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zephcom

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Is Mr. Zuckerberg committed to defeating Trump by whatever means it has at it's disposal? Will he manipulate his platform to that end? How much power does he have in that regard?
Are you implying that Trump is unable to win unless foreign nations assist him?
 
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chevyontheriver

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Are you implying that Trump is unable to win unless foreign nations assist him?
Didn't say a thing about that.

Just wondering how much power and commitment Zuckerberg has to influence who is going to be the next president.
 
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JackRT

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Is Mr. Zuckerberg committed to defeating Trump by whatever means it has at it's disposal? Will he manipulate his platform to that end? How much power does he have in that regard?

Regardless of his motivations, I believe that he is correct as to how the problem is to be addressed.
 
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cow451

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Is Mr. Zuckerberg committed to defeating Trump by whatever means it has at it's disposal? Will he manipulate his platform to that end? How much power does he have in that regard?
Apparently not enough .
 
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chevyontheriver

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Regardless of his motivations, I believe that he is correct as to how the problem is to be addressed.
Should he use his platform to get us there?
 
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zephcom

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Didn't say a thing about that.

Just wondering how much power and commitment Zuckerberg has to influence who is going to be the next president.
As an American, he has the right to promote any candidate he chooses. And now that the limits on how much an individual can spend to do that is lifted, I guess he can use all his resources if he chooses to.

You don't object to that, do you? Both parties sell their services to the highest bidders every two years and Zuck should be allowed to bid on them too.
 
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zephcom

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I thought Trump won by the electoral college. I can't see how any Russians interfered with the electoral college.

The Electoral College votes are tied in some states to the popular vote but in interesting and complex ways. Manipulate the popular vote and you can manipulate the Electoral College vote also.

But probably the easiest way to understand the complexity is that generally (I say generally because in the Constitution, there is no connection between the popular vote and the Electoral vote. Those connections I talked about are all in state laws) the popular vote needs to be close before the Electoral College can change the popular vote.

In 2016, Clinton won about three million more votes than Trump. Had she won four million more than Trump she likely would have also won the Electoral College too.

And that is where foreign interference comes in. Had Russia not interfered on Trump's behalf, he might have lost by ten million or more.
 
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SoldierOfTheKing

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Zuckerberg is in a far better position to manipulate US elections than any Russians, and he's basically admitted that he considers it his job to do so, and only wishes that the government could toss that pesky First Amendment aside and help him. Anyways, I'd take the Russians over Big Tech any day.
 
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WherevertheWindblows

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The Electoral College votes are tied in some states to the popular vote but in interesting and complex ways. Manipulate the popular vote and you can manipulate the Electoral College vote also.

But probably the easiest way to understand the complexity is that generally (I say generally because in the Constitution, there is no connection between the popular vote and the Electoral vote. Those connections I talked about are all in state laws) the popular vote needs to be close before the Electoral College can change the popular vote.

In 2016, Clinton won about three million more votes than Trump. Had she won four million more than Trump she likely would have also won the Electoral College too.

And that is where foreign interference comes in. Had Russia not interfered on Trump's behalf, he might have lost by ten million or more.

Why would Russia want Trump to win? For example if you read the twelve ways Trump is a nightmare to Putin here
12 Ways Trump is a Nightmare for Putin

Why would he interfere on his behalf?
 
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WherevertheWindblows

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Zuckerberg is in a far better position to manipulate US elections than any Russians, and he's basically admitted that he considers it his job to do so, and only wishes that the government could toss that pesky First Amendment aside and help him. Anyways, I'd take the Russians over Big Tech any day.

Sad but true ^_^
Do we thank Putin for making America great again? ^_^
 
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zephcom

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Why would Russia want Trump to win? For example if you read the twelve ways Trump is a nightmare to Putin here
12 Ways Trump is a Nightmare for Putin

Why would he interfere on his behalf?
Because Clinton was a pain in Putin backside when she was Secretary of State. And because Trump will do anything for someone who tells him how good he is.

Manipulating Trump is as easy as manipulating a first grader. In fact, Nancy Polosi treats him like a first grader and look how successful she has been.
 
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zephcom

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Zuckerberg is in a far better position to manipulate US elections than any Russians, and he's basically admitted that he considers it his job to do so, and only wishes that the government could toss that pesky First Amendment aside and help him. Anyways, I'd take the Russians over Big Tech any day.
<shrug> Zuckerberg has a legal right as an American to participate in American elections.

As far as taking the Russians over Big Tech, perhaps you could get Edward Snowden to look for an apartment for you in Moscow.
 
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Ringo84

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So...

Collusion never happened, but Hillary did it. But Russia helped Donny win, and that means they're good and are to be thanked for their efforts. And how dare you stop Donny from getting foreign help, because it's not a crime!

Did I get all the nonsense right? It's so hard to keep track; the excuses and rationalizations change every five minutes or so.

Getting back to Zuck, though: he's right and he's wrong. Facebook probably does need the government's help to curb fake news. Cyber warfare is....warfare; a real attack on our sovereignty (as opposed to scary brown people traveling in a c-c-c-caravan! Which is not) that should be dealt with.

But at the same time, Silicon Valley has shown far too much willingness to unquestioning host whatever hateful and/or malicious and/or fake malarkey on their sites, and are very slow to respond when people want the hatemongers to be taken down.

One thing I'm fairly confident that left and right can probably see eye to eye on is
a) Silicon Valley has far too much sway over our lives. Our search results (generally) come from Google, our email comes from Google, we shop at Amazon, we communicate via Facebook/Twitter/etc. It's only going to get worse with the advent of self-driving cars and the like
b) Big Silicon Valley firms need to be broken up so that they don't hold so much absolute power.
Ringo
 
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WherevertheWindblows

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Because Clinton was a pain in Putin backside when she was Secretary of State. And because Trump will do anything for someone who tells him how good he is.

Manipulating Trump is as easy as manipulating a first grader. In fact, Nancy Polosi treats him like a first grader and look how successful she has been.

He didn't like Hillary's reset our relationship button?


^_^
 
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Sabertooth

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If the Russians could (and did) exert such influence through the USA's social media, wouldn't Hillary's foreign allies be able to do the same thing...? (Or was she just concentrating on getting non-citizens to the polls?)

Even if foreign nationals DID voice their opinions about our candidates on social media, I don't see where any criminal culpability might lie. I say this even if their opinion is unfavorable to "my" candidate. They are unable to enter our polls.
 
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