CNN Business
4 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2018–2020
3:23 · 17M views · Apr 11, 2018
CNN Business compiles confusing and uninformed questions US lawmakers asked Mark Zuckerberg during his 2018 Congressional testimony about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.
Used as evidence that legislators are tech illiterate when HN debates regulation.
4 comments from Hacker News
I wrote this yesterday (and slightly edited/updated it today): I can’t help but think about the long game here. Are there complex PR strategies that could potentially be employed here by Apple and Facebook together? I wonder if this ‘fight’ represents some sort of controlled opposition by a few Silicon Valley tech giants to win favorable regulation for the tech industry as a whole: by showing a fake rivalry Apple and Facebook (and others) can carefully control the overall narrative, and although this story focuses on a negative issue (which, let's be real, is not much worse than the average person having already soured on Facebook anyway), it could lead to incomplete, premature, pro-corporate laws, rapidly lobbied for, and passed, by mostly tech illiterate lawmakers (just look at all the senate hearings the past few years [1]). To the average citizen, these new laws will seem like a transparent and proper attempt to address the major problems in the tech/adtech space, but in reality they are psuedo-solutions, as they do not tackle the underlying root causes. In the end it allows the tech corps to slightly adjust their products (small concessions in the short term), after which they will slowly repurpose the old mechanisms into new shells, and continue with business as usual. I think a Prop22-inspired PR playbook/campaign is also in full motion here. This seems like corporate-capitalist gaslighting of the working class in one of it’s most advanced forms. [1] this video
I can’t help but think about the long game here. What complex PR strategies could potentially be employed here by Apple and Facebook together? I wonder if this ‘fight’ represents some sort of controlled opposition by Silicon Valley to win favorable regulation for the tech industry as a whole. By showing fake hostility/rivalry between Apple and Facebook, they can carefully control the overall narrative, and although this story focuses on a negative issue (which, let's be real, is not that much worse than the average person having already soured on Facebook), it could lead to premature, pro-corporate laws, rapidly lobbied for, and passed, through mostly tech illiterate senators (just look at all the senate hearings the past few years) [1]. To the average citizen, these new laws will seem like a transparent and proper attempt to address the problems in the tech/adtech space, but in reality they are psuedo-solutions, as they do not tackle the underlying root causes. In the end it allows the tech corps to slightly adjust their products (small concessions in the short term), after which they will slowly repurpose the old mechanisms into new shells, and continue with business as usual. I think a Prop22-inspired PR playbook is also in full motion here. This is corporate gaslighting of citizens in it’s most advanced form. [1] this video
"can you explain to me how Michael Bloomberg would be better at his day to day job of leading the largest city in the USA if he woke up one morning as a crack Java coder?" Politicians especially could benefit from having a clearer idea of how computers work, for everything from patent law, to internet regulation, to encryption, to AI ethics. These topics are only increasing in their relevance to geopolitics, and most leaders are comically ignorant of them. Exhibit A: this video Of course this isn't limited to those in politics; it applies to every decision-maker in society, from business executives to individual voters. Obviously all of these people aren't expected to write code in their daily lives. But having exposure to it and an understanding of the basic concepts is indispensable in today's world.
I agree, questions like: "Mr Page, have your organization used computer software to track citizen's activities?" would lead nowhere. this video