Thoughts on FB’s Zuckerberg’s Testimony Today

Thoughts on FB’s Zuckerberg’s Testimony Today

Thoughts on FB’s Zuckerberg’s Testimony Today

Today, Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg put on his big boy clothes and sat in front of a joint hearing of the Judiciary and Commerce Committees. Holy Freaking Guacamole. These hearings should come with a warning, such as:

The words you are about to hear, offered by self-serving, narcissistic, over-educated idiots who couldn’t bag fries in the real world, may lower your IQ by several points and leave you open-mouthed and drooling. This condition may be permanent or may clear up when dosed with Bach, Mozart, Slayer or Pantera. Extreme caution is advised.

Mark Zuckerberg prepares for his ritual sacrifice.

The hoodieless Zuckerberg had to appear before these Senators today in order to keep the stock from further tankiness, and to appease the social media gods, he ritually sacrificed himself. All of this because the Democrats and Never-Trumpers have their collective knickers in a twist. The knicker twisting has been caused by Cambridge Analytica maybe using some AlGorerhythms to strip mine info that may or may not have been used to aid the Russian bots in colluding with Donald Trump to beat Hillary Clinton like a rented mule.

At least that is today’s narrative. What makes this truly terrifying is that the Bobblehead Americans who watch the legacy media nightly news will believe exactly what I wrote above.

Not one of them will remember this little gem from directly after 2008 election of Barack Obama (peace be upon him) brought to us by U.S. News and World Report. The title of the article is “Barack Obama and the Facebook Election”. Remember the hearings and forelock pulling because FB enthusiastically pulled for Obama. Right? From the article:

It has even been called the “Facebook election.” It is no coincidence that one of Obama’s key strategists was 24-year-old Chris Hughes, a Facebook cofounder. It was Hughes who masterminded the Obama campaign’s highly effective Web blitzkrieg—everything from social networking sites to podcasting and mobile messaging.

and

Obama was by a long stretch the most effective online politician during the presidential campaign—not only against John McCain but also against his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. For the past two years, Facebook has overwhelmingly been pro-Obama virtual territory. Some have attributed Obama’s victory to a “Facebook effect.”

Which makes today’s show trial even more riduckulous. Senator Bill Nelson is suddenly concerned about privacy. Not only is Senator Dick Durbin concerned about privacy but apparently does not know that the only way people know what hotel you stayed in is if you post it. What a maroon! Of course, Senator Cory Booker is concerned about the poor. Senator Richard Blumenthal wanted Mark Zuckerberg to endorse legislation to regulate Facebook and its competitors. Zuckerberg has a better soul than I. I would have horse laughed at Blumenthal. All in all the Senators let their mamas down. For shame.

A few final thoughts:

1. I don’t know anything about software and hardware. The laptop and android devices I use are magic boxes that contain genies who grant wishes. Listening to our Senators, they don’t know that much.

2. Privacy? You want privacy? When phones, excuse me, land lines first became available, there was this thing called party lines. People used to listen to each other’s fellow party line sharers’ conversations. True fact. Today, the government hoovers up everything. And then those queens of party line gossip Samantha Powers and Susan Rice spread the word. If you want privacy, go prepper. I like my privacy just as much as anyone, but there is a balance. When I don’t want to share, I don’t.

3. Two maxims to live by: “You get what you pay for.” And: “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Plus, there is an addendum: “What’s it worth to you?” If you pucker your sphincter every time someone mentions a pay wall, grow up. Again, it’s about balance, you may opt in to anything you want. Opting out has a cost.

Those are my thoughts on today’s Senate Hearing and Ritual Sacrifice. I am truly interested in yours.

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16 Comments
  • Michael W Fahey says:

    I actually got tired of being nauseated. I did like the Ted Cruz questioning. I also snickered when they asked if his COO actually believed people should pay to keep their privacy, and he pretty much admitted that he would have to find a different revenue stream if they didn’t.

  • He may have had on his “big boy clothes,” but he sat on a booster seat cushion.
    Of course, I’m not one to talk about needing seat cushions, am I?

  • Nina says:

    This entire post is EPIC!!

  • Chuckles says:

    This article calls the press conference, giving testimony? Wrong, testimony is under oath, with perjury charges a real possibility. Ted Cruz would have had him crying, if not for time constraints. Still a lot of unanswered question, regarding the underlying operation of social media.

  • Eric Wilner says:

    “…the only way people know what hotel you stayed in is if you post it”… is not necessarily true.
    I know for certain that Google follows my Android phone around and keeps track of where I’ve been staying and shopping. Sometimes it pops up questions about places I’ve been. Sometimes those questions are downright creepy. Also, sometimes its idea of where I was is actually off by a few hundred yards; when I consulted my timeline to refresh my memory on which motel I’d stayed in one night a few years ago, Google gave the location as the city jail, which I’m sure isn’t right.
    Thing is, the software on my phone knows for sure (right or wrong, but with full certainty) where I am, and so the owners of the software know where I’ve been. Or at least where my phone has been, unless it was turned off.
    I assume the Facebook app would make full use of location tracking, were I fool enough to sign on to it. (And never assume that signing off from Facebook means you’re actually signed off!)

    • Toni Williams says:

      You can turn off your GPS or turn your phone off and it won’t track you any longer. I do a lot of Google reviews and so I always leave mine on. In this case I was only dealing with Facebook which also does track you.

      • GWB says:

        You can turn off your GPS or turn your phone off and it won’t track you any longer.
        Not true. You are also tracked (by Google, and especially by FB) by the IP address of any available wireless access points (or if you’re actually attached to a network). Also, your phone is constantly tracked by the cell towers.
        You can turn off your GPS and your wireless. But, the second you connect to the internet, they know where you are.

        The only way to even attempt to spoof is to turn off your GPS and use a VPN/TOR.

  • John Casteel says:

    Zuckerberg definitely comes off as a creep (though somewhat less creepy than Eric Schmidt but that’s like saying that Ted Bundy is less creepy than Jeffrey Dalmer). But what a conundrum: let the little creep keep running FB as he see’s fit or have the legions of degenerates in Washington make new rules. We’re going to need another Tom Payne.

  • Charlotte says:

    Excellent article. Still laughing about the booster cushion Zuckerberg had to sit on to be a “big boy”! Total crack up there.

    Congress is such a bunch of pompous, condescending turkeys. They are disgusting slugs who are such hypocrites, it is breath taking.

    Read a synopsis of Senator Cruz’s questions….it was splendidly wonderful.

    Zuckerberg is such a tool. Of course he wants regulation, it will stifle competition. He is really a jerk. Wozniak was quoted yesterday about how Zuckerberg wants personal privacy to the extent he buys all the houses and land around his residences. Yet, for the peasants…..no privacy for YOU!!!

  • Scottie says:

    But to have Zuckerburg say that there is no bias in the censoring of views on his site is just ridiculous. We either have free speech or we don’t. Diamond and Silk are no danger to the community.

    http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/09/5-big-fat-lies-opponents-free-speech-love/

  • Linda Fox says:

    Unlike you, I entered the tech industry quite early (late 1980s), and have kept abreast of developments since. While TECHNICALLY, you have to post your location for anyone to have access to that info – if you have location services turned on (most people do, on their phones), it will automatically add that info to your post. Therefore, this is kinda-true.
    I do remember party lines – despite my father working for the phone company, we had such a service until I was in high school. When we moved that year, the service was no longer available in our new location.
    The difference between one busy-body finding out ALL about your crush, and today is:
    – That one person could only tell so many people personally. In the process, the info would become garbled, leading most people to distrust 2nd hand info.
    – It was her word against yours.
    – Once she died, that info died with her.

    Today, that info (and pictures/video) will, theoretically, last forever. It will be transmitted in an easy-to-handle form to as many people as have access to the Internet. It can be Photoshopped, edited, spliced and diced, and exaggerated into a meme that your own mother wouldn’t recognize.
    It can easily be used to keep you from jobs, colleges, associations, and government positions.
    One unthinking comment can haunt you for years.
    Unless, of course, you are a Leftist – in that case, no memory.

    What about Zuckerberg’s testimony? He should be drafted for Dancing with the Stars, as he tippy-toed around the questions with the lead-footed grace of a Wozniak. Never mind, when asked in the future, he will point to his appearance, and say, “I’ve answered all those questions.”

    Which, he did not.

  • S.G. says:

    I don’t FB, but hearing that they likely have me tagged via others I know creeps me out a little. They don’t have my permission but are happy to collect ehatever they can on me.

    Plus I understand it is hard it is to cancel your account, and your info isnt deleted when you withdraw your consent.

  • GWB says:

    you may opt in to anything you want. Opting out has a cost.
    Well, no, not really. FB has lots of information about me – because most websites I visit have a FB button to share the article/post. You don’t get to easily turn that off. HOWEVER, they don’t know who I am because I’m not logged into those sites with a FB account. They can aggregate the data by IP, but that IP never connects with a FB account. (I use FB very sparingly, and only within a browser that eliminates all traces once I close the window.)

  • askeptic says:

    Thankfully, here in the solitude of Central Nevada without any LIVE TV, I am spared the violence of the “6-o’clock news” (what a wonderful Safe Space this is).
    I can only hope that more blogs disentangle themselves from #FakeBook, yesterday PowerLineBlog initiated that process, switching their Comments to Disqus.
    If the Feds refuse to look at breaking up Big Tech (please, tell me how Standard Oil was a monopoly, and #FakeBook isn’t?), then the proper response is to use other available platforms, and if they’re not available, create them. The only true discipline available for egotistical a**hats like The Zuck, and Dorsey, is to deprive them of what they wish most of all: THE MONEY!

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