The biggest threat to democracy: Facebook.
5
Looks like Mr Stamos got a better exit deal than Andrew McCabe. Who knew?
5
Not pleased about the Sandberg redaction.
8
I now only post puppy pictures on Facebook and comment mainly only about dogs. I'll be mildly flabbergasted the day I see clickbaits/stories/ads that try to paint certain people as dog lovers or dog haters.
4
People carp about the intrusion of the Internet into their personal lives, and with good reason. This is what occurs when companies are allowed to operate unburdened with regulations. The people who run the companies are not stupid. They are savvy. They know politicians can be bought. Sure, it's legal, because legislators who make the rules, while complaining about them to their constituents, are the very ones who made these rules. Politicians have gotten rid of any semblance of campaign finance reform. These same hypocrites tell you how terrible it is (woe is me) they have to spend so much time begging for money. Well, it hasn't seem to hurt them, has it? It has enhanced them.
When corporations are accorded the rights of people (Citizens United), this is what occurs. Despite that, barely half of all voters, under the best circumstances, go to the polls. Who is to blame for that?
Huge monopolies need to be regulated. Yet, half of the half of voters who do vote want to cut regulations. They say companies must be unencumbered, so they can get richer and trickle that wealth down to the Lumpen Proles. How dumb does one have to be to buy that rubbish?
Does the American public see their own hypocrisy? They want free enterprise, but they want regulations when they're harmed. They want a voice in their democracy but they do not exercise the greatest clout they have, the vote. In my estimation, I don't think Americans know what they want.
DD
Manhattan
9
I think it is to late for reform.
3
I have stopped using FB for a week, following the dirty unfolding of this story. It’s been bliss. I feel as though I was forced to check multiple times a day, in order to “keep up” with the pathetic self promotion of peripheral “friends.” Choosing to not participate in this daily waste of time feels freeing. I highly recommend it.
11
"“The people whose job is to protect the user always are fighting an uphill battle against the people whose job is to make money for the company,” That was written yesterday in this article. And today, Facebook's stock value has decreased by something like 40 billion dollars, as disgruntled users and investors jump ship. The "business" wonks at Facebook may have prevailed, users be damned, but without trusting users, Facebook is doomed.
6
Mueller will questions Zuckerberg and Sanders. Boycott Facebook!
6
So... the "something for nothing" crowd woke up and figured out that
FB is not free... did you really think that selling a picture of your CAT made
FB 40 Billion dollars?? wake up already.... Mark Z. has done nothing wrong...
it's his customers that just used the info for exactly the reason it was
collected for... as a tool.... How do you think it works??.... Pres Obama won
the election using targeted marketing... and then Trump used it to win...
It's a tool... stop thinking life is free... if you don't pay for it (FB) it's cause
you are the product... the money comes from selling your info to anybody
that wants it... It's going to be really funny seeing the look on congressmen's
faces when Mark Z. reminds them all that they used FB to get elected.....
the very same people that paid him money to sit in that chair and point at
Mark Z. and say.... "I need to win in november 2018.. can FB help me out??"... who cares if you are a republican or a democrat... you both use FB
hoping to win... what a joke...
1
How do we know this is propaganda? Because if Hillary had done this the NYT would be printing just how brilliant she was for thinking of it.
So, no mention of how you changed the third paragraph to eliminate a reference to Sheryl Sandberg? "...resistance by colleagues..." is SIGNIFICANTLY different than resistance from the COO. One would think that the NYT would issue a correction if their sources did not mention Sandberg. If they did mention her, why was her name removed from the article? What is the standard for when someone can removed from being mentioned by name in an unflattering article? Is it if you are in the C-suite? Is it if you are COO of a company on which the NYT advertises?
11
Why is the NYT editing its stories at the request of Facebook?
9
Good News.... FB made 40 Billion dollars reselling pictures of your Cat....
(Not really... but you must think that..).... FB's "terms of service" they own
everything/anything you post.... and surprise... Surprise... they sold it...
all of it... to anybody willing to pay... and then collected 40 Billion dollars
for their hard work... what did you think was going to happen?? hint: people
give me stuff for free and someone wants to buy it and I just made 40 billion
dollars... this year... what a life... P.S. keep posting pictures of your cat...
Cause now i know everything about you... (your IP address.. what street you live on.. your house.. your kids.. your wife.. your job.. what you like... the trump bumper sticker on your car.. your friends.. their friends... all from just
the pictures you post... then there is your actual post... )...
15
I'm quite happy that I have been able to resist requests from Facebook all these years. Every three or four months they sent me a email, urging me to reveal more about myself - where I live, where I went to school, where I work etc. They only see my comments I've posted online, and people who want to be in my circle. But I don't post any personal messages on Facebook and I don't know those who follow me.
3
Where we these same hand-wringers when the 2012 Obama Campaign was leveraging the same Facebook platform to vacuum up user data and profiles, apply algorithms to the information, and use it to "shape" marketing messages and candidate positioning? You can't tell me that those same databases weren't used by the Dems in the 2016 campaign, either. They just didn't use Cambridge Analytica to do it.
IMO, if you put your entire life story on social media, you shouldn't be shocked when it's used for money-making purposes. Let's not act like this is the first and only time it's occurred.
4
That's right, Stamos is resigning over no big deal, business as usual. What a sucker.
The real Catch-22 is if nothing is done to protect the personal information from Russian meddling we will become an oligarchy like Russia. it is already happening with Koch/Mercer, The Heritage Foundation, NRA, etc. All that has to be done is follow the money for the last 50 years and it leads to the Billionaires with crazy conservative agendas.
They are already poring in millions for Republican candidates for the mid terms. The tax cut was part of the agenda as is rolling back regulations, ACA.
Time for Facebook to be honest, transparent, and put security measures in place to protect users.
2
In 2012 I logged off Facebook and never returned. No regrets. I encourage others to do the same.
7
Facebook Corporations primary concern is to limit an EU lawsuit/penalty. The EU has much stricter data privacy laws while the USA has virtually none.
So, for Mr Stamos their CIO to say "now is the time for more transparency" is exactly why they canned him in 24 hours' time.
4
Sadly, I vehemently consider Facebook and every single one of it's owners, founders, CEO to be inherently responsible for the deeply divisive and dirty underhandedness which inhabits our national discourse today as well the fact that their loyalty to all things, any things which will bring them billions in revenue is far more important to them than doing the right thing and refusing to do bu$ine$$ with corrupt entities and extremists who pay them handily for their 'right' to spread their nascent agendas and hatred.
For those of us who value decency, humanity and respect, Facebook is nothing more than a farce and something which needs to be reigned in. And soon.
9
Is anyone surprised that a platform built to allow anyone to share anything is subject to being abused? Really? Facebook is a system built to gather and analyze information regarding its users, so that others can serve ads and content to them. That is how it makes money, and since job one for any corporation is building shareholder value (not really, but that seems to be the fashion), then it would be foolish of them to care where the ad revenue is coming from.
Everyone checks the accept box by the EULA without reading them. The people that agreed to Cambridge Analytics survey agreed to its terms.
If you are not paying for the product, you are the product. If that is not clear, you should not be using the internet.
3
This issue isn't challenging, or murky, or difficult, as I have heard here and in other media. Millions of people were hacked and had their personal information ripped from them; it's cyber rape. Facebook had a duty to inform, but did nothing.
The Cambridge Analytica debacle is the latest in a series of data breaches Facebook has faced. In 2015 the Ukraine told Facebook it was being played by Russian fake news. That same year Roger McNamee advised Facebook to take steps to protect its users. But Facebook said It's a platform not media. Zuckerberg, with head firmly planted in the sand to allow for continued cash flow, turned the issues over to subordinates, who did nothing.
This simply cannot stand. Hiding the difficult to protect revenue streams will ultimately do more to ruin a company than notifying the paying customers early on about security issues.
5
Seems like Facebook USERS are getting a free pass here on accountability. I use it all the time and I'm constantly amazed how easily (and foolishly) people will share posts that are dubious in factual content.
6
Instagram is Facebook too.
Don’t omit this from your reporting: same owners, same execs, same operators, same “advertisers.”
9
The most disturbing aspect of this whole mess is the idea that people treat the garbage they read on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. as fact! So much of it is what the moron in the white house describes as "fake news". What does it say about us as a society when so many people are relying on "social media" sites to deliver actual news?
7
Maybe if everybody leaves Facebook, Zuckerberg and Sandberg can go to work for Putin and the Russians. And lean out.
9
Time to get off facebook??
9
http://thehill.com/opinion/technology/379245-whats-genius-for-obama-is-s...
"...According to The Guardian, Obama’s new database would be gathered by asking individual volunteers to log into Obama’s reelection site using their Facebook credentials...injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page — home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends — directly into the central Obama database...
AG, if you're only going to post half the story - can you discount your pricing accordingly...
3
The hypocrisy of Sheryl Sanders - writing books advising American women how to "move forward" when she is working for a company with no moral compass.
11
Facebook's investor community needs to ask themselves if they think this is an ethical way to make money. Yes, like Google, FB sucks up most of the advertising dollars spent on line....but as we have seen, for what end?
2
Facebook - sorry pals but we played by the book. But you fool users allowed it. People are the problem, not Facebook.
2
Go figure, a platform to rate girls on their looks at Harvard is now used for disinformation.
9
In other times, what Facebook did was called a treasonus act.
In the times that we are living ..... it isn't important!
3
Lean in a little more Sheryl, and commit.
6
Assume anything you post on Facebook is now public knowledge and that anything you read on Facebook could now be fake news. If you're still concerned, get off Facebook all together and read a good book instead.
5
I just deactivated my facebook account. Goodbye Facebook! Good riddance.
7
Deactivating it is not enough. You need to delete it. The Guardian today has an article explaining how to totally remove yourself. Be prepared to wait 90 days to be totally free.
I find most comments on this piece simply disgusting. The way they gang up on Zuckerberg and Sanders remind me of the horrible purges of Joseph Stalin when “conscientious” citizens demanded blood of enemies. They also bring back memories of the Cultural Revolution in China with its forced confessions and public shaming and the period of mccarthyism with its black listing and the House Un-American Activities Committee. It seems that history has taught us nothing. Yes, there may be Russian trolls among us but I do not think that they have much affect. I do not think for one minute that they have changed the results of the last election. My intuition in this regard is fully vindicated by the statement from the DOJ. Your hysterical bloodthirsty demands if fulfilled can have only one result: the end of our freedoms. Your siege mentality can lead only to universal suspicion and distrust. You are the true enemies of democracy. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
2
Yes, Hillary was cruising to victory until those pesky Russians showed and used Facebook to steal the election. hahahahaha HAHAHAHAHA!!!
3
To be ethical requires that you act with good intent consistently
Never act in a certain way unless you are willing to have everyone else act in the same way
Make no exceptions for your own actions
Do onto others as you would do onto yourself
2
Facebook is a college student's platform that morphed into a gigantic money making machine. Now that we have established its power to influence its time that they go back to college and those at the helm of facebook take some lessons in corporate responsibility. If they fail to adhere to basic business ethics,then the congress should tighten the screws on them and those in power there and force them into being responsible.
1
You are so much better off if you do not participate in those social media sites like Faceplant, Twister and Snap Chap. Just be yourself.
I'm glad that I avoided using Facebook and their Unamerican owners.
1
shut down this propaganda tool
There's another more nefarious aspect to this story that isn't related to the ethics or decisions by Sandberg or Zuckerberg. It's the platform itself. Facebook allows people to sort themselves into like-minded groups. This phenomenon then allows people whose opinions would have been considered obnoxious, unfathomable, outlandish--on the margins and therefore not spreadable--to find others who agree with them.
We have always had racism in this country. Racism is in the DNA of a significant portion of our population. With the election of Obama and the rising popularity of Facebook, racists discovered their opinions were no longer isolated. They could find whole communities of people who were just as enraged, racist, hateful, resentful of government, resentful of welfare queens, as they were. The capacity to hate comes from those on the right. The left simply doesn't understand the full level of hate coming from their fellow Americans and directed toward Obama, Hillary Clinton, all Democrats, but Russia does. Steve Bannon does. Russia, Steve Bannon through Cambridge Analytica, used this hate, this racism running through our veins and weaponized it against ourselves. So we can fret all we want about the decisions made at the top levels of Facebook, but it is the capacity of Americans to hate their fellow Americans at an unprecedented, unexplainable level, and using Facebook to grow those communities of hate, that is to blame for bringing American democracy to its knees.
8
Let me guess you hate what you refer to as racists? The "progressive" definition of "racist" is one who doesn't subscribe to "progressive" dogma.
1
I assumed that Mark was just naive when he said, “pretty crazy idea”. I thought he’d get smart quickly when so much came out. So how did he react? With a coverup. Has he never heard “it’s not the crime, it’s the coverup”?
Mark, FB is a threat to our country. Snap out of it and take responsibility. Make this right. A PR push? This has gone way beyond that.
1
I never really got into Facebook, because I did worry about putting up so much of my life online. But then during #MeToo, Sheryl Sandberg had to go and drop what sounded to me like an implicit threat of retaliation against women reporting harassment. Company leaders she knew, she said, had told her they might stop hiring women altogether because of the movement. In other words, blanket discrimination as a retaliation against reporting harassment. Very impressive. Facebook was already over for me then.
Now this. Goodbye and good riddance, Facebook. No wonder Americans hate their elites.
5
Looking forward to Cheryl Sandberg's next bestseller: _Lean In(to) Surveillance_.
4
Sounds like a certain COO was was leaning way in for the money, and leaning way out on integrity.
4
Since the rise of FB, I have been the lone hold out among my friends and family to stay away from this type of social dysfunction. My personal reservations are coming true. FB ruins people's lives. As people read that statement, every one of you have recalled at least one person whose life has been negatively affected. Ruined marriages, fights with distant family, anger spewed at people that you didn't talk to since elementary school (and never would have again if not for FB), children being bullied to the point of suicide and now a country in ruins. FB ruins lives. Wake up people, you've been majorly played.
6
Do you realize how ridiculous all this looks? If, God forbid, people like most of the commenters below end up in power, we will have investigations on investigations before we know it.
1
Also Gulags would begin to spring up.
Thank goodness I am not nor have ever been on Facebook.
I feel that both Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg are all about the $$$!
I am sorry that Ms. Sandberg lost her spouse, then sold a book telling us all about her post-loss journey; so who got the money from the sales? Just curious.
Silicon Valley needs to step up and get handle on this and subsequent ALL work together to ensure this is the end of it. Congressional hearings on this? Really? They cannot chew gum and tie their shoes at the same time! This is the "Gang that couldn't shoot straight" nor do they want to. All they care about is preserving their seat in Congress and all the perks that go with it.
2
This paragraph had an effect on me in particular:
"“The people whose job is to protect the user always are fighting an uphill battle against the people whose job is to make money for the company,” said Sandy Parakilas, who worked at Facebook enforcing privacy and other rules until 2012 and now advises a nonprofit organization called the Center for Humane Technology, which is looking at the effect of technology on people."
Before I defected to physics, I studied engineering. At least two of the engineers on the faculty at my school had retreated to academia out of disgust over the outcome of such uphill battles in the commercial world. One professor taught statistical quality control and warned us of the means that companies could use to get engineers to cheat. Another professor had worked in the aircraft industry until he got tired of seeing engine tests that failed on the floor being rewritten by management as successful tests when the report made it to the executive level.
It's always an uphill battle in engineering, it seems, and that's why I want GMO foods labeled. I trust in the science. It's the people who employ the engineers who require transparency, oversight and supervision.
Software is just one more venue where these same battles have to be fought and fought and fought, over and over and over again.
5
If Facebook and Twitter do not seriously address this issue, I and a lot of other people will dismantle our social media presence. I'll go old school to keep up with family and friends.
1
Cool! Y'all could reduce the number of users to 1.99999 Billion instead of 2 Billion.
It is past time for regulations. Facebook is too powerful and owns too much of our data. We need laws to protect us.
7
It's all about the money and it is unconscionable that Facebook officials have resisted admittance of a serious problem. There might come a day, should they continue down this path that they self-destruct.
4
Wouldn't it be nice if the open source community were to produce a piece of software (call it "myFacebook") that would essentially provide the functionality of Facebook but --and this is the big difference-- that would run on each of our computers (turning them into "personal servers"). All the communications among friends will be point-to-point. The user will be completely in control of his/her own data. There might be a need for a global server, but only to associate accounts to IP addresses. No ads. No data abuse. Nothing. Maybe a one-time payment or a monthly fee to finance the cost of running that global server, if there is such a need. Why not?
7
Facebook exploited a growing human problem of disconnect and isolation by promising that the FB platform would bring a cure and make us more 'connected'. Youth learned early on that was hype and for the most part of long since abandoned the site (thank goodness), while adults, nonprofits, and others still embrace what FB promises, and share personal information without blinking an eye.
FB's really purpose has yet to be disclosed - I don't believe for a second it's about human connectedness - and I have zero trust in Zuckerberg, Sandberg, etc.
What the company has done is promote fake news and fake ads; it has added to the severe ageism in the Valley helping to create a wide chasm between inexperienced and experienced workers; the company aided the Russians in interfering with our elections; and it has allowed for millions of users' personal information to be delivered into the wrong hands.
4
Zuckerberg lied about his invention of FB; never get involved in an outfit whose genesis was mired in thievery and dishonesty.
5
With revelations of Russia-Trump-CA-FB over weekend, and now this, this might just do it for me, time to get off the out of control FB SM merri-go-round and get some life back (and read newspapers); I don't need to wait for details of what FB knew when (its ugly nuff, how nontransparent), and don't need to wait and hear what Zuck says (w lawyers) in front of congressional hearing.
4
Facebook has forfeited all user trust.
7
A gentleman or a lady's name should only be in the news three times: a birth announcement, a marriage announcement, and an obituary.
Facebook is altogether too too much.
13
Are you concerned about the theft of 50 million Facebook users’ personal information by Cambridge Analytica for the purpose of micro targeting political messaging and imagery to specific, “psychometrically parsed” groups of users, with the goal of influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election? Are you concerned that Cambridge Analytica, the political data mining entity that engineered this effort is largely run and funded by Bannon and Mercer? Are you concerned that Facebook has been played by much smarter political operatives, and that you are merely collateral damage in an information war? Are you concerned that Facebook is unwilling or unable to take appropriate action to protect your privacy?
If so, let me offer a suggestion for how to help change the narrative: BOYCOTT FACEBOOK. We all got along fine without so called social media before 2004. Let’s show Facebook that we can get along fine without them in 2018 until they change their algorithms, practices and business model to protect its most valuable asset: THE USERS.
I recently took a 4 month sabbatical from Facebook and survived nicely. Although I missed the occasional personal updates from family and friends, I found the break from the political dialog to be refreshingly liberating. If more people (USERS) took more breaks Facebook’s major asset class would decline in value, perhaps sufficiently to force the company to reckon responsibly with the realty of social media as a conduit for fake news
7
You have to laugh at businesses these days, when will they learn their lesson to read the writing on the wall before it's too late, which, in this case, is as clear as day! And that writing says, be as transparent as possible and do something about this Russian hacking/posting thing or lose the trust of billions of your customer's worldwide and they begin to abandon ship and move on. But, of course, they don't head the warning signs. Why? Simple. Greed. Because you know, 5 billion in profits is not enough. If they stop taking dirty Russian money, they will only earn 4.8 billion and Wall Street will look on them badly and their shares price will go down slightly. Of course, they don't realize that if they lose the public's trust, their share price will go down to almost nothing and they will lose the whole enchilada!
1
I like "Cover Up" as the title to Sandberg's "Lean In" sequel.
6
Amoral multinational corporation putting its own interests first and ignoring its responsibility as a citizen. Ultimately there will have to be regulation to require disclosure, these platforms can't skate forever pretending to be harmless cool new fun technology. Their enormous power requires oversight and they are unwilling to do themselves. If there is no regulation democracy as we know it will be gone and we will be will left with a tower of babble and anarchy.
2
Folks, I'm seeing a lot of "meddling"s and a lot of "sowing discord"s and "defraud"s and "interference"s, but almost no "hacking"s. And I'm seeing "adversary"s, but no "enemy"s. C'mon. Russia is our enemy, and they hacked our election and put their Quisling in charge of our nation, and every man, woman, and child in Russia should be held responsible. Russia wants to invade our country and enslave us and force us all to speak Russian and read Karl Marx and shave our children's heads to use the hair as fertilizer. When all we ever did was leave them alone and mind our business and make efforts to bring freedom and democracy to the world. I want to hear more "hacking" and more "attack" and more "warfare" in these articles and comments!
2
If it's free, you're the product. Don't be the product. Close that FB account.
8
Time for Zuckerberg and Sanders to be investigated by Special Counsel Mueller and Congress. The sooner the better.
3
My family said no to Facebook the second it popped up.. Anyone who ever thought "sharing" so publicly was a good idea needs to have their noggin examined. Capitalism always overrules individual space if you let it. How and where you spend your money are the only interesting things about you. Nobody cares about your cute puppy compared to folks who want to sell you stuff for it. So, if you bought into this "social" (er, business) platform why did you expect honesty from it? Do you think all of the ads on television are in your interest? Or honest? Isn't getting junk mail enough for you? Let's don't even start with the Russians.
2
"Lean in" is beginning to take on new connotations.....
Due to Zuckerbeg's settlement with the Twinkle toe twins before FB could float their IPO he ostensibly admitted that he stole Facebook data paid for by the Twinkle toe twins.
It's time Congress got off their lazy bums and drafted legislation that regulates companies like FB.
3
Trump's election campaign is full of scandal and criminal. Facebook is part of that scandal. Mueller must investigate FB and the Congress must do something. Mark Zuckerberg is acting like an innocent boy and is not accepting the responsibility to that extent. He should assure us that same thing won't happen again. Facebook platform should be free of politics and has to be careful of Russian plots.
1
[That same month, Mr. Zuckerberg publicly dismissed the notion that fake news influenced the 2016 election, calling it a “pretty crazy idea.”]
One can easily conclude that there is very weak, feeble thinking dominating this controversy due to the lack of detail and context that often accompanies discussion about this:
For example can such unwanted influence be quantified? Over a billion dollars has been spent to promote "fake news" --ie: political propaganda, ads, mudslinging, etc... during the 2016 election.
One could say that a butterfly flapping its wings could influence the appearance of a hurricane (The Butterfly Effect -- look it up), but to claim such comparatively diminutive factors as "influence" worthy of all this controversy is idiotic. Also, there is a failure to pay comparable attention to other foreign entities that lobby and may influence our politics: Israel, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc... For the sake of consistency, shouldn't all foreign nations and their lobbyists be banned from social media in the US?
To make this controversy more logical, it should be quantified and then put into context to explain how Russian influence is particularly more illegal & pervasive than the influence of other countries. This is not a blanket dismissal of suspicion, but rather a call to make these accusations more grounded in logic and less in hysteria.
And also in agreement with Alex Stamos, disclosing the source of such ads would be a good thing.
So much for Sheryl Sandberg , she has leaned forward so much , she's about to fall flat on her face . They knew from the very beginning , and turned a blind eye , after all their business is about collecting information and exploiting peoples carelessness . This verges almost on conspiracy with foreknowledge. Zuckerberg's weak denials were never convincing . The money he has given as charitable contributions are breadcrumbs tossed out to salve his selfish heart.
4
These people and firms like facebook should be held liable for publishing false and misleading information, just as any other news source is...
2
Z'burg, Board and staff need to step up big time on this issue. I wish I had FB stock so I could help organize share-holder action on FB's bottom line, which could amount to cutting off your nose to spite your face, but, like many other FB users, I am just that mad.
It is truly vile that Facebook would resist disclosure regarding Russian operatives to influence our Presidential election, in their concern over image (money) v. providing any and all assistance possible to US security efforts to understand and thwart Russian tactics.
This is sickening, and in my mind, treasonous.
Oxford Dictionary def: Treasonous: involving or guilty of the crime of betraying one's country.
1
This outrage is overwhelming. What did you people think Facebook was going to do with their treasure trove. Facebook is a business.
We just want people to find each other. We want people who like unicorns to find other people who like unicorns. They can come together and watch the unicorns jump over the rainbows.
Zuckerberg & Sandberg are out to make as much money as they possibly can.
1
Can't they just block any traffic from Russia?
Please leave Facebook and spill the beans. I am not a fan of Facebook, and how they operate.
1
Perhaps had wunderkind Zuckerberg accepted mature IT people instead of maligning them and their expertise the platform might have avoided being so easily hacked and the theft of so much personal data. Mark, how are you going to retrieve this information? Are you going to admit that thousands of copies could have been made and the data is effectively public? Your arrogance has made it appear that the Government of China cares more about the privacy of its citizens than does your company.
Signed, a "stupid" (old) IT professional
2
Facebook, Zukerberg, Sandberg collaborated in undermining US election process and democracy. What is the punishment? Where the responsibility? One system for the rich, a different system for the poor. What is wrong with them?
1
Trump's run for the Presidency can now be seen for what it always was: a way to make a killing.
And we're letting him get away with it. I'm ashamed to be an American because I see voters abrogating their responsibility to weigh the facts and cast their vote with the well-being of their nation in mind. Where are our American women? Speak up! I cannot believe you support this behavior! Take command! Demand integrity! Of your husbands and boyfriends and your local leaders and your local newspapers! This is your chance to step forward and rein in this mindless Trumpism hysteria. You know what he is. Do you lack the courage to speak up in the NYT, at your home, in the office? Take command!
Glad that I deleted my Facebook account almost 2 years ago. Others should do the same. Zuckerberg and Sandberg can drop dead.
1
There goes my account....no need to keep it open in the
light of what is taking place.......pretty soon criminals ...Russians and political organizations will start to use it for criminal activity such as extortion!
1
Imagine Zukerburger was a Trump supporter. Democrats and media would have gone for the head of Zukerburger. Zukerbuger can preach open borders and all, but behind the scene he is selling off American citizens identity and making billions. It must be regulated.
1
It doesn't matter whom he supports - and his last name is Zuckerberg, by the way.
What matters is what his company is doing, or rather not doing, regarding the data of millions of users. It's about what his company is doing, or rather not doing, regarding the crisis in which they now find themselves. It's about the fact that they're more concerned with their bottom line than about user safety. This isn't about Democrats, or the media, or whom Zuckerberg supports politically. This is about a major company refusing to do the right thing.
We will see, in another decade or so, that social media is the most destructive force unleashed on modern society. Humans are remarkably undiscriminating in their consumption of information, which Facebook's "share" function only exacerbates.
I originally joined Facebook in 2008 and left it last fall. It has turned into an echo chamber of dubious information that generates not much more than rage and divisiveness in the US. I no longer see Facebook as a useful tool for socializing, but as an excellent vector for introduction of false statements and half truths that can be leveraged by bot farms to control public opinion.
I am beginning to believe that Facebook, Twitter and other social media structures must end if we are to survive as an informed democratic society.
I am torn, however, about whether that goal is in alignment with our stated national values or whether such a thing can even be accomplished, given the addictive reinforcements built into the Facebook platform. When I left FB, the notifications continued and about a month after leaving, Facebook began to send more and more urgent notifications trying to get me to return. It was like being an alcoholic and trying to successfully walk past a bar every day on the way home from work.
In complex and confounding times like these, the last thing we need as a society is the continued noise generation and obfuscation provided by platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
4
If Sheryl Sandberg has been seen as an advocate for women leaning in and having a place at the same table as powerful men, albeit one tainted with obfuscation and self interest, she's certainly succeeded in this situation. Some role model.
5
This is an egregious breach of integrity by facebook and there should be criminal penalties. Of course, in the US we don't jail billionaire criminals, who have helped to hijack our elections and therefore, our democracy!
As dirty and corrupt as you think it is, guess again! As a Republic, we're finished and this is very scary.
Fascism is winning the day across the world!
4
What security does the NYT have in place to keep the Russians from posting on this forum?
8
Mr. McNamee is spot on. Facebook executives need to heed his advice, and quickly. This is pivotal moment not only for the company, but for the public conversation around social media and society.
Welcome to Silicon valley, where truth-tellers walk the plank. The Times may at last want to reconsider its participation in marketing of Sheryl Sandberg.
8
Did anyone really think that Facebook wasn't going to monetize their activity on their platform?
When anyone tells you they are going to give you something for free, there is always a catch.
What comes before the divorce? I am going to love you forever.
Does anyone think Facebook was in business to spread Peace, Love & Understanding around the globe?
I remember people thinking Facebook was going to bring Peace to the Middle East. (The wonderous Arab Spring, which the NYT touted as a white flag)
Wake up, Facebook is a business. The NYT put Sheryl Sandberg up on a great big box and now it wants to take her down and call her Lady Macbeth (so typical).
In the meantime, the NYT can keep crying about Trump because it feels so good.
Let's blame the election results on the Russians and Facebook because it is better than blaming ourselves and the NYT, who told its readers how Hillary Clinton was a shoe-in, until 7pm on election night.
Let's go outside look at the rainbows, sing kumbaya, and wait for the unicorns to arrive or we can just have a march & a protest.
Why don't the Democrats come up with a viable candidate for President, and I don't mean Warren and Sanders? Sure they can win Massachusetts but I don't think any red states are going to go their way.
2
I don't seem to recall reading any complaints from The Times when Eric Schmidt—big-time Democrat CEO of Google and Data-Mining King of our Personal Information that made him a multi-billionaire—practically lived in the WH, advising Obama how to use every high-tech-to-lowlife technique in the Google arsenal to manipulate and defraud We The People.
Cambridge Analytica didn’t do anything illegal and Facebook was not hacked. It was used. This is just the digital equivalent of grassroots politics.
What Cambridge Analytica did do wrong was to be owned by a couple of conservatives.
5
Not complicated. Zuckerberg and Sandberg are happy to betray their country's interests and sell their fellow citizens.
5
That's what they are doing every day. Taking information about users, using it themselves for their profit and selling it to others to use for theirs.
That's the deal that every Facebook user agrees to be a part of.
1
As usual, people are looking to scapegoat someone instead of looking at the core issue: most people aren't literate enough when consuming information to determine what is fake, and what is news. Most people are retreating into their tribes of what political uniform to wear when arguing with one another instead of thinking critically about what they are consuming on social media. Many people do not care.
Facebook has a responsibility to be good stewards of the experience people have on their site, and a leadership role to play in addressing the serious gap in information literacy education. They are not, however, the problem.
1
If Facebook can’t clean up their site they should be shut down until after the election. Maybe no Facebook in the 6 months before mid-terms or a Presidential election
6
Every article I have read on this subject in the New York Times uses the term "user data".
What exactly does "user data" mean? Does it mean that my name, home address, e-mail address and phone number were revealed to third parties, allowing them to contact me in multiple ways (direct mail, e-mail, phone calls or even ringing my doorbell) outside of Facebook?
Or was my information strictly demographic and psychographic thereby allowing Facebook advertisers to micro-target messages to me and people like me but not knowing who I was off of their platform?
The former is very worrisome while the latter not so much. At the moment, no one is being very forthcoming as to specifically what information was revealed.
4
I was always amused by the outrage over the NSA collecting metadata when it was obvious that the real problem was not the government but the private companies who had actual, usable data on US, not just phone calls. Not only did they have it, they actually bought/sold and used/misused it OPENLY every second you were on the net and even OFF the net ... and no one cared.
9
Ed Snowden made us aware, via classified powerpoint slides, that NSA is drinking from the Facebook fire hose of data 24/7. That, along with the telephone metadata, shows the US intelligence community still have a leg up on Zuckerberg when it comes to personal privacy and the law.
Hacking is hacking. Whether Cambridge Analytics did it or Facebook did it,, or Facebook opened the doors and sold the information. Hacking is hacking. Prosecute them all.
And IF Facebook is absolutely innocent,, possible,, the Facebook should sue Cambridge Analytics for what they lost on the stock market in the last few days. They should file suit for 37 Billion dollars,, and ask that all assets be frozen until the trial is finished,, of the company and the principals. Sue them. Or,, a class action lawsuit against Facebook,,, all one billion users.
1
No hacking was involved in this situation. Facebook sold the data to Cambridge and Cambridge legally purchased it. The situation did not involve hacking.
Not true. Some data was not provided but stolen.
After this bombshell revelation about how our data has been misused by Facebook, this paper and most readers are still focusing on it being a problem from Russia, when those alleged trolls spent 100K against the billions spent by others. And the others include so many more than we understand - all forms of manipulation by every position out there, be it alt-right, NRA, lobbyists of all stripes, corporations, media companies, etc. etc. etc. The only way to stop this in the political realm is to control money in politics. With the incredible and growing power of technology it cannot be controlled - not unless we all lose our freedom. But we can control our election laws. Wouldn't it be fantastic if all that was allowed was equal time for each candidate to speak for themselves? What a wonderful world that could be.
6
How hard can it be to launch a social network competitor to Facebook that is transparent and doesn't do all the nefarious things FB does with you data?
If someone started a social network whose policy was not to sell or monetize data generated by a user's profile and activity -- and monitored news feeds to weed out fake news, bots and trolls -- people would flock to that service because they are fed up with the shoddy way Facebook treats them.
5
Finally: honesty! This is a man worth keeping. Thank you Alex. A man of honor, guts, and integrity. Tell us what we can do to help you bring the truth to America. Count me in.
7
GC from Arizona says, in another comment, "Like many others I just say "No" to FB in the form of minimal use and max privacy settings."
There is NO SUCH THING as internet privacy. They are all working together and none of them, including my paid e-mail subscription with MSN, are private. They are ALL sharing OUR personal information to make money. No social media for me.
DEMAND regulation and breaking up of these internet behemoths before they destroy us with their insatiable, "libertarian" greed.
10
It would be interesting to see an analysis of FB-insider stock transactions during the period executives when were keeping quiet about Russian interference.
9
It would be interesting to know which political campaigns received donations from Facebook executives.
I think another question that needs to be asked is what monetary compensation is Facebook offering to those "users" whose information was misused? Perhaps if companies like Facebook began paying substantial fines after these types of breaches then they might take a more active approach to protecting those who choose use Facebook. As of now I don't see any outside motivation for Facebook to protect their users. I hear a lot of arrogant talk from Mr. Zuckerberg but not much else.
It appears that Facebook is trying to un-ring the bell.
5
He doesn’t care because he’s rich. Technology is consuming everything.
7
What is wrong with these once reputable people? Does becoming super rich affect one's level of integrity and destroy all sense of decency.
Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg and the other top executives who put company profits and public relations image above all else including protecting customers' privacy are about to face their day of reckoning and it's not going to go well for them or for Facebook.
22
I'm sorry, when did Zuckerberg ever have integrity? When he was stealing the FB concept from classmates?
And Sandberg? She "wrote" a book about grieving as if she was the first person to ever be faced with the loss of a loved one.
They are both massive narcissists and completely out of touch with regular people.
As a request to the NYTimes (or one of the commenters here with ready access): Please list the state attorney generals who are currently investigating (or have joined another AG's investigation) into this abuse, AND the ones who haven't. The respective web sites and email addresses of all 50 state AGs would be very helpful in encouraging them to take action.
While the Federal government could (and should) go after FB, I somehow doubt they will. However, with 50 million affected users, the AGs of all 50 states should have standing to investigate.
15
Call me paranoid, but I have never trusted Facebook and never used it. Facebook at its core is a psychological exploitative tool of the highest order. It was always about using people to make money. People bought into it and became the platform's puppets. Fortunately, it appears that younger people are catching on and are not being seduced by it. Let's hope Trump and Facebook disappear asap.
19
Of course paranoid.
Was just on the phone with a friend who lives in another part of the country and we stay in touch mostly by voice calling every so often --
I asked him - "So, what's new ?" --
He replied -- "I deleted my Facebook account yesterday" -
"Really ? - I've never had a Facebook account" - I answered --
"Well, after this recent news, I decided I'm done with Facebook." --
Then we moved on to more important topics - like the weather...
14
I have been concerned that Facebook did not disclose what happened to users fully and immediately. There are so many people that were influenced by the fake propaganda and they still don't realise what is fake because of a lack of disclosure. They were sharing RT News (Russian News) thinking it was Right Wing news. The stiff the Russians were putting out were not... (just lies) they were lies designed to get people to hate one another. Despicable..... ..There are still Troll site's on Facebook. I run across them all the time. The other thing is the site's that Facebook decides that facts posted that counter fake information are considered spam!!! What? So those comments are taken down even though they're the ones that are true. When I've tried to report Troll site's it's ignored. They aren't easy to find but if you look you can see them saying good morning and good evening yo each other on the same post as shift workers everyday. A supervisor will commend a page author on the very American looking profile pick etc. You can find several fake profiles on one by looking at the friends. Facebook's lack of transparency and proactive remediation of the issue is what has hurt their reputation. I can't be the only one who has discovered the problem above
3
Facebook is not "the social network." It the antisocial network.
5
As my wife said this morning, anyone who still uses Facebook is a fool.
10
I have been saying that for 2 years now...
This is exactly why we should not have business people with a corporate mindset in charge of our agencies let alone in the WH. There is no such thing as corporate responsibility. We have allowed the Pretend King Trump and his business Dictators to enter our government which was the last bastion of hope for protecting our interests, environment and our lives. These tech execs do not believe in America nor are Americans, they are global citizens with no borders. This mindset is good for business but not to govern a democracy. Facebook must at last reveal all they know as well as Twitter, Google and any other social media network. In this way, we can obtain the best picture of how the enemy got in, who allowed them in and remove the traitors from office.
8
That is why anti-government rhetoric is funded by business. They want to get rid of the one thing powerful enough to block corporations. Grow up and see through this right wing pablum.
Delete all apps installed by Facebook and don't click on any ads. Change your date of birth to 1/1/1901. Use a dummy email address, not your main one, to access the site. Don't use facebook to log into any outside comment boards or websites.
They can't use what they don't have.
8
More witch-hunt trying to pin Hillary's lost on someone other than herself. A waste of money and time like the Starr Report
4
The amateur part is right on.
My wish is to see Zuckerberg do the honorable thing and take full responsibility for his company being completely manipulated by Russia, other entities, and God know who else into handing over the 2016 election to the lunatic-in-chief.
My second wish is to see, live on TV, said lunatic-in-chief doing the perp-walk out of the White House in handcuffs.
Both will never occur, but one can always wish.
9
Russia is not an "entity." It's a country whose leaders are motivated - nay, corrupted to the bone - by an endless thirst for power and money. But a country full of good, decent, hard-working people. In other words, a country exactly like the Untied States.
Goodness, you'd almost think Zuckerberg and Sandberg were closeted Republicans.
8
I hope all websites see what creepy Facebook and bigoted Twitter really do to their "brand", and maybe stop begging for lichen (like-n'-) followers. All of that vacuuming and hoarding of personal data really isn't worth the destruction of trusted customer relationships, or of said customers' government.
Sites like to show off Like buttons and social network logos like they were military ribbons, when they're really badges of shame (with tracking scripts!).
3
as per NYT....."Facebook’s communications team encouraged Mr. Stamos to tweet in defense of the company, but only after it asked to approve Mr. Stamos’s tweets".
Mark and Cheryl, please don't tell us this is the best you can do. This is crude Orwellian mendacity. Your mentor is spot on, it's all about TRUST. You don't 'get it'? Sheesh.
8
Zuckerberg and Sandberg should Lean In and take the punch to the chin like they deserve. This isn't about likes, this is about truth and uprightness.
15
Attention to the Audit Committee of Board of Directors of Facebook: Your only option right now is to suspend the top leadership; hire outside firm to figure out who lied to you and when; read the minutes to determine what you know and when you knew it; and maybe check on your D and O insurance policy...
8
Delete your account. These people make Uber look noble.
12
What ethical moral and legal obligations does Facebook owe to it's users, owners, managers and the American people regarding Russian election meddling?
7
Facebook is appearing to be more and more like the Trump administration:
Pathologically dishonest,
Ruthlessly greedy,
Extremely dangerous to civilized societies.
As with Whited House, Facebook's morally debauched leadership is driving away all the people who are competent and moral.
Like Trump's Whited House, having Facebook on your resume will slam doors shut.
8
Your business is proven to be responsible for allowing a foreign power to influence our elections and even our notion of truth and facts and what is the priority f top executives? Polling the pubic on their personal reputations!?!? What arrogance, what selfishness. It is almost impossible to imagine. Zuckerberg and Sandberg are obvious frauds. They are not leaders, they are not geniuses and have been put on a pedestal for far too long. I look forward to their public demise. Shameful! Borderline treasonous themselves and little better than our shameful President.
7
Stamos has more guts than the GOP;cheers to him. When things are wrong; it takes real courage to stand up to pressure and JUST SAY NO Ray Sipe
9
Mueller is indicting many under the rubric of “conspiracy to defraud the United States” and Facebook could get swept up in this by “inaction” rather than by direct action as a covert co-conspirator.
I base this on the Op-Ed by March Wheeler in the Times a couple weeks back. While her focus was on Kushner, the piece itself lays out the wider indictment theory Mueller is using. And it seems to me that the deluge of information now emerging suggests that Facebook has a huge liabllty waiting for it as Mueller (and the rest of us) consider what they knew and how egregiously they failed to act and thus “participated” to “defraud the United States.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/opinion/jared-kushner-conspiracy-frau...
6
Facebook was negligent, Zuckerberg and Sanders were less forthright and time for Mueller to dig deeper.
4
Facebook is all about transparency -- until it's their own business.
4
"Mr. Stamos said he would leave Facebook but was persuaded to stay through August to oversee the transition of his responsibilities and because executives thought his departure would look bad."
Horse is out of the barn on that one.
What Facebook needs to do right now is come clean about what has happened and what information it has suppressed. And after letting bad actors get access to user data, Facebook needs to change its protocols to make it so much easier to leave the platform.
If I were on Facebook, I would be pretty angry, and pretty eager to DELETE FACEBOOK.
5
I am on the fence about ending my FB account. I want to punish them, but I feel if the left leaves it, it will just become a Breitbart message system. Is that better? Or Mercer will set up his own.
Just deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I've been on them for longer than a decade (although lately I've been disenchanted with both). Vote with your feet! Zuck - your "product" just left.
7
The dots really are starting to close into lines. Facebook and Cambridge Analytica need to be compelled by legislative and/or judicial inquiry to come clean. CA was mining personal data. Russia was exploiting data in swing states and possibly swing districts (which I recall seeing last year). If Russia really was targeting FB ads in swing districts, where were they getting this data from?
8
Manafort, Paige, Gates, Ross, Jared, oh yes, the Trump campaign server that was hooked to the Russian bank the whole time.
Outside of congressional action against Facebook, the thing that will most affect their behavior is the tarnishing of their brand. This will have a major effect on their revenue stream from advertisers who do not want their brand tarnished by their association with Facebook.
7
Why hire someone and not let them do their job? I have a Facebook account that I dropped off of years ago. I felt I was bring trolled by it, but it also wasn't hard to see and acknowledge what Facebook was doing in terms of using the information for profit and gain. That is what corporations do. I found that it was making connections with people I hardly knew form high school and making other connections I didn't need nor had I asked for them. That was enough for me. This was all before they increased their privacy notifications, etc.
Some of these platforms are subject to negatives. Everything has potential for good and bad. Very few things are "free." Facebook and those using it with frequency for whatever purpose (if not for your business and corporation-- even there I suppose as well), personally are open to exactly what we don't know. Who has really read the entire terms and services agreement for Facebook? It is a legal document that many of us would not be clear to understand what we have agreed to.
I thank Mr. Stamos for seeing the implications of the operation he is involved in until August. Security is rare today anywhere. He tried to convey that as best he could, I imagine. Those invested in Facebook might not care or didn't until now. Facebook took a BIG hit yesterday on the market. More to come I can only imagine. They would be well served to tell the truth and stop trickling it out. They are smarter than that and we know it.
2
“I told them, ‘Your business is based on trust, and you’re losing trust,’”
Facebook has already cemented itself as a necessary living tool for the vast majority of millennials. We, the world, have collectively paid Facebook, Inc., not just vast sums of capital but also in trust. In failing to properly protect and inform users of its platforms about how, why and who is monetising their data, and by failing to provide users with a clear way to control those mechanisms, and by failing to make it easy to opt-out (it is close to impossible to completely deactivate a Facebook account), just to name a few of the platform's endemic issues-- they are wantonly squandering this trust.
Be better, or be regulated. This has been the message from the governments of the spheres in which Facebook (and its Big Tech fraternity) operates. Facebook has shown that, not only is it unwilling to take the challenge seriously, it is deliberately choosing business goals over ethical and moral ones. Mr Zuckerberg (finding time to work between purchasing entire Hawaiian islands from under the feet of protesting natives) and his senior executive teams have been glib under questioning, played down and misrepresented the facts, and it has taken a whistleblower for the public to learn even the vaguest of truths about this affair.
Be better, or be regulated. We have let Big Tech try the former. Without immediate, fundamental change within the organisation, the hand of governments will be forced.
5
Uber, Facebook et al sell themselves as something new - a wonderful invention or service, a great app that will change and improve the world - never been done before. What they really aim to do is to make money by subverting regulations and getting for free what they might have had to pay for in the past. Uber is a taxi service so new, so different that they don’t need to abide by regulations that apply to older services. Facebook provides news but isn’t subject to the rules of journalism the NYT and older press is subject to. There’s only one rule - buy cheap and sell dear by roping in the rubes. Remember Napster - these guys are just smarter. As for me, I’ll lean out.
10
Like many others I just say "No" to FB in the form of minimal use and max privacy settings.
3
Yeah, but your data might still have been sold. Your privacy settings apply to other users, not companies FB gives the raw data to.
1
Facebook will go the way of AOL and become extinct too. People are tired of organizations and social media using their platforms for reasons people did not sign up for. If they won't protect their users and audience, then they will lose the trust of those that subscribe or use them. People should always keep in mind, NOTHING IS FREE, you will pay one way or the other, including with your privacy or with your identity. Everyone makes money using you.
5
I'm deleting my FaceBook account today. It's just one account, but I hope others will do so as well. If enough FB users do it, we might get the attention of Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg. I can't just sit by and do nothing!
11
The dead silence of Zuckerberg and Sandberg is more troubling than finally hearing the truth, bad as it is, from the only employee that understands what truth is. Do we really need Facebook in our lives? I think not.
14
Facebook, especially Zuckerberg et al, has a lot to answer for the US, probably the world. I deleted my account yesterday. And it was never my news source.
My main take away from this news circles back to a pre-existing anxiety which is the security of our election infrastructure. How many massive data breaches have to happen before people are convinced that our election infrastructure can be easily breached too.
The Senate Intelligence Committee had a hearing June 21, 2017. Prof. J. Alex Halderman from U of Michigan testified. He stated that his team was hired by DC to test the security of their election system. Over a period of 48 hours his team was able to change every vote and they were undetected. They were undetected by the people who hired them and were monitoring their activities!
Doesn't this info about FB underscore the most pressing tech issue for our democracy? Without security of our election infrastructure we don't really have a democracy. And for what it's worth this is a long standing issue that predates Russia "voting" in our 2016 election.
7
Other than for convenience and higher productivity, there is no need for electronic voting machines, especially given any electronic system's vulnerability to hacking. Paper ballots work, with no electrons to manipulate. While they may be vulnerable to human manipulation, they are immune to electronic hacking.
7
Using computer systems to register your vote is leaving your country open to losing your democracy. If it's a computer it can be hacked. No matter if it takes longer to get the results, going back to a marked paper ballot is the only way to ensure a true count.
6
In here book Lean in: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, Sheryl Sandberg writes that Leaning In can promote a virtuous circle: you assume you can juggle work and family, you step forward, you succeed professionally, and then you’re in a better position to ask for what you need and to make changes that could benefit others.
Corporations exist to make money, and Sandberg is good at leading companies to that goal. But what happened to her virtuous circle? Companies also have responsibilities to the customers that support them. Yet what we are seeing is that the pursuit of ever increasing profits can lead people to subvert their ethics and morals in service to quarterly earnings reports. It's a snowball effect that eventually captures everyone as it grows in size and momentum.
I don't mean to single out Sandberg here - Zuckerberg is equally complicit - but she is the COO and as she writes in her book:
“I still face situations that I fear are beyond my capabilities. I still have days when I feel like a fraud. And I still sometimes find myself spoken over and discounted while men sitting next to me are not. But now I know how to take a deep breath and keep my hand up. I have learned to sit at the table.”
She has indeed.
6
I've never joined Facebook, and I never saw the use for it. Plus I knew some young people who had been very hurt on Facebook. Why bother, I thought?
But had I joined Facebook, I would be leaving it now. Zuckerberg et al. keep showing up in the news, and it's never with good news. But now it would appear that the company has very little accountability and would prefer to rid its ranks of those who do. If you're on Facebook, I urge to get off it asap. You simply have no way of knowing how your information there is being used. And believe me, you can survive without it.
6
I’be never joine either. But any of us who are not joiners have likely also had info swept up by them.
Facebook will come to a bad end. I am certain of it!
1
Recall that Facebook (and Twitter) and pro-Trump social media specialists embedded in Brad Parscale's social media operation, which as he boasted at the time, was designed to suppress voter turnout from "blacks, liberals and women". They could easily have interconnected with the Russian operation - sharing the Cambridge Analytica targets. for example. Amy Klobuchar has legislation aimed at requiring social media political ads to adhere to the same standards and rules of disclosure as newspaper and broadcast. Governor Cuomo is also making this regulation part of his "Democracy Agenda." And Congress should adopt the Disclose Act that Republicans keep burying.
8
Wall Street Robber Barons created facebook, twitter and all other major social media sites for this very purpose. To try to control us.
The only answer lies with WE THE PEOPLE.
Stop using facebook. Sue for breach of privacy. Make your elected officials pass regulation that makes it a crime for internet providers/servicers or anyone else to sell OUR private information. I do not want to be "paid" for it. I want it to stop. Do you?
5
Facebook has had a meteoric rise. All along, all time and energy was spent on seeking ways to augment its revenue and profits.
Recently, there was outbreak of racial riots in far away Sri Lanka. Various forms of digital communication in the country was shut down, as the government was continuing investigations. Facebook was in the news.
In reading today's article, what we are seeing is the naiveteness of someone like Mark Zuckerberg and his executive team. They allowed the 'open field' platform of Facebook to be exploited and abused, caring less for the security of the millions of Facebook users.
Mr. Zuckerberg has failed in his mission, and not acted responsibly.
As Mr. Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor, has rightly said here in this article - "They were treating it as a P.R. problem, when it's a business problem".
No matter what the intent was, how is it that Facebook gave away data on 50 million Facebook users?
Mr. Zuckerberg should close down Facebook.
4
No one should be surprised that Facebook is selling your information to whomever wishes to buy it. That's what just about every company does, including non-profits that sell mailing lists. Of course Facebook built their business plan around selling your personal business. If that offends you, get off Facebook and the other information gathering sites that sell your personal information to anyone who wants to buy it.
What is surprising is that so many people get their news from Facebook and pay little or no attention at all to the source. Read a reliable newspaper and read a book, at least then you know who is talking and whose ideas your are considering. The news media is not perfect, but they are far better than the anonymous posts from propagandists on social media.
It is a responsibility of citizenship in a democracy to be informed, otherwise we will go on electing people who are liars, ill prepared and ill tempered.
9
It is an old story that people who tell their bosses things that the bosses don't want to hear, and persist in doing so, get "disappeared."
Facebook has not been good for American society, but try telling that to its addicts.
9
The bigger they are.......Facebook is encountering the problem that besets any mature empire; after saturation the only direction is decline. Interesting that a company that is built to facilitate and maximize social communication is blind to the simple truth that eventually, everybody knows everything! This monopolistic monster must be broken up, that way, when they misbehave, the customers vote with their feet. If they have no where to go the American dream is killed. Too big to fail is too big to exist.
Also, we are only now hearing about the MI5 side of operations, domestic. What about the MI6 side that monitors and manipulates accounts and opinions abroad? No less onerous or dangerous? This iceberg has hardly been exposed and measured.
Information is atomic power in the 21st century. Who, exactly, should be benefiting? And what role does transparency play (or not) in the pilfering of thoughts, opinions, images, feelings, and memories? Stamos is walking the plank but the pirate ship still sails.
2
Stamos is being prudent, and a wise citizen, in urging Facebook to disclose its security failures. Facebook execs shortsighted decision to push Stamos out shows that this social-media business--whose success was made on the backs of our labor--has shown both shortsighted selfishness and favoritism to pride over patriotism.
5
Facebook isn't the product, you are the product.
8
I’m guessing that Facebook would (could a rgue that the sale of this user information was in keeping with their privacy policies. Does anyone read those before hitting “I Agree”? Doubtful.
And that’s why I don’t use FB. Even if they weren’t selling my information, that information is too easily hacked, or simply observed - after all FB is a very public platform.
The bigger issue is that (it seems) information of 50 million Americans found its way to Russia to be used to interfere in our elections. That’s a big, big problem and I don’t think FB (or the Trump campaign) can dodge it by saying “Gee, we didn’t know how it was used.” That’s simply a lie, or ignorance. And ignorance is not an excuse.
3
If you want to put pressure on Facebook to stop selling your data the fix is easy. Stop using Facebook. Keep up with your friends and family by email, text or, and this is the novel idea, meeting them in person. Family reunions are fun and don't require a screen.
15
I've always said that the wars of the future will not be held on the ground but in cyberspace. Russia has defeated the will of the American people in this last election by using cunning and skill rather than weapons of war. We need to wake up fast. Any business entity that enables our Democracy to be undermined is as traitorous as any Benedict Arnold and should be dealt with accordingly.
9
I left Facebook right after the election when a friend texted me in a panic that eastern Europe had tanks on red alert because Hillary was about to win, setting off WWIII.
The fact that Zuckerberg, Sandberg and the platform as a whole, allowed these cheap, scare tactics/ads to post is shameful. What were you thinking Mark/Sheryl - didn't you know?
They wanted the whole world to be connected to them - now, they might just lost the world and even more.
11
Interesting. It's well known that many folks who use and post on Facebook are image conscious and like to present a much better picture of themselves and their lives. But here is Facebook trying to do the same "Facebook cares so much about its image that the executives don’t want to come out and tell the whole truth when things go wrong". Fits Facebook perfectly doesn't it.
Technology can be used for good and bad, its not always about profit and profitability. I guess FB cannot pass on a few dollars even to help improve itself and improve the political discourse.
8
That Facebook would place money (money now) over the loyalty and safety of it’s user community is beyond disgusting. That FB execs would allow the undermining of democracy is beyond disgusting, it labels the platform and it’s people as complicit in the downfall of democracy. The board of directors should clean house, and if it means the end of the platform, so be it.
Finding that Cambridge Analytica used FB to influence the Brexit vote in Great Britain should cause Parliament to suspend the platform in the UK and have another vote.
The problem for us in the US is: how to counter the junk that the platform has been allowing to spread for so long? How can we bring our people back to reality?
I will admit to having reported more than a few FB profiles during the 2016 campaign; while most are now gone, FB would regularly defend those profiles, ones that were disseminating fake news stories and, for instance, the “deep state” fantasy.
4
Facebook, the world’s largest surveillance platform, would make the East German Stasi blush.
8
Didn't Zuckerberg just partner with a Russia a couple of years back? I remember reading it and seeing a video of him announcing this strategic partnership but couldn't find any information on it today. I'll look harder.
2
Thank goodness we never never got a Facebook account. It began with our kids banning us from spying on them when they opened their FB accounts. Even after they lifted the ban, we felt we didn’t have to know what our high school college graduate school marrued friends and relatives were doing day in day out, where they went for vacation, what they Ate or even what political belief they held.
PHEW!
2
Deactivate and stop using social media. If you want news go to news sites or better yet pay for a subscription. If you want to vent your frustration write an opinion article, force yourself to sit down for more then a minute and write. If you want to let out anger go to the gym. We are letting these social media apps rule our lives in every possible way.
9
"“I told them, ‘Your business is based on trust, and you’re losing trust,’” said Mr. McNamee..."
Yes, they have. I've closed by Facebook account and I encourage others to do the same. They cannot guarantee safety of data nor misuse of the same.
6
It's time for Twitter to be held to the same scrutiny. The recent Russian effort to (successfully) promote #ReleaseTheMemo had more obvious policy effect on the US government than anything done on Facebook. As it is Trump's favorite method of communication, its vulnerability is much more important than Facebook's.
4
I've never been on Facebook. Today I'm happier about that than ever.
2
Exactly what business are you in Facebook? Or would you rather not say? No wonder it's so hard for people to dismantle their FB accounts.
2
FaceBook and its wonder-boy founder should be ashamed of this on-going farce. When are they going to step up to their civic responsibilities?
1
To have a social media account on the web is like leaving the front door open, mail in the mail box, and packages stacked up on the porch.
1
There was no media outrage in 2012 when the Obama administration weaponized the facebook data of tens of millions of unsuspecting users to help win an election. This issue could have been dealt with then, but the media wasn’t interested. The question is, why?
1
OK. Are we clear? Their product is profit.
3
Can we now finally admit that the raw pursuit of profit does not promote public good? These "lord of the universe" have feet of clay soaked in the misery of the rest of us. We have allowed - nay, promoted - the ridiculous claim that unfettered capitalism benefits us all. As Keynes would say, it is an astounding belief and based on nothing.
Capitalism needs restraints for its own good and for the good of society. We are well, well on our way to monopoly control of goods and services that hollows out communities and creates a nearly impenetrable barrier to the entry of competition. That is the death of a free market system. Our banks no longer serve the community; they have become rentiers harvesting our finances through fees. Amazon has caused hundreds of thousands of small, local businesses to fail. Even larger national chains have fallen because they cannot compete. This is not good for the country as smaller cities and towns lose taxes on both goods sold and business income. It is killing us while some politicians in thrall to large corporations claim the culprit is immigration.
Do not allow corporations and plutocrats to destroy us. Bring down this fallacy along with Trump and his enablers!
1
Facebook is in the business of selling your information and people give it knowing it will be released. That the Russians or Trump's consultant used the for sale information, should surprise no one. Facebook's gagging Mr Stamos is unfortunate and reflects the hypocrisy of Facebook senior management.
1
And this on top of the tax breaks just given to Facebook from Congress. I want a refund!
7
Two important questions..How do I know if my information was used, and who wants to join a class action lawsuit and take down Facebook?
6
I am disgusted and angry that by using FB I was made to be complicit in the election of Trump. I quit.
6
I deactivated Facebook yesterday, never to return. I've also switched from Google search to DuckDuckGo (which anonymizes search and doesn't track history). Next to go is Google mail. This stuff is just too creepy.
7
Russian interference
Trump
Cambridge Analytica (European)
Breitbart
Facebook
Expedia lost control of financial data on 143 million.
Facebook lost control of social information on 50 million. That we know of.
What happens when those two databases are merged?
And the GOP which is driving this train is not only asleep at the wheel, but swallowed an entire bottle of Xanax.
3
Looks like the UK Parliament is going to investigate too. They will most likely ask the right questions and be a lot tougher than anyone in the US Congress. Maybe we'll get some REAL answers from them.
1
Tsk, tsk, how surprising! The company based on an idea that Mark Zuckerberg stole from someone who paid him to do the programming to put the idea online doesn't want its dirty laundry aired in public. In fact, has no intention of disclosing how complicit and inept it is in matters large and small. Imagine that this guy actually wanted to achieve more transparency, not simply pay lip service to the concept.
So many naive folks out there who use social media willy-nilly and now discover that in fact it is not just a social media site for your use, but a business. And it is most interesting that Stamos will go, he who wanted more exposure into the Russian meddling. I don't believe Zuckerberg nor Sandberg had any intention that could be viewed as nefarious, but they were not as zealous as needed in this case. Roy from FW said it best and most simply: anything in the Trump orbit is soiled.
1
There are a lot of comments that no one should use FB, or that you are stupid to do so, etc. That may be true.
But, it does not excuse FB from complying with the laws of this country when it comes to data breaches and the like. Saying don't use FB because of this breach is akin to saying don't shop at Target or Home Depot or any of the other myriad of large American corporations (yahoo) that have experienced data breaches. FB has legal obligations and if they are not complying with said legal obligations under federal or state law that require quick and transparent disclosures on data breaches than they should be sued or fined or both. Put aside the political issues which are important, if data was improperly shared by or lost by FB that puts security questions and passwords at risk for FB's customers across many and varied platforms not just FB.
1
I think the quitters are more concerned about FB's complicity, not the breech specifically.
1
The hackers that targeted retailers want money. The Facebook information and the use of Facebook as a platform for trolls was meant to subvert our democracy. Two very different things.
1
This was not a ‘data breach’...FB willingly developed an application programming interface so the data could be mines by third parties. You are going too easy on them by swallowing media fictions.
When this is over, looks like Zuckerberg and Sanders will pocket their billions and scamper off, chortling and congratulating themselves as usual.
1
"By November 2016, the team had uncovered evidence that Russian operatives had aggressively pushed DNC leaks and propaganda on Facebook. That same month, Mr. Zuckerberg publicly dismissed the notion that fake news influenced the 2016 election, calling it a “pretty crazy idea.”'
Sounds like Mr. Stamos did his job.
1
Ultimately the users, citizens, that take the bait (fake news, trolls, etc.) must hold themselves accountable and wisen up. Could fb let all who were duped know they were duped? If we focus too much on fb we're on the symptom instead of the true problem.
1
Dear Sheryl:
Lean out!
3
"Mr. Stamos said he would leave Facebook but was persuaded to stay through August to oversee the transition of his responsibilities and because executives thought his departure would look bad..."
Dear Facebook, It isn't about how things look. Your product is contaminated. It's already bad.
3
Yet another reason not to be on Facebook (aka 'Faceplant').
1
Two words: Congressional Hearings. Barring that, Robert Mueller should put certain FB execs under oath, and indict them when they lie.
Many Face Book users still do not realize how their personal profiles have been compromised and stripped them naked.
The leaders of Face Book thus far have shown their unwillingness or inability to control the monster they have created.
They must be held accountable for the harm they are causing to ourselves and to our political system of freedom and democracy.
If their business cannot survive without doing harm to us then they DO NOT DESERVE TO SURVIVE.
3
If Facebook doesn't shift immediately to full transparency mode on this growing scandal involving Russia, fake news, divisive posts and data mining by Cambridge Analytica, I think Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and the senior executives involved in this coverup need to go now.
Another reason to hate FB... I have an account that I (maybe) log into 2-3x a year as I see it as comparable to Snapchat, Instagram, Foursquare and anything else but e-mail & texting as a total waste of time.
Do we all need to know that I had a second cup of coffee this AM?
And now the "leadership" has been revealed as placing their stock options over country. Simply treasonous.
1
Facebook reminds me of what the tobacco manufacturers used to say. Smoking is a choice, you are not being manipulated. Then the truth came out. This may be a different industry, but the behavior is typical corporate America that our country is better off without.
1
While it's always satisfying to jump on the Facebook-is-evil bandwagon, people use the service knowing that they are giving up their data. Right now people are willing to give up their data to an app that tells them what celebrity they look like. So I have no problem with the fact that data from 50 million users was mined. It's not obvious, nor have any studies proven, that this data is particularly useful on its own. The bigger problem is fake news and for some reason there is little outrage over the damage Fox News is doing to our country as they spew forth fake stories, and fake conspiracies, under the guise of representing real America, while they prop up a Russian puppet and make millions.
2
Hey, Facebook users:
Wake up! You've been and are being fleeced, robbed, used and played.
Facebook IS "Big Brother." Period, the end.
Oh, but right - it's absolutely vital to post pictures of your fabulous life, perfect children and stunning vacations. Far more important than US democracy, apparently.
3
Society's welfare should be dependent upon its ability to decipher up from down. A society incapable of such is the danger.
Why are these articles still here ?
The only interest of companies such as Facebook is the quotation of their shares.
Over the last 5 years we have read again and again articles repeating the elements of language of communication departments of these companies.
As it those mattered compared to their actual policies.
When will the press do its job on high tech companies beyond Public Relations ?
Mueller should "Lean in" to seriously investigate Facebook. And it shows how cursory was the House Republican led inquiry into Russian meddling was.
2
“The people whose job is to protect the user always are fighting an uphill battle against the people whose job is to make money for the company.”
Silly me! I thought those were two sides of the same coin. How do you make money by mistreating your customers?
Thanks for this article.
A real eye-opener for all those who thought FB was just innocent fun.
Now we learn FB is as self-interested and calculating as the Stasi, or any other surveillance service.
2
Hmm, do the right thing, or make a ton of cash ... decisions, decisions. Well, it appears Facebook made the "right" choice. This appears to all fit in with our tolerance, as a nation, of the continual lying, using politics as a pretext for making money, secret deals, etc. that have become the new normal.
When the Tylenol poisoning occurred, Johnson and Johnson stepped up with public disclosure. When will Facebook (hu)man-up?
1
Why is the guy who was pushing for more disclosure being forced out?
4
Facebook is the most dangerous PROPAGANDA machine in human history. Both Zuckerberg and Sandberg would both be OUT by now if Facebook had a real board of directors and the company was not under the total control of Zuckerberg. We are witnessing the fatal flaw in the corporate word as with government leaders when one Strong Man controls any huge enterprise.
Everyone should shut down their Facebook account. Trust me you can live very well without being on Facebook. I know it for a fact !
1
Kathy Lollock: "What on earth is this Congress waiting for to question Zuckerberg?"
Republicans were the beneficiaries of Cambridge Analytica's efforts, as well as Russian efforts to undermine our elections. Why in the world would they be motivated to investigate this interference?
Censorship is the backbone of Fascism. Free speech just for Americans, is no free speech at all.
There is no reason why, anyone, from anywhere, should not be able to weigh in on American elections. And forcing people to disclose their identity, is clearly suppressing the flow of information. Both anonymous social media accounts, and anonymous web sites, are totally common - as they should be.
The original charge against "Russia" was that our voting machines had been tampered with. That turned out to be totally false. It would have been interference, it had happened - but it did not.
Trump needs to be attacked for the disgusting and destructive actions he is taking as President, not for imaginary conspiracies with an imaginary "bogey man". There is no difference between the right wing "Birthers" who endless attacked Obama, and the left wing "Hillary really won" nuts who endlessly attack Trump with nonsense about the election being rigged.
Attack Trump for the very real damage that he is doing to our country - everything else is a distraction.
1
Zuckerberg and Sandberg allowed Facebook to be weaponized by people like Putin and Trump, then lied about it. Our data was mined and turned into a toxic stew that poisoned our society and made our citizens angry, fearful and disillusioned. Something must be done or else companies like Facebook and Twitter will continue to rip our social fabric to shreds and profit from it.
1
What was life like before Facebook? Why did it become addictive? Is everyone really shocked that people with ulterior motives misused the innocence of billions? Suddenly, "Just Say No!" becomes easy. Do it!
After about a year having a Facebook account I decided to close it. The fact that you have no control over your own stuff and it can never be erased gave me a creepy feeling. The other creepy feeling I got when I realized that I was being specifically targeted by certain advertisers for their products.
In a technology driven age we may understandably feel that we have no control. I say we do. We are the product on facebook - we are offered up to business and all sorts of data analytics. Therefore close your Facebook account. Yeah yeah you are going to say they have what half a billion? a billion? people who use facebook? That number grew by one person, one business signing up at a time. Delete your account - one at a time...
We can impact their bottom line until they decide to act like patriots and trust worthy partners. Delete your account
2
If you are using Google’s search function or gmail, they are doing the same thing to you. These techniques are more prevalent than you imagine.
I realize that. I figure you Have to start somewhere.
“Mr. Stamos, who plans to leave Facebook by August, had advocated more disclosure around Russian interference of the platform and some restructuring to better address the issues, but was met with resistance by colleagues, said the current and former employees.”
Why would there be resistance to addressing issues?
2
Years ago, Mark Zuckerberg declared privacy is dead. Now we know he really meant it for everyone except his own family.
2
The “Professor” who got the data from 50 million also had an appointment at a Russian university and for some reason Lukoil executives needed the data too according to a whistle blower. This has a Russian spy smell to it... they are so far ahead of us... where is our intelligence community.
3
Zuckerberg and Sandberg aren's "struggling to address a growing set of problems." They aren't addressing them at all.
5
One must ask where was the media outrage when Chris Hughes was installed in the Obama White House to organize a similar data mining operation on tens of millions of unsuspecting facebook users? This issue could have been hit on the head in 2012 but the media looked the other way.
There's only one effective and appropriate response to this level of deeply ingrained venal irresponsibility: Stop using Facebook. Encourage others to do the same. Bring this abusive company crashing down. The market is clearly lucrative enough that others more concerned with customer privacy as part of their business model will quickly take its place.
1
When Obama and the Dems were data mining not just FB also Google and other "free" web services, the narrative was that they were "tech savvy", "information age" and "intelligent".
But when Trump and the GOP does the same suddenly the narrative shifted to "election meddling", "weaponizing data", "invasion of privacy" and calling for Mueller investigation.
Is it any wonder Trump and his supporters are sick and tired of the mainstream narratives to try to delegitimize him as a duly elected President.
There needs to be an investigation into whether or not state and or federal criminal charges can be brought against this corporation and its leaders. Security breaches into private information that is supposed to be protected are the wave of future acts of aggression and terrorism, as we are already witnessing. Those seeking to attack the US will be using technology to dismantle the country's systems of finance as well as services such as electricity, gas, phone service, and other forms of communication. Once that is accomplished, our country will be a prime candidate for a physical attack - nuclear or by invading troops.
Our elected officials and leaders of these tech corporations are showing themselves to be inept - endangering the lives of each and every person living in the United States.
1
Facebook has amassed huge amounts of data about all citizens, and adversary nations are leveraging this data to manipulate the nation, including by helping elect a president who will be friendlier towards them.
Facebook is Russia's biggest cyberweapon. Just as private companies would not be allowed to stockpile WMDs, private companies should not be allowed to stockpile so much digital information either. This is a national security issue.
2
If Zukerburger was a Trump supporter, the media and Democrats would have demanded his head. Facebook is selling off American Citizens private data to make billions.
1
The only collusion i see are 1) Hillary and FusionGPS 2) Facebook and Russians 3) FBI, Justice Department, Obama White house to get Hillary and all her buddies scot free.
Sheryl Sandberg needs to lean in on this or her reputation (and book sales) will plummet.
3
I think it's time to close Facebook account, and if you own any stock, sell it!
4
More than ever, the old adage is true: If something is free, you are the product.
Somehow the public has been duped into thinking that Facebook is providing a new-age service out of the goodness of its heart, with making communication and the transfer of information easier its only purpose. Somehow, in the process, corporate love of the almighty buck has been obscured.
If Mark Zuckerberg's portrayal in the movie "Social Network" is in the least bit accurate (and the fish does, indeed, rot from the head down), is it any wonder that Facebook is a self-righteous, paranoid, condescending 21st "vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money"?
1
Shame on Sheryl Sanberg. She shows her true colors by dismissing the idea of being transparent with the public and FB's users about this breach of data use.
4
I guess Sheryl Sandburg is leaning into complicity in treasonous behavior.
2
“The people whose job is to protect the user always are fighting an uphill battle against the people whose job is to make money for the company,” said Sandy Parakilas.”
And here you have the business model not only for FB but every Americans corporation. Ironically, those whose job is to make money for the company ultimately lose more money when the customer(user) is ignored or disrespected.
1
The darlings of the new digital economy i.e. Facebook, Google, Amazon, have contributed a great deal to our society. Hey, I'm in touch with my long lost HS friend! Wow, I have an entire encyclopedia on my fingertips! Yeah, I can order anything I want w/o getting in my car! The flip side: I have absolutely no expectation of privacy. They know EVERYTHING about me, my family and my friends. Were we better off visiting a library, walking into a brick and mortar store; having memories of our HS friends? Who knows but there's no turning back. Or is there?
You can always move to the Seychelles or a Bahamas out island. They will still know who you are, but who cares?
For centuries, humans fought for and gave up their lives to achieve individual freedom and the right to personal privacy.
And then at some point, we all collectively made a gift basket of all of the above and handed it over to Mark Zuckerberg.
All because we wanted to know what our friend’s third cousin ate for breakfast.
3
Even though a FB account is "free," the price one actually pays is far too high--everyone should abandon FB now. Start interacting via the telephone, email, write actual letters, visit loved ones in person, and interact in deeper, more meaningful ways. Send FB a message if only by deleting your account for a day or a week. Do whatever it takes to make them listen and serve FB users honestly and faithfully or pay the price for betraying them.
I agree with the comment that we need a public outlet that competes or replaces FB.
1
I recently opted out of Facebook--and made that move known to everyone who gets my messages--not because of its actual illegality but because I had to do something in light of Facebook's apparent weakness toward, let's say it, Russia. I wanted to draw attention to the need for stronger filters that would prevent anti-American messages from taking over Facebook and exerting pressure on our elections. The recent resignation of Alex Stamos supports my concern. He cares about security; other Facebook officials care about profits. What does Mark Zuckerberg care about? I have always been impressed with his brilliance and his integrity, but not so much with his innocent belief that putting everybody on Earth in touch with every other body on Earth would result in nothing but good. Mark, speak up.
What was Facebook board member Peter Thiel's reaction to revealing the data leak when Facebook was denying it happened?
Remember that Peter Thiel was with Facebook from the earliest days as one of the first investors. Remember that Peter Thiel and Rebekah Mercer were both major Trump donors and supporters. Remember that Peter Thiel had another company that knew a lot about data mining.
Where was he when all this was going on?
2
Facebook's ongoing secrecy and lack of response to the most recent crisis is not only troubling but suspicious as well. Like perhaps they're hiding something even bigger. Imagine the turmoil, embarrassment and panic if, for example, it is disclosed that Facebook made available this same unauthorized user information to their friends over at the Hillary campaign/DNC. Somehow it's hard to believe there isn't more to come.
Time for Zuckerberg and Sandberg to come clean. No more denials.
Full disclosure and face the consequences of having enabled Trump to use illegal means to spread lies and hateful propaganda against Clinton.
We will not forget how Comey and Zuckerberg delivered the presidency to Trump.
1
Sandberg and Zuckerberg just don't get it. One of the reasons I am not now on Facebook. Their attitude is like giving candy to pre-diabetic kids and not feeling responsible for the ultimate results.
4
Once more, pleased with myself that I don't have a fb account.
Also, pleased with those 'friends' I have lost because I'm not enough 'social' and I don't 'share', therefore I don't exist anymore for them.
4
The problem is, these things benefit the Republicans. If Facebook was doing something that benefitted Hillary Clinton there would be more investtigations than Benghazi, but so long as it helped the GOP win, it's all good.
5
Skip the outrage and send the only message that counts, delete your Facebook account.
8
Did it yesterday. Done and done.
1
The "PR problem" became a "business problem" because failure to act is a "national security problem."
Facebook comes clean or it goes down.
Reassigning privacy/security matters to "product" and "infrastructure" teams and reducing staff on security from 120 to 3 is evidence that FB execs cannot handle the monster they've created.
Going forward, determining the line between free speech and regulating social media will be one of America's greatest challenges. That takes precedence over the reputations of any individual executives or shareholders at FB.
4
Looks like Facebook is turning out to be like the TELESCREENS of 1984, No, neither Zuck, not so cute anymore, and FB have actually ever been our friends and all of us on FB have been abused,
Hard as it is, while we trust that Congress will start acting, WE need to act by unsubscribing lest we tacitly approve of what they are doing this very minute to us, A good slap is sometimes what a bad kid needs to straighten up,
3
Mueller needs to investigate Zuckerberg for possible collusion with Putin and Trump.
4
If every Facebook user who opposes Trump and Putin would dump her/his Facebook page, Facebook would crash as a company.
What are these Americans waiting for?
Dump Twitter as well.
4
Where is the FB disrupter?
Hey all you programmers — build me a competitor to FB — new way to post my pics so that my 88-year-old mom on the other side of the country can see them.
And how about NO ads - and I pay a small annual fee ($10/yr) so there’s no ads?
Maybe slightly higher fees for businesses that want a Facebook-like presence online - maybe the biz fees are based on annual profits? So still affordable for small businesses.
Done and done.
Plz let me know when that’s up? OK? Thx.
If there was a mass exodus of Facebook users, then Zukerberg and the upper echelon might reconsider their position. Boycott works!
2
Zuckerberg and crew need to testify asap. Your answers will let all the public in American and around the world to see what a greedy corporation you are. You sold the country out and now it is time to pay for it. You are no better than this current political administration. If these politicians don't force you to testify they need to be removed from office for not doing there duty, protecting the American public and in this case democracy in the rest of the world.
Mr. Stamos is the true American and I fault him only for not leaving earlier when they cut his department down and basically laughed at him for voicing his concerns. Arrogant Zuckerberg believed the public was so stupid and our politicians so corrupt like they are that they would never be found out. Well because of great investigative reporting we know now and we all need to get off of Facebook. This technology is the enemy of the people
1
Facebook's lack of privacy has classically been a feature, not a bug. Until it becomes a problem.
Facebook is built to share everything you post, not only with your friends, but with their friends. You get lots of "likes", which is fun until an ill considered post goes viral and smashes into your life.
We built an alternative, nderground (nderground.net). nderground is a social network built for privacy. You can share posts and photos with your friends and family - and no one else.
1
Lets see:
First, Trump colluded with Russia.
Now, Trump collaborated with Facebook.
Where does it all ended.
1
Right--" the public outcry"--is from our Sovietized broadcast mass-media that have been serving up biased "news" for many decades, most abusively under Obama and then advocating for Hillary while attacking Trump, which continues today. Trump put a stop to their Neo-Marxist parade of "facts".
The unfairness in the last election was that New York City's media central narrative got stomped by the opposition. Now how to win it back--control their narrative with forced, "self-imposed" Newspeak "edited" by Media Central Command, Google, Facebook, Youtube et al.
There is no question that Google, for example, is a cult of cultural Marxism based in Lenin's Bay Area and will exercise its power at will--i.e., a seemingly benign Maoist reeducation camp. Lucky freedom of speech in America.
1
What is the surprise?
Like Trump, Facebook is a business and is only interested in making money, not in the public's or nation's welfare
3
It is funny how everyone was outraged by the NSA stuff, but pours themselves into FB.
1
You can have Facebook account in name of organization until you build up so many followers then they cut you off. Our account in is now in name of Chaaya Azar as we begin anew to build followers at Facebook after leaving them for several years.
1
David Rushkoff, media theorist, in 2011 stated: "On Facebook you're the product, not the customer." Here's the URL : http://www.wired.co.uk/article/doug-rushkoff-hello-etsy
2
Time to shut them down!
Mark: Your time is up!
You had a chance to speak up and you didn't.
Strip him of his wealth!
Are you a traitor?
4
My advise: Deactivate your account(s).
Among the most productive and sanity-preserving things I've done in recent history was removing facebook from my phone and then deactivating completely months later. Users can't contribute to the subversion of democracy if they aren't active on the platform.
3
It’s ironic that while Facebook has made tremendous technological progress, they don’t appear to have made any with respect to human behavior. Their strategy resembles that of cigarette manufacturers before the negative effects of smoking were widely known.
5
"Despite the rumors, I'm still fully engaged with my work at Facebook. It's true that my role did change." Alex Stamos
Why all the kudos for this guy? He waited until his department was whittled from 120 to 3 He should've quit months ago.
"I'm currently spending more time exploring emerging security risks and working on election security."
Seriously? I wonder if he's getting the same wonderful backing he's been used to.
3
Well, this article may change Stamos' status at Facebook to
"non-existent".
I'm sure he's not get a hearty Good Morning at work these days.
I've been in the interviewing process at Facebook for a few weeks now, and after all of this, I'm not sure I want to continue. The point of working at a 'big three' (apple, google, facebook) is also reputation. Now they're just an extended arm of the Trump campaign.
5
Social media is like democracy: without vigilance, it carries the seeds of its own destruction.
5
Might be time to close my facebook account. (Not that facebook will care). Whatever the original intentions of its founders--i think it was to rate the hotness of female classmates--the medium corrupts our public discourse, contributes to hyper-polarization, allows those with abhorrent views to congregate freely without shame and embarassment. It's a highly destructive and corrosive addiction and i'm not sure if humans are emotionally equipped to survive facebook.
6
The politics of corporate America are nothing new. I'm all for penalizing Facebook for what they did, or rather what they didn't do. But we can't forget that this would not be such a big problem if our citizenry weren't so gullible and unable to think critically. I was alarmed even before 2016 at how many people get their "news" from Facebook. So Do we silence Facebook because people are generally not smart enough to use it without harming our country? Won't something else take its place? Taking away Facebook, either through policy changes at the company or through regulatory action by the government, won't eliminate the demand that exists among the gullible and less educated for the misinformation they eagerly consumed.
6
Interesting what must be going on at Facebook. I would imagine the job he's leaving was very lucrative and well-regarded, and to leave amidst a conflict of sorts. A conflict of what? What could the conflict be about?
Perhaps another book in the offing...?
The wrong executive is being defanged and leaving FB. FB has to face the fact that with great success and the accompanying power comes at least some responsibility to the societies making these countries so successful. Ditto for Google and Twitter.
3
Mr. Zuckerberg, Ms. Sandler, please familiarize yourself with the word, 'integrity'.
Really, what repulsive behavior. The whole fiasco with the executives of FB (particularly), T, YT and the foreign influence in recent (and future) elections and these companies response will be a foundational case study for the absence of ethics in business (no shortage of examples to choose from).
At some point, one must decide whether or not one is an actual citizen. Apparently, Zuckerberg and Sandler and their 'teams' have decided they are not citizens.
I hate to think what they would have been doing during WW 2.
They are much worse than simple 'war profiteers'. They actually are using their power to a level of corruption.
I would hope that if Sandburg has any more book appearances or public speaking appearances she be treated as such. God knows, Zuckerburg is nearly a recluse and lives in a little boy bubble.
7
I knew Facebook was not for me when I tried to get some tech support for what was a simple question about setting up an account. Tech support does not exist. There's no one home. It's all about pre-packaged responses and suggestions to rely on community advice and feedback.
It was a dehumanizing experience and I just left my half-baked account for dead and never looked back.
Social networking sounds nice but they are a cancer on our lives individually and on society as a whole.
8
There should be an investigation into Facebook to see how the data collected is used in other ways besides how the G.O.P. & Trump used the data in the presidential elections!
As well, the investigation should check on just how high up the corporate ladder, people in command are selling the data and for what purposes!
7
If I was in charge I would close facebook down for the good of the country. Mr Stamos wanted more disclosure over Russian/Trump meddling in the election. It turns out he ran into Trump friends who were executives at facebook and let the treasonous acts continue to mount. The executives who were for Trump/Russia were selling out our country over money. I could never trust any of the facebook people in charge again . Putin gives his traitors poison we should give our long prison terms if we got the stomach for it.
10
The best thing we can do about Facebook is for the federal government to buy out the shareholders and run it for American users as a public trust, with no advertising, no user data collection, and management directly answerable to the people. They have made it clear that they will not police themselves, openly view customer privacy with contempt, and happily violated federal election law for a pathetic amount of money roughly equivalent to change in the sofa cushions.
I have no other answer for what to do with a company that has clearly become a threat to American society and American democracy.
7
when we put our information on the internet it WILL be exploited . Isn't that FB's fundamental business model?
These days PRIVACY is my number one concern. 18 months ago I exited Facebook and I will never be back
10
How much better and safer was our country, our world!, before Facebook?
5
How about Alex Stamos stays and Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg leave. Stamos is right, and those two were wrong, yet they get to stay? Obscene!
13
Of course Stamos was right. Only complete transparency will help Facebook get out from under this dump of bad publicity for its role in allowing Cambridge Analytica to use it's data base. Any attempt to cover-up will only backfire, as it already has.
7
Maybe Sandberg should have leaned in a little more on this one. Had to be said.
5
she's part of the problem
1
I wonder how many top Facebook executives are Russian agents of influence.
When Sheryl Sandberg and others impede full disclosure of facts regarding Russian manipulation of Facebook, they are in effect aiding and abetting Moscow.
12
Just deactivated my FB account. Hope 50 million will do the same.
21
The wrong guy is leaving, apparently. Facebook has weathered the privacy invasion issue before and they think they have to sell personal data to stay financially viable. Only a mass defection of accounts will change their corporate minds. Zuckerberg is personally corrupt.
9
I oppose Facebook. Don't use it, never will.
8
Mark Zuckerberg net worth 2018: $74.5 Billion
From Marketwatch
Published: Mar 20, 2018 10:07 a.m. ET:
Headline: "Zuckerberg saved tens of millions of dollars by selling Facebook stock ahead of Monday’s decline"
"Ahead of Facebook’s worst one-day decline since 2012, prompted by news that data affecting 51.3 million members was improperly shared with a political consulting firm, Zuckerberg had been busy selling stock. Disposing of those Facebook shares FB, -3.19% before Monday ended up saving about $40 million, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings and some arithmetic by MarketWatch."
Glad to see Mr Zuckerberg’s priorities haven’t taken a hit. Trump and Putin would be proud...
11
if we had a real government, zuk' s 40 mm profiteering would be clawed back and a full throated investigation and trial for treason if needed would ensue. unfortunately we do not have a functioning govt. so nothing will result. perhaps better results will occur in countries also damaged which do have governments.
Mark Zuckerberg is arrogant and greedy. He who declared that 'Facebook will be the new religion' has found his pot of gold and does not want to be stopped.
Selling all the data collected to anyone is Zuckerberg's means to more money so no wonder he resists full disclosure and any sort of regulation. For him it would more effort and less profit. He simply does not care. He owns the information the users have freely given him and he wants to able to sell it. He does not care who he sells it to or how it is used. For him there is no such thing as 'misuse'.
Money, money, money is the bottom line.
5
It is time for we the public to deal with this problem. Facebook should be shut down by its users.
6
Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg only care about making money. Period.
7
Zuckerberg had better get on the stick and disclose everything. It's starting to look as if Facebook played a crucial part in the disaster that is Donald Trump's election -- both through the vulnerability of the platform to disguised Russian intrusion and the ease with which Cambridge Analytica essentially stole the personal data of 50 million Americans to use in Trump's campaign. Mark, baby, you are plumb out of excuses, and trickling out the bad news won't cut it anymore. You might keep your billions, but your reputation is in tatters.
8
Facebook is reflecting a basic problem in Corporate America, and even further into our country. The leaders have become amoral. That is one of the dangers of a Capitalist system. It can be avoided through thoughtful diligence and adherence to a set of principles. This is not about altruism. This is about groups of people living together in meaningful relationships. This problem is reflected right through to the White House and the other representative bodies of our government. On Jan. 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower gave the nation a dire warning about what he described as a threat to democratic government. ... "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.Jan 17, 2011 Facebook is a mirror of MANY other companies.
7
If a product or service is free, then it is safe to assume that you are their source of revenue - i.e. in short Facebook's source of revenue is "you" - these abject security and compliance standards are par for the course - expect more - and government controls do not work - best to police your own actions by controlling your own use. Stay away and use only for specific things. Or best don't use at all. Your "friends" won't really offer condolences when your family member dies or won't really show up to your funeral - they are just that - acquaintances - if at all.
7
Thank you for speaking the truth. Facebook is not your friend. Get with the program, you are there source of revenue. They are laughing at the American people, stay off the platform and get back your privacy.
1
We the people have a choice whether or not to safeguard our privacy!
If you want to keep private things private— simply walk away from FB by clicking on delete. I never joined— and living a FB- free life can be done.
Stop buying products advertised on FB.
Do not invest in FB.
Boycott Facebook.
Those actions will get the company’s attention.
7
Best perspective on this kind of thing that I ever heard: if a service is free, you're not the client -- you're the product.
5
I can't stand Silicon Valley's hypocrisy. They had offers of help (public and private), of collaboration, of warning about what was happening. And they rebuffed them, because they thought those doing the warning & offering to help were all but evil (post-Snowden). We watched for years as theft, illegal trafficking, extremism, and state-approved election meddling were happening on their platforms. They painted themselves as bastions of privacy and security and like they knew what was happening on their platforms, even as it was clear to those of us right in the middle of it what was truly happening and the scope of it...and that these companies had no idea how bad the problem was. They still don't.
And now I hear them say that they did not get any government help, or were left out to dry, or weren't warned. It makes me want to scream. I'd almost enjoy the techbro schadenfreude if it didn't mean it was leaving me and others like me with an even bigger mess to try to sift through.
1
Facebook has a lot of explaining to do.
2
Money talks!
Congress and the House of Commons inquiries into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica will be a lot of "sound and fury signifying nothing."
How about we all shut down our Facebook accounts and divest our portfolios of Facebook stock? Do you think that will force our elected officials and Silicon Valley moguls to pay attention and recognize that they are media companies (and subject to the same disclosure rules)? Full disclosure of funding and sources of fake news!
1
I have felt this way for a while but today's NY Times confirms it. FB is a partially owned enterprise of the Russian government and of the Trump campaign. I have resigned from it.
3
"Mr. Stamos . . . was persuaded to stay through August . . . because executives thought his departure would look bad"
They're right. His departure does make the top dogs at Facebook look bad. It shows them up for the irresponsible, money-grabbing jerks they are, caring nothing for the security of their clients' information and, ultimately, the security of their country. Facebook's stock is falling after the revelations of the company's carelessness. It should go out of business. the social network is proving to be a destructive force in the U.S.
4
Amateurs, each one of them, starting with the child-CEO. Now taught a lesson by the Brits and the Russians. Hopefully these self-proclaimed geniuses will absorb something.
2
I especially love this part of the article: "Some of the company’s executives are weighing their own legacies and reputations" -- maybe they could consider weighing our country's future instead?
5
This probe just might lead to the meddling of our own on our own, the DNC, in the primaries. Or will we blame that outright illegality on the Russian too?!
1
I never was and never will be part of Facebook.
It stank from the beginning !
Recommended that everybody quit and leave them.
It is 'old-school' and too tainted now.
2
My daughter has left fb. I know several fb who have had enough. yes, the quizzes are suspicious as are any other message that says "allow". Allow what? Must I lie on the info page. I never want fb to know where I have been or anyone I know. I can ask them. I wonder why we must go through pages of the ny enquirer news to look at some gossip. I don't what I will do. It may be of value to remove anything except hobbies and even that is nobodies business but my friends or leave altogether.
It has been rumored for some time that Mark Zuckerberg has a political agenda as well as ambition. Its all over the news about the data sale. fyi, I rarely if every buy products from advertisers. I buy them as I have always done from recommendations from friends and having seen the actual product.
The first thing I did was suspend my account. Which probably meant nothing to no one but me. I hesitated to completely erase it. As if that were even an option. It feels like I have cut off a line to family and friends. I feel like all the photos posts will be gone. This magazine about ourselves we read everyday was a convenient way to keep in touch. They have me right where they want me!
1
No one needs Facebook to keep in touch. Emails can be sent with video and pics to everyone you know without any annoying trending news to go with it. Plus, strangers can not peep at your business.
Or, for about ten bucks a month, a person can create their own website and have full control.
We requested yesterday that Facebook delete our accounts. This article confirms the wisdom of that decision. They (Facebook) obviously would have been happy to maintain the status quo had none of this become public. And that says volumes about their priorities and that they are not with the protection of their user. We've explained this to family and friends and they are supportive. There are many other safer ways to share our lives with others.
Good luck deleting your account. I have spent two years trying to completely delete my account....yet, I keep getting liked.
Whether we attribute Facebook’s throwing the private information of its users to the Russian wolves as greed or a sociopathic amorality of Mark Zuckerberg and its executives really doesn’t matter. They did it, and the remorse they belatedly express is phony.
If Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg bother to think about affecting the American election to help Donald Trump gain a presidency for which he is totally unfit, they probably are either proud or amused.
3
We thought Facebook was an enabler for enhancing and expanding friendships and social networks. Turns out it's Evil Corp.
3
A silver lining: this should put an end to foolish speculation of Zuckerberg as a viable presidential candidate.
5
Yes, with the election of Trump, media and entertainment personalities of all political stripes are considering future political runs: Winfrey, Nixon, and Zuckerberg. But Zuckerberg's aspirations are finished.
The recent focus on Facebook's harvesting of personal data is pretty hilarious considering that their business model all along has been "give us your personal information and we'll give you ads!"
I am not a user of FB, but considered investing when it came public. I asked my spouse, who is a user, if she had noticed the ads on FB and if they made an impression on her. "No" she said flatly. I didn't invest, and missed out on a 5x return. I continue to be mystified by the platform's growth.
After reading this article and the idiotic comment by Mr. McNamee, "Your business is based on trust." I asked my spouse if she "trusted" FB. She said, "I don't even think about it. It's not a thing to trust or not trust, it's just a way to keep in touch with my friends and family."
Sell!!
2
Studies suggest it is older Americans, often conservatives, who have been duped most often by fake news on Facebook and other social media.
Ironically, in regards to our political process, the use of social media by this group has proven itself to be like children playing with matches.
1
So, why is he leaving and not Zuckerberg and Sandberg?
6
Facebook executives / policy makers are guilty of putting Facebook first before country. They are no different than the Republican Congress who has put party first over country. Since the WWII generation has passed this kind of perfidious behavior has become an epidemic. The country acts like the freedoms we enjoy and were secured by the WWII generation democracy can withstand an unlimited amount of faithless behavior. History says otherwise.
3
Rich tech nerds are far more insufferable than poor ones. Just watch, Sandberg and Zuckerberg will speed up their philanthropic gestures as convenient cover for the company's latest misdeeds. Like Trump, they are playing fast and loose in a world they think they built and that cannot do without them.
4
From cigarette companies to oil companies to fast food to {insert name here}, it seems clear that if corporationa hate anything, it's anything resembling transparency.
This is eminently fixable, but we probably won't.
3
for Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, $$$ is the ONLY thing that matters to them, who are morally corrupted. What country ? What patriotism ? I was not fortunate enough to be born American, but a word of caution to these moneyed-people: you wish you don't sell your country and democracy until you don't have one.
1
If you’re an employee or executive at Facebook aren’t you concerned that your company is being utilized as a weapon against America by a foreign adversary?
They should have a full stop to political ads and domestic ads from foreigners until they can properly support this.
1
If somebody doesn't want their personal data aggregated with those of others for business or political purposes, then they shouldn't post it on Facebook. It's as simple as hanging up the phone when the polltakers or telemarketers call. This sort of data has been gathered through other means for centuries for the same purposes. The only thing new is there's a more efficient vehicle for doing so. Get over it( not that I mind an alt left-leaning organization like Facebook committing Hari Kari over this).
3
Who created this monster? Hmm greed at the expense of conscious social responsibility. Why should a consumer expect the board to care about our security and welfare? This is capitalism pure and simple. Atrocious. Kudos to those doing the right thing. Too bad they are outnumbered, but maybe not for long.
3
I know a company that could use Mr. Stamos’s services: Equifax.
Not surprising. the fact that a digital service that really produces nothing useful has been caught red-handed in a dirty scheme to make money hand over fist by selling intimate personal data to the highest bidder. Zuckerburg could care less about all this, and is undoubtedly smiling and laughing all the way to the bank. Smart people will completely disassociate from Facebook and others, well, I cannot save you from your own self delusional incessant need for shallow cybernetic affirmation and vanity...
2
Moses busted-up God’s chiseled-in-stone Ten Commandments Tablet. And countless people have been misusing its text for their own ill-gotten gain and society thought-control from time immemorial.
Why would today’s human behavior be any different?
So many people will say "I have nothing to hide I don't care if someone knows about me." But know this you may be very uninteresting, but your vote counts and you can be manipulated.
In the war of smarts between Zuckerberg and Mercer it appears that Mercer is winning. There is no such thing as free and now you see why.
1
“The people whose job is to protect the user always are fighting an uphill battle against the people whose job is to make money for the company,” said Sandy Parakilas, who worked at Facebook enforcing privacy and other rules ---- duh!
By far the overwhelming advantages of "Big Data" --- a term coined by the Big Blue Empire, IBM, [see Fortune magazine cover] --- accrue to "Big Empire", which is to say the current and totally unique in human history disguised global capitalist Empire nominally HQed in, and merely 'posing' as, our former country.
What's the big surprise? Empire (and 'Empire-thinking') is nothing more than an exploitive cancer, which by design extracts valuable resources, regardless of where the inevitable 'negative externality costs' fall (on others) and attempts to gather all power and wealth to a smaller and smaller diseased, but disguised, core tumor until the overall society collapses.
Empires, as I have long written; grasp, exploit, accumulate, and expropriate all the 'big tools' of human history, such as; myth, mystery, tribe, ethnicity, race, religion, nationalism, technology, economics, ideology, etc., and employ those tools to serve Empire (and 'Empire-thinking' Emperors) only, until the collapse.
My only protest sign reads, "Dump Emperor Trump" on one side and "We can't be an Empire" on the other.
2
Only children & fools agree to giving Facebook their "product" in exchange for being involved there.
1
I deleted my facebook account about two years ago and guess what? I don't miss it and I gained about 1 hour a day in my life: I read more, I walk my staffy, I help my son with his homework...
2
Monopolies are un-American. Break up Facebook, Alphabet, and Apple. Just too much power in too few hands. We did it with Standard Oil in the 1900's for a reason - to save the market economy. Facebook's Russian collusion is simply proof that 100% market share is just dangerous and illegal.
1
I have never used Facebook and never will.
"Know what happens to sheep? They get slaughtered." - The character Gordon Gekko from the film "Wall Street."
3
It seems character, ethics, and integrity are not qualities that are appreciated in the Facebook front office... Much like the White House, Congress, and Kremlin.
2
First of all, please stop referring to this as a fake news campaign as it has been a propaganda campaign. It is clear that Putin's experience allowed him to recognize that Facebook is the perfect platform. The quote: '"The people whose job is to protect the user always are fighting an uphill battle against the people whose job is to make money for the company,”' explains that Facebook executives knew that this revenue stream was questionable and were well aware of the intent. In the election timeframe many users recognized posts which resembled posters from Hitler and Stalin eras but could do nothing. Some users I know quit Facebook; perhaps we all should have! Going forward we should encourage our legislators to support efforts to require paid post and political posts to include the same disclosures as political advertisements on other media. Congress should pass legislation to enhance media's responsibility in propagating "fake news" and false accusations, minimally fact checking and mandatory public, posted retractions in each case if not financial penalties.
4
Zuckerberg, of the supercilious smirk, will announce that they are working on another new wonky algorithm which fixes all. What he will not do is hire enough people to monitor the site.
1
Russians paid $100,000 to to Facebook spread fake information to influence the American electorate? Isn't that considered a foreign government meddling in a US election? Isn't that treasonous?
$100,000 spent by Russians to spread propaganda? Gimme a break!
The focus should be on the corrupt practices of the Democratic Party, practices which were (truthfully) disclosed by the Russian leaks.
No problem, just enforce the 2011 consent decree that stipulates a $40,000 fine for each misuse of Facebook users' information, multiplied by estimated 30 million people whose data was misused in this particular Cambridge Analytica debacle: it's a mere $1,200,000,000,000 ($1200 trillion dollars), which should be a massive remedy to the country's deficit.
User's data was breached and misused to deliberately feed sophisticated propaganda masquerading as both political and retail "ads" to users, without even the need for a break-in: Facebook sold their users out for nearly nothing, and should pay the price, but I'm guessing the above figure would only result in liquidation of the company--producing no loss to the society at large, just a huge gain.
As a society we've grown intellectually lazy and entities like Facebook are the result. It is past time to wake up.
4
Not so long ago Zuckerberg made it public that he was considering a presidential run. What a joke. This is just another example of hubris and arrogance by a “businessman “ who think he has the skills to run a country then eventually gets exposed as a fraud who has superficial and marginal decision making skills. Think I know another example of this.
Then there’s the TV actress who thinks she can be the governor of NY. I’ll do your brain surgery for a discount and fix your car while you recover. Oh, sorry, you wouldn’t recover.
2
I miss the days before Facebook. I think that Facebook has become and evil cancer in our society. Everyone is addicted to it and ignoring their life to stare at their screens. Its part of the downfall of society. People read and believe everything and anything they see on Facebook, we don't have enough critical thinking in our society to ask, wait, where did that come from. The Russian interference was a great example of how ignorant and how impressionable Americans are. Its an embarrassment to our country and decent people of the world. Its not going any where, but will be part of the down fall of society. It was supposed to bring us closer together, but it has driven us farther apart. I wish I could cancel my facebook but its such an integral part of family and friend communication now, I would be shut out of stuff I need to be part of if I were to do so. Shame of Facebook. Shame on stupid people who believe everything they see or read on the internet .
1
I do not see the need for Facebook. We can send an email with pics and videos to a list of friends and family and skip all of the ads and data collection.
4
If you put personal information on Facebook then you are making a big mistake. You can keep in touch with people just using your phone. People unfamiliar with the subtleties of big data are making themselves targets for all sorts of scams and schemes. Don't go on Facebook. You can find out about your ex wife's new kitten some other way.
3
Sounds like some FB execs want to bury FB complicity in Russian hacking. Is it because they value the millions of russians FB users and the corresponding advertising revenue they get from that part of the world? Betcha!
All you Fakebook users help them every day "Log in with your Facebook account"
It's the same as "click here to allow virus in & release all your info!"
If what you actually we're doing was stated in a short clear way all understood what they were doing I don't think most would click.
All these online agreements are rediculous... nobody reads them & all are duped.
2
A creepy company which encourages creepy sharing of confidences that shouldn't be public.
The solution, screen-readers, is simple: Don't use Facebook!
2
High time for the Feds to "lean in".
5
As the last human being who DOESN’T HAVE A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT and as someone who HAS NEVER SENT A TWEET, I can tell you that “social media” is a scourge and Facebook sold out Democracy so they could make even more money. Our world is officially pathetic.
2
Facebooks handling (or mishandling) this situation should be a Harvard Business School case study on how not to handle a crisis (kind of the mirror of how J and J handled the Tylenol tampering crisis), but I doubt it will, with Zuckerberg and Sandberg being hailed by Harvard as proof of how great Harvard is, I doubt very much they would do that. What these two idiots fail to understand is the old adage, that it takes a lifetime to build a solid reputation and it takes but a minute to destory that lifetime of work. Zuckerberg and Sandberg come off as nothing more than greedy, power hungry monsters who care only about their own power and wealth. They can talk about their foundations, her effort to "empower women", his to try and help people pull themselves out of poverty, what this shows is that is nothing more than window dressing, they are basically the tech equivalent of the old 19th century robber barons who used to endow a lot of things to show how publicly conscious they were while basically destroying people's lives with their greed.
1
Why anyone uses Facebook is beyond me.
You give them all your data for free and they'll sell it to whomever they want
You're exposed and you never see a dime from it...
Truly one of the greatest scam's EVER!
3
This situation is typical of corporations whose leadership is all about the bottom line. If an employee who is driven to serve the customer, has a conscious and brings the problem to his superiors, the employee will eventually be driven from the company. There is no reward for being a Whistle Blower.
2
"executives thought his departure would look bad" Business as usual for Facebook. Perception moulding outranks truth-telling every time.
10
There was a data security chief at Facebook?
6
I hope everybody who thinks this was limited to the Trump campaign will link to this comment from the Obama campaign:
https://ijr.com/2018/03/1077083-ex-obama-campaign-director-fb/
1
FB has probably given or sold data to many, which Obama tried to stop in 2012 but the Republican Congress killed that bill. Many companies sell our data everyday. The difference is that Obama restored dignity to the US while Trump is killing our democracy. Nothing will get better until this Republican Congress is gone in November, followed by removing Trump and Pence and hopefully the entire Republican Party from the electorate.
Maybe Sandburg should "Lean In" to user security.
2
Edward Snowden lives in hiding and fear. Mark Zuckerberg lives in oppulence and adulation. Welcome to the end of the world as we know it.
5
Well, they do have something in common...both sold out their countries without thinking twice about it.
Thank goodness I have never got involved with Facebook (or Twitter). Both un-social media as far as I can tell.
7
" how much Facebook should publicly share about how nation states misused the platform"
Share all of it. Tell us exactly how our information got into the hands of sociopaths.
Unless, of course, you were complicit in the despicable behavior. Then, keep quiet. Maybe we're all too stupid to figure it out.
4
Everybody needs a villain. It might as well be a lefty organization that bowed to Obama as was recently revealed. If the left can succeed in killing Facebook it would be a fine gift for the Republicans.
3
Another victim of the left's juvenile temper tantrum over losing the election. Blame anyone and anything but their tired, stale message of defeatism.
1
lol. oh my goodness. I have never seen the "winning" side whine so much about the "losing" side. stop trying to make everything about 2016.
3
I've had enough of the incompetence of these arrogant tech companies. I'm deleting my FaceCrook and Twit accounts...please join me!
6
I just did.
1
There doesn't seem to be any doubt about the Facebook priorities: Profit at any cost to people and their nations. And of course previous profits will be applied to purchasing legislative freedom.
5
Sweep the problem under the carpet, keep it a secret, continue to make profits. But in this case the problem is not just related to profits but it involves national security issues. These people eventually are well aware that they are helping the enemy to undermine their own country but they keep on going regardless...
8
My main concern about Facebook is those who use it as their sole source of news and information. I try to keep abreast of current events by using all the tools that technology provides. Though I would be considered liberal by many, I'm willing to accept the faults of the liberal viewpoint if they are well documented.
By diligent fact checking, I feel that I'm less likely to be swayed by the attempts to use my information to change my viewpoint. Alas, I'm afraid that many are not.
5
I am completely done with Facebook. It's difficult to delete so I'm going to stop using it. I'll return to email and phone to communicate with friends. When an organization abuses its power it deserves to go out of business. I don't want to be a commodity to make billions for Zuckerberg.
4
Select Manage my account. Scroll down to "deactivate" and proceed.
1
Facebook is the biggest propaganda machine in the U.S. Whoever controls it, controls the message. Since most Americans believe what is on the internet it has become very easy to sway public opinion. No critical thinking skills necessary.
5
How ironic that the more tech-savy people are, the less likely they are to appreciate the extent of the threat posed to them personally and to society in general by the social media they are consuming in ever increasing volumes.
The West is increasingly preoccupied with the challenge of educating young people on the physical risks to their security. Yet even the very young are being passed smart devices that bring huge risks with little or no instruction on how to engage the internet safely.
It is even more ironic that the same adults who scream blue murder when their constitutional guarantees of privacy are breached by government (as they should), are so ready to abandon that privacy when dealing with monolithic, monopolistic, money-grubbing organizations that view their personal data as a valuable cash crop.
10
Shh. If they don't notice us it isn't real.
Zuck and his top folks should have taken enough cash and placed it out of harms way so they can be safe and comfortable for life by now that they can just dive in and try to turn this very flawed idea into something better regardless of its value rising or falling. The fact that they don't tells us something about them we all should have known from the start when he was so openly lying to us about how our data was being used then. It was always intended for this sort of democracy undermining/destroying manipulation of reality and facts to an end chosen by the person willing to pay enough to use it.
6
Sandberg needs to resign for the profound error of having this occur in the first place and for the egregious act of keeping it secret once discovered while doing nothing about it.
13
Nothing counts more than money. Nothing. You cannot have companies like Facebook operating without any regs that limit what they do. They will do anything for profit. That should be clear to everyone now. Don't use Facebook!
2
We're paying for the internet with surrender of privacy to date-miners.
7
Disappointing, but sadly predictable and unsurprising. There has always been a shallowness to Facebook's image, perhaps even a phoniness, which has been apparent in public personas of Zuckerberg and Sandberg. Time to "lean in" on the integrity thing.
15
About Facebook, or any other business in business to sell stuff and make money, if you are not paying anything, you are not the customer. You are the product for sale. Using the business is tantamount to giving the business permission to collect and sell data about you. It's true for Facebook and google and the like, but more disturbingly, it is also true for financial businesses like credit bureaus and mortgage servicers.
12
Every PR book ever written urges: "Come clean."
Every organization run by fear and defensiveness responds: "No way."
15
Ooh, he had to resign! So what? He's still incredibly rich, we're stuck with DJT, and a bunch of companies still have data to tweak elections. I think some prosecutions and asset freezes might have a more sobering effect.
6
This is analogous to medical debates regarding malpractice. Should a physician/nurse remain silent concerning a mistake due to their own liabilities, or should they be forthright in the interest of the patient?
Or....in any professional consultation?
The point of using a professional is that they have the knowledge we do not. We invest money and time by virtue of the trust we hold that professionals will tell us the truth.
In Facebook's case, who does not now hesitate to post data, given the fears that it will be used against us in the future? If Facebook betrays our trust.....that is the biggest part of what they have to offer in inviting us in.
We CANNOT police the deliberate propaganda broadcast by Facebook by nefarious political entities....only Facebook has the info to determine and police the inner layers of their organization.
Again, imagine a doctor's office with brochures for patients depicting all the various patent medicines and quack remedies on equal status with tested medical procedures.
Look as Equifax....taking our data without our consent and allowing it to be stolen.
Professionals EVERYWHERE have professional responsibilities.
5
Thank you, Alex Stamos. You were blocked from doing your job. This makes me very suspicious of your colleagues at Facebook.
Friends and family have wanted me to join. They think I'm weird, antisocial, old fashioned, and out of touch.
I'm glad I never joined Facebook.
15
Given this display of the weaponization of an originally innocuous service, one starts to have a better understanding (certainly not acceptance) of the implementation of crushing internet controls by authoritarian leaders. A solution lies somewhere between the tools of dictatorships and democratic free speech values. While a Zuckerberg type is necessary for any creative aspirations in a country, the idea that a man worth about 75 billion dollars still puts profit before what is the right thing to do requires an acceptance that some fundamental ideas of unrestricted behavior be looked at in the context of today’s world. Getting the full picture of Zuckerberg’s organization is necessary to create a better (not perfect) model of what is needed. That is the job of our government. Well, maybe not the disorganized, ideologically oriented group currently holding that mantle, but possibly one that will be more representative of all Americans in 2019.
6
People need to deactivate their FB accounts! It's easy, and you can send FB a message telling them why at the same time.
I just deactivated mine and it's liberating!
16
I'm a very Modern Guy, hip to all the latest technologies and ideas. I keep in contact with my friends and family. I even buy stuff on the internet.
I'm not on facebook.
I have a flip phone.
When I need to do some secure messaging, I go to a place called the Post Office.
But in order to keep up the appearances of a Modern Guy, I am going to get an iphone shell and hold it in front of my face while I'm driving. On foot, I can walk into telephone poles with the best of 'em.
14
Well said, Tim. And your post gave me a much-needed laugh this morning!
2
The solution is easy. Stop using Facebook. All the data they have was given to them voluntarily. I've found myself less and less interested in visiting Facebook. I just don't get much value from it. Today I finally downloaded one of the free tools out there that can delete your whole facebook history. I'll probably keep the account but change my name to a pseudonym so that people who know me can reach me if they want to.
7
Find another venue. Using a pseudonym is not going to help, they still profit from you.
2
Cambridge Analytica merely leveraged Facebook'd business model. The solution is greater regulation, transparency, and a change in Settings so that users have to opt-in rather than opt-out.
9
Great, so the guy with integrity is leaving. Delete Facebook. Go ahead, it will be okay. What will rise in it's place could distribute wealth instead of centralize it. It could build critical thinking skills instead of fan emotional reasoning and the throwness it creates. It could be a collective endeavor instead of a monopoly.
Go ahead, take stand. Align with your highest self, have boundary, and put aside your little wants and needs. Give up the one marshmallow now and hold out for two later.
Commitment, Accountability, Acknowledgment, Partnership, Vulnerability, Integrity and Diversity - these are the seven core world class leadership qualities. My guess is Zuckerberg, like so many of these young analytical minds, is paranoid and gripped by his pride. Like Gladwell's new book and TED Talk about David and Goliath describes, he is too big and bulky and isolated and arrogant and attached to be vulnerable and too afraid to admit a mistake. As a result he is making all kinds of mistakes and being completely vulnerable and frail. Insanity is rigid and causes chaos. Sanity is flexible and adaptable.
Zuckerberg was right, he didn't need college to get rich, He could have used it to get wise, though. If only he was anchored in philosophy and all the social sciences, he could be building our critical thinking skills and creating wealth for all of his users.
Let Facebook fail. An equitable and valuable social media platform can rise in it's place, a collective effort, not a monopoly.
12
The US needs data privacy legislation, like Europe, and these Internet giants need to be better regulated.
17
Good to see this guy take a stand. There was a time when Facebook was a fun diversion, a place to look at photos of cool concerts and birthday parties. Now it’s nothing more than an ad stream. Time for Zuckerberg to dress and act like an adult and fix his product.
14
This is cyber WARFARE and none of these Silicon Valley geeks no anything about DEFENSE obviously! They haven't served, they're not patriotic, it's all about profits! Zuckerberg should go to tried for treason. Vietnam Era Veteran
5
Curiously missing from all the coverage is the fact that Facebook openly allowed Obama to data-mine its user list in 2012 (and the media praised his adroit use of Facebook). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine...
4
Gutted their security department. So how much Russian money and operatives are at work at Facebook? Time for people to leave Facebook.
9
So Sheryl Sandberg isn't the saint that the media makes her out to be?? How interesting.
14
Bannon and other Cambridge Analytica executives, directors, and their customers (including the Trump campaign) obviously hold the electorate in utter contempt and think of them as nothing but sheep.
If you don't like what FB has done, stop using it!
10
like the TV networks before them, the social media businesses sell their users for money, sliced and diced into an endless choice of psychographic, economic, and demographic flavors.
do YOU want to be their product?
2
I now want to quit Facebook, and wonder what alternatives there are. New York Times -- tell us where we can go where our information will be kept private.
7
I don't know how facebook can fail to be regarded as the publisher and distributor of the material on it's site. It performs exactly those services albeit electronically and it should bear the corresponding responsibilities.
6
FB and Zuckerberg are NOTHING but the tools that Putin and Trump used to target and manipulate millions of voters. Zuckerberg stupidly claims that their efforts were “crazy”. All Advertisers, targeting consumers should pull their ads from Facebook if Zuckerberg is correct. Advertisers and Putin and Trump all know that ads work and targeted ads derived from consumers’ or voters’ behavior profiles is the ultimate means of targeting them.
What’s crazy is Zuckerberg calling advertisers crazy. What’s more crazy is the failure of the press to recognize the far greater story: Trump and Putin used FB to corrupt the American election.
9
Anyone who uses social media is just asking to be exploited by cons who are able to use their personal data for whatever purpose the cons intend.
When people like Zuckerberg agree to the dictates of foreign governments like China and Russia for controls over social media operations, and obfuscate their complicity in such collusion, you know that as a consumer you have zero protection.
Don't use social media if you have an expectation of privacy or confidentiality. The underlying technology makes such security impossible and the venality of the corporate management teams ensures it.
Instead, write a letter or read a book.
5
P. T. Barnum said "a sucker is born every minute." Fifty million of them signed up for Facebook.
7
Um, try 1.5 billion
2
Finally. Someone with integrity and honesty show up at Facebook. Then they leave ?
Facebook is a sewer of illegally obtained personal data.
5
There is another person who warned of the dangers of letting anyone who wrote an app for FB harvest data. Read today's Guardian for the story.
Zuckerberg and Sandberg knew what was going on and ignored it. They, too, MUST be held accountable.
9
Facebook is owned by its shareholders who are being decieved by its top management. The act of top level deception is never isolated, like roaches there is never just one you see.
7
let me clue you in, the shareholders don't care, Facebook could be assasinating people and as long as it brought up the stock price, they would be happy with it.If change happens at facebook it will be because the stock price plummets (it is currently at 168 and change from a top of 185 in recent year), all that counts is greed.
“I told them, ‘Your business is based on trust, and you’re losing trust,’” said Mr. McNamee, a founder of the Center for Humane Technology. “They were treating it as a P.R. problem, when it’s a business problem. I couldn’t believe these guys I once knew so well had gotten so far off track.” Really? When it's all about the money, then no surprise that facebook couldn't care less about the users. I re-activated my facebook account after the 2016 debacle election for support and encouragement, but now I'm seriously thinking about deleting everything I put on my page and de-activating it again. To say I'm disgusted is putting it mildly. Shame on you, facebook and especially on you, Mark Zuckerberg. You want so desperately to be "cool" and think you're such a rebel when really you're just another Wall Street capitalist jerk.
6
The Obama campaign did the exact same thing and Facebook turned the other cheek because they supported Obama. Please stop with the hysteria and fake news.
Please explain how Obama was involved with the Russians!
1
This allegation is fake news promoted by Faux News, the Obama campaign used social media in their campaign as all politicians did, but there is no proof at all they used data mininng like this, Obama was using publicly available information, this firm was getting information on people they never consented to have used, they were bypassing user settings to do this.
3
After reading this article it is clear to me that Facebook would rather protect it’s executives rather than is own users and investors. In a modern age in which information is now weaponized FB has denied misuse of its platform by adversaries of the U.S and its allies In contrast to evidence gathered by their own network security division as well as U.S intelligence reports. Instead of confronting the problem with broad transparency FB would rather deny the issue’s existence and influence the people who have discovered the problem to protect the image of the company. It’s absurd how invested FB is with their image. It’s ridiculous that FB would spend money on polls on the favorability of their top executives rather than a solution on how to address the issues that have arisen in the use of misinformation campaigns. It is deeply troubling that FB has divided its security division because of these recent issues. Hoping that silence maintains corporate profits and the image of the company and its top executives, however it only proves how cowardly they are. They are now puppets on an international stage for whatever nation or company to take advantage of. It’s disheartening that this company would jeopardize its consumers privacy and begs the question: who is Facebook loyal too? Its consumers or the companies/groups or even nations that advertise on its platform.
1
This as Mr MaNamee says is not a 'business problem', it's a full on moral crisis. I particularly like the bit about Twitter. If we stay quiet no one will know what we've done. Brilliant! At what point does the endless pursuit of profits lose track of the fact that certain behavior borders on treasonous? What was it that Lenin said almost a 100 years ago. Something like 'capitalism will sell us the rope to hang themselves'
1
Gee, Profits over Country. Who would have thought...
5
Stamos wants to be honest; Facebook wants to make money;enough said. How far did the GOP/Trump/Mercers go? Facebook will try to hide the truth;it hurts their bottom line. INVESTIGATE Ray Sipe
2
While Zuckerberg and Sandberg have failed, in the cause of profit and greed, to protect the data of millions of FB users, the responsibility must be shared by the Board of Directors, whose role is to monitor and check the actions of the executives. The members of the Board are Marc Andreessen, Erskine Bowles, Kenneth Chenault, Susan Desmond-Hellmann, Reed Hastings, Jan Koum, and Peter Thiel.
They alone have the authority to discipline Z and S, up to and including expulsion.
9
So much for tge Internet creating transparency. FB is a sleazy, venal snake. But what can we expect from someone who stole the idea for it in the first place and has lied abt that ever since?
6
So which is worse, Russia interfering with US elections or Facebook aiding and abetting them in the process for the purpose of protecting profits? In my opinion they are not separable. Regardless of the financial impact it would be prudent to have a complete changing of the guard at Facebook at a minimum and a full shutdown of the organization well before the fall elections. If they are not going to be adequately regulated and they are clearly not 'good citizens' they are an enemy of this country and should be treated as such.
6
Shame on Zuckerberg! He should resign also. I am beginning to think he is as awful as Trump. He may be the single biggest reason Trump got elected?
9
The executives at Facebook should realize that their business, which is facilitating unfettered communication between individuals in our society, is totally reliant upon the US Constitution's first amendment of freedom of speech. They should take any and all actions to protect our democracy that supports this essential liberty. Allowing a foreign adversary to use its platform to erode and attack our democracy and then hiding this and not working with authorities to stop it in the future is the most long term harm Facebook could do to its business.
3
Perhaps Sheryl Sandberg should Lean Out now.
14
Facebook is its own punishment.
2
I guess Sheryl leaned so far in she lost her "moral?" footing and fell right into the swamp.
14
Facebook is a loaded virtual assault weapon that's disguised as some happy party. I'll bet two-thirds or more of our pathetic congress have ever looked at Facebook...wake up!
4
can they get rid of Zuckerberg????
3
One cannot help wonder if there's anti semitism underlying the outrage...Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg....
Simple solution: BOYCOTT FACEBOOK
9
Why does Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandburg favor Russia/Trump. That’s disgusting.
5
I am off FB permanently...My account was hacked and used to send questionable mail to friends..When I challenged FB my account was disabled until I would send them my birth certificate and drovers license with a photo...HAHAHAHA and HA! That will never happen...FB needs some seious regulation and Zuckerberg needs to answer for the hijacking of American politics...GREEDY! Unpatriotic and UnAmerican?
8
Take a look at some of Facebook's biggest investors......guess what.....Russian billionaires and shell companies (LLC's) with a trail to Moscow!
8
Anyone that touches Facebook is a fool. Delete your account- if you still have one- immediately.
5
"Lenin once famously said "the capitalists will fight each other for the right to profit from selling us rope from which we will hang them". Facebook seems to have proven Lenin was right..."
Capitalism has proven to be the most powerful mechanism for human advancement known to man. But like any vehicle it can go awry without thoughtful supervision that imposes wise limits.
Where is the backbone of the GOP?
7
I have seen so many social media posts and quotes from Facebook leadership (Zuckerberg and Sandberg) preaching the virtue of integrity and doing the right thing. Their failures/unwillingness to actually walk their talk is very revealing I'd say and says a lot about their true colors.
7
It's all about the money.
As Zuckerberg and his board have built their empire, their users' experience has gone downhill. FB decides which information users will receive, not the other way around.
While users become bored seeing the same info., repeatedly, FB, with its algorithms, has sliced and diced their user base into information-specific modules -- perfect for sales to ad space buyers or propagandists.
They have a lot of Security instructions on their site. These are absolutely ineffective for users if Facebook itself wants to sell user information. They just take it, no permission asked. Users are not permitted to "opt out". It's the price users pay for using the increasingly inferior site "for free".
But now, FB is a weapon that can swing elections. Psychological profiles are created about users, then content is directed at them to change their vote.
Yet, for Zuckerberg and his Board, it's still all about the money. In the face of a national threat, they might be expected to "step up", say what went wrong, lose some revenue and fix the problem.
But, no. They are opaque, and solely focused on revenue loss. There's no competitor to Facebook, so if users want the features, they must be used.
4
Seems like the hierarchy of Facebook, for the most part, of well educated, yet highly immature brats are less concerned about the ramifications of their greed than they are about the security of our democracy. Limited regulations do not imply that first amendment rights are being trampled upon.
5
Who are the "immature brats" that you speak of?
The young members of our society have limited use of FB, they use Snapchat and a host of newer platforms. FB is a tool for the 30-55 year olds to keep up with friends. These are people who vote and (as are all of us) are susceptible to fake news when it is presented authoritatively on a trusted website and circulated by their 'friends'.
When a user sets their facebook privacy settings, they are under the expectation that their privacy is being maintained to the security level that the user selected; therefore, the user has the right to expect that their personal information is NOT being shared with outside entities - to include foreign adversaries.
5
I'm waiting for the lame "fiduciary responsibility to shareholders" defense.
4
Sorry, but shouldn't the people who resisted Mr. Stamos' suggestions be the ones who are resigning?
13
Gee, how curious: "Protecting the user" at Facebook has "always been an uphill battle against protecting the money and image." Lot of that going around these days, it seems to me!
4
Recent allegations by Sandy Parakilas (ex-platform operations manager at Facebook) indicate Facebook allowed troves of data to be carried away years before Analytica with little or no oversight via Facebook based games and non-audited internal developers. I want to remind people that Facebook now has a facial recognition feature. Does anyone else see a huge problem with that?
8
Facebook sounds more and more like an ironic textbook example of the Peter Principle. I'm almost surprised they didn't open an office in Nome, Alaska just to ship Mr. Stamos there.
4
Many corporate recruiters use off-the-shelf software to mine social media data looking for people who may be ready to leave their current jobs and who might be interested in considering a job with the company using the recruiting tool. Of course, I don't know the algorithm the software uses, but I assume if you're, say, a marketing professional and you write on FB something like, "I can't stand the cold anymore. I wish I could live someplace warm," chances are a corporate recruiter from a company based in Florida will receive your name from the tool. I think this lack of privacy just goes with the territory. If you're on facebook, your data will be mined. I don't think it can be avoided.
4
All the other newspapers and media used to have their own discussion threads just like this one! I used to participate in the Newsday discussion groups, the Newsweek discussion groups, NPR and PBS discussion groups, etc. The independent discussion threads were all being managed by their own major media companies and they were terrific and thoughtful and respectful and rhetoric and debate was a "sport" for people with real brains! We sought out those with a different point of view to understand them and in turn better understand ourselves. Then, it seemed like overnight we were bombarded by the filthiest trolls that were ever present and always inserting their knuckle dragging vitriol into every single thread. The misogyny and the threats proliferated. One by one- the independent media surrendered their own discussion groups to FB and dissolved. It's the only reason I ever went to FB at all. I'd had an account for years and barely ever used it. I'm wondering if this too wasn't orchestrated by an outside entity as a way of gaining access to my demographic through FB? Cheers to the Times for hanging in there and not surrendering! It's worth every penny I pay for my subscription!
17
I agree that the NYT comments section is worth every penny I pay for my subscription. I have, however, noticed decidedly more vitriol here, too, particularly over the past 6 months. Such a shame.
Given that the "ship of state" is more and more in the hands of the popular members of "the crew" (actors, reality stars, athletes, and other in mass media personalities), the power and legitimate function of the American presidency will inevitably be undermined. The power and influence of mass media and the people's fascination with television stars (rather like Marx's "opium of the people") seems to be pushing American democracy in this direction.
5
Facebook has become like a rifle: put into the wrong hands it may become dangerous. The all American notion of combining innovation and entertainment with profit generation, has made FB vulnerable to apps designed to facilitate identity theft and invasion of privacy. I left the platform a while ago and have not experienced the slightest withdrawal syndrome.
7
One more example of a devious set of events involving Russians and the trump campaign, to the benefit of 45, to which he will claim no knowledge of. And the trumpers will be unwavering in their support.
6
Lenin once famously said "the capitalists will fight each other for the right to profit from selling us rope from which we will hang them". Facebook seems to have proven Lenin was right, even though Russia is no longer the USSR.
3
Looks like lean in got Trumped by cash out, Sheryl.
4
Wasn't this the guy who was traveling the country on a road trip to meet real Americans? Along the way hiring Barack Obama's pollster and campaign manager to advise his philanthropic fund?
The fundamental mistake of Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow executives at Facebook is the deeply incorrect notion that because you have a popular website that you will be popular, too. Their need to be 'liked', their greed for money, has blinded them to the fact that what real Americans really like are people who stand up for their principals even if it is not in their best interests to do so ie... risking getting fired or not being 'liked'.
My opinion of you Mr. Zuckerberg, and all your fellow executives, is in the toilet. Alex Stamos, thank heavens there are people like you in the world with principals and integrity who are not afraid to speak truth to power.
6
The best thing to do is what we do: Have a number of fake accounts. You know, 110 year old man living in Barundi and works at the NRA etc. Then dont use it other than to snoop on your silliest old school friends.
Misinformation will sabotage their data analytics. It is a VERY good way to bring down the company. Misinformation will destroy the value of their database.
1
Every day something new!
Every day a new conspiracy!
Those who seek power by billions of $$$s being taken in by those who seek power by the old-fashioned way of the dictator.
And that monster, global warming, keeps creeping forward.
Sad indeed.
5
No everyone knows for sure Trump is indeed a fake president and an illegal one also.
1
I'm glad I never got involved with Facebook or Bitcoins. Fake money and fake news for a fake president.
I was in my twenties during Watergate and the Trump stonewall is feeling more familiar every day. He even uses the same term, witch hunt, that Nixon used.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. Trump is toast.
5
Sure hope so!
1
To paraphrase Arthur Jensen in the film "Network" 1975
"There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today!
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. (Stamos) " "YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Stamos?
5
Facebook users have always been blind when it comes to wanting to see the potential data leak implications of this platform.
Facebook is nothing else but a commercial enterprise in the form of a digital medium using its millions of users to target advertising clients. WIth its user numbers and data Facebook can demand advertising prices no print medium would ever have been able to achieve in the past.
In fact, all users instead of thinking they have a wonderful free medium platform to communicate with friends and the world at large should be shareholders of Facebook and demand dividends at the end of each fiscal year as it is on their back that Zuckerberg and now the public company make their billions!!!!
To believe that in a business world where billions are at stake the department for security has ANY CHANCE against the financial guys is not only blue eyed it is downright stupid!
ONLY GOVERNMENT LAWS can prevent this from happening again with Facebook, Twitter or any other social medium platform that can potentially be exploited in this way.
As for the Facebook users, they got what they deserved.
2
Looks to me like it is a good time for a competing social net work to spring up with a different ownership structure, so profit for the share holders is not the over riding goal. Let the Russians and alt right nut cases have face book to themselves.
3
of course, that will happen because, for all the precocity of the Facebook founders, it is only a fad, like the hulahoop. it will be eclipsed by the next bright, shiny thing that rides upon the next dazzling development in communications equipment.
1
Aside from being a major time-wasting what do we need facebook for? To hook up with people you knew when you were 8?
5
AMBER ALERT: When management isolates an employee (Stamos) by having that person report only to the company's lawyer, you can bet your bottom dollar they are also isolating the top honchos from "incriminating" knowledge, i.e, it's a ploy to create plausible deniability. This whole thing stinks to high heaven.
10
Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer should leave.
6
OH MY GOOODNESS! Is it possible that we are only now having a revelation that Fake news is alive and well? Is this the same fake news that Trump sees coming from the pages of the Times? It’s only one more type of media, all of which seem intent on pushing an “unbiased” agenda. Pushing an agenda can be unintentional as well as intentional. What I long for is unbiased news regardless of its source.
Facebook officials need no longer spend time and money to find out what people think of top company officials. Instead they should pay the NYT for taking on this task, lean in and read the comments here. They are a disgrace.
11
People can complain all they want about Facebook, but then you have Google, Apple, Amazon as well as every company that uses the internet as the means to access your life. Everything digital has been sold to the masses as technology to make your life easier, more connected with one another, move society forward, yada...but in the end, it will always be about advertising that profits off your identity. Now it is clear that the bad actors of the world can indeed weaponize this for their own political motives.
I never used Facebook as I always considered it stupid and an open door into one's privacy. I do carry an iPhone and use Instagram (owned by Facebook, ugh!) as my daily distraction in the subway. I use Google to search the internet, Maps to get around the City, GMail as my personal email, etc. I use it because it is the required routine in order to function in modern life.
CNBC’s Mario Bartiromo asked CEO Eric Schmidt in a 12/03/2009 interview: “People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they?” Schmidt’s reply is if there’s scandalous information out there about you, it’s your problem, not Google’s. He says: "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place."
Americans need to retire their "tech cigarettes" and engage again with real people around them. I keep asking myself, would Trump be POTUS if Americans weren't so amused/distracted by stupid technology...? Putin knows this answer.
3
So this whistle blower at Facebook must leave after still trying to to do the right thing despite his staff being cut. On the face of it Zuckerberg and Sanders are trying to do all they can to ensure profits however they can be achieved including impeding those at Facebook that are more morally responsible.
5
So what is FB? Their defense for years (name the user problem) is that FB is only a platform, they aren't responsible for the content, or even the settings of their platform. But here they sold profiles of users, without the barest of permissions or "academic" protocols, but still say they had no obligations/responsibilities. Seems corporations and self-driving cars now have the rights, not the citizens.
4
They weren't responsible but they sure liked the profits. Rights AND responsibilities, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg.
"By November 2016, the team had uncovered evidence that Russian operatives had aggressively pushed DNC leaks and propaganda on Facebook. That same month, Mr. Zuckerberg publicly dismissed the notion that fake news influenced the 2016 election, calling it a 'pretty crazy idea.'"
Mark Zuckerberg should be ashamed of himself. Of course, I highly doubt he is, but he should be; he just didn't want to acknowledge the role that Facebook played in this giant mess and preferred to push the idea that the whole thing was a "crazy idea" rather than acknowledge that there was a problem on his end of things. Facebook, along with Mr. Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and everyone else, needs to understand that it isn't the bright young kid in the room anymore whom everyone wants to pal around with; it is a significant digital force that has an impact on the world and can obviously be harnessed for ill intent. That is a serious problem and they need to be worried about that rather than their own bottom line. But no, they aren't; I guess Facebook and its executives are showing us who they really are, and it's a pretty ugly picture. I've had an account for nearly 10 years now, but maybe it's time Facebook and I parted ways. I have no interest in helping Mr. Zuckerberg - or Ms. Sandberg, for that matter, while she tells me to "lean in" - grease Facebook's bottom line while the organization as a whole continues to pass the problematic buck.
2
I call my distant friends and family on the phone or Skype. I love to hear their voices, reactions in real time, laughter (not lol); even disagreements are more enjoyable.
And there are no long distance charges.
1
I find it somewhat ironic that people who post the most intimate details of their lives on Facebook then expect their privacy to be protected. Has everyone forgotten TMI? If you want privacy keep your life off social media.
2
I'd prefer to live in a country where "let the citizen beware" wasn't a governing principle.
There is another article in the NYT that provides an eye-opening look into the operations of Cambridge Analytica. The algorithms they used to target voters right down to the household level do not rely on the most intimate details of Facebook users' lives.
How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump...
In my 60's and relatively new to FB, I have found it an enjoyable way to keep up with friends and family as people retire and move, but now I am wondering what to do. I certainly do not want to be a part of any of this! I am seriously thinking about signing off of FB.
8
PK, you can "keep up" by using that old fashioned thing called the postal service.
It produces a much nicer effect, you're no longer bombarded with "fluff", you'll actually send and receive the interesting things you want to know, or share, not what the dog had for breakfast today.
Of course you can also do that via email, limit yourself to one email per week, per recipient. You'll find that your life is no longer busy with useless information, and that your correspondence will be much more enjoyable and meaningful.
Drop Twitter, Facebook etc. Make your world a better place.
3
There's obviously nothing more important on the planet than the price of Facebook stock at least to Facebook execs.
2
"I get the whole Russian interference but no amount of money, subliminal powers or so called "fake news" would have led me to vote for DT."
They don't have to get you to vote for DT. It's a win if they discouraged you from voting for an opponent. It's even a win they just make you feel disgusted enough with the whole sorry mess that you don't want to talk about it or debate it.
In any of these cases they moved the needle on their agenda. That's the power contained in knowing what your sensibilities are. And your sensibilities are on display by everything you "like", don't "like", or hide in your feed.
And lest you think that these leaks of your sensibilities are specific to social media, you are signaling who you are and what your interests are when you click on a specific search result on a search engine.
Our defenses against "mass media" don't work anymore simply because other than the Super Bowl and maybe The Bachelor there is no mass media anymore. Cable companies segment the market and show specific ads to specific neighborhoods.
As more and more media moves from the broadcast model to Internet distribution we as individuals will be modeled so that advertisers can find out the best way to motivate us to action or inaction.
It's a brave new world where machine learning knows us better than we know ourselves.
6
It looks like Facebook and Zuckerberg are trying to have it both ways. Sell private user date to whoever can afford the price, but claim to be innocent when it is revealed that you did it. Be careful what you post on Facebook, especially when it comes to political viewpoints. You may become a statistic and a pawn in the next election.
6
I often (not so) jokingly say, “I am the only person who I know, not on facebook.” Never even opened an account. I have often received requests from people that I know to be their “friend” on Facebook. My reaction, I am already your friend. If they have my email and phone number, I don’t need to be on Facebook. I also have received “friend” requests from people I do not know.
No need to be their”friend”. Facebook automatically goes through member contact lists to harvest members. In the case of not knowing an individual, an email address could have been part of a group message of a person who I do know.
From day one of Facebook, I was not interested in being a part of it.
My instincts are proving to be correct.
Deep State? I think big business is a bigger problem than the FBI or CIA!
Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon. I am not a ludite, I do use the apps and services of these companies, but with the realization that tracking is part of their platform. Buyer beware. There is no free lunch
15
How can Facebook, Google, Twitter pretend to be unaware of their potential for devastating propaganda? The US election gave us Trump, which has been a terrible blow, but one I believe we will overcome. But look at the Rohinyga crisis -- these social media companies have real blood on their hands.
5
If you’re being informed about the world through Facebook, I have a bridge to sell you!
5
Sandberg was mentioned in an earlier version of this article as one of the execs who wanted to keep this under wraps and not apologize. I guess Zuckerberg felt the same. A very public and sincere apology from FB would be the only thing that would make them look better. Otherwise this situation makes them look like groveling corporate stooges who prioritize the corporation’s profits over the corporation’s ethics, and are unpatriotic too. Yuck. What was the excuse? That this will blow over???
2
They've done the sincere public apology thing before. The problem isn't this particular "mistake." Facebook the business model is the mistake.
Break things, Mark.
Lean in, Sheryl.
Everybody else, delete your Facebook account.
10
Mark Zuckerberg is as much of a cretin as our current president. Fortunately for him, our politicians are frightened to actually question him aggressively and perhaps put legislation in place to regulate social media companies, including Facebook. But now England is involved so I feel hopeful that something might actually be done. Yes, people are fools, but that doesn't mean Facebook should be allowed to get away with whatever they want, all for the sake of a buck.
5
Obviously FB is not going to be honest about anything unless and until someone else finds out and they have to.
Bet you ten to one we have not heard half the real story.
Delete your account now!
5
In 2012 Obama's people used social media to win the election. In 2016 Trump's people used social media to win the election. Obama unquestionably interfered in Israeli elections. Did Russia follow Obama's lead in 2016?
2
Facebook is full of it. So busy preening in front of the PR mirror, they left the back door open and let the Russians come pouring in. Now they’re trying to tamp down the fire that they created. Stamos should get out now, ahead of the crowd now rushing away from Facebook ‘s shoddy and shameful business practices.
5
Great. Cambridge Analytica's Kogan claims FB knew everything and they are lying about not knowing what he was doing with client data. He told them he was using it privately and went out of his way to keep Cambridge and this project separated. Not research. He claims he's never worked for Russia, but it is reported he took money from a St. Pete's college to do similar research!
Well played, Putin!
3
I consider Facebook and Zuckerberg to be traitors to their own Country. Definitely do NOT Like.
7
Stamos seems to be a spin doctor. Wasn't he Chief Security officer with a team of 100 people when all the bots were generating fake news and the Russians were harvesting account data to interfere in the election? So exactly who failed to do their job? Would a disagreement on how to handle the breaches even be necessary if the breaches didn't occur in the first place? NYT do some homework on this guy before you just publish his publicists press release.
3
Whoo doggies! The Ides of March have not disappointed! Look at all these enemies of the Republic getting outed just in time for baseball practice, Brutus!
2
So glad I have never joined. My grandfather was from Russia. He left long time ago.....
6
"I get the whole Russian interference but no amount of money, subliminal powers or so called "fake news" would have led me to vote for DT."
They don't have to get you to vote for DT. It's a win if they discouraged you from voting for an opponent. It's even a win they just make you feel disgusted enough with the whole sorry mess that you don't want to talk about it or debate it.
In any of these cases they moved the needle on their agenda. That's the power contained in knowing what your sensibilities are. And your sensibilities are on display by everything you "like", don't "like", or hide in your feed.
And lest you think that these leaks of your sensibilities are specific to social media, you are signaling who you are and what your interests are when you click on a specific search result on a search engine.
My son and I have computers right next to each other. I wanted him to see a Google search result that I had gotten. He put in the identical search terms and got results that were customized to him.
Our defenses against "mass media" don't work anymore simply because other than the Super Bowl and maybe The Bachelor there is no mass media anymore. Cable companies segment the market and show specific ads to specific neighborhoods.
As more and more media moves from the broadcast model to Internet distribution we as individuals will be modeled so that advertisers can find out the best way to motivate us to action or inaction.
It's a brave new world.
1
The board of directors and all senior management should be leaving, not the person who did the right thing.
7
Facebook thinks its users will not disengage to an alternative platform. It thinks that Google will have the same problems or make people just as unhappy. As we speak, there are likely to be collectives developing social media platforms committed to not violating privacy or collecting data. Entire groups may move there overnight just by leaving FB messages to each other. When FB parses those messages, perhaps it will come to grips with its social responsibility. There is a wave of competitors coming.
5
Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sanders appear to have abetted Putin’s efforts to manipulate the presidential election, delegitimizing the results and sowing discord among the electorate, all of which might be viewed as criminal. Certainly, there should be a legal inquiry into decisions that might well be considered disloyal acts aimed at the United States. If competent investigative authorities find Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sanders reasonable grounds for charging them, they should be compelled to defend themselves in court and judged according to the demands of the law. We are still a democracy and should not countenance criminal behaviors that seek to undermine our elections, the bedrock of American self rule.
6
Facebook mines your communication stream for knowledge about your hot buttons that advertisers can use to get you to do something. This most often involves buying a product or service but as this saga illustrates it could be trying to motivate you to vote or not vote. Or get you to buy and spread an idea.
This is the essence of viral marketing.
You might think that you are immune to this kind of persuasion but are your friends and family immune? And if your friends and family are susceptible, are they influencing others?
(Even though, of course, you and I are too independent to fall for this kind of thing.)
4
Kill two birds with one stone. I don't mean Cheryl and Mark. I mean the problems at Facebook and USPS. Just make Facebook part of the Post Office. Imagine the possible positivity.
Employed around IT field fourteen years yet never had Facebook account. Economic muscle Facebook has pretty much firewalls them from any substantive censure. Bottomline is Facebook is in every investors portfolio, so most have stake in their continued prosperity.
Never used Facebook and never will. If I want to contact family and friends I have this thing I use. It's called a telephone.
4
What did people think would happen when they voluntarily relinquish their privacy to some huge corporation? Can anyone honestly be surprised?
4
This is not a good sign of where Facebook is heading amid the current scandal; nor that no one was notified when it learned of Cambridge Analytica’s behavior back in 2015.
This may be the final straw- how badly do I need Facebook to stay informed on what family and mostly distant friends (close ones don’t trust Facebook), given that I’ve already significantly reduced my time because you have to go thru so much irrelevant and uninteresting content ?
1
I havea love/hate relationship with Facebook. I LOVE that I can communicate with family and old friends with such ease; I LOVE that I’ve come to know some fine new friends via the platform; I LOVE the history and special interest pages I follow. These groups and associations, in particular, have expanded my knowledge beyond my ability and allotted time on this earth would ever have accommodated. I LOVE the money I’ve made (until yesterday) as a stockholder. But here’s what HATE. As a retired marketer and journalist, I’ve HATED Facebook’s founder’s demonstrated snarky arrogance and naiveté from day one. It escapes me how Zuckerberg and his colleagues seem oblivious to basic tenets of publishing that require transparent oversight and a principled army of editors. That alone should have steered me away from investing in the company, thus I HATE that I let myself hop on this greedy gravy train with biscuit wheels. I HATE the negativity and sourness that often follows even the most well-meaning and thoughtful posts. I truly HATE any vehicle that drove (knowingly or not) our country into the cesspool it has become politically. I HATE that I even HATE. But above all, and perhaps the weightiest of my “HATES” is the addictive nature of the platform, the time it swallows that would otherwise be spent in more productive and creative pursuits.
I am considering totally parting ways with Facebook. (Thankfully, I’ve never fallen into the trap of its cousins, Twitter and Snapchat.)
3
Zuckerberg seems oblivious to the many ways Facebook can be used as a weapon of social disorder. Too bad that Facebook can't simply be shut down, since he doesn't want to accept responsibility for not controlling it.
2
Zuckerberg is hardly "oblivious." He has consciously picked sides and roles, fortune-maker over good citizen and faithful steward. Facebook reflexively conceals troubles that expose tens of millions of his customers to harms ranging from identity theft to personal intrusions to political manipulation. Once information is electronically transmitted, as this was multiple times, it can be copied, stolen or sold but never returned, never destroyed.
What Zuckerberg is doing should be illegal and he is hardly "oblivious" to it. If it isn't law already, it must be made a federal one to publicly and swiftly -- in a couple of weeks, not years -- report these breaches. The same law should mandate measures to lock down accounts and to provide access to no one, not even Russian professors and frauds claiming it's for "academic research" instead of political manipulation.
Personal information must be guarded like treasure, not exposed like trash.
1
I agree with all the anger towards FB. However, as an ordinary FB user who uses it basically to keep up with what my far-flung family and friends have been up to (birthday pic's, vacations, etc), I don't quite understand what use a data-mining company, or Cambridge Analytica, would have for my data? Yes, it would reveal parts of my social network and parts of my political tendencies, but what is the use of that to a company or political group, if I am not buying stuff through FB or getting involved in political stuff through FB? Can't I still use it for friends/family without much risk to me personally?
2
In my observation, most people who are addicted to Facebook tilt toward the lower end of the IQ spectrum... As do most members of the Trump base.
It is little wonder that both groups can be swayed so easily to believe almost anything.
11
This goes beyond Facebook, which will hopefully crash and burn. I really wanted to donate to the students of Parkland, but I had to wait until other options than "Go Fund Me," which makes you agree to a privacy policy to donate, was available. Companies should not be allowed to track users online and sell/use the data. Europe offers its citizens far more protection than the us. It's curious how members of Congress bristle at anyone looking into their lives, yet they readily sell out the privacy rights of those they represent. But once again, our Congress has sold out the public to lobbyists--another case in point that will make matters even worse--revoking net neutrality.
15
Why don't you just mail a check?
As a non-social media user, why we are all voluntarily walking face first into a world with no privacy is as confusing to me as why anyone would trust the authenticity of anything other than Aunt Jenny's apple pie recipe on facebook anymore.
That's just my convolutedly written opinion. If convolutedly is a word. Which, according to the red line under it, it isn't.
2
I see no convolution in your statement, Diego... In fact, I wholeheartedly agree.
1
I've quit Facebook. It is a disaster in data mining and sharing of what should be private data. Or at least data that should not be shared or collected or used. But it is. It is mined, it is analyzed and it is sold. (Many other companies are no better)
Facebook user: Thou Art The Product.
And because of that, Facebook users are also cleverly targeted by Putins' St-Petersburg Puppets of Propaganda.
7
Just because they ask you your private data doesn't men you have to tell them.
Hopefully companies are paying attention and Stamos's next employer will hire him because of his character, as well as his experience.
12
It's time to boycott FaceBook. if they can't be honest and transparent, and if they can't act responsibly in protecting our most important right as citizens -- our right of self governance -- then they don't deserve our business. Profits, Mr. Zuckerberg, are not more important than our right to vote.
14
Facebook should not be a publicly traded company. Nor should Twitter.
Seems as though the world would be a better place if these sites didn’t exist.
8
At some point I hope a second “Social Network” movie is made showing Zuckerberg and Sandberg selling people’s personal data to the highest bidders and intentionally obfuscating Russia’s involvement to subvert democracy.
16
According to industry experts: "The core element that drives the digital society is digitalized information.
Information is the key to how the digital society adds value and redistributes power. In a connected world, information gains power through permanent storage and wide distribution."
Zuckerberg deserves a special place in all security/intelligence services in the world.
Zuckerberg and associates have created a digital platform for billions of citizens to voluntarily provide information to governments/ politicians not much interested in society's welfare but rather how to control it.
7
Sounds like Stamos was one of the few good individuals at a truly awful company run by truly awful people.
16
i guess ms. sandberg is leaning into the russians.
5
in the past Zuckerberg has believed it to be within his purview to ignore Congressional subpoenas directed to "Facebook" and send underling stooges to parrot the company line subject to the review and approval of their bosses in California. He is so far from really "getting it" that it's a joke. It is to the eternal disgrace of Harvard University that it bestowed an honorary degree and the platform of a commencement address on this arrogant jerk on the stage that once hosted General George Marshall.
9
So Facebook is a Trojan Horse for the Russians. Wow.
9
Yes, donnie boy, for once, you are right. The 2016 Presidential election WAS rigged! Russian money bought you the election with a little help from their Facebook "friends".
10
The impact for individuals is much more widespread than just deciding whether or not to have a FB account. I don't have a FB account, and as a result have been unable to access information on a number of sites and events, such as rallies or marches, that only provide details on FB. I am also unable to comment on numerous sites without the requirement that I log on through FB. Many other sites do not allow access without a FB account.
Please contact any sites that limit access to FB users, as I have done, and demand they allow access to all. This will hopefully send a message that, no, we all don't want or need to be a FB user.
11
It's like I used to tell my children: tell the truth immediately — waiting and/or lying just makes the consequences worse and makes me distrust you more.
6
Is the "deep state" on Trump's side?
8
I run a business based solely on trust just like Facebook. First and foremost, our mission statement clearly states that we must conduct ourselves in an ethical and moral manner. It shouldn’t even be a debate within the company whether to tell the truth or not. I am shocked quite frankly that Facebook didn’t immediately make authorities aware of Russian meddling. Shame on them and they will pay a price as customers lose trust in Facebook as a result of their deception.
14
The privileged classes hang on to this Russia narrative as way to exculpate themselves from their own shortcomings. 4 solid decades of self-enrichment at the top has made a country so wobbly it has to invent phantoms to explain the results.
For those who might decide to delete both their FB account AND their data, this article will help;
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/19/how-to-protect-your-f...
5
Time for someone to make the sequel to "The Social Network." It can be called "The Antisocial Network," or whatever the Russian term is for "Stupid, Decadent Americans Lose Cold War."
5
Facebook, and all other social media platforms, are media companies. Period. Advertising rules need to be applied.
8
If Sheryl wants to save face, she better split this blown pop stand. I wouldn't let my daughter ten feet near that woman!!
4
Facebook has become an evil company.
5
Hey NYT...why no mention of the comments yesterday from Carol Davidsen, 2012 Obama campaign Director of Media Analytics, who said that Facebook was "very candid that they allowed us to do things (with customer data) they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because THEY WERE ON OUR SIDE." These stories always work both ways, but I guess some news is not "fit to print".
9
Hey, c smith, stop deflecting. The problem here, and the subject of this article, is Facebook, not the Obama campaign.
False equivalencies are not usually printed, you are correct.
Not "equivalent" at all. Facebook aided and abetted the Obama campaign directly, while Trump's people at Cambridge had to build an app to extract FB data on their own. What the Obama people did was FAR WORSE, and, just like with Trump, no one knew about it at the time.
But what happen with the number two, the lady who accepts everything without any investigation
1
If anyone knows how to remove all personal info from Facebook please reply to this.
Thanks
Facebook's Board should be fired along with the idiot savant Zuckerberg and his minions, and Congress must call them to account. Then the states' attorneys' general can come in and start prosecuting. Too big to fail? I think not. Mueller has enough to do without adding this to the list.
I am now hearing of an FTC consent decree that compels Facebook to pay $40K per privacy violation going forward. Short your FB stock.
4
Facebook loves you. Mark Zuckerberg loves you. Sheryl Sandberg loves you. They are nearly perfect people. We must worship them until the day we die.
2
Businesses including FaceBook understand money. It is high time any disclosure of personal information, social security numbers, etc. be accompanied by a financial payment to the person involved. If Equifax faced paying $1,000 to each person whose social security number was disclosed, that would never have happened. I would not put FaceBook's disclosure in the $1,000 per person, but more like $10 or $50 per person.
1
The March 13, 2018 Status Report on the Russian Investigation published by the Democrats on the House Intel Committee should be read by every American who cares about what happened in 2016 & about how our resources are being used to expose crimes. The level of detail is encouraging: it shows that a great deal of the conspiracy has already been pieced together.
Among the many communications platforms that reports lists, Twitter & Reddit also feature prominently. Regardless of how carefully they strive to keep their names out of the media now, the enormous role they played -- especially Reddit (also 4Chan) in mobilizing Dupes for Putin -- requires further scrutiny.
Missing from the communications apps named therein (that include WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, Slack etc.) is Viber -- a highly popular "free telephony" app that is actually a crude form of spyware. Viber is very popular with people from the ex-USSR because they imagine it is "free."
In his magnum opus on the French Revolution, "Citizens," the brilliant Simon Schama delved into the use of outrageous fabrications to target the powerful (as well as their opponents) in order to destabilize a society. Eventually, outright anarchy reigned & the streets flowed with blood. The exact same principles were applied to unleash gruesome mayhem in Russia before the Stalinist clampdown imposed 'order' to the butchery. Hitler used the same methods to ignite the Holocaust. Lies kill. Falsified 'news' reports destroy societies.
2
And when did this FB illegal usage of data start? With Trump? Nope - it started with Obama and continued into Clinton. This article needs updating from yesterday's tweets from Obama's campaign. Apparently, they had access to data because FB 'was on their side'. I would expect the NYTimes to cover the whole story and not pick it up in 2016.
6
Say what you want and do what you want, just understand that it’s facebook dot com, not dot org.
4
So I guess "leaning in" doesn't work when you're tryin g to convince Sheryl Sandberg to do the right thing. "Paying in," now that's the ticket.
7