[P2P-F] Fwd: Civicist's First Post: The Zuckularity
Michel Bauwens
michelsub2004 at gmail.com
Wed Apr 11 14:45:32 CEST 2018
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Civic Hall <info at civichall.org>
Date: Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 3:46 PM
Subject: Civicist's First Post: The Zuckularity
To: Michel <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
Tech and politics collide at congressional scale today; we get sucked down
the black hole of Zuckerberg takes; questions someone should ask Congress
April 10, 2018
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=fefba3dff6&e=222dfb6267>
[image: First Post]
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=252305fef2&e=222dfb6267>
*Micah L. Sifry*
*The Zuckularity**
-
Today, the Boy King testifies before Congress, starting with the Senate
Judiciary Committee at 2:15ET. According to Facebook CEO *Mark
Zuckerberg*'s pre-released testimony
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=40d4cd469c&e=222dfb6267>
that he plans to give the House Committee on Energy and Commerce tomorrow,
he's going to focus on the steps the company is taking to address the
abilities of third-parties to access the profile data of millions of
Facebook users and to make it harder for Russians and others to spread
disinformation across the site. Not covered: what Facebook employees
embedded with the Trump campaign actually did, the use of Facebook's
targeting tools to discriminate against minorities, its targeting of
children, its anti-competitive penchant of buying upstart platforms that
threaten its dominance, the use of its platform to incite genocidal
violence in places like Myanmar and now we learn Sri Lanka
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=88efb9d81f&e=222dfb6267>,
etc.
-
*Franklin Foer* writes for The Atlantic
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=3ed25c9aab&e=222dfb6267>
that Zuckerberg's testimony will mark the day "Silicon Valley no longer
floats above the world." He adds, "One of the salutary benefits of this
backlash is that it stands to dent the culture of the company. It creates a
new expectation that its employees should be more questioning, less
thoughtless about human beings. The congressional flaying will show that
there’s, at the very least, a social price to be paid for creating such a
careless product."
-
Flaying? Let's lower our expectations a little. If only appearing before
Congress meant something like what Foer writes. The odds of any member of
the committee understanding what Zuckerberg means when he says, per his
written testimony, that "we're restricting more APIs like groups and
events" are nil. Here's Senator *Dianne Feinstein* (D-CA), getting ready
to flay Zuckerberg
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=e433c2128f&e=222dfb6267>
after she met privately with him as he made the rounds on the Hill
yesterday: "He's a very nice young man. He's very young. And he has 27,000
employees. And it's - that's amazing. He's obviously smart. He obviously
knows what he's doing and he has a very pleasant personality. He's not
hard-edged in any way that I saw."
-
Of all the great questions for Zuckerberg prepared by Privacy
International
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=15ff48e16b&e=222dfb6267>,
this one could genuinely cut through a lot of the BS: "You post regularly
on Facebook yourself. Is your personal data protected beyond the level
available to everyone else? Are you 1 of the 87million people whose data
has been accessed by Cambridge Analytica - if not, what was it that kept
your data safe?" Even a dimwitted Member of Congress like Feinstein could
ask it.
-
Technosociologist* Zeynep Tufekci* wisely advises not focusing on what
questions Congress asks Zuckerberg
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=6c46e1d853&e=222dfb6267>,
and instead urges it to take action to force platform companies to get
meaningful informed consent from their users, to put time limits on how
long they hold user data, and to also regulate how they use aggregated data.
-
A question I wish someone would ask Members of Congress: Will you stop
using Facebook to hold formerly public events like town-hall meetings? If
not, why are you forcing your constituents to give their personal
information to a private corporation in order to interact with you?
-
Considering the role of private foundations in America as one of the
last sources of theoretically countervailing power in an age of massive
media and economic concentration, this is big news: The Social Science
Research Council announced yesterday that it is partnering with Facebook
and a group of seven major foundations to develop and fund independent
research on the social network's impact on society, starting with
elections. Here's the statement
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=0f207ead5a&e=222dfb6267>
from Facebook VP of communications and public policy, *Elliot Schrage*,
and director of research, *David Ginsberg*. "The focus will be entirely
forward-looking," aiming to understand Facebook's impact on upcoming
elections, "and to inform our future product and policy decisions," they
write. A commission made of "respected academic experts" will develop and
oversee the research agenda and independently select grantees whose work
will be funded by the foundations. "When appropriate," the researchers will
also be given access to "privacy-protected data from Facebook."
-
Here's SSRC president *Alondra Nelson* on the new initiative
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=be508d3cf6&e=222dfb6267>.
She notes, "SSRC-appointed review committees will actively engage with
technologists, advocates, and ethicists to develop 21st century academic
standards for anonymized digital data use—with particular emphasis on the
potential impacts on vulnerable groups by the dynamics the initiative
studies. While Facebook and the users of its data are bound by the data
access and privacy laws where they operate, the SSRC will have no qualms
about withdrawing from this initiative should we deem it necessary."
-
Not stated: whether the commission or its researchers will be able to
audit Facebook's algorithms, to determine, for example, if the voter
megaphone tool is actually being shown to all voters neutrally. Microsoft
Research's *Tarton Gillespie* also points out that researchers need to
study Facebook's engineers, design choices, business model and user policies
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=290b63d098&e=222dfb6267>,
not just the data.
-
The foundations backing the SSRC-Facebook effort are the Hewlett
Foundation, Sloan Foundation, Charles Koch Foundation, Democracy Fund,
Knight Foundation, Arnold Foundation, and Omidyar Network. One of these
things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong, as
the song goes. While six of those foundations do a lot of credible work
focused on broadly advancing democracy in America, Koch, himself a former
member of the John Birch Society, funds many things, including advancing
white supremacy, neoConfederate academics, and broad attacks on voting
rights and civil rights, as this recent report from UnKochMyCampus
details
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=5786329cde&e=222dfb6267>
.
-
"Zuckerberg's dilemmas are not the dilemmas of a corporation but the
dilemmas of a king," write
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=588872c302&e=222dfb6267>
*Henry
Farrell, Margaret Levi and Tim O'Reilly* in Vox. Gee, could he be the
king of a country called Facebookistan?
-
Buried deep in this recently released interview of Zuckerberg
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=2a3f236c2d&e=222dfb6267>
by Freakonomics writer *Stephen Dubner* is this fascinating admission:
"There’s interesting research now that shows that the average American has
fewer than three close friends who they would turn to in a crisis. So one
of the questions that I asked inside our company, and I started a team to
work on this is, 'Well, can we build some products or services that make it
so that the average person has one more close friend?'”
-
Also this statement from the same interview is worth meditating on: "One
of the interesting challenges that you find running a company or a
community at scale [*running a community at scale?!*] is there are
people who want things that are completely conflicting. So there are
certain people who want us to share more information, and then there are a
lot of people who really don’t. For some of these social decisions that we
have to make, I find that the right place to be is when you’re getting
yelled at from both sides equally." Paging *Jay Rosen*?
-
*Robinson Meyer* of The Atlantic talked to Mark Zuckerberg and didn't
learn anything new
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=68006a598e&e=222dfb6267>,
other than the unsurprising fact that the embattled CEO isn't planning to
leave the company he started.
-
Last week a group of civil society organizations in Myanmar wrote an
open letter to Zuckerberg complaining of how poorly the company has
responded to the rise of sectarian violence there, and he responded with a
personal email, *Kevin Roose and Paul Mozur* report
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=310e8568d3&e=222dfb6267>
for The New York Times. “It’s great that he’s engaging personally with
this, but the stuff he’s talking about is really not that much different
from what they’ve been saying for the past few years,” said *Jes
Petersen*, the chief executive of Phandeeyar, the innovation lab that
organized the letter to Zuckerberg. To everyone's credit, the exchange is
now public and the groups are pressing the company to do a lot more to
address the problem.
-
Here are some important questions
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=d6c906fafe&e=222dfb6267>
from election law expert *Rick Hasen* on the challenges Facebook will
face with its new promise to increase the transparency of election-related
ads.
-
If you still don't understand how Facebook's ad targeting system can
allow outside advertisers to glean incredibly personal information from
people sent to them via Facebook, read *Michael Jones*, the former chief
technology advocate for Google, explaining the nuts-and-bolts
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=52f98da953&e=222dfb6267>
to *James Fallows* of The Atlantic.
-
Some big institutional investors want Facebook to replace Zuck as
chairman, *Jen McGregor *reports for The Washington Post
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=bcb451d72f&e=222dfb6267>
.
-
In case you were worried that former Clinton pollster *Mark Penn *wasn't
still stupid, here he is opining for CBS Marketwatch
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=5644e6b089&e=222dfb6267>
that "I do not believe that the Facebook issues in any way compromised the
2016 U.S. presidential election. It’s unclear whether Cambridge
Analytica did much, if anything, for the Trump campaign."
-
In other news, maybe it's time we paid a bit more attention to stuff
like this
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=2705466f9e&e=222dfb6267>
?
-
Oh, and perhaps a big deal
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=08ab1bc432&e=222dfb6267>
?
-
*Media matters*: Voters in so-called news deserts—place with minimal
newspaper subscriptions, print or online—voted for Donald Trump in 2016 in
higher-than expected numbers, Politico's *Shawn Musgrave and Matthew
Nussbaum* report
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=e7938c6735&e=222dfb6267>.
In effect, they suggest that Trump's reliance on social media served him
best in places where news consumers were least likely to have independent
media habits providing factual correctives.
-
Related: Crack investigative journalists *Julia Angwin and Jeff Larson* are
leaving ProPublica
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=56f08ab1e4&e=222dfb6267>
to try to scale up more "tech-driven investigations" by building their own
newsroom. Godspeed!
-
Attend: Organizing 2.0 is holding its annual conference this Friday and
Saturday in NYC. Register here.
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=6a4a2ecbdf&e=222dfb6267>
-
*Hat tip to *Mark Pesce* for the term
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=5d3b598a4e&e=222dfb6267>.
We promise, dear readers, to pay more attention to other topics in future
days. If Facebook will let us.
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=8b86477604&e=222dfb6267>
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=388ce7c0e4&e=222dfb6267>
[image: Forward to a Friend]
<http://us9.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=f1a50ea17f&e=222dfb6267>
------------------------------
[image: Civic Hall]
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=1b43e4f473&e=222dfb6267>
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=97ce03f9b2&e=222dfb6267>
*Copyright © 2018 Civic Hall, All rights reserved.*
118 West 22nd Street, 12th Fl, New York, NY
<https://maps.google.com/?q=118+West+22nd+Street,+12th+Fl,+New+York,+NY&entry=gmail&source=g>
unsubscribe
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=9c16fc5171&e=222dfb6267&c=f1a50ea17f>
update subscription
<https://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/profile?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=9c16fc5171&e=222dfb6267>
You are receiving this email because you've subscribed to First Post
--
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/attachments/20180411/610956cd/attachment-0001.html>
More information about the P2P-Foundation
mailing list