Cruz Vs. Zuckerberg

Cruz vs. Zuckerberg
The View from the Middle

If you were lucky enough to miss yesterday’s Senate questioning of Mark Zuckerberg, I can only say, “Congratulations”. That’s four hours of your life you did not flush down your life toilet. What you missed was 60, 70 and yes even 80 year old Senators reading questions obviously prepared by 20 or 30 year old staffers. Half the time they couldn’t even get through the question without a bumble, and even when they did, Zuckerberg swatted them away with his technical expertise or with his, “yes, we need to do better” mantra.
Unfortunately for me, I had the time and inclination to watch the entire four hours worth of dribble, which I will not be able to get back. But since I made the commitment, let me give you the reader’s digest version of the day.
The Senators spent most of the day trying to make the point that virtually no one using Facebook actually knows what Zuckerberg’s behemoth company is tracking, storing and selling to other companies, other edge providers or even political parties. To be truthful, I didn’t even know what an “edge” provider was until yesterday. Here’s a hint for you, Facebook is an “edge” provider.
Zuckerberg shot down all of these questions by constantly suggesting that his Facebook customers are in total control of everything. They know, he suggested, everything that can and will be shared with other entities and have complete control of what that information is and who it is shared with. This, of course, is a pile of hooey, but the Senators never got through Zuckerberg’s “awe shucks” answers to get to the real issue of the privacy question. And that real issue is that Facebook needs to clearly and simply explain to their customers what is being shared and give them an easy way to “opt out” of that sharing. Zuckerberg, of course, doesn’t want any of that. He doesn’t really want his customers to understand what Facebook is storing and sharing, because that would scare the crap out of their users and he doesn’t really want to make it easy for them to opt out, because they will do so in huge numbers. That is why their explanation of services is about 300 pages long. So, no progress in the whole privacy situation. Win for Zuckerberg.
But the real story came a little more than half way through this grueling saga. Ted Cruz finally broached an even more important issue than privacy, in my opinion, and that is censorship. Zuckerberg had admitted that Facebook was going to be on the lookout for terroristic efforts, fake news and hate speech. And of course everyone said, “good for you” to that. Except me, of course, and Ted Cruz evidently.
Cruz asked exactly who is going to be defining this “fake news” and “hate speech”? The answer is – Facebook, who currently has fifteen to twenty thousand people doing this. We all, however, should be asking what the standards are for blocking people for fake news and hate speech. Cruz then gave about 20 examples where Facebook has made some questionable blocks on conservative leaning people and groups including Diamond and Silk who they have called “unsafe for the community”. Zuckerberg could give no examples of left leaning groups or people being blocked by Facebook.
Do we really want Zuckerberg defining “hate speech”, especially if Facebook has already classified Diamond and Silk as some form of it? What about “fake news”? Any real examination of the facts would suggest that “fake news” is at least bi-partisan if not a left leaning practice. I’m guessing, however, that Zuckerberg and his team of 20,000 liberal, free-speech-squelching goons will see it differently, and that should bother all of us but especially conservatives. Unfortunately, I don’t trust our bloated, corrupt, inept federal government to do it either. If any of you have any suggestions on who could do this in an honest, efficient and unbiased manner, let me know. I’ve got some time!