Whaddya Expect For Free?
Source: Mark Zuckerberg Testimony: A Critical Test for Facebook – The New York Times
Watching the current testimony of Mark Zuckerberg in front of a Congressional panel on Facebook’s activities is a bit like watching a bunch of seniors asking a PhD student about string theory. It’s obvious that the Facebook CEO is giving condescending and patronizing answers to people who are asking political questions rather than probing for real fact discovery. The greatest laugh he has on them is that during his testimony, the stock rose enough to enrich him by $3 billion dollars! Boy they sure showed him.
That there is any outrage over the leaks of individuals’ private data exists only because there is a tenuous link to the possibility of a chance of maybe helping to bring about Donald Trump’s election. As we all know, employment of such data mining techniques by parties partisan to the previous President were hailed as genius. The root of the outrage is not so much about the abuse of mined data, it’s more about who got to benefit from it.
As usual, the threat of government regulation of companies such as Facebook have been raised as a means of curtailing ‘abuses’. Sure, that’s what’s needed here, more laws. Somehow, the encompassing sense of entitlement that has taken root in Western culture extends even to Facebook, an entirely free platform for which nobody is forcefully compelled to participate. However, in participating, people voluntarily offer their most personal information and proclivities for the world to see and presumably expecting the same from others. Facebook is a brilliant invention which captures that large segment of the population whom are exhibitionists, voyeurs or both. To their credit, Facebook made a business out of it and a very big one at that. But now, there are all kinds of expectations on what this free service should provide or be responsible for. It’s like going to a free public toilet and demanding that it be supplied with toilet paper.
Zuckerberg for his part, has been disingenuous with the description of his company. His comments regarding Facebook content makes liberal use of the word ‘community’ to describe Facebook users. In fact, they have armies of people who are charged with filtering out those that don’t fit their views of what’s acceptable in their community. So it’s an inclusive community, as long as you fit their definition of community.
As long as Facebook is not deemed to be a public utility, they can do whatever they want and to treat customers as they see fit. The hysteria surrounding their business practices will subside. Satisfied users will stay; unhappy ones will leave. The recent publicity that Facebook has garnered has served an important function however. It exposes the reality behind their business model and perhaps into the models of many other internet and social media companies. People get something for free, meanwhile, the business owners become billionaires. Why is there surprise?