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the crime of the century: challenging the US dollar... and he did not say this:...

facebook   

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was on Capitol Hill Wednesday (23/10/2019) to testify before the the House Financial Services Committee about Libra, Facebook's controversial cryptocurrency plan. 


At least, Libra was theoretically his reason for being in Washington, DC. Once he was in the hot seat, however, lawmakers pinned him down with questions about basically everything, making clear just how much ire the ostensible social network now draws at the highest level.

The hearing, titled "An Examination of Facebook and its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors," ran for more than five hours as representatives pressed Zuckerberg on a variety of topics. Many of the questions seemed to leave the CEO flustered as members of the committee dug in.

"You have opened up a serious discussion about whether Facebook should be broken up," Waters said, following a litany of the company's offenses.

"Each month, 2.7 billion people use your products. That's over a third of the world's population. That's huge," Waters said. "That's so big that it's clear to me, and to anyone who hears this list, that perhaps you believe you're above the law."

That growth has victims, she added:

And it appears you're aggressively increasing the size of your company and are willing to step on or over anyone, including your competitors, women, people of color, your own users, and even our democracy, to get what you want. All of these problems I have outlined, and given the company's size and reach, it should be clear why we have serious concerns about your plans to establish a global digital currency that would challenge the US dollar.

Read more:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/zuckerberg-faces-heat-in-con...

the chinese swines are coming...

First off, on its Libra project - in his prepared remarks, which were released to the press a day early, Zuckerberg explained that Facebook's cryptocurrency would "extend America’s financial leadership, as well as our democratic values and oversight around the world.”


Zuckerberg also warned that if Facebook - and by extension America - didn't move forward on this, other nations would.


“While we debate these issues, the rest of the world isn’t waiting. China is moving quickly to launch similar ideas in the coming months.”


Zuckerberg explained to the House that Chinese-backed groups are looking to extend services like AliPay into new regions, essentially forming their own, separate currency that would be controlled by the Chinese government. Zuckerberg framed Libra as something of a defender against this, but the representatives seemed less than convinced about the viability of a Facebook-controlled payment and banking system.


Zuckerberg sought to distance Facebook itself from the project, by noting that the Libra Association would be a separate entity, which Facebook would not control, but the questions remained focused on how much they can trust Facebook to facilitate such a service, and how Facebook planned to stop people from using it for money laundering and other criminal activities.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/zuckerberg-faces-us-congress-on-li...

 

 

Social media has a "social media site"?... Hum, here on this YD site we're still working with the steam engine of e-communications... Told to move on with more "progressive" platforms, here I am, still digesting the Zucknews a month later... Send me a walking stick via the Amazon drone delivery system.

the comic kettle has a case with the black pots...

Sacha Baron Cohen has slammed Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google, accusing the tech giants of facilitating “hate and violence”.

Accepting the International Leadership Award at the Anti-Defamation League’s Never is Now summit on anti-semitism and hate Thursday (US time), the actor and comedian used a wide-ranging speech to warn of a “handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history”.

Baron Cohen attacked Mark Zuckerberg’s defence of Facebook as a champion of “free expression”.

He took particular aim at the Facebook CEO’s recent address at Georgetown University.

“If you pay them, Facebook will run any ‘political’ ad you want, even if it’s a lie,” Baron Cohen said.

“And they’ll even help you micro-target those lies to their users for maximum effect. Under this twisted logic, if Facebook were around in the 1930s, it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads on his ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem’.”

Baron Cohen did acknowledge the apparent incongruity of being the man behind the anti-semitic Kazakh character Borat accepting his award.

“As a comedian, I’ve tried to use my characters to get people to let down their guard and reveal what they actually believe, including their own prejudice,” he said.

Suggesting social media platforms be subject to the same regulations that most other media are obliged to follow, Baron Cohen says internet companies should be held accountable for the harm their products cause.

“It only seems fair to say to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, ‘Your product is defective, you are obliged to fix it no matter how much it costs and no matter how many moderators you need to employ.’ ”

Baron Cohen dedicated much of his focus to Mr Zuckerberg, the man he regards as bearing greatest culpability, and for advancing arguments that are “ludicrous”.

“It’s like we’re living in the Roman Empire, and Mark Zuckerberg is Caesar,” he said at one point.

 

 

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2019/11/23/facebook-sacha-baron-co...

 

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the war of the rose bay...

The recent events in Rose Bay – of all places – have shredded the last of my residual anarchism.

Such is the ferocity of the stoush between two rival Rose Bay community Facebook groups that the impact of their wild internet barney has not been limited to a court battle, lawyers’ fees and a lot of damaged human feelings. It’s consigned my University of Wollongong Anarchist Collective T-shirt to the dustbin of history, along with my personal belief in the capacity of organic, extrapolitical entities to govern themselves democratically.

Bianca Havas started the Rose Bay Community – Official Group page seven years ago with a friend, while their children were attending Rose Bay public school. Their project was a casual noticeboard for community events, and built a participating audience of more than 5,000.

There was a no-tolerance policy towards abuse, but as a full-time worker and parent, Havas couldn’t maintain real-time moderation. Meanwhile, local voiceover artist Bruce Goldberg was drawing ire from within the group for posts that – according to the Australian – ranged from criticising “poor spelling to direct attacks on local business owners”.

Goldberg had started his own Rose Bay community page on Facebook and responded to his critics on Havas’ page with a Facebook Live video of himself warning “trolls and bullies” they were “playing with fire”. Comments made there, say his lawyers, cast Goldberg as a “danger to the women of Rose Bay” and as someone who “enjoys bullying women”. So Goldberg began defamation proceedings against Alice Voigt for those comments in March.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/28/a-facebook-war-in-...

 

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Silly...

infiltration of facebook...

liberty

From the Guardian

“She pitched to me that she was a good editor, she could provide some good content to increase likes and views on the page,” Devito told the Guardian. “Could I just give her a chance and let her post her stuff, right? So I figured, ‘What the heck, give it a shot’.”

Villereal and Devito weren’t the only ones. Over the past two years, a group of mysterious Israel-based accounts has delivered similar messages to the heads of at least 19 other far-right Facebook pages across the US, Australia, the UK, Canada, Austria, Israel and Nigeria.

A Guardian investigation can reveal those messages were part of a covert plot to control some of Facebook’s largest far-right pages, including one linked to a rightwing terror group, and create a commercial enterprise that harvests Islamophobic hate for profit.

This group is now using its 21-page network to churn out more than 1,000 coordinated faked news posts per week to more than 1 million followers, funnelling audiences to a cluster of 10 ad-heavy websites and milking the traffic for profit.

The posts stoke deep hatred of Islam across the western world and influence politics in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US by amplifying far-right parties such as Australia’s One Nation and vilifying Muslim politicians such as the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, and the US congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

The network has also targeted leftwing politicians at critical points in national election campaigns. It posted false stories claiming the UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said Jews were “the source of global terrorism” and accused the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, of allowing “Isis to invade Canada”.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/06/inside-the-hate-f...

 

 

Now, are the "fake" Dems doing the same thing?... Are the "socialists" being infiltrated by the "Russians"?... 

staying at home like a good boy...

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is housebound just like many of the tech giant's other employees.

On a press call Wednesday announcing updates to Facebook's response to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, the Facebook co-founder and CEO told reporters he is "definitely working from home", as the company has asked all of its approximately 45,000 employees to do.

"Like everyone is experiencing, it's a big change to be working from home," Zuckerberg said.

The multibillionaire added that he's trying to balance work with taking care of his kids.

 

Read more:

https://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/facebook-ceo-zuckerberg-working-from-home/

 

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