Tagged: Mark Zuckerberg Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Geebo 10:12 am on November 19, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Mark Zuckerberg,   

    What will it take to remove Facebook’s top brass? 

    What will it take to remove Facebook's top brass?

    In response to last week’s expose from the New York Times, Facebook has responded in typical fashion. In a blog post published by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Mr. Zuckerberg denies using the right-wing PR firm it hired to launch anti-Semitic attacks against Facebook’s critics. If that’s true then that means that Mr. Zuckerberg was unaware of the tactics the PR firm was using. That’s not much better than ordering them to do so as it shows that Mr. Zuckerberg has either lost control over what goes on inside his company or is simply unaware of how his company runs. Because of the many accusations against the embattled social network, many investors have called for Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg to step down. However, you shouldn’t expect it any time soon.

    Facebook may be a publicly traded company, but the way their stock options are set up it allows Zuckerberg to run Facebook like his own private republic. As Business Insider points out, there is a class system when it comes to Facebook stock. There is Class A stock which is held by everyday investors, then there is class B stock which Zuckerberg controls most of. The Class B stock gives these shareholders 10 times the votes as Class A shareholders meaning that Zuckerberg’s word is law. While Facebook is not the only tech company that divides stock like this, none of the other companies are facing such a myriad of world-influencing accusations like Facebook is.

    So as of right now, the only way to get Mark Zuckerberg removed from the CEO chair would be some kind of Congressional action. While Congress might be on the warpath against Facebook, they don’t seem to have a clear and concise plan of dealing with them as the country has never experienced a company like Facebook before. It is possible they could try to break up Facebook treating it like a monopoly since Facebook also owns popular apps like Instagram and WhatsApp. However, it would be highly unlikely that would remove Mark Zuckerberg from power. Unless Facebook is somehow ordered to restructure its stock classes we’ll probably see the same face at the helm of Facebook for years to come.

     

  • Geebo 9:13 am on April 30, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Facebook lottery, Mark Zuckerberg, ,   

    The Facebook lottery is a lie 

    The Facebook lottery is a lie

    Back in the early days of the internet, there was an infamous hoax that said if you forward an email from Microsoft founder Bill Gates you’ll get cash for each time the email is forwarded. That hoax was largely harmless and mostly resulted in annoyance and some susceptible people wondering where their money was. Now there’s another impersonation hoax that’s causing its victims to lose thousands of dollars apiece. It’s colloquially known as the Facebook lottery scam.

    The way the scam works is that Facebook users will receive texts or Facebook messages claiming to be from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg or COO Sheryl Sandberg. These messages will say that the user has won a Facebook lottery that only a small number of people have ever won. They’ll claim the prize is anywhere from $500,000 to $500,000,000, but as you might expect, there’s a catch. In order to claim the alleged winnings you’ll need to either wire a processing fee, or give the processing fee in gift cards.

    This is not a new scam with some reports stating that it’s been around since 2011, however, it seems to have really ramped up in the past month with stories about it being reported all over the country, most notably in the New York Times. While each story has some differences, they all have the same result, an elderly person being scammed out of large sums of money.

    While some may easily spot this scam before they fall victim, there are still others who are not as educated in these matters. If you know someone who thinks the Facebook lottery is real show them this blog post and the other stories where people have fallen victim to the scam. Reason with them that if Facebook was giving away money, which they don’t do, they wouldn’t need money for so-called processing fees. Also remind them that wiring money or sending gift cards to strangers is the sure sign of a scam.

     

    • Melissa Trewern 2:50 am on June 29, 2018 Permalink

      I think i have been recently scammed someone told me I’ve won $80,000 in cash from this thing and am expected to pay u[p $550 bucks delievery fee to the agency to get it delieved i reckon its bull*** really

    • Geebo 4:09 am on June 29, 2018 Permalink

      Do you mind if I ask if you paid them any money?

    • Melissa Trewern 3:52 am on June 30, 2018 Permalink

      Nope I haven’t sent any cash away to anybody.

    • Geebo 5:22 am on June 30, 2018 Permalink

      Good. That’s great to hear. If you’re ever asked to pay money to get money it’s more than likely a scam.

  • Geebo 9:01 am on April 12, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Mark Zuckerberg,   

    Zuckerberg: Facebook is not a monopoly 

    Zuckerberg: Facebook is not a monopoly

    For the past two days, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before both houses of Congress in regards to the data breaches and scandals that have been in the public eye since the 2016 Presidential election. Zuckerberg’s total testimony added up to about ten hours of testimony in total, and in that ten hours not a lot of progress was actually made as Mr. Zuckerberg either tried to deflect the questions asked of him or would offer a nebulous explanation of how Facebook works.

    However, that’s not to say there wasn’t some newsworthy information to come from Mr. Zuckerberg’s testimony. When Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked if Zuckerberg thought Facebook was a monopoly, Zuckerberg responded with “It certainly doesn’t feel like that to me.” When asked by Sen Dan Sullivan (R-AK) if Facebook was too powerful, Zuckerberg replied with the non-answer of “We need to have a conversation about the right regulation.” Yet in his testimony Zuckerberg claimed that “I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”

    As we have seen through the election meddling, the Cambridge Analytica breach, and the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people through Facebook in Myanmar, the social media giant absolutely has too much power. It has so much power that Facebook isn’t even control of all of the power it possesses. The question that then needs to be asked is Mark Zuckerberg so insulated from his own company that he believes what he is telling Congress, or is he just an outright liar? No one man or company should hold such global power. Facebook needs to either rethink their business model or face possible regulatory wrath of Congress that hasn’t been seen since the breakup of AT&T.

     

  • Geebo 9:02 am on April 9, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: CubeYou, , , Mark Zuckerberg, Senator John Neely Kennedy   

    Senator to Facebook: “We Can Do It The Easy Way Or The Hard Way” 

    Senator to Facebook: "We Can Do It The Easy Way Or The Hard Way"

    U.S. Senator John Neely Kennedy (R-La.)

    While we await further news on any prosecutorial action against Backpage, Facebook continues to dominate the headlines with more potential data breaches and a possible Congressional showdown.

    The first bit of news that made headlines over the weekend was that Facebook divulged another potentially damaging data breach that happened in a similar vein to that of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook is said to have suspended operations with an analytical firm called CubeYou. CubeYou was accused of harvesting personal data from Facebook users through those quizzes that many people take on Facebook that appear on the surface to be innocuous. In this instance, CubeYou is accused of allegedly using the information collected to sell to marketers.

    How many more of these analytical firms are collecting Facebook user data against Facebook’s wishes? That’s what U.S. Senator John Kennedy would like to know. Yesterday Senator Kennedy, no relation to the famous Kennedy political family, appeared on Face the Nation and had a warning for Mark Zuckerberg. In the mostly friendly interview Senator Kennedy stated that he doesn’t want to regulate Facebook ‘half to death’, however, he also said that if Facebook is unwilling or incapable of fixing their problems, the Senator said “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way” in regard to Mark Zuckerberg’s expected appearance before Congress this week.

    Senator Kennedy seems like he has a good grasp on this situation at hand with Facebook. It appears that Senator Kennedy could either be Mark Zuckerberg’s best friend or worst enemy depending on how forthcoming the Facebook CEO will be with Congress this week.

     

  • Geebo 9:28 am on April 3, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Mark Zuckerberg   

    Is it time for Mark Zuckerberg to step down? 

    Is it time for Mark Zuckerberg to step down?

    From the foreign meddling in the 2016 Presidential election, to their alleged role in the ethnic cleansing of the Rohinngya people of Myanmar, to the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook has had quite the tumultuous year to say the least. Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t even seem to be sorry for their part in some of the worst data breaches in history or for supposedly allowing some governments to use Facebook to suppress their citizens. In response to the Rohingya crisis, Zuckerberg has basically stated that “It’s an issue” and that they’re working on it. This is an issue that affects 700,000 displaced refugees and Mark Zuckerberg responds to it like your cable company when the signal goes out. To compound matters, Mr. Zuckerberg says that it will take years to fix Facebook’s current problems.

    By this time, most other companies would be looking to oust their CEO or the CEO would be taking the responsibility upon themselves and would step down. Wired Magazine has posted a detailed article on why Mark Zuckerberg should step away from Facebook and how it should proceed without him. The problem is Mark Zuckerberg has a majority of the controlling shares in Facebook so he can’t be voted out by the board of directors. Not to mention that stepping down doesn’t even appear to be an option he’s considered whether due to ego or obsession.

    Users aren’t going to wait years for Facebook to right itself. If Facebook continues to go down this road with its leadership taking little to no actual responsibility could we see Facebook become the next MySpace? All it would take is for another platform to come along to do what Facebook does, but only better. While not a small task, it has been done before.

     

  • Geebo 8:57 am on November 3, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Colin Stretch, , , Mark Zuckerberg, , ,   

    Are cowardly CEOs afraid to face Congress over Russia probe? 

    Are cowardly CEOs afraid to face Congress over Russia probe?

    Not pictured: Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Page

    This week, Congress continued its probe into alleged Russian influencers purchasing ads on the internet’s three top platforms, Facebook, Google and Twitter. Rather than appearing themselves, the CEOs of each company sent their legal counsel in their stead. Yes, that’s not unheard of for businesses to send their legal representatives to Congress, but we’re talking about these companies taking money from foreign entities that might have influenced the outcome of the 2016 election.

    While Congress by and large can be tech-illiterate, at least one Senator seemed to hammer the point home that these companies probably knew who they were taking money from. Minnesota Senator Al Franken showed everyone just how unwilling these companies are to divulge the truth.

    Senator Franken put forth a poignant argument to Facebook’s legal Counsel, Colin Stretch…

    “People are buying ads on your platform with roubles. They’re political ads. You put billions of data points together all the time. That’s what I hear that these platforms do: they’re the most sophisticated things invented by man, ever. Google has all knowledge that man has ever developed. You can’t put together roubles with a political ad and go hmm, those two data points spell out something bad?”

    Stretch replied: “Senator, it’s a signal we should have been alert to and in hindsight–”

    But Franken cut him off, asking whether Facebook would pledge not to publish a political ad paid for in North Korean won. As Stretch demurred, Franken interjected fiercely: “Please answer yes or no, sir. You’re sophisticated. You’re the chief legal counsel for Facebook. Please answer yes or no.”

    Of course, Senator Franken did not get a straight answer out of Stretch. Instead the counselor hemmed and hawed his way through a non-committal answer.

    However, the question remains, why weren’t the CEOs there to answer questions directly? What exactly are they afraid of? Perjury perhaps? Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t comment on the hearings until the day after Stretch’s testimony on an earnings call.

    “I’m dead serious,” Zuckerberg said. “I’ve directed our team to invest so much in security on top of the other investments we’re making it will significantly impact our profitability going forward.” That investment will include hiring at least 10,000 new employees to focus on security and enforcement. CFO David Wehner later clarified that many of those new jobs won’t be full time but rather contract positions at partner companies.

    “Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits,” Zuckerberg said.

    Which doesn’t address the problem at hand at all. Zuckerberg was then said to have handed off the remainder of the call to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

    Facebook was the biggest offender in this story having served up alleged Russian ads to at least 125 million American users. Considering the entire population of the US is 323 million, that’s not a small percentage of potential voters who saw these misleading ads. That’s more than enough people to sway an election one way or the other. If protecting the community is more important than profits, why take the foreign money at all for American political ads? Facebook can claim hindsight is 20/20 all they want, but there were accusations of Russian political meddling even before these ads appeared on Facebook. So how could accepting Russian currency for American political ads not throw up a red flag?

    If you don’t think the CEOs of this company aren’t cowards, please think of this for a moment. Even Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer eventually appeared before Congress. So when the CEO of a company that reportedly makes money from the sexual slave trade in this country appears before Congress and these other CEOs don’t, it goes a long way in showing just how scared of Congress they probably are.

     

  • Geebo 10:01 am on June 21, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Mark Zuckerberg, ,   

    What does Facebook’s shareholder vote say about a free press? 

    What does Facebook's shareholder vote say about a free press?

    Peter Thiel demonstrates how he choked the life out of Gawker.

    In a follow-up to yesterday’s post about Facebook’s shareholder meeting, Peter Thiel was reelected to the Facebook board of directors amid the Gawker and Donald Trump controversies. The vote itself really wasn’t much of one since, as TheStreet points out, Mark Zuckerberg controls 60% of Facebook stock which pretty much makes him the benevolent dictator of the Facebook board.

    With Zuckerberg basically giving Thiel a vote of confidence what does that say about Facebook’s stance towards a free press? As BuzzFeed points out, one of Facebook’s mission statements is “to make the world more open and connected.” With Thiel’s reelection it gives the appearance that Facebook wants the open and connected world to be only made in their own image.

    With Facebook being the primary source of news for many people, they wield a mighty big stick when it comes to determining what news people see. With Thiel’s reelection it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Facebook could start limiting exposure to news outlets that are critical of them.

     

c
Compose new post
j
Next post/Next comment
k
Previous post/Previous comment
r
Reply
e
Edit
o
Show/Hide comments
t
Go to top
l
Go to login
h
Show/Hide help
shift + esc
Cancel