Zuckerberg to Congress: it isn't progress if it isn't creepy
Facebook CEO rejects any suggestion that Facebook is "terrible for democracy and mental health"
Facebook CEO, tech titan and Turing Test dropout Mark Zuckerberg faced off with members of Congress yesterday, where he defended his start-up’s approach to privacy. “I appreciate some humans’ concerns about who has their data. But I actually take those concerns as a good sign. If everyone was happy with what we were doing, then we wouldn’t be doing our job right as tech visionaries. You know, it isn’t progress if it isn’t creepy”.
Übermensch Mark Zuckerberg testifying. Photo: David Butow, from NBC
The multi-hour testimony revealed key insights into Zuckerberg’s mind and, perhaps, our future. “The problem with privacy is that it’s a 20th century concept. Like meatloaf and borders. And antitrust regulation. It just doesn’t have a place anymore. Now I don’t want to sound crass, but anyone who stands in the way of my Tech-topia is going to get Zucked.”
Committee members seemed dazed by Zuck’s powerful logic. However, they were still able to raise pertinent questions. The dynamic Amy Klobuchar (D, MN) raised her constituents’ concerns about the effects of Instagram on their daughters’ mental health. “They are retreating from the real to the digital world. They aren’t eating. They are anxious. They are totally fixated on neutral colour palettes. It’s unnatural.”
Social media is driving colour from our lives in favour of a neutral palette. From impressiveinteriordesign.com
Mental health was not the only hot button topic. Senators also questioned Zuckerberg about the potential for misinformation. National non-entity Mike Lee (R, UT) said “So you’re telling me that if I want to smear my opponents with misinformation, I can do that? And as long as I have more money than them, it will work? You don’t say…”
The session also covered the issue of censorship. Committee enforcer Ted Cruz asked “When a Facebook employee and former Democratic Party operative announced that Facebook was intervening to slow the spread of a negative story about candidate Biden, doesn’t that on its own justify regulating Facebook as a publisher rather than a platform?”
But Zuck was not intimidated, and he got the last word in with his closing statement: “Look. Is Facebook designed to be addictive? You bet. But it’s content neutral. It’s full of hate and bile and lies and anxiety-inducing perfectionism because people want that. So take it up with your voters, not me. And I’m not here to make friends. I already have like 3 billion of those. I bought Instagram and Whatsapp when they challenged me. And I’ll buy you too. When you’re all worm food, my uploaded consciousness will be looking back at this moment laughing at your pathetic attempts to regulate me. And you can fact check me on that.”
But seriously…
…can a democracy work when voters get their news from a platform that not only hands a few people control of what everyone else can see, but is also built to maximise partisanship and anger? And how can food labelling and TV ads be regulated, but the sites that teens spend dozens of hours a week on are not? And yes yes, I know teens aren’t on Facebook anymore. But you get the point.
This article is very much satirical, but of course with a serious point. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet! Wait is that a meta-message???