Misperception Study: Why the 'Cooling Saucer' Senate Appeared 'So Old' at Zuckerberg Hearings
A second viewing of the Zuckerberg senate hearings from his first day on Capital Hill Tuesday shows two things: why the first impression that the senators were unprepared was patently false; and that it was one of the best performances of the senate in recent history. Whether that holds or Facebook's lobbyists gum up legislation to make Facebook more of a monopoly, only time and voter engagement in this debate will tell.
A tweet from a young viewer added this to a journalist's thread:
Background:
Of the two houses of congress, the House of Representatives is a more rowdy chamber than the Senate. The Senate is known as the "cooling saucer." The Atlantic last year reported on this:
Here is this writer's breakdown of the senate Zuckerberg hearings:
So many questions about selling our data:
On first viewing, senators who asked the same question that had been asked before appeared unprepared. But a second viewing shows the senators worked together, and asked the same questions from different angles. In fact, Cambridge Analytica bought our data from an app developer who used Facebook to capture it. This was in violation of the Facebook user agreement as shown in a clip of Senator Blumenthal with a blow-up poster of the CA data seller's app agreement planning to sell user data.
It was not a "breach" It WAS a "breach":
A California law mandates that companies inform the public after they discover personal data was captured through a hack or "breach." Those two words now are legal, not just technical, terms. Facebook, probably for public relations reasons as well as legal, has been saying there was no data breach. But Senator Klobuchar asserted an analogy: if someone breaks into her house and takes something, just because the door was unlocked doesn't mean it was not a robbery.
So many questions about owning our data:
The user agreement has changed frequently. A 2011 FTC investigation and resulting consent decree discovered that users who thought they'd effectively restricted sharing on Facebook only to friends, found that implied privacy did not match the actual privacy. Whether this was intentional nobody can prove.
Facebook had been paying lobbyists all over the country to oppose legislation banning sale of user data.
As the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday, Wednesday Facebook dropped lobbyist opposition to such a ballot initiative pending in this state.
Why Ask About Chocolate? Dark Ads vs. Targeted Ads:
A senator asked what appeared to be a doddering old man question about targeted ads promoting a brand of chocolate. On second viewing, it's clear he was asking about "dark ads".
Dark ads sound ominous but aren't always sinister. Ads appearing then disappearing on social media, unlike ads on TV or in teen magazines, are more able to fly under the radar. Academics outside of software are calling for bans on targeted ads - which would be impossible. Ads have always been targeted whether on radio TV print or online. But a relevant discussion about dark ads needs to take place among lawmakers who care about democracy and the internet.
Another senator asked Zuckerberg "have you ever drawn the line" on selling ad space to a paying customer "because it goes too far"? With only five minutes, the question escaped attention, and Zuckerberg responded as if he'd been asked about data brokering.
Senator Coons brought up illegal wildlife traffickers advertising animal parts on the internet using dark ads in this 45 second c-span clip.
Senator Schatz asks relevant ad tech questions in this clip.
How to Talk About Privacy
Does "implied privacy" match actual privacy? That's the crux of it. Was the user agreement reasonably communicated to users? The "big picture" some lawyers look for is do customers understand. For clarity, the user agreement should be under 100 pages, and written in "non-Swahili" as one senator put it. For frequency of privacy changes, one feature some users have wanted is an overlay gate upon login announcing updated privacy terms. Users cannot be expected to remain at all times on facebook standby to stay informed of retroactive privacy-loosening.
Also of concern is "privacy theater" where settings buttons offered to users just made them "feel safe" but didn't actually adjust their settings under the hood. Senator Fischer honed on the privacy expectations gap in this 36 second clip. The FTC uncovered possible privacy theater and moved to correct this with their 2011 consent decree.
Why did Senators Ask Zuckerberg to Write Legislation for Them?
Lobbyists. This is code for "will you stop paying for lobbying against this specific regulation proposal?"
Senator Durbin asked Zuckerberg in this clip why his company is lobbying for "carve out" exceptions to Illinois' biometric privacy law. Facebook recently allowed users to opt out of facial recognition features.
Those are the highlights. This site was started to fight the "two hour nostalgia" our culture is experiencing with fragmented news. The terms spoken in that hearing were specific: data scraping, dark ads, breach, hack, information fiduciary. These technical terms are slowly and widely becoming legal terms throughout the states and European countries.
---------
Links:
Zuckerberg explains that the Facebook "Messenger" product re-routes text messages through his company's app for Android users. 45 second video. c-span.org
Facebook's 2017 corporate financial statement mentioning two major financial risks to the company: decreased time spent on the app, and decreased effectiveness of targeted ads. One minute video. c-span.org
Senator asks Zuckerberg "have you ever drawn the line" and not sold space to an ad that "goes too far?" A legitimate ad tech question. 36 second video. c-span.org
There was a slow response time window to many Myanmar requests that Facebook remove a "kill him" graphic ad promoting violence against a Muslim reporter in Myanmar, shown by Senator Leahy. 33 second video. c-span.org
This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
A tweet from a young viewer added this to a journalist's thread:
"it IS about age, one generation grew up with tamagotchi, nintendo and social media, the other one grew up before TV was invented. it's not about competence, it's a different world and that has nothing to do with #ageism, just a fact, not everything is an -ism & offensive"In response to the tamagotchi user and other early media reports that congress "doesn't know how the internet works" we're compelled to correct the record (for starters: Facebook is popular because it's easier to use than email.)
Background:
Of the two houses of congress, the House of Representatives is a more rowdy chamber than the Senate. The Senate is known as the "cooling saucer." The Atlantic last year reported on this:
For much of the first half of the 19th century, almost every House session had at least one mass rumble. (The smaller, more intimate, more genteel Senate favored duel challenges.)Why many first-draft-of-history-reporting daily reporters were fooled and got it wrong:
- the Senate is the "cooling saucer"
- each senator was limited to five minutes
- even technically proficient reporters were driven punch drunk following five hours of cerebral debate between these two opponents:
- technical software jargon, in one corner
- senatorial legalese, in the other corner
- when a fast-talking technical whiz with a *possible* history of misleading users is testifying, and he negotiated to testify without pledging to tell the truth (probably wise, given how much information they covered and it was Zuckerberg's first time,) sometimes a senator who slows their pace of speech when questioning a witness, and uses effective pauses, is the one who reveals dissembling.
Here is this writer's breakdown of the senate Zuckerberg hearings:
So many questions about selling our data:
On first viewing, senators who asked the same question that had been asked before appeared unprepared. But a second viewing shows the senators worked together, and asked the same questions from different angles. In fact, Cambridge Analytica bought our data from an app developer who used Facebook to capture it. This was in violation of the Facebook user agreement as shown in a clip of Senator Blumenthal with a blow-up poster of the CA data seller's app agreement planning to sell user data.
It was not a "breach" It WAS a "breach":
A California law mandates that companies inform the public after they discover personal data was captured through a hack or "breach." Those two words now are legal, not just technical, terms. Facebook, probably for public relations reasons as well as legal, has been saying there was no data breach. But Senator Klobuchar asserted an analogy: if someone breaks into her house and takes something, just because the door was unlocked doesn't mean it was not a robbery.
So many questions about owning our data:
The user agreement has changed frequently. A 2011 FTC investigation and resulting consent decree discovered that users who thought they'd effectively restricted sharing on Facebook only to friends, found that implied privacy did not match the actual privacy. Whether this was intentional nobody can prove.
Facebook had been paying lobbyists all over the country to oppose legislation banning sale of user data.
As the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday, Wednesday Facebook dropped lobbyist opposition to such a ballot initiative pending in this state.
Why Ask About Chocolate? Dark Ads vs. Targeted Ads:
A senator asked what appeared to be a doddering old man question about targeted ads promoting a brand of chocolate. On second viewing, it's clear he was asking about "dark ads".
Dark ads sound ominous but aren't always sinister. Ads appearing then disappearing on social media, unlike ads on TV or in teen magazines, are more able to fly under the radar. Academics outside of software are calling for bans on targeted ads - which would be impossible. Ads have always been targeted whether on radio TV print or online. But a relevant discussion about dark ads needs to take place among lawmakers who care about democracy and the internet.
Another senator asked Zuckerberg "have you ever drawn the line" on selling ad space to a paying customer "because it goes too far"? With only five minutes, the question escaped attention, and Zuckerberg responded as if he'd been asked about data brokering.
Senator Coons brought up illegal wildlife traffickers advertising animal parts on the internet using dark ads in this 45 second c-span clip.
Senator Schatz asks relevant ad tech questions in this clip.
How to Talk About Privacy
Does "implied privacy" match actual privacy? That's the crux of it. Was the user agreement reasonably communicated to users? The "big picture" some lawyers look for is do customers understand. For clarity, the user agreement should be under 100 pages, and written in "non-Swahili" as one senator put it. For frequency of privacy changes, one feature some users have wanted is an overlay gate upon login announcing updated privacy terms. Users cannot be expected to remain at all times on facebook standby to stay informed of retroactive privacy-loosening.
Also of concern is "privacy theater" where settings buttons offered to users just made them "feel safe" but didn't actually adjust their settings under the hood. Senator Fischer honed on the privacy expectations gap in this 36 second clip. The FTC uncovered possible privacy theater and moved to correct this with their 2011 consent decree.
Why did Senators Ask Zuckerberg to Write Legislation for Them?
Lobbyists. This is code for "will you stop paying for lobbying against this specific regulation proposal?"
Senator Durbin asked Zuckerberg in this clip why his company is lobbying for "carve out" exceptions to Illinois' biometric privacy law. Facebook recently allowed users to opt out of facial recognition features.
Those are the highlights. This site was started to fight the "two hour nostalgia" our culture is experiencing with fragmented news. The terms spoken in that hearing were specific: data scraping, dark ads, breach, hack, information fiduciary. These technical terms are slowly and widely becoming legal terms throughout the states and European countries.
---------
Links:
Zuckerberg explains that the Facebook "Messenger" product re-routes text messages through his company's app for Android users. 45 second video. c-span.org
Facebook's 2017 corporate financial statement mentioning two major financial risks to the company: decreased time spent on the app, and decreased effectiveness of targeted ads. One minute video. c-span.org
Senator asks Zuckerberg "have you ever drawn the line" and not sold space to an ad that "goes too far?" A legitimate ad tech question. 36 second video. c-span.org
There was a slow response time window to many Myanmar requests that Facebook remove a "kill him" graphic ad promoting violence against a Muslim reporter in Myanmar, shown by Senator Leahy. 33 second video. c-span.org
This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
