I don't seem him wielding power. Its not like he's managed to convince half the population of a country that they should really abstain from something for shits a giggles. I'd go further and say that facebook it's self has surprisingly little power to shape the opinions of its users. There are powerful actors that use facebook as a medium for broadcast, but not facebook it's self.
> Ethically, however, Zuckerberg seems to be on the level of murderous dictators, or human traffickers
I think this is hyperbole. I don't like the man, and I think he is morally naive. But to compare him to a dictator fundamentally undermines just how bad dictators are.
Take for example a human trafficker. They procure girls by lying to them. They know they are lying to the girls. They then deliver them to people who they know are going to force them to be raped. The trafficker does not take any steps to mitigate the outcome.
Yes, facebook facilitated a massacre in burma. That is, to say the least, bad.
But did facebook actively collude with the perpetrators? was facebook run by members of the militia that carried out these terrible acts (I'm asking you to compare and contrast to Rwanda)
have they tried, all be it not very effectively to mitigate that risk? yes.
In short, I dislike facebook. I think there are practical steps that would make things better for people. However I think people ascribe far to much agency to them. After all, how the fuck do you effectively police 2.4 billion people? Facebook is a mirror to society. The sooner we recognize that, the better.
Zuckerberg is meeting top political leaders of his own country, and sometimes others, and negotiating with them, FB is basically treated like a country-sized negotiating entity. That's certainly has to feel like a power trip, very few people have the type of access Zuckerberg has. And as for his power internally, as CEO and majority voter, anything major FB does is ultimately a decision by Zuckerberg, so that's his power. That includes things like how Facebook's algorithms are shaped, if they're prioritizing exposure, clicks and addicting users with dopamine hits, that's ultimately his responsibility.
> I think this is hyperbole. I don't like the man, and I think he is morally naive. But to compare him to a dictator fundamentally undermines just how bad dictators are.
> Take for example a human trafficker. They procure girls by lying to them. They know they are lying to the girls. They then deliver them to people who they know are going to force them to be raped. The trafficker does not take any steps to mitigate the outcome.
I'm really not making the comparison lightly, but I think Zuckerberg is on the same level. He's procuring user data (and attention), and he does that by tricking users into maximizing their engagement with the platform, which includes feeding some of them an endless stream of harmful misinformation, or carefully designing an addiction loop for teenage girls on Instagram, or some of the other things that platform does. Then FB delivers the product (data) in full knowledge that the process of acquiring this product has seriously hurt people.
I cannot know what Zuckerberg is thinking, of course, but don't believe him naive. He might have been at first, but I'm sure he has long understood exactly what is happening, and what FB does, he just doesn't care about the people. There are certain sadistic dictators or warlords who specifically enjoy hurting people on an individual level, but for most of them it's just utter disregard for human well-being. They may not wake up in the morning excited to jail and torture a hundred random people, but they see nothing wrong with that happening as part of their effort to preserve and increase their own power and wealth. This is where I believe Zuckerberg to be the same. Does he actually enjoy genocide in Burma, or convincing millions that vaccines are evil, or driving some teen to suicide over body issues? I'm certain he doesn't. But do those things bother him? I don't think so, I imagine it's an absolute non-issue for him.
So my stance is that Facebook is beyond the typical corporate greed level of evil, and cannot be reformed or improved because it's all an extension of a one particularly immoral person seeking to maximize wealth and power at any cost, without any consideration for improving the world or minimizing harm, except what's necessary for PR.
Every large company does this. Zuckerberg was oddly transparent about it. Look how much apple, google, IBM, rayethon, boeing, amazon lobby and manipulate. Amazon managed to get states to out bid each other to effectively subsidise opening offices in their state.
> I'm really not making the comparison lightly, but I think Zuckerberg is on the same level.
You are comparing Zuckerberg to Franco, Gagdafi, Lukashenko, al-assad et al. They literally have locked people up, tortured them and had them killed, systematically. They killed thier opponents to omake sure they would no longer be a problem. All of this in the pursuit of total power. The comparison is farcical, bordering on the "everyone I don't like is Hitler" argument.
As I've pointed out, for someone who is supposedly amassing huge power, he sure is really shit at using it.
For him to be a dictator, in the digital world, he would need to be removing the competition. Firing anyone that opposes him, removing dissent. I don't see that in FB. I also don't see that on the platform. I can freely criticise zuckerberg and the company. High profile sports player have done this in the UK, and they are still on the platform.
> But do those things bother him? I don't think so, I imagine it's an absolute non-issue for him.
If they are a non issue, why the fuck are they spending literally billions trying to unfuck it? I mean they aren't doing it very well, but they are spending megabuck trying. If he was indifferent then he wouldn't bother.
For example CSAM, facebook and google outperform apple reporting that kind of offence at a rate of ~2000:1 Does apple not care about CSAM? is Cook a secret CSAM peddler? no ofcourse not.
tldr: your argument undermines how bad dictators are, and suggests you don't understand what its like to live in a country that actively represses its populace.
Let's add a header to Facebook's homepage insulting some country's leader, and see how fast they get beaten into removing it by a court.
The guy heads a communication company. This is nothing close to the power of a national government. A lone US senator might have less influence, but the president of any country has more authority than MZ, except maybe over Facebook, depending on how protective that country's law is.
I'm from a small European country with no notable natural resources nor other economic influence. Legally, the government has quite a lot of authority, but its power, measured by how it can specifically influence events, pales in comparison to the power of certain larger countries that can actually affect more.
Facebook is the primary source of news for many, many people and can greatly influence their view by choosing to bury, or prominently display, stories promoting a particular stance. It's likely that Facebook could flip the outcome of a close election in a heavily FB-using country if it wanted to. Facebook controls several of the most popular services people use to directly message one another, and it could choose not to deliver messages containing certain words or links. Facebook can (through the FB Pixel) build a highly accurate history of web browsing for most online users, something major governments can also do through NSA, GCHQ or Spetssvyaz, but smaller governments don't have that capability.
Facebook can't launch nukes or assassinate anyone anywhere with a drone strike, but if you look past the several national leaders who truly stand out in terms of power, I'd say you would find Facebook in the next rank.
Well, it depends how you measure.
Joe Biden has the power to start wars, to pardon people for US crimes, to have anyone disappeared and tortured indefinitely - but he doesn't have the power to create a database listing all American citizens, let alone the citizens of foreign countries.
It's my understanding that the NSA did just that under Bush and Obama though. I might have only one side of the story, but in all countries where some part of the state surveillance apparatus was exposed, the law seems to be carefully crafted to look like it forbids mass surveillance while actually allowing the executive to implement it.
To lead effectively, you need both. It’s rare that leaders have both. Biden does not have the soft power to do such a thing.
Soft power vs hard power also is a part of every relationship, even with your grandma or friend.
Ethically, however, Zuckerberg seems to be on the level of murderous dictators, or human traffickers, or others that are among the very worst. I think he's willingly inflicted huge damage on modern Western society, and has certainly been the most harmful user of Internet technology.
Facebook as a whole is just a reflection of Zuckerberg's values and policies, which is not surprising for a company that's ruled by one person (as in CEO and sole majority voter). It's also not surprising that a company does unethical stuff to increase profits (and we have enough examples from Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Google, just about anyone), but I've firmly come to believe that Facebook is in a category of its own.