20 Quick Thoughts About The Facebook Scandal
- Facebook has access to an enormous amount of information about an incredible number of people, and yet somehow, they weren’t able to predict how big this Cambridge Analytica story would get.
- Facebook is constantly urging you to share your immediate thoughts and reactions to every life event. We were a couple days into the company’s biggest challenge before Facebook’s creator shared any of his thoughts on the matter. There’s probably a lesson in that.
- Suggested Official Statement: “What are you blaming me for? The Winklevoss twins invented this shit.”
- Facebook is suffering from two converging trends. The building backlash against tech. And the existing rage against anything associated with electing Trump. The CNN anchors might want to strap on their windbreakers. Storm’s a comin’…
- If Zuckerberg had any guts, he would have started every interview by congratulating Vladimir Putin on his election win.
- If Facebook is so good at manipulating our thoughts, why are we all so pissed at Facebook?
- The lesson of 2018 is that if Zuckerberg wants to survive this scandal, he needs like 300 other scandals too.
- Facebook betrayed our trust and sold out our interests to the highest bidder. And now Congress is going to question them…
- I can guarantee you one thing: Zuckerberg doesn’t want to be president anymore.
- Zuck’s first response came in a Facebook post in which he explained: “The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago.” What, is this guy Trump’s tweet ghostwriter? The average American would have a better chance of understanding that if it were written in Javascript.
- You read the stories about Cambridge Analytica and you think, Damn, these guys are total geniuses who can control our minds. You watch the undercover video of the Cambridge Analytica execs and you think, Damn, these guys are seriously some clown-ass schmucks. Like always, believe what you see.
- In fairness, even before this, all we did on Twitter was make fun of Facebook (and complain about United).
- Media: Here are a hundred articles to fill you in on the arcane details of a data deal from four years ago. Internet: We get to be pissed at someone, right?
- Tech was never as great as we made it out to be. And it’s not as bad is we’re making it out to be now.
- I’m less worried about sharing all my personal data with Cambridge Analytica than I am about that dude from junior high who keeps commenting on photos of my kids.
- For a company that has dealt with this issue in the past, it’s surprising how poorly they handled the crisis management. The only way Zuck could have handled it worse is by paying a porn star to sign an NDA and purchasing a rare Wu Tang Clan album.
- Getting recorded by a surveillance camera at an Austin FedEx, ordering “exotic” batteries online, and turning on his cellphone: those were all breaks that helped authorities to quickly identify and track the Austin bomber. These factors are a reminder that our lives are increasingly under various forms of surveillance. Sometimes that leads to anger and resentment. Sometimes that leads to relief. And those reactions are probably being tracked too.
- Think of all of us as the parents of two kids named Facebook and Twitter. When they were growing up, we always thought Twitter would be the one to end up in trouble.
- I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. The only privacy policy that matters is your own.
- Let’s be honest. We don’t care about this story that much. We’re just dying to talk about anything but Trump.
