Even when the Facebook leaders understood the problem, they tried to hide it.
Right after the election Zuckerburg was dismissive of the idea that Fake News influenced the election.
People within the company thought he was out of touch.
At the time Facebook was under pressure.
Trump had won the election using social media, but Facebook was dismissive.
Facebook employees saw the tip of the iceberg . They had been following Russian
Mark wanted to find a technical fix.
Sheryl was thinking about the legal risk and was wondering whether they would find out things they didn’t want to know. Sheryl was thinking about what the consequences would be.
Sheryl yelled at the security team for investigating Russian interference without formal approval.
The leadership was concerned that Washington was controlled by conservatives who would have an adverse reaction to an investigation or efforts to curb this activity. Conservatives already think Silicon Valley is a bunch of hippies.
There was pressure within Facebook not to publish anything linking activity back to Russia. Sheryl(?) also signed off on a policy not to take down the Russian troll accounts.
Mark Zuckerburg was traveling the country, milking cows, and acting as though he wanted to run for President.
Sheryl Sandberg was running her own “Lean-In” brand.
Alex Stamos (Security Chief) briefs the audit committee and the board’s response is to yell at Mark(?) and Sheryl(?)
The leadership holds a big meeting and Sheryl yells at Alex Stamos for
- not briefing her fully
- admitting that they hadn’t fully got a grip on the situation
- suggesting that Russia would likely do this again in the future
Alex has gotten in trouble in the past for being too transparent
The Cambridge Analytical Scandal illustrates:
- The consequences of surveillance capitalism
- The potential of Facebook to influence elections
Apple CEO Tim Cook castigates Facebook for their business model.
Facebook conducts an advertising campaign and privately goes on attack using the Washington PR opposition research campaign, which uses the NTK network which publishes propaganda.
Confronted with a Propaganda Scandal, they turn to a PR campaign to create their own Propaganda.
Attacks Apple and Tim Cook. Attack George Soros, arguing the Facebook’s criticism was masterminded by George Soros. In taking on Soros they are getting into the smear and conspiracy business.
Related:
Damage Control at Facebook: 6 Takeaways From The Times’s Investigation
Zuckerberg slams Apple’s Tim Cook’s comments on Facebook as ‘extremely glib’
‘”You know, I find that argument, that if you’re not paying that somehow we can’t care about you, to be extremely glib. And not at all aligned with the truth,” said Zuckerberg.’
The Rise of Woke Capital
In the other story, corporate America just performed another bait and switch at the common good’s expense — making a show of paying bonuses and raising wages after the passage of the corporate-friendly Republican tax bill, but actually reserving most of the tax savings for big stock buybacks
.. Corporate activism on social issues isn’t in tension with corporate self-interest on tax policy and corporate stinginess in paychecks. Rather, the activism increasingly exists to protect the self-interest and the stinginess — to justify the ways of C.E.O.s to cultural power brokers, so that those same power brokers will leave them alone
.. In every era and every political dispensation, businessmen ask themselves: What am I required to do to make money unmolested by the government?
.. But there are other ways to compromise besides on wages
.. a certain kind of virtue-signaling on progressive social causes, a certain degree of performative wokeness, is offered to liberalism and the activist left pre-emptively, in the hopes that having corporate America take their side in the culture wars will blunt efforts to tax or regulate our new monopolies too heavily.
.. It’s worth noting, for instance, how Tim Cook’s willingness to play the social justice warrior when the target is a few random Indiana restaurants that might not want to host hypothetical same-sex weddings does not extend to reconsidering Apple’s relationship with the many countries around the world where human rights are rather more in jeopardy than they are in the American Midwest.
.. the Peace of Palo Alto won’t be fully tested until the next time the Democrats hold real power
.. “As much as we fear corporations gone wild,” Poulos concludes, “we love corporations that love us.” And in a rich society people may prefer that their #brands prove this love by identifying with favored social causes rather than through the old-fashioned expedient of paying their workers a little bit more money.
.. For others, though, the Peace of Palo Alto has rather less to offer. It confirms the blue-collar suspicion that liberalism is no longer organized around working-class economic interests, and it encourages cultural conservatives in their feeling of general besiegement
.. the Republican Party even as it lurches deeper into demagogy and paranoia — by making a vote for the G.O.P. the only way to protest a corporate-backed liberal politics that seems indifferent to the working man and an ascendant cultural liberalism
.. Their wokeness buys them cover when liberalism is in power, and any backlash only helps prop up a G.O.P. that has their back when it comes time to write our tax laws.
The win-win scenario for woke capitalism can’t last forever. But it might be quite the racket while it lasts.
Ask Apple: Why Isn’t Jony Ive the Face of the Company?
While Apple is often regarded as the quintessential design company a large part of their continued economic success is built on their supply chain. Tim Cook is the right person to ensure this key factor to Apple’s success. It’s not glamorous but for a global company like Apple it’s essential.