Mark Zukerberg: Chief Hypocrisy Officer
by Miki Saxon
The number tech CEOs who have been caught manipulating, lying, cheating, and other bad actions, all while claiming to be good guys, has skyrocketed.
Perhaps the result should be an additional title: CHO
While there are many (at all levels) who deserve the title, none has a higher profile than Mark Zukerberg.
His talk about caring for user privacy, security, etc., is common and constant, although results are negligible.
Hopefully, this time his blatant hypocrisy will come back and savagely bite him and Facebook.
Zukerberg stayed silent after the news broke that Cambridge Analytica covertly gathered data on 50 million Facebook users that was used by the Trump campaign for targeted advertising.
Then, on March 21, in a CNN interview he said, “I’m not sure we shouldn’t be regulated…”
He was referring to pending congressional legislation,
Honest Ads Act, a bill proposed in October 2017 that would require social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users to disclose information about any political advertiser that spends more than $500 pushing ads on their sites.
However, that statement, along with his similar comments in Wired, are pure poop, as the money spent lobbying against it proves.
Lobbyists for the company have been trying to dissuade senators from moving the Honest Ads Act forward, some Congressional aides say.
Facebook’s argument to Congress behind the scenes has been that they are “voluntarily complying” with most of what the Honest Ads Act asks, so why pass a law, said one Congressional staffer working on the bill. Facebook also doesn’t want to be responsible for maintaining the publicly accessible repository of political advertising, including funding information, that the act demands, the staffer said.
Facebook spent nearly $3.1 million lobbying Congress and other US federal government agencies in the last quarter of 2017, on issues including the Honest Ads Act according to its latest federal disclosure form. It also signed on Blue Mountain Strategies, a lobbying firm founded by Warner’s former chief of staff, an Oct. 30, 2017 filing shows.
Per normal, Zuk says, “I’m really sorry that this happened.”
So.
Apologize, say “it’s hard” and “not really our fault.”
Tell the public you support political transparency legislation.
Simultaneously spend millions to defeat it.
Hyper-pure hypocrisy.
Mark Zukerberg, Chief Hypocrisy Officer.
Fight back in the only way that matters: money. #deletefacebook, here’s how
Image credit: Ludovic Toinel
