It’s the 10th Anniversary of That Time Mark Zuckerberg Showed the World His True Sweaty Self

It’s the 10th Anniversary of That Time Mark Zuckerberg Showed the World His True Sweaty Self

Remember how, over approximately 52 minutes in 2010, the reptilian pulling levers in Mark Zuckerberg’s brain briefly fled his host and left a trembling wet man onstage at the mercy of Kara Swisher? You remember:

Today, that fateful conversation about privacy has turned ten years old. At the time, Zuckerberg was semi-recently apologizing for Facebook Beacon, the tool which showed everyone on Facebook your internet activity. That raised an uproar and a class-action lawsuit, and Zuckerberg’s sworn statement that he had learned lessons, but history has proven otherwise.

Closer to the 2010 interview, the media circulated an alleged record of Zuckerberg’s Harvard-era IM’s revealed his plan to “fuck over” (his words) the Winklevoss brothers, for whom he was creating a Facebook-adjacent dating site. And days before the interview, Zuckerberg was denying that Facebook shares data with advertisers. Commenting on the interview at the time, TechCrunch wrote that Zuckerberg “wasn’t exactly forthcoming” about privacy changes and relied on “well-worn anecdotes detailing why sharing is important.” Fast forward to the same day, ten years later…

That was just our sweaty boy

Image: Getty
Image: Getty

Recode transcribed the full leaked audio from Mark Zuckerberg’s Tuesday meeting with employees, revealing that he’s put a lot of thought into divesting from his soul. The entire thing is worth examining at length, but here are just a few of the elaborate loopholes he’s thought up just for Trump:

  • The “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” post wasn’t inciting violence.
  • It’s “clearly a troubling historical statement and reference” but “has no history of being read as a dog whistle for vigilante supporters to take justice into their own hands.”
  • Instead, it was a “discussion” about the use of “force,” which Facebook allows for states.
  • It could have been a “prediction” of violence, which is ok.
  • He admits “there is no newsworthiness or politician exception to our policies on an incitement of violence.”
  • By the way, “Twitter didn’t take it down.”

The transcript confirms civil rights leaders’ conclusion yesterday, about a separate meeting, that his explanations for leaving Trump’s post up were “incomprehensible,” and that he “did not demonstrate understanding of historic or modern-day voter suppression, and he refuses to acknowledge how Facebook is facilitating Trump’s call for violence against protesters.”

You’re not getting end-to-end encryption on Zoom for free

Image: Getty
Image: Getty

Zoom will not give free users end-to-end encryption so that it can work with the FBI, which sounds more nefarious than it probably is.

Twitter users called to banish Zoom after Bloomberg reporter Nico Grant tweeted a quote from Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan, from yesterday’s earnings call:

“Free users, for sure, we don’t want to give that [end-to-end encryption]. Because we also want to work it together with the FBI, with local law enforcement, in case some people use Zoom for a bad purpose.”

A Zoom spokesperson later clarified that the company only provides information to law enforcement in “circumstances like child sex abuse,” which is a problem; the FBI reports that it’s received over 195 reports of child abuse videos broadcast on Zoom over the past few months. Zoom explained to Recode that paid subscribers must hand over identifying information, while free users offer only an email, which isn’t sufficient to identify potential predators.

STOP asking Trump about the bunker

Image: Getty
Image: Getty

The bunker thing is bugging Trump, who’s insisting that, contrary to the New York Times’s reporting, he did not scurry down there like a weasel to avoid protesters gathered outside the White House on Friday — only went for an “inspection.” But most bafflingly, he told Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade that he has visited the bunker “two, two and a half times.”

As Gizmodo senior staff reporter Andrew Liszewski mused, maybe he set up base camp halfway down the stairs? Two summits, one attempt at the bunker.

Bot got suspended for mimicking Trump

You love to see it: Twitter officially deemed Trump’s “looting…shooting” tweet as “glorifying violence,” one bot creator has proven. @SuspendthePres, which has begun tweeting all of Trump’s posts verbatim in order to test a popular theory about FAIRNESS, got a 12-hour suspension and an order to remove the tweet. We can only wish that Dan Scavino someday gets this email.

Cancel your Frontier subscription. Sorry, if you can’t.

Image: Getty
Image: Getty

Finally, the government has done away with a rite of passage into the various inconveniences of adulthood: the 45-minute phone call with your internet service provider bickering over why there’s a $US10 ($14) monthly “rental fee” on your bill for a router you don’t use. A law passed in 2019 has made it illegal for ISPs to charge rental fees for routers for people who own their own — but, as Ars Technica reports, the FCC has allowed companies to keep charging until December under the guise of financial hardships (on ISPs) due to the covid-19 pandemic. The company Frontier has taken them up on that generous offer and will keep charging you until it doesn’t have to. It is a true American telecom company.


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