Kansas Crimson

TDub wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:46 pm I would never hire ousdahl for any position where I would actually expect effort and results. I would end up as the subject of one of his many thoughtful discussion threads where we don't discuss anything but complain about everything.

TDub wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:47 pm plus I gotta make more money before I hire people to do things I technically should be doing myself.....I just hate that part of the work.....and the paperwork part....

I don’t think Zuckerberg wants to house Facebook and his other related properties under a new umbrella brand because the metaverse is upon us and happy days are here again. I think he’s doing it because it’s a distraction — for himself and for those watching his company. He’s doing it so he can continue avoiding the hard decisions that a mature and responsible executive must make when confronted with a corporation that has grown into an incredibly lucrative, unwieldy and sometimes dangerous kraken. He’s young, for one thing, and he also appears to be surrounded by yes-people and other advisers who reinforce his biases or encourage his worst libertarian instincts — a common fate among wealthy or powerful people who lack empathy, self-awareness or the self-confidence to invite and tolerate dissent.

Zuckerberg certainly isn’t immune to the idea of doing good in the world. He and his wife have generously funded and committed almost the entirety of their Facebook shares to an institute dedicated to education, immigration reform, criminal justice, public health and disease prevention. (Ironically, the catastrophic Covid-19 predations embedded on Facebook undermine some of their institute’s work.)

Despite such laudable endeavors, Zuckerberg is failing to address problems at Facebook that he has a unilateral ability to fix. That path is also clear. As my colleagues Parmy Olson and Tae Kim have pointed out, Haugen’s testimony provided at least four obvious changes Zuckerberg could embrace: (1) eliminating engagement-based ranking algorithms; (2) heightened content moderation; (3) support for a federal regulator to audit Facebook’s features and algorithms; and (4) routine, transparent data disclosures to researchers.

There’s one thing that’s not on that list: a corporate name change.