People are going crazy for this interaction from yesterday's Congressional grilling of tech wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg. It's in the air. We might actually be at a cultural moment here. Some kind of crossroads that we look back on and say, "Hey, that's when it all changed. That's when the people took back the tech!"
Or maybe not. What do I know? All the French and Chinese people who came up to me throughout the day at the office were probably just thinking something along the lines of "Who is this pretty Latin woman with the glasses? Wow!"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is no doubt a beautiful woman. But is she good for America? That's a lightning rod political issue I dare not touch. To me, she is a must-follow on Twitter, just like @realDonaldTrump. Not because I align with either of their political views all that much, but just simply cuz it's
Poor Zuck had to spend almost five and a half hours with these politicians. If you haven't seen it and for some reason want the full load of grandstanding and feigned shock, check it out here on C-SPAN. It's wild.
Most politicians, AOC included, had a few decent questions that they asked the ex-Harvard lad. And then they went off the deep end! For instance:
AOC: "In your ongoing dinner parties with far-right figures, some of whom advance the conspiracy theory that white supremacy is a hoax, did you discuss so-called social media bias against conservatives, and do you believe there is a bias?"
Zuckerberg: [Stammers sweatily]
What did she want this poor man to say?
At 5+ hours of 5 minutes per rep, there must have been 60 congressional representatives that wanted their turn getting marketable sound bites for the upcoming election. All that... instead of actually trying to get to the bottom of what is actually a pretty darn interesting initiative by Facebook:
The proposed Libra cryptocurrency
The issue that most Congress folk focused on, at least for a few seconds during their turn at bat, was that Facebook is the wrong entity to guide such a project. But understandably that was exactly Zuck's message, even in his opening remarks! In reporting from The Verge, it is highlighted that the Gemini twins' most hated adversary realized that Facebook was not “the ideal messenger right now... We’ve faced a lot of issues over the past few years, and I’m sure people wish it was anyone but Facebook putting this idea forward.”
Yeah, like I've said before and I'm gonna say it again. The corporate stablecoin movement in America should be led by Walmart. This little media storm just proves my point a little bit more. Walmart has a helluva lot more friends in Congress. Hell, Hillary Clinton, the demi-goddess of the DNC, was even a board member at WMT for six years. She still loves talking about the uber-American megacorp in her paid speeches. Hey, it's a nice company for stock investors. Stable dividend. Stable customer base. Inversely correlated to the overall economy. I sure as heck know I went to Walmart a helluva lot more during the 2007-2009 recession. You can't argue about filling up the fridge for 2 weeks for the low, low cost of $100 or so.
I can't do shit with my Facebook account in a recession right now. I can't even imagine the distribution of a cryptocurrency made by them. It probably be a lot like how they treat their 2 billion users now. "Here you go, guys. $1 worth of LIBRA each for everyone!"
... and $98 billion left for us... ha ha ha! 👺
That's about how it works on The Social Network now. Facebook derives 98% of the value from its platform and "allows" its users, who are the very reason and basis for its existence, to keep approximately 2% of the value.
One thing that was made incredibly clear yesterday were these two overarching points.
If we're gonna improve on our lot, we gotta get rid of a lot of the power we just basically gave to Big Tech because we didn't know any better. That's one thing when you've just first heard about digital communications and streaming video. But that's a whole nuther thing once you realize (as I'm sure most people have by now, right) that the future of society will be occurring primarily in the digital economy and digital spaces that people create for themselves. And one last takeaway is
Congress don't know shit about tech. The media response was that the inquiries were marginally better, and I guess we have to thank the record-breaking representation in this Congress from women and other minorities, but still Congresspeople have a long way to go.
I'll sign off with this memorable quote from the hearing, courtesy of California Representative Katie Porter as related on Mashable:
"Mr. Zuckerberg, I know Facebook can be sometimes an unkind place, um, both toward my personal appearance and today apparently towards your haircut, but as the mother of a teenage boy I just want to say thanks for modeling the short cut."
Ha ha. Great use of your time, "Congresswoman."
