Zuckerberg wanted meet at Clinton campaign to understand “political operations”

Zuckerberg wanted meet at Clinton campaign to understand “political operations”(wikileaks.org)

48 points by serb348 9 years ago | 13 comments

mirkules 9 years ago |

I always said that politics should be left to politicians. Nobody is fooled that by thinly-veiled "philantropic efforts" what is really meant is "using Facebook's huge platform to further some political agenda"

If we are happy having engineers deal in politics, we should never be surprised when politicians deal in engineering.

tssva 9 years ago | |

Politics should be left to politicians is what has us in the boat we are in. Engineers, teachers, poets, plumbers, horse trainers, Walmart greeters, and everyone else should be involved in politics.

cafard 9 years ago | | |

Provided always that they remember that politics is not engineering, classroom teaching, etc.

exception_e 9 years ago | |

Last sentence makes me a bit sick :)

convolvatron 9 years ago | |

how do you know its not 'using a political agenda to further Facebook's huge platform'?

iUsedToCode 9 years ago |

Nobody wants to touch a political issue with a stick. The US election is a nightmare now, you get no good choices. Well, i think it was similar this couple of years across many places. Democracy is just not compatible with huge masses of not-so-well-educated people millions of who are dependent on the social security programs.

I don't have a better solution. I just see that all this corruption, this waste and idiocy is almost scary. I cant wait for AI or something similar to help sort this out. People fundamentally cannot make good decisions about so many complex issues all at once.

But if you don't talk about politics here, that's ok too. I enjoy the high quality of conversations and don't want to lower it.

flowersoldier 9 years ago | |

I'm not so sure we live in a Democracy anymore. Peggy Noonan wrote an article suggesting we live in a 2 tiered society - we have people who make the Policies and the people who have to live with the Policies (the Policed). The Policy Makers set policies to protect their own interests, which don't necessarily align with the general population. We're at a point now where the population is taken out of the decision making process. IMO I don't think we can call the US a democracy anymore.

adrr 9 years ago | | |

US was never a democracy hence the electoral college. Founders didn't trust the public to elected the highest position in government or US senators. Only the house was directly elected.

tssva 9 years ago |

Headline is incorrect. Zuckerberg wanted to meet with John Podesta while he was on a trip to the area. No mention of meeting at any Clinton campaign office. In fact the last message in the thread was an attempt to arrange a meeting time at Facebook campus.

Even if the title was suppose to be "wanted to meet with Clinton campaign". This is not necessarily accurate either. Zuckerberg did want to meet with John Podesta, but nothing indicates it was in reference directly to his role in the Clinton campaign. Zuckerberg has been more than willing to cross party lines to push his agenda, one I don't necessarily wholly agree with, and I imagine invitations of this sort went out to those experienced in creating political organizations across both parties.

The headline is phrased to attempt to imply a connection between Facebook and the Clinton campaign which the linked to email does not support.

serb348 9 years ago | |

Couldnt fit in complete title!! I just tried to trim "Facebook CEO Zuckerberg wanted to meet with Clinton campaign to "help his understanding" of "political operations" " off twitter linck

tssva 9 years ago | | |

Zuckerberg requested meeting with Podesta to help understanding of "political operations"

Reflects the purpose of the meeting and who it was with. The twitter title is misleading since Zuckerberg didn't want to meet with him in his role as Clinton campaign manager. He was even willing to wait until after the election.

x2398dh1 9 years ago |

The thing that horrifies me the most is that the COO of Facebook would write an email subject line as vague and inappropriately capitalized as, "in case you have time."