60 Minutes Pauses During Predictable Fawning Over Facebook For Predictable Lashing Of Facebook
Facebook is the new Google, but not in the way Mark Zuckerberg wished. The 23-year-old founder is facing the same press backlash as his predecessors at the search company. His recent 60 Minutes interview ignored several pressing questions, and most of the show's 12-minute segment (available on CBS News Video) simply explained Facebook for old people and rehashed the usual "baby CEO" profile. But in the clip below from the end of the segment, Lesley Stahl criticizes Zuckerberg for launching Beacon, Facebook's stalkery program that tracks what users do on outside web sites unless they notice and opt out.
Stahl mentions a man who bought his wife a diamond ring on Amazon Overstock.com, not knowing that Facebook immediately ruined the surprise by telling her and all their friends. It's a neat sob story, even if one could cook up more lurid examples of how Beacon might violate privacy and embarrass users.
In this clip, Stahl asks Zuckerberg about Beacon's privacy violation, and criticizes his "canned" answer. This is nothing brave, since the Internet and news media have already ripped Zuckerberg apart for Beacon. Stahl even cops out on condemning Zuckerberg, letting Wall Street Journal columnist Kara Swisher deliver the death blow.
Brief and incomplete as Stahl's criticism is, it feels good to finally see Zuckerberg get a little of what's coming to him for ruining his promising social network with invasive marketing. Of course, it'll feel better if the criticism wasn't followed by the details of Zuckerberg's wardrobe. Oh boy! Open-toed shoes! Other clothes representative of the casual dressing habits of a 23-year-old male! What a quirky privacy-butchering tech mogul!