Jay Rockefeller Thinks Young People (and Mark Zuckerberg) Have No Values

At a Thursday Senate hearing on mobile privacy, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) told us how he really feels.

In an exchange with Facebook's Bret Taylor, who was testifying in front of the Senate Commerce Committee, Rockefeller told Taylor he did not believe Facebook CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg had consumer privacy in mind when starting the website and company. Why? Well, you see, it's apparently connected to young people's lack of social values. Or at least that's what Rockefeller thinks:

"It's my general feeling that people who are 20, 21, 22 years old really don't have any social values," Rockefeller told Facebook's Bret Taylor, who was testifying at a Senate hearing on mobile privacy Thursday.

"No, it's true," he added after the audience laughed.

No, it's not true.

Is it just me, or is it getting old watching people make decisions about this newfangled technology who either don't get or don't want to accept the paradigm shift that comes along with it?

As Taylor explained in his testimony,

'Facebook is fundamentally about sharing, and adopting overly restrictive policies will prevent our social features from functioning in the way that individuals expect and demand.'

I respect Rockefeller's passion for addressing privacy issues, but passing the "Do Not Track" bill, which would create a "universal legal obligation" for companies to honor users' opt-out requests on the Internet and mobile devices, and would enable the Federal Trade Commission to act against non-compliant companies, carries consequences.

While Facebook has indeed had its share of privacy issues--rolling out and then canceling a controversial data sharing service to advertisers called Beacon, and then developing the News Feed that published each user's activity for their friends to see--the fundamental premise of the site is indeed sharing. That extends to every piece of the Web 2.0 infrastructure. And so, when one takes a hammer and wails away at large problems, like privacy, the effort's not going to be as effective as it could be if she or he took time to understand the peripheral issues. Perhaps Rockefeller, who loves wielding that gavel, could ask one of the 81 people on Facebook who like him (one of them is bound to be young and soulless) what some of those complications might be.

Of course, we know that young people--those who served on his campaign, those who staff his office, those who serve in the military, those undertaking entrepreneurial efforts to raise quality of life, those teaching and serving abroad and at home--do have social values. In fact, all over this site, one can see that if it weren't for the social values of young people, Barack Obama wouldn't be President.

Interestingly, it was only three and a half years ago when Rockefeller disregarded his espoused value of privacy and proceeded to lead the effort to give immunity to those telecommunications companies who warrantlessly spied on Americans. How's that for a flip-flop?

In the end, Rockefeller can fight for the legislation he's championing--even if he doesn't understand the consequences. But to say that young people lack social values when you don't even know what yours are is ridiculous.