Mark Zuckerberg Shuts Down Filmmaker Asking About Privacy Standards

When Mark Zuckerberg was approached by a film crew outside of his home in California and asked about Facebook’s privacy standards, he answered simply: Stop filming me.

In recent years, Facebook has been criticized for its seeming inability to figure out decent privacy settings. They just can’t seem to find a happy middle ground between absolute zero and Orwellian.

Cullen Hoback was behind the camera when his crew confronted Zuckerberg at his home, and he secretly filmed the Facebook boss with a camera in his glasses. It’s all for his recently released film Terms and Conditions May Apply, a documentary which focuses partly on Facebook as it explores the greater issue of online privacy.

“Do you still think privacy is dead? What are your real thoughts on privacy?'” Hoback asks Mark Zuckerberg.

He responds, “Are you guys recording? Will you please not?” he then relaxes as he sees the main camera lowered.

Talking to Hoback and believing he was no longer being filmed, Zuckerberg then suggests that the crew get in contact with Facebook’s public relations department.

Hoback admits that he was somewhat trying to trap the Facebook founder.

“I just wanted him to say, ‘Look, I don’t want you to record me,’ and I wanted to say, ‘Look, I don’t want you to record us.’ ” Hoback said.

He also told the Daily Telegraph a little bit about how the film’s narrative evolved as he was shooting it.

“I think the craziest thing about this whole experience is that I didn’t realize I was making a horror film,” he said, adding that it would take the average Internet user 180 hours to read through the various terms and conditions they agree to when they use a site.

His film has received positive reviews since debuting amid the recent NSA scandal.

“I think the primary question needs to be not even do the systems work – but is this a mass infringement on civil liberties?” Hoback rhetorically asked the Chicago Tribune.

You can check out a trailer for Terms and Conditions May Apply below, and let us know what you think of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction to the film crew in the comments.

[Image: Wikimedia Commons]