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Facebook secretly lobbying for CISA?
- onewaystreet 11y agoNeither Fight for the Future nor Boing Boing provide any evidence for this allegation, so I guess the answer is no.
- johncolanduoni 11y agoA snarky LOL on a picture of Zuckerberg is good enough for me.
- dfc 11y agoIn Cory's case the lack of evidence is a little surprising, but not for FFTF. I had no idea that FFTF was take seriously enough to get to the front page of boingboing or HN.
- revscat 11y agoTake it for what it's worth. Quoting it here in toto. https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3q1kgl/facebook_may_be_the_secret_force_behind/cwbqyjy https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3q1kgl/facebook... "This is Jeff from Fight for the Future. I wish we could disclose our sources for this, but unfortunately we agreed not to. Multiple sources on the hill have reported that Facebook is THE tech company lobbying in favor of CISA, several offices have heard from Facebook that they support CISA. "Facebook themselves has declined to take up our offers to take a public position thus far. The nature of this lobbying game is that people leak information because they can't come out and reveal who they talk to and give information to. I know that sucks, but we decided it was better to put out the information we can than to just keep it to ourselves. And, what they are doing now matters to what ends up happening. So, that's why we're asking Facebook to tell us what their position is and to come clean. "Facebook was probably the loudest supporter of early versions of CISA, until it became unpopular. Then they went silent. Unlike all the other big tech companies that have come out against CISA, Facebook is still silent. Their top Senate lobbyist comes straight from the office of CISA sponsor Sen. Richard Burr, and "cybersecurity issues" is listed on her lobbying disclosures. The publicly available information about Facebook's position on CISA just supports what we know -- Facebook is one of the major forces pushing for this bill to pass."
- cinquemb 11y agoFacebook is an utter joke. They have put a lot of effort over the years into locking down easily minable api endpoints for "their" data (i.e. no authentication tokens), only to be able to make it available for such backroom dealing. Luckily, humans will always be the weakest links in these systems and you can get as many auth tokens you want for checked in public repos.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dogma1138 11y agoIs there any actual proof of this other than her getting a job? Myriah seems to be quite connected and has worked for various departments including for Obama which makes her a good lobbyists. https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=77334 https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=773...
- fharper1961 11y agoEven if there isn't any proof yet,it does seem like immunity from prosecution would be in FB's short term interest.
- andylei 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
- bottled_poe 11y agoThat's it then! case closed. No need to discuss.
- smt88 11y agoI'd take GP's comment more as a criticism of these bait-y, cowardly, speculative headlines than as the suggestion that the true answer is "no".
- dang 11y agoWe put the question mark in above. That's a standard moderation tactic we use when a headline makes a dramatic statement that we have no way of verifying. The statement in the OP's title breaks the HN guidelines by being misleading (presenting an allegation as fact) and baity (by using sensational language like "betrayed"). Putting "Petition:" in front does mitigate that, but not enough in my view. If anyone can suggest a better way of solving the problem in this case, we'd be happy to change the title again.
- smt88 11y agoAh, interesting! Didn't know that. I perceive the question mark at the end of the headline to mean that A) the author believes this but doesn't want to be "on the record" for something that lacks evidence, or B) the author doesn't believe it and just wants clicks. An imperfect solution used by newspapers is to put the source of the allegation at the beginning: "Montoya: You killed my father" or "Sources: US plans to invade Canada". Either way, some damage will be done by false headlines. The question is just whether you can signal to HN users that the article is speculative.
- snowwrestler 11y ago
- cryoshon 11y ago"CISA would give companies like Facebook legal immunity for violating privacy laws as long as they share information with the government." Whether or not Facebook is secretly lobbying for CISA, the article describes the way the incentives look.
- tptacek 11y agoThat summary is also grossly inaccurate, easy crossing the bar for "dishonest".
- revelation 11y agoBecause surely the government will interpret "cyber threat indicator" in the most restricted, privacy-saving way imaginable? The first thing this bill allows for is to have Facebook rat out whatever communication they deem "malicious" to the federal government and be shielded from the fallout.
- tptacek 11y agoThat's not true. The bill does not allow Facebook to "deem" any communication "malicious". It can share only indicators, a term that has a definition in the bill more detailed than that of any other computer security term anywhere else in US law. Meanwhile, the clear implication of the article we're commenting on, and the idea FFTF is trying to spread, is that CISA allows Facebook to violate user privacy, and to build its business doing so, by leveraging CISA. That's a nonsensical argument, and a terribly dishonest one. CISA is a bad law, much more so than CISPA, which preceded it. The reason we have CISA instead of CISPA? FFTF.
- arkem 11y agoAfter reading the text of the bill I'm full of indifference towards it. Can you expand on why you think it's a bad law? I'd like to know because I'm probably missing an angle.
- swiley 11y agoThe good news is that FB has behaved so poorly that almost no one I know uses it or trusts it any more, so we know that in the long run at least this kind of behavior doesn't work.
- smt88 11y ago1.5 billion people use Facebook at least once a month[1]. That's 50% of all humans with access to the internet[2]. I'd say your anecdotal evidence is very, very, very wrong. Facebook's behavior, in the long run, is extremely effective. Large companies willing to lobby for favorable laws have been a dominant force in all societies since there was a such thing as a "large company". I don't know what could happen to change that. 1. http://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ http://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-... 2. http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/ http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/
- Sven7 11y agoData leak
- harryf 11y agoThose numbers don't include WhatsApp or Instagram, which Facebook owns.
- smt88 11y agoThe numbers also don't include the absolutely enormous tracking network that Facebook operates through widgets (such as the Like button). It's likely that nearly 100% of all internet users are tracked by Facebook (with varying degrees of anonymity) as they browse the web.
- eggie 11y agoI have so much trouble understanding their numbers in light of the persistent decrease in interest in facebook as a fraction of total search volume (https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02y1vz https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F02y1vz). I know the paper predicting the "end of facebook" in 2017 got a lot of laughs but it really looks like interest is going down. Everyone says "because mobile" but I'm not convinced. Mobile also means that people are searching less for everything else that might be competing with facebook. Then there is the weird jump in October 2012 that the authors of the "end of facebook" paper corrected for. It's hard to tell what's really going on. Maybe the last 500 million users are the ones who get free facebook (but not web) and think facebook isn't even part of the internet.
- raykaye47 11y agoMark Zuckerberg does look like a sneaky weasely guy.
- shmerl 11y agoFacebook thrives on the lack of privacy, so is this surprising?
- jayvanguard 11y agoI was wondering about the private vs. public position of companies on this. Seeing Microsoft recently flip to the "good list" of companies made me very suspicious.
- declan 11y agoIt would not be a surprise if this is true and Facebook was lobbying for CISA. Facebook supported an earlier version of the bill called CISPA; here's a letter on Facebook letterhead saying we "commend you on your legislation": http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/FacebookHR3523.pdf http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/f... And here's an article I wrote for CNET in 2013 about Facebook's earlier position(s): http://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-unfriends-cispa-cybersecurity-bill-over-privacy/ http://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-unfriends-cispa-cybersecur... But before condemning Facebook, let's at least confirm that the allegations are true. As evidence, BoingBoing gives us a Fight for the Future webpage, which says: "We've gotten information that Facebook is secretly lobbying..." (https://www.youbetrayedus.org/facebook/ https://www.youbetrayedus.org/facebook/) There are no details in this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3q1kgl/facebook_may_be_the_secret_force_behind/cwbqyjy https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3q1kgl/facebook... On one hand, Facebook is one of dozens of tech companies that are members of CCIA, which has criticized CISA in its current form. (https://www.ccianet.org/2015/10/ccia-urges-senate-to-improve-cybersecurity-information-sharing-act/ https://www.ccianet.org/2015/10/ccia-urges-senate-to-improve...) On the other hand, CCIA's positions do not necessarily reflect the views of every member company on every issue, and Facebook has endorsed an earlier version. Unless there's more evidence than an advocacy group's "we've gotten information" claim, let's give Facebook a chance to reply before assuming the worst.
- tempodox 11y ago“CISA would give companies like Facebook legal immunity for violating privacy laws as long as they share information with the government.” So the Government is using sock puppets to violate its own laws. Nice. Criminals of all continents, unite! The U.S. is your land of opportunity. Really, why be a terrorist when you can fuck everyone over legally and even get rich and powerful with it. As an added bonus, you get to call yourself a patriot while you're at it.