5 ms·

> the largest part of the Facebook users has not even > realized the scandal in full scale. Exactly. That's why they must be regulated. Pharma companies, f

> the largest part of the Facebook users has not even > realized the scandal in full scale. Exactly. That's why they must be regulated. Pharma companies, food companies, and airlines, to mention three, have the same sorts of characteristics in their businesses. Examples: Airlines have regulations because the typical user has no way to evaluate maintenance regimes or navigation procedures. The big information-hoovering dotcoms need the same sorts of regulations for the same sorts of reasons. "We obtained user permission" needs to be a stronger claim than "we tricked users into checking a box."

Fiahil 9y ago
Regulation come in many forms, and I believe the first step will be GDPR.
- nojvek 9y ago
  GDPR is a god send. It would never have come out of the US, the corporate funded politicians would have just ate it alive. But because European politicians have some integrity left and internet is inherently global, most internet companies need to do these for everyone. Yes, it’s not perfect, but a great first step.
  - madez 9y ago
    The internet is as inherently global as the postal services are. What differentiates it is that it's faster, cheaper, and immaterial. In principle, the legal situation hasn't changed compared to before the internet was a thing. If you just want to do business in one country over the internet, you can do so. What has changed is that a company and a customer can reach each other easily, cheaply and fast aross national borders, using the internet. The drawback to international business is laws, rules and policies compliance. Having that in mind, the project Gutenberg lawsuit makes sense. Imagine a service that copies a requested book and sends you that copy, all by postal services. If that company shipped into a country where the book in question stills protected by copyright, then it is clear that there will be legal action.
kingofhdds 9y ago
No, in fact, airlines have regulations, because big flying objects loaded with fuel are kinda seriously dangerous, and can kill (not in un*x console meaning of the word) lots of people at once. Very unlike social platforms, to be fair. If regulations were introduced because of users not knowing what's good and beautiful, believe me, IT industry would be the most regulated thing in the world.
- zzzeek 9y ago
  airplanes are kind of unlike banks and trading markets too yet those are also heavily regulated.
  - dangerlibrary 9y ago
    Sort of. For now.
  - aylmao 9y ago
    To be fair, banks and trading markets affect the economy directly, which is a primary concern of the government.
- saas_co_de 9y ago
  > Very unlike social platforms a social media platform that can be used to organize and manipulate hundreds of millions of people globally is far more dangerous than any airplane.
  - kingofhdds 9y ago
    Don't you think that this "organize and manipulate hundreds of millions of people globally" thing is a very blurry fear-laden sensationalist wording, which practically implies that social platforms possess some kind of hypnotic power to drive humans to do something on orders from secret circles?
    - leereeves 9y ago
      Not at all. People are rather easy to manipulate, if you control the flow of information. Hypnotic power is not required. The formula is simple: promote emotionally powerful events that support your agenda, ignore events that inspire feelings counter to your agenda, deify supporters, demonize opponents, censor and ostracize anyone who speaks against the agenda. That formula has led nations to war, sent innocent people to prison, changed laws, overthrown governments, led to acts of terror, and caused hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of deaths throughout history.
kodablah 9y ago
> That's why they must be regulated. I don't agree with GP's assessment that users "haven't realized" but I do agree that the "majority however won't care". So why regulate if a majority of people are ok with it? They're not too stupid, they just don't prioritize the way some here do. Doesn't have to be a law to force them to prioritize this way. This false equivalence to expertise of airplane mechanics is completely different in a security context and these kinds of analogies only help to make others want to dismiss the point quicker. You want to regulate transparency, ok. But if some accept these things, let them.
- delecti 9y ago
  > They're not too stupid, they just don't prioritize the way some here do While I agree that most people aren't stupid, I would argue that many people are ignorant. They simply don't know why they should care, probably due to a lack of understanding what it means for a company to have a copy of their data, and what that could enable those companies to do and figure out.
  - kodablah 9y ago
    > While I agree that most people aren't stupid, I would argue that many people are ignorant If that's true, solve that problem directly via education and enforcing transparency. There are also other solutions such as grants w/ stipulations, enforcement of existing fraud statutes, etc. Let's assume there are 3 segments of people here: 1) the ignorant, 2) the non-ignorant accepting, and the 3) non-ignorant unaccepting. We have to stop letting #3 (arguably the smallest group but probably consisting of most here) run the show wrt to laws. There are too many consequences to pieces of legislation that all of us business owners have to conform to regardless of whether it is targeted to us. Most often we don't even recognize the consequences because we are so focused on how good we're going to do and how much we're going to help everyone. I dub it digital security theater.
    - simplify 9y ago
      > If that's true, solve that problem directly via education and enforcing transparency. This doesn't always apply. Should car regulations be abolished in favor of educating the ignorant?

Fiahil 9y ago

Regulation come in many forms, and I believe the first step will be GDPR.

nojvek 9y ago
GDPR is a god send. It would never have come out of the US, the corporate funded politicians would have just ate it alive. But because European politicians have some integrity left and internet is inherently global, most internet companies need to do these for everyone. Yes, it’s not perfect, but a great first step.
- madez 9y ago
  The internet is as inherently global as the postal services are. What differentiates it is that it's faster, cheaper, and immaterial. In principle, the legal situation hasn't changed compared to before the internet was a thing. If you just want to do business in one country over the internet, you can do so. What has changed is that a company and a customer can reach each other easily, cheaply and fast aross national borders, using the internet. The drawback to international business is laws, rules and policies compliance. Having that in mind, the project Gutenberg lawsuit makes sense. Imagine a service that copies a requested book and sends you that copy, all by postal services. If that company shipped into a country where the book in question stills protected by copyright, then it is clear that there will be legal action.

kingofhdds 9y ago

No, in fact, airlines have regulations, because big flying objects loaded with fuel are kinda seriously dangerous, and can kill (not in un*x console meaning of the word) lots of people at once. Very unlike social platforms, to be fair. If regulations were introduced because of users not knowing what's good and beautiful, believe me, IT industry would be the most regulated thing in the world.

zzzeek 9y ago
airplanes are kind of unlike banks and trading markets too yet those are also heavily regulated.
- dangerlibrary 9y ago
  Sort of. For now.
- aylmao 9y ago
  To be fair, banks and trading markets affect the economy directly, which is a primary concern of the government.
saas_co_de 9y ago
> Very unlike social platforms a social media platform that can be used to organize and manipulate hundreds of millions of people globally is far more dangerous than any airplane.
- kingofhdds 9y ago
  Don't you think that this "organize and manipulate hundreds of millions of people globally" thing is a very blurry fear-laden sensationalist wording, which practically implies that social platforms possess some kind of hypnotic power to drive humans to do something on orders from secret circles?
  - leereeves 9y ago
    Not at all. People are rather easy to manipulate, if you control the flow of information. Hypnotic power is not required. The formula is simple: promote emotionally powerful events that support your agenda, ignore events that inspire feelings counter to your agenda, deify supporters, demonize opponents, censor and ostracize anyone who speaks against the agenda. That formula has led nations to war, sent innocent people to prison, changed laws, overthrown governments, led to acts of terror, and caused hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of deaths throughout history.

kodablah 9y ago

> That's why they must be regulated. I don't agree with GP's assessment that users "haven't realized" but I do agree that the "majority however won't care". So why regulate if a majority of people are ok with it? They're not too stupid, they just don't prioritize the way some here do. Doesn't have to be a law to force them to prioritize this way. This false equivalence to expertise of airplane mechanics is completely different in a security context and these kinds of analogies only help to make others want to dismiss the point quicker. You want to regulate transparency, ok. But if some accept these things, let them.

delecti 9y ago
> They're not too stupid, they just don't prioritize the way some here do While I agree that most people aren't stupid, I would argue that many people are ignorant. They simply don't know why they should care, probably due to a lack of understanding what it means for a company to have a copy of their data, and what that could enable those companies to do and figure out.
- kodablah 9y ago
  > While I agree that most people aren't stupid, I would argue that many people are ignorant If that's true, solve that problem directly via education and enforcing transparency. There are also other solutions such as grants w/ stipulations, enforcement of existing fraud statutes, etc. Let's assume there are 3 segments of people here: 1) the ignorant, 2) the non-ignorant accepting, and the 3) non-ignorant unaccepting. We have to stop letting #3 (arguably the smallest group but probably consisting of most here) run the show wrt to laws. There are too many consequences to pieces of legislation that all of us business owners have to conform to regardless of whether it is targeted to us. Most often we don't even recognize the consequences because we are so focused on how good we're going to do and how much we're going to help everyone. I dub it digital security theater.
  - simplify 9y ago
    > If that's true, solve that problem directly via education and enforcing transparency. This doesn't always apply. Should car regulations be abolished in favor of educating the ignorant?