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I find it interesting that rather than present a link, or even an argument grounded in, eg, law, you simply asserted that it’s settled and that FB is intrinsica

I find it interesting that rather than present a link, or even an argument grounded in, eg, law, you simply asserted that it’s settled and that FB is intrinsically amoral, and we all just need to accept that. The whole purpose of government is to regulate amoral market forces to conform to our moral philosophy.

beat 8y ago
It's an argument grounded in reason. I don't know what part of "market forces are amoral" you find questionable. Why should economics be more moral than the wind? (Personally, I think reading a moral character into the thermodynamics-like behavior of markets is the core flaw of conservative economics.) I agree that government should (and does) regulate amoral market forces to conform to a moral philosophy (although I disagree that it's the whole purpose). But at a certain point, it becomes difficult to manage. Consider the case of "Facebook sells your private messages". Undoubtedly, somewhere in the click-through license that no one ever bothered to read is a provision allowing them to do exactly that, making it clear that what you type into their platform is theirs to resell, whether it's "private" or not. So users agreed to this. For sufficiently abstract interpretations of "agreed". It may not be ethical, but it's certainly legal. So what does government do about this amoral market force, exactly? Do they try to come up with a rigid, legalistic definition of "private" that businesses like Facebook must abide by? And what is "private", then? My IMs? My age? My friends? The history of what ads I've clicked on before? And how does this government regulation respond to the seemingly infinite imagination and determination of market forces? Like I said, it's like thermodynamics. It's hard to make a law that says no gasses shall pass beyond this seal, except gasses that are permitted by law to pass. And to be absolutely clear, I'm not saying we should do nothing, or that this is a Good Thing, or that government should just "stay out of the way". I'm saying that it's really, really hard. And sometimes the only way to find the bugs is to run the code. In the meantime, public hostility to the news is working better than any regulation would have, imho. Facebook went too far and alienated users. It may not hurt them much now, but it's part of a relentless drip-drip-drip that will eventually destroy them. Erosion is also a natural, amoral force. And until then, we have a solution - don't use Facebook. Don't use social media that you don't completely trust. Yeah, it's annoying and stupid, but it's not as stupid as thinking they're going to respect your privacy if they can make a buck selling it.

beat 8y ago

It's an argument grounded in reason. I don't know what part of "market forces are amoral" you find questionable. Why should economics be more moral than the wind? (Personally, I think reading a moral character into the thermodynamics-like behavior of markets is the core flaw of conservative economics.) I agree that government should (and does) regulate amoral market forces to conform to a moral philosophy (although I disagree that it's the whole purpose). But at a certain point, it becomes difficult to manage. Consider the case of "Facebook sells your private messages". Undoubtedly, somewhere in the click-through license that no one ever bothered to read is a provision allowing them to do exactly that, making it clear that what you type into their platform is theirs to resell, whether it's "private" or not. So users agreed to this. For sufficiently abstract interpretations of "agreed". It may not be ethical, but it's certainly legal. So what does government do about this amoral market force, exactly? Do they try to come up with a rigid, legalistic definition of "private" that businesses like Facebook must abide by? And what is "private", then? My IMs? My age? My friends? The history of what ads I've clicked on before? And how does this government regulation respond to the seemingly infinite imagination and determination of market forces? Like I said, it's like thermodynamics. It's hard to make a law that says no gasses shall pass beyond this seal, except gasses that are permitted by law to pass. And to be absolutely clear, I'm not saying we should do nothing, or that this is a Good Thing, or that government should just "stay out of the way". I'm saying that it's really, really hard. And sometimes the only way to find the bugs is to run the code. In the meantime, public hostility to the news is working better than any regulation would have, imho. Facebook went too far and alienated users. It may not hurt them much now, but it's part of a relentless drip-drip-drip that will eventually destroy them. Erosion is also a natural, amoral force. And until then, we have a solution - don't use Facebook. Don't use social media that you don't completely trust. Yeah, it's annoying and stupid, but it's not as stupid as thinking they're going to respect your privacy if they can make a buck selling it.