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Should we also allow Microsoft to be sued for all the criminals that use windows? Salesforce is a platform (albeit a horrible one I never want to work with agai

by hajile 8y ago

Should we also allow Microsoft to be sued for all the criminals that use windows? Salesforce is a platform (albeit a horrible one I never want to work with again) and provides services to whoever pays. Illegal actions are between the local government and the user. Criminals lie. They could claim to be a humanitarian company while trafficking. The only way for Salesforce to know would be to manually investigate all their stored data. Not only is that practically impossible, but it would also ruin them. Business information is private. Then again, in lots of jurisdictions today, a landlord can be held liable for the tenant committing a crime. In these jurisdictions, if your tenant assaults someone on your property, you can be liable for millions in compensation. This is yet another way to drive former criminals back to crime. They aren't full citizens. They can't get a job to get money. They can't get a loan to buy a house. They can't even rent a place to stay because it's so risky. Since they've been effectively "unperson-ed", their only choice is going back to crime. At least if they're caught, they'll have food, healthcare, and a place to stay. Stupid laws are stupid. If person A is legally responsible for person B's actions, they will necessarily start asserting control over person B's life. We do this to kids under the idea that they are too ignorant to know better. Why do we do this to mentally-capable adults? They are capable of independent decisions. Hold them responsible for their actions. Quit forcing Landlords, Salesforce, or whomever to play as parents and be legally responsible for other adults.

leroy_masochist 8y ago
> Should we also allow Microsoft to be sued for all the criminals that use windows? No, but what is hinted at in the complaint is that Salesforce did some kind of custom integration for Backpage: > The women sued Salesforce Tuesday in San Francisco state court, claiming billionaire Marc Benioff’s company knowingly supported Backpage by providing customized database tools to market and remarket prostitutes to “pimps, johns and traffickers who had been underusing its trafficking services.” I'm no lawyer but I imagine the crux of this is whether Salesforce actually did meaningfully custom integrations for this. If their team's interaction with Backpage was limited to, "hey I'd like to buy 10 seats" "sure that'll be $#,### per seat per year" I have a hard time understanding where there was true wrongdoing on Salesforce's part, aside from maybe a lack of situational awareness of what Backpage was. If on the other hand they were actually building features designed to help Backpage keep more pimps on the platform (not sure what that would look like for pimps specifically vs. other Salesforce use cases, but just hypothetically) then yeah that would be really really bad. It is kind of surprising this is happening....Marc Benioff makes a big show of being woke, and activist-journalists with a big audience such as Nick Kristof at the NYT have been writing about how bad Backpage is (was) since 2012-ish. You would think this one wouldn't get past Compliance.
- NedIsakoff 8y ago
  SalesForce not like Office 2016 where you install and use it. It's like Oracle EBS in that the forms, workflow, processes and etc needs to be customized for your business and use case. SalesForce has consultants and service people that help you with this. They are probably suing because SalesForce consultants or professional services help with the SalesForce setup/integration at BackPage.
  - leroy_masochist 8y ago
    There are lots and lots of consultants who implement Salesforce instances who work for themselves. Many do have certifications from Salesforce, but that doesn't make Salesforce accountable for their actions.
    - NedIsakoff 8y ago
      SalesForce also has professional services, which are SalesForce employees that help you with the integration. My guess is this is what the suit is about, the professional services.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  If on the other hand they were actually building features designed to keep more pimps on the platform (not sure what that would look like for pimps specifically vs. other Salesforce use cases, but just hypothetically) Yeah, I have mixed feelings about this article. I've read a number of things that suggest that Backpage was better for women, allowing them to market themselves, protect their safety, etc. I'm for the decriminalization of sex work -- as described in the book "Working: My life as a prostitute" by Dolores French. She makes the point that legalization usually means regulation and it winds up being just as bad as or worse than being pimped. It winds up being done to benefit male clients at the expense of female sex workers, basically. So I can easily see a situation where, in a world where the current system typically exploits female sex workers, trying to increase sales as your stated goal could deepen the problems of women who are already victims. If you are against sex work, please try to help women access other work safely and at a living wage/"equal pay" (instead of or at least in addition to preaching about your opinions that sex work is a bad thing and simply shouldn't be tolerated). Women wind up trapped in part because it pays well and they often have little to no viable alternatives. If you aren't actively working in some way to help make it possible for women to adequately support themselves some other way, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. I spent nearly six years homeless. There was no shortage of men offering to give me a few bucks to sleep with them. Meanwhile, I was mostly failing to get taken seriously in my attempts to earn income some other way. There are reasons why I was able to still say "no" in the face of tremendous circumstantial pressure, but it made me very aware that a lot of women simply don't have enough wherewithal to just say "no" themselves. (There is some truth to the idea that you need a middle class income to be able to afford a middle class morality.) I was briefly acquainted with another homeless woman whose solution was to move in with some guy she had just met in order to get back into housing. She apparently only spent a few days on the street because of making this choice. It's perhaps a more polite form of prostitution to call him your boyfriend and not charge by the hour, but I've thought a whole lot about it and I would much rather charge by the hour than move in with some man for his money and wind up probably essentially being his prisoner. This goes double in the case of a stranger I've just met and know nothing about. Wow. That idea just scares the hell out of me. Edit: Just for the record, I'm also against UBI, in addition to being against "legalization"/regulation of sex work.
alexandercrohde 8y ago
Not the best delivery, but I think the question has to be asked. How much use does a tool take for the blame of those who misuse it? We would all laugh at an article entitled "Criminals used PENCIL AND PAPER in dastardly crime to traffic women" or "telephones" or even "email." Obviously the other extreme exists, when a tech company knowingly caters to an immoral regime, which is part of why I reject this blurring so emphatically.
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  Pencil and paper is too generic, that’s like “CRIMINALS USED COMPUTERS!” This is a more specific accusation. Not just any pens, criminals used UNI-BALL PENS. Tools aside, I have mixed feelings on the Backpage shutdown. What I've heard through friends of friends is that for non-trafficked sex workers this was a service that helped them earn a living much more safely than being out on the street looking for clients. Losing it has not been good for them. One of the side effects of outlawing sex work is that everyone has to operate under the radar - both the people working a job for themselves and the human trafficking rings. If it were a legal profession operating in the open, would we be in a better position to find and help the people who are being forced in to it? Similar problems to what we've seen with drug prohibition and the cartels.
  - NedIsakoff 8y ago
    Read my comment below: SalesForce not like Office 2016 where you install and use it. It's like Oracle EBS in that the forms, workflow, processes and etc needs to be customized for your business and use case. SalesForce has consultants and professional service people that help you with this. They are probably suing because SalesForce consultants or professional services help with the SalesForce setup/integration at BackPage.
- montecarl 8y ago
  I generally don't like the idea of blaming tool makers. However, this is a great example of a tech company catering to an immoral regime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
will_brown 8y ago
>Should we also allow Microsoft to be sued for all the criminals that use windows? If a company provides products/services to someone with the knowledge those products/services will be used for a crime...then yes. For example it’s legal for an arms dealer to sell a gun, but illegal to sell a gun if the seller knows the gun is being purchased with the intent of being used in a crime. Here what you have is Salesforce who allegedly sold its products/services to backpage knowing their software would specifically be used to facilitate prostitution and human trafficking. Whereas you - for whatever reasons - seem to be concluding salesforce had no way of knowing their products/services would be used by backpage in the commission of a crime (ie your Windows analogy). However, the facts suggest SalesForce was well aware of backpages business practices and activities (and was publicly fighting against the same criminal activity, while simultaneously supplying software that facilitated the same). It’s a tough case but human slaves and a corporation privately profiting from these activities while publicly “fighting” against the same won’t play well to a jury.
- asdffdsa 8y ago
  "the facts suggest SalesForce was well aware of backpages business practices and activities" source?
  - will_brown 8y ago
    The article we are commenting on... >“Salesforce knew the scourge of sex trafficking because it sought publicity for trying to stop it," according to the complaint. Allegedly salesforce had a PR campaign against human trafficking and prostitution and knew backpage was in the business of facilitating the same when it elected to do business with backpage and that their software would specifically be used to facilitate this part of the business.
    - belorn 8y ago
      Can we get some dates on those facts? Too many time I have seen evidence like this, only to later see that the dates changes the context. Did Salesforce have a PR campaign against human trafficking and prostitution before or after Backpage got seized by U.S. authorities in April 2018? Before or after Backpage became a customer? Before or after the adult section? Before or after it was generally known to include sex trafficking (which given a glance on the wikipedia article is sometimes around 2012-ish? The other question is why did it take U.S. authorities until April 2018, 14 years after backpage was launched and 6 years after it was generally known? Were they incompetent, a lack of resources, or what? Did saleforce has knowledge that the police did not, and if so when, and why was it not given over to the police? How long time was the investigation and was salveforce involved? Was it a legal grey zone and as such the opinion of lawyers was involved, which we don't know the context or dates of? Did Saleforce get advice from the prosecutor/police? This case is interesting but to me almost all the important details are currently not public.
0815test 8y ago
> Stupid laws are stupid. If person A is legally responsible for person B's actions, they will necessarily start asserting control over person B's life. Well, apparently the alternative is to subject person B to rather substantial ex-post punishment in order to deter them from committing crimes that they cannot pay meaningful restitution for. I think the option of shifting liability onto third parties that could meaningfully deter B before a crime is even committed might be preferable. It's the same principle that we use to mandate e.g. drivers to successfully insure themselves against some sorts of liability, before they're even allowed to drive.
- hajile 8y ago
  Why should person A pay restitution for person B? Person A likely isn't granted powers of law enforcement and so has no means of preventing the crime. How can person A prevent a crime caused by person B? They cannot. Situations happen. People commit crimes for the first time every day (shocking even close family members). People like serial killers (and many other forms of covert criminals) may go undetected for decades with those people having perfect records. Since crime cannot be prevented by a landlord and cannot be completely avoided, what can that landlord do to mitigate their risk? They must discriminate. They look at groups which appear to commit disproportionate crimes (by whatever "metrics" they choose to look at) and then start cutting away. Bad credit, being poor, being the "wrong race", prior convictions -- the list of risks seems endless. The law (with very good reason) prohibits this kind of profiling, but that causes a catch 22 in the mind of the landlord, so the discrimination simply happens in a less-obvious manner. Meanwhile, these people are shifted into bad neighborhoods and ghettos to become trapped forever and crime continues on regardless. Since no crime is prevented (at most, its only moved elsewhere), the law is ineffective. That would be bad enough, but it also proceeds to punish the landlord and a long list of underprivileged people. The cure is definitely worse than the problem.
  - afarrell 8y ago
    It would be illegal to discriminate against people based on race. But discriminate based on prior address... well have they lived in Roxbury, Oakland, Harlem, or the south side of Chicago? What prevents a machine learning model from detecting a feature based on the fact that applicants who used to live in those areas?
rdiddly 8y ago
I mean, yes, we allow that. You can sue Microsoft right now for any reason, and if the case meets the minimum requirements for standing, have it be heard by a judge.
kilo_bravo_3 8y ago
>Should we also allow Microsoft to be sued for all the criminals that use windows? YES. YES. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! If Microsoft is complicit with the crimes. What the hell is wrong with people? Backpage wasn't a hammer that somebody bought from Home Depot and used to bash someone else's head in. Backpage was actively and aggressively cooperating with human traffickers. Backpage provided coaching to ad submitters on how to get around the bare-bones filters that backpage implemented. Backpage refused to implement basic, industry standard, practices that would have practically eliminated the reposting of known, confirmed, undeniable cases of human trafficking ads. Backpage stalled and obstructed any attempts to remove known, confirmed, undeniable cases of human trafficking. Backpage lied and covered up the fact that they knowingly cooperated with human traffickers. Backpage forced the skeleton crew, through quotas and the threat of discipline or dismissal, of community reviewers to overlook known, confirmed, undeniable cases of human trafficking ads. None of this is supposition or innuendo, and none of this is an accusation. It is all fact, taken from Backpage.com's own internal communications and public testimony of backpage officials and employees. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115shrg24401/pdf/CHRG-115shrg24401.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115shrg24401/pdf/CH... https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-1st-circuit/1728752.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-1st-circuit/1728752.html Why do people think that Backpage was "done dirty"? It is mind-boggling.
- Pharmakon 8y ago
  What the hell is wrong with people? Two factors are at play here, although “wrong with people” may be overly harsh and is certainly unhelpful. First, a lot of people, myself included, think that prohibition of prostitution is a bad idea. Now I’d argue that in this case that’s a bit of a red herring, because we’re talking about sexual slavery, not sexual work. The second factor is a little nasty, but let’s face it... a site full of “toolmakers” takes a strong stance against people who make tools being held accountable for the uses of those tools. What a shock. Now it’s not just that simple, because some people are legitimately concerned about the proverbial blacksmith being held liable for making hammers. Others point out that if the blacksmith specially made “head cracking hammers” for Big Bob The Headsmasher, then the blacksmith crossed a line. Others are ideologically or practically opposed to almost any regulation. It’s a mess of people talking past each other, angrily. Personally I believe that BackPage was a bad actor, and as for SF I’ll wait and see what pretrial discovery turns up. Most people seem to be more interested in rushing to conclusions though, and fighting over hypotheticals, hence the high noise:signal ratio here.
hellllllllooo 8y ago
It deserves an investigation at least to decide if it's worth exploring further and how complicit the company may have been. The courts can then decide and they may or may not side with your point of view. That's how it works in America. Throwing out cases because they are difficult to persue or because it may cause trouble for a business is not how a justice system should work.
dalore 8y ago
Should we prosecute a shopkeeper who sells alcohol to an adult knowing that adult is buying it for someone underage? Do we prosecute bartenders who serve alcohol to people who are drunk and they know are going to drive home? Yes we do. Stupid laws aren't always stupid.
darawk 8y ago
> Then again, in lots of jurisdictions today, a landlord can be held liable for the tenant committing a crime. Whoa, is that true? Can you give a citation for that? That seems insane to me.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- hajile 8y ago
  https://realestate.findlaw.com/landlord-tenant-law/faq-landlord-responsibilities-criminal-activities.html https://realestate.findlaw.com/landlord-tenant-law/faq-landl... IANAL, but a simple google for something like "landlord responsible for tenant crime" should turn up loads of results on the topic.
skywhopper 8y ago
According to the article, the lawsuit is predicated on the assertion that Salesforce did know how its products were being used. I don't know anything about the facts here, but if that's true, then it sounds like they might have some legal responsibility. Unlike what you are saying, the case is not about whether or not Salesforce should have known they were supporting criminal activity. Rather, the lawsuit asserts that they did know.
caconym_ 8y ago
> Should we also allow Microsoft to be sued for all the criminals that use windows? When Microsoft has specific knowledge of which of their customers are criminals, and details of their criminal activity, and is actively engaged in the development of new features to support said criminal activity... yes. My understanding of the article is that the allegations against SF are on that level. Very different from taking money, handing over a binary and a license (or whatever), and ending the transaction there.
vips7L 8y ago
> (albeit a horrible one I never want to work with again). As a current Salesforce developer this hits home. I cannot wait to get out and back to using real platforms and languages. I'll honestly write any language at this point just not to do SFDC.

by hajile 8y ago

leroy_masochist 8y ago

> Should we also allow Microsoft to be sued for all the criminals that use windows? No, but what is hinted at in the complaint is that Salesforce did some kind of custom integration for Backpage: > The women sued Salesforce Tuesday in San Francisco state court, claiming billionaire Marc Benioff’s company knowingly supported Backpage by providing customized database tools to market and remarket prostitutes to “pimps, johns and traffickers who had been underusing its trafficking services.” I'm no lawyer but I imagine the crux of this is whether Salesforce actually did meaningfully custom integrations for this. If their team's interaction with Backpage was limited to, "hey I'd like to buy 10 seats" "sure that'll be $#,### per seat per year" I have a hard time understanding where there was true wrongdoing on Salesforce's part, aside from maybe a lack of situational awareness of what Backpage was. If on the other hand they were actually building features designed to help Backpage keep more pimps on the platform (not sure what that would look like for pimps specifically vs. other Salesforce use cases, but just hypothetically) then yeah that would be really really bad. It is kind of surprising this is happening....Marc Benioff makes a big show of being woke, and activist-journalists with a big audience such as Nick Kristof at the NYT have been writing about how bad Backpage is (was) since 2012-ish. You would think this one wouldn't get past Compliance.

NedIsakoff 8y ago
SalesForce not like Office 2016 where you install and use it. It's like Oracle EBS in that the forms, workflow, processes and etc needs to be customized for your business and use case. SalesForce has consultants and service people that help you with this. They are probably suing because SalesForce consultants or professional services help with the SalesForce setup/integration at BackPage.
- leroy_masochist 8y ago
  There are lots and lots of consultants who implement Salesforce instances who work for themselves. Many do have certifications from Salesforce, but that doesn't make Salesforce accountable for their actions.
  - NedIsakoff 8y ago
    SalesForce also has professional services, which are SalesForce employees that help you with the integration. My guess is this is what the suit is about, the professional services.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
If on the other hand they were actually building features designed to keep more pimps on the platform (not sure what that would look like for pimps specifically vs. other Salesforce use cases, but just hypothetically) Yeah, I have mixed feelings about this article. I've read a number of things that suggest that Backpage was better for women, allowing them to market themselves, protect their safety, etc. I'm for the decriminalization of sex work -- as described in the book "Working: My life as a prostitute" by Dolores French. She makes the point that legalization usually means regulation and it winds up being just as bad as or worse than being pimped. It winds up being done to benefit male clients at the expense of female sex workers, basically. So I can easily see a situation where, in a world where the current system typically exploits female sex workers, trying to increase sales as your stated goal could deepen the problems of women who are already victims. If you are against sex work, please try to help women access other work safely and at a living wage/"equal pay" (instead of or at least in addition to preaching about your opinions that sex work is a bad thing and simply shouldn't be tolerated). Women wind up trapped in part because it pays well and they often have little to no viable alternatives. If you aren't actively working in some way to help make it possible for women to adequately support themselves some other way, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. I spent nearly six years homeless. There was no shortage of men offering to give me a few bucks to sleep with them. Meanwhile, I was mostly failing to get taken seriously in my attempts to earn income some other way. There are reasons why I was able to still say "no" in the face of tremendous circumstantial pressure, but it made me very aware that a lot of women simply don't have enough wherewithal to just say "no" themselves. (There is some truth to the idea that you need a middle class income to be able to afford a middle class morality.) I was briefly acquainted with another homeless woman whose solution was to move in with some guy she had just met in order to get back into housing. She apparently only spent a few days on the street because of making this choice. It's perhaps a more polite form of prostitution to call him your boyfriend and not charge by the hour, but I've thought a whole lot about it and I would much rather charge by the hour than move in with some man for his money and wind up probably essentially being his prisoner. This goes double in the case of a stranger I've just met and know nothing about. Wow. That idea just scares the hell out of me. Edit: Just for the record, I'm also against UBI, in addition to being against "legalization"/regulation of sex work.

alexandercrohde 8y ago

Not the best delivery, but I think the question has to be asked. How much use does a tool take for the blame of those who misuse it? We would all laugh at an article entitled "Criminals used PENCIL AND PAPER in dastardly crime to traffic women" or "telephones" or even "email." Obviously the other extreme exists, when a tech company knowingly caters to an immoral regime, which is part of why I reject this blurring so emphatically.

wlesieutre 8y ago
Pencil and paper is too generic, that’s like “CRIMINALS USED COMPUTERS!” This is a more specific accusation. Not just any pens, criminals used UNI-BALL PENS. Tools aside, I have mixed feelings on the Backpage shutdown. What I've heard through friends of friends is that for non-trafficked sex workers this was a service that helped them earn a living much more safely than being out on the street looking for clients. Losing it has not been good for them. One of the side effects of outlawing sex work is that everyone has to operate under the radar - both the people working a job for themselves and the human trafficking rings. If it were a legal profession operating in the open, would we be in a better position to find and help the people who are being forced in to it? Similar problems to what we've seen with drug prohibition and the cartels.
- NedIsakoff 8y ago
  Read my comment below: SalesForce not like Office 2016 where you install and use it. It's like Oracle EBS in that the forms, workflow, processes and etc needs to be customized for your business and use case. SalesForce has consultants and professional service people that help you with this. They are probably suing because SalesForce consultants or professional services help with the SalesForce setup/integration at BackPage.
montecarl 8y ago
I generally don't like the idea of blaming tool makers. However, this is a great example of a tech company catering to an immoral regime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

will_brown 8y ago

>Should we also allow Microsoft to be sued for all the criminals that use windows? If a company provides products/services to someone with the knowledge those products/services will be used for a crime...then yes. For example it’s legal for an arms dealer to sell a gun, but illegal to sell a gun if the seller knows the gun is being purchased with the intent of being used in a crime. Here what you have is Salesforce who allegedly sold its products/services to backpage knowing their software would specifically be used to facilitate prostitution and human trafficking. Whereas you - for whatever reasons - seem to be concluding salesforce had no way of knowing their products/services would be used by backpage in the commission of a crime (ie your Windows analogy). However, the facts suggest SalesForce was well aware of backpages business practices and activities (and was publicly fighting against the same criminal activity, while simultaneously supplying software that facilitated the same). It’s a tough case but human slaves and a corporation privately profiting from these activities while publicly “fighting” against the same won’t play well to a jury.

asdffdsa 8y ago
"the facts suggest SalesForce was well aware of backpages business practices and activities" source?
- will_brown 8y ago
  The article we are commenting on... >“Salesforce knew the scourge of sex trafficking because it sought publicity for trying to stop it," according to the complaint. Allegedly salesforce had a PR campaign against human trafficking and prostitution and knew backpage was in the business of facilitating the same when it elected to do business with backpage and that their software would specifically be used to facilitate this part of the business.
  - belorn 8y ago
    Can we get some dates on those facts? Too many time I have seen evidence like this, only to later see that the dates changes the context. Did Salesforce have a PR campaign against human trafficking and prostitution before or after Backpage got seized by U.S. authorities in April 2018? Before or after Backpage became a customer? Before or after the adult section? Before or after it was generally known to include sex trafficking (which given a glance on the wikipedia article is sometimes around 2012-ish? The other question is why did it take U.S. authorities until April 2018, 14 years after backpage was launched and 6 years after it was generally known? Were they incompetent, a lack of resources, or what? Did saleforce has knowledge that the police did not, and if so when, and why was it not given over to the police? How long time was the investigation and was salveforce involved? Was it a legal grey zone and as such the opinion of lawyers was involved, which we don't know the context or dates of? Did Saleforce get advice from the prosecutor/police? This case is interesting but to me almost all the important details are currently not public.

0815test 8y ago

> Stupid laws are stupid. If person A is legally responsible for person B's actions, they will necessarily start asserting control over person B's life. Well, apparently the alternative is to subject person B to rather substantial ex-post punishment in order to deter them from committing crimes that they cannot pay meaningful restitution for. I think the option of shifting liability onto third parties that could meaningfully deter B before a crime is even committed might be preferable. It's the same principle that we use to mandate e.g. drivers to successfully insure themselves against some sorts of liability, before they're even allowed to drive.

hajile 8y ago
Why should person A pay restitution for person B? Person A likely isn't granted powers of law enforcement and so has no means of preventing the crime. How can person A prevent a crime caused by person B? They cannot. Situations happen. People commit crimes for the first time every day (shocking even close family members). People like serial killers (and many other forms of covert criminals) may go undetected for decades with those people having perfect records. Since crime cannot be prevented by a landlord and cannot be completely avoided, what can that landlord do to mitigate their risk? They must discriminate. They look at groups which appear to commit disproportionate crimes (by whatever "metrics" they choose to look at) and then start cutting away. Bad credit, being poor, being the "wrong race", prior convictions -- the list of risks seems endless. The law (with very good reason) prohibits this kind of profiling, but that causes a catch 22 in the mind of the landlord, so the discrimination simply happens in a less-obvious manner. Meanwhile, these people are shifted into bad neighborhoods and ghettos to become trapped forever and crime continues on regardless. Since no crime is prevented (at most, its only moved elsewhere), the law is ineffective. That would be bad enough, but it also proceeds to punish the landlord and a long list of underprivileged people. The cure is definitely worse than the problem.
- afarrell 8y ago
  It would be illegal to discriminate against people based on race. But discriminate based on prior address... well have they lived in Roxbury, Oakland, Harlem, or the south side of Chicago? What prevents a machine learning model from detecting a feature based on the fact that applicants who used to live in those areas?

rdiddly 8y ago

I mean, yes, we allow that. You can sue Microsoft right now for any reason, and if the case meets the minimum requirements for standing, have it be heard by a judge.

kilo_bravo_3 8y ago

>Should we also allow Microsoft to be sued for all the criminals that use windows? YES. YES. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! If Microsoft is complicit with the crimes. What the hell is wrong with people? Backpage wasn't a hammer that somebody bought from Home Depot and used to bash someone else's head in. Backpage was actively and aggressively cooperating with human traffickers. Backpage provided coaching to ad submitters on how to get around the bare-bones filters that backpage implemented. Backpage refused to implement basic, industry standard, practices that would have practically eliminated the reposting of known, confirmed, undeniable cases of human trafficking ads. Backpage stalled and obstructed any attempts to remove known, confirmed, undeniable cases of human trafficking. Backpage lied and covered up the fact that they knowingly cooperated with human traffickers. Backpage forced the skeleton crew, through quotas and the threat of discipline or dismissal, of community reviewers to overlook known, confirmed, undeniable cases of human trafficking ads. None of this is supposition or innuendo, and none of this is an accusation. It is all fact, taken from Backpage.com's own internal communications and public testimony of backpage officials and employees. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115shrg24401/pdf/CHRG-115shrg24401.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115shrg24401/pdf/CH... https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-1st-circuit/1728752.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-1st-circuit/1728752.html Why do people think that Backpage was "done dirty"? It is mind-boggling.

Pharmakon 8y ago
What the hell is wrong with people? Two factors are at play here, although “wrong with people” may be overly harsh and is certainly unhelpful. First, a lot of people, myself included, think that prohibition of prostitution is a bad idea. Now I’d argue that in this case that’s a bit of a red herring, because we’re talking about sexual slavery, not sexual work. The second factor is a little nasty, but let’s face it... a site full of “toolmakers” takes a strong stance against people who make tools being held accountable for the uses of those tools. What a shock. Now it’s not just that simple, because some people are legitimately concerned about the proverbial blacksmith being held liable for making hammers. Others point out that if the blacksmith specially made “head cracking hammers” for Big Bob The Headsmasher, then the blacksmith crossed a line. Others are ideologically or practically opposed to almost any regulation. It’s a mess of people talking past each other, angrily. Personally I believe that BackPage was a bad actor, and as for SF I’ll wait and see what pretrial discovery turns up. Most people seem to be more interested in rushing to conclusions though, and fighting over hypotheticals, hence the high noise:signal ratio here.

hellllllllooo 8y ago

It deserves an investigation at least to decide if it's worth exploring further and how complicit the company may have been. The courts can then decide and they may or may not side with your point of view. That's how it works in America. Throwing out cases because they are difficult to persue or because it may cause trouble for a business is not how a justice system should work.

dalore 8y ago

Should we prosecute a shopkeeper who sells alcohol to an adult knowing that adult is buying it for someone underage? Do we prosecute bartenders who serve alcohol to people who are drunk and they know are going to drive home? Yes we do. Stupid laws aren't always stupid.

darawk 8y ago

> Then again, in lots of jurisdictions today, a landlord can be held liable for the tenant committing a crime. Whoa, is that true? Can you give a citation for that? That seems insane to me.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
hajile 8y ago
https://realestate.findlaw.com/landlord-tenant-law/faq-landlord-responsibilities-criminal-activities.html https://realestate.findlaw.com/landlord-tenant-law/faq-landl... IANAL, but a simple google for something like "landlord responsible for tenant crime" should turn up loads of results on the topic.

skywhopper 8y ago

According to the article, the lawsuit is predicated on the assertion that Salesforce did know how its products were being used. I don't know anything about the facts here, but if that's true, then it sounds like they might have some legal responsibility. Unlike what you are saying, the case is not about whether or not Salesforce should have known they were supporting criminal activity. Rather, the lawsuit asserts that they did know.

caconym_ 8y ago

> Should we also allow Microsoft to be sued for all the criminals that use windows? When Microsoft has specific knowledge of which of their customers are criminals, and details of their criminal activity, and is actively engaged in the development of new features to support said criminal activity... yes. My understanding of the article is that the allegations against SF are on that level. Very different from taking money, handing over a binary and a license (or whatever), and ending the transaction there.

vips7L 8y ago

> (albeit a horrible one I never want to work with again). As a current Salesforce developer this hits home. I cannot wait to get out and back to using real platforms and languages. I'll honestly write any language at this point just not to do SFDC.