6 ms·

This seems like an attempt at classic regulatory capture. "Regulatory capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, created to

This seems like an attempt at classic regulatory capture. "Regulatory capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

samstave 8y ago
EXACTLY. Here is a surmised sequence of events: CONGRESS: Zuck come testify in front of us ZUCK: Crap! I am not comfortable with that PUBLIC: Zuck looks like a fucking android/alien, also screw FB for messing up our PII CONGRESS: You keep messing with privacy concerns of the public through ways and means we don't understand because we are dinosaurs, corrupt ones at that; how can we make money from you? ZUCK: (to FB C-suite++ legal a-team); HOW THE HELL CAN YOU MAKE ME LOOK SO STUPID! Buy them ASAP LEGAL-A-TEAM: (to the PUBLIC) "Zuck would like to make the internet more connected to our [ZUCK'S] vision of a more secure [FOR ZUCK] internet, which serves the needs [OF ZUCK's] users' privacy [CONTINUED ADDITION OF PII TO FB FOR THE PROFIT AND CONTROL OF FB AND NOW THROUGH THIS, EXTENDING TO TENTACLES IN THE .GOV] (On todays episode of "Zuck learns from GoldmanSachs")
- tsunamifury 8y ago
  Genuine question: Is it just me or does this reddit-style mugging for karma not really belong on HN?
  - kadendogthing 8y ago
    It doesn't belong anywhere.
  - klank 8y ago
    How would you describe a "reddit-style mugging for karma"? I didn't find the post you're referring to as having added anything additional to the conversation and I also didn't find it entertaining, which I believe was the poster's goal. However, I wasn't struck with some kind of "this is a bad thing from other platform" vibe.
    - samstave 8y ago
      I appreciate your comment, even if you didn't mine. Thanks.
    - Varcht 8y ago
      I think it got a valid thought across. It works as a sort of shorthand. Would have been 3x longer in essay form.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > It works as a sort of shorthand. Would have been 3x longer in essay form. beering’s sibling comment made essentially the same point in direct expository form, and was much shorter, so I disagree with the suggestion that that rambling narrative is any sort of shorthand.
        Varcht 8y ago
        Are you stalking me?
    - bredren 8y ago
      I think “decorum” around here is to strive for some kind of unified voice similar to The Economist. I’ve tried some humor or exaggerated voice and it is rarely appreciated with upvotes. One thing I have learned is HN readers like Weekend at Bernie’s—-where my tongue in cheek defense of the film garnered the most comment upvotes I’ve ever received.
      - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
        I upvoted that comment. And I'll upvote this one for mentioning it. That's a great movie.
        bredren 8y ago
        Not supposed to do this, but I'll spend those upvotes: lol.
  - samstave 8y ago
    Genuine Question: Does this thought process of summarizing the shenanigans we see in the world from entities like FB not serve to drive home a quick idea, without having to read pages and pages of text to get the point across not have a place. I have been on HN for more than a decade. I tire of the higher-than-thou bullshit where a dialog of context for various subjects is shunned from some taboo on delivery of the premise. So I reject your position. Would you like me to cite things that I know personally about FB, or cite every single compacted reference made in that comment at great length so you can feel superior in your understanding that you may not have? I mean -- FFS - understand that there are people who want to make a condensed comment on shit that happens in the tech field but I don't want to write a diatribe wit ha bibliography on why "because screw, them, that's why" is a salient summary. (See: on HN "google deep-sixes usenet" on FP today)
    - TAForObvReasons 8y ago
      With FB in particular, many HN denizens owe much of their wealth to the company either directly or indirectly (through acquisitions, seed capital from former employees, etc), so many of the criticisms that point to Zuckerberg in specific are frowned upon. In short, "don't bite the hand that feeds you"
      - rootusrootus 8y ago
        I don't see that too much, to be honest. If there is any sort of corporate love here, it feels more like it's Google that enjoys it, not Facebook.
        Loughla 8y ago
        Yeah - there are many comments about Facebook's lack of ethics on this site. I'm betting more than any other large tech company. Hell there was even a poster in a different facebook story talking about how it was fun to tell headhunters they refused to apply to facebook because of ethics.
    - tsunamifury 8y ago
  - decebalus1 8y ago
    I get what you're saying. The main reason I hate 'The martian' was that to me the whole book sounded like the above post. Like it was written by someone on Reddit.
  - root_axis 8y ago
    haha yeah! reddit is so stupid, and the users make dumb comments. HN is for smart people. Nobody here cares about karma, that's for sure!
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
doctorpangloss 8y ago
Eh, it's pretty tough to communicate something really concrete in an op-ed. If he specifically described what a transparency report would say, 99% of hot takes would be about how it's wrong or whatever. People's brains would turn off and the opportunity for a conversation would be squandered. There's an opportunity here for more sincere activists to promote meaningful transparency, because now he's put it on the radar of otherwise low-tech-literacy audiences. For me, true transparency is being able to look at code. If your code is interpretable, and it looks okay, it is okay. When it's difficult to interpret, like with a collaborative filtering algorithm used to select newsfeed items, an independent group ought to be able to query the "baked" system or measure user behavior and come to its own conclusions. I wouldn't call this a "transparency report," it's more like an "independent analysis." It would take a while to determine what questions to ask. But to actually answer them would take an afternoon: a database connection, really. After all, they have incredibly comprehensive user behavioral data, so you can pretty much answer anything you can think of. There's no cost burden or competitive disadvantage. Their entire tech infrastructure is built around answering user behavior questions easily. And most of the value is tied up in the data, not the models. The problems they're experiencing are related to their particular implementation of collaborative filtering. If outside groups could see that code (at least), it would be easier to say, run a simulation, and demonstrate what kind of user behavior (or enemy action as it were) makes 10% of people miss 99% of "benign user content" and see 1% of enemy action content. Maybe you don't believe it's implementation related, and you think it's something innate to social media. Well, what if the newsfeed just showed content randomly? Clearly that would bury enemy action content, just because it's so relatively infrequent. It's important not to be too dogmatic with this sort of stuff, because it will obscure your ability to reach across the aisle to stakeholders like Facebook and get them to do stuff in a sincere way. So at its most basic level, sharing the code can't possibly lead to regulatory capture as you describe it. It would be more advanced than the status quo, which is, "Whatever the hell Facebook wants you to hear."
kolbe 8y ago
I'd like to add to this that regulatory capture isn't some benign cancer. I read a really good piece on the history of the Venezuelan economy recently, and a significant factor in their failure as a liberal state and decline into socialism was regulatory capture. Capitalism only works when monopolies are fought/busted. Regulatory capture does the opposite, and in turn tarnishes people's impression of capitalism. I think this should really give a strong impression. Venezuela went from one of the most prosperous nations in the world to what is likely now the worst place in the world for a poor person to live in, and it only took a few decades. There's no reason the US is immune to the same fate, and it started long before socialism with things like regulatory capture. "The Venezuelan economy has a profusion of restrictions and impositions on businesses, particularly in the areas of labor and new business formation. Only the big, well-established companies can afford the high regulatory burden. This is consistent with George Stigler’s (1971) insight on regulatory capture, which abets government creation of monopolies stymieing competition. Further, the high levels of informal or underground economic activity in Venezuela are consistent with existence of a high regulatory burden (see Diaz and Corredor 2008). Unsurprisingly for such a setting, corruption is rampant." [1] [1] https://econjwatch.org/articles/venezuela-without-liberals-there-is-no-liberalism https://econjwatch.org/articles/venezuela-without-liberals-t...
beering 8y ago
Alternative take: this is an attempt by Zuck to push regulation preemptively in order to counter the recent bad press. Better that the gov't create rules affecting all players (all companies affected, including FB) than to continue having just your own company in Washington's crosshairs. Even if he doesn't get to dictate the regulation (thus not achieving regulatory capture), it would still accomplish the mission of keeping the business alive. They will continue selling their ads and making money, regulation or no regulation.
- Moseman23 8y ago
  it's pretty transparent and gross to watch. He's just as clueless about how he's seen as a CEO as he was as a Presidential tire-kicker.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  It's possible for both of these to be true. Supporting regulation - particularly known regulation that it pretty similar to what you have to do anyway to compete internationally - both takes the PR crosshairs off your company and creates a barrier to entry for any potential competitors.

samstave 8y ago

EXACTLY. Here is a surmised sequence of events: CONGRESS: Zuck come testify in front of us ZUCK: Crap! I am not comfortable with that PUBLIC: Zuck looks like a fucking android/alien, also screw FB for messing up our PII CONGRESS: You keep messing with privacy concerns of the public through ways and means we don't understand because we are dinosaurs, corrupt ones at that; how can we make money from you? ZUCK: (to FB C-suite++ legal a-team); HOW THE HELL CAN YOU MAKE ME LOOK SO STUPID! Buy them ASAP LEGAL-A-TEAM: (to the PUBLIC) "Zuck would like to make the internet more connected to our [ZUCK'S] vision of a more secure [FOR ZUCK] internet, which serves the needs [OF ZUCK's] users' privacy [CONTINUED ADDITION OF PII TO FB FOR THE PROFIT AND CONTROL OF FB AND NOW THROUGH THIS, EXTENDING TO TENTACLES IN THE .GOV] (On todays episode of "Zuck learns from GoldmanSachs")

tsunamifury 8y ago
Genuine question: Is it just me or does this reddit-style mugging for karma not really belong on HN?
- kadendogthing 8y ago
  It doesn't belong anywhere.
- klank 8y ago
  How would you describe a "reddit-style mugging for karma"? I didn't find the post you're referring to as having added anything additional to the conversation and I also didn't find it entertaining, which I believe was the poster's goal. However, I wasn't struck with some kind of "this is a bad thing from other platform" vibe.
  - samstave 8y ago
    I appreciate your comment, even if you didn't mine. Thanks.
  - Varcht 8y ago
    I think it got a valid thought across. It works as a sort of shorthand. Would have been 3x longer in essay form.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > It works as a sort of shorthand. Would have been 3x longer in essay form. beering’s sibling comment made essentially the same point in direct expository form, and was much shorter, so I disagree with the suggestion that that rambling narrative is any sort of shorthand.
      - Varcht 8y ago
        Are you stalking me?
  - bredren 8y ago
    I think “decorum” around here is to strive for some kind of unified voice similar to The Economist. I’ve tried some humor or exaggerated voice and it is rarely appreciated with upvotes. One thing I have learned is HN readers like Weekend at Bernie’s—-where my tongue in cheek defense of the film garnered the most comment upvotes I’ve ever received.
    - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
      I upvoted that comment. And I'll upvote this one for mentioning it. That's a great movie.
      - bredren 8y ago
        Not supposed to do this, but I'll spend those upvotes: lol.
- samstave 8y ago
  Genuine Question: Does this thought process of summarizing the shenanigans we see in the world from entities like FB not serve to drive home a quick idea, without having to read pages and pages of text to get the point across not have a place. I have been on HN for more than a decade. I tire of the higher-than-thou bullshit where a dialog of context for various subjects is shunned from some taboo on delivery of the premise. So I reject your position. Would you like me to cite things that I know personally about FB, or cite every single compacted reference made in that comment at great length so you can feel superior in your understanding that you may not have? I mean -- FFS - understand that there are people who want to make a condensed comment on shit that happens in the tech field but I don't want to write a diatribe wit ha bibliography on why "because screw, them, that's why" is a salient summary. (See: on HN "google deep-sixes usenet" on FP today)
  - TAForObvReasons 8y ago
    With FB in particular, many HN denizens owe much of their wealth to the company either directly or indirectly (through acquisitions, seed capital from former employees, etc), so many of the criticisms that point to Zuckerberg in specific are frowned upon. In short, "don't bite the hand that feeds you"
    - rootusrootus 8y ago
      I don't see that too much, to be honest. If there is any sort of corporate love here, it feels more like it's Google that enjoys it, not Facebook.
      - Loughla 8y ago
        Yeah - there are many comments about Facebook's lack of ethics on this site. I'm betting more than any other large tech company. Hell there was even a poster in a different facebook story talking about how it was fun to tell headhunters they refused to apply to facebook because of ethics.
  - tsunamifury 8y ago
- decebalus1 8y ago
  I get what you're saying. The main reason I hate 'The martian' was that to me the whole book sounded like the above post. Like it was written by someone on Reddit.
- root_axis 8y ago
  haha yeah! reddit is so stupid, and the users make dumb comments. HN is for smart people. Nobody here cares about karma, that's for sure!

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

doctorpangloss 8y ago

Eh, it's pretty tough to communicate something really concrete in an op-ed. If he specifically described what a transparency report would say, 99% of hot takes would be about how it's wrong or whatever. People's brains would turn off and the opportunity for a conversation would be squandered. There's an opportunity here for more sincere activists to promote meaningful transparency, because now he's put it on the radar of otherwise low-tech-literacy audiences. For me, true transparency is being able to look at code. If your code is interpretable, and it looks okay, it is okay. When it's difficult to interpret, like with a collaborative filtering algorithm used to select newsfeed items, an independent group ought to be able to query the "baked" system or measure user behavior and come to its own conclusions. I wouldn't call this a "transparency report," it's more like an "independent analysis." It would take a while to determine what questions to ask. But to actually answer them would take an afternoon: a database connection, really. After all, they have incredibly comprehensive user behavioral data, so you can pretty much answer anything you can think of. There's no cost burden or competitive disadvantage. Their entire tech infrastructure is built around answering user behavior questions easily. And most of the value is tied up in the data, not the models. The problems they're experiencing are related to their particular implementation of collaborative filtering. If outside groups could see that code (at least), it would be easier to say, run a simulation, and demonstrate what kind of user behavior (or enemy action as it were) makes 10% of people miss 99% of "benign user content" and see 1% of enemy action content. Maybe you don't believe it's implementation related, and you think it's something innate to social media. Well, what if the newsfeed just showed content randomly? Clearly that would bury enemy action content, just because it's so relatively infrequent. It's important not to be too dogmatic with this sort of stuff, because it will obscure your ability to reach across the aisle to stakeholders like Facebook and get them to do stuff in a sincere way. So at its most basic level, sharing the code can't possibly lead to regulatory capture as you describe it. It would be more advanced than the status quo, which is, "Whatever the hell Facebook wants you to hear."

kolbe 8y ago

I'd like to add to this that regulatory capture isn't some benign cancer. I read a really good piece on the history of the Venezuelan economy recently, and a significant factor in their failure as a liberal state and decline into socialism was regulatory capture. Capitalism only works when monopolies are fought/busted. Regulatory capture does the opposite, and in turn tarnishes people's impression of capitalism. I think this should really give a strong impression. Venezuela went from one of the most prosperous nations in the world to what is likely now the worst place in the world for a poor person to live in, and it only took a few decades. There's no reason the US is immune to the same fate, and it started long before socialism with things like regulatory capture. "The Venezuelan economy has a profusion of restrictions and impositions on businesses, particularly in the areas of labor and new business formation. Only the big, well-established companies can afford the high regulatory burden. This is consistent with George Stigler’s (1971) insight on regulatory capture, which abets government creation of monopolies stymieing competition. Further, the high levels of informal or underground economic activity in Venezuela are consistent with existence of a high regulatory burden (see Diaz and Corredor 2008). Unsurprisingly for such a setting, corruption is rampant." [1] [1] https://econjwatch.org/articles/venezuela-without-liberals-there-is-no-liberalism https://econjwatch.org/articles/venezuela-without-liberals-t...

beering 8y ago

Alternative take: this is an attempt by Zuck to push regulation preemptively in order to counter the recent bad press. Better that the gov't create rules affecting all players (all companies affected, including FB) than to continue having just your own company in Washington's crosshairs. Even if he doesn't get to dictate the regulation (thus not achieving regulatory capture), it would still accomplish the mission of keeping the business alive. They will continue selling their ads and making money, regulation or no regulation.

Moseman23 8y ago
it's pretty transparent and gross to watch. He's just as clueless about how he's seen as a CEO as he was as a Presidential tire-kicker.
nostrademons 8y ago
It's possible for both of these to be true. Supporting regulation - particularly known regulation that it pretty similar to what you have to do anyway to compete internationally - both takes the PR crosshairs off your company and creates a barrier to entry for any potential competitors.