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There definitely is a difference between someone accidentally tracking dog poo into your house vs someone doing it intentionally; in the first case, you all the

There definitely is a difference between someone accidentally tracking dog poo into your house vs someone doing it intentionally; in the first case, you all them to clean it up, and in the second case you break the friendship and/or seek criminal prosection. Likewise for big companies. If a company is acting badly, you need to figure out if it was intentional. In both cases you seek damages, but your approach to making sure it never happens again will be very different.

firstfewshells 8y ago
Criminal prosecution for dog poo? You must be kidding me.
- julianj 8y ago
  Wouldn't the intentional smearing of feces over someones carpet throughout their home qualify as vandalism?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
onlyrealcuzzo 8y ago
Right. That's like saying there's not a difference in involuntary manslaughter and murder. There is. Intent is very important. That's WHY so many people focus on the intention.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tty2300 8y ago
  A logical reason to care about intent is that malicious people will likely do it again and can not be trusted in the future where as people who make a mistake will avoid doing it again
  - sagarm 8y ago
    For a corporation, "avoiding doing it again" means dedicating resources to preventing a repeat of that type of "mistake": audits, privacy reviews, etc. The choice not to dedicate those resources up front was an intentional one.
scotchmi_st 8y ago
> There definitely is a difference between someone accidentally tracking dog poo into your house vs someone doing it intentionally; in the first case, you all them to clean it up, and in the second case you break the friendship and/or seek criminal prosection. But the point is that this assumes you're able to tell the difference between the two cases- intent is often a really hard thing to prove. And often discussions about whether Facebook acted in good faith when it did certain things neglect the fact that they made a big mess everywhere, that needs sorting out regardless of their intent.
- perfunctory 8y ago
  > hard thing to prove It is and yet the legal system is busy with these sorts of proves all the time. e.g. if you have a professional insurance and caused some damage by mistake - that's covered, if you cause damage deliberately - it's not.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- sarcasmOrTears 8y ago
  It's hard to prove but for some strange reason they always have the resources when it's time to come after the little guy and they don't when it's the big guy and it's also more obvious
- dhimes 8y ago
  But if we can reduce that to a second-order effect we will be better off. For example, if you made the rule ('regulation') that "shoes shall not be worn in the house" then you can avert the situation and never need to try to determine motivation. I think this is basic good that regulations- thoughtful ones- serv. Because if Facebook makes money by being evil, then their competitors will be pressured to do the same in order to stay in business. But by leveling the playing field you can help prevent these monopolies from getting so big and powerful. We can't rely on businesses to act "morally." That ship has sailed. We have to compel them to behave, not by social shaming but by making non-compliance painful and repeated non-compliance an existential threat.
sharkjacobs 8y ago
Analogies break down due to the difference of scale between individuals and the biggest companies in the world. If a company makes an "innocent" unintentional mistake, it can be attributed in part to their choosing not to put resources towards detecting and avoiding that kind of error
kerng 8y ago
Repeated behavior probably has to be taken into account also, like if your friend does it 10 times - you'll want to break up that friendship. It's hardly an accident at that point anymore, but intentionally or (intentionally) carelessly done. That's where we are with Facebook I think.
- doctorpangloss 8y ago
  Has this really where our discourse has gone? Dog poo? Break up friendships? This isn’t stupid fucking kid stuff anymore. It’s not debate club. You’re inheriting society, you have to start talking and acting like god damn adults and for once get mad when an utterly soulless corporation screws this society over and gets a god damn fine instead of jail.
  - exergy 8y ago
    Nah. You're getting too invested into it. Not much Joe Public can do methinks
    - cjslep 8y ago
      Getting too invested? In what, the society that surrounds each individual? I don't think that is possible. There is a difference between empowerment ("Joe Public can't do much to change society") versus investing (literally putting money into local businesses, demanding better behavior, etc). I have met a lot of my American peers who believe their individual liberty absolves them of responsibility to the society they live in, which is entirely opposite: their personal liberty is granted precisely because of the society they live in.
tripzilch 8y ago
> Likewise for big companies. If a company is acting badly, you need to figure out if it was intentional. I disagree that it's likewise for big companies. Corporations like that don't really have intentions; every intention is fundamentally about profit. Profit is in fact both its intention as well as its reward/punishment. It's really the only way to properly "communicate" with an entity like that. A corporation is not a human being. And just like it's not useful to try to reason with (or attribute human-like intention to) a cat, it's basically futile to do so with a corporation. Any time that human-like reasoning seems to apply with a corporation, it really only happened because the reasoning happens to align with its profit intentions. Edit: this is less true for smaller companies, but for a multinational it's pretty much a given. Also, there's something in the way that large companies are structured, that actual accountability (like you'd find with humans or small groups) seems to disappear and slip between the gaps of hierarchy. Lacking accountability, attributing intent becomes guesswork.
dplgk 8y ago
Seems to be intentional as a system for taking a user's password, scanning their contacts and then uploading them requires specifically built tools with intention. Stepping in dog poo and tracking it into a house requires only shoes that you already wear and walking that you already do. That doesn't require any new intentions or tools to be built

firstfewshells 8y ago

Criminal prosecution for dog poo? You must be kidding me.

julianj 8y ago
Wouldn't the intentional smearing of feces over someones carpet throughout their home qualify as vandalism?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

onlyrealcuzzo 8y ago

Right. That's like saying there's not a difference in involuntary manslaughter and murder. There is. Intent is very important. That's WHY so many people focus on the intention.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tty2300 8y ago
A logical reason to care about intent is that malicious people will likely do it again and can not be trusted in the future where as people who make a mistake will avoid doing it again
- sagarm 8y ago
  For a corporation, "avoiding doing it again" means dedicating resources to preventing a repeat of that type of "mistake": audits, privacy reviews, etc. The choice not to dedicate those resources up front was an intentional one.

scotchmi_st 8y ago

> There definitely is a difference between someone accidentally tracking dog poo into your house vs someone doing it intentionally; in the first case, you all them to clean it up, and in the second case you break the friendship and/or seek criminal prosection. But the point is that this assumes you're able to tell the difference between the two cases- intent is often a really hard thing to prove. And often discussions about whether Facebook acted in good faith when it did certain things neglect the fact that they made a big mess everywhere, that needs sorting out regardless of their intent.

perfunctory 8y ago
> hard thing to prove It is and yet the legal system is busy with these sorts of proves all the time. e.g. if you have a professional insurance and caused some damage by mistake - that's covered, if you cause damage deliberately - it's not.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
sarcasmOrTears 8y ago
It's hard to prove but for some strange reason they always have the resources when it's time to come after the little guy and they don't when it's the big guy and it's also more obvious
dhimes 8y ago
But if we can reduce that to a second-order effect we will be better off. For example, if you made the rule ('regulation') that "shoes shall not be worn in the house" then you can avert the situation and never need to try to determine motivation. I think this is basic good that regulations- thoughtful ones- serv. Because if Facebook makes money by being evil, then their competitors will be pressured to do the same in order to stay in business. But by leveling the playing field you can help prevent these monopolies from getting so big and powerful. We can't rely on businesses to act "morally." That ship has sailed. We have to compel them to behave, not by social shaming but by making non-compliance painful and repeated non-compliance an existential threat.

sharkjacobs 8y ago

Analogies break down due to the difference of scale between individuals and the biggest companies in the world. If a company makes an "innocent" unintentional mistake, it can be attributed in part to their choosing not to put resources towards detecting and avoiding that kind of error

kerng 8y ago

Repeated behavior probably has to be taken into account also, like if your friend does it 10 times - you'll want to break up that friendship. It's hardly an accident at that point anymore, but intentionally or (intentionally) carelessly done. That's where we are with Facebook I think.

doctorpangloss 8y ago
Has this really where our discourse has gone? Dog poo? Break up friendships? This isn’t stupid fucking kid stuff anymore. It’s not debate club. You’re inheriting society, you have to start talking and acting like god damn adults and for once get mad when an utterly soulless corporation screws this society over and gets a god damn fine instead of jail.
- exergy 8y ago
  Nah. You're getting too invested into it. Not much Joe Public can do methinks
  - cjslep 8y ago
    Getting too invested? In what, the society that surrounds each individual? I don't think that is possible. There is a difference between empowerment ("Joe Public can't do much to change society") versus investing (literally putting money into local businesses, demanding better behavior, etc). I have met a lot of my American peers who believe their individual liberty absolves them of responsibility to the society they live in, which is entirely opposite: their personal liberty is granted precisely because of the society they live in.

tripzilch 8y ago

> Likewise for big companies. If a company is acting badly, you need to figure out if it was intentional. I disagree that it's likewise for big companies. Corporations like that don't really have intentions; every intention is fundamentally about profit. Profit is in fact both its intention as well as its reward/punishment. It's really the only way to properly "communicate" with an entity like that. A corporation is not a human being. And just like it's not useful to try to reason with (or attribute human-like intention to) a cat, it's basically futile to do so with a corporation. Any time that human-like reasoning seems to apply with a corporation, it really only happened because the reasoning happens to align with its profit intentions. Edit: this is less true for smaller companies, but for a multinational it's pretty much a given. Also, there's something in the way that large companies are structured, that actual accountability (like you'd find with humans or small groups) seems to disappear and slip between the gaps of hierarchy. Lacking accountability, attributing intent becomes guesswork.

dplgk 8y ago

Seems to be intentional as a system for taking a user's password, scanning their contacts and then uploading them requires specifically built tools with intention. Stepping in dog poo and tracking it into a house requires only shoes that you already wear and walking that you already do. That doesn't require any new intentions or tools to be built