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> how can we punish Facebook simply for being Facebook Exactly. Let's pursue the idea of fines big enough to cripple a company. Why stop at Facebook? Couldn't

> how can we punish Facebook simply for being Facebook Exactly. Let's pursue the idea of fines big enough to cripple a company. Why stop at Facebook? Couldn't you apply the same policy arguments to the banks that brought us the housing crisis, to the pharmaceutical companies that brought us the opioid crisis, to oil companies, tobacco companies, and so on? Why didn't the people calling for Facebook's death by fine make the same arguments in these other cases? Because they don't really believe in this as a general policy. It's stupid as a general policy. It puts the government in charge of picking winners and losers, and even as a pretty extreme leftist I don't think that's right. Regulation should be general, not targeted to favor or punish one company, and I think proponents of a "kill the company" fine know that. They just want to kill Facebook, and a fine is just the tool that comes to hand. It's dishonest, and it's bad general policy. People who truly care about privacy would be proposing regulations and fines that can apply to anyone, not just to their self-chosen nemesis.

Despegar 8y ago
>Why didn't the people calling for Facebook's death by fine make the same arguments in these other cases? Because they don't really believe in this as a general policy. This is complete nonsense and shows you weren't paying attention or have forgotten what happened after the GFC. The big criticism of the Obama administration to this day from the left is that no bankers were put in jail. The Tea Party movement was a right wing reaction to the bank bailouts. At least the GFC gave us Dodd-Frank. I'm hoping for a GDPR clone to come out of the tech industry's GFC.
- notacoward 8y ago
  > This is complete nonsense Please read the site guidelines. > This is complete nonsense and shows you weren't paying attention or have forgotten what happened after the GFC. We're not talking about jail, though that's an interesting conversation to have. We're talking about fines big enough to put a company out of business. What banks went out of business because of government action? What pharmaceutical companies? What tobacco companies. I'll bet I was paying much closer attention than you, and I didn't see anywhere this level of "add another zero" hysteria then. Even people who didn't totally agree with "too big to fail" seemed to agree with enough of it to stop short of where they are now regarding Facebook. > I'm hoping for a GDPR clone to come out of the tech industry's GFC So am I. It just has to be general regulation that can be enforced fairly on anyone who transgresses, not a targeted hit against the pundits' favorite target.
tracker1 8y ago
I'd suggest that in the other cases it was far worse... In the housing crisis we bailed them out. WTF did we bail out a company that backed a bet they couldn't afford to pay? Let them fail. As to the acts of pharma companies, some of them rightly deserve to be crushed. You can execute a person for killing, you should be able to execute a corporation for the same. Facebook is hardly even comparable. I don't think FB should be crushed, but I think FB should be more transparent (as should most corporations imho).

Despegar 8y ago

>Why didn't the people calling for Facebook's death by fine make the same arguments in these other cases? Because they don't really believe in this as a general policy. This is complete nonsense and shows you weren't paying attention or have forgotten what happened after the GFC. The big criticism of the Obama administration to this day from the left is that no bankers were put in jail. The Tea Party movement was a right wing reaction to the bank bailouts. At least the GFC gave us Dodd-Frank. I'm hoping for a GDPR clone to come out of the tech industry's GFC.

notacoward 8y ago
> This is complete nonsense Please read the site guidelines. > This is complete nonsense and shows you weren't paying attention or have forgotten what happened after the GFC. We're not talking about jail, though that's an interesting conversation to have. We're talking about fines big enough to put a company out of business. What banks went out of business because of government action? What pharmaceutical companies? What tobacco companies. I'll bet I was paying much closer attention than you, and I didn't see anywhere this level of "add another zero" hysteria then. Even people who didn't totally agree with "too big to fail" seemed to agree with enough of it to stop short of where they are now regarding Facebook. > I'm hoping for a GDPR clone to come out of the tech industry's GFC So am I. It just has to be general regulation that can be enforced fairly on anyone who transgresses, not a targeted hit against the pundits' favorite target.

tracker1 8y ago

I'd suggest that in the other cases it was far worse... In the housing crisis we bailed them out. WTF did we bail out a company that backed a bet they couldn't afford to pay? Let them fail. As to the acts of pharma companies, some of them rightly deserve to be crushed. You can execute a person for killing, you should be able to execute a corporation for the same. Facebook is hardly even comparable. I don't think FB should be crushed, but I think FB should be more transparent (as should most corporations imho).