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Oh wow, that's really rough: "Monique Goyens – director-general of BEUC, which is also known as The European Consumer Association – is blunter. 'We were blackm
by akavel 7y ago
Oh wow, that's really rough:
"Monique Goyens – director-general of BEUC, which is also known as The European Consumer Association – is blunter. 'We were blackmailed,' she says. [...]
Facebook’s chief lobbyist, Richard Allan – another member of the expert group – said [...] to another group member: 'He threatened that if we did not stop talking about competition tools, Facebook would stop its support for journalistic and academic projects.'"
- mc32 7y agoAll of this “do good” nonsense FB and Google do is just another tool in their arsenal to support and serve their main business. They don’t care who it helps or hurts. They only care that these proxies help them.
- szbalint 7y agoI think the really damning bit is: > According to Frau-Meigs, independent funding for academics as well as journalists is extremely important. “Google and Facebook are paying these partnerships from their direct marketing arm, not through more neutral foundations,” she says. This seems to be implying that Facebook and Google are paying these partnerships partly or mainly to coopt the researchers in order to avoid public relations or regulatory issues.
- Nasrudith 7y agoThat is a funny Freudian slip on her part for someone involved with the government. Blackmail implies they were doing something illegal or immoral - extortion implies they were innocent and threatened.
- Assadi 7y agoAlternatively: a Belgian makes a mistake, one that is common even amongst natives, in a foreign language
- DoctorOetker 7y agocould it be a machine translation from "chantage" to "blackmail" ? "chantage" in Dutch doesn't sound like it necessarily implies the target has committed a crime...
- narag 7y agoActually the word should be 'bribe', shouldn't it?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- chrisseaton 7y ago> Monique Goyens ... 'We were blackmailed' Blackmailing is telling people that you're been doing something illegal or immoral if you don't meet demands. Is the BEUC admitting here that they were doing something illegal or immoral?
- bitL 7y agoProbably not a native English speaker.
- chrisseaton 7y agoDoesn't seem advisable to make serious legal statements if you're not confident in the language - let an expert speak on your behalf.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y agoWas this said under oath or something?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- apexalpha 7y agoThat's rich coming from someone who probably speaks one language. 99,9% of people understand what she means, even if it isn't the legally correct word. The other 0,01% are pedantics like yourself. Furthermore there is no evidence that she used this word, the interview might've been in Dutch or French and translated by the authors.
- chrisseaton 7y ago> The other 0,01% are pedantics like yourself. The noun is 'pedants'.
- pilsetnieks 7y ago
- _pmf_ 7y ago> "if we did not stop talking about competition tools, Facebook would stop its support for journalistic [...] projects" I don't see a downside.