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> Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia told BuzzFeed News that the revelation of a Facebook employee being bribed to reactivate scammy ads was further evidence of the u

by lwb 7y ago

> Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia told BuzzFeed News that the revelation of a Facebook employee being bribed to reactivate scammy ads was further evidence of the unaccountability of platforms and the corruption endemic to digital advertising markets. I'm confused. If anything, this seems to me like evidence that Facebook is holding people accountable for violating regulations on the platform.

sg47 7y ago
In this case accountability would have involved periodically reviewing and catching banned accounts that have been reviewed and making sure they had a valid reason to be revived.
AngeloAnolin 7y ago
I think this pertains to the fact of how easy it was for people / organizations to directly contact people inside Facebook to do things at their bidding. FB does hold their staff accountable but the Senator wants more safeguard so that it is very difficult for such an event to be carried out successfully.
throwaway_tech 7y ago
When it comes to corruption and being unaccountable...you must defer to the Senator, it is after all their very area of expertise. If there is one thing politicians know and understand it is the corruption endemic to big money accounts, back-door access and bribes...just look at all the Senators donors and public meetings with "constituents" in the capital building. Senator's Campaign Finance: https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00002097 https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=... Number 3 donor...Amazon.com. Yet, the Senator doesn't seem to concerned with Amazon's practices that include selling counterfeit products or prevalent paid and outright fake reviews.
kevinh 7y ago
The article continues: > “For over four years, I have raised concerns to the [Federal Trade Commission] that behavioral advertising markets are rife with fraud – not just in the form of clickfraud but, exploiting the scale of large platforms, in scams and criminal schemes that directly exploit American consumers,” he said in a statement. “Because of Section 230, neither the victims of these schemes nor state [attorneys general] can seek to hold the platforms accountable for their continued facilitation of these frauds.” Which suggests that he does not want to rely solely on Facebook policing itself for accountability.
- tedunangst 7y ago
  That sounds like a smokescreen for "section 230 let's people say things about me that I don't like and we need to find a way to repeal it."
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    It could be either. Conflicts of interest here are huge.
  - nothrabannosir 7y ago
    As with a short seller lambasting a company, personal incentives can align with the public good. Can.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    For a Senator (or any other public figure), the Constitution and First Amendment case law do that (and in a superset of the circumstances to which Section 230 applies) so much that Section 230 has negligible impact, and Warner isn't (unlike, say, Donald Trump) particularly litigious on the kinds of things people say about him whether or not 230 is applicable such that there would be a reason to think he'd be seeking every minute fraction of a legal advantage on that kind of issue.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
austincheney 7y ago
Reactive versus proactive, which where I believe the Senator is speaking to. If Facebook were proactively monitoring for this the way most organizations monitor PII they would be more accountable.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mehrdadn 7y ago
I never understood why firing is seen as sufficient punishment for bad actors inside a company. There are so many situations where the payoff is still much higher even if you get fired.
- stickfigure 7y ago
  What more do you want? Criminal prosecution for violating Facebook's internal policy?
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    How about more preventive measures rather than just reactionary ones? Maybe stronger security measures that make it much harder if not physically impossible for one person to do much damage in the first place? As for prosecution (whether civil or criminal) - I don't know, if there's a law that can enforce it, should that not be on the table? And if there isn't, then perhaps there should be?
  - ardit33 7y ago
    Yes. For taking money/profiting. They didn't do it just it by 'mistake', or by incompetence. How do you think mafia operates in Italy? They infiltrate their solders in every part of the government (especially local government), or even private companies where they have interests. If they can't, then they bribe them.
    - draw_down 7y ago
      What exactly would the crime be, here? If you really want this, think it all the way out.
      - gpm 7y ago
        Using existing laws: In general, fraud against the company. In this specific case, you might be able to throw in conspiracy to violate the CFAA. Using new laws: I would be perfectly happy to have a "corporate espionage/bribery" law that made it criminal to accept money personally to change your behavior as an agent of a company. I would prefer it if that law only applied when you and the company opted into it via a contract to minimize disruption to any existing schemes where that is considered acceptable behavior.
riazrizvi 7y ago
A very cheap way to appear to be holding yourself accountable, that has been used since the dawn of civilization, is to offer a scapegoat as a sacrifice to the gods, then you can carry on as usual. What incentive is there for this company to continue to behave, now that you have been pacified with this token gesture? Laws are stronger incentives because even though you still can't see what the company is doing, they are a real deterrent. Because the company knows that a disgruntled employee might one day blow the whistle if they carry on as before...
Koremat6666 7y ago
Sen. Mark Warner must tell us how many of his colleagues in Congress have gone to jail over far serious crimes.
elliekelly 7y ago
In this case it appears Facebook held the person accountable only after journalists started asking questions. That suggests Facebook either didn’t know what was happening or (less likely) didn’t care. Any system that relies on reporters to identify policy violations is weak to nonexistent.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
OrgNet 7y ago
low level employee is why this was allowed....
Johnny555 7y ago
I'm confused. If anything, this seems to me like evidence that Facebook is holding people accountable for violating regulations on the platform. This would have more weight if Facebook had discovered this on their own, but it was an outside investigation that uncovered it. Firing people once they are outted by an external agency is pretty weak accountability of their platform. And note that this was a contractor so should have had higher scrutiny than a full-time employee, but I know from personal experience that it's often the opposite - the contract company signed a contract saying that they'll abide by all of the rules, so no need to monitor them, after all, they signed a contract. A company spokesperson confirmed that an unnamed worker was fired after inquiries from BuzzFeed News sparked an internal investigation

by lwb 7y ago

sg47 7y ago

In this case accountability would have involved periodically reviewing and catching banned accounts that have been reviewed and making sure they had a valid reason to be revived.

AngeloAnolin 7y ago

I think this pertains to the fact of how easy it was for people / organizations to directly contact people inside Facebook to do things at their bidding. FB does hold their staff accountable but the Senator wants more safeguard so that it is very difficult for such an event to be carried out successfully.

throwaway_tech 7y ago

When it comes to corruption and being unaccountable...you must defer to the Senator, it is after all their very area of expertise. If there is one thing politicians know and understand it is the corruption endemic to big money accounts, back-door access and bribes...just look at all the Senators donors and public meetings with "constituents" in the capital building. Senator's Campaign Finance: https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00002097 https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=... Number 3 donor...Amazon.com. Yet, the Senator doesn't seem to concerned with Amazon's practices that include selling counterfeit products or prevalent paid and outright fake reviews.

kevinh 7y ago

The article continues: > “For over four years, I have raised concerns to the [Federal Trade Commission] that behavioral advertising markets are rife with fraud – not just in the form of clickfraud but, exploiting the scale of large platforms, in scams and criminal schemes that directly exploit American consumers,” he said in a statement. “Because of Section 230, neither the victims of these schemes nor state [attorneys general] can seek to hold the platforms accountable for their continued facilitation of these frauds.” Which suggests that he does not want to rely solely on Facebook policing itself for accountability.

tedunangst 7y ago
That sounds like a smokescreen for "section 230 let's people say things about me that I don't like and we need to find a way to repeal it."
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  It could be either. Conflicts of interest here are huge.
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  As with a short seller lambasting a company, personal incentives can align with the public good. Can.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  For a Senator (or any other public figure), the Constitution and First Amendment case law do that (and in a superset of the circumstances to which Section 230 applies) so much that Section 230 has negligible impact, and Warner isn't (unlike, say, Donald Trump) particularly litigious on the kinds of things people say about him whether or not 230 is applicable such that there would be a reason to think he'd be seeking every minute fraction of a legal advantage on that kind of issue.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

austincheney 7y ago

Reactive versus proactive, which where I believe the Senator is speaking to. If Facebook were proactively monitoring for this the way most organizations monitor PII they would be more accountable.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mehrdadn 7y ago

I never understood why firing is seen as sufficient punishment for bad actors inside a company. There are so many situations where the payoff is still much higher even if you get fired.

stickfigure 7y ago
What more do you want? Criminal prosecution for violating Facebook's internal policy?
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  How about more preventive measures rather than just reactionary ones? Maybe stronger security measures that make it much harder if not physically impossible for one person to do much damage in the first place? As for prosecution (whether civil or criminal) - I don't know, if there's a law that can enforce it, should that not be on the table? And if there isn't, then perhaps there should be?
- ardit33 7y ago
  Yes. For taking money/profiting. They didn't do it just it by 'mistake', or by incompetence. How do you think mafia operates in Italy? They infiltrate their solders in every part of the government (especially local government), or even private companies where they have interests. If they can't, then they bribe them.
  - draw_down 7y ago
    What exactly would the crime be, here? If you really want this, think it all the way out.
    - gpm 7y ago
      Using existing laws: In general, fraud against the company. In this specific case, you might be able to throw in conspiracy to violate the CFAA. Using new laws: I would be perfectly happy to have a "corporate espionage/bribery" law that made it criminal to accept money personally to change your behavior as an agent of a company. I would prefer it if that law only applied when you and the company opted into it via a contract to minimize disruption to any existing schemes where that is considered acceptable behavior.

riazrizvi 7y ago

A very cheap way to appear to be holding yourself accountable, that has been used since the dawn of civilization, is to offer a scapegoat as a sacrifice to the gods, then you can carry on as usual. What incentive is there for this company to continue to behave, now that you have been pacified with this token gesture? Laws are stronger incentives because even though you still can't see what the company is doing, they are a real deterrent. Because the company knows that a disgruntled employee might one day blow the whistle if they carry on as before...

Koremat6666 7y ago

Sen. Mark Warner must tell us how many of his colleagues in Congress have gone to jail over far serious crimes.

elliekelly 7y ago

In this case it appears Facebook held the person accountable only after journalists started asking questions. That suggests Facebook either didn’t know what was happening or (less likely) didn’t care. Any system that relies on reporters to identify policy violations is weak to nonexistent.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

OrgNet 7y ago

low level employee is why this was allowed....

Johnny555 7y ago

I'm confused. If anything, this seems to me like evidence that Facebook is holding people accountable for violating regulations on the platform. This would have more weight if Facebook had discovered this on their own, but it was an outside investigation that uncovered it. Firing people once they are outted by an external agency is pretty weak accountability of their platform. And note that this was a contractor so should have had higher scrutiny than a full-time employee, but I know from personal experience that it's often the opposite - the contract company signed a contract saying that they'll abide by all of the rules, so no need to monitor them, after all, they signed a contract. A company spokesperson confirmed that an unnamed worker was fired after inquiries from BuzzFeed News sparked an internal investigation