4 ms·

In Norwegian this is called "Føre var prinsippet" or the precautionary principle [1]. This does not apply only to tech but to everything and I personally think

by tyfon 7y ago

In Norwegian this is called "Føre var prinsippet" or the precautionary principle [1]. This does not apply only to tech but to everything and I personally think it is a good idea to not barge into something without considering it. We've done so much damage in the past by acting before thinking. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

jariel 7y ago
"We've done so much damage in the past by acting before thinking." Where has this happened in Social Media? Where is the EU's evidence that FB/Inta etc. have launched products that have caused individual, social harm? We require 'lighting equipment' to be approved ahead of time because people could get shocked and die otherwise. There's no such risk in social media products. What's more, that the EU is being more conservative here, in no way implies that it's citizens are actually 'safer'. For example, the OP's point about cookie notices: they have not materially changed anything other than creating a UI headache. Nobody has changed their behavior due to this notice. In retrospect, there are perhaps other ways this should have been implemented. The EU should make regulations where harm is a real possibility, and ensure that companies are adhering to such laws, but that's a far cry from companies having to provide every country notice ahead of time of product features and services. Every product or service involves the management of at least some kind of personal information, is Ireland prepared to 'review' every feature of every little startups SaaS app, or of the millions of niche little social apps? No. Better to hire some people to investigate claims and breaches of privacy, and to develop good laws.
- Brave-Steak 7y ago
  > Where is the EU's evidence that FB/Inta etc. have launched products that have caused individual, social harm? You mean the complete loss of privacy? That's a harm. It's not something you'd consider harm, but it's something that might be prioritized in a country that isn't the US.
- PedroBatista 7y ago
  > Where is the EU's evidence that FB/Inta etc. have launched products that have caused individual, social harm? I'm sorry, wat?
  - logicchains 7y ago
    That's not an appropriate response to somebody asking for evidence. The hate for Facebook here almost seems cultish sometimes.
  - thu2111 7y ago
    You're making his case for him. There's no evidence. Facebook is not harmful. The people who believe this overlap nearly 100% with people who believe conspiracy theories about "Russian meddling" (like the EU Commission). There's zero need to regulate Facebook. It's about the least harmful company in the world today. Its products have no safety implications. If it has an extended outage GDP probably goes up rather than down as people stop goofing off work. It's half way to being an entertainment company. The only reason this comes up at all is because the European political elites are immersed in a form of groupthink in which they cannot and will not engage with their citizens actual concerns (top concern by the EU's own polling: immigration). So they cast around trying to understand why anyone in the UK would vote to leave the EU and come up with some theory about how it's all Facebook's fault, despite that the EU always loses referendums when people are given a chance to object. So now anything Facebook does must be bad. The EU will continue to be dominated by US tech firms that don't care about what the Commission think for the forseeable future. The only obvious change on the horizon is that a new generation of tech firms, having seen what happened to companies that hired too many employees in Europe, will simply choose to serve the market entirely from abroad where they can ignore EU law at will.
- tyfon 7y ago
  > Where is the EU's evidence that FB/Inta etc. have launched products that have caused individual, social harm? That's the whole point of the precautionary principle, you need to consider it carefully before barging in. You need to find the evidence that it is ok not that it is not ok. But in this case there is already evidence that social media can at least be a catalyst for increasing individual and social harm. I'll just link the first result from googling "facebook myanmar" [1]. There are also cases where leaking of data from dating websites (more relevant to the topic at hand) causes great individual harm [2]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34044506 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34044506
  - jariel 7y ago
    " You need to find the evidence that it is ok not that it is not ok." One of the leading causes of deaths of healthy people in every nation is cars! Do you think we should put the CEO of Volvo in jail for mass murder? Why are you not trying to get GM and Ford shut down immediately for all of the death they care to enable? And consider the vast environmental impact! This notion of 'proving something causes no harm' before using it is unecessary for anything other than literally dangerous products. So foods, chemicals, things that involve electricity, there's very good regulations for those things. But are we going to ban 'Spotify' until you can figure out the long-term effects of that economic model and how it might affect the music industry artists? No. Social Media is a new form of human interaction that has come about for a variety of reasons, and we're going to have to figure it out. People are not dying in the streets, more importantly, those who have challenges with it simply don't have to use it. In between those grey areas, we have to work things out - but this is not specifically a Facebook problem. There are a number of thoughtful regulations that the US or EU could implement, but almost none of them are being suggested, and the example provided in this article proves this to some degree. Ireland is not protecting anyone or accomplishing anything at all with this specific regulatory apparatus.
    - simion314 7y ago
      There are regulations for vehicles, you can't just create a random thing with wheels. So why GDPR that asks you to inform people what you collect and for what purpose you collect is as bad, car manufacturers have a lot of things to put into the cars like mirrors, lights, safety features etc where software companies just need to inform the users and show how they protect the users data, also they have to report when the data is compromised.
- commoner 7y ago
  Facebook is considered, by far, the most problematic major technology company active right now. There is so much content in this article that it has become unmaintainable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook
  - jariel 7y ago
    " by far, the most problematic major technology company active right now." This is ridiculous. Facebook is a social network that allows people to share information with one another, almost always in the terms that the user wants i.e. users have control over their own privacy level. Unlike so many places, Facebook does not sell or share any data with anyone. They don't need to, because they have their own advertising engine. That's it. The list of concerns in this Wikipedia article are mostly misguided or misrepresentative. Most concerns are actually critiques of social media in general, such as "Students have a hard time coping" because they're caught up in social media is a social commentary about new technology, not Facebook. 'Envy' 'Stress' etc. - this is 'Facebooks' fault for allowing people to share information about their lives? The vast majority of people are able to handle their 'social media account', and there's a very easy answer for those who don't want to deal with it - which is to not have an account with Facebook, moreover, this is a general concern, not a Facebook-specific issue. Almost all of the other issues in kind 'Tax Avoidance': FB pays 100% of the taxes they are owed, and don't pay taxes they don't need to. In the context of this article consider that the architect of the EU's ostensible loopholes was Jean Claude Junker (!!!) literally the Pres of the EU Commission who created all these shenanigan rules when he was PM of Tax Haven Luxembourg! It's 100% the EU's fault that their tax laws are wack. If they want a more thoughtful approach to taxation than they should change their laws. Facebook is critiqued for some content moderation issues, as though it's 'their fault' that someone bullies some other person? Again, this is a general social media issue, not a Facebook issue, moreover, everyone would just like clarity on how to deal with the issue. Governments don't provide clear direction, and the press/twitterverse will be in outrage mode whatever happens one way or another. Most hypocritically, the most popular 'solution' around here seems to be 'decentralization' - as if when there is no 'authority' modering content these problems will be solved? Just the opposite! A 'decentralized' social network will be the most unruly place imaginable where all these problems are considerably worse. Imagine ISIS with their 'execution' videos willy nilly, NAZI propaganda, ex-husbands and wives doing a terrible thing to one another, pedophiles, stalkers galore. Facebook is a social network where people can 'share stuff' almost entirely on their own terms. They moderate, but not perfectly and there will never be perfect moderation because nobody can agree on what that is. They are not a bad company, nor is it really even bad technology, like anything, most people use it for fairly benign, normative stuff like sharing cat and wedding videos.

by tyfon 7y ago

jariel 7y ago

"We've done so much damage in the past by acting before thinking." Where has this happened in Social Media? Where is the EU's evidence that FB/Inta etc. have launched products that have caused individual, social harm? We require 'lighting equipment' to be approved ahead of time because people could get shocked and die otherwise. There's no such risk in social media products. What's more, that the EU is being more conservative here, in no way implies that it's citizens are actually 'safer'. For example, the OP's point about cookie notices: they have not materially changed anything other than creating a UI headache. Nobody has changed their behavior due to this notice. In retrospect, there are perhaps other ways this should have been implemented. The EU should make regulations where harm is a real possibility, and ensure that companies are adhering to such laws, but that's a far cry from companies having to provide every country notice ahead of time of product features and services. Every product or service involves the management of at least some kind of personal information, is Ireland prepared to 'review' every feature of every little startups SaaS app, or of the millions of niche little social apps? No. Better to hire some people to investigate claims and breaches of privacy, and to develop good laws.

Brave-Steak 7y ago
> Where is the EU's evidence that FB/Inta etc. have launched products that have caused individual, social harm? You mean the complete loss of privacy? That's a harm. It's not something you'd consider harm, but it's something that might be prioritized in a country that isn't the US.
PedroBatista 7y ago
> Where is the EU's evidence that FB/Inta etc. have launched products that have caused individual, social harm? I'm sorry, wat?
- logicchains 7y ago
  That's not an appropriate response to somebody asking for evidence. The hate for Facebook here almost seems cultish sometimes.
- thu2111 7y ago
  You're making his case for him. There's no evidence. Facebook is not harmful. The people who believe this overlap nearly 100% with people who believe conspiracy theories about "Russian meddling" (like the EU Commission). There's zero need to regulate Facebook. It's about the least harmful company in the world today. Its products have no safety implications. If it has an extended outage GDP probably goes up rather than down as people stop goofing off work. It's half way to being an entertainment company. The only reason this comes up at all is because the European political elites are immersed in a form of groupthink in which they cannot and will not engage with their citizens actual concerns (top concern by the EU's own polling: immigration). So they cast around trying to understand why anyone in the UK would vote to leave the EU and come up with some theory about how it's all Facebook's fault, despite that the EU always loses referendums when people are given a chance to object. So now anything Facebook does must be bad. The EU will continue to be dominated by US tech firms that don't care about what the Commission think for the forseeable future. The only obvious change on the horizon is that a new generation of tech firms, having seen what happened to companies that hired too many employees in Europe, will simply choose to serve the market entirely from abroad where they can ignore EU law at will.
tyfon 7y ago
> Where is the EU's evidence that FB/Inta etc. have launched products that have caused individual, social harm? That's the whole point of the precautionary principle, you need to consider it carefully before barging in. You need to find the evidence that it is ok not that it is not ok. But in this case there is already evidence that social media can at least be a catalyst for increasing individual and social harm. I'll just link the first result from googling "facebook myanmar" [1]. There are also cases where leaking of data from dating websites (more relevant to the topic at hand) causes great individual harm [2]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34044506 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34044506
- jariel 7y ago
  " You need to find the evidence that it is ok not that it is not ok." One of the leading causes of deaths of healthy people in every nation is cars! Do you think we should put the CEO of Volvo in jail for mass murder? Why are you not trying to get GM and Ford shut down immediately for all of the death they care to enable? And consider the vast environmental impact! This notion of 'proving something causes no harm' before using it is unecessary for anything other than literally dangerous products. So foods, chemicals, things that involve electricity, there's very good regulations for those things. But are we going to ban 'Spotify' until you can figure out the long-term effects of that economic model and how it might affect the music industry artists? No. Social Media is a new form of human interaction that has come about for a variety of reasons, and we're going to have to figure it out. People are not dying in the streets, more importantly, those who have challenges with it simply don't have to use it. In between those grey areas, we have to work things out - but this is not specifically a Facebook problem. There are a number of thoughtful regulations that the US or EU could implement, but almost none of them are being suggested, and the example provided in this article proves this to some degree. Ireland is not protecting anyone or accomplishing anything at all with this specific regulatory apparatus.
  - simion314 7y ago
    There are regulations for vehicles, you can't just create a random thing with wheels. So why GDPR that asks you to inform people what you collect and for what purpose you collect is as bad, car manufacturers have a lot of things to put into the cars like mirrors, lights, safety features etc where software companies just need to inform the users and show how they protect the users data, also they have to report when the data is compromised.
commoner 7y ago
Facebook is considered, by far, the most problematic major technology company active right now. There is so much content in this article that it has become unmaintainable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook
- jariel 7y ago
  " by far, the most problematic major technology company active right now." This is ridiculous. Facebook is a social network that allows people to share information with one another, almost always in the terms that the user wants i.e. users have control over their own privacy level. Unlike so many places, Facebook does not sell or share any data with anyone. They don't need to, because they have their own advertising engine. That's it. The list of concerns in this Wikipedia article are mostly misguided or misrepresentative. Most concerns are actually critiques of social media in general, such as "Students have a hard time coping" because they're caught up in social media is a social commentary about new technology, not Facebook. 'Envy' 'Stress' etc. - this is 'Facebooks' fault for allowing people to share information about their lives? The vast majority of people are able to handle their 'social media account', and there's a very easy answer for those who don't want to deal with it - which is to not have an account with Facebook, moreover, this is a general concern, not a Facebook-specific issue. Almost all of the other issues in kind 'Tax Avoidance': FB pays 100% of the taxes they are owed, and don't pay taxes they don't need to. In the context of this article consider that the architect of the EU's ostensible loopholes was Jean Claude Junker (!!!) literally the Pres of the EU Commission who created all these shenanigan rules when he was PM of Tax Haven Luxembourg! It's 100% the EU's fault that their tax laws are wack. If they want a more thoughtful approach to taxation than they should change their laws. Facebook is critiqued for some content moderation issues, as though it's 'their fault' that someone bullies some other person? Again, this is a general social media issue, not a Facebook issue, moreover, everyone would just like clarity on how to deal with the issue. Governments don't provide clear direction, and the press/twitterverse will be in outrage mode whatever happens one way or another. Most hypocritically, the most popular 'solution' around here seems to be 'decentralization' - as if when there is no 'authority' modering content these problems will be solved? Just the opposite! A 'decentralized' social network will be the most unruly place imaginable where all these problems are considerably worse. Imagine ISIS with their 'execution' videos willy nilly, NAZI propaganda, ex-husbands and wives doing a terrible thing to one another, pedophiles, stalkers galore. Facebook is a social network where people can 'share stuff' almost entirely on their own terms. They moderate, but not perfectly and there will never be perfect moderation because nobody can agree on what that is. They are not a bad company, nor is it really even bad technology, like anything, most people use it for fairly benign, normative stuff like sharing cat and wedding videos.