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Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets
- mcv 7y agoThe most important regulation for Facebook is that they should provide a way to communicate with other social networks, so someone on Diaspora, MeWe or Friendica can follow people on Facebook and vice versa. That way, people won't be forced onto Facebook simply because their friends are there. And once that has been done, it'll also be easier to cut Facebook into smaller chunks if it turns out they're still a monopolist.
- Tyr42 7y agoWould this also make it easier to slurp data from Diaspora, in the name of providing friend recommendations?
- ViViDboarder 7y agoNo. Other platforms already have open APIs, Facebook is the one that has no interoperability. It would make it easier for a Diaspora server to slurp data from Facebook.
- zentiggr 7y agoOther parties can always close their APIs to FB data slurping, and just share the minimum that's required to interact. Having FB actually implement even that level of interaction would be a net gain in reducing the siloing effect.
- yalogin 7y agoThey want to get to a point where they just say we follow all laws strictly and continue to violate privacy. That is why zuckerberg keeps bringing it up. Right now he is asking for laws and he wants to get to a point where he can hide behind laws and say “the law has t caught up yet so it’s not our fault we sold your data to the Russians and Chinese “.
- diogenescynic 7y agoBury their potential competitors in compliance costs so no one can ever dethrone them.
- skohan 7y agoClassic regulatory capture. Once you're big enough lobby effectively, get legislators to pull the ladder up from behind you. This reminds me: I was working at a small health services startup in 2009. We had a good relationship with a number of small-scale healthcare providers, and when the ARRA was passed mandating that all providers move to electronic health records, we evaluated the concept of getting into that business. We concluded that there was so much legal red tape in that sector that the only way to legally create an EHR product would be if your lawyers were the ones writing the laws governing them (which would have been true for Epic and McKessen).
- dontdoitpls 7y agoBlows my mind how many people ignore this problem when they demand more regulations.
- dmix 7y agoThey always talk about the big evil Facebooks of the world when they demand regulations that hit entire industries and mostly just keep the same big companies in power. The regulations never just target the big firms who caused the individual incidents that caused the outrage or the individuals only doing bad behaviour. Nor does the regulations go away as industries adapt, change for the better, or get disrupted over the course of decades the same old laws apply, further keeping old entrenched powers in place and their negative anti-consumer behaviour which markets were attempting to correct. It's the story of modern America industry. And it always starts with good intentions.
- take_a_breath 7y agoIt blows my mind how many people talk about over-regulation but almost never target regulatory capture. Examples include liquor laws in Indiana and Texas not allowing Tesla to sell cars direct-to-customer.
- CryptoPunk 7y agoThe answer to technology is technology. People need better tools for communication and authentication, but tools are public goods, and the market under produces public goods because there is no way a producer of public goods can capture the value generated through private property rights, and so there's no mechanism in the market to sustain and incentivize producers. The solution will make both free market advocates and government intervention advocates happy: use public revenue to create better communication and authentication tools. Let consumers freely choose between the tools provided by private enterprise and those produced by government funded development. If the government fails, consumers are no worse off: they still have their market borne options. If it succeeds, they have better options than they did before. Regulation of private enterprise is lazy, authoritarian and a case of putting all of one's eggs in one basket.
- aadams 7y agoThey’re asking for this to make it harder for the competition. Simple. Happens in many industries too.
- satisfaction 7y agoThey are trying to gatekeep.
- carboi 7y agoa typical example of a big company trying to put up barriers to entry by using politicians who want to please the public with worthless (and damaging) regulations and policies.
- raverbashing 7y agoAnd may I add: politicians that don't understand anything about the internet
- WC3w6pXxgGd 7y agoYep. It's a very common phenomenon called Regulatory Capture.
- symplee 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- tylerl 7y agoExcept no. That's where the regulators fundamentally agree with the regulated company. This is a different but also common phenomenon. Well established companies tend to favor strict compliance requirements with harsh penalties and difficult targets. The big companies can hit those targets because they can afford to sink time and money into activities that don't make money. Small companies can't. It isn't necessarily about being anti-competitive. The requirements may be the right thing to do, and better for everyone. Except startups generally can't afford it. In fact, startups are usually absolutely crap at privacy, security, and other elements of social responsibility.
- Dumblydorr 7y agoCan you explain why this case is not regulatory capture? I dont see your link between what you wrote and the article.
- optimiz3 7y agoDepending on the regulation, IMO a sensible middle ground is to phase in regulations based on company size as measured by revenue and/or employee count. This avoids crushing upstarts while regulating companies large enough to matter.
- gtfratteus 7y agoIf you do that, you might as well just admit that the regulations aren't actually intended to protect consumers.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- fyfy18 7y agoTo be fair, GDPR was first proposed in 2012. In 2016 it was written into law, and then in 2018 it became enforceable. It was these adtech companies that choose to ignore implementing it and/or to do it as late as possible.
- qtplatypus 7y agoIf you have regulations by revenue/employee count then the companies will restructure themselves to be below those thresholds.
- plutonicks 7y agoWhile true it is harder for companies to manipulate those 2 measures. E.g. could Facebook run with 20 staff? Would Facebook and its shareholders be satisfied with 20m in annual revenue. This scenario requires trade offs. My opinion is that monopoly, political and market dominance is a sub-optimal outcome
- quietbritishjim 7y agoIt could certainly run with 20 staff – it would just spend a lot of money on license fees to a separate Facebook Services Inc that provides software and server administration services. This is similar to how companies avoid tax e.g. IKEA and Starbucks. It could similarly avoid large profits but avoiding large revenues works be trickier. But I'm not an expert in these things, so maybe it's possible if you really know what you're doing.
- Meekro 7y agoBack when the GDPR was still pending, the consensus on HN was that there was nothing to fear because European regulators emphasize the spirit of the law, rather than beating people over the head with the letter of the law like American regulators do. Anyway, the law went into effect and some guy got fined just over $2000 for using CC instead of BCC on his personal mailing list of 150 people. There are a bunch more examples just like that [1]. I miss the tech community that used to be much more skeptical of government regulation -- remember SOPA/PIPA? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20278819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20278819
- mrpopo 7y ago> Anyway, the law went into effect and some guy got fined just over $2000 for using CC instead of BCC on his personal mailing list of 150 people. There are a bunch more examples just like that [1]. > Details on the 2k€ fine; the guy used his mailing list for harassment, the 2k€ fine would likely have also been issued prior to the GDPR as german privacy law is fairly strict.
- raverbashing 7y agoI'm not sure this is directly related to GDPR as the regulations in Germany are more strict "using CC instead of BCC... newsletter of 150 people in Germany... between July and September 2018" But spirit of the law or not, if you're CCing me in your newsletter several times, I'd be pretty annoyed Edit: people might want to check the actual link provided to get the details 1) he was a repeated offender 2) this mailing list was being used for harassment
- plutonicks 7y agoGDPR "hurt" tech companies, but hurt the big ones less than the small ones. The big tech companies have increased market dominance so it seems like spirit of the law was actually to crush competition so that there fewer players for the EU to regulate
- TeMPOraL 7y agoI'm not convinced that was some ulterior goal, but even if, I don't mind as long as it is followed by actually regulating the remaining players. As I keep saying: we don't need innovation in adtech. We don't need more companies in this space. We need this industry burned down to the ground, encased in a concrete tomb, with warnings for future generations plastered all over it.
- skybrian 7y agoShould companies be suggesting regulations that they don't know how to meet? Maybe before making something a standard, it should be tested in the real world first? But this doesn't mean you have to accept their proposal.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- new_here 7y agoAnyone else notice that after you accept TechCrunch’s cookie consent pop-up that the site blocks you from tapping back on your browser to get back to HN?
- ce4 7y agoTry a longpress on the back button and there you should see the hn=>techcrunch=>guce.advertising=>techcrunch redirect chain. Hitting back will go back to guce which immediately forwards you to techcrunch again. Select hn instead
- ramonakira 7y agoThere is some advertising redirect thing going on. Ghostery blocks me going to techcrunch at the moment. So I guess I'm not going there anytime soon.
- ComodoHacker 7y agoOutline: https://outline.com/caBX8n https://outline.com/caBX8n
- gorgoiler 7y agoThanks for this!
- jakelazaroff 7y agoI’m glad to see a case made against anticompetitive lobbying. But I’m disappointed in the use of the GDPR as a straw man. There are many reasons that could explain why ad network market concentration increased after the GDPR took effect, and not all of them are bad. For example, if some significant percentage of companies depended on exploitative behavior outlawed by the law, we should expect to see concentration increase as those companies leave the market. That’s not a negative side effect; it’s the law working as intended.
- blunderkid 7y agoThere should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, inability to concentrate on tasks, inhibited social development in the real world & possibly general "unhappiness", especially among the young & impressionable.
- coding123 7y agoIt might sound crazy but the govt DID this for cigarettes. Have you read the warning on cigarettes? I mean just look at the suggested box design here: https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/labeling-and-warning-statements-tobacco-products/fda-proposes-new-health-warnings-cigarette-packs-and-ads https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/labeling-and-warning-st... I mean really look at that, and fully take in the notion that our government required that. That, that takes balls.
- joering2 7y agoIf you think that takes balls, then you have no idea how big are European Union balls. Just google “cigarette packages in europe” and get ready to get seriously shocked.
- capableweb 7y agoAs a European, I think Australia went even further and just removed all the branding from packages completely. In Europe, brands still get to have some design.
- plop_ 7y agoSeems like some EU countries are now requiring a plain packaging too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_tobacco_packaging#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_tobacco_packaging#By_cou...
- cryptica 7y agoThe problem is that there are too many influential people financially invested in Facebook and other monopolies. It creates perverse incentives for governments and other companies. People these days are using the stock market as a giant collaborative money laundering machine; all small businesses exist only to take bank loans which go straight to paying these big corporations for whatever useless services they provide. The small businesses then go bankrupt and new ones spawn up in their place with fresh new loans for the corporations to feed on. That's what our fiat financial system is all about; the big mega corps feed on the bankrupted corpses of small business and let the rest of society foot the bill through inflation. The main sport for the elites is to move around this inflation to parts of the economy that are not being monitored so that it doesn't show up in the CPI.
- AnthonyMouse 7y agoThere is a much better way to deal with Facebook. Stop letting them buy their competitors.
- Proziam 7y agoI wish more people would consider this option. We're deep in antitrust waters in more than one area of the tech universe right now. We've blocked several mergers such as US Airways and United Airlines, EchoStar and DirecTV, and AT&T and T-Mobile. Seems to me the time has definitely come to handle the goliaths of the internet the same way.
- totalZero 7y agoStart by forcing them to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp.
- snarf21 7y agoExactly this. That is why there is such pressure to keep Warren off the ticket. I'd love to see her swallow her pride and jump to a Sanders/Warren ticket. If she does well, then she can get her chance in a few years.
- inamberclad 7y agoThis is how they remove the chance of competition.
- blackrock 7y agoSounds like Facebook wants the regulations, so that a new upstart competitor, cannot invent something novel, and pull the rug from under them. Like maybe, a social network that doesn’t manipulate us, or scan our faces without permission, or build dark profiles of everyone, or read our personal messages, or .....
- macspoofing 7y ago>Like maybe, a social network that doesn’t manipulate us, or scan our faces without permission, or build dark profiles of everyone, or read our personal messages, or Heh. Fat chance. The next generation of social networks will be coming from China because China is the perfect incubator for this category of software. You'll yet wish for Facebook.
- gargron 7y agoThe next generation of social networks is already here. It's decentralized and open-source. Mastodon, Pleroma, PeerTube, loads more, all part of the same network, the fediverse.
- rhinoceraptor 7y agoI'm not sure it's really possible to launch new decentralized protocols anymore, and get any kind of mainstream traction. We have HTTP and email basically by historical accident. Even RSS was shown to really just be an implementation detail of Google Reader, and there wasn't enough of an organic ecosystem outside of that for it to survive.
- riffic 7y agothe protocol has been launched already. it's only a matter of time before the network effect kicks in. I would assume that once a major media company or government organization realizes they can adopt an implementation of the existing protocol this will move that network a bit closer to the tipping point.
- laser 7y agoI'm not sure this sort of meta-comment is allowed. But, given the importance of this information, and it's potentiality to induce outrage that leads to participation and commentary, and given the imperfect hacker news ranking algorithm which can fail to differentiate between conversation and flaming when punishing posts in visibility—might I implore you to refrain from commenting unless substantial so that eyes that may have power to action against such malfeasance catch note of this here? (Really likely of note only if comment:points ratio gets close to 1 and above. I accept that this comment's very existence is ironic, but with hope of the wider aim achieved.)
- gorgoiler 7y agoAssuming the TechCrunch article’s headline is the same as the HN post headline, then I think you are already too late. I would describe it as inflammatory at best. I can’t actually load the article because (I think) my web browser’s anti-tracking blockers interfere with TC’s adtech. I’m using Firefox Focus with iOS Safari.
- onetimemanytime 7y agoFacebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets...and a startup or smaller competitor cannot. I doubt EU will fall for this though
- topo1h 7y agoZuckerberg needs to be thrown in jail. That's the only thing that will keep the next social media/mass media/big bank/big telco exec from leveraging people's data/weakness/biases and denying responsibility for unintended consequences. There is no question of govt regulating this stuff. They can't even handle the illiterate Taliban after 20 years of spending 2 trillion, why the fuck do people believe govt can take on sophisticated actors like Facebook and Wall St. Pure mass delusion.
- beatpanda 7y agoThe multi-billion dollar question is whether someone with serious technical acumen is prepared to step up and fight for a law that meaningfully restrains surveillance capitalism while allowing startups to compete. Or build a compliance-as-a-service business and give it away to startups for free.
- mfDjB 7y agoThe article points out that Brussels are alright making regulations around artificial intelligence etc: "Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in Brussels lobbying the European Union’s regulators as they form new laws to govern artificial intelligence, content moderation and more" Does anyone know what they are thinking of doing in this regard? And what problems they are attempting to solve?
- jevgeni 7y agoOne example is facial recognition. From what I gather, there is a growing consensus that unrestrained facial recognition might be either in conflict, or pose a potential threat to certain legal rights of European citizens. In Germany, for example, privacy-threatening issues are covered by a body of norms called "Persönlichkeitsrecht". Which are based constitutionally on Articles 1 and 2 of the German constitution (Grundgesetz) - the Right to Human Dignity and the Right to Personal Fulfillment/Development. Allowing anyone storing and sharing facial recognition data willy-nilly might endanger those rights and hence might be a need for regulation.
- sub7 7y agoIt'll probably be too hard to regulate every unethical dark pattern and shitty default on the site. What you can do is force Facebook to allow the user to 1 click export their graph and all friend data with it in a standardized format. Once you force them to give me MY friends email addresses, phone numbers, and birthdays in a list, they're fucked because better products can then emerge. Similar to the idea of regulating Google by making them open source their search index.
- warkdarrior 7y agoI can see Cambridge Analytica or other companies offering $100 for your Facebook data export. Are you sure your friends or your friends' friends will not sell your data?
- sub7 7y agoNo, but if they did I'm kind of the one at fault for making them my "friend". The old world analogy is you go around the world collecting business cards. That address book is yours - you can burn it, sell it or do whatever you want with it - most importantly use it to contact the people who trusted you with the info. People just became more judicious about who got what info. Similar correction needs to happen here. When I add someone to a digital platform, instead of a 1 click process it needs to be a 1 click + select what info to share process. Then the data needs to be portable.
- scarface74 7y agoThe last thing I want is to make it easier for my “friends” to share my information on other sites. Wasn’t that the entire issue with Cambridge Analytica?
- tkyjonathan 7y agoImagine my shock. Asking for regulation simply to attack the competition or new entrants..
- DanielBMarkham 7y agoI love tech. It pains me to come to the conclusion that in Facebook, we have created something that should not exist: an addicative worldwide mob where peddlers can sell emotionally manipulative ideas to the people least able to handle them, whether it's clicking cows all day long or believing Elvis is still alive. In defense, I don't think anybody that was on-board at the beginning realized this. I do, however, feel that anybody in the last decade working at FB should have been smart enough to figure out what was going on. They just didn't care.
- baryphonic 7y agoI love tech, too. This is why I have divested myself from Facebook, beyond messaging tools (FB Messenger and WhatsApp). If tech is building new edifices to the capabilities of tech, then Facebook is certainly tech, and the nightmare Facebook has become is inevitable. (Though I agree with other commenters that FB probably matters much less than we with in-built pro-tech biases are willing to believe.) Otherwise, if tech is "doing more with less," then Facebook is extremely hard to justify as tech.
- throwaway8291 7y agoInvestors care about making money, period. Whether you burn coal until the planet is inhabitable or John Doe data is sold and packaged up for the next couple of decades without him knowing does not matter at all. It's a strange world for sure, and one that I am virtually certain will come to a crashing halt in this century. Nobody is required to buy facebook stocks. If you do not want this company to continue it's operations, just get rid of it (if you owned it in the first place).
- dfraser992 7y agoZuckerberg's major in college was psychology, not CS. A Skinner Box [1] is Psych 101 - I am certain Mark knew exactly what he was building. And how is the like button nothing but building on the theory of social psychology? Facebook, IMO (I minored in psych) is entirely built on a solid understanding of human psychology and how to control it. Add in ads and profit! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber
- KorematsuFred 7y agoThis is called Baptist and bootleggers effect. Facebook benefits, government benefits while we suffer.
- cdolan 7y agoOn iOS 13 mobile safari - is anyone else unable to use the Back button to leave TechCrunch? Might blacklist their site with a content blocker if they are indeed hijacking the back button.
- Epskampie 7y agoJust tried, both a swipe back and the back button work here.
- matharmin 7y agoReading through the actual proposed regulations, most of them are regulations I'd like to have enforced on any social media tech company above some small threshold in size, and are not onerous to implement. Many of these proposed regulations cover exactly the type of issues that are often complained about on HN. Why does it matter so much that it's Facebook proposing it, and that they have already implemented it?
- Dumblydorr 7y agoBecause they are using it to prevent competitors from being able to take their market share. They're the market leader, they have resources and codebase already...
- Faark 7y agoOr they have already implemented them cause they consider those measures to be important / effective. Recommending something you don't think is worth the effort would be stupid, just like not implementing good ones. If FB decides against adopting some measure, they obviously will use the same arguments for not recommending it. As for FB recommending lower standards to govern the competition... would anyone here actually do this unless part of a brand? Evaluating recommendations is a politicians job, and I'd expect them to listen to more than just the few biggest companies.
- ianopolous 7y agoThe one regulation that could save us from Facebook would be to mandate an open API. That would solve the network effect problem for new social networks and enable real competition.
- Nasrudith 7y agoThat would be a mixed bag in several ways - while good for making a diverse ecosystem it would mean Cambridge Analytica style abuses would be the norm and rely upon user savviness for security. In a lowest common denominator base like Facebook - that won't work well.
- buboard 7y agoFacebook has been pretty open with their APIs (in fact they are accused of being too open). That doesnt help.
- throwaway122378 7y agoFacebook execs should be on trial for what their company has done to personal privacy
- scarface74 7y agoMaybe it’s a sign that we shouldn’t want government bureaucrats to invade every area of our lives and let grown people make their own informed choices.
- AlexandrB 7y agoMeanwhile, Facebook and Google bureaucrats have already invaded every area of our lives. Oh, and they're monopolies so good luck "choosing".
- scarface74 7y agoSurprisingly enough. I’m perfectly capable of not logging into Facebook and choosing another search engine. What I’m not as capable of doing without a lot of trouble is changing the government I’m under. So given a choice, a government with less power is good for my personal liberty.
- snarf21 7y agoNot making judgment but people rarely take the time to become informed before making a choice.
- scarface74 7y agoSo we need the government to make that choice for them?
- snarf21 7y agoThis isn't a new thing. The government chooses lots of things for us. What things are legal to buy, eat, etc. are decided for us. Sometimes people need to be protected from themselves. This is why we are going to lose on privacy. Fear-mongering over pedophiles will sway people instead of them looking into the laws and their effect on their lives.
- scarface74 7y ago