7 ms·

Those "principles of liberty" are aimed at protecting the American citizen from her government, not from corporations. If it was the government doing "authorit

Those "principles of liberty" are aimed at protecting the American citizen from her government, not from corporations. If it was the government doing "authoritarian" things, then that is potentially actionable under US laws. Otherwise, Big Tech is not breaking any laws or violating anyone's rights. Google/Facebook are just websites doing what website owners do. They decide what pages to publish. Unfortunately most HN commenters do not understand that distinction. No doubt many HN readers do, but most readers are not also commenters. Perhaps Google/Facebook should be run by the US government. At least then users would have some rights they could enforce. Government could not get away with doing what Google/Facebook do. If the politicians are bought out and regulators are staffed by ex-employees then there is one other way to modify corporate behaviour. Trial lawyers. Death by a thousand cuts. All we need is one good law that gives internet users some rights to sue Google/Facebook for the creepy way they do "business" and I think we would start to see change. Imagine the things that could be uncovered in discovery. It would all be laid bare. Big Tech is doing what a government only wishes it could do. Consitutional law protects citizens from government, not corporations. In the US, coporations have nearly as many rights as people if not more. The constutional law protects them from governement, too.

JSavageOne 6y ago
> Big Tech is not breaking any laws or violating anyone's rights. Perhaps in a legal sense, but most people criticizing Big Tech policies aren't debating what is or isn't legal under current laws, but rather what should or should not be legal. Current laws give monopolies and corporations an enormous amount of freedom and leniency, and perhaps a certain degree of power and societal importance should entail greater restraints.
- pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
  If what Big Tech does violates no law, personal rights, nor any contractual agreement with users, it is not rational to believe users can hold Big Tech accountable. Sure, they can debate and complain. The online forums and messaging platforms they use to debate and voice their complaints are run by Big Tech. It achieves nothing really. Maybe it makes users feel better to vent. Big Tech knows how to deal with the whining. The threat of having to change their behaviour is negligible. If there was a possibility they could be sued for this behaviour, then the threat might become non-negigible. The "legal sense" matters because it is a threat the company's management would take seriously. The threat of "people complaining about us on the internet" is not a serious one. It costs very little, often nothing, to make it go away.
  - JSavageOne 6y ago
    I don't know what your point is. Nobody is claiming the complaining on an internet forum will directly change the law. But it is obviously possible that this online discourse will lead to a movement ultimately influencing elected lawmakers to change the law.
    - pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
      The point is that people think the government is going to solve this problem of Big Tech. "[I]t is possible that the online discourse will lead to a movement ultimately influenceing elected lawmakers to change the law." Sadly, there are no "Ralph Naders" in the age of Big Tech. Who is going to lead this movement to pass these new laws? Is "online discourse" really the level of pressure needed? Do lawmakers normally read "online discourse"? We know they follow mainstream media. The discourse I see seems to focus solely on "government regulation". Regulatory capture, fines and so forth. I am suggesting that the discourse should also focus on "what rights should every user have against Big Tech". Not relying on government to police behaviour but focusing on empowering users to enforce their rights on their own initiative. Which do you think stimulates change in how websites operate? A law that users can enforce at any time or the one where we have to wait and hope that government regulators decide to act? A law that potentially enables an unknown number of users to keep filing lawsuits or one where Google/Facebook can pay a fine and move on, without ever admitting any wrongdoing. The discourse is not contemplating enabling private action. It focuses almost solely on the promise of future government regulation.
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
        A democratic government is, in principle, (and more often in theory than in practice) a way for individuals to collectively express their wishes. Including reining in misbehaving corporations. The reason so much discourse is contemplating government regulation is because, in democracy, government regulation is private action of citizens. And arguably, only in this concentrated form it has a chance to oppose the concentrated interests of wealthy private individuals at the steers of corporations.
legulere 6y ago
The problem is that corporations become as powerful as the state, so either people need to be protected from corporations or the power of the corporations need to be destroyed, as they have no democratic legitimacy.
harimau777 6y ago
The issue with that solution could be: 1. Many (most?) of the population is too busy trying to keep their life together to be able to go after a corporation in the courts. 2. Corporations have dramatically more resources to fight in the courts. 3. Corporations are able to make sure that the laws that people could sue them for violating never get passed.
- pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
  1. Not an issue. If anything, the reality in the US is the opposite. Too much of the population believes the "solution" to every problem is to blame someone and seek retribution, preferably through the courts. 2. True, but depending on the law and the facts, sometimes the party with more resources still has a significant chance of losing, decides it is not a risk worth taking and their best option is to either avoid such litigation or settle before trial. Most cases that are filed in the US settle. For every case filed, there are problem many more that are deliberately avoided by coporations modifying their behaviour, i.e., being careful. 3. History has shown they have not been 100% successful. America has a history of legislation that was introduced on the initiative of some "ordinary citizen" who was able to draw attention to a societal problem, through a personal story where they were affected and/or through their tireless perseverence and dedication to the cause. Big Tech is in a unique position in the history of mega-corporations because the work they do is less likely to produce the types of harm that existing US laws were designed to address. Things like death, illness, physical injury, financial loss, and so on. Laws addressing those harms did get passed. No one has ever really tried to get laws passed that address the Big Tech behaviours we learn about reading the stories and comments on HN.

JSavageOne 6y ago

> Big Tech is not breaking any laws or violating anyone's rights. Perhaps in a legal sense, but most people criticizing Big Tech policies aren't debating what is or isn't legal under current laws, but rather what should or should not be legal. Current laws give monopolies and corporations an enormous amount of freedom and leniency, and perhaps a certain degree of power and societal importance should entail greater restraints.

pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
If what Big Tech does violates no law, personal rights, nor any contractual agreement with users, it is not rational to believe users can hold Big Tech accountable. Sure, they can debate and complain. The online forums and messaging platforms they use to debate and voice their complaints are run by Big Tech. It achieves nothing really. Maybe it makes users feel better to vent. Big Tech knows how to deal with the whining. The threat of having to change their behaviour is negligible. If there was a possibility they could be sued for this behaviour, then the threat might become non-negigible. The "legal sense" matters because it is a threat the company's management would take seriously. The threat of "people complaining about us on the internet" is not a serious one. It costs very little, often nothing, to make it go away.
- JSavageOne 6y ago
  I don't know what your point is. Nobody is claiming the complaining on an internet forum will directly change the law. But it is obviously possible that this online discourse will lead to a movement ultimately influencing elected lawmakers to change the law.
  - pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
    The point is that people think the government is going to solve this problem of Big Tech. "[I]t is possible that the online discourse will lead to a movement ultimately influenceing elected lawmakers to change the law." Sadly, there are no "Ralph Naders" in the age of Big Tech. Who is going to lead this movement to pass these new laws? Is "online discourse" really the level of pressure needed? Do lawmakers normally read "online discourse"? We know they follow mainstream media. The discourse I see seems to focus solely on "government regulation". Regulatory capture, fines and so forth. I am suggesting that the discourse should also focus on "what rights should every user have against Big Tech". Not relying on government to police behaviour but focusing on empowering users to enforce their rights on their own initiative. Which do you think stimulates change in how websites operate? A law that users can enforce at any time or the one where we have to wait and hope that government regulators decide to act? A law that potentially enables an unknown number of users to keep filing lawsuits or one where Google/Facebook can pay a fine and move on, without ever admitting any wrongdoing. The discourse is not contemplating enabling private action. It focuses almost solely on the promise of future government regulation.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      A democratic government is, in principle, (and more often in theory than in practice) a way for individuals to collectively express their wishes. Including reining in misbehaving corporations. The reason so much discourse is contemplating government regulation is because, in democracy, government regulation is private action of citizens. And arguably, only in this concentrated form it has a chance to oppose the concentrated interests of wealthy private individuals at the steers of corporations.

legulere 6y ago

The problem is that corporations become as powerful as the state, so either people need to be protected from corporations or the power of the corporations need to be destroyed, as they have no democratic legitimacy.

harimau777 6y ago

The issue with that solution could be: 1. Many (most?) of the population is too busy trying to keep their life together to be able to go after a corporation in the courts. 2. Corporations have dramatically more resources to fight in the courts. 3. Corporations are able to make sure that the laws that people could sue them for violating never get passed.

pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
1. Not an issue. If anything, the reality in the US is the opposite. Too much of the population believes the "solution" to every problem is to blame someone and seek retribution, preferably through the courts. 2. True, but depending on the law and the facts, sometimes the party with more resources still has a significant chance of losing, decides it is not a risk worth taking and their best option is to either avoid such litigation or settle before trial. Most cases that are filed in the US settle. For every case filed, there are problem many more that are deliberately avoided by coporations modifying their behaviour, i.e., being careful. 3. History has shown they have not been 100% successful. America has a history of legislation that was introduced on the initiative of some "ordinary citizen" who was able to draw attention to a societal problem, through a personal story where they were affected and/or through their tireless perseverence and dedication to the cause. Big Tech is in a unique position in the history of mega-corporations because the work they do is less likely to produce the types of harm that existing US laws were designed to address. Things like death, illness, physical injury, financial loss, and so on. Laws addressing those harms did get passed. No one has ever really tried to get laws passed that address the Big Tech behaviours we learn about reading the stories and comments on HN.