5 ms·

> This is bizarre. I get throwing in a little extra to shield executives, but $5 billion? I think it's bizarre that is what you find bizarre. You've already ac

> This is bizarre. I get throwing in a little extra to shield executives, but $5 billion? I think it's bizarre that is what you find bizarre. You've already accepted paying more to shield the executives, so after that it's just negotiation. What I find bizarre is that essentially "donating" money to a government regulator can induce the regulator to cover up and turn a blind eye to a person's alleged or suspected breaches in the course of investigations and prosecutions. In the world of plebs, this is either bribery or blackmail, depending on who blinks first, and conspiracy. I understand corporations "agreeing" to punishment with regulators like it's some cordial negotiation. It seems perverse but if the alternative is horrendously long expensive court cases that the regulator can't afford and doesn't have a good chance of winning, then sure. It does tell me the legislation and regulatory environment is broken (probably by design), but at least I understand regulators operating as they do in the environment they find themselves in. But this? "Slip us some cash under the table and Mark's little problem goes away" veers into the fundamentally unethical and unjust to me. I'm sure it's just that my tiny pleb brain is not sophisticated or rich enough to understand.

JohnFen 5y ago
> this is either bribery or blackmail, depending on who blinks first, and conspiracy. It doesn't much matter to me what the flavor is, what matters is that this is corruption in action, pure and simple.
bawolff 5y ago
> I think it's bizarre that is what you find bizarre. You've already accepted paying more to shield the executives, so after that it's just negotiation. To one up you - i find it bizare that you think that's the bizare part. The entire point of a corporation, as a governance structure, in general is to limit liability for its shareholders. That's true for all corporations not just facebook. Its the reason people establish corporations instead of running businesseses informally as an individual. The only surprising thing is the cost benefit trade-off here seems a bit much. Its not surprising that the facebook corporation tried to do its entire reason for existing.
- chemicalnovae 5y ago
  > The entire point of a corporation, as a governance structure, in general is to limit liability for its shareholders. That's true for all corporations not just facebook. Its the reason people establish corporations instead of running businesseses informally as an individual. Except they're not doing it to protect Zuckerberg or Sandberg as shareholders they're doing it to protect them as decision making executives. More to the point if they didn't have liability due to the structure of a corporation they would never have been in "danger" and therefore the pay-off would have been unnecessary.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  You are confusing shareholders (people who own the company) and executives (people who are running it). Mark is both, but his problem wasn't due to his share of the company but rather due to his actions or inaction as an executive. Law does not protect executives breaking the law. It protects shareholders from executives who break it. Or at least it was supposed to work this way. It seems when billions are on the table culpability is subject to negotiation.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  > The entire point of a corporation, as a governance structure, in general is to limit liability for its shareholders. That's true for all corporations not just facebook. Its the reason people establish corporations instead of running businesseses informally as an individual. I'm not sure if you've replied to the wrong message, but I'm obviously talking about executive actions and alleged breaches, not shareholder liability.
- Talanes 5y ago
  No one, the comment you're replying to included, is shocked that Facebook is willing to throw money at problems to make them go away. The outrageous part is that someone accepted that money.
sgregnt 5y ago
My two cents: I don't think you can find ANY government (icluding Scandinavia countries, Switzerland and what not) that is NOT engaged in - "donating" money to a government regulator can induce the regulator to cover up and turn a blind eye to a person's alleged or suspected breaches in the course of investigations and prosecutions." That's how government regulation works, more regulation more opportunities for corruptions.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  I agree that this has been normalized throughout the world, that's the weird thing about it, it's blatant corruption and everybody just goes about pretending it's okay or no big deal.
  - hnfong 5y ago
    It's only a problem when a "hostile" government does it. Then you'd make a big deal on the media of how corrupt their government and country is.
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    Those who think it's not OK, often to want to deregulate. With no one to bribe, that brand of corruption goes away. But they/we tend to be dismissed as crazy extremists by polite society.
    - throwaway2048 5y ago
      with no one to regulate, facebook would never have to answer to anyone, ever.
      - BurningFrog 5y ago
        I know this is old fashioned, but in a free society, I don't think you should have to answer to anyone, unless you commit a crime.
elihu 5y ago
What I find weird is that for Facebook to pay a big lump of money to avoid personal liability seems like it would be unethical and possibly (I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know all the fine points here) actually something that Facebook could be successfully sued for by their shareholders, and yet the FTC was fine with it. Doesn't that make them complicit? I mean, it seems like that ought to be against FTC policy or something to accept deals that benefit the founder but throw the shareholders under the bus.

JohnFen 5y ago

> this is either bribery or blackmail, depending on who blinks first, and conspiracy. It doesn't much matter to me what the flavor is, what matters is that this is corruption in action, pure and simple.

bawolff 5y ago

> I think it's bizarre that is what you find bizarre. You've already accepted paying more to shield the executives, so after that it's just negotiation. To one up you - i find it bizare that you think that's the bizare part. The entire point of a corporation, as a governance structure, in general is to limit liability for its shareholders. That's true for all corporations not just facebook. Its the reason people establish corporations instead of running businesseses informally as an individual. The only surprising thing is the cost benefit trade-off here seems a bit much. Its not surprising that the facebook corporation tried to do its entire reason for existing.

chemicalnovae 5y ago
> The entire point of a corporation, as a governance structure, in general is to limit liability for its shareholders. That's true for all corporations not just facebook. Its the reason people establish corporations instead of running businesseses informally as an individual. Except they're not doing it to protect Zuckerberg or Sandberg as shareholders they're doing it to protect them as decision making executives. More to the point if they didn't have liability due to the structure of a corporation they would never have been in "danger" and therefore the pay-off would have been unnecessary.
lmilcin 5y ago
You are confusing shareholders (people who own the company) and executives (people who are running it). Mark is both, but his problem wasn't due to his share of the company but rather due to his actions or inaction as an executive. Law does not protect executives breaking the law. It protects shareholders from executives who break it. Or at least it was supposed to work this way. It seems when billions are on the table culpability is subject to negotiation.
throwawaylinux 5y ago
> The entire point of a corporation, as a governance structure, in general is to limit liability for its shareholders. That's true for all corporations not just facebook. Its the reason people establish corporations instead of running businesseses informally as an individual. I'm not sure if you've replied to the wrong message, but I'm obviously talking about executive actions and alleged breaches, not shareholder liability.
Talanes 5y ago
No one, the comment you're replying to included, is shocked that Facebook is willing to throw money at problems to make them go away. The outrageous part is that someone accepted that money.

sgregnt 5y ago

My two cents: I don't think you can find ANY government (icluding Scandinavia countries, Switzerland and what not) that is NOT engaged in - "donating" money to a government regulator can induce the regulator to cover up and turn a blind eye to a person's alleged or suspected breaches in the course of investigations and prosecutions." That's how government regulation works, more regulation more opportunities for corruptions.

throwawaylinux 5y ago
I agree that this has been normalized throughout the world, that's the weird thing about it, it's blatant corruption and everybody just goes about pretending it's okay or no big deal.
- hnfong 5y ago
  It's only a problem when a "hostile" government does it. Then you'd make a big deal on the media of how corrupt their government and country is.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  Those who think it's not OK, often to want to deregulate. With no one to bribe, that brand of corruption goes away. But they/we tend to be dismissed as crazy extremists by polite society.
  - throwaway2048 5y ago
    with no one to regulate, facebook would never have to answer to anyone, ever.
    - BurningFrog 5y ago
      I know this is old fashioned, but in a free society, I don't think you should have to answer to anyone, unless you commit a crime.

elihu 5y ago

What I find weird is that for Facebook to pay a big lump of money to avoid personal liability seems like it would be unethical and possibly (I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know all the fine points here) actually something that Facebook could be successfully sued for by their shareholders, and yet the FTC was fine with it. Doesn't that make them complicit? I mean, it seems like that ought to be against FTC policy or something to accept deals that benefit the founder but throw the shareholders under the bus.