27 ms·

I think a lot of people are choosing to ignore that a lot of companies have done things in the past that were not illegal at the time of action. However, those

• hunterb123 5y ago
  To clarify, can you specify exactly what law you would like made? What do you want to be done exactly? I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship.
  • asdff 5y ago
    Treat addictive social media companies like addictive cigarette companies. Lets see some huge warning labels about how mentally harmful it is to continue scrolling on facebook right on the first result where its unavoidable to see. Lets tax the hell out of social media companies to generate local revenue just like sin taxes. It won't be a huge change but it will be a great starting point and will come with revenue that can fund potentially mental healthcare programs for people damaged by these companies.
    • mcguire 5y ago
      I'm not sure this would have the effect you want. You tax Facebook but allow it to operate however it wants. Facebook is then incentivized to double down on its algorithms---like tobacco companies using chemical and biological techniques to make cigarettes more addictive---in order to regain the lost profits.
      • asdff 5y ago
        Then you can double down on the taxes you levy against them if they begin harming more people, no? The idea is the cost of doing bad business will eventually be too much to make it worth doing that sort of bad business. Same idea with carbon taxes where the costs scale to damage and incentivize shifting to good behavior rather than doubling down on bad behavior. And even with cigarette companies doubling down, far fewer people smoke today and die of lung cancer than 50 years ago, so this stuff works on the whole.
        • lazide 5y ago
          That definitely isn’t what happened with alcohol or tobacco! Instead you end up with a significant enough amount of money going to the government that the government now ends up protecting those industries to an extend - ensuring lower priced competition (e-cigs, moonshine) get stomped on and the market gets protected and not eliminated or reduced too much.
    • sio8ohPi 5y ago
      I'm curious if you think HN needs to have such a warning banner.
      • triceratops 5y ago
        HN isn't particularly designed to be addictive. It doesn't notify you when someone responds to one of your posts. It doesn't send you any nagging emails (indeed, doesn't even require an email to sign up). It has the noprocrast setting to let you set limits on your own usage. It doesn't (afaik) try to optimize for engagement - dang tries to maintain civil discourse as much as possible.
    • hunterb123 5y ago
      Uhm a cigarette you cannot change the base ingredient of, it's tobacco. A cig by definition burns the carcinogen tobacco. A site you can specify certain requirements like no doom scrolling or requirements like PUBLISH YOUR ALGORITHMS. Why go full California with another banner? People will ignore it and you will have done nothing of substance.
      • VikingCoder 5y ago
        Sorry for being pedantic, but you can absolutely change the ingredients of a cigarette. There's a ton besides the tobacco. And you can breed different strains of tobacco to have more or less of some chemical.
        • hunterb123 5y ago
          My point was a cig always causes cancer because it burns tobacco, so you need a banner to warn users. A social media behemoth does not need to use doom scrolling or private algorithms to be a social media site.
          • asdff 5y ago
            My nintendo DS from 15 years ago gave me an eye strain warning every time i started it up and it doesn't always cause eye strain, only misuse does and I know that thanks to the informative banner.
            • jmcgough 5y ago
              I love that Nintendo is very aware of the potential negative effects of their products and games and tries to inform users / mitigate. Even when it comes to encouraging positive play between users - in the new Pokemon MOBA (games known for their toxicity) there's no text chat, only communication with a few emotes you can show. Some of their decisions make for arguably worse games for "hardcore" gamers (like the way they rank users in smash, or how they focus on more casual-style in-game tournaments or make matchmaking harder) but they sacrifice that in favor of a more positive general experience, especially important since children play their games.
    • parineum 5y ago
      > sin taxes How about we don't let the state decide what I get to do with my body (and mind)?
      • dustinchilson 5y ago
        Isn't this the root of the problem? Neither you or the government/state decides what you get to do with your mind. An advertising company decides what to do with it and can manipulate it however it decides best benefits itself. Not you, not society, Facebook, what makes Facebook the most money.
      • mynameisash 5y ago
        That's not what a sin tax does. You are still free to smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, and were we to tax social media usage, you would still be free to use or not use that. But a sin tax ostensibly accounts for the economic externality*. We know that cigarettes impose a cost on society beyond the individual smoker. I'm all in favor of making people pay for things that we know cause damage to society more broadly. And I hardly think it's controversial that social media is in many aspects harmful to society. *Sin taxes are technically different than pigovian taxes, but I and I think most people tend to use the terms interchangeably.
        • parineum 5y ago
          > We know that cigarettes impose a cost on society beyond the individual smoker What's that cost? From what I've read, all economic costs smokers impose on society are more than made up for in their dying early, they actually cost less [1]. I guess everyone should smoke to save the state money! [1] https://pantagraph.com/news/fact-check-do-smokers-cost-society-more-money/article_70a37eed-004b-5ccc-bc8c-95ac16227d98.html https://pantagraph.com/news/fact-check-do-smokers-cost-socie...
      • oarabbus_ 5y ago
        You are are able to consume both tobacco and alcohol (let's not tangent into a drug legalization discussion). Tobacco and alcohol cause measurable societal harm and measurable costs to the state - are you implying it's unreasonable for states to tax these goods for those reasons? Generally speaking I'd rather reduce taxes but I fail to see what's wrong with e.g. an alcohol excise tax going towards rehabilitation and/or highway safety programs. "Sin tax" is just a colloquial name for an excise tax, which a state has every right to enact.
    • oarabbus_ 5y ago
      > Lets tax the hell out of social media companies to generate local revenue just like sin taxes. Very interesting idea, actually. There is evidence Social Media causes harm to some individuals' mental health (in a widespread manner causing some measurable societal harm), so a proposed tax on all social media companies with revenue going towards mental health programs seems worth exploring. Generally I'm not much in favor of implementing new taxes (would rather close existing loopholes) but if implemented reasonably and backed by scientific evidence this seems valid.
      • intended 5y ago
        It seems internal data shows that FB and Insta harm 14 years old more than other groups.
        • erosenbe0 5y ago
          That could apply to TV, video games, alcohol culture, porn or any number of things. It seems to be the near monopoly that is one of the major issues for FB. Lack of competition seems to lead to a house of horrors.
          • asdff 5y ago
            Yet with all those things we have laws and regulations and even restrictions for young people explicitly. FB is the wild west on the other hand and constantly lobbies to keep it that way in terms of how regulators see it.
          • intended 5y ago
            Yes, thats the buried lede. Those are all things which you need to be old or mature enough to use responsibly - they make demands of experience and impulse control you develop as adults. Meaning that blocking social media for kids and teens is likely on the anvil at some point.
      • cratermoon 5y ago
        > There is evidence Social Media causes harm to some individuals' mental health (in a widespread manner causing some measurable societal harm) And they do so by exploiting human weaknesses using the same psychological techniques used by casinos and other forms of gambling.
    • FFRefresh 5y ago
      Honestly asking: What is the specific harm involved here that is deserving to be taxed? How would we measure this harm in order to know how much to tax a given company? Should other causes of this harm be taxed/penalized as well? If not, why? For instance, if the harm in question is some people feel varying degrees of worse after using a given product, is there any limit we as a society should set on penalizing the cause of the harm? Should people or entities who say things that make people feel worse be fined/prosecuted by the law? If I feel worse (let's call this 'trauma' or 'anxiety' or 'depression' or 'literally shaking' or 'panic attack') after reading a book or reading a news site, should I have standing to sue the creators and medium which presents said content?
    • ipaddr 5y ago
      I would like to see this on coke, pepsi, fast food and air travel
    • blackoil 5y ago
      Warning labels won't be of much use, as an individual most will ignore them believing in there own prowess to discern truth. Taxing all social media or all media may have interesting implications as this again will reduce profit for all and give some revenue for governments without making any actual change. Also people making cooking/educational videos on Youtube may resent having to pay sin tax.
  • RIMR 5y ago
    Freedom of speech also includes from being compelled to speak of things you don't want to, so forcing companies to make their recommendation and moderation systems publicly visible would be eve more of a free speech issue than expecting companies to moderate violent, hateful, or deliberately misleading content.
    • alistairSH 5y ago
      Can you cite some case law that bears out this argument? While I agree that your point is true in the most general sense, we compel companies to make their internal information public fairly regularly via various mechanisms (admittedly, none of which are 100% analogous to the FB/social media situation).
    • solveit 5y ago
      I absolutely disagree but I'm upvoting anyway because it's an argument I haven't seen before with regards to making algorithms public and god knows the discourse could use some variety. That being said. No. This is no more a free speech issue than forcing food manufacturers to make their ingredients public.
  • photochemsyn 5y ago
    I think that's the right approach. Legally you could require every social media company that collects and sells data on its users to advertisers to allow the users to access their internal algorithmic interface (for their own account). Now, what controls are on the internal algorithmic dial? Apparently that's top secret, but a legal requirement to expose the interface to the users seems reasonable. Note that this might not affect what ads you get served (that seems more on the private business side, although banning prescription pharma ads makes sense), but it would affect what shows up in your feed, what content you get served, etc. You could write your own exclude lists, for example (i.e. if you never want to see content from MSNBC, FOX, or CNN, that would be your decision - not the algorithms, etc.)
  • 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
    If you get too big, you can't buy your competition (e.g. FB buying IG). Or if you get too big, you have to open your stuff up like email does. Or if you lie to congress, you get penalized. Or if you get too big, you have to make your algorithms publicly available.
    • new_guy 5y ago
      Yeah but that's just an American-centric take, there's plenty of companies out there that don't give a flying f*ck about American laws and congress.
      • TheCoelacanth 5y ago
        If they operate in America, then they have to give a fuck about American laws. If they don't operate in America, then I don't give a fuck what they do.
    • piggybox 5y ago
      What part of Gmail is open?
      • 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
        Email, not Gmail. I can email people from my provider even if they use other providers, including people who self host. And I can get email from them too.
      • thinkling 5y ago
        I think GP is referring to the fact that email overall is a system that is based on public standards and open to new entrants. You can start Hmail.com if you want, and plug into the existing email eco-system as a new competitor very easily. The social media ecosystems aren't like that. You can't be a chat provider and plug into FB Messenger; you can't plug into Twitter, etc. There is an open social media eco-system called the fediverse (for its federated nature), in which Mastodon is the best-known player. But it's gotten very limited traction, because of the network effect that keeps people on FB and Twitter. No such effect keeps people on Gmail.
  • azinman2 5y ago
    > I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship. Ok let’s say that’s now the case. The FB source is now open. What changed? Any negative consequences are still occurring, and if anything, we just have had actors better visibility into what to exploit.
  • zabatuvajdka 5y ago
    In my opinion if social media is important to society the way it seems there should be a government funded social network for users and businesses. In the USA like NPR and PBS. The problem is companies selling peoples data and optimizing the algorithms on probability. Instead what if everyone paid some taxes to have a social network which helps people interact and businesses promote themselves, you can get rid of the ads AND the algorithms. Let users customize settings which dictate the algorithm.
    • onemoresoop 5y ago
      You better be sure the incumbents would fight tooth and nail make this look like a very unattractive idea and lobby heavily to make sure it will never happen.
  • intended 5y ago
    The testimony was about what you expect. It looks like the recco algorithms will be carved out from the neutral platform protections they enjoy.
  • woeirua 5y ago
    No recommendation algorithms for certain classes of websites. News feeds must be sorted in chronological order only. Users may selectively filter their feeds if they choose. No infinite scrolling.
  • christkv 5y ago
    How about an age limit. You have to be 18 or above.
    • raxxorrax 5y ago
      People seem to dislike this suggestion, but while I believe it is unrealistic to check for age on the internet, this idea has some merit. Platforms that harbor minors and adults together will have to have different rules than platforms just for adults. But you also cannot make everything fit for kids. Government would actually try to do just that since ensuring safety here is their mandate. So a solution must be found. Normally minors should be supervised, but that is not trivial and you don't want constant surveillance.
  • alistairSH 5y ago
    What do you want to be done exactly? Public algorithms, or at least some 3rd party review. Ban infinite-scroll on social media platforms. Require feeds to be configurable (users can set to "newest first" or "top picks" or whatever else). I'm sure I could come up with more, that's just off the top of my head.
    • idiotsecant 5y ago
      These seem like awkward things to encode into law in a durable way. Laws are long-term blunt instruments, banning something like infinite scroll will have all kinds of unintended consequences.
      • alistairSH 5y ago
        That's true - these things might be better implemented as regulations out of the Executive branch - but that would still require legislation authorizing somebody to implement the regulations.
        • kyleee 5y ago
          Interesting that the US governance model is devolving to "decrees from the king" thanks to exec orders
          • swiley 5y ago
            We'll see how much longer the states accept that for.
            • idiotsecant 5y ago
              State governments are much more interested in participating in the cable news culture wars to pump up next election numbers then they are in actually governing. I doubt it.
          • telotortium 5y ago
  • at-fates-hands 5y ago
    >> To clarify, can you specify exactly what law you would like made? What do you want to be done exactly? Honestly, social media issues are for the most part a parenting issue. If you don't have access to your kids phone, or know what platforms they are on and who they are talking to and what they're sharing, I'm not sure legislating social media is going to do much of anything. New platforms will pop up, more private networks will be started and suddenly, everything becomes to fragmented to really oversee. I would create laws that have teeth and address issues like bullying, doxxing, SWATING and other ways people weaponize social media against other people. You start to put some teeth into laws where people are facing serious consequences for bullying and pushing people to suicide, then you might see some changes.
    • mLuby 5y ago
      > You start to put some teeth into laws where people are facing serious consequences for bullying and pushing people to suicide Counterpoint: kids aren't all neurologically and socially developed enough to understand life-altering consequences for certain actions, and that's not their fault. Legal codes and law enforcement are too crude in most child-related cases, unless you're okay with incarcerating misbehaving children. It's on adults to make sure things kids can reach are reasonably safe for—as well as from—them.
      • MertsA 5y ago
        Counterpoint to your counterpoint: Almost all kids are neurologically and socially developed enough to understand they'll be picking up cigarette butts and cleaning graffiti on the weekend if they start bullying someone. It's quite common for American schools to enact "zero tolerance" policies for any physical altercation that, barring criminal charges, is the same punishment regardless of severity and irrespective of who the aggressor was. The policy is literally to give the victim the same punishment in the name of "fairness". Now there's no reason not to escalate and it incentivizes the victim to not report it. Even with the same punishment it's still skewed towards the bully as odds are, they're probably not going to care as much about a couple days of suspension and most bullies aren't going to be in any serious risk of expulsion. School administrators don't care about bullying and teens being driven to suicide, they care more about liability than fairness. Taking the King Solomon approach in public schools is abhorrent and injust. Kids do dumb things, but it makes it so much worse when incompetence and callous disregard create perverse incentives.
  • munificent 5y ago
    Simply disallowing corporations to reach the scale of Facebook/ConAgra/Amazon/WalMart would solve many many problems. These companies do awful things because: 1. They have few viable alternatives so ethical consumers end up choosing them when they might not otherwise. 2. They have enough money that it is profitable to do bad things and pay for the damage control. 3. They have enough power to defeat regulation and government oversight. 4. They are so large and monolithic that they can hide their internal workings more easily. 5. The org chart is so deep that those in power are psychologically removed from much of the consequences of their overpowered actions.
    • eightysixfour 5y ago
      So for a digital platform you are suggesting that after X users they allow no more sign-ups until someone churns out?
      • munificent 5y ago
        I don't think number of users is the metric that really matters. I care a lot more about market cap because money is what gives corporations greater leverage to do bad stuff.
        • eightysixfour 5y ago
          What about companies with large market caps that are losing money?
  • handrous 5y ago
    Make spying on people illegal, even when a computer does it to billions of people rather than one creep doing it to one person. If you have to collect info about people to provide a product or service, make it strictly illegal to transfer or sell that info or anything derived from it. Don't like it, get into another business. No one's making you collect people's info. Yes, this should apply to e.g. credit card companies, not just big tech. This'd need some fine points hammered out (don't laws always?) but it's not that crazy. Do something to make platforms responsible when their "algorithms" promote something. Not just hosting it, but when they promote it. Don't like it? Don't curate, then, or have a human do it so you're sure nothing you're deliberately promoting is shitty enough to land you on the wrong end of a lawsuit. "But how will tech companies show every visitor a totally different home page of content they're promoting (but in no way responsible for), and how will Youtube find a way to recommend Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan videos next to every damn thing? How will tech companies make every part of their 'experience' algorithmically-selected, personalized recommendations of content they farmed from randos?" They won't, they won't, and... they won't. You're welcome. Make data leaks so cripplingly expensive that no company would dare hoard personal data it didn't absolutely need to get by. Force the quasi-official credit reporting agencies not to be so shitty. In particular, "freezes" should be free and should be the default, alerts for activity should be free, and access to one's own info should be on demand at any time, not once per year per agency. Or just outlaw the bastards completely, IDGAF. I dunno, lots of things we could do to make the current personal data free-for-all less hellish.
    • smolder 5y ago
      > This'd need some fine points hammered out (don't laws always?) but it's not that crazy. It sounds like you're suggesting GDPR style regulation. They're still figuring out how to enforce that but generally I support it. Too much money is against it to get anything passed in the US, though. Another problem is that the US government seems to like when the tech sector gobbles up data on people. It gives them new powers for social control.
  • vpfaulkner 5y ago
    A lot of these issues seem difficult to regulate but one that seems more realistic is usage by minors. What if social media platforms required all minors to have their account associated with a parent account? The parent could monitor activity, institute time limits, etc.
    • EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
      Minors don't use FB much anyway. It's more tik-tok now. And of course no minor would use an app monitored by her parents, she will immediately switch to another app.
      • vpfaulkner 5y ago
        Sorry, should have clarified: I was suggesting that if the government decides to regulate it should apply to all social media platforms, not just FB. Updated the original comment.
        • Talanes 5y ago
          Unless you're also requiring IDs for age verification, then that just means that the kids will lie.
  • burlesona 5y ago
    I would ban algorithmic targeted media -- ie no personalized feed based on an "engagement" algorithm, for social media just see a chronological feed of posts from the people you follow. This is the most addictive and radicalizing part of social media - and the most lucrative. Much like the nicotine in Big Tobacco's case.
    • asiachick 5y ago
      Could I write my own algo for personal use? Could I hire someone else to write that algo? Could I share it with others? Could I start a company to sell it? If it gets to popular will you try to ban it too?
  • mullingitover 5y ago
    > I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship. I think that removing CDA Sec 230 protections for algorithmically-curated feeds is the answer. It's one thing to have a basic FIFO feed, it's another to hide or reveal content based on your own internal engagement/revenue targets. At the point where you're crafting bespoke engagement-maximizing feeds, you're creating a gestalt creative work that has a life of its own and that is no longer merely a passthrough for the works of users of the platform. In other words, consider Facebook's curated feeds as Facebook's speech, not only the speech of their users, so Facebook faces liability for that speech.
    • quotemstr 5y ago
      Your proposal would make HN-style comment ranking illegal. Do you really want to live in the world you propose?
      • mullingitover 5y ago
        I considered the widely-used 'hot' algorithm and I don't think that really qualifies as a 'creative work' on the part of the site. The 'top from last hour/day/month/year' and 'hot' algorithms are really elementary sorting methods that are in the same league as FIFO.
        • quotemstr 5y ago
          Who gets to decide what algorithms are simple enough to be legal? You? Why? All a ranking algorithm is doing is making suggestions that certain content be read before other content. That's protected speech.
          • mullingitover 5y ago
            > Who gets to decide what algorithms are simple enough to be legal? You? Why? I'm not talking about the legality, I'm talking about the liability. If one user posts defamatory/libelous speech and Facebook decides to blast it to 1 billion users because their secret sauce algorithm found that it really cranks the revenue dial, Facebook should share some culpability in that defamation lawsuit. A basic 'hot' algorithm that's not designed by squadrons of PhDs running machine learning on user behavior analysis isn't really the same thing, culpability-wise, imho.
• mrweasel 5y ago
  Facebook may not be doing anything illegal, but it is immoral. While morality is subjective, and not enforceable, the public needs to know what is happening, so they can make their mind about supporting a given company.
  • onemoresoop 5y ago
    Facebook is not doing anything illegal only because there are in relatively new space the law hasn't caught up with yet.
  • chasd00 5y ago
    i agree, legislating morality has never worked. However, legislation to inform the consumer has worked. Social media should be forced to inform the consumer when/how they're being targeted. When a user is shown 15 pieces of content it should be crystal clear the platform is trying to tease out an emotional response from them and not just showing them their friend's posts. Maybe a warning label like "This content was algorithmically curated to elicit the maximum emotional response from you".
• oort-cloud9 5y ago
  Standard oil would not have been able to consolidate the oil industry without the help of the government.
• echelon 5y ago
  > while not illegal While not currently illegal. Call your representatives and tell them you find this reprehensible. Let's make it illegal. We live in a representative democracy.
  • beaner 5y ago
    What is it, exactly?
    • thrwn_frthr_awy 5y ago
      Personalized advertising.
      • handmodel 5y ago
        What would be the definition of this? I listen to a podcast on football. Are they allowed to run ads that are about sports betting and NFL tickets? That is personalized to the group. Is Facebook allowed to run ads for sports betting to all people who are fans of a professional team on their site? Is Facebook not allowed to run me ads for local restaurants any more?
        • MetaWhirledPeas 5y ago
          This could be done. The ads on a football podcast could be based on who their broader audience is, not based on a specific user. > Is Facebook not allowed to run me ads for local restaurants any more? Nope.
          • yellow_postit 5y ago
            the difference between a cohort that listens to a football podcast and lives in a metro doesn’t seem obvious to me.
        • runarberg 5y ago
          I’m guessing that people use targeted advertising and personalized advertising interchangeably. The advertising industry knows full well what it means, and I’m sure the legislator should have no problem finding experts in that area to make a legally rigorous definition.
• tannhaeuser 5y ago
  Frankly, I'm not expecting any meaningful legislative response, given US antitrust has blessed the WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions by Fb as well as Google's acquisition of DoubleClick and YouTube.
• jimkleiber 5y ago
  I really appreciate this point. I often see it as written rules (laws) and unwritten rules (ethics). If something breaks the unwritten rules we have about how people are supposed to interact with each other, then we often codify that rule into law. Many people will say "I didn't break the law" but where many people would say that person did break an unwritten law. > There should be no question, that what FB is doing here, while not illegal, is highly dubious ethically. At the same time, I believe some of the stuff FB has done is currently illegal, such as this example in one of the whistleblower's disclosures to the SEC [0]: > Our anonymous client is disclosing original evidence showing that Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) has, for years past and ongoing, violated U.S. security laws by making material misrepresentations and omissions in statements to investors and prospective investors, including, inter alia, through filings with the SEC, testimony to Congress, online statements, and media stories. So it could be a combination of them both violating ethics and violating the law. [0]: https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1445248400237244423?s=20 https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1445248400237244423?s=...
  • taf2 5y ago
    My Mom said it to me with simpler terms when i was little... "we only have laws because of the assholes"
    • sarkron 5y ago
      Plato put it like this in his "Laws": “Laws are made to instruct the good, and in the hope that there may be no need of them; also to control the bad, whose hardness of heart will not be hindered from crime.”
      • chmsky00 5y ago
        I wonder how he’d speak of a supposedly even better educated society stealing the future of the next due to circular validation of our waste filled industrialism.
        • SuoDuanDao 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• akudha 5y ago
  That is the problem of following the absolute minimum standards in life - we (the society as a whole) have accepted that as long as businesses follow the law, its all good. We've accepted that the sole purpose of businesses is to make money within the bounds of the law. While this makes sense logically, it isn't good for anyone in the long run, practically. Also remember that all kinds of unfair laws can be passed, if you have enough money to buy politicians. We should strive for higher standards, but who am I kidding - we live in a world of "greed is good" mantra.
  • bilbo0s 5y ago
    The problem is that without laws, what would those "standards" be? You have to do more than the law? But how does any business in the future know what that is? The great things about law are predictability and flexibility. If the law is not enough, we can change it. Then everyone is held to that new standard. But having a standard that is not laid out, is the same thing as having no standard at all. Going into an area where we say companies have to meet an unwritten ethical and/or moral standard is ripe for abuse. Under those conditions, if I show certain messages or ads on my website that are wholly unethical and immoral, but not necessarily illegal in the written law, I'm opening myself up to liability based on violating unstated ethics and morals.
    • akudha 5y ago
      You seem to be misunderstanding what I was saying (or I wasn't clear). I am not at all saying we shouldn't have laws - we absolutely should have laws and rules. I am not saying that we should sue companies based on unstated ethics or morals (how would that even work anyway?). All I am saying is we should, as a society, have a better attitude and higher standards than stuff like greed is good, the sole purpose of a business is make profit, even at the expense of everything else etc etc. I fully understand this sounds idealistic and maybe it is dumb to expect people to do better, when much of humanity is trying to do the minimum and get the maximum in return.
      • cddotdot 5y ago
• hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  The problem is, very often the law is unable to keep up, especially on technical issues. And even when it does, sometimes is way too late. Gates knew it when he asked to implement the AARD code - yes, they were sued, but they settled out of court and made the competitor's product irrelevant. A lot of Microsoft behavior in the 90s was just this: they could get away with it, but it simply didn't feel right.
• madengr 5y ago
  It's not unethical at all. It adheres to the 1st amendment. If anything, the censorship is illegal.
• axguscbklp 5y ago
  >There should be no question, that what FB is doing here, while not illegal, is highly dubious ethically. Why, what exactly are they doing that is ethically dubious? So far based on what I have read of this whistleblower's revelations, I do not have a problem with Facebook doing any of it.
  • woeirua 5y ago
    Really? You don’t have a problem with an app that causes 1% of teens that use it to develop suicidal thoughts? By the way, according to the leaked study these teens directly attributed their suicidal ideation to Instagram.
    • axguscbklp 5y ago
      Yes, I do not have any problem with it whatsoever. There are probably plenty of books that also cause some percentage of people to develop suicidal thoughts, but I do not want to start banning those books.
      • w0m 5y ago
        This is the kicker I think. Facebook scales 'keeping up with the Jones' up and make it easier. But that's been a common trope since (google search... 1920ish). What Facebook's doing isn't new; it's simply Easier. When you say, '1% develop suicidal thoughts' - Is that causation or correlation? Maybe I'm missing something; but this seems somewhat like 'biggest target' to me as the world had shrunk. https://health.ucdavis.edu/health-news/newsroom/even-before-covid-19-pandemic-youth-suicide-already-at-record-high/2021/04 https://health.ucdavis.edu/health-news/newsroom/even-before-...
    • newaccount2021 5y ago
      Are you coming after my collection of Smiths CDs?
    • discobot2 5y ago
      What number in question would be there if we evaluate schools or cinema or night clubs?
• downandout 5y ago
  Not everyone has the same moral compass. It isn’t even clear that the whistleblower herself was guided by concern for society: she first went to the SEC with these complaints. That’s a weird place to go with concerns about social media’s impact on society. I wonder why? Perhaps…just maybe…it was because the SEC will give her 10-30% of any fines levied against Facebook, leading to a potential windfall of $1 billion or more to her personally. It takes truly egregious behavior for society to agree that new laws must be passed to outlaw it. The current state of social media says much more about human behavior than Facebook’s behavior. Everyone here would also almost certainly reject the kinds of laws that would be required to make Facebook/IG a healthier place. They would likely involve serious privacy violations, just for starters. So given that legislation in this area has almost no chance of passing, it is unclear what the point of this is, other than a huge payday for the whistleblower.
  • hef19898 5y ago
    How about she went to SEC because for certain things that the right place to go to? And the SEC has to fine FB first, which would mean that FB committed illegal acts. That alone is behavior that needs to be encouraged, exposing corporate wrong doing is a net positively for society.
    • downandout 5y ago
      which would mean that FB committed illegal acts The SEC will make extremely vague allegations that Facebook misled investors by not disclosing some of these reports. Facebook will settle to avoid further reputational damage, paying large fines without admitting wrongdoing. This woman will then buy an island to vacation on and a G650 to get there with. That is how 99% of these things play out. I personally don’t believe that Facebook has done anything illegal here. That is not to say I don't think they have done anything wrong - their business, like many others, is morally bankrupt in some ways. But there is no codified responsibility for Facebook to do anything to cure the ills of social media. You don’t see casinos being successfully sued for causing suicides, bankruptcies, divorces, financial crimes, etc., but it happens every day. That’s because there is no law against being in a scummy business. Investors in such businesses know (or should know) what they are supporting.
• Simplicitas 5y ago
  Hmm ... I'm personally getting tired of this "well, it's currently legal" .. law changes start with moral indignation. We are at that junction now. Although accurate, let's park the legality lines.
• Pyramus 5y ago
  Enron is another fascinating example, there is an interview with the former CFO where he talks about what he calls "legal fraud" - practices that are highly dubious but technically not illegal [1]. [1] https://youtu.be/goQhGqQtFZ4 https://youtu.be/goQhGqQtFZ4
  • _hyn3 5y ago
    There's no such thing as "legal fraud". Fraud is always illegal.
    • Pyramus 5y ago
      In theory yes - in practice no. Legal/illegal is only a binary variable in theory. In practice it's things that are clearly white, clearly black and lots of grey in between. There are many concrete examples regarding accounting rules mentioned in the interview. The question is where does a court draw the line, and as parent rightly points out, sometimes code/case law changes after the fact.
      • tsimionescu 5y ago
        I think the parent is making a point about definitions - that the word fraud can only refer to illegal actions by definition. I think this is an overly literal interpretation of language' though.
        • chalst 5y ago
          Since the term was quoted in Pyramus' comment, this goes from being overly literal to being perversely pedantic.
• dantheman 5y ago
  Standard oil reduces the cost of oil, delighted customers, and had already a massive decline in market share by the time the antitrust stuff happened. It was driven by people who couldn't compete.
  • _hyn3 5y ago
    As someone who has studied this fairly extensively, I believe this comment to be factually correct. It also didn't hurt Rockefeller in the slightest. To the contrary, he actually became far wealthier post-breakup, possibly because all former business units became more efficient in the light of open competition. Many of them live on today, such as Texaco, Chevron, and Mobil. https://historyincharts.com/the-legacy-of-the-breakup-of-standard-oil/ https://historyincharts.com/the-legacy-of-the-breakup-of-sta... https://www.britannica.com/topic/Standard-Oil https://www.britannica.com/topic/Standard-Oil In general, trustbusting almost never actually works as planned, but it always seems like a good idea -- a desperate solution, perhaps the only possible solution -- at the time. The only thing that tends to work is upstart competition driven by new technology that blindsides the older company. When it comes to a monopolist, the one thing that we can say historically is that, "This too shall pass."
    • Frondo 5y ago
      I was never aware that the purpose of anti-trust legislation was to hurt people (e.g. Rockefeller) or prevent them from making money. I thought it was to promote competition, which it apparently did.
    • jimbob45 5y ago
      >possibly because all former business units became more efficient in the light of open competition. Then it sounds like it did work in the eyes of the people who wanted more efficient corporations (and thus potential savings to be passed down to them).
• stephc_int13 5y ago
  Law is always lagging behind social norms, for many reasons. Because of that, I don't think laws can change the world, this is the opposite, laws are merely acknowledging the common rules of the majority. Technology also change the world and we need time to figure out new rules to adapt, in the case of Facebook and other giants, some changes are clearly in need, at least it seems to be a growing consensus.
  • tsimionescu 5y ago
    Laws can absolutely change the world (at least if we take the world to mean one country). Look at de-segregation. It's obviously that the world was segregated before the de-segregation laws were passed. Of course, the laws were passed because there was ample enough support for them, but that doesn't mean that the laws only aknowledged an existing state of affairs. Even more so, the laws themselves helped accelerate the perception of segregation as evil among the majority of the population, whereas before it was just a regular part of life to many (many on the good part of the segregated world, of course).
• philwelch 5y ago
  It's astounding to me that too little censorship is characterized as "antithetical to our values", "highly dubious ethically", and worthy of potential legal sanction in the top-ranked comment on HN.
  • paulryanrogers 5y ago
    Is it too little censorship or rather amplifying problematic things and suppressing heathier things because of perverse incentives? FB and Instagram timelines are not raw feeds from ones friends/follows. They are tuned by human calibrated algorithms. Kids need to eat vegetables and lean protein sources. But if school districts instead optimize for profit they may end up feeding the kids borderline poison like sodas and candy. When companies come to dominate a public space, like huge parts of digital comms, then maybe it's OK to demand more responsible behavior of them.
    • dionidium 5y ago
      What people choose to "amplify" is none of the government's business. People are allowed to be wrong. Yes, even if you think it's about something really important.
    • philwelch 5y ago
      > Kids need to eat vegetables and lean protein sources. But if school districts instead optimize for profit they may end up feeding the kids borderline poison like sodas and candy. When companies come to dominate a public space, like huge parts of digital comms, then maybe it's OK to demand more responsible behavior of them. Adults are not children and social media sites are not school districts. The school district analogy also doesn't really hold up on its own terms unless you're talking about boarding schools, which you probably aren't given the term "school district". When I was a kid, I ate at least 2 out of 3 meals at home, and more often than not, I brought a sack lunch. I know that poorer kids rely on school lunches a lot more than I did, but that's still just one meal a day. My high school actually did have a Coca-Cola machine, but I think that's old enough for kids to start making some of their own life decisions, like whether or not to have a Coke with their lunch. I mean, high school is around the same time that students start planning for their future career and/or higher education, so if you can be trusted to decide between taking vocational classes and fulfilling college admissions requirements, I think you can also be trusted to decide whether or not to drink a Coke. 14 isn't that far off from 13, which is the legal minimum age to get a social media account. Also, unlike going to school, nobody is forced by the government to spend multiple hours a day using social media. Of course we regulate schools. We also regulate prisons to make sure that prisoners are humanely treated, or at least we're supposed to. The better analogy isn't school districts but convenience stores, in an alternate universe where children under the age of 13 were prohibited from entering convenience stores and some people were complaining that still wasn't enough.
• _hyn3 5y ago
  > a lot of companies have done things in the past that were not illegal at the time of action. However, those actions were later decided to be made illegal because the behavior was deemed to be antithetical to our values. What you are saying is literally the opposite of hundreds of years of the rule of law. If FB did break the law as written, then prosecute them for that in a fair trial by a jury of their peers, but yours (or anyone else's) personal feelings about "our values" should never be able to override the plain language of the law, especially retroactively.
  • NineStarPoint 5y ago
    The point they’re making is you don’t prosecute Facebook for something that we think is unjust but is not yet illegal. You make it illegal, and then after that point if anyone continues with the now illegal course of action then you prosecute them. Prosecuting someone for something that wasn’t illegal when they did it would of course be wrong.
    • _hyn3 5y ago
      If that was what the OP had said, I would agree, but I don't interpret that as being what they actually said (although I may have misinterpreted): "However, those actions were later decided to be made illegal" (emphasis added) I interpret this as saying that they believe retroactively applying enforcement would be moral, just, and legal.
• nuerow 5y ago
  > I think a lot of people are choosing to ignore that a lot of companies have done things in the past that were not illegal at the time of action. (...) The definition of what represents good and evil does not come from what's passed as legislation, nor does the negative influence on society as a whole of a business. Legislation is also a moot point given that these mega-corporations actively lobby law-makers into not passing any inconvenient legislation.
• ayngg 5y ago
  One fairly common pattern seen is that companies develop in a nascent space where there were few rules and were therefore able to basically outrun regulation/ the law that moves very slowly. When that regulation eventually comes it ends up solidifying the monopolistic advantage by essentially creating a moat and closing the door on practices that helped create such growth in the first place. I think when stakes are that high, companies are generally rewarded and incentivized to be unscrupulous rather than virtuous, especially when the unscrupulous actors just become wealthy enough to buy out the virtuous ones. I wouldn't be surprised if we are currently in the middle of a version of this regarding social media and how privacy of personal information is handled right now.
  • laurent92 5y ago
    What would a developed civilization do? I doubt we would be able to prevent the “bubble up and close the door” behavior, so should it also ensure that corporations are regularly rotated (ie dismantled for others to take the space) so only those which can succeed fairly in the current law framework would survive?
  • tsimionescu 5y ago
    This argument is brought up a lot, but it seems the lack of regulation hadn't really stopped FB and Google from monopolizing their markets anyway (or, oligopolizing if we think they're in the same market).
  • agumonkey 5y ago
    Internet was funny. In the case of Uber, the nascent space was virtual but that was enough for them to ask for the ability to play with the old space with a fresh empty rule set.
  • charwalker 5y ago
    Build the moat then break up the corps involved as needed.
• freeopinion 5y ago
  Your point is a good one, but we should be careful not to equate [edit: completely] Facebook's actions with those of Standard Oil. If we say that the Sherman Antitrust Act was only necessary because of unethical behavior on the part of players like Standard Oil, we cannot say the same in this situation. If you consider Facebook's behavior unethical, how do you view the behavior of the millions of people who fund them and provide them such market power? There are many many alternatives to Facebook. But non-Facebook parties routinely force people to Facebook if they want to be involved in an event or receive a notification or provide feedback. If you would shame Facebook for their behavior, you should also shame others for using Facebook. Users enable Facebook's behavior. Conversely, if you hold Facebook users harmless, it is harder to sympathize with complaints about Facebook's behavior. Their are clear parallels between Facebook and Standard Oil. But it is useful to note where there are differences, too.
• dionidium 5y ago
  It really bums me out to see these sentiments at the top of HN. What to do about "misinformation" is an interesting question for private actors to think about, if they wish, but what the government should do about it is not an interesting question. The debate has been had for a couple hundred years, already. It's over. One side already won.
• gadrev 5y ago
  Good point. The state doesn't decide what's "good" or "bad". We must not forget that. Laws are useful but are an application of power. Power of who? Of the people? Of some bureaucrats? The answer will not be black and white in most cases, but what's important is not to regard any body that can legislate as a source of moral authority based on that power alone. And one consequence is not to buy big corp arguments about evil practices "but it's legal!". Yeah, it's legal because it hasn't been outlawed _yet_, because of strong lobbying... b/c of whatever. Never relegate the moral judgement to just "it's legal/illegal".
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• pangolinplayer 5y ago
  If Congress invites you to speak without fear of arrest and the main stream media hold you up as a darling then you are NOT a whistleblower. You are doing the bidding of power... If you are exiled to Russia (Snowden) or locked up without trial like Assange THEN you are whistlw blower and dangerous to power. This chick is a shill
  • sumedh 5y ago
    whistleblower : a person who informs on a person or organisation regarded as engaging in an unlawful or immoral activity.
  • trhway 5y ago
    absolutely. To me it sounds like she is exacting revenge on FB for something or may be like the other commenters suggested she is trying to get that whistleblower share of a SEC fine/settlement with FB if one is to come out of this story. Otherwise it is kind of strange turn of heart on her part from profit off the users to suddenly being so caring about the users - I mean she herself founded what is now Hinge dating app https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/hinge/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/hinge/ : "And like so many dating apps, Hinge asks users to connect their Facebook account to sign in to the app. Remember, when you connect a social media account like Facebook to a dating app, both Facebook and the dating app now potentially collect more information together." "Hinge definitely shares user data with around 45 other Match Group companies, such as Tinder, OK Cupid, and Plenty of Fish among others. The company also shares data with third parties for purposes such as advertising and analytics."
  • hiram112 5y ago
    Bingo. The whole thing smells fishy. Of course, the headlines were talking about how evil Facebook is because it makes kids feel bad. But digging deeper, you can see exactly how this is meant to play out: More censorship and control by the NGOs and "Fact-Checkers" (since the gov't can't publicly dictate what content Facebook is censoring). But make no mistake, the same players that are calling the shots in DC will now be ensuring the public doesn't see any of that dangerous "disinformation". It was a good 30 years or so for true free speech that was always the promise of the internet. But those days are gone.
• hatmatrix 5y ago
  Agreed. Facebook has a fiduciary duty to it's shareholders to maximize profits. Unfortunately, it's up to the government to create legal boundaries to prohibit the means by which they can do that.
• deleted 5y ago
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• 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  "In response, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 which subsequently prevented the actions that Standard Oil had used to conslidate the market." This tech company employee (aka the "Facebook Whistleblower") is refusing to share the documents she stole with the FTC. Although she did share them with several state attorneys general. It appears she does not support antitrust inquiries. Heavy consolidation of "social media" is to her an acceptable status quo. Needless to say, some would argue competition provides incentives for large players to improve their services.
  • raxxorrax 5y ago
    I think she didn't really blew the whistle on anything yet. Since tech and Washington are close, I would expect access to said document anyway and they aren't available to the public. So blind trust is required, not a good recommendation if we talk about misinformation.
• deleted 5y ago
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• Animats 5y ago
  I think a lot of people are choosing to ignore that a lot of companies have done things in the past that were not illegal at the time of action. However, those actions were later decided to be made illegal because the behavior was deemed to be antithetical to our values. Which, on good days, is why we have legislatures. To make new laws to cover new situations.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  "In response, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 which subsequently prevented the actions that Standard Oil had used to conslidate the market." This tech company employee (aka the "Facebook Whistleblower") is refusing to share the documents she stole with the FTC. Although she did share them with several attorneys general. It appears she does not support antitrust inquiries. Heavy consolidation of "social media" with no meaningful competition is acceptable to her. Needless to say, some would argue competition provides incentives for large players to improve their services.
  • chalst 5y ago
    > This tech company employee (aka the "Facebook Whistleblower") is refusing to share the documents she stole with the FTC. Source?
    • 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
      https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/technology/who-is-frances-haugen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/technology/who-is-frances...
    • 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
      https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/technology/whistle-blower-facebook-frances-haugen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/technology/whistle-blower... https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-says-she-wants-to-fix-the-company-not-harm-it-11633304122 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebook-whistleblower-fran...
      • chalst 5y ago
        Thanks.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• amelius 5y ago
  > it exploited the law to allow it to grow into the monstrosity that it eventually became If law was code, then what they did was hacking. Hacking is by definition: using something in ways it was not intended to be used. If computer hacking is punishable, then so should "law-hacking".
• stadium 5y ago
  If their internal docs show that they know their product causes harm and is engineered to be addictive, it could be a big tobacco moment from a mental health perspective.
• fidesomnes 5y ago
  you tin pot authoritarians are incredible. "disgruntled employee who thinks she should be given more power to censor ideas she does not like" is a better headline.
• asabjorn 5y ago
  Illegality is dangerous to define and enforce when it comes to speech. Especially if Glenn Greenwald[1] is right that this is not an attempt to weaken facebook, but to commandeer its power to censor. Directory of Policy Communications for Facebook Lena Pietch just called for "standard rules" for the whole internet, increasing the danger because whomever would get that power could widely censor unwanted popular dissent and counter narrative viewpoints. Facebook already caused damage doing this by censoring the lab leak hypothesis, which delayed potential lifesaving insights. The whistleblower also has a political connection that should be investigated; The law firm representing the whistleblower also represent Whitehouse Press Secretary Jen Psaki, and the whistleblowers lawyer Andrew P. Bakaj[2] was the principal attorney representing the whistleblower who filed the initial complaint that led to the Trump impeachment process. [1] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-want-to https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_P._Bakaj https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_P._Bakaj
  • raxxorrax 5y ago
    This is much more concise reporting on what is happening here and makes much more sense. I disagree that hiring a lawyer must mean there is a political connection, but the way media frames the issue is again predictable and I personally would frame this as misinformation. We also have seen no documents. Blindly believing media isn't good advice if the problem is allegedly misinformation.
  • chalst 5y ago
    This is an interesting and somewhat irritating take by Greenwald. I'll just put a counterpoint to one point he made that I was careful to get a grasp of what was going on: Greenwald [Today]> Their control over multiple huge platforms that they purchased enables them to punish and even destroy competitors, as we saw when Apple, Google and Amazon united to remove Parler from the internet forty-eight hours after leading Democrats demanded that action, right as Parler became the most-downloaded app in the country Greenwald [Jan 12]> The day after a united Apple and Google acted against Parler, Amazon delivered the fatal blow. The company founded and run by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, used virtually identical language as Apple to inform Parler that its web hosting service (AWS) was terminating Parler’s ability to have AWS host its site: “Because Parler cannot comply with our terms of service and poses a very real risk to public safety, we plan to suspend Parler’s account effective Sunday, January 10th, at 11:59PM PST.” Because Amazon is such a dominant force in web hosting, Parler has thus far not found a hosting service for its platform, which is why it has disappeared not only from app stores and phones but also from the internet. This is kind of along the right lines but gets the details wrong. Greenwald is intelligent, insightful, has good sources and is not afraid to annoy people, so it is tiresome that he has a bad habit of fudging details to make a shiny claim that is not quite right. With another journalist, I'd think what happened is the journalist was under pressure, so wrote up a story whose details they didn't quite follow, but with Greenwald, I am not sure what is going on. My least unlikely guess so far is that he rewards his sources with sympathetic coverage, which in this case he gave to Parler executives. Some thoughts: The big truth: The triple whammy from three of the four biggest tech firms, all of which have sophisticated lobbying operations, did indeed effectively cripple Parler. The biggest error: None of the three companies were in competition with Parler. In my opinion, the businesses of both Google and Apple would benefit from a strong rival to Facebook and Twitter; Amazon has a close relationship with Twitter, so this is a little less clear, but on the face of it AWS should normally benefit from hosting a client. This was pointed out by many commentators on the Jan 12th post, but he repeats it today. Continued mythmongering: Greenwald's Jan 12th story essentially misses the backstory on Parler's bad relationship with Amazon, who had for several weeks essentially refused to answer demands that they comply with their TOS. There is competition in the hosting business (Greenwald's characterisation of Amazon's dominance on jan 12th was itself an error), but I don't think any major hosting provider - e.g., neither Digital Ocean nor Hetzner have major lobbying operations - would have kept the left the servers up under the circumstances. I commented on this at the time on the HN thread of Greenwald's story - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25759115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25759115 - to my knowledge Greenwald has not since given a more faithful account of Amazon's role. [Today]: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-want-to https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-... (repeating your link) [Jan 12]: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-show-of-monopolistic https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-sho... Jan 12, 2021
• anyfactor 5y ago
  Same case with Enron. After the Enron scandal the Sarbanes - Oxley act was enacted to strengthen financial reporting practices along with a bunch of new modifications in the accounting principles and guidelines (GAAP). The SOX Act was considered to be greatest and the most radical update in Accounting since the invention of the double entry method. Governance and stewardship was theorized in Accounting but they were pushed into practice with the SOX act. Similarly we had the Dodd-Frank act post the financial crisis of '08. Essentially law is a post-facto phenomenon. We can not be sure what to write into a legal framework unless there is an evidence for the need to such laws.
• idontwantthis 5y ago
  Industrial ethics can be about ensuring longterm success as well. If a journalist can’t be trusted to keep an off-the-record source unnamed then they will never get another story. They can tarnish their entire organization, so they don’t do it even if they could get one incredibly powerful story out of it.
• defaultprimate 5y ago
  Standard Oil had gone from >90% market share to < 60% by the time any legislation related to it was enacted. The legislation hurt their competitors, who were catching up using similar business strategies, more than SO.