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Every large corporation "lies". But there are a number of mechanisms. First, large corporation are large, which means its impossible to know whats happening ev

Every large corporation "lies". But there are a number of mechanisms. First, large corporation are large, which means its impossible to know whats happening everywhere. This means you are reliant on your underlings to report up to you. At each stage there will be entropy, noise and distortion. Second there is PR, their job is to massage, deflect and sway. Thirdly there is knowingly mislead in public. The problem we have here is that there is a massive lens of facebook, so _every_ move they make is introspected and interpreted. For example the most recent outage. Outages happen it wasn't an inside job, and its really cute to imagine that facebook are both competent, coordinated, nimble and secretive enough to pull something like that and keep it a secret (especially as the incident review was out in the open via a leaked zoom and google doc.) Don't interpret this as me advocating for facebook. I'm advocating for that same level of criticism being applied to the rest of FAANG. Case in point, Apple tried to roll out a CSAM filter. lots of noise about privacy, but very little about how Apple was doing it because they are currently aware that they are enabling the industrial exploitation of children. We should be _very_ angry at this, as it threatens end-to-end encryption. I get that its fashionable to shit on facebook, but it'd be great if we looked at what the others are doing especially when they are dabbling in AR.

aeturnum 5y ago
Every company "lies" but Facebook lies. What OP cited had nothing to do with PR or public statements. They are all regulatory representations that were later found to be false. That's different. It's pretty rare that companies make known material misstatements to regulators. Instead, they figure out what they want to do and they do make the least revealing statement that isn't a lie. You mentioned that we should level this criticism at the rest of FAANG, but what examples do you have of other FAANG companies making obviously false statements in actual legal documents? As far as I know, through all of the Apple CSAM controversy their statements and their actions (however controversial) always matched up. That is not how Facebook operates.
- KaiserPro 5y ago
  > They are all regulatory representations that were later found to be false. Just look at finance, the entire market is based on telling mistruths to regulators. Apple are currently piling industrial amounts of bullshit to a number of regulators. The irish, dutch and british tax authorities are constantly being fed lies about where "sales" happen. Google have lied to both austrialian and french regulators. The reason I brought up apple is because they are doing to to defuse the fact that they are alone amongst FAANG for enabling child abuse.
  - aeturnum 5y ago
    > Just look at finance, the entire market is based on telling mistruths to regulators. There are of course liars in the finance market, but my impression is that most financial companies actually follow regulations quite closely (and happily, their employees often wrote the regs). > Apple are currently piling industrial amounts of bullshit to a number of regulators. The irish, dutch and british tax authorities are constantly being fed lies about where "sales" happen. I think we are using language differently. My sense is that Apple is using a legal fiction to minimize taxes through Irish subsidiaries, but that they are (as far as I know) quite detailed and truthful about the details of that legal fiction. It's quite silly to say Apple Ireland is making all the sales in all of Europe, but such an arrangement is legal and I suspect quite airtight as far as the relevant legal standards go. To me this is "lying" - representing the companies actions in a way that's to their advantage and is strictly in line with legal realities. If you could look at every document inside Apple you would probably find no different between their public and private opinions on legal specifics of the arrangement. Like...Apple Ireland doesn't "make" anything, but I'm sure all the money actually flows through the company. Facebook, on the other hand, has repeatedly been found to choose to say things to regulators (or psudo-regulators like their "oversight board") that are, at the moment they say them, directly at odds with internal understanding. They aren't accurately describing an advantageous legal fiction - they're just making claims about things that no one inside the company believes. This would be like Apple claiming all money flows through Apple Ireland, but checking their bank records shows that the company has never received or sent any money. The difference seems important to me, though I understand why someone might disagree. > Google have lied to both austrialian and french regulators. I googled around and couldn't find an instance of google lying to french regulators (I did not check aus ones). Could you point to the instance you're thinking of? > The reason I brought up apple is because they are doing to to defuse the fact that they are alone amongst FAANG for enabling child abuse. I am not sure I understand what you mean here - I would imagine that all of FAANG (aside from netflix probably) provide services used by abusers.

aeturnum 5y ago

Every company "lies" but Facebook lies. What OP cited had nothing to do with PR or public statements. They are all regulatory representations that were later found to be false. That's different. It's pretty rare that companies make known material misstatements to regulators. Instead, they figure out what they want to do and they do make the least revealing statement that isn't a lie. You mentioned that we should level this criticism at the rest of FAANG, but what examples do you have of other FAANG companies making obviously false statements in actual legal documents? As far as I know, through all of the Apple CSAM controversy their statements and their actions (however controversial) always matched up. That is not how Facebook operates.

KaiserPro 5y ago
> They are all regulatory representations that were later found to be false. Just look at finance, the entire market is based on telling mistruths to regulators. Apple are currently piling industrial amounts of bullshit to a number of regulators. The irish, dutch and british tax authorities are constantly being fed lies about where "sales" happen. Google have lied to both austrialian and french regulators. The reason I brought up apple is because they are doing to to defuse the fact that they are alone amongst FAANG for enabling child abuse.
- aeturnum 5y ago
  > Just look at finance, the entire market is based on telling mistruths to regulators. There are of course liars in the finance market, but my impression is that most financial companies actually follow regulations quite closely (and happily, their employees often wrote the regs). > Apple are currently piling industrial amounts of bullshit to a number of regulators. The irish, dutch and british tax authorities are constantly being fed lies about where "sales" happen. I think we are using language differently. My sense is that Apple is using a legal fiction to minimize taxes through Irish subsidiaries, but that they are (as far as I know) quite detailed and truthful about the details of that legal fiction. It's quite silly to say Apple Ireland is making all the sales in all of Europe, but such an arrangement is legal and I suspect quite airtight as far as the relevant legal standards go. To me this is "lying" - representing the companies actions in a way that's to their advantage and is strictly in line with legal realities. If you could look at every document inside Apple you would probably find no different between their public and private opinions on legal specifics of the arrangement. Like...Apple Ireland doesn't "make" anything, but I'm sure all the money actually flows through the company. Facebook, on the other hand, has repeatedly been found to choose to say things to regulators (or psudo-regulators like their "oversight board") that are, at the moment they say them, directly at odds with internal understanding. They aren't accurately describing an advantageous legal fiction - they're just making claims about things that no one inside the company believes. This would be like Apple claiming all money flows through Apple Ireland, but checking their bank records shows that the company has never received or sent any money. The difference seems important to me, though I understand why someone might disagree. > Google have lied to both austrialian and french regulators. I googled around and couldn't find an instance of google lying to french regulators (I did not check aus ones). Could you point to the instance you're thinking of? > The reason I brought up apple is because they are doing to to defuse the fact that they are alone amongst FAANG for enabling child abuse. I am not sure I understand what you mean here - I would imagine that all of FAANG (aside from netflix probably) provide services used by abusers.