7 ms·

Facebook threatens to leave Europe over privacy laws, regulators say ‘please do’

41 points by urlwolf 4y ago

chews 4y ago
EU: Go Zuck yourself! Zuck: f*ck
- spacemanmatt 4y ago
  Looks like we were on similar threads. I posted before I saw this =)
thg 4y ago
Facebook threatening us with a good time. Too bad they'll never go through with it.
mccorrinall 4y ago
I actually get a lot of value from facebooks products, especially react, jest and graphql. I also use WhatsApp a lot. I believe the net value of Meta is positive, since there work a lot of smart guys and they have awesome open source products. I’m always impressed by the architecture of react, I could probably never design something that smart.
- codesternews 4y ago
  - sshine 4y ago
    Starting with "Wow, what a stupid argument" is disrespectful. Consider that a kind statement will get your point across equally without coming off as a jerk. While the value of Facebook is not what is principally questioned (it is rather a question of either trade negotiation or privacy legislation), the value loss of Facebook and Instagram ceasing to run in Europe is what Meta is using as pressure; addressing that isn't stupid.
    - codesternews 4y ago
      Saying I use their tools and frameworks against privacy makes no sense. I am not saying we should not address it. But his argument against privacy with frameworks and saying facebook did good is total irrelevant and make no sense.
      - mccorrinall 4y ago
        Are you completely ignoring that I mentioned WhatsApp? They brought end2end encryption to the masses.
        robbedpeter 4y ago
        Whatsapp does not have e2e encryption. They encrypt message traffic in transit between endpoints and their servers, but they have visibility to the data. They can and have retrieved messages for law enforcement. End to end encryption is something fundamentally structurally different - only the two end points can decrypt the message. Alice sends Bob a message. If only Bob can decrypt it, it's e2ee. If meta, the nsa, cia, IRS, post office, and random dudes on the internet pretending to be law enforcement all have access to the message, it's not e2ee. Meta/Facebook sold the illusion of security to the masses. Let's not pretend they're the good guys.
        mccorrinall 4y ago
        > Whatsapp does not have e2e encryption. They encrypt message traffic in transit between endpoints and their servers, but they have visibility to the data. They can and have retrieved messages for law enforcement. Can you provide a source for that? Here [1] they state that they use e2ee. Here [2] is a tweet by Moxie Marlinspike (the founder/one of the founders of signal), that whatsapp implemented the signal protocol. Is signal also not end2end encrypted? [1] https://www.whatsapp.com/security/ https://www.whatsapp.com/security/ [2] https://twitter.com/moxie/status/717375035946577922?s=21&t=6LdhJr3s2z_XM_no-agKvQ https://twitter.com/moxie/status/717375035946577922?s=21&t=6...
- netsharc 4y ago
  To Godwin it straight away, Nazi germany also built the Autobahn, expanded the German railway, and progressed rocket technology. You seem to be saying we have to take the good and the bad of Meta and add them all up. And hey, at least it's positive for you!
einszwei 4y ago
Old news https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30207734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30207734
- jsnell 4y ago
  Not only old news, but fake news. There was no "threat", and the same risk had been disclosed in their security forms for years. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30303585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30303585
Proven 4y ago
spacemanmatt 4y ago
"American propaganda machine, go fuck yourself" (cue to footage of facebook being towed back to port)
srvmshr 4y ago
Say what one might about Meta's company & business policies - but their engineering talent is pretty top-notch. (Note: I am not a FAANG person). Having their office in your backyard genuinely lifts the quality bar in the place. Their openstack hardware standard was a quite a good step. Datacenter hardware & designs will get standardized eventually by such ventures. React and graphQL are very innovative software designs. The FAIR team regularly publishes excellent ML papers (IMPO they are second place after Google Brain, and slightly ahead of MSR in ML research). They pay well and retain quite a good pool of talent. If you're interested please have a look at the Facebook OpenSource channel. That's a pretty good source of learning cutting edge stuff working on scale - and unlike G-Brain, its genuinely open 99% of the time. Again, I dont like their business product(s). But the team that works on them is pretty marvelous
- fxtentacle 4y ago
  Thing is, you can learn from their Open Source without supporting their cash cow product. Also, maybe the German startup ecosystem would be better off with Facebook's engineering talent being spread out over 100 small start-ups (all of which would pay taxes) instead of bundled in one huge entity (which doesn't pay taxes). And if I remember correctly, "fairseq" (the foundation of Facebook's recent wav2vec2 ASR breakthrough) and the foundation of Microsoft Translator were both designed by PhDs at the University of Edinburgh. (EU Grant 688139 initially funded what became Microsoft Translator). I applaud Facebook and Microsoft for hiring promising PhDs and giving them the resources to succeed, but I'm not convinced that European countries are better off with these people working at FAANGs - as opposed to local competitors.

41 points by urlwolf 4y ago

chews 4y ago

EU: Go Zuck yourself! Zuck: f*ck

spacemanmatt 4y ago
Looks like we were on similar threads. I posted before I saw this =)

thg 4y ago

Facebook threatening us with a good time. Too bad they'll never go through with it.

mccorrinall 4y ago

I actually get a lot of value from facebooks products, especially react, jest and graphql. I also use WhatsApp a lot. I believe the net value of Meta is positive, since there work a lot of smart guys and they have awesome open source products. I’m always impressed by the architecture of react, I could probably never design something that smart.

codesternews 4y ago
- sshine 4y ago
  Starting with "Wow, what a stupid argument" is disrespectful. Consider that a kind statement will get your point across equally without coming off as a jerk. While the value of Facebook is not what is principally questioned (it is rather a question of either trade negotiation or privacy legislation), the value loss of Facebook and Instagram ceasing to run in Europe is what Meta is using as pressure; addressing that isn't stupid.
  - codesternews 4y ago
    Saying I use their tools and frameworks against privacy makes no sense. I am not saying we should not address it. But his argument against privacy with frameworks and saying facebook did good is total irrelevant and make no sense.
    - mccorrinall 4y ago
      Are you completely ignoring that I mentioned WhatsApp? They brought end2end encryption to the masses.
      - robbedpeter 4y ago
        Whatsapp does not have e2e encryption. They encrypt message traffic in transit between endpoints and their servers, but they have visibility to the data. They can and have retrieved messages for law enforcement. End to end encryption is something fundamentally structurally different - only the two end points can decrypt the message. Alice sends Bob a message. If only Bob can decrypt it, it's e2ee. If meta, the nsa, cia, IRS, post office, and random dudes on the internet pretending to be law enforcement all have access to the message, it's not e2ee. Meta/Facebook sold the illusion of security to the masses. Let's not pretend they're the good guys.
        mccorrinall 4y ago
        > Whatsapp does not have e2e encryption. They encrypt message traffic in transit between endpoints and their servers, but they have visibility to the data. They can and have retrieved messages for law enforcement. Can you provide a source for that? Here [1] they state that they use e2ee. Here [2] is a tweet by Moxie Marlinspike (the founder/one of the founders of signal), that whatsapp implemented the signal protocol. Is signal also not end2end encrypted? [1] https://www.whatsapp.com/security/ https://www.whatsapp.com/security/ [2] https://twitter.com/moxie/status/717375035946577922?s=21&t=6LdhJr3s2z_XM_no-agKvQ https://twitter.com/moxie/status/717375035946577922?s=21&t=6...
netsharc 4y ago
To Godwin it straight away, Nazi germany also built the Autobahn, expanded the German railway, and progressed rocket technology. You seem to be saying we have to take the good and the bad of Meta and add them all up. And hey, at least it's positive for you!

einszwei 4y ago

Old news https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30207734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30207734

jsnell 4y ago
Not only old news, but fake news. There was no "threat", and the same risk had been disclosed in their security forms for years. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30303585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30303585

Proven 4y ago

spacemanmatt 4y ago

"American propaganda machine, go fuck yourself" (cue to footage of facebook being towed back to port)

srvmshr 4y ago

Say what one might about Meta's company & business policies - but their engineering talent is pretty top-notch. (Note: I am not a FAANG person). Having their office in your backyard genuinely lifts the quality bar in the place. Their openstack hardware standard was a quite a good step. Datacenter hardware & designs will get standardized eventually by such ventures. React and graphQL are very innovative software designs. The FAIR team regularly publishes excellent ML papers (IMPO they are second place after Google Brain, and slightly ahead of MSR in ML research). They pay well and retain quite a good pool of talent. If you're interested please have a look at the Facebook OpenSource channel. That's a pretty good source of learning cutting edge stuff working on scale - and unlike G-Brain, its genuinely open 99% of the time. Again, I dont like their business product(s). But the team that works on them is pretty marvelous

fxtentacle 4y ago
Thing is, you can learn from their Open Source without supporting their cash cow product. Also, maybe the German startup ecosystem would be better off with Facebook's engineering talent being spread out over 100 small start-ups (all of which would pay taxes) instead of bundled in one huge entity (which doesn't pay taxes). And if I remember correctly, "fairseq" (the foundation of Facebook's recent wav2vec2 ASR breakthrough) and the foundation of Microsoft Translator were both designed by PhDs at the University of Edinburgh. (EU Grant 688139 initially funded what became Microsoft Translator). I applaud Facebook and Microsoft for hiring promising PhDs and giving them the resources to succeed, but I'm not convinced that European countries are better off with these people working at FAANGs - as opposed to local competitors.