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> It's not reasonable or logical to believe that it's ok for companies to break some laws but not others. "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility

> It's not reasonable or logical to believe that it's ok for companies to break some laws but not others. "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." Martin Luther King Jr.

sudden_dystopia 4y ago
vlunkr 4y ago
I don't think we want Facebook to decide which laws are unjust.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Nobody is asking Facebook to decide; Facebook is being told which laws are unjust.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Facebook are being told which laws are unjust by multiple different groups (not just on the topic of abortion) who disagree about everything other than that Facebook is pure evil for allowing the other lot to say anything.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      This is not a normative statement: I'm not saying which group Facebook should listen to. Only that everybody (except for Facebook themselves) agrees that Facebook should not be making the decision.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- worik 4y ago
  I am asking that Facebook takes a principled stand. Judging from the reaction of Meta they realise that it was a mistake not to enable the "host proof" encryption protocols - like Signal, and what Whats APp was supposed to be (is it still?) - across the communication tools They have exposed themselves to this - being complicate in what is starting to look like an organised campaign against women - they deserve our condemnation
  - prepend 4y ago
    > I am asking that Facebook takes a principled stand. It would be interesting to see it play out, but a company refusing to comply with a search warrant will likely result in really bad stuff for the company. Like officers in prison and conviction of crimes like Arthur Anderson during the Enron scandal. I don’t see an opportunity here for Facebook to “take a stand” unless Zuck wanted to burn the company down. That’s not realistic. And I think calling for companies to act illegally is a slippery slope I don’t want to get onto.
    - michaelmrose 4y ago
      Real people without expensive teams of lawyers and wealth to fall back on risked jail, beating, and lynching to sit at a lunch counter. I'm sorry that the officers of Meta are men of little courage and worth.
- hnbad 4y ago
  This kind of moral posturing may feel satisfying but that kind of reasoning is literally why in Germany we're 80 years later still cleaning up the mess of companies benefitting from forced labor under entirely legal-at-the-time public-private partnerships. Facebook doesn't get to decide which laws are unjust. But Facebook gets to decide which laws it considers unjust and how it wants to deal with them. If big corporations can decide they consider tax laws unjust and want to avoid them as much as possible, they can also consider laws unjust that impact other people.
ben_w 4y ago
William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!” Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?” William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!” Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake! - Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7515521-william-roper-so-now-you-give-the-devil-the-benefit https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7515521-william-roper-so-no... In particular, I'm fairly sure everyone who bombs abortion clinics[0] tells themselves that the laws they break are the unjust ones, because who sees themselves as the villains of their own stories? [0] https://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9827886/abortion-clinic-attacks-mapped https://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9827886/abortion-clinic-attack...
- hnbad 4y ago
  Considering the people who support the bombing of abortion clinics are the ones currently making these laws and are in control because they have used the law to disenfranchise and suppress voters to be able to do so with only the support of a minority of actual legal subjects and considering that the only other party has spent the past decades sitting on its hands in malicious compliance while using civil rights as a dangling carrot for the remaining voters, maybe the US legal system is so broken this issue can't be solved by bowing down to authority? And even if it can, maybe the time frames involved to do so are so long mere submission will cost many lives and harm many more. A wolf and a sheep can't find a mutually satisfactory agreement when it comes to whether the sheep should be eaten by the wolf. Having irreconcilable differences is all fine and dandy in a democracy as long as those differences aren't resolved against you in a way that has life-altering consequences for you. If you value order over justice, I'm sorry but there's a name for a system like that.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  Hey I love the quote love the idea but we are actually asking not for the law to be laid flat as it were but mere civil disobedience to unjust law and acceptance of the consequences. Put up a fight.
twblalock 4y ago
That logic cuts both ways. There are a lot of people in this country who genuinely believe that abortion is murder, and that's why we are in this mess in the first place. Those people believe laws that permit abortion are unjust and deeply immoral -- should they start using that as an excuse to punish people who legally obtained abortions, blockade clinics, etc.? In a country with widely divergent religious and political views, we would end up with anarchy if everyone started disobeying laws they believed were unjust.
- worik 4y ago
  > should they start using that as an excuse to punish people who legally obtained abortions, blockade clinics, etc.? That is exactly what many are doing. The logic doe cut both ways. We need to protect people wherever we find them. The rule of law is a good thing, but to pretend that it is an absolute thing is to be a party to tyranny
- a_shovel 4y ago
  One can believe abortion (or laws against abortion, for that matter) to be unjust, while also laws against vigilante violence to be just, and thus refrain from that kind of action. One can also believe vigilante violence against people given abortions to be just, and thus justify such actions against them. In which case, the question is, "What should someone whose moral code is opposed to yours do?" Which in my opinion is a silly question. For this to lead to anarchy, it must be the case that a significant number of people avoid causing anarchy for the sole reason of following the law for its own sake, without consideration for any punishment for violating the law.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    > One can also believe vigilante violence against people given abortions to be just, and thus justify such actions against them. In which case, the question is, "What should someone whose moral code is opposed to yours do?" Which in my opinion is a silly question. No, it's not a silly question. It is the reason we need to have laws.

sudden_dystopia 4y ago

vlunkr 4y ago

I don't think we want Facebook to decide which laws are unjust.

woodruffw 4y ago
Nobody is asking Facebook to decide; Facebook is being told which laws are unjust.
- ben_w 4y ago
  Facebook are being told which laws are unjust by multiple different groups (not just on the topic of abortion) who disagree about everything other than that Facebook is pure evil for allowing the other lot to say anything.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    This is not a normative statement: I'm not saying which group Facebook should listen to. Only that everybody (except for Facebook themselves) agrees that Facebook should not be making the decision.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
worik 4y ago
I am asking that Facebook takes a principled stand. Judging from the reaction of Meta they realise that it was a mistake not to enable the "host proof" encryption protocols - like Signal, and what Whats APp was supposed to be (is it still?) - across the communication tools They have exposed themselves to this - being complicate in what is starting to look like an organised campaign against women - they deserve our condemnation
- prepend 4y ago
  > I am asking that Facebook takes a principled stand. It would be interesting to see it play out, but a company refusing to comply with a search warrant will likely result in really bad stuff for the company. Like officers in prison and conviction of crimes like Arthur Anderson during the Enron scandal. I don’t see an opportunity here for Facebook to “take a stand” unless Zuck wanted to burn the company down. That’s not realistic. And I think calling for companies to act illegally is a slippery slope I don’t want to get onto.
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    Real people without expensive teams of lawyers and wealth to fall back on risked jail, beating, and lynching to sit at a lunch counter. I'm sorry that the officers of Meta are men of little courage and worth.
hnbad 4y ago
This kind of moral posturing may feel satisfying but that kind of reasoning is literally why in Germany we're 80 years later still cleaning up the mess of companies benefitting from forced labor under entirely legal-at-the-time public-private partnerships. Facebook doesn't get to decide which laws are unjust. But Facebook gets to decide which laws it considers unjust and how it wants to deal with them. If big corporations can decide they consider tax laws unjust and want to avoid them as much as possible, they can also consider laws unjust that impact other people.

ben_w 4y ago

William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!” Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?” William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!” Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake! - Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7515521-william-roper-so-now-you-give-the-devil-the-benefit https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7515521-william-roper-so-no... In particular, I'm fairly sure everyone who bombs abortion clinics[0] tells themselves that the laws they break are the unjust ones, because who sees themselves as the villains of their own stories? [0] https://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9827886/abortion-clinic-attacks-mapped https://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9827886/abortion-clinic-attack...

hnbad 4y ago
Considering the people who support the bombing of abortion clinics are the ones currently making these laws and are in control because they have used the law to disenfranchise and suppress voters to be able to do so with only the support of a minority of actual legal subjects and considering that the only other party has spent the past decades sitting on its hands in malicious compliance while using civil rights as a dangling carrot for the remaining voters, maybe the US legal system is so broken this issue can't be solved by bowing down to authority? And even if it can, maybe the time frames involved to do so are so long mere submission will cost many lives and harm many more. A wolf and a sheep can't find a mutually satisfactory agreement when it comes to whether the sheep should be eaten by the wolf. Having irreconcilable differences is all fine and dandy in a democracy as long as those differences aren't resolved against you in a way that has life-altering consequences for you. If you value order over justice, I'm sorry but there's a name for a system like that.
michaelmrose 4y ago
Hey I love the quote love the idea but we are actually asking not for the law to be laid flat as it were but mere civil disobedience to unjust law and acceptance of the consequences. Put up a fight.

twblalock 4y ago

That logic cuts both ways. There are a lot of people in this country who genuinely believe that abortion is murder, and that's why we are in this mess in the first place. Those people believe laws that permit abortion are unjust and deeply immoral -- should they start using that as an excuse to punish people who legally obtained abortions, blockade clinics, etc.? In a country with widely divergent religious and political views, we would end up with anarchy if everyone started disobeying laws they believed were unjust.

worik 4y ago
> should they start using that as an excuse to punish people who legally obtained abortions, blockade clinics, etc.? That is exactly what many are doing. The logic doe cut both ways. We need to protect people wherever we find them. The rule of law is a good thing, but to pretend that it is an absolute thing is to be a party to tyranny
a_shovel 4y ago
One can believe abortion (or laws against abortion, for that matter) to be unjust, while also laws against vigilante violence to be just, and thus refrain from that kind of action. One can also believe vigilante violence against people given abortions to be just, and thus justify such actions against them. In which case, the question is, "What should someone whose moral code is opposed to yours do?" Which in my opinion is a silly question. For this to lead to anarchy, it must be the case that a significant number of people avoid causing anarchy for the sole reason of following the law for its own sake, without consideration for any punishment for violating the law.
- twblalock 4y ago
  > One can also believe vigilante violence against people given abortions to be just, and thus justify such actions against them. In which case, the question is, "What should someone whose moral code is opposed to yours do?" Which in my opinion is a silly question. No, it's not a silly question. It is the reason we need to have laws.