4 ms·

With a fine per violation of $10,000 who cares? They say Meta did hundreds of them... so a few million dollars. What's that, two engineer years?

hedgehog 4y ago
If they had to comply with local law in every area they operate it would be extremely complicated and expensive to manage. I think they fear the precedent not the dollars in this specific case. Edit: To be clear my opinion is that FB should be forced to comply, by federal action if necessary. That their business depends on not taking responsibility for the messages they choose to amplify is their problem and they should be paying the cost of that.
- msbarnett 4y ago
  > If they had to comply with local law in every area they operate ...then they would be on a level playing field with everybody else. The alternative ("we don't care for some of these laws in some places we operate, so we decline to follow them") is what is generally referred to as a criminal enterprise.
  - munk-a 4y ago
    Precisely this - not everything scales gracefully to "big data" levels - some things require lots of customization and edgecases - sometimes for dumb reasons sometimes not. Given the effect Facebook has had on radicalization I am not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt here.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      But it’s not even that hard for large organizations to comply with local rules like that. They just can’t be bothered apparently.
    - hedgehog 4y ago
      100% agree.
  - mszcz 4y ago
    This a hundred times. Just because you're big doesn't mean you get to choose what laws or rules you follow. If it doesn't scale without rule breaking then, well, it doesn't scale. They have enormous resources yet bitch and moan that they'd have to spend some of them to follow the rules. Pff, I'd make a shit ton more money if I didn't pay my taxes or cheat people. How would that work out for me? If a 1000 (or 10k, or whatever) businesses in aggregate have a similar market cap and revenue to them while also following the rules then I fail to see how a single company has a problem with that. If it does then maybe splitting it up will make things easier...
- _jal 4y ago
  "Compliance is hard" is not an excuse accepted anywhere. But just in case you actually believe this should be convincing, consider how many tax jurisdictions Facebook does business in. Do you think they just ignore all those local rules?
  - wang_li 4y ago
    > "Compliance is hard" is not an excuse accepted anywhere. Happens in government without any repercussions all the time. Washington state took ten years after being ordered by the state Supreme Court to fully fund education to actually do it.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Facebook on one side "we can target your ads so specially that you can narrow down to a given city block" and to regulators "we can't narrow down closer than "United States" when complying with laws, sorry".
  - hedgehog 4y ago
    I believe they should be forced to comply by whatever means we have and the liability should flow through to executives and senior employees.
  - rvz 4y ago
    'X is hard' shouldn't be used as an accepted defense or an escape hatch as well either. Especially compliance.
- klyrs 4y ago
  The law isn't written to bend its will to multinational corporations who are making the world's richest people yet, somehow, cannot afford to follow the law. Nor should it be. If it isn't profitable to follow the cornucopia of laws regarding campaign advertising, then don't serve them!
- sophacles 4y ago
  If that were true, why we do we see global oil companies, global retailers, global restaurant chains, or global media conglomerates? Do you think Walmart doesn't have to deal with varying employment and product laws at the country, state, and local level for each of its stores?
  - hedgehog 4y ago
    Do you think compliance in the industries you listed is not extremely costly? In every case you see companies doing what they can to shed cost and risk, local compliance being one of them. FB should follow the law but the government will have to make the cost of noncompliance higher than compliance for it to happen.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> With a fine per violation of $10,000 who cares? The AG identified 782 violations and requested treble damages [1]. That's $23mm right there, not including the state's legal costs (which are also trebled). [1] https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/174_StatesMSJ.PDF https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/174_StatesMSJ.PDF
- munk-a 4y ago
  To actually impact Facebook and spur positive change they'll need to impose a much higher penalty - perhaps this is out of the domain of what courts can reasonably enforce and we need the legislature to take action.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > they'll need to impose a much higher penalty - perhaps this is out of the domain of what courts can reasonably enforce and we need the legislature to take action Washington requested and received injunctive relief [1]. Next steps would involve documented ongoing willful violation, getting a contempt of court ruling and then getting nasty with Facebook's assets and employees. [1] https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/174_StatesMSJ.PDF https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/174_StatesMSJ.PDF
  - bogwog 4y ago
    If a single executive goes to prison for something like this, even just for a few months, it will drastically reduce the willingness to break the law from these companies no matter how huge they are.
    - ulrashida 4y ago
      My thoughts exactly. Meta appears to be willing to throw any amount of cash at a problem -- how many executives are willing to be put in jail for the same goal? May be time to strengthen the underlying legislation to include criminal charges for repeat-repeat offenders at scale.
    - 4y ago
whiteboardr 4y ago
Maybe time to rethink the way fines are determined. I’d be very much in favour of the “swiss model” for traffic fines - based on your income. You did X wrong, here’s the set price from our catalogue vs. you did X wrong and based on your earnings, here’s what you owe.
- hinkley 4y ago
  That may go some way to handle the perverse incentives as well. If I do something very illegal to double my revenue, I've also doubled my fines.
- jboynyc 4y ago
  Fines for GDPR violations work that way too. A severe violation can be penalized with "a fine of up to €20 million, or 4% of the firm’s worldwide annual revenue from the preceding financial year, whichever amount is higher." https://gdpr.eu/fines/ https://gdpr.eu/fines/
  - whiteboardr 4y ago
    “up to” is the problem at hands here.
- sixothree 4y ago
  I spent some time in traffic court and it was clear how punitive fines are for lower income.

hedgehog 4y ago

If they had to comply with local law in every area they operate it would be extremely complicated and expensive to manage. I think they fear the precedent not the dollars in this specific case. Edit: To be clear my opinion is that FB should be forced to comply, by federal action if necessary. That their business depends on not taking responsibility for the messages they choose to amplify is their problem and they should be paying the cost of that.

msbarnett 4y ago
> If they had to comply with local law in every area they operate ...then they would be on a level playing field with everybody else. The alternative ("we don't care for some of these laws in some places we operate, so we decline to follow them") is what is generally referred to as a criminal enterprise.
- munk-a 4y ago
  Precisely this - not everything scales gracefully to "big data" levels - some things require lots of customization and edgecases - sometimes for dumb reasons sometimes not. Given the effect Facebook has had on radicalization I am not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt here.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    But it’s not even that hard for large organizations to comply with local rules like that. They just can’t be bothered apparently.
  - hedgehog 4y ago
    100% agree.
- mszcz 4y ago
  This a hundred times. Just because you're big doesn't mean you get to choose what laws or rules you follow. If it doesn't scale without rule breaking then, well, it doesn't scale. They have enormous resources yet bitch and moan that they'd have to spend some of them to follow the rules. Pff, I'd make a shit ton more money if I didn't pay my taxes or cheat people. How would that work out for me? If a 1000 (or 10k, or whatever) businesses in aggregate have a similar market cap and revenue to them while also following the rules then I fail to see how a single company has a problem with that. If it does then maybe splitting it up will make things easier...
_jal 4y ago
"Compliance is hard" is not an excuse accepted anywhere. But just in case you actually believe this should be convincing, consider how many tax jurisdictions Facebook does business in. Do you think they just ignore all those local rules?
- wang_li 4y ago
  > "Compliance is hard" is not an excuse accepted anywhere. Happens in government without any repercussions all the time. Washington state took ten years after being ordered by the state Supreme Court to fully fund education to actually do it.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Facebook on one side "we can target your ads so specially that you can narrow down to a given city block" and to regulators "we can't narrow down closer than "United States" when complying with laws, sorry".
- hedgehog 4y ago
  I believe they should be forced to comply by whatever means we have and the liability should flow through to executives and senior employees.
- rvz 4y ago
  'X is hard' shouldn't be used as an accepted defense or an escape hatch as well either. Especially compliance.
klyrs 4y ago
The law isn't written to bend its will to multinational corporations who are making the world's richest people yet, somehow, cannot afford to follow the law. Nor should it be. If it isn't profitable to follow the cornucopia of laws regarding campaign advertising, then don't serve them!
sophacles 4y ago
If that were true, why we do we see global oil companies, global retailers, global restaurant chains, or global media conglomerates? Do you think Walmart doesn't have to deal with varying employment and product laws at the country, state, and local level for each of its stores?
- hedgehog 4y ago
  Do you think compliance in the industries you listed is not extremely costly? In every case you see companies doing what they can to shed cost and risk, local compliance being one of them. FB should follow the law but the government will have to make the cost of noncompliance higher than compliance for it to happen.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> With a fine per violation of $10,000 who cares? The AG identified 782 violations and requested treble damages [1]. That's $23mm right there, not including the state's legal costs (which are also trebled). [1] https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/174_StatesMSJ.PDF https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/174_StatesMSJ.PDF

munk-a 4y ago
To actually impact Facebook and spur positive change they'll need to impose a much higher penalty - perhaps this is out of the domain of what courts can reasonably enforce and we need the legislature to take action.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > they'll need to impose a much higher penalty - perhaps this is out of the domain of what courts can reasonably enforce and we need the legislature to take action Washington requested and received injunctive relief [1]. Next steps would involve documented ongoing willful violation, getting a contempt of court ruling and then getting nasty with Facebook's assets and employees. [1] https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/174_StatesMSJ.PDF https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/174_StatesMSJ.PDF
- bogwog 4y ago
  If a single executive goes to prison for something like this, even just for a few months, it will drastically reduce the willingness to break the law from these companies no matter how huge they are.
  - ulrashida 4y ago
    My thoughts exactly. Meta appears to be willing to throw any amount of cash at a problem -- how many executives are willing to be put in jail for the same goal? May be time to strengthen the underlying legislation to include criminal charges for repeat-repeat offenders at scale.
  - 4y ago

whiteboardr 4y ago

Maybe time to rethink the way fines are determined. I’d be very much in favour of the “swiss model” for traffic fines - based on your income. You did X wrong, here’s the set price from our catalogue vs. you did X wrong and based on your earnings, here’s what you owe.

hinkley 4y ago
That may go some way to handle the perverse incentives as well. If I do something very illegal to double my revenue, I've also doubled my fines.
jboynyc 4y ago
Fines for GDPR violations work that way too. A severe violation can be penalized with "a fine of up to €20 million, or 4% of the firm’s worldwide annual revenue from the preceding financial year, whichever amount is higher." https://gdpr.eu/fines/ https://gdpr.eu/fines/
- whiteboardr 4y ago
  “up to” is the problem at hands here.
sixothree 4y ago
I spent some time in traffic court and it was clear how punitive fines are for lower income.