3 ms·

We've shifted too much in the direction of punishing based on words rather than actions. Punishments should be driven primarily from actions and harms, and wor

We've shifted too much in the direction of punishing based on words rather than actions. Punishments should be driven primarily from actions and harms, and words should just be used to show intent and involvement. It seems weird to me that the question of whether company X did something wrong is answered by its own employees' statements (based on their narrow perspective) rather than some objective criteria that something bad happened.

corethree 3y ago
I get where your coming from especially with this whole pronoun fiasco. But on the other side of the coin very real bullying can come from just words. Unfortunately what is real bullying and just harmless talk exists actually exists on a gradient so we can't really codify it into anything that seems reasonable. Most good judgements are arrived at by just intuition.
- chmod600 3y ago
  That would be interesting to discuss but it's not where I was going and it's a bit off topic. Investigations should start with the crime and work backwards to find the criminal. If you have to find incriminating statements to tell if a crime has even happened, that is really a different thing.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >If you have to find incriminating statements to tell if a crime has even happened, that is really a different thing. That's what it sounds like: >Alphabet Inc.’s Google is on trial in Washington DC over US allegations that it illegally maintained a monopoly in the online search business. They aren't 100% sure so they are finding statements and actions to prove that Google is engaging in anti-competitive behavior.
thomastjeffery 3y ago
On the contrary: this case it's punishing the very behavior you are complaining about. People who tried to defend themselves with vain word choice now have that very act of defence used as a tool for their prosecution.
csb6 3y ago
The instructions and training given to employees is definitely relevant when determining intent, i.e. the question of whether Google systematically or accidentally destroyed evidence. No one is saying that the case is about words only. It is about anticompetitive behavior and the act of destroying evidence of it.
freeAgent 3y ago
The reason they don’t want employees to use these words (and why they go OTR occasionally) is, at least as alleged by the government, to make discovery more difficult/impossible and also to hide/destroy evidence of their activity. It’s not about being word police, it’s about the reason why they’re policing language.
- chmod600 3y ago
  If you observe an action that's wrong, you can work backwards from there to discover what you need. If you have to use dragnet searches, that means you don't have any clear bad action to work from, and you're trying to construct it from statements.
  - Cheezewheel 3y ago
    Do you not understand the basic principle of law that intention actually does matter? Or do you not understand that it may be difficult to prove that there was intention to commit a bad act even if it is trivial to establish that the bad act was made?
    - droopyEyelids 3y ago
      That's not a joke or something to take for granted. A lot of people in tech want law to be like a formal mathematics, and sort of pretend that's how it works, rather than acknowledge that fuzzy human things like "intention" are valid factors in legal matters.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  Yeah but this is reasonable with or without antitrust violations. Its the same principle as the 5th amendment and not incriminating yourself.
  - freeAgent 3y ago
    They aren’t being charged with policing the language used by their employees.
mattigames 3y ago
Can you imagine saying that with any other charge "It seems weird that Tom is being charged with murder just because the sister's victim claims that she discussed his death treats with her and not because we have objective proof of the murder"
- chmod600 3y ago
  In your analogy, you assume that you already know a murder happened, and it's a question of who did it. Obviously words matter there. But for antitrust it's using words to try to show that a crime even happened at all. That's definitely weirder -- more like if Tom said he killed Fred, but we don't really know who Fred is or whether he is alive or not, and we still put Tom on trial using a series of his statements.
turquoisevar 3y ago
This is great in theory, but in practice a lot of illegal acts (whether criminal or civilly illegal) hinges on intent, state of mind and the benchmark of the illusive “reasonable person”. A simple criminal example is would be the difference between negligent homicide, manslaughter and murder. Which can be summed up respectively as lack of intent, lack of intent for outcome and intentional. To suss this out you’d have to figure out the state of mind of the person in question and going over their communications is one of many ways to do this. In the context of anti-trust this gets a bit more complicated but in a nutshell that is severely lacking the necessary nuance the difference comes down to getting ahead by legal pro-competitive means and getting ahead by illegal means. To figure out if a company got ahead just because they had a great product (or got lucky) and based on that they had an organic market growth v. them getting ahead because they had access to means and methods they only derived from their size and market share in other markets, it’s important to look at communications to see what the intent behind decisions was. This becomes increasingly more important when you’re dealing with a behemoth of a company where the lines between different departments and projects are blurred. All of that is not even touching upon the fact that pretty much everything is an action, or act, even the choice of inaction. Speaking, making a decision, not acting on knowledge, etc. They can all be considered acts. To sum it up, intent is often a deciding element of an illegal act. But if Google ends up being punished, it isn't because of these communications, it is because of what these communications prove in terms of the acts they are being prosecuted for.

corethree 3y ago

I get where your coming from especially with this whole pronoun fiasco. But on the other side of the coin very real bullying can come from just words. Unfortunately what is real bullying and just harmless talk exists actually exists on a gradient so we can't really codify it into anything that seems reasonable. Most good judgements are arrived at by just intuition.

chmod600 3y ago
That would be interesting to discuss but it's not where I was going and it's a bit off topic. Investigations should start with the crime and work backwards to find the criminal. If you have to find incriminating statements to tell if a crime has even happened, that is really a different thing.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >If you have to find incriminating statements to tell if a crime has even happened, that is really a different thing. That's what it sounds like: >Alphabet Inc.’s Google is on trial in Washington DC over US allegations that it illegally maintained a monopoly in the online search business. They aren't 100% sure so they are finding statements and actions to prove that Google is engaging in anti-competitive behavior.

thomastjeffery 3y ago

On the contrary: this case it's punishing the very behavior you are complaining about. People who tried to defend themselves with vain word choice now have that very act of defence used as a tool for their prosecution.

csb6 3y ago

The instructions and training given to employees is definitely relevant when determining intent, i.e. the question of whether Google systematically or accidentally destroyed evidence. No one is saying that the case is about words only. It is about anticompetitive behavior and the act of destroying evidence of it.

freeAgent 3y ago

The reason they don’t want employees to use these words (and why they go OTR occasionally) is, at least as alleged by the government, to make discovery more difficult/impossible and also to hide/destroy evidence of their activity. It’s not about being word police, it’s about the reason why they’re policing language.

chmod600 3y ago
If you observe an action that's wrong, you can work backwards from there to discover what you need. If you have to use dragnet searches, that means you don't have any clear bad action to work from, and you're trying to construct it from statements.
- Cheezewheel 3y ago
  Do you not understand the basic principle of law that intention actually does matter? Or do you not understand that it may be difficult to prove that there was intention to commit a bad act even if it is trivial to establish that the bad act was made?
  - droopyEyelids 3y ago
    That's not a joke or something to take for granted. A lot of people in tech want law to be like a formal mathematics, and sort of pretend that's how it works, rather than acknowledge that fuzzy human things like "intention" are valid factors in legal matters.
nonethewiser 3y ago
Yeah but this is reasonable with or without antitrust violations. Its the same principle as the 5th amendment and not incriminating yourself.
- freeAgent 3y ago
  They aren’t being charged with policing the language used by their employees.

mattigames 3y ago

Can you imagine saying that with any other charge "It seems weird that Tom is being charged with murder just because the sister's victim claims that she discussed his death treats with her and not because we have objective proof of the murder"

chmod600 3y ago
In your analogy, you assume that you already know a murder happened, and it's a question of who did it. Obviously words matter there. But for antitrust it's using words to try to show that a crime even happened at all. That's definitely weirder -- more like if Tom said he killed Fred, but we don't really know who Fred is or whether he is alive or not, and we still put Tom on trial using a series of his statements.

turquoisevar 3y ago

This is great in theory, but in practice a lot of illegal acts (whether criminal or civilly illegal) hinges on intent, state of mind and the benchmark of the illusive “reasonable person”. A simple criminal example is would be the difference between negligent homicide, manslaughter and murder. Which can be summed up respectively as lack of intent, lack of intent for outcome and intentional. To suss this out you’d have to figure out the state of mind of the person in question and going over their communications is one of many ways to do this. In the context of anti-trust this gets a bit more complicated but in a nutshell that is severely lacking the necessary nuance the difference comes down to getting ahead by legal pro-competitive means and getting ahead by illegal means. To figure out if a company got ahead just because they had a great product (or got lucky) and based on that they had an organic market growth v. them getting ahead because they had access to means and methods they only derived from their size and market share in other markets, it’s important to look at communications to see what the intent behind decisions was. This becomes increasingly more important when you’re dealing with a behemoth of a company where the lines between different departments and projects are blurred. All of that is not even touching upon the fact that pretty much everything is an action, or act, even the choice of inaction. Speaking, making a decision, not acting on knowledge, etc. They can all be considered acts. To sum it up, intent is often a deciding element of an illegal act. But if Google ends up being punished, it isn't because of these communications, it is because of what these communications prove in terms of the acts they are being prosecuted for.