3 ms·

Khan's utter failure to execute on her goals has imo set back the anti-trust movement in this country heavily. Now every time anti trust gets brought up people

Khan's utter failure to execute on her goals has imo set back the anti-trust movement in this country heavily. Now every time anti trust gets brought up people think about how the government lost 5 cases in a row and consider it a waste.

nobodyandproud 3y ago
More a warning of how stacked the rules are against anti-trust, after 20-30 years of profitable M&A and other anti-competitive behavior.
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
I hear this bandied about so much, but I've never heard justification that the cases weren't well built or that they weren't good cases to bring. The wicked thing about case law is that it builds and builds. The courts have been extremely pro big business for a long time, and it's hard to figure out how anything ever changes or gets better from here. Trying to right this hell is going to take a lot of miserable attempts that go nowhere. That's what happens when the titans already have all the case law in their favor. Yes that means we need to be very well prepared when we go to battle - try to overturn their legalistic dominance - but I'm glad we are trying, and I'm not sure what better paths are available, not sure what the actual lessons are, not sure what should have been better. It feels like such a slim chance. And trying feels necessary, feels like it has a chance, even if odds aren't great. Something has to be done to let us revisit the past, but that's not how the courts especially operate. The courts are the primary upkeeper of existing decisions, and this feels sometimes like ossification, sometimes feels like it eats away from the flesh of the nation.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  It's also been a mere ~2 years since she was appointed.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  cases that lose are not well built. No excuses. Losing a case further entrenches the precedent against you, there's no silver lining.
  - ncallaway 3y ago
    That's just not true. If you're losing on Constitutional grounds, I agree with you. But if you're losing the case on legal grounds it can absolutely be a silver lining, since it can demonstrate to Congress a need to legislate (I know, I know, a foreign concept for Congress). Consider Section 230, though. It was passed because the Supreme Court ruled on a case in a way that irritated Congress. The Courts were bound because the law was what it was. But those Court cases prompted Congress to act. The actual rulings from the Court were horrendous precedent, and if that's where the policymaking stopped the internet would have been a disaster. But Congress acted and passed Section 230.
    - Clubber 3y ago
      >The actual rulings from the Court were horrendous precedent Do you happen to remember that ruling? I'd be interested in reading it.
      - ncallaway 3y ago
        The EFF has a pretty good page that outlines the cases: https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/legislative-history https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/legislative-history One was Cubby v. CompuServe [1], which found that an online platform was not liable as a "distributor" (which is basically an analogy to physical books, since most of the prior case-law was based on physical printed words), because they didn't review any content on the forums before it was posted. The other was Stratton Oakmont v Prodigy [2] (which was actually a NY court case), which found that because Prodigy performed _any_ moderation, they were more akin to a publisher, which was liable for everything they published. Taken together, the two rulings essentially meant that any site that hosted user generated content had two options: - Perform *no moderation at all* (no deleting Nazis, pornography, spam, etc), OR - Assume liability for *all* user generated content on the site Also, a final note, I was actually wrong when I invoked the Supreme Court. It was a federal district court case, and a NY state court case. [1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/776/135/2340509/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/7... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prodigy_Services_Co.#cite_note-Stratton-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod... (I'm actually not finding the full text of the opinion online after a brief bit of searching. I've found a couple of sites that have links to it, but all are broken at the moment; I'm sure you can find it with some more digging, but I don't have time to find it atm)
Guvante 3y ago
With the current stagnated Congress session possibly but now whenever better legislation comes up any attempts to claim existing rules are "good enough" is objectively wrong.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  "objectively wrong" no longer exists in politics, if it ever did.
  - Guvante 3y ago
    The government isn't capable of doing the work it wants to do and so "good enough" doesn't apply. You can claim that the government was wrong in its pursuit of this case but that doesn't suddenly mean Congress has no work to do. At minimum codifying what makes it inappropriate for the government to take the action it attempted would be valuable. Congress is supposed to clarify if the Executive and Judicial do not agree on the meaning of their laws. Thus "objectively wrong" isn't about which side is right, it is that agreement doesn't exist. You could claim there was an unimportant misunderstanding after the first but after so many it is obvious there is a disconnect.
    - HDThoreaun 3y ago
      > The government isn't capable of doing the work it wants to do Debatable. Unless you're just referring to the executive branch the government does not have a single goal, and many of the leaders of the government want opposite things. > Thus "objectively wrong" isn't about which side is right, it is that agreement doesn't exist. Sure we can agree there. The issue is that there isn't even agreement on whether there's agreement. Kneecapping the government is the meta optimal move for minority parties, they gain nothing from trying to make the government more effective. So even if all the lawmakers secretly agree that congress has work to do, they'll never admit it.
      - Guvante 3y ago
        You keep saying "someone might want to do a bad thing" as if it is an argument. I never said they would do something, which is what you are arguing against. I said there isn't an excuse to not do anything based on the existing law covering what needs to be covered. Mostly I point it out because the "X government won't do anything" is uninteresting to discuss, it is basically an impossible to defeat argument. > Unless you're just referring to the executive branch the government In this context the branch of the government whose job it is to take this action is taking an action and so I felt specifying Executive was needlessly specific. It isn't like Congress is using this act to go after violators, that isn't their job.
ncallaway 3y ago
> Now every time anti trust gets brought up people think about how the government lost 5 cases in a row and consider it a waste. It demonstrates how weak and toothless are current laws are, and shows a desperate need for Congressional action. Before, when you brought up Congressional action on anti-trust it would get waived away with: "The FTC has the powers they need and aren't using them. There's no need for Congress to act". If someone tried to raise those objections today, they looked silly. The fact of the matter is the executive branch needed to walk into the buzz-saw to demonstrate that the current laws are insufficient and prompt Congress to act. Now it's a matter of putting public pressure on Congress to act.

nobodyandproud 3y ago

More a warning of how stacked the rules are against anti-trust, after 20-30 years of profitable M&A and other anti-competitive behavior.

jauntywundrkind 3y ago

I hear this bandied about so much, but I've never heard justification that the cases weren't well built or that they weren't good cases to bring. The wicked thing about case law is that it builds and builds. The courts have been extremely pro big business for a long time, and it's hard to figure out how anything ever changes or gets better from here. Trying to right this hell is going to take a lot of miserable attempts that go nowhere. That's what happens when the titans already have all the case law in their favor. Yes that means we need to be very well prepared when we go to battle - try to overturn their legalistic dominance - but I'm glad we are trying, and I'm not sure what better paths are available, not sure what the actual lessons are, not sure what should have been better. It feels like such a slim chance. And trying feels necessary, feels like it has a chance, even if odds aren't great. Something has to be done to let us revisit the past, but that's not how the courts especially operate. The courts are the primary upkeeper of existing decisions, and this feels sometimes like ossification, sometimes feels like it eats away from the flesh of the nation.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
It's also been a mere ~2 years since she was appointed.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
cases that lose are not well built. No excuses. Losing a case further entrenches the precedent against you, there's no silver lining.
- ncallaway 3y ago
  That's just not true. If you're losing on Constitutional grounds, I agree with you. But if you're losing the case on legal grounds it can absolutely be a silver lining, since it can demonstrate to Congress a need to legislate (I know, I know, a foreign concept for Congress). Consider Section 230, though. It was passed because the Supreme Court ruled on a case in a way that irritated Congress. The Courts were bound because the law was what it was. But those Court cases prompted Congress to act. The actual rulings from the Court were horrendous precedent, and if that's where the policymaking stopped the internet would have been a disaster. But Congress acted and passed Section 230.
  - Clubber 3y ago
    >The actual rulings from the Court were horrendous precedent Do you happen to remember that ruling? I'd be interested in reading it.
    - ncallaway 3y ago
      The EFF has a pretty good page that outlines the cases: https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/legislative-history https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/legislative-history One was Cubby v. CompuServe [1], which found that an online platform was not liable as a "distributor" (which is basically an analogy to physical books, since most of the prior case-law was based on physical printed words), because they didn't review any content on the forums before it was posted. The other was Stratton Oakmont v Prodigy [2] (which was actually a NY court case), which found that because Prodigy performed _any_ moderation, they were more akin to a publisher, which was liable for everything they published. Taken together, the two rulings essentially meant that any site that hosted user generated content had two options: - Perform *no moderation at all* (no deleting Nazis, pornography, spam, etc), OR - Assume liability for *all* user generated content on the site Also, a final note, I was actually wrong when I invoked the Supreme Court. It was a federal district court case, and a NY state court case. [1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/776/135/2340509/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/7... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prodigy_Services_Co.#cite_note-Stratton-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod... (I'm actually not finding the full text of the opinion online after a brief bit of searching. I've found a couple of sites that have links to it, but all are broken at the moment; I'm sure you can find it with some more digging, but I don't have time to find it atm)

Guvante 3y ago

With the current stagnated Congress session possibly but now whenever better legislation comes up any attempts to claim existing rules are "good enough" is objectively wrong.

HDThoreaun 3y ago
"objectively wrong" no longer exists in politics, if it ever did.
- Guvante 3y ago
  The government isn't capable of doing the work it wants to do and so "good enough" doesn't apply. You can claim that the government was wrong in its pursuit of this case but that doesn't suddenly mean Congress has no work to do. At minimum codifying what makes it inappropriate for the government to take the action it attempted would be valuable. Congress is supposed to clarify if the Executive and Judicial do not agree on the meaning of their laws. Thus "objectively wrong" isn't about which side is right, it is that agreement doesn't exist. You could claim there was an unimportant misunderstanding after the first but after so many it is obvious there is a disconnect.
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    > The government isn't capable of doing the work it wants to do Debatable. Unless you're just referring to the executive branch the government does not have a single goal, and many of the leaders of the government want opposite things. > Thus "objectively wrong" isn't about which side is right, it is that agreement doesn't exist. Sure we can agree there. The issue is that there isn't even agreement on whether there's agreement. Kneecapping the government is the meta optimal move for minority parties, they gain nothing from trying to make the government more effective. So even if all the lawmakers secretly agree that congress has work to do, they'll never admit it.
    - Guvante 3y ago
      You keep saying "someone might want to do a bad thing" as if it is an argument. I never said they would do something, which is what you are arguing against. I said there isn't an excuse to not do anything based on the existing law covering what needs to be covered. Mostly I point it out because the "X government won't do anything" is uninteresting to discuss, it is basically an impossible to defeat argument. > Unless you're just referring to the executive branch the government In this context the branch of the government whose job it is to take this action is taking an action and so I felt specifying Executive was needlessly specific. It isn't like Congress is using this act to go after violators, that isn't their job.

ncallaway 3y ago

> Now every time anti trust gets brought up people think about how the government lost 5 cases in a row and consider it a waste. It demonstrates how weak and toothless are current laws are, and shows a desperate need for Congressional action. Before, when you brought up Congressional action on anti-trust it would get waived away with: "The FTC has the powers they need and aren't using them. There's no need for Congress to act". If someone tried to raise those objections today, they looked silly. The fact of the matter is the executive branch needed to walk into the buzz-saw to demonstrate that the current laws are insufficient and prompt Congress to act. Now it's a matter of putting public pressure on Congress to act.