4 ms·

The flaw here is in expecting Facebook to be the police. Here's what happens if you make Facebook do it. They become aware of someone running an illegal ad and

The flaw here is in expecting Facebook to be the police. Here's what happens if you make Facebook do it. They become aware of someone running an illegal ad and ban them. But the advertiser is a criminal and still wants to make money, so they make a new account or find some way to avoid detection, and the ad ends up back in the system, and the advertiser can do this forever because they're making a net profit by continuing to play the cat and mouse game. Here's what happens if you have law enforcement responsible for enforcing the law. Someone runs an illegal ad on Facebook, law enforcement subpoenas Facebook to find out who it was, and the advertiser gets arrested. This provides an actual deterrent because there is a penalty in excess of a ban, so it exceeds the profits from the criminal activity, and criminals dumb enough to not be deterred go to jail where they can't run any more ads. Why are we trying to do it the stupid way and expect a non-stupid result? Corporations are not law enforcement. Stop trying to make it otherwise.

squigz 2y ago
I don't believe GP was suggesting Facebook do it; rather just pointing out that the second option is extremely costly and difficult, which is a consequence of the scale and influence of Facebook
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > the second option is extremely costly and difficult, which is a consequence of the scale and influence of Facebook Is it? Suppose that instead of Facebook we had a federated social media with ten thousand independent operators and ten thousand ad networks. Then there would be ten thousand ad agents (really automated websites) who compete on price and whose job it is to place your ad in the ten thousand ad networks. Drug dealers would still try to run drug ads, wouldn't they? What would be any different? The internet has the scale that it does whether the service is centralized or not. Centralization/monopolies are the cause of many problems but not every problem.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- snowpid 2y ago
  Under DSA in the EU they are obliged to do that.
jessekv 2y ago
Since ads are targeted, only Facebook can know when an illegal ad is run. Are you suggesting Facebook should be reporting the people running ads to law enforcement?
- cm2012 2y ago
  All fb ads + associated general targeting are public in ads library, the gov could enforce this on their own.
  - jessekv 2y ago
    Cool! TIL.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  If they see people committing a crime, pretty much yes, they should report it. In general, they should not impede investigations, and not intently help criminals.
- ben_w 2y ago
  They claim the ads are targeted. Given that I've had ads for: • Both dick pills and boob surgery • A lawyer specialising in renouncing a citizenship I don't have for people who have moved to a country I don't live in • Local news for a city in Florida that I didn't know existed (and I'm not an American resident or citizen) • A library fun run in a city 903 km away with an entire extra country between me and it • An announcement, from a government of a country I don't live in, that a breed of dog I've never heard of, is to be banned (and I'm not a dog owner) I think that the claim "Meta knows how to target ads" is itself in the set of scams. The contents of my email's junk folder is significantly less wrong than this.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  If everybody is using an ad blocker then it doesn't really matter what ads they run, does it? If some users don't use an ad blocker then there is obviously someone other than Facebook who knows when an illegal ad is run and can report it to law enforcement.
datavirtue 2y ago
If this was happening on my platform, I would want to know about it. Facebook is the police, of their own concerns. I'm sure they are genuinely trying to identify all these people and report them to law enforcement. What is the miss, here? Any decent journalism on this subject? NPR takes too much money from Facebook to preclude them from rooting around in their business, and they pretty much stopped covering Facebook, other than mentions and basic AP press releases. The same is probably true with other media interests as well. Nonetheless, I doubt Facebook wants these people and it certainly threatens their business by overrunning it with creepy drug ads, so what we see is the tiny bit that manages to bubble up through the cracks. Everyone wants Facebook to magically seal all the cracks.
- standardUser 2y ago
  > I'm sure they are genuinely trying to identify all these people and report them to law enforcement. What is the miss, here? The miss is assuming any company would do something out of genuine concern for the law. Their shareholders don't reward them for morally upstanding behavior. They are concerned about money, and the law is only a concern insofar as it impacts their real concern. We've seen this story a million times people! It us what for-profit companies are. It is how they operate and that will never change. What can change is government regulation and enforcement. That is the one and only answer to this problem.
aeturnum 2y ago
I fully agree it's a hard problem, but Facebook is the one telling us they can be the police. If you really feel you can't operate a business without doing crimes, you shouldn't operate the business. It's understandable - there are some businesses that it takes too much skill to operate without doing a crime and so people don't (there are lots of things that banks won't do that fall into this category). Facebook, by operating in this area, is saying they think they can do it. > Someone runs an illegal ad on Facebook The problem, to me, is that everything you said applies down stream too. You can't be sure the person purchasing the ad is trying to commit a crime either (perhaps they were hacked, perhaps they were dumb, etc). If you are promoting the "this is complex, actually" view - it's complex at every level. The problem for society is that Facebook, as the company offering the service that occasionally breaks the law, is in a nice position. They get to profit off law breaking every once in a while and, as you say, it's hard to feel like it is possible to offer this service in such a way to perfectly avoid doing all crimes. So you get into this situation where Facebook (and everyone else at that scale) can do some crimes, but not so many that it's a big part of their business. It seems bad.
- Bluestein 2y ago
  > can do some crimes Simple solution: Upon their inability to abide by the law, downright outlaw them and shut them down at the second, known, provable count.- Zuckbook is a known evil, making billions off of depressed vulnerable population's attention, and causing untold amounts of psychological damage.- The least they could positively do is police their system, to the ninth percentile or better.- Or be shut down.- The next incumbent will figure it out, rather fast.-
- malnourish 2y ago
  > They get to profit off law breaking every once in a while Make Facebook liable and required to forfeit money earned from the criminal activity.
  - aeturnum 2y ago
    This is technically already the situation and you can easily get them to pay up for each violation you prove in court. Good luck!
itishappy 2y ago
If somebody uploads illegal content (like CSAM) today, does Facebook simply delete the account and call it a day? I'd hope for a system where the police handle enforcement and Facebook simply reports its.
jdiff 2y ago
Facebook is the only one with access to all the information to know that a crime has even happened. Practically, there is no way for someone on the outside to be able to detect many of the illegal things that Facebook is facilitating. Unless you want all of big tech's data to be explicitly funneled to law enforcement, this is not a solution, especially when Facebook's incentivized to turn a blind eye and keep collecting checks.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  This is obviously not the case, otherwise how is anybody detecting the crimes in order to accuse Facebook of them? If someone is running an ad to sell drugs or violate some other law, the users will see the ad and can report it to law enforcement. Law enforcement then investigates to find out who placed the ad and goes to arrest them.
gessha 2y ago
> law enforcement subpoenas Facebook to find out who it was See, here’s the catch - this requires law enforcement to be a functional organization. Judging on how widespread drug abuse and drug dealers are, I don’t think this would be a winning approach. Also, I wonder how newspapers dealt with this approach? Human vet everything?

squigz 2y ago

I don't believe GP was suggesting Facebook do it; rather just pointing out that the second option is extremely costly and difficult, which is a consequence of the scale and influence of Facebook

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> the second option is extremely costly and difficult, which is a consequence of the scale and influence of Facebook Is it? Suppose that instead of Facebook we had a federated social media with ten thousand independent operators and ten thousand ad networks. Then there would be ten thousand ad agents (really automated websites) who compete on price and whose job it is to place your ad in the ten thousand ad networks. Drug dealers would still try to run drug ads, wouldn't they? What would be any different? The internet has the scale that it does whether the service is centralized or not. Centralization/monopolies are the cause of many problems but not every problem.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
snowpid 2y ago
Under DSA in the EU they are obliged to do that.

jessekv 2y ago

Since ads are targeted, only Facebook can know when an illegal ad is run. Are you suggesting Facebook should be reporting the people running ads to law enforcement?

cm2012 2y ago
All fb ads + associated general targeting are public in ads library, the gov could enforce this on their own.
- jessekv 2y ago
  Cool! TIL.
marcosdumay 2y ago
If they see people committing a crime, pretty much yes, they should report it. In general, they should not impede investigations, and not intently help criminals.
ben_w 2y ago
They claim the ads are targeted. Given that I've had ads for: • Both dick pills and boob surgery • A lawyer specialising in renouncing a citizenship I don't have for people who have moved to a country I don't live in • Local news for a city in Florida that I didn't know existed (and I'm not an American resident or citizen) • A library fun run in a city 903 km away with an entire extra country between me and it • An announcement, from a government of a country I don't live in, that a breed of dog I've never heard of, is to be banned (and I'm not a dog owner) I think that the claim "Meta knows how to target ads" is itself in the set of scams. The contents of my email's junk folder is significantly less wrong than this.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
If everybody is using an ad blocker then it doesn't really matter what ads they run, does it? If some users don't use an ad blocker then there is obviously someone other than Facebook who knows when an illegal ad is run and can report it to law enforcement.

datavirtue 2y ago

If this was happening on my platform, I would want to know about it. Facebook is the police, of their own concerns. I'm sure they are genuinely trying to identify all these people and report them to law enforcement. What is the miss, here? Any decent journalism on this subject? NPR takes too much money from Facebook to preclude them from rooting around in their business, and they pretty much stopped covering Facebook, other than mentions and basic AP press releases. The same is probably true with other media interests as well. Nonetheless, I doubt Facebook wants these people and it certainly threatens their business by overrunning it with creepy drug ads, so what we see is the tiny bit that manages to bubble up through the cracks. Everyone wants Facebook to magically seal all the cracks.

standardUser 2y ago
> I'm sure they are genuinely trying to identify all these people and report them to law enforcement. What is the miss, here? The miss is assuming any company would do something out of genuine concern for the law. Their shareholders don't reward them for morally upstanding behavior. They are concerned about money, and the law is only a concern insofar as it impacts their real concern. We've seen this story a million times people! It us what for-profit companies are. It is how they operate and that will never change. What can change is government regulation and enforcement. That is the one and only answer to this problem.

aeturnum 2y ago

I fully agree it's a hard problem, but Facebook is the one telling us they can be the police. If you really feel you can't operate a business without doing crimes, you shouldn't operate the business. It's understandable - there are some businesses that it takes too much skill to operate without doing a crime and so people don't (there are lots of things that banks won't do that fall into this category). Facebook, by operating in this area, is saying they think they can do it. > Someone runs an illegal ad on Facebook The problem, to me, is that everything you said applies down stream too. You can't be sure the person purchasing the ad is trying to commit a crime either (perhaps they were hacked, perhaps they were dumb, etc). If you are promoting the "this is complex, actually" view - it's complex at every level. The problem for society is that Facebook, as the company offering the service that occasionally breaks the law, is in a nice position. They get to profit off law breaking every once in a while and, as you say, it's hard to feel like it is possible to offer this service in such a way to perfectly avoid doing all crimes. So you get into this situation where Facebook (and everyone else at that scale) can do some crimes, but not so many that it's a big part of their business. It seems bad.

Bluestein 2y ago
> can do some crimes Simple solution: Upon their inability to abide by the law, downright outlaw them and shut them down at the second, known, provable count.- Zuckbook is a known evil, making billions off of depressed vulnerable population's attention, and causing untold amounts of psychological damage.- The least they could positively do is police their system, to the ninth percentile or better.- Or be shut down.- The next incumbent will figure it out, rather fast.-
malnourish 2y ago
> They get to profit off law breaking every once in a while Make Facebook liable and required to forfeit money earned from the criminal activity.
- aeturnum 2y ago
  This is technically already the situation and you can easily get them to pay up for each violation you prove in court. Good luck!

itishappy 2y ago

If somebody uploads illegal content (like CSAM) today, does Facebook simply delete the account and call it a day? I'd hope for a system where the police handle enforcement and Facebook simply reports its.

jdiff 2y ago

Facebook is the only one with access to all the information to know that a crime has even happened. Practically, there is no way for someone on the outside to be able to detect many of the illegal things that Facebook is facilitating. Unless you want all of big tech's data to be explicitly funneled to law enforcement, this is not a solution, especially when Facebook's incentivized to turn a blind eye and keep collecting checks.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
This is obviously not the case, otherwise how is anybody detecting the crimes in order to accuse Facebook of them? If someone is running an ad to sell drugs or violate some other law, the users will see the ad and can report it to law enforcement. Law enforcement then investigates to find out who placed the ad and goes to arrest them.

gessha 2y ago

> law enforcement subpoenas Facebook to find out who it was See, here’s the catch - this requires law enforcement to be a functional organization. Judging on how widespread drug abuse and drug dealers are, I don’t think this would be a winning approach. Also, I wonder how newspapers dealt with this approach? Human vet everything?