4 ms·

Could you explain what that means in layman's terms?

d1sxeyes 2y ago
The next president will have significant sway over decisions that will likely impact the tech sector’s direction. If the pendulum swings the “wrong” way, companies like Meta will face increased scrutiny, anti-trust investigations, regulatory oversight, and the like. If the pendulum swings the “right” way, companies will continue to enjoy free rein over their business practices. Moving jobs back to the US (or appearing to), cancelling DEI programmes which are not approved of by the incoming administration, etc all lines up with this. The more difficult question is whether Meta is the chicken or the egg. OP suggests Meta are courting Trump’s approval. I’m not so sure that Meta didn’t help put him there in the first place.
highwaylights 2y ago
Making a display to signal one’s willingness to mate and intended to impress a target audience, in this case the incoming administration. It’ll absolutely work, too. The new President loves to hear how good his ideas are. He’s been speaking lately (on JRE just a few days back too if I’m not mistaken) about the responsibility of the US government to protect US companies abroad rather than hurting them at home. This was targeted specifically at Trump, and trying to encourage him to get on Meta’s side with regulators. He also said on JRE that the Biden administration would yell down the phone at his staff for not censoring facts, this is to rile up the GOP in Congress to pressure Trump to be seen doing the opposite and standing up for free speech (as Meta defines it).
dspillett 2y ago
Basically pulling jobs out of other territories and concentrating on being all-American where possible is going to sell to President Shart & chums more than the multinational aspect. As an aside from that though, recent & planned changes in UK regulation are trying to put more onus on social media companies to police their dungeons, and they don't like that. I'm sure this aggravation has a causal relationship with Musk getting very anti-UK-government ATM (spreading “facts” about them that range from somewhat dubious down to outright lies & calls for vigilantism) – trying to push attention away from SM and its role in various problems. Pulling out of the UK will reduce their legal (and financial) risk exposure with regard to these regulation changes.
- nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
  > being all-American where possible How much of Meta's staff is H1B?
  - dspillett 2y ago
    I should have been a bit more specific: as all-GOP-American as possible. Imported workers are just fine, even though that is not something you'd derive from many a campaign speech, particularly for specialist workers as vaguely defined by the H1B system which have an indirect benefit of adding a bit of brain-drain friction to potentially competing companies in other economies, as well as shoring up the effect of temporary local skills deficiencies. But work being done in non-American jurisdictions where the regulatory demands of other governments might affect how an American company can gouge out a profit is what causes upset. That and other regulatory demands suggesting SM companies make effort to crack down on some of the “free to speak hate” problems, which the current powers-that-be that side of the pond don't actually see as problems. Or simply that work being done elsewhere is money going into someone else's economy ‑ while many H1B workers will be sending some money back to family elsewhere, they won't be sending most of it as they need to clothe themselves, eat, pay rent, have a few luxuries, etc.
    - nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
      > Imported workers are just fine, even though that is not something you'd derive from many a campaign speech, particularly for specialist workers as vaguely defined by the H1B system which have an indirect benefit of adding a bit of brain-drain friction to potentially competing companies in other economies, as well as shoring up the effect of temporary local skills deficiencies. I and others did interpret this, and recalled what they said about that matter. Wasn't part of the campaign directly but Trump and Elon both made this very apparent.

The next president will have significant sway over decisions that will likely impact the tech sector’s direction. If the pendulum swings the “wrong” way, companies like Meta will face increased scrutiny, anti-trust investigations, regulatory oversight, and the like. If the pendulum swings the “right” way, companies will continue to enjoy free rein over their business practices. Moving jobs back to the US (or appearing to), cancelling DEI programmes which are not approved of by the incoming administration, etc all lines up with this. The more difficult question is whether Meta is the chicken or the egg. OP suggests Meta are courting Trump’s approval. I’m not so sure that Meta didn’t help put him there in the first place.

highwaylights 2y ago

Making a display to signal one’s willingness to mate and intended to impress a target audience, in this case the incoming administration. It’ll absolutely work, too. The new President loves to hear how good his ideas are. He’s been speaking lately (on JRE just a few days back too if I’m not mistaken) about the responsibility of the US government to protect US companies abroad rather than hurting them at home. This was targeted specifically at Trump, and trying to encourage him to get on Meta’s side with regulators. He also said on JRE that the Biden administration would yell down the phone at his staff for not censoring facts, this is to rile up the GOP in Congress to pressure Trump to be seen doing the opposite and standing up for free speech (as Meta defines it).

dspillett 2y ago

Basically pulling jobs out of other territories and concentrating on being all-American where possible is going to sell to President Shart & chums more than the multinational aspect. As an aside from that though, recent & planned changes in UK regulation are trying to put more onus on social media companies to police their dungeons, and they don't like that. I'm sure this aggravation has a causal relationship with Musk getting very anti-UK-government ATM (spreading “facts” about them that range from somewhat dubious down to outright lies & calls for vigilantism) – trying to push attention away from SM and its role in various problems. Pulling out of the UK will reduce their legal (and financial) risk exposure with regard to these regulation changes.

nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
> being all-American where possible How much of Meta's staff is H1B?
- dspillett 2y ago
  I should have been a bit more specific: as all-GOP-American as possible. Imported workers are just fine, even though that is not something you'd derive from many a campaign speech, particularly for specialist workers as vaguely defined by the H1B system which have an indirect benefit of adding a bit of brain-drain friction to potentially competing companies in other economies, as well as shoring up the effect of temporary local skills deficiencies. But work being done in non-American jurisdictions where the regulatory demands of other governments might affect how an American company can gouge out a profit is what causes upset. That and other regulatory demands suggesting SM companies make effort to crack down on some of the “free to speak hate” problems, which the current powers-that-be that side of the pond don't actually see as problems. Or simply that work being done elsewhere is money going into someone else's economy ‑ while many H1B workers will be sending some money back to family elsewhere, they won't be sending most of it as they need to clothe themselves, eat, pay rent, have a few luxuries, etc.
  - nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
    > Imported workers are just fine, even though that is not something you'd derive from many a campaign speech, particularly for specialist workers as vaguely defined by the H1B system which have an indirect benefit of adding a bit of brain-drain friction to potentially competing companies in other economies, as well as shoring up the effect of temporary local skills deficiencies. I and others did interpret this, and recalled what they said about that matter. Wasn't part of the campaign directly but Trump and Elon both made this very apparent.