6 ms·

Whenever you think of a court versus Facebook, imagine one of these mini mice trying to stick it to a polar bear. Or a goblin versus a dragon, or a fly versus a

by kubb 1y ago

Whenever you think of a court versus Facebook, imagine one of these mini mice trying to stick it to a polar bear. Or a goblin versus a dragon, or a fly versus an elephant. These companies are for the most part effectively outside of the law. The only time they feel pressure is when they can lose market share, and there's risk of their platform being blocked in a jurisdiction. That's it.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
[flagged]
- kubb 1y ago
  Funny, but this kinda implies that some person designed this way. It's a resultant sum of small vectors, with corporate lobbying playing a significant role. Corporate lobbying systemically can't do anything else than try to increase profits, which usually means less regulation. Clean slate design would require a system collapse.
  - exe34 1y ago
    > Funny, but this kinda implies that some person designed this way How do you get to that implication? I'm missing a step or two I think...
    - kubb 1y ago
      From "do you want X? this is how you get X". This invokes an image of talking to a person who decided the how, because they can be questioned on whether they want the X.
  - moolcool 1y ago
    When Facebook releases an AI Model for free: "Based Facebook. Zuckerberg is a genius visionary" When Facebook does something unforgivable: "It's a systemic problem. Zuck is just a smol bean"
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      What's with this reductionist logic? Nothing is ever 100% good or 100% evil, everything is on a spectrum. So just because Zuck does some good stuff for the tech world, doesn't mean he's work isn't a net negative to society.
      - moolcool 1y ago
        > doesn't mean he's work isn't a net negative to society Oh he absolutely is. I'm just saying that it's common in this community to attribute the achievements of big companies to leadership (E.g. the mythology of Steve Jobs), but dismiss all the evil stuff to "systemic issues".
    - kubb 1y ago
      Zuck can take his model onto his private island and talk to it instead of trying to be a normal human being. Don't conflate me with the personality worshippers on HN, I'm not one of them, even though it seems like it to you because I also post here. You won't find a single instance of me glazing tech leaders.
  - graemep 1y ago
    > Corporate lobbying systemically can't do anything else than try to increase profits, which usually means less regulation. Corporate lobbying can be for more regulation. It can disadvantage competitors. Zuckerberg has spoken in favour of greater regulation of social media in the past. The UK's Online Safety Act creates barriers to entry and provides and excuse for more tracking. I can think of examples, some acknowledged by the CEOs of the companies involved, ranging from British pubs to American investment banks.
- lazide 1y ago
  I once ran across Zuckerberg in a Palo Alto cafe. I only noticed him (I was in the process of ordering a sandwich, and don’t really care about shit like that) because he was being ‘eeeeeeee’d’ by a couple of random women that he didn’t seem to know. He seemed pretty uncomfortable about the whole thing. One of them had a stroller which she was profoundly ignoring during the whole thing, which I found a bit disturbing. The next time I saw him in Palo Alto (a couple months later on the street), he had 2 totally-not-security-dudes flanking him, and I saw at least one random passerby ‘redirected’ away from him. This wasn’t at the cafe though, it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t go there again. This was a decade before Luigi. Luigi was well after meta was in the news for spending massive amounts of money on security and Zuck had a lot of controversy for his ‘compound’ in PA. I can assure you, Meta is well aware of the situation, and a Luigi isn’t going to have a chance in this situation. The reality in my experience that is any random person given the amount of wealth these folks end up with would end up making similar (or worse) decisions, and while contra-pressure from Luigi’s is important in the overall system, folks like Zuckerberg are more a result of the system and rules than the cause of them (but then influence the next system/rules in a giant Oroborous type situation). Kind of a we either die young a hero, or live to be the villain kind of thing. But because the only reason anyone dies a young hero is because they lost the fight against the prior old villains. If they’d won (even in a heroic fashion), life would turn them into the old villains shortly. The wheel turns.
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    > I only noticed him (I was in the process of ordering a sandwich) because he was being ‘eeeeeeee’d’ by a couple of random women that he didn’t seem to know. He seemed pretty uncomfortable about the whole thing. Pretty funny considering that Facebook's origin story was a women comparison site, or this memorable quote: > People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks.
    - lazide 1y ago
      Have you ever ordered a really good steak, like amazing. And really huge, and inexpensive too. And it really is amazing! And super tasty. But it’s so big, and juicy, that by the end of it you feel sick? But you can’t stop yourself? And then at the end of it, you’re like - damn. Okay. No more steak for awhile? If not steak, then substitute cake. Or Whiskey. Just because you got what you wanted doesn’t mean you’re happy with all the consequences, or can stomach an infinitely increasing quantity of it. Of course, he can pay to mitigate most of them, and he gets all the largest steaks he could want now, so whatever. I’m not going to cry about it. I thought it was interesting to see develop however.
- j33zusjuice 1y ago
  [flagged]
ajsnigrutin 1y ago
Everybody blames facebook, noone blames the legislators and the courts. Stuff like this could easily make them pay multi-billion dollar fines, stuff that affects more users maybe even in the trillion range. When government workers come pick up servers, chairs and projectors from company buildings to sell at an auction, because there is not enough liquid value in the company to pay the fines, they (well, the others) would reconsider quite fast and stop with the illegal activities.
- favflam 1y ago
  Sarah Williams (forgot the name) testified in US Congress as to Facebooks strategies on handling governments. Based on her book, it seems Brazil has been the most effective out of major democratic governments in confronting Facebook. Of course, you have China completely banning Facebook. I think Mark Zuckerberg is acutely aware of the political power he holds and has been using this immense power at least for the last decade. But since Facebook is a US company and the US government is not interested in touching Faceebok, I doubt anyone will see what Zuckerberg and Facebook are up to. The US would have to put Lina Khan back in at the FTC, or put her high up in the Department of Justice to split Facebook into pieces. I guess the other hope is that states' attorneys' general when an anti-monopoly lawsuit.
- kubb 1y ago
  Don't get me wrong, I don't "blame Facebook". I lament the environment that empowers Facebook to exist and do harm. These companies should be gutted by the state, but they won't because they pump the S&P.
Dylan16807 1y ago
All they need to do is impose a three digit fine per affected user and Facebook will immediately feel intense pressure.
- codegladiator 1y ago
  three digit ? the only thing these folks understand is exponential growth per affected user.
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    Yes, three digit. That would be 15 to 150 billion dollars, and Facebook would understand that amount.
- akudha 1y ago
  $1 for the first user, $2 for second, $4 for third...By the 30th user, it would be painful even for mega corps. By 40th, it would be an absurd number. Might also be worth trying to force them to display a banner on every page of the site "you're on facebook, you have no privacy here", like those warnings on cigarette boxes. These might not work though, people would just see and ignore them, just like smokers ignore warnings about cigarettes.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    But these users were NOT on Facebook. It was an app using the FB SDK. So it should be the apps that use SDKs should put up large banners clearly identifying who they are sharing data with. Some of these sites are sharing with >100 3rd party sites. It is outrageous
- bell-cot 1y ago
  Who's this "they" you speak of, and why would they bother doing that?
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    The court. Because it's their job. I'm not using "fine" very literally. Damages paid to the victims.
potato3732842 1y ago
>These companies are for the most part effectively outside of the law You have it wrong in the worst way. They are wholly inside the law because they have enough power to influence the people and systems that get to use discretion to determine what is and isn't inside the law. No amount of screeching about how laws ought to be enforced will affect them because they are tautologically legal, so long as they can afford to be.
- HPsquared 1y ago
  It's one of those "I'm not trapped here with you; you're trapped here with me" type things.
- entropi 1y ago
  I think this situation is described best as being "above" the law.
- kubb 1y ago
  Pedantic, but fair. You're right.
lemonberry 1y ago
The worst part for me personally is that almost everyone I know cares about this stuff and yet they keep all of their Meta accounts. I really don't get it and frankly, find it kind of disturbing. I know people that don't see anything wrong with Meta so they keep using it. And that's fine! Your actions seem to align with your stated values. I get human fallibility. I've been human for awhile now, and wow, have I made some mistakes and miscalculations. What really puts a bee in my bonnet though is how dogmatic some of these people are about their own beliefs and their judgement of other people. I love people, I really do. But what weird, inconsistent creatures we are.
- kubb 1y ago
  Voting with your feet doesn't work if you don't have a place to go. People are afraid of losing their connections, which are some of the most precious things we have. Doesn't matter if it's an illusion, that's enough. Zuck is holding us hostage on our most basic human instincts. I think that's fucked up.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
  Eh, I care and I don't do it, but my wife does. I do not agree with her choices in that area and voice the concerns in a way that I hoped would speak to her, but it does not work as it is now a deeply ingrained habit. I, too, have vices she tolerates so I don't push as hard as I otherwise would have, but I would argue it is not inconsistency. It is a question of what level of compromise is acceptable.
- bossyTeacher 1y ago
  > The worst part for me personally is that almost everyone I know cares about this stuff and yet they keep all of their Meta accounts. They care as much as people who claim to care about animals but still eat them, people who claim to love their wives and still beat/cheat them. Your actions are the sole embodiment of your beliefs
- barbazoo 1y ago
  I keep sharing stories like this with them. Privacy violations, genocide, mental health, …. Whenever I think it might be something someone cares about I share with them. I also make an effort to explain to my non tech folks that meta is Facebook, instagram, WhatsApp, to make sure they understand recognize the name. Many people do not know what meta is. Sometimes I suspect it was a way to capture the bad publicity and protect their brands.
fHr 1y ago
Roblox lul

by kubb 1y ago

FirmwareBurner 1y ago

[flagged]

kubb 1y ago
Funny, but this kinda implies that some person designed this way. It's a resultant sum of small vectors, with corporate lobbying playing a significant role. Corporate lobbying systemically can't do anything else than try to increase profits, which usually means less regulation. Clean slate design would require a system collapse.
- exe34 1y ago
  > Funny, but this kinda implies that some person designed this way How do you get to that implication? I'm missing a step or two I think...
  - kubb 1y ago
    From "do you want X? this is how you get X". This invokes an image of talking to a person who decided the how, because they can be questioned on whether they want the X.
- moolcool 1y ago
  When Facebook releases an AI Model for free: "Based Facebook. Zuckerberg is a genius visionary" When Facebook does something unforgivable: "It's a systemic problem. Zuck is just a smol bean"
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    What's with this reductionist logic? Nothing is ever 100% good or 100% evil, everything is on a spectrum. So just because Zuck does some good stuff for the tech world, doesn't mean he's work isn't a net negative to society.
    - moolcool 1y ago
      > doesn't mean he's work isn't a net negative to society Oh he absolutely is. I'm just saying that it's common in this community to attribute the achievements of big companies to leadership (E.g. the mythology of Steve Jobs), but dismiss all the evil stuff to "systemic issues".
  - kubb 1y ago
    Zuck can take his model onto his private island and talk to it instead of trying to be a normal human being. Don't conflate me with the personality worshippers on HN, I'm not one of them, even though it seems like it to you because I also post here. You won't find a single instance of me glazing tech leaders.
- graemep 1y ago
  > Corporate lobbying systemically can't do anything else than try to increase profits, which usually means less regulation. Corporate lobbying can be for more regulation. It can disadvantage competitors. Zuckerberg has spoken in favour of greater regulation of social media in the past. The UK's Online Safety Act creates barriers to entry and provides and excuse for more tracking. I can think of examples, some acknowledged by the CEOs of the companies involved, ranging from British pubs to American investment banks.
lazide 1y ago
I once ran across Zuckerberg in a Palo Alto cafe. I only noticed him (I was in the process of ordering a sandwich, and don’t really care about shit like that) because he was being ‘eeeeeeee’d’ by a couple of random women that he didn’t seem to know. He seemed pretty uncomfortable about the whole thing. One of them had a stroller which she was profoundly ignoring during the whole thing, which I found a bit disturbing. The next time I saw him in Palo Alto (a couple months later on the street), he had 2 totally-not-security-dudes flanking him, and I saw at least one random passerby ‘redirected’ away from him. This wasn’t at the cafe though, it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t go there again. This was a decade before Luigi. Luigi was well after meta was in the news for spending massive amounts of money on security and Zuck had a lot of controversy for his ‘compound’ in PA. I can assure you, Meta is well aware of the situation, and a Luigi isn’t going to have a chance in this situation. The reality in my experience that is any random person given the amount of wealth these folks end up with would end up making similar (or worse) decisions, and while contra-pressure from Luigi’s is important in the overall system, folks like Zuckerberg are more a result of the system and rules than the cause of them (but then influence the next system/rules in a giant Oroborous type situation). Kind of a we either die young a hero, or live to be the villain kind of thing. But because the only reason anyone dies a young hero is because they lost the fight against the prior old villains. If they’d won (even in a heroic fashion), life would turn them into the old villains shortly. The wheel turns.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  > I only noticed him (I was in the process of ordering a sandwich) because he was being ‘eeeeeeee’d’ by a couple of random women that he didn’t seem to know. He seemed pretty uncomfortable about the whole thing. Pretty funny considering that Facebook's origin story was a women comparison site, or this memorable quote: > People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks.
  - lazide 1y ago
    Have you ever ordered a really good steak, like amazing. And really huge, and inexpensive too. And it really is amazing! And super tasty. But it’s so big, and juicy, that by the end of it you feel sick? But you can’t stop yourself? And then at the end of it, you’re like - damn. Okay. No more steak for awhile? If not steak, then substitute cake. Or Whiskey. Just because you got what you wanted doesn’t mean you’re happy with all the consequences, or can stomach an infinitely increasing quantity of it. Of course, he can pay to mitigate most of them, and he gets all the largest steaks he could want now, so whatever. I’m not going to cry about it. I thought it was interesting to see develop however.
j33zusjuice 1y ago
[flagged]

ajsnigrutin 1y ago

Everybody blames facebook, noone blames the legislators and the courts. Stuff like this could easily make them pay multi-billion dollar fines, stuff that affects more users maybe even in the trillion range. When government workers come pick up servers, chairs and projectors from company buildings to sell at an auction, because there is not enough liquid value in the company to pay the fines, they (well, the others) would reconsider quite fast and stop with the illegal activities.

favflam 1y ago
Sarah Williams (forgot the name) testified in US Congress as to Facebooks strategies on handling governments. Based on her book, it seems Brazil has been the most effective out of major democratic governments in confronting Facebook. Of course, you have China completely banning Facebook. I think Mark Zuckerberg is acutely aware of the political power he holds and has been using this immense power at least for the last decade. But since Facebook is a US company and the US government is not interested in touching Faceebok, I doubt anyone will see what Zuckerberg and Facebook are up to. The US would have to put Lina Khan back in at the FTC, or put her high up in the Department of Justice to split Facebook into pieces. I guess the other hope is that states' attorneys' general when an anti-monopoly lawsuit.
kubb 1y ago
Don't get me wrong, I don't "blame Facebook". I lament the environment that empowers Facebook to exist and do harm. These companies should be gutted by the state, but they won't because they pump the S&P.

Dylan16807 1y ago

All they need to do is impose a three digit fine per affected user and Facebook will immediately feel intense pressure.

codegladiator 1y ago
three digit ? the only thing these folks understand is exponential growth per affected user.
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  Yes, three digit. That would be 15 to 150 billion dollars, and Facebook would understand that amount.
akudha 1y ago
$1 for the first user, $2 for second, $4 for third...By the 30th user, it would be painful even for mega corps. By 40th, it would be an absurd number. Might also be worth trying to force them to display a banner on every page of the site "you're on facebook, you have no privacy here", like those warnings on cigarette boxes. These might not work though, people would just see and ignore them, just like smokers ignore warnings about cigarettes.
- dylan604 1y ago
  But these users were NOT on Facebook. It was an app using the FB SDK. So it should be the apps that use SDKs should put up large banners clearly identifying who they are sharing data with. Some of these sites are sharing with >100 3rd party sites. It is outrageous
bell-cot 1y ago
Who's this "they" you speak of, and why would they bother doing that?
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  The court. Because it's their job. I'm not using "fine" very literally. Damages paid to the victims.

potato3732842 1y ago

>These companies are for the most part effectively outside of the law You have it wrong in the worst way. They are wholly inside the law because they have enough power to influence the people and systems that get to use discretion to determine what is and isn't inside the law. No amount of screeching about how laws ought to be enforced will affect them because they are tautologically legal, so long as they can afford to be.

HPsquared 1y ago
It's one of those "I'm not trapped here with you; you're trapped here with me" type things.
entropi 1y ago
I think this situation is described best as being "above" the law.
kubb 1y ago
Pedantic, but fair. You're right.

lemonberry 1y ago

The worst part for me personally is that almost everyone I know cares about this stuff and yet they keep all of their Meta accounts. I really don't get it and frankly, find it kind of disturbing. I know people that don't see anything wrong with Meta so they keep using it. And that's fine! Your actions seem to align with your stated values. I get human fallibility. I've been human for awhile now, and wow, have I made some mistakes and miscalculations. What really puts a bee in my bonnet though is how dogmatic some of these people are about their own beliefs and their judgement of other people. I love people, I really do. But what weird, inconsistent creatures we are.

kubb 1y ago
Voting with your feet doesn't work if you don't have a place to go. People are afraid of losing their connections, which are some of the most precious things we have. Doesn't matter if it's an illusion, that's enough. Zuck is holding us hostage on our most basic human instincts. I think that's fucked up.
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
Eh, I care and I don't do it, but my wife does. I do not agree with her choices in that area and voice the concerns in a way that I hoped would speak to her, but it does not work as it is now a deeply ingrained habit. I, too, have vices she tolerates so I don't push as hard as I otherwise would have, but I would argue it is not inconsistency. It is a question of what level of compromise is acceptable.
bossyTeacher 1y ago
> The worst part for me personally is that almost everyone I know cares about this stuff and yet they keep all of their Meta accounts. They care as much as people who claim to care about animals but still eat them, people who claim to love their wives and still beat/cheat them. Your actions are the sole embodiment of your beliefs
barbazoo 1y ago
I keep sharing stories like this with them. Privacy violations, genocide, mental health, …. Whenever I think it might be something someone cares about I share with them. I also make an effort to explain to my non tech folks that meta is Facebook, instagram, WhatsApp, to make sure they understand recognize the name. Many people do not know what meta is. Sometimes I suspect it was a way to capture the bad publicity and protect their brands.

fHr 1y ago

Roblox lul