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Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

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Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#31

Post by AndrewKemendo »

Techies take the job because they wake up each day believing that they’re having a massive positive influence by connecting the world.

I don't think this is really the case anymore - at least from the FB engineers I know.

Great engineers are at FB because they get to deploy really interesting projects on the largest platforms in the world with best in class technologies, or get to work on cutting edge AI research (FAIR) or interfaces (Oculus).

The whole "connect the world" thing seems to be an afterthought at best for most.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#32

Post by AFNobody »

amluto wrote: post #29
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once your revenue exceeds x million USD on ad supported services that are free for end users, you must offer the service also for money with reasonable margin on top of the actual production costs, with strong guarantees that the data of end user who has opted for paid service is kept private and not monetized anyhow I like the size threshold but not the solution. Toying with business models should be a solution of…

Why a size threshold? An American GDPR seems like a fine idea, especially if it’a similar enough to GDPR that complying with one gets the other for free.

The overhead cost of compliance with something like GDPR would probably kill most small startups that had a data-backed business model.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#33

Post by bsbechtel »

A good way to think about regulation and Facebook might be, would you rather continue using Facebook, knowing the government is supposedly regulating them, but you can never know for sure, or would you rather move on to a new and more interesting platform where privacy and security defaults are integrated into the platform from day one? Regulation that Facebook can point to and say, "See, we are following to rules!" will make it harder to convince your friends to leave Facebook.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#34

Post by krick »

beefield wrote: post #5

I can think of three relevant regulations for (large) internet companies 1. Strong anti-monopoly regulation. There is no reason for Facebook owning Whatsapp & Instagram. 2. Once your revenue exceeds x million USD on ad supported services that are free for end users, you must offer the service also for money with reasonable margin on top of the actual production costs, with strong guarantees that the data of end user…

2. would we an extremely bad law. Even if purely "social" factors will be worked out and we come up with a perfect definition of when and how this should apply — how the fuck do you mean to enforce it? It will make only more trouble and bureaucracy for tech people (I mean actual programmers) with no useful output. Because you cannot realistically enforce it. Data either belongs to somebody, or it doesn't. Either you come up with technological solution for keeping user data secure from anybody including youself (which would be equivalent to not storing it at all, and I'm not sure it's possible for every application), or you make it responsibility of some shady but "reputable" auditors to make sure there's no crime going on, which is a dead end, as even if there's no bribes and conspiracy (which there sure will be), it only passes the responsibility and assumes the end user "trusts" the regulator, the government — well, just "someone else". Which is just silly.

Same applies to 3. at some extent. Only 1. may be assumed reasonably (even though still not "easily", as in practice it will just produce more work for lawyers and accountants) transparent for the public.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#35

Post by cloakandswagger »

krick wrote: post #34
beefield wrote: post #5

I can think of three relevant regulations for (large) internet companies 1. Strong anti-monopoly regulation. There is no reason for Facebook owning Whatsapp & Instagram. 2. Once your revenue exceeds x million USD on ad supported services that are free for end users, you must offer the service also for money with reasonable margin on top of the actual production costs, with strong guarantees that the data of end user…

2. would we an extremely bad law. Even if purely "social" factors will be worked out and we come up with a perfect definition of when and how this should apply — how the fuck do you mean to enforce it? It will make only more trouble and bureaucracy for tech people (I mean actual programmers) with no useful output. Because you cannot realistically enforce it. Data either belongs to somebody, or it doesn't. Either you…

The original comment said:

"[...] with strong guarantees that the data of end user who has opted for paid service is kept private and not monetized anyhow."

As an "actual programmer" myself, I don't see how that would be so burdensome to implement. The data is somehow segregated so that it's excluded from being sold to advertisers in any form. The user can have their data deleted permanently at any time.

It obviously wouldn't prevent someone from authorizing a 3rd party app to all of my Facebook data, but that is more about Facebook educating people about what they're consenting to rather than a philosophical debate about ownership of data.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#36

Post by paulie_a »

Trundle wrote: post #26
paulie_a wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your business model requires that it should be killed in the crib

So current free to user companies just get to hold their market forever? Are you that happy with them?

To continue the analogy, they should be euthanized

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#38

Post by 908087 »

The whole "we shouldn't regulate Facebook because it will help Facebook" thing really seems like an underhanded attempt at tricking privacy advocates and others to fight against their own best interests.

In reality, it depends entirely on the details of the regulations.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#39

Post by madez »

krick wrote: post #34
beefield wrote: post #5

I can think of three relevant regulations for (large) internet companies 1. Strong anti-monopoly regulation. There is no reason for Facebook owning Whatsapp & Instagram. 2. Once your revenue exceeds x million USD on ad supported services that are free for end users, you must offer the service also for money with reasonable margin on top of the actual production costs, with strong guarantees that the data of end user…

2. would we an extremely bad law. Even if purely "social" factors will be worked out and we come up with a perfect definition of when and how this should apply — how the fuck do you mean to enforce it? It will make only more trouble and bureaucracy for tech people (I mean actual programmers) with no useful output. Because you cannot realistically enforce it. Data either belongs to somebody, or it doesn't. Either you…

There are tons of rules that are not immediately enforceable, but are still in place and make the society better. Make it illegal, find and punish people who don't follow the rules, and things will be better. Many people are not willing to do outrightly illegal stuff.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#40

Post by krick »

madez wrote: post #39
krick wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. would we an extremely bad law. Even if purely "social" factors will be worked out and we come up with a perfect definition of when and how this should apply — how the fuck do you mean to enforce it? It will make only more trouble and bureaucracy for tech people (I mean actual programmers) with no useful output. Because you cannot realistically enforce it. Data either belongs to somebody, or it doesn't. Either you…

There are tons of rules that are not immediately enforceable, but are still in place and make the society better. Make it illegal, find and punish people who don't follow the rules, and things will be better. Many people are not willing to do outrightly illegal stuff.

That's a curious opinion and I still am too see the facts to back it up with, perhaps you can provide it. Because, as a matter of fact, I've seen exactly the opposite: laws that are not enforceable are the worst laws ever, disasterous even. If they are not "important" in their consequences, they just leave the simple folks (small businesses, for example — and hurting small business is really unwise thing to do IMO) in the state of FUD, because it takes a professional cons-man (e.g. and experienced lawyer) to know how to deal with this bullshit — it puts "honest" people in uncomfortable position, while doing nothing to people who are used to operating in perpetual state of moral hazard, which means it is beneficial to people who are most likely to exploit the law (or its absence) to start with. If this law is more "important" and involves a lot of regulations it fuels corruption, because, again, it's beneficial for dishonest people — it's up to somebody's opinion if you are breaking the law, and opinions can be swayed with some money…

In the most general and seemingly "harmless" case these laws do exactly nothing: nobody is following them and nobody tries to punish people for not following them. This just makes the legal system more complicated (and — yes, there are plenty of such laws, and this is one of the reasons so many legal systems are shit) and provokes the disrespectful, hand-waving attitude towards the law, which isn't a good thing either.

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