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Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

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Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#41

Post by krick »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #35
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…

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…

> As an "actual programmer" myself, I don't see how that would be so burdensome to implement

Oh, but you will see, when your manager (who doesn't really understand the implications of various technical decisions, by the way) will order you to do something completely meaningless (in your opinion), because the regulatory documents (made by people who understand and care for the implications of technical decisions far, far less than your manager) say something meaningless, contradictory and hard to interpret in the first place. If you aren't familiar with such situation it's probably because you are not working in a regulated industry, not because these things "solve themselves" in practice. No, in practice they don't.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#42

Post by rock_hard »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #31

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 (FA…

I don't find that to be true for the people I know who work at FB though...they all deeply believe in connecting the world.

Deploying code to a billion people is only thrilling the first time anyways

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#43

Post by KozmoNau7 »

AFNobody wrote: post #32
amluto wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There isn't really that much overhead, especially if you keep the GDPR in mind from the beginning. The big costs happen at older and larger companies that had very lax procedures before.

I bet it will not inhibit startups in the EU.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#45

Post by KozmoNau7 »

twblalock wrote: post #2

It's well known at this point that regulations tend to protect incumbents in many industries by making it more expensive for startups to compete. Industry support for regulations can seem counter-intuitive -- why would a company want to increase its cost of doing business? But it makes sense when you consider that the costs are an anti-competitive weapon. One example is when Philip Morris supported FDA regulations of…

No. Privacy should never be second priority.

Citizens' right to privacy trumps startup creation.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#46

Post by beefield »

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…

I'm not sure what you consider as "no useful output"? Is it the offering your services for a fee instead of ads or guaranteeing the privacy of your users' data?

Because to me, both are quite useful outputs. The first one is quite common practice, and for the second one there are other industries (e.g. financial, medical) from where we can see how this is actually already done in legislation and practice.

(I would think that majority of Google's and Facebook's technical challenges are because they want to utilize the customer data.)

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#47

Post by brrrrr »

bitumen wrote: post #17
twblalock wrote: post #2

It's well known at this point that regulations tend to protect incumbents in many industries by making it more expensive for startups to compete. Industry support for regulations can seem counter-intuitive -- why would a company want to increase its cost of doing business? But it makes sense when you consider that the costs are an anti-competitive weapon. One example is when Philip Morris supported FDA regulations of…

I really don’t care if building codes, automotive safety regulations, and standards of medical care make it hard on new businesses. My priorities are not dying in a car crash, my home not falling on my head, and avoiding incompetent doctors. Regulation on tobacco may have helped incumbents stay incumbent, but it also led to record judgements against the, and the rapid decline of their industry in the developed world.…

Except Facebook isn’t cigarettes, dude. No matter how much you want it to be cigarettes, it just isn’t.

Facebook is a boredom cure at best, and at times it can be a version of the cold, hard, cringey truth. You might complain that Facebook harms mental health, but the reality is that sometimes the truth is the most depressing thing to learn.

If Facebook does harm by preventing enough escapism, there’s no regulatory cure to fix that. You’ll just have to wait for the tide to shift. But hey, look at that, today’s your lucky day...

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#48

Post by zaarn »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #43
AFNobody wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There isn't really that much overhead, especially if you keep the GDPR in mind from the beginning. The big costs happen at older and larger companies that had very lax procedures before. I bet it will not inhibit startups in the EU.

To some part I think the GDPR is intended to make it easier for startups in Europe to compete with US services on the EU market.

In recent times, being a privacy-aware service is a selling point and the EU services can easily advertise as being privacy-first to US citizens while US companies will have trouble doing so (considering SESTA/FOSTA and CLOUD act)

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#49

Post by piaste »

AFNobody wrote: post #32
amluto wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do we want startups to have a "data-backed business model"?

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#50

Post by dwaltrip »

brrrrr wrote: post #47
bitumen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t care if building codes, automotive safety regulations, and standards of medical care make it hard on new businesses. My priorities are not dying in a car crash, my home not falling on my head, and avoiding incompetent doctors. Regulation on tobacco may have helped incumbents stay incumbent, but it also led to record judgements against the, and the rapid decline of their industry in the developed world.…

Except Facebook isn’t cigarettes, dude. No matter how much you want it to be cigarettes, it just isn’t. Facebook is a boredom cure at best, and at times it can be a version of the cold, hard, cringey truth. You might complain that Facebook harms mental health, but the reality is that sometimes the truth is the most depressing thing to learn. If Facebook does harm by preventing enough escapism, there’s no regulatory c…

Facebook, and large scale social media in general, does harm by substituting for genuine real-world social interaction, by warping our perception of other people's lives (highlight-reel effect on steroids), by pushing us to become egotistical "self-marketers", and by hijacking our attention via insidious manipulation of the lizard brain.
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