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Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

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Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#51

Post by brrrrr »

dwaltrip wrote: post #50
brrrrr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hmmm, not quite. See, that’s the part about the boredom cure I mentioned.

People really are that bored. People’s lives are frequently very lackluster and uneventful. This is plainly obvious, because whenever someone delightfully ordinary (yet comfortable with that) comes along, it seems like such a breath of fresh air amongst all the puffed out try-hards that grab so much attention.

The cringey reality check is the depressing part that creates the anxiety of never wanting to leave the house. People have a hard time differentiating between bullshit and not bullshit.

It’s not entirely correct to blame Facebook in particular for the inadequacy felt, when comparing one’s self to someone else’s carefully currated (yet seemingly natural) photo album.

That part of the debate is just the bulemia-caused-by-waif-as-fashion-model-redux. You can’t fix that by removing Facebook from the equation, because people will never stop beautifying their profile pics and cherry picking exclusive-yet-swollen friend lists.

So we’ll cure it by all jumping ship to Mastodon, where the photo albums will be crappier and less enviable, and we’ll all be less cringey? That’s the plan?

This isn’t about elections at all, is it?

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#52

Post by ianai »

IBM wrote: post #8

Privacy regulations have value independent of its effects on competition. Making a Rube Goldberg argument about how it might end up benefiting Facebook ignores that fact. The solution to market dominance is antitrust enforcement.

I wanted to make this comment but you made it for me.

Only breaking at least one tech giant up will ever change the status quo. In FBs case that could be very simple - in theory. They’re only allowed to operate over specific geographic regions, say states in the US and feature (IM separate from profile separate from gaming) In practice, though, they're probably too big and global to be broken up.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#53

Post by amelius »

slipperymate wrote: post #9
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…

On points 2 and 3, why limit this to companies with revenue exceeding x or y million USD?

Because it's the same principle we apply to other mass communication providers (i.e. telecom providers). Except there it's based on #users, not revenue.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#54

Post by yason »

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…

Or just make the law so that the customers own their own private details, and not the company.

If the company wishes to use private data for anything else than providing service to the customer, it must ask for permission.

They can still pick ads based on the private data and personalise the user experience but they can not share or otherwise disclose it to anyone else.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#55

Post by idrios »

piaste wrote: post #49
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.

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

Yeah we do. While I don't like Google tracking where I am from my cell phone when location-sharing is off, I love listening to music on Pandora and Spotify and I would never discover the new songs I do if there was no option to like or ban songs and evolve the station.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#56

Post by majewsky »

bsbechtel wrote: post #33

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!"…

That's implying that your friends would consider leaving Facebook at all because of privacy issues. If, instead, your choice is between "friends on unregulated FB" and "friends on regulated FB", I'd prefer the latter option.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#57

Post by annabellish »

idrios wrote: post #55
piaste wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah we do. While I don't like Google tracking where I am from my cell phone when location-sharing is off, I love listening to music on Pandora and Spotify and I would never discover the new songs I do if there was no option to like or ban songs and evolve the station.

I don't see how either of those are "data-backed business models". Pandora/Spotify have a very clear draw for people which exists regardless of how much data they store on people. They absolutely can and do use data to _enhance_ their core offering, but if they stopped overnight it would not cripple their business immediately.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#58

Post by lithos »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20
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…

> 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…

People that are willing to pay are your ad targets. Such a system devalues the rest of your base.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#59

Post by reading-at-work »

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.…

I'm not so sure Facebook is in the same category as vehicles, medical care and addictive carcinogens.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#60

Post by dwaltrip »

brrrrr wrote: post #51
dwaltrip wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hmmm, not quite. See, that’s the part about the boredom cure I mentioned. People really are that bored. People’s lives are frequently very lackluster and uneventful. This is plainly obvious, because whenever someone delightfully ordinary (yet comfortable with that) comes along, it seems like such a breath of fresh air amongst all the puffed out try-hards that grab so much attention. The cringey reality check is the d…

That's why I mentioned broader social media in general. This problem isn't specific to Facebook alone.
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