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Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

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Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#61

Post by amluto »

mattnewton wrote: post #30
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.

Size threshold is presumably to allow small startups to grow and explore models without crushing compliance costs. That’s the kind of regulation that protects incumbents who can afford the lawyers and software tools to do compliance properly. There tends to be an inverse relationship between regulation in a space and incumbents springing up, for better or for worse

There's a fine line between "grow and explore models without crushing compliance costs" and "break all the rules so you can outcompete established players". Hi, Uber!

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#62

Post by darepublic »

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.

The constant posting of people salivating for regulations like yourself is also hijacking my attention and warping my perception of how misguided society at large really is. You are insidiously manipulating my lizard brain to want to destroy you, while I should be productively working. Please stop your egotistical wish marketing and regulate yourself so I can not be distracted.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#63

Post by otakucode »

That is the typical situation. Regulation protects the entrenched large organizations who are mostly 'grandfathered' in and set the standard for what is permissible. And it then shelters the giants from competition coming from smaller organizations. This is how companies ossify themselves into the larger structure of government.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#64

Post by AnthonyMouse »

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…

> The data is somehow segregated so that it's excluded from being sold to advertisers in any form.

That doesn't mix with there being free users whose data is sold to advertisers, because it's the same data. You share your photo with another user who in turn shares it with another user etc. That's what a social network is.

So what happens when the vast majority of everything is shared with both types of users? If touching a free user means it can be subject to facial recognition and tagging and everything else for advertising then there is little point in paying. If touching a paid user means it can't then it destroys the revenue model for free users and the price of paying would be high enough to discourage everyone from doing it, because you're de facto paying for all the free users you share anything with.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#65

Post by bsbechtel »

majewsky wrote: post #56
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.

Then how do you confirm Facebook is complying, and how do you confirm that the regulation they need to follow is sufficient, and if it's not, how do you really create any change to make it sufficient?

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#66

Post by AnthonyMouse »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #45
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.

> Citizens' right to privacy trumps startup creation.

You're assuming that regulatory capture protects privacy better than competition would.

The evidence is to the contrary. Debian and Open Whisper Systems are better at it than AT&T and Comcast.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#67

Post by kazen44 »

annabellish wrote: post #57
idrios wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Both aslo offer a very clear service, (streaming music) and both only really collect data to improve your music experience.

Facebook seems to grab whatever it can, just to make money.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#68

Post by dwaltrip »

darepublic wrote: post #62
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.

The constant posting of people salivating for regulations like yourself is also hijacking my attention and warping my perception of how misguided society at large really is. You are insidiously manipulating my lizard brain to want to destroy you, while I should be productively working. Please stop your egotistical wish marketing and regulate yourself so I can not be distracted.

I'm not the person several comments up who brought up regulations. I don't yet have a strong opinion about what regulations, if any, might be beneficial.

I was merely responding to a comment that I thought didn't accurately portray the harms that social media can cause. Perhaps you could address those points?

> to want to destroy you

That doesn't sound healthy...

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#69

Post by daveFNbuck »

mattnewton wrote: post #30
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.

Size threshold is presumably to allow small startups to grow and explore models without crushing compliance costs. That’s the kind of regulation that protects incumbents who can afford the lawyers and software tools to do compliance properly. There tends to be an inverse relationship between regulation in a space and incumbents springing up, for better or for worse

Correctly handling user data is much cheaper if you bake it in from the start. The real costs are in figuring out how to follow GDPR when you already have private user data saved all over the place and suddenly need to be able to do things like permanently remove all identifiable information for a single user.

It isn't a huge loss if we no longer explore models that require violating privacy protections to get off the ground.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#70

Post by gnode »

reading-at-work wrote: post #59
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.…

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

I would say it's more comparable to the casino. Psychology is analysed and exploited to the benefit of the house. To some it's harmless entertainment, and to others it's devastating.

Support for regulation of casinos is born largely out of the idea that many people are not fully responsible for their psychology.

Federated social media (e.g. Mastodon) only serves part of the problem. It's like going from the casino to your friends' houses; ill effects still exist, but the domain is not controlled by a profiteer, who may have incentives to maximise and exploit those ill effects.

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