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Facebook CEO speaks to select members of European Parliament

politico.eu

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Re: Facebook CEO speaks to select members of European Parliament

#71

Post by zerostar07 »

QueensGambit wrote: post #3

I have a controversial view, correct me if I am wrong. I think democracy has a major flaw, because, most people are selfish/unfair and most likely vote for populist leaders. But, it has been so far saved by media because of the elitist journalists who want the world to be a fair place and were able to convince people to reject populist leaders. With social media, these journalists are bypassed and the populist leader…

What about the Obama elections? Both of them were hailed for their pioneering use of SM to motivate and influence the electorate. I get i that the Trump win has shaken everyone but it's possible that social media could do little to stop it.

Re: Facebook CEO speaks to select members of European Parliament

#72

Post by zerostar07 »

drexlspivey wrote: post #59
pell wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy's flaws have been studied for thousands of years. You can find a very detailed critique from Plato for example. All of his arguments are still true today. The problem is that there really isn't a better alternative when it comes to letting people self-govern on a big scale. Plato's solution was a government of the ones who had the complete truth, but he himself was doubtful whether such an administration wo…

Here is a video explaining why Socrates didn't like democracy. tldr: demagoguery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJBzhcSWTk

In ancient athens it seems people were quite aware and wary of this. Aristotle considered elections a non-meritocratic, an oligarchic process. In Athens, most of the offices were appointed by lot, and only some of the highest offices were elected. Worth noting that the word democracy had the meaning of "power to the many", which is different from its modern definition as "majoritocracy"

Re: Facebook CEO speaks to select members of European Parliament

#73

Post by taysic »

bogomipz wrote: post #35
cpeterso wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt many US politicians or citizens are concerned enough about Facebook to take any meaningful action. A bill like the EU's GDPR would not even get a vote in the US congress.

>"I doubt many US politicians or citizens are concerned enough about Facebook to take any meaningful action." You might want to re-read my comment where I say there is no political will on account of lobbying and money. US Citizens are just as concerned as EU citizens about FB. Especially given FB's role in the last US Presidential elections. What is your justification for asserting that US citizens are not as concer…

Not OP but I'm also very skeptical something like GDPR would pass in the US. While people may be concerned about social media, polls show the majority of people are not in support of adding more regulation on the industry:

https://springboardccia.com/2018/04/17/icymi-wsj-nbc-poll-fi...

WSJ/NBC Poll respondents say social media platforms are… regulated too much: 14% have the right amount of regulation: 37% not regulated enough: 37%

It's for a good reason too - consumers have noticed they have more choices and freedom than in industries that are highly regulated by the gov. Laws like GDPR would make large swaths of business models useless - such as free games or apps the rely on targeted advertising. Since under GDPR, you cannot ask someone to either allow ads to be personalized or pay for the app (it has to be without detriment), tons of tools people otherwise enjoy would suddenly become paid only or disappear. Not to mention the effect it would have on the startup economy - it would be a big deal. Can't see it happen here.

Re: Facebook CEO speaks to select members of European Parliament

#74

Post by lovich »

adventured wrote: post #49
zerostar07 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can the EU break up foreign monopolies?

They can't. They can attempt to block access to the EU market in a situation where they require a break-up of Facebook and Facebook refuses to comply. It would require the EU to implement a draconian Chinese firewall to bring into full effect. The EU is 250m of Facebook's 2.2 billion users. They could easily drop all EU business if they needed to (the business operations within the EU is the easiest aspect for the EU…

>That'd be made-up for with one year of growth

Would it? Facebook has 2.2 billion users out of 7 billion people total, and not all of those users are worth the same to Facebook. The US and the EU have more valuable users solely because those users can spend more money and are more valuable to advertisers. A lot of people on the planet who arent on facebook anymore cant even run facebook.

Its not like everyone has a new flagship phone every year, and its not like everyone on the planet has internet access. China is also not gonna be an easy target for them to crack since China pushes their own countries industries first.

I really dont believe that facebook could just grow to paper over their loss of the entire EU at this point

>Watching the EU attempt to install Chinese style repression and censorship to limit what its people can access online, would be quite the comical circus.

I don't like China's censorship either, but if the other option is for foreign companies to come in and abuse your citizens, then blocking out those companies doesn't seem like a terrible idea

Re: Facebook CEO speaks to select members of European Parliament

#75

Post by [deleted] »

zerostar07 wrote: post #67
mayniac wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It would require the EU to implement a draconian Chinese firewall to bring into full effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_blocking_access_to_T... Quite a few countries in the EU have already ordered ISPs to block The Pirate Bay, and the EU last year made it easier for ISPs to do so. So the capability is there, and there's precedent. TPB responded by decentralising but that isn't an option for Facebook, th…

> The shitshow would be glorious. At which point does the shit show turn around and reflect bad on the EU though? I m no fan or user of facebook but it would be too serious a restriction that only dictators have taken so far. EU's problems with facebook so far are taxation and privacy. The second is presumably solved by GDPR. Even if the first one is solved somehow, i feel these MEPs were more concerned about politic…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook CEO speaks to select members of European Parliament

#76

Post by lovich »

zerostar07 wrote: post #67
mayniac wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It would require the EU to implement a draconian Chinese firewall to bring into full effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_blocking_access_to_T... Quite a few countries in the EU have already ordered ISPs to block The Pirate Bay, and the EU last year made it easier for ISPs to do so. So the capability is there, and there's precedent. TPB responded by decentralising but that isn't an option for Facebook, th…

> The shitshow would be glorious. At which point does the shit show turn around and reflect bad on the EU though? I m no fan or user of facebook but it would be too serious a restriction that only dictators have taken so far. EU's problems with facebook so far are taxation and privacy. The second is presumably solved by GDPR. Even if the first one is solved somehow, i feel these MEPs were more concerned about politic…

If facebook does not submit to the law, then the EU's options are to either block facebook and seize their assets or let everyone know that its a free for all and laws dont matter. If you want a solid rule of law, you cant just let people openly flaunt it

Re: Facebook CEO speaks to select members of European Parliament

#77

Post by ianai »

zerostar07 wrote: post #47
ianai wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no sovereign companies. For instance, the NY financial regulations matter so much across the world because a large portion of the financial world’s business is headquartered there. But more so, governments set legal standards. If those standards are not met then products/services are outlawed. I’m pretty sure the EU could simply ban browsing to IPs associated with FB, as an example. I think the largest comp…

yeah but that's not a break-up

So they declare ownership over all FB assets in their nation and the data of their citizens.

Really though, I think maybe the act of combining data to form contiguous blocks of PII tied to online personas may need to be made illegal outside of some official, state database. Ie the government gives you a citizen entry and only they may produce such information. So you simply may not have access to certain PII.

Re: Facebook CEO speaks to select members of European Parliament

#78

Post by drexlspivey »

zerostar07 wrote: post #72
drexlspivey wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a video explaining why Socrates didn't like democracy. tldr: demagoguery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJBzhcSWTk

In ancient athens it seems people were quite aware and wary of this. Aristotle considered elections a non-meritocratic, an oligarchic process. In Athens, most of the offices were appointed by lot, and only some of the highest offices were elected. Worth noting that the word democracy had the meaning of "power to the many", which is different from its modern definition as "majoritocracy"

In ancient Athens only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military duties were able to vote, roughly 20% of the population. This seems pretty oligarchic today but it was a massive improvement in the council of elders that used to rule before that.

Historia civilis has a great video on the constitution of ancient Athens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIgMTsQXg3Q

Re: Facebook CEO speaks to select members of European Parliament

#79

Post by bogomipz »

zerostar07 wrote: post #69
bogomipz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"I doubt many US politicians or citizens are concerned enough about Facebook to take any meaningful action." You might want to re-read my comment where I say there is no political will on account of lobbying and money. US Citizens are just as concerned as EU citizens about FB. Especially given FB's role in the last US Presidential elections. What is your justification for asserting that US citizens are not as concer…

> What is your justification for asserting that US citizens are not as concerned as EU citizens? If a significant amount of them cared it would be reflected in the user numbers.

And if you had actually looked at those user numbers you would have seen that Europe has far more FB users than the US. Europe has 370 million FB users compared to 239 million in the US:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/31/facebook-q4-2017-earnings/

Re: Facebook CEO speaks to select members of European Parliament

#80

Post by zerostar07 »

bogomipz wrote: post #79
zerostar07 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is your justification for asserting that US citizens are not as concerned as EU citizens? If a significant amount of them cared it would be reflected in the user numbers.

And if you had actually looked at those user numbers you would have seen that Europe has far more FB users than the US. Europe has 370 million FB users compared to 239 million in the US: https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/31/facebook-q4-2017-earnings/

i meant that there was no change in those numbers recently
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