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Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

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Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#151
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'fraud' and 'illegal' might be problematic words here. The tax evasion schemes used by large corporations are often considered exploits of loopholes - i.e. technically legal. Countries try to offer companies a system to provide ridiculously low tax rates for larger regions, because if they get 1% of the revenue of the entire region it's more beneficial to them than getting 20% of their local revenue (numbers are fict…

> 'fraud' and 'illegal' might be problematic words here. The tax evasion schemes used by large corporations are often considered exploits of loopholes - i.e. technically legal. In your example on Apple this is not clear at all: there are two legal systems at play (the Irish one and the EU one). Apple is only playing by the rules of the Irish one. The problem comes from the EU saying that the Irish laws are not within…

Wrong. Ireland's competition rules are harmonised with EU rules. Not by dictat either, it's a condition of signing the various European treaties that you will implement particular laws that conform to certain principles. In this particular case Ireland had broken her own laws on competition. Like with so much of the skullduggery that goes on in Ireland, it took an outside agency to blow the whistle.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Destroying democracies"? Oh please. Im pretty sure the fall of the EU has little to do with Facebook. Maybe these EU officials should look at their own parlament for blame for once. Perhaps stop robbing your people by artificially devaluing your currency, stop the influx of illegal refugees into the welfare states, stop passing silly laws regulating the form of cucumbers etc. - i could go on and on.

You should really do your research before saying things like "stop passing silly laws regulating the form of cucumbers" https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/straight-cucumbers/ This was to make it clearer across all Markets what products you buy to make a single market easier on everyone. This is just FUD that really shouldn't be part of this conversation.

It's not FUD, its not a myth, its real: Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88 of 15 June 1988 laying down quality standards for cucumbers [1]

Yes i know this regulation is no longer in place, thats not the point. The point is that the EU is a overblown bureaucracy that should not be in charge of regulating every silly little aspect of life across the various member states.

And yes, they are STILL passing laws like this. Recently they passend regulation that limits the power consumption over regular vacuum cleaners.

[1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:319...

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#153

What struck me as quite interesting was Guy Verhofstadts sideremarks. >"You have to ask yourself how you will be remembered," he said. "As one of the three big internet giants together with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who have enriched our world and our societies, or on the other hand, the genius that created a digital monster that is destroying our democracies and societies." I imagine you have to talk like this to a…

"Destroying democracies"? Oh please. Im pretty sure the fall of the EU has little to do with Facebook. Maybe these EU officials should look at their own parlament for blame for once. Perhaps stop robbing your people by artificially devaluing your currency, stop the influx of illegal refugees into the welfare states, stop passing silly laws regulating the form of cucumbers etc. - i could go on and on.

Democracies once upon a time, in theory atleast, were for the people, by the people, off the people.

Post advertising funded internet/24*7 news we just have a system for propping up attention cravers, by the attention merchenants, off everyone elses attention and resources.

After creating such an environment do you really believe any of the issues you point out become easier to solve?

Fuckerberg is going to go down as the guy who turned the info age into the age of reactions and noise. Nothing else.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#154
post #106
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of the information about EU politicians robbing people by artificially devaluing currency, influx of illegal refugees, and whatever you could go on about, has been shared and spread through Facebook, generating attention for that information (whether it is accurate or not) in the first place?

Yeah it seems like this guy doesn't even know how the EU works. If you reduce it to "they regulate cucumbers but don't care about real threats" you probably fell for some cheap propaganda but it doesn't speak for your understanding of EU regulations.

Its not FUD, its not a myth, its not cheap propaganda, its real: Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88 of 15 June 1988 laying down quality standards for cucumbers [1]

Yes i know this regulation is no longer in place, thats not the point. The point is that the EU is a overblown bureaucracy that should not be in charge of regulating every silly little aspect of life across the various member states.

And yes, they are STILL passing laws like this. Recently they passend regulation that limits the power consumption over regular vacuum cleaners. Do you honestly believe that the average citizen wants highly paid bureaucrats in Brussels debating on how much power a vacuum cleaner should draw?

[1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:319...

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Requiring consent as a pre-condition of a service is frowned upon under GDPR. No, it's not. Requiring extraneous consent as a precondition of service, that is, requiring consent for some processing as a precondition of provision of a service that does not depend on that processing is an indication that consent is coerced rather than freely given, and hence not effective consent, under the GDPR. But what that means…

Requiring extraneous consent as a precondition of service, that is, requiring consent for some processing as a precondition of provision of a service that does not depend on that processing is an indication that consent is coerced rather than freely given, and hence not effective consent, under the GDPR. But if the service does depend on that processing, then you don't need to ask for consent at all, so why would you…

You still need to ask for consent.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Im pretty sure the fall of the EU has little to do with Facebook Wait, what? EU is doing better than ever and it looks like after Brexit we will enjoy greater integration, and hopefully a full financial and political union in the future. If this is what a "fall" looks like to you, then I don't really know what to say to you - but from the rest of your sentence it seems like you don't like EU as an institution, so I…

So you are saying the EU is doing "better than ever" but yet, in every recent national election in the EU we have seen massive wins for anti-EU parties and movements? Just to name a few: Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Hungary, France. Add to that a failing currency, massive debt in the southern EU member states, the next banking crisis ready to come. Do you believe that it is a sustainable model to have Germany guara…

You sound like you don't own a passport and just repeat fearmongering you hear on the news

Please get a passport, visit Europe, and then have an informed opinion.

I can't speak personally for the eastern or southern states but here in central europe things are quite peachy.

The central/west/northern parts of Europe are the most stable in the world, I doubt that will change soon, regardless of what happens elsewhere.

Come on over and have a look! I invite you to coffee and cake, and a stroll in my garden

Greetings from Frankfurt

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#157
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Im pretty sure the fall of the EU has little to do with Facebook Wait, what? EU is doing better than ever and it looks like after Brexit we will enjoy greater integration, and hopefully a full financial and political union in the future. If this is what a "fall" looks like to you, then I don't really know what to say to you - but from the rest of your sentence it seems like you don't like EU as an institution, so I…

I'm sure Italy and Hungary are excited about 'greater integration' too - they've certainly expressed that desire in their recent elections. I'd say 'fall' is the wrong word, but the European Union is not in a particularly healthy state right now. One large member leaving, one founding member making potentially illegal demands after electing populists, another three being sued for refusing to follow rules on migrants.…

Hungary is basket case. Not sure what's going on there, but Italy won't be going anywhere.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#158

If worst comes to worst and EU tries to break up Facebook — and it seems likely they might — what would be Facebook’s best path forward? Theoretically, would it send a stronger signal to US regulators if Facebook simply shut down all operation in the EU? A pop up message to all EU citizens along the lines of “You may no longer access Facebook from within the EU due to X Y and Z from your government. As such, all of y…

On the other hand, I guess Facebook really does not want to do that, because it would create an opening to attack Facebook. Right now, you can't compete with the network effects of Facebook's size, however if 10% or so of all Facebook users are up for grabs, and they are also correlated by region, then you could build a European Facebook competition and capture a strong enough base to effectively compete with Facebook. (Initially at least in Europe, however pretty quickly many people in the rest of the world would also have a 'European Facebook' account and then Facebook can't just rely on everybody is on Facebook anymore.)

I would actually be quite interested how that one plays out, I really don't have a good intuition of how that would look like.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#159
post #129

What struck me as quite interesting was Guy Verhofstadts sideremarks. >"You have to ask yourself how you will be remembered," he said. "As one of the three big internet giants together with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who have enriched our world and our societies, or on the other hand, the genius that created a digital monster that is destroying our democracies and societies." I imagine you have to talk like this to a…

"It's nearly impossible to get someone to understand something when their livelihood depends on them not understanding it." -- someone I forgot

> someone I forgot

That would be Upton Sinclair.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#160
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'fraud' and 'illegal' might be problematic words here. The tax evasion schemes used by large corporations are often considered exploits of loopholes - i.e. technically legal. Countries try to offer companies a system to provide ridiculously low tax rates for larger regions, because if they get 1% of the revenue of the entire region it's more beneficial to them than getting 20% of their local revenue (numbers are fict…

> 'fraud' and 'illegal' might be problematic words here. The tax evasion schemes used by large corporations are often considered exploits of loopholes - i.e. technically legal. In your example on Apple this is not clear at all: there are two legal systems at play (the Irish one and the EU one). Apple is only playing by the rules of the Irish one. The problem comes from the EU saying that the Irish laws are not within…

I agree that it is not very clear - which is why I wrote "are often considered" etc. Also the Apple example was brought up to explain a nations' interest in low tax rates, not about whether they're legal or not.

Parent was the one making definitive claims about fraud and illegal actions.

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