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Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

nytimes.com

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Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#331

Post by int_19h »

tsunamifury wrote: post #309
int_19h wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that American companies are obligated to not help other governments implement oppressive laws, or, in general, aid and abet in carrying out things that we consider despicable as a culture. This is not at all the same as American companies spreading American law elsewhere. The law should be applied to those companies operating here (in particular, any of their management and…

You are ultimately saying within a sovereign nation you should abide by the law of that nation but the cultural values of another.

And again, no.

I'm saying that you should abide by the law of the nation where you're performing an activity - say, designing and implementing some piece of software - regardless of where the fruits of your labor will eventually be deployed. And the law of that nation will, of course, be based on its cultural values. So if the culture of that nation frowns upon helping to oppress people in certain ways, then you shall not do so while in the jurisdiction of that nation, regardless of where the oppressed people are located.

None of this imposes any cultural values on anyone who is not in the jurisdiction of our nation. If China wants to have their Panopticon, they can still do it - themselves. But Google doesn't get to help them to do so, because it is an American company, and people who implement these tools of oppression are American residents, subject to American laws and cultural values. China doesn't have any natural right to the fruits of their labor.

Really, this is no different from prohibiting or regulating arms exports. Do you have similar objections to, say, arms embargo on DPRK?

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#332

Post by morenoh149 »

pg_bot wrote: post #193
jniedrauer wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't even have to go back very far to find examples of American companies exploiting people to the point of knowingly killing them.[0] > any solution that requires foregoing independent corporate decision making would be foolish Whether you think less regulation or more regulation is better, you can't in good faith advocate for no regulation. Corporations have demonstrated many times over the years that they are…

I made no such argument for no regulation. My argument is that we have a set of rules, and we should not interfere with decision making if rules have not been broken. If in response to some exploitation of the rules which you deem as unhealthy to society you may pass new rules to deal with that behavior. You can't just mess with someone because you don't like them.

I take issue with the spineless bit. If a corporation is undermining basic human rights that's a problem. You also can't expect exployees to stand up to a corporation because they may need the job desperately. There are certain things a government must do. I'd say protecting human rights is the role of government.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#333

Post by vxNsr »

lotu wrote: post #177
icebraining wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why the GDPR has a reduced level of obligations for companies under 250 employees (see article 30).

When Instagram was bought by Facebook I think it had 13 employees. Would they not of had to comply with GDPR then?

Similarly, Whatsapp had 55 at the time of the purchase.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#334

Post by zaarn »

pg_bot wrote: post #193
jniedrauer wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't even have to go back very far to find examples of American companies exploiting people to the point of knowingly killing them.[0] > any solution that requires foregoing independent corporate decision making would be foolish Whether you think less regulation or more regulation is better, you can't in good faith advocate for no regulation. Corporations have demonstrated many times over the years that they are…

I made no such argument for no regulation. My argument is that we have a set of rules, and we should not interfere with decision making if rules have not been broken. If in response to some exploitation of the rules which you deem as unhealthy to society you may pass new rules to deal with that behavior. You can't just mess with someone because you don't like them.

That's a bit paradox, isn't it?

If the only allowed way to change the rules is in response to behavior you deem unhealthy to society, how can we should not interfere if the rules have not been broken?

And deeming something as being unhealthy to society is a sort of process of dislike in a subjective notion since there is no objective way for a society to be unhealthy.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#335

Post by blauditore »

pc86 wrote: post #23
luminiferous wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, growing every quarter significantly is not sustainable. But growing profits every quarter is how stock price goes up, right? Assuming you don't pay dividends on your stock, if you don't grow profits every quarter then your stock price doesn't go up, and the shareholders (via the board of directors) will sack the CEO. The whole incentive structure for corporations seems to cause the short term thinking that…

You still need to grow by more than the dividend or you will erode share price over time. Nobody invests $100 into a company so that a year from now it is $100, even if they get a couple $2.50 checks throughout the year on top of that.

> Nobody invests $100 into a company so that a year from now it is $100, even if they get a couple $2.50 checks throughout the year on top of that.

Why not? If it's somewhat reliable (in the long run, averaged out), that's a ROI of 2.5%, which is not too bad I think.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#336

Post by slavik81 »

bogomipz wrote: post #128
794CD01 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone thinks authoritarianism is morally wrong. They already abet plenty of other things that some people find morally wrong, like enforcing IP law, censoring all kinds of information, cooperating with police investigations, etc, some of which you can already spin as authoritarian.

>"Not everyone thinks authoritarianism is morally wrong" The people who don't find authoritarianism morally wrong are generally elites who enjoy privilege on account of their being ranking members of that authoritarian regime. Can you provide any examples of a 21st century authoritarian regimes where this hasn't been true? Mugabe? Bouteflika? Quaddafi? Assad? I don't think so.

Rodrigo Duterte.

Strongmen often enjoy broad popular support. They get things done. Mussolini made the trains run on time.

A cult of personality is how an authoritarian leader defends themselves from being overthrown by other members of their regime. They ensure that they are associated with all the good that their government does, while deflecting blame for the bad towards scapegoats.

Worrying about fairness or the rule of law is a luxury. A lot of people just see a weak and ineffectual government replaced with one that actually does something for them and they don't care how it was achieved.

I wish you were right. It would be much easier to defend against authoritarians if they were unpopular.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#337

Post by mulmen »

toss1 wrote: post #276
mulmen wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for the US government supporting open democracy through foreign policy. The US electorate influences this policy. I don't want Google making decisions based on anything other than how to make money legally.

Then you are essentially demanding either that Google: 1) actively support anti-democratic, anti-human rights activities to the extent that they're willing to pay, or 2) that the USGovt simply ban them from doing biz in those countries, or 3) that the USGovt ban doing biz of a certain type, with likely arguments around the edges of that type. 4) or something else that I'm missing. Which are you proposing?

I am proposing 2 (assuming it applies to all business) if we as a country actually have a problem with the Chinese government's treatment of their citizens. As far as I can tell we don't have a problem with it so we continue doing business with them.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#338

Post by mulmen »

tsbertalan wrote: post #304
mulmen wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for the US government supporting open democracy through foreign policy. The US electorate influences this policy. I don't want Google making decisions based on anything other than how to make money legally.

Wow, I've never seen a more open defense of profit motive as the only possible objective function for business.

I have no interest in living in a world where Google decides what is right and wrong. I don't even agree with their default browser options.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#339

Post by fnord123 »

justinclift wrote: post #277
hueving wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yea, but I'm a big fan of regulated food, clean water and pollution standards. Completely irrelevant. There are no US laws against private companies building censorship tools in the US, let alone in China.

Not yet. Maybe there should be. ;) With Google, it seems pretty fair to consider them a Monopoly in several areas. They also appear to be well down the path to abusing their Monopoly(ies?). Isn't that generally where regulators should become involved?

Many people in the US government actively want censorship tools to be created to police copyright infringements. From a software perspective, at least, it's basically the same thing: slurp up all the media and remove ones that aren't allowed under the ruleset.

Re: Ex-Google Employee Urges Lawmakers to Take on Company

#340

Post by jondubois »

Megacorporations are a massive threat to democracy.

If we ever get into a situation where the only companies that exist are megacorps, democracy will cease to exist; not only that but it will be impossible to reform the system in the future. The government will be too weak to regulate companies and people who work at those companies will not be able to protest for change because if they lose their jobs, there will be no alternative jobs for them to survive on.

It will be permanently locked in this dysfunctional state until the end of humanity.

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