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Facebook's seized files published by MPs

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#451

Post by ryanwaggoner »

yerich wrote: post #421
kazen44 wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't the fact that is not a UK citizen also basically safe him from being dragged to Parliament by the police? Im pretty sure, if you are an UK citizen and they summon you, they will eventually just grab you and put yourself in front of Parliament.

No, since the person who's documents were seized was in the UK on a trip. Except for special cases where immunity is granted, physical presence in a country means that one is subject to the laws and jurisdiction of the country. In this case, the UK Parliament had the authority to compel the production of the documents in question, by threat of imprisonment if necessary. A question for any legal scholars out there: th…

Again, the seizure isn’t the problem, the public disclosure is.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#452

Post by ryanwaggoner »

sangnoir wrote: post #390
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Translation: if you turn down our "invitation", we'll misuse our legal power to seize your internal documents and then publish them to embarrass you. Accurate? To be clear, I'm not saying that they can't seize and investigate or even punish if the law was broken. That's the job of government. But this just seems like a petty attempt to embarrass. However, I'm American and haven't been following the story closely, so…

> I'm American [...] I may be missing context. You are missing context: look up "Parliamentary Privilege" and "Parliamentary Sovereignty" which do not have US equivalents. The "invitation" was effectively a subpoena.

But is the legal ramification for ignoring the invitation anything they can think of? If a British citizen did the same, could they claim that they were investigating them, barge into their home unannounced and seize all devices, and then later publish any nude photos found under the justification of “hey, you should have come when we invited you?”

Why not just prosecute for whatever law was broken?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#453

Post by ryanwaggoner »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #401
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seizing documents for a valid inquiry is one thing. But does that follow that publishing them is OK too? From the outside, it looks like these politicians are frustrated that a foreign CEO ignored their demand to appear before them (because he has no legal obligation to do so), and have decided to retaliate by releasing embarrassing private internal documents obtained during an investigation in the hopes that Faceboo…

All Parliamentary committees publish online, whether evidence is written or oral. You can ask for an exception for part of your evidence, if you fully explain why, which the committee considers. The usual reasons for discretion apply. It's almost unheard of for some evidence not to be published at all, though it has happened. 1980s I think was the last case. No idea what dusty precedent or procedures apply when someo…

Excellent, thank you for an actual response that isn’t “haha, screw Facebook, who cares!”

If this is just part of the normal investigative procedure rather than a gross abuse of authority, then so be it.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#454

Post by ryanwaggoner »

rhizome wrote: post #382
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seizing documents for a valid inquiry is one thing. But does that follow that publishing them is OK too? From the outside, it looks like these politicians are frustrated that a foreign CEO ignored their demand to appear before them (because he has no legal obligation to do so), and have decided to retaliate by releasing embarrassing private internal documents obtained during an investigation in the hopes that Faceboo…

It's getting hilarious to see people more offended by FB's information being exfiltrated than the exfiltration of everybody's data that FB aided and promoted. Ah, but those are just your fellow people, not the money man.

The potential problem I have here is abuse of power by government.

I’d be pretty upset if Congress subpoenaed user data from Facebook and then selectively published embarrassing info on their political enemies. Even if I hated those people.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#455

Post by int_19h »

nradov wrote: post #211
netcan wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the conclusion, but I don't think it should be done through the current antitrust framework. Your first point and most of the others others may or may not be illegal. If they are legal, what the MPs need to do is their jobs.. make laws. But, most are not directly related to company size and/or market share. Your second point does sound like a trust and I think you're right to link this to the WhatsApp sa…

ExxonMobil is a huge company. How much market power do they have over the price of crude oil? Not much, because it's a commodity. Other factors matter far more than size.

Large companies aren't bad just because they tend to monopolize the market they operate in. They can also lobby far more effectively, then there's the issue of the job market competitiveness etc.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#456

Post by wlesieutre »

tpush wrote: post #4
Trill-I-Am wrote: post #2

Here is a direct link to the files themselves: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/cultu...

Really interesting stuff in there. > Facebook email 24 January 2013 > Justin Osofsky – ‘Twitter launched Vine today which lets you shoot multiple short video segments to make one single, 6-second video. As part of their NUX, you can find friends via FB. Unless anyone raises objections, we will shut down their friends API access today. We’ve prepared reactive PR, and I will let Jana know our decision. > MZ – ‘Yup, go…

I have a hard time feeling bad for Twitter getting API access pulled out from under them. How many times have they done that to products/services that depended on Twitter APIs?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#457

Post by lightedman »

oska wrote: post #443
e40 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These people will suffocate innovation just to win. I don't like Zuck, but come on, you just described every CEO in America, that when they have a choice they will do this.

I don't agree that Elon Musk is like this (quite the reverse) and I'm sure there are many other CEOs who aren't too. Let's not normalise sociopathology, even given its prevalence amongst business executives.

"I don't agree that Elon Musk is like this (quite the reverse)"

Well, of course. He's trying to scam investors, not the general public. That's starting to come to light as Uber is hitting its downward spiral of even ore money lost for no apparent reason.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#459

Post by traek »

kevindqc wrote: post #434
traek wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But being forced to give away half your physical retail space is hardly the same thing as just letting them keep using an API that you provide explicitly for such use. In this case, Facebook was deprecating the API and declined to provide special whitelist access to a competitor.

So they just heard about Vine, and decided to deprecate the API the same day? That doesn't sound right to me. That conversation seems to indicate they just wanted to block them ASAP (same day), nothing to do with deprecation?

> So they just heard about Vine, and decided to deprecate the API the same day?

No? Where are you getting this read from? The documents clearly show them discussing it from a year prior to shutting down Vine's API access, and planning on announcing it publicly ~6 months prior.

I can't find anything from a quick google search on when the API deprecation actually took effect, but assuming the timeline from Exhibit 43 is accurate, Twitter actually had whitelisted access for over 3 months before being shut down.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#460

Post by adjkant »

bytematic wrote: post #310
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #3

Good for them, thank you! The sooner facebook is controlled and broken up into pieces, the better. They are a massive net negative on civilization. Do you work at Facebook? Shame on you.

Break it up how? Like whatsapp and Instagram?

Yes. The acquisition of these companies frankly should have triggered anti-trust laws if they were actually written to their purposes.
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