Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 48 posts

Re: Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws

#21

Post by anticensor »

annadane wrote: post #9
joering2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's MO of all large corporation. Take Monsato for example - beautiful website full of happy parents with smiling children and message: "we love you and food quality is important". Behind the scenes: bankrupt farmers by spreading your own copyrighted seeds on their ground and try to patent human genes.

Right. I would love to be a fly on the wall and see where things go wrong. Do the happy smiley PR people never talk to the actual figureheads making the corrupt decisions? Are they being held at gunpoint to say these glowing things about the company? etc etc etc. I think Zuckerberg and Sandberg may not even be trying to be "evil" - maybe they are, I have no clue - they're "just" trying to grow their company in order…

Zuck already achieved his ideal, with a few compromises: well-connected social network of whole world, with no ethical abstention to share.

Re: Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws

#22

Post by williamdclt »

cabalamat wrote: post #20

Some people, particularly on the left, are unconcerned about political censorship by Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc, figuring that they will only censor people the left don't like. But what when Facebook etc start censoring people who want big corporations to pay more tax or respect privacy? They are very likely to do this eventually (even if they are not doing so now), particularly in subtle ways like giving content…

> Some people, particularly on the left, are unconcerned about political censorship by Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc, figuring that they will only censor people the left don't like.

Any source for that? That sounds like a gratuitous accusation

Re: Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws

#24

Post by kartan »

cabalamat wrote: post #20

Some people, particularly on the left, are unconcerned about political censorship by Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc, figuring that they will only censor people the left don't like. But what when Facebook etc start censoring people who want big corporations to pay more tax or respect privacy? They are very likely to do this eventually (even if they are not doing so now), particularly in subtle ways like giving content…

> Some people, particularly on the left, are unconcerned about political censorship by Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc, figuring that they will only censor people the left don't like.

The article does not talk about censorship but privacy. That a corporation uses data to sell advertisements has nothing to do with personal expression and censorship.

We can have a discussion about censorship when it's relevant. What has to do your comment with the post?

Re: Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws

#25

Post by kartan »

> I don’t think it’s a surprise that the UK chancellor would meet the chief operating officer of one of the world’s largest companies …

It is. Politicians need to be transparent and serve the public. Private meetings without public record with big influent corporations is concerning.

Politicians should keep public records of this kind of encounters. That a public officer talks about his right to keep secret talks to remove privacy from his citizens is wrong at many levels.

Re: Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws

#26

Post by sixothree »

TwoNineA wrote: post #4

Shocking. Megacorp who makes its money by dataminding people is lobbying against privacy.

Remember, just one year ago the common consensus surrounding facebook was - "If you don't want it to be public, don't post it". We have learned so much since then.

Revelations are important.

Re: Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws

#27

Post by gcb0 »

sorokod wrote: post #6
TwoNineA wrote: post #4

Shocking. Megacorp who makes its money by dataminding people is lobbying against privacy.

Knowing how sausages are made makes for a more educated sausage consumer.

and how much would the consumer be educated by news such as "sausage maker lobbies against more sausage regulation"?

if everyone is ill and they know it's from sausage quality, why even discuss about regulating it? Just do it. that's what the short cynic comment was about. this is noise that only serves Facebook by pretending that the obvious action to be taken should be discussed. it's way past that point for online privacy.

Re: Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws

#28

Post by pjc50 »

sorokod wrote: post #2

"Facebook... Used chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s feminist memoir Lean In to “bond” with female European commissioners it viewed as hostile." and "the memo reveals that Sandberg’s feminist memoir was perceived as a lobbying tool by the Facebook team and a means of winning support from female legislators for Facebook’s wider agenda" cute.

If someone was looking for a genuine place to deploy the trite phrase "virtue signalling", this is what that actually looks like.

Re: Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws

#29

Post by pjc50 »

mc89 wrote: post #10

It's been a while since a Trump or Brexit type unexpected/unpredicted event that Facebook influenced has happened. As in nothing at a national scale. Does this mean the architecture is getting better? Or are we going to get hit by more randomness soon?

Measles cases are on the rise in many countries. A lot of nasty politics is appearing in non-English speaking countries which gets no publicity, but it's difficult to trace to Facebook.

Of course, Facebook is merely the carrier for these influences. Some are driven by hostile intelligence agencies, some by opportunistic chancers.

Re: Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws

#30

Post by jonathanhd »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #12
Ultramanoid wrote: post #8

At least they didn't succeed in derailing the passing of the GDPR. That's certainly encouraging and I guess the only piece of good news from the article. The rest paints a pretty depressing picture.

The amount of worry they showed in the two articles about GDPR reassures that it was adequate. So long as it's enforced adequately.

The Irish DPC has 10 open cases on Facebook, we'll have to wait and see if they shake out to meaningful change.
Post reply on HN