Oh wow, this is going to be huge.
Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation
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Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation
#12There has been a tremendous amount of grassroots lobbying, fundraising, and private investigation in New York over the past two years with respect to Facebook. It’s a serious area I feel Silicon Valley has abdicated its moral obligation to stand up to its own. Hoping we can develop the evidence that comes out of this case into criminal charges for individual engineers and senior officers.
Criminal charges for what exactly? They shared their user data with other companies. Since when is that criminal?
Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation
#13Ok, so those partnerships were basically allowing Samsung and others to build Facebook app on their phones (i.e. allowing alternative client). Would this means that it will be criminal to allow companies to create alternative clients? That is really interesting development.
Individually negotiated confidential deals are not the same as open APIs and protocols which is where alternative clients normally come into play. And the “alternative client” stuff doesn’t even apply to Amazon, Bing etc
Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation
#14No indication of what the charges are? The closest thing in the article is:
> the partnerships seemed to violate a 2011 consent agreement between Facebook and the F.T.C
which doesn't seem like it would be criminal?
Does the US actually have criminal laws regarding selling data? Any educated guesses on what's actually going on?
Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation
#15At this point it is just an investigation. Nobody has been charged with anything. They have to find a law Facebook has broken first, and presumably establish enough evidence that they expect to succeed at a trial.
Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation
#16It's going to be great seeing all the years of HN commenters complaining that no bankers went to jail, insist that it's bad policy for software engineers to be held criminally liable.
Meanwhile I hope this thread stays at the top of HN for the day to see how the thread summary reads over at n-gate
n-gate?
Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation
#17It's going to be great seeing all the years of HN commenters complaining that no bankers went to jail, insist that it's bad policy for software engineers to be held criminally liable.
Usually when I saw those calls to hold bankers accountable (especially when referring to the recent recession), they are talking about the executives of the company. While Zuckerberg was an engineer, his day-to-day role now is the executive of the company. So, I think the comparison's to bank executives and tech executives are similar. However, pinning this on software engineers is an entirely different ballgame.
Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not directly. But employee burnout (and the nascent mass exodus of top talent we'll inevitably be hearing about shortly) may very well be.
Perhaps related: the frequency of FB Production Engineer recruiters reaching out to me has increased in the last couple months. I simply can't sell myself to an immoral organization where, I’m afraid, any concerns of mine would be drowned out, ignored, or silenced by the incumbent powers at Facebook that are dead set on their current path. There might be good engineers at Facebook trying desperately to change the cul…
> I simply can't sell myself to an immoral organization where, I’m afraid, any concerns of mine would be drowned out, ignored, or silenced by the incumbent powers at Facebook that are dead set on their current path.
Facebook is doing so many shady things that you would likely be able to verify that your fear would be proven correct, but many other companies do shady stuff too and you'd be none the wiser simply because they don't do enough of it to trip your alarm. The amount of stuff going on that can't stand the light of day is usually roughly proportional to company size, or, if the management is at all enlightened non-existent because they instruct their employees to not just follow the law but to do what is right. That's pretty rare though.
Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meanwhile I hope this thread stays at the top of HN for the day to see how the thread summary reads over at n-gate
n-gate?
Re: Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation
#20There has been a tremendous amount of grassroots lobbying, fundraising, and private investigation in New York over the past two years with respect to Facebook. It’s a serious area I feel Silicon Valley has abdicated its moral obligation to stand up to its own. Hoping we can develop the evidence that comes out of this case into criminal charges for individual engineers and senior officers.
Criminal charges for what exactly? They shared their user data with other companies. Since when is that criminal?
5th of May last year in many places and in every other place in the world where you manage to convince a judge that it is. It's easier when there are explicit laws on the books.