Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

I'm a New Zealander. I think our privacy commissioner is so totally wrong here. It's a hard technical problem to solve. It's an even harder political problem to solve.

Automatic censorship of live feeds, how do you do that? Automatic take downs of videos doctored to avoid being removed, how to do you do that?

Then if you have these automatic systems in place how do you avoid getting accused of censoring everyone?

I don't think Facebook is a doing the world a lot of good. But this is silly. It just shows how little the commissioner has thought about the details of his comments.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#7

Post by phs318u » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 2:57 AM UTC

He's right, but I'm wondering if he's deliberately baiting them with the strong (but accurate) language. Do governments need any further excuses to seek to impose controls on companies like Facebook?

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#8

Post by dogcomplex » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 2:58 AM UTC

yellow_lead wrote: post #2

Of course they are. Facebook is a public company, it has a financial duty to its shareholders to take as much as society will give it.

But taking "morally bankrupt" risks that backfire in PR down the road is (sometimes) a bad long-term finanical strategy.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#9

Post by Analemma_ » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 2:58 AM UTC

forgotmyhnacc wrote: post #3

Why is a random Twitter rant on the front page of hacker news? Also re: Jew haters, he does realize that the top two people at Facebook are Jewish, right? (Mark and Sheryl)

Because this isn’t a Twitter rant from a random nobody; New Zealand’s privacy commissioner probably has regulatory authority (or at least influence) to force Facebook to change its behavior, at least in NZ. If he’s using language this strong that probably indicates a crackdown is coming.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#10

Post by labster » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 2:59 AM UTC

I don't see how a "Dog Bites Man" story like this keeps getting upvotes. It's entirely unsurprising that a company whose core goal is global 24/7 surveillance and monetization will tell every lie before reckoning with the consequences of their actions.