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France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

reuters.com

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Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#61

Post by primroot »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #20
mrtksn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the internet? Is libra tied to an account like game money? AFAIK it's a cryptocurrency? Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case?

> Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case? It's about time we all disabused ourselves of the libertarian utopian dream that just because cryptocurrency is on a distributed ledger than governments can't control it. "How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the…

> Companies are even easier to control than people because their whole existence is made possible by laws and regulations of governments.

And this is how we know the "small government" slogan is an absolute sham.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#62

Post by pjc50 »

aphextron wrote: post #53
aazaa wrote: post #27

> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations” What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish. It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiemgauer I suspect there's a lot more behind this sta…

>Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish. They exist entirely at the behest of their respective nation states' laws and regulations, and are completely subordinate to all official law enforcement and military forces. It's a flawed analogy. This would be tantamount to a private military company asserting their right to conduct foreign wars in the name of a…

> a private military company asserting their right to conduct foreign wars in the name of a subset of citizens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi (formerly known as Blackwater)?

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#63

Post by sergefaguet »

nations also used to be convinced it is inherent to their sovereignty to tell us who to worship and who to marry. this is no longer the case.

not sure there is a principled reason why the power to govern the exchange of goods and services (which is what money facilitates) should be up to them.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#64

Post by throwaway_law »

noisem4ker wrote: post #5
grezql wrote: post #3

I wish they just blocked facebook altogether. It has caused people more pain than good

Blocking a communication platform doesn't sound right in a free society. There's nothing inherently wrong with connecting people. On the other hand, there should be heavy regulation and enforcement in place so that users don't get their data unknowingly exploited for commercial interest.

>Blocking a communication platform doesn't sound right in a free society.

Collecting data on the citizenry under the guise of a communication platform doesn't sound right in a free society either.

You obviously transition and acknowledge/consider the same in your second sentence.

Maybe if the companies primary goal was to provide a communication platform government regulation may be concern, but their primary goal is to collect and monetize user data, the premises upon which they get the users to contractually give them that data being secondary should give the government more latitude without any free speech concerns.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#65

Post by lapnitnelav »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #40
freddie_mercury wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you think this is so hard? You pass a law. Most people don't break the law. You make it illegal for banks to transfer to known Libra things. You audit people. You apply big fines. Murder is illegal but that doesn't mean nobody can commit murder .

Murder is also immoral. Libra is hardly morally questionable. If you want a better comparison take (software) piracy. Piracy is illegal and while I'm sure Steam, Spotify, and Netflix has reduced it a lot it is still thriving and many people break the law if not daily at least monthly. Best thing you can do is to make a law that forces banks to prevent payments to known Libra sellers, but again if there is value in Li…

If murder is immoral, what are death penalty and soldiers killing other soldiers (when it's not civilians)?

Besides the context (and the legal aspect), they are the same act, homicide with intent. Their morality seem to be different depending who you ask.

And as for Libra being made illegal, I don't see what value it provides in EU to make it worth breaking the law.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#66

Post by anoncake »

noisem4ker wrote: post #5
grezql wrote: post #3

I wish they just blocked facebook altogether. It has caused people more pain than good

Blocking a communication platform doesn't sound right in a free society. There's nothing inherently wrong with connecting people. On the other hand, there should be heavy regulation and enforcement in place so that users don't get their data unknowingly exploited for commercial interest.

Facebook could offer their social network in Germany without having a presence here. Then blocking it is necessary to enforce the law.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#67

Post by joes_hk »

speps wrote: post #34
aazaa wrote: post #27

> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations” What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish. It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiemgauer I suspect there's a lot more behind this sta…

Your German example is a bit silly to use here given that its exchange rate is 1:1 with euros. There are other regional currencies in other countries, they don't usually operate independently from the country's own currency though.

Also on the "money" you can read "Vereinsinterner Regio-Gutschein" which means that in a legal sense this is a voucher not a currency.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#68

Post by lutoma »

aazaa wrote: post #27

> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations” What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish. It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiemgauer I suspect there's a lot more behind this sta…

> It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years:

That‘s a single, mostly dead non-profit project in a tiny area, not accepted by most stores even in that area and 99% of Germans have never heard of it. Hardly comparable to Libra.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#69

Post by ethbro »

moksly wrote: post #15
noisem4ker wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking a communication platform doesn't sound right in a free society. There's nothing inherently wrong with connecting people. On the other hand, there should be heavy regulation and enforcement in place so that users don't get their data unknowingly exploited for commercial interest.

Facebook has turned out to be a potential threat to free society. I’m not just talking about the mass manipulation that goes on mostly unregulated, but also the fact that it has quite a lot of personal information on our citizens. Maybe that wouldn’t be an issue if Europe was the best of friends with America, but as that’s obviously not the case. I don’t think our relationship will fully deteriorate, but we can’t ign…

All problems from big tech stem from their centralization.

If Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook were broken up into collections of smaller, independent companies... a lot of the ills would simply disappear, and the market as a whole would be a lot healthier.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#70

Post by riffraff »

Avamander wrote: post #26
aniforprez wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AH the bit about the goal being to make payments fast makes a ton of sense. The rest of the world has left the US in the dust with extremely fast payments systems. In India, the UPI system has taken the country by storm with direct,instant bank-to-bank money transfers which take seconds to complete and have no fees attached for the consumer

Europe has SEPA (Instant). The Chinese have WeChat Pay and similar? I'm curious, what other solutions other countries have?

SEPA Instant Credit Transfer should allow this, but it's adoption is not 100% widespread yet, in my experience.
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