Isn't this restraint of trade by two businesses, France and Germany, against a third business, Facebook?
France and Germany are sovereign states, not businesses.
France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
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Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#172Isn't this restraint of trade by two businesses, France and Germany, against a third business, Facebook?
No, since France and Germany are not businesses, they are governments of two countries.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#173> “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…
We need more financial freedom in the west. Facebook is right to allow its users the ability to protect their assets with Libra - backed by a basket of currencies. I'm very excited about this idea; of course Governments are not going to be comfortable with something they can not control. Whey they go to the printing press to pay for their deficits I certainly want the ability to protect my assets with a stronger curr…
At this point my opinion of Facebook is so low that I'd rather trust the incompetent monetary policy of governments than the competent but positively evil policy of Facebook.
I'm aware that I'm very biased here but the tragedy that is Facebook upsets me all the more for what it could've been. Instead of being a boon to society, they've become the worst form of surveillance capitalism.
I wouldn't trust facebook with handling my garden, let alone a monetary system. They have proven time and time again that they are reckless if not outright malicious and outdo even some incumbent bad guys in the sheer underhanded disregard for anything but their own bottom line.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#174> “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…
> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations” Also, what the hell is that supposed to mean? If something is inherent to something else, it doesn't mean it's exclusive to it. Maybe something got lost in translation, but if not - they don't even know how to say whatever it is that they want to say.
Yeah, very confusing statement - would they use this same logic to ban Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies as against their soverignty? Do they treat gold similarly?
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since you disagree with the parent and are claiming the opposite as him (also without a citation), I decided to Google around for some actual data. Here are some findings from a NBC/WSJ poll [0]... > 57 percent of Americans say they agree with the statement that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter do more to divide the country > Fifty-five percent believe social media does more to spread lies and falsehoods,…
> 36 percent of adults view Facebook positively, while 33 percent see it negatively. And Twitter’s rating is 24 percent positive, 27 percent negative. Am I correct in reading here that more adults view Facebook positively than negatively? Interestingly, it also shows 68% of respondents agreed with "The federal government should not break these companies up because competition should be left to the free market without…
I primarily responded because I disagree with your opinion:
> The views of people on Hackernews don't seem very representative of those of the general population, maybe because hating on Facebook is an excellent excuse for people to feel superior to the general population.
I agree with the part that HN isn't representative of the general population. But I don't think the reason for disagreeing is because we on HN want to feel superior to everyone else (maybe some people do, but I don't think most people here actually think that way..).
The data from the poll shows that a negative opinion of Facebook is not particularly uncommon. It might not be the majority opinion, but it's also not an uncommon opinion among the general public.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#176Earlier 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
US banks created Zelle, with free instant transfers via your banking app. It’s a shame more people don’t use it. Otherwise people just use credit cards for paying for stuff.
> with free instant transfers
I've noticed a "fee: zero" statement on the transfer page recently. I expect there will be an actual fee in the near future.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#177Earlier 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…
Don't know about friendship, but there's certainly a point of contention in that the US has allowed breeding the monopolies we have, without any action whatsoever by US antitrust enforcement (eg Fb/Whatsapp and Google/DoubleClick acquisition). It stands to reason that the EU must take action here in order to protect the common market. Another upcoming conflict is EU's underfinanced banks becoming easy targets after years of Draghi zero-interest ECB policies.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is a trope that has little basis in fact. Please explain concretely why breaking each of those companies would be better.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations” Also, what the hell is that supposed to mean? If something is inherent to something else, it doesn't mean it's exclusive to it. Maybe something got lost in translation, but if not - they don't even know how to say whatever it is that they want to say.
Yeah, very confusing statement - would they use this same logic to ban Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies as against their soverignty? Do they treat gold similarly?
«Yeah, very confusing statement - would they use this same logic to ban Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies?»
No, and that's the great point everyone is missing. Paraphrasing their logic: "it is inherent to the sovereignty of nations that no private entity can claim monetary power". In other words, they don't want private entities to control monetary power, but they tolerate this power being in the hands of "public" entities, such as the peer-to-peer/decentralized nature of many cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
This we-will-block-Libra attitude combined with we-will-torelate-Bitcoin-and-others is a big sign of approval for these cryptocurrencies.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#180> “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…
>policy makers will be feel compelled to devalue their own currencies
Inflation right now is very low in all developed economies