France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:51 PM UTC

kerng wrote: post #138

ijonas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very simple. Facebook is a company. You can legislate laws that determine what companies are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. Particularly if it concerns financial instruments. A "ban" doesn't need to be technological.

Facebook can't prevent people from using it via fake profiles, etc. that have the intent to bypass things. Unless we want Facebook profiles to always be official profiles (validated via government ID) - which the government would like. France and Germany can entertain IP blocking these services and put laws in place for citizens to not use it. Interestingly though, this is exactly what a free country should not do I…

[deleted]

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

#232

Post by isostatic » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:52 PM UTC

parsimo2010 wrote: post #131

pjc50 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)?

Pretty much everything Academi/Xe/Blackwater ever did was at the behest of the US government. GP was talking about a scenario such as Apple hiring Academi to destroy Samsung's factories. So far we have private companies providing security/defensive services, but we have yet to see private companies providing mercenary/offensive services without the explicit involvement of a government.

> but we have yet to see private companies providing mercenary/offensive services without the explicit involvement of a government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

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

#233

Post by Erlich_Bachman » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #211

mrb wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« 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"…

??? How do you conflate their stance against Libra with support for Bitcoin . Bitcoin has no Facebook-sized entity the French and German governments can control/admonish. Neither did any entity related to Bitcoin go out and stake any ground like Facebook did.

> Bitcoin has no Facebook-sized entity

That is exactly the point. That would be a threat as they see it (just from reading the statement even). That's why bitcoin which is not a private entity, is not seen as a threat at this time.

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

#234

Post by buboard » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

That's like the best Ad for libra? I think we should investigate whethere these politicians are being secretly paid by zuck

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

#235

Post by mrb » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #211

mrb wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« 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"…

??? How do you conflate their stance against Libra with support for Bitcoin . Bitcoin has no Facebook-sized entity the French and German governments can control/admonish. Neither did any entity related to Bitcoin go out and stake any ground like Facebook did.

France & Germany could block or ban Bitcoin if they wanted to, just like China. The fact they don't imply they tolerate Bitcoin. They tolerate it because it isn't controlled by a private entity.

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

#236

Post by atemerev » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #190

pjc50 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)?

You think Blackwater would fly in Germany or France?

Germany: Asgaard Security Group

France: Wagram Protection, Secopex, and many others.

PMCs are everywhere.

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

#237

Post by Erlich_Bachman » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

javert wrote: post #228

mrb wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« 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"…

If "monetary power" is "inherent to the sovereignty of nations" (quoting the article), they're also against bitcoin. I doubt the use of the words "private entity" was specifically intended to exclude decentralized currencies. It probably actually means "anyone who is not us."

It's a pretty obvious term. Obvious in the way that it includes Libra (where Facebook is a private entity), and excludes something like Bitcoin which is not directly controlled by any such entity.

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

#238

Post by K0SM0S » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

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…

Let's get real for a minute: France and Germany do not want Facebook, of all businesses, to monitor most private monetary transactions. Yesterday a social network, then a press/media entity, now a "central" bank with no traditional jurisdiction but its own private virtuality? It's preposterous, particularly considering the track record of this company.

The statement you quoted is just typical gov/political PR, common rhetoric.

However, it's everything but a bizzare statement, fundamentally. Ask yourself: how does the USA treat the US Dollar, would they be willing to just let it wane or die, be "invaded" by a foreign and private currency, as if it were not "inherent to its sovereignty"? Would the Fed be OK to just vanish and let the BCE or some private Asian conglomerate run the monetary show from San Francisco to Berlin passing by tokyo in terms of monetary policy? You in fact support the opposite view, inflation has indeed become many a government's tool.

Come on. This comment was either disingenuous or wildly uneducated about macroeconomics and political theory, either way totally fails to account for/relate to the European political/philosophical framework. Your world view is absurdly narrow, hyper-centered on the peculiar American case: few countries have privatized their citizens' State hence sovereignty to such an unfettered extent.

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

#239

Post by r00fus » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #233

r00fus wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

??? How do you conflate their stance against Libra with support for Bitcoin . Bitcoin has no Facebook-sized entity the French and German governments can control/admonish. Neither did any entity related to Bitcoin go out and stake any ground like Facebook did.

> Bitcoin has no Facebook-sized entity That is exactly the point. That would be a threat as they see it (just from reading the statement even). That's why bitcoin which is not a private entity, is not seen as a threat at this time.

mrb's comment that "we will block Libra and we will not block Bitcoin* as some sort of tacit approval is bullshit.

Bitcoin is tolerated because it's not centralized, and no one (obvious) entity is controlling it. If the EU governments could, they totally would ban Bitcoin.

Libra, on the other hand, is a power grab by someone they can regulate, so they will.

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

#240

Post by ralusek » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

blackbrokkoli wrote: post #225

I'm of course not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision, but I want to share a bit of cultural perspective from Germany that is so far not really considered in this comment section: Germany is very, very keen on preventing powerful entities from acting outside of regulation and similarly, if not more, on preventing a single entity to get in control of everything. This is largely due to…

Germany is obviously somewhat keen on letting single entities get control of everything, as the EU is in many ways an extension primarily of Germany, and the closest entity I'm aware of that could be said to be doing just that.

I'd also like to mention that certain entities operating outside of the state are precisely the sort of thing that can prevent the sort of tyranny that Germany enacted during the 20th century. Sometimes, and often, the entity capable of "regulating" is the tyranny. Imagine if Germany had had the capability to prevent payments to Jews, or track which households were spending more on food than they should and were likely harboring enemies of the state. I'm not saying Facebook needs to be the entity that does it, but monetary systems operating outside of the state could be argued to be one of the strongest weapons against tyranny.

I actually think this highlights one of the fundamental differences between Western liberalism and German schools of thought. Germany tends to fall back on the central authority, whereas liberalism thinks that the central authority is the single most corruptible attack vector.