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Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

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Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#52
post #30

$615 million dollars seems like chump change for 9 million counts of identity fraud. I recently read a story where the local DA in Portland charged a homeless man for identity theft for stealing a wallet. He hadn't tried to represent himself as the other person; he literally just had the wallet and ID. Yet again, turns out it's OK if you're a corporation.

Well, those are the rules. That's how capitalism works.

This isn't a meaningful tautology. "The system is unjust because it is unjust and therefore must always be unjust."

We can and should improve society.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#53
post #6

"An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent." $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.

If an individual committed fraud by impersonating millions of people, they'd be in prison.

It seems the thing to do, before you dump toxic chemicals into the water or whatever, is to open a corporation. "Mistakes were made", after all.

This is only trumped by by sovereign immunity, for starting wars or oil spills or releasing viruses or whatever. "Bush is gone, let's move on - why are you still on that?"

State Power is great isn't it?

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#55
post #6

"An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent." $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.

Slap on the wrist? Lol. $61.5m would be a slap on the wrist. $615k is a tip.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#56
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Authoritarianism will reliably produce such outcomes regardless of the economic system or ideology at play, and violent revolution/vanguardism will reliably produce authoritarianism.

Vanguardism and violent revolution are a failure, that doesn't make capitalism the only alternative. Indeed, that's entirely orthogonal.

Plenty of capitalist states have committed similar atrocities. An obvious example being the early United States - the transatlantic slave trade and the various death marches inflicted on Native Americans are every bit as horrifying as the crimes of the USSR, and were committed explicitly to obtain labor and real estate (notice these are both forms of capital) for our burgeoning capitalist economic system. Yet the people who claim the USSR proves communism is necessarily violent don't seem to take this as evidence that democracy or capitalism are similarly irredeemable.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#57
post #6

"An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent." $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.

Slap on the wrist? Lol. $61.5m would be a slap on the wrist. $615k is a tip.

$615k is a stern look by a grandma whose eyes cannot help but betray just how much she loves you.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#58
post #6

"An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent." $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.

Slap on the wrist? Lol. $61.5m would be a slap on the wrist. $615k is a tip.

Start with the idea "somebody" is making $1T/yr because of the status quo. Qui bono?

Then factor time:

1000000000000÷12÷30÷24÷60÷60

Somebody is making $32k profit per second. Who? That's about 5% margin/tax on $615k, so yeah, it's happening per second.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#59

This is only the tip of the iceberg. A majority of the "user content" (product reviews, brand engagement, comments on social media sites, etc) is completely fake, bought for and paid by big money interest aka bots. No different than automated scans of the IPv4 address space: simple, unsophisticated, low-cost and without any repercussion.

I keep getting this eerie feeling when seeing product reviews and the rest of things you list here - I would never in a million year consider writing a paragraph long glowing review of my car jack on amazon, and yet there are millions of such interactions all over the web.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#60
post #6

"An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent." $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.

In the game of prisoners dilemma, they defected and won. This means their strategy of corruption is a winning strategy. It means our law has failed and we can expect more people to practice a strategy of corruption and flouting the law rather than a strategy of adherence to the law or ethical principles.
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