Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#191

Post by zimbatm » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

Seenso wrote: post #156

fbelzile wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of regulation, maybe have browsers give you a warning on how the site your about to visit treats your personal data? We already have warnings in one way or another for: expired SSL certificates, lack of HTTPS, potential malware sites, if your account may have been breached (at least in Firefox), requests for your location or to show notifications, etc. The next logical step is to have our user agent warn us a…

>> There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, i…

Sounds great to me! We need more competition in the browser market.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#192

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

tracer4201 wrote: post #189

threatofrain wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If FB is addictive then you need the medical community in on this, but the fact that they aren’t means you’re left alone making medical arguments about the affects of FB. Maybe my speech, this very one, is designed to give you the flu. But when we’re talking stakes like serious medical claims, then we should have serious medical consensus.

I don’t know if you work at Facebook or really believe what you’ve written. My spouse and I got so bad that we’d be on our phones over brunch or dinner looking at Facebook instead of having a conversation. It took us a couple years to break the habit and we both eventually deleted Facebook. I defend big tech all the time (see my post history), but saying FB isn’t designed to be addictive isn’t accurate.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#193

Post by wolco » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

zimbatm wrote: post #191

Seenso wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, i…

Sounds great to me! We need more competition in the browser market.

They would just use the chrome engine so we would be no better off.

Really happy firefox is alive and well.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#194

Post by zentiggr » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 4:15 PM UTC

Tyr42 wrote: post #162

mcv wrote: post #143

The most important regulation for Facebook is that they should provide a way to communicate with other social networks, so someone on Diaspora, MeWe or Friendica can follow people on Facebook and vice versa. That way, people won't be forced onto Facebook simply because their friends are there. And once that has been done, it'll also be easier to cut Facebook into smaller chunks if it turns out they're still a monopol…

Would this also make it easier to slurp data from Diaspora, in the name of providing friend recommendations?

Other parties can always close their APIs to FB data slurping, and just share the minimum that's required to interact.

Having FB actually implement even that level of interaction would be a net gain in reducing the siloing effect.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#195

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 4:22 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #182

scarface74 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we need the government to make that choice for them?

This isn't a new thing. The government chooses lots of things for us. What things are legal to buy, eat, etc. are decided for us. Sometimes people need to be protected from themselves. This is why we are going to lose on privacy. Fear-mongering over pedophiles will sway people instead of them looking into the laws and their effect on their lives.

And the government also "chose" that it is "good for us" if people of different races (miscengenation) weren't allowed to get married up until the 60's and that people shouldn't be allowed to have sex with someone of the same sex (sodomy) until the 80s.

So now you're trusting the same government "to protect your privacy" that would like nothing more than if companies were forced to have backdoors to read secure messages?

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#196

Post by wolco » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 4:24 PM UTC

raziel2p wrote: post #135

josephg wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what basis are you claiming that that most teams at FB are optimising the product for well being as opposed to ‘engagement’ (addiction)? Do you have first hand knowledge? Do you know the people involved? Do you have citations? I stopped using FB a few years ago after I had an argument with a friend on the platform. The algorithm decided to keep showing us one anothers’ content - I assume so we would both write mor…

If facebook only shows content you agree with, it's creating social bubbles where everyone is cheering each other on and criticism is not allowed, and you end up with anti-vax groups. And if facebook emphasizes content you engage with (albeit negatively), you end up with anecdotes like yours. Facebook is a tool, use it as such rather than being entitled and feeling disempowered. You can hide people from your timeline…

Entitled is a loaded word. That makes it seem like the user is unreasonable and he should take whatever facebook gives him. Be quiet you don't matter, you are lucky they allowed you on the platform.

Is it unreasonable to expect facebook to be able to determine the tone of the conversation. They probably already do this or are in the process of researching this. This is a great feature and I look forward to getting content aligned with my mood. I'm mad, show me angry posts, I'm nervous show me calm posts. I'm bored show me exciting videos. Maybe a box on top how do you feel to determine current mood.

Users complaining give free feedback. As a developer it helps shape the product.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#197

Post by dontdoitpls » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #184

Classic regulatory capture. Once you're big enough lobby effectively, get legislators to pull the ladder up from behind you. This reminds me: I was working at a small health services startup in 2009. We had a good relationship with a number of small-scale healthcare providers, and when the ARRA was passed mandating that all providers move to electronic health records, we evaluated the concept of getting into that bus…

Blows my mind how many people ignore this problem when they demand more regulations.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#198

Post by CryptoPunk » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

The answer to technology is technology. People need better tools for communication and authentication, but tools are public goods, and the market under produces public goods because there is no way a producer of public goods can capture the value generated through private property rights, and so there's no mechanism in the market to sustain and incentivize producers.

The solution will make both free market advocates and government intervention advocates happy: use public revenue to create better communication and authentication tools. Let consumers freely choose between the tools provided by private enterprise and those produced by government funded development.

If the government fails, consumers are no worse off: they still have their market borne options. If it succeeds, they have better options than they did before.

Regulation of private enterprise is lazy, authoritarian and a case of putting all of one's eggs in one basket.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#199

Post by sprafa » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

blunderkid wrote: post #16

There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, inab…

There is a very simple solution to Facebook - demand that they offer compatibility through an API so that other products can offer News Feed products that are seamlessly integrated with the FB Friends. Same as having a universal messaging protocol that's compatible with WhatsApp, and an Instagram API that also allows for compatibility with competitive photo feed products. Basically - open up the social graph and allow for super aggregators with different functionality. That's allowing for competition and breaking down the artificial moat they created, where they have managed to legally extricate their users from their own data property (essentially a form of digital enclosure that violates your right to your data as your private property). They would be destroyed within a year.

Same as windows - you just force them to have an anti-monopoly function.

Alternatively, allow for other ad suppliers to work through their network with a minimal amount of friction. Then you annihilate their revenue.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#200

Post by Epskampie » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

cdolan wrote: post #101

On iOS 13 mobile safari - is anyone else unable to use the Back button to leave TechCrunch? Might blacklist their site with a content blocker if they are indeed hijacking the back button.

Just tried, both a swipe back and the back button work here.