Irish privacy regulator picks ex-Meta lobbyist as third commissioner • Hacker News Board

Re: Irish privacy regulator picks ex-Meta lobbyist as third commissioner

#21

Post by dathinab » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 8:49 PM UTC

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #20

dathinab wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what glazing? > "evil" or someone who would commit treason or anything like that is a really low bar and do you really think you become President of the European Commission by being severely incompetent? If she where as severely incompetent as some media likes to picture she would at best have been complimented away to some mostly irrelevant position, not one of the highest position in the EU organs.

I asked you to point out her achievements and you just glazed her further on the basis that "you can't possibly fail upwards to a high level leadership position" when a lot of people in recently history have, and in her position it's not even that hard to do when business interests use their money and influence to guarantee that their preferred puppet sorry I meant candidate gets there, especially that the process fo…

my point is that calling someone a "Leyen is a corrupt, lobby friendly politician" while putting a relative low bar of "not evil" on here moral standard and that she isn't completely incompetent is not glazing. I have no intend to discuss any detailed politics on HN.

Re: Irish privacy regulator picks ex-Meta lobbyist as third commissioner

#22

Post by LunaSea » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 9:53 PM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #13

fnordian_slip wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) => huge potential for conflicts of interest. That's why you should avoid this sort of thing in most cases.

I remember reading (here's the trigger for some people to stop reading) Paul Krugman's writing about Greek politicians and the Brussels set: if the Greek leaders just follow what Brussels want, they can guarantee their spot in some cushy position afterwards, and what Brussels set (lobbied by German banks) wanted was austerity for Greeks in order to repay the loans the German banks gave out freely, knowing that becaus…

Result is that Greece's economy has never been doing better, their budget produces a surplus and they can reimburse their debt.

Re: Irish privacy regulator picks ex-Meta lobbyist as third commissioner

#23

Post by FirmwareBurner » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 9:58 PM UTC

pmezard wrote: post #17

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am so tired of these "they are all bad anyway" stances. What evidence do you have they are not all bad? I can't think of too many major high level EU leaders that people would consider to be a net positive. >Hungary suspected of spying for Russia Are you aware that former German and Austrian politicians are on the payroll of Russian oil and gas companies and Putin even came to the wedding s of some of them? Are yo…

> What evidence do you have they are not all bad? I can't think of too many major high level EU leaders that people would consider to be a net positive. A net positive compared to what? To have nobody at the head of the state and have anarchy? Or compared to the next one who wants the job? Let's be concrete. I live in France, which currently is not going to give anyone lessons about governance. Current president is M…

>But you are comparing that to someone who literally suggests violent action against people of his own country.

What's worse? Suggesting violence against someone, or actions of corruption that loose taxpayers shit tones of money, which if it wasn't stolen by politicians would have gone to things like healthcare to keep people alive? If only there was a way to quantify money lost from corruption to deaths from underfunded healthcare, it would start to sink in for you, but you care more about optics than about actual harm done.

Same for Austrian and German politicians being in bed with Putin to tie Europe's energy security to Russian oil and gas but noooo, Orban is the real evil because he said hurty things.

>Fair enough she may have taken money from Pfizer and whatnot.

When massive corruption leading to deaths is just "and what not" to you, then I can't argue anymore with you. The problem isn't she taking Pfizer money, its she selling out the taxpayer's money every step of the way in her political career. Pfizer's money comes with strings attached, same for every other lobbyist.

>but on the other hand are very happy to keep their cosy job for ad-tech/vc-fueled/well-paid companies instead of doing their part.

Is that a self report? Because I don't have any of those.

Citizens elect politicians, then pay them to run a city/country as their main job, they don't have time to be a politician beyond their regular jobs that put food on their table.

Re: Irish privacy regulator picks ex-Meta lobbyist as third commissioner

#24

Post by xinayder » Thu, Oct 16, 2025, 7:28 AM UTC

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #14

pmezard wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hungary suspected of spying for Russia, in der Spiegel (also in Le Monde but no translated link): https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/eu-wie-ungarns-agenten-in-bruessel-informanten-anzuwerben-versuchten-a-a44776c8-c8a6-4bf1-a7d1-7e92f643b748 > Other than Orban being corrupt and unpopular because the same applies to most politicians at EU level especially Ursula vs Leyen. I am so tired of these "they are all bad anyway" st…

>I am so tired of these "they are all bad anyway" stances. What evidence do you have they are not all bad? I can't think of too many major high level EU leaders that people would consider to be a net positive. >Hungary suspected of spying for Russia Are you aware that former German and Austrian politicians are on the payroll of Russian oil and gas companies and Putin even came to the wedding s of some of them? Are yo…

> Are you aware that former German and Austrian politicians are on the payroll of Russian oil and gas companies and Putin even came to the wedding s of some of them? Are you aware Austrian banks still operate in Russia profiting?

Source?

> Why the double standards where all the blame in on Hungary yet other EU members fly under the radar for much more pro-Russia cooperation and profiteering?

There are no double standards. Besides Orban and Fico, there are no EU ministers or governments going to Minsk, Belarus, or Russia, to meet with Putin.

When the war started, MOL, the state-owned petrol company of Hungary, said it would take about 3 years for them to shift all their refineries to move away from Russian oil. It's 2025, and they are still heavily-dependent on Russian oil. They did nothing to end this dependence [0].

Orban settled a deal with Russia to buy gas and oil, whose terms are confidential and will probably be so for the next decades. What every Hungarian news portal reported was essentially Hungary was being scammed, as it would be much cheaper to buy the same oil/gas from the Dutch stock exchange [1].

Regarding Austrian banks, Raiffeisen was just on the news this month because they are still operating in Russia. So, no, I wouldn't say it's a double standard. Besides, the Austrian politicians are certainly not making a fuss and blocking or vetoing any decision regarding Ukraine or Russian sanctions because of that [2]. Meanwhile, we have Hungary who keeps creating excuses to apply their vetos on such decisions, and Fico, who's doing the same, because the EU (von der Leyen) showed the world anyone can blackmail the EU and get away with it.

[0] https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/worldwide-healthcare-trust...

[1] https://dailynewshungary.com/shocking-hungary-lost-hundreds-...

[2] https://insighthungary.444.hu/2023/05/19/hungary-blocks-500-...

Re: Irish privacy regulator picks ex-Meta lobbyist as third commissioner

#25

Post by taskforcegemini » Thu, Oct 16, 2025, 12:28 PM UTC

xinayder wrote: post #24

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am so tired of these "they are all bad anyway" stances. What evidence do you have they are not all bad? I can't think of too many major high level EU leaders that people would consider to be a net positive. >Hungary suspected of spying for Russia Are you aware that former German and Austrian politicians are on the payroll of Russian oil and gas companies and Putin even came to the wedding s of some of them? Are yo…

> Are you aware that former German and Austrian politicians are on the payroll of Russian oil and gas companies and Putin even came to the wedding s of some of them? Are you aware Austrian banks still operate in Russia profiting? Source? > Why the double standards where all the blame in on Hungary yet other EU members fly under the radar for much more pro-Russia cooperation and profiteering? There are no double stand…

>Source?

The austrian bank is Raiffeisen. Politicians of germany like Gerhard Schröder and austria like Karin Kneissl.