Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges • Hacker News Board

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#221

Post by thehooplehead » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:15 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #36

1024core wrote: post #21

Why is it that in such cases, the government reaches for the CEO right away; but when Wells Fargo employees open millions of fraudulent accounts, it's not the CEO's fault? If I were to commit identity theft (which is basically what the WF employees did), then I would be facing jail time; why hasn't anyone in WF been charged with criminal fraud yet? Why not the CEO?

You're comparing apples and oranges. The CEO of a small internet company almost certainly has a hand in everything the company does. The CEO of a large corporation has no idea what the line workers are doing.[1] If a bunch of Yahoo employees had gone off and run as sex-trafficking site off Yahoo's servers, they wouldn't go arrest Marissa Mayer. Not because "lobbying" but because that would be stupid and unreasonable.…

I agree. It doesn't have to be collusion, in fact, I can easily imagine that there's no large scale coordination, maybe just coordination in small 5-10 person teams. For any incentive scheme, there's going to be a subset of people trying to game it. Given that potentially tens of thousands of employees were presented with the same incentive scheme (the performance system), it makes sense that many people/small groups could independently create similar strategies.

I think it's made more concrete by thinking of how many times you've thought of an app, business, screenplay, etc. and realized later that a dozen others have had the same idea. I bet a dozen people in this thread independently sketched out an app like Uber/Homejoy/"AirBnb-for-X" at some point just based off having the common annoyance of taxi-finding or hiring help.

In standup comedy, this happens a lot because we're all living in 2016 so any joke about the election, Bradjelina, Game of Thrones or any other sufficiently public/widely-discussed topic will have dozens of people trying to make a joke off of it. I'd guess that the set of actions you can take in a 'corporate game' is more finite and structured, so it makes sense that thousands among tens/hundreds of thousands adopt the same strategy.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#222

Post by thehooplehead » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:15 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #36

1024core wrote: post #21

Why is it that in such cases, the government reaches for the CEO right away; but when Wells Fargo employees open millions of fraudulent accounts, it's not the CEO's fault? If I were to commit identity theft (which is basically what the WF employees did), then I would be facing jail time; why hasn't anyone in WF been charged with criminal fraud yet? Why not the CEO?

You're comparing apples and oranges. The CEO of a small internet company almost certainly has a hand in everything the company does. The CEO of a large corporation has no idea what the line workers are doing.[1] If a bunch of Yahoo employees had gone off and run as sex-trafficking site off Yahoo's servers, they wouldn't go arrest Marissa Mayer. Not because "lobbying" but because that would be stupid and unreasonable.…

I agree. It doesn't have to be collusion, in fact, I can easily imagine that there's no large scale coordination, maybe just coordination in small 5-10 person teams. For any incentive scheme, there's going to be a subset of people trying to game it. Given that potentially tens of thousands of employees were presented with the same incentive scheme (the performance system), it makes sense that many people/small groups could independently create similar strategies.

I think it's made more concrete by thinking of how many times you've thought of an app, business, screenplay, etc. and realized later that a dozen others have had the same idea. I bet a dozen people in this thread independently sketched out an app like Uber/Homejoy/"AirBnb-for-X" at some point just based off having the common annoyance of taxi-finding or hiring help.

In standup comedy, this happens a lot because we're all living in 2016 so any joke about the election, Bradjelina, Game of Thrones or any other sufficiently public/widely-discussed topic will have dozens of people trying to make a joke off of it. I'd guess that the set of actions you can take in a 'corporate game' is more finite and structured, so it makes sense that thousands among tens/hundreds of thousands adopt the same strategy.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#223

Post by cwillu » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:19 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #175

dzdt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Matt Levine's take on this is right on: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-09/wells-far... . Senior management wanted employees to do REAL cross-selling to make money, but the metrics were set so high that employees turned to fake accounts to meet the standard. The fake accounts did not benefit the bank in any substantial way: So that's about 2.1 million fake deposit and credit-card accounts, of…

It doesn't seem possible that 5000(!) employees did this and the CEO had not a clue.

Did you know that there's a reality tv show based on this premise?

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#224

Post by forgetsusername » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

1024core wrote: post #21

Why is it that in such cases, the government reaches for the CEO right away; but when Wells Fargo employees open millions of fraudulent accounts, it's not the CEO's fault? If I were to commit identity theft (which is basically what the WF employees did), then I would be facing jail time; why hasn't anyone in WF been charged with criminal fraud yet? Why not the CEO?

>but when Wells Fargo employees open millions of fraudulent accounts

Do you think forced prostitution and sex-traficking are equally harmful to society as fake accounts? I know I'm glad that authorities take this more seriously.

We need a Godwin's Law for random HackerNews threads that bring up alleged bank CEO crimes.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#225

Post by cwillu » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #178

twblalock wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are talking about 5,000 current employees being fired and many employees who were fired for reporting it. If he didn't know, then he must not know other things about Wells Fargo that are equally important. I'm sure that's the case, and I'm sure it's also the case for most CEOs of massive companies. Wells Fargo has more than 250,000 employees and more than 6000 branches -- more branches than any other US bank. T…

Then how does this spread around to all the branches if (way) upper management doesn't know? Does Suzy in Fl really spend her time chatting up Jackie in CA to get the scoop on all the D/L ways to cheat? They have a little IRC channel for duping WF management?

The management in one branch likely socializes with the management in near-by branches. It spreads through drinks and "Yeah, it's dumb; we just do so we can get back to work".

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#226

Post by ZoF » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

Anderkent wrote: post #196

DanBC wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "child prostitution" is associated is a few countries with some severe failings of law enforcement to protect children from harm. Notably, in the UK some police forces were saying that children could chose to become prostitutes, and these children were promiscuous.

Only in America you would think that a 16 or 17 year old would never choose to have sex for benefits unless forced into it.

The person you're replying to is from the UK.

Why the anti-American sentiment?

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#227

Post by joslin01 » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

stephenr wrote: post #32

tessierashpool wrote: post #20

FWIW, this headline is not completely accurate. The story itself says further down the page, "Ferrer was arrested on felony charges of pimping a minor, pimping, and conspiracy to commit pimping." None of these are actually trafficking charges; they're run-of-the-mill prostitution charges. There's also a story from a young girl who was forced into sex work, which is certainly awful, and some stuff about studies and cl…

> pimping a minor > run-of-the-mill prostitution charges I sincerely fucking hope that isn't "run of the mill". > run-of-the-mill > adj. Not special or outstanding; average.

calm down cowboy and read it again. nobody cares about your emotionally charged confused reaction nor does it make for any good conversation

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#228

Post by tekromancr » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:26 PM UTC

empthought wrote: post #87

barrkel wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To remind you, this is what you said: "If it was their free choice, they wouldn't need to be paid for it". This means that monetary exchange precludes free choice. This is independent of what is being exchanged, as you say it.

No, it means that if sex were their free choice, they would not need to be paid for sex (they could have it as much or as little as they like). Instead of trying to wordplay this in HN comments, why don't you take a look at https://www.demandabolition.org/resources/evidence-against-l... -- they've done a far better job than I ever could on lining up the different arguments -- and there are many! -- against blithely s…

Just for clarification, your position is that the only class of services that are immoral to exchange currency for are sexualy oriented services. Is that correct?

I currently hold very different views from you on this issue, but some of your arguments are certainly giving me some things to think about. They all seem to assume the above point, which I have a really hard time accepting.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#229

Post by danielweber » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:29 PM UTC

Esau wrote: post #155

dzdt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Matt Levine's take on this is right on: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-09/wells-far... . Senior management wanted employees to do REAL cross-selling to make money, but the metrics were set so high that employees turned to fake accounts to meet the standard. The fake accounts did not benefit the bank in any substantial way: So that's about 2.1 million fake deposit and credit-card accounts, of…

I would have an easier time believing this if the company had not retaliated against people who tried to complain internally.

They fired thousands of people for creating accounts without permission. It's hard to say they looked the other way.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#230

Post by danielweber » Fri, Oct 07, 2016, 3:30 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #175

dzdt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Matt Levine's take on this is right on: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-09/wells-far... . Senior management wanted employees to do REAL cross-selling to make money, but the metrics were set so high that employees turned to fake accounts to meet the standard. The fake accounts did not benefit the bank in any substantial way: So that's about 2.1 million fake deposit and credit-card accounts, of…

It doesn't seem possible that 5000(!) employees did this and the CEO had not a clue.

Maybe they should have figured out that their incentive structures were wrong when they had to fire 5000 people over several years. But the very act of firing thousands of people shows that they were discouraging it, strongly.