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FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#221

Post by austincheney »

pcj-github wrote: post #220

As much as I despise social media and the effect it is having on the general population, after reading the (50-page) request and the dissent, this request by the FTC is completely bananas . This is essentially how it reads: "Foreach social media and streaming service, provide an audit of all electrons passing through or near the service. Account for the precise position & momentum of said particles, the method by whi…

I would really hope there is more to this. Social media companies are private entities, and as such can be as deliberately, or not, biased and full of censorship against other persons or groups as much as they want. More so, they can openly declare such bias against their best interests without risk of immediate consequences thanks to Section 230. They are legally protected by law.

I really wish the current administration would stop crying about the big bad world and how unfair it is. This only appeals to really insecure people. If they really wanted to “fix” the problem the appropriate regulatory body could provide new regulation against activity not already protected by legislation.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#222

Post by sokoloff »

jonplackett wrote: post #103
jcjdbdndndthrow wrote: post #87

Transparency coming? How about if I see an ad I should be allowed to see who bought the ad? How about how they chose to target me? Is it because of my race or interests or gender or age? How about the option to opt out? How about the option to configure your future ad targets / attributes? How about no special black box algorithms? Past the addiction issues, how can these exist while guaranteeing no racial and other…

Yes please. I’d like to add: no targeting of any kind for political ads - you wanna say something? You have to say it to everyone.

If I’m running for city council (or even a statewide office), do I need to say my message to people in states 2000 miles away? In other countries?

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#224

Post by viraptor »

ineedasername wrote: post #216
akersten wrote: post #54

Here is the actual order (PDF warning): https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/6b-orders... I would encourage everyone to read it. My personal take is that this is a ridiculous amount of homework to do in 45 days, and is essentially the FTC asking for not only these companies' "secret sauce" but also their confidential bookkeeping. I would be astounded if none of them challenged this order. For example, r…

Revealing all R&D is too much, but I don't think in general that it's too little time to answer. They would of course know the answers to questions like the one you cited. Otherwise, from the PDF: 1-6 mostly seem fine. Q7 is secret sauce Q8 doesn't really seem relevant to how personal data is used Q10 is at least a little bit secret sauce. Q11 I'm not sure what the relevance of this is Q12 and most of Q13 is secret s…

> Q10 is at least a little bit secret sauce.

I wonder what's really the limit in Q10a. For example companies will have huge recommendation models built, likely very automated without manually assigned labels. If they never ask for "“yes,” “no” for whether the natural Person is of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin", but one of the automated recommendation dimensions is close to 1:1 match for that question, would they have to disclose that? (i.e. give statistics per-dimension)

This applies to the rest of Q10 too. 1000 top attribute values? Does "around vector (0,0,0.3,0.9,....)" count? Because barely anyone asks explicitly for the real user attributes anymore.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#225

Post by viraptor »

kaiju0 wrote: post #3

Something big is brewing. I think there is going to be a big push to reign in social media. I've thought long about this and can only think of one way to regulate them. I would propose that people are allowed x degrees of separation. As a regular user I can only go n+2 connections. After that the content is not seen no matter how popular. It will kill virility but should reign in stupidity being broadcast. To increas…

> As a regular user I can only go n+2 connections.

You just killed the whole dating app industry. And job boards. And regional marketplaces.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#226

Post by joshspankit »

viraptor wrote: post #224
ineedasername wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revealing all R&D is too much, but I don't think in general that it's too little time to answer. They would of course know the answers to questions like the one you cited. Otherwise, from the PDF: 1-6 mostly seem fine. Q7 is secret sauce Q8 doesn't really seem relevant to how personal data is used Q10 is at least a little bit secret sauce. Q11 I'm not sure what the relevance of this is Q12 and most of Q13 is secret s…

> Q10 is at least a little bit secret sauce. I wonder what's really the limit in Q10a. For example companies will have huge recommendation models built, likely very automated without manually assigned labels. If they never ask for "“yes,” “no” for whether the natural Person is of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin", but one of the automated recommendation dimensions is close to 1:1 match for that question, would the…

It’s wild to me that regulators have (for all intents and purposes) caught up with tech. Noone is claiming the internet is a series of tubes.

But tech’s swing towards AI-weighted vector graphs seems to be out of the regulator’s view. It’s almost like they are back at square one again.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#227

Post by strogonoff »

The goal of FTC order P205402 is stated as assisting “a study of such policies, practices, and procedures”. With that in mind, the somewhat arbitrary and limited choice of entities[0][1], hard deadlines[1], and scope of requested data[2] to me personally somewhat make sense.

[0] Given it’s a study, it seems overwhelmingly likely that the results will be extrapolated and generalized to the rest of the industry.

[1] The more time passes, the less representative the results would be. If there were more than nine entities chosen, a drawn-out review process would be essentially an advance warning.

[2] Yes, they are asking for a lot, but reporting being unable to provide certain type of data should be useful for the study still as absence of certain type of data is a meaningful result in itself.

I don’t have a strong opinion on other aspects (and it’s definitely no small feat to gather all the data), but at first approach—assuming good faith on the side of FTC—this order looks akin to a quiz of a random selection of school students with the aim not to praise or reprimand individuals but to assess the education system in general. Given enough advance notice, students would be drilled to ace specifically this quiz, negating its point.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#228

Post by alisonkisk »

neatze wrote: post #184
akersten wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 45-day thing is a minor tickle, I shouldn't have lead with it. My point is that to me it feels like this Order is a huge overreach of authority, and whether you personally do or don't feel sympathy for a certain company does not change what the government should and should not be able to ask of a company in the general case. Reading the document, the demands are wide and reaching. I would like to know how much of…

Financial firms such as hedge funds have no issues with such orders, nor should social media have.

Please explain.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#229

Post by downrightmike »

ineedasername wrote: post #216
akersten wrote: post #54

Here is the actual order (PDF warning): https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/6b-orders... I would encourage everyone to read it. My personal take is that this is a ridiculous amount of homework to do in 45 days, and is essentially the FTC asking for not only these companies' "secret sauce" but also their confidential bookkeeping. I would be astounded if none of them challenged this order. For example, r…

Revealing all R&D is too much, but I don't think in general that it's too little time to answer. They would of course know the answers to questions like the one you cited. Otherwise, from the PDF: 1-6 mostly seem fine. Q7 is secret sauce Q8 doesn't really seem relevant to how personal data is used Q10 is at least a little bit secret sauce. Q11 I'm not sure what the relevance of this is Q12 and most of Q13 is secret s…

Google is on the list, they have submitted to a similar agreement to be able to work in China. This reeks more like a see what you can get on the way out. 45 days from today is 1/28, one week after the inauguration. A decent time period where they will be a lot going on and confusion, that could allow underhanded tactics leeway to work.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#230

Post by joshspankit »

akersten wrote: post #99
Despegar wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely not an "overreach." The FTC is actually starting to do their job after decades of letting industries consolidate. Congress should increase their budget so they can do more of it.

Frankly, the order is one step short of "copy your Shared drive to a hard disk and mail it to us, we'll take care of the rest." I'm genuinely interested in what US Code permits the FTC to ask for such a trove of company information and strategy. My suspicion is that they're reaching. We can talk about whether we feel it's an overreach or not - you clearly feel the opposite of me - but I hope someone can chime in with…

Personal opinion (don’t @me, I have zero credibility here):

They are looking to establish a new name for themselves with the public, and right now is the perfect time to do it.

“We’re taking big tech to task for the safety of our children! You’ve seen the headlines about what they’ve let happen under their watch! The FTC is here for you!”

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