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California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

newyorker.com

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Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#261

Post by AnthonyMouse »

AlexandrB wrote: post #209
scarface74 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawmakers are purposefully vague because judges can decipher what the spirit of the law is and fine corporations or condone specific use cases when they are brought up in court. That leads to the judicial branch actually making the law and not having a consistent set of rules depending on who the judge is.

Precedent is foundational to western law. The first judge to make a decision based on a law sets a precedent that informs how that law is interpreted in the future. This is a feature, not a bug because real world situations are messy, complicated, and dynamic. Trying to enumerate every legal interpretation and eventuality based on today's conditions and technology results in a law that won't be meaningful 5 years fro…

> Precedent is foundational to western law. The first judge to make a decision based on a law sets a precedent that informs how that law is interpreted in the future. This is a feature, not a bug because real world situations are messy, complicated, and dynamic.

The problem is then nobody actually knows what the law is until after the judge decides it, at which point they're essentially creating new rules ex post facto and applying them to past conduct. It's manifestly unreasonable to apply a rule that wasn't known until five minutes ago to actions that took place last year.

> Trying to enumerate every legal interpretation and eventuality based on today's conditions and technology results in a law that won't be meaningful 5 years from now.

Which means you may have to pass a new law in five years -- that's not a bug. For that matter, if you expect things to change significantly then you may want to make the current rules expire in five years automatically, or hold off legislating anything at all until you see how things shake out on their own.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#262

Post by wpietri »

mirimir wrote: post #250
wpietri wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin might work for small-scale crime, but as demonstrated by things from Ross Ulbright to the recent arrest of people for the Bitfinex hack [1], we see it doesn't work reliably for large-scale crime. And it especially won't work for businesses trying to be legitimate, which is the main target of this law. [1] https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitfinex-hack-new-twist-two-a...

People get busted because they're sloppy. DPR, for example. From what I've read, he made at least five major OPSEC errors. - Back when SR1 was starting, he got a visit from the FBI about fake ID that he had ordered, shipped to his actual address in SF. And he basically admitted that he bought them from SR1. - He posted to at least two sites about SR1, using accounts linked to his real name. - Logs in a SR1 server poi…

Sure. If your theory is that you can do crime perfectly, feel free to test it. That's a fantasy a lot of people have, but empirical evidence suggests that most of those people were wrong. And regardless, the ability to do anything perfectly gets harder as scale and scope increase, so I'm still comfortable saying that Bitcoin is best suited for small-scale crime.

As to the other bit: Bot providers need to be hired by somebody. If those people are legitimate businesses selling products or services, they will be traceable in the usual ways. It's those legitimate businesses that are of primary concern to lawmakers in this legislation and in most business regulation.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#263

Post by CGamesPlay »

ryandrake wrote: post #183
MrGilbert wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

slight-OT: Yes, it is. Which is frustrating in itself. In general, I've developed a strategy: Me: "So, what should the program do when XYZ occurs?" Marketing: "Uhm... Dunno, haven't thought about it. I'd decide by, you know, gut instinct. We haven't thought about that yet." Me: implements a virtual coin-flip using Random.Next() Once you've done that, it's easier.

Or, file a bug for each corner case, mark it release-blocking, and assign to whoever is responsible for the requirements.

If you're interested in actually shipping, a more helpful approach is to choose the simplest behavior to implement, notify the requirements person that you've done that, and offer to create a release-blocking bug for the issue if that is unacceptable.

Chances are, if the requirements person doesn't have an opinion on what the copy for the dialog should be if the customer is 65+ and it's a Tuesday in a month with 31 days, then it's because that choice doesn't really matter all that much.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#264

Post by finnthehuman »

mirimir wrote: post #8

> Violators could face fines under state statutes related to unfair competition. I doubt that anyone running bots, and who is technically competent, will be identifiable or findable. I mean, I could do it, and I'm just a random anonymous coward.

It's possible to break laws without getting caught. This is not new.

In practice, there's still a reason companies avoid breaking laws most of the time.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#265

Post by thirdsun »

novok wrote: post #254
karmelapple wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is pretty clear about its water performance: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205000 Sorry to hear about your watch. I’ve been lucky enough to have it in the water plenty and never have a problem. Maybe go to an Apple store?

Fine print you have to look up, without having any real reason to look for it in the first place, is not being clear at all. It's like saying, it's in the EULA, they're pretty clear about it! Unless it's up front and center as part of set up, it's not being upfront.

Really? You think this rather clear and short document detailing to which extent the Apple Watch is water resistant is basically the same thing as iTunes’ EULA?

It‘s up front and the fact that it takes more than a bullet point on the back of the box to explain the details and limits of the feature doesn‘t change that.

Here‘s the description from Apple‘s official Watch marketing page:

> Sweat, surf, and swim proof. Apple Watch Series 4 is water resistant to 50 meters and tracks both pool and open-water workouts. Turn the Digital Crown to eject water from the speaker using a burst of sound.

I don‘t see this contradicted by additional support document.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#266

Post by novok »

thirdsun wrote: post #265
novok wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine print you have to look up, without having any real reason to look for it in the first place, is not being clear at all. It's like saying, it's in the EULA, they're pretty clear about it! Unless it's up front and center as part of set up, it's not being upfront.

Really? You think this rather clear and short document detailing to which extent the Apple Watch is water resistant is basically the same thing as iTunes’ EULA? It‘s up front and the fact that it takes more than a bullet point on the back of the box to explain the details and limits of the feature doesn‘t change that. Here‘s the description from Apple‘s official Watch marketing page: > Sweat, surf, and swim proof. Ap…

Just because an EULA is well written, doesn't mean that more than %0.1 of their customers will still read it. If they put this document inside their EULA, nobody will still read it, and I would argue it's more hidden than a EULA because you have to think about looking it up on the internet. If people look it up, they will do it after their watch breaks, and by then it's too late.

They also don't disclose that they have water damage carve outs, which shows they know their water resistance wears out quickly enough that they need the carve out for financial reasons.

"Swim proof" the watch is not. Apple's advertising, whats in the box & paper manual, what copy is shown on the store, and what text that shows up on the watch when you set it up does not warn of any of this.

Also go ask a cross section of the population what water resistant to 50 meters means and they probably will give you the more common understanding of waterproof.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#267

Post by Gibbon1 »

Will_Parker wrote: post #220
jeffdavis wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you enforce the law against foreign agents?

Create some accountability to those who allow it?

AKA: If you pay a foreign agency to run a social media bot campaign go to prison. And get sued by the social media company.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#268

Post by Gibbon1 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #241
hedora wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a fan of forcing corporations to issue shares to the victims. Do something minor? 10% dilution. Do something worthy of the corporate death penalty? Issue 100 shares for every share outstanding. Of course, the issued shares would have as many votes as the maximum currently issued share (so if the founders get 10 votes per share that is what the victims get too). Note that you can set precedents based on percentage…

Fascinating suggestion. I'm trying to think of consequences. Among those: if lawyers get 30% of settlements, then large consumer-rights law firms could end up as major shareholders. That could get v. interesting several ways.

Brings up one of the largest scams out there. Investment managers of mutual an 401k funds retain the voting rights of the shares under management. Effectively locking most American's out of corporate governance. Ever notice when shills talk about the holy god given rights of shareholders they never talk about that?

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#269

Post by grawprog »

jlangenauer wrote: post #69

I am reminded of Thoreau's quote: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." The root of the problem is not that we have bots, but that we have normalised lying and deception as part of everyday business. We allow companies to pretend that bots are human beings, and allow call-center employees in third-world countries to pretend (even sometimes though elaborate lying) t…

>allow call-center employees in third-world countries to pretend (even sometimes though elaborate lying) that they are located in the same country as you.

I have a friend who worked at a call centre located in asia for an American company. They were threatened with termination if customers heard them speaking in their native language and the training for the job consisted mostly of faking an American way of speaking as much as possible.

Re: California law banning bots from pretending to be real people without disclosure

#270

Post by OnlineCourage »

AlexandrB wrote: post #209
scarface74 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawmakers are purposefully vague because judges can decipher what the spirit of the law is and fine corporations or condone specific use cases when they are brought up in court. That leads to the judicial branch actually making the law and not having a consistent set of rules depending on who the judge is.

Precedent is foundational to western law. The first judge to make a decision based on a law sets a precedent that informs how that law is interpreted in the future. This is a feature, not a bug because real world situations are messy, complicated, and dynamic. Trying to enumerate every legal interpretation and eventuality based on today's conditions and technology results in a law that won't be meaningful 5 years fro…

> Precedent is foundational to western law.

No, precedent is foundational to common law, not western law as a whole. There are two main forms of western law.

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