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EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

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Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#321

Post by SllX »

piva00 wrote: post #302
SllX wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now there are some new regulations for bigger entities. What's the problem? "Size" of business is an arbitrary and meritless distinction.

Arbitrary? Size correlates directly to power, monetary power, platform power. If size was arbitrary and meritless then why there are regulations on antitrust that are basically based on size of market capture? This is a baseless statement...

Let me put it differently, market share does not equal profit share does not equal revenue share does not equal total number of people employed by does not equal share of ownership in a particular store or platform. So what is the measure?

Apple owns 100% of the App Store, but they do not recognize 100% of the revenue from the App Store on their financials.

An arbitrary number of people like 45M EU citizens choosing to use your service or buy your products or shop in your stores? I don’t see the merits for this distinction.

Don’t get me started on antitrust laws.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#322

Post by Tainnor »

petre wrote: post #281
Tainnor wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference is that Apple is not a government Yes, and this is a key difference between Europeans and (at least the libertarian/SV type of) Americans. We trust governments more than corporations because governments were elected by us. It's really a difference in culture.

Please do not generalise the "we". The yellow vests definitely did not trust their government and took it to the streets. If one doesn't trust a corporation they should not work for/with them.

In every generalisation, you're obviously going to miss some nuance.

French people have a long history of revolting against the political establishment, dating back to at least the French revolution, that makes them somewhat different than, say, Germany, where I live. So this is a fair point.

On the other hand, I would still think that throughout most of French history, and also now with the yellow vests, people rarely went to the streets to protest for "less regulation", and especially not in order to advocate for the interests of big corporations over those of the state. Yes, there was (is?) a French brand of anarchism, but that was always more of a "property is theft" kind of anarchism, and not a US-style libertarian anarcho-capitalism.

So, I think what I rather meant to say is the following: Most people in Europe trust the idea of a powerful government (even if they violently disagree with its current incarnation) much more than the idea of equally powerful private corporations.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#323

Post by AntiImperialist »

themacguffinman wrote: post #262
AntiImperialist wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how international trade works. You can regulate your competitors differently.

Ok, but it doesn't look like they are. These are broad EU digital market rules. Blatant protectionism isn't popular in developed countries (except in certain industries, not this one at least).

>Blatant protectionism isn't popular in developed countries

Depends which developed countries and which industries. It is much more common than what it appears on the surface.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#324

Post by Veedrac »

newsgourmet wrote: post #286
Veedrac wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/proposal_for_a_re... --- Article 19, Trusted flaggers 2. The status of trusted flaggers under this Regulation shall be awarded, upon application by any entities, by the Digital Services Coordinator of the Member State in which the applicant is established, where the applicant has demonstrated to meet all of the following conditions: (a) it has particular expertise and compet…

In Germany Facebook has already given power to "trusted fact checkers" who happen to be extremely left leaning. None of this is a good thing.

I agree that fact checkers are a nasty can of worms, but here they're only expected to flag illegal content, which I don't think is a comparable concern.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#325

Post by Veedrac »

Aerroon wrote: post #269
Veedrac wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/proposal_for_a_re... --- Article 19, Trusted flaggers 2. The status of trusted flaggers under this Regulation shall be awarded, upon application by any entities, by the Digital Services Coordinator of the Member State in which the applicant is established, where the applicant has demonstrated to meet all of the following conditions: (a) it has particular expertise and compet…

This sounds like it's something akin to YouTubecs DMCA process. I doubt that they will do a good job making sure that trusted flaggers won't abuse their power.

I'm not going to claim it'll be without issue, but it seems way more robust than DCMA, since there's an appeals process that can boot people out the program if they flag incorrectly too much.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#326

Post by newsgourmet »

Veedrac wrote: post #324
newsgourmet wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany Facebook has already given power to "trusted fact checkers" who happen to be extremely left leaning. None of this is a good thing.

I agree that fact checkers are a nasty can of worms, but here they're only expected to flag illegal content, which I don't think is a comparable concern.

Unless it becomes illegal to post "false information", and the fact checkers get to decide what is false and what is not.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#327

Post by IgorPartola »

SllX wrote: post #319
IgorPartola wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant it as the EU has imposed regulations on big co and it hasn’t immediately ruined the EU. In the US we have this notion that if we impose even a tiny bit of common sense regulation that it will instantly ruin the economy and the country will fall apart as a result. Take minimum wage for example. Loads of economic research shows that federally mandated minimum of $15/hour would be good for the economy. Yet fully…

I was hoping for some more concrete examples of what the EU has done right, but I’ll address the minimum wage. > Take minimum wage for example. Loads of economic research shows that federally mandated minimum of $15/hour would be good for the economy. In what ways has it been shown it would be good for the economy? How does it address the fact that the minimum wage is actually zero and unemployed is the real minimum…

Ugh. Ok. I don’t have time to understand this for you, but think about it this way: if a Walmart employee makes $7/hour but where he lives he needs to make $15/hour to not fall below the poverty line, you know who pays the extra $8/hour? The government. With all of its overhead of managing a social safety net program. Do you want the government to tax you so that Walmart can underpay by $8/hour? In what way does it benefit you to be taxed for that money? And remember that Walmart has plenty of money from their current prices already to pay $15/hour. Their prices need not go up to pay a living wage to their employees. So really if you are for small government, you are for raising the minimum wage and letting the market sort itself out rather than running social programs for those whose employers fail to pay them.

Small businesses will have to raise prices. But owning wage slaves isn’t justification enough for someone to run a small business.

Lastly, why this is good for the economy: you are free to do your own research but here is why this works. Give a billionaire an extra $1000/month and he will put it into his offshore account and never think about it again, let alone spend it. Give a poor person $1000/month and he will instantly put it back into the economy. This is why trickle down economy doesn’t work but stimulus programs do. If it was the other way around all the US government would have to do is hand over a few billion dollars to like five rich guys instead of negotiating stimulus deals every time there is a crisis. If you think that every time the working class is suffering the best thing to do is to prop up the rich then I, again, cannot understand for you why that’s wrong.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#328

Post by jevgeni »

SllX wrote: post #320
username90 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police follow their local laws and not EU laws and EU laws aren't automatically adopted by countries. And so far local politicians often refuse to enact EU laws when they don't make sense, and there isn't much EU can do about it since the local politicians are more powerful than EU politicians, instead EU tend to make exceptions for those who refuse. Lastly unlike US countries can still leave EU. If they make it…

Put that way, the EU sounds more impotent than I have been led to believe, and I already thought it was a fairly impotent form of government. Who is collecting all of these GDPR fines if not the national governments?

EU is not a form of government to begin with.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#329

Post by jevgeni »

username90 wrote: post #315
SllX wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t have to because the national governments are charged with enforcing EU laws.

The police follow their local laws and not EU laws and EU laws aren't automatically adopted by countries. And so far local politicians often refuse to enact EU laws when they don't make sense, and there isn't much EU can do about it since the local politicians are more powerful than EU politicians, instead EU tend to make exceptions for those who refuse. Lastly unlike US countries can still leave EU. If they make it…

Yes. Great explanation. It’s almost as if the EU project is thought out...

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#330

Post by petre »

Tainnor wrote: post #322
petre wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not generalise the "we". The yellow vests definitely did not trust their government and took it to the streets. If one doesn't trust a corporation they should not work for/with them.

In every generalisation, you're obviously going to miss some nuance. French people have a long history of revolting against the political establishment, dating back to at least the French revolution, that makes them somewhat different than, say, Germany, where I live. So this is a fair point. On the other hand, I would still think that throughout most of French history, and also now with the yellow vests, people rare…

France is already over regulated. The yellow vests went to the streets to protest against reforms taxing fuel to somehow offset for climate change, then grew into an anti establishment movement.

Yes, it's true, we'd rather have a big government that runs the show than big corps (from overseas).

In fact Facebook threatened to leave the EU over a ban of sharing data with the US. I shall toast to the EU if this ever happens.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/889pk3/facebook-threatens-to...

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