I wish they just blocked facebook altogether. It has caused people more pain than good
Why not Google then, too? Corporation of evil and all that. Or, right, it is too big to fail and it's privacy destroying applications are so useful and nice...
France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
481–490 of 821 posts
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#482I'm of course not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision, but I want to share a bit of cultural perspective from Germany that is so far not really considered in this comment section: Germany is very, very keen on preventing powerful entities from acting outside of regulation and similarly, if not more, on preventing a single entity to get in control of everything. This is largely due to…
The strange part to me is just that there are already hundreds of crypto currencies available in Germany. When the government says that yes, these hundreds of currencies are fine, but Facebook can’t create one, then it just seems like the policy is anti-Facebook for the sake of being anti-Facebook.
Well the decentralised nature of most crypto currencies prevent this sort of ban, but a centralised offering from a known entity is a lot easier to block. I would also say it is better to block it, especially with Zuck at the helm, he has proven he cares nothing for regulation or laws in the nation's in which FB operates. At least bitcoin is consensus driven,libra will be driven by Zuck and the tech giants. No thanks.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#483Not the first time Germany “bans” the “banking elite”...
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.
Well the US banned Germany from ever having a military so I guess the Germans should at least have the freedom to control their stagnant economy however they see fit, and ban US companies from doing business there if they wish.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's legally tricky to be anti-Facebook for the sake of being anti-Facebook, but I don't think it's morally tricky. The entire idea of anti-trust (and frankly, the premise of most western democracies) is to prevent the over-concentration of power. Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now, far more powerful than most nation states. I'm not sure that we as a society have ever dealt with a non…
Why is Facebook more powerful than Google/Alphabet? > I'm not sure that we as a society have ever dealt with a non-state actor this powerful before. Amazon and Google being of somewhat similar or greater power at least tempers down that statement. And unlike Facebook they have really good reputations outside specific parts of circles like the tech circle.
Facebook has way more control over the social fabric and distribution of information than Google does. We've seen violence-inciting disinformation campaigns spread through Facebook and rack up a literal death count to the point that governments have angrily demanded intervention from FB with the result of FB shrugging their shoulders and going 'our bad, we didn't hire enough moderators'.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's legally tricky to be anti-Facebook for the sake of being anti-Facebook, but I don't think it's morally tricky. The entire idea of anti-trust (and frankly, the premise of most western democracies) is to prevent the over-concentration of power. Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now, far more powerful than most nation states. I'm not sure that we as a society have ever dealt with a non…
Yet, western democracies have been centralizing more and more power every year. It's more that a premise is that western democracies want to increase the power of the government and no one else.
Well, on the bright side most democracies are not explicitly about profit-making and/or cost-cutting as their first priority, even if it's the first priority of individual politicians.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Hey do you mind if we just skip the paperwork part and just control currency, while actually being a social media tech giant This is a gross mischaracterization of what Libra is. Libra is a token that's backed 1 to 1 on some basket of currencies and mostly government bonds. The Libra foundation makes money by taking a portion of the investment return to fund themselves, much like a brokerage takes a bit of the retu…
Then create a bank. But that's not what this is. They want to make a bank that prints its own currency and skips the paperwork needed for current monetary exchange. It's just as OP has said.
Libra is meant to be safer and better than a bank. Seems almost impossible to fail, it has 100% reserve backing while banks have < 2% in europe. It supports instant payments even in the most remote regions of the eart. It will be a terrible competitor for banks, if it works. The problem is that it s backed by a conglomerate that is too big to trust.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook has a non controlling stake in Libra. Libra Foundation is an independent, not-for-profit membership organization. Do you feel a similar threat of non-profits that try to give financial opportunities to people around the world?
Are you (1) employed by the Libra Foundation or Facebook, (2) in possession of a large Libra stake, or (3) duped by the marketing and in possession of a large amount of free time?
Not everyone who disagrees with you is a paid shill. Responding to a legitimate argument with some kind of absurd accusation will always make you look like you lost the argument.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
The strange part to me is just that there are already hundreds of crypto currencies available in Germany. When the government says that yes, these hundreds of currencies are fine, but Facebook can’t create one, then it just seems like the policy is anti-Facebook for the sake of being anti-Facebook.
It's legally tricky to be anti-Facebook for the sake of being anti-Facebook, but I don't think it's morally tricky. The entire idea of anti-trust (and frankly, the premise of most western democracies) is to prevent the over-concentration of power. Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now, far more powerful than most nation states. I'm not sure that we as a society have ever dealt with a non…
>I'm not sure that we as a society have ever dealt with a non-state actor this powerful before.
The east India trading company and the hudson's bay company as well as I'm sure some others were as large as or larger than some state actors of their time.
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#489What technical distinctions between Libra and cryptocurrencies running on other permissioned blockchains (like Lumens/Stellar) would prompt this type of regulatory response?
Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
#490With a16z, eBay, Mastercard, Stripe, Visa, Spotify, PayPal, Uber, and many others, this is not just about Facebook.