Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it • Hacker News Board

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#71

Post by gnode » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #66

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Privacy should never be second priority. Citizens' right to privacy trumps startup creation.

> Citizens' right to privacy trumps startup creation. You're assuming that regulatory capture protects privacy better than competition would. The evidence is to the contrary. Debian and Open Whisper Systems are better at it than AT&T and Comcast.

Competition only works if the customer has relevant information. For a cable network's customers it's instantly apparent when their internet speeds suck; it's not apparent when someone sells your private data.

It doesn't matter that the information eventually comes to light, because they're the dominant social media company by that point, buying up their competitors, and it takes a lot more to get rid of them.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#72

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 11:33 PM UTC

gnode wrote: post #71

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Citizens' right to privacy trumps startup creation. You're assuming that regulatory capture protects privacy better than competition would. The evidence is to the contrary. Debian and Open Whisper Systems are better at it than AT&T and Comcast.

Competition only works if the customer has relevant information. For a cable network's customers it's instantly apparent when their internet speeds suck; it's not apparent when someone sells your private data. It doesn't matter that the information eventually comes to light, because they're the dominant social media company by that point, buying up their competitors, and it takes a lot more to get rid of them.

> For a cable network's customers it's instantly apparent when their internet speeds suck; it's not apparent when someone sells your private data.

There is no way to tell when they sell it but there is a way to tell when they have it to begin with.

If you're using software with public source code that you know is end-to-end encrypting the message to the recipient, you know there is no third party doing nefarious things with the data, because no third party has the data to begin with.

And that's the distinction that matters. Prohibiting a company from selling your data to someone who will do evil things with it is no use if the company itself can still do the exact same evil things with it. Or just get itself hacked like Equifax and reveal all the data to the attacker.

Re: Regulation could protect Facebook, not punish it

#73

Post by reading-at-work » Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 1:45 PM UTC

gnode wrote: post #70

reading-at-work wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure Facebook is in the same category as vehicles, medical care and addictive carcinogens.

I would say it's more comparable to the casino. Psychology is analysed and exploited to the benefit of the house. To some it's harmless entertainment, and to others it's devastating. Support for regulation of casinos is born largely out of the idea that many people are not fully responsible for their psychology. Federated social media (e.g. Mastodon) only serves part of the problem. It's like going from the casino to…

Eh, maybe. But worst case scenario at a casino is you blow your life savings. Worst case on Facebook is you waste a few hours of your time being bored.

Additionally, if we do introduce social media regulations (shudder) you can guarantee Facebook will have a hand in writing/influencing them to benefit itself and hurt any startup competitors, as the article argues.

I wouldn't be opposed to basic data protection laws, but I'm always wary of "oh just regulate them" as an automatic cure-all for when we don't like how a company behaves. There's almost always unintended consequences.