Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

901–910 of 1001 posts

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#901

Post by jedberg »

nostrademons wrote: post #890
vrganj wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is also, at least theoretically , democratic and accountable to the population. Meta on the other hand is a dictatorship run by Zuck that's only marginally accountable to stockholders (which are only a small subset of the population).

They're still accountable to customers/users. If you don't like their products, don't use them. I don't. The unfortunate thing about this lobbying effort is that it's making the government accountable to Meta, which is the worst of all worlds.

You know meta keeps a shadow profile on every person who is know to every one of their customers, right? So even if you don't use it, they almost certainly have you in their system.

At least when the government is working, there are controls around what they can collect, what they can do with it, and who they share it with. And what they cannot do with it.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#902

Post by a123b456c »

cortesoft wrote: post #875
gzread wrote: post #860

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Illinois bill prohibits financial transactions, and feeds engineered to be addictive.

How do you define a “feed engineered to be addictive”? How do you distinguish between addictive and just good quality?

You could engineer the feed to maximize user satisfaction, rather than maximizing usage.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#904

Post by deltoidmaximus »

cycomanic wrote: post #721

These discussions remind me so much of the US discussions about federal ID documents as verification. There's a vocal portion of people which opposes any solution because "privacy, government overreach, surveillance ...". So instead of a solution like e.g. zero-proof age verification, that tries to minimize intrusions on privacy, the result is the worst of all worlds, maximum surveillance (but I guess it's ok if it i…

Why exactly are you extending them the benefit of the doubt when they've proven they don't deserve it over and over again? Even if zero-proof age verification emerged as a strong political alternative I'd fully expect the final bill to have a carve out of the zero proof exemption for the government in it, a backdoor in encryption scheme essentially. Here you tell me that isn't zero proof, which is true but wouldn't change the name on the bill one iota.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#905

Post by Quarrelsome »

xvector wrote: post #752
Quarrelsome wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its because we hired a generation of the greatest minds to build habit forming and addictive products. So now we're seeing signs of how bad that is for children's mental health prior to their ability to consent to that.

Blocking this is the responsibility of a parent. Spend some time to configure parental controls etc. Pushing to turn society into a police state because parents are too tired/lazy/tech-illiterate is simply not the solution

> Blocking this is the responsibility of a parent. Spend some time to configure parental controls etc.

sure but the bar is low for a reason. On top of that, we're discriminating against people born to bad parents by leaving them vulnerable, arguably furthering inequality. I don't think anything is necessarily out of scope in terms of the solution, what matters is identifying the issue (i.e. the intentionally addictive properties of these platforms) and trying to reduce harm.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#906

Post by ibejoeb »

jedberg wrote: post #897
ibejoeb wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I hear this argument ("better the government do it than a private company") I recoil. The government is sovereign, only accepts lawsuits at its discretion, and can use violence to get its way. We also know for a fact that it abuses its powers and conducts surreptitious unlawful campaigns against its citizens. I'm not on board with any of it, but the last thing I want is the government to control it.

When the government is working as intended, and have not abdicated their duties to the people, the government at least has controls over what they can and cannot do. Yes, they have a monopoly on violence, but they also in theory have lots of controls. For example, the government cannot silence your speech, but a private company can. The government cannot share your data with others, a private company can. Unfortunate…

I get all of these hypotheticals, but, again, we know that it's not true. The government routinely collects and shares information that it shouldn't. We can't talk about it like it doesn't because it was designed not to. We have to contend with reality.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#907

Post by colechristensen »

stingraycharles wrote: post #808
WarmWash wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone who still holds up "the dangers of porn" can argue with any credibility anymore. We have a population scale study that lasted 30 years, and millennials turned out fine. Same with violent video games and harsh language music. What does seem to definitely be having a severe negative impact though is social media.

I wouldn’t mind having some kind of law that restricts any minor from using social media whatsoever. Because I wish the current generation of children to have a somewhat worry-free childhood like I had.

Ok but EVERY generation wants to project its childhood on to the next one and is upset that the new generation is absolutely ruined by modern culture viewing its own history, mostly forgotten, with rose-tinted glasses.

You can find thousands of years old testament to how the children are being destroyed by modern culture, and each new generation thinks THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT. (and people will agree with this and say this time with these concerns is actually different with a list of reasons)

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#908

Post by [deleted] »

vouwfietsman wrote: post #898
notatoad wrote: post #884

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Name one bad outcome a reasonable parent would care about that's prohibited under these bills. the bad outcomes don't need to be prohibited under these bills. it's already illegal to, for example, distribute pornography to minors. which i think is something that a reasonable parent would have a problem with. but if there is no way to determine who is a minor and who isn't, then it's impossible to determine the diffe…

> distribute pornography to minors. which i think is something that a reasonable parent would have a problem with. I'm sorry what? This is not even close to consensus, as you present it. Also, a thought exercise, just for you: 1. Should stabbing people be illegal? 2. Should we make it impossible to stab people? Think about those things, and how they relate to eachother. What would the consequences be of #2?

[deleted]

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#909

Post by NegativeLatency »

Xelbair wrote: post #869
cycomanic wrote: post #721

These discussions remind me so much of the US discussions about federal ID documents as verification. There's a vocal portion of people which opposes any solution because "privacy, government overreach, surveillance ...". So instead of a solution like e.g. zero-proof age verification, that tries to minimize intrusions on privacy, the result is the worst of all worlds, maximum surveillance (but I guess it's ok if it i…

Because this does not address the problem at all. Or rather - it does not address my problems as a citizen, and it just pushes responsibility of parents onto 3rd parties and punishes everyone collectively for it. Also fundamentally speaking - this does just take away your right to privacy. do you just let your rights be taken away? I don't want 'minimization' of intrusion of privacy, i want no intrusion of privacy.

It’s the classic American route of attempting a technical solution to a societal problem.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#910

Post by ori_b »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #885
ori_b wrote: post #862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some entity has to be trusted with our data anyway Why?

Because the government needs to know who you are to do anything involving you. Taxes, drivers' licenses, passports, courts, etc.

Yes, I think one ID, presented only as necessary for those interactions, is enough for them to do their job.

It would be good to clamp down on private companies collecting that data.

Post reply on HN