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

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

#931

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU puts a nice shine on things, but there are systemic and fundamental characteristics of the EU that not only make it more susceptible to "lobbying" and ignoring the electorate; which are also far more difficult to change by that electorate than in the USA where we still have direct elections of individuals not party lists (in most cases) that cause total loyalty to the party, not the constituency.

But the EU also doesn't have the same level of power as the US federal government. It's a loosely federated coalition of seperate nations, not one entity.

That was the idea of what the EU would be ... now it dictates what people can eat and do even though it is not actually a legitimate or sovereign government, while national/local elections are effectively meaningless exercises as even and especially in Europe, the local elected officials generally will be loyal to the party that can and will protect and bequeath benefits upon them over any local constituents. The EU was and is a con job. Unfortunately, you still believe the old promise of "massive returns with zero risk", until you want to withdraw your earnings.

"A loosely federated coalition of separate nations, not one entity" is actually a very good description of what the USA was before the Civil War and would technically need to abide by in order to be Constitutionally valid and legitimate; but alas, we have whatever this world dominating empire is that wraps itself in the branding and stolen identity of the United States of America, a literal antithesis of what the founders created. It is why there has always been such an intense and relentless propaganda effort to demonize "states' rights", the equivalent of which legitimate European sovereign countries and people will likely also face if the plans to the powers that are seeking to conquer the whole planet succeed. You will be told, your "loosely federated coalition of separate nations" have no right to claim sovereignty or what we call "state nullification", i.e., "states' rights" to simply nullify and invalidate any federal law that is a violation of the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, i.e., the right of states to anything not explicitly conferred upon the Federal government.

Actually, you don't even have to wait, there have been several examples already that proved without a shadow of a doubt that EU countries are not only no longer sovereign, i.e., "loosely federated coalition of separate states" when certain states disagree or do not wish to go along/vote for what the unelected body of the EU Commission conjures as legislation. You are just visiting the dungeon until you want to leave and the gate has been shut on you.

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

#932
post #873

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a porn site operate on the internet?

A simple question with a simple answer: as it has done since the inception. If a kid wants to sneak some porn, he's going to have to hide his digital nudeymag under his digital mattress, and when it's discovered, he'll have to accept his fate as decided by his parents.

What about online alcohol sales?

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

#933
post #932

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A simple question with a simple answer: as it has done since the inception. If a kid wants to sneak some porn, he's going to have to hide his digital nudeymag under his digital mattress, and when it's discovered, he'll have to accept his fate as decided by his parents.

What about online alcohol sales?

Same. Proof of eligibility is furnished on delivery, just like it is now.

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

#934
post #654

The question I keep coming back to regarding the recent debate around age verification is "Why now?" I'm 47, and I started using the internet in my early teens through BBS gateways. I've seen every age of the Internet, and there's always been widely available pornographic materials. Why all of a sudden is this a crisis? Perhaps I'm missing something?

> "Why now?"

Because they worked on it for decades, and it's finally showing results.

> I've seen every age of the Internet, and there's always been widely available pornographic materials.

Just because something bad happened in the past, we should stay away from fixing it? Just because you didn't (probably) suffer as much as others, we should continue looking away? And that's leaving out that the world on all levels and corners today has become significant worse than in your youth.

> Why all of a sudden is this a crisis?

It's not all of a sudden. The calls' haven been around for a decade and longer, but research has become better over the years, so it's harder to ignore them. And now there is also AI, which significant speeds up the spreading of fake news, bot messages, sexualized deep fakes, and other very problematic content.

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

#935
post #920

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we also know that Meta routinely collects and shares information that it shouldn't. At least the government shouldn't on a theoretical level?

I don't understand the fascination with pretending. System A is bad. System B is worse. System B theoretically shouldn't exist yet it does and there's nothing you can do about it, so now you're advocating for B. What's the rationale?

Systems A and B are equally bad in practice.

System A is that way by design . System B is that way despite the intended design.

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

#936

The way the law is written is so utterly shit that I don't think it does what it's meant to do at all . Microsoft has a trillion dollars in liability now because every historical OS is illegal, and every adult user of that historical OS (that you don't ask for their age) is a monetary fine. $2500 fine for Microsoft for letting me continue use Windows 10 in Colorado, cause they never asked my age. Also hilariously the…

Microsoft is not going to let you continue using Windows 10 under any circumstances.

They cannot fucking stop me. $2500

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

#937

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But what if maximum satisfaction causes maximum usage? If you make the perfect feed that shows someone exactly what they want to see at every moment, people are going to use that all the time.

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

#938
post #894

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This isn't from the bill, but this is what I would like to see: Any endless scroll "feed" can only be chronological content only from people/orgs/entities you opt-in to see ("follow", "subscribe", what-have-you). Will that be bad for "engagement"? Yes. That's the point.

Why chronological? What is special about that ordering?

You aren’t allowed any kind of filtering, or alternative ordering?

Do you always view the ‘new’ feed on hackernews, or do you prefer looking at the front page? I much prefer the front page, for all sorts of reasons. The new feed has all sorts of spam and garbage posts. Reposts, troll bait, etc. The front page usually has much more interesting posts, and definitely posts that have more interesting comments on them.

I don’t want to get rid of the front page, I like the idea of seeing posts ordered by popularity.

Why should you get to decide I am no longer allowed to sort my own feed by popularity, or however I want? I can’t sort things, just because you think I shouldn’t enjoy my feed too much?

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

#939

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logic not flowing is the point. People against a federal ID say it is government overreach into state's rights. They consider it the feds invading citizen's rights. They have no need, as it is the purview of the states. So in lieu of a federal ID, private companies are coming up with privacy invading techniques to attempt to verify age. How would one be okay with a private company's invasion of privacy yet not th…

> An invasion of privacy is an invasion of privacy regardless of the one doing the invading. Technically, yes, but one party (e.g. USGOV) has many more strands that it can weave together into a larger coherent picture than the other (e.g. Meta). Also one party has guns and an almost blanket immunity to using them on people it deems it does not like via its privacy violations. That probably tips the scales for some pe…

Up until the socials get their own security forces that are deployed as the algo tells them. They have enough money to be the next Pinkertons. /s

But at this point, the government is getting the data from private companies. So if the private companies were not gathering the data, the government would not have such easy access. So I'm much more concerned about private companies for that reason. Yes, the government can do more things to you physically, but they are too dependent on what private companies provide

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

#940
post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume from my tone I'm in support of it when I literally said I'm not presenting any such argument? I agree with everything you said. I just think "we turned out fine" is always a garbage argument, and worse, fails to understand what drives people to want stuff like this. I think it's better to acknowledge the real issues parents have, and then explain why age verification is an extremely naive solution that won…

Apologies for the misunderstanding, your post read to me like you supported this type of gating, just not age verification in its current state. I think the solution has to start and end before the internet is even involved in the equation, anything less is harm by shifting the burden.

No problem, I updated my post to make it clearer in response.
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