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Apartment In US Asks Tenants To 'Like' Facebook Page Or Face Action (business-standard.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Business Standard: An apartment building in Salt Lake City has told tenants living in the complex to "like" its Facebook page or they will be in breach of their lease. Tenants of the City Park Apartments said they found a "Facebook addendum" taped to their doors last weekend, asking them to "like" the City Park Apartments Facebook page. The contract says that if tenants do not specifically "friend" City Park Apartments on Facebook within five days, they will be found in breach of the rental agreement. In addition, the contract includes a release allowing the business to post pictures of tenants and their visitors on the Facebook page. Currently, the apartment building has a 1.1 star rating on its Facebook page.
IIRC, that's a violation of Facebook's Terms of Service. Please report it to Facebook, and if enough people corroborate the report, the business in question won't have a page anymore.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
You know, you didn't even have to read the article. You only had to make it to the second sentence of the summary to learn the name. In fact, it's mentioned three times in the summary alone.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
https://www.ksl.com/?sid=39954...
Article references original source...
-- "Oh. This guy again."
This has been retracted by the apartment company.
https://www.facebook.com/mande...
Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
This is basically changing the terms of a rental tenancy agreement while the lease is still in effect, and will not be met without penalty for the landlord.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Here's a cache if anyone is interested. The official page is gone now, no telling if they pulled it or FB did. Gawker has more info, including part of the new clause that says “to not post on any public forum or page negative comments relating to the community.” While it may not be strictly illegal, it would be found discriminatory against those who don't have a Facebook account, internet access, etc. The quoted lawyer mentions this; it might violate other laws too; but it would be trivial to show in court that this is discriminatory against the elderly etc who don't use computers, have a Facebook account, etc. It's not technically a "free speech" issue, since it's not a Government agency forcing this..and at this time the only "free speech" restrictions are the Government, a private corp can do whatever it wants inside it's contractual agreements. Utah, and Salt Lake, might have additional "tenet laws" that might restrict them.
However, IANAL
It has exactly one month protection for both tenant and landlord. If that's not enough for you, sign a longer lease...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Dickheads like the property owner need to pay, one way or another.
Guaranteed none of this asshole/company's tennants are too poor to hire attorneys. Elsewise this prick would be in court, mere hours from losing his property in a settlement.
I don't even HAVE a fucking facebook account. Please be so stupid, someone, to deny someone with a disability a lease based on that. I could stand to own a bunch of apartments.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Sort of like illegal drug dealing, prostitution and assassination? Granted they exist because they provide a service people are willing to pay for. However, they're limited in number and difficult to do due to the nature of governmental opposition.
Many potentially profitable businesses don't exist because society doesn't give permission for them. It sure seems like they do need "society's permission" since laws are created by society to prevent actions and businesses the society doesn't approve of. Many times, this is actually a good thing.
Consider net neutrality. Most posters here seem to be in favor legislation forcing companies to act against their own profit interests in favor of something benefiting the greater good of the society that creates the rules.
This coming from an avowed libertarian.
Just out of curiosity, what service do, say, patent trolls provide?
It's the society which runs the real estate registry which allows this landlord to have any land to lord over, the monetary system which makes it possible for them to be paid, the law enforcement system which lets them keep breathing despite their actions, etc. You not only need society's permission but its active support to run any kind of business without having to have your own personal army of thugs.
Dunno about him, but I much prefer a strong state, over which I have democratic control in the form of my vote, to plutocratic jungle where my landlord/employer/whatever does shit like this. But perhaps you fancy being one of the overlords.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
A smiley face with a gun to it's head - liked under duress.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
You forgot the business license... from the state.
The property taxes.
The various fire codes, electrical codes, water and sewer hookups, etc etc The permits form the housing authority
Ayn Rand much? Because no, you can *not* just do whatever the fuck you feel like. Businesses are a *legal* construct, deal with it. Society has no obligation to recognize you and your shit.
C|N>K
>Just out of curiosity, what service do, say, patent trolls provide?
Target practice? :)
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Too bad whomever took that pic can't, you know, take a better picture. So we could maybe actually read it, instead of just being able to make out a few words. I notice #2 says "Communications", and #4 says "Residential Legal Notices". My assumption is they want everyone to friend them so they can start serving notice via Facebook. This is still not generally accepted; as far as I can tell there is only a single court case in regards to this, and that was for divorce papers, in New York, and under VERY specific circumstances. Circumstances that are outlined in New York's Domestic Relations Law; and even this FB idea is only as a "last resort" if you can't locate them...basically only if you can show the other party is hiding out and avoiding being served.
Part of me wishes that this had actually gone through, and then City Park had tried to evict someone by ONLY notifying them via Facebook. As I doubt this is a recognized avenue of service, the resulting court case could have helped start the case law showing this isn't going to fly.
"I really like City Park Apartments. The amenities are nice and the neighbors very accommodating.
- Signed Mr Cockroach, using Anon's Facebook account while he's asleep."
Have gnu, will travel.
The government's role is to protect me from violence and help me enforce fair contracts. It must not be allowed to dictate, what services can be offered, by whom, at what price, etc. That it increasingly does so, is an obvious violation of our liberties.
Yep, Statists gonna State...
Yeah? And how is it working out for you? When a business needs government's permission to offer you their service? Do you have "democratic control" over Internet-service provision, for example? Are you happy with the government's ability to shut down Uber and Lyft? With the government, that can demand your cell-phone data from your cellular provider — and get it, or else the provider may run into difficulties renewing its license? With the police, who can confiscate your life savings on suspicion of tax-dodging, or simply because you have "too much" cash on you?
Is this the "strong state" you clamor for? Yeah, I know, let's all go raise awareness — that will surely help our strong, but benevolent and kind-hearted rulers realize the errors, nay, imperfections of their ways.
The freedom to pursue happiness is oh-so overrated...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Rent control = artificially deflating the value of a property by government at the cost of the business owner
Rent control didn't stop three corporations in as many years to buy the apartment complex I lived in for over a decade, repaint the exterior walls in a different color scheme and redo the landscaping, and charge "luxury" rental rates. The third corporation is actually renovating the apartments to justify the "luxury" rental rates. Rent control in San Jose prevents them for raising the rent more than 8% each year, so no doubling or tripling of the rents during a hot real estate market. For three years after the Great Recession, there was no rent increases at all.
I'm referring to the commerce clause:
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3:[3]
[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
This covers various types of commerce, clearly setting a precedent that the the government is granted the power to regulate commerce.
The tenth amendment then goes on:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
This indicates that beyond a few specific powers granted to the federal government, the majority of powers then fall to the state or the people. You'll have to examine your own state's constitution, but a quick look at my own state shows a few articles related to commerce, which I believe establishes a pretty convincing precedence.
It seems pretty clear to me that regulating commerce is one of the functions the founders had in mind for government, with the bulk of it being managed by individual states, which in fact it is. I'm not sure why this should be such a shocker to anyone.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Five minutes attention span? Next you're going to tell me you expected Obama to make a difference, and that Hilary can...
> It must not be allowed to dictate, what services can be offered, by whom, at what price, etc
Hey, do you want to buy some mariuana, xtc or coke? The government should bust me only when I sell fake drugs, not when I honor the contract by selling exectly what you want.
>Dunno about him, but I much prefer a strong state, over which I have democratic control in the form of my vote, to plutocratic jungle where my landlord/employer/whatever does shit like this. But perhaps you fancy being one of the overlords.
We used to have that system. It was called feudalism. It's what libertarianism (or indeed any other brand of unregulated capitalism) must inevitably devolve into. We got rid of that system for very, very good reasons.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
>If a business is messed up enough, people will eventually vote with their feet.
Maybe this theory actually could work in practice, but the reality is society has generally found that it's better to get rid of the butcher selling the dodgy meat BEFORE half the town is dead. And generally businesses tend to have no such thing as a conscience. It takes a very evil person to poison a town's drinking water - it merely takes a typical company to do the same. If we don't prohibit this behavior explicitly - not only can we not even try to prevent it, we can't punish them if they do it either (something we mostly do in the hope of preventing all the other companies from also doing it).
Libertarians always claim their theories cannot be disproven by empirical facts. The claim is two-fold, firstly they mostly subscribe to Austrian economics - a cult that rejects the very concept of empiricism and so can conveniently ignore when all their economic predictions invariably fail to occur (for example). Secondly they claim that their ideas in terms of government has never been truly tested - so it can't be refuted until it is. Except... it has, repeatedly, they just disavow every occurrence there-off because they all went very bad, very quickly. Tortuga, Somalia - all places of small and limited government with no real regulation. One historical, one current.
In both cases the 'government' was quickly a non-entity and actual rule devolved into powerful warlords (seeing as there was no powerful government to prevent this) who are much, much worse than any democratic government. Liberty was soon replaced with slavery and forced labour - since the government was too weak to prevent this (by means of things like labor laws to define what is or isn't free labor and punish those who violate that). And in both cases death, famine and disease were soon rampant.
Productivity rapidly broke down and very soon the main industry was piracy - that is, taking the productivity of people in other (functional) countries to supply the needs of your own non-functional one by force.
This is what *always* happens (indeed it's the only thing that CAN happen) when folks like you get their way. Another version of that ruled Europe for centuries, it's mature form is called 'aristocracy' (an aristocrat is just what warlords become after a generations when their position gains political cement) - and the economic system was called feudalism. Feudalism wasn't REPLACED by capitalism it replaced it. It's what capitalism without adequate regulation must ultimately become. We returned to a functional market economy only when we added regulations - by taking away the 'rights' that the feudal warlords had claimed for centuries. Reducing the liberty of the few, to give liberty to the many - it's the only way that liberty ever has been or ever can be increased.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
>A businesses can exist without a government to issue permits, inspect premises, and ensure compliance (with whatever). Not the other way around. Suck it up, cupcake.
Actually history has proven this statement false. You don't get businesses without those things - you get feudal warlords.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I actually have to wonder - how the hell is it that the landlord can just single-handedly change the rental contract anyway ? Surely any addendums (which modify the contract) must be agreed to by both parties before they can take effect ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
In most sane jurisdictions thats not allowed. Im a landlord and there are definite restrictions around this I have to comply with. Cannot alter the lease agreement before it is up without tennants consent. Cannot evict anybody without a court order (so a judge can check fair play) cant market the property for sale until the last 2 months of the lease.
And as a landlord I call these things the restrictions of a sane system. As a decent human being I would never do any less anyway but it evens the playing field by forcing the evil types to do what a decent human being would never consider not doing.
Keeping evil people from getting higher profit margines by acting evil to those less well off is something many here would call an intrusion on liberty. Maybe but I for obe consider it a justified and valid one since liberty should not be restricted to those rich enough to own multiple properties.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Complete strawman. Nowhere did I say 'a right to control'. I said 'a stake in the decision'. Thats a massively different thing which completely and utterly invalidates your response.
No the government does not get an automatic right to control healthcare. Though the international empirical facts prove incontrovertibly that giving them a duty to do so is by far the best way for healthcare to work it is not a right.
But they do get a stake. So they can establish regulations aroumd medical testing standards to protect the public from snake oil for example. Before the FDA 99% of what was sold as medicine in the USA was either snake oil or cocaine or opium. Real medicine was barely available and impossible to distinguish. You think homeopathy is bad ? Its a picnic nect to what Americans got as medicine less than a century ago. Homeopathy only does nothing. That shit was dangerous and highly adfictive drugs sold with no warnings or disclosure about the risks. Welcome to how every industry looks in the libertarian paradise. All tge real products go out of business very quickly when nobody stops people from competing by selling hot air.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Reminds me of a similar story. In Provo, in order to house BYU students, an apartment complex must be "BYU approved". They only approve the whole building, not individual units, so basically, every building in Provo is BYU approved, because otherwise they'd be at a serious disadvantage getting tennants. One of the requirements of being "BYU approved" is that the Honor Code staff can inspect your apartment at any time for violations.
So, a guy who is not a student at BYU, comes home one day to find a picture he had on his wall, of a girl wearing a bikini, had been taken down. The morality police at BYU were unapologetic. He violated their code, in their town.
Imagine people with that mentality. They wouldn't think twice about requiring you like them on Facebook.
And see, this is where you lose your reality. You call Somalia libertarian while you espouse communism under the term "anarchy" or "direct democracy."
The only way the need can ever or has ever been met is by ensuring all of society contributes.
Show me any society in history where every need has been met for every individual AND it's because everyone in that society contributes. Star Trek doesn't count.
Private citizens can lie, abscond, misrepresent and commit fraud because their finances are private. Government in a free country on the other hand is accountable to the public and is budgets are public record.
Governments throughout history have committed fraud, embezzling, and general incompetence which has stolen or wasted a significant portion of public money. Even when the money is spent with good intentions, it can be spent on wasteful endeavors. The government also has the power to borrow infinitely and spend public money they don't have. This puts future generations on the hook for spending today that they may not receive any benefit from.
And the richer you are the more devastating your evils become. ... It takes a corporation to talk politicians into needless wars that kill millions. ... Only a giant bank can steal trillions from the world and cause a major recession and not only face no legal penalties but get paid a bailout.
Funny how most of the political elite around the world also happen to be rich... As you say, they tend to be evil. Politicians may be urged by defense contractors to engage in war, but it definitely is not required. Plenty of nations go to war because of crazy governments and not corporations. Bringing up banks stealing trillions of dollars and getting off with no penalties is rather ironic since it's the government that encouraged and then pardoned the crime.
Maybe in your fantasy world where all people are equally powerful and form a collective "government" where they all share in resources equally things would be great. Sadly, in a universe with finite resources where economic principles of scarcity are true, this is a utopian fantasy that cannot exist.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Complete strawman. Nowhere did I say 'a right to control'. I said 'a stake in the decision'. Thats a massively different thing which completely and utterly invalidates your response.
I disagree. A 'stake in the decision' when it comes to government == 'duty/ability to regulate/control'. If this were not true then the entire argument for mandating by law the wearing of seat belts is invalid, along with other similar laws/regulations like laws surrounding the discouragement of smoking/smoking in public establishments, etc.
You said yourself in your OP that "The moment your actions affect anybody else - the government (as the representatives of everybody else) gets a stake in the decision."
Well, by that logic the government gets a stake in personal decisions and behaviors affecting individual health since those decisions (more than anything else) affects individual health and the costs to everyone in a shared-cost system.
You can play semantic word-games all day long, but that's the long and short of it.
As a poster above points out, "Statists gonna State". If you allow a government powers, it will use them to further government power & scope whenever possible to the limits of public tolerance and, as history shows us, often well beyond. That's how revolutions and police states happen (depending on who wins, citizens or government).
Many doctors' offices/practices and health care institutions are already including questions in pre-exam questionnaires about things like gun ownership which is a basic civil right. It seems the government itself is proving me correct and you...not so much.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.