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'Digital Gangster' Facebook Intentionally and Knowingly Violated UK Privacy and Competition Rules, British Lawmakers Say (washingtonpost.com)
British lawmakers on Sunday accused Facebook of having "intentionally and knowingly violated both data privacy and anti-competition laws" in the country, and they called for investigations into the social media giant's business practices. From a report: The sharp rebuke came in a 108-page report written by members of Parliament, who in 2017 began a wide-ranging study of Facebook and the spread of malicious content online. They concluded that the United Kingdom should adopt new regulations so lawmakers can hold Facebook and its tech peers in Silicon Valley accountable for digital misdeeds. "Companies like Facebook should not be allowed to behave like 'digital gangsters' in the online world," U.K. lawmakers said in their report, "considering themselves to be ahead of and beyond the law."
How about we have MI6 look into it when they get to the office later. Cheers, can you get me a pint?
It says right up front that they "knowingly violated" laws, but in the actual content, they are talking about passing laws to hold them accountable. It's far from clear that this is not a case of someone wanting to declare something "illegal" trying to make it true, ex post facto.
If there are already laws they are breaking, then you don't need new ones. Not to mention that this smacks of another EU-style shakedown, where people take the existing situation at Facebook, Google, etc, and then pass laws against it, then immediately demand them "pay their fair share" for breaking these laws (that we passes last week).
None of this bullshit will stop until the fines become painful enough to make them think twice about doing it.
Painful as in, the fine will damn near bankrupt your entire business. The mere thought of a fine will cause all of your investors to panic sell any stock they own in your company.
But, that will never happen because the Goverment(s) LOVE access to all that data. They just don't like to admit to it. ( publicly )
Instead of going after Facebook maybe you should look at yourself. You use the threat of violence and actual violence and theft thereof to intimidate others. At least Facebook is an optional entity that nobody is forced to interact with. Unlike say- the UK government. I'm no fan of Facebook and have refused to use it just as I have refused to use Microsoft Windows, other products from them, Apple, Google, and others. But unlike products and services from these entities I'm forced to do what the UK government demands or suffer from the violence that the gang calling themselves the UK dishes out. The bigger threat is not the tech giants. The bigger threat is YOU.
The country with the most surveillance per capita in the entire world cares about privacy.
Many people are saying all the attacks aganst Facebook are fake news, never has been such a wich hunt against a company and its amazing leader.
Isn't that a rap by Ice-T ?
Seriously though, to "hold Facebook and its tech peers in Silicon Valley accountable for digital misdeeds" smells like bullshit, and a shakedown.
Do we hold car manufacturers responsible for people driving dangerously and killing someone, or liquor makers for someone killing someone while drunk, etc. etc. To be fair, it's been tried, and failed.
Facebook is an information medium, and like every information medium ever, it's been (mis-)used for propaganda. So why shoudl Facebook be on the hook for misuse? Unless there are serious breaches of trust, like Cambridge Analytica which Facebook should have better controls around, they should tell the UK to f-off.
If the UK lawmakers choose to prove the point,Facebook should just flip the kill switch to the UK and be done with it. Want to see rioting in the streets? See what happens when a large swath of the population is not on Facebook and turned loose on the real world.
Surely there's no fault in reputable Silicon Valley giants.
We should check the lawmakers connections with Mr. Putin.
Weren't his son on that Eaton banter kremlin trip ?
67.626 Austrian IPs answer on Port 80 (http). 40.776 of them answered my IP to a simple GET request (like a browser would send it) and if you remove the ones that produce error messages we get 17.392 webservers that are actually serving something.
It's curious how there could be fractions of machines, but less than 68 responses on port 80? No biggie. And when they drill down even more, less than 20 servers actually serving anything up.
No, sorry there BRETT BUTTFUCK you obviously are mischaracterizing the case entirely you illiterate fuckwit. You're an apologist moron inventing bullshit excuses. Get fucked in your ass Brett, but learn to read also please idiot.
The Governement does not tolerate competition unless it has their its dirty hands in it.
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enjoy.
Too few people understood already that all of this behaviour by the large corporations is fully intentional.
The law moves slowly, the markets move fast. That is why breaking the law is short-term profitable, and short-term profits are all that matters if you are measured by quarterly results. Your chances of either working somewhere else already or having made it so big that you basically don't care by the time the punishment rolls around are pretty good.
The whole system is rigged to make law-breaking profitable. And there's no easy fix.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org