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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."
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 )
The country with the most surveillance per capita in the entire world cares about privacy.
Facebook is not "an information medium", Facebook is an advertising company. Everything you read in your "feeds" or whatever there is advertising, or laboratory experiments to fine-tune the delivery of advertising. It has not been "misused" to deliver lies and disinformation, it has received (a lot of) money to spread lies and disinformation.
And yes, your second paragraph is spot on: Facebook should, indeed, "flip the switch" and do not operate in places, which laws it refuses to obey. Now, hold your righteous "free market" horse and consider this for a moment - Facebook doesn't do that. What does this simple observation tell you?
Yep, exactly, the Facebooks strongly prefer to be in those places and do not share your outrage. So, maybe you should calm down, too.
Surely there's no fault in reputable Silicon Valley giants.
why its up to Facebook to cut off the UK?
Because this is what you suggested. Let me remind you: Facebook should just flip the kill switch to the UK and be done with it.
Not everybody in the UK agrees with your socialist government.
Well, it is not exactly my government. Also, it is very, very far from "socialist". You may have missed the memo, but the current UK failure of a government is the consummate conservative government, all true-form Thatcherites, in their very limited intelligence, in their utter inability to get work done, in their pandering to Trump, and in their anti-EU at all cost stance. You should not be getting your "news" only from Facebook, you may end up with a totally unrealistic picture of the world, you know :)
but I have no issue with Facebook existing
Facebook exists all right, haven't heard anyone threatening them with anything else but small fines.
if the UK wants to be Orwellian and control the population it should be the one which is forced to cut off Facebook. Not the other way around.
Well, AC, you seem to contradict yourself. Facebook should just flip the kill switch to the UK and be done with it.
You sure you're okay? All that vitriol, all that ignorance and all those illogical jumps to opposite positions almost have me worried about you. Almost.
That's true, but how many of the people saying that are astroturfers? (Well, not really "how many". Actually "what proportion".)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You attributed what another person said to an anonymous coward.
Really, now? I'm pretty sure you're the same guy and you're trying a different line of trolling. Not smarter or more logical, just different, using your anonymity. Prove it ain't so, make the argument from a named account, so that I can tell.
You think you'll be able to obtain what you can't otherwise of your own doings via theft of other people's money.
Really, now? Whose money I am "stealing" exactly and how? Specific evidence, please.
They are not abolishing government schooling,
Why should "they"? Underinvestment in education is a market failure that is both explained by economic theory and empirically established. It is only sound that any smart government should invest in education it to correct this failure.
No, near all politicians are socialist. It's just a matter of degrees.
You don't say! How awkward! Maybe there is something of value in this "socialism" which you loathe with foam from your mouth then, if everyone but you is into it?
Nobody is under the delusion that the UK is going to be able to rid the world of Facebook.
Nobody except yourself. You apparently think that its existence is somehow threatened. By none other than myself. Do you even read what you, to quote you, "spew"? Here, the quote: You were advocating for the destruction of Facebook in one way or another.
How about we fine you instead? I mean, why should we fine Facebook and not you?
Well, for one, I've never been found in violation of privacy and other laws in multiple jurisdictions, unlike them. There is this thing, you know, that punishments tend go to those who are actually responsible.
I don't agree with you and nothing makes you more right than me.
Well, you think that I should be fined by the government for my opinion. I don't think you should be fined by the government for yours, however unread, illogical and vitriolic. Judged even by your standards, I'm righter than you are :)
You are also accusing me of theft without a shred of evidence. That's about as libelous as it is stupid. And wrong :)
See? I am much more right than you are.
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
".. Facebook is an advertising company.
No, they're not even that. They're a surveillance company, who sells to the highest bidder. A digital Peeping Tom in the form of a company.
Well, if you ask me if they are the Stazi with an advertising arm or a "Pravda"-like propaganda powerhouse with a side business in state security, I'll probably answer that I'm on the fence about it :)
Technically suggesting someone's a cocksucker doesn't infer homophobia. Indeed, I suspect most of the world's cocksuckers aren't gay.
It instead suggests that the act of fellating a whole parliament's worth of erect honourable members would be degrading and a source of humiliation for which mockery is appropriate.
Personally I think it's down to individual choice. I certainly wouldn't want to (get sore knees or mock someone deciding that's the right thing for them).