'Digital Gangster' Facebook Intentionally and Knowingly Violated UK Privacy and Competition Rules, British Lawmakers Say (washingtonpost.com) 74
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."
Summary/Article disagreement (Score:4, Interesting)
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).
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You find "contradiction" where there is none. It is obvious what is meant - Facebook both violated current laws, and has done things which point to the need for new regulation that will prevent further attacks on privacy and further damage by irresponsible Internet advertising outfits pushing for money outright lies that disrupt the rational public discourse. Only your pretend anger at the "EU shakedowns" is preventing you from seeing the obvious. Besides, this is a uniquely UK shakedown, and the new laws w
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You find "contradiction" where there is none. It is obvious what is meant - Facebook both violated current laws
If FB has violated current law, then there doesn't need to be "new regulations" so they can hold FB et.al accountable. It's simple English. They just need to enforce the existing law to hold them accountable.
Maybe you need to read the summary? Oh, what am I thinking. This is /. Here's the relevant quote:
Besides, this is a uniquely UK shakedown, and the new laws will probably be passed in a place that is outside the EU.
The issue of the article being self-c
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If FB has violated current law, then there doesn't need to be "new regulations"
Says the slashdot village idiot. However, that's not what the people who make the laws think.
The issue of the article being self-contradictory has nothing to with with EU vs. non-EU.
Read the comment I am responding to, darling. Here is the part you missed, my deep reader and quote searcher: this smacks of another EU-style shakedown
You apparently did not read even that summary
You apparently fail at reading comprehension so badly,
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Says the slashdot village idiot.
My my. Knickers in a knot much? Anything productive to say?
However, that's not what the people who make the laws think.
Oh. I see. The "people who make the laws" are the only ones who get to "think" and they are "think[ing]", and their opinion is all that matters. Got it. Who's the village idiot?
The fact is, if there are already laws in place, and someone has violated them, then you don't need NEW laws to be able to hold that person accountable for breaking the existing laws. It's pretty obvious. Maybe if you think about it yourself, instead of letting the parliamen
Re: Summary/Article disagreement (Score:3)
You mean a court case where Google were found in violation of existing EU law.
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They violated privacy and anti-competition laws. The new laws being proposed are related to fake news and political campaigning online, e.g. having to declare who is funding and supporting political ads. A minister was on the radio this morning talking about having some way to get fake news removed too.
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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
Oh? I voted to leave the EU but even I don't recognise them as having done that.
Indeed, nothing Facebook or Google have been investigated and fined for in the EU has been due to a law brought in to target either of them. Most of the laws they break are older than they are.
It's the EU. Obey its laws or don't do business there. It's not a terribly difficult concept.
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Oh? I voted to leave the EU
Fucking idiot.
Every day we see more and more how the reality of the disaster is going to play out. Project fear is turning out to be project reality. Why just today a major car manufacturer decided to leave the UK, and with is removing 3,500 jobs from a Brexit-heavy area.
I have yet to see anything approchaing a choerent argument for leaving the EU.
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No deal. I'll take 'no deal'. It's not a disaster, it's a blip.
I have yet to see anything approchaing a choerent argument for leaving the EU.
I don't want my country to be part of a European superstate. I don't want political union with other European countries. Staying in the EU retains the existing political union and effectively guarantees more, so leaving was the only option. Has been since the early 90s.
There, that's choerent. What I'd like is a coherent argument for staying in the EU, because nobody's even fucking considered offering one of those.
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No deal. I'll take 'no deal'. It's not a disaster, it's a blip.
Even Reese-let's-leave-but-I've-moved-my-money-to-Ireland-Mogg thinks it will take at least 50 years for that "blip" to pass.
And let's see...
I don't want...
Thought so. All you ve done is answer "why leave the EU" with "I don't want to be in the EU".
There, that's choerent.
You've failed to give a reason at all. You haven't even remotely said what you expect to get/change as a result of leaving.
Typical Brexiter bullshit. You voted for a disaster
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Typical remain voter: You can't read properly, don't understand the argument being made and fail to address the legitimate concern highlighted.
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Ah typical Brexiteer, misrepresent reality them blame remain.
You provided boy reason beyond a long-winded way of saying you don't want to leave.
The reason you refuse to spell out clearly what you think we will gain us because you have no idea.
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We'll regain our independence. We'll regain control over things like trade, diplomatic relations and borders.
But I did spell out why I wanted to leave, the simple justification for it, and you still haven't understood, still haven't acknowledged that, still refuse embrace reality.
Ironic that you accuse me of failing to do so, even as you continue to fail miserably at justifying staying in the EU or indeed telling me why I'm wrong instead of just denying that I've said what I've said.
Reply if you want but I'
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Why are Brexiteers so stupid? I'm going to go slightly out of order:
But I did spell out why I wanted to leave,
No, you didn't. You said you wanted to leave and then you said the reason was that you wanted to leave. You seem to lack the basic grasp of English (which is rather ironic) to understand that that is not a reason. Fortunately you got a clue and answered in this post.
As suspected, you're answers are as silly as I thought they would be.
But I did spell out why I wanted to leave, But I did spell out why
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That plant in Swindon has been on its arse for a while - it's running at 50% capacity. If Honda were going to move the manufacturing to Europe you'd have a point - but they aren't.
Meanwhile Toyota have commenced manufacturing the Auris at Burnaston - 3800 employed there with a large % hybrids.
As for the coherent argument - other's have said it : The EU as a political concept is heading towards a federal superstate and the UK decided it didn't want to become part of it. That isn't the EU that was sold many y
Re:Summary/Article disagreement (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do they need new laws? Because, despite assurances, Facebook is still pushing out swathes of overtly political advertising without effectively identifying the source and appears to be failing miserably to control seriously harmful content that is leading to the children harming and killing themselves. Also, it appears that Facebook seem to accept that they may have been breaking the law and haven't been that concerned about it: the law, if that be true, needs to be made more compelling.
Politics was very reluctant to take on tech - partly because they didn't understand it and partly because they didn't want to be seen to be stifling economic growth. However, they now do understand it - it's not about tech and it's not about beneficial economic growth, it's about an amoral group of rich people making themselves richer still. So they now feel rather more comfortable about legislating.
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If politicians (and I include Washington, D.C. as well as London or Brussels in that collective noun) truly understood what Facebook was up to or could do, the company would have been shut down by now.
The Cambridge Analytica "scandal" gave only the briefest glimpse of what Fac
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Yanno (Score:3)
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 )
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None of this bullshit will stop until the fines become painful enough to make them think twice about doing it.
When their entire business model is based in selling people's data they should just be banned.
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They aren't going to pay any crippling/financially ruinous fines to the UK, EU, or anyone else. If it gets ruinous, they will just blow it off completely because, short of invading, there's nothing they can really do. Freeze and seize assets that Facebook hold in territory they control, yes, block access to facebook at all UK ISPS (good luck...). that's about it. But you aren't going to arrest Zuckerberg, you aren't going to put them out of business, no matter how you stop your little feet.
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If their parents were dead why would they still be living in the basement? Get your troll facts together!
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Extradition for this? I think you need to, maybe, learn something about the law.
Re:Yanno (Score:5, Informative)
If you actually wanted to, you could very well do something.
The international arrest warrent exists, and it would dramatically reduce Zuckerbergs mobility. It would hit him where it really hurts, because you can't be part of the international elite if you can't travel internationally anymore.
And you can block Facebook in the EU without any Internet filters. Did you forget what their business is? In Zuckerbergs own words: "Senator, we run ads". If they can't sell ads in Europe anymore, that's their business in Europe gone. It would also drop their stock price through the floor because investor will need about three seconds to understand that Facebook will either operate at a loss in Europe, or leave the market to competitors, and Europe is a larger market than the US, both by population and money.
If governments weren't at this point in time wholly owned and operated by corporations, they very well could show teeth. But the politicians of today desperately want to belong to that global elite themselves after their term. That's why they are fishing for those speaking and consulting contracts that pay obscene rates that are basically legal bribes, and they wouldn't want to upset their potential future employers.
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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 )
Fines?
Fines are ineffective at discouraging behaviour. This behaviour will continue until some C level execs end up in the slammer.
Ultimately, it wasn't fines that reduced DUI, it was the instant loss of license. People value their ability to drive for 12 months over £2500.
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GDPR allows for 4% of global turnover. Not profit made in the EU, but 4% of every penny made by Facebook world wide before tax and before costs.
For many companies that's more than adequate because their profit margins are barely 4% overall. But for tech companies like Facebook... Well, it would be about 10% of their profits, painful but not crippling.
The limit should be raised at least to 4% of global turnover or 100% of global profit, which ever is higher.
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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).
Breaking News (Score:1)
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That's true, but how many of the people saying that are astroturfers? (Well, not really "how many". Actually "what proportion".)
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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 right
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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. [slashdot.org]
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
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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 n
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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.
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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 :)
What, not Russians this time? (Score:1)
Surely there's no fault in reputable Silicon Valley giants.
intention (Score:4, Interesting)
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.