ElProlactin
12 hours ago
> Meta agreed in August to pay up to $18 billion to settle the multistate lawsuit surrounding child safety issues. Buried in the 130-page settlement was an agreement to release Meta from future liability related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy breach, making New Mexico the only state to pursue a case. Florida was the only other state that did not sign the settlement, saying it was not tough enough on Meta.
This is an inconvenient reminder for people who want more "regulation" and who believe states with high levels of paper regulation like California really care about protecting consumers.
Years down the line, you'll find that a bunch of the people who worked on these cases have cush jobs working on the other side.
noisy_boy
4 hours ago
How is this:
> people who want more "regulation"
Same as this:
> who believe states with high levels of paper regulation
I _do_ want real regulations with teeth against shitty companies like Meta. Just because California has done a performative take doesn't make expecting more controls on these scumbags a wrong thing to expect. Bad execution doesn't make the idea wrong, your scare-quotes be damned.
JumpCrisscross
4 hours ago
> Bad execution doesn't make the idea wrong
It does raise the question of the value of California’s bureaucratic burden.
mitxela
4 hours ago
Nobody's asking for more bureaucracy, they're asking for these companies to be held properly accountable, which will involve bureaucracy.
Nobody's asking for computers that use a lot of electricity, they're asking for powerful computers, which will use a lot of electricity. You can't just turn up with a space heater and pretend it's the same thing because it also uses a lot of electricity.
JumpCrisscross
2 hours ago
> Nobody's asking for more bureaucracy
Very few are also asking for less bureaucracy, which in this case could potentially increase state capacity to pursue civic goals.
mitxela
an hour ago
Indeed, nobody here is asking for less bureaucracy in regard to this situation because it wouldn't solve anything.
Matl
4 hours ago
This is the Ayn Rand trick; let's make government not work == government can never work well == let's cut all customer protections and end up with unfit for consumption beef and glass in your food == somehow it's still not the fault of the free market since after enough people get sick I guess they'll leave one star reviews on Google from their hospital beds == companies will self regulate to produce healthier food?
JumpCrisscross
2 hours ago
Bloat is real. One can simplify an organization while making it more effective. California broadly seems to be in the overcomplicated/ineffective quadrant.
Matl
an hour ago
Bloat is real. The point is if there's a regulation that should stop glass contamination in food and it doesn't then the answer isn't 'too much red tape, see?'.
It's that there's clearly been industry capture and the regulations no longer work. It doesn't mean the regulations themselves are automatically the problem.
It also doesn't mean every regulation is good or should exist, but that's not an argument I see anyone actually making. Only some people like to pretend like someone is making that argument, because the actual argument is harder to argue against.
GoblinSlayer
2 hours ago
let's make capitalism == everything is for sale == let's buy government == let's make government work for the buyer == government works well ==...
alex1138
3 hours ago
I wish HN was more of a reliable aggregator and not just people protecting their industry at all cost
You can reliably tell what the most upvoted comments will be
Does that mean we should always hate on big tech? No. If a platform is getting unfairly targeted, that's nice to know. But you come here to get the general sense of the landscape and the first comment is always slanted in favor of big corporate
Razengan
8 hours ago
> Years down the line, you'll find that a bunch of the people who worked on these cases have cush jobs
Aren't they supposed to be replaced by AI by then?
There won't even be human bodyguards; just Zuck, Musk, Bezos and Rasputin in their Thunderdomes sheltered by swarms of T-800s going StarCraft 3 on our ass
mitxela
37 minutes ago
I say let them. They're not keeping us away from them - they're keeping themselves away from us, as it should be.
Joker_vD
9 hours ago
...what's inconvenient about it? The less "regulation" in dem scary quotes there is, the easier it is for companies to shirk them (and cheaper, too). The only actual argument there can be is that that $18 bn fine will have to ultimately come out of the pockets of the Meta's customers, and perhaps that'll force Meta to adopt even uglier business practices (defying the whole point of regulating it).
> Years down the line, you'll find that a bunch of the people who worked on these cases have cush jobs working on the other side.
Man, I love people on Internet making predictions that will be impossible to disprove for decades, and by that point nobody would care anyhow.
ElProlactin
9 hours ago
> ...what's inconvenient about it?
Putting aside the fact that a huge amount of regulation is designed by the most powerful companies to promote and defend their interests, the issue is that regulation, when not enforced, provides a way for corporations to inflict massive harm on individuals and discharge it for pennies on the dollar.
$18 billion was a paltry sum and represents about a month's worth of Meta's revenue. Let that sink in: a month's worth of revenue to discharge liabilities associated with years of massive harm to young people that some legal experts concluded could have reasonably resulted in damages in the high hundreds of billions of dollars, and possibly exceeding $1 trillion.
And as part of the settlement, Meta didn't even have to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
> Man, I love people on Internet making predictions that will be impossible to disprove for decades, and by that point nobody would care anyhow.
You're acting as if there's no precedent for what I stated when the evidence is overwhelming.
A handful of examples for you:
1. Eric Holder, former federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney for D.C. and Deputy AG. He was a partner at Covington & Burling, where he represented Chiquita Brands in the case over its payments to a Colombian paramilitary group and also represented Uber and Airbnb.
2. Lanny Breuer, head of the DOJ's Criminal Division from 2009 to 2013. He didn't prosecute senior bank executives after the financial crisis and then went on to do white collar defense work as vice chair at Covington & Burling.
3. James Comey, U.S. Attorney for SDNY and Deputy AG. He became general counsel for Lockheed Martin and then Bridgewater Associates before he became FBI Director.
4. Mary Jo White, U.S. Attorney for SDNY. She defended financial institutions at Debevoise & Plimpton afterwards, then chaired the SEC between 2013 and 2017, and then went back to Debevoise.
5. Louis Freeh, federal prosecutor for SDNY, federal judge and FBI Director from 1993 to 2001. He went on to become general counsel credit card company MBNA and later represented Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who was alleged to have received over £1 billion in bribes from BAE Systems for arms deals. In his defense, Freeh argued that the money was actually going into official Saudi government accounts so they weren't bribes. BAE later pleaded guilty to US charges related to false statements and export violations.
Revolving doors in the US have gold handles.
tgv
6 hours ago
> And as part of the settlement, Meta didn't even have to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
So there are assholes who give up your birth right for a plate of lentils, and that makes you conclude there should be less regulation?
> Revolving doors in the US have gold handles.
That just requires some extra rules. No, I'm not being sarcastic.
ElProlactin
6 hours ago
If you read my comment carefully, I didn't argue for less regulation. I did suggest that more regulation wasn't the solution.
The quantity isn't the problem here; it's the quality. When the system has been completely corrupted, regulation stops doing what laypeople expect it to do.
Virtually none of the regulation people genuinely concerned about consumers, children, etc. would reasonably ask for will ever be enacted and enforced the way they'd want in today's broken system. The law isn't working for the masses; it's working for the asses.
sem000
7 hours ago
BREAKING NEWS: Attorneys that successfully reached the top of their fields, and have government experience, are in demand by people and corporations that have legal interactions with governments.
Who woulda thunk it?
ElProlactin
6 hours ago
BREAKING NEWS: it's widely-discussed that the revolving door creates potential conflicts of interest and helps facilitate regulatory capture, which is why many observers argue that it has a corrupting influence and is a corrosive threat to democratic society.
And then people wonder why a whole swath of society is for tearing down public institutions, buys into conspiracy theories and is willing to elect the most unqualified people.
watwut
4 hours ago
Maybe dont have them written by companies then.
mitxela
36 minutes ago
It's not that simple, it's very difficult to prevent that from happening.