
Google, Facebook spend big on U.S. lobbying amid policy battles - theBashShell
https://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCAKCN1PG2TD-OCABS
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Jerry2
Lobbying is nothing more than legalized corruption. When companies lobby, they
do so at the expense of the people and other, smaller, competitors who cannot
afford to bribe politicians.

Politicians should craft laws based on what's best for the country and not on
what's best for the few corporations that manage to outbribe other companies.

Also, remember when Google complained about lobbyists? Former Google CEO Erc
Schmidt even admitted that most laws are written by lobbyists.

> _" The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by
> lobbyists" to protect incumbent interests, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told
> Atlantic editor James Bennet at the Washington Ideas Forum. "It's shocking
> how the system actually works."_

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/googl...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/googles-
ceo-the-laws-are-written-by-lobbyists/63908/)

~~~
T2_t2
That's cool but where are the lines? The problem is that a LOT of lobbying
goes on, and we don't know how to allow what, when or why - and no country
does it well.

Examples: protests - are they ok? What if they are funded by some group?

What about a concerned citizenry meeting a politician? Is that OK? What if
their funding comes from Iran?

It gets real complicated real quickly.

> Politicians should craft laws based on what's best for the country

That seems so simple, but man, that is SOOO complicated. Imagine a law that
made life better for 80% of people, but made 20% worse off - should it be
implemented? What about 2% better off, 98% worse off, but the worst off 2%
amongst us benefited?

That simple sentence fragment is why lobbying, and groups like the NRA and
teachers unions, exist and hold so much sway. Many laws affect groups
disproportionately, and how we decide who to hurt and why is what politics is,
in part, about.

There just aren't any magical, mystical policies where everyone wins, not even
things like free trade which has been great for almost everyone on the entire
planet.

~~~
denzil_correa
> Many laws affect groups disproportionately, and how we decide who to hurt
> and why is what politics is, in part, about.

Let me quote John Rawls with "The Difference Principle" [0] which can indicate
some general direction on making laws.

> Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that (a) they are to
> be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice#The_Differ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice#The_Difference_Principle)

~~~
AlexB138
The problem with Rawls is that, brought to its logical conclusion, his ideas
essentially say that you can all but enslave the most effective people in your
society to benefit the least advantaged, so long as they are slightly more
advantaged than the single least advantaged member of your society. It sounds
nice on paper, but it's essentially endorsing extreme totalitarian socialism.
It's the kind of dystopia Kurt Vonnegut was satirizing in Harrison Bergeron
[0].

It also complete ignores the rights of the so call "advantaged" class. From
the stand point of Social Contract Theory, society exists because it's
advantageous to all of its members to give up some rights in order to protect
others. If you systematically disadvantage a group of people, especially those
who are deemed the most capable and advantaged, you will quickly leave them
with no reason to want to be a member of your society. Unless you plan to run
an authoritarian dictatorship, you will be left with few citizens other than
the disadvantaged, who will suffer for having the others run off. Not to
mention that the idea of intentionally systematically disadvantaging an entire
class of people is, on its face, disgusting.

There are plenty of other arguments against Rawls, but the primary ones are
made by Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia [1], and he can make them better
than I can. Rawls is a brilliant philosopher, but his ideas are better left in
the realm of thought experiment, and not in government.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia)

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
This increased lobbying by tech companies was the result of everyone taking
the lesson of United States v Microsoft
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.))
to heart and trying to make sure they did not end up in the government's
crosshairs.

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ckastner
Can anyone explain how these numbers are calculated?

Are these perhaps just expenses related to lobbying (eg: hiring an external
agency, or expenses for a particular lobbying action)? Are salaries of
internal staff included?

$20m sounds ridiculously low. Giving the magnitude of these efforts, I'd
expect the costs for the legal work alone to be far greater than that number.

~~~
pjc50
[https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00006782...](https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000067823)
: it seems to be by summing up costs to known lobbying agencies.

~~~
ckastner
Interesting, so lobbying efforts from within the company appear to be
unaccounted for. I'd also venture that ancillary costs (especially legal
services) are unaccounted for.

That really diminishes the meaning of the quoted $20m. For all we know, Google
and Facebook could be spending ten times as much on staff lobbyists and
lawyers.

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cemregr
Are we upset that big tech is lobbying, or are we upset about lobbying in
general?

I can’t think of any big US corporation that doesn’t spend money lobbying.

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temp231239
Lobbying itself is not culprit as it has been present since the beginning of
society. Only thing that make it heinous now is the change in mindset of
people(more greedy).

Its the responsibility of people to support virtuous corporations(choosing
product they use) just like they vote their politicians to power.

~~~
CoryG89
If by lobbying you mean bribery, then yes, it has been around forever.

I think the way it is done today, legitimized, in the open, and at scale, is a
relatively recent phenomenon.

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olentzero
Can anyone explain how lobbying works in the U.S? Where does the money end up?

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opportune
Hi I represent the *PAC, do you have a few hours to chat about $TOPIC over a
nice dinner? We are a PAC prepared to fund politicians in favor of friendly
campaigns $X

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zimbatm
The article does a poor job at putting the numbers in perspective. How much is
it compared to other industries like Pharmaceutical or the aggro industry?

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MichaelMoser123
Now facebook is working on election integrity. I love it how they are always
able to find a cool name for everything.

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a_imho
Non native speaker here. What is the difference between government lobbying
and corruption?

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SamReidHughes
Lobbying is talking to congressmen, which isn't corrupt at all.

~~~
a_imho
What is the $21.2 million figure for?

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mda
That money is not given to the congresmen.

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reacweb
Not directly. It is given to all their friends. Their friends have helped them
get elected and will again in future. Direct corruption is only used when you
want to blackmail someone.

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ur-whale
It's not exactly like they have much of a choice.

Here's a piece on how Microsoft initially tried not to get sucked in the
quagmire of DC lobbying:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QivPQdRc49s&t=155s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QivPQdRc49s&t=155s)

TL;DR: DC to MSFT : if you think we're going to let you do your thing without
collecting a piece of the action, you're deluded.

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alkibiades
duh. you’d have to be incompetent not to with the way our political system
works.

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acct1771
Anyone who doesn't loot defenseless stores is a fool!

~~~
Nasrudith
That has me thinking about extending the metaphor horrifically. Part of the
answer for "why not?" has been "the owner has a gun". It obviously violence
would be non-ideal on several levels but a really any sufficient counter force
could work and probably would work better albeit with collective action
problems. The reason "lobbying" works for cheap is because it helps get them
elected. If it was as bad as having an extramarital affair or otherwise a kiss
of death the "lobbying" would get more expensive. Similarly if lobbyists got
boycotted to hell and back they would hesitate more.

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throwaway98121
Which companies with a large footprint don’t spend big on lobbying efforts?
I’m sorry but why is this news? Is it particularly nefarious or even
noteworthy at all?

No offense to op, but this is clickbait garbage.

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raxxorrax
It is not clickbait. Even without further information about specific policies
being pursued, the article has hard numbers about the amount spend for
lobbying. I don't think that it is restricted to these quite low amounts, but
the information is definitely interesting.

