
Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets - ajaviaad
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/17/regulate-facebook/
======
blunderkid
There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all
pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to
cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over
consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is
known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for
attention, short attention spans, inability to concentrate on tasks, inhibited
social development in the real world & possibly general "unhappiness",
especially among the young & impressionable.

~~~
mgraczyk
I always disliked Facebook and still don't care much for it, but having worked
on ranking there for a few months, comments like this just sound incredibly
naive.

Facebook is not "specifically designed to cause addiction". It's designed by a
complicated process with many people trying to maximize many competing
metrics, some of which might go up when people are "addicted". In fact the
complete opposite is one of the main goal metrics for most teams (measures of
well being) and only a small fraction of people are even trying to increase
time spent.

~~~
josephg
On what basis are you claiming that that most teams at FB are optimising the
product for well being as opposed to ‘engagement’ (addiction)? Do you have
first hand knowledge? Do you know the people involved? Do you have citations?

I stopped using FB a few years ago after I had an argument with a friend on
the platform. The algorithm decided to keep showing us one anothers’ content -
I assume so we would both write more angry comments (“engagement!”). I ended
up blocking the friend, then on reflection left the platform entirely, since
as far as I can tell FB was optimising as intended to manipulate me.

Has it changed since then?

~~~
raziel2p
If facebook only shows content you agree with, it's creating social bubbles
where everyone is cheering each other on and criticism is not allowed, and you
end up with anti-vax groups.

And if facebook emphasizes content you engage with (albeit negatively), you
end up with anecdotes like yours.

Facebook is a tool, use it as such rather than being entitled and feeling
disempowered. You can hide people from your timelines, get "less messages like
these" and more.

~~~
wolco
Entitled is a loaded word. That makes it seem like the user is unreasonable
and he should take whatever facebook gives him. Be quiet you don't matter, you
are lucky they allowed you on the platform.

Is it unreasonable to expect facebook to be able to determine the tone of the
conversation. They probably already do this or are in the process of
researching this. This is a great feature and I look forward to getting
content aligned with my mood. I'm mad, show me angry posts, I'm nervous show
me calm posts. I'm bored show me exciting videos. Maybe a box on top how do
you feel to determine current mood.

Users complaining give free feedback. As a developer it helps shape the
product.

~~~
raziel2p
I absolutely think the user is unreasonable in this context. what about people
who actually enjoy discussing other people's conflicting opinions? (maybe hard
to believe that exists any more, even moreso on facebook, but still...) how
would you allow this positive engagement to keep happening but avoid OP's
example of negative engagement?

the tools are there on facebook to control the content of your feed to quite
an extent. if you don't use this and demand that facebook change its system to
adjust the feed for everyone based on your personal tastes, yes I think that's
entitled.

not saying I like or even use Facebook, but still.

------
skohan
Classic regulatory capture. Once you're big enough lobby effectively, get
legislators to pull the ladder up from behind you.

This reminds me: I was working at a small health services startup in 2009. We
had a good relationship with a number of small-scale healthcare providers, and
when the ARRA was passed mandating that all providers move to electronic
health records, we evaluated the concept of getting into that business. We
concluded that there was so much legal red tape in that sector that the only
way to legally create an EHR product would be if your lawyers were the ones
writing the laws governing them (which would have been true for Epic and
McKessen).

~~~
dontdoitpls
Blows my mind how many people ignore this problem when they demand more
regulations.

~~~
dmix
They always talk about the big evil Facebooks of the world when they demand
regulations that hit entire industries and mostly just keep the same big
companies in power.

The regulations _never_ just target the big firms who caused the individual
incidents that caused the outrage or the individuals only doing bad behaviour.

Nor does the regulations go away as industries adapt, change for the better,
or get disrupted over the course of decades the same old laws apply, further
keeping old entrenched powers in place and their negative anti-consumer
behaviour which markets were attempting to correct.

It's the story of modern America industry. And it always starts with good
intentions.

------
DanielBMarkham
I love tech. It pains me to come to the conclusion that in Facebook, we have
created something that should not exist: an addicative worldwide mob where
peddlers can sell emotionally manipulative ideas to the people least able to
handle them, whether it's clicking cows all day long or believing Elvis is
still alive.

In defense, I don't think anybody that was on-board at the beginning realized
this. I do, however, feel that anybody in the last decade working at FB should
have been smart enough to figure out what was going on. They just didn't care.

~~~
alexis_fr
I view it the opposite way: We underestimated as a society how many people
were feeling bad. Addictions to alcohol is horrible, but their harm doesn’t
scale. With social networks, we suddenly see what we chose to ignore before:
The swathes of MGTOWs, Incels, doubters, we also see the swathes of
“scientific studies” which were provably wrong, the lies of the medias when
you compare the scientific study and how the articles spin them.

We should rather treat it as a brand new society with new balances, like after
Gutemberg’s invention of the printer, which enabled communication and gave
birth to Martin Luther, the accession of Bible translation to masses, the
accession of The Encyclopedia, and more generally, the Humanists.

And maybe, just maybe, we should have taken better care of so many people
we’ve put in such horrible situations that content binging becomes better than
their life. Rather than assuming they were just crybabies.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
> we should have taken better care of so many people we’ve put in such
> horrible situations... Rather than assuming they were just crybabies.

It may seemed callused, but they _are_ just crybabies. Just because social
media facilitates the formation of certain identity groups now does not mean
that the cultures formed from those identities are good or productive. Just
look at the increase in suicides, depression, school shootings, and general
extremism since the spread of social media. Those are not mentalities that we
should foster and support IMO.

~~~
Loughla
>we should have taken better care of so many people

>Those are not mentalities that we should foster and support IMO.

Those are not the same thing. The first says to connect people to services
that can help stem the negative and unproductive mentalities. Yours says to
help them grow that negativity. These are not the same things.

------
blackrock
Sounds like Facebook wants the regulations, so that a new upstart competitor,
cannot invent something novel, and pull the rug from under them.

Like maybe, a social network that doesn’t manipulate us, or scan our faces
without permission, or build dark profiles of everyone, or read our personal
messages, or .....

~~~
macspoofing
>Like maybe, a social network that doesn’t manipulate us, or scan our faces
without permission, or build dark profiles of everyone, or read our personal
messages, or

Heh. Fat chance. The next generation of social networks will be coming from
China because China is the perfect incubator for this category of software.
You'll yet wish for Facebook.

~~~
gargron
The next generation of social networks is already here. It's decentralized and
open-source. Mastodon, Pleroma, PeerTube, loads more, all part of the same
network, the fediverse.

~~~
Dumblydorr
I'm a regular HN user, deleted FB three years ago, I've never even heard of
any of those sites.

~~~
snisarenko
I am building a few aggregators if you want to explore the fediverse without
registering first.

[https://mastodonia.club](https://mastodonia.club)

[https://pixelfed.club](https://pixelfed.club)

------
mcv
The most important regulation for Facebook is that they should provide a way
to communicate with other social networks, so someone on Diaspora, MeWe or
Friendica can follow people on Facebook and vice versa. That way, people won't
be forced onto Facebook simply because their friends are there.

And once that has been done, it'll also be easier to cut Facebook into smaller
chunks if it turns out they're still a monopolist.

~~~
Tyr42
Would this also make it easier to slurp data from Diaspora, in the name of
providing friend recommendations?

~~~
ViViDboarder
No. Other platforms already have open APIs, Facebook is the one that has no
interoperability. It would make it easier for a Diaspora server to slurp data
from Facebook.

------
AnthonyMouse
There is a much better way to deal with Facebook. Stop letting them buy their
competitors.

~~~
totalZero
Start by forcing them to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp.

~~~
snarf21
Exactly this. That is why there is such pressure to keep Warren off the
ticket. I'd love to see her swallow her pride and jump to a Sanders/Warren
ticket. If she does well, then she can get her chance in a few years.

------
optimiz3
Depending on the regulation, IMO a sensible middle ground is to phase in
regulations based on company size as measured by revenue and/or employee
count.

This avoids crushing upstarts while regulating companies large enough to
matter.

~~~
qtplatypus
If you have regulations by revenue/employee count then the companies will
restructure themselves to be below those thresholds.

~~~
plutonicks
While true it is harder for companies to manipulate those 2 measures.

E.g. could Facebook run with 20 staff? Would Facebook and its shareholders be
satisfied with 20m in annual revenue.

This scenario requires trade offs. My opinion is that monopoly, political and
market dominance is a sub-optimal outcome

~~~
quietbritishjim
It could certainly run with 20 staff – it would just spend a lot of money on
license fees to a separate Facebook Services Inc that provides software and
server administration services. This is similar to how companies avoid tax
e.g. IKEA and Starbucks.

It could similarly avoid large profits but avoiding large revenues works be
trickier. But I'm not an expert in these things, so maybe it's possible if you
really know what you're doing.

~~~
fastball
Then you just base it off of the number of employees overall in the parent
company, not the number of employees in the subsidiary.

~~~
quietbritishjim
The problem is, there's no legal distinction between a company that own shares
but is "really" part of the same company, vs a completely separately company
owning shares e.g. a pension fund.

------
symplee
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture)

~~~
tylerl
Except no. That's where the regulators fundamentally agree with the regulated
company.

This is a different but also common phenomenon. Well established companies
tend to favor strict compliance requirements with harsh penalties and
difficult targets. The big companies can hit those targets because they can
afford to sink time and money into activities that don't make money. Small
companies can't.

It isn't necessarily about being anti-competitive. The requirements may be the
_right thing_ to do, and better for everyone. Except startups generally can't
afford it. In fact, startups are usually absolutely crap at privacy, security,
and other elements of social responsibility.

~~~
Dumblydorr
Can you explain why this case is not regulatory capture? I dont see your link
between what you wrote and the article.

------
matharmin
Reading through the actual proposed regulations, most of them are regulations
I'd like to have enforced on any social media tech company above some small
threshold in size, and are not onerous to implement. Many of these proposed
regulations cover exactly the type of issues that are often complained about
on HN.

Why does it matter so much that it's Facebook proposing it, and that they have
already implemented it?

~~~
Dumblydorr
Because they are using it to prevent competitors from being able to take their
market share. They're the market leader, they have resources and codebase
already...

~~~
Faark
Or they have already implemented them cause they consider those measures to be
important / effective. Recommending something you don't think is worth the
effort would be stupid, just like not implementing good ones. If FB decides
against adopting some measure, they obviously will use the same arguments for
not recommending it.

As for FB recommending lower standards to govern the competition... would
anyone here actually do this unless part of a brand? Evaluating
recommendations is a politicians job, and I'd expect them to listen to more
than just the few biggest companies.

------
carboi
a typical example of a big company trying to put up barriers to entry by using
politicians who want to please the public with worthless (and damaging)
regulations and policies.

~~~
raverbashing
And may I add: politicians that don't understand anything about the internet

------
skybrian
Should companies be suggesting regulations that they don't know how to meet?
Maybe before making something a standard, it should be tested in the real
world first?

But this doesn't mean you have to accept their proposal.

------
ComodoHacker
Outline: [https://outline.com/caBX8n](https://outline.com/caBX8n)

~~~
gorgoiler
Thanks for this!

------
yalogin
They want to get to a point where they just say we follow all laws strictly
and continue to violate privacy. That is why zuckerberg keeps bringing it up.
Right now he is asking for laws and he wants to get to a point where he can
hide behind laws and say “the law has t caught up yet so it’s not our fault we
sold your data to the Russians and Chinese “.

------
CryptoPunk
The answer to technology is technology. People need better tools for
communication and authentication, but tools are public goods, and the market
under produces public goods because there is no way a producer of public goods
can capture the value generated through private property rights, and so
there's no mechanism in the market to sustain and incentivize producers.

The solution will make both free market advocates and government intervention
advocates happy: use public revenue to create better communication and
authentication tools. Let consumers freely choose between the tools provided
by private enterprise and those produced by government funded development.

If the government fails, consumers are no worse off: they still have their
market borne options. If it succeeds, they have better options than they did
before.

Regulation of private enterprise is lazy, authoritarian and a case of putting
all of one's eggs in one basket.

------
jakelazaroff
I’m glad to see a case made against anticompetitive lobbying. But I’m
disappointed in the use of the GDPR as a straw man.

There are many reasons that could explain why ad network market concentration
increased after the GDPR took effect, and not all of them are bad. For
example, if some significant percentage of companies depended on exploitative
behavior outlawed by the law, we should expect to see concentration increase
as those companies leave the market. That’s not a negative side effect; it’s
the law working as intended.

------
sub7
It'll probably be too hard to regulate every unethical dark pattern and shitty
default on the site.

What you can do is force Facebook to allow the user to 1 click export their
graph and all friend data with it in a standardized format.

Once you force them to give me MY friends email addresses, phone numbers, and
birthdays in a list, they're fucked because better products can then emerge.

Similar to the idea of regulating Google by making them open source their
search index.

~~~
warkdarrior
I can see Cambridge Analytica or other companies offering $100 for your
Facebook data export. Are you sure your friends or your friends' friends will
not sell your data?

~~~
sub7
No, but if they did I'm kind of the one at fault for making them my "friend".
The old world analogy is you go around the world collecting business cards.
That address book is yours - you can burn it, sell it or do whatever you want
with it - most importantly use it to contact the people who trusted you with
the info. People just became more judicious about who got what info.

Similar correction needs to happen here. When I add someone to a digital
platform, instead of a 1 click process it needs to be a 1 click + select what
info to share process.

Then the data needs to be portable.

------
scarface74
Maybe it’s a sign that we shouldn’t want government bureaucrats to invade
every area of our lives and let grown people make their own informed choices.

~~~
AlexandrB
Meanwhile, Facebook and Google bureaucrats have already invaded every area of
our lives. Oh, and they're monopolies so good luck "choosing".

~~~
scarface74
Surprisingly enough. I’m perfectly capable of not logging into Facebook and
choosing another search engine.

What I’m not as capable of doing without a lot of trouble is changing the
government I’m under. So given a choice, a government with less power is good
for my personal liberty.

------
onetimemanytime
Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets...and a startup or
smaller competitor cannot. I doubt EU will fall for this though

------
mfDjB
The article points out that Brussels are alright making regulations around
artificial intelligence etc:

"Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in Brussels lobbying the European Union’s
regulators as they form new laws to govern artificial intelligence, content
moderation and more"

Does anyone know what they are thinking of doing in this regard? And what
problems they are attempting to solve?

~~~
jevgeni
One example is facial recognition. From what I gather, there is a growing
consensus that unrestrained facial recognition might be either in conflict, or
pose a potential threat to certain legal rights of European citizens.

In Germany, for example, privacy-threatening issues are covered by a body of
norms called "Persönlichkeitsrecht". Which are based constitutionally on
Articles 1 and 2 of the German constitution (Grundgesetz) - the Right to Human
Dignity and the Right to Personal Fulfillment/Development.

Allowing anyone storing and sharing facial recognition data willy-nilly might
endanger those rights and hence might be a need for regulation.

------
inamberclad
This is how they remove the chance of competition.

------
KorematsuFred
This is called Baptist and bootleggers effect. Facebook benefits, government
benefits while we suffer.

------
diogenescynic
Bury their potential competitors in compliance costs so no one can ever
dethrone them.

------
laser
I'm not sure this sort of meta-comment is allowed. But, given the importance
of this information, and it's potentiality to induce outrage that leads to
participation and commentary, and given the imperfect hacker news ranking
algorithm which can fail to differentiate between conversation and flaming
when punishing posts in visibility—might I implore you to refrain from
commenting unless substantial so that eyes that may have power to action
against such malfeasance catch note of this here? (Really likely of note only
if comment:points ratio gets close to 1 and above. I accept that this
comment's very existence is ironic, but with hope of the wider aim achieved.)

~~~
gorgoiler
Assuming the TechCrunch article’s headline is the same as the HN post
headline, then I think you are already too late. I would describe it as
inflammatory at best.

I can’t actually load the article because (I think) my web browser’s anti-
tracking blockers interfere with TC’s adtech. I’m using Firefox Focus with iOS
Safari.

------
ianopolous
The one regulation that could save us from Facebook would be to mandate an
open API. That would solve the network effect problem for new social networks
and enable real competition.

~~~
Nasrudith
That would be a mixed bag in several ways - while good for making a diverse
ecosystem it would mean Cambridge Analytica style abuses would be the norm and
rely upon user savviness for security. In a lowest common denominator base
like Facebook - that won't work well.

------
cdolan
On iOS 13 mobile safari - is anyone else unable to use the Back button to
leave TechCrunch?

Might blacklist their site with a content blocker if they are indeed hijacking
the back button.

~~~
Epskampie
Just tried, both a swipe back and the back button work here.

------
beatpanda
The multi-billion dollar question is whether someone with serious technical
acumen is prepared to step up and fight for a law that meaningfully restrains
surveillance capitalism while allowing startups to compete. Or build a
compliance-as-a-service business and give it away to startups for free.

------
Meekro
Back when the GDPR was still pending, the consensus on HN was that there was
nothing to fear because European regulators emphasize the _spirit_ of the law,
rather than beating people over the head with the letter of the law like
American regulators do.

Anyway, the law went into effect and some guy got fined just over $2000 for
using CC instead of BCC on his personal mailing list of 150 people. There are
a bunch more examples just like that [1].

I miss the tech community that used to be much more skeptical of government
regulation -- remember SOPA/PIPA?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20278819](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20278819)

~~~
plutonicks
GDPR "hurt" tech companies, but hurt the big ones less than the small ones.

The big tech companies have increased market dominance so it seems like spirit
of the law was actually to crush competition so that there fewer players for
the EU to regulate

~~~
TeMPOraL
I'm not convinced that was some ulterior goal, but even if, I don't mind as
long as it is followed by actually regulating the remaining players.

As I keep saying: we don't need innovation in adtech. We don't need more
companies in this space. We need this industry burned down to the ground,
encased in a concrete tomb, with warnings for future generations plastered all
over it.

------
aadams
They’re asking for this to make it harder for the competition. Simple. Happens
in many industries too.

------
tkyjonathan
Imagine my shock. Asking for regulation simply to attack the competition or
new entrants..

------
satisfaction
They are trying to gatekeep.

------
throwaway122378
Facebook execs should be on trial for what their company has done to personal
privacy

------
new_here
Anyone else notice that after you accept TechCrunch’s cookie consent pop-up
that the site blocks you from tapping back on your browser to get back to HN?

~~~
ce4
Try a longpress on the back button and there you should see the
hn=>techcrunch=>guce.advertising=>techcrunch redirect chain. Hitting back will
go back to guce which immediately forwards you to techcrunch again. Select hn
instead

------
cryptica
The problem is that there are too many influential people financially invested
in Facebook and other monopolies. It creates perverse incentives for
governments and other companies.

People these days are using the stock market as a giant collaborative money
laundering machine; all small businesses exist only to take bank loans which
go straight to paying these big corporations for whatever useless services
they provide. The small businesses then go bankrupt and new ones spawn up in
their place with fresh new loans for the corporations to feed on. That's what
our fiat financial system is all about; the big mega corps feed on the
bankrupted corpses of small business and let the rest of society foot the bill
through inflation. The main sport for the elites is to move around this
inflation to parts of the economy that are not being monitored so that it
doesn't show up in the CPI.

