A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook
npr.org
npr.org
Here is Orin Kerr writing about Power Ventures: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
Several lower level judges disagreed with you. Although I think that the CANSPAM act ought not apply, there is no basis to claim that this was clearly settled law being ignored to make this into a malicious action.
Facebook claimed[0] that emails it sent to its users were misleading, partly, because Facebook inserted "Thanks,\nThe Facebook Team" into messages it sent out as a result of Power.com's actions.
Facebook claimed[0],
64. The message, drafted by Power.com, is signed by "The Facebook Team", which is both misleading and false.
[0] http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/technology/2009010...
[1] https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/07/12/1...
It's clear to me that this was a spam/phishing message.
1. Comes from @facebookmail.com
2. Signed "The Facebook Team"
3. Includes only links to facebook.
4. In the footer, "Want to control which messages you receive from facebook..." facebook link.
--- Now, they obviously created a facebook event as a promotion and invited people on facebook to that event in order to generate those messages, so there is a bit of a grey area, but it's clearly a power.com email and there's no message of power.com other than:
Event: Bring 100 Friends and win 100 bucks
What: Reunion
Host: Power
Start Time: date
End Time: date
Where: Power
--- It's an unethical use of Facebook's systems at the very least, and spells out a pretty big hole (hopefully filled by now) that opens facebook users up to scams because the originator is obfuscated.
As far as I can tell from these documents, Power setup a Facebook event, then Facebook added it's own text (eg. "The Facebook Team") to the event message and sent it as an email to its own users. Then, Facebook took down Vachani based on those emails.
A big problem with our legal system is that it favors those with more money in every way - the rich can lever more cases, better cases, more often. They can afford to appeal at every level, to pay lawyers to look for hundreds of little loopholes. And they are essentially immune to being sued because not only can nobody afford to even begin procedures, once they do, all the more enriched party needs to do is fend off attacks long enough for their opponents' funds to run out.
The legal system is not the only institution affected by this.
Edit: From Section 4(8) of the Facebook TOS [1]:
"You will not share your password (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account."
It's impossible for something like Facebook to use a whitelist model for determining what you use to interact with their service, and they can't retroactively add things to their blacklist. They usually have to rely on generic rules about causing harm to the service, but then it's no longer a pure whim.
A lot of software licenses have a clause that basically allows the licensor to revoke the license on a whim.
This is sad because I'm increasingly getting annoyed at Facebook's positionning between me and my friends. It's promoting behavior that is different from real life as they stand to gain from stoking outrages and heated discussions: more active user engagement!
This undoubtedly has very serious consequences beyond merely being annoying. Trending untrue news stories, encouraging post-true controversy and providing an echo chamber for these things to intensify and become ingrained.
And doing these things on a enormous scale to a huge percentage of the population such that vast swathes of people can no longer even agree on basic facts.
It would be interesting to see how much of the bizarre political events in the west are a result of social media in general and Facebook in particular.
The Clintons assassinated Scalia and they are going to force you to renounce God or put you on the cross.
And reinforcing the notion that those deviant groups are jihadis just strengthens the claims of ISIS and Al-Qaida that they're the ones properly following their religion, when more than 99% of the muslim world rejects them completely.
Almost 1 in 10 supporting savage violence and meaningless destruction.
It's not the poster that made it a slur, it's the insane violence supported by a non-negligible portion of Muslims that made it a slur.
So does 9% really indicate a key culturally defining characteristic?
[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/3742/new-poll-gauges-americans-ge...
One can have a jihad for school fundraiser. One can jihad for personal weight loss. Or one can jihad for working on an open source project.
Yeah, the bad ones use it to support ill gains.
I really don't feel that spammer and rapist are even in the same league.
The first part I get, but this I don't.
Deleting an email is a mouseclick. A lot easier than getting the pest control guy off my doorstep.
If you really believe it, please share your primary e-mail address here.
If you equate "rapist" with "spammer", you might be regarded as trivializing "rapist" accusations as being usually false and frivolous in the same way.
Considering the amount of time wasted they literally waste lifetimes in aggregate. However, we don't equate say deaths from pollution as murder so it feels like a minor crime.
I don't think he was equating the two at a legal or moral level, just presenting an analogy with regards to:
- The likelihood of false accusations being similar in both cases (higher than the norm)
- The devastating social consequences of falsely accusing someone of either crime, even where no proof exists
Having said that, there are circles where false accusations of "rape" are sometimes thrown around rather frivolously, and where the term is being stretched to include other lesser crimes, such as crimes of expression ("verbal rape") and sexual harassment. You may not be familiar with these circles, but they do exist. If you've ever heard someone use the term "he raped me with his eyes": this is the action that trivializes the actual crime of rape.
Making the observation that this subculture exists in no way trivializes actual cases of rape.
I think this may have been the intent of the analogy.
Consider a panhandler asking you for money on the street, someone passing out fliers in a mall, a street hawker, or even someone asking for directions. These can all be unwanted physical interactions.
Think also of the religious people who go door-to-door asking very politely if you've found everlasting life, or historically (thinking now of the Hare Krishnas and the movie 'Airplane') at an airport terminal.
Or for that matter, someone working in a boiler room call centers.
I submit that spamming is much closer to these unwanted public interactions than anything like rape.
Furthermore, calling someone a spammer does not have "devastating social consequences", despite what Vachani said. For example, stand up at a conference and yell "the speaker is a spammer!" What devastating social consequences might the speaker face? Is it as devastating as calling someone a speeder, a pot smoker, a thief, a rapist, or a murderer?
None of those things are illegal, so you've already failed the most basic test for the analogy. Furthermore, you still seem to be missing the point that this is not an analogy between spamming and rape, but between falsely accusing someone of spamming and falsely accusing someone of rape.
> Is it as devastating as calling someone a speeder, a pot smoker, a thief, a rapist, or a murderer?
In your contrived hypothetical, any of that name-calling (because nobody could seriously call that an "accusation") would have the same consequences: none whatsoever for the target and being laughed out of the room for the "accuser". I'm sure you already realize that.
Of course, this is not at all what anyone is talking about. We're talking about falsely accusing someone of spamming, in a credible manner, and from a position of authority, which is exactly what happened to the individual in the article. If you don't think this had any consequences for him, then may I suggest that you read the article.
Surely you understand that there is a very big difference in consequences between yelling "spammer!" at the next person you see vs a multibillion dollar corporation suing you for being a spammer and sending their hordes of lawyers after you.
FB claimed that Power Ventures's actions fell under the CAN-SPAM Act, and was a violation of the act, and was a willful violation so FB could get 3x damages as restitution, plus attorney fees.
There is nothing like that in rape law, where some rapes are legal and some are illegal. There are things like that in anti-peddling laws, which might allow only licensed peddlers in a region, or in telephone solicitation laws, which might restrict when calls can be made or prevent solicitors from calling people on a no-call list, or anti-bill posting laws which restrict posting a few public bulletin boards or kiosks, or anti-begging laws which prohibit aggressive panhandling.
That's of course the legal distinction. Perhaps there is a cultural similarity in antipathy between the two that I don't recognize?
You point about my hypothetical is valid. I was thinking more of conferences with an anti-sexual harassment policy which obligates the organizers to be more responsive to claims of rape than claims of murder, even if there is no other evidence.
So, here's something more concrete. In http://www.swordandthescript.com/2014/06/linkedin-spam-reels... we see that Grant Crowell complained about "crass spam" by ReelSEO in advertising for their conference. He provided evidence of receiving on Linkedin, in one week, "the same message sent four different times, from three different people, including Greg Jarboe, co-founder of the marketing firm SEO-PR." ReelSEO (now known as Tubular Insights) responded to the complaint by by saying 'opt out'.
This is not illegal spam under CAN-SPAM. However, and IMO, Crowell does correctly refer to it as spam. This is within the usual cultural definition of spamming.
What are the "devastating social consequences" which resulted from that verified claim? I note that ReelSEO is still in business, under the new name "Tubular Insights". Should Crowell and others avoid using the term 'spammer' for anything other than verifiable CAN SPAM violations, because of these consequences?
Now, imagine that someone made a claim of being raped, and had evidence to prove it. Do you really think that the reactions would be the same? (Nor can one "opt out" of rape, showing yet again it's a poor analogy.)
As for "a multibillion dollar corporation suing you"; I look at how ACORN was shut down due to partially falsified and selectively edited videos when the ACORN members did nothing illegal or inappropriate. The devastation came from how FB's money and power could magnify any sort of FUD.
Now, I can be wrong. Wikipedia tells me that ~1% of all spam really meets CAN SPAM's requirements, so there are a lot of spammers out there. Who else has faced the devastating social consequences of being called a spammer?
> What are the "devastating social consequences" which resulted from that verified claim?
If there's one thing I can confidently back off from is having used the word "devastating". That was, in hindsight, rather hyperbolic.
I think at this point I'm defending the analogy far more than I intended to. I'm not in love with it, I just thought it was being misperceived as an analogy of consequences of the crime itself, when to me it was meant to illustrate a comparison between two crimes which (justly or not) are known for being associated with false accusations / low burden of proof.
> Who else has faced the devastating social consequences of being called a spammer?
If we drop the words "devastating" and "social" from the question (which I realize I introduced), the answer would be "any business who has unfairly been blacklisted by mail providers, blacklisted from Google search results, has had their hosting account suspended, or has been targeted by things like DDoS attacks". These cases do exist, and I've worked at companies affected by this. I do agree now that the consequences (specially at a personal level) are clearly not as serious as being falsely accused of rape.
Thanks for the discussion :)
People should stop casually making jokes about rape[1] or using rape as a metaphor.
[1] It's baffling to me that crimes of sexual violence are a common theme for jokes on US media.
This debases the conversation much more than all the jokes and inept metaphors that have ever been made about rape. At least those don't intentionally attempt to censor or silence others they disagree with.
Ive seen plenty show and movies that talk how "Bubba is going to ravage you". Because a prison sentence needs to have a side source of rape.
It's easier to get into prison than to get hurt inside for being innocent of your accused actions.
So, open question, how much cheaper does it have to be in Brazil to make it worthwhile to live there because it's cheaper, if you are flying into SF a lot? I mean, I know SF is expensive, but presumably if you are willing to make ~$600 flights on a regular basis, you would be willing to commute a few hours. Within two hours of SF, things aren't exactly cheap, but they are cheap relative to SF. How much cheaper does Brazil have to be (living in at least a moderately sized city) for this to effective, assuming he flies into SF 8 times a year?
This of course ignores other reasons he may want to live in Brazil (such as family), because that wasn't how it was presented.
You can buy food, pay rent and utils - live near a sunny beach for less than 50 dollars a month.
Of course if all SF software engineers cut their debt shackle - and used global inequality for their advantage it would wreck havoc to the current pecking order of tech capitalists.
It would allow tech workers to turn into entrepreneurs and work full time on their own ideas, create new competition and scare wall street that is dependent on recycling your wage through rent so that you actually keep a small amount of your real income.
Ofcourse no one is going to do it besides radicals like Glenn Greenwald since freedom is not useful as prestige to the average person.
Can you give an example of such a place, where the total cost of rent, food and utilities (water, electricity) amounts to less than 50 USD per month?
I cannot give away the place I am connecting from without giving away too much information.
But within the EU I remember small Remote Romanian Towns.
http://www.hobotraveler.com/budgets/list-of-countries-where-...
here is a list that I just found.
The important think to remember is that a huge part of humanity lives on less than 2 dollars a day.
Wealth among the poorest has increased over the last 20 years but that does not matter. I think now about 1 billion people live on 2 dollars a day - It used to be 3 billion when I was younger.
If you go down the list above you will start to have to trade security for cheapness. However having a laptop does not make someone rich anymore these days.
Somalia for example, my friend who has been there has told me that fibre seems to be everywhere !
However You do not have to go to Somalia, you can choose a country based on factors that is important to you.
I'd caution anyone from taking this list seriously because it is based on reported income alone. There is a combination of credit purchasing and unreported income (cash exchange), each of which means cost of living is higher.
According to this [0] cost of living is $400+ without rent, which is a bit steep but much closer to the actual cost.
[0] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Belgrade?seeThePric...
1BR apartment in SF is ~$3300
1BR apartment in New Orleans is ~$1300.
$24K/yr in savings on rent alone. Even if you fly in 8 times per year, for a round trip cost of $1K with food and accommodations, you're still well ahead.
If you live abroad, and can earn USD and take advantage of the exchange rate, you're even farther ahead. A 1BR apartment in Sao Paolo is ~600USD.
Sure, but my point was that if you view SF as integral for some reason, you can find 1BR apartment rentals for ~$1300 (and 2 bedroom for $1400) an hour North of SF. If you're willing to go slightly over 2 hours from SF (which if you've considering flying in occasionally isn't bad at all), you can find 2 BR apartments for <$1000 in Ukiah.
It's not a beach in a tropical climate, but it sure is cheaper, and you could actually swing commuting in once or twice a week without too much strain (depending on whether you do it during rush hour). Too rural for you? Sacramento, the state capital, has apartments available for not much more (and a similar non-rush hour commute).
There's a trade-off going on here, and I'm wondering at what point it makes more sense to fly in from outside the country compared to just commuting a few hours occasionally.
The point is one lets you get to SF (which we are assuming is important for the purposes of this discussion) within a couple hours with a car at the cost of gas and you can go back home a the end of the day. The other requires 12+ hours in a plane and costs of $600+ per trip, and you need to find a place to stay when you get into SF.
Each have benefits and drawbacks. I just thought it would be interesting to discuss those.
The best, though, if you can swing it, is telecommuting. Then you can work most anywhere with an internet connection. And there are, arguably, far more interesting places to live (or at least visit) than the Bay Area.
Travel gets old after a while, but I think you're really missing out if you haven't at least gone to a few countries that are radically different from where you grew up.
Amazingly accurate coverage of Facebook's internal culture, the good, the bad, and the ugly. (Plus much, much more!) https://www.amazon.com/review/R2GQCWUZKVOY10/ref=cm_cr_dp_ti...
Where it gets interesting is when someone like this guy tries to circumvent this arrangement by having the user willingly supply them with their credentials.
FB would never blame the user, even though that's arguably the correct way to respond, because that's a PR disaster. Whether the guy in this particular story seems shady or not, it seems inevitable that FB would take the path of litigation to destroy anyone who exposes the dissonance in the way they run their business.
* Wow does the CFAA need reform.
* With the rate that tech is advancing, it's becoming a problem how unfamiliar with it many in the justice system are. It's not a knock on them at all - it's hard to keep up for those of us working in the industry. I'm not sure what the best solution is outside of trying to make sure that the laws are as correctly formulated as possible, and even that's only a partial fix.
People say that a lot. But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" (look maybe some say that but not a lot).
The court has a solution for this -- they have expert witnesses and amicus briefs.
The problem is that technologists are allergic to politics (filing amicus briefs is basically politics as is lobbying), so they won't do what they need to do to make tech issues heard.
This actually is something that comes up reasonably often. In fact, when I was in law school, an entire week of Torts was spent on precisely this issue. It's not unique to technology, but the frequency in which it comes up, as well as the total number of people directly (by that, I mean their day to day life could materially change overnight) is much higher.
You aren't wrong about technologists and politics, though. I hadn't really thought about amicus briefs as a solution, thanks for pointing it out.
I hear this all the time. (I am a doctor's son.) Heck, you could probably get judges to say the same thing; they've completely abdicated on the question of whether something is or isn't legally-permissible medical care. The legal question, when you are sued for malpractice, is whether you conformed to "the local standard of care", which is different everywhere. If the local standard of care is obviously harmful to patients, that's not your fault. They should have been local to somewhere else. Did something bad happen to your patient by chance? If you didn't conform to the standard of care, you're probably at fault, regardless of whether it could have been related to something you did.
This situation obtains because judges are incapable of judging medical issues. Judges know it, doctors know it, and I know it, but I guess you didn't know it.
See also the discussion a while ago about how forensic science is basically just 100% fraudulent court testimony, but the courts are too reliant on that to give it up.
But it's directly in contrast with what makes them money, so obviously they won't.
The wording of 'won on hacking' is extremely worrying, if it is verbatim. Facebook seem to act here as if they can steamroll over power-users who stray too far from the 'norm', so to speak, without consequence: while it is true that all companies must try to save face, accusing an app developer of hacking and spamming is too far.
I guess not appealing the spam decision is some small humility, but treating a lawsuit like a competition to 'win' has certain implications on Facebook's strategy.
I came here for the clickbait, not the story!!
Facebook was the only website to respond at all. They sued them for downloading data. (You own it, but when you try to get it out, you can't.) Facebook called it "spamming" and "hacking". The courts didn't really understand the topic (the article claims) but finally in the 9th district court the spam claim got thrown out and Facebook said they won't challenge that decision because there is still the hacking claim to be fought over.
How asking someone to give you a password for a specific purpose and then using that password for that specific purpose is hacking is beyond me. But then the article is fairly one-sided so I don't know the full story. The legal battle continues.
Does FB now have an option like Google to export your data? I thought that was a nice touch on Google's part; I vaguely remember reading it was championed by some people in the company who really wanted to avoid locking people in out of their own moral convictions.
I confess to not seeing the bigger picture here: I don't see how all of this can be equated to locking a user's data into Facebook. Would it be against TOS to write a FB app that crawled a user's graph and downloaded all of their data?
Basically this guy is your friend I don't like.
I understand not liking the walled garden, but if you don't like it, then you shouldn't enter it in the first place. Don't go into the garden and then give your friend a key to the place just to avoid me.
> but tell you that if you want your ring you have to let me talk to you for five minutes every time you get it
to:
> but mumble to you (unintelligibly, interspersed with vast amounts of mumbling about other things) that if you want your ring you have to let me talk to you for five minutes every time you get it
While many on this site keep up with some of these things and can weigh the cost/benefit of using a walled garden, many do not. To tell someone "if you don't like it, don't do it" while completely avoiding the question of subversiveness on the part of the contract maker is disingenuous and not giving both sides of the argument a fair shake.
Please don't include this in comments on Hacker News.
I look at it as a direct non-verbatim usage of Zuckerberg's own words against himself. After all, Zuckerberg already has this sentiment for everyone using Facebook - "Fucking morons" IIRC.
Now, what do you consider a contribution to the conversation? I've seen plenty of comments that do not do that and yet they still remain either highly-voted or at least not in the grey.
To object to the comment because it "doesn't teach us anything other than how you feel" is to say that any statement which conveys only "how you feel" is inappropriate for HN.
Is that really the way it works here?
What if he had said "I wish Zuck all the best!" -- would the moderators have come out against that too?
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
I consider what Facebook is doing to be far more uncivil than use of the word Fuck. Should the word Facebook be censored because what it refers to offends me?
Zuck: They "trust me", Dumb fucks.
Facebook is the folly of our generation. We are already paying the consequences of giving away our right to privacy, and it is only going to get worse.