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Comment by Roritharr | Hacker News Reader

What struck me as quite interesting was Guy Verhofstadts sideremarks.

>"You have to ask yourself how you will be remembered," he said. "As one of the three big internet giants together with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who have enriched our world and our societies, or on the other hand, the genius that created a digital monster that is destroying our democracies and societies."

I imagine you have to talk like this to a guy like Zuckerberg to actually have a chance to get through to him.

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"It's nearly impossible to get someone to understand something when their livelihood depends on them not understanding it." -- someone I forgot

> someone I forgot

That would be Upton Sinclair.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/

Zuck probably thinks that he'll have time to redeem himself...ala Gates. But "If I stop now, FB crashes and I can't do as much good"

Agree but his track record is 14 yrs long already. Let's not forget that.

"As one of the three big internet giants together with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates..."

Please, that's just a poor attempt at flattery, right?

> "destroying our democracy and societies"

Imagine how you have to talk to a doomsayer like that knowing no matter what you say, there will be no chance to get through to him.

Depends, he's not wrong if facebook is used as a propaganda device

Disagree. FB will not be our destruction. This kind of hyperbole (and getting others to believe it) harms the type of rational discourse they claim they wanted. I disagree with the evasiveness of course, but this is grandstanding and witch-hunting. With those types of statements, how could one expect a productive inquiry? (hint: one couldn't...it was pandering/posturing and it accomplished that goal)

Inclined to agree. In $job_i_had we dealt with a partner who would routinely ratchet the rhetoric up to the max in this way and all it did was foster bad feeling, damage morale and productivity, as well as block any further useful discourse on whatever topic was under discussion. Not only was it extremely frustrating to deal with, but it didn't achieve anything. It certainly didn't get them what they (thought they) wanted any quicker - quite the opposite in some cases.

All this to show off in front of colleagues/superiors/underlings, or to give the impression of doing something or being actively involved in the process whilst actively causing harm and wasting other peoples' time.

I was occasionally heard to mutter that they could scarcely have done more to sabotage the project if they were actively trying to, which I don't believe they were.

(Btw, I'm not defending facebook: just saying that if you're really making honest enquiries or trying to have a productive discussion, this is not the way to go about it.)

At some point that seems to blur into blaming the printing press for propaganda posters.

That's the actual (but not an official one, just everyone knows what response to expect from the law enforcement services) case in Russia.

If the printing press decided what gets printed in what order and who sees it.

There's a good chance you could get though to him just fine. It takes two to tango in an arms race between platitudes and hysterics.

Presumably Zuckerberg has learned the lesson of Bill Gates: Europe periodically discovers a reason to fine American tech companies large-but-relatively-immaterial amounts of money. Then you eventually graduate to being Old Money, and Europe reminisces fondly about you.

What a load of crap.

By large-but-immaterial, do you mean the money escaped via tax fraud and illegal tax cuts?

'fraud' and 'illegal' might be problematic words here. The tax evasion schemes used by large corporations are often considered exploits of loopholes - i.e. technically legal. Countries try to offer companies a system to provide ridiculously low tax rates for larger regions, because if they get 1% of the revenue of the entire region it's more beneficial to them than getting 20% of their local revenue (numbers are fictional here). That's partly also a reason why e.g. Ireland is fighting on Apple's side on the $13bn ruling, despite them loosing out on $13bn. They'd loose the ability to guarantee companies a low tax rate, which is worth far more.

> 'fraud' and 'illegal' might be problematic words here. The tax evasion schemes used by large corporations are often considered exploits of loopholes - i.e. technically legal.

In your example on Apple this is not clear at all: there are two legal systems at play (the Irish one and the EU one). Apple is only playing by the rules of the Irish one. The problem comes from the EU saying that the Irish laws are not within the EU framework and thus not allowed.

Apple is very much doing not legal things from a perspective of EU law, hence the fine.

Wrong. Ireland's competition rules are harmonised with EU rules. Not by dictat either, it's a condition of signing the various European treaties that you will implement particular laws that conform to certain principles. In this particular case Ireland had broken her own laws on competition. Like with so much of the skullduggery that goes on in Ireland, it took an outside agency to blow the whistle.

it's a condition of signing the various European treaties

These treaties by the way, are passed with popular consent. As a constitutional democracy Ireland requires a Referendum for any constitutional change, which is always necessary when signing up to anything that says we'll conform to some outside agency.

I agree that it is not very clear - which is why I wrote "are often considered" etc. Also the Apple example was brought up to explain a nations' interest in low tax rates, not about whether they're legal or not.

Parent was the one making definitive claims about fraud and illegal actions.

Ireland also benefits from lots of highly paid, highly skilled employees, which it can tax, and also people are happy because there are jobs and oppertunities in Ireland. Many of the big name US tech companies in Ireland employee thousands of people each.

you mean that we treat people like human beings with their own rights, and not some spreadsheet item of potential revenue that have these dumb but exploitable thing called emotions and desires?

Human rights, emotions, and desires are relatively distant to why Europe fined Microsoft about a billion dollars. The thing which got them very vexed was, per the extensive written record of administrative actions, bundling Windows Media Player.

IE was already taken by the time EU came around looking for a reason to give them some well deserved punishment IIRC?

Boohoo, those poor American multinationals.

How about just follow the fucking laws and regulations of the countries you do business in?

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