Facebook reportedly discredited critics by linking them to George Soros
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Can you all please just leave? Is there some acceptable amount of collateral damage for you to maintain your lifestyle?
I’ll personally help you reconnect to your purpose and go out and live a life you’ve dreamed of.
Go start a company better than Facebook and hire all the people.
EDIT: you certainly can look down on people for whatever, i just don't think it's justified in this case.
in a similar vein, i wouldn't condemn someone who works at Exxon building analytics software, or engineering some rig valve, but i WOULD condemn someone who works there with the responsibility of absolving oil & gas from any responsibility for climate change.
is my position wrong? honestly im a bit unsure if it makes any sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials
If you read it carefully you can see each one of them never truly felt they are at any blame till their last breadth. If as humanity some of us could be put in charge of putting fellow humans through gas chambers and treat it as "just another job", then I doubt some engineer at Facebook coding all day would have a guilty conscience.
Edit: I stand corrected - only FEW of these felt like they were at any fault at all.
That's not accurate, even based on the link that you provided. That page explicitly states that 5 of the 24 in that table "expressed repentance" in the notes.
If employers publicized such questions now, it could discount the future value of having worked at fb.
If you just leave, nothing changes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/technology/google-pentago...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/technology/google-employe...
Just to add: I also don't use Whatsapp.
I refuse to touch any property, which is connected in any way with this evil, slimy carbuncle of a company. No matter if I'm slightly inconvenienced in the process.
Hold on a sec... what do you mean by this?
How is using WhatsApp or Instagram not essentially the same thing as continuing to use Facebook?
It would still be truthful: all messages are encrypted e2e, but the app on your device parses decrypted messages to "deliver relevant ads".
Also:
>kinda scary since some people I know keep Social Security numbers in their contacts.
That is absolutely terrifying.
That's now how this works. That's not how any of this works!
I too have deleted FB account long ago but I use Whatsapp. I realize it is much harder to quit Whatsapp than Facebook because I really 'need' whatsapp. But as of now I don't see any strong reason to quit Whatsapp because Facebook isn't using it to show ads in creepy ways.
If only I could persuade my family members and few friends to ditch Whatsapp...
It sounds so easy, but unfortunately it's not feasible in a lot of cases. As an example, my entire social group organizes just about everything through Facebook events.
Monthly music quiz, including signup and updates about subjects and prizes, Christmas/Easter/others lunchs, pre-concert meetups, festival line-up "study group", and all the other various get-togethers. All discussion about these subjects happens in FB groups.
FB Messenger is the IM platform here in Denmark. WhatsApp is a very distant second.
Quitting FB cold turkey would cut me off from a lot of social interaction. Not with my closest friends of course, but with everyone else. And all of my closest friends use FB Messenger exclusively. I've tried getting people to adopt Signal or Slack or just something other than FB, but so far haven't had any success. There's too much friction, and FB has the userbase and appropriate lineup of features.
The solution for Facebook employees is not to leave, it's to organize. If Facebook employees were organized they'd have power, and then they could use that power to force management to stop running the company in ways that make them ashamed to tell people they work there.
Which, alas, may not be the best and the brightest.
The argument about others just replacing you is, of course, best known from chess, where it's called the "German Defense" and consists of everyone pretending they are just pawns.
Practically, there is also the almost tautological fact that whatever replacement can be found is second-best (if that). With these tech giants essentially hiring everyone that meets requirements, 20% of tech workers taking a stand will effectively mean a reduction of their workforce by the same amount, unless they are willing to lower standards.
Do consider leaving if you think it is warranted (personally, I do), but do not rush. Write a short note to yourself on what you want to do and why, then think hard about this at least once a week, but keep going for a month. If in a month this still seems like the way to go, leave (and if not, stay; there is no shame it that).
That way you also build up resolve to stick to your guns if you get a last minute appeal to stay -- this is a lot easier if you thought about your decision for a long time and decided that what you are doing is right for you. My 2c.
If you work at Facebook, I'm reasonably certain you (including family) won't starve. By delaying you will also risk losing the courage of conviction. Because anger dulls over time.
Delaying also diminishes the effect of leaving, because the causality is no longer obvious. Imagine the power a mass exodus would have! With the significance the workforce has in this sector, it would instantly become the most significant motivation to behave ethically beyond the minimum required by law.
And you can put whatever you want in your resume. Doesn’t need to say protest quit
It's about the bigger picture.
If all the `ethically conscious' engineers leave FB (which will not happen), what FB will do is that it just recruit engineers who are less aware of the wrongdoing of FB, who are less likely to challenge a company policy that people consider unethical.
Think of Google and DoD. If those Google employees who opposed the deal all walk away, then Google will just carry on working with DoD and let engineers who don't care if their work will be used to kill people to work on it.
(Using a green account because I don't want the above rant to appear in my main account's posting history.)
If you were to evaluate each of the big companies, most of them have done some really shady stuff to get a leg up.
(Many of the websites out there I’ve created are legacy or not longer maintained by me.)
Soros has become somewhat more active since 2016, but he's quite upset that it has come so far that his values need defending in the US, and that there are billions wasted in zero-sum political campaigns.
"Let me short US dollars and fund those that promote economic policies that would lead to the collapse of the currency"
The right is far less concerned with the actions of the Koch brothers who are massive polluters due to their work around oil.
It's also true that both are engaged in various forms of activism.
What their goals are seem to be different, though, and as far as I can tell, though, it's more frequently true that the Kochs are actually doing the things "the Left" calls out than it is that George Soros is actually doing the things that "the Right" calls out. So it's possible there are important differences between the two that "the same damn people" papers over.
I don't agree with it, but i see the hypocrisy in being able to talk about whites (who make up the majority of the top 10%), but not the jews (who make up a majority of the top 1%).
I'm in the camp that recognizes success, but seeks to be associated with it and emulate it rather than "dog-whistle" as you say (I work at a jewish company)
As an example of the disconnect there, consider the influx of individuals trying to claim refugee status in Israel and Israel's reactions [1], against what Israeli media openly declares "infiltrators". Israel's actions here have drawn the ire of groups directly supported by Soros' organizations. The point is that just because a Jewish man happens to be one of the most well known names associated with globalism hardly means that globalism is now suddenly a secret word for Jew. It doesn't even make any sense.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_from_Afric...
Typical republican conservatives tend to be the opposite of antisemitic. They are very pro Israel, for instance. They are the people who might applaud Trump for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.
There's a twinge of antisemitism that creeps in on the fringes of the left too, also stemming from Israel (and its conflict with the Palestinians).
That said, it's disingenuous to insist all criticism of Soros is from anti-Semites. While many people on the right do believe lots of absurd conspiracy theories about Soros, I believe only a small percentage of those people are anti-Semites or intend any anti-Semitic undertones in their criticism. Mention of Soros is definitely an anti-Semitic dog whistle for alt-right/far-right people, but it's not for a lot of other people who are right-adjacent. The majority of conservatives who complain about Soros probably aren't anti-Semites; I bet you'd find massive overlap with support for Israel, for example.
It is certainly possible that some of the conspiracy theories originate from anti-Semitic sources, but as they trickle down to the general public, you'll see that most conservatives basically just consider Soros the left-wing version of the Koch brothers - a billionaire who's funding everything they dislike. Which isn't wrong, to an extent.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-...
The guy manufactured the 1997 asian financial crisis.
https://www.nemil.com/tdf/part1-employees.html
Management will laud what employees do, show them selective facts that justify their views, and hire/promote those who behave similarly to them. Employees in isolated teams with training in a single function may not realize the broad, unintended effects of their company's work. They'll assume the best of their friends and coworkers, without inquiring into the larger effects they're having.
Not sure why the surprise. Pretty obvious that FB (and all other entities) will use it's power only to advance its own interests.
> People just submitted it. I don't know why. They "trust me" Dumb fucks.
- Mark Zuckerberg
"Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.
In Washington, allies of Facebook, including Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, intervened on its behalf. And Ms. Sandberg wooed or cajoled hostile lawmakers, while trying to dispel Facebook’s reputation as a bastion of Bay Area liberalism."
In other words, they hired someone to make racist claims, and then hired someone to call anyone who criticized facebook racists. Then they got engaged with political groups on both sides, to play into stereotypes.
This is literally the tactics that Putin used in the last election. I wonder who he got it from
Also, describing him as a philanthropist and not mentioning his shady businesses like causing "Black Wednesday" or what he did to Thailand is... curious.
And the fact he's Jewish doesn't make looking into his actions racist.
I don't understand what you're so skeptical about. What is the standard of evidence for antisemitism you're seeking? I'm not going to find many mainstream adherents to Soros conspiracy theories that are going to flat-out admit it, am I?
I suppose a good counter example would be liberal jewish billionaires being attacked despite not contributing to liberal philanthropic endeavors. Or non-jewish liberal billionaire philanthropists NOT being attacked despite contributing on the same scale as George Soros.
I'm just saying that the "George Soros is only being targeted because he's jewish" argument is a shitty cop out.
You are moving the goalposts. You first asked why only Soros was being targeted and not other liberal, Jewish billionaires. That was proven false (Bloomberg, Steyer also targeted) and now you are trying out a new line of reasoning that is just as thin.
How I am moving the goalposts? The initial comment I replied to was "There's a reason why George Soros is singled out among liberal billionaires by certain right wing groups, and it certainly isn't evidence.", which I think I correctly interpreted as claiming that Soros was only being targeted for being jewish.
> That was proven false (Bloomberg, Steyer also targeted)
I've never heard of this Steyer guy, I know Bloomberg and I'm not aware that he's banned from Hungary, or that he has a dedicated wikipedia page to "Bloomberg conspiracy theories", so I don't think he can be remotely compared to Soros.
So yeah I don't know what you're talking about, honestly.
"why George Soros and not other liberal jewish billionaires, who no doubt exist?"
Evidence was provided to prove that other liberal Jewish billionaires have, in fact, been targeted.
> I've never heard of this Steyer guy, I know Bloomberg and I'm not aware that he's banned from Hungary, or that he has a dedicated wikipedia page to "Bloomberg conspiracy theories", so I don't think he can be remotely compared to Soros.
This is more goalpost moving. Nobody claimed they were targeted more than Soros or that you knew who they were. None of that changes the fact that they are liberal, Jewish billionaires who have been targeted. This is the criteria you created.
Bill Gates.
Haha, the Rothchild family would like a word about 'not being targeted'. The term "international bankers" is of course, famously, anti-semitic loon code for "jewish illuminanti".
If you think Soros is only singled out for his political views, the Soros-obsessed nut who just shot up a synagogue might also have a word with you.
That being said, I have no sympathy for billionaires who act in an activist way (be that right or left leaning)
> Color of Change is a not-for-profit civil rights organization. It receives some money from Soros
It's remarkably bold to suggest that every "conspiracy theory" about Soros is nonsense in response to an article that explicitly says that the claims his critics made about him were true.
He is definitely not a fan of the way social media turns people's lives into a product to be sold on the open market, but that doesn't mean you can ignore criticism of said social media companies.
But the narrative that Facebook's PR firm is pushing is that you should ignore criticism of Facebook because it's just George Soros pulling the strings. It's a dog whistle.
> he's in their offices every week telling them how to attack Zuckerburg
> you should ignore criticism of Facebook because it's just George Soros pulling the strings
I didn't say any of these things, nor does this Guardian article quote Facebook or their PR company as having ever, at any point in history, said anything that even implies a single one of these positions. Either you have some other source, in which case I invite you to share it, or you are criticizing a perspective entirely of your own invention.
> advocates for minority rights
> social media turns people's lives into a product to be sold on the open market
None of this has anything to do with my comment.
Or at least, that's what I interpreted the parent comment that I originally replied to as characterizing as a "conspiracy theory". I didn't see what else it could mean given that that (according to the article, true) claim is literally the only claim about Soros that the article says Facebook's PR company made.
because some people criticize george soros for antisemitic reasons, automatically all criticism of george soros is antisemitic?
then again this opinion is from ADL which states that anti zionism is automatically anti semitism (effectively calling huge numbers of hassidic jews anti semitic)
oops, i criticized. must be a nazi.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-hungary-soros/isra...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-absolves-hitle...
I had always understood the Christian basis of friendship with the people of Israel was from Genesis 12:3, which suggests that those who "bless" the children of Abraham would be blessed.
Soros would be the boogyman regardless, it comes down to the fact that he's pouring tons of money into political causes. Like the Koch brothers do on the other side. It's simple. No need to add additional theories.
At his events he asks the audience to disagree with him. He gets excited when a guest disagrees with him. He'll also call them out when they say something that can't be backed up. He's constantly sharpening his positions.
If you can make better arguments, then you should start doing so. Seriously. Because not many can.
- Ben Shapiro.
> Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. #settlementsrock
- Ben Shapiro.
> Renewable energy: dumbest phrase since climate change. See the first law of thermodynamics, dumbass. #tcot #teaparty
- Ben Shapiro.
He did not produce the crisis. He observed, rightly, that the pound was massively overvalued and that this was not sustainable.
He bet the bank on this fact and won.
He certainly didn't produce the crisis.
i find this amusing. some of the right (those who aren't pro-israel) DO believe in social justice when it applies jews (who do in fact make up a majority of the top 1%), and the left believes in social justice when it applies to whites.
you should at least be able to discuss both sides without "racist!", "cuck!", or in this case, "antisemitism!". I don't use any social media so maybe there's something i'm not picking up on.
However everything I have heard him about his didn't come from credible sources. I've honestly wondered for a long time as well.
The key thing about those sorts of things is that the lack of evidence is itself evidence of the grand conspiracy.
The left’s complete failure to understand the other side is why they were so shocked that Trump got elected. And it looks like we are in for a repeat in 2020, since they’ve learned nothing.
If you can point me to a left-wing agitator violently attacking Jewish people over the actions of Sheldon Adelson I'd love to see it.
Otherwise this is just intellectually-lazy "Both-sides"ism.
I personally don't think the Kochs nor Soros are bad people, and likely want what they view as what is best for society. They put their money where their mouths are, nothing nefarious about that. If the Kochs were only for their own self interests their main focus right now wouldn't be criminal justice reform.
Don't be easily fooled by their "generosity" as it's not always as it seems to be, many times they fund "independent" organizations or think tanks which really are just foils for them to push their Conservative agenda.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/we-now-know-how-...
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/trump-koch-brot...
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-denier...
https://www.ucsusa.org/publications/got-science/2017/got-sci...
I can keep going on, so please don't paint them as just some "nice" guys who give money.
Anyhow, you just cited 4 left leaning sites, so that's not helpful (and actually proves my point in other parts of this thread!) Charles Koch himself does not deny climate change (you can read about this in actual news sites like the Washington Post,) he is against corporate welfare like the government directly/indirectly subsidizing Tesla, etc. Which is perfectly in line with his libertarianism.
Even the one source you could argue is somewhat "real," was from an opinion writer. Here's the rest of his pieces, which uh, don't seem so unbiased. https://slate.com/author/mark-joseph-stern
They very much don't put their money where there mouths are, as they put their money through a massive chain of anonymous shell organizations to hide their involvement. This has given the appearance of many right wing "grassroots" movements appearing as by the people, though when donations have been investigated they are overwhelmingly from single donors traced back to the Kochs.
I don't really know that much about Soros, but the fact that people try to claim Soros is just the lefts version of the Kochs is very wrong on many levels. The most basic level is simply net worth, which is their influence ability. Soros is worth 8/9 billion, the Koch brothers are over 100 Billion. Their ability to buy politicians is that much greater.
I believe the Kochs believe they are doing what they think is right, but I also believe they are evil for the country. Their ideals are not what benefits the country in the long run, but continues this trend of money and influence being contained within a tiny minority.
The Kochs are very calculated people, they know what they are doing, and just being they are focused on criminal justice reform, doesn't mean they aren't also focused on other things that benefit them (and that criminal justice reform how they see it doesn't benefit them). The for profit prison industry owners are some of their peers who donate to their causes, they are playing every side they can.
Please give Dark money a read. There’s a huge difference between media personalities spouting conspiracies and a well respected journalist spending years of there lives delving into something, whilst having their reputation under constant attack and being followed by private investigations hired to dig up any dirt on you.
Also I don't think 2020 will be anything but a massive rebuttal to Trump and Republicans...
https://www.nbcnews.com/card/almost-six-10-americans-believe...
Those right-leaning voters are not pro-Israel because they like jews, they believe that if jews return to Israel it will bring about the apocalypse and they will be saved [1]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88KuVlYFXsI
This guy was in many UN meetings in relation to the compact. If you watch the interview, his view is that Europe has colonized many places, so it only makes sense that Europe now open its borders. He specifically states in the interview he has no concern for nationalists or those who worry about mass migration. He says that they need to drive the fear of mass migration out of the people of Europe through public education programs. He says that it's a matter of people's viewpoints needing to change. He's very much pro-immigration. The view that mass migration into Europe is inevitable, and that the UN and its surrounding organisations need to facilitate that and make it "safe, orderly and regular", is widespread among the people writing and setting up these documents and allocating the money the UN and it's partner organisations spend. That's why I said, Europeans are funding the welfare behind the facilitation of mass migration into their countries. If you want to find out more, consider documents like these and their supporting studies. It is also largely filled with ideological babble, which is why I am less than optimistic about mass immigration and the supposed integrated Utopia that is supposed to arise from that:
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/theme...
We've seen how well integration works in Britain and Sweden...
The part about how Europe colonized many places was just a description of how Europe itself was fairly insulated from the rest of the world for a long time, which can make it hard to suddenly start accepting a lot of people from elsewhere because it's a big change. There was nothing at all about this meaning Europe should open its borders.
Can you provide a link/source for these groups?
1. https://www.vox.com/2018/10/29/18037580/pittsburgh-shooter-a...
edit: added reference for downvoters.
The "Open" in "Open Society Foundation" also has nothing to do with "Open Borders". A open society is defined by freedom of speech, equality before the law, high social mobility, more interested in trying new ideas than in defending the status quo, etc.
It's the same ideology that made him spend his first billion on fighting the communists in the 1980.
In particular, OSF backed the pro-Western side in Ukraine. This has resulted in a well-funded disinformation campaign against it and him by Russia.
People need a boogeyman because the real world is far too complex to comprehend, so having puppeteering bad guys is easier to deal with than reality of people actually having genuine beliefs that you don't agree with.
There definitely is some Antisemitism, though I don't think that's the main driver, the left also chastises Sheldon Adelson, who is also jewish.
Which you get exposed to depends on your echo chamber. Echo chambers don't share the rational arguments of their opposition because nobody wants to think the outgroup has a point.
Unfortunately their go to right now, and probably for the next x number of years, is the guy who shot up the Republican baseball game. No doubt there are extremists on both sides, one side just seems to have way more
That George Soros is funding a migrant caravan of invaders is a conspiracy theory. This theory was amplified by both the President and Fox News, so it's hard to claim it's not even a mainstream theory.
There are a lot of these cases, where a violent person is unjustly tagged as "the right".
When someone can't be crammed into that mold, they are dropped from the news. A prime example is the youtube office shooter, who was a female muslim immigrant. As soon as the demographics became clear, the news dropped the story like a hot potato.
That trip is not free.
Soros certainly has a history of funding exactly that sort of thing. For example, he paid to have boats pick people up right off the coast of Libya and take them to Italy. It would not be the slightest bit surprising for Soros to fund a mob of thousands to invade the USA.
If not Soros, then who? (and who paid that group, and who paid the payers... and does it not lead back to Soros?)
This sounds like if one cannot pinpoint the supposed funder (and prove that they act alone), then you'll feel free to assume it is Soros? This is nonsense.
Basically, the news wants an attacker who looks like their stereotype of an NRA member and/or Trump supporter. Anybody else is not deemed newsworthy.
I'm trying to connect this with the words preceding it. Do you think the left chastises Adelson for anti-Semitic reasons?
He also gave a very poor and ill-advised interview, where he once stated that (despite being Jewish) he helped Nazi's confiscate properties from Jews in a sixty minutes interview.
He stated that he didn't help later in the interview, but the damage was done.
I won't deny that he seems to be a very skilled investor though.
The damages were then upped to ridiculous amounts. Financial / economic (not emotional) damages were listed at $50M.
Bollea's net worth, at it's peak, was $30-40M (edit: from $25M), and is now estimated at $8M - though most of that has been stripped by divorce, before any of this happened.
I am not sure how someone whose likely career income didn't reach $50M can now, in retirement, state that he suffered $50M in purely economic damages from this (remember, the emotional damage is separate, as is the punitive) - from what? Not from residuals on old WWF repeats - he would still be entitled to these. The occasional celebrity endorsement?
I can't see any realistic justification that his earning power for the rest of his life would total $50M, let alone that $50M only covers the fraction of his income that he _lost_ because of this.
And while I personally found Gawker trashy and not worth a lot of respect, Thiel had profile pictures on open social media accounts of him shirtless on gay cruises. Short of a formal press release saying "I am gay", this wasn't any particular revelation.
(As to the "well, it's still noone's business" - while I agree, the courts have repeatedly held that billionaires are considered "public figures" "by virtue of the undue or oversized influence they wield or are capable of wielding" - so Thiel had little legal claim to his own situation, so used someone else as a proxy for his own grievances).
Not because of the quality/moral fiber (or lack thereof) of their business model.
Hogan and Gawker had arranged to settle. Hogan was even going to be offered part ownership of Gawker, and had agreed to that. Until his (I mean Thiel's) lawyers met with him again.
And then he withdrew that offer.
And then after winning the lawsuit, withdrawing the only claim that would allow Gawker's insurance to allow Hogan to recoup some of his claimed damages (including an "estimated $50M loss of _future_ earnings, for a man who has only made $25M in his career and retirement so far).
Let's be very clear, Thiel's involvement in this was much more than "paid legal costs".
Regardless of the right or wrongs of thing, it is a generally accepted concept in modern societies and legal systems that you should have the right to face your opponent, not for them to have a legal 'proxy' or puppet acting at their behest.
Was Hogan wronged? Absolutely. But, as noted above, he'd agreed to settle until Thiel (and/or his lawyers) stepped in (again). He'd also settled with the person who _made_ the nonconsensual recording _and_ sold it... for _1/55,000th_ what he claimed in damages from Gawker.
Feelings about Gawker aside, if they had really outed him and caused him damage because of it, he would have sued them for that instead of searching for another case he could latch onto and bankroll.
At the end of the day it's important to let people come out in a way they choose. He may well have already been out to friends and family but that doesn't mean all is done and dusted, especially for a public figure.
And there's a litany of court cases where you can find 'unrealistic damages' due to a jury "sending a message".
I think the truth lies between. "After rumors of Hulk's infidelity, Linda filed for divorce in 2007. At the time it was revealed that Hogan's personal net worth was $30-40 million."
I don't see it hitting $250M.
And I don't see his future retirement income taking a $50M hit because of the video. He's still entitled to royalties and residuals. His multitude of racist remarks, perhaps, however...
Anyways, straight from the horse's mouth: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2043389/Hulk-H...
"Wrestler exaggerates."
From another Hogan lawsuit: "Belzer sued Hogan for $5 million and later settled out of court. On October 20, 2006, on the Bubba the Love Sponge Show, it was claimed (with Hogan in the studio) that the settlement totaled $5 million, half from Hogan and half from Vince McMahon. During his June 23, 2008, appearance on Sirius Satellite Radio's The Howard Stern Show, Belzer suggested that the real settlement amount was actually closer to $400,000."
Regardless of this, the point still stands, Thiel was very much more involved in the Gawker lawsuit than "paying legal costs" and that, regardless of the validity of Hogan's claims, or the trashiness of Gawker, troubles me. "Billionaire bankrolls lawsuit against someone he has a beef with, but could not himself sue, and appears to stage manage case."
1) gawker was trash and probably got what was coming to them. outing someone to get clicks is much more scummy in my opinion than what PT did. the world is a better place now that Gawker is not in it.
2) regarding "legal proxy's acting on someone behest,", I'm not a lawyer but what is the difference between this and HSBS acting as a "proxy" and paying the legal costs of mexican employees (executives actually) [1] who got caught illegal laundry money for the cartels. It is basically the same thing, someone or something with a lot of money throwing around money and affecting legal outcomes (Deferred prosecution agreements)
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-probe/hsbc-became-ba...
Let's start with Palantir?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies#Controve...
https://www.wired.com/story/how-peter-thiels-secretive-data-...
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel...
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict...
There are even some old (fairly unrevealing) demos on Youtube [2]
So why is he working with the government then? Well, a combination of something he wants to change and business opportunity. Sometimes to change something, it's best to work within the system and help steer it another way. The government has been invading people's privacy for a long time and increasingly so, with or without Palantir. At least this way he has influence over the direction. But who knows in reality how much is driven by trying to improve it vs making money and how that calculus works out.