Kara Swisher: Yes, Facebook Has Become a Menace | Hacker News Reader

Kara Swisher: Yes, Facebook Has Become a Menace

nytimes.com

26 pointstekdude3 comments

Generally, I tend to lean toward freer markets when it comes to major regulatory and anti-trust actions in internet tech. Especially the consumer web because it's so fast-moving and often disrupted. But occasionally major action is justified, necessary and the best available approach (or least-bad approach). I have no doubt when I read the allegations count by count I'll be concerned and even feel dismayed by the obvious privacy, data and trust issues. But whether the allegations are ethically concerning or morally problematic isn't at issue. They certainly are. However, I'm still unsure about the legal merits of the specific charges of this week's indictment. Mostly because I haven't seen them in detail yet but also because much of the existing legal precedent around these topics predates the rise of social media, the web and even the internet. Recent e-mail privacy cases are still being decided based on precedent set half a century ago in cases about analog phone system pin registers.

If this were a criminal case, going for a life-without-parole sentence sets a much higher bar for the prosecution. Whether prosecutors can meet a similarly high bar and secure a sentence that breaks up Facebook is a high-stakes gamble. It will take years to reach a final ruling and I'm sure FB will bring a defense every bit spirited and competent as the prosecution - and that's a good thing for us all. Regardless the eventual outcome of this specific case, these are deeply important issues and it's time they're more widely discussed, debated and fully litigated to a precedent-setting, internet-era court ruling.

The burden of proof needed to break up a company should always be lower than that needed to execute or incarcerate a human for life. People regularly have their freedom taken away for much less impactful crimes. If our values are that companies are sub-human (as they should be) then we should at least treat them equally under the law, not better. The individuals making these decisions are almost certainly shielded from liability, and on top of that the fractional damage fines do to large companies tends to be a rounding error relative to profits. Companies should be fined comparable fractions of their income as humans, yet we persist in special treatment for them. Breaking up facebook is the only corrective action left with any teeth.

> The burden of proof needed to break up a company should always be lower than that needed to execute or incarcerate a human for life.

This a fair point that got me thinking. On first pass, I broadly agree but as I unwound it more I realized there are some second-order downstream consequences to at least consider in the calculus balancing net harms. My other realization was that my own analogy to criminal sentencing was not really a good fit to this context. Trying to benchmark two such different things in relation to each other is hard. Especially when moral intuition is involved. I'll concede the point and plead it down to simply supporting the statement that going for higher penalties or more invasive remedies raises the bar for prosecutors within the same legal domain.

> If our values are that companies are sub-human (as they should be)

Companies certainly aren't people. But they are created by people, owned by people, support people's lives, serve people. It's obvious but worth mentioning that FB isn't just a huge company, it's the center of an entire ecosystem of companies all made of people and it serves a large fraction of the entire planet. The scale alone makes it exceptional in how far-reaching the consequences are, both in the harm it can do (to privacy, etc) and how many people it seizing it can impact (employment, economics).

> The individuals making these decisions are almost certainly shielded from liability, and on top of that the fractional damage fines do to large companies tends to be a rounding error relative to profits. Companies should be fined comparable fractions of their income as humans, yet we persist in special treatment for them. Breaking up facebook is the only corrective action left with any teeth.

I feel like each of these remaining points are things where I may agree that element of the system needs fixing (fine scaling, officer indemnification, etc) but those being broken and notable examples of fat cats "getting away with it" (along with the feelings of moral outrage they evoke) don't necessarily support leaping to breaking up this company, in this unique context, based on this evidence.

> Breaking up facebook is the only corrective action left with any teeth.

If the goal is corrective more than punishment/deterrence, the I think there are probably some other options at least worth exploring. Some legal analysts have already suggested that going for a break up is a tactical first move by prosecutors to force a negotiated settlement that's less than prosecutors are now demanding but much more than Facebook is now willing to do.

Thanks for the thoughtful response!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com