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My two cents: I don't think you can find ANY government (icluding Scandinavia countries, Switzerland and what not) that is NOT engaged in - "donating" money to a government regulator can induce the regulator to cover up and turn a blind eye to a person's alleged or suspected breaches in the course of investigations and prosecutions." That's how government regulation works, more regulation more opportunities for corruptions.

I agree that this has been normalized throughout the world, that's the weird thing about it, it's blatant corruption and everybody just goes about pretending it's okay or no big deal.

It's only a problem when a "hostile" government does it. Then you'd make a big deal on the media of how corrupt their government and country is.

Those who think it's not OK, often to want to deregulate. With no one to bribe, that brand of corruption goes away.

But they/we tend to be dismissed as crazy extremists by polite society.

with no one to regulate, facebook would never have to answer to anyone, ever.

I know this is old fashioned, but in a free society, I don't think you should have to answer to anyone, unless you commit a crime.

You don't think an international megacorp with the 1.2 trillion dollar market cap, under investigation for possible action or inaction leading to the subversion of the democratic process, should have to answer to anyone?

You're not wrong - "might makes right" is certainly old-fashioned.

Unfortunately, large corporations like this often utilize lobbying and regulatory capture to actually squash smaller competition which is not able to buy "justice".

Might makes right is not old fashioned at all, the mighty are just better at fooling people.

Ah yes, the old "end crime by making everything legal" gambit.

This is not corruption. Nobody is abusing their position for personal gain, the government (on behalf of the society at large) is simply accepting a payment to compensate for certain activity with negative externalities.

I disagree and I think it is corruption, and I'm astounded people don't.

The idea that someone can buy their way out of breach of laws and regulations like this is fundamentally unjust.

I'm not saying in any one particular instance of it happening any people are taking explicit kickbacks. But the regulating body and process as a whole has become corrupt by allowing this to happen. Whether it's because they get promoted because they netted a lot of fines, or because they later go work for private industry who scratches their backs, or simply that the government likes the revenue so they allow rich people to buy their way out of trouble and that's mutually beneficial for both parties, it is corruption.

So no regulation would yield a perfect utopia then? An obvious fallacy.

The GP made a falsifiable statement. Please attack that instead of creating a straw man.

> My two cents: I don't think you can find ANY government (icluding Scandinavia countries, Switzerland and what not) that is NOT engaged in - "donating" money to a government regulator can induce the regulator to cover up and turn a blind eye to a person's alleged or suspected breaches in the course of investigations and prosecutions." That's how government regulation works, more regulation more opportunities for corruptions.

This comment, taken as a whole, is notable in what it does not mention.

For example, it doesn't talk about the many kinds of corruption that regulation mitigates (yes, imperfectly).

"Is government regulation good or bad?" is perhaps an ok introductory question to start off with. However, it is simplistic and overly generalized. So if one does not progress beyond it, one hasn't gotten very far. A practical question is "What kinds and implementations of government regulation serve our goals?"

The problem with this is we then don't get notification of the crime. Chances are there's a lot of these deals happening that aren't so high profile, and when you cut a deal nothing comes out to the rest of society.

The prosecutor should just not be allowed to cut such deals. Pursue every case to a conclusion, so that we know what corruption there is.

That is just one of many relationships in play.

Regulation also can help mitigate many forms of corruption. A systems analysis is one good (systematic!) way to consider all the factors.

> I think it's bizarre that is what you find bizarre. You've already accepted paying more to shield the executives, so after that it's just negotiation.

To one up you - i find it bizare that you think that's the bizare part.

The entire point of a corporation, as a governance structure, in general is to limit liability for its shareholders. That's true for all corporations not just facebook. Its the reason people establish corporations instead of running businesseses informally as an individual.

The only surprising thing is the cost benefit trade-off here seems a bit much. Its not surprising that the facebook corporation tried to do its entire reason for existing.

> The entire point of a corporation, as a governance structure, in general is to limit liability for its shareholders. That's true for all corporations not just facebook. Its the reason people establish corporations instead of running businesseses informally as an individual.

Except they're not doing it to protect Zuckerberg or Sandberg as shareholders they're doing it to protect them as decision making executives. More to the point if they didn't have liability due to the structure of a corporation they would never have been in "danger" and therefore the pay-off would have been unnecessary.

You are confusing shareholders (people who own the company) and executives (people who are running it).

Mark is both, but his problem wasn't due to his share of the company but rather due to his actions or inaction as an executive.

Law does not protect executives breaking the law. It protects shareholders from executives who break it.

Or at least it was supposed to work this way. It seems when billions are on the table culpability is subject to negotiation.

> The entire point of a corporation, as a governance structure, in general is to limit liability for its shareholders. That's true for all corporations not just facebook. Its the reason people establish corporations instead of running businesseses informally as an individual.

I'm not sure if you've replied to the wrong message, but I'm obviously talking about executive actions and alleged breaches, not shareholder liability.

No one, the comment you're replying to included, is shocked that Facebook is willing to throw money at problems to make them go away.

The outrageous part is that someone accepted that money.

What I find weird is that for Facebook to pay a big lump of money to avoid personal liability seems like it would be unethical and possibly (I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know all the fine points here) actually something that Facebook could be successfully sued for by their shareholders, and yet the FTC was fine with it. Doesn't that make them complicit? I mean, it seems like that ought to be against FTC policy or something to accept deals that benefit the founder but throw the shareholders under the bus.

> this is either bribery or blackmail, depending on who blinks first, and conspiracy.

It doesn't much matter to me what the flavor is, what matters is that this is corruption in action, pure and simple.