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Comment by dralley | Hacker News Reader

It's a bit more subtle than that. They're innovating on the frontiers of the science of bribery. If you get someone to pay you $25 million to "settle a civil lawsuit" that you filed against them, it's not a bribe, it's a settlement. It's effectively legally indemnified no matter how ridiculous the lawsuit is (and given that it's a collaborative effort of sorts, the reasonableness of the lawsuit is irrelevant).

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Oh, absolutely. And they’ve managed to create multiple diverse income streams as well- so if this little racket is shut down, well we have a shitcoin for sale, or some branded sneakers, how about a bible or watch? Heck why not just have a publicly traded company with your name on it and no business fundamentals as another vehicle for grift.

Any fraction of one of those schemes would have doomed a previous administration. Now we’ve become numb. It’s disappointing.

So boycotting bad but racketeering/extortion good?

That seems to be the current narrative.

Oof. This is incredibly bleak, but also a good insight. Is the "settlement == bribe" comparison yours or did you read it somewhere?

Meta settled a lawsuit with president Trump for $25 million. He was suing them for violating his first amendment for banning his account (along with many other platforms) in the wake of January 6th 2021. This was a completely baseless case which he would have lost had it actually been fought, so many have interpreted this decision to settle as a form of bribe payment. This is especially suspicsious since Zuckerberg's hard pivot towards trying to get in the good graces of the new adminitration.

It seems there’s an economic argument against paying a bribe because paying one opens the door to more.

But such long term thinking conflicts with quarterly targets.

I'd agree if this bribe was made to anyone else, but the reasoning here is a bit different: everyone is afraid of Trump making an example of them. Remember that the new president has stated many times over the last years that he wants to throw Zuckerberg in jail, that he wants to ban media and social networks that are "unfair" to him.

This wasn't a bribe to settle a lawsuit, it was a bribe to get on the good side of an authoritarian who campaigned on being a tyrant.

It is a bit more subtle, as a better analogy is “protection racket” ala the Mob.

Paramount for example is implying that they may settle the lawsuit Trump filed against cbs as this would help their chances to approve a proposed merger with Skydance.

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