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Comment by aristocrazy | Hacker News Reader

Given how the WH operates these days, this is ripe for corruption. Imagine the WH dislikes the CEO of a biotech company, while appreciating the attitude of a competitor CEO. What is to stop them from stalling on giving acess for the latest model to the company they don't like?

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>Imagine the WH dislikes the CEO of a biotech company, while appreciating the attitude of a competitor CEO.

there is no need to imagine, this is what is literally happening

> ripe for corruption

You're two steps behind.

I’ve been hearing ‘oh this will set a precedent there is no turning back from’ weekly since Jan 2025.

It’s like the frog commenting that the 80C water is about to get hotter.

> I’ve been hearing ‘oh this will set a precedent there is no turning back from’ weekly since Jan 2025.

I mean, it's not really wrong. JD Vance recently said that Watergate would just be a "12 hour news cycle" if it happened today, and spouted some bullshit that "the deep state" took down Nixon. The takeaway from me was that corruption has become so normalized by the Trump administration that Watergate wouldn't even be such a big deal today, and, incredibly sadly, I think he's probably right.

I’m waiting for the “Yes, I was corrupt. I did it to show you all how corrupt a government can be if you let it be”

> What is to stop them from stalling on giving acess for the latest model to the company they don't like?

Congress, if any of those creatures were vertebrates.

For the next few months, though? Nothing will. Those in the in-crowd will line each others' pockets at the expense of the rest of us. I will say that the recent election results and the building bipartisan angst over data centers and surveillance (e.g. Flock) are encouraging.

The tragedy is the Trump admin is setting the precedent and creating the framework which will be abused in the future. For all the complains he made about the deep state, he's just creating a new avenue for them to abuse power

Same as it ever was. If you listen to interviews with Zuckerberg he’ll talk about the constant communiques from The White House during the Biden administration. Trump didn’t start this unfortunately he’s just more brazen about it.

All you're saying is that the government under Biden talked to Meta.

Uhhh no. The White House (and other government agencies) have a well-established right to communicate with private entities. They do not have a right to coerce them. There's a blurry line between these, but not in Facebook's case, as they don't even claim they were coerced. Same with Twitter, whose lawyers testified under oath that Twitter's content moderation decisions were not coerced whatsoever.

Zuckerberg has specifically said they received requests from the government, they complied with some (as they have a right to do), declined others (as they have a right to do), none of which was under duress, and the response to non-compliance was expressions of "frustration" by the government officials.

By contrast, OpenAI's largest competitor just got kneecapped by the US government because they insisted that the US government comply with the contract terms the US government signed to literally months previously.

Oh no! Biden sent an email to a company with a voluntary request?

That’s definitely as concerning as Trump taking bribes and then picking winners and losers in the market.

which of facebooks major products did Biden pull on a whim?

i dont remember whatsapp suddenly being turned off

Tiktok?

Still happened under Trump, they just forced TikTok to sell to a political ally.

That was via law passed by congress not executive fiat, which Trump's executive branch was illegally delaying until it was sold to a political ally.

"Biden was horrible, terrible, very not good and I complain a lot about how he was the worst ever.

Trump is worse and I just "whatabout Biden" and leave it at that."

He always was the "deep state...."

We are living in the future, so who set the precedent in the past?

Ah yes, the defining tragedy of the Trump administration is ... gestures into the middle distance ... look over there! what if those guys abuse it one day?

That's precisely what's going to happen.

The White House is already 100% corrupt. The American political system has failed in keeping out a conman pedophile from the highest office in the land. What follows is pretty much what you'd expect under these conditions.

You dont even need corruption. Once its political it becomes subservient to political interests.

"Given how the WH operates these days" I've got bad news for you...

They is what is currently and blatantly happening already.

In most countries around the world corruption/bribes are necessary for doing business. Companies even account for it on their books. It was about time the US caught up.

In the US is already legal. It is called lobbying.

There was at least a veneer of legitimacy there.

These days, they just do it with crypto: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$Trump

This is such an annoying attitude. Who is against the concept of an industry being able to say “are you aware this will decimate the jobs of tens of thousands”?

Catch phrases like this, I swear, are half the reason so many people have a mind an inch deep and a mile wide.

The issue is that lobbying extends to PAC and Super PAC campaign donations. Which is pretty close to a bribe.

Lobbyist giving opinions, isn’t anywhere near corruption. Lobbyist giving campaign support by the $100,000 is a lot closer though.

Ok, so complain about PACs and super PACs. Who goes "Sandwiches are bad. The issue is that sandwiches lead to buffets and WEIGHT GAIN!!! BAN SANDWICHES!!!"

Because lobbying in the US is realistically dominated by money. We’re not stupid here - I think we all know money works better than words.

So... the solution is to ban speaking to your representatives to tell them how their actions will affect you? I dont get it. If you don't like the money aspect, take that out. It's not like it's inherently required for the overall concept to work.

It sure seems like we're pretending to be stupid, if the only solutions we can come up with are "unabated lobbying with infinite money" and "constituents must be outlawed from speaking with their representatives".

I mean in our current legal framework yeah - those things are equivalent. Money IS free speech. Maybe that’s dumb, but it’s not an argument we can ignore because it’s the predominant argument.

Yes, it’s dumb, and yes, that’s the topic of discussion here.

Lobbyists exist in a lot of countries. It’s only in the US where they’re as problematic as they are.

PACs and super PACs are the key difference. Lobbying in the US includes practices that would fall squarely into the definition of corruption in many other Western countries.

There's nothing inherently wrong with people or groups talking to representatives and advocating for their interests, even in an organized way. The problem is when it gets closer to: "Pass this law or regulation, and we'll put $USD_AMOUNT into your PAC".

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