6 ms·

Half of a billion in lobbying dollars well spent by FAANG[1] - business as usual continues for facebook despite their decreasing popularity and repeated scandal

Half of a billion in lobbying dollars well spent by FAANG[1] - business as usual continues for facebook despite their decreasing popularity and repeated scandal and failure, from Cambridge Analytica to Libra. Those in my immediate circle have mothballed or closed their accounts, although Instagram seems to have more holding power. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajdellinger/2019/04/30/how-the-biggest-tech-companies-spent-half-a-billion-dollars-lobbying-congress/?sh=6d9f262157c9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajdellinger/2019/04/30/how-the-...

EhhhhSql 6y ago
It's worth noting that quite a few politicians hold facebook stock, most notably Nancy Pelosi. I believe most of her current personal wealth is from facebook stock. My point is not to be skeptical of Pelosi from some partisan perspective; I have never voted Republican. I merely aim to cast doubt on whether anything will fundamentally change.
- vinay_ys 6y ago
  This should be a pretty easy to verify claim. Do you have any source for this?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - hurt_and_afraid 6y ago
    It's not quite "most of her current personal wealth". Here is a source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nancy-pelosi-husband-bought-amazon-facebook-shares-stock-senator-investments-2020-2-1028900178?op=1 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nancy-pelosi...
- jiofih 6y ago
  Did a quick fact check on this. Her husband is an investor and traded options* for tech companies including Facebook, which she disclosed out of their own will since she was attacking them at the time. Basically everyone has been trading FAANG in the past year so that tells you nothing. * which also means most likely he never actually held the stocks
zionic 6y ago
Patiently waiting for Apple and google to remove the facebook app, and AWS to... well... say they can’t join AWS someday.
- kommissar 6y ago
  They use aws for some things. For example, https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/machine-learning/facebook-uses-amazon-ec2-to-evaluate-the-deepfake-detection-challenge/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/machine-learning/facebook-uses-...
- vmception 6y ago
  Actually maybe municipalities can go after data centers. Discretionary permits, zoning etc.
- wtfiswiththis 6y ago
  You do understand that the same family that funded Cambridge Analytica like the user above mentioned is the one the funded Parler, the app you are talking about? Maybe we should hold these people to account instead of trying to compare their projects to entities that are not as nearly as partisan by design as Mercer family projects are. They helped groom and incite so many people to radicalism, and we will be dealing with individuals flaming out for years.
downandout 6y ago
What’s interesting about this to me is that Facebook, where most of the planning took place, is still online, while Parler has been, for all intents and purposes, killed. I wonder why AANG isn’t colluding to kill F like they did with Parler - by tomorrow morning - now that this has come to light. It seems only fair given that we now have an established standard of user behavior that dictates whether or not companies can continue to exist.
- notacoward 6y ago
  There are two really simple reasons. One is that any such collusion would itself be a breach of anti-trust. The other is that they can't. Facebook has its own servers in its own data centers, its own fiber lines, etc. They could remove the apps from the iOS and Android app stores, but that wouldn't affect the billions who already have the app or get it preinstalled by carriers. And that's all beside the question of whether Facebook deserves such special treatment, either compared to the others or at all.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Parler has been, for all intents and purposes, killed. Parler wasn't “killed” because planning took place there, but because they were openly at least unable if not actually unwilling to take action against a huge backlog of specific problem identified to them; the problem was current and forward, not retrospective.
  - rj_kidwin 6y ago
    Amazon has stated that it warned Parler for months without redress, but to offer another perspective, the CEO of Parler stated in an interview that they were notified the day before they got the plug pulled, sought to work with AWS on solving the issue, then were "deplatformed" the following day. He said she said, but obviously both sides are incentivized to make themselves look clean
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      Though I doubt that Parler has many employees, it seems unlikely the emails from your hosting company would be read by the CEO. It's entirely possible both people are telling the truth.
efwfwef 6y ago
> their decreasing popularity FTFY: in the US > repeated scandal and failure At this point what large company hasn't had breaches or cancelled projects? Hell, is your company doing OK in terms of security? Are they hashing passwords correctly? How large is the security team? My company doesn't even hash passwords... At some point you need to stop living in a bubble and recognize that plenty of people, businesses, communities, etc. rely on the app in a positive way. I can understand that you're not using it, or think it's evil, but not everyone shares your opinion.
- Kalium 6y ago
  > How large is the security team? More importantly, how big is their whiskey budget? It's not the greatest proxy, but how regularly your security team drinks is a not-terrible way to gauge how much trouble your org is going to be in should something happen.
  - dmd 6y ago
    Is the correlation positive or negative?
    - Kalium 6y ago
      As things seem worse, the whiskey budget per person grows.
- yawaramin 6y ago
  > At this point what large company hasn't had breaches or cancelled projects? 'Breaches' and 'cancelled projects' aren't the only scandals and failures to come out of Facebook ... just the other day on HN front page was an article (from 2018) where Facebook openly admitted that their platform enabled the Myanmar crisis.
- jarkhen 6y ago
  > My company doesn't even hash passwords... I understand this is somewhat my privilege speaking here, but I don't think I could continue working at a company that didn't do something as basic as hashing passwords (and refused to prioritize fixing that as soon as I pointed it out). It's a massive ethical, if not legal (IANAL), liability -- and a huge breach of users' trust. It's 2021, hashing user passwords is astonishingly easy; I can't imagine any remotely justifiable excuse for something like that.
Railsify 6y ago
Members of Congress will use this event as a catalyst for fundraising, soon after the election they will draft legislation that threatens to control and/or regulate the tech giants. Shortly after that the lobbyists representing Big Tech get wind of this new legislation on the horizon and donations will flow like a river to the PACs and re-election campaigns, then the proposed legislation will be shelved.
- wdn 6y ago
  If you see how much wealth the politicians, especially the one holding important position, you see why they want the job for a merely $200,000 a year. Clinton and Obama got very wealth after their presidency. Pelosi wealth goes up many fold for becoming speaker of the house. Not only their wealth go up, everyone around them got a lot wealthier too.
  - wavefunction 6y ago
    Why are you not mentioning any Republicans?
    - alsetmusic 6y ago
      > Why are you not mentioning any Republicans? That’s a good point. It’s not like Trump’s holdings weren’t fed a line of patrons while he was in office. Seems odd to leave out the most prominent and recent example.
      - Izkata 6y ago
        Trump didn't make money off of the presidency, if anything he spent (2016-2017) or lost (2020) wealth: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/forbes-400-donald-trump-wealth/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/forbes-400-donald-tr...
        macg333 6y ago
        Just because he didn't make money because he's a failure at business and his particular ventures were negatively affected by the coronavirus (the explanation given in your article) completely ignores that he funneled a substantial amount of tax payer dollars into his private ventures by spending so much time there with his security detail.

EhhhhSql 6y ago

It's worth noting that quite a few politicians hold facebook stock, most notably Nancy Pelosi. I believe most of her current personal wealth is from facebook stock. My point is not to be skeptical of Pelosi from some partisan perspective; I have never voted Republican. I merely aim to cast doubt on whether anything will fundamentally change.

vinay_ys 6y ago
This should be a pretty easy to verify claim. Do you have any source for this?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hurt_and_afraid 6y ago
  It's not quite "most of her current personal wealth". Here is a source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nancy-pelosi-husband-bought-amazon-facebook-shares-stock-senator-investments-2020-2-1028900178?op=1 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nancy-pelosi...
jiofih 6y ago
Did a quick fact check on this. Her husband is an investor and traded options* for tech companies including Facebook, which she disclosed out of their own will since she was attacking them at the time. Basically everyone has been trading FAANG in the past year so that tells you nothing. * which also means most likely he never actually held the stocks

zionic 6y ago

Patiently waiting for Apple and google to remove the facebook app, and AWS to... well... say they can’t join AWS someday.

kommissar 6y ago
They use aws for some things. For example, https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/machine-learning/facebook-uses-amazon-ec2-to-evaluate-the-deepfake-detection-challenge/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/machine-learning/facebook-uses-...
vmception 6y ago
Actually maybe municipalities can go after data centers. Discretionary permits, zoning etc.
wtfiswiththis 6y ago
You do understand that the same family that funded Cambridge Analytica like the user above mentioned is the one the funded Parler, the app you are talking about? Maybe we should hold these people to account instead of trying to compare their projects to entities that are not as nearly as partisan by design as Mercer family projects are. They helped groom and incite so many people to radicalism, and we will be dealing with individuals flaming out for years.

downandout 6y ago

What’s interesting about this to me is that Facebook, where most of the planning took place, is still online, while Parler has been, for all intents and purposes, killed. I wonder why AANG isn’t colluding to kill F like they did with Parler - by tomorrow morning - now that this has come to light. It seems only fair given that we now have an established standard of user behavior that dictates whether or not companies can continue to exist.

notacoward 6y ago
There are two really simple reasons. One is that any such collusion would itself be a breach of anti-trust. The other is that they can't. Facebook has its own servers in its own data centers, its own fiber lines, etc. They could remove the apps from the iOS and Android app stores, but that wouldn't affect the billions who already have the app or get it preinstalled by carriers. And that's all beside the question of whether Facebook deserves such special treatment, either compared to the others or at all.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Parler has been, for all intents and purposes, killed. Parler wasn't “killed” because planning took place there, but because they were openly at least unable if not actually unwilling to take action against a huge backlog of specific problem identified to them; the problem was current and forward, not retrospective.
- rj_kidwin 6y ago
  Amazon has stated that it warned Parler for months without redress, but to offer another perspective, the CEO of Parler stated in an interview that they were notified the day before they got the plug pulled, sought to work with AWS on solving the issue, then were "deplatformed" the following day. He said she said, but obviously both sides are incentivized to make themselves look clean
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    Though I doubt that Parler has many employees, it seems unlikely the emails from your hosting company would be read by the CEO. It's entirely possible both people are telling the truth.

efwfwef 6y ago

> their decreasing popularity FTFY: in the US > repeated scandal and failure At this point what large company hasn't had breaches or cancelled projects? Hell, is your company doing OK in terms of security? Are they hashing passwords correctly? How large is the security team? My company doesn't even hash passwords... At some point you need to stop living in a bubble and recognize that plenty of people, businesses, communities, etc. rely on the app in a positive way. I can understand that you're not using it, or think it's evil, but not everyone shares your opinion.

Kalium 6y ago
> How large is the security team? More importantly, how big is their whiskey budget? It's not the greatest proxy, but how regularly your security team drinks is a not-terrible way to gauge how much trouble your org is going to be in should something happen.
- dmd 6y ago
  Is the correlation positive or negative?
  - Kalium 6y ago
    As things seem worse, the whiskey budget per person grows.
yawaramin 6y ago
> At this point what large company hasn't had breaches or cancelled projects? 'Breaches' and 'cancelled projects' aren't the only scandals and failures to come out of Facebook ... just the other day on HN front page was an article (from 2018) where Facebook openly admitted that their platform enabled the Myanmar crisis.
jarkhen 6y ago
> My company doesn't even hash passwords... I understand this is somewhat my privilege speaking here, but I don't think I could continue working at a company that didn't do something as basic as hashing passwords (and refused to prioritize fixing that as soon as I pointed it out). It's a massive ethical, if not legal (IANAL), liability -- and a huge breach of users' trust. It's 2021, hashing user passwords is astonishingly easy; I can't imagine any remotely justifiable excuse for something like that.

Railsify 6y ago

Members of Congress will use this event as a catalyst for fundraising, soon after the election they will draft legislation that threatens to control and/or regulate the tech giants. Shortly after that the lobbyists representing Big Tech get wind of this new legislation on the horizon and donations will flow like a river to the PACs and re-election campaigns, then the proposed legislation will be shelved.

wdn 6y ago
If you see how much wealth the politicians, especially the one holding important position, you see why they want the job for a merely $200,000 a year. Clinton and Obama got very wealth after their presidency. Pelosi wealth goes up many fold for becoming speaker of the house. Not only their wealth go up, everyone around them got a lot wealthier too.
- wavefunction 6y ago
  Why are you not mentioning any Republicans?
  - alsetmusic 6y ago
    > Why are you not mentioning any Republicans? That’s a good point. It’s not like Trump’s holdings weren’t fed a line of patrons while he was in office. Seems odd to leave out the most prominent and recent example.
    - Izkata 6y ago
      Trump didn't make money off of the presidency, if anything he spent (2016-2017) or lost (2020) wealth: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/forbes-400-donald-trump-wealth/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/forbes-400-donald-tr...
      - macg333 6y ago
        Just because he didn't make money because he's a failure at business and his particular ventures were negatively affected by the coronavirus (the explanation given in your article) completely ignores that he funneled a substantial amount of tax payer dollars into his private ventures by spending so much time there with his security detail.