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Facebook Businesses Government Social Networks

Facebook Should Be 'Regulated Like Cigarette Industry', Salesforce CEO Says (theguardian.com) 91

Posted by msmash from the strong-voices dept.
Facebook should be regulated like a cigarette company, because of the addictive and harmful properties of social media, according to Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff. From a report: Social networks would be regulated "exactly the same way that you regulated the cigarette industry," Benioff told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "Here's a product -- cigarettes -- they're addictive, they're not good for you, maybe there's all kinds of different forces trying to get you to do certain things. There's a lot of parallels. I think that, for sure, technology has addictive qualities that we have to address, and that product designers are working to make those products more addictive, and we need to rein that back as much as possible," he added. Benioff, who founded B2B cloud computing company Salesforce in 1999, and is now worth more than $4bn, suggested that regulation of some form was inevitable for the technology industry. "We're the same as any other industry," he said. "Financial services, consumer product goods, food -- in technology, the government's going to have to be involved. There is some regulation but there probably will have to be more."
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Facebook Should Be 'Regulated Like Cigarette Industry', Salesforce CEO Says More

Facebook Should Be 'Regulated Like Cigarette Industry', Salesforce CEO Says

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  • but I don't see anyone regulating that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      There's a world of difference between physical addiction and compelling experiences. I'm all for some legal investigation into some of the shady practices (mostly) mobile and social game developers do to psychologically manipulate you into coming back to their product, much like I love :loot boxes" being regulated as gambling, but it's not the same category as cigarettes.

      Same for FB itself. Even if FB is pulling the same sort of shady, psychologically manipulative, tricks to get people to keep coming back

      • This. Since when did "addiction" become divorced from a chemical dependence marked by withdrawl manifested by real measurable medical (and potentially life-threatening) symptoms? This is what differentiates a real addiction and an "addiction".
    • especially on the Christian right & among evangelicals. Still this guy is full of it. The public health risks to Facebook alone are a fraction of smoking. Plus there isn't a concerted effort on the part of Facebook to downplay those risks. We ought to keep a close eye on social media vis-a-vis fake news but we don't quite need the same level of regulatory muscle as tobacco companies get.

    • That's because porn is too fucked up to be regulated. And if you try to force pushing regulation through a backdoor, they'll moan a bit but they'll like it anyway.

      • And if you try to force pushing regulation through a backdoor, they'll moan a bit but they'll like it anyway.

        Tolerably witty.

  • If there is no second hand smoke issue, it would be unconstitutional to ban tobacco.

    Pursuit of happiness is a founding principle of this nation, and you dont get to define when the pursuit should be abandoned.

  • What's interesting about the debate over net neutrality is how much it focusing on the infrastructure of transmitting data instead of the platforms that now control all of our data. When it comes to Facebook/Apple/Google/Amazon/Twitter/Instagra/Youtube/Netflix, so much of our data and daily activity is centered around those platforms. We've seen it recently where people get thrown off Youtube or Twitter for incendiary comments or violating terms of service. I hate racists, but Cloudflare shutting down

    • it's a major part of the discussion. A big part of NN is allowing a startup to join the big players and disrupt the industry if they've got the tech and a good idea. You can't beat the established players without NN because you won't be able to buy enough bandwidth. Hell, even if you could exclusivity deals will kill you deader than Elvis.

  • I didn't know Facebook killed that many people. I blame the kittens.

  • Keep your hands off the internet. (Score:4, Funny)

    by thedarb ( 181754 ) on Friday January 26, 2018 @04:55PM (#56010591)

    No. Just no. Facebook is a form of free speech. The internet is an platform for free speech. Stop trying to regulate free speech!

    • Facebook is a form of free speech for Russians to manipulate Americans.

      • Facebook is a form of free speech for Russians to manipulate Americans.

        But americans abusing everyone else on the same platform with same tools on larger scale is a complete non-issue?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by nine-times ( 778537 )

      Eh... well... Speech is regulated to some extent. Aside from the whole "yelling 'fire' in a theater" thing, there are various rules and controls on newspapers, TV, radio, and movies. There are some rules about the actual content, but even more importantly, there are rules about the way those businesses can run.

      In may cases, there are regulations that are less about preventing people from speaking, and more about making sure the motivations are clear. To give a simple/obvious example, you can't make fals

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tailhook ( 98486 )

        I'm just making it up off of the top of my head

        Oh for gods sake, Fuck. That. Noise! It's just more lawyers and more minders and more lawsuits and more levers for the Powers That Be to pull to stifle, shape and control all the things they don't like and shut out the people they don't like. Does it even occur to you that the crap you're dreaming up necessitates that basically everying is going to have to be recorded for evidentiary purposes? And all because you and your betters are upset with an election.

        Freedom, bitch. That's the answer.

      • Aside from the whole "yelling 'fire' in a theater" thing

        FALSELY yelling fire in a crowded theater. The "falsely" is important.

        • Even more important is recognizing that the whole "fire in a crowded theater" line was a hypothetical scenario invented for the sole purpose of justifying restrictions on political speech (specifically, people protesting the draft). Why people insist on bringing it up is beyond me, unless—like the judges who originally came up with the idea—they are just clinging to any excuse, no matter how threadbare, to justify the infringement of others' freedom of speech.

          The concern was supposedly that peop

    • Hahahahahahahaha! Facebook is heavily censored - it is most definitely not a platform for free speech. FB is also well known for collaborating with the Stasi. So no freedom after speech, either.

  • Surgeon General warning on the side? (Score:3)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Friday January 26, 2018 @04:56PM (#56010599)
    Are we going to have to show our driver's license before we log on? Put warning labels on it? Tax it heavily? Run anti-Facebook adds on TV? "Here is your brain. Here is your brain on Facebook. Any questions?"

  • school zone (Score:4)

    by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Friday January 26, 2018 @05:05PM (#56010703) Homepage

    You mean I won't be able to post to facebook within 200 feet of a school. And I'll start seeing my tax dollars used to fund obnoxious adds on tv now?

  • Hard to take seriously. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Friday January 26, 2018 @05:06PM (#56010715)

    It's hard to take a CEO seriously when their own products promote vendor lock-in. It's literally a "leaving us feels difficult" versus a "leaving us is difficult" situation.

  • Actually (Score:4)

    by DaMattster ( 977781 ) on Friday January 26, 2018 @05:08PM (#56010729)
    Facebook should just die! It should go the fuck away!
  • At least on Facebook, one can edit their posts. Slashdot has a system which deliberately elicits the most visceral responses possible -- it rewards being 1st to post more than anything else. Certainly, 1st to post is rewarded more than accuracy here. Galloway is a marketing professor and he's been "predicting" that Amazon and Facebook would be targeted by the government for a while. I guess he is calling for it openly now. Maybe their relevance algorithms are too good? So good that they make him irrel

  • ...the very idea of regulating human behavior that this would seem to require seems far worse to me.

  • When a bunch of fucktards like SpammerForce advocate just about anything, its a safe bet that the opposite position is the correct one to take.

    SpammerForce can get fucked.

  • The CEO of a company that sells nothing to consumers is calling for the regulation of a company that also sells nothing to consumers. I have no idea what SalesForce actually does. It must do something, because businesses are throwing all this money at it. Still though, the economy ran pretty well before all of this crap existed. We were on top of the world. We put a man on the Moon without SalesForce, and none of the guys that did it were FaceBooking while red lights flashed on panels at Mission Contro

  • Won't Someone Please (Score:3)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Friday January 26, 2018 @05:20PM (#56010875)

    think about the advertisers, the Russians trying to influence voting, people who post murders, guns, and abuse on BookFace? /s

  • But I plan on (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    But I plan on opening FB withdrawal clinics. With full rehab programs. Special classes for narc...narcissists. Foodie detox programs. I'll be printing money.

  • That suit interfered in the politics of Indiana several years ago because he did not like how Hoosiers behaved and what they believed. Now he wants to interfere with the functioning of the walled gardens because he does not like how the human cattle within behave, even though it has been obvious for years how crap-strewn the gardens are. The behavior of the cattle has even been codified long ago [penny-arcade.com].

    Nothing is going to come of this because this will be a fight between that rag doll stuffed with hundred-dolla

  • hate Facebook that's a stupid idea.
  • ... does it have to be said that "You cannot (successfully) legislate morality"? If you want to go that route, it could be argued that junk food, caffeine, and porn are all addictive to an extent and should be "regulated". But people need to take & accept responsibility for their own behavior.

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