European Lawmakers Asked Mark Zuckerberg Why They Shouldn't Break Up Facebook (theverge.com) 220
European lawmakers questioned Mark Zuckerberg in Brussels today for almost an hour and a half, asking him to address concerns about the Cambridge Analytica data leak and Facebook's potential monopoly. German MEP Manfred Weber asked whether the Facebook CEO could name a single European alternative to his "empire," which includes apps like WhatsApp and Instagram in addition to Facebook. "I think it's time to discuss breaking up Facebook's monopoly, because it's already too much power in only one hand," said Weber. "So I ask you simple, and that is my final question: can you convince me not to do so?" Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt then chimed in and asked whether Facebook would cooperate with European antitrust authorities to determine whether the company was indeed a monopoly, and if it was, whether Facebook would accept splitting off WhatsApp or Messenger to remedy the problem. The Verge reports: The panel's format let Zuckerberg selectively reply to questions at the end of the session, and he didn't address Verhofstadt's points. Instead, he broadly outlined how Facebook views "competition" in various spaces. "We exist in a very competitive space where people use a lot of different tools for communication," said Zuckerberg. "From where I sit, it feels like there are new competitors coming up every day" in the messaging and social networking space. He also said that Facebook didn't hold an advertising monopoly because it only controlled 6 percent of the global advertising market. (It's worth noting: this is still a huge number.) And he argued that Facebook promoted competition by making it easier for small businesses to reach larger audiences -- which is basically unrelated to the question of whether Facebook itself is a monopoly.
What a complete joke (Score:1)
Europe should ban Facebook completely. Block all their servers until Zuck takes this seriously.
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Watching Zuckie squirm. (Score:5, Informative)
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The EU regulator were on the ball compared to the staggering ignorance of the US senators.
European alternative? (Score:1)
German MEP Manfred Weber asked whether the Facebook CEO could name a single European alternative to his "empire,"
So you're a monopoly if no Europeans can compete with you?
This is a weird idea, that only domestic companies count as competitors.
Blunt (Score:4, Insightful)
A blunt/honest answer would be: "Because many of your citizens would think you are regulatory douche-bags for cutting them off from a popular global service, and you'll lose elections."
I'm not saying I necessarily agree with such citizens, only that such a move could create political backlash for those asking the question.
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The public wont be shut down, they will just be product shifted. Can't break up Facebook, no problem, ban it and kill it, choose and perish. Facebook fad audience will just shift from hula hoops to yoyos, loyaltity Facebook executives do not have it, not even the scent of it, right now, governments could coat the executives of facebook with gravy and toss them to the wolven mob and they would just tear them to pieces, they are already baying for blood, don't even try calling to them and attracting their att
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A blunt/honest answer would be: "Because many of your citizens would think you are regulatory douche-bags for cutting them off from a popular global service, and you'll lose elections."
Stupid answer. Breaking up Facebook changes nothing for the citizens. No one would get cut off from anything if Facebook's is broken up into individual businesses,... you know like the individual businesses they were before Facebook bought them.
A better question would be: Since when does an empire of diverse products constitute a monopoly. And then proceed to rattle off the many alternatives to WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and the B2B side of the company that users could freely migrate to if they so wish
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When you can scarcely fart on the Internet without one, single company hearing about it in 3 different ways, then that company looks like a monopoly.
Facebook fits the bill, and so does Google - although right now, they're focussing on Facebook because they were stupid enough to lose some of the data they collected. If Google has a breach, they'll be in the same firing line (and probably more besides).
You don't have to be the only player in a market to look like a monopoly. The fact that everyone "could" swi
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When you can scarcely fart on the Internet without one, single company hearing about it in 3 different ways, then that company looks like a monopoly.
Yes I'm sure it would if you have no idea what the word monopoly means or how anti-trust laws relate to it.
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Literally no-one is losing any votes by going after Facebook. Its addicts would have to put the phone down to vote.
break them vertical, not horizontal (Score:4, Insightful)
With this approach, each company is more responsive to the local nations, but also allows them the chance to better integrate with those nations before taking on each other.
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The problem with that, is you're asking large teams to replicate their entire workflow and apparatus, largely knowing what continent they as employees and owners are going to be on when it's all over.
You're basically asking them all to sabotage eachother in their own creation.
Yeah, I know ISO certification, everything should be documented and all that - but like with legally complying with a court request - there's still a LOT of room even in ideal scenarios for games to be played with a multi-year window
Re:break them vertical, not horizontal (Score:4, Insightful)
The situation we are in is because of natural network effects-- there are few "natural" vertical boundaries, and geography isn't one of them. Serving the local population is something they are already (theoretically) invested in, as they want to be able to advertise to them.
Facebook should have never been permitted to buy Instagram or Whatsapp (at a minimum). These are the natural vertical boundaries; people don't associate facebook and instagram as closely as they do their friends/family/kin in another country.
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That would be a fantastic way of preventing Americans from benefiting with the GDPR requirements that Facebook must follow.
Zuckerberg didn't finish his sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
"From where I sit, it feels like there are new competitors coming up every day and we use our monopoly crush them all the time"
Re:Zuckerberg didn't finish his sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, alternate ending would be:
"From where I sit, it feels like there are new competitors coming up every day, and we buy them up before they can become a serious threat"
Re:Zuckerberg didn't finish his sentence (Score:4, Insightful)
"From where I sit, it feels like there are new competitors coming up every day, and we buy them up before they can become a serious threat"
You do understand that getting acquired is one of the most popular exit strategies for venture funded start ups, right? It is usually either that or go public and there is lots more paperwork to go public. So, the startup founders go around telling investors that their product would be a natural fit for (pick your favorite megacorp). Then, how do you get (pick your favorite megacorp) to acquire your start up? You appear to them like competition or some sort of threat to their marketshare, because knocking on the front door and asking nicely will not even get you the time of day.
So, while companies like Google and Facebook buying up potential competitors might seem purely evil from one perspective, there is no shortage of start ups throwing themselves at the big companies to get bought. The venture capitalists get their huge returns, the founders make a mint and then either VP jobs at the big company or walk away with bagfuls of cash and start another company, or retire, or whatever.
So you agree that competition is being eliminated (Score:3)
So, if I understand you correctly, you are agreeing with GP's premise that Facebook is eliminating competition?
To be sure, you are saying that the competition is happy to be eliminated, but that's not the point. Otherwise, whenever some evil villain did
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So, if I understand you correctly, you are agreeing with GP's premise that Facebook is eliminating competition?
To be sure, you are saying that the competition is happy to be eliminated, but that's not the point.
I think you misunderstand. While there are certainly some companies out there that present legitimate competition to Facebook and others, not all of them do. In fact, though I do not have data to back it up, I have talked with enough people on the startup scene that I get the sense that very few startups intend to compete directly with Facebook and others. Their objective from the early on is to fille a niche that is ignored by the big guys or to get acquired. If not for the possibility of getting acquired
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To be sure, you are saying that the competition is happy to be eliminated,
No, the competition wouldn't exist if not for the opportunity to be eliminated, making a profit in the process.
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That's their problem. The EU has no reason to give a fuck about Silicon Valley kids and their exit strategies.
The NSA (Score:2)
Natural monopolies in technology (Score:5, Interesting)
This problem is more complex than it looks. If they split Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram apart from each other, it may help with privacy and user choice a little. There may be less trading of information between affiliates and/or less requirement to sign up with one service to make use of another. But each of these companies will still be quasi-monopolies in their respective areas. The same goes for Google.
This may be inevitable -- anytime there are economies of scale in a market, you can get a natural monopoly, where no one can afford to compete with the incumbent firm(s). It cost a lot of money to build Google's search database Facebook's user network. It's nearly impossible for anyone else to come into those niches and compete with them. And do you even really want them too? How many people just use Google because it's good enough (extremely good really, compared to what came before), or Facebook because that's where their friends are?
The traditional answer to natural monopolies is regulation or government ownership. Regulation consists of the "utility compact" -- give the company a guaranteed monopoly, but regulate the prices they charge and the type of service they provide (e.g., require universal access). That's a no-brainer when dealing with essential services -- landline phones, electricity, water, bus service, and maybe Internet access (I would argue that this was the issue at the heart of network neutrality -- are ISPs common carriers or optional products?).
But does the idea of natural monopoly apply to "non-essential" services like Facebook and Google? Or maybe the cost of these services is just so low that we can ignore the inefficiency of having multiple providers in favor of innovation (e.g., people can signup for both WhatsApp and Skype, so what's the problem)? My instinct is that big tech companies may be edging into a gray area. Clearly people have alternatives to these companies, but on the other hand, due to their incumbent status, these companies have a huge advantage and are de facto the default provider for these services, a position they can abuse. We don't regulate electric utilities because they would cutoff service if we didn't; we regulate them so they can't abuse their dominant position. Should the same apply to big tech? I'd lean toward "probably not" at this point, but it's interesting to think about.
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Sorry, should have said "increasing returns to scale [wikipedia.org]" instead of "economies of scale." But the basic idea is, it's very hard and may not even be a good idea to build a new (phone, electricity, water, social?) network once an incumbent has already done it.
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Interoperability might be the solution. If different platforms can talk to each other there is less lock-in.
Even just being able to migrate all your stuff from service to service would help.
Of course we also need that to respect privacy.
Re:Natural monopolies in technology (Score:4, Interesting)
If we do regular these "non-essential" services, how do we do that if breaking up is not the answer? An idea: we could force open standards over the internal API, effectively turning some tech giants into utilities.
For example, everyone could add themselves to the social network without FB's software (maybe with a different software). Everyone could create an API provider, extending the social network, but not necessarily using FB's software. We could keep moderation with FB for now. FB keeps running its network as a base for the actual social network, but with limited control over the service itself.
This deals with the anti-competitive aspects of FB in a similar way to what we do with some natural monopolies, where a monopoly runs the basic service (rail tracks, electricity wires), but there's still some competition over the service itself. This does not entirely deal with the data issues - perhaps later, we can take this standard and migrate to a distributed version, and than these would be ameliorated as well.
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This. I think it's not only the simplest way to level the playing field and give the user control over what software she uses, but also the only viable one.
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Breaking off WhatsApp and Instagram will either kill those products, or lead to them funneling all their data to FB in exchange for cash to continue operating. Effectively, FB will still own WhatsApp and Instagram, except on paper. It's a stupid idea, because it has no real effect.
We kinow what Europe is. (Score:2)
Now he is merely negotiating their price.
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You clearly don't know anything about the EU.
Orkut, aSmallWorld, ... (Score:3)
If EU wanted alternatives maybe they should ask Google why they killed Orkut. (created by a Turkish national)
There is also ASW, which is for the elites of European society. (and based in Switzerland I believe)
And there is also Netlog (aka Facebox) which is Belgian and still around. Certainly not as hugely popular as Facebook (like 0.5% the user base)
It's a bit ridiculous to expect "competition" in a market where the service is totally free (except for ASW). I'd argue that facebook users aren't really engaging in a commercial transactions.
What it really it really is is up to regulators, but thinking that it is a business or a monopoly is a mistake. I can start a social network site tonight, and Facebook can't stop me and isn't (as far as I know) going to keep users from my site. Google will probably happily index me in their search engine if it means I dilute Facebook's market share.
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The issue is that if you don't like Facebook it's not like you can just go to another social network. Without your friends it won't be much fun.
There is some competition, but it either gets bought by Facebook anyway or is niche like LinkedIn.
The usual solution is to require Facebook to open up. You can have your Tumblr posts appear on your Facebook wall, along side your tweets.
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Indeed. And nothing prevents you and your friends from joining multiple social networks. It's not like we can't afford to sign up for G+, Facebook, and whatever else that suits our fancy. And *gasp* we might even meet new people and establish an additional circles of friends.
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Google killed Orkut because the Brazilians made it unusable by anyone else. I got multiple unwanted contact requests (all from people whose language I don't speak) per day, and nothing else. They wanted an international social networking site, and got a Brazilian one.
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The issue was less critical for me as I'm (slowly) learning Portuguese. My pronunciation is atrocious though.
"international" is code for anglophone. it's OK, I don't think that's really that bad. But let's at least be honest about it.
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"international" is code for anglophone. it's OK, I don't think that's really that bad. But let's at least be honest about it.
It wasn't international, though. It really was just Brazilians. I wasn't getting dozens of unsolicited contact requests from Chinese, or Australians, or people on the African continent. It was literally 100% Brazilian.
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Orkut wasn't initially so Brazilian. And if it were all Americans I doubt people would complain about it not being international. Well at least the Americans wouldn't complain.
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Orkut wasn't initially so Brazilian. And if it were all Americans I doubt people would complain about it not being international. Well at least the Americans wouldn't complain.
You can make whatever you want out of it (and you're probably right about that last part) but my only point was that they didn't get what they wanted, so they shut it down. And I happen to see what it turned into, and I think it's a shame they didn't keep it going, even though I didn't use it. But... that's how they are. They shut things down all the time.
For what goal? (Score:3)
I quite dislike Facebook, and but I fail to see how breaking up Whatsapp and Messenger from Facebook would remedy anything exposed in the Cambridge Analytica affair.
Re:For what goal? (Score:4, Interesting)
It is much more difficult to regulate the conglomerate than the subsidiaries, if the time comes. You simply get to a point that they can say "this is the way it works," and there isn't really much you can do. The incentive to break them up is in keeping them from being too ingrained that you cannot kill them.
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The messaging apps and services of FB don't generate any income. They are worthwhile to FB because they funnel ever-more data about users that can be used to target advertising everywhere else. If the proposed subsidiaries are banned from selling the same data they ship to FB HQ today, they will die. There's no money in messaging apps. If they aren't banned, you've added paperwork, but have essentially changed nothing from the perspective of users or other EU citizens.
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If they aren't banned, you've added paperwork, but have essentially changed nothing from the perspective of users or other EU citizens
Wait, you would have hurt Facebook, at least. It does not fix anything, but that is not so bad!
EM pulse bombs (Score:2, Flamebait)
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Facebook should be declared a mental health hazard (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.economist.com/grap... [economist.com]
MAY 20th will mark the end of “mental-health awareness week”, a campaign run by the Mental Health Foundation, a British charity. Roughly a quarter of British adults have been diagnosed at some point with a psychiatric disorder, costing the economy an estimated 4.5% of GDP per year. Such illnesses have many causes, but a growing body of research demonstrates that in young people they are linked with heavy consumption of social media.
According to a survey in 2017 [rsph.org.uk] by the Royal Society for Public Health, Britons aged 14-24 believe that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter have detrimental effects on their wellbeing. On average, they reported that these social networks gave them extra scope for self-expression and community-building. But they also said that the platforms exacerbated anxiety and depression, deprived them of sleep, exposed them to bullying and created worries about their body image and “FOMO” (“fear of missing out”). Academic studies have found that these problems tend to be particularly severe among frequent users.
What would be the public and government response be if these same symptoms were caused by something in our drinking water or in the air or in food?
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Not at all. Social Networking should be declared a mental health hazard. What you're doing is akin to saying that banning 9mm bullets will fix gun crime in America.
"From where I sit" (Score:2)
> "From where I sit, it feels like there are new competitors coming up every day"
This could actually be true, but only for a few seconds until Zuckerberg smacks each little start-up into oblivion from his high castle using a team of elite lawyers.
His whole job probably feels like one giant game of whack-a-mole.
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Lawyers? I suppose, maybe. Seems far more likely he'll just crush them with Monopoly power (normal) or buy them (if they protected their IP/he wants to acqui-hire.)
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> Lawyers? I suppose, maybe. Seems far more likely he'll just crush them with Monopoly power
Isn't that the same thing?
I have a reason (Score:2)
Wakker waks again (Score:3)
And it's also totally false... the internet is what lets small businesses reach a larger audience. As much as Facebook would like to make The Internet a wholly owned subsidiary, that's still not the case in... most places, I think some African or Asian villages might only have Facebook Essentials....
Monopoly? Breakup? What are they smoking? (Score:3)
Since when does an empire have a monopoly on account of being an "empire". Are people using the Facebook empire? The way I see it Facebook is made up of a variety of platforms and except for the social media platform itself each of them have healthy competition on the continent. If the Belgian MEP wants to know what the alternatives are, why doesn't he ask his daughter who likely uses none of Facebook's "empire".
Mind you the entire question sounds like it was dreamed up in a coffee shop in Amsterdam. What would breaking up achieve? WhatsApp and Instagram were massively popular pre-Facebook. Ownership didn't change anything there, and breaking Facebook's social network out from the rest achieves nothing regards to Facebook's market power, nor does it prevent any of the things that various governments are questioning the Zuck about.
At last the European Parliament is in the news (Score:2)
At last, at last, the European Parliament is in the news.
At last, at last, elected MEPs are named in the news.
At last, at last, the words of elected MEPs are quoted in the news.
I am in tears typing this. I am in Hazlemere, in Buckinghamshire, UK. Why has it taken so long?
For so long, the news media in the UK has behaved as if there is no such thing as the European Parliament. Newspaper after newspaper has been printed without mentioning a single word said in the European Parliament. Or any of the other 6 in
Media moguls (Score:2)
That is because the moguls that control the UK media want it that way and why they've spent two decades lying every day about the EU.
I just think it's rather comical (Score:2)
that many of these people are so against any PRIVATE business having a "monopoly" because the competition didn't do as well, but would have no issue with a government-run "monopoly" doing the same thing.
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I don't understand why that's strange. I trust a government monopoly far more than a private one. I based that on the history of utilities.
Why shouldn't I?
Ttfn (Score:2)
"I think it's time to discuss breaking up Facebook's monopoly, because it's already too much power in only one hand," said Weber. "So I ask you simple, and that is my final question: can you convince me not to do so?"
Zukerberg sighed, knowing the "convincing" the politician needed involved his hand behind his back, fingers wagging. This was why these people went into power, to get in the way, to be paid to get back out of the way.
For now he would play the contrition game. Many were the useless idiots who
Re:Typical Eurotrash (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why would they leave? If they break it up, the same people own the stock, the same people make the profits.
It just splits up the operations and makes it slightly less efficient, e.g., they spend a little more on labor but are still profitable.
It makes way more sense to imagine a company fighting back when they're being asked to actually change the way they do business, like telling them to limit what they link to on a page, or where they place their sidebars.
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we do not need and do not want FB in the EU!
Maybe you don't want FB in the EU. A quick search tells me that there are hundreds of millions of EU citizens that would disagree. Shadow profiles aside, Facebook isn't forcing people to create accounts. They're volunteering to be tracked in exchange for communication options. Lots of people want Facebook. Lots of people hate Facebook. Some people fall in both camps.
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Absolutely not. Shadow profiles are shady. When I excluded them, I was emphasizing that there were hundreds of millions of accounts belonging to people who requested them, i.e. people who want FB in the EU. That doesn't excuse FB's shadow profile behavior anywhere. FB's hardly the only one collecting data on prospective customers, but it's shady.
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So you want to hold Facebook accountable for other people leaking your information?
Re:Typical Eurotrash (Score:5, Insightful)
WhatsApp won't be competition for Facebook (Score:3, Insightful)
If they think that Facebook having a near monopoly in social networks, if you think there should be competition between social networks, splitting off WhatsApp isn't a solution.
If you want Facebook to have competition, you might split it into two social network companies, Facebook and Bookface or whatever. You'd have Facebook A and Facebook B competing against each other, with different owners and boards.
Thinking WhatsApp, as a different company is going to be real competition for Facebook - well it makes m
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The problem is, the whole reason Facebook is popular (like Myspace before it) is that everybody else is there. Consumers will pick one or the other, and then go to where all their friends are.
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Exactly this. If regulators really want to break up Facebook they should not force the company to split, but force them to have open APIs which allow interoperability among social networks. I bet you'd have a million different social network providers if you could remove the hurdle of getting a critical mass of people
Re:Typical Eurotrash (Score:5, Informative)
(I'm assuming here you're from the U.S.. If not, please specify)
As if the U.S. federal political bodies such shining examples? The president isn't directly elected, but by some shady electors instead, that can vote entirely contrary to their given mandate. The government is solely selected by the president, so no direct representation there. Senate doesn't represent the populace, but the states as every state sends two representatives, whether the population of said state is '3' or 'almost everyone'. And each congressional district (which at least is made up of an equal divide of the population) can only elect one representative, which almost begs for a two-party system and is patently the most false form of democracy ever invented.
Now, compare this with the EU.
The EU presidents (every political body has one) are mostly chairmen. They preside over the debates in their respective bodies but have little more power. There are tree bodies.
The European Commission is the executive branch. It has one member of each state, that each minister a department. They are bound by oath to not act in national interest. If a single member needs to be dismissed, the president can do so. However, the EU parliament can order a vote of no-confidence which dismisses the entire European Commission.
The EU parliament could be somewhat compared to your house of representatives. Every country can vote for its proportionate number of representatives which ARE directly elected by the entire populace of said countries. EU political parties can campaign in every member state if they want to and after elections, representatives are (supposed to be) loyal to their political associations, not their nationality. The fact even the smallest country has 6 representatives, makes it a much better representation of the entire populace (it easily prevents a two-party system).
The European Council has one representative of each country. Its political head of state. In that regard it's much like your senate. It's up to the countries how they elect their heads of state. Some are directly elected, some are not. The heads of state safeguard at the national interests of the member states within the EU. They are particularly expected to. That's why decisions are taken in different ways (sometimes consensus, sometimes majority, sometimes unanimity) because different problems require different approaches. When that was deemed important, the way to vote on a certain type of problem was documented in the treaties that every member nation had to sign when joining the EU. No EU without treaties. Every member knew what it was getting into. If you don't like that, blame your parents (or grandparents). Now, getting out is an entirely different matter. Currently one member is trying to, but that story is going off topic too much.
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American here, and while your assessment of U.S. federal government is slightly inaccurate, I would still take a parliamentary system over what we have.
The President is indirectly elected by electors, but those electors have never voted against their party mandate (a few have defected at various times, but never affected an election). "The government is solely selected by the president" is completely inaccurate. He nominates non-elected positions with Senate approval, but voting for the President is also a
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"The government is solely selected by the president" is completely inaccurate.
I think that might just be a mismatch of what the term "the government" means. In the US it can mean anything from the entirety of the national government, to any and all US governments, from national to local level. I think in Europe it means the bureaucracy. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. So what he's saying is the President appoints people to fill the roles in the executive branch. He doesn't hire everyone directly, and many positions require Senate approval, but in that context the statement read
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(I'm assuming here you're from the U.S.. If not, please specify)
I am an EU Citizen.
patently the most false form of democracy ever invented
I would argue the opposite. In my home country, I don't have direct representation. I can elect liberal, green or left, and those parties decide who gets to fill the parliamentary seats. The U.S. House of Representatives are just that: people who represent their constituents from their districts. The counter balance to those "populist"-by-design politicians is the Senate, where each State gets an equal amount of representatives (2).
Contrary to most EU democracies, in the U.S. there is a
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Authoritarian? What percent of its population does the EU jail vs the US, which jails almost one in one hundred adults at any given time?
Capitalist companies aren't inherently good -- there's nothing wrong with the government regulating them. Direct election got people plenty of demagogues. How common is it to prosecute people over a tweet? You're sensationalizing. Neo-Nazis may occasionally be prosecuted, but so are Klansmen in the US.
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Neo-Nazis may occasionally be prosecuted, but so are Klansmen in the US.
Only for very narrow exceptions to the 1st amendment such as inciting violence. They're not prosecuted just for saying horrible things. With that said, I don't know if Nazis are prosecuted for saying horrible things in Europe either, but my understanding is in many countries it's illegal to say things that are racist.
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With that said, I don't know if Nazis are prosecuted for saying horrible things in Europe either, but my understanding is in many countries it's illegal to say things that are racist.
European here.
I have to say that neither do I. I've never heard of a case where a Nazi was prosecuted for just saying horrible things.
The so called "hate-speech" laws doesn't translate that well to English.
For those that exist where I live the name of the law that is usually translated to "hate speech" would be better translated as "incitement against group of people".
The law came into place because previous laws regarding conspiracy to commit murder or assault required a specific victim.
This made it possib
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I've never heard of a case where a Nazi was prosecuted for just saying horrible things.
Let me help you out, then: an Austrian man will be serving six months in prison for simply having a bottle of wine in his house with a picture of Hitler on it. [mirror.co.uk] He didn't say anything, nor was he selling or distributing the bottles. There's no evidence that the man was a Nazi sympathizer, or held racist views in any way. He simply bought some bottles as a joke souvenir on a trip. And for that, he's going to prison.
America certainly has it's faults, but whenever I see a news article like this about Europe
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In short, sometimes they are [www.cbc.ca].
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Yeah that's what I thought.
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And you're wondering why people refer to the EU as the EUSSR?
Who is "people" in this context? Nigel Farage? Alex Jones? Lyndon LaRouche? Random Internet commenters?
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We need to do that with a number of companies. In fact, I think that the west needs to consider saying that any company that occupies say 50+% of a niche, can not be allowed in to do business,
And you're wondering why people refer to the EU as the EUSSR? The EU is nothing but an irrelevant, undemocratic (because not directly elected), anti-capitalist (meddling with capitalist companies), authoritarian (because forcing ISPs to keep the data they want out of the hands of private companies, so they can give it to the police) institution where people are prosecuted for something as little as an "offensive" tweet. And then you expect the rest of the world to take you seriously.
Zuckerberg was being questioned by MEPs, that are directly elected. The supreme body is the Council of Ministers, drawn from elected governments. With some irony the EU is arguably more democratic than the UK parliamentary sysyem, the country standing against more powers for MEPs being Britain.
Re:Typical Eurotrash (Score:5, Insightful)
And you're wondering why people refer to the EU as the EUSSR?
No one wonders that. It is easily explained by the mental condition of those using the term just as much as when you see someone use the term Micro$oft you can instantly see they are 14 years old.
The EU is nothing but an irrelevant
I'm going to stop you there since in 7 words you have effectively said all of the following
-I don't know history.
-I don't know why the EU was created.
-I don't know what the EU does.
-I don't know what it has achieved.
-I seriously have no fucking idea about international politics.
The EU has achieved its prime goal with great success. Maybe you should look up what that goal was, what life was like pre-EU, and why so many countries want to join.
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The EU has achieved its prime goal with great success. Maybe you should look up what that goal was, what life was like pre-EU, and why so many countries want to join.
Good summary. One, Facebook-specific thing, I would add: Zuckerberg appeared in person before the EU parliament but has flatly refused all demands to appear before the UK parliament. [theguardian.com] He clearly feels that, as CEO of a multi-billion dollar multi-national company, he can safely ignore most national governments; but the EU parliament (representing 27 European countries) cannot be so easily brushed off.
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I'm going to stop you there since in 7 words you have effectively said all of the following
In fact, it is you who is ignorant. The EU was great until the early 2000s, when they started this "constitution" crap. It was voted out, and I was one of the people to vote against it, in May 2005. Did the politicians listen to my vote? No, they did not. They came up with a slightly altered version and decided to not put it up for a vote and pass it anyway.
The EU is nothing but a dictatorship that was voted out, but still managed to stay.
And my passport says "European Union".
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Secondly, I have nothing against NATURAL monopolies. But, Google, FB, etc are maintaining their monopolies via numerous illegal manners (which is in part why they removed the 'do no evil' moniker). Back when the google boys ran Google, they were all about do no evil and never cheated. Now adays, Google constantly cheats and is becoming worthless.
Then you have FB. Selling ALL of our information. Not obeying laws, etc. FB has
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Re:Typical Eurotrash (Score:4, Informative)
I don't normally respond to AC's, especially racist AC's, but you are wrong.
You don't have to use facebook for them to collect data on you, and THAT is the problem. They have their connect and like buttons on a VERY LARGE cross section of the internet, and in many third party products, like Spotify.
They know more about you than your mother does, and there are only a few ways to stop them, like blocking a list of about 1500 different domains [github.com], or you could just stop using the internet. I don't know about you, but as a web developer/designer, that last one isn't really an option.
This shit needs to be well regulated.
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> like blocking a list of about 1500 different domains,
Are you a sock for APK? Your link is to a HOSTS file. Hosts files do not support wildcards, so you have to maintain a huge list like that to block all subdomains. But there are only five domains, which is very easy to manage on your router or with many free firewalls.
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Exactly what I was thinking... But do we KNOW that FB doesn't have parts of it's operation in Europe that they cannot just pull?
I suppose EU could move to block FB from doing business within their borders, but I'm not really clear on how they could accomplish that if FB wasn't willing to cooperate with their efforts.
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its
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I came here to say this... I can't imagine a world where any US company could be broken up by an external union / country. I suppose they mean by proxy by denying them assets, facilities, and advertising revenue (they could certainly make it illegal for a German company to pay for advertising on Facebook)... but directly? Surely they don't have that kind of reach and Zuck knows it. Eventually the lack of advertising dollars would induce Facebook to stop wanting to serve those users due to the burden it p
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Facebook's international headquarters are in Ireland. Thus they are obligated to follow European law, same as any other company doing business in Europe. You do not get to ignore the law just because that is better for your profits.
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I came here to say this... I can't imagine a world where any US company could be broken up by an external union / country.
Just because your parent is incorporated in some place doesn't mean you a free to trade in that form everywhere in the world. Facebook is not a US company. It's a multinational with headquarters all over the world and they have to comply with local regulators on local issues.
E.g. Windows XP N, a version of Windows Americans never saw made by a US company.
That said the premise here is just stupid. Conglomerates don't get monopoly statuses, and if the EU MEP wants to know alternatives of Facebook, Instagram,
Re:Because Facebook isn't a European company? (Score:5, Informative)
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Regulations are only bad if they lower profits. If they imprison and execute people that's okay.
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Can anyone working for the EU convince me that it shouldn't be broken up? that it actually benefits the people of Europe on net?
How many continental scale wars have wiped out a significant percentage of the population of Europe since the formation of the EU?
Remember why the EU was formed, and then cower in shame for comparing your "microagressions" to the atrocities that the formation of the EU was intended to prevent.
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How many continental scale wars have wiped out a significant percentage of the population of Europe since the formation of the Rolling Stones?
Therefore we must ensure the Rolling Stones never break up.
Also, I have a tiger repelling rock I am prepared to sell if you are interested.
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How many continental scale wars have wiped out a significant percentage of the population of Europe since the formation of the Rolling Stones?
Therefore we must ensure the Rolling Stones never break up.
Also, I have a tiger repelling rock I am prepared to sell if you are interested.
As much as I like to believe the Rolling stones has the same causal relationship as well as economic basis for preventing war that came with the EU I'm going to go with: They are good, but not that good. But yes we should ensure they don't break up for other reasons.
Also does the tiger repelling rock come with your lack of clue or are you selling that one separately?
Correlation does not imply causation. That's what the underlying principles and theories are for. Learn some history.