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Senator: Mark Zuckerberg Should Face 'the Possibility of a Prison Term' (arstechnica.com) 135

Posted by BeauHD from the time-to-be-held-accountable dept.
In a recent interview with the Willamette Week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg should face the possibility of a prison term for Facebook's privacy violations. Zuckerberg has Mark "repeatedly lied to the American people about privacy," said Wyden. "I think he ought to be held personally accountable, which is everything from financial fines to -- and let me underline this -- the possibility of a prison term." Zuckerberg, Wyden said, has "hurt a lot of people." Ars Technica reports: Wyden was talking to the Willamette Week about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that gives online platforms like Facebook broad immunity for content posted by their users. Wyden was the co-author of the law and has been one of its most ardent defenders ever since. The law has come under increasing criticism as concern has grown about toxic online content. Wyden isn't ready to scrap it, but he says that he's "looking for more ways to create market pressure on the big tech companies to take moderation more seriously."

Wyden worries that more aggressive efforts to root out toxic content online would effectively "throw the First Amendment in the trash can." "I still think the basic frame of the shield -- particularly for the little guy -- is essential," Wyden said of Section 230's immunity provisions. "And I'm looking very aggressively for ways to shore up the sword, to get at the slime." Technology companies, Wyden argued, have "done practically everything wrong since the 2016 election." He said he recently told technology companies: "If you don't get serious on moderation, you're going to have a lot of people coming after you."
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Senator: Mark Zuckerberg Should Face 'the Possibility of a Prison Term' More

Senator: Mark Zuckerberg Should Face 'the Possibility of a Prison Term'

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  • And still (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SirAstral ( 1349985 ) on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @07:01PM (#59159444)

    Mark Fuckerburg has not done near the damage you and your fucking "for sale" shit bags in congress have done.

    I love the hypocrisy on display here.

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by RightSaidFred99 ( 874576 )

      Yeah, and what actual damage did he do? Waving your hands and pointing to "damage" isn't very convincing. And what crime, specifically punishable by prison, is this _US Senator_ accusing a private individual of, btw?

      Populism isn't just a right wing thing...

    • Re:And still (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @07:36PM (#59159582) Journal

      Easy Congressman... those who forget their history, and all that:

      How many bankers and Wall Street con men went to jail for the housing bubble fiasco, where uncreditworthy mortgages were combined into mega-packages of uncreditworthy mortgages and sold as Milken-worthy junk bonds?

      How many folks went to jail for the previous record taxpayer bailout Savings and Loan scam?

      • exactly, these congressmen have been enabling all sorts of shady businesses to fleece the public and he is pissing and moaning about the likes of facebook? Sure facebook is a problem, but facebook has nowhere near the level of impact on people lives that Wall street and the bankers have had.

        the only people that go to jail are token bitches that pissed off the shadow players.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          What fine, total confiscation of assets and sell it before it is too late. Seriously once penalised, who could that individual possibly be trusted again and I thought there were laws about confiscation of assets related to the proceeds from crime. Invaded people's privacy for profit, the value of the company is based on it, this should results in confiscation of the proceeds of crime ie confiscation of Zuckerbergs share of Facebook, big fine for a big crime, not one crime, not even millions of crimes, but l

        • Meh. He just wants his face on the news channels for a day or so, that's all.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @10:00PM (#59159962)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • They couldn't send them to jail for the "housing bubble" because it was have shined a light on the inconvenient truth that the bubble was CAUSED by congress forcing banks to give out loans to those with shit credit that had zero chance of paying it back or "they be raciss yo". Of course the fact that it decimated poor neighborhoods and left abandoned houses littered all over the place when the bubble burst wouldn't look too good on them either but it got the ones who pushed it re-elected (and who had moved on into the private sector by the time the check came due) so why should they give a fuck?

          Politics has become infected by the same disease rotting american business, just look at thee dem debates where they are promising free ice cream and ponies to the entire continent, do whatever you have to to get that short term bounce and if it kills the company long term? Who gives a shit, you will have cashed out by then.

          OMG! Ponies!

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Kiuas ( 1084567 )

          They couldn't send them to jail for the "housing bubble" because it was have shined a light on the inconvenient truth that the bubble was CAUSED by congress forcing banks to give out loans to those with shit credit that had zero chance of paying it back or "they be raciss yo"

          I'm not american, nor an economist so I don't claim to be an expert on the subprime crisis, but based on what I know of the circumstances there's nothing that the congress did that forced the banks to do anything. Quoting the wiki: [wikipedia.org]

          The

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Shotgun ( 30919 )

            This is one of the best responses that I've seen:

            https://answers.yahoo.com/ques... [yahoo.com]

            TLDR; The government didn't say lenders had to give bad loans. The government said that lenders had to lend in areas where the loan would most likely be bad. A distinction without a difference.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Kiuas ( 1084567 )

              The government said that lenders had to lend in areas where the loan would most likely be bad. A distinction without a difference.

              But that's still not what your linked response claimed: Basically Clinton-era deregulation of banks changed the definition of a sub-prime loan which allowed the banks to do this, which lead to many banks starting to do it and then others following (out of greed) because they did not want to be left out. This deregulation itself is obviously bad, but it doesn't 'force' the banks t

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Kiuas ( 1084567 )

              So while they didn't hold a gun to the banks head they made any bank that didn't throw out loans to anybody with a pulse non competitive as their competitors could just dump the loans on Freddie/Fannie

              As I said initially, deregulation/lack of regulation is the root cause of the problem, so we're in agreement about this. It's still however extreme short-sighted from the banks to start shoveling these loans up without realizing the systemic risk they're creating, and extremely careless from the credit-rating

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by necro81 ( 917438 )

          Easy Congressman... those who forget their history, and all that:
          How many bankers and Wall Street con men went to jail....

          They couldn't send them to jail for the "housing bubble" because ...

          More to the point: it is not Congress' job to prosecute criminals

        • Politics has become infected by the same disease rotting american business, just look at thee dem debates where they are promising free ice cream and ponies to the entire continent, do whatever you have to to get that short term bounce and if it kills the company long term? Who gives a shit, you will have cashed out by then.

          I don't understand why you're just limiting to Democrats here? Republicans in 2017 rolled back the regulations that were put on banks to prevent another repeat of creating high risk products. Additionally, the whole Congress making it easier to get loans that people clearly don't qualify for is again, something Republicans in 2002 created. If memory serves me correctly the 107th Congress was distinctly Republican.

          Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Democrats either, but let's make sure we're correctly iden

      • How many bankers and Wall Street con men went to jail for the housing bubble fiasco, where uncreditworthy mortgages were combined into mega-packages of uncreditworthy mortgages and sold as Milken-worthy junk bonds?

        Oh good grief would I have loved that, but the thing is, that at the time, there was nothing illegal about what was going on. Over valuation of a product that's not FDIC insured isn't a crime. Banks sent the bundled products for evaluation by credit evaluation agencies. Many of these agencies reported back the products as AAA or AA rating. Underwriters secured the product based on the rating and well, really these products should have been junk rated.

        Once a product is underwritten, the bank values it an

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Shotgun ( 30919 )

        How many bankers and Wall Street con men went to jail for the housing bubble fiasco, where uncreditworthy mortgages were combined into mega-packages of uncreditworthy mortgages and sold as Milken-worthy junk bonds?

        Would those be the uncreditworthy mortgages that the government pressured the banks to issue?

    • Re:And still (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rogoshen1 ( 2922505 ) on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @08:50PM (#59159788)

      if you knew anything AT ALL about Wyden you'd realize that he's actually quite astute on privacy and technology -- and is on 'our side' (meaning: the demographic that reads slashdot) ...

      And this is coming from a conservative republican.

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by Obfuscant ( 592200 )

        if you knew anything AT ALL about Wyden you'd realize that he's actually quite astute on privacy and technology -- and is on 'our side' (meaning: the demographic that reads slashdot) ...

        I've watched Wyden since he was in the house and then how he moved to the Senate. No, sir, while he is quite astute on some things, and privacy and technologymay be among them, his astuteness expresses itself in making himself look like he is on "our side", whichever side you happen to be on.

        And this is coming from a conservative republican.

        If you believe that Wyden in on your side, then you truly are not a conservative Republican.

        • "If you believe that Wyden in on your side, then you truly are not a conservative Republican."

          "No true Scottsman fallacy" and/or "Gatekeeping"? Really?

          This is what creates the unnecessary divide, knock it off its not helping.

          • "No true Scottsman fallacy" and/or "Gatekeeping"? Really?

            No. Opposite. Sorry.

            This is what creates the unnecessary divide,

            As I said, I've watched Wyden for a long time now, and the unnecessary divide, as you call it, isn't coming from me. Telling me to "knock off" reminding people of things Wyden has done over the years is just a poor attempt at defending him from his own history.

            • Sorry, you are clearly a partisan person with an agenda to make it clear that only a democrat is allowed to appreciate Wydens work.

              I don't care about the history, I care about there being bigger fish to fry and nothing be done about it. Lizard face is a none issue and Wyden actions are the clear sign of a bunch of people guilty of things that Camille Paglia is talking about.
              https://www.wsj.com/articles/a... [wsj.com]

              People have experience so much peace and prosperity that they lack a fundamental sense of awareness.

              • Sorry, you are clearly a partisan person with an agenda to make it clear that only a democrat is allowed to appreciate Wydens work.

                Sorry, but you are clearly a partisan person with an agenda to so clearly misinterpret what I said. I didn't say he couldn't appreciate anything he wanted to about the man. I said that if he felt that he was on his side then he wasn't on the side that he claimed to be. You could, for example, appreciate his consistency without believing he was on your side of the issue. You could appreciate his fine sense of fashion, or the fact that he has a lot of town hall meetings in his district. "On your side" has not

            • This is not a defense for what you did above. The problem isn't your criticism of Wyden, you're welcome to your opinion, the problem is your criticism of the grandparent: your declaration that he can't be what he says he is if he disagrees with you. That is the unnecessary divide that the parent was talking about, it's a picture-perfect example of a No True Scotsman argument.

              • the problem is your criticism of the grandparent: your declaration that he can't be what he says he is if he disagrees with you.

                It has nothing at all to do with whether he agrees with me or not. It has to do with someone claiming that someone is on "our side" and then declaring that he himself is on a side that is opposite. And you know what? It's really not important. He's free to call himself whatever he wants. He's free to go to the club meetings every Tuesday night and register to vote any way he wants. I'm simply pointing out that the person he believes is on his side really isn't.

                That is the unnecessary divide that the parent was talking about,

                And I will once again point out, the divide is

                • the divide is not my creation, it was created and has been exploited by Senator Wyden for decades

                  I don't know what divide you're talking about here, but it's not the same divide. The parent was talking about the partisan divide, the notion that some people are in your in-group, and some people are in your out-group, and that this is important. There was a story on this just the other day [slashdot.org].

                  This came up because you said, "If you think this thought, then you are in the out-group." That's it. It's got nothing to do with your opinion on Wyden.

        • When our Senators in Oregon were Wyden (D) and Smith (R), they worked together on the issues that matter most to Oregonians.

          Wyden gets strong support from lefty liberals, and also from libertarians. There is a lot more common ground between those groups out here in the northwest than you might realize. And for most Republicans out here, the libertarian parts of the platform are the parts they care about.

          There were lots of Wyden-Smith voters that supported both of them.

          Generally speaking, if you're the littl

          • He is incredibly popular,

            Of course. He is in a state with few concentrations of Republican voters, and a significant majority of Democrats in the major population centers. Being popular with the people who voted for him doesn't prove he's popular with everyone, or that he's on the side of everyone.

            and he doesn't have to bother with pandering.

            That's a result of being in a state with such a large number of Democrat voters. He doesn't have to appeal to anyone but them.

            People who are cynical about politics probably aren't represented by people like Ron Wyden.

            He was elected to represent everyone in the state of Oregon. To claim that there are no cynics here is just si

            • You're having trouble with your reading comprehension. Again.

              You're just waving your hands and presuming that Oregon's demographics match what is needed for your statements to be true, but you actually have no clue. And I explained it well enough for you to know already that you're wrong. You just didn't read all the words, didn't understand them, or didn't bother looking any numbers up if you disagreed. Pathetic.

              If you can't comprehend that Senator Wyden is popular, you're a fucking idiot. Just shut up.

              If

              • You're just waving your hands and presuming that Oregon's demographics match what is needed for your statements to be true,

                I'm presuming nothing that I have not observed by living in the middle of it for almost three decades. The demographics really are based on three or four major cities -- Portland, Eugene, Salem, and ... well, those are the three main concentrations, and they are Democrat historically. The rest of the state is mostly Republican. An anecdotal bit of evidence to support that, not a rigorously documented scientific study, is that the Republican candidate for the house in my local district won EVERY ONE of the c

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by RedK ( 112790 )

          If you believe that Wyden in on your side, then you truly are not a conservative Republican.

          Imagine being so invested in the "political war" that you don't actually think people on both sides of the aisle can have some issues where they share common grounds.

          This is why Stephen Crowder's "Change my mind" segments work so well, and why twitter "progressive" shrieking just drives people away.

          • Imagine being so invested in the "political war" that you don't actually think people on both sides of the aisle can have some issues where they share common grounds.

            I challenge you to show me where I said anything to the contrary. I spoke about being "on our side", which implies a lot more than sharing a few common ground issues. And it implies actually sharing those issues and not just sounding like you do.

            This is just one example, and it's not even sounding much like he's on "our side". After defending the law he wrote that gives immunity to providers for what their users post, and saying that doing more to police the problem would be devastating to the first amend

      • Yes, Wyden, busy playing whack a mole and nothing much else.

        I can virtue signal all day long as well. He is part of the problem like all the rest. Busy going after low hanging fruit and making sure he still plays ball well with his team.

        Mr Easyroad... like so many others. I cannot think of a single critter in congress from either party that is worth the ballot paper their names are printed on.

        • It might turn out that after an election there will be a new executive, and new enforcement, and all the oversight work he's doing now will suddenly bear fruit.

          You can't think of something, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it only means you can't think of it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by etash ( 1907284 )
      to quoque from fb shill.

    • Mark Fuckerburg has not done near the damage you and your fucking "for sale" shit bags in congress have done.

      I love the hypocrisy on display here.

      There is enough room to imprison both.

    • The hypocrisy on display here is the fact that people still use facebook, for anything at all, but then bitch about the effects of them using it. Obviously you don't care about privacy if you use facebook, so why bother facebook about what it does with your data? It's a simple matter of not using the fucking site. How hard is that?

  • Stepping back to the meta level, with the hyper-cynical attitude that governments are instituted to get in the way so they can get paid to get back out of the way, here we have a situation where the guy is censoring what the Democrats dislike as speech, but that still isn't good enough for government.

    So now the censored Republicans, and the censoring-by-proxy Democrats are teaming up to threaten to allow lawsuits for censoring improperly i.e. not the way those in power like.

    This will not happen as no politi

  • However I'm not sure if post-facto criminalization has actually been legislated as illegal or ruled as Constitutional.

    My take is that what Facebook has been doing certainly should be illegal. ASAP. Facebook is deliberately encouraging people to reveal personal information and then appropriating that information for Facebook's use and profit. The uses often cross the line to abuse, but maybe you disagree. (Yes, I'm getting increasingly suspicious of some corporate sock puppets astroturfing Slashdot, but I st

    • Re:Post-facto criminalization is not valid (Score:5, Informative)

      by Holi ( 250190 ) on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @07:41PM (#59159596)
      Article 1
      Section 9
      3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.


      It's pretty clear

      • Psst.
        PSST!

        Hey... little known secret... the constitution is toilet paper... no one is following it.

        We have laws on the books that break every single tenet of the constitution has been broken. Every right in the Bill of Rights trampled, every branch surping authority it does not have, from the top to the bottom, every pissant and peon in government abusing every last stitch of power they are entrusted with.

        • Is the Constitution "toilet paper", as you maintain? No, of course not. It's way too rough and scratchy.

          And ultimately it's all we got. From it we get our government as a three-legged stool--one could say purposely unstable. So things can and do change, and it would be unnatural if they didn't. That means that if it isn't the actual words changing (which can be done by amendment), it's the meanings.

          In this specific instance, do you know of any Supreme Court decision against Art 1 Sect 9, or not upholding it

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        Thanks, but I should have looked that up. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the current SCOTUS is willing overrule it.

        There must be some funny points in predicting that the SCOTUS will rule the Constitution itself unconstitutional.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by necro81 ( 917438 )

        Article 1, Section 9, 3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

        Maybe so, but perjury is an extant law.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

      The general solution approach seems to be obvious...

      Violate the first amendment by saying that businesses cannot gather and hold facts that you yourself disclose to them.

      Violate the first amendment by saying that other people cannot disclose facts that they know about to businesses.

      Declare reputations to be personal property.

      Create forms of intellectual property not authorized by the Constitution.

      It's totally obvious...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        I could respond to each of your comments, but first you need to convince me that you understood anything I wrote. Second you need to convince me you can learn anything new. Sufficient evidence would be a substantiated description of the last time you were wrong and what you learned from it.

        Right now it appears you have nothing to say, but you insist on saying it loudly. Most especially nothing resembling a better or even a good idea.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Empiric ( 675968 )
      Promissory Estoppel compensating 360 million people who were promised their "privacy settings" meant something, and they didn't, would be a start.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        I think it's a creative approach, but I also think Microsoft has flogged that horse to death. The EULA was one of the few innovations Microsoft actually perfected, and I'm sure that Facebook's lawyers considered the precedents carefully.

        If people were required to read each ToS agreement or EULA and pass a comprehension quiz before using the service or software in question, then the entire Internet would have ground to a halt years ago.

  • You didn't pay enough "taxes" to Uncle Sam. His wallet is feeling a bit thin lately.

  • Yep (Score:3)

    by sit1963nz ( 934837 ) on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @07:23PM (#59159528)
    Zuck has the controlling shares. Facebook behaviour is 100% controlled by Zuck.
    The fines need to be levied on shares of the top 100 shareholders, only then will corporate behaviour change.
  • I'm not sure threatening to lock up the 4th richest man on the planet is a healthy career move for an elected official.

    • I'm not sure threatening to lock up the 4th richest man on the planet is a healthy career move for an elected official.

      It may be at some point. There is a large body of anger at standards of living dropping, income inequality, and everyone knows Wall St got bailed out while Main St got sold out. Trump tapped into that anger but really anyone could. I doubt that Trump will be the worst that we see in the future if things keep going the way they are now. In a dystopian future we could see the Uber rich hunted down and jailed or executed. Indeed I think Zuck is prison sounds more utopian than dystopian.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @07:42PM (#59159600)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shotgun ( 30919 )

      That's the American Way.

      It is not limited to America, and America didn't start it. Do note however, that the American justice system WILL jail corporate executives. They just have to be working for non-American companies (RE: Huawai) The EU does a pretty good job of putting the screws to American companies. Everybody will dump on Iran. America put some significant penalties on Russian oligarchs. I trust you see the pattern.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tom ( 822 )

      This is actually being tried in multiple places, but very slowly and undermined every step of the way. The GDPR, the European data privacy law, also includes responsibility of CEOs, but it has been largely defanged. But it's a start.

  • Is Lying to the American People Illegal? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @08:17PM (#59159708) Homepage Journal
    If lying to the American people is illegal, there's a long list of people who really should be in jail and aren't. And that includes quite a few of the politicians in Congress.

    • Lying to CONGRESS on the other hand....

  • Wyden was talking to the Willamette Week about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that gives online platforms like Facebook broad immunity for content posted by their users. ... Wyden worries that more aggressive efforts to root out toxic content online would effectively "throw the First Amendment in the trash can." ... He said he recently told technology companies: "If you don't get serious on moderation, you're going to have a lot of people coming after you."

    What's wrong with this picture? Wyden wrote the law that gives immunity to Facebook for what people post, he worries that more aggressive efforts will destroy the first amendment, and then threatens Facebook for not taking more aggressive efforts.

    I sense a possible hat in the ring for 2020 here. I also remember his public statements about various privacy scandals when he was on the committee overseeing things like the NSA: "you haven't heard anything yet". We also didn't hear any action by Wyden to deal

  • ... Mark "repeatedly lied to the American people about privacy," said Wyden. "I think he ought to be held personally accountable, which is everything from financial fines to -- and let me underline this -- the possibility of a prison term."

    Whoa. Prison term for not telling the truth? Do these same laws apply to, let's say, politicians or, heaven forbid, president-for-life Donald?

  • A Republican majority would never take any action against him, because you just don't go after such a shiny pile of money. Even if Democrats get into a majority, a few bad apples among Democrat congressmen/senators who are just sucking too hard on those giant t*ts of big money lobbyist, will flip and keep him safe anyways. If it all goes to court then zuckie can just appeal his way to the Republican controlled supreme court. Were that to fail then there will be an unpresidential pardon. And if that were to

  • Because Senators are bought and sold.
    The president can hardly string a sentence together.
    News at 11.

  • Let me get this straight. A senator wants Mark Zuckerberg to go to jail because Facebook isn't applying ENOUGH censorship?

    Ya right, I really hope HE gets re-elected... I'd like his career to tank after these statements.

  • When that guy can just buy the whole prison? It's basically the Lex Luthor dilemma, who coincidentally was played by Jesse Eisenberg after he played Zuck in another movie.

  • I guarantee you that these guys wouldn't give a damn if social media data wasn't used by the Trump campaign and was only used by the Clinton campaign as intended.

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