Comment by Ajedi32

5 hours ago

Yes it's meaningful, and the fine amount should reflect that. But hypothetically, if it's (just throwing a random number out there) 1 image in 50 billion, and Facebook gets more benefit from the 50 billion good images than society loses from the 1 bad one, and society recovers its loss from Facebook via a fine, but the fine isn't big enough to make them change their behavior, how exactly is that a problem?

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Ajedi32

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callc  4 hours ago

The problem is equating profitability with what societies want and don’t want.

Morality exists outside of the business world (and it should inside as well).

Further, it is a societies’ right to enforce the boundaries of what business are allow to do / not do.

For example: banning ads along roads and scenic areas.

Idk, the whole idea of “how much fines will I get doing X shitty business practice” is just gross. I’d rather see harsher enforcement to keep businesses on the straight and narrow more often than not.

  • Ajedi32  1 hour ago

    Perhaps, but when you're operating at any significant scale accidents become a statistical certainty. 0 screw ups, ever is not a realistically achievable goal. And if some limited number of screw ups is allowable, that necessarily becomes an insurable cost that amounts to "just the cost of doing business", so I don't really see the complaint.

    Concrete example: If you run a construction business, even if you take all the required precautions, statistically you're going to get 9.2 of your employees killed for every 100,000 man-hours they work.[1] Is that proof all construction companies are evil, and we should shut them down for murdering their employees? Is it a problem that having to buy life insurance is "just a cost of doing business" for these companies?

    [1]: https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju...