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Comment by layer8

6 hours ago

> But not for this, not unless someone willfully signed off on a lie.

From the judgement: “The extraordinary number of willful violations found by the jury, the duration and repetition of the conduct, the breadth of subjects on which violations occurred, the involvement of senior Facebook leadership, the size of New Mexico audiences reached, and the clear intentional and systematic nature of Facebook’s repeated misstatements established in the trial record support the highest level of penalty allowed by the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act […].”

Emphasis mine.

It isn’t criminal law, but maybe at that level it should be.

In case it hasn’t become abundantly clear to everyone by now: this is how Facebook operates. The people who do this stuff get promoted, and vice versa. This will keep happening until those people are scared straight, and the incentive structure that turns people into this are abolished.

> the involvement of senior Facebook leadership

If anyone perjured themselves, granted. If not, criminalizing this lets anyone in power go after anything with any economic heft.

  • Beating someone with a stick isn't the only way to cause harm. And if you cause harm to 40 million people, you should be held accountable - it should be treated as a crime.

  • I am, in fact, fine with anyone in power going after any company's senior leadership which makes a "clear intentional and systematic nature of repeated misstatements" while committing crimes violating privacy laws 40 million times. I am very equal opportunity punishment for all serial lying criminals. What part of what you said was supposed to be undesirable?

    • > fine with anyone in power going after any company's senior leadership which makes a "clear intentional and systematic nature of repeated misstatements" while committing crimes violating privacy laws 40 million times

      You’re describing a wet dream for Silicon Valley’s elites. Reducing the courts’ ability to check prosecutorial discretion is an ongoing project there.

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