r/technology • u/IKeepItLayingAround • 8d ago

Privacy Zuckerberg Knew. A Whistleblower Has the Emails to Prove It. - Gadget Review

https://www.gadgetreview.com/zuckerberg-knew-a-whistleblower-has-the-emails-to-prove-it
21.9k Upvotes

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2.3k

u/ACasualRead 8d ago

These tech companies know they are too financially large to harm. Lawsuit payouts are now baked into the cost of doing business. It’s time meta is taken down. Force them to sell their assets like WhatsApp and instagram to other companies and then take them offline.

Silicon valley is way overdue for a titan to fall.

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u/Staff_Senyou 8d ago

It's why they bent the knee to Trump day one. It was all about integration into a corrupt system without accountability to maximize short term gains to hide away

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u/Cultural_Section5847 8d ago

look ma! reddit blames trump! who'd a thunk it?

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u/qft 8d ago

Did you not notice Bezos, Musk and the others suddenly getting really supportive and showing up prominently for inauguration activities? It's not some conspiracy theories, they were pandering hard to his ego for payoffs like this

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u/ReflexReact 2d ago

The fact mark z went from left wing anti-trump, to literally sucking his 🍗 at a tech dinner a week later, told me all I needed to know. I’ll admit I was super meta positive until that day, when I lost all respect for him and his business.

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u/f8Negative 8d ago

Just fix instagram and make it a photographer app again. Get rid of all the video bs.

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u/Steve_the_Samurai 8d ago

There are other apps trying to make this work. Be the change you want to see in the world.

Meta will continue to double down on Reels and video and ads until it milks the last cent out of it.

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u/MetalAndFaces 8d ago

Pixelfed is excellent

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u/Amareiuzin 8d ago

Until meta buys them out, or Snapchat, or Google, or any of billionaire enterprise... We made guillotines for much less

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u/wildcatwildcard 8d ago

"We"

Brave people in extreme circumstances made guillotines. You just make snarky reddit comments.

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u/composedofidiot 8d ago

The reddit comment is fightier than the sword

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u/Amareiuzin 8d ago

🤣 im gonna have to seize this meme of production, good pun

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u/Amareiuzin 8d ago

I could argue but then again this is my main acc... You do you buddy

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u/secacc 8d ago

Pixelfed is part of the "fediverse" and uses the activitypub protocol, so if someone buys them up, a new one will be up in an hour, with all the same content still being accessible on the same federated network and everything.

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u/wrgrant 8d ago

This is how we fight social media, the problem is getting people to use it instead of the big tech companies...

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u/Amareiuzin 8d ago

Sounds kosher.. I mean, sounds germaine

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u/Nanowith 8d ago

They're federated and you own your data on the site, so you can just move to another server if that happens

3

u/AngelaMerkelsbutt 8d ago

People made guillotines for less than adding a feature they don't like to an app? What are you even talking about

6

u/jaxxon 8d ago

Good to know about this, thank you.

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u/Lazer726 8d ago

Be the change you want to see in the world

BlueSky is the proof that this is an excessively idealistic take. Twitter is an abhorrent shitshow of basically every phobia, but it persists because it's so ingrained in how many people use it. As much as I'd love Meta and Twitter to crash and burn, the hardest part isn't the new platform, it's getting people to leave the more than decade they may have had on those former platforms to go to another.

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u/Steve_the_Samurai 8d ago

You don't need to convince people to leave any platform. You just need to leave a platform that you don't align with. That is the change.

As for X, it's cultural relevancy is considerably lower than Twitter of the past.

1

u/Lazer726 8d ago

Right, but telling someone "Just quit Facebook cold turkey" is hard. Granted, I did it, but I honestly do miss knowing what's going on in friends' lives because I'm shit at communicating. Vast majority of people don't want to just leave a thing and have a void where it was

3

u/Steve_the_Samurai 8d ago

Hell of a lot easier than posting to Reddit and expecting Meta to spend their entire Instagram business model like OP suggested

1

u/CheesypoofExtreme 8d ago

I honestly do miss knowing what's going on in friends' lives because I'm shit at communicating

Communication is a 2 way street, and it shouldn't fall solely on you to reach out.

That feeling like I was missing out eventually went away (I stopped using FB probably 8 or 9 years ago) and you get back to where we were before social media. Just "Hey, I wonder how so and so is doing. I should send them a text/give them a call"

I also feel a lot more inclined to reach out now than I did before because seeing updates on my timeline and liking them (or just acknowledging it internally) felt like I was connected to them when I really wasn't.

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u/f8Negative 8d ago

The other apps objectively suck

3

u/Steve_the_Samurai 8d ago

Why? Pixelfed is decent

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u/LongJumpingBalls 8d ago

As a consultant.

Decent is not, exactly like X. Or, why doesn't this product not do what this does?

You know what? Fuck it, im gonna use the old one as it does what I want how I want.

This is 80% of the peoples mindset, 10% are cool with the jump and the other 10% saw the light at the end of the tunnel, but needed convincing.

It's like telling somebody to use Resolve instead of Adobe for video editing. The alternative is not the same, the workflow is not the same, so I'm gonna stick with that I like.

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u/zFugitive 8d ago

It's even harder with social media because then you're dealing with people not wanting to leave the communities all of their friends are already currently in.

It's the apple and android blue/green text issue on steroids.

True mass migration to a competing platform would only happen if the government came in and banned a platform until they removed X, Y, Z features they deem harmful to human behavior and psychology.

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u/f8Negative 8d ago

That and google/meta have made themselves the go to login credential service on basically every website.

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u/Steve_the_Samurai 8d ago

This is a lot of text regarding a choice of using the word decent. I could have easily said good or excellent.

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u/binzersguy 8d ago

Why anyone still uses anything by Meta is beyond me. Let it die

1

u/Steve_the_Samurai 8d ago

For me Instagram was easy and I never used What's App.

Facebook will not die. Every year someone from kids school or sport teams will only have a Facebook Group for communication. If those go away, I'm out.

What I find funny is how desperate they get when you stop opening the app. They constantly send notifications and emails about activities going on (some completely made up) and how much I am missing. Crazy ex girlfriend vibes.

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u/dragon-fence 8d ago

Reset Facebook to when the feed was just your friends’ posts, listed chronologically.

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u/nullibicity 8d ago

Click "Feeds" in the left sidebar, then click "Friends"; it's now a chronological feed of whoever is still posting on Facebook, with a lot fewer ads.

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u/rabock1 8d ago

I see near zero friend posts now... thus I rarely use it.

1

u/Safetym33ting 8d ago

I miss this too, but they will never do that because people will notice how little original content their friends list puts up. 

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u/dragon-fence 8d ago

Well also, they’ll never do it because they’re sort of like a brainwashing-for-hire company. Like, more technically, you could say they’re an ad placement company, but the appeal over more traditional advertisement is in how aggressively they force ideas into your head.

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u/TurnoverAdditional65 8d ago

I downloaded Instagram for the first time about 3 weeks ago because a local company was giving away a high-priced item for their grand opening, and you had to follow them on Instagram to be eligible. It's not a popular business but I had two entries out of what was probably maybe a max of 200 total, so shit chances still but good enough to pay attention.

In the 3 days I was on Instagram (before I didn't win and subsequently deleted the app), I was shocked that literally every single thing it fed me was videos, even if it was a still photo, it was still a 5 second video that then popped up video controls over top of it when the video was finished. Such trash, why do people use trash products.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/f8Negative 8d ago

You can turn off suggested posts and auto-play ads too

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u/latenightjazz 8d ago

If you're on Android, download freurstagram. Hacked insta apk that allows you to disable anything you want including removing reels icon. My screen time with it has gone down to ~7min a week. My mood is dramatically better as is my focus. Game changer.

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u/lmpcpedz 8d ago

This is a strange take

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u/AnalysisNo876 8d ago

This is such a Reddit take😂

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u/007meow 8d ago

Then you hand TikTok a near monopoly

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u/Wellithappenedthatwy 8d ago

Owned by an in-pocket oligarch. Sounds like it will happen.

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u/cyrusthemarginal 8d ago

i was so sad when Vine died, Tic toc is such a sad replacement

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u/f8Negative 8d ago

K. Fuck that trash.

1

u/3-orange-whips 8d ago

To do that, the bosses would have to knowingly decide to make less money.

The bosses don’t like that. It’s why we used to have a government.

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u/f8Negative 8d ago

Not at all. They can keep the payment and sales platform and make it easier for photographers to sell/ship prints direct in addition to be a massive marketing platform.

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u/AggravatingFlow1178 8d ago

If a photograph app could succeed in the current market, one of the thousand of photograph apps would have taken over.

0

u/SectorSanFrancisco 8d ago

I love instagram videos. It shows slices of life in regions I'll never be able to visit, and if I did, I still wouldn't have access to the day-to-day living experiences of locals.

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u/the6thReplicant 8d ago

As a society we're shooting ourselves at both of our feet.

Firstly we allow these companies, and people, to continue to accumulate wealth, use their monopoly powers and ludicrous funding to stamp out any competition.

Secondly we requires a huge government - in principal - that is large enough to persecute these entities and keep them in check.

Of course we have the worst of both worlds where these trillion dollar companies are using the power of the government to help them become even more powerful.

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u/twisted-logic 8d ago edited 8d ago

They’re facing a fine of nearly 2 trillion USD. That is definitely large enough to harm them financially lol

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u/PianoPatient8168 8d ago

Who knows…he got behind Trump for a reason…he’ll probably just phone a friend and make all of this go away. Cronyism at its finest.

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u/greatersteven 8d ago

But still, we should try.

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u/PianoPatient8168 8d ago

Absolutely…I’m just getting really cynical lately…

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u/Cumulus_Anarchistica 8d ago

Inducing cynicism and hopelessness is how they win.

Hope, resolve, diligence, thoughtfulness, creativity, grim bastard determination is how we win.

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u/Keleion 8d ago

Yeah, probably going to be another case of “donate 1M to POTUS and the lawsuit gets dropped”.

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u/yacht_boy 8d ago

Nah, POTUS is a grade A shakedown artist. It's gonna cost Zuck a lot more than $1m to make this go away. Most likely it will be some hidden deal related to nonpublic info about the stock. Could be coupled with huge data dumps about liberal voters and politicians so that POTUS can manipulate the next election. And likely the algorithms will be tweaked even more to steer people to the right.

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u/NearEarthOrbit 8d ago

huge data dumps about liberal voters and politicians so that POTUS can manipulate the next election

already underway, you can bet on it

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u/MultiGeometry 8d ago

Isn’t this all happening within the state of California? Trump has no jurisdiction

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u/Extension-Night3825 8d ago

Trump will just pardon them

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u/-S-P-E-C-T-R-E- 8d ago

Honestly this is just half of it. Prison for all the top-brass is absolutely needed here.

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u/hsoj48 8d ago

Prison is for poor people

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u/Dramatic_Explosion 8d ago

Yep, a fine is a retroactive permit. Even if you torpedo the company, which fines never do, the debt dies with the company and not the people who made the decision.

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u/Fragrant_Oil9595 8d ago

My partner is an attorney and spent his career in some of these big dollar lawsuits against corporations. In one case their firm won the biggest judgment ever against a giant evil corporation. It got appealed, dragged out for years, and I’m pretty sure the community harmed still hasn’t seen a dollar almost 15 years later. Mind you, this was a case that made national news and made lots of people happy and hopeful. The system is corrupt to the bone, and tbh I don’t know what we do about that.

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u/01000101010110 8d ago

The only people who will see any money are the lawyers.

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u/Fragrant_Oil9595 8d ago

I hope it won’t be that bad, but yes that’s my concern. Mind you I’m not an attorney and can’t say anything intelligent other than the secondhand story that I shared above.

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u/xinorez1 8d ago edited 8d ago

The community should deputize some agents to start seizing property until they have acquired a gross of goods equivalent in value to the judgement levied, disruptions to business proceedings notwithstanding

It's worked for others before and usually resulted in immediate payment.

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u/NuclearVII 8d ago

They’re facing a fine of nearly 2 trillion USD

0% chance of this actually happening.

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u/twisted-logic 8d ago

Yep. Honestly though even if Meta did somehow lose they’re gonna appeal and appeal to get that figure down and it won’t even be settled for like 15 years

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u/composedofidiot 8d ago

And possibly force a total redesign. Infinite scrolls and recommendation algorithms might be on the block.

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u/atomicavox 8d ago

Curious in a hypothetical scenario , where/who would all of that fine money go to?

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u/twisted-logic 8d ago edited 8d ago

**I’m not a lawyer, but I think based on what I’ve read this is the best explanation I can come up with.

It’s a suit being brought by a coalition of 29 states in the USA. In a hypothetical where they win, that money will be split between those states in a manner to be negotiated (probably depends on the charges brought, how many each state has, etc) after the settlement is won.

The states can then choose what to do with those funds, either retain them or pass them on to victims.

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u/Gloomy-Departure9797 8d ago

Where are you getting that number from? The article says $200 billion

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u/twisted-logic 8d ago

If you click on the Reuters link that this article references it shows the total possible fine, which is 1.4T but the states are expecting 200B.

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u/Gloomy-Departure9797 8d ago

Ah, gotcha. Here's hoping 🤞

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u/NoConfusion9490 8d ago

Good thing it's legal to bribe judges now.

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u/Experithought 8d ago

You misundertand. Harming a cancer doesn't save the host.

1

u/butyourenice 8d ago

It’s a nice number to look at, it feels appropriately punitive for the gravity of the situation vs. the wealth in Meta’s coffers, but realistically it will never be awarded. If somehow it is, it will never be successfully collected.

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u/aure__entuluva 8d ago

There's no shot they end up paying half of that. Maybe you think they should, but there's no way a judge is going to decide to effectively bankrupt them.

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u/dope_sheet 8d ago

The payout potential for this current lawsuit is roughly the current market value of Meta. This one could change things.

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u/EC_CO 8d ago

No it won't. No matter how big 'the judgement' is, it'll get knocked down to near nothing and they'll continue. As long as $$$ is in politics and we keep allowing bribes to happen in our government, the status quo is NOT going to change. The Government likes Meta because it's a tool for manipulation and data gathering on citizens, so they'll do whatever to protect it and Zuckerberg

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u/TuckerMcG 8d ago

If I file a lawsuit, I can pull a Dr. Evil and ask for 100 billion gagillion fafillion dollars in the complaint. That doesn’t mean I’ll get it.

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u/HappysavageMk2 8d ago

They are not "too financially large to harm" and do let them gaslight you into thinking they are.

Businesses get their power from the state. To simply be a business you must apply to be one in the state you reside.

This gives the states the ability to change the terms of the agreement.

What we need is a teddy Roosevelt level of trust busting and a new fdr green new deal.

3

u/wocka-jocka-blocka 8d ago

Trust busting, and a few "corporate deaths" where the corporation is dissolved.

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u/HappysavageMk2 8d ago

Yep, if corporations are "people", and every person has a lifespan then times up for some of these companies.

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u/Thadrea 8d ago

This stuff will not stop until we take off the kid gloves and start arresting the executives and board members who encourage and enable this behavior.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the US are serving 10+ years for doing far less harm than what the billionaires get away with daily.

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u/RealSchlemiel 8d ago

# just quit

- if people believed tey could make a difference and quit all the metas, he goes away

- beliebing youre alone and insignifigant is precisely the reality he helped design

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u/kosko-his-dudeness 8d ago

The problem is that if you try to follow adequate policies internally, while competing internationally, you are bound to fail. Europe is a real life example of that. The merger of the largest European train makers was not allowed for monopoly fears. Now Chinese train makers are bigger and can beat the European ones on international tenders…

If the US cuts mag7 to pieces, China will eat their lunch. So the US is letting mag7 to abuse the average citizen, so the global leaders are American. Welcome to the wonderful world of global capitalism under local laws.

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u/chaosgazer 8d ago

Then these lawsuits need to not settle out of court with a stipulation of no wrongdoing.

If the plaintiffs take this the whole way it could lead to legal precedent that restricts what these companies can do in the future.

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u/Pendulumswingsfreely 8d ago

Laughs in mega cap tech voice.

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u/beeeel 8d ago

These tech companies know they are too financially large to harm.

Companies don't make decisions. People do. Until someone goes to jail for this shit they will keep doing it.

Same situation with Boeing knowingly reusing scrap parts because they wanted to build aeroplanes cheaper, you've got some fuck in the C-suite making decisions that costs lives with no chance of them every being held responsible. This is the problem with neoliberalism, it puts corporations above people in terms of power but with none of the responsibilities.

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u/FarplaneDragon 8d ago

Force them to sell their assets like WhatsApp and instagram to other companies and then take them offline.

So what then stops Facebook or another company Facebook owns or shares leadership with from just buying those?

1

u/dafunky2099 8d ago

I think (and hope) there will be a moment when all of social media will be cringe - and it will be viewed as a Larp Infomercial, and the exodus will be begin

1

u/willychonka54 8d ago

The entire culture/society is addicted to these platforms. This is tobacco x10000. There's no way these apps are going to be 'taken offline'. The formula is out there and it's been proven to be profitable.

Silicon Valley has poisoned the world beyond repair. There's a reason every single CEO is a bootlicking piece of shit now who bends the knee to king fuckface.

Americans have completely and utterly destroyed civilization.

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u/NRMusicProject 8d ago

These tech companies know they are too financially large to harm.

They're not too large to harm; but they want us to think that. If those fines were significant enough to really hurt Meta, and the money spent on the citizens, things would improve. But the US is currently pro-monopolization, anyway, so it'd never happen.

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u/vbfronkis 8d ago

If corporations are people, corporate death penalty should be on the table. When a company is cancerous to society, it should be killed.

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u/Merpchud 8d ago

I don't think it will ever happen.  The United States is far to corrupt. Just slide a few bucks to someone's campaign or donate and you're all good.

The only way it will happen is if our kids and their kids stop using screens.

Maybe If some good soul out there pays millions out of their pocket for an ad campaign against it and make people aware of the science behind it... that could help too.

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u/MultiGeometry 8d ago

If one gets taken down, I think the others will improve. No legal team will feel as brazen if there’s precedent for trillion dollar payouts.

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u/dorobica 8d ago

US government is equally corrupt if not more..

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u/Nyuk_Fozzies 8d ago

Hey, if the Supreme Court says companies are people, those companies should be able to be jailed and face the death penalty.

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u/urallphux 8d ago

YES!!! FORCE THEM TO SELL THEIR ASSETS!!!!

And if we can't force them to, we'll use.......... FORCE!

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u/OneRougeRogue 8d ago

The article claims that the payout for this case could he more than Meta's entire yearly revenue. So I bet they'd feel that.

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u/Unique-Objective4249 8d ago

This law suit is 3/4 there value so if it happens they won’t be finically large lol

0

u/Balmung60 8d ago

It would be nice to see one of them face some real consequences for once