I thought we collectively agreed that since Facebook is a private entity they can do whatever they want on their platform, and they have no obligation to support these researchers. Why the sudden change of heart?
A very disingenuous comment with a courageous logical leap of faith!
What they can’t do is ban people from their platform and say “the FTC made me do it”, unless the FTC actually made them do it. Since the FTC didn’t actually make them do it, they got a public nastygram from the FTC saying “we didn’t make them do it”.
They have no obligation to support those researchers, but it sure is a bad look blocking them.
To explain my downvote, you are ascribing a perspective to the collective which doesn't match what many of us think. The letter is of interest because it presents the FTC's perspective on this issue, which is surprisingly nuanced. They are affirming that oversight of business practices is important, even when it comes from non-governmental agencies.
A lot of people fail to distinguish between "can" (legally permitted to) and "should" (ethically correct to do).
Legally they don't have any responsibility to these researchers. They can ban anyone. The argument is that they shouldn't ban these people. That's why they're getting a polite letter rather than any kind of legal action.
Ideally (another should) moral considerations would always apply. External shaming comes into play when you've managed to outrage the moral sense of enough people, or powerful enough people. Yes, this does ultimately come down to social approval, but mediated by whether you can make a moral argument that people respect or not.
With regard to every previous argument we've had on here about Facebook banning people, it comes down to approval or not of the content, conduct, or actors being banned. Only the most extreme people argue that you should be able to post goatse to Facebook (not actually illegal!) without them removing it.
A 'private entity' that tries as hard as it can be to be a monopoly of everything and has hundreds of millions (I won't say billions because I don't trust Facebook's own figures) of users that rely on their services
Seriously don't understand why the private company line of argument seems to hold so much sway for some people
Users do not rely on their services. That's similar to saying users rely on Spotify's services. If anyone truly believes that Facebook's services are necessary for society, they'll need to prove it.
Here on HN, we are allowed to disagree with one another in these discussions. I provided some explanation for my position, and you're trying to tell me that I can't disagree with you. If you want me to take your position seriously, you are free to provide some supporting evidence. Telling others "Don't be dismissive" simply because they disagree with you is unproductive.
if one where to look at it this way they would probably be violating tos for automating scrolling ala clickfarms, also the ads being served and impressions counted when its bots is probably also a problem.
Who, AdObserver? I thought they wanted real data from non-robots, Thats why they went through so much trouble to have the browser extension.
I guess I could see an auto-scroller being used to grab ad impressions, and that could count as click fraud… except without clicks what are you left with, “impression fraud”?
