Well that is unfortunate. I would not want to be in Simula's position, I'm sure they've got enough on their plate without having to deal with stuff like this that they barely have an impact on in the first place.
I understand that Meta needs to prove they're not a monopoly, and apparently the way to do that is through other companies laying their cards on the table, but my goodness would I feel uncomfortable giving core business plans, outlooks, and associated data to a huge (and arguably unethical) company like Meta.
It's unreal that this is just a thing that can be done, but I'd expect those documents to never reach the eyes of anyone who guides business decisions at Meta. Or so I hope. Or maybe this kind of information isn't as sensitive as I think, I don't run a business and have no plans to currently, so I'm not savvy in that department.
Surely if Meta need another company to help them prove something, Meta should have to compensate them. Sure, the government should be able to COMMAND a company to appear, but for one legal entity to COMMAND another legal entity to perform work and make an appearance at a place, in my mind as a Brit, seems entirely wrong.
Time to throw my Quest on eBay, not sure I want to be a part of this.
I thought it was clear in the post that Meta is being compelled by the federal government to prove they are not a monopoly and as part of this they need to present a case where they establish they have legitimate competitors. This requires information about the competitors.
This is typical for court cases. Even if a party may have little to do with what’s going on trial, if they’re a relevant party in any way they can get sucked in and be forced to give a deposition. It’s totally possible to “plead the 5th” here, but the rationale here is all the relevant facts to a case have to be brought to light in order to make an informed judgment.
There is no need for the executives at Meta to see these documents themselves to derive value from them. A lawyer seeing them and providing a verbal summary is more than good enough when deciding on strategy.
> I understand that Meta needs to prove they're not a monopoly, and apparently the way to do that is through other companies laying their cards on the table, but my goodness would I feel uncomfortable giving core business plans, outlooks, and associated data to a huge (and arguably unethical) company like Meta.
This seems too considerate to Meta. IMO, part of Meta's intention is to hurt SimulaVR. It wouldn't be by accident.
IANAL, but it came from a court because it's a court order. Failing to respond would be contempt of court - an imprison able offense.
AIUI, the reason that courts order cooperation for this sort of thing is that every party deserves the right in court to defend themselves as best as is possible. If in order to defend themselves they require information that they cannot present themselves but that someone else can (say your alibi was being at work - your boss could confirm that), then it becomes that party's civic duty to cooperate with the courts and make sure that the appropriate information can be yielded to ensure a just decision. If there are concerns about cost or potential secrecy/privacy implications, someone who is subpoenaed can bring that up with the judge who can then work with all parties to appropriately manage the situation.
The (relevant part of the) 5th amendment does not say "you never have to cooperate with the courts" it says you can not be compelled to incriminate yourself. People and companies are compelled to cooperate with courts all the time - that's literally what a subpoena is.
Btoh you and the justice system. You could plead the fifth on personal incrimination, but that may result in an investigation into your personal matters now that you've indirectly hinted that the facts you were asked to present could indicate wrongdoing.
The system could also consider your testimony to be so important as to proclaim that you shall not be prosecutable for anything that you say as part of your testimony.
Of course, all of this applies only to things within your mind. You cannot use the 5th to get out of presenting any and all existing materials that may even be perceived to be relevant to the court order. That's likely to be as initially broad as emails, business plans and documents, road maps, etc. Obviously, impeding these efforts would be contempt of court or (in the case that you destroy anything) possibly worse.
In practice though, your attorney works with the court and other parties' attorneys to identify what exactly would be relevant to the case and if any special secrecy regarding those materials and testimony is warranted. Case gets worked out, life moves on.
When all but 2 of the stairs are broken in a flight -- discussing the particularities of this break or that isn't very meaningful or productive. Perhaps the 2 functional stairs are worth another look instead.
I'm just saying there are no ethical companies of that size
so it's a disengineous point to bring up.
the deeper realization is that is not fair (nor conducing to good social outcome) to try and hold an entity such as Meta (formerly facebook) to individual person standards such as being ethical.
this is more important in other discussions around rights of corporations (and other comparalby powerful institutions) in contrast with the righs of human individuals (see also: censorship by 'private persons' but this person is google or something)
but let's just bury my ancestor reply before going any deeper. gosh.
It is a perfectly valid point in terms of the impact on SimulaVR which is what this discussion is about. A company is trying to get sensitive information from them. Stating the company is unethical even if all other similar companies are as well is perfectly valid.
How can it be unethical if this is how it's done across the board in the US? Meta's lawyers aren't bringing in some unheard of tactic here. This is par for the course. I'd love to hear some "ethical" means for proving without doubt that you have competitors. Admittedly I wouldn't be a good judge of their usability in court, mind.
The other piece that I think the parent was making is that how can we judge this practice as somehow speaking to the ethicalness of a broader company when the decision making process doesn't work or act like a single mind (which is how we perceive ethics to work, an internal/personal decision wherein you way the good, bad, etc)?
"To prove we have competitors, we will pull them into a legal battle they otherwise are not a part of, so we can make sure their business plans aren't something that would make them actual competitors in the future"
In the public eye, Meta is particularly unethical. It's a large part of their current downfall. So I don't agree with you that it is a disingenuous point.
facebook tried to provide equal and fair (market driven) access to political influence through their ad-platform; and they will be punished for doing so (see the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and subsequent relentless waves of bad PR against them).
political influence is not open, nor fair, nor market driven. is power driven; and the power is trying to re-assert this harsh truth.
and when I say "the power" I refer to the powerful people and their institutions who can make a political example a lá Julian Assange; the kinds of institutions and secretive traditional societies who can make somebody commit "suicide" in a federal prison; or get somebody in a presidential seat. facebook is in for a rough ride.
powers who would ally with china in secret "in order to better all of society".
powers whose only competence is keeping power, but not making power nor doing anything good with it. powerful institutions (of autonomous self-maximizing money) who know war, and war is what they will use their power for (and whence their power comes).
in another point in history I would be meeting some assassins pretty soon for daring to publish this in a semi-public forum. now all I get is dissuaded ("You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks.") and buried in with the noise/spam and the garbage ([shadow]banned).
the "FB as virtues" is an insight I glimpsed through Stratechery's analysis of Facebook's woes [1].
> All news sources are competing on an equal footing; those controlled or bought by a party are not inherently privileged.
> The likelihood any particular message will “break out” is based not on who is propagating said message but on how many users are receptive to hearing it. The power has shifted from the supply side to the demand side.
> on Facebook both small companies and large companies have an equal shot at customers, and both Party insiders and complete outsiders have an equal shot at voters.
so then, apparently democracy is good, justice is good, but everything is better in moderation, including these 'good' things.
the algorithmically driven market made all participants far more equal than they wanted to be; so they decided to destroy it.
> not fair (nor conducing to good social outcome) to try and hold an entity such as Meta (formerly facebook) to individual person standards such as being ethical
What? Care to explain that a bit further.
A multibillion dollar company should be held to higher standards than an individual
yet, they somehow get away with shitty actions which would be unaceptable from an individual.
they are limited liability institutions after all, the reasoning for their existence is precisely to limit the liabilities (negative consequences of their actions)... that's where the tax-payer comes in.
I understand that Meta needs to prove they're not a monopoly, and apparently the way to do that is through other companies laying their cards on the table, but my goodness would I feel uncomfortable giving core business plans, outlooks, and associated data to a huge (and arguably unethical) company like Meta.
It's unreal that this is just a thing that can be done, but I'd expect those documents to never reach the eyes of anyone who guides business decisions at Meta. Or so I hope. Or maybe this kind of information isn't as sensitive as I think, I don't run a business and have no plans to currently, so I'm not savvy in that department.