this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
1030 points (99.6% liked)
Technology
71323 readers
3670 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I know the human tendency is to think in extremes, but I would prefer to have a system that is as balanced as possible, or at least one that affords adecuate protections to all parties involved.
The issue I have with the "just don't do anything illegal" argument is that depending on how the illegality is defined, it can be used as a tool for bad actors. Take for instance something like the afformentioned 50% penalty with mandatory jail time for repeat offenders, if I decided that jim's furniture store shouldn't exist anymore, I would only need to find some tiny thing wrong with their data handling, like for instance, assuming this specific hole exists, that they asked for contact info before it's needed for purchase verification. Now they may lose on this minor infraction, and pretty much any small business will die a horrible death without half their revenue. Meanwhile the mega corps will likely find some workaround do to their high priced lawyers, but even assuming we make a rock solid definition, they still just cycle the ceo immediately, because no one will want to be an active ceo when they are one court case from jail.
Got your point, unluckyly every law can be abused if not based on hard evidences (and even in this case it is not bulletproof). And of course it is not automatic so a due process is obviously necessary where you need to prove that Jim is in the wrong.
But we already have similar laws here and they seems to work pretty well.
For the mega corps the real threat is the fine, the mandatory jail time for the CEO (or the board members or whoever is in real control) is only a way to have the people who need to control to make their work. A company, big as you want, is not some abstract entity where things where done by some abstract figure. In the end there is always someone who approve everything and the CEO (or the board) is the ultimately responsible.
Just imagine how much control the shareholdes would make on Zuckemberg if they know they are one lost court case from losing half their money.
And no, rotating the CEO is useless, criminal charges are personal so if you as CEO make something illegal and then quit, your charges do not trasfer to the new CEO.
Then he will check what the company do. He want the big buck, it is right it also has the accountabilty.