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One of England's top police officers, Shaun Sawyer, wants citizens to go after internet giants that have wronged them.
Sawyer, who is chief constable in Devon and Cornwall and is national lead for human trafficking and modern slavery, made the suggestion in an interview with The Sunday Times, published over the weekend.
In a paywalled article, he told the Murdoch organ that if someone is a victim of an “Internet-enabled crime”, they should sue the platform involved.
Describing the internet as a “safe space for organised crime”, he said Silicon Valley company abuses were “becoming a human injustice”.
The comments coincidentally (?) came after American authorities last week shuttered Backpage.com, a site accused of supporting human trafficking by allowing publication of advertisements for "escorts".
Sawyer believes platforms like Facebook need more policing, and he also criticised “liberal” laws.
So it's down to users, apparently: if people with the resources of the person in the street start suing the platforms, he argued, they would start using their resources to spot abuse.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Tuesday April 10 2018, @06:47AM
If the man in the street had a nuclear missile, he would probably use it too.
Does not make it a good idea.
We have a legal system for a reason. (But the need for ombudsmen demonstrate it is completely unfit for purpose).
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 10 2018, @06:58AM (3 children)
Of course he wants, because wanting costs nothing for him. So typical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10 2018, @07:38AM (2 children)
Monitoring social media is also easier and safer than patrolling the streets.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Tuesday April 10 2018, @08:24AM (1 child)
> safer than patrolling the streets
I don't think Devon and Cornwall are exactly a hotbed of gun crime. Though I understand the gangs in Taunton can be pretty fierce (joke).
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday April 10 2018, @11:46AM
And that Greengrass fellow in Aidensfield can be tricky....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10 2018, @08:45AM (5 children)
If a company was handing out "free" food that caused food poisoning, they'd be shut down.
Same principle for facebook and all (((american))) corporations.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 10 2018, @10:42AM (4 children)
But they aren't handing out "free" food that caused food poisoning, but instead internet products that aren't food and hence, can't cause food poisoning and warrant being shut down. Broken analogy is broken.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10 2018, @01:33PM (1 child)
Different AC here. I think for once I agree with you. It was a terrible analogy.
The best way to prevent malservices like Failbook, TwitFace, and whatever else from harming one is to simply don't use them. Sure there are shadow profiles, but those are outside of your control. Perhaps have friends who insist on using spyservices poison the well. Or else claim the shadow profile and then set your name to Nefarias Bredd and enter all kinds of improbable information.
Perhaps also access those malservices through Tor or similar and post all kinds of wacky things about the last time you hung out with NefariasBredd and had a drink with Morn. Personally I don't really have time to poison the well. Simply ignoring malservices is good enough for me.
Now I'm kind of interested in how many "Nefarias Bredd" profiles we can get on Failbook before somebody catches the reference.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday April 10 2018, @11:48PM
-ly?
They don't know how to use anything but facebook.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 11 2018, @10:55PM (1 child)
Meatballs in the sky you're dumb!
Free social media platform == food
Poison == selling info to others / manipulating markets
Stupid khallow is as usual stupid, your ideological purity really makes you a dumbfuck.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 12 2018, @04:17AM
Here's where the analogy breaks down. Poison kills people. That's harm. Selling info to others? Sorry, it's not remotely that harmful. Sure, I've seen the hysterical claims that we're going to be forever blacklisted for not having a Facebook account, but I'm just not feeling the sense of danger that hypothetically is there.
Manipulating markets? Not even something to care about. Just don't be an idiot.
So we're comparing Facebook to a company actively poisoning people. But as I noted earlier, the analogy is broken. And it's broken because Facebook isn't such a threat to people. It humiliates me to share DNA with someone at your low level of emotional control and intelligence. Perhaps, I'll be able to upgrade to something better in the next few decades so we'll no longer share what is obviously a bad problem with you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday April 10 2018, @11:32AM
You can eliminate one but not the other (and maybe not even then).
Would you rather get rid of Tor/I2P/etc. and cryptocurrencies, or force traffickers to go low tech? Because if the next Backpage doesn't operate on the surface web, it will just go dark.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by BenJeremy on Tuesday April 10 2018, @11:50AM (1 child)
The guy who is in charge of upholding the law in the areas with the worst record in slavery and human trafficking is blaming the internet for all their troubles. Sounds about right... after all, making hyperbolic statements that take attention away from the crappy job you are doing is par for the course these days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10 2018, @12:26PM
FTFY.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday April 10 2018, @03:10PM
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” -- Benjamin Franklin. Perhaps taken out of context, but the sentence is well written and definitely applies when considering our freedoms.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by requerdanos on Tuesday April 10 2018, @03:38PM (3 children)
Yeah, the problem there is that's the moment where they become liable for same.
If they forbid abuse in their TOS, maybe take some basic precautions that apply to everyone (disallowing *.evil files, for example), and then a bad actor comes in and uses their service for evil, it's the bad actor's fault, and liability.
If they start "using their resources to spot abuse" then they are no longer legally merely a communications medium, but rather a participant, and if they fail to spot a particular bit of abuse, it's their fault and liability, even be it the same bad actor above doing the actual evil.
If a scammer calls your elderly relative and bilks that person out of their life savings, you can't sue the phone company for being liabile.
But if the phone company had a "Department of preventing Evil" that failed to stop that scammer, then their failure incurs liability on the part of the phone company. It would be insanity for them to "use their resources" to do that without adequate legal protection ahead of time, and that protection isn't forthcoming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10 2018, @04:13PM (2 children)
lol
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10 2018, @04:17PM
I commented before finishing reading and completely agree with the rest of the original comment.
Even file extension blocking is useful in making attacks involve more steps where the user can realize something is fucky.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10 2018, @06:29PM
You laugh, but I had to deal with a company that implemented that.
All .doc and .pdf email attachments are stripped out.
But the company requires you to send them forms in those formats. Hmmm... what to do? Company policy is to send DOC or PDF files named with a different extension. Now THAT is ironclad security!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by istartedi on Tuesday April 10 2018, @05:10PM
I'm given to understand that women were trafficked across that bridge. It must be demolished.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10 2018, @06:32PM (1 child)
Is the word "prostitution" not scary enough?
They had to bring back "white slavery"? Oops, let's pass that thru the PC filter: "modern slavery".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 10 2018, @10:39PM
There are plenty of white people being enslaved, it just depends on location and who is involved. The amount of race on race slavery in the world is a lot higher, also slavery is not always so clearly defined. If you can't leave your job because your children would starve but your boss is a total bastard are you enslaved? There are a lot of wage slaves in India and the like, Saudi is apparently bad for it as well, but I am no expert.