Meta Platforms helps to organise surveillance states AND gets to avoid huge fines by lobbying age verification laws, it seems.
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Meta Platforms helps to organise surveillance states AND gets to avoid huge fines by lobbying age verification laws, it seems. Disappointed but not surprised.
Edit: the specific research might be an LLM hallucination. Some other readers can confirm some of the factual claims (who said what), but the money trail research there is likely not trustworthy at all.
@nina_kali_nina I suspect that it's not (just) about the fines.
If, not especially hypothetically, you are hegemonic but plausibly convinced that you have no idea how to invent what is coming next and may or may not even be able to buy it out in time, relatively burdensome compliance regimes are perfect: they aren't free to meet; but you can do that efficiently at scale with regulators who consider you a known quantity far more easily than prospective challengers can.
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Meta Platforms helps to organise surveillance states AND gets to avoid huge fines by lobbying age verification laws, it seems. Disappointed but not surprised.
Edit: the specific research might be an LLM hallucination. Some other readers can confirm some of the factual claims (who said what), but the money trail research there is likely not trustworthy at all.
@nina_kali_nina Unfortunately, the disclaimer seems to indicate some slop at play
https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings#methodology-and-tools -
Meta Platforms helps to organise surveillance states AND gets to avoid huge fines by lobbying age verification laws, it seems. Disappointed but not surprised.
Edit: the specific research might be an LLM hallucination. Some other readers can confirm some of the factual claims (who said what), but the money trail research there is likely not trustworthy at all.
@nina_kali_nina we are so fucked, that is disastrous.
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@nina_kali_nina Unfortunately, the disclaimer seems to indicate some slop at play
https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings#methodology-and-tools@citrusui darn
I guess in this case it's difficult to completely trust this conclusion. At the very least it can be certain that Meta lobbied for it in some states from direct evidence... -
@citrusui darn
I guess in this case it's difficult to completely trust this conclusion. At the very least it can be certain that Meta lobbied for it in some states from direct evidence...@nina_kali_nina @citrusui
LLM, fine. But why aren't sources directly linked/cited. I'm no academic, but I imagine that's a basic standard for research. Can't just pile your sources at the end and say "trust me bro".Really unfortunate.
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@nina_kali_nina @citrusui
LLM, fine. But why aren't sources directly linked/cited. I'm no academic, but I imagine that's a basic standard for research. Can't just pile your sources at the end and say "trust me bro".Really unfortunate.
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@nina_kali_nina @jkn @citrusui It looks like very bad research. Literally the first chart doesn't match its sources.
For 2023, the chart says "$18.9M", but the cited OpenSecrets website says "$19,300,000".
For 2024, the chart says "$24.0M" and cites two sources that don't state any concrete numbers for 2024. OpenSecrets says "$24,430,000". So this value in the chart is just made up.
For 2025, the chart says "$26.3M", which matches OpenSecrets' "$26,290,000", but does not match the cited sources! -
@nina_kali_nina @jkn @citrusui It looks like very bad research. Literally the first chart doesn't match its sources.
For 2023, the chart says "$18.9M", but the cited OpenSecrets website says "$19,300,000".
For 2024, the chart says "$24.0M" and cites two sources that don't state any concrete numbers for 2024. OpenSecrets says "$24,430,000". So this value in the chart is just made up.
For 2025, the chart says "$26.3M", which matches OpenSecrets' "$26,290,000", but does not match the cited sources!@nina_kali_nina @jkn @citrusui Also look at this "raw" data. That's not what "raw" means. A Markdown file with a collection of statements on 6 different topics and from many different sources, with notes like "(CONFIRMED)" and "OPEN THREADS FOR FOLLOW-UP", is the opposite of "raw".
meta-lobbying-and-other-findings/data/raw/osint_990 at main · upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
Contribute to upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub (github.com)
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@nina_kali_nina @jkn @citrusui Also look at this "raw" data. That's not what "raw" means. A Markdown file with a collection of statements on 6 different topics and from many different sources, with notes like "(CONFIRMED)" and "OPEN THREADS FOR FOLLOW-UP", is the opposite of "raw".
meta-lobbying-and-other-findings/data/raw/osint_990 at main · upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
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@nina_kali_nina @jkn @citrusui Oh and you know how the README claims "This investigation was conducted by a human researcher who [...] wrote the public-facing posts"? Well here's the last commit to the .md file containing a copy of the Reddit post. The previous version shares a lot of text with the final post, but also has the standard signs of chatbot output, like random emoji and em-dashes - look near e. g. "Despite NCOSE's website" and "a Democratic consulting firm".
Update reddit_post_meta_dark_money.md · upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings@2f3f4df
Contribute to upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub (github.com)
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@nina_kali_nina @jkn @citrusui Oh and you know how the README claims "This investigation was conducted by a human researcher who [...] wrote the public-facing posts"? Well here's the last commit to the .md file containing a copy of the Reddit post. The previous version shares a lot of text with the final post, but also has the standard signs of chatbot output, like random emoji and em-dashes - look near e. g. "Despite NCOSE's website" and "a Democratic consulting firm".
Update reddit_post_meta_dark_money.md · upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings@2f3f4df
Contribute to upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings development by creating an account on GitHub.
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@dgelessus @jkn @citrusui yep, I agree that it's very poorly made and it's unclear to what extent it can be trusted. I wouldn't trust any numbers, yeah. At the same time, there are other sources that seem to at least somewhat confirm that Meta is indeed lobbying the age verification laws.
