Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
allows the agency to seek civil penalties against those who knowingly violate it.
I hate that wording. Ignorance of the law isn't a defense, unless you're a corporation, apparently.
It also looks like this doesn't address the practice of offering incentive for actual purchasers to leave positive reviews.
That's not what knowingly means in this context. Knowingly refers to the level of intent required to pursue charges, not whether they knew there was a law against it.
In this case it requires the government to show that the person intended to leave a review and/or testimonials that misrepresent that they are by someone who does not exist.
Anyways my brother works for the FTC. With the current funding, they take thousands of complaints before they even look into something. It’s effectively useless as only the most publicised cases get any enforcement and the fines are tiny. And he says it was twice as bad before Biden.
The wording is a bit ambiguous but I'd read that as "intentionally" rather than "with knowledge they're violating the law"... it definitely could have used a good copy editor though.
They'll just outsource it to foreign "reputation management" firms and pretend they had no idea what was happening, like how Coke got away with murdering union members in a foreign country.
That's not true, ignorance of the law is also a valid defense for police officers violating people's rights 🙄
Awesome, now make them criminally liable.
Corporations are people, no? Throw them in prison.
IMO, corporate punishments should work like that: steal a little from someone? Lose 90 days of profit. Steal a lot? Lose a couple years of profits. Kill someone? Lose 20 years of profits
Jailing CEOs works better only because money is easy to manipulate. Loosing 20 years of profit just means bankruptcy. Make a new name new company buys all assets of bankrupt at fault company and nothing but the name changes. I'm with the idea that if companies have personhood than the person in charge is responsible for harm that personhood does.
I wonder if having to face consequences for their actions would change how CEOs behave 🤔
The CEO would just be a fall guy, and the decision-making would go to someone else.
They tried that when McDonald's served coffee that gave an old woman 3rd degree burns on her genitals.
A single days profits from coffee.
McDonald's fought that in court, and spent many thousands of dollars on a PR campaign to vilify the woman they burned.
Jail or volcano sacrifice. I'm sick of rich fucks being above the law and fines are just an expected, calculated, and bet against expense to a big business.
"I will believe that corporations are people, once Texas executes one."
Lina Khan is literally too good for consumers, that's why she don't last :(
She is doing more for the working class than any other government official. And yet no one knows her name
Who was that punchable face guy who undid net neutrality? And she is completely opposite.
Ajit Pai is that scumbags name. If I ever bump into him at a grocery store I plan to give him the same level of respect he gave the American people.
Common Lina Khan W
Give me 10 Lina Khans and I'll give you the world.
I wish she was the one running for president. Maybe in eight years if we're lucky and have Harris. And/or legal elections in four.
Lina Khan is the most useful bureaucrat in at least a generation.
I've said it once and I'll say it again. I love the work Lina Khan is doing. Its going to be so sad when Kamala gives her the boot :(
Why would Harris give her the boot? Khan was placed in position by Biden.
Its up for debate if she will, but a lot of big ticket donors are ~~bribing her~~ requesting it as a favor for donating to her campaign.
I thought most of those big donors were just straight up backing trump. I guess the tariffs got them down?
That or they pay both sides.
They definitely pay both sides. It's a small price for an almost guaranteed increase in profits.
They can do it for reviews, why not news?
The constitution is pretty clear about the power of government to regulate commerce, and is also pretty clear that the government can’t regulate most speech.
The Federal Trade Commission today announced a final rule that will combat fake reviews and testimonials by prohibiting their sale or purchase and allow the agency to seek civil penalties against knowing violators.
Oh good, glad they didn't ban obvious joke ones people post for free, like the top reviews for the 50 gallon barrel of lube.
Some guy in India is gonna get fined $7,498,342.37 in three years and I'm all for it.
Oh dude they literally had an activity at my old cult where they had everyone make a dozen fake reviews at each of their local buildings. That's gonna be fun.
I'm sorry, "my old cult"? Care to give some background? Obviously if you'd rather not that's completely up to you :)
And then he won't pay it because he's in India and doesn't pay a lot of attention to the US FTC.
There is a very long history of expeditions and fines against foreign nationals involving spam, scams, etc. Here is a recent example., and another example, and a much older and bigger example
But you never hear about any of the good stuff the US Government does for its people, nobody ever talks about that stuff.
Better than nothing but it also seems like it might be kind of difficult to prove the company allowed it knowingly.
It prevented reviews and testimonials that misrepresent that they are by someone who does not exist. Fairly easy to prove. If they catch an individual posting a review while posing as anyone but themselves, It's a done deal.
I just got a can of diet Coke in exchange for a 5-star review of a local eatery. I legit like the eatery, but would not have left a review without the bribe.
Is that a legit review or a fake one?
IMHO, if they'd give you the Coke for any review, regardless of rating, that's fine. If they demand a 5-star rating for the Coke, then that's no good.
Your review might have been honest, but not everybody else's who just wanted the Coke will be.
What is going to happen? Will the FTC police gonna come and cart them away? No, it will continue and nothing will happen. FTC enforcement is just a few law suits away from being just like the SEC's enforcement. The SEC can't enforce anything these days without a long drawn out court battle.
