Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

I don’t see what's unreasonable about a legislature compelling the appearance of a CEO that operates in their country.

If it’s logistically impossible for a large multinational operating in many countries to comply, then maybe its unreasonable for a single company to operate in so many countries.

There’s such a weird sense of entitlement here, that companies should be able to do what they want and countries need to accommodate them. There’s nothing that says it must be easy or even possible to operate a company in every country in the world simultaneously.

I see no need to draw any lines. If you don’t want to be subject to a particular country’s rules, there is a really easy solution: don’t operate there.

View on HN

A large number of these countries require country-level directors that are supposed to be accountable, or locally owned subsidiaries, etc.

This is literally the person who they would hall away in cuffs and send off to jail if they charged the corporation with a criminal act in the country, etc.

Requiring that, and then not letting them send those people, is definitely stupid.

Saying you have a model where someone else is accountable, and then not accepting that person as a stand-in, makes no sense.

Well, except for the "we want our political theater so we can look like we care to our constituents", which this kind of thing almost always is, it makes no sense.

For countries that don't, yeah, sure.

Canada allows both branches and wholly owned subsidiaries. (I'm too lazy to discover which facebook is using).

In the subsidiary model, the subsidiary would, in a lot of cases, have its own CEO.

So if Facebook Canada is a subsidiary and has a CEO, Canada should be okay with that person testifying.

If they aren't, they shouldn't be allowing this model, and only allow the branch model.

(In the branch office model, i'm fine with requiring the parent CEO to testify)

It is possible that it is Facebook that won’t allow subordinates to step in, in place of Zuck and Sandberg. I’m not saying that is what is happening. But it could be. Facebook may see the risk to be too high for anyone but Zuck and Sandberg to attend these theatres given the billion+ fines that could come from them.

Given that the article is about how Facebook has decided not to send them, your hypothesis seems unlikely; they would be saying in effect that they prefer contempt charges to letting their local director talk. Or, to put another spin on it, that having their director talk is worse than doing nothing.

>It is possible that it is Facebook that won’t allow subordinates to step in

The article says that Facebook is sending subordinates:

>Facebook said is it [sic] sending Kevin Chan, its head of public policy for Facebook Canada, and Neil Potts, its director of public policy, to the meeting instead.

only if the subsidiary or branch has enough independence should the delegate be allowed; can the local exec stop the spying on Canadians? if not, the top guy must be grilled.

If the subsidiary doesn't have enough autonomy, then their status as a local subsidiary should be revoked immediately. If the subsidiary is complicit in criminal activity, then they are now investigating a crime, potentially an international conspiracy, and there's already mechanisms to handle that.

The difference is that I don't have to have an "operation" (i.e. office) in a nation for my website to be accessible in that nation. Looking at a map of facebook offices [0], I don't see any in Kazakhstan (just to pick an arbitrary nation with a tinpot dictator), but Facebook still has a substantial presence there.

Also, there is a serious risk flying to some countries. I would expect quite a few of them to arrest for some "crime" and demand a "fine" to be released.

[0] https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations

We’re talking about Canada here, where Facebook does have offices.

On principle, a country shouldn't be able to compel a non-resident non-citizen to enter the country and become subject to it's laws. Except in the case of some sort of criminal extradition.

What principle? Facebook is in Canada. They have offices in Canada. They hire citizens. They sell products to citizens, and they are selling citizens as products.

Facebook is already subject to Canada's laws, and they should continue following them if they want to continue being subject to those laws.

So? Maybe canada's laws say they can compel Zuck to show up, but America's certainly don't. Those are the ones that matter, as Facebook is based in America and Zuck is currently in America.

Of course. Facebook should feel free to ignore this subpoena. In exchange, Canada should feel free to bar Facebook from doing business in their country.

Does it count as “compelling” if it’s a requirement for doing business in that country?

Depends. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Facebook runs servers in America (not canada). A canadian accesses their site and uses it. Is Facebook now "doing business" in canada? The problem with internet companies is that the rules are different: I no longer need any kind of physical presence to do business there (though servers are often necessary, but that's buying something not selling from a physical location).

Let’s talk about the real Facebook, which has physical offices in Canada and sells products in Canada.

The question of whether a company should be subject to legislative summons like this when that company is only incidentally involved with the country is an interesting one, but it’s also completely irrelevant to this discussion.

> Is Facebook now "doing business" in canada?

And then in the very next sentence you appear to answer this:

> I no longer need any kind of physical presence to do business there

Doing business is doing business.

IMO, it depends whether the law is just and reasonable. I do not think any just or reasonable purpose is served better by having Zuckerberg or Sandberg attend this meeting, as opposed to their lieutenants. No questions will be asked that the lieutenants would not be equally or better equipped to answer. If such questions need to be asked, a letter and response would be fine.

If the purpose of the meeting were more than a show trial, I might feel different. But, that is universally not the case. FWIW I would not be offended if Zuckerberg declined invitations from the US congress either, although it's difficult for him to do so considering they could actually arrest him.

> I do not think

But, the Canadian government thinks it.

They don't just call up folks on whim. Cost of doing business for FB. CEO gotta do CEO things, which includes the occasional inconvenience of answering a few questions from the Government.

> But, the Canadian government thinks it. ... CEO gotta do CEO things ...

Apparently he doesn't, though. What the Canadian government thinks matters only to the degree that they have the power to compel their desired behavior, and the will to use that power.

Also, I contend the Canadian government doesn't think there's a just purpose in him showing up. Whether any of the politicians will admit it, I'm sure they are aware that no productive purpose will be served by Zuckerberg's attendance, besides their own political self-aggrandizement. They do not need his input on any proposed policy. They don't need information from him that cannot equally well be acquired from a lieutenant or through a letter. To be clear, I'm not saying these politicians are corrupt or anything. They are doing what is rational from their perspectives. Scoring points against Zuckerberg is a win, since a few constituents would really like it and anyone else won't care either way. But rational, goal-seeking behavior and just behavior are often different things.

On the other hand, Zuckerberg is also doing what is rational from his perspective. To give in to this request would probably cost him dearly in time going forward as every politician in the world looking for a distraction would be knocking at his door. Like us all, he has a limited amount of time on this Earth. I doubt he has much desire to spend it as a whipping boy for foreign governments, and so he cannot accede to the request unless Canada ups the ante.

IMO, it depends whether the law is just and reasonable.

I'm pretty sure the legislature and judiciary of each country considers obeying their laws to be necessary, with or without your blessing.

National governments don't summon the leaders of major businesses without a good reason, and many national governments don't all end up doing so at almost the same time without a good reason that spans lots of countries. If there is an issue that big, maybe it should be the CEO's top priority anyway?

What you call a show trial, others might call demanding the person at the top because that way there is no deniability or passing the buck. The US might have run the Zuckerberg hearing as a show trial and had mostly token incompetent and ignorant representatives asking the questions in a format designed to be kind. That doesn't mean that other countries who want real answers to serious questions about Facebook's conduct under Zuckerberg's leadership need to do the same.

I'm pretty sure the legislature and judiciary of each country considers obeying their laws to be necessary, with or without your blessing.

I fully understand that Canada does not need my approval. Surely that's obvious. Why bring it up?

The question is whether what they're doing is good. Good governance, good policy, good economics, good ethics, etc. Them having the power or authority to do it is almost totally irrelevant to that.

I'll tell you what would convince me that there's some good reason, and if you know of an instance, you can let me know and I'll admit some modicum of wrong. If Canada's legislature has interrogated a famous CEO or similar figure about a popular issue, and the contents of that interrogation have led to substantially unanticipated outcomes, I would be willing to admit that I'm at least partially wrong. My priors are that that sort of thing does not happen. At least, I've never seen it happen in my own country.

Why only Canada's legislature? The parliamentary committee that summoned Zuckerberg and Sandberg represents more than just the Canadian Parliament. If one were to expand the conditions under which you feel this could be good "governance, policy, economics and ethics", you could find many cases of executive officers of publicly listed companies being summoned to testify before parliament. Philip Green comes to mind, but I'm sure there are many more - requesting testimony from corporate offices it not as unusual as you may think; I don't recall the names now, but I'm pretty sure I've seen the CEOs of some major American corporations in front of the House and Senate on numerous occasions, such as after the Great Financial Crisis.

>the contents of that interrogation have led to substantially unanticipated outcomes

How would one prove something like that? I think some more specificity would be necessary to be able to answer that question. Do you mean unanticipated by the mainstream of commentators, unanticipated by the legislature itself, by the corporate officer in question, by literally anyone on the Earth, or by yourself?

It seems perfectly just and reasonable that the legislature is able to compel testimony.

Calling this a “show trial” is silly. They’re not going to toss him in prison afterwards.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com