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Comment by personomas | Hacker News Reader

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oppress /əˈprɛs/ verb

    keep (someone) in subjection and hardship, especially by the unjust exercise of authority.

I can't agree that TikTok or other recipients of such fingers could yet be considered to be in "subjection and hardship". Nor would I consider the fines so far issued to be particularly unjust.

Large corporations are definitely being subject to *unjust* exercise of authority. "Hardship" on a corporation doesn't really apply at the scale of very large corporations because the "hardship" is spread out among the many, many shareholders and stakeholders of the successful company; of course, it's not to be seen - it's a relatively successfully company being attacked, in comparison to non-successful companies not being attacked, so hardship isn't to be seen - but the unjustment is still completely there.

The relevant regulatory authorities at national and European level decided that the company had breached the law of the land and applied the appropriate fine based on that law. Would you agree with that?

It's fair to take issue with the GDPR itself, or how e.g. the people working at the Irish DPC are selected or something like that. While I have sympathy for criticisms of the system, these are free democratic entities which rule by consent (rather that tyranny) and they're applying law that was written by a great many people across many legitimate institutions. That looks like "justice" to me, unless you feel it contravenes some natural law. If you think it does this, please explain the relevant principle under which you find the fine unjust.

So, protecting private data online, as little as the EU does, is oppression... Oppression of whom?

Interesting turn of phrase “oppressed corporations”

A lot of fun stuff to think about with that

The oppressor is the lawmaker, who has infinite power over the corporations. "oppressed corporations" is a phenomenon that can and does exist in this context.

One angle that makes it interesting is that the very existence of the corporation is determined by the decision of the lawmakers. The sovereign state is the full authority on that matter, and by its right, through the legal process, can change any aspect of it.

Can a sculptor oppress his sculpture?

This feels like musing about the nature of property- Like how many people think property is some sort of natural phenomenon, when it's actually a legal concept defined by the state.

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