[eigenket]

Despite the lobbying from American organisations (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Palantir and others who worked with Thorn on this [1][2]) the EU Parliament did the right thing this time.

[1] https://www.thorn.org/partnerships/

[2]https://web.archive.org/web/20130420162917/http://www.wearet...

[eddtries]

The thing that I find shocking about lobbying is just how cheap it is. In the FTX trial the amount they spent lobbying politicians for pro-crypto laws was released and we're talking low five figures. SBF even said lobbying was very cheap for the impact you can get.

Naively I thought it would cost millions to get a politician to support you but actually it's cheap enough a FAANG engineer could individually pay enough to lobby someone lol.

Edit: Literally the user base on HN would be able to crowdfund and organise a lobbying group greater than the NRA ($2.93M in 2022) if we wanted to - lobbying is such a smaller industry than I intuitively expect

[rsynnott]

> organise a lobbying group greater than the NRA ($2.93M in 2022)

This is... a little misleading. They also have at least two PACs (here's the big one: https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs...)

Now, you could claim, though not particularly credibly, that money spent on PACs is not lobbying money.

[antupis]

Still that is rather small like here Finland average organization uses 34 – 57 million euros to lobbying. source https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/1...

[pavlov]

You’re misreading the study. It says they asked 115 people for a low and high range of organizational spend on lobbying, and the sum of the estimates was 34-57 million.

So divide 57 by 115, and you get about 0.5 million euros on average for the high estimate.

(Some of the respondents may work for the same organization which complicates calculating the average. Hence why they’re reporting the sums instead, I guess.)

[jojobas]

So, 10-30 million all up per election cycle, chump change for many venture investors for example.

>Now, you could claim, though not particularly credibly, that money spent on PACs is not lobbying money.

There are PACs and then there's AIPAC with a 70M/year budget.

[eddtries]

Fair enough, I googled and used the first reputable source I could find. But sure, including the two other PACs, this is still IMO small change. I thought we were talking hundreds of millions or even billions regarding the NRA.

[andrewinardeer]

That money is just to employ lobbyists and their associated expenses.

I'm sure there is additional money for lobbying that is not on the books. Holidays, houses, good bullion, crypto, free memberships to exclusive clubs and the like that is gifted to politician's and their spouses by big industry.

[eddtries]

So with regards to FTX these were listed in the same spreadsheet as "Gifts", and there were some, but we're still talking low five figures for the majority of politicians. And it's not like FTX were not willing to spend more, they spent $68M on Tom Brady and Giselle for a two year contract to advertise FTX, or $500k on hotel rooms for interns in Miami.

[justinclift]

Is that low five figures each?

[eddtries]

Yeah, each!

[TacticalCoder]

Doctors do get weekends in fancy hotels and subscriptions offered by big pharmas for sure: I've got friends who get those.

[eddtries]

It's getting far more regulated though, and that's a good thing - big Pharma pushing drugs to doctors is one of the most sickening parts of capitalism.

[zo1]

I think we're partially mistaken about the true value and reason for lobbying existing as a concept. It's a cover that muddies the waters in discussion about laws, a coping mechanism for "The Other Side" and at the same time an endless stream of content for potential reporting by reporters/media.

[vintermann]

It's about relationships - soft power - more than money. Speaking fees, revolving door/sinecure jobs, and donations to your charities will be there for you should you need it, so there's no need to ask for things up front.

[scrps]

Also it has to do with wink wink nudge nudge "Come see us if the election doesn't work out."

Knowing you are losing an election and getting dumped into a $350k/yr easy-mode job takes the edge off.

[underseacables]

In the movie, Thank You for Smoking, there is a great scene where the main actors are sitting in a restaurant, and there's a sign just behind them that says:

"Be thankful for your government, it's the best that money can buy"

[Lutger]

How sure can you be that your lobby is successful? Can you like 'buy' a politician, effectively a legal bribe, or is it more nuanced?

In the EU, a lot of laws are effectively written or co-authored by companies, which saves the politicians and their staffs incredible amounts of time and expertise. This must be quite expensive, just to have the lawyers on payroll who are able to do that.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

If your company is literally writing the laws that will govern them, then yeah I'd say the lobby was successful.

[conception]

I think there is a theme in this thread that misses a key aspect that I think Noam put well here -

https://youtu.be/1nBx-37c3c8?si=vA0IIew7ripABUTD

I think the idea that if an opposing idea went to an NRA friend and offered more money, in almost all cases they would refuse because the lobbying dollars aren’t to convince but to support someone who asked believes what you do.

In some cases, probably like crypto laws, a politician might think “sure I don’t care or have an opinion, you bought some donations and I don’t hate your opinion so I’ll help out”, but that is a lot different than “you pay me x and I vote y.”

I think taking the agency out of the politicians hands, in most cases, is the wrong perspective.

[CPLX]

1) You’re right it’s cheaper than people think.

2) You aren’t going to move the needle much with 5 figures for anything at a national level.

The real work comes when you hire the congressman’s favorite PR firm for X and their cousins polling firm for Y and their former chief of staff for $15k a month retainer and so on. The vast majority of this gets done via “consulting” agreements and public relations firms and law firms, where the nominal work is irrelevant and the relationships and introductions are the product.

[ajb]

It's a downpayment, though. Political careers are often short; subsequently the politician will get a high paying 'job' at one of the firms funding the lobbying. That's the real payoff.

[bernardlunn]

Wow!!

[rippeltippel]

I'm still waiting for the day when we'll replace the word "lobbying" with "corruption".

[michaelteter]

The better word is "informing". Lobbyists inform policymakers about perspectives of certain groups (those employing the lobbyists).

It just happens that most lobbyists are paid by groups who are seeking to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else.

However, there are some lobbyists who work for organizations that attempt to guide policy that helps under-represented groups (like nature, animal welfare, human welfare). Those lobbyists are fewer and poorly paid (as their "clients" typically have little or no money), but they work hard to at least inform policymakers of their perspective.

[guerrilla]

No, this is just more doublespeak that ignores what's actuallygoing on. Corruption is the correct word.

[sofixa]

In the EU, lobbyists need to get registered.

Here's a few examples of registered organisations that lobby the EU:

* the Electronic Frontier Foundation https://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/consultatio...

* the Mozilla Foundation https://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/consultatio...

Do you think it's corruption when they inform the EU of the risks of legislation (like eIDAS) and fight against potential loopholes (successfully in the case of eIDAS)?

[guerrilla]

I think in general it is corruption. That's what 99% of lobbying is. Rare exceptions don't change that.

[michaelteter]

As my partner is an animal welfare lobbyist, I am qualified to say that not all lobbyists are corrupt or pedaling corruption.

[jacquesm]

Agreed, that is exactly what it is. It's a huge stain on democracy and in many ways subverts it. Companies don't have the right to vote and should not be able to do an end-run around the electoral process with their money.

[robertlagrant]

> Companies don't have the right to vote and should not be able to do an end-run around the electoral process with their money.

There's no difference between companies and people here; no one, spending their company's money or their own, should be able to influence solely through money. They only can because of corrupt state employees, who should be replaced.

[jacquesm]

> There's no difference between companies and people here; no one, spending their company's money or their own, should be able to influence solely through money.

There is because individuals are not normally the clients of lobbyists, nor do they - normally - approach politicians directly with money in hand except for some countries where campaign donations are a thing. They shouldn't be because they are effectively corruption but unsurprisingly countries where this practice is established never get around to abolishing it because it put the people who are in power in power in the first place.

> They only can because of corrupt state employees, who should be replaced.

If the state employees receive that money off the books then yes, but if it is structural it is not the employees that should be replaced but the system that should be replaced. And that is a much harder task. Because you could replace employees until the cows come home, if the system remains the same nothing will really change.

[robertlagrant]

> And that is a much harder task. Because you could replace employees until the cows come home, if the system remains the same nothing will really change.

There are lots of things where we trust individuals to do a good job. If we can identify things as being the results of corruption via lobbying, why not fire them or prosecute them?

[jacquesm]

> If we can identify things as being the results of corruption via lobbying, why not fire them or prosecute them?

That's an excellent question. In many places 'lobbying' is legal, technically it is supposedly to inform the clueless legislators about various interests. But in practice it very quickly turns into 'soft' corruption, meetings in holiday resorts (oh, do bring your family) and so on. Whatever lines are drawn the amount of money available to get around them is practically infinite and politicians (and civil servants) are not all equally good at determining when they are targeted and might be across the line before they realize it (and then it gets much harder to go back than to have never crossed it before).

Occasionally people are terminated, and occasionally there are prosecutions. But there is a very large amount of information about who may have been involved in corruption and only a limited amount of prosecution and investigatory power so the bulk of these cases will end up being ignored.

[Terretta]

Lobbyists are just your duly capitalized representatives to your duly elected representatives.

[andrekandre]

  > Companies don't have the right to vote

it seems they do...

https://www.businessinsider.com/some-cities-are-allowing-cor...

[jacquesm]

Some cities are more idiotic than others, apparently, but in case it wasn't clear the context was general elections. Not that what you point out isn't a travesty and should be dealt with before someone figures out that you can create as many companies as you want.

[rollcat]

Oh it is called corruption - when you're talking second or third world countries.

Same with "expats" vs "immigrants".

[gruez]

There's an objective difference between high corruption and low corruption countries though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

Let's not pretend that a slick lobbyist hired by vested interests to talk to representatives with no money changing hands is comparable to the stuff that goes down in high corruption countries, where there's literally briefcases full of cash given to politicians.

[antonvs]

They used to literally walk around the House floor handing out donor checks. From https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/02/14/h... :

> “…it was publicly disclosed that Boehner in the last week of June 1995 walked around the House floor delivering six or more of the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. PAC checks.

> “in the same week Boehner was giving out the checks on the House floor, the House Appropriations Committee met in its room in the Rayburn House Office Building and voted down (17 to 30) an amendment that would have ended the government's price support program for tobacco. Seven Appropriations Committee members each had received a $500 check from Brown & Williamson's PAC, including one for the committee chairman, Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.).”

This kind of activity seems to refute the “objective difference” you’re imagining.

[gruez]

1. You realize this thread is about EU?

2. 500, even in 1995, is a token amount of money to the representatives. I highly doubt they changed their vote for that little money.

[antonvs]

You were talking about high corruption and low corruption countries in general. Did you forget your own context?

The point that I and several others have made is that what “low corruption” often corresponds to is that corruption has been legalized in various ways.

Re the amount, the fact that it’s a token is kind of the point in those cases. It’s a public display and reminder to everyone where their campaign funding is coming from. Other amounts are often donated at other times, and larger amounts may come from other companies in the same industry. They didn’t change their vote for those specific checks, it’s more like a reminder that the vote that had already been bought was coming up.

Their tactics apparently worked on you to make you inclined to ignore the exact kind of blatant corruption you had just been criticizing. It’s not “low corruption”, it’s corruption that’s apparently less easy for many people to recognize.

[rollcat]

> 500, even in 1995, is a token amount of money to the representatives.

In the post-soviet countries (many of them now in EU), you can't imagine how much you can "get done" by "gifting" the right person a bottle of their favourite poison - which costs a token amount by almost any standard (like, high school pocket money).

My point is that these are two names for the same thing, an attempt to justify the "rules for you but not for us" on the moral spectrum. Microsoft can launder open source code with generative AI, but don't you dare even look at their sources.

Same shit, dressed pretty.

[piva00]

> Let's not pretend that a slick lobbyist hired by vested interests to talk to representatives with no money changing hands is comparable to the stuff that goes down in high corruption countries, where there's literally briefcases full of cash given to politicians.

That's just a make-up, parfumerie on top of the same exact concept: use money in some way to corrupt decision making.

Just because in some countries it's done with a veneer of legitimacy, in a way that doesn't look as dirty and disgusting as "those other over there with their dirty hands full of bags of money", it's just corruption with a façade of high-class. It's still the same thing, just has more layers of indirection and make-up on top.

[Lutger]

You are being sarcastic right?

> The CPI measures perception of corruption due to the difficulty of measuring absolute levels of corruption

So the difference consists primarily in perception, the slickness of it all as you put it? How well we can hide corruption with a facade of legality and civility. Somehow the crude briefcase full of cash feels more honest and direct.

[gruez]

"a facade of legality and civility" is literally the point of rule of law. It's why if you detain someone it's a crime, but if the police do it it's normal law enforcement.

[zajio1am]

Lobbying is just people or organizations making their case to politicians in a private way (e.g. meeting MP in their office) instead of a public way (e.g. putting an article to press).

[Lutger]

That is what it is supposed to be. Offering a perspective someone said. In a michelin star restaurant, private resort full of prostitutes or after having donated substantial amounts of cash to their campaign ensuring their hold on power.

Somehow it seems different when 'presenting the case' is accompanied by gifts and money.

[mrmanner]

> after having donated substantial amounts of cash to their campaign ensuring their hold on power

This is the main problem, and there is a solution. If campaigns are financed by enough public money, donations have less power and can be regulated more heavily.

Similarly, if individual politicians get enough from the state to feel secure even if voted out, we take away the power of the promise of a next job and can enforce a grace period before working on anything related.

[0dayz]

You're throwing the baby with the water here.

Lobbying I'd argue is an essential part of democracy because it allows groups of people that have a shared concern to come together and make their case to the politicians.

[squarefoot]

> ... groups of people that have a shared concern to come together and make their case to the politicians.

That would be solved by referenda, with their results and number of people affected being presented to the politicians so that they must deal with the problem. Lobbying as it is now in many countries (possibly all of them) has nothing to do with that and to me is just legalized corruption.

[mrmanner]

Who pays to let people know there’s a referendum they should vote in?

[xkcd1963]

But that shouldn't come down to the money. If only the people who amassed huge amounts of money can influence there is no democracy.

[0dayz]

Lobbying does not have to be done via donations.

Otherwise I'm very curious how NGOs can lobby.

[xkcd1963]

What do you imply? To me it doesn't matter if you use a different word for monetary value, be it donation or something else, it comes down to the same, namely money.

[0dayz]

No.

Lobbying is not inherently money oriented.

[waihtis]

The expert panel for this was truly a sight to behold, with majority representation coming from outside the EU (mostly american, but also canadian, new zealand and australian representation): https://twitter.com/SimoKohonen/status/1722635234116506052

[pas]

> https://www.patrick-breyer.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SKM...

page 26 (or page 24 in in-document numbering) ... amazing that Thorn was just an "NGO" .. instead of the company that wants to sell filtering tech.

so, can we get the actual expert opinion of these wonderful folk?

[eigenket]

I count 24 experts from 5 eyes countries and 8 from non 5 eyes countries. Not sure if thats relevant but it is funny.

[waihtis]

I just think you might be onto something

[api]

Looks like some of the AI doom regulatory capture panels I’ve seen.

[waihtis]

Oh yes. Strong industry lobby groups from the US, a handful of useful idiots from the EU. Amazing power balance.

[ajsnigrutin]

> thing this time

I'm sure it'll get reintroduced in a year or so, and if it doesn't get enough media attention, it'll pass.

They only have to win once, we have to win every goddamn time.

[eigenket]

The EU also has a right to privacy enshrined via the Treaty of Lisbon, so even if this law had got through the parliament somehow it should/would have been stuck down by the courts.

[Run_DOS_Run]

Thorn and all its supporters should be branded for what they are: Enemies of the free world. Enemies of democracy and fighters for oppression and dystopian police states.

If you look at the developments in Hungary and Poland (or the polls in Austria), any form of surveillance will be just used as another vehicle to keep autocrats and would-be dictators in power.

I doubt that the election in Poland in 2023 would have turned out like this if the PiS had seamless protocols of the opposition's communication.

[PoignardAzur]

Contrary to popular opinion, lobbying isn't as simple as "pay for expensive restaurant, get votes".

If legislators feel strongly ideologically about an issue, no amount of lobbying will make them vote the other way.

[eddtries]

How do you explain big Pharma lobbying to stop reducing drug prices? For example, Democrats who held up drug pricing reforms were the largest beneficiaries of lobbyist money.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

[martin8412]

That's a US problem. The prices of all medicines in for example Denmark are publicly available. The medicine is purchased by a single entity(and there are proposals to combine the entities within the Nordic countries to form a single large purchaser), so to sell medicine in Denmark you'll have to play ball. The prices are therefore quite reasonable. Insulin which is a commonly used example of overpriced medicine in the US is around 40-50 USD in Denmark. That is the brand version from Novo Nordisk.

The prices are available at https://www.medicinpriser.dk/?lng=2

[eigenket]

The short answer is that we're talking about the EU. Thats a US thing.

As far as I can tell looking from the outside the US system is set up so that if you aren't ridiculously wealthy yourself you pretty much need lobbyist money to fund your campaign to get elected.

[sofixa]

> As far as I can tell looking from the outside the US system is set up so that if you aren't ridiculously wealthy yourself you pretty much need lobbyist money to fund your campaign to get elected.

Considering their whole country started as a place where only wealthy male landowners could vote, and they literally deify some of those wealthy male land and slave owners, as well as their written works, it's no surprise really.

[drstewart]

>As far as I can tell looking from the outside

Out of curiosity, how accurately do you feel are the opinions of outsiders with no experience living in your country who comment on your country's state of affairs?

[Timwi]

Well, on the one hand of course you could argue that outsiders are less experienced with living in your country.

But outsiders have no emotional stakes in convincing themselves that your country is the best on earth. Consequently, I feel the non-US media are freer than US mass media to discuss the true state of American healthcare. Outsiders are less susceptible to your country's patriotic propaganda.

This does go both (or all) ways. The US are an example here, not a singular special case. Every country tries to convince its citizens that it's better than everywhere else.

[eigenket]

I have previously lived in the USA, I'm not sure why you assumed I have no experience of that.

In general I would expect someone who speaks the language of the country I live in now at roughly the same level I speak English to have a pretty accurate understanding of what is going on here. It would, frankly, be quite weird to speak the language and have no idea of what is happening here. Of course America is a special case because of how the internet is dominated by US media, commentary and content.

[Lutger]

Sometimes their perspectives could be more accurate as they don't have the same biases. Or maybe its better to say understanding and including their perspectives contributes to a more accurate understanding.

[eddtries]

That's probably true, there is lobbying in the UK so I assume countries within Europe have similar issues but I don't truly know.

[qwytw]

Generally political advertisements, campaign spending and especially donations are strongly limited. E.g. where I am a only private individuals can only donate and only up to 10k per year. The downside of that is that most funding parties receive comes from the state and it's based on their previous election performance (which is problematic due to very obvious reasons...).

Also if everyone can give/spend as much as they want legally it at least stays semi transparent so in theory voters can base their decisions on that. Illegal bribes, kickbacks etc. are a bit harder to track.

[nonameiguess]

I think the explanation is these legislators are not the ones who feel ideologically strong about cutting drug prices. Of the three people listed in this article, Kyrsten Sinema is no longer a Democrat and Bob Menendez is currently under indicment on federal corruption charges, which is now the second time for him.

[rsynnott]

Lobbying is likely easier in a polarised two-party system where you really only have to swing a few people on the edges to deadlock things. The European Parliament has 6 large parties (>50 seats), and they're not particularly cohesive, so cases where the pre-ordained decision can be swayed by getting to this six people would be much rarer.

[Lutger]

That is likely true, though there is still extensive lobbying going on in the EU and within EU countries. It is just done in a different way, with different mechanics.

[zakary]

Everyone has a price, and drug companies can usually find a way to meet it for even the most steadfast

[JoshTriplett]

> Everyone has a price

Some people really do have principles they won't violate. We just don't get enough people in politics who don't have a price.

[verisimi]

Not politicians. Not many normal people either. And that presumes that most people even know what 'principles' are - which they do not.

[eddtries]

Yeah I agree, I was responding to

> If legislators feel strongly ideologically about an issue, no amount of lobbying will make them vote the other way.

[madeofpalk]

They don't feel strongly ideologically about an issue

[eddtries]

You might be right, but having politicians who are not ideologically pro-affordable healthcare is a really sad state of affairs

[eigenket]

Well one of these guys is Bob Menendez, who is currently indicted on his second federal corruption charges and who happily accepts cash and gold bars from Egyptian nationals.

[qwytw]

Some do, unfortunately oftentimes it's the crazy ones that feel the strongest about things.

[nottheengineer]

It's a numbers game. You can't convince everyone, but lobbyists are generally good at their job and know how to find people with malleable opinions.

I don't think there's a topic where lobbying doesn't work to at least some degree. Or do you have an example?

[PoignardAzur]

> I don't think there's a topic where lobbying doesn't work to at least some degree.

I wasn't saying lobbying doesn't work at all.

[collyw]

Sure.

[moffkalast]

The EU parliament usually does the right thing if you look at past votes, there was never any doubt.

Well maybe a tiny bit of doubt.

[aremat]

It's not just lobbying. There are entire industries built around the revolving doors of think tanks, NGOs, boards, advisories, "research" institutes, etc.

[victorbjorklund]

Or did they just think there was too much attention and they will instead approve something else under a new name in the future?

[wodenokoto]

ELI5, why does google want regulation that tells them to scan user content for various suspicious activities?

[waihtis]

Google has well enough resources to handle such an effort whereas a newer, competing entity will likely not. ("entry barriers")