4 ms·

There is no such thing as a public institution under private management. Facebook is a corporate entity with control over a large part of the internet and no ac

by blub 11y ago

There is no such thing as a public institution under private management. Facebook is a corporate entity with control over a large part of the internet and no accountability towards their user base. When a private institution has so much power there need to be rules put in place that make sure they won't abuse that power to the detriment of everyone else. Democracy is about people, not the rights of corporations. Your claims about the power of the people are amusingly misguided as reading a little bit about history will tell you. Pointers: propaganda, public opinion manipulation.

vinceguidry 11y ago
If you'd read more than "a little bit" of history, you'd be able to see these things in proper perspective. Multinational corporations are inherently more democratic, more public, than governments. A government derives its capacity to operate from violence, you are forced to pay taxes. A corporation has to be accountable to a marketplace, and must operate within the law of countries it operates in. Markets are ultimately more powerful than governments, that's why authoritarians want to tell people what they can sell to whom and how. Markets provide the people with ways to get things that don't come from the government, that's how they undermine authority. I stand by my statement that Facebook is a public institution. It's publicly traded, you can buy voting shares and get a say in how the company is run. Of course Facebook is accountable to its user base, that's ultimately where they get all their revenue from. Facebook is more accountable than democratic governments are, you can't choose to not pay your taxes. Also, what is the practical difference between public and private management? Manipulating public opinion is ridiculously hard and only the most hardcore authoritarian states are capable of doing so effectively. Even then it's a cat and mouse game, the truth has ways of getting out.
- devishard 11y ago
  > Multinational corporations are inherently more democratic, more public, than governments. You have drunk so much of the capitalist Kool-aid that your brain is no longer receiving oxygen. > A corporation has to be accountable to a marketplace This is not democracy, it's plutocracy.

by blub 11y ago

vinceguidry 11y ago

If you'd read more than "a little bit" of history, you'd be able to see these things in proper perspective. Multinational corporations are inherently more democratic, more public, than governments. A government derives its capacity to operate from violence, you are forced to pay taxes. A corporation has to be accountable to a marketplace, and must operate within the law of countries it operates in. Markets are ultimately more powerful than governments, that's why authoritarians want to tell people what they can sell to whom and how. Markets provide the people with ways to get things that don't come from the government, that's how they undermine authority. I stand by my statement that Facebook is a public institution. It's publicly traded, you can buy voting shares and get a say in how the company is run. Of course Facebook is accountable to its user base, that's ultimately where they get all their revenue from. Facebook is more accountable than democratic governments are, you can't choose to not pay your taxes. Also, what is the practical difference between public and private management? Manipulating public opinion is ridiculously hard and only the most hardcore authoritarian states are capable of doing so effectively. Even then it's a cat and mouse game, the truth has ways of getting out.

devishard 11y ago
> Multinational corporations are inherently more democratic, more public, than governments. You have drunk so much of the capitalist Kool-aid that your brain is no longer receiving oxygen. > A corporation has to be accountable to a marketplace This is not democracy, it's plutocracy.