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> We need look no further than the conduct of the largest banks in the 2008 financial crisis or the role that Facebook and Google play in the “fake news” busine

> We need look no further than the conduct of the largest banks in the 2008 financial crisis or the role that Facebook and Google play in the “fake news” business to know that Brandeis was right. I couldn't really get any farther into the article than this. How exactly is "fake news" supposed to be a symptom of abuse of monopoly power? Are we supposed to believe that Facebook and Google's smaller competitors rigorously curate content to ensure factual accuracy?

anigbrowl 9y ago
I couldn't make it to the end of your comment to know what points you were trying to make.
noooodle 9y ago
I think they meant Facebook and google being the ones who decide what's fake news and what's not.
therpe1 9y ago
I kind of marvel at such comments. You don't understand a single sentence so you give up on the whole article? And then you feel the need to announce your ignorance? The entire article is very much about "bigness" and it is interesting to see how a non-tech person views the state of the web. The reality is companies like Google and Facebook can and do leverage enormously powerful network-effects. This makes it very easy for them to completely and utterly dominate various ecosystems and turn them into mono-cultures. Especially with Facebook what we're seeing isn't any kind of real diversity but simply a cesspool of propaganda [1]. It's not really good for anybody. But then it's not clear that information monoculture that Google and Facebook produce could be broken up even if one were to break up the companies. Even if Facebook were regulated out of the "news business" competitors would emerge that leveraged Facebook's graph and you'd get the same issues. The problem is on the demand side. People want fake news, they want to be lied to, and they certainly don't want to hear any kind of in-depth, reasoned, factual analysis. Google and Facebook are just giving people the tools to create such toxic information ecosystems. This wasn't an issue a long time ago when everybody simply consumed their regional information sources but with the rise of cable news it can hardly be said that this is a new issue. In the long run rather than breaking up these companies they should be pressed to develop technological solutions. Similar to the way email was saved from the never-ending tsunami of spam by Bayesian filters and DNS-based black-lists and white-lists, Google and Facebook should be encouraged to develop measures that can at least identify and warn somebody when they enter a toxic information eco-system. [1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo?utm_term=.fclOMBMzQ#.srqek8kGV https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became...
revelation 9y ago
The irony is palpable in the whole manufactured fake news debate. I'm sure NYT and others want to segregate themselves from their blogspamming outbrain competitors but then they were the ones with the "99% Hillary victory" barometer based on stats with error bars pointing out of this universe..

anigbrowl 9y ago

I couldn't make it to the end of your comment to know what points you were trying to make.

noooodle 9y ago

I think they meant Facebook and google being the ones who decide what's fake news and what's not.

therpe1 9y ago

I kind of marvel at such comments. You don't understand a single sentence so you give up on the whole article? And then you feel the need to announce your ignorance? The entire article is very much about "bigness" and it is interesting to see how a non-tech person views the state of the web. The reality is companies like Google and Facebook can and do leverage enormously powerful network-effects. This makes it very easy for them to completely and utterly dominate various ecosystems and turn them into mono-cultures. Especially with Facebook what we're seeing isn't any kind of real diversity but simply a cesspool of propaganda [1]. It's not really good for anybody. But then it's not clear that information monoculture that Google and Facebook produce could be broken up even if one were to break up the companies. Even if Facebook were regulated out of the "news business" competitors would emerge that leveraged Facebook's graph and you'd get the same issues. The problem is on the demand side. People want fake news, they want to be lied to, and they certainly don't want to hear any kind of in-depth, reasoned, factual analysis. Google and Facebook are just giving people the tools to create such toxic information ecosystems. This wasn't an issue a long time ago when everybody simply consumed their regional information sources but with the rise of cable news it can hardly be said that this is a new issue. In the long run rather than breaking up these companies they should be pressed to develop technological solutions. Similar to the way email was saved from the never-ending tsunami of spam by Bayesian filters and DNS-based black-lists and white-lists, Google and Facebook should be encouraged to develop measures that can at least identify and warn somebody when they enter a toxic information eco-system. [1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo?utm_term=.fclOMBMzQ#.srqek8kGV https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became...

revelation 9y ago

The irony is palpable in the whole manufactured fake news debate. I'm sure NYT and others want to segregate themselves from their blogspamming outbrain competitors but then they were the ones with the "99% Hillary victory" barometer based on stats with error bars pointing out of this universe..