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A distinction needs to be made between the Googles and Facebooks of the world, and "tech". In practice, huge corporations love it when they can serve as a prox

A distinction needs to be made between the Googles and Facebooks of the world, and "tech". In practice, huge corporations love it when they can serve as a proxy for a human rights issue like freedom of speech. But there is no reason that mega-corporations with unimaginable power and increasingly control of the world's information should have the same freedoms that we allow individuals or even smaller companies. To the contrary, they need government checks and balances because there is no other counter-balancing force to their power. Over the last 100 years or so American culture has been totally subverted to this idea that any restrictions on corporate activity are inherently fascist and will destroy our economy, and the only solution to overwhelming market dominance is deregulation and magical thinking about the efficacy of the free market.

bitL 9y ago
I think the distinction here is not about limiting corporations but about basic human issue of freedom (more specifically of "feeling of freedom"; unlimited freedom is out of reach even for the richest/most powerful humans). As official media are losing their raison d'être, i.e. medial control of population due to alternatives provided by self-inhibited freedom on the Internet, allowing all kinds of ridiculous information to pop up, the usual approach is to inhibit access to unapproved information sources, reinforcing the feeling of having one's freedom attacked via censorship. Word of mouth was always ridiculous, a sewer with a few pearls here and there, it was always there though... Obviously, corporations in favor of "feeling of freedom" would lose a lot where it matters, in popularity. To me it seems like the quality of "story tellers", conjuring believable lies as was the case in the past, went dramatically down and population overcame that paradigm and can't be fooled with them anymore. Trying to shove population back to ancient approaches won't work; new, smarter stories need to be invented for people to believe in. Anyone up to the task?

bitL 9y ago

I think the distinction here is not about limiting corporations but about basic human issue of freedom (more specifically of "feeling of freedom"; unlimited freedom is out of reach even for the richest/most powerful humans). As official media are losing their raison d'être, i.e. medial control of population due to alternatives provided by self-inhibited freedom on the Internet, allowing all kinds of ridiculous information to pop up, the usual approach is to inhibit access to unapproved information sources, reinforcing the feeling of having one's freedom attacked via censorship. Word of mouth was always ridiculous, a sewer with a few pearls here and there, it was always there though... Obviously, corporations in favor of "feeling of freedom" would lose a lot where it matters, in popularity. To me it seems like the quality of "story tellers", conjuring believable lies as was the case in the past, went dramatically down and population overcame that paradigm and can't be fooled with them anymore. Trying to shove population back to ancient approaches won't work; new, smarter stories need to be invented for people to believe in. Anyone up to the task?