9 ms·
Someone needs to go wake up Teddy Roosevelt. As rude as it would be to wake him up, we need someone to recognise that the amount of consolidation the country is
by Qw3r7 9y ago
Someone needs to go wake up Teddy Roosevelt. As rude as it would be to wake him up, we need someone to recognise that the amount of consolidation the country is reaching is incredibly dangerous. This teetering near Deus Ex level amounts of consolidation. Yes, the current aims at Google and Facebook are nice to see. But, the deregulation of media companies is allowing anti-consumer practices. Even the video game industry is starting to receive backlash for its "non-gambling" practices and the lootbox.
Pardon for the rant, that kind of seems everywhere. But, allowing something like this to form is dangerous, especially with how strong lobbying is now. With facebook actively suppressing certain ideologies, the soon to be larger media companies will now have no issue writing off conflicting ideas as well.
- interstitial 9y agoJust poke Mark Zuckerberg on facebook. He's really good at saving us from anti-consumer practices.
- spaceseaman 9y agoI completely agree with you, however I find this bit a little mysterious: > With facebook actively suppressing certain ideologies The only ideologies I've heard of Facebook suppressing lately are Neo-Nazi and alt-right groups following the Charlottesville stuff. I don't take issue with these ideologies being suppressed. Am I missing something? EDIT: Apparently so because someone just went through my history and down-voted all my comments...
- Qw3r7 9y agoI do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. Evelyn Beatrice Hall Suppression of opinion implicitly violates the Bill of Rights.
- fhood 9y agoSorry, this is my personal nitpick but suppression of opinion by facebook does not violate the bill of rights.
- spaceseaman 9y agoI do not consider Nazi ideology an opinion. Their ideas are purely based on maintaining a power dynamic. There's no logic or legitimacy to their ideas, and thus they are not opinions. They change the ideology as needed to maintain power and promote their own strength. For a historical viewpoint, simply look at how often the German Nazi party would change what classifies as being a Jew or "undesirable". It was only ever about putting fear into people and maintaining control. They had no real opinions on why these people were undesirable - those could be made up after the fact. If Nazism was an opinion, I would be willing to defend it. But it's not, and it thrives when it's given the legitimacy as such. EDIT: To try and tie this back to the topic at hand, are blatant lies still "opinions"? What about death threats and hate speech? My point is simply that we already make distinctions about what kind of speech is free, so I feel that Facebook instituting policies that align with these existing rules makes sense - even though I feel that they are becoming too large to be the de-facto source for information on the Internet.
- thisacctforreal 9y agoFriendly reminder that downvotes should be reserved for comments you don't want to see on the site, not for comments you disagree with.
- nl 9y agoFriendly reminder that PG said the opposite. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
- icebraining 9y agosimply look at how often the German Nazi party would change what classifies as being a Jew Can you provide any links? My google-fu is failing me.
- chadgeidel 9y agoEven if I use a million sock-puppets to amplify my voice? I generally agree with the idea that one (physical) person's stated opinion shouldn't be squashed, but we are dealing with scale here.
- rhizome 9y agoSuppression of opinion implicitly violates the Bill of Rights. Facebook's content policies are not subject to the Bill of Rights, which constrain only the government.
- thephyber 9y ago> Suppression of opinion implicitly violates the Bill of Rights NO. The Bill of Rights are enumerated protections FROM THE GOVERNMENT. The concept of "Freedom of Speech" is different and more broad than the First Amendment to the US Constitution, but a private entity not protecting it is not a violation of the First Amendment or any other 9. Yes, the double-negative is important.
- throwanem 9y agoThe Constitution remains amendable. We hear arguments frequently that the Second fails to sufficiently account for modernity. Perhaps the First does, too.
- s73ver_ 9y agoI guarantee you they were not talking about violent threats or racial slurs.
- rodgerd 9y agoUnfortunately HN has apparently become a haven for Nazi sympathisers.
- thisacctforreal 9y agoI think a lot of people are equating defense of Nazism with defense of free speech. I'm not sure if they're wrong or right.
- mschuster91 9y agoHmm. I wouldn't say Nazi sympathisers... I'd rather say extreme libertarians. They see every kind of speech as acceptable, no matter how hard history has proven this kind of speech to lead to ultimate desaster and suffering. Anyway, HN has always tended to the libertarian side of things, doesn't surprise me that there is also quite a bunch of radical libertarians. Thankfully, there also seem to be some Antifas in here, if only to provide some counterweight...
- jnordwick 9y agoDid you just in a very roundabout way equate libertarians with fascists?
- mschuster91 9y agoNo, far from it. I did not equate them (and I never would), but there are a number of libertarians who believe that fascism is a valid part of the political spectrum and covered by free speech. That does not neccessarily mean that they support fascism itself - in fact, I have yet to see a libertarian who does not say that he/she despises fascism.
- thephyber 9y ago> The only ideologies I've heard of Facebook suppressing lately Conservatives put up a fit when they accused Facebook employees of censoring or otherwise biasing the "Trending Topics" feature to prevent conservative stories from appearing there. Last I heard, about 2 FB employees were suspended or fired over the story, but that's just from memory so I could be completely wrong. As a result of the accusations, FB reportedly converted Trending Topics to be completely automated. It was probably easier to abuse for coordinated troll armies once it was automated.
- mschuster91 9y ago> Am I missing something? Yep, both Facebook and Twitter regularly plop up on media for shutting down or suspending left-wing sites. For example, "Kein Mensch ist illegal" was even awarded a prize by FB (2014) and in 2016 their admin got suspended (https://www.mimikama.at/allgemein/facebook-sperrt-admin-von-kein-mensch-ist-illegal/ https://www.mimikama.at/allgemein/facebook-sperrt-admin-von-...). Problem here is that the alt-right (ab)uses the reporting features combined with sensitive anti-spam measures at the providers. Given enough reporting Nazis, even the biggest accounts are easy targets. That the Big 3 (FB, Twitter, Youtube) don't have a way to reach a human or file an appeal at a court of law (which I can do, for example, if my telco provider shuts down my internet access and with it my email account) doesn't exactly help either. Big-ish accounts with media influence or people with connections to employees of the companies may help, but this is a luxury only a few people have. > EDIT: Apparently so because someone just went through my history and down-voted all my comments... Don't worry - had the same thing happen to me recently, I believe after the Charlottesville murder.
- beedogs 9y ago> EDIT: Apparently so because someone just went through my history and down-voted all my comments... It should be easy for the admins to find and promptly IP-ban the creep who did this.
- nl 9y agoEDIT: Apparently so because someone just went through my history and down-voted all my comments... That happens to me a lot these day. Just try saying anything about Russian propaganda on Twitter, and watch all your old comments get voted down.
- sliverstorm 9y agoIt's wild how we can look back in history, identify a time just like this with all the same problems, and pick out the very man perfect for these circumstances. Hell, at this point we just need to locate his spiritual reincarnation and turn him or her loose, knowing they are perfect for the job. They said history is a circle, but this is just so blatant.
- jmcgough 9y agoIt's even more concerning now, considering how much control and visibility into our lives companies have, thanks to mobile phones and digital tracking.
- nawtacawp 9y agoI don’t game. Trying to find more info on the “non-gambling”? Not sure what that is.
- spaceseaman 9y agoJust look up the EA Star Wars Battlefront 2 stuff. It's a big old mess. You pay money for crates which randomly drop items that improve the game experience. Some people consider it gambling because you are preying on the same tendencies in people for your own gain. People also don't get any real value for their "gambling". Other people say this makes it not gambling, etc. That's a very simple oversimplification of the subject - there's a lot of articles out there about it right now.
- cokeandsympathy 9y agoIt's turning a game into a skinner box designed to extract as much money as possible from those who buy the game. It operates on the same basic principles as slot machines.
- spaceseaman 9y agoPretty much. The counter-argument goes that people "should know" and be responsible with their money, but I'm not a fan of that argument. It relies on people being perfectly rational actors that they just aren't. I'm personally in favor of instituting regulation for these things. Even if it is just purely from the "we have to protect the children" angle - children are arguably the main market for these strategies after all.
- fnovd 9y agoEA recently released a statement that their "Loot Box" mechanic, a system by which players can only purchase items by buying them in a randomly-generated bundle, does not constitute gambling. If you were looking for a specific item, you may have to purchase hundreds of these boxes. EA argues that since the box you purchase is guaranteed to have some kind of item, the rules and regulations that apply to gambling with legal tender do not apply.
- cokeandsympathy 9y agoThe current aim at Facebook book is to harvest as much of the world's attention as possible to resell to advertisers. Users are not it's customers, the businesses that pay it to advertise are. It's primary goal is to suck you in and keep you using it by any means necessary, ethics be damned
- notyourwork 9y ago> Even the video game industry is starting to receive backlash for its "non-gambling" practices and the lootbox. I'm not understanding how this is related?
- jack9 9y agoThe phrasing was poor. > But, the deregulation of media companies is allowing anti-consumer practices. > Even the video game industry is starting to receive backlash for its "non-gambling" practices and the lootbox. The implication is that it's standard to implement anti-consumer practices like gambling (not called gambling) into consumer products (games). The VAST majority of games now, in a trend starting since circa 2005, has been to milk the customer via chance-based microtransactions, aka the "freemium" model. Games that do not use this, are heavily criticized by industry and critics as oversights or even unfair. i.e. You mean I might pay $X for a game and what if I don't like it? Now I'm out all $X!