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These large dominating companies are monopolies in every sense of the word and need to be broken up. The Bell System was broken up and didn't have a tenth of t

These large dominating companies are monopolies in every sense of the word and need to be broken up. The Bell System was broken up and didn't have a tenth of the tracking and control of people's lives that Google and Facebook do. Ma Bell didn't actively harm its users and cause depression. Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/185/3/203/2915143 https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/185/3/203/2915143 "Association of Facebook Use With Compromised Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study"

dantheman 8y ago
The bell system was a government granted monopoly, as in it was illegal to compete with them.
AlexB138 8y ago
> [Facebook colluded] with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president. This is a conspiracy theory, and really diminishes the level of the conversation here.
- bedhead 8y ago
  The right had Obama birth certificate conspiracies, the left has Russian election hacking conspiracies. Different sides of the same idiotic coin for stupid people.
  - r00fus 8y ago
    Except it's not just the left, and there are open indictments against many of the President's team.
    - fromthestart 8y ago
      That so far, two years in, have nothing to do with collusion. Russia has been playing both sides to destabilize the country, and the left's selective hysteria is playing right into the strategy, straight out of the KGB playbook. The easiest man to fool is the one who thinks he cannot be fooled.
    - cheeseomlit 8y ago
      All of which are for process crimes committed after the investigation started, or for completely unrelated white collar crimes from years ago
      - r00fus 8y ago
        So-called "process crimes" that cover up real crimes are still crimes. Or do you think Capone's tax evasion rap wasn't just the tip of the iceberg?
    - bedhead 8y ago
      The difference between the two is that even the majority of the right dismissed the birthers as idiotic nutjobs, while today the Russian election conspiracies are basically mainstream among the left. It's crazy
      - rorykoehler 8y ago
        The Russian election influencing (not gonna call it hacking because it's not) is not a theory. It's not on the same level as he birther BS which is total fantasy. Of course Russia are trying to influence US elections. Why wouldn't they?
- drugme 8y ago
  [Facebook colluded] I'm not sure what source you're quoting, or what the original text was that you're attempting to simplify. EDIT: missed the quote when reading the message above somehow - sorry.
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    > Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president. In the context of an argument about why Facebook is a more dangerous monopoly than Ma Bell, this implies that Facebook did collude with Russia.
    - drugme 8y ago
      OK, agreed - that was definitely unjustified hyperbole. By all accounts, they did not intentionally "collude" with the Russians. But what looms larger in my mind is the fact that FB was egregiously negligent in allowing the manipulation of their platform to take place to the extent that it did --- both in the context of that fiasco, and in much worse situations, e.g. in regard to the genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar.
  - AlexB138 8y ago
    The person I'm replying to said "Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president". They're implying that Facebook, in contract to Ma Bell, did do these thing.
- moosey 8y ago
  A US company took money from a foreign government and used it to spread foreign propaganda, while calling it advertising. Money is pooled into massive organizations called 'PACs' that are used to fund campaigns that get folks into government, then offer them sweet high paying jobs afterwards as long as they do their bidding while they work there. It's not corruption, that's lobbying. It gets tiresome calling things what they are when there are dozens of definitions that the corrupt use to alter the nature of what they do with language. Corruption and propaganda are rampant, but once they can all be called 'marketing', or whatever the people with the power to influence via the media want to call them, that's the language that we use, and truly harmful things become easy to defend.
  - m0zg 8y ago
    Disclaimer: I'm Russian-American. I do not believe Russian "siloviki" are competent enough to pull off anything like what you're implying. Russia spent $100k on FB in total, and they ran ads on controversial issues from both sides, not just Trump (and also organized "resist" protests after Trump won). For comparison, Trump's campaign alone spent $100 _million_. I don't know off the top of my head how much the Clinton campaign spent, but it did have 2x the money advantage, so it probably spent twice as much. If we assume the total FB spend of $300M for both campaigns, Russian money represented 0.033% of ad spend, and they likely used far less sophisticated targeting than the campaigns, and riled up both sides. Tell me again how this could have altered the outcome. Their goal seemed to be to sow discord, not to elect a particular candidate. I believe that's still their goal, and you, HN poster, is a great help to that end. They could not imagine a better outcome than Trump (or Clinton) getting mired in controversy and partisan gridlock, and unable to do anything about anything. If you're going to talk about foreign influence, there are countries that are much more influential in US politics than Russia. No US president can even win a primary without pledging allegiance to Israel, for example. Clinton Global Initiative accepted millions from all over the world (donations dropped massively once Hillary lost, suggesting influence peddling). When it comes to hacking, China hacks the US far more than Russia ever will. I don't quite get this raging hard-on for Russia that the mainstream media has manufactured. If it's outrage you want, there are far better targets.
- jvzr 8y ago
  I'm not American. However I think the current president is entirely on Americans. Sure, Russians may have helped a little by running those ads. But most of it is the Democrat candidate, and the general attitude towards America's Red populace in the Middle states.
mycorrhizal 8y ago
I definitely don't contest the amount of tracking these companies do. I wouldn't even be surprised if it goes beyond what I can even imagine. But when it comes to control can we at least attempt to quantify it or at least make it a bit more exact. For example I'm positive these companies have influence over what brand of headphones I buy next, but I'm even more positive, at least on a personal level, that these companies have zero influence when it comes to convincing me to take money out of my IRA and using it to buy something I can't afford. Frankly what I'm getting at is I buy into the argument that these companies can influence smaller behaviors, like restaurant A or B but I'm really dubious of their influence reaching to more important decisions like to get a divorce or not maxing out my 401k and/or IRA. So I find myself not really caring about their influence because I don't think it pertains to the big decisions that I really care about.
- pixl97 8y ago
  > because I don't think it pertains to the big decisions that I really care about. Because you dont want to think that, or because you've studied this and know it is the case? With companies like FB being directly involved in the study of emotional manipulation of their users by altering their news and friends feed, I really think you are off base on the potential power they could have over a large number of individuals. Maybe you are somehow immune to their propaganda, but that is not a risk I want to take at society scale.
  - mycorrhizal 8y ago
    Right, so I was speaking personally there and I can confidently say among the priority of things I care about my relationship with my wife, how I manage my budget and my overarching career goals all of the decisions related to these things are done with a great deal of deliberation and research. So I'm not saying I'm somehow special and immune to propaganda, but I think when practically anyone takes the time to research and deliberate on big decisions and asking people they trust for advice these companies have a marginal effect. I can specifically point to times where these companies have and have not influenced my decisions. For example my wife and I decided we could afford a 3k vacation this budget was informed by looking at our incomes, expenses, savings and job security. But social media definitely influenced where we chose to go and what we did once we got there. I'm much more concerned with the first decision (I can afford to blow 3k) than the second (where we ended up going).

dantheman 8y ago

The bell system was a government granted monopoly, as in it was illegal to compete with them.

AlexB138 8y ago

> [Facebook colluded] with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president. This is a conspiracy theory, and really diminishes the level of the conversation here.

bedhead 8y ago
The right had Obama birth certificate conspiracies, the left has Russian election hacking conspiracies. Different sides of the same idiotic coin for stupid people.
- r00fus 8y ago
  Except it's not just the left, and there are open indictments against many of the President's team.
  - fromthestart 8y ago
    That so far, two years in, have nothing to do with collusion. Russia has been playing both sides to destabilize the country, and the left's selective hysteria is playing right into the strategy, straight out of the KGB playbook. The easiest man to fool is the one who thinks he cannot be fooled.
  - cheeseomlit 8y ago
    All of which are for process crimes committed after the investigation started, or for completely unrelated white collar crimes from years ago
    - r00fus 8y ago
      So-called "process crimes" that cover up real crimes are still crimes. Or do you think Capone's tax evasion rap wasn't just the tip of the iceberg?
  - bedhead 8y ago
    The difference between the two is that even the majority of the right dismissed the birthers as idiotic nutjobs, while today the Russian election conspiracies are basically mainstream among the left. It's crazy
    - rorykoehler 8y ago
      The Russian election influencing (not gonna call it hacking because it's not) is not a theory. It's not on the same level as he birther BS which is total fantasy. Of course Russia are trying to influence US elections. Why wouldn't they?
drugme 8y ago
[Facebook colluded] I'm not sure what source you're quoting, or what the original text was that you're attempting to simplify. EDIT: missed the quote when reading the message above somehow - sorry.
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  > Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president. In the context of an argument about why Facebook is a more dangerous monopoly than Ma Bell, this implies that Facebook did collude with Russia.
  - drugme 8y ago
    OK, agreed - that was definitely unjustified hyperbole. By all accounts, they did not intentionally "collude" with the Russians. But what looms larger in my mind is the fact that FB was egregiously negligent in allowing the manipulation of their platform to take place to the extent that it did --- both in the context of that fiasco, and in much worse situations, e.g. in regard to the genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar.
- AlexB138 8y ago
  The person I'm replying to said "Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president". They're implying that Facebook, in contract to Ma Bell, did do these thing.
moosey 8y ago
A US company took money from a foreign government and used it to spread foreign propaganda, while calling it advertising. Money is pooled into massive organizations called 'PACs' that are used to fund campaigns that get folks into government, then offer them sweet high paying jobs afterwards as long as they do their bidding while they work there. It's not corruption, that's lobbying. It gets tiresome calling things what they are when there are dozens of definitions that the corrupt use to alter the nature of what they do with language. Corruption and propaganda are rampant, but once they can all be called 'marketing', or whatever the people with the power to influence via the media want to call them, that's the language that we use, and truly harmful things become easy to defend.
- m0zg 8y ago
  Disclaimer: I'm Russian-American. I do not believe Russian "siloviki" are competent enough to pull off anything like what you're implying. Russia spent $100k on FB in total, and they ran ads on controversial issues from both sides, not just Trump (and also organized "resist" protests after Trump won). For comparison, Trump's campaign alone spent $100 _million_. I don't know off the top of my head how much the Clinton campaign spent, but it did have 2x the money advantage, so it probably spent twice as much. If we assume the total FB spend of $300M for both campaigns, Russian money represented 0.033% of ad spend, and they likely used far less sophisticated targeting than the campaigns, and riled up both sides. Tell me again how this could have altered the outcome. Their goal seemed to be to sow discord, not to elect a particular candidate. I believe that's still their goal, and you, HN poster, is a great help to that end. They could not imagine a better outcome than Trump (or Clinton) getting mired in controversy and partisan gridlock, and unable to do anything about anything. If you're going to talk about foreign influence, there are countries that are much more influential in US politics than Russia. No US president can even win a primary without pledging allegiance to Israel, for example. Clinton Global Initiative accepted millions from all over the world (donations dropped massively once Hillary lost, suggesting influence peddling). When it comes to hacking, China hacks the US far more than Russia ever will. I don't quite get this raging hard-on for Russia that the mainstream media has manufactured. If it's outrage you want, there are far better targets.
jvzr 8y ago
I'm not American. However I think the current president is entirely on Americans. Sure, Russians may have helped a little by running those ads. But most of it is the Democrat candidate, and the general attitude towards America's Red populace in the Middle states.

mycorrhizal 8y ago

I definitely don't contest the amount of tracking these companies do. I wouldn't even be surprised if it goes beyond what I can even imagine. But when it comes to control can we at least attempt to quantify it or at least make it a bit more exact. For example I'm positive these companies have influence over what brand of headphones I buy next, but I'm even more positive, at least on a personal level, that these companies have zero influence when it comes to convincing me to take money out of my IRA and using it to buy something I can't afford. Frankly what I'm getting at is I buy into the argument that these companies can influence smaller behaviors, like restaurant A or B but I'm really dubious of their influence reaching to more important decisions like to get a divorce or not maxing out my 401k and/or IRA. So I find myself not really caring about their influence because I don't think it pertains to the big decisions that I really care about.

pixl97 8y ago
> because I don't think it pertains to the big decisions that I really care about. Because you dont want to think that, or because you've studied this and know it is the case? With companies like FB being directly involved in the study of emotional manipulation of their users by altering their news and friends feed, I really think you are off base on the potential power they could have over a large number of individuals. Maybe you are somehow immune to their propaganda, but that is not a risk I want to take at society scale.
- mycorrhizal 8y ago
  Right, so I was speaking personally there and I can confidently say among the priority of things I care about my relationship with my wife, how I manage my budget and my overarching career goals all of the decisions related to these things are done with a great deal of deliberation and research. So I'm not saying I'm somehow special and immune to propaganda, but I think when practically anyone takes the time to research and deliberate on big decisions and asking people they trust for advice these companies have a marginal effect. I can specifically point to times where these companies have and have not influenced my decisions. For example my wife and I decided we could afford a 3k vacation this budget was informed by looking at our incomes, expenses, savings and job security. But social media definitely influenced where we chose to go and what we did once we got there. I'm much more concerned with the first decision (I can afford to blow 3k) than the second (where we ended up going).