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They control the pathways of modern speech. It's not like a baker where you can just get your wedding cake somewhere else. If Google doesn't like you they can d

They control the pathways of modern speech. It's not like a baker where you can just get your wedding cake somewhere else. If Google doesn't like you they can damn near erase you from public view. If you have an internet business they can ruin it. There is no way to escape their influence. Because of this, they have a responsibility to uphold people's natural right to expression. In many ways Google now has more control over speech than governments historically have. If there was a viable competitor this would be different, but there is no such competitor.

krapp 7y ago
>They control the pathways of modern speech. Not true. Almost all modern speech doesn't take place on Youtube or any Google platform. It's possible to broadcast without Google, publish without Google, disseminate without Google, gather without Google, dissent without Google, make phone calls without Google, chat, email, text, audio, video, everything - literally all forms of speech and expression are possible without Google, both on and off the internet. >If Google doesn't like you they can damn near erase you from public view. Also not true. Plenty of people Google "doesn't like" are still in public view. Name one person Google has effectively "disappeared" in this way, and I'll bet they still have a presence elsewhere on the web, still participate in society, still can communicate publicly, be contacted, etc. >If you have an internet business they can ruin it. Maybe. But then so could Amazon. So could your ISP. If losing SEO would ruin your business, the problem isn't Google's power, it's your crappy business model. >There is no way to escape their influence. Really? Do they control you here? In your home? Do they moderate other sites? Do they control Twitter, Facebook, Hacker News? It's arbitrarily easy to escape their influence. They control one platform, not the internet, not society, not governments. >In many ways Google now has more control over speech than governments historically have. Governments can imprison you, torture you, kill you, run over your friends with tanks, nuke entire cities, fill shallow graves with dissidents, burn down libraries and make it legal. Google has no more control over speech than the governments whose laws they must obey by definition. They don't claim a monopoly on violence or sovereign immunity. >If there was a viable competitor this would be different, but there is no such competitor. There are plenty. Google is not the only search engine, and Youtube is not the only video streaming service. Almost every part of your comment is falsehood, hyperbole and nonsense.
- verisimilitudes 7y ago
  >Plenty of people Google "doesn't like" are still in public view. Name one person Google has effectively "disappeared" in this way, and I'll bet they still have a presence elsewhere on the web, still participate in society, still can communicate publicly, be contacted, etc. Alex Jones was attacked by Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Apple in a short span of time and this certainly does bring noticeable harm. Your argument that Google isn't a monopoly so much as a participant in an oligopoly is pointless. >Maybe. But then so could Amazon. So could your ISP. If losing SEO would ruin your business, the problem isn't Google's power, it's your crappy business model. It's amusing how people raise this same argument about advertising and how newspapers or other publications can die for all they care, but then newspapers are ''important to Democracy'' and shouldn't need to exist like others do and the other publications are just trying to make end's meet and can't do anything else. Maybe letting large businesses buy or crush everything else is a bad idea? >Really? Do they control you here? No. >In your home? No. >Do they moderate other sites? Yes. Large chunks of the WWW contain Google malware or are at the behest of Cloudflare and that makes avoiding these two difficult, as it's likely at least one place one visits is involved with one or the other. I can't even contact some businesses because of Gmail and its strangulation of the email protocols and with ReCaptcha it becomes increasingly harder to do certain things without giving Google free work. >Almost every part of your comment is falsehood, hyperbole and nonsense. You're either misguided or purposefully arguing in bad faith.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    > Alex Jones was attacked by Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Apple in a short span of time and this certainly does bring noticeable harm. Your argument that Google isn't a monopoly so much as a participant in an oligopoly is pointless. Alex Jones is not a victim of anyone but his own avarice. He defamed victims of horrible violence and refused to stop. He kept ending up in court trying to use defenses like, "I am actually a comedy show and everyone knows it is a joke." It became so absurd that his liability was spilling over onto other broadcast networks who couldn't deny he was deliberately slandering people. I'm saying: his speech is about as valuable as shouting "fire" in a crowded movie theater. So maybe he is not your go-to example. May I recommend instead Dan of "Three Arrows," who has been banned for explaining Nazi history in a factual way with the highest standards of evidence, but ends up being banned or demonetized because of brigading organized by pro-fascist elements lead by reactionary channels failing the same standard like Tim Pool. But I agree that you could probably make a case YouTube is a monopoly. > Large chunks of the WWW contain Google malware or are at the behest of Cloudflare and that makes avoiding these two difficult, Your problem is with site runners who do not consider it malware. You're demanding a product with a price of $0, but such things don't have $0 cost. And of course, you can instantly 0 it out by using tools like noscript. But you can't try to blame Google or CloudFlare for the presence of these tools. That's a conscious decision by website engineers who could offer their content free of charge, but cannot afford to. Ain't capitalism great? May I recommend doing what I do, which is using NoScript on Firefox? I won't lie, FireFox is worse than Chromium and the plugins are worse, but sometimes we gotta take a hit for our principles. > ReCaptcha it becomes increasingly harder to do certain things without giving Google free work. Exactly how many street sign identification tasks do you think Google needs for Waymo or Maps? I'll give you a hint: a kid with tensorflow can solve those captchas using off the shelf parts. The primary value of those captchas is forcing a human to interact with the captcha in a very short span of time, which raises the costs of using cheap contract labor solutions to evade the captcha several orders of magnitude. > You're either misguided or purposefully arguing in bad faith. "People who disagree with me are all wrong or liars" isn't a very "good faith" argument either.

krapp 7y ago

>They control the pathways of modern speech. Not true. Almost all modern speech doesn't take place on Youtube or any Google platform. It's possible to broadcast without Google, publish without Google, disseminate without Google, gather without Google, dissent without Google, make phone calls without Google, chat, email, text, audio, video, everything - literally all forms of speech and expression are possible without Google, both on and off the internet. >If Google doesn't like you they can damn near erase you from public view. Also not true. Plenty of people Google "doesn't like" are still in public view. Name one person Google has effectively "disappeared" in this way, and I'll bet they still have a presence elsewhere on the web, still participate in society, still can communicate publicly, be contacted, etc. >If you have an internet business they can ruin it. Maybe. But then so could Amazon. So could your ISP. If losing SEO would ruin your business, the problem isn't Google's power, it's your crappy business model. >There is no way to escape their influence. Really? Do they control you here? In your home? Do they moderate other sites? Do they control Twitter, Facebook, Hacker News? It's arbitrarily easy to escape their influence. They control one platform, not the internet, not society, not governments. >In many ways Google now has more control over speech than governments historically have. Governments can imprison you, torture you, kill you, run over your friends with tanks, nuke entire cities, fill shallow graves with dissidents, burn down libraries and make it legal. Google has no more control over speech than the governments whose laws they must obey by definition. They don't claim a monopoly on violence or sovereign immunity. >If there was a viable competitor this would be different, but there is no such competitor. There are plenty. Google is not the only search engine, and Youtube is not the only video streaming service. Almost every part of your comment is falsehood, hyperbole and nonsense.

verisimilitudes 7y ago
>Plenty of people Google "doesn't like" are still in public view. Name one person Google has effectively "disappeared" in this way, and I'll bet they still have a presence elsewhere on the web, still participate in society, still can communicate publicly, be contacted, etc. Alex Jones was attacked by Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Apple in a short span of time and this certainly does bring noticeable harm. Your argument that Google isn't a monopoly so much as a participant in an oligopoly is pointless. >Maybe. But then so could Amazon. So could your ISP. If losing SEO would ruin your business, the problem isn't Google's power, it's your crappy business model. It's amusing how people raise this same argument about advertising and how newspapers or other publications can die for all they care, but then newspapers are ''important to Democracy'' and shouldn't need to exist like others do and the other publications are just trying to make end's meet and can't do anything else. Maybe letting large businesses buy or crush everything else is a bad idea? >Really? Do they control you here? No. >In your home? No. >Do they moderate other sites? Yes. Large chunks of the WWW contain Google malware or are at the behest of Cloudflare and that makes avoiding these two difficult, as it's likely at least one place one visits is involved with one or the other. I can't even contact some businesses because of Gmail and its strangulation of the email protocols and with ReCaptcha it becomes increasingly harder to do certain things without giving Google free work. >Almost every part of your comment is falsehood, hyperbole and nonsense. You're either misguided or purposefully arguing in bad faith.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  > Alex Jones was attacked by Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Apple in a short span of time and this certainly does bring noticeable harm. Your argument that Google isn't a monopoly so much as a participant in an oligopoly is pointless. Alex Jones is not a victim of anyone but his own avarice. He defamed victims of horrible violence and refused to stop. He kept ending up in court trying to use defenses like, "I am actually a comedy show and everyone knows it is a joke." It became so absurd that his liability was spilling over onto other broadcast networks who couldn't deny he was deliberately slandering people. I'm saying: his speech is about as valuable as shouting "fire" in a crowded movie theater. So maybe he is not your go-to example. May I recommend instead Dan of "Three Arrows," who has been banned for explaining Nazi history in a factual way with the highest standards of evidence, but ends up being banned or demonetized because of brigading organized by pro-fascist elements lead by reactionary channels failing the same standard like Tim Pool. But I agree that you could probably make a case YouTube is a monopoly. > Large chunks of the WWW contain Google malware or are at the behest of Cloudflare and that makes avoiding these two difficult, Your problem is with site runners who do not consider it malware. You're demanding a product with a price of $0, but such things don't have $0 cost. And of course, you can instantly 0 it out by using tools like noscript. But you can't try to blame Google or CloudFlare for the presence of these tools. That's a conscious decision by website engineers who could offer their content free of charge, but cannot afford to. Ain't capitalism great? May I recommend doing what I do, which is using NoScript on Firefox? I won't lie, FireFox is worse than Chromium and the plugins are worse, but sometimes we gotta take a hit for our principles. > ReCaptcha it becomes increasingly harder to do certain things without giving Google free work. Exactly how many street sign identification tasks do you think Google needs for Waymo or Maps? I'll give you a hint: a kid with tensorflow can solve those captchas using off the shelf parts. The primary value of those captchas is forcing a human to interact with the captcha in a very short span of time, which raises the costs of using cheap contract labor solutions to evade the captcha several orders of magnitude. > You're either misguided or purposefully arguing in bad faith. "People who disagree with me are all wrong or liars" isn't a very "good faith" argument either.