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One might even argue that Facebook/Twitter are doing this explicitly to ensure a party is put in power that won't try to reform them in any way. Their actions s

One might even argue that Facebook/Twitter are doing this explicitly to ensure a party is put in power that won't try to reform them in any way. Their actions show it, and their political donations show it. That's my putting on the tin foil, but I think you could make such an argument. We always talk about Big Oil, etc being friends to Republicans, but often ignore Big Tech's close ties to Democrats.

syndacks 6y ago
Yep, def using the Heavy Duty kind tonight.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tyre 6y ago
I would expect it has less to do with who they want to be elected than who they think will be elected. If the polls are anywhere close to real, they’re going to see both houses of Congress plus the executive in Democratic hands. That is the same party publicly calling for their breakup. So if you see it coming, get out ahead of it.
untog 6y ago
Big Tech also has plenty of close ties to Republicans: remember when Facebook’s Joel Kaplan appeared at Kavanaugh’s Senate hearing? https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-facebook-exec-backs-kavanaugh-at-senate-hearing https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-facebook-exec-backs-kavana... And find one of @pinboard’s regular threads on the political donations big tech companies make and you’ll find a lot of Republicans: https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1152245502361997314 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1152245502361997314 The reality is that once you’re as big as FB, Google and the rest you have enough money to play both sides of the aisle. Doesn’t matter who is in power, you’ve got them both under control.
- blisseyGo 6y ago
  EDIT: dang, I understand my political views don't align with vast majority of HN but me replying to correct false info keeps giving me this error on HN: "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." I think HN keeps turning into an echo chamber and any opposing view point on a specific political topic gets censored/throttled here too. How can you expect me to have a proper discussion when I am not even allowed to reply? ---- 96% of the donations from Big Tech went to Democrats. This is a verifiable fact. The first censorship of this story came from Facebook and the statement from them was this by Andy Stone, FB communications. Andy Stone is a former DCCC (DCCC: Committed to electing Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives) https://mobile.twitter.com/andymstone/status/1316395902479872000 https://mobile.twitter.com/andymstone/status/131639590247987... The person at twitter making these decisions is Nick Pacilio, Twitter Communications who's also Kamala Harris' former press secretary: https://twitter.com/NickPacilio/status/1291160646231392261 https://twitter.com/NickPacilio/status/1291160646231392261 Facebook's executive Jessica Hertz as well as Twitter's director of public policy Carlos Monje are Biden's transition team. Kamala Harris had repeatedly called for suspending her opponent's twitter account: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mnunez/2019/10/02/kamala-harris-tells-twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-to-suspend-president-donald-trumps-account-in-new-letter/#4c6aa38a6648 https://www.forbes.com/sites/mnunez/2019/10/02/kamala-harris...
  - ausbah 6y ago
    when you mean "Big Tech" do you mean employees, the companies themselves, and / or the executives that lead those companies. Looking around, I only see some statements says only 96% employees of tech firms and media orgs back Democrats. Looking at companies themselves it seems like they readily back Republicans as much as Democrats. I didn't do any super deep digging, but this is what I am basing my statements on. https://www.mic.com/p/tech-companies-have-given-millions-of-dollars-to-anti-lgbtq-politicians-18189929 https://www.mic.com/p/tech-companies-have-given-millions-of-... https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17219930/facebook-campaign-contributions-mark-zuckerberg-congress-donations https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17219930/facebook-campaig...
  - untog 6y ago
    (you're not being censored for your political views, it's because you're posting too many times in one thread. I get the same alert sometimes) Again, my point isn't that there are no Democratic Facebook execs, it's that they play both sides. To whit: > Indeed, the three top leaders of Facebook's DC office all have extensive backgrounds in Republican politics: Vice President for Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan; Vice President for U.S. Public Policy Kevin Martin; and Public Policy Director for Global Elections Katie Harbath. https://popular.info/p/the-republican-political-operatives https://popular.info/p/the-republican-political-operatives That article also outlines a number of right-wing friendly moves that Facebook has made in recent years, just as a counterpoint to the example being discussed here. I agree with you that the vast majority of staff at these tech companies are Democrats, but I'm talking about the top-level execs. And once you reach that level you see the top tech companies play both sides of the political aisle as best they can.
- partiallypro 6y ago
  Those are small outliers, when it comes to actual public donations that the company, it's board, and it's employees make they all swing heavily to Democrats, not Republicans. Eric Schmidt was helping the Obama campaign while he was a Google board member. Out of all the companies, Facebook has handled this all the best, and you can tell because they are getting flack from both sides. https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close-relationship-with-the-obama-white-house-in-two-charts/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close...
ajxs 6y ago
You're absolutely right. The idea that a corporation's board would decide collectively what political stances to take is not groundbreaking. However this kind of critical thinking seems to be so rarely applied to organisations trafficking in information, such as those making up 'big-tech'. I was speaking elsewhere on Hacker News recently about how the attitude towards trusting corporations seems to have shifted so dramatically. Distrusting the motivations of large corporations was once a pillar of liberal thought in the west. Now many liberals seem to be willing to empower these corporations absolutely as long as they control online discourse in a way that largely benefits the liberal establishment. I would encourage people to consider for a moment the financial incentives for organisations at the scale of Facebook, Google, Twitter et. al. to support globalist political agendas. This isn't 'conspiracy theory' thinking, it's shareholder primacy, it's simple politics. Anyone who thinks that these organisations support liberal causes out of the goodness of their hearts needs a reality check. They pursue these choices for their own gain.

syndacks 6y ago

Yep, def using the Heavy Duty kind tonight.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

tyre 6y ago

I would expect it has less to do with who they want to be elected than who they think will be elected. If the polls are anywhere close to real, they’re going to see both houses of Congress plus the executive in Democratic hands. That is the same party publicly calling for their breakup. So if you see it coming, get out ahead of it.

untog 6y ago

Big Tech also has plenty of close ties to Republicans: remember when Facebook’s Joel Kaplan appeared at Kavanaugh’s Senate hearing? https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-facebook-exec-backs-kavanaugh-at-senate-hearing https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-facebook-exec-backs-kavana... And find one of @pinboard’s regular threads on the political donations big tech companies make and you’ll find a lot of Republicans: https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1152245502361997314 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1152245502361997314 The reality is that once you’re as big as FB, Google and the rest you have enough money to play both sides of the aisle. Doesn’t matter who is in power, you’ve got them both under control.

blisseyGo 6y ago
EDIT: dang, I understand my political views don't align with vast majority of HN but me replying to correct false info keeps giving me this error on HN: "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." I think HN keeps turning into an echo chamber and any opposing view point on a specific political topic gets censored/throttled here too. How can you expect me to have a proper discussion when I am not even allowed to reply? ---- 96% of the donations from Big Tech went to Democrats. This is a verifiable fact. The first censorship of this story came from Facebook and the statement from them was this by Andy Stone, FB communications. Andy Stone is a former DCCC (DCCC: Committed to electing Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives) https://mobile.twitter.com/andymstone/status/1316395902479872000 https://mobile.twitter.com/andymstone/status/131639590247987... The person at twitter making these decisions is Nick Pacilio, Twitter Communications who's also Kamala Harris' former press secretary: https://twitter.com/NickPacilio/status/1291160646231392261 https://twitter.com/NickPacilio/status/1291160646231392261 Facebook's executive Jessica Hertz as well as Twitter's director of public policy Carlos Monje are Biden's transition team. Kamala Harris had repeatedly called for suspending her opponent's twitter account: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mnunez/2019/10/02/kamala-harris-tells-twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-to-suspend-president-donald-trumps-account-in-new-letter/#4c6aa38a6648 https://www.forbes.com/sites/mnunez/2019/10/02/kamala-harris...
- ausbah 6y ago
  when you mean "Big Tech" do you mean employees, the companies themselves, and / or the executives that lead those companies. Looking around, I only see some statements says only 96% employees of tech firms and media orgs back Democrats. Looking at companies themselves it seems like they readily back Republicans as much as Democrats. I didn't do any super deep digging, but this is what I am basing my statements on. https://www.mic.com/p/tech-companies-have-given-millions-of-dollars-to-anti-lgbtq-politicians-18189929 https://www.mic.com/p/tech-companies-have-given-millions-of-... https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17219930/facebook-campaign-contributions-mark-zuckerberg-congress-donations https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17219930/facebook-campaig...
- untog 6y ago
  (you're not being censored for your political views, it's because you're posting too many times in one thread. I get the same alert sometimes) Again, my point isn't that there are no Democratic Facebook execs, it's that they play both sides. To whit: > Indeed, the three top leaders of Facebook's DC office all have extensive backgrounds in Republican politics: Vice President for Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan; Vice President for U.S. Public Policy Kevin Martin; and Public Policy Director for Global Elections Katie Harbath. https://popular.info/p/the-republican-political-operatives https://popular.info/p/the-republican-political-operatives That article also outlines a number of right-wing friendly moves that Facebook has made in recent years, just as a counterpoint to the example being discussed here. I agree with you that the vast majority of staff at these tech companies are Democrats, but I'm talking about the top-level execs. And once you reach that level you see the top tech companies play both sides of the political aisle as best they can.
partiallypro 6y ago
Those are small outliers, when it comes to actual public donations that the company, it's board, and it's employees make they all swing heavily to Democrats, not Republicans. Eric Schmidt was helping the Obama campaign while he was a Google board member. Out of all the companies, Facebook has handled this all the best, and you can tell because they are getting flack from both sides. https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close-relationship-with-the-obama-white-house-in-two-charts/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close...

ajxs 6y ago

You're absolutely right. The idea that a corporation's board would decide collectively what political stances to take is not groundbreaking. However this kind of critical thinking seems to be so rarely applied to organisations trafficking in information, such as those making up 'big-tech'. I was speaking elsewhere on Hacker News recently about how the attitude towards trusting corporations seems to have shifted so dramatically. Distrusting the motivations of large corporations was once a pillar of liberal thought in the west. Now many liberals seem to be willing to empower these corporations absolutely as long as they control online discourse in a way that largely benefits the liberal establishment. I would encourage people to consider for a moment the financial incentives for organisations at the scale of Facebook, Google, Twitter et. al. to support globalist political agendas. This isn't 'conspiracy theory' thinking, it's shareholder primacy, it's simple politics. Anyone who thinks that these organisations support liberal causes out of the goodness of their hearts needs a reality check. They pursue these choices for their own gain.