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More and more I am coming over to (what I interpret to be) Greenwald's view that the safe harbor provision is fine. I think the attack on safe harbor is a way t
by tehjoker 6y ago
More and more I am coming over to (what I interpret to be) Greenwald's view that the safe harbor provision is fine. I think the attack on safe harbor is a way to make it easy for supranational unelected and unaccountable entities like Facebook to engage in censorship activities which will limit discourse to whatever the power brokers in Washington deem acceptable. The social media companies must be reigned in, but not by suppressing speech. Instead, I advocate for their nationalization so that way the 1st amendment will unambiguously apply to their activities.
- ch4s3 6y agoDo you really want to nationalize vast troves of private information and sophisticated ad targeting tools?
- tehjoker 6y agoNews flash, the government already has it. They either siphon it off into the NSA database, they employ spooks at the companies, or they have data sharing relationships with law enforcement. If we nationalize them, we can also kill the profit motive and eliminate the advertising.
- ch4s3 6y agoThe ability of a spy agency to gain access while deeply troubling to me, is quite different than turning it over to politicians. Would you trust you own favorite political villain with access to all of that?
- ethbr0 6y ago> Would you trust you own favorite political villain with access to all of that? Yes. Information asymmetry benefits those in power. Better an even playing field, where everyone has access to everything. Or, you know, don't use social spy platforms if you care about privacy?
- ch4s3 6y agoYou can avoid social media all you want and still end up with a shadow profile that’s quite info rich. I’d prefer these companies to eventually fade away like most companies do, rather than become permanent government appendages.
- tehjoker 6y agoI trust the spy agencies far less than I do my elected officials. These guys' job is to lie, cheat, steal, and murder at a grand scale. At least it is in an elected politican's job description to represent me. Also, many of these villains are getting briefings from and giving direction to said agencies already.
- meowster 6y agoI trust spy agencies far more than elected officials. Those employees get vetted, elected officials don't (and they most likely lie to get elected as well).
- ethbr0 6y agoIf "vast troves of private information and sophisticated ad targeting tools" are too dangerous in the hands of government, then why aren't they too dangerous in the hands of a corporation? The former is democratically elected. Facebook and Google aren't even controlled by their shareholders.
- asciident 6y agoBecause governments have a monopoly on violence, and can use your data against you to imprison you, bomb your village, defame you, etc. I can quit Facebook or Google much easier than I can quit the TSA database or DMV record system. And I don't think too many people would disagree that the best software developers, machine learning people, and computer security people are going to tech companies rather than work at government offices. And finally, governments are influenced by temporary forces of who's in power, like we are seeing now in the United States. And whoever is in power can replace departments with people to do what they want, which can be borderline illegal. They only have to worry about the next N years, where N is often a number less than 5.
- ethbr0 6y agoI think I have a much dimmer view of Facebook (16) and Google (22), and a much brighter view of American democracy (232), than you. Time will tell.
- ch4s3 6y agoWhy infect the democracy by shackling one of these companies to it? Companies basically all die eventually, but they’re much more durable the more closely attached they are to governments. Facebook proper is losing droves of users in the US. We might do well to keep the playing field level and let someone else beat them. More dominant market players from the past have misstepped and gone under.
- tehjoker 6y agoThe good news is that with the death of the profit motive, machine learning applications will become less important for the operation of Facebook's core mechanisms. Yes, you are right about the government, but I think FB is being used by the government to get around the built-in legal protections. Moving it to the other side might make those tradeoffs more visible, but also more fair.
- smt88 6y agoI have almost never heard of a more dangerous solution to this problem. Under absolutely no circumstances should the government control a large percentage of media. Our current government seems pretty friendly to the First Amendment, but you have no idea if or when that might change.
- tehjoker 6y agoHave you heard of the BBC? Try reading Manufacturing Consent. The government doesn't need to, they already get their message out in spades with virtually no opposition on anything they consider important.