8 ms·

It's hard to overlook that the political class is suddenly up in arms about this primarily because they suddenly perceive themselves as being under threat from

by zmmmmm 6y ago

It's hard to overlook that the political class is suddenly up in arms about this primarily because they suddenly perceive themselves as being under threat from it. Ordinary individuals and businesses have had to deal with the hegemony of the platforms for a long time and it hasn't really mattered until now. I fear the outcome of this is going to be that it translates into massive regulatory overreach and splitting up of companies instead of what would be healthy - encourage competition through enforcing open standards and mandating interoperability and sharing of personal data. Those things would go a lot further to ensuring actual free speech as well as creating a healthier internet at the same time.

mc32 6y ago
I think one big issue is the federal trade commission has been too shy about fighting trusts or anti-competitive behavior because they believe(d) tech is different. They allowed FB and Google to gobble up competitors unimpeded. Amazon is another. Their integration and breadth are a threat to businesses and consumers alike but we’re too busy enjoying next day deliveries to care. You ask for competition but these behemoths either buy them out or smother them via anti competitive behavior; at that point breaking them up is very palatable.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Even with anti-trust, I think the EU comission is probably correct that social media platforms may need more direct lines of contact with platform regulators in exchange for being larger players, just because of the intrinsic network effects that exist in the space.
  - kolinko 6y ago
    Your preassumption seems to be that centralised networks are somehow unavoidable in tech. I would argue otherwise - both Facebook and Twitter could exist decentralised - it would just be less profitable for the companies.
    - username90 6y ago
      It being less profitable effectively makes it an impossibility without regulations.
      - mc32 6y ago
        When advertising revenue is involved less revenue does not mean poor. Look at how much money google and facebook have to waste!
        username90 6y ago
        Yeah, which is why it would be possible with regulations. If it wasn't enough to cover costs then it wouldn't be possible with regulations either.
        ImprobableTruth 6y ago
        I think the point is that no company will ever willingly choose to make less money unless they're forced to.
        winston_smith 6y ago
        Now that we see what ad based, centralized social media / surveillance companies lead to, more and more people have reasons to take their business elsewhere.
NoOneNew 6y ago
Agreed that regulatory overreach is on the horizon. Hell, pretty sure it's going to happen (or at least be full steam ahead) in the first 100 days of Biden's presidency. While I don't agree with sweeping regulatory practices and would like to see a thoughtful plan of trying to increase competition instead, I can't blame the political class' position. I find it even fascinating how far reaching this event has been and how anti-Trump politicians and organizations NOW finally see how dangerous Silicon Valley has become. In essence, Twitter went to war with the Office of President of the USA (not just Trump, but the position of USA president itself), right or wrong (I'm ignoring the moral/ethics going on for the sake of this debate, though, Trump did overstep his bounds... putting it mildly). This fact shows they can and will do it again and to lesser politicians. "We took Trump's voice away, we can do it to you too. We pushed anti-Trump rhetoric and silenced pro-Trump rhetoric... do I need to replace Trump with your name if you don't do as we say?" If there is no fallout for Twitter, how far can they push it? What if Biden decides to do some policies that Twitter isn't in favor of? Does he get shut out too? The EU can see very well that the same thing can happen to them easily as well. Shit, even the ACLU threw an objection and concern over this and they hate Trump just as must as any other democrat. The big problem is, and you have to be fair, Trump put up a hell of a PR fight the past 4 years and did rather well up until the very end. Most politicians have crumbled from less pressure than what he experienced. Not many others will be able to hold out as long as he did. This extra weapon of social media and Silicon Valley taking down the public voice of politicians is really fucking dangerous, no matter the political spectrum. They're a handful of billionaires or near to billionaires who have direct control of what a large portion of the human population sees as fact and truth... and they have no one to oversight them.
- zmmmmm 6y ago
  Agree. It is actually disturbing in that it seems by implication that many politicians are portraying what Trump was doing as legitimate speech - and in doing so they are effectively legitimising it. Whereas anybody I am sure in the big tech decision making on this was treating this as "shouting fire in a theater" exception to speech. I think it will be very harmful if the "legitimate speech" interpretation becomes the dominant view - in that case we are effectively setting a precedent here that inciting a riot to overturn your own government is legitimate free speech.
bjustin 6y ago
Interoperability can make a market more consolidated than it otherwise might be. Look at how GitHub dominates the DVCS hosting market. Ben Thompson's idea that social networks shouldn't be able to buy other social networks would be better IMO for avoiding problems like Facebook having too much power from also owning IG and WhatsApp. Not sure what a good solution would be for other companies such as Amazon having so much power.
corty 6y ago
The hypocrisy of the political class is even deeper, at least in Germany. Just recently, laws were passed to make platforms like Facebook filter, censor and rapidly delete content that might be against some law. Not after a court decision or at least an official order, no no, nothing so formal. A user complaint is sufficient to trigger the need to check within a few hours, have the platform decide to delete and report. No due process, nothing. Penalties for insufficient reaction by the platform are steep and of course set after the fact. Therefore platforms will err on the side of caution and delete far more than they would have to. And people like Merkel who are responsible for that law have the gall to complain when something their censorship law stipulated is done to a fellow politician... https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-trump-germany-twitter/germany-has-reservations-about-trump-twitter-ban-merkel-spokesman-says-idUSL8N2JM4ES https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-trump-germany-twitter/ge...
- deleted 6y ago
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- echelon 6y ago
  100%. Germany is so wrong about this, and this is not the way we should go. We Americans needs to grow thicker skin and cherish our free speech more. If we don't, we're going to slip into a world with less liberty. Libel, slander, and "yelling fire" are sufficient limits on free speech. Seeing or hearing people say things you don't like isn't going to kill you. Society already has the tools to shun those who act egregiously. We have other legal mechanisms to quell the events that happened last week. Prosecute for politicians inciting violence, fine trusted news organizations spreading misinformation, jail those who destroy property, trespass, or assault another person. We have ways to stop radicalization too: being better to one another and making sure people have their needs met. I vehemently disagree with Voat, Parler, thedonald.win, /r/sino, J. K. Rowling, and many other communities and persons. But they have a right to carry on, and we shouldn't deplatform them. If we didn't have free speech, we wouldn't have gotten to where we are today. I'd rather live in America than a country that has less free speech.
RhodoYolo 6y ago
What would breaking them up even mean? I feel we would be in the same situation as brexit - How do we split them without collapsing all the pieces? You can point to microsoft but modern american has brought an entirely different, much larger, more entrenched behemoths than what we've seen.
- gwright 6y ago
  I agree, in the sense that "break them up" seems to be an undefined action left as an exercise for the reader. I'm not necessarily against reasonable regulations, but it is hard to agree or disagree if there is nothing on the table other than "break them up". Some specific framework or principle or proposal is needed to have any sort of a cogent discussion.
- frombody 6y ago
  This image doesn't cut things evenly, but illustrates the issue well. https://mobile.twitter.com/finshots/status/1265306703186161664 https://mobile.twitter.com/finshots/status/12653067031861616...
shripadk 6y ago
> encourage competition through enforcing open standards Big Tech destroyed this hope the moment it banned Parler and everyone cheered this ideological censorship. Big Tech crossed every line in launching a coordinated attack on a rival. The damage this has done cannot be quantified. The ideal way to have gone about this is involvement of Courts/Legislature to decide if Parler should be banned or not. Not a group of private companies deciding to fuck a competitor. It is a horrible horrible precedent which has absolutely zero excuses.
Veedrac 6y ago
This comment doesn't make much sense given the announcement of the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act recently preceded this.
scotty79 6y ago
I wish they'd go after the money and regulate not just social networks but advertising business instead. What adverts and next to what contents they can shown. You could keep right to free speech but you don't have right to monetizing any speech.

by zmmmmm 6y ago

mc32 6y ago

I think one big issue is the federal trade commission has been too shy about fighting trusts or anti-competitive behavior because they believe(d) tech is different. They allowed FB and Google to gobble up competitors unimpeded. Amazon is another. Their integration and breadth are a threat to businesses and consumers alike but we’re too busy enjoying next day deliveries to care. You ask for competition but these behemoths either buy them out or smother them via anti competitive behavior; at that point breaking them up is very palatable.

whimsicalism 6y ago
Even with anti-trust, I think the EU comission is probably correct that social media platforms may need more direct lines of contact with platform regulators in exchange for being larger players, just because of the intrinsic network effects that exist in the space.
- kolinko 6y ago
  Your preassumption seems to be that centralised networks are somehow unavoidable in tech. I would argue otherwise - both Facebook and Twitter could exist decentralised - it would just be less profitable for the companies.
  - username90 6y ago
    It being less profitable effectively makes it an impossibility without regulations.
    - mc32 6y ago
      When advertising revenue is involved less revenue does not mean poor. Look at how much money google and facebook have to waste!
      - username90 6y ago
        Yeah, which is why it would be possible with regulations. If it wasn't enough to cover costs then it wouldn't be possible with regulations either.
      - ImprobableTruth 6y ago
        I think the point is that no company will ever willingly choose to make less money unless they're forced to.
        winston_smith 6y ago
        Now that we see what ad based, centralized social media / surveillance companies lead to, more and more people have reasons to take their business elsewhere.

NoOneNew 6y ago

Agreed that regulatory overreach is on the horizon. Hell, pretty sure it's going to happen (or at least be full steam ahead) in the first 100 days of Biden's presidency. While I don't agree with sweeping regulatory practices and would like to see a thoughtful plan of trying to increase competition instead, I can't blame the political class' position. I find it even fascinating how far reaching this event has been and how anti-Trump politicians and organizations NOW finally see how dangerous Silicon Valley has become. In essence, Twitter went to war with the Office of President of the USA (not just Trump, but the position of USA president itself), right or wrong (I'm ignoring the moral/ethics going on for the sake of this debate, though, Trump did overstep his bounds... putting it mildly). This fact shows they can and will do it again and to lesser politicians. "We took Trump's voice away, we can do it to you too. We pushed anti-Trump rhetoric and silenced pro-Trump rhetoric... do I need to replace Trump with your name if you don't do as we say?" If there is no fallout for Twitter, how far can they push it? What if Biden decides to do some policies that Twitter isn't in favor of? Does he get shut out too? The EU can see very well that the same thing can happen to them easily as well. Shit, even the ACLU threw an objection and concern over this and they hate Trump just as must as any other democrat. The big problem is, and you have to be fair, Trump put up a hell of a PR fight the past 4 years and did rather well up until the very end. Most politicians have crumbled from less pressure than what he experienced. Not many others will be able to hold out as long as he did. This extra weapon of social media and Silicon Valley taking down the public voice of politicians is really fucking dangerous, no matter the political spectrum. They're a handful of billionaires or near to billionaires who have direct control of what a large portion of the human population sees as fact and truth... and they have no one to oversight them.

zmmmmm 6y ago
Agree. It is actually disturbing in that it seems by implication that many politicians are portraying what Trump was doing as legitimate speech - and in doing so they are effectively legitimising it. Whereas anybody I am sure in the big tech decision making on this was treating this as "shouting fire in a theater" exception to speech. I think it will be very harmful if the "legitimate speech" interpretation becomes the dominant view - in that case we are effectively setting a precedent here that inciting a riot to overturn your own government is legitimate free speech.

bjustin 6y ago

Interoperability can make a market more consolidated than it otherwise might be. Look at how GitHub dominates the DVCS hosting market. Ben Thompson's idea that social networks shouldn't be able to buy other social networks would be better IMO for avoiding problems like Facebook having too much power from also owning IG and WhatsApp. Not sure what a good solution would be for other companies such as Amazon having so much power.

corty 6y ago

The hypocrisy of the political class is even deeper, at least in Germany. Just recently, laws were passed to make platforms like Facebook filter, censor and rapidly delete content that might be against some law. Not after a court decision or at least an official order, no no, nothing so formal. A user complaint is sufficient to trigger the need to check within a few hours, have the platform decide to delete and report. No due process, nothing. Penalties for insufficient reaction by the platform are steep and of course set after the fact. Therefore platforms will err on the side of caution and delete far more than they would have to. And people like Merkel who are responsible for that law have the gall to complain when something their censorship law stipulated is done to a fellow politician... https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-trump-germany-twitter/germany-has-reservations-about-trump-twitter-ban-merkel-spokesman-says-idUSL8N2JM4ES https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-trump-germany-twitter/ge...

deleted 6y ago
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deleted 6y ago
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echelon 6y ago
100%. Germany is so wrong about this, and this is not the way we should go. We Americans needs to grow thicker skin and cherish our free speech more. If we don't, we're going to slip into a world with less liberty. Libel, slander, and "yelling fire" are sufficient limits on free speech. Seeing or hearing people say things you don't like isn't going to kill you. Society already has the tools to shun those who act egregiously. We have other legal mechanisms to quell the events that happened last week. Prosecute for politicians inciting violence, fine trusted news organizations spreading misinformation, jail those who destroy property, trespass, or assault another person. We have ways to stop radicalization too: being better to one another and making sure people have their needs met. I vehemently disagree with Voat, Parler, thedonald.win, /r/sino, J. K. Rowling, and many other communities and persons. But they have a right to carry on, and we shouldn't deplatform them. If we didn't have free speech, we wouldn't have gotten to where we are today. I'd rather live in America than a country that has less free speech.

RhodoYolo 6y ago

What would breaking them up even mean? I feel we would be in the same situation as brexit - How do we split them without collapsing all the pieces? You can point to microsoft but modern american has brought an entirely different, much larger, more entrenched behemoths than what we've seen.

gwright 6y ago
I agree, in the sense that "break them up" seems to be an undefined action left as an exercise for the reader. I'm not necessarily against reasonable regulations, but it is hard to agree or disagree if there is nothing on the table other than "break them up". Some specific framework or principle or proposal is needed to have any sort of a cogent discussion.
frombody 6y ago
This image doesn't cut things evenly, but illustrates the issue well. https://mobile.twitter.com/finshots/status/1265306703186161664 https://mobile.twitter.com/finshots/status/12653067031861616...

shripadk 6y ago

> encourage competition through enforcing open standards Big Tech destroyed this hope the moment it banned Parler and everyone cheered this ideological censorship. Big Tech crossed every line in launching a coordinated attack on a rival. The damage this has done cannot be quantified. The ideal way to have gone about this is involvement of Courts/Legislature to decide if Parler should be banned or not. Not a group of private companies deciding to fuck a competitor. It is a horrible horrible precedent which has absolutely zero excuses.

Veedrac 6y ago

This comment doesn't make much sense given the announcement of the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act recently preceded this.

scotty79 6y ago

I wish they'd go after the money and regulate not just social networks but advertising business instead. What adverts and next to what contents they can shown. You could keep right to free speech but you don't have right to monetizing any speech.