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If a private party can use their monopoly on the limiting of free speech to control the government how is that any different than those private parties _being_

by alickz 6y ago

If a private party can use their monopoly on the limiting of free speech to control the government how is that any different than those private parties _being_ the government, and by extension enjoying the monopoly on violence? If a handful of companies can influence the election of a government to such a degree then they would enjoy the best of both worlds: the freedom to censor as they please (because they aren't beholden to 1st Amendment / Free Speech), and monopoly of violence as they control who the government is (who gets more positive coverage in their algorithms, pagerank etc.) I think a lot of people are worried that companies (Facebook, Twitter, Google) _do_ hold that kind of power over governments, and not just the American government.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> monopoly on the limiting of free speech No private party actually has such a monopoly, so it's not a real current issue.
- babesh 6y ago
  They are if they act in concert. That is what is really scary.
  - ric2b 6y ago
    You'd need quite a long list of companies to work together at the social network level for that to be true. If you go lower in the stack, like ISP's it becomes much easier.
    - anoncake 6y ago
      What's the point of arguing if companies are able to limit free speech in theory when they just did so in practice?
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > What’s the point of arguing if companies are able to limit free speech in theory when they just did so in practice? Whether what they actually did is “limiting free speech” or not is, in fact, part of what is in dispute. Obviously, if one grants the argument that that accurately describes the events that occurred, it becomes indefensible to argue that it is not within the power of corporations to do it. But that is very much not a point of consensus.
- alickz 6y ago
  True, it might not be a monopoly, or even a duopoly, but I'm not sure it's much better. Do you think if a politician is banned from Facebook, Twitter, and Google they have even a small chance of being elected? It wouldn't even take all 3. If Google decided to heavily promote pro-Trump articles in their SEO, and heavily downplay pro-Biden articles leading up to the election, do you think it would have gone the way it did? And if not, do you think that's OK? Of course they can do what they like, it's their platform. And if Biden supporters didn't like it they could boycott and tell everyone to use Bing or DDG. But I'm not sure that's a realistic solution. I'm not making any strong claims here, I certainly don't know the right answer or if this is as much of a problem as it seems to me. I'm just worried that a handful of companies control a significant amount of the discourse in not just their own countries, but internationally. It might not be a current issue, but I could see it being a future one. Or I could be completely wrong, I'm just musing.

by alickz 6y ago

dragonwriter 6y ago

> monopoly on the limiting of free speech No private party actually has such a monopoly, so it's not a real current issue.

babesh 6y ago
They are if they act in concert. That is what is really scary.
- ric2b 6y ago
  You'd need quite a long list of companies to work together at the social network level for that to be true. If you go lower in the stack, like ISP's it becomes much easier.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    What's the point of arguing if companies are able to limit free speech in theory when they just did so in practice?
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > What’s the point of arguing if companies are able to limit free speech in theory when they just did so in practice? Whether what they actually did is “limiting free speech” or not is, in fact, part of what is in dispute. Obviously, if one grants the argument that that accurately describes the events that occurred, it becomes indefensible to argue that it is not within the power of corporations to do it. But that is very much not a point of consensus.
alickz 6y ago
True, it might not be a monopoly, or even a duopoly, but I'm not sure it's much better. Do you think if a politician is banned from Facebook, Twitter, and Google they have even a small chance of being elected? It wouldn't even take all 3. If Google decided to heavily promote pro-Trump articles in their SEO, and heavily downplay pro-Biden articles leading up to the election, do you think it would have gone the way it did? And if not, do you think that's OK? Of course they can do what they like, it's their platform. And if Biden supporters didn't like it they could boycott and tell everyone to use Bing or DDG. But I'm not sure that's a realistic solution. I'm not making any strong claims here, I certainly don't know the right answer or if this is as much of a problem as it seems to me. I'm just worried that a handful of companies control a significant amount of the discourse in not just their own countries, but internationally. It might not be a current issue, but I could see it being a future one. Or I could be completely wrong, I'm just musing.