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Private companies have been disappearing small business owners for two decades. PayPal locks your account. YouTube decides to kill your channel for copyright st

Private companies have been disappearing small business owners for two decades. PayPal locks your account. YouTube decides to kill your channel for copyright strikes to content you created. Amazon does - all the shady things Amazon is famous for. Apple kills your app because reasons. And so on. This is not about disappearing people. Or businesses. This is about disappearing politicians. The real game here is that the mainstream media - especially on the far right - have suddenly discovered they're no longer owners of the narrative space, and their game tokens can be removed without notice. Of course they're unhappy about this. So if we're going to talk about concentrated media influence, we should be questioning the international reach and centralised narrative control of the Fox network (and others) at least as much Twitter or Amazon's ability to ban someone who was literally planning an insurrection in the US. There is no free speech issue here, because the kind of "free" political speech we're talking about is very, very expensive, and only available to a tiny selection of headline operators. Everything else in the social media space is noise farmed for engagement, and is unlikely to unduly trouble anyone who matters.

xpe 6y ago
> So if we're going to talk about concentrated media influence, we should be questioning the international reach and centralised narrative control of the Fox network (and others) at least as much Twitter or Amazon ... Yes, we cannot ignore the system effects of shared ownership and control. Many economists understand the concept of market power [1]. I'm not so sure that laws and cases around regulating speech have adequately explored the analogous ideas. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_power
xpe 6y ago
> There is no free speech issue here, because the kind of "free" political speech we're talking about is very, very expensive, and only available to a tiny selection of headline operators. I'm not following. Could you say it in a different way or perhaps with more words?
Chris2048 6y ago
> the mainstream media - especially on the far right What far-right mainstream media? In any case, why should any media own the narrative? Your decision that Trump "Plan[ned] an insurrection" isn't well supported - He's accused of inciting a crowd. But why couldn't any similar narrative escalate (or be escalated) when all narrative are monopolised by left-associated media?

xpe 6y ago

> So if we're going to talk about concentrated media influence, we should be questioning the international reach and centralised narrative control of the Fox network (and others) at least as much Twitter or Amazon ... Yes, we cannot ignore the system effects of shared ownership and control. Many economists understand the concept of market power [1]. I'm not so sure that laws and cases around regulating speech have adequately explored the analogous ideas. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_power

xpe 6y ago

> There is no free speech issue here, because the kind of "free" political speech we're talking about is very, very expensive, and only available to a tiny selection of headline operators. I'm not following. Could you say it in a different way or perhaps with more words?

Chris2048 6y ago

> the mainstream media - especially on the far right What far-right mainstream media? In any case, why should any media own the narrative? Your decision that Trump "Plan[ned] an insurrection" isn't well supported - He's accused of inciting a crowd. But why couldn't any similar narrative escalate (or be escalated) when all narrative are monopolised by left-associated media?