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Your suggestion is fighting fascism with fascism, and it reads like maybe you don’t realise that? “BigTech needs to be fought like cancer”. When did we all agr

Your suggestion is fighting fascism with fascism, and it reads like maybe you don’t realise that? “BigTech needs to be fought like cancer”. When did we all agree to this?

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
calling me a fascist is a cheap shot and I'm not going to respond to it - not because it offends me but because it's a boring argument that doesn't engage with my point.
- cecja 6y ago
  Dude you are a fascist.
- headmelted 6y ago
  Sigh. No-one called you a fascist. It's worth understanding what fascism is though.
bbarnett 6y ago
One cannot change human nature, but instead, must engineer a society which uses our nature as a plus, not minus. FB is a detriment to society, but this is primarily due to capitalism's flaws, which entices profit above all, and even punishes those who stray from this dogma. (A board must remove a CEO not on mandate, shareholders will sue if they do not, etc...). Everything has flaws, needs to be tweaked, no engine runs without maintenance. We handle this aspect of capitalism with regulation, patching an inherent flaw where required. Banning a social network would only see it pop up elsewhere, perhaps in a place like China or Russia, with all of the censorship and state controlled manipulation this implies. Think Facebook is bad? Imagine all of Facebook's issues, with no spam control, no privacy legislation, plus members of the state on the board, and state sensors filtering posts, and injecting state approved data. Destroying Facebook is ... nuts. Instead, create a level playing field for all via regulation, tweaking and fixing the for-profit motivation which leads to bad societal outcomes. (And, keep positive for-profit motivations, edited to clarify I am not anti-profit.) Fix, repair, improve, do not destroy.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  AFAIK there's already a Facebook "clone" in Russia : Vkontakte (AFAIK it basically has been nationalized, which is indeed even worse.) I'm sure China has its own version ? There's no "level playing field" while Facebook exists. You might be under the sunk cost fallacy ..?
  - bbarnett 6y ago
    There are many, many Facebook clones. None of these platforms are king of the world. Yet imagine Facebook is "destroyed" tomorrow, literally shut down. Now, where do all those people go to get their fix? You suggest two alternatives that could grow quickly, and in regions I am concerned about. I don't think it's a sunk cost fallacy, when my premise is "This will exist no matter what" and "Let's make sure any such platform can't work detrimentally".
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      The most detrimental aspect of Facebook is the scale.
      - bbarnett 6y ago
        Maybe. Not saying you're wrong entirely. But the Pii is, to me, a massive problem. If you have 10 social networks, all identical in feature and scope, and each has 1/10th of the users? And all have facebook style Pii, newsfeeds, silos, and everything else that is causing issue? Then manipulation is still rather easy? Best to legislate, mandate, ensure that market forces make this type of preying on society, economic model a loss, not a win.
        BlueTemplar 6y ago
        The scale issue also involves Facebook owning most (?) of the social networks (by the number of members).
- throwaways885 6y ago

Your suggestion is fighting fascism with fascism, and it reads like maybe you don’t realise that? “BigTech needs to be fought like cancer”. When did we all agree to this?

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago

calling me a fascist is a cheap shot and I'm not going to respond to it - not because it offends me but because it's a boring argument that doesn't engage with my point.

cecja 6y ago
Dude you are a fascist.
headmelted 6y ago
Sigh. No-one called you a fascist. It's worth understanding what fascism is though.

bbarnett 6y ago

One cannot change human nature, but instead, must engineer a society which uses our nature as a plus, not minus. FB is a detriment to society, but this is primarily due to capitalism's flaws, which entices profit above all, and even punishes those who stray from this dogma. (A board must remove a CEO not on mandate, shareholders will sue if they do not, etc...). Everything has flaws, needs to be tweaked, no engine runs without maintenance. We handle this aspect of capitalism with regulation, patching an inherent flaw where required. Banning a social network would only see it pop up elsewhere, perhaps in a place like China or Russia, with all of the censorship and state controlled manipulation this implies. Think Facebook is bad? Imagine all of Facebook's issues, with no spam control, no privacy legislation, plus members of the state on the board, and state sensors filtering posts, and injecting state approved data. Destroying Facebook is ... nuts. Instead, create a level playing field for all via regulation, tweaking and fixing the for-profit motivation which leads to bad societal outcomes. (And, keep positive for-profit motivations, edited to clarify I am not anti-profit.) Fix, repair, improve, do not destroy.

BlueTemplar 6y ago
AFAIK there's already a Facebook "clone" in Russia : Vkontakte (AFAIK it basically has been nationalized, which is indeed even worse.) I'm sure China has its own version ? There's no "level playing field" while Facebook exists. You might be under the sunk cost fallacy ..?
- bbarnett 6y ago
  There are many, many Facebook clones. None of these platforms are king of the world. Yet imagine Facebook is "destroyed" tomorrow, literally shut down. Now, where do all those people go to get their fix? You suggest two alternatives that could grow quickly, and in regions I am concerned about. I don't think it's a sunk cost fallacy, when my premise is "This will exist no matter what" and "Let's make sure any such platform can't work detrimentally".
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    The most detrimental aspect of Facebook is the scale.
    - bbarnett 6y ago
      Maybe. Not saying you're wrong entirely. But the Pii is, to me, a massive problem. If you have 10 social networks, all identical in feature and scope, and each has 1/10th of the users? And all have facebook style Pii, newsfeeds, silos, and everything else that is causing issue? Then manipulation is still rather easy? Best to legislate, mandate, ensure that market forces make this type of preying on society, economic model a loss, not a win.
      - BlueTemplar 6y ago
        The scale issue also involves Facebook owning most (?) of the social networks (by the number of members).
throwaways885 6y ago