6 ms·

> latest glacial shift in the accretion of content control by tech platforms It's weird that folks are pointing to a phenomena that's been going on for generat

> latest glacial shift in the accretion of content control by tech platforms It's weird that folks are pointing to a phenomena that's been going on for generations as if it is something novel. There have always been winners and losers in who controls the message. While tech companies seem to be aggregating control over some of the message, it's not like corporate America hasn't had control for a long, long time. Whether it was print, radio, television, cinema, blogs, podcasts, music, or some other media, there's a centralization tendency. We've had breakout periods of democratization along the way, and today I think we're more democratized than we were historically. I'd wager that diverse views are more available today than they were in, say, the 80s.

drcongo 6y ago
These people have never seen Network.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Honestly, most of them probably haven't. Network is almost 50 years old now. "All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say: 'I'm a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!'" is as relevant in 2021 as it was the 1970s, apparently.
skohan 6y ago
That may be true, but we're also witnessing one of those periods of consolidation of control right now. We could resign ourselves to history, or we could try to do something about it
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  The thing that makes me less worried is that we're probably at one of the most open periods in history. Don't like Spotify? You've got about a million other options. Rogan freely chose to accept some limits in exchange for a truckload of cash. He was already doing quite well without Spotify, from what I understand. I think the framing that he was somehow unable to succeed without accepting censorship is a little off the mark. He made what appears to be a deliberate choice to limit his speech to make more money. Is that a failure? I dunno. It seems like part of freedom of speech should include the freedom to make the decision to stop talking about some things in exchange for cash.
  - skohan 6y ago
    I'm not that worried about Spotify and 40 odd episodes from the Joe Rogan catalog, but it does fit into a larger narrative. I am somewhat concerned that a hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse. Nobody was too upset when Alex Jones got deplatformed, but there is something a little unnerving about the fact that Twitter was allowed to basically kill certain news stories leading up to the election. The current state of social media and online discourse is causing some serious problems, but I am not so convinced we are going about fixing it in the right way.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      > I am somewhat concerned that a hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse. Large companies are least able to remove someone from public discourse today than at any other time in the past. The internet is wide open for people to shout into, although it requires work and money to host content. But it’s still far cheaper and easier than its ever been to reach basically anyone around the world.
      - skohan 6y ago
        Yes, but again my point is not that it's unprecedented, it's that it's happening now and we might not want it. We are currently writing the rules for how public discourse should work online, and the current approach seems to be "let the market decide". In an environment with massive consolidation, and zero anti-trust enforcement, this may not lead to solutions we would all consider ideal.
    - tayo42 6y ago
      If Twitter was actually killing stories effectively, why do you know about it?
      - skohan 6y ago
        You can play semantics, but Twitter did suppress mentions of certain stories on their platform, effectively preventing millions of people from finding out about them.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Eh? Rogan is a podcaster. He is one of very few with a publisher/distributor; the vast majority are independent. 30 years ago (apart from pirate radio, I suppose) there was nothing like podcasts at all. Media has never been less centralised than today.
  - skohan 6y ago
    It can simultaneously be the case that media is radically less centralized than it was 20 years ago, and that it is significantly more centralized than it was 20 months ago. To make an analogy, the average life expectancy has increased massively since the iron age. That does not mean we should not be worried if we observe a decrease in average life expectancy year over year.
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      I mean, one podcaster has effectively taken a network contract (in the traditional media sense); as with virtually all such contracts it is restrictive. Nothing has changed for the million or so podcasters who have not sighted network contracts. Meanwhile, podcasts generally continue to become dramatically more popular, thus taking more and more media consumption time away from the large networks.

drcongo 6y ago

These people have never seen Network.

Pfhreak 6y ago
Honestly, most of them probably haven't. Network is almost 50 years old now. "All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say: 'I'm a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!'" is as relevant in 2021 as it was the 1970s, apparently.

skohan 6y ago

That may be true, but we're also witnessing one of those periods of consolidation of control right now. We could resign ourselves to history, or we could try to do something about it

Pfhreak 6y ago
The thing that makes me less worried is that we're probably at one of the most open periods in history. Don't like Spotify? You've got about a million other options. Rogan freely chose to accept some limits in exchange for a truckload of cash. He was already doing quite well without Spotify, from what I understand. I think the framing that he was somehow unable to succeed without accepting censorship is a little off the mark. He made what appears to be a deliberate choice to limit his speech to make more money. Is that a failure? I dunno. It seems like part of freedom of speech should include the freedom to make the decision to stop talking about some things in exchange for cash.
- skohan 6y ago
  I'm not that worried about Spotify and 40 odd episodes from the Joe Rogan catalog, but it does fit into a larger narrative. I am somewhat concerned that a hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse. Nobody was too upset when Alex Jones got deplatformed, but there is something a little unnerving about the fact that Twitter was allowed to basically kill certain news stories leading up to the election. The current state of social media and online discourse is causing some serious problems, but I am not so convinced we are going about fixing it in the right way.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    > I am somewhat concerned that a hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse. Large companies are least able to remove someone from public discourse today than at any other time in the past. The internet is wide open for people to shout into, although it requires work and money to host content. But it’s still far cheaper and easier than its ever been to reach basically anyone around the world.
    - skohan 6y ago
      Yes, but again my point is not that it's unprecedented, it's that it's happening now and we might not want it. We are currently writing the rules for how public discourse should work online, and the current approach seems to be "let the market decide". In an environment with massive consolidation, and zero anti-trust enforcement, this may not lead to solutions we would all consider ideal.
  - tayo42 6y ago
    If Twitter was actually killing stories effectively, why do you know about it?
    - skohan 6y ago
      You can play semantics, but Twitter did suppress mentions of certain stories on their platform, effectively preventing millions of people from finding out about them.
rsynnott 6y ago
Eh? Rogan is a podcaster. He is one of very few with a publisher/distributor; the vast majority are independent. 30 years ago (apart from pirate radio, I suppose) there was nothing like podcasts at all. Media has never been less centralised than today.
- skohan 6y ago
  It can simultaneously be the case that media is radically less centralized than it was 20 years ago, and that it is significantly more centralized than it was 20 months ago. To make an analogy, the average life expectancy has increased massively since the iron age. That does not mean we should not be worried if we observe a decrease in average life expectancy year over year.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    I mean, one podcaster has effectively taken a network contract (in the traditional media sense); as with virtually all such contracts it is restrictive. Nothing has changed for the million or so podcasters who have not sighted network contracts. Meanwhile, podcasts generally continue to become dramatically more popular, thus taking more and more media consumption time away from the large networks.