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> You seem to be under the impression that building their own infrastructure will be some sort of barrier for multi-billion dollar organizations. I'm still wai

by jude- 5y ago

> You seem to be under the impression that building their own infrastructure will be some sort of barrier for multi-billion dollar organizations. I'm still waiting for the Republican (formerly alt-right) alternatives to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to get anywhere near the formers' popularity. Also, a lot of tech folks won't work for these companies in the first place. It takes more than money to build a FAANG company. > More laws aren't going to help when Democrats don't have the spine to enforce the laws we already have. I didn't say anything about creating or enforcing any laws. All I said is that Big Tech is well within its right to kick off unscrupulous users, even if they happen to be the ruling party. The alternative -- passing laws that unconditionally force private entities to host the ruling party's content, including propaganda, calls for insurrection, and vaccine misinformation -- is far more objectionable and authoritarian. Especially so if you believe that building your own infrastructure and distribution networks isn't an unreasonable barrier to entry in the first place. Of course, I'm all for prosecuting the criminals who instigated the insurrection and botched the COVID response to the fullest extent of the law (among other high crimes and misdemeanors). I agree with you that the Democratic party needs to grow a spine and take a stand on this. But, why not both? Why not retain Big Tech's power to decide who can use their platform and who cannot? Last I checked, FAANG isn't infrastructure. Like, what would a reasonable regulatory alternative be, that doesn't just devolve into regulatory capture and erect lobbyist-designed artificial barriers to entry that nominally restrain FAANG's power, but practically impose too high a burden for anyone to challenge their market position?

kerkeslager 5y ago
> I'm still waiting for the Republican (formerly alt-right) alternatives to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to get anywhere near the formers' popularity. "In 2019, Fox News was the top-rated cable network, averaging 2.5 million viewers."[1] They've not only become as popular, but the most popular with TV. Why are you confident that this can't happen with social media? And the metrics of money and users don't really capture the whole problem. You're right that Parler never reached the popularity of similar non-insane services, but they didn't need to have the majority of money and users for a mob to come less than 100 yards from lynching members of congress. Reaching a majority is a barrier for peaceful democratic movements, not violent totalitarian movements. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News
- jude- 5y ago
  > "In 2019, Fox News was the top-rated cable network, averaging 2.5 million viewers."[1] Be that as it may, cable is also on the way out [1], and 2.5 million viewers is just over 1% of the voting population in the US. By contrast, Facebook has 258 million MAU in the US and Canada [2]. > They've not only become as popular, but the most popular with TV. Why are you confident that this can't happen with social media? It totally can. However, as awful as Fox "News" programming can be, they neither call for nor coordinate violent insurrection. The minute they do is the minute they lose their FCC license. > You're right that Parler never reached the popularity of similar non-insane services, but they didn't need to have the majority of money and users for a mob to come less than 100 yards from lynching members of congress. Parler has since been forced off of AWS, and has been forced to block hate speech as a condition of being added back to the Apple app store [3]. I don't think Google has added it back to the Play Store. This was possible because there are no laws on the books requiring AWS, Apple, and Google to unconditionally do business with Parler, as long as their decision isn't based on discriminating against a person in one or more protected classes (and political affiliation is not a protected class). I'm not saying that this is an ideal solution -- I don't think Big Tech acted swiftly enough, and I'm not convinced yet that they've learned their lesson. Ideally, platforms beyond a certain reach would be required to have a fast and effective content moderation mechanism to prevent their distribution channels from being weaponized as they were. But, I don't know how to codify this into a law that is both constitutional and not also weaponizable by big players to prevent competition from arising. Maybe the law could require a ratio of human moderators to human users, or something? [1] https://deadline.com/2021/06/cable-news-ratings-may-fox-news-1234768009/ https://deadline.com/2021/06/cable-news-ratings-may-fox-news... [2] https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebooks-daily-active-usage-has-stalled-in-the-us-a-sign-of-concern-for/594253/ https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebooks-daily-active... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parler#Return_online https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parler#Return_online
  - kerkeslager 5y ago
    > Parler has since been forced off of AWS, and has been forced to block hate speech as a condition of being added back to the Apple app store [3]. I don't think Google has added it back to the Play Store. This was possible because there are no laws on the books requiring AWS, Apple, and Google to unconditionally do business with Parler, as long as their decision isn't based on discriminating against a person in one or more protected classes (and political affiliation is not a protected class). 1. So how sure are you that the harmful conversations haven't moved on from Parler to another venue you don't know about? I don't know the direction things have gone, because these things move fast and I don't have time to keep track of them. But I do know that every time people tout a deplatforming success, I find out about a new cesspool a few months after the fact. Twitter -> Mastadon. Reddit -> Voat. Facebook... is anyone even claiming that Facebook has deplatformed hate speech when every few months there's another private hate group being Doxxed? And even on the supposedly "cleaned up" platforms, the hate is still there, with better branding--if Jim Crow could become the War on Drugs and the KKK could become the Proud Boys decades ago, what makes you think that racism can't rebrand today? The primary success of deplatforming is that "woke" white folks don't think about racism because they don't see the N-word on social media any more--actual racists still have very little difficulty organizing. 2. Could you point out where I proposed laws that force companies to host content? I don't think I did that, and if I did, I'd like to retract it. My ideal solution would be for people to stop using corporate social media entirely, because it's nothing but toxic, but that's seemingly not realistic. A possibly more realistic solution would be for people to learn to talk to racists instead of trying to sweep them under the rug. Racism is a disease but it's curable in many cases. We need to stop just canceling people the minute they offend us, and learn to engage in a dialogue that changes minds.

by jude- 5y ago

kerkeslager 5y ago

> I'm still waiting for the Republican (formerly alt-right) alternatives to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to get anywhere near the formers' popularity. "In 2019, Fox News was the top-rated cable network, averaging 2.5 million viewers."[1] They've not only become as popular, but the most popular with TV. Why are you confident that this can't happen with social media? And the metrics of money and users don't really capture the whole problem. You're right that Parler never reached the popularity of similar non-insane services, but they didn't need to have the majority of money and users for a mob to come less than 100 yards from lynching members of congress. Reaching a majority is a barrier for peaceful democratic movements, not violent totalitarian movements. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News

jude- 5y ago
> "In 2019, Fox News was the top-rated cable network, averaging 2.5 million viewers."[1] Be that as it may, cable is also on the way out [1], and 2.5 million viewers is just over 1% of the voting population in the US. By contrast, Facebook has 258 million MAU in the US and Canada [2]. > They've not only become as popular, but the most popular with TV. Why are you confident that this can't happen with social media? It totally can. However, as awful as Fox "News" programming can be, they neither call for nor coordinate violent insurrection. The minute they do is the minute they lose their FCC license. > You're right that Parler never reached the popularity of similar non-insane services, but they didn't need to have the majority of money and users for a mob to come less than 100 yards from lynching members of congress. Parler has since been forced off of AWS, and has been forced to block hate speech as a condition of being added back to the Apple app store [3]. I don't think Google has added it back to the Play Store. This was possible because there are no laws on the books requiring AWS, Apple, and Google to unconditionally do business with Parler, as long as their decision isn't based on discriminating against a person in one or more protected classes (and political affiliation is not a protected class). I'm not saying that this is an ideal solution -- I don't think Big Tech acted swiftly enough, and I'm not convinced yet that they've learned their lesson. Ideally, platforms beyond a certain reach would be required to have a fast and effective content moderation mechanism to prevent their distribution channels from being weaponized as they were. But, I don't know how to codify this into a law that is both constitutional and not also weaponizable by big players to prevent competition from arising. Maybe the law could require a ratio of human moderators to human users, or something? [1] https://deadline.com/2021/06/cable-news-ratings-may-fox-news-1234768009/ https://deadline.com/2021/06/cable-news-ratings-may-fox-news... [2] https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebooks-daily-active-usage-has-stalled-in-the-us-a-sign-of-concern-for/594253/ https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebooks-daily-active... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parler#Return_online https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parler#Return_online
- kerkeslager 5y ago
  > Parler has since been forced off of AWS, and has been forced to block hate speech as a condition of being added back to the Apple app store [3]. I don't think Google has added it back to the Play Store. This was possible because there are no laws on the books requiring AWS, Apple, and Google to unconditionally do business with Parler, as long as their decision isn't based on discriminating against a person in one or more protected classes (and political affiliation is not a protected class). 1. So how sure are you that the harmful conversations haven't moved on from Parler to another venue you don't know about? I don't know the direction things have gone, because these things move fast and I don't have time to keep track of them. But I do know that every time people tout a deplatforming success, I find out about a new cesspool a few months after the fact. Twitter -> Mastadon. Reddit -> Voat. Facebook... is anyone even claiming that Facebook has deplatformed hate speech when every few months there's another private hate group being Doxxed? And even on the supposedly "cleaned up" platforms, the hate is still there, with better branding--if Jim Crow could become the War on Drugs and the KKK could become the Proud Boys decades ago, what makes you think that racism can't rebrand today? The primary success of deplatforming is that "woke" white folks don't think about racism because they don't see the N-word on social media any more--actual racists still have very little difficulty organizing. 2. Could you point out where I proposed laws that force companies to host content? I don't think I did that, and if I did, I'd like to retract it. My ideal solution would be for people to stop using corporate social media entirely, because it's nothing but toxic, but that's seemingly not realistic. A possibly more realistic solution would be for people to learn to talk to racists instead of trying to sweep them under the rug. Racism is a disease but it's curable in many cases. We need to stop just canceling people the minute they offend us, and learn to engage in a dialogue that changes minds.