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Facebook can cause a Brexit (see cambridge analytica scandal). FB (and other FAANGs) provide the data to put whistleblowers in jail. They have more money than s

Facebook can cause a Brexit (see cambridge analytica scandal). FB (and other FAANGs) provide the data to put whistleblowers in jail. They have more money than some countries. They can put a price on your life’s information or tax almost every transaction you make in certain spheres. They can almost completely avoid paying the taxes governments impose on others. They can make you pay every month for life to hear the music of long dead composers and artists. I agree corporations don’t claim certain rights that governments do at present - the right to kill citizens (sometimes without trial), the right to tax their income (though they do impose transaction taxes). So they are limited at present but not so much as you imply. Information is powerful and exerts huge control over our lives.

aiNohY6g 5y ago
"can" as "power" != "can" as "legitimacy". Very roughly speaking: FAANGS have power, states have legitimacy. Hence the clash with us, entangled in between but also in position to do sth about it (should we be aware of these dynamics).
- grey-area 5y ago
  I disagree. Legitimacy can be bought or borrowed. Indeed how did nation states get their legitimacy? They took it by force and impose it by force on those who disagree. There is nothing natural or immutable about our current power structures or nation states.
  - aiNohY6g 5y ago
    I absolutely agree with everything your comment, although I wrote the one you replied to. Hence the "very roughly speaking". The mutability is precisely where some freedom for adjustment is.
barsonme 5y ago
Yes, and that doesn’t mean you can’t also be alarmed over large corporations. But at the end of the day, even if FAANG help the government do a bad thing, it’s still the government doing a bad thing. Making FAANG the primary focus of our ire enables the government to continue to do those same bad things. And the bad things FAANG can do pale in comparison to what the government can and does do. Again, it’s not a binary choice. But it’s why some people worry more about the government than large corporations.
- grey-area 5y ago
  I agree and think we should worry about both.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  When Coca Cola or Bolloré murder people, it's not exactly the government doing it. Sure the government are complicit and close their eyes, but you can't blame everything on the government. To be clear, i agree it's not a binary choice and considerable amounts of bad things come out of governments too. Or if you like memes, you may enjoy: https://i.imgur.com/CkOr542.jpg https://i.imgur.com/CkOr542.jpg
- harimau777 5y ago
  The issue as I see it is that: Corporations control the government. The bad things that corporations do are much more immediate and common. When a government does something bad, in practice it is often just failing to protect people from corporations. For example, the parent mentioned providing clean air and water; however, the most likely scenario where that doesn't happen is a corporation polluting the environment. When the government does bad things (or more commonly fails to prevent bad things from happening), the consequences tend to correlate with inequality.
dunkelheit 5y ago
I think it is important not to demonize Facebook too much. I'm no fan of them, but I guess they don't really care about what people read on their feeds, as long as they are glued to their phones and clicking on ads 24/7. Sure, they have tremendous power over the information that people consume, but my guess is that they are quite reluctant to use that power because with this power comes great responsibility and also vulnerability. On the other hand, others see this power and want to use it. Thus recently we see a lot of "they are a private company, they can do whatever they want" when somebody likes how they handle some situation and "they have become too powerful, they need to be regulated" when somebody doesn't like that. This is a kind of a game where whoever makes facebook do their bidding wins, and facebook itself is reduced to maneuvering between various demands and interests without much agency of their own. That's quite scary as well. My guess is this will end up with some kind of quasi-censorship regime, "voluntarily" installed by facebook (because, you know, first amendment), so that they can continue to collect their ad dollars unmolested. The beginnings are already there - various fact-checkers etc.
- over_bridge 5y ago
  Would you demonise a group that handed out free flamethrowers to everyone who walked past? They don't really care what people do with those flamethrowers, they just make them available. Maybe they have ads plastered on them so the more people carrying those attention grabbing flamethrowers the better. It's basically the same argument that the people making tools available have no responsibility for what users do with them (which is BS). The tools of misinformation are out there and being widely used and Facebook made them available. It's important that they take responsibility for that.

aiNohY6g 5y ago

"can" as "power" != "can" as "legitimacy". Very roughly speaking: FAANGS have power, states have legitimacy. Hence the clash with us, entangled in between but also in position to do sth about it (should we be aware of these dynamics).

grey-area 5y ago
I disagree. Legitimacy can be bought or borrowed. Indeed how did nation states get their legitimacy? They took it by force and impose it by force on those who disagree. There is nothing natural or immutable about our current power structures or nation states.
- aiNohY6g 5y ago
  I absolutely agree with everything your comment, although I wrote the one you replied to. Hence the "very roughly speaking". The mutability is precisely where some freedom for adjustment is.

barsonme 5y ago

Yes, and that doesn’t mean you can’t also be alarmed over large corporations. But at the end of the day, even if FAANG help the government do a bad thing, it’s still the government doing a bad thing. Making FAANG the primary focus of our ire enables the government to continue to do those same bad things. And the bad things FAANG can do pale in comparison to what the government can and does do. Again, it’s not a binary choice. But it’s why some people worry more about the government than large corporations.

grey-area 5y ago
I agree and think we should worry about both.
southerntofu 5y ago
When Coca Cola or Bolloré murder people, it's not exactly the government doing it. Sure the government are complicit and close their eyes, but you can't blame everything on the government. To be clear, i agree it's not a binary choice and considerable amounts of bad things come out of governments too. Or if you like memes, you may enjoy: https://i.imgur.com/CkOr542.jpg https://i.imgur.com/CkOr542.jpg
harimau777 5y ago
The issue as I see it is that: Corporations control the government. The bad things that corporations do are much more immediate and common. When a government does something bad, in practice it is often just failing to protect people from corporations. For example, the parent mentioned providing clean air and water; however, the most likely scenario where that doesn't happen is a corporation polluting the environment. When the government does bad things (or more commonly fails to prevent bad things from happening), the consequences tend to correlate with inequality.

dunkelheit 5y ago

I think it is important not to demonize Facebook too much. I'm no fan of them, but I guess they don't really care about what people read on their feeds, as long as they are glued to their phones and clicking on ads 24/7. Sure, they have tremendous power over the information that people consume, but my guess is that they are quite reluctant to use that power because with this power comes great responsibility and also vulnerability. On the other hand, others see this power and want to use it. Thus recently we see a lot of "they are a private company, they can do whatever they want" when somebody likes how they handle some situation and "they have become too powerful, they need to be regulated" when somebody doesn't like that. This is a kind of a game where whoever makes facebook do their bidding wins, and facebook itself is reduced to maneuvering between various demands and interests without much agency of their own. That's quite scary as well. My guess is this will end up with some kind of quasi-censorship regime, "voluntarily" installed by facebook (because, you know, first amendment), so that they can continue to collect their ad dollars unmolested. The beginnings are already there - various fact-checkers etc.

over_bridge 5y ago
Would you demonise a group that handed out free flamethrowers to everyone who walked past? They don't really care what people do with those flamethrowers, they just make them available. Maybe they have ads plastered on them so the more people carrying those attention grabbing flamethrowers the better. It's basically the same argument that the people making tools available have no responsibility for what users do with them (which is BS). The tools of misinformation are out there and being widely used and Facebook made them available. It's important that they take responsibility for that.