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Companies with monopolistic power and revolving door political hirings need to be held to a different standard as they are beyond competing for views and shape

Companies with monopolistic power and revolving door political hirings need to be held to a different standard as they are beyond competing for views and shape narratives. It doesn't matter whether they are shaping it politically or profitably or via AI for clicks. It isn't neutral and drowns out or outright eliminates competing views.

DoctorOW 5y ago
Can you give an example? What's a view that's been eliminated?
- jasonfarnon 5y ago
  What about the very subject of this thread? Not a view worth keeping around?
  - DoctorOW 5y ago
    That's not been eliminated. Quite a few people believe the election was stolen. Also, it's not a view worth keeping around. There's no evidence to support it and it's just used to justify violence and division.
    - adam_arthur 5y ago
      There's no evidence to support the fact that corporate greed in an otherwise competitive market leads to inflation, yet we have plenty of politicians pushing that. There's no evidence supporting price controls to be an effective way to fight inflation, as was shown to produce awful results in the 70s among many other eras, yet we have politicians pushing for that. There's no evidence to support that nominal wages rising, but at a rate lower than inflation leads to people being better off, yet we have politicians pushing this. I think Google should ban any videos promoting these effectively disproven and dangerous economic ideas.
      - lordnacho 5y ago
        Agree on the economics, but I think it's weak to compare these to the purely forensic question of whether the election was stolen. Economic opinions are generally not that clear cut, requiring an awful lot of theoretical harness and qualifications to explain. Evidence is similar, you can quibble about a lot of things in economics. Whether the election was stolen, well, where is a shred of evidence? It's not hard to define what we mean by stolen.
        adam_arthur 5y ago
        Most things aren't clear cut, and there have been many times in history where widely held beliefs have been proven largely false. If you'll recall there was a multi year period of mass belief that the president colluded with Russians to steal the election. On the back of very little evidence, other than news heads talking about it and "he said, she said" There was also a multi year investigation that found nothing, and actually was able to largely disprove documents that helped to kick off the speculation. I believe we should mass purge all these videos proposing that the ex president colluded with Russians. We don't want the public to be misinformed. Consider which regimes throughout history have used silencing political opposition the most, and whether you want to be aligned with them. I certainly don't.
        lordnacho 5y ago
        I would hate for people to fall out of the practice of critically thinking about what they see in the news. Our whole open society depends on people practicing deciding what they think it's right.
        adam_arthur 5y ago
        I agree. My preference is to leave all content up, but perhaps provide filters to users so they can choose to look at a bubble if they like. Or have an open standard for video data, on which anybody could build a UI layer. Just saying, there's a clear double standard here. Saying the election was stolen due to collusion with Russians seems to be along awfully similar lines. I'm happy to allow companies to do whatever they like, but the data needs to be decoupled from the UI then. Otherwise it's a natural monopoly. I think history will see it that way, though it may take another decade or two.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- bko 5y ago
  Heres an example: Bari Weiss was fired for commissioning an op-ed by a US Senator Tom Cotton calling for the national guard to be called in to break up riots. Note that she did not write the essay, but merely commissioned it. They sometimes have op-eds from varying voices. NY Times apologized and said "This review made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet our standards" Pretty extreme view sending in the national guard, right? Except according to a poll around that time, 52% of Americans answered yes to "Do you approve or disapprove of sending in the U.S. military where there are violent protests?" So obviously that op-ed wasn't a fringe belief, but it was enough to end the career of the person responsible to bring it to print, in addition to apologies and a commitment to never do anything like that again. Being critical of sometimes violent disruptive protests is a view that has been highly suppressed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss#2017%E2%80%932020:_The_New_York_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss#2017%E2%80%932020:_... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protes... https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/52-americans-support-deploying-military-control-violent-protests/story?id=71097167 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/52-americans-support-deployi...
  - kasey_junk 5y ago
    Are you arguing that Bari Weiss, who was brought in specifically as part of an editorial decision to appeal to alternate viewpoints, is an example of alternate viewpoints being censored?
    - bko 5y ago
      Yes. She was forced out for doing her job. They don't want alternative view points. That's the point
      - kasey_junk 5y ago
        But didn’t the job start as a specific alternative viewpoint subsidy? Getting to zero after boosting doesn’t seem like censorship.
      - 5y ago

DoctorOW 5y ago

Can you give an example? What's a view that's been eliminated?

jasonfarnon 5y ago
What about the very subject of this thread? Not a view worth keeping around?
- DoctorOW 5y ago
  That's not been eliminated. Quite a few people believe the election was stolen. Also, it's not a view worth keeping around. There's no evidence to support it and it's just used to justify violence and division.
  - adam_arthur 5y ago
    There's no evidence to support the fact that corporate greed in an otherwise competitive market leads to inflation, yet we have plenty of politicians pushing that. There's no evidence supporting price controls to be an effective way to fight inflation, as was shown to produce awful results in the 70s among many other eras, yet we have politicians pushing for that. There's no evidence to support that nominal wages rising, but at a rate lower than inflation leads to people being better off, yet we have politicians pushing this. I think Google should ban any videos promoting these effectively disproven and dangerous economic ideas.
    - lordnacho 5y ago
      Agree on the economics, but I think it's weak to compare these to the purely forensic question of whether the election was stolen. Economic opinions are generally not that clear cut, requiring an awful lot of theoretical harness and qualifications to explain. Evidence is similar, you can quibble about a lot of things in economics. Whether the election was stolen, well, where is a shred of evidence? It's not hard to define what we mean by stolen.
      - adam_arthur 5y ago
        Most things aren't clear cut, and there have been many times in history where widely held beliefs have been proven largely false. If you'll recall there was a multi year period of mass belief that the president colluded with Russians to steal the election. On the back of very little evidence, other than news heads talking about it and "he said, she said" There was also a multi year investigation that found nothing, and actually was able to largely disprove documents that helped to kick off the speculation. I believe we should mass purge all these videos proposing that the ex president colluded with Russians. We don't want the public to be misinformed. Consider which regimes throughout history have used silencing political opposition the most, and whether you want to be aligned with them. I certainly don't.
        lordnacho 5y ago
        I would hate for people to fall out of the practice of critically thinking about what they see in the news. Our whole open society depends on people practicing deciding what they think it's right.
        adam_arthur 5y ago
        I agree. My preference is to leave all content up, but perhaps provide filters to users so they can choose to look at a bubble if they like. Or have an open standard for video data, on which anybody could build a UI layer. Just saying, there's a clear double standard here. Saying the election was stolen due to collusion with Russians seems to be along awfully similar lines. I'm happy to allow companies to do whatever they like, but the data needs to be decoupled from the UI then. Otherwise it's a natural monopoly. I think history will see it that way, though it may take another decade or two.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
bko 5y ago
Heres an example: Bari Weiss was fired for commissioning an op-ed by a US Senator Tom Cotton calling for the national guard to be called in to break up riots. Note that she did not write the essay, but merely commissioned it. They sometimes have op-eds from varying voices. NY Times apologized and said "This review made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet our standards" Pretty extreme view sending in the national guard, right? Except according to a poll around that time, 52% of Americans answered yes to "Do you approve or disapprove of sending in the U.S. military where there are violent protests?" So obviously that op-ed wasn't a fringe belief, but it was enough to end the career of the person responsible to bring it to print, in addition to apologies and a commitment to never do anything like that again. Being critical of sometimes violent disruptive protests is a view that has been highly suppressed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss#2017%E2%80%932020:_The_New_York_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss#2017%E2%80%932020:_... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protes... https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/52-americans-support-deploying-military-control-violent-protests/story?id=71097167 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/52-americans-support-deployi...
- kasey_junk 5y ago
  Are you arguing that Bari Weiss, who was brought in specifically as part of an editorial decision to appeal to alternate viewpoints, is an example of alternate viewpoints being censored?
  - bko 5y ago
    Yes. She was forced out for doing her job. They don't want alternative view points. That's the point
    - kasey_junk 5y ago
      But didn’t the job start as a specific alternative viewpoint subsidy? Getting to zero after boosting doesn’t seem like censorship.
    - 5y ago