21 ms·

Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

180 points by 2a0c40 4y ago

incomingpain 4y ago
On april 17th I made the prediction that the US government was in control of twitter for probably this reason. I got flagged for this. A day later a bunch of former intelligence people basically said this is a good idea. That's funny to me.
- andrewclunn 4y ago
  We used to fund distributed disruptive technologies to subvert Soviet censorship. Chinese censorship was seen as proof of our superior freedom 20 years ago. Now it is viewed with envy by those in power. What moral high ground do we hold now?
  - adventured 4y ago
    > What moral high ground do we hold now? Vast amounts of ground, fortunately. How about the fact that we can have these conversations fully uncensored? That little thing known as freedom of speech, which is still overwhelmingly alive and well. I enjoy its use, aggressively, on a daily basis without persecution and have for decades uninterrupted.
    - formerkrogemp 4y ago
      We can have this conversation now, but vigilance is good.
      - adventured 4y ago
        Certainly. Nothing in my comment suggests otherwise in the least.
        formerkrogemp 4y ago
        So much on this site and online more generally comes across as criticism. It wasn't meant as such. I just thought it should be minded.
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      Except that freedom of speech does not protect us from intolerance, as Karl Popper observed. For example, private entities are not required to uphold freedom of speech.
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        Funny enough, in Germany - which is definitely more restricted, and for good reason, on the US understanding of "free speech" - Facebook and Twitter are routinely seen as public discourse forums and have to unban users as long as what they post isn't against the law [1]. [1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-urteil-facebook-meinungsfreiheit-1.4707910 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-urteil-faceboo...
      - politician 4y ago
        Good news- We aren’t required to tolerate institutions that don’t uphold freedom of speech.
      - refurb 4y ago
        It's funny when Popper is brought up in this way because his conclusion was that the only reasonable censorship of intolerance was that which poses a threat of immediate physical harm. So basically how the US treats freedom of speech today. He certainly wouldn't be supportive of censoring racist commentary that didn't incite immediate physical violence.
    - dangus 4y ago
      The article is about the benefits that the US intelligence agencies get from the censorship power of a centralized monopoly of tech companies. For example, if your main form of communication online is through companies owned by Meta, it’s very easy to effectively censor a point of view or group of people through deplatforming, but if there are dozens of platforms that becomes more difficult. While more authoritarian countries rely on direct censorship, the US instead promotes the viewpoints they want people to subscribe to: positive reinforcement. You can see this with the government’s involvement with the entertainment industry, or with the military paying sports leagues to promote patriotic displays. Tech companies being private entities means that they can censor or at least stop the viral effects of social media on ideas that don’t fit the mold. There’s a lot you can do to shape public opinion without violating the first amendment. It’s kind of similar to the way local news stations will run “stories” that amount to advertisements for various products or local businesses. Or you might see a funny meme on Reddit where the joke mostly has to do with a company. Not to say that there aren’t valid reasons to do stuff like this…there’s plenty of harmful speech out there that makes the world a worse place. Hateful, violent, or misleading speech is a legitimate problem. For example, there’s a report that claims most anti-vaccination online content comes from just 12 sources. [1] It seems a little bit alarming that such a small group can amplify speech in a way that has cost perhaps thousands of lives. [1] [PDF] https://f4d9b9d3-3d32-4f3a-afa6-49f8bf05279a.usrfiles.com/ugd/f4d9b9_df6e2ee56bbd4f53be11a3156dae0b63.pdf https://f4d9b9d3-3d32-4f3a-afa6-49f8bf05279a.usrfiles.com/ug...
  - incomingpain 4y ago
    >We used to fund distributed disruptive technologies to subvert Soviet censorship. Chinese censorship was seen as proof of our superior freedom 20 years ago. Now it is viewed with envy by those in power. What moral high ground do we hold now? The bigger point to discuss. If twitter is under control of the US government. I have no idea if it is or not, it just seems to be the case. You dont get to make the comment 'twitter is private, free speech only applies to government' because twitter == government. The other consideration I had. What if the us government doesnt explicitly own twitter. They simply dont realize the us government has hacked access to moderate and censor things in a clandestine way? Now it's an even more complicated subject but wouldn't justify the stock market situation that brings me to the point.
    - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
      >You dont get to make the comment 'twitter is private, free speech only applies to government' because twitter == government. it's true, twitter == government but not twitter === government. Meaning that the conversion happens in the underlying JIT engine where government hacks twitter to do what it wants. So the idea is that you could make a first amendment complaint against the government for hacking twitter if it infringed your free speech with that hack, but you could not say twitter cannot just turn off my account because while twitter == government it does not === government.
      - incomingpain 4y ago
        I get the complication of the position. Occams razor puts me back to the plain option that twitter is simply controlled by us gov.
        JKCalhoun 4y ago
        Controlled how? I ask because I'm pretty sure real (non-US government) people post to Twitter and get real retweets. How is the US government controlling it? I imagine this would have blown wide open a long time ago if true. (Also Occam's Razor?)
- eganist 4y ago
  Found: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31057193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31057193 Thanks, vouched even though I'm not sure your claim about "every major player" being out is correct (https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=TWTR&subView=institutional https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s...). Still, easier to have that conversation elsewhere now that there's a general public conversation about it, so it's harder to hand-wave it away as conspiratorial.
  - incomingpain 4y ago
    >Thanks, vouched even though I'm not sure your claim about "every major player" being out is correct (https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s...). Still, easier to have that conversation elsewhere now that there's a general public conversation about it, so it's harder to hand-wave it away as conspiratorial. Institutions like Blackrock or Vanguard don't get to vote, they may at most provide a proxy vote at cost. The typical 'conspiracy' around those 2 is that their management can threaten entities like twitter with delisting. Twitter is then removed from their holdings at tremendous cost. So they have kind of a little threat and they get some say to do stuff like climate change and diversity stuff. Ultimately the orgs still take this upon themselves. It's an easy thing to bluff against. Yes maybe some of these institutions have some players involved but I dont see it. Twitter looks tremendously undefended.
- spamizbad 4y ago
  Former intelligence people churn out all sorts of goofy takes in an attempt to build their brand. They’re also all over the spectrum depending on what audience they’re chasing. Not that much difference than any other media influencer or substack author. It's ultimately a free speech issue. You can't demand people to self-censor because their previous employment places unjustified credibility their nonsensical views. The way to combat this is through better civic and media literacy.
  - incomingpain 4y ago
    >Former intelligence people churn out all sorts of goofy takes in an attempt to build their brand. They’re also all over the spectrum depending on what audience they’re chasing. You're right but is this one a goofy take? Or is there a real something here?
    - spamizbad 4y ago
      I don't think so, but to indulge my own cranky theories: Perhaps Elon Musk's takeover attempt was done at the behest of the US government to take control of the platform under the cover of "censorship". Musk himself indicated he wanted to make the platform more miserable for the "extremes" on both the left and right (both perceived as being anti-government) - leaving you with the establishment consensus unharmed in the middle.
      - incomingpain 4y ago
        That's a cool idea. Largely speaking you can see Elon's point of view. He was on Babylon Bee's show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvGnw1sHh9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvGnw1sHh9M 2.4 million views in last 3 months. In this video they in detail discuss the problem with political banning. 2 months later, Babylon Bee got banned off twitter for a joke. Clear political banning and violation of section 230.
        everforward 4y ago
        > Clear political banning and violation of section 230. This has been posted a bunch of times, and it's wrong. Section 230 doesn't prohibit political bannings. It doesn't actually prohibit any banning at all. This is the relevant section (from https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230). > (2) Civil liability > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of— > (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or > availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, > lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise > objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; Even banning for constitutionally protected speech is explicitly allowed. Whether that's a good thing or not is a separate conversation, but nothing presently in section 230 would prevent Twitter/Facebook/etc from banning an entire political party.
- tomrod 4y ago
  From your comment, you went unnecessarily political regarding the January 6, 2021 insurrection. In my view, this is why people downvoted your comment. The common narrative is that it was insurrection. It was certainly a dangerous mob driven by Trump and cronies intending to interfere with the US election proceedings without justifiable cause beyond pseudo-creedal feelings that somewhere, somehow, the election was stolen.
  - incomingpain 4y ago
    >From your comment, you went unnecessarily political regarding the January 6, 2021 insurrection. In my view, this is why people downvoted your comment. The common narrative is that it was insurrection That hasn't been true for months. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_att... Wiki used to call it insurrection but it's not that. I understand the criticism that perhaps it's because it's political, but that's the because the whole subject is political. >It was certainly a dangerous mob driven by Trump and cronies intending to interfere with the US election proceedings without justifiable cause beyond pseudo-creedal feelings that somewhere, somehow, the election was stolen. Dangerous seems an over reach. Contemporary comparison you have mostly peaceful riots and actual insurrections like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest It's really important to see what's happening here. It's ultra important to be able to talk about these things. Republicans need to address the police brutality and objectively proven racism. Democrats need to address some things as well. These conversations have to happen and they are going to hurt.
    - notacoward 4y ago
      > Wiki used to call it insurrection but it's not that. They don't call it insurrection only because "seditious conspiracy" is the more legally accurate term, and the charge on which convictions have already been obtained. But ask a layperson to describe the difference and you'll get nothing. Even the US house and senate voted on impeachment for "incitement of insurrection" despite the legal distinction. Saying that it's "not insurrection[legal]" might be true, but HN is not a court and saying "not insurrection[common]" here is false.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  I don't think people think it's impossible but you need a source. The article in the headline does not prove this. Of course US security/war hawks want control over twitter but that doesn't make it true.
the_optimist 4y ago
What is this talk about “the algorithm,” as in Musk saying “they should open source the algorithm.” Is this the traffic boosting and suppression mechanism?
- _bohm 4y ago
  The algorithm that chooses what tweets populate the feed, I believe.
  - moistofreason 4y ago
    And search suggestions, search results, follow/friend suggestions, push notifications, up next on YouTube or IG stories. See the work of Robert Epstein
- incomingpain 4y ago
  >What is this talk about “the algorithm,” as in Musk saying “they should open source the algorithm.” Is this the traffic boosting and suppression mechanism? If for example you make a post that says "Vaccines cause autism". They dont have enough humans to moderate this. They write an algorithm that generally sees that and you get shadowbanned or equivalent. What are all the subjects in which you may not talk about on twitter? Its not public knowledge. Open sourcing it means people can see the true bias.
  - Tehchops 4y ago
    It's not biased to moderate something like "vaccines cause autism". It's been legally and scientifically established as outright misinformation. The genesis of that theory was a disgraced researcher who pushed fraudulent claims with misrepresented data. The paper was retracted for "scientific misconduct". And yet now moderating false claims that have a detrimental effect on public health outcomes is seen as a "leftist government conspiracy".
    - adventured 4y ago
      > It's not biased to moderate something like "vaccines cause autism". It is biased. As is any and all moderation, inherently. Biased toward science. A bias toward the rational is a positive, healthy bias. Rather than cowering about bias, Twitter should very openly and very aggressively stake out a clear and biased position; ie, this is our ground: we're pro science, pro vaccines, and we're going to hold that ground, period (whether anyone else likes it or not, and our algorithms will bias this way accordingly).
chasil 4y ago
James Clapper is a signatory? The man who perjured himself in front of congress? I think not. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/19/james-clappers-perjury-dc-made-men-dont-get-charged-lying-congress-jonathan-turley-column/1045991001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/19/james-clap...
- aweiland 4y ago
  I don't put much faith in things Turley writes. He went off the deep end a long time ago and went into crazy town. Marc Elias has, correctly IMO, labeled him as "the pillow guy, but with tenure."
  - stuxnet 4y ago
    Why would you place stock in anything Marc Elias has to say? He is, at the very least, a partisan ideologue. And he’s certainly not a journalist unlike “the pillow guy, but with tenure”.
    - aweiland 4y ago
      Turley isn't a journalist either. The link is to an opinion piece. I'm commenting on someone's opinion which, IMO, is rather suspect.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > He went off the deep end a long time ago and went into crazy town. Stop saying this about journalists who you used to agree with, but now disagree with.
    - aweiland 4y ago
      Turley isn't a journalist. He's a law professor. It's an opinion piece. And I never said I agreed with him in the past. Just commenting on how he changed over time.
TheGigaChad 4y ago
lvl102 4y ago
There is a reason why the agencies won’t strike down on tech monopolies. And rest assured, they never will.
- willis936 4y ago
  It's Hanlon's razor, isn't it?
  - salawat 4y ago
    Hanlon's Razor is qiite rusty compared to Occam's, and it's self-evidentness is massively in question. It's more a crutch leaned on to lubricate interaction between executive decision makers than anything else. Unfortunately, I've seen it cut the user more than the situation in my lifetime.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      We could cut the prison population by 90% if poor people got the benefit of Hanlon's Razor.
vernie 4y ago
Times are tough after your golden goose dies.
- adventured 4y ago
  > Times are tough after your golden goose dies. Which golden goose has died or is going to? Tech profits are through the roof and have never been better, while growth continues unabated. The only thing big tech is facing are speeding fines and regional constraints on growth, which it can trivially afford (it has been a decade of the same talk while big tech has gotten massively bigger). Operating income: Apple $117 billion, Microsoft $78b, Google $78b, Facebook $46b, Amazon $25b, Intel $22b, Cisco $14b, Oracle $11b, Qualcomm $11b, Nvidia $10b, Micron $10b, Broadcom $10b, Texas Instruments $9b, Applied Materials $8b, Adobe $6b, Netflix $6b For reference ASML is at $7b and SAP is at $5b. The US tech golden goose is going to get bigger and richer yet. It should only take you a few moments to estimate reasonably where eg Microsoft is going this decade (~$140+ billion in operating income, probably the size of all of Europe's tech companies op income combined in one company).
  - vernie 4y ago
    I’m talking about Greenwald and Snowden.
    - refurb 4y ago
      Did you have a rationale argument against the points he raises? Or just trying to smear him?
      - bavell 4y ago
        Seems like just another low-effort dig at greenwald? He's got haters for sure but they never seem to have substantive arguments... or at least none that I've seen.
        pessimizer 4y ago
cryptica 4y ago
It's such a financially convenient line of thinking. It's absolute nonsense. Both at face value and once you dig into it. Mainstream media is feeding us constant lies which work against our interests, destroy our ability to trust institutions and the government. Big Tech is clearly the biggest threat to our democracy. Before Big Tech, we did not have such problems. This new narrative is pure self-serving propaganda, a figment of the imagination of corporate-funded lobbyists. Free-market capitalism with freedom of speech is the recipe for economic prosperity. Has been for hundreds of years. Some people will point to China as an attempt to show a counter-example ("Look at China, they're totalitarian and their economy has been booming.") but they conveniently forget the fact that China's growth has been happening during a time of general loosening of policies. The past 20 years in China have overall been characterized by an increasing tolerance for free-market capitalism and more freedom of speech compared to what it was before. China came out of an extreme form of communism. Of course, any loosening would yield huge improvements! Also, they have over 1 billion people, of course any small improvement to even a small fraction of their population would have an impact globally. The problem with the US and the west is not freedom of speech or the free market, it's our debt-based monetary system which is now based on soft money. The decline started in 1971 when USD became detached from the gold standard. It's no longer backed by anything; also, the growth in the currency supply has become unconstrained and the distribution mechanisms for all newly issued currency have been partially hijacked to serve corporate interests. The effects of this were not felt immediately. It's only in recent years that the negative effects of our soft-money system have become difficult to ignore. The important thing to note is that no fiat system has ever survived more than a few hundred years. A monetary system which is founded on the endless debasement of its own currency is doomed to fail sooner or later. There has been hundreds of such monetary systems over thousands of years; not one which remains to this day. It has never worked and will never work in the long run. They're just pyramid schemes.
- arrosenberg 4y ago
  > Free-market capitalism with freedom of speech is the recipe for economic prosperity. Has been for hundreds of years. Economic prosperity for a handful of wealthy Brits you mean? Regulated capitalism created the middle class, free market capitalism is doing its damnedest to undo that outcome.
dathinab 4y ago
no, what bs that is except if the US want's to become a fascist authoritarian state then yes it could be vital for that.
a9h74j 4y ago
> By contrast, by maintaining all power in the hands of the small coterie of tech monopolies which control the internet and which have long proven their loyalty to the U.S. security state, the ability of the U.S. national security state to maintain a closed propaganda system around questions of war and militarism is guaranteed. > The cynical exploitation could hardly be more overt: if you hate Putin the way any loyal and patriotic American should, then you must devote yourself to full preservation of the power of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.
gengiskush 4y ago
These people are Authoritarians in disguise. The war is on the little guy now.
TrispusAttucks 4y ago
Suppression of liberty and free speech is against the founding ethos of America. Should we abandon that ethos, we have abandoned the very idea of America. -- "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees." ~ Emiliano Zapata -- "Live Free or Die" ~ U.S. state of New Hampshire -- "Give me liberty or give me death!" ~ Patrick Henry -- “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ~ Benjamin Franklin -- "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else." ~ Clarence Darrow
- tomrod 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion
  - TrispusAttucks 4y ago
    "The whiskey tax was repealed in the early 1800s during the Jefferson administration. Historian Carol Berkin argues that the episode, in the long run, strengthened US nationalism because the people appreciated how well Washington handled the rebels without resorting to tyranny." Let's hope the government maintains it's historical position of not resorting to tyranny and the country grows stronger as a result.
    - throwawayboise 4y ago
      Urm... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army The Bonus Army was a group of 43,000 demonstrators – made up of 17,000 veterans of the United States in World War I, together with their families and affiliated groups – who gathered in Washington, D.C. in mid-1932 to demand early cash redemption of their service bonus certificates. On July 28, 1932, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. Washington police met with resistance, shot at the protestors, and 2 veterans were wounded and later died. President Herbert Hoover then ordered the U.S. Army to clear the marchers' campsite. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded a contingent of infantry and cavalry, supported by six tanks. The Bonus Army marchers with their wives and children were driven out, and their shelters and belongings burned.
helen___keller 4y ago
I'm sure if it was on the table, intelligence and national security officials would issue a jointly signed letter that implementing a "Great Firewall" in America is necessary for national security. Luckily, these people don't get a say in what congress does. I will continue to vote for legislators who advocate busting tech monopolies.
- bilbo0s 4y ago
  That makes one vote, unfortunately, it doesn't matter. The set of people who vote on tech issues is dwarfed by the set of people who vote based on what "team" the candidate is on. That's simple reality, and it's not changing anytime soon. If we want real change, we'll have to start paying the large "campaign contributions" that the organizations on the other side pay. It's a horrible thing to say, but that's how the system works.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    This is an issue with bipartisan support. TFA itself mentions legislation with backing from both parties.
- Yoric 4y ago
  Didn't the Trump admin basically suggest this? Except the Great Firewall included most Western countries. I forgot how it was called. Something like "Safe Internet"?
  - octopoc 4y ago
    Are you thinking of the "Clean Network" initiative? It wasn't a Great Firewall, it was about not using Chinese telecom equipment for the internet.
archontes 4y ago
I think Greenwald's characterization of the letter's contents is a bit disingenuous. The letter makes the claim that recently proposed legislation that would enforce non-discriminatory access would do so in a way that would include foreign adversaries. Greenwald takes that and elevates the claim to, "Any attempts to restrict Big Tech's monopolistic power would therefore undermine the U.S. fight against Moscow." The letter makes no such claim. This amounts to a straw man. Greenwald goes on to rail at the signees for the letter claiming that Hunter Biden's laptop had the hallmarks of Russian disinformation, but while the NYT recently apparently confirmed the genuine nature of Biden's laptop, that letter was still well-founded at the time. A thing can be genuine and have the hallmarks of developed disinformation. I think Greenwald is being intellectually dishonest.
- aaronsimpson 4y ago
  It's been Greenwald's MO for a long time now. Take completely uncontroversial statement -> twist it using just the right amount of slippery slope or change/omit one key detail -> make it seem inflammatory and controversial. There's nothing wrong with criticizing the negatives of Big Tech, but Glenn's turned his "anti-establishment" beat into an obsession with being anti-{whatever the current thing is}.
- refurb 4y ago
  ”that letter was still well-founded at the time” They had zero proof it was Russian disinformation. They just made that up despite indications the laptop was in fact authentic. And they did that right before a Presidential election. That doesn’t concern you? You feel that the letter was “well founded”? Founded on what? A politically convenient guess?
  - archontes 4y ago
    Without knowing what information they had at the time, I will say we now know that there was plenty of disinformation about it being manufactured and spread. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/04/hunter-biden-laptop-guo-wengui-bannon-giuliani/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/04/hunter-biden-la... Perhaps the most concerning thing is that a group of such blatantly unscrupulous people has actual political support in the US. I feel the need to draw a parallel to Trump's refusal of military aid to Ukraine contingent upon them manufacturing an investigation of Hunter Biden, over which he was impeached.
jmyeet 4y ago
So there are 3 ways the government could influence Big Tech: 1. Infiltration. An agent or asset could be in a position of power to enact desired policies and changes, provide a backdoor or whatever; 2. Jurisdiction. The platform falls under US jurisdiction so is subject to various forms of law enforcement, secret or otherwise. National Security Letters, FISA warrants, pen registers, that sort of thing; and 3. Propaganda. US companies reflect the cultural and political values of their founders, board and management as will as the will of stockholders. For some issues there is a political divide but for many issues there isn't, most notably when it comes to US foreign policy where Democrats and Republicans are basically indistinguishable. The prevailing foreign policy view is that the US is good and a benign hegemony and a civilizing and democratizing force. The current foreign policy bent also favours interventionism and has since World War Two. You see this at the huge backlash you get, even here among relatively educated and informed commenters, when you dare to suggest that the US bears some responsibility for Ukraine's predicament even though Russia is of course wholly responsible for an unjustifiable invasion. It's a real lesson in the power of US propaganda and how ingrained the benign hegemony meme (and it is a meme) is. My theory is the first 2 points I listed above don't matter. They're of almost no importance. What really matters is the ability of the US media (and I include social media companies in this umbrella) to project US propaganda and to normalize the US-centric view of the world.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  This friend speaks my mind.
- throwaway412112 4y ago
  What about the opposite direction of influence? Its much more interesting i think because in the end, its a game of who remains in power, the public domain (government, theoretically) or the private domain (large Corp). The Chinese CP decived to crack down on to-big-to-fail, where as we in the west ...
- syrrim 4y ago
  To say that the US is in any way responsible for Ukraine is to deny ukraine agency. They are caught between a lion and a bear. They could reject the aid of the lion, but that would throw them into the hands of the bear. They choose to accept US help in their defense, but that makes them vulnerable to US invasion. This is a choice they made, and they bare the consequences. The US in offering that help might have sought to anger russia, but they left it to the ukrainians to decide whether to follow through. Fundamentally, russia had no interest in allowing ukraine to be an independent country. US aid forestalled an invasion, and made the ultimate invasion a fairer fight, but it wasn't the cause of it.
kornhole 4y ago
Frances Haugen, the supposed Facebook whistleblower, slipped up in her 60 minutes interview and revealed that she works for US intelligence. The effort she was employed to advance is acceptance of more censorship of Meta and the like. Conspicuously absent from the publicly promoted discussion was any mention of the free alternatives such as the fediverse. 'The Social Dilemma' movie had similar objectives and narrative framing. I anticipate that self-hosters, linux users, and people who are not Facebooked will be further castigated as radicals and worse in the future. Also note the irony that Substack contains Google and Amazon trackers.
- refurb 4y ago
  She disappeared pretty damn quickly huh?
- paulpauper 4y ago
  that story was such a big deal half a year ago to vanishing completely from people's attention
  - kornhole 4y ago
    It left something in their memories that we need to fix Facebook with more censorship. Now the reason is to protect us from Russian misinformation.
- pfraze 4y ago
  Source?
  - kornhole 4y ago
    It was somewhere in the interview where she mentioned about how careful she was at copying FB files because of her previous experience working in intelligence. I am sorry I don't feel like listening to the whole thing again to give you the specific time marker. https://youtu.be/_Lx5VmAdZSI https://youtu.be/_Lx5VmAdZSI
    - 4y ago
adamsmith143 4y ago
- bavell 4y ago
  > _______ is a total grifter and you shouldn't take anything he puts out seriously. Works for pretty much everyone, not much of a critique.
- JohnWhigham 4y ago
  - adamsmith143 4y ago
    Found the Peter Thiel astroturfer.
Barrin92 4y ago
The hilarious thing about this is that China is at the same time cracking down hard on its own tech sector for reasons of domestic competition and concentration of power. So on the one hand you have the country of freedom that must preserve its monopolistic structures and accept the lesser evil to fight the enemies abroad but the communist security state is busy... reigning their giants in? Probably a good time to quote Sheldon Wolin who thought of the American system as 'inverted totalitarian' "Inverted totalitarianism reverses things. It is all politics all of the time but politics largely untempered by the political. Party squabbles are occasionally on public display, and there is a frantic and continuous politics among factions of the party, interest groups, competing corporate powers, and rival media concerns. And there is, of course, the culminating moment of national elections when the attention of the nation is required to make a choice of personalities rather than a choice between alternatives. What is absent is the political, the commitment to finding where the common good lies amidst the welter of well-financed, highly organized, single-minded interests rabidly seeking governmental favors and overwhelming the practices of representative government and public administration by a sea of cash" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
- lambdasquirrel 4y ago
  I don't think China's doing it out of the good of their heart, or because they're less monopolistic. They strike me as being 1. smarter about it and 2. already having whatever control they want, through implicit means. Somehow, I think that the CPC knows that the Chinese internet companies won't run without Alibaba, but I also think they know a lot of the Chinese engineers who work for Alibaba don't really have too many other places to go. So important players like Alibaba will probably stand regardless of the level of crackdowns they have taken. For the sake of competitiveness – and to keep Jack Ma erstwhiles in line – some random flogging may be in order. I think China is also concerned about the brain drain caused by having a tech sector that's too economically prosperous compared to the rest of the economy. (How they acted on that is another thing). The U.S., meanwhile, evidently doesn't care very much about the long-term health of its tech economy. I'm really uncomfortable about the situation that this presents. In the U.S., Apple has usually pushed against the establishment making it easier to crack their phones. And there are worse social networks than FB and Twitter. There are better ones too, but if I find myself wanting to defend Apple against the government (even though I'm sure they're taking their stance out of selfish reasons), then the overall situation seems like it is inherently balanced against U.S. competitiveness in tech.
programmarchy 4y ago
If we're relying on Big Tech for our national security, then we are truly screwed.
blibble 4y ago
sounds like a good reason for the 95% of the world that isn't the United States to try their best to break them up?
kornhole 4y ago
The site linked of the letter appears down or blocked. https://punchbowl.news/wp-content/uploads/Open-Letter-Cyber-Intel-Defense-HS-1.pdf https://punchbowl.news/wp-content/uploads/Open-Letter-Cyber-... This seems suspicious.
alphabetting 4y ago
None of their arguments are that convincing to me but I do think there's something to the broader argument in a US/China lens. The Chinese govt is backing up the dumptruck investing into AI while good ole boys in DC are passing around billion dollar contracts on fighter jets. Google and Facebook are leading the west in AI innovation in my opinion. If AGI is possible, it would really suck for the world if China got there first. Imagine how different the world would be if China beat us to the internet and the Great Firewall was the world standard, but with AGI it will probably be able to rapidly become more advanced and prevent others from coming close to it. If the US were to get serious in AI investment I wouldn't care about breaking up big tech but that doesn't seem to be the case at all.
throwawaymanbot 4y ago
nonrandomstring 4y ago
National security is the sum total of the individual earned securities of each citizen, including economic, political, social, health, cultural, military and all sorts of security that pertain to the identity we call a nation. What these guys are talking about is something else. They are talking about the security of the security services, their own self interests and the status quo of enmeshed relations between three letter agencies and a few captured tech giants. On the contrary, the exact opposite is true. National security is best served by a diverse, pluralistic, open, heterogeneous tech industry. There is no reason intelligence needs cannot function properly with such an ecosystem, but it would have to do so through the Rule of Law, and systems of warrants that the incumbents have sought to bypass this last 20 years.
- colpabar 4y ago
  I have to ask - by "diverse", do you mean "different people from different backgrounds who have different viewpoints"? Or do you mean "people who all think the same way but have different skin colors"?
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    Diverse means the people come from different backgrounds.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    > I have to ask - by "diverse", do you mean "different people from different backgrounds who have different viewpoints"? Yes, people and institutions, and technologies. What gives security is something like "hybrid vigour" obtained by the whole system because it has evolutionary resilience (it's survivable, at least in part, to the greatest range of possible threats) Parts of a resilient system can even be in moderate tension as they keep a check on each other. For examples; it would be stronger to have both centralised and distributed philosophies represented; it would be good to have a mixture of public and private funding models in operation; small and large entities capable of agile innovation, and reliable scale. That makes it hard for a malevolent or erroneous force to infiltrate and take out the whole barrel of apples. Of course, diversity of gender, religion, race, age, political leaning and wealth tend to make a more interesting and vibrant workplace, but that's not primarily what I am saying.
bigbacaloa 4y ago
Headline basically summarizes the most basic tenet of classical fascism.
TMWNN 4y ago
Harry Truman said in 1945 about the atomic bomb, "We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies". I feel the same way about FAANG and Silicon Valley as a whole (and Wall Street, and Hollywood, and SpaceX/Tesla, and the Ivy League), that they are in the United States. That doesn't mean I approve of everything they do. That doesn't mean I can't or won't decry their putting thumbs on scales toward a certain type of bien-pensant ideology. That does mean that, overall, I am very, very glad that they are American instead of Russian, Chinese, or even British, French, or German.
vvvzxd 4y ago
half of the article is paywalled, given that no one on hn actually reads the article i suspect its not an issue here
nova22033 4y ago
Being a former government official doesn't mean you lose your first amendment rights. I could write an entire article about Tucker Carlson saying something and title it "Multi-millionaire frozen food heir says <something I don't like>"
jasfi 4y ago
So having started a project like ReactOS could be a problem for me? Even if I'm no longer involved? That seems to explain some things...
kurupt213 4y ago
But not to individual liberty. I think the aggressiveness that the EU attacks big tech with is proof enough that the national security point is true.

180 points by 2a0c40 4y ago

On april 17th I made the prediction that the US government was in control of twitter for probably this reason. I got flagged for this. A day later a bunch of former intelligence people basically said this is a good idea. That's funny to me.

andrewclunn 4y ago
We used to fund distributed disruptive technologies to subvert Soviet censorship. Chinese censorship was seen as proof of our superior freedom 20 years ago. Now it is viewed with envy by those in power. What moral high ground do we hold now?
- adventured 4y ago
  > What moral high ground do we hold now? Vast amounts of ground, fortunately. How about the fact that we can have these conversations fully uncensored? That little thing known as freedom of speech, which is still overwhelmingly alive and well. I enjoy its use, aggressively, on a daily basis without persecution and have for decades uninterrupted.
  - formerkrogemp 4y ago
    We can have this conversation now, but vigilance is good.
    - adventured 4y ago
      Certainly. Nothing in my comment suggests otherwise in the least.
      - formerkrogemp 4y ago
        So much on this site and online more generally comes across as criticism. It wasn't meant as such. I just thought it should be minded.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    Except that freedom of speech does not protect us from intolerance, as Karl Popper observed. For example, private entities are not required to uphold freedom of speech.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      Funny enough, in Germany - which is definitely more restricted, and for good reason, on the US understanding of "free speech" - Facebook and Twitter are routinely seen as public discourse forums and have to unban users as long as what they post isn't against the law [1]. [1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-urteil-facebook-meinungsfreiheit-1.4707910 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-urteil-faceboo...
    - politician 4y ago
      Good news- We aren’t required to tolerate institutions that don’t uphold freedom of speech.
    - refurb 4y ago
      It's funny when Popper is brought up in this way because his conclusion was that the only reasonable censorship of intolerance was that which poses a threat of immediate physical harm. So basically how the US treats freedom of speech today. He certainly wouldn't be supportive of censoring racist commentary that didn't incite immediate physical violence.
  - dangus 4y ago
    The article is about the benefits that the US intelligence agencies get from the censorship power of a centralized monopoly of tech companies. For example, if your main form of communication online is through companies owned by Meta, it’s very easy to effectively censor a point of view or group of people through deplatforming, but if there are dozens of platforms that becomes more difficult. While more authoritarian countries rely on direct censorship, the US instead promotes the viewpoints they want people to subscribe to: positive reinforcement. You can see this with the government’s involvement with the entertainment industry, or with the military paying sports leagues to promote patriotic displays. Tech companies being private entities means that they can censor or at least stop the viral effects of social media on ideas that don’t fit the mold. There’s a lot you can do to shape public opinion without violating the first amendment. It’s kind of similar to the way local news stations will run “stories” that amount to advertisements for various products or local businesses. Or you might see a funny meme on Reddit where the joke mostly has to do with a company. Not to say that there aren’t valid reasons to do stuff like this…there’s plenty of harmful speech out there that makes the world a worse place. Hateful, violent, or misleading speech is a legitimate problem. For example, there’s a report that claims most anti-vaccination online content comes from just 12 sources. [1] It seems a little bit alarming that such a small group can amplify speech in a way that has cost perhaps thousands of lives. [1] [PDF] https://f4d9b9d3-3d32-4f3a-afa6-49f8bf05279a.usrfiles.com/ugd/f4d9b9_df6e2ee56bbd4f53be11a3156dae0b63.pdf https://f4d9b9d3-3d32-4f3a-afa6-49f8bf05279a.usrfiles.com/ug...
- incomingpain 4y ago
  >We used to fund distributed disruptive technologies to subvert Soviet censorship. Chinese censorship was seen as proof of our superior freedom 20 years ago. Now it is viewed with envy by those in power. What moral high ground do we hold now? The bigger point to discuss. If twitter is under control of the US government. I have no idea if it is or not, it just seems to be the case. You dont get to make the comment 'twitter is private, free speech only applies to government' because twitter == government. The other consideration I had. What if the us government doesnt explicitly own twitter. They simply dont realize the us government has hacked access to moderate and censor things in a clandestine way? Now it's an even more complicated subject but wouldn't justify the stock market situation that brings me to the point.
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    >You dont get to make the comment 'twitter is private, free speech only applies to government' because twitter == government. it's true, twitter == government but not twitter === government. Meaning that the conversion happens in the underlying JIT engine where government hacks twitter to do what it wants. So the idea is that you could make a first amendment complaint against the government for hacking twitter if it infringed your free speech with that hack, but you could not say twitter cannot just turn off my account because while twitter == government it does not === government.
    - incomingpain 4y ago
      I get the complication of the position. Occams razor puts me back to the plain option that twitter is simply controlled by us gov.
      - JKCalhoun 4y ago
        Controlled how? I ask because I'm pretty sure real (non-US government) people post to Twitter and get real retweets. How is the US government controlling it? I imagine this would have blown wide open a long time ago if true. (Also Occam's Razor?)
eganist 4y ago
Found: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31057193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31057193 Thanks, vouched even though I'm not sure your claim about "every major player" being out is correct (https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=TWTR&subView=institutional https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s...). Still, easier to have that conversation elsewhere now that there's a general public conversation about it, so it's harder to hand-wave it away as conspiratorial.
- incomingpain 4y ago
  >Thanks, vouched even though I'm not sure your claim about "every major player" being out is correct (https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s...). Still, easier to have that conversation elsewhere now that there's a general public conversation about it, so it's harder to hand-wave it away as conspiratorial. Institutions like Blackrock or Vanguard don't get to vote, they may at most provide a proxy vote at cost. The typical 'conspiracy' around those 2 is that their management can threaten entities like twitter with delisting. Twitter is then removed from their holdings at tremendous cost. So they have kind of a little threat and they get some say to do stuff like climate change and diversity stuff. Ultimately the orgs still take this upon themselves. It's an easy thing to bluff against. Yes maybe some of these institutions have some players involved but I dont see it. Twitter looks tremendously undefended.
spamizbad 4y ago
Former intelligence people churn out all sorts of goofy takes in an attempt to build their brand. They’re also all over the spectrum depending on what audience they’re chasing. Not that much difference than any other media influencer or substack author. It's ultimately a free speech issue. You can't demand people to self-censor because their previous employment places unjustified credibility their nonsensical views. The way to combat this is through better civic and media literacy.
- incomingpain 4y ago
  >Former intelligence people churn out all sorts of goofy takes in an attempt to build their brand. They’re also all over the spectrum depending on what audience they’re chasing. You're right but is this one a goofy take? Or is there a real something here?
  - spamizbad 4y ago
    I don't think so, but to indulge my own cranky theories: Perhaps Elon Musk's takeover attempt was done at the behest of the US government to take control of the platform under the cover of "censorship". Musk himself indicated he wanted to make the platform more miserable for the "extremes" on both the left and right (both perceived as being anti-government) - leaving you with the establishment consensus unharmed in the middle.
    - incomingpain 4y ago
      That's a cool idea. Largely speaking you can see Elon's point of view. He was on Babylon Bee's show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvGnw1sHh9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvGnw1sHh9M 2.4 million views in last 3 months. In this video they in detail discuss the problem with political banning. 2 months later, Babylon Bee got banned off twitter for a joke. Clear political banning and violation of section 230.
      - everforward 4y ago
        > Clear political banning and violation of section 230. This has been posted a bunch of times, and it's wrong. Section 230 doesn't prohibit political bannings. It doesn't actually prohibit any banning at all. This is the relevant section (from https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230). > (2) Civil liability > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of— > (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or > availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, > lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise > objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; Even banning for constitutionally protected speech is explicitly allowed. Whether that's a good thing or not is a separate conversation, but nothing presently in section 230 would prevent Twitter/Facebook/etc from banning an entire political party.
tomrod 4y ago
From your comment, you went unnecessarily political regarding the January 6, 2021 insurrection. In my view, this is why people downvoted your comment. The common narrative is that it was insurrection. It was certainly a dangerous mob driven by Trump and cronies intending to interfere with the US election proceedings without justifiable cause beyond pseudo-creedal feelings that somewhere, somehow, the election was stolen.
- incomingpain 4y ago
  >From your comment, you went unnecessarily political regarding the January 6, 2021 insurrection. In my view, this is why people downvoted your comment. The common narrative is that it was insurrection That hasn't been true for months. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_att... Wiki used to call it insurrection but it's not that. I understand the criticism that perhaps it's because it's political, but that's the because the whole subject is political. >It was certainly a dangerous mob driven by Trump and cronies intending to interfere with the US election proceedings without justifiable cause beyond pseudo-creedal feelings that somewhere, somehow, the election was stolen. Dangerous seems an over reach. Contemporary comparison you have mostly peaceful riots and actual insurrections like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest It's really important to see what's happening here. It's ultra important to be able to talk about these things. Republicans need to address the police brutality and objectively proven racism. Democrats need to address some things as well. These conversations have to happen and they are going to hurt.
  - notacoward 4y ago
    > Wiki used to call it insurrection but it's not that. They don't call it insurrection only because "seditious conspiracy" is the more legally accurate term, and the charge on which convictions have already been obtained. But ask a layperson to describe the difference and you'll get nothing. Even the US house and senate voted on impeachment for "incitement of insurrection" despite the legal distinction. Saying that it's "not insurrection[legal]" might be true, but HN is not a court and saying "not insurrection[common]" here is false.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
I don't think people think it's impossible but you need a source. The article in the headline does not prove this. Of course US security/war hawks want control over twitter but that doesn't make it true.

the_optimist 4y ago

What is this talk about “the algorithm,” as in Musk saying “they should open source the algorithm.” Is this the traffic boosting and suppression mechanism?

_bohm 4y ago
The algorithm that chooses what tweets populate the feed, I believe.
- moistofreason 4y ago
  And search suggestions, search results, follow/friend suggestions, push notifications, up next on YouTube or IG stories. See the work of Robert Epstein
incomingpain 4y ago
>What is this talk about “the algorithm,” as in Musk saying “they should open source the algorithm.” Is this the traffic boosting and suppression mechanism? If for example you make a post that says "Vaccines cause autism". They dont have enough humans to moderate this. They write an algorithm that generally sees that and you get shadowbanned or equivalent. What are all the subjects in which you may not talk about on twitter? Its not public knowledge. Open sourcing it means people can see the true bias.
- Tehchops 4y ago
  It's not biased to moderate something like "vaccines cause autism". It's been legally and scientifically established as outright misinformation. The genesis of that theory was a disgraced researcher who pushed fraudulent claims with misrepresented data. The paper was retracted for "scientific misconduct". And yet now moderating false claims that have a detrimental effect on public health outcomes is seen as a "leftist government conspiracy".
  - adventured 4y ago
    > It's not biased to moderate something like "vaccines cause autism". It is biased. As is any and all moderation, inherently. Biased toward science. A bias toward the rational is a positive, healthy bias. Rather than cowering about bias, Twitter should very openly and very aggressively stake out a clear and biased position; ie, this is our ground: we're pro science, pro vaccines, and we're going to hold that ground, period (whether anyone else likes it or not, and our algorithms will bias this way accordingly).

chasil 4y ago

James Clapper is a signatory? The man who perjured himself in front of congress? I think not. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/19/james-clappers-perjury-dc-made-men-dont-get-charged-lying-congress-jonathan-turley-column/1045991001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/19/james-clap...

aweiland 4y ago
I don't put much faith in things Turley writes. He went off the deep end a long time ago and went into crazy town. Marc Elias has, correctly IMO, labeled him as "the pillow guy, but with tenure."
- stuxnet 4y ago
  Why would you place stock in anything Marc Elias has to say? He is, at the very least, a partisan ideologue. And he’s certainly not a journalist unlike “the pillow guy, but with tenure”.
  - aweiland 4y ago
    Turley isn't a journalist either. The link is to an opinion piece. I'm commenting on someone's opinion which, IMO, is rather suspect.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > He went off the deep end a long time ago and went into crazy town. Stop saying this about journalists who you used to agree with, but now disagree with.
  - aweiland 4y ago
    Turley isn't a journalist. He's a law professor. It's an opinion piece. And I never said I agreed with him in the past. Just commenting on how he changed over time.

TheGigaChad 4y ago

lvl102 4y ago

There is a reason why the agencies won’t strike down on tech monopolies. And rest assured, they never will.

willis936 4y ago
It's Hanlon's razor, isn't it?
- salawat 4y ago
  Hanlon's Razor is qiite rusty compared to Occam's, and it's self-evidentness is massively in question. It's more a crutch leaned on to lubricate interaction between executive decision makers than anything else. Unfortunately, I've seen it cut the user more than the situation in my lifetime.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    We could cut the prison population by 90% if poor people got the benefit of Hanlon's Razor.

vernie 4y ago

Times are tough after your golden goose dies.

adventured 4y ago
> Times are tough after your golden goose dies. Which golden goose has died or is going to? Tech profits are through the roof and have never been better, while growth continues unabated. The only thing big tech is facing are speeding fines and regional constraints on growth, which it can trivially afford (it has been a decade of the same talk while big tech has gotten massively bigger). Operating income: Apple $117 billion, Microsoft $78b, Google $78b, Facebook $46b, Amazon $25b, Intel $22b, Cisco $14b, Oracle $11b, Qualcomm $11b, Nvidia $10b, Micron $10b, Broadcom $10b, Texas Instruments $9b, Applied Materials $8b, Adobe $6b, Netflix $6b For reference ASML is at $7b and SAP is at $5b. The US tech golden goose is going to get bigger and richer yet. It should only take you a few moments to estimate reasonably where eg Microsoft is going this decade (~$140+ billion in operating income, probably the size of all of Europe's tech companies op income combined in one company).
- vernie 4y ago
  I’m talking about Greenwald and Snowden.
  - refurb 4y ago
    Did you have a rationale argument against the points he raises? Or just trying to smear him?
    - bavell 4y ago
      Seems like just another low-effort dig at greenwald? He's got haters for sure but they never seem to have substantive arguments... or at least none that I've seen.
      - pessimizer 4y ago

cryptica 4y ago

It's such a financially convenient line of thinking. It's absolute nonsense. Both at face value and once you dig into it. Mainstream media is feeding us constant lies which work against our interests, destroy our ability to trust institutions and the government. Big Tech is clearly the biggest threat to our democracy. Before Big Tech, we did not have such problems. This new narrative is pure self-serving propaganda, a figment of the imagination of corporate-funded lobbyists. Free-market capitalism with freedom of speech is the recipe for economic prosperity. Has been for hundreds of years. Some people will point to China as an attempt to show a counter-example ("Look at China, they're totalitarian and their economy has been booming.") but they conveniently forget the fact that China's growth has been happening during a time of general loosening of policies. The past 20 years in China have overall been characterized by an increasing tolerance for free-market capitalism and more freedom of speech compared to what it was before. China came out of an extreme form of communism. Of course, any loosening would yield huge improvements! Also, they have over 1 billion people, of course any small improvement to even a small fraction of their population would have an impact globally. The problem with the US and the west is not freedom of speech or the free market, it's our debt-based monetary system which is now based on soft money. The decline started in 1971 when USD became detached from the gold standard. It's no longer backed by anything; also, the growth in the currency supply has become unconstrained and the distribution mechanisms for all newly issued currency have been partially hijacked to serve corporate interests. The effects of this were not felt immediately. It's only in recent years that the negative effects of our soft-money system have become difficult to ignore. The important thing to note is that no fiat system has ever survived more than a few hundred years. A monetary system which is founded on the endless debasement of its own currency is doomed to fail sooner or later. There has been hundreds of such monetary systems over thousands of years; not one which remains to this day. It has never worked and will never work in the long run. They're just pyramid schemes.

arrosenberg 4y ago
> Free-market capitalism with freedom of speech is the recipe for economic prosperity. Has been for hundreds of years. Economic prosperity for a handful of wealthy Brits you mean? Regulated capitalism created the middle class, free market capitalism is doing its damnedest to undo that outcome.

dathinab 4y ago

no, what bs that is except if the US want's to become a fascist authoritarian state then yes it could be vital for that.

a9h74j 4y ago

> By contrast, by maintaining all power in the hands of the small coterie of tech monopolies which control the internet and which have long proven their loyalty to the U.S. security state, the ability of the U.S. national security state to maintain a closed propaganda system around questions of war and militarism is guaranteed. > The cynical exploitation could hardly be more overt: if you hate Putin the way any loyal and patriotic American should, then you must devote yourself to full preservation of the power of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.

gengiskush 4y ago

These people are Authoritarians in disguise. The war is on the little guy now.

TrispusAttucks 4y ago

Suppression of liberty and free speech is against the founding ethos of America. Should we abandon that ethos, we have abandoned the very idea of America. -- "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees." ~ Emiliano Zapata -- "Live Free or Die" ~ U.S. state of New Hampshire -- "Give me liberty or give me death!" ~ Patrick Henry -- “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ~ Benjamin Franklin -- "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else." ~ Clarence Darrow

tomrod 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion
- TrispusAttucks 4y ago
  "The whiskey tax was repealed in the early 1800s during the Jefferson administration. Historian Carol Berkin argues that the episode, in the long run, strengthened US nationalism because the people appreciated how well Washington handled the rebels without resorting to tyranny." Let's hope the government maintains it's historical position of not resorting to tyranny and the country grows stronger as a result.
  - throwawayboise 4y ago
    Urm... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army The Bonus Army was a group of 43,000 demonstrators – made up of 17,000 veterans of the United States in World War I, together with their families and affiliated groups – who gathered in Washington, D.C. in mid-1932 to demand early cash redemption of their service bonus certificates. On July 28, 1932, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. Washington police met with resistance, shot at the protestors, and 2 veterans were wounded and later died. President Herbert Hoover then ordered the U.S. Army to clear the marchers' campsite. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded a contingent of infantry and cavalry, supported by six tanks. The Bonus Army marchers with their wives and children were driven out, and their shelters and belongings burned.

helen___keller 4y ago

I'm sure if it was on the table, intelligence and national security officials would issue a jointly signed letter that implementing a "Great Firewall" in America is necessary for national security. Luckily, these people don't get a say in what congress does. I will continue to vote for legislators who advocate busting tech monopolies.

bilbo0s 4y ago
That makes one vote, unfortunately, it doesn't matter. The set of people who vote on tech issues is dwarfed by the set of people who vote based on what "team" the candidate is on. That's simple reality, and it's not changing anytime soon. If we want real change, we'll have to start paying the large "campaign contributions" that the organizations on the other side pay. It's a horrible thing to say, but that's how the system works.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  This is an issue with bipartisan support. TFA itself mentions legislation with backing from both parties.
Yoric 4y ago
Didn't the Trump admin basically suggest this? Except the Great Firewall included most Western countries. I forgot how it was called. Something like "Safe Internet"?
- octopoc 4y ago
  Are you thinking of the "Clean Network" initiative? It wasn't a Great Firewall, it was about not using Chinese telecom equipment for the internet.

archontes 4y ago

I think Greenwald's characterization of the letter's contents is a bit disingenuous. The letter makes the claim that recently proposed legislation that would enforce non-discriminatory access would do so in a way that would include foreign adversaries. Greenwald takes that and elevates the claim to, "Any attempts to restrict Big Tech's monopolistic power would therefore undermine the U.S. fight against Moscow." The letter makes no such claim. This amounts to a straw man. Greenwald goes on to rail at the signees for the letter claiming that Hunter Biden's laptop had the hallmarks of Russian disinformation, but while the NYT recently apparently confirmed the genuine nature of Biden's laptop, that letter was still well-founded at the time. A thing can be genuine and have the hallmarks of developed disinformation. I think Greenwald is being intellectually dishonest.

aaronsimpson 4y ago
It's been Greenwald's MO for a long time now. Take completely uncontroversial statement -> twist it using just the right amount of slippery slope or change/omit one key detail -> make it seem inflammatory and controversial. There's nothing wrong with criticizing the negatives of Big Tech, but Glenn's turned his "anti-establishment" beat into an obsession with being anti-{whatever the current thing is}.
refurb 4y ago
”that letter was still well-founded at the time” They had zero proof it was Russian disinformation. They just made that up despite indications the laptop was in fact authentic. And they did that right before a Presidential election. That doesn’t concern you? You feel that the letter was “well founded”? Founded on what? A politically convenient guess?
- archontes 4y ago
  Without knowing what information they had at the time, I will say we now know that there was plenty of disinformation about it being manufactured and spread. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/04/hunter-biden-laptop-guo-wengui-bannon-giuliani/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/04/hunter-biden-la... Perhaps the most concerning thing is that a group of such blatantly unscrupulous people has actual political support in the US. I feel the need to draw a parallel to Trump's refusal of military aid to Ukraine contingent upon them manufacturing an investigation of Hunter Biden, over which he was impeached.

jmyeet 4y ago

So there are 3 ways the government could influence Big Tech: 1. Infiltration. An agent or asset could be in a position of power to enact desired policies and changes, provide a backdoor or whatever; 2. Jurisdiction. The platform falls under US jurisdiction so is subject to various forms of law enforcement, secret or otherwise. National Security Letters, FISA warrants, pen registers, that sort of thing; and 3. Propaganda. US companies reflect the cultural and political values of their founders, board and management as will as the will of stockholders. For some issues there is a political divide but for many issues there isn't, most notably when it comes to US foreign policy where Democrats and Republicans are basically indistinguishable. The prevailing foreign policy view is that the US is good and a benign hegemony and a civilizing and democratizing force. The current foreign policy bent also favours interventionism and has since World War Two. You see this at the huge backlash you get, even here among relatively educated and informed commenters, when you dare to suggest that the US bears some responsibility for Ukraine's predicament even though Russia is of course wholly responsible for an unjustifiable invasion. It's a real lesson in the power of US propaganda and how ingrained the benign hegemony meme (and it is a meme) is. My theory is the first 2 points I listed above don't matter. They're of almost no importance. What really matters is the ability of the US media (and I include social media companies in this umbrella) to project US propaganda and to normalize the US-centric view of the world.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
This friend speaks my mind.
throwaway412112 4y ago
What about the opposite direction of influence? Its much more interesting i think because in the end, its a game of who remains in power, the public domain (government, theoretically) or the private domain (large Corp). The Chinese CP decived to crack down on to-big-to-fail, where as we in the west ...
syrrim 4y ago
To say that the US is in any way responsible for Ukraine is to deny ukraine agency. They are caught between a lion and a bear. They could reject the aid of the lion, but that would throw them into the hands of the bear. They choose to accept US help in their defense, but that makes them vulnerable to US invasion. This is a choice they made, and they bare the consequences. The US in offering that help might have sought to anger russia, but they left it to the ukrainians to decide whether to follow through. Fundamentally, russia had no interest in allowing ukraine to be an independent country. US aid forestalled an invasion, and made the ultimate invasion a fairer fight, but it wasn't the cause of it.

kornhole 4y ago

Frances Haugen, the supposed Facebook whistleblower, slipped up in her 60 minutes interview and revealed that she works for US intelligence. The effort she was employed to advance is acceptance of more censorship of Meta and the like. Conspicuously absent from the publicly promoted discussion was any mention of the free alternatives such as the fediverse. 'The Social Dilemma' movie had similar objectives and narrative framing. I anticipate that self-hosters, linux users, and people who are not Facebooked will be further castigated as radicals and worse in the future. Also note the irony that Substack contains Google and Amazon trackers.

refurb 4y ago
She disappeared pretty damn quickly huh?
paulpauper 4y ago
that story was such a big deal half a year ago to vanishing completely from people's attention
- kornhole 4y ago
  It left something in their memories that we need to fix Facebook with more censorship. Now the reason is to protect us from Russian misinformation.
pfraze 4y ago
Source?
- kornhole 4y ago
  It was somewhere in the interview where she mentioned about how careful she was at copying FB files because of her previous experience working in intelligence. I am sorry I don't feel like listening to the whole thing again to give you the specific time marker. https://youtu.be/_Lx5VmAdZSI https://youtu.be/_Lx5VmAdZSI
  - 4y ago

adamsmith143 4y ago

bavell 4y ago
> _______ is a total grifter and you shouldn't take anything he puts out seriously. Works for pretty much everyone, not much of a critique.
JohnWhigham 4y ago
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  Found the Peter Thiel astroturfer.

Barrin92 4y ago

The hilarious thing about this is that China is at the same time cracking down hard on its own tech sector for reasons of domestic competition and concentration of power. So on the one hand you have the country of freedom that must preserve its monopolistic structures and accept the lesser evil to fight the enemies abroad but the communist security state is busy... reigning their giants in? Probably a good time to quote Sheldon Wolin who thought of the American system as 'inverted totalitarian' "Inverted totalitarianism reverses things. It is all politics all of the time but politics largely untempered by the political. Party squabbles are occasionally on public display, and there is a frantic and continuous politics among factions of the party, interest groups, competing corporate powers, and rival media concerns. And there is, of course, the culminating moment of national elections when the attention of the nation is required to make a choice of personalities rather than a choice between alternatives. What is absent is the political, the commitment to finding where the common good lies amidst the welter of well-financed, highly organized, single-minded interests rabidly seeking governmental favors and overwhelming the practices of representative government and public administration by a sea of cash" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism

lambdasquirrel 4y ago
I don't think China's doing it out of the good of their heart, or because they're less monopolistic. They strike me as being 1. smarter about it and 2. already having whatever control they want, through implicit means. Somehow, I think that the CPC knows that the Chinese internet companies won't run without Alibaba, but I also think they know a lot of the Chinese engineers who work for Alibaba don't really have too many other places to go. So important players like Alibaba will probably stand regardless of the level of crackdowns they have taken. For the sake of competitiveness – and to keep Jack Ma erstwhiles in line – some random flogging may be in order. I think China is also concerned about the brain drain caused by having a tech sector that's too economically prosperous compared to the rest of the economy. (How they acted on that is another thing). The U.S., meanwhile, evidently doesn't care very much about the long-term health of its tech economy. I'm really uncomfortable about the situation that this presents. In the U.S., Apple has usually pushed against the establishment making it easier to crack their phones. And there are worse social networks than FB and Twitter. There are better ones too, but if I find myself wanting to defend Apple against the government (even though I'm sure they're taking their stance out of selfish reasons), then the overall situation seems like it is inherently balanced against U.S. competitiveness in tech.

programmarchy 4y ago

If we're relying on Big Tech for our national security, then we are truly screwed.

blibble 4y ago

sounds like a good reason for the 95% of the world that isn't the United States to try their best to break them up?

kornhole 4y ago

The site linked of the letter appears down or blocked. https://punchbowl.news/wp-content/uploads/Open-Letter-Cyber-Intel-Defense-HS-1.pdf https://punchbowl.news/wp-content/uploads/Open-Letter-Cyber-... This seems suspicious.

alphabetting 4y ago

None of their arguments are that convincing to me but I do think there's something to the broader argument in a US/China lens. The Chinese govt is backing up the dumptruck investing into AI while good ole boys in DC are passing around billion dollar contracts on fighter jets. Google and Facebook are leading the west in AI innovation in my opinion. If AGI is possible, it would really suck for the world if China got there first. Imagine how different the world would be if China beat us to the internet and the Great Firewall was the world standard, but with AGI it will probably be able to rapidly become more advanced and prevent others from coming close to it. If the US were to get serious in AI investment I wouldn't care about breaking up big tech but that doesn't seem to be the case at all.

throwawaymanbot 4y ago

nonrandomstring 4y ago

National security is the sum total of the individual earned securities of each citizen, including economic, political, social, health, cultural, military and all sorts of security that pertain to the identity we call a nation. What these guys are talking about is something else. They are talking about the security of the security services, their own self interests and the status quo of enmeshed relations between three letter agencies and a few captured tech giants. On the contrary, the exact opposite is true. National security is best served by a diverse, pluralistic, open, heterogeneous tech industry. There is no reason intelligence needs cannot function properly with such an ecosystem, but it would have to do so through the Rule of Law, and systems of warrants that the incumbents have sought to bypass this last 20 years.

colpabar 4y ago
I have to ask - by "diverse", do you mean "different people from different backgrounds who have different viewpoints"? Or do you mean "people who all think the same way but have different skin colors"?
- edgyquant 4y ago
  Diverse means the people come from different backgrounds.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  > I have to ask - by "diverse", do you mean "different people from different backgrounds who have different viewpoints"? Yes, people and institutions, and technologies. What gives security is something like "hybrid vigour" obtained by the whole system because it has evolutionary resilience (it's survivable, at least in part, to the greatest range of possible threats) Parts of a resilient system can even be in moderate tension as they keep a check on each other. For examples; it would be stronger to have both centralised and distributed philosophies represented; it would be good to have a mixture of public and private funding models in operation; small and large entities capable of agile innovation, and reliable scale. That makes it hard for a malevolent or erroneous force to infiltrate and take out the whole barrel of apples. Of course, diversity of gender, religion, race, age, political leaning and wealth tend to make a more interesting and vibrant workplace, but that's not primarily what I am saying.

bigbacaloa 4y ago

Headline basically summarizes the most basic tenet of classical fascism.

TMWNN 4y ago

Harry Truman said in 1945 about the atomic bomb, "We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies". I feel the same way about FAANG and Silicon Valley as a whole (and Wall Street, and Hollywood, and SpaceX/Tesla, and the Ivy League), that they are in the United States. That doesn't mean I approve of everything they do. That doesn't mean I can't or won't decry their putting thumbs on scales toward a certain type of bien-pensant ideology. That does mean that, overall, I am very, very glad that they are American instead of Russian, Chinese, or even British, French, or German.

vvvzxd 4y ago

half of the article is paywalled, given that no one on hn actually reads the article i suspect its not an issue here

nova22033 4y ago

Being a former government official doesn't mean you lose your first amendment rights. I could write an entire article about Tucker Carlson saying something and title it "Multi-millionaire frozen food heir says <something I don't like>"

jasfi 4y ago

So having started a project like ReactOS could be a problem for me? Even if I'm no longer involved? That seems to explain some things...

kurupt213 4y ago

But not to individual liberty. I think the aggressiveness that the EU attacks big tech with is proof enough that the national security point is true.