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No joke: FTC boss goes on the Daily Show and is told Apple tried to block her
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoShocking. It was previously reported that Apple wouldn't let him talk about China or AI and it turns out that the AI segment was related to antitrust and Lina Khan. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/business/media/jon-stewart-the-problem-ends.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/business/media/jon-stewar... > Mr. Stewart told members of his staff on Thursday that potential show topics related to China and artificial intelligence were causing concern among Apple executives
- rchaud 3y agoApple would be loath to annoy China regardless of who the FTC head was.
- lnxg33k1 3y agoNeoliberalism/anarcocapitalism has stoned these corporations, I hope it has arrived the day that we start putting them back in line by punishing well these monopolistic practices, anti unions strategies, stock dumping and buybacks, fiscal havens, mass layoffs, etc. it has gone out of hand. Companies can’t just leech out of general population undisturbed
- srackey 3y agoThey don’t. These corporations are incredibly popular among the public. Seriously. Look at any polling and you’ll find Amazon, Google, Apple with higher approval ratings than any branch of government (only the military is close), by high double-digit percentages. The average American would be happier with Amazon taking over the feds, than the other way around.
- agos 3y agopart of this is exactly because their malfeasance has gone unchecked for so long
- dartos 3y agoMaybe Apple, maybe google, but Amazon? I think the average American is aware of the Amazon warehouse worker conditions (and probably don’t care)
- CamperBob2 3y ago(Shrug) Nobody's being held in an Amazon warehouse against their will. They pay well, so people elect to put up with BS like lining up off the clock for security screening. Any beef is between Amazon and their workers, not Amazon and me.
- dartos 3y ago> Nobody's being held in an Amazon warehouse against their will In the US, needing health insurance has kept me at a job against my will and I’m a white collar worker. > Any beef is between Amazon and their workers, not Amazon and me. It becomes ur beef if Amazon becomes a government entity as OP was saying in their hypothetical.
- CamperBob2 3y agoSure, but currently, if you want to talk about people being held against their will, only the government can do that. And no, working at a job you don't like just for the heath insurance coverage does not count as being "held against your will." Check your privilege.
- dartos 3y agoBut it does. If my choice is either work at a job I don’t like or risk my life by foregoing medical procedures that I need… It’s not really a choice. It’s the same situation as holding a gun to me and saying “work at this job or I’ll shoot you.” This is far from the only way people are forced to keep people working against their will. Threat of homelessness, dependents like children, family members who need medical support, H1B visas, etc. I was saying how, even in a decently paying job, I’m forced to work there under threat of serious medical complications because of the state of healthcare in the US. > Check your privilege I’m not the one making blanket statements about why people work shitty jobs.
- dotnet00 3y agoThat's in a large part not because people like big tech companies, rather they just hate the government even more than they hate big tech, because the government being so corrupt and ineffective is why the big tech companies are getting away with all the blatant abuses they perpetrate. I think interpreting that as "people would rather Amazon take over the government" is incorrect.
- nyokodo 3y ago> Neoliberalism/anarcocapitalism has stoned these corporations Either you’re implying that neoliberalism is the same as anarchocapitalism, or you’re suggesting that Apple embodies both at once. In the grand argument over how much government we need “neoliberals” would answer “less”, but a long way from answering “none” like the ancaps. Try and find an AnCap who wants government police, a state military, etc and then try and find a neoliberal who doesn’t want them. That is a pretty impactful difference! I know of no evidence to suggest that Apple falls into either camp let alone both at once! Perhaps these are examples of terms that for a certain crowd have become mere epithets used with only superficial understanding. It might also explain the alleged sins you then list off assuming we all would agree they apply.
- tivert 3y ago> anarchocapitalism ...is an inherently unserious and self-contradictory idea. It's the Ununoctium of political ideologies: it is so unstable that if ever realized it will decay in a microsecond to something entirely different. Anyone who treats it as something that could be stable and realizable should be mocked or ignored. So, that said, I think the usage should in the GP should just be auto-corrected to "extreme capitalism" and left there.
- nyokodo 3y ago> corrected to "extreme capitalism" and left there Incorrect uses of specific terms shouldn’t be changed to questionable uses of incredibly vague terms unless this is mere activist slogan homework instead of an actual discussion meant to persuade.
- tivert 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle > "be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept" It works for internet comments, too.
- lnxg33k1 3y agoIf you go back to my message, I said: "Neoliberalism/Anarcocapitalism stunned them", I was talking about the political and cultural environment that fostered Apple's and other's attitude from the end of the cold war, that the system didn't have anything to compete against, and got out of hand, until now.
- RankingMember 3y agoI'm not sure what you mean by "stoned" in this context (or seemingly putting neoliberalism and anarcho-capitalism on equal footing), but I 100% agree with the rest of your statement. It'd be nice if we could reanimate Jack Welch and Milton Friedman for public spankings, because they're (among a few choice others, including one 1980s U.S. president) a huge part of why things are the way they are right now.
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- bdw5204 3y agoThis really isn't that surprising. The FAANGs, including Apple, have committed serious anti-trust violations especially their hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years to prevent them from starting competitors then freezing hiring and laying off en masse once the interest rates started rising. They really should have to pay damages in the 6 to 7 figure range to each developer who's been looking for work in the mid 2022 to present tech recession that they caused via their monopoly power.
- shmatt 3y agoI don't know if it can be called "En Masse" if they STILL have more employees today than during the 0% interest rate years
- agos 3y agoit's en masse because it's way more than the baseline firing rate
- Rinzler89 3y agoHiring in that period was also way more than the baseline hiring rate. Some companies doubled their headcount in the span of ~2 years.
- johnnyanmac 3y agoAnd the revenue? Did it more than double? If so, they got their money's worth. It's a business and people have been numbed to companies being dishonest, but it's still a betrayal to hire so much, have them generate more money for your company, then drop them when convinient for the company.
- Rinzler89 3y ago>And the revenue? Did it more than double? If so, they got their money's worth. Did that revenue double because of the contributions of the extra headcount, or because of the temporary artificial economic situation of that period that doesn't apply anymore? From where I was standing, the revenue massively spiked during the pandemic way before the mass hirings even happened, let alone have those people become productive enough to have a positive impact on the bottom line. It was an open secret that a lot of newly hired people during that period were just keeping seats warm at home collecting nice compensations while playing videogames and doing next to no work (a lot of people were gloating about it on reddit and in my circles). Given that knowledge, was it any surprise for anyone that this was not a sustainable increase and a correction would follow at some point in the future? > but it's still a betrayal to hire so much, have them generate more money for your company, then drop them when convinient for the company. Agree, but most tech companies aren't there to provide social services, but to make a profit, as much of it as possible. If people want ethical employers that will never let them go, maybe they should give up on 400k+ TC big-tech jobs, and become school teachers, nurses or social workers instead for much less money. There are plenty of tech jobs out there that won't crash or won't let you go the moment the shit hits the fan, but they also won't pay anywhere big-tech TC. It's like gambling, big money also comes with big risks. Similarly to 2008, the ones with the biggest compensations tended to also be the first ones to be let go in the process of reducing operational costs. People aren't complaining about making bank, earning orders of magnitude above average pay during the good times, right? Then why do they expect sympathy when the charade that made them bank for a while comes crashing down?
- shmatt 3y agoIs there any doubt in the world that his current employer - the Redstone family, also have limits on what can be discussed and how on their channels?
- ceejayoz 3y agoLimits, sure. This particular limit? Apparently not.
- riffraff 3y agoThey probably do, but since he left Apple to go back to Comedy Central, it would appear the limits they have are not as bad. Judging by the sole existence of South Park on CC, it seems they put a fairly high bar on what they allowed.
- MatthiasPortzel 3y agoPrevious/dupes https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39903345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39903345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39909845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39909845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39911680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39911680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39914296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39914296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39912226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39912226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39905432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39905432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39904085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39904085
- zug_zug 3y agoThe interesting or perhaps scary question is how many times are news hosts told to drop a topic/story and they go along with it and the public never even knows a topic was dropped? It's worth asking how we can make our systems safer against large corporations shady influence.
- lolinder 3y ago> It's worth asking how we can make our systems safer against large corporations shady influence. Just to be clear, this story is about Apple exerting editorial control over content that they paid for, not about them trying to influence the content on the Daily Show. Anyone who's worked in media has stories of topics being suppressed by the owners, and that's definitely something that could stand to be more transparent, but this article isn't evidence of large corporations having any influence over unrelated media outlets.
- Workaccount2 3y agoI'm failing to see how that makes this any better.
- lolinder 3y agoYou don't see the difference between "knowing who pays for the content can help you understand the content's biases" and "large corporations exert editorial control over content that has no overt relationship to them"?
- pydry 3y agoTheyre both common and they're both bad.
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- vmfunction 3y agoThere are only 6 corps that controls most of the media outlet. Got hunch that Apple is NOT the only one dropping topics they don't like.
- lolinder 3y agoThe headline and article text make this confusing, but I'm pretty sure that Stewart is saying that Apple did block him from having her on the podcast that they sponsored, not that Apple expressed any opinion at all about him having her on the Daily Show. This is part of Apple's general heavy-handedness which caused him to quit, not an attempt to block Khan in other outlets.
- jacobsimon 3y agoNot sure why the article is calling it a podcast, I think they’re referring to his TV show on Apple TV.
- kalleboo 3y agoThere was a podcast that went along with the Apple TV show. He wanted to interview her on the podcast, not on the TV show. But the AI and China segments they blocked were for the TV show.
- jacobsimon 3y agoAh thx
- ametrau 3y agoWhat does Apple not want us to know about China and AI?
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- jaimex2 3y agoApple don't need to invade your privacy when they already control your whole world.
- jaimex2 3y agoShouldn't the title say 'Apple blocked her' They did succeed in pressuring the podcast to not have her on.
- mc32 3y agoApple censoring dissenntjng opinions is bad enough, imagine how bad it could get if the congress got its wish to be able to censor platforms altogether? He should have asked her opinion about that.
- consumer451 3y agoWhich legislation are you referring to?
- mc32 3y agoIn particular HR 7521, which in principle is to censor national security threats, but as every other bill like this, would find a way to apply to everyday Americans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Foreign_Adversary_Controlled_Applications_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Fore...
- 2big2fail_47 3y agoSuch a nice interview though. It's cool that something like this is happening on a mainstream platform like Jon Stwarts Daily Show
- coldpie 3y agoYeah. Lina Khan being appointed to the FTC is one of the most exciting things I've seen out of the federal government in my entire life. Anti-trust enforcement has been basically dead for longer than I've been alive, and her appointment sprung it back to life. Yes, there's been some stumbles there (the Activision merger suit was famously badly played), but you expect some missteps when resurrecting a dead agency with strong headwinds. If you're a fan of reigning in the big tech companies, the admin that appointed someone like Khan deserves another four years.
- lebuffon 3y agoThis book has an interesting insight on these matters. https://www.amazon.ca/Technofeudalism-Killed-Capitalism-Yanis-Varoufakis/dp/1685891241 https://www.amazon.ca/Technofeudalism-Killed-Capitalism-Yani... To me the 20th century leaders completely failed to understand the immensity of the changes brought by information tech and so failed to use the legal tools available. The anti-monopoly laws were only applied to Microsoft, as I recall, around the browser/Operating-System combination. That showed they had little understanding of the big picture IMHO. So they missed that one, imagine how badly they are going to miss the AI revolution...
- hasty_pudding 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoYou can't do religious war or race war on HN, nor post slurs. We've banned the account.
- hasty_pudding 3y ago[dead]
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoPublishers/sponsors having input into the message is common as dirt. Just famous names this time.
- knorker 3y agoI'm shocked, SHOCKED, that Apple is super aggressively swinging their hammer to protect their brand. During a technical talk at a nieche conference, a speaker had an apple logo on a slide, along other logos, to illustrate devices. An Apple employee stood up and shut down the whole presentation, demanding that the presenter, RIGHT NOW, edit the slides to remove the apple logo, or he would not "let" the presentation continue. Representatives from other companies did not care about their logo also being up there.
- shmatt 3y agoI mean, does the employee have any power over that room? Sounds like a classic instance for security to kick them out
- ghaff 3y agoWithout knowing more, it sounds like someone with no authority doing something really unprofessional. (Of course, could have been a VP on a power trip.) The correct behavior is to go up to the speaker after the talk and tell them that they really should verify that they have permission to use other company's logos before using them in presentations. (Large companies have multiple people who vet references and the use of logos in things like keynotes and customer presentations.)
- knorker 3y agoSure. Could have been a rogue jerk. But even then maybe it's not a coincidence that the rogue jerk is from Apple specifically.
- ghaff 3y agoIt wouldn't shock me if people at Apple--including those outside of marketing--are especially drilled in the importance of brand identity and associated do's and don'ts. And if you combine that with someone who doesn't have the best social skills I can absolutely see something like this happening.
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- edge17 3y agoThese comments make it sound like Jon Stewart himself wields no power. He commands an audience he can take to any platform he wants. It just looks like he took a liking to the pot of money Apple put in front of him.You can't really make the argument that Apple is the only game in town for Jon Stewart. Free speech laws protect against government supression of speech, not corporations.
- ametrau 3y ago> Free speech laws protect against government supression of speech, not corporations Yeah we know they can do it. The extremely obvious point is that they should not.
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39903345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39903345
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoMeawhile it's Apple's "competitors" that are in the FTC's crosshairs. Arguably that makes this just a little more interesting. To be blunt, in keeping Khan off a podcast with a large audience, Apple appears to be doing someone else a favour.
- jfil 3y agoThat's how cartels and collusion work. Youre doing someone else a favour - a favour for that very someone you should be competing against.