4 ms·

I'd like to look at this from a different angle. Since Google is an established search player, and that the company has made many public statements on the symb

I'd like to look at this from a different angle. Since Google is an established search player, and that the company has made many public statements on the symbiotic relationship between them and publishers, this means the FTC complaint is likely to go through. Given the current US admin, I also assume they'd pursue some action, either combined with the antitrust efforts, or through a separate legal action as it nicely dovetails with the various accusations of "censorship" that they have. This means Google would be forced to reduce their AI offerings, and the website publishers in question get the thing that they were looking for. Meanwhile, new search entrants such as OpenAI/Perplexity, etc. are "allowed" to implement the same things that said publishers are opposed to, because of their smaller size and different perceptions, and the lack of similar statements. Now, because LLMs are rapidly replacing most search engine uses (I've seen this firsthand while travelling on public transport that users in my country first default to ChatGPT etc.), this would mean Google is slowly replaced in an indirect way, not because they could not innovate but because they were not allowed to. The implications of this are very interesting to me; it means that a corporation should rarely make any statements that have the tiniest chance of creating obligations (which is somewhat similar to Everything is Securities Fraud[1]) and corporate displacement happens not because companies out-innovate each other because the incumbent can do so too, but because legal obligations constrain their actions which ultimately lead to their death (somewhat similar to Planck's principle[2]). [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everything-everywhere-is-securities-fraud https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle

brookst 1y ago
I don’t get this take at all. The current administration uses bad faith claims of censorship to bully companies into advantaging speech they like (anti-science, anti-trans, anti-democracy, etc). They haven’t shown any interest in actual freedom of speech. And OP’s use of “censorship” is pretty disingenuous; there is no claim that any free speech topic is in the table. No viewpoint is suppressed because no viewpoint is asserted. It’s simple commercial lead gen. Google might be engaging in anticompetitive behavior, but this administration is very much a “might makes right” operation, and it’s hard to imagine them siding with a small player with no conservative bona fides and presumably no money to pay to play. The only way I could imagine OP getting any relief would be to go full MAGA, list a bunch of travel options for hunting gays or whatever, donate at least a million dollars to Trump’s personal coffers, and then tell and scream about oppression of conservatives. A simple “Walmart thanks suppliers for the market information but will only sell store brand products” case seems incredibly unlikely to get any traction at all.

brookst 1y ago

I don’t get this take at all. The current administration uses bad faith claims of censorship to bully companies into advantaging speech they like (anti-science, anti-trans, anti-democracy, etc). They haven’t shown any interest in actual freedom of speech. And OP’s use of “censorship” is pretty disingenuous; there is no claim that any free speech topic is in the table. No viewpoint is suppressed because no viewpoint is asserted. It’s simple commercial lead gen. Google might be engaging in anticompetitive behavior, but this administration is very much a “might makes right” operation, and it’s hard to imagine them siding with a small player with no conservative bona fides and presumably no money to pay to play. The only way I could imagine OP getting any relief would be to go full MAGA, list a bunch of travel options for hunting gays or whatever, donate at least a million dollars to Trump’s personal coffers, and then tell and scream about oppression of conservatives. A simple “Walmart thanks suppliers for the market information but will only sell store brand products” case seems incredibly unlikely to get any traction at all.