Biden Taps Another Big Tech Trustbuster (politico.com) 73
President Joe Biden has decided to nominate Lina Khan, a Columbia University legal scholar championed by anti-Big Tech activists, to the Federal Trade Commission. From a report: Along with the recent hiring of Tim Wu as an economic adviser inside the White House -- also first reported in Playbook -- the addition of Khan signals that Biden is poised to pursue an aggressive regulatory agenda when it comes to Amazon, Google, Facebook and other tech giants. An FBI agent this week was making calls to Khan's associates for her background check, the final part of the vetting process before a major administration job is officially announced. Sources confirmed Khan is headed to the FTC if she survives Senate confirmation. The addition of Khan and Wu represents a massive shift in philosophy away from the era of Barack Obama, who proudly forged an alliance between the Democratic Party and Big Tech.
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"C Compiler" you thick, sexist, racist turd.
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Either way, congratulations on the confusion.
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We can tell you are a thick, sexist, racist turd who doesn't understand basic computer science concepts.
So congratulations on being clear about that.
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Tokens in the context of a C compiler refer to lexical tokens collected during lexical analysis.
The sentence "more tokens than a C compiler" is nonsensical, as a C compiler doesn't have "tokens".
Your source is parsed into tokens by a lexical analyzer and fed to a compiler.
Are we talking about the amount of tokens recognized by a C compiler? Well then that's even more ridiculous,
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What was confusing was your nonsensical "tokenization of C isn't any more "token" heavy than that of a config file".
And your idea that a "config file" is some sort of defined thing.
And you're a rude wanker.
Maybe you are paid more than me.
But you're not worth it.
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What was confusing was your nonsensical "tokenization of C isn't any more "token" heavy than that of a config file".
That's because you're ignorant.
And your idea that a "config file" is some sort of defined thing.
That's precisely the point, when a token literally means a lexical fragment that's recognized by some parser.
And you're a rude wanker.
Yes, I am.
But you're not worth it.
You've done little to indicate that.
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Boasting about your income and then replying with "You're ignorant", "that's the point", show that you know you can no longer defend the nonsense you are spouting.
Time to give that job to a token who "deserves" it, ignoramus.
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Boasting about your income and then replying with "You're ignorant", "that's the point"
Does somebody need a reading lesson?
My boast was in response to:
We can tell you are a thick, sexist, racist turd who doesn't understand basic computer science concepts.
So let's apply that comment to your criticism of me, and tell me how my response wasn't appropriate.
In other words, nice try dumbfuck. But do try harder next time.
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Oh, and - even though it pales into insignificance given the other drivel you spout - you should now try and google how many tokens C has compared to HTML.
Maybe it's time to give your overpaying job to someone picked on the basis of their genitalia or skin color, you sexist, racist shitbag.
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Troll harder, shitstain.
How the fuck is any kind of discourse supposed to happen when you gaslight fucking everything.
Keep the static bouncing between your 4 brain cells to yourself.
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1 name: Tara Reade. Believe all women, regardless of their merit, that was the slogan with Kavanaugh. Why do you change your standards?
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Why do you change your standards?
I didn't. You tried to re-define the word rape.
He's accused of sexual assault.
I consider her claim to have merit.
Biden has claimed it did not happen.
I don't know who to believe.
Regarding Kavanaugh, I was entirely willing to put him in the same boat: The claim against her seems credible, but there's no evidence, and Kavanaugh didn't have a record of being a rapist.
But then there was his defense in the Senate. After that, he came off as the least credible human alive.
But even with that decision made,
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Do we really have to play the dictionary game? This is low effort even for an AC
MW
5: SELECT, DESIGNATE
was tapped for police commissioner
specifically : to elect to membership (as in a fraternity)
Oxford
6[transitive, usually passive]
tap somebody (North American English) to choose somebody to do a particular job
Richards has been tapped to replace the retiring chairperson.
Minimal Qualifications (Score:1, Insightful)
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I thought you Trump Fans wanted all the Washington Insiders (AKA People with Experience) out?
Oh wait, it is because the other guy did it, so now it is not a good idea.
Being an academic in a particular field doesn't mean lack of experience or skill. It means that they spent more time thinking about the problem from different angles than most people do. Also if you work in the Corporate world, do all your Bosses and CEO's... How many of them do you really look up to? (vs just suck up to them to keep your job
Re: Minimal Qualifications (Score:1)
Being an academic in a particular field doesn't mean lack of experience
Yes it does. If they have no experience, save for what they learned in college, then they're definitely inexperienced. I learned so much more actually on the job than I did in college, all academic understanding really does is give you the basics, no matter how long you've been studying it.
This is exactly why, for example, they make doctors complete residency before they can practice. No amount of lectures or books is sufficient.
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Here's his choices, pick an academic with little to no industry experience but a demonstrated ability to learn or pick a revolving door regulator who has a cushy chair waiting in someone's executive suite if she/he does a "good job" for their future employer.
Meanwhile, I notice the doublespeak. Trump gets the anti-trust ball rolling but the same sort of action by Biden is "interference"?
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This is nothing more than an overt message to "big tech" letting them know that they need to start donating to the right people or it will be curtains for them and their free enterprising methods. Note that I'm no apologist for "big tech". But I do admire them for making billions from simply keeping track of information.
You think they donated to Trump? I'm not sure this is going to further co-opt them into the DNC agenda.
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Agreed. This means nothing. Big tech can ruin you almost as quickly and completely as the IC.
Natural monopolies are tolerable so long as they satisfy their constituents, and do not unfairly prevent competition, 'unfairly' being an imprecise term. I'm guessing we will rarely catch them unfairly preventing competition, because, simply buying that upstart is seen as a win for the beginner. And these platforms can bring pressure to bear in many ways - influence service providers, advertisers, etc, all of which
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"This is nothing more than an overt message to "big tech" letting them know that they need to start donating to the right people...."
Your knee-jerk cynicism is *sometimes* called for, but usually it's just a lazy, thought-terminating, valueless exercise.
It seems like you're proposing a no-win situation: appoint someone to the post who is an anti-monopolist as a signal for the tech companies to donate to the right people so that they don't actually effect any change; OR, appoint a business-as-usual stooge so
I'm cynical about it (Score:2)
appoint a business-as-usual stooge so that there is--wait for it--no change.
I am pretty cynical about it. Big tech has traditionally stayed out of politics, particularly with lobbying. Trump talked big, but really did nothing because he knew that Jack Dorsey could unilaterally delete his account and destroy his most powerful tool for intimidating the rest of the GOP and thrilling his base. Biden has never really done anything of substance. I think if he was truly concerned about Big Tech, he would outline very specific concerns and talk about addressing them one by one.
Big
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Agreed. "Donations" is a big game, and Big Tech has the largest valuations displacing banks, oil, telecom, but still don't do as much "contributions" as expected from other large industries.
Look at Microsoft and anti-trust. They started the "investigation" in 1993. By the time it was finished, all the competitors were extinguished, Netscape was no more, but only a minor settle was reached in 2001.
Something else also happened. Microsoft had started lobbying in late 1990s, only 3 years before the settlement w
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They don't have to contribute money. They have something much more valuable. And they use it.
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The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any. —Hannah Arendt
The end product of authoritarian education is a cynicism so extreme it is functionally equivalent to blind faith. If your choices don't matter, then political affiliation becomes like sports fandom. You don't evaluate a slate of sports teams and pick the one who is best for you; you are given a team to root for and that shapes your perception of reality in, say, a penalty ca
Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a LOT of companies that need to be busted up and plenty more that need to be regulated. I certainly hope Biden is going to hire someone good to head the FTC and kick some ass.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Informative)
There are a LOT of companies that need to be busted up and plenty more that need to be regulated. I certainly hope Biden is going to hire someone good to head the FTC and kick some ass.
A LOT of "those" companies, make up the Donor Class.
Now you know how it's gotten this bad, and why nothing will fundamentally change.
And that's a Biden promise.
Regulation (Score:2)
the addition of Khan signals that Biden is poised to pursue an aggressive regulatory agenda when it comes to Amazon, Google, Facebook and other tech giants
What regulatory agenda would cover:
Amazon: Provides online shopping, streaming video, and cloud services
Google: Search and and advertising, cloud applications and services, free cell phone OSes
Facebook: Social media
There is almost no overlap in those business models, besides Google and Amazon's cloud offerings. What new regulations would cover all of these business activities? This is like saying we need to regulate Sysco, McDonald's and Budweiser. Beyond all selling food and beverages, there isn't a lot of
Re:Regulation (Score:5, Insightful)
There is almost no overlap in those business models, besides Google and Amazon's cloud offerings. What new regulations would cover all of these business activities?
Antitrust.
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Think of it this way, while they weren't around at the same time, it's like saying Standard Oil and "Ma Bell" didn't need any regulation because their business models didn't overlap with each other.
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Antitrust would be nice, but the real agenda is censorship.
Breaking up the big social platforms is not in Democrats' interests, since that would allow:
1. More platforms to the right of the Democrats to flourish, and
2. Dispersal makes it far harder to control the whole space. Autocrats like dealing with other autocrats, not "a marketplace of ideas."
Re:Regulation (Score:5, Insightful)
Right leaning platforms asking for government intervention is the funniest thing I’ve read today. Help we’re wildly unpopular and nobody will do business with us, please government save us!
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Right leaning platforms asking for government intervention is the funniest thing I’ve read today. Help we’re wildly unpopular and nobody will do business with us, please government save us!
I wonder what funny things you haven't read about today, because the master lawnskeepers have determined what is and isn't allowed on the planet's turf?
No matter what side you lean towards, this argument gets real stupid, real quick. No, it won't be "funny" when the shoe is on the other foot. It will be as sad and pathetic as watching any progressive try and make progress happen. Those that assume unpopular ideas are automatically wrong, tend to confirm why many popular ideas, are fucking asinine.
And if
Re: Regulation (Score:2)
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There is almost no overlap in those business models, besides Google and Amazon's cloud offerings.
Keep reading until it clicks: Biden Taps Another Big Tech Trustbuster
Will the DOJ follow through and pull out their antitrust guns? Who knows. But they're posturing for it, and that's good. Those laws exist for a reason.
Big Tech Grew bigger but never grown up. (Score:2)
Back in the Obama Days these Big Tech Companies pushing User Generated Content was a freeing experience. Where information can be spread without big media companies sitting in a board room deciding if your content was worthy to be watched or just too dull or unpolished to be worth the time slot.
This was a really good thing, events that would had been blocked out because it wasn't worthy to be put on the news stations, or would conflict with their sponsors. Eg Here is a story about Company A destroying the
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Your premise is un-American. I believe we have already decided that "misinformation" is simply something the other side disagrees with, in most cases. We are allowed, for now, our opinion. Unless your plan is to deem all Americans too stupid to make up their own minds about issues, then we have lost all that we have worked for.
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As the person you responded to said, the problem isn't you and your stupid fucking opinion. It's the people who are driving your opinion, using you as a little fucking lemming to their ends.
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So any issue that you deem misinformation must either be a plot organized by some entity or stupid? And you are happy to call anyone with an opinion you disagree with stupid. Based on your response to my opinion, I can see that you too have sipped on some Kool-Aid at one point or another.
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So any issue that you deem misinformation must either be a plot organized by some entity or stupid?
Of course not.
Are you denying that such plots exist however? Because there's overwhelming evidence of it, including but limited to the official opinions of our intelligence services.
And you are happy to call anyone with an opinion you disagree with stupid.
Depends on the opinion.
There are many opinions I disagree with that aren't stupid. Trying to fit your stupid opinions in there by default is ridiculous.
Based on your response to my opinion, I can see that you too have sipped on some Kool-Aid at one point or another.
See? That's an example of a stupid fucking opinion.
There is a difference between misinformation and an opinion. You attempting to frame them as the same thing is a very sad a
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"Are you denying that such plots exist however? Because there's overwhelming evidence of it, including but limited to the official opinions of our intelligence services."
You mean like election tampering? I'm not denying that happened. Whether it swayed the election is anyone's guess at this point.
Your logic is flawed because as soon as someone says anything, it's an opinion. The car is red. That's an opinion and if you talk to an artist he may correct you with "no it's crimson". So depending on who's saying
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Maybe you've decided that ""misinformation" is simply something the other side disagrees with", but I haven't. I've seen clear evidence that what passes for 'misinformation' is the deliberate effort to deceive.
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I have seen both truth and lies. I have seen enough to know that when politicians and big business begin to talk about censorship - let's call it what it is - we are going to lose.
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Nobody censored Trump in the least. There is a dedicated room in his house for talking to the media. He could have had it filled to capacity in minutes. He rarely used it though. There is a dedicated website just for the administration and he never used that either. He liked Twitter because it was short and one way as he never had to reply to questions. Trump censored himself by spouting misinformation and lies. And yes private platforms can choose what is said.
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I suspect you're just yet another fucking moron who thinks they're superior because they're from some part of the Old World.
Still a little butthurt that you lost all of your colonial possessions perhaps.
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I'm not getting involved in divisive USian politics and propaganda.
Making the first post of this thread, then multiple replies, is an odd way of "not getting involved".
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If explaining why you made that comment is "getting invovled" then you already did get involved by making the comment in the first place.
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And the Fine People Hoax is proof that lies and disinformation is common on Twitter, as one example, and if you deny that hoax, you're not thinking.
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Exactly what did Biden do to encourage Trump being de-platformed? Other than set a counter-example by being the adult in the room?
KHANNNNN! (Score:1)
Finally! (Score:2)
It took this long to find the post I was looking for. What’s happened to you, Slashdot?
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Re:Nancy, where are you? (Score:2)
“Where are you, Nancy?
Tell me hat to do!
I will do anything!”
"This is my son, Beau Biden"
Don't ask why the emperor is undressed, just play along.
People like stuff that just works (Score:2)
It is a burden of significant extra work and uncertainty and likely failure, to have to know which cluster of little tech services would work together seamlessly for me in the absence of a vertically integrated goods-supply-hub like Amazon.
Analogously, how would I quickly go to a single online/app place to communicate in rich-media conversatio
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They need to propose specific rigid strong-interoperability standards
This.
The car industry works because all cars can drive on all roads. Because there are standards in place about size, wheel sizes and types, controls, lights and dozens of other things.
We have the technology for systems to inter-operate. We use it in a few places - like the Web and E-Mail - though even there we've seen attempts by dominant companies to poison the waters with proprietary protocols.
There's not technological reason why two social media sites can't work together or why messages can't be sent ac
Yet big tech supported Dems (Score:1)
Why did Big Tech support the Democrats when there were obvious clues that the Democrats would clamp down on them? I'm a foreigner with not much interest in politics of the U.S. or of even my own country, but I thought this was clear.
So if it wasn't self interest, what was it? Altruism seems unlikely. Perhaps Big Tech was worried that most of their employees were Den aligned and thought that supporting Republicans would cause major labour problems?