Big Tech CEOs Told 'Time For Self-Regulation is Over' By US Lawmakers (reuters.com) 108
The chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter faced criticism from U.S. lawmakers on Thursday about their approaches to extremism and misinformation in their first appearances before Congress since pro-Trump rioters assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. From a report: "We fled as a mob desecrated the Capitol, the House floor, and our democratic process," said Democratic Representative Mike Doyle. "That attack, and the movement that motivated it, started and was nourished on your platforms," he added. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said there was content related to the riot on its platforms but, when asked if the company bore responsibility for the event, he said the company's responsibility was to "build effective systems."
"We did our part to secure the integrity of the election, and then on Jan. 6, President Trump gave a speech rejecting the results and calling on people to fight," he said. He argued that polarization in the country was due to the political and media environment. Former President Donald Trump was banned by Twitter over inciting violence around Jan. 6, while Facebook has asked its independent oversight board to rule on whether to bar him permanently. He is still suspended from YouTube. The hearing was virtual but advocacy group SumOfUs erected cut-outs of Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google parent Alphabet; and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey dressed as Jan. 6 rioters on the National Mall near the Capitol. One showed Zuckerberg as the "QAnon Shaman," a shirtless rioter wearing horns. Lawmakers speaking at the joint hearing, held by two subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, also slammed the companies over the proliferation of COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation and raised concerns about the impact of social media on children's mental health.
"We did our part to secure the integrity of the election, and then on Jan. 6, President Trump gave a speech rejecting the results and calling on people to fight," he said. He argued that polarization in the country was due to the political and media environment. Former President Donald Trump was banned by Twitter over inciting violence around Jan. 6, while Facebook has asked its independent oversight board to rule on whether to bar him permanently. He is still suspended from YouTube. The hearing was virtual but advocacy group SumOfUs erected cut-outs of Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google parent Alphabet; and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey dressed as Jan. 6 rioters on the National Mall near the Capitol. One showed Zuckerberg as the "QAnon Shaman," a shirtless rioter wearing horns. Lawmakers speaking at the joint hearing, held by two subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, also slammed the companies over the proliferation of COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation and raised concerns about the impact of social media on children's mental health.
How about stopping the bribes? (Score:5, Interesting)
Our government officials ought not be taking envelopes full of cash from these same companies before every congressional hearing.
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Re:How about stopping the bribes? (Score:5, Insightful)
But the (GOP packed) court ruled that bribery is "free speech".
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The Citizens United ruling permits effectively unlimited spending on political advertising by outside groups. Why maybe not a "bag a cash" per se, it's essentially the same thing to a politician.
You're right, but that's not the whole issue... (Score:3)
Citizens United is effectively bribery, as are all campaign contributions.
Sadly, human beings are fallible and corruptible, and therefore ANYTHING of value becomes a potential bribe, and that even includes "government funding" (which would actually be taxpayer money allocated by unelected elements of the bureaucracy who would become some of the most powerful people on Earth.
The thing I object to in people who fixate on Citizens United is that I have heard many of them complain about big corporate money in
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Unions are shrinking while inequality is growing. If you want to argue for taking ALL big money out of politics, then please do.
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You, in fact, are full of corporate-wing BULLSHIT.
"I have never met one who opposed the unlimited corporate money that poured into campiagns before Citizens United - which was from INCORPORATED labor unions."
FACT, that no reporter has ever bothered to look up, and none of your masters want you to think about: About '15 or so, I went to the IRS website, and, including making a call, looked up the actual data. There are about 6600 "labor organizations" in the US - not all are unions. Their total worth, accord
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The Citizens United verdict basically states that bribery is a First Amendment protected free speech act. In fact, some of the more notorious people arrested for it were pardoned last year.
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Spare Us (Score:4, Insightful)
The chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter faced criticism from U.S. lawmakers on Thursday about their approaches to extremism and misinformation in their first appearances before Congress since pro-Trump rioters assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
We watched the country burned and looted all last year, plenty of which was planned on Big Tech, so spare us your crocodile tears over riots.
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excuse me sir... but what? wtf is a boogaloo??? and why are you so bent out of shape about them?
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Re: Spare Us (Score:3)
Boogaloo Bois do not want to start a race war, there are various black and Hispanic and Asians in the movement. Boogaloo comes from the movie breaking 2: electric boogaloo which got reviews describing it as the action and overall plot being exactly the same as the first movie. Bringing that to the civil war, it would become another fight about states rights under the guise of something not race but closely related... maybe class inequality?
And I am not trying to trivialize slavery nor the role it played i
Re:Spare Us (Score:4, Insightful)
It's always really weird to see someone use a word wrong with complete confidence.
The boog is a meme started in the gun community about "civil war 2 electric booglaoo" what would presumably happen if widespread gun confiscation were ever attempted. Often paired with jokes like Boombas, a roomba with a claymore attached. Gasoline filled sprinkler systems. And decoy stuffed dogs filled with tannerite to fool ATF agents who stereotypically murder people's dogs as a compulsion. The memes started awhile back on /k/ and eventually spread to other online gun communities. There is very little overlap oath keepers and three percenters. Their demographics are mostly boomer whereas the boog is a millennial meme.
There is no organization or group called the boogaloo bois. Membership is impossible because there is nothing to join. Its a meme and one the conspiracy theory boomers at the capitol probably didn't understand. The only time you'll see a large mass of people in public talk about the boog is at a pro 2A protest and it will consist of spicy morale patches and jokes.
TLDR its the same thing as the okay sign, another 4chan meme that got sjws who are illiterate to internet culture outside of tumblr pearl clutching again.
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TLDR its the same thing as the okay sign, another 4chan meme that got sjws who are illiterate to internet culture outside of tumblr pearl clutching again.
It's all memes and fun, until one of the Boogaloo bois kills a Federal officer and ambushes cops.
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It's all memes and fun, until one of the Boogaloo bois kills a Federal officer and ambushes cops.
Is Deonte Lee Murray [apnews.com] one of your "Boogaloo bois" that ambushes cops? Or are you referring to Robert Williams [go.com]. Or the shoplifter suspect Jeffrey Wittstruck [ksnblocal4.com] who shot a cop in the face during questioning? Did you mean Nika Nicole Holbert [wsbtv.com] who pulled a gun and shot a cop point blank when he pulled over her Camaro? I could post hundreds of these but I limited to a few from 2020.
Those Boogaloos need to step up their game if they are going to compete in the big leagues.
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I'm not actually sure who or what you may be referring to, but again there is no such thing as a boogaloo boy. Just because a criminal committed a crime and also happened to like a given meme does not mean that there is some hidden conspiracy tied to it. For anyone in the gun community who is even vaguely aware of the current culture its immediately apparent that anyone who says "boogaloo boy" isn't familiar with the actual meme. Its a shibboleth faux pas comparable to the Steve Buscemi hello fellow kids me
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I'm not actually sure who or what you may be referring to, but again there is no such thing as a boogaloo boy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] I don't fucking care about your 4chan obsession with memes, when in real-world Boogaloo bois are killing people.
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I'm not obsessed but whatever dude. You're clearly beyond the point of civil reasoning if you are blaming an entire community of people for the actions of two criminals. But hey, there has been a lot of that going around lately so I shouldn't be surprised.
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Speaking of right-wing stochastic terrorists: Having d
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A distributed network of terrorists who goose step in lockstep with each other is still a group. You can argue they aren't an organized group, but they form little terror cells and plan together. You can argue they aren't out to start a civil / race war, but that would be more believable if they weren't terrorists executing cops / burning down police stations / prepping molotov's to attack cops at a different protest / et al. so they can kick one off.
Do you actually have any proof of that existing? Sounds like a conspiracy theory fantasy to me. Actually, it sounds like the mirror image of what I hear a lot of people too far into the right wing deep end say. To them there are cells of antifa commie terrorists waiting to kick off an uprising.
The only real proof I've seen in the last year indicates that there are a lot of scared and pissed off people in a country with deeper political divisions than we've had in a long time and its only made worse by being
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Do you actually have any proof of that existing? Sounds like a conspiracy theory fantasy to me. Actually, it sounds like the mirror image of what I hear a lot of people too far into the right wing deep end say. To them there are cells of antifa commie terrorists waiting to kick off an uprising.
The only real proof I've seen in the last year indicates that there are a lot of scared and pissed off people in a country with deeper political divisions than we've had in a long time and its only made worse by being couped up inside all year long.
January 6th, and some of the charging documents showing the groups coordinating, is the proof sweets. I know, I know, it doesn't fit the average right-wing talking point that they were all hugging the cops. All those people you see committing violent acts are obviously ANTIFA that embedded themselves into those noble right-wing movements of people that would never use violence, blah blah blah. What a load of horse shiat. You are willfully blind because you don't want to see. I can criticize BLM all day and
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This is so utterly wrong as to be inexcusable. Boogaloo is a /k/ meme about the second civil war starting with gun confiscation. Anybody who has even a passing reference with /k/ would know this. Where the hell did you get your fantasy version from?
Re:Spare Me from idiocy (Score:2)
If you do a Venn diagram of derpers, and I know more than a few of these a$$holes, it's nearly identical circles. Beyond personal experience dealing with these groups there's more to support that truth. I guess you're also going to say that the right-wing terrorists didn't point guns at cops in Nevada, or that they didn't have weapons at Malheur. They're all violent little children living the
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interesting, i've never heard this term before and seeing the replies below makes me more likely to think the commenters are insane and in need of mental help than speaking truthfully about anything going on in this world... but what do i know, this world is long gone.
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MSM LIES and lies a whole damn lot. The electric boogaloo is the original source. It is more about music than anything else and as corruption amongst the elite became far more visible and ignored by the justice system, elements morphed into political action. The distortion by the establishment, attack any group that threatens the existing political corruption. Lie about it, exaggerate it, attack it, use it to generate fear in the public to push more authoritarian actions to ensure the existing corrupt estab
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Yes, the people who went to those protests with the express intent to cause mayhem in order to make the protestors look bad definitely planned their actions on social media, just as the insurrectionists did.
The difference is that the majority of people who joined the insurrection were actual trump supporters.
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Maybe you're watching the wrong news.
https://time.com/5886348/repor... [time.com]
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NOW Math, specifically percentages there of, matters? Consistently inconsistent, I'll tell ya. But I digress, let's say that I buy this,;that ONLY "7%" of BLM protests were violent, that 7% burned entire cities to the ground. They were COINTELPRO'd into razing their own neighborhoods which they then took as an opportunity to steal from each other. If you honestly can't see how violent rioting, race based random assaults and indiscriminate looting over a crackhead dying of a heart attack is worse then some t
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I might be confused here so maybe you can help straighten things out. Is the penalty for passing a fake $20 bill death, and if so why were the police tasked with carrying out the sentence and not the court?
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Here's what actually happened:
1: dude gets caught passing fake bill
2: cops are called
3: cops show up
4: suspect is detained
5: suspect is freaking out
6: suspect is forced to ground
7: police kneel on his neck for 8+ minutes
8: video shows suspect dies after 6
Those are indisputable facts.
Here's the rest people don't like to hear:
1: autopsy showed no damage to suspect neck, spine, throat, etc
2: drug tests showed toxic levels in suspect blood
3: suspect died of drug overdose
People rarely like to be lied to, or treated as idiots.
The autopsy simply does not suppose (sic) those statements. Go look up his toxicology report post-mortem. The guy's blood stream was a veritable pharmacy factory.
There were in fact two autopsies performed on him. The first cited "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression" as the cause of death, the second "asphyxiation from sustained pressure."
Now, to your specific claim. Unfortunately the full autopsy report doesn't seem to be available anymore, but it's being reported that "the county said that fentanyl and methamphetamine use were among 'significant condition
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The answer no one wants to acknowledge is to de-commodify news media.
What drives these decisions by media enterprises is not "bias" as many like to presume (although that plays a part) it's sensationalism, conflict and laziness.
As John Stewart put it "These 24 hour news networks and built for one thing and that is 9/11. In the absence of that type of gigantic news event they are not just going to say there's nothing that urgent or important happening today, so we are just going to gin up more conflict and
The country burned and looted on the Capitol (Score:2)
Get real.
Sure, it was a bad thing, and a few people got killed. But if you want to see a country burned and looted go to Myanmar, or Venezuela. It the greater scheme of things this was a minor event. And no, for all his many sins, Trump did not tell people to attack the Capitol.
However, once the Democrats set up their Ministry of Truth, I am quite certain that the next Republican president will be quite happy to run it, to get rid of all that fake news that Trump complained about.
Re:Spare Us (Score:4, Informative)
Without question one of the better and most "neutral" news outlets we have in this country is NPR, which while it shows its "bias" here and there really goes out of it's way to bring both sides of an issue to the table and yet they are forever in the crosshairs for Republican lawmakers to be de-funded, even though those calls will only force them to forgo those aspects of neutrality as they have to scrape for dollars to keep operating.
I'll question it a bit. Yes, the literal news segments, where they say what happened, where, and when...those are fairly neutral and I appreciate them. However, the number of such segments I actually hear on my local NPR station are few and far between.
The rest of the time, it's nowhere near neutral. I'll hear a half hour segment of some author (who invariably missed their class on giving a summary) pimping their new book about how X is ludicrously racist and if you ever liked or appreciated that thing you're also racist, how societal issue Y can only be solved by even more laws or taxes (and no other possible solution could be found that wasn't classist...or also-racist), and I swear the only time there was a 90 second duration of time where Trump wasn't personally being blamed for something between late-2015 and February 2021 was during donation season where they spent five minutes at a clip trying to convince listeners that NPR was more necessary than voting itself to save America.
I'm no fan of Trump or his presidency, but I stopped even attempting to listen to NPR because I'd have to listen to three hours of how Trump and his trillions of white supremacists were going to kidnap my children and injure my puppies in order to get the ten minutes of actual-news I was listening for. It's possible I'm just unlucky, but I simply ran out of patience with them.
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24 hour news is only a part of the news media. Lots of newspapers still exist, in print and online, and are not like the 24 hour news channels.
Their bias is deliberate. The owners want to send a certain message, give people a certain impression of events.
The news cycle and sensationalism is a big problem, but it's not the biggest one.
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NOW Math, specifically percentages there of, matters? Consistently inconsistent, I'll tell ya. But I digress, let's say that I buy this,;that ONLY "7%" of BLM protests were violent, that 7% burned entire cities to the ground.
Can you list the two or more ENTIRE CITIES that were burned to the ground? The news apparently didn't cross the Atlantic.
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"You're not doing enough to suppress political speech we disagree with!" shouted one Democratic Congressman, "How do you expect us to stay in power permanently if people are allowed to communicate wrongthink? Don't you realize the 2022 elections are right around the corner? If you can't get better at quashing our political opponents, we'll force you to instead!"
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Apparently, you're equating a riot in Seattle to a presidentially-ordered right-wing coup attempt in our Capital. Yes it was a COUP ATTEMPT. Let's not put any lipstick on a pig here. The riot in Seattle was crappy and the local government response was incredibly limp in dealing with it, but compared to a full-out coup attempt? There's no equivalency. The thing in DC was a strike right at the heart of our democracy, and the right-wing, the conservatives and the GO
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presidentially-ordered right-wing coup attempt
Your investigation to the facts are disingenuous at best. Bring receipts if you claim Mr. Orange Man incited a literal "coup". The blue-anons were so tinfoil hat about a possible coup they were spreading misinformation about it for months.
Trump had been offering to bring in the National Guard in for weeks. DC repeatedly declined, even as short as a couple days before the 6th. They were worried troops there were part of his "coup" master plan. If he had a plan at all it was to put a little bit of pressu
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Maybe you truly believe that he was sincere about that last part. If you do, you're one of the 3 people on the planet. For the rest of humanity, we recognize that Trump was basically doing the same thing that Putin does when he wishes Biden "good health". It'
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Is that what you have? Your echo chamber in a frenzy over one guy, "umbrella man" from nine months ago? No arrest. No conviction. No proof. Just the usual suspects NPR CNN et al. trying to pin everything on one white guy?
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Just because they read it on a web site doesn't make it false, either. Put away the tin foil.
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I don't need articles from the media, mainstream or otherwise. I have personal experience. I used to be part of the protest scene. (Yeah yeah... grief me if you want. But we were all in our early 20s at some point. And the youthful silliness I bought into was that if I cared enough, and was loud and obnoxious enough about it, I could save the world.). And I call it a scene very intentionally; because that's all it really is. Just like you have ravers, goths, emo kids, punk rockers, metalheads, skaters
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The BLM organization was hijacked from it's original mission and used as a money funnel straight into DNC-sponsored candidates and causes. The Marxist founders were OK with this because it meant they got plenty of funds to grift for themselves (so much for rejecting Capitalism, lol). Anyone who cannot see this is simply a brainwashed muppet who will believe whatever CNN/MSNBC tells them to believe.
They tried to play both sides (Score:3)
The time of playing both sides is over... hopefully.
Re:They tried to play both sides (Score:5, Interesting)
It won't be over because it can't be over when one side has adjusted their entire political philosophy around "owning" the other side.
If Democrats are getting on board with regulations you will start to see a steady push of conservatives defending Facebook, Twitter et-al, in a complete turnaround of their position mere months ago since they cannot allow themselves to be on the same side, at any time, for any thing.
When you've whipped up your voter base to look at once side as un-redeemable evil villains you've closed the doors of compromise. Now, I will absolutely bite the both-sides bullet and admit Democrats have done the same thing, but degrees and severity matter in the real world and in this case the difference is stark and apparent.
Knocking down the big corporate players in all markets would be great and we should all be able to agree on that. Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Walmart, Microsoft, Visa, hell the entire banking and financial sector. All should be under scrutiny and that should be something with a majority of any party.
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you will start to see a steady push of conservatives defending Facebook, Twitter et-al, in a complete turnaround
We might also see them simply say "It's not enough so let's just do nothing at all" which is equally ridiculous.
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It won't be over because it can't be over when one side has adjusted their entire political philosophy around "owning" the other side.
True. It's every bit a political Civil War.
If Democrats are getting on board with regulations you will start to see a steady push of conservatives defending Facebook, Twitter et-al, in a complete turnaround of their position mere months ago since they cannot allow themselves to be on the same side, at any time, for any thing.
That being said, if we actually do ever find our lawmakers aligned on an issue, then you better believe it's that fucking bad.
Watch social media be one of those issues.
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When you've whipped up your voter base to look at once side as un-redeemable evil villains you've closed the doors of compromise. Now, I will absolutely bite the both-sides bullet and admit Democrats have done the same thing, but degrees and severity matter in the real world and in this case the difference is stark and apparent.
It sounds likely that you are the victim of a party that whipped you up to hate the other side, or at least think they are worse.
Re: They tried to play both sides (Score:2)
Wow, really cut through my arguments with that insight.
Nobody needs to "hate" conservatives and Republicans to plainly see they have no ideas, policies or solutions. They have become purely reactionary and the right wing media apparatus drives a feedback loop that has led them essentially into American fascism even if they they never say the word.
While the Democrats are shit everything bad you could say about them Republicans do and do it worse. I also don't think a large amount of Democrats think Republi
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While the Democrats are shit everything bad you could say about them Republicans do and do it worse.
This is the part you haven't demonstrated.
Nobody needs to "hate" conservatives and Republicans to plainly see they have no ideas, policies or solutions
This is the propaganda you've swallowed.
Re: They tried to play both sides (Score:2)
Taxes, healthcare, climate, energy, infrastructure, marijuana, voting rights, justice reform, immigration, foreign policy, trade policy. All policies where the Republicans either have no policies or, and this my opinion but it's pretty defensible, bad ideas.
Democrats may be a bunch of feckless libs most of the time but from where I am standing choice is made quite easy.
It's just easier for you to assume it's propaganda.
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Democrats may be a bunch of feckless libs most of the time but from where I am standing choice is made quite easy.
No kidding, that's been my point from the beginning. You chose your side, and now all you can see is bad in the other side.
Re: They tried to play both sides (Score:2)
Don't congratulate yourself on a point you just made up. It's pretty arrogant to think anyone who those positions on policies and rhetoric is just a "product of propaganda". It's an argument to make when one is lacking in actual defendable solutions.
When comparing which side of the political spectrum shows fear and anger driven narrative it's pretty obvious.
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Now they're going to lose a bit. To be fair, this is necessary. We also need to reign in other things, not just tech companies. I remember when people (especially conservatives) were losing their crap over the data TikTok was collecting.
I believe TikTok was the convenient chump that the government could beat up a little so they could shake down the US-based companies.
You'll notice that many times when a big company gets a little too uppity or defiant, their CEO gets hauled into Congress for a dressing down. This doesn't happen to major military contractors or lobby-heavy companies like Uber though, because they're current on their campaign and superpac contributions.
Right (Score:2)
It is now time for corporations to stop serving their shareholders interests and do their part to serve the needs of society and the party [wikipedia.org].
Time for self regulation is over (Score:3, Interesting)
Here comes the censorship brigade! User input must be reined in or we are doomed! DOOMED!
Desecrated (Score:1)
Pathetic. The Capitol is not some sort of holy temple and Congress are not priests. And SumOfUs is just BLM. Equally pathetic.
Leave them be (Score:2, Interesting)
This is one of those situations where you can only make things worse. We're way, way too dysfunctional to do anything right.
How do you allow innovation? (Score:2)
How can the new generation of next internet application companies ever exist, in such a straightjacket regulatory climate?
One likely answer is they won't exist in the USA.
Section 230 (Score:2)
The thing is, Section 230 was intended for the old fashioned ISPs. You didn't have GeoCities trying to make their website 'sticky' and promote 'engagement' by trying to direct people to "AD0LF'5 SUP3R K3WL NA21 PAG3" after they visited some other random site they were hosting.
Section 230 protects against "service providers" being considered "publishers" or "speakers". But it specifically defined in the 230(b)(3) that one of the underlying policies was: "to encourage the development of technologies which m
Rich CEOs (Score:3)
smoke in mirrors (Score:3)
Those same “electeds” turned the militarized police against peaceful protesters then demonized those protesters with false and misleading propaganda. All because those protesters threatened the money flow from the corporate oligarchy to the “electeds” You think this is nonsense? Track what happens to former congress and senate members – cushy corporate gigs. The COVID relief bill of 2020 threw $6.5T... that's TRILLION... at corporations and left nothing for us. Our checks went to pay credit cards and rent.. gone... poof. Almost every other country in the world made direct payments to their citizens instead of artificially supporting a stock market. That $6.5T could have ended homelessness (estimated at $20B), wiped out all student loan debit ($1.6T), created a single pay health care (estimated to actually SAVE money), with trillions left over to create a jobs program to fix/rebuild crumbling infrastructure - but instead corporations got hand outs they used for corporate bonuses and stock buy backs to keep prices high without any capital investment, job creation (actually 12 million jobs lost - and the health care for those former workers), sales or efficiency gain. It was the largest corporate gimme in the history of the planet.
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Hello Censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
Hopefully someone gave the Congressman a hug and a cookie.
What is Truth? (Score:2, Troll)
Can't have it both ways (Score:4, Interesting)
Sony and LG build effective televisions. They are not responsible for the content shown and do not benefit from it. Cox and Spectrum and whomever delivers the content to your home, but they are not responsible for the content and do not benefit from it. Cable news channels and other content providers do deliver content and they are regulated, either by content ratings systems or by a some sort of journalist level of ethics that may not be heavily enforced but is at least commonly accepted and called out when it falls outside the general acceptable journalistic practice; but in return they are able to benefit from viewership (ie ads).
The problem with Zuckerberg's statement is he's effectively saying Facebook is, to use a television analogy, comparable to LG or Cox but Facebook's revenue model, based on ads, is very much like Fox (News or content channels). He's trying to state he shouldn't be regulated the way that a content provider should, but should continue to generate revenue the way a content provider has the opportunity to do. That dichotomy cannot last any longer. If Facebook continues to deny responsibility and culpability for the platform they built, then they shouldn't be able to mine users for ad revenue; they should move to a fee based model (which would honestly tank their business).
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Cue the howling in... (Score:1)
Cue the howling in 3...2...1... "We can't make a profit unless we're allowed to do absolutely anything we want waah waah waah ..." ... which completely disregards the reality that tech companies in heavily-regulated countries seen to do just fine. American execs are just spoiled rotten.
FTFY (Score:2)
"We fled as a mob desecrated the Capitol, the House floor, and our democratic process," said Democratic Representative Mike Doyle. "That attack, and the movement that motivated it, started and was nourished by free speech," he added.
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I wonder how that asshat feels about bringing back the Fairness Doctrine. I notice how Free Speech is all fine and dandy until it says something you don't want to hear.
People need to realize that the entire mainstream media in the US is owned by 6 oligarchs. They determine what you see and hear, and therefore influence your thinking. They are also on the politician's side regardless of party, as opposed to the people.
Only matters when Congress is threatened (Score:1)
And in more Hot Air news... (Score:2)
another one of these worthless Sub Committees. They talk and talk and talk...and not a damn thing gets done. I'm sure these techs guys are just laughing under their breath at these government bimbos prancing and grandstanding for the TV cameras.
The fact of the matter is that all of these big companies donate enormous sums of money to both parties. Do you really think that the government bimbos are going to bite the hand that feeds them? Not bloody likely.
What will happen are further useless sub committees a
Great move to stifle competition (Score:2)
Large companies do this all the time. They ask for regulation because the smaller guys can't meet all the regulations but the bigger guys can.
Blockchain networks going to decentralize all of this anyways...
It's a microcosm of what's wrong with the US (Score:3, Interesting)
And how many people who were law-abiding citizens had to flee and watch their businesses burn last year as the police and National Guard were given stand down or even retreat orders? What about the taxpayers in Minneapolis that watched their taxpayer-funded police get overrun and public property destroyed mainly by out of town renta-rioters?
If you want to cite me the FBI saying "it was all white nationalists" I'll cite you right back all of the FBI's accusations that MLK and his associates were Communists. How do you like them apples? You want to trust the FBI telling you it wasn't people on your side? Let's go. The FBI has made unsavory and defamatory accusations against everyone. Let's go!
Back in the real world, there are dozens of third world democracies that would LOVE to have faced such a laughable "coup attempt." A coup attempt that could be fought off by two dozen police with sidearms is not a coup. It's a bunch of morons.
But the problem is that this wasn't pleb-on-pleb violence, oh no. The plebs got smart and went after the ruling class. Can't have that, now can we?
Insanely stupid and counterproductive. (Score:2)
They are essentially attacking the street corner for the crazy person standing on it.
You know... instead of fixing the process that turns people crazy in the first place...
Just imagine that... Somebody locking down street corners ... yet letting all the crazies and Batman villains run free. To the next corner, usually.
Because actually solving the damage done to American people.... The desolate desperate situations, in terms of education, jobs, social security. even fixing the damn utilities. ... "No, we can
A good start! (Score:3)
After fixing the Internet they will turn their attention to politicians who have fomented hatred and division for ideology and for personal benefit?
Calling Malarkey (Score:2)
The line, "That attack, and the movement that motivated it, started and was nourished on your platforms," is complete BULL. Worse, they know it
The movement and the attack is merely the latest symptom of the ongoing effort by the "Republican" and "Democratic" subsidiaries of the Party to play one side against the other in order to maintain power. Each side abandoned compromise and collaboration long ago to maintain their shared illusion of two separate entities.
BOTH SIDES need to go and be replaced by peopl
Effective, check! (Score:1)
It was indeed quite effective at nourishing the coup attempt.
"The attack on the capitol..." (Score:2, Insightful)
"... was nourished on [social media]"
What the fuck?
The attack was nourished by a sore loser getting a mob riled up by telling them that the election was stolen from them and encouraging them to feel angry about it a short distance from the capitol and them letting them go. He admittedly did use the word "peacefully" at one point when he was suggesting that the crowd physically go there, but in all honesty, it came across more as a parenthetical notion than any kind of actual imperative for their beha
let's cut the crap (Score:2)
or you could pull your head out (Score:2)
Not only are Democrats the other party of right wing corporatist warmongers, they hate the actual left far more than Republicans do. If big tech were "far left", forget that moderate imperialist Bernie Sanders, Mike Gravel would be president right now.
Finally (Score:1)
There is a simple solution (there always is) (Score:2)
"Big Tech" shouldn't be liable for anything on their platform UNTIL it gets reported, then they have X amount of time to make a decision. Simples!
They will probably decide an algorithm is cheaper than people and randomly ban stuff they shouldn't (or not ban enough stuff), but that is their choice.
I am confident that a big tech company can figure out how to follow the rules.... right??
Re: (Score:1)
That is fine.
But nor should they be able to delete content just because they don't like it.
As in, you know, censorship.
As with, you know, Biden's offspring true stories banned on Twitter.
the biggest monopoly is the US gov't (Score:1)
Big tech has helped grow the economy, and expand jobs and possibly ways to positively use technology. Nobody is forced to use their services.
It is, however, time to reduce funding the the federal gov't.
We need a balanced budget amendment.
If the gov't really were interested in the people it would have meaningful debates about priorities, and who, specifically should pay for 1.9T pork-barrel bill or the coming 3T bills that NO ONE asked for. And when I say NO ONE, I mean no one is willing to actually pay for
Re: (Score:1)
Expand jobs? Well, yes, to an extent.
What's app, back in times when Facebook bought them for about 19 billion USD and when they had around 400 million users, had about 50 employees.
Nobody is forced to use their services.
Nobody was forced to buy from The Standard Oil Company either.
Nope (Score:2)
As Merkel, I'm more concerned (Score:1)
As Merkel, I'm more concerned with some Californian overlord having power to ban US president from a planetary level platform, rather than with one, mostly US, camp not being able to ban the other, mostly US, camp.
In fact, I'd rather keep these nice people away from being able to ban people who's speech they dislike. Being all fashioned and into "free speech" and "popular speech does not need protection" as I am.
Poland has formally forbidden Twitter and co to delete messages that are not illegal under Polis