Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren: When It Comes To Big Tech, Enough Is Enough 142
Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren, writing at The New York Times: Enough is enough. It's time to rein in Big Tech. And we can't do it with a law that only nibbles around the edges of the problem. Piecemeal efforts to stop abusive and dangerous practices have failed. Congress is too slow, it lacks the tech expertise, and the army of Big Tech lobbyists can pick off individual efforts easier than shooting fish in a barrel. Meaningful change -- the change worth engaging every member of Congress to fight for -- is structural.
For more than a century, Congress has established regulatory agencies to preserve innovation while minimizing harm presented by emerging industries. In 1887 the Interstate Commerce Commission took on railroads. In 1914 the Federal Trade Commission took on unfair methods of competition and later unfair and deceptive acts and practices. In 1934 the Federal Communications Commission took on radio (and then television). In 1975 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission took on nuclear power, and in 1977 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took on electric generation and transmission. We need a nimble, adaptable, new agency with expertise, resources and authority to do the same for Big Tech.
Our Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act would create an independent, bipartisan regulator charged with licensing and policing the nation's biggest tech companies -- like Meta, Google and Amazon -- to prevent online harm, promote free speech and competition, guard Americans' privacy and protect national security. The new watchdog would focus on the unique threats posed by tech giants while strengthening the tools available to the federal agencies and state attorneys general who have authority to regulate Big Tech.
Our legislation would guarantee common-sense safeguards for everyone who uses tech platforms. Families would have the right to protect their children from sexual exploitation, cyberbullying and deadly drugs. Certain digital platforms have promoted the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, suicidal ideation and eating disorders or done precious little to combat these evils; our bill would require Big Tech to mitigate such harms and allow families to seek redress if they do not.
For more than a century, Congress has established regulatory agencies to preserve innovation while minimizing harm presented by emerging industries. In 1887 the Interstate Commerce Commission took on railroads. In 1914 the Federal Trade Commission took on unfair methods of competition and later unfair and deceptive acts and practices. In 1934 the Federal Communications Commission took on radio (and then television). In 1975 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission took on nuclear power, and in 1977 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took on electric generation and transmission. We need a nimble, adaptable, new agency with expertise, resources and authority to do the same for Big Tech.
Our Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act would create an independent, bipartisan regulator charged with licensing and policing the nation's biggest tech companies -- like Meta, Google and Amazon -- to prevent online harm, promote free speech and competition, guard Americans' privacy and protect national security. The new watchdog would focus on the unique threats posed by tech giants while strengthening the tools available to the federal agencies and state attorneys general who have authority to regulate Big Tech.
Our legislation would guarantee common-sense safeguards for everyone who uses tech platforms. Families would have the right to protect their children from sexual exploitation, cyberbullying and deadly drugs. Certain digital platforms have promoted the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, suicidal ideation and eating disorders or done precious little to combat these evils; our bill would require Big Tech to mitigate such harms and allow families to seek redress if they do not.
Not a chance (Score:2, Flamebait)
Setting aside actual free speech considerations, it’s DOA politically. Warren might actually be serious about this, but this is completely, 100% antithetical to Graham’s party. Any legislation that tries to control harmful content is going to sweep up the entire ecosystem of election denial and conspiracy theories that drives roughly half of
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Explain how, other than folks such as Thomas and Kavanaugh who got their degrees from a diploma mill not understanding the Constitution. Because if you read the Constitution and understand what it says, Congress is empowered:
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
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His claim is that it would run afoul of first amendment, which could be said of the FCC restrictions on various speech which has stood.
Of course, even assuming that there would be first amendment issues, that doesn't preclude the existence of a regulatory agency, it would just potentially restrict attempted rules/enforcement when such problematic measures come into place. So there's nothing fundamentally unconstitutional about such an agency in and of itself.
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I fully support free speech in my country, but
Re:Not a chance (Score:5, Insightful)
You want it illegal to hate a gender or race?
Should we arrest the feminists who are publicly anti-male?
Should we arrest black comedians who make fun of white people?
Oh wait, no, that's not who you meant. You meant people you don't like.
The problem with making speech a crime is it always gets used to club people "we" don't like and eventually that list of people "we" don't like will include you.
I much prefer the racists and others are very public about who they are so we can point and laugh and isolate them from society rather than they lurk around in the dark actually doing things. Let them out themselves, rant, bark at the moon.
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In reply, you wrote:
You want it illegal to hate a gender or race?
What you apparently missed in the post you are replying to (emphasis added):
I fully support free speech in my country, but hooooo boy does it lead us down some dark paths. I wouldn’t change it, though.
Try getting all the way to the end of his 7 sentence post next time, sport.
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...actually holding... a gun,
That part alone will get you a lengthy prison sentence around here.
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there's nothing fundamentally unconstitutional about such an agency in and of itself.
It could be framed as a business regulating agency. For example, it might establish punishment to corporations whose business practices can be causally linked with increases in social unrest and violence by removing section 230 and substituting a regulatory agency for it that could then tweak and fine-tune how much social-media businesses are or aren't responsible for their user's speech depending on how they structure their algorithms etc.
The free speech of all persons, including corporate persons, would b
Re: Not a chance (Score:4, Insightful)
"The free speech of all persons, including corporate persons, would be fully preserved."
That's nonsense. You're talking about planning additional restrictions on speech and some people's free speech is already being interfered with. How would that not lead to more of that?
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You're talking about planning additional restrictions on speech and some people's free speech is already being interfered with. How would that not lead to more of that?
A right to free speech isn't the same as a right to be free of consequences for your speech. If you induce someone to kill another via speech, you're guilty of that inducement. If you start screaming there's a fire in a crowded theater, you're guilty of trying to cause a stampede, and if that stampede happens and someone's killed under the others running in panic, you're guilty of that death, and will be criminally prosecuted for both things. Such limits exist in US and most countries laws and aren't seen a
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The USSC said you can shout fire in a crowded theatre, please stop using that one.
My qualification of that is in accord with US jurisprudence, at leas if the "Legacy" section in the correspoding Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] is accurate.
This is about the government and Big Tech controlling, filtering, and censoring what we can say and see online that is 1a protected speech.
Not really. Suppose all Big Tech companies, following a section 230 overhaul, decide it's risky to allow you to say something you want to say and thus not to provide you their platforms for amplification of your message. In those circumstances you still can purchase a small printing press, install it in your garage, print 5,000 copies of that speech, put them into yo
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The argument that your free speech isn't being infringed because you can run your own printing press has got to be the most anti-free-speech bootlicking idea I've ever seen on Slashdot.
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The argument that your free speech isn't being infringed because you can run your own printing press has got to be the most anti-free-speech bootlicking idea I've ever seen on Slashdot.
Gab's Andrew Torba did exactly that. Almost no one wants to do business with him, not even payment processors, and yet Gab remains fully open for him, and those he allows there, which right now are anyone, to publish whatever they want. And since he doesn't implement any kind of amplification (other than for ads he himself vetoes), little if anything would change for him and his users.
How then, precisely, is what I said "anti-free-speech bootlicking", if it's perfectly in line and compatible with a social-n
"Diploma mill" (Score:5, Insightful)
Thomas got his degree from Yale.
Yale is the top law school in the United States.
Cry harder.
Re:"Diploma mill" (Score:4, Informative)
"Thomas got his degree from Yale."
As did Kavanaugh, as a matter of fact. Both undergraduate and law degree.
OP is a pointless and silly troll (Score:1)
Being good at studying doesn't make you good at your job. How many times have you had a completely idiotic doctor blow you off or just sit there reading you the same things you could've found on google and charge your $300 bucks for the privilege?
Getting invited to Yale when you're not a legacy means the 1% think you're going to be useful to them. And Thomas & Kavanaugh have both been *very
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McDonalds is the top hamburger maker on the planet. No one would say their hamburgers are good.
Besides, how good a school can Yale be if their people don't understand even the basics of the Constitution?
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Thomas got his degree from Yale.
Yale is the top law school in the United States.
Cry harder.
Thomas was accepted to Yale because of affirmative action. We all know the jokes about affirmative action hires.
A 1991 New York Times article about Thomas reported how Yale University officials said Thomas was admitted to its law school "under an explicit affirmative action plan with the goal of having blacks and other minority members make up about 10 percent of the entering class."
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-... [newsweek.com]
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Thomas was accepted to Yale because of affirmative action. We all know the jokes about affirmative action hires.
Did he drop out? Fail his classes? Underperform?
By all accounts I’ve seen he did just fine there and was favorably compared to other students, so how he got into Yale is immaterial to the discussion at hand, given that he proved he was as capable as his peers.
He had a great opportunity presented to him (and he disputes the characterization that he wouldn’t have been admitted if not for affirmative action) and he made the best of it. That’s commendable, not a knock against him. But if you w
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This. Never attribute to incompetence what is obviously malice.
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GAWD, you are that stupid.
Which justices got their degrees from 'diploma mills'? None*. Harvard, Yale, Notre Dame.
* Some consider Harvard and Yale to have devolved into 'diploma mills'. That's a different problem, eh?
Re:Not a chance (Score:4, Interesting)
They cited FCC, which does in fact get to control the speech of broadcasters. So they have precedent to cite.
It's also not antithetical to the GOP, the GOP would love to exert more regulation over the big tech, big tech pisses them off a lot. Toward the conspiracy theories bolstering some GOP folks, those already are getting cracked down on, so that isn't at huge risk of being more cracked down on. On the flipside, they may intervene and penalize a social network for appearance of minimizing conservative views, so it's a net win for them to gain more ability to exert control over the social networks.
So I could see how this could get going, and how each side can find reason to want this to go. They will disagree on the details to be sure, but the broad concept appeals for different reasons to both major parties.
FCC regulation is because of the limited resource (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a shortage of bandwidth for broadcasters, so there was a justification for licencing access to the airwaves. By contrast there is no such constraint on the internet.
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The licensing access to airwaves is one thing, but FCC also governs obscenity, profanity, indecency, hoaxes, and more, per https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/... [fcc.gov]
On the page specifically about obscenity:
"Because obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, it is prohibited on cable, satellite and broadcast TV and radio. However, the same rules for indecency and profanity do not apply to cable, satellite TV and satellite radio because they are subscription services."
None of this pertains to the scarcity of
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There WAS a an "apparent" shortage of bandwidth in the early days of radio because radios were relatively simple devices compared to what's possible today. Monopolies captured the regulation to enshrine their old technology into law. Today with Cellular, CDM, MIMO, etc... there's plenty of bandwidth -- if bandwidth still even means anything. So why does the FCC still auction bandwidth like it is still 1934? What's the justification for licensing an abstract thing called "frequency"? What's so special about
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So why does the FCC still auction bandwidth...What's the justification for licensing an abstract thing called "frequency"?
Because devices can only share a frequency if they use compatible modulations and power levels. We can't send FM and AM over the same frequencies because they will interfere with each other. 802.11 is also incompatible with AM and FM radio. Also, this isn't an FCC thing - this is done internationally by the ITU. The FCC is just the US branch of it. In the UK it is Ofcom, France it is the ANFR, Russia it's the Roskomnadzor, etc. This isn't just an "apparent" shortage, it's a real physical limitation.
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You still think there is consistency to the ideology of the Republican party. That's precious.
Republicans will vote for this, because it allows them to stick it to Meta and Google. They aren't concerned with the constitutional arguments anymore, because those are all trumped by grievance politics. Just like with literally every other vote they have taken since 2020.
Just 'Big Tech'? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand how the tech sector is taking the brunt of the blame for abusing citizens. But in reality, this abuse goes much farther back than the advent of tech-sector dominance.
The fundamental problem is limited-liability corporations whose C-level wonks can't be put in jail for corporate misbehaviour, and whose shareholders can't be sued for a corporation's actions. In short, our implementation of Capitalism is deeply flawed. Big Tech merely represents the latest manifestation of those flaws, and the tech sector's abuses are perhaps more readily apparent because they effect the social and psychological fabric of society more obviously and directly.
Big Oil knew about carbon-driven climate change in the 50's, and had models accurately predicting temperature rise and consequences by the 60's. They spent the subsequent decades denying, gaslighting, and lying in order to further their economic interests. Arguably, their actions are much worse for mankind's future than those of Big Tech; at a minimum, they are no less bad.
Our biggest problems are caused by corporations having too much power, and by an economic system that in many ways rewards inefficiency, waste, and abusive practices. This applies across the board - it's unfair, counterproductive, and naive to single out the tech sector. It's the entire corporate sector that must be brought to heel.
Don't blame shareholders (Score:1)
One of the benefits of the present system is that it allows capital to be applied to areas needing a lot of investment has.
Blaming C level wonks is problematic. Clearly if the company does something wrong and the C level people know about it, it is right to punish them severely; the fact that the US only got one VW executive for the emissions tampering scandal is a big disappointment. But unless there is clear evidence of their knowingly breaking of the law, then they deserve the benefit of the doubt.
What's
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Your point about clear rules is a good one.
As for limited liability that is supposed to be for when the system becomes insolvent, not so that C-level executives get away with crimes. In fact, limited liability doesn't cover crimes like fraud. However there are still very shady things shareholders do such as giving a startup a loan and them getting preference when getting paid back over the employees and contractors. I think that law needs to be changed.
Too many things shield shareholders. They can get away
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So it's something that brings everyone together for one reason or another.
Re:Just 'Big Tech'? (Score:4, Funny)
What's wrong with TikTok users drinking borax?
Let me introduce you to a certain Mr. Charles Darwin.
KISS (Score:5, Interesting)
Keep it simple. Nearly all of the problems mentioned would be solved with one, simple law: Limit the size of companies. This needs two parts:
1. Any company over size X cannot participate in M&A. No buying up the competition.
2. Any company over size 10 * X must divest, i.e., must split into smaller companies.
Capitalism is the best economic system that humans have ever developed. However, to work effectively, competition is essential. Even if big companies did not engage in anti-competitive practices, simple economy of scale makes competition against them difficult. And, of course, they *do* engage in anti-competitive practices, ranging from buying the competition to buying government officials.
Limit the size of companies, and you have eliminated many, many problems. More: a limitation like this is simple to implement - base it on revenue - which prevents years-long court proceedings.
Big pharma buying up new drugs (Score:2)
Your approach sounds good until you start to look at the complexity:
A small company invents a new drug. Getting it through phase 3 trials is horrendously expensive. It is necessary to allow SOME purchases of new products - not least because if you don't the big boy will reinvent it a slightly different way and deprive the inventor of their due reward.
A medium sized company in a certain sector gets into terminal trouble. If it sells to a larger brother, the jobs and communities are not destroyed. But if it c
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Yes Bradley13's proposal would indeed make some things harder - I suspect bradley13 is willing to trade that off, in exchange for making things fairer. Companies would have to work together more. Less vertical integration. Maybe one company would develop a drug, but couldn't possibly be big enough to do the clinical trial too. So another company would manage that. Then maybe they would sell IP now that the trial passed. Some companies kinda work that way anyhow today. It would be less efficient, but
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That is just a completely silly approach. It doesn't take into account any market impact or the complexity differences between industries.
It reminds me of a joke about primary school children. An adult can't easily answer the question, a child can:
Q: How do you get an elephant into a refrigerator?
A: Open the door and put the elephant in and close it.
Yeah obvious really looking back at it but makes a lot of assumptions about both the elephant and the fridge and ignores a lot of practicalities.
There is virtua
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Just don't allow corporations to own other corporations, ever.
Re:KISS (Score:4, Insightful)
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The tendency of organizations and companies to accrue power is a natural part of human societies, and capitalism. The ability of companies to amass and pay politicians and capture regulatory agencies ("regulatory capture") is a natural manifestation of that tendency. What's missing is there has been little pushback against that tactic.
My concern is that people do not give up power
Oddly enough (Score:1)
What is "big tech"? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem I have with these kinds of rules is no one wants to come up with an objective definition for what "big tech" means.
Is it based on revenue? Earnings? Subscribers?
Does a startup with 10 employees that has 100M downloads on its app but $0 in revenue count? If not, why not?
Does a tech company that has hundreds of millions in revenue, but is purely B2B and has no direct-to-consumer services count? If not, why not?
Is Reddit big tech? It is a small company but has a huge outsize impact on online discourse. Should it be regulated in the same way as Meta? If so, what is the threshold that has been reached to allow it to be regulated?
It is really easy to say "we need to regulate big tech!" but I have yet to see anyone actually define what they are even talking about. Outside of FAANG, no one seems to be able to define it (and I will point out the fact that FAANG does not even include giants like Microsoft or Twitter shows how ridiculous the acronym is). What is worse is that tech moves so fast that a company could fit the criteria one week, then fail to fit it the next, then fit it again one week later.
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Isn't it just political shorthand for "monopoly that happens to be in the tech sector." It's not the tech part that is important, it is the monopoly part.
Related: Is making a web site "tech" at this point? I suppose at some point in history, being able to make a wheel was "technology" but we would no longer consider it as such. Web sites are hardly "tech" any more either. Is making a social media system? Back in Y2K, there were hundreds of them, why is a bulletin board now "tech" ?
Re: What is "big tech"? (Score:2)
None of the FAANGMT companies are close to monopolies, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. They all have reams of competition, most notably from each other.
Left Apple off the list (Score:2)
Google and to a lesser extent Amazon keep the competition for Apple somewhat alive, crippling them because they are unpopular while leaving popular Apple alone will just speed up the destruction of competition in consumer electronics, services and supply chain.
US is the last hammer to drop (Score:2)
Fix this part first (Score:1)
"Congress is too slow, it lacks the tech expertise" ... well said, and nice of them to admit it. Maybe if they addressed that first, then tried legislating from a position of actual expertise they'd get productive results, rather than frantic hand-waving, hyperbole, and assumptions about how it all works or ought to work.
Online censorship bill (Score:3, Insightful)
You can directly see dog-whistles to the base in there, "to prevent online harm" is euphemism for censorship, it is the next round of Disinformation Governance Board/Nina Jankowicz. Only very recently, online harm was considered discussing Hunter Biden laptop [theguardian.com] containing evidence of criminal activity, skepticism of Steele dossier [cnn.com], over-counting of COVID deaths [nytimes.com], Wuhan and EcoHealth Alliance [nypost.com], etc.
230 Threats Revealed (Score:2)
We just learned about the s.230 threats they used to coerce fascist censorship so now they have to come out of the shadows and attempt it in public.
Which is definitely better.
Not having these Boomers in Congress would be better still.
Translation of Article (Score:2)
The 2024 Election Cycle is coming soon. Please consider an increase to your company's "campaign contributions."
For your consideration; a sufficiently large increase will allow you to have a seat at our Overview and Regulatory table.
Libertarian, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm fundamentally libertarian, and ascribe to the notion that government can't bear to leave anything unregulated...but even I see that this is a major enough element of our civilization now that it well requires SOME sort of 'commons-management' oversight informed by democratically elected representatives tasked specifically with that purpose, or their assigns.
Theoretically, anyway..
In reality, I'm pretty confident that this will end up
- deeply politicized, not bipartisan at all
- populated by a gerontocracy of enfeebled lawmakers who have their aides print out their emails every morning and are only now starting to get comfortable not saying "please" when they ask a question of The Google.
- will act with the speed of the Federal Government, that is, by the time (any issue) gets through the laborious process of hearings and speechifying and regulation making, commenting, passage, and law creation...it will be a decade or more past the point where a cure would have mattered, and likely well past the point that whatever tech they're regulating has probably obsolesced into irrelevance ANYWAY
- the main benefit will be allowing these Big Tech firms a clear picture of whom they have to bribe
The FCC and FTC needs to get back into business (Score:3)
lovely (Score:3, Interesting)
Government is never big enough, must make it bigger. Of-course to make a government bigger, you have to take away from the private sector, be it in form of higher taxes, more taxes, reduced competition in the private sector due to new licensing / regulatory environment, more people displaced from real jobs into government make shift work that has to be paid for by people who actually build real things in real life. That's OK, that train has left long ago, what is left for those of us to do, who see it as abomination (all government involvement into private lives, business, taxing income, regulating, licensing)? We have to adapt to the changing environment and learn how to take advantage of such systems, building businesses to help people to navigate around the rules, making money on the stupidity of the masses who basically vote for politicians who enact such ideas into reality. I mean it is always possible to learn to live in the changing environment, the outcomes are worse, the quality of life will be worse, the government will cause higher inflation, the money will be worth less, so this much is obvious. So people who understand this have to act accordingly, because this provides with valuable future information that can be used to make a buck where it couldn't be made previously.
/. Goes wild in favor of online censorship (Score:2)
That's the real news here. That so many on this board think it's quite grand that the Government should have free rein to define what "harm" on the whims of the mob. They all want anti-vaxers silenced but have no problem letting the misinformation of anti-GMO nonsense prevail. Jail the Climate Deniers because they are going to flood NYC because of their Denialism. Government can not be allowed to prevent speech because someone else thinks it's harmful. Right Christians and Left Feminists all think children
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You almost had me. (Score:3)
Certain digital platforms have promoted the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, suicidal ideation and eating disorders or done precious little to combat these evils
...until I got to this part.
Look, I think the doomers and whatever the "pro-ana" starvation dipshits have rebranded to are dumb as hell and deserve plenty of scorn, but this is not a problem that's solved by big tech telling us what communities are and aren't appropriate. Pro-ana today, COVID lab leak theories next week, questioning the "Russia single-handedly elected Trump" narrative or providing support to transgender teens next month, depending on which party happens to be in power at the time. No thanks.
The difference: (Score:3)
Elizabeth Warren was always against big Tech.
Lindsey Graham is only against big Tech because it's a current popular talking point to be against and he'll change his position in a heartbeat if he thinks it'll net him even a single vote as he believes "integrity" is something to do with calculus.
I disagree with the premise (Score:2)
"Families would have the right to protect their children from sexual exploitation, cyberbullying and deadly drugs. Certain digital platforms have promoted the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, suicidal ideation and eating disorders or done precious little to combat these evils; our bill would require Big Tech to mitigate such harms and allow families to seek redress if they do not."
LEA should have the role of enforcing the law not corporations. The legal system should decide what is legally permis
How in the world to lawmakers promote free speech? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Ask Graham today and again tomorrow. I don't think he will agree with himself on his own definition of it.
If Graham and Warren are for it, I'm against it (Score:4, Funny)
For foreigners who don't know
Graham has spent a significant amount of time both kissing Trump's butt and being angry at him because Trump is stupid and dangerous. But most recently he's been kissing Trump's butt.
Warren is so hard left she's insane. She also thinks that because she is like 1/32 or 1/64 Native American that this makes her a full blooded Native American. She's a fan of big giveaways with no way to pay for them and strict regulation on businesses, the kind of regulation that might keep them from actually doing business.
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I'm not even going to read what it's about.
Ladies and gentlemen I present to you modern American politics.
Par for the course from these corruptocrats (Score:2)
When a bi-partisan clown act like Warren-Grahm proposes something like this, the proper bi-partisan response from middle class America should be suspicion and then obvious questions.
The FIRST question that must be asked is "Cui bono?" (Who benefits?) If these two supposedly oppositional characters are for it, then we all need to look to see what "campaign contributors" are in common between them.
The second question to be asked is "Why a NEW government entity, what are all the others doing?" There are curren
Common Sense and Government are not compatible (Score:2)
Before we worry about breaking up "big tech", let's focus on building up privacy first tech. Not privacy first share with the big daddy tech, I mean policies, standards, and laws which give total, and complete security to users on all platforms. If anyone can read messages, post, or ac
Blame big tech (Score:2)
The want to blame big tech, when it's really big "news" media that is spreading all this harm. Big tech merely shares the garbage that the increasingly sold out and partisan news media is vomiting out.
But yeah.. let's blame "algorithms".
Dictators in the making (Score:2)
Just read that first paragraph carefully and also note that the Consumer Product Safety Commission answers to nobody (except Warren) especially the people and certainly not Congress.
See, hard core leftists like Warren see the world in simple terms. They assume that they are A) always correct, B) smarter and generally better than everyone else, and C) everything that stands in their way needs to be ignored, cancelled, or destroyed because of A and B. How the CPSC hasn't been determined to be unconstitution
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Warren types:
A) ARE usually correct and when in error, they correct themselves promptly. This is why conservatives are more gullible (in studies too.) This is ALSO why life-long Republican Warren became a democrat after becoming enlightened.
B) Are actually smarter and better than most everybody else; have you seen what average is? Reference: George Carlin.
C) Not at all, they can dismiss idiocy but often will voluntarily dismantle counter arguments and make a real effort to debate - they don't NEED to reso
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Parents already have the right (Score:2)
Parent's already have those rights although many choose not to exercise them. Parents can use the word "no". Parents can monitor their children's usage of the internet. Parents can ground their children when they fail to follow the rules. We already have laws about "deadly drugs" and responsible parents place their own restrictions on their children's use of "deadly drugs".
It starts out sounding plausible but... (Score:2)
I'm sure we could stand some European-style privacy protection laws. That doesn't seem to be the plan for this bill, which takes a sharp turn off into wild "save the children" nonsense.
Families would have the right to protect their children from sexual exploitation, cyberbullying and deadly drugs.
I'm pretty sure that families already have those rights and, I'm not sure what "deadly drugs" have to do with this. Do the alleged lawmakers believe that children are snorting fentanyl off TikTok?
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Where's the FTC? (Score:2)
I'm super-ultra-extreme MAGA. I wear my MAGA hat backwards while I do deadlifts at the gym, I have 14 children, I watch NASCAR, I think guns are fun to own, and I don't drink Bud Light.
But holy crap are the republicans wrong on this whole "allow the mergers to happen; it's a good thing" mentality.
Big Tech needs to be broken up into a billion small companies all competing and open-sourcing their stuff and making it interoperable. Big Pharma shouldn't exist. Big Food shouldn't exist. Farmers should be able to
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I mean lobbyists are more of a problem over in congress than the executive branch... but yes this is directionally accurate.
today's monopoly-level businesses (Score:2)
Steve Jobs (Score:2)
How big tech thinks?
https://twitter.com/QCompoundi... [twitter.com]
"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it" -Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
https://twitter.com/0x101/stat... [twitter.com]
How ignorant (Score:5, Informative)
You should be asking, "What could go right?" Because this country has had a long history of new industries getting so big and powerful that they choose profits over the health and welfare of the people, and the only thing that put a stop to it was the federal government.
Do you remember the days when it was common practice to shovel whatever scraps were found on the meat packing floor into the meat grinder, including dead rats, their droppings, and the occasional human finger? Do you remember the days where anyone could shove anything into a bottle, including mercury, lead, and heroin, call it "medicine", and sell it to the sick and poor? Do you remember the days when a family could order their seven year old son to go work in the coal mine, because daddy needed drinking money?
No? That's right, and neither do I, because all those atrocities were stopped long ago thanks to government regulation.
So today, do you like the fact that you and your children each have a data profile created by Big Data that can be sold in the digital marketplace without your consent? Do you like the fact that Big Data can hand over surveillance of you and your property to government authorities without your consent? Do you like the fact that that Big Data can create algorithms and neural networks that propagate lies that cause humans to kill one another, with you a potential victim, without being held responsibility for these atrocities? Do you like the fact that, once a Big Data company seizes control of the marketplace, they can reign as a monopoly without any government controls and actions that keep their power in check?
If not, then you should hope government regulation can put a stop to it.
Re:How ignorant (Score:4, Insightful)
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Wasn't that because before the pandemic, imported baby formula from China was starving babies?
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Perhaps federal regulation should veer towards detecting m
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Re:How ignorant (Score:5, Insightful)
once a Big Data company seizes control of the marketplace, they can reign as a monopoly
Cue Libertarians replying with fact-free, data-less, idealized """theoretical""" (triple scare quotes) anti-math, anti-research models saying all of this is auto-solved because yes as soon as perfect laissez-faire free-market competition is established.
Sprinkled within the replies will be references and ideological, data-free """arguments""" for why: taxes are theft; taxes are slavery; only governments can create monopolies; privately-created monopolies aren't, but even if there are private-created monopoly-like thingies they're actually good; government are inefficient, only private enterprise are efficient; negative freedom is always good, positive freedom is always evil; if only everyone agreed with non-aggression principle we'd have paradise on Earth; arbitration plus mercenary armies are the perfect justice-and-policing combo; and etc. etc. etc.
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This is one of the best comments I've ever read on Slashdot (and I've been here a minute). Thank you for making my day go a bit better.
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Worked great for Yahoo
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I haven't seen a Libertarian on slashdot in a decade. Who are you talking about?
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I take it you're in favor of corn subsidies, then, and high sugar tariffs. The American Dairy Association gets to collect dues from dairy farmers, regardless of whether they're members of the Association. They also insist on a price floor, and you can't legally sell dairy below what Association wants to make an excessive profit.
The American Medical Association carefully regulates the number of new doctors, each year, to assure that there won't be enough of them to go around. Presto! Rich doctors!
This is all
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I take it you're in favor of (...)
I don't mind those much, no. Some would need extensive adjustments, but by and far, as a Distributist [wikipedia.org], I'm pretty in favor of trade associations, unions, cooperatives, and their efforts to make sure members earn well. All professions should have that, making sure living standards are similar across professions and, as in the boroughs of old, having a collectively elected sheriff to force inter-guild price adjustments if one sticks too much away from the median.
Pretending that the Government is run by a saintly group of noble individuals is just fascinating
Nah, Distributism is anti-centralization, and f
Re: How ignorant (Score:3)
Re: How ignorant (Score:4, Informative)
how many are bad places to live because of Monopolies? Vs. How many are bad places to live because of the government?
Any monopoly big enough becomes a government, and a tyrannical one at that. Consider the East India Company [wikipedia.org] or, for a more recent example, the United Fruit/Chiquita corporation contracting the US government [wikipedia.org] as a mercenary force to topple a government. The only context in which a monopoly isn't (as) bad is when it's regulated so as to curb their absolute worst traits. This doesn't make them good, but they at least remain minimally "kind of" positive.
Re: How ignorant (Score:2)
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But you are sticking to the idea that Monopolies are worse than government
Not exactly. I'm a decentralist in the Distributist tradition. I'm of the opinion that both big business and big government are evils requiring continuous, constant breaking up so as to maximize the share of the population who owns private property. The way to break down big business into normal businesses is through governments. The way to break big government is via constant political action.
At the end of the day if Apple ruled the world and mind of every person it would take seconds to rectify, they have no army, they don't run the judicial system, if everyone dropped their phones it would be over.
That's strictly incorrect. You're committing a classic Libertarian conceptual error: you're confusing Capitalism wi
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Agreed, except agencies such as the FDA, and the DEP, all received their jurisdictions from Congress, but are powerless and ineffectual to clear dangerous drugs and toxic chemicals from the the market, whereas in Europe, the same chemicals have been banned a while ago and for good reasons.
Corporate greed and bureaucracy have been in the the way for decades, and until lobbying (legalized corruption) in its current form is a thing in the US, there won't be enough changes. I'm actually surprised that a new gov
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To be fair, self-righteous karens don't need an AI to write unintelligible screed - they're perfectly capable of it themselves.
In fact, they're probably how ChatGPT learned how to "karen" to begin with.
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