Call it a conspiracy theory. I really don't see the actual cause being, primarily, anything other than those.
This doesn't have anything to do with Hillary or that whole "election hacking" story. If you've followed the hearings and the angles that US legislators have been taking on these companies it seems clear that most of them don't see this as being related to the elections at all.
From what I've seen the focus has been on the fact that foreign nation states are able to use the tools provided by these companies to target groups of people and then directly use the promotion and communication channels provided by these companies to pump propaganda to those groups.
And that this has been done already, specifically to instigate division and confrontation between groups within our society.
Side notes:
1. Maybe you think that their tools don't have an impact on people and this is all just hyperbole. Perhaps that's true, but if it is true then the business model they've been pitching to advertisers seems like hyperbole as well.
2. All of that aside. These few companies have quickly become the dominant gateway for which a majority of people access the internet. It's where they read news, talk to family and friends, organize events, keep all of their photos, keep their contact list, authenticate into other websites on the internet, get tracked by ads and social media buttons across the internet... None of which is inherently bad but it seems foolish for us to not keep them in check. We don't exist to make sure their companies survive. If society decides that the amount of risk and harm resulting from them outweighs the potential good in their current form then we should consider regulation.
If your opaque point is that we need to break these companies up for... reasons... (Because maybe Russia-something?) Then I suppose I disagree with you less, but not on that principle.
It seems to me that these problems are better solved through education, rather than censorship & policing. But educating is impossible because it would lead to a more informed public.
Regulation by publicly elected and representative officials in our democracy.
> It seems to me that these problems are better solved through education, rather than censorship & policing.
I'm not talking about censorship. My point was regarding the mass data collection and analysis of our personal information that's being done at an impressive scale by these for-profit companies without any form of oversight or transparency.
It isn't cool when the NSA does it and it isn't cool when they're doing it either. Especially not if they're actually profiting from selling our data to other people who are doing whoknowswhat. There is no incentive for them to be responsible.
When I hear a Senator Dianne Feinstein scolding a panel of tech giants, I don't hear a benevolent leader with our best interests at heart, I hear someone infantalizing me for their own gain.
If the topic is data retention, let's target everyone. No one should be safe unless they can justify it under scrutiny & demonstrate security.
If the topic is "fake news", then its a battle of definitions, & regulation is unconstitutional on any government level--no matter how you spin it.
The definition of “Fake News,” that was being used when it started “trending” and the definition FB are now using in their anti-fakenews efforts is not inaccurate news, bad news, biased news or anything like that. It refers to a simple, common sense meaning of “fake.” Articles pretending to be news: written by a fictional journalists in a fictional publication, citing fictional sources at a fictional address.
Fake news did quickly become an insult that everyone (especially you -know-who) uses to flavour their scorn of regular news. …like the way “fraud,” or “whore” are used as insults.
This is not some impossibly abstract conversation about truth. It’s a simple conversation about spam.
I'm genuinely asking. I don't intend for my question to be a slight against your argument.
It also shifts the blame away from Americans who liked what Trump was saying.
A similar thing is happening in the UK with the brexit vote. People are now claiming that Russians bought some adverts. They want to deny the decades of Euroskepticism and misleading stories (bendy bananas anyone?), and years of anti-immigrant newspaper stories.