Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

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Since when does the government get to police ideological speech, or complain about "bias"?

Policing ideological speech: Laws against incitement. Fact: There are also laws about curbing private monopoly control of certain kinds of media in a given area.

Government complaining about bias: Civil rights laws. Equal Opportunity Employment.

When the actions of both powerful government organizations and powerful companies start to infringe on the speech of constituents, then the representatives elected to that government have taken action in the past.

Google could in principle make its results insanely left-leaning and the first amendment should protect them.

This has already happened. I don't think the first amendment would necessarily protect them. There is already a precedent for government to curb monopoly power in media.

They must be very careful not to let the narrative become "we don't bias our results, we swear!"

If "they" is Google, then the bird has already flown the coop in this case.

Their position should be a very firm "don't tell us what to fcking do."*

Should other companies start saying the same? Maybe having far less government would be far better across the board. When one concentrates power, someone figures out a way to abuse it. This applies as much to Google as it does to government.

EDIT: No such thing as "Hate speech laws."

Hate speech is more or less legal in the United States.

Corrected.

> There is already a precedent for government to curb monopoly power in media.

Can you be specific? Because unless there's a tv or radio station involved, there's not a lot to stand on here in the last 50 years.

Hence why the meeting with lawmakers. They can make laws, and it seems they to intend to, perhaps after consulting the parties affected.

Because unless there's a tv or radio station involved, there's not a lot to stand on here in the last 50 years.

Translation: We just fell through the cracks because of the technological specificity of older laws. Time for new laws.

> Translation: We just fell through the cracks because of the technological specificity of older laws.

The FCC is able to regulate cross-market ownership of media only when the ownership includes a license to broadcast within publicly owned spectrum. It's not technological specificity, it has to do with the root of each technology's ability to broadcast media.

> Time for new laws.

I was talking about the Supreme Court recognizing wider application of the First Amendment, like in Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson. New laws won't help there.

The FCC is able to regulate cross-market ownership of media only when the ownership includes a license to broadcast within publicly owned spectrum.

The public didn't own that spectrum in 1812. Or at least no one knew. Again, the point is that laws (and regulations) are too technologically specific. It's time to update.

The EM spectrum is a natural and effectively finite resource. Regulation was there to enforce standards and to build a market. The internet from its very inception has always been an interconnection of private property working over private property.

This the same reason why the FCC can regulate content on the airwaves, but can’t over cable. There’s no public property involved.

The EM spectrum is a natural and effectively finite resource. Regulation was there to enforce standards and to build a market.

Hopefully, constellations of satellites providing Internet can take over almost entirely, so public property in the forms of bandwidth and orbits can justify such regulation. I say hopefully, because the current big tech culture has shown that it lacks the ethics to create level playing fields and curb its own biases.

Ideologically biased actors in YouTube are basically engaging in ideological manipulation of the market within its walled garden.

> Again, the point is that laws (and regulations) are too technologically specific. It's time to update.

To what? Without a convincing basis for the government to regulate a type of speech (like a limiting resource that needs to be licensed), your new law isn't going to make it past the first supreme court challenge.

(like a limiting resource that needs to be licensed)

Space on the recommended section and monetization is a limiting resource. Basically, human attention and the sum total of all available information are valuable and limited resources, and manipulation of access to those has potentially dangerous and far reaching consequences.

> Government complaining about bias: Civil rights laws. Equal Opportunity Employment.

There's a large difference between political/religious bias and racial bias in employment/commerce. The former is explicitly constitutionally protected. The latter is not.

Both are government doing things about bias.

>Policing ideological speech: Hate speech laws.

Hate speech is protected by the 1st amendment.

Corrected. Thanks. I fell into the linguistic trap.

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