Comment by jancsika | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jancsika | Hacker News Reader

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This is a beautiful implementation of a tactic to shift a conversation.

OP starts with a seemingly related pivot to the topic of how to prioritize the regulation of a company like Google with the regulation of other companies. Such a conversation would obviously involve at least few points about why Google ought not top the list. (And hopefully many points given OP says Google is "by far" not top priority.) I was certainly interested to read such a digression...

Then, like Alan Sokal's prank[1], OP leaves out any argument for that prioritization. Instead, OP moves directly to complaining about the other companies which OP has declared by fiat should take priority.

And, voila! Every single comment below OP at the time of this writing similarly avoids the ostensible discussion about Google's prioritization, instead discussing only the other companies and the efficacy of their regulation. Potential regulation of Google as a topic is completely avoided in any of the child nodes of this OP.

Whether this was intentional or not, it makes an excellent archetype for this tactic.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sokal

HN threads are not 1:1 conversations.

Threads start and branch on different topics, which are varying degrees related to the main post.

Kind of like how you have now switched the discussion to Alan Sokal. That doesn't mean you are making some tactical shift as part of a larger strategy.

Google isn't top of the list - because it's way easier for a user to stop using, than MC and Visa networks.

I would argue for an EU type approach and instead of regulating Google or payment networks - force demonopolization and opening up markets to more competition.

If you wish I can even share the priority list in my mind, for what sectors require addressing before Google:

1. Actual local monopolies

2. Local education sectors and their organisations

3. Radio spectrum for local wireless internet and cable providers (to challenge local cable monopolies)

4. Banking and payments systems

5. Construction sector

... basically there's 99 problems and Google ain't one.

Monopolization of any industry isn't high up there on the priority list of issues we should address by far.

Climate change, election interference, and COVID-19 are far more pressing issues than monopolization.

However the fact that these other bigger issues exist doesn't mean we shouldn't care about or take action on the lesser. If one brings up how we should address issue 'x' and are met with "but what about issue 'y'?" it does give the impression of deflection or of whataboutism.

Those issues are all interrelated. We can't solve them because of corporate domination of the political system and the buying off of the American intelligensia.

Where did that assumption come from? Just because people disagree doesn't mean they are bought off. Citation definitetly needed to even remotely approach a pattern like "bought off" let alone a proof.

It comes from years of observation and study of the structure of the government and society. If you're interested there are many books about this from Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman to critiques of the academy that shut up after the state started funding them extravegantly after WW2, to the current ossification that is easily observed where no policies are allowed to shift that benefit the wealthy at the expense of society. It is so extensive that one or two citations isn't sufficient and deserves a lifetime of study.

So when Facebook has a monopoly on social media and allows misinformation to spread about _those exact three topics_, what would you suggest we do about it?

I addressed this in the third sentence of my comment:

> However the fact that these other bigger issues exist doesn't mean we shouldn't care about or take action on the lesser. If one brings up how we should address issue 'x' and are met with "but what about issue 'y'?" it does give the impression of deflection or of whataboutism.

The point is that we can care about more than one issue at a time.

But if you really cared about "election interference" then attacking media monopolies would be at the top of your list and you wouldn't make this argument.

You need to pick things that aren't directly connected if you want to deflect, or your argument comes across as being too obviously in bad faith.

If Facebook didn't have a monopoly on social media, would competitive pressure make it stop what you consider misinformation? Of course not. You can find a stream of misinformation in more marginal press outlets. Only larger outlets that have a relative monopoly (NYtimes say), can afford to be relatively free of crude misinformation (but even here they have their very definite spin as does everything).

The only reason people are talking about forcing Facebook to impose some restrictions on communication is because Facebook has somewhat of a monopoly on some communication.

Which is to say that talk of Facebook and regulation winds up being "Facebook is big and powerful and we want the state to have that power instead, damn it". Without liking Facebook's approach all that much, I'm less of a fan of this.

That post is ironically itself misinformation and leading assumptions.

1. Facebook is a monopoly on social media is a false assumption. Even limiting it to the mainstream there is reddit and twitter. Tumblr a prior competitor essentially died by "suicide" after being bought up. 2. That allowing misinformation is a problem and something that "we" should do about it. That is not only contrary to the first ammendment but suffers from watching the watchmen problems. 3. To demand to be able to stop it on a technical level is absued epistemologically as asking bullets to only kill bad people or encryption to let "good guys" in. 4. Misinformation itself is contextual. "Bleach kills the Coronavirus." is true. Saying "Bleach kills the Coronavirus!" in the context of cleaning treatment equipment is still technically true but there may be implementation issues with what may be washed safely and misses nuance when it corrodes fittings. Saying "Bleach kills the Coronavirus" as a treatment itself is misinformation because it will kill the patient before it cures them in the same way a bleach embalming could eradicate infectious agents.

> This is a beautiful implementation of a tactic to shift a conversation.

Or it is merely contextualizing the debate around what should and should not be considered a public utility by contrasting the case of Google with others. This in turn helps creating consistency and improves our understanding of the matter.

This forum is not the platform where the fate of Google is decided, so "taking attention away" can't really have malicious consequences, if it helps us coming to a principled understanding.

The argument for the prioritization is right in OPs post - a vast majority of every person-to-business transaction has a 3% transaction fee layered on top of it.

> X is the worst!

> No, look at how bad Y and Z are! They're so bad!

this is a... Sokal? (I think it's pretty easy to read the intent here, and more generally: internet comments are hardly rigorous proofs, and that's probably a good thing.)

Anyway, there are bigger problems in the world than Google. While I am not sure payment processing is more urgent that regulating Google, there are many other things that are orders of magnitudes more important to tackle than regulating Google.

"Anyway", talking about the relative morality of the discussion is a derail from the ostensible topic.

Anyway, on the topic, none of the reasons presented in the article seem compelling. Government regulation should step in when consumers have no choice but to use something that has achieved a monopoly, and the payment networks mentioned do make a more compelling case.

It seems inappropriate for regulation to step in when something happens to be popular but there are equal or better alternatives easily available, and changing to a different search engine is about the easiest change a person could make in their life.

In the case of mitigating any bad behavior by Google, there's a very easy alternative solution for the problem, which is to convince people to use other search engines. I haven't used Google as mine for over 15 years and I don't believe I've suffered at all for it. I've found DuckDuckGo to perfectly suit my needs. Google run as a public utility could potentially hurt all the other search engines that many would consider to be superior solutions already.

"This is a beautiful implementation of a tactic to shift a conversation."

It's just a comment, not a 'tactic'.

Turns out, things can be viewed differently from different contexts. It's both a comment AND a tactic.

It’s not a tactic without intent

And if you hold that something can be a tactic without intent, then anything and everything is a tactic to bring about its related reaction.

I wanted to say I dont think Googles dominance would be such an issue if they were forced to stop collecting personal data to target ads. IMHO they are already in decline in terms of relevant (to the user) search results.

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