if i have q WordPress blog on a $5vps, and you post a comment saying my blog post is stupid. its my vps,im paying for it, i can delete the comment if i want right?
where do you draw the line? how big exactly does my blog have to get before this is considered big tech censorship?
The power weilded by a government should be kept in check democratically by their constituents. As your blog grows into YouTube, you gain more and more power over people's lives and livelihoods... more political and economic reach with your decisions. That power should thus grow proportionally more limited by mechanisms of user empowerment, rights, and direct control.
There isn't a cutoff... there should instead be a sliding scale.
Or better yet, promote counter-anti-desintermediation: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Counter-Anti-Disintermediatio...
> The idea of disintermediation was central to the emancipatory visions of the Internet, yet the landscape today is more mediated than ever before. If we are to understand the consequences of an increasingly centralized Internet, we need to start by addressing the root cause of this concentration. Centralization is required to capture profit. Disintermediating platforms were ultimately reintermediated by way of capitalist investors dictating that communications systems be designed to capture profit.
https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big...
Many of us on different spectrums (libertarian here) did listen to what Elizabeth Warren said, and we agree with it.
I think there is a great deal of truth in what the anti-monopolist economic crusaders on the left (Sanders&Warren) have said. While I may not agree with everything they said about economics across the board, I do think they are correct in that we have permitted bigtech to become a monopoly. AND, I agree that overly favorable tax jurisdiction shopping is a massive problem.
We need to re-empower the DOJ to pursue antitrust again, and we need it now.
her proposals on how to deal with consolidated power and capital at the top are/were more reasonable, but that's because she's has a more visceral experience in that arena, rather than with poverty, housing, or immigration issues, for example.
At the end of the day there will be a concentration of audiences somewhere, so I don't think this problem goes away.
What I wonder is whether at a certain point we actually need to protect people from themselves. I get how ominous that sounds, but OTOH if large swaths of the population, say, fall prey to senseless conspiracy theories, do we just watch it play out?
Network effects can happen in a federated or decentralized way:
- Email is useful regardless of the software, OS, server or owner of the address you are sending emails to.
- The fediverse benefits from network effects and interoperability between instances with both different software and different communities.
I would even go further and argue that centralized "network effects" are in reality "captive costs" of "not being inside the walled garden" rather than a true network to begin with.
Through the magic of interoperability entities can set up their own servers or contract to external providers their email services.
There's no technical reason they can't, but practically, a central, easily discernible destination appeals to those looking to monetize their content.
Email is a one-to-one (or few) channel vs broadcast. Completely different.
The arguments about decentralization/federation remind me of the early days of the Net, wherein there was so much talk of democratization, but here we are (unfortunately).
That is very similar to what was mentioned up-thread:
> [..] we need to start by addressing the root cause of this concentration: Centralization is required to capture profit.
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> Email is a one-to-one (or few) channel vs broadcast. Completely different.
ActivityPub / Diaspora / Friendica were also mentioned; email was about interop between software and service providers.
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> The arguments about decentralization/federation remind me of the early days of the Net, wherein there was so much talk of democratization, but here we are (unfortunately).
Also mentioned up-thread:
> The idea of disintermediation was central to the emancipatory visions of the Internet, yet the landscape today is more mediated than ever before.
Yes, these are all examples of what's technically possible from a decentralization standpoint; yet have not flourished WRT adoption, relative to the centralized platforms.
>That is very similar to what was mentioned up-thread:
"[..] we need to start by addressing the root cause of this concentration: Centralization is required to capture profit.
I see the article you've quoted up-thread and the author's observation is so obvious as to add little to this discussion. That is, of course it's an issue of profit.
But, I suppose it does underscore that it's not the question of technology that advocates of Diaspora, etc. suggest.
So, sure, my original point that we'll always tend towards centralization on platforms that benefit from network effects relies on the assumption that we'll continue to have a capitalist economy.
This is a true symbiosis: the Party will see that no laws that harm the Company are passed, and Company will stop the spread of any information harmful to the Party.
Probably no relation with the 2014 Princeton study published on the Cambridge University Press that determined the United States of America to be an Oligarchy rather than a Democracy.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
> But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened
Neither Bill Clinton or Obama came from or had money. Neither had fathers in their lives or immediate great families of consequence. Neither had long-tenured national political experience. Oh yeah, and Obama is half black. The oligarchy chose Obama over Hillary Clinton? They had no choice is what actually happened.
Just because the study came from Princeton, that doesn't mean it's not idiotic.
Additionally it is a very weird presidentialist take to criticize a study on only the presidential election outcomes of a two-party state.
but that our political system isn't a full-on autocratic aristocracy doesn't mean it isn't oligarchal. oligarchy implies an outsized influence by a small subset, not complete control, just as democracy doesn't mean complete control by the people. oligarchy seems a pretty apt characterization.
A true countercultural president is rare, and the overlooked people in the country got one. His policy could be anything, as long as it makes the coastal folks angry.
When you have lobbyists working for you.
Compare with YouTube, where anyone can post a video saying the same and if Joe Rogan came after them, YouTube would claim section 230 protection, insisting it's not selecting content and hence it's not responsible for the user's content.
Many people would be fine with YouTube or any other social media company censoring whatever it wants if it also had been liable for the content it leaves uncensored. As of now, it's having the cake (censoring anything they want) and eating it too (not being liable for the content that's left).
However American law requires bakers to bake cakes for events they as an individual disagree with. An old lady florist was individuals fined for refusing to do an event she thought was morally questionable.
It seems the only 'people' with rights to conscience are multi billion dollar companies conveniently doing the bidding of the party in power. So that's strange.