What's up with this authoritarian discourse on HN? Since when are we casually calling for censorship of things that are "disliked"?
The megacorps are having videos taken down off so-called private clouds for calling out the rulling class too much. I worry for the Orwellian direction we are heading into.
Some would argue: since technological progress outpaced society's capacity to cope with it. One of the possible answers for the Fermi Paradox is "everyone invents Facebook shortly after computers", and it seems a lot more plausible than it did ten years ago.
It's hard not to see surveillance capitalism as a variant of what Orwell was warning about - Facebook etc. are the telescreens and two-minutes-hate from 1984. As megacorps start to rival governments in reach and power, who exactly controls them is somewhat less important than their overall impact on the civilization.
However, this freedom is only aimed at the users themselves. In reality, venture capitalists, highly-paid software workers, digital nomads and other gentrifying forces are by and large on the side of authoritarianism in the role they play in the world. They produce systems that reward them greatly while increasing surveillance and quantification of the rest of the population.
It's not uncommon to see employees of adtech FAANG companies here wonder, without any trace of irony or self-awareness, why more people don't use ad blockers on their router or browser. There's a reason why the "make the world a better place" phrase is so heavily parodied.
No. The platform is just a place just like a sidewalk is a place. The problem is society itself. But I guess that's a hard pill to swallow for people and making up imaginary enemies then laying down the regulations on those imaginary enemies is preferred to addressing issues with society itself.
Don't forget these "public squares" are companies who's sole purpose is to show you ads to generate revenues, they're not here to provide a fair and calm public forum, they're not public utilities
There is a ton of evidence YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. deliberately push inflammatory / extremist material to people to increase engagement.
My 8 year old daughter exclusively watches Let's Play and "how to draw" / DIY crafting videos on YouTube, and still gets recommended content on why vaccinations are dangerous and junk health pseudoscience, flat earth and New World Order conspiracy theories, and a ton of comparatively vanilla highly biased political "commentary."
Their algorithm tells them if they can get her interest on these videos (instead of others) she will spend more time on their site. They do not care why she is spending more time on their site, or if there is any societal harm from the content she is consuming - it's a "free country, after all."
If every time you went to your coffee shop, they introduced you to another customer peddling snake oil or handed you a newspaper full of extreme left or right wing talking points, you wouldn't say "it's just a coffee shop."
It obviously is a two way street, technology shapes society as much as we shape technology. Do you think humanity evolves independently of its tools ?
People are horrible, what we made with tech equally is, media were biased before and we just have more sources and channels now. If anything you're making my point
What made Von Braun's rocket designs more evil than those by others? The transitive morality is a deeply dubious assumption.