Alex Jones doesn't need to be censored, but he doesn't need to be recommended to YouTube viewers 15 billion times. That's the issue, it's the targeted ad model of big tech that turns dangerous cranks - who exist in every culture - into superstars.
The idea that a small group of English-speaking Silicon Valley titans can control speech while running radicalization engines is simply ludicrous. Even if they can do it in the U.S., what about all the conspiracy theories and danger in every other non-Western non-English nation?
The reason all these media and big tech execs want censorship is because it's the only path that preserves their revenue and social position. It doesn't address the problem, which is *their own business model* radicalizing millions and ruining our minds.
The way to handle problems like incitement, defamation, harassment, etc, all of which are *already illegal* is in a court of law. Not in a court of Mark Zuckerberg or through @jack's tortured conscience. These aren't private decisions, they are public ones.
I'll also note that the problem was amplified by big tech, but was a problem because of media deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s. And if you want to know who gets boxed out by private infrastructure, it's black media entrepreneurs. prospect.org/power/remote-c…
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“The number of cases where there is just one – often fragile – supplier is staggering. This is a deterioration from a decade ago when 3 to 5 suppliers existed for each component, let alone several decades ago when the military generally enjoyed dozens of suppliers for each item.”
The Defense Department is now also pointing out that Wall Street is a huge national security problem, as is what the Pentagon calls a "radical vision of free trade without fair trade enforcement."
Hey conservatives I know you're all mad about Silicon Valley censoring you but Trump's Antitrust Division chief Makan Delrahim's final act was to let Google complete its acquisition of Fitbit. Congrats for being completely inattentive to Trump's policy choices around big tech.
My critique of Democrats under Obama is they paid zero attention to the foreclosure crisis and much of Obama's policy framework. Conservatives have operated exactly as Democrats did, if not worse, completely uninterested in what Trump did - in this case empowering big tech.
The most meaningful action against big tech was @davidcicilline's 16 month investigation of large technology firms in the antitrust subcommittee in which he found lots of evidence of monopoly power.
@Jim_Jordan did everything he could to sabotage it.
It's quite evident we have a serious problem with the business model of social media and tech platforms. Parler is a dangerous problem. Facebook is a much bigger much more dangerous problem.
Many who focus on first amendment issues for the last decade or so have held up Section 230 as an inviolable beacon of free speech, overlooking its role as a shield to let tech firms profit from illegal activity. That's a problem. mattstoller.substack.com/p/rumors-sprea…
We wrote a 200 page report on why corporate concentration - including the big tech radicalization engines - worsened under both Democratic and Republican administrations. It has to do with antitrust enforcement, and it's fixable by Biden.
We researched multiple sectors of the economy - big tech, newspapers, aerospace/defense, media, telecom, hospitals, pharma, (even Ticketmaster!) to show that policy under the Obama administration shaped our lives in ways that we didn't realize at the time.
From QAnon to high health care costs, American life flows through our corporations and markets, and those are structured by *policy.* And we have a to do list for Joe Biden, state enforcers and policymakers, and Congress.
I wrote up one simple thing Joe Biden can do to reset America. He should restore the FTC, which is the agency tasked with regulating social media, by appointing a real enforcer - Rohit Chopra - as Chair. mattstoller.substack.com/p/a-simple-thi…
I went over the life of Ashli Babbitt, the woman killed in the Capitol, and her experiences with war, monopolies and financial predators. Rage has roots. mattstoller.substack.com/p/a-simple-thi…
Babbitt was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and served abroad for a total of eight deployments. She returned and revealed violent tendencies. She bought a small business adjacent to a monopoly, and then was preyed on by loan sharks. Then she went QAnon. mattstoller.substack.com/p/a-simple-thi…
1. Since a bunch of people are asking, here's my view of the Parler-AWS situation. Yes, Parler should be removed from AWS, but not the way it was done and not because Amazon feels like it or wants political favors from incoming Democrats.
2. The problem is that what Parler is doing probably should be illegal, because it should be responsible on product liability terms for the known outcomes of its product, aka violence. But it’s not illegal, bc Section 230 means it has no obligation for what its product fosters.
3. So we’re dealing with a legal product and there’s no grounds to remove it from AWS. That said, this isn't a Parler-problem specifically, because Parler isn't any different from Facebook, YouTube, or Grindr in terms of fostering violence. mattstoller.substack.com/p/rumors-sprea…