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The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

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Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#91

Post by haberman »

padseeker wrote: post #45

It's very concerning that there is so much influence concentrated within such few hands. However I have to ask - would the WSJ would be so concerned if Google or Facebook were conservative leaning outlets? Normally the WSJ defends this kind of duopoly kind of thing - if either Google or Facebook had some sort of right side leaning the WSJ would be preaching to us about the genius of capitalism and the wisdom of the m…

This is exactly why "viewpoint diversity" is something people are increasingly concerned about. The basic premise is: we all engage in motivated reasoning. We all accept weak arguments sometimes if they reinforce or flatter our existing world view. If we shut out all dissenting views, we'll let lots of bullshit go unchallenged because we were never forced to actually defend our beliefs.

So I think it's totally fair to call out perceived inconsistency in the WSJ position. Maybe the WSJ has a blind spot where they are more willing to accept consolidated power when it favors them. But I think that illustrates exactly why viewpoint diversity is important. WSJ will have blind spots sometimes, but other times they may be able to call other media on their blind spots.

Put another way, you can think of society as a whole as a mind. Just like our individual minds, the societal "mind" can have conflicting or competing ideas. The mind functions best when these different thoughts can "have it out" and try to convince each other that they are correct.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#92

Post by [deleted] »

Helloworldboy wrote: post #63
ForRealsies wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sitting down to use the internet in 1995-2007 took a certain kind of personality. It was an act that required isolating yourself for long periods of time. "Normies" are very unconcerned, easily distracted, and quickly trusting of Big Apps.

Agreed, it's just weird to think how much that mindset has infiltrated the HN. This place is supposed to be populated by engineers with critical thinking skills, yet any criticism of these large corporations is met with censorship via down votes. Really makes you think..

[deleted]

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#93

Post by wmil »

kelukelugames wrote: post #3

It's funny how competing groups rally around terms that sound the same. Terms that carry positive connotations and share common words. "Pro choice" vs "pro life". And now we have "diversity and inclusion" vs "diversity of thought." update: haha, there's a wikipedia section on this called political framing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_pro-choice_movem...

It's sad that we no longer get names like "antidisestablishmentarianism".

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#94

Post by JSONwebtoken »

christmasity wrote: post #80
guelo wrote: post #17

Right wing propaganda is so strong and coordinated these days that they can develop a new goal and drive a single message repeatedly across multiple platforms for months or years. This attack on Google is a new right wing message developed this year but they just keep hammering at it across all their channels tailoring their argument to the different audiences and continuously building mind share and momentum.

>Right wing propaganda is so strong and coordinated these days that they can develop a new goal and drive a single message repeatedly across multiple platforms for months or years. If that is the case, why is it that we see mostly left wing propaganda on social media and most news sites?

What's the right-wing counterpart to Shareblue? I have never seen something equivalent to the effectiveness of modern "grassroots" messaging campaigns sponsored by certain democratic chessmasters. The fact that full-time protester is now a decently paid and socially acceptable job is incredible.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#95

Post by supplied_demand »

christmasity wrote: post #80
guelo wrote: post #17

Right wing propaganda is so strong and coordinated these days that they can develop a new goal and drive a single message repeatedly across multiple platforms for months or years. This attack on Google is a new right wing message developed this year but they just keep hammering at it across all their channels tailoring their argument to the different audiences and continuously building mind share and momentum.

>Right wing propaganda is so strong and coordinated these days that they can develop a new goal and drive a single message repeatedly across multiple platforms for months or years. If that is the case, why is it that we see mostly left wing propaganda on social media and most news sites?

Isn't the content they show you just a reflection of the data you have provided them?

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#96

Post by Kalium »

humanrebar wrote: post #82
nickik wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False. The law actually changed because judges noticed that the law as it was in the books was pretty nonsensical and totally arbitrary. It was mostly created, pushed and used by a group of progressive to go after their political opponents. Its well documented (even if people choice not to remember this part) that this was very much PR and protectionism of businesses that were afraid to be driven of the market by the…

> That is very easily said but practically impossible. It's very practical to say should not be able to buy . Likewise, it is practical to say cannot favor their product in feeds, search, app stores, etc. over competitors. > Again, said very easily. Have you considered what that would mean? Sure. To the extent that open standards support types of media, it's a solved problem. Displaying tags has been a thing for deca…

To the extent that open standards support multimedia, you're absolutely right that Facebook could preview any video from any place on the internet. There might be some potential for minor security concerns around loading and serving big blobs of external data, but those are controllable.

What might be of larger concern is the IP licensing aspect. Users uploading video and indemnifying Facebook against their dubious claims of ownership is questionable. It's possible that what you suggest might run afoul of copyright concerns, as well as the business model reasons you so correctly point to.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#97

Post by IBM »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #4

The solution really is a revitalization of antitrust policy. The reason markets work is because participants in them are bound to a 'race to the bottom' with many other participants doing the same thing. When companies aren't forced to race to the bottom against each other, the conditions of authoritarianism rise. Authoritarian structures don't have to necessarily come from government - monopolies, oligopolies and im…

The revitalization is happening as we speak. Normally Big Tech would have been able to rely on establishment Democrats and Republicans to avoid antitrust scrutiny. But Democrats are on board with the progressive wing now [1], mainly as a result of seeing the fallout of Google/Facebook/Twitter's role in enabling Russian influence operations in the US (and Europe), but also because newspapers and rivals of Google have been campaigning for it for years (Foundem in the UK and Yelp in the US have been massive thorns in Google's side, as well as the entire FairSearch group). They were successful in the EU (the shopping and Android cases are slam dunks in my opinion) but were stymied in the US under the Obama administration (despite FTC staff recommending a case be made) [2].

The exciting, and refreshing, thing about the revitalization is that's its bipartisan in nature. The Bannon wing of the Republican party are targeting Google/Facebook for the perceived threat to conservative speech and likely because the companies are too liberal, the Warren wing of the Democrats are concerned with concentration in markets. The mainstream of the parties are more open to these arguments than ever before. A Republican attorney general opened an antitrust investigation against Google [3]. That's dangerous water to be in if you're Google or Facebook.

[1] https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novemberdecember-2017...

[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-u-s-antitrust-probe-...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/technology/missouri-googl...

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#98

Post by [deleted] »

folksinger wrote: post #64
dustingetz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Network effects are inherent to networks; you can't regulate away the very thing that makes them valuable to people (well, i dont see how at least)

We make natural monopolies into public institutions. Roads, sidewalks, parks, copyright registrars, postal services, land surveyors, courts, law enforcement, etc, etc. And then we take an active role in their management. Notice the difference between the physical activity of helping to maintain these institutions and the physical activity of sitting at your keyboard and typing into an HTML form and hitting the submit…

[deleted]

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#99

Post by JSONwebtoken »

Helloworldboy wrote: post #63
ForRealsies wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sitting down to use the internet in 1995-2007 took a certain kind of personality. It was an act that required isolating yourself for long periods of time. "Normies" are very unconcerned, easily distracted, and quickly trusting of Big Apps.

Agreed, it's just weird to think how much that mindset has infiltrated the HN. This place is supposed to be populated by engineers with critical thinking skills, yet any criticism of these large corporations is met with censorship via down votes. Really makes you think..

If you look at the traffic data, part of that is the growing proportion of users from the EU and India. The EU is a continent suffering from pandemic stockholm syndrome and Indians are not likely to be a fan of anything that keeps them from a green card.

I would say less than 30% of HN posters are professional programmers/engineers. Most are 20-something unemployed wantrepeneurs from Reddit and the remaining minority are academics/scientists/doctors/financiers.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#100

Post by dustingetz »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #81
dustingetz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Network effects are inherent to networks; you can't regulate away the very thing that makes them valuable to people (well, i dont see how at least)

I suppose I see consolidation which is a function of the mechanics of the market as a good reason for nationalization and consolidation which isn't as a good reason for antitrust. So maybe Facebook/Google should be nationalized? I think the real test of that though is to break them up and see whether consolidation reoccurs. I'd love to have lots of competing Googles and I prefer that world to the one with a nationali…

maybe! i don't see how it's possible to have two competing world wide webs, or two competing facebooks. The fact that there's only one of them is why they are valuable.

It's interesting that facebook wants to be the world wide web, and if they pull that off, they'll have just eaten the one network and merged it into theirs.

Its as if the only way to compete with a network is to swallow it up by a bigger, more powerful network. Iterate that over 20 or 50 years. We're in trouble :(

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