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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

#141

Post by supernovae »

chmln wrote: post #136
supernovae wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without context what you are saying is meaningless. Sure, "liberals" seem closed minded in not accepting racism, bigotry or hate speech but in accepting people for who they are, it's hard to say their opinions are stereotypical at all... I mean the democrats/liberals/progressives agree to disagree more often than not.

> racism, bigotry or hate speech The problem is that these words have become nearly meaningless from vast overuse.

how so? another comment without context.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#142

Post by narrator »

AKrumbach wrote: post #47
narrator wrote: post #8

Which makes me ask the question: do you, gentle Hacker News reader, really want diversity of opinion and why? Do you have unpopular opinions and if so, would you get fired or ostracized for sharing them? Are you practicing crimethink? After all, the only people actually working on alternatives to Google and Facebook are the alt-right who have been de-platformed. Gab.ai is so de-platformed that google doesn't even let…

> Which makes me ask the question: do you, gentle Hacker News reader, really want diversity of opinion and why? I speak only for myself, but the answer is an absolute, complete and emphatic YES. The reason is quite simple: in all of human history, there have been only three "families", broadly speaking, of epistemological methods[1]: * Mysticism: you have been told what is true by an unquestionable (and often distant…

The thing about Socratic debate is that to do it well, and actually produce NEW information that's not the two sides yelling stuff they already believe at each other, the two sides need to agree to not engage in any of the informal or logical fallacies. Not a lot of people are familiar with the informal fallacies. Since they are arguments that can be used to support any argument, when I'm debating something online and I'm in the mood for putting work into it, I will use fallacies used against me to prove the exact opposite of the argument the fallacy user is trying to make. Anybody who has some education in rhetoric can adopt this technique. It makes arguing on internet forums kind of fun because it at least allows for an opportunity to demonstrate the reasons behind rhetorical rules. This is what these free speech platforms are good for, because you can really get into it with people in a debate before it gets cut off for not being polite enough to popularly held fallacious ideas.

For example, I sometimes go on to right wing forum and argue that the Jews are unfairly targeted for criticism as a group. It's a challenge to bring people around, but for some reason I kind of enjoy it. It's like fight club for my brain.

I think the fallacious arguments are getting more automated lately. I was once on a thread where there was some sort of auto-insult bot that would just hurl insults. I would reply with the insult back with the terms switched around. The lazy shill, or the bot would reply back. This went back and forth for a while until I asked the other guy if he was a bot and then it stopped.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#143

Post by Kalium »

humanrebar wrote: post #137
Kalium wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

> What might be of larger concern is the IP licensing aspect. If that's the larger concern, then why isn't it a concern for text or images? Lots of photographers would love Facebook-enforced DRM for the wedding photos they haven't licensed. No, it makes more sense to assume the concern is pursuing consumer and creator lock-in through vertical integration.

You are, obviously and of course, correct that Facebook stands to benefit from lock-in.

Perhaps I fail to understand the IP issues correctly. Users uploading wedding photos to Facebook that they claim they have the rights to is in the same category, legally, as the videos that users claim they own the rights to. Both get the same (lack of) concern.

That's my understanding, at least. Does your differ?

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#144

Post by AnimalMuppet »

supernovae wrote: post #141
chmln wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> racism, bigotry or hate speech The problem is that these words have become nearly meaningless from vast overuse.

how so? another comment without context.

All right, here's some context. People are classified as "racist" for believing that the culture that came out of northern Europe is not inherently oppressive. (Source: Watching what's happened on university campuses for the last couple of years. I can't point you to a specific documentation of a specific event at the moment.)

When that's the definition of "racist", then racism is indeed "nearly meaningless" - it's become such a broad term that it no longer means anything. To paraphrase The Incredibles: "When everything fits the definition... then nothing does."

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#145

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ithilglin909 wrote: post #121
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you practicing crimethink? -A few hundred years ago, being an atheist was "crimethink", as was religious tolerance towards Jews, Muslims, and so forth. -A few hundred years ago, questioning the divine right of kings to rule was "crimethink". -In the early 1600s, Galileo stood trial and was condemned for the "crimethink" of saying the Earth moved around the Sun, in contradiction to the teachings of the Church. -…

You say you want diversity of opinion because you are a "liberal" but mainstream liberalism has next to nothing to do with classical liberalism. Your average urban, coastal "liberal" adheres to their orthodoxies with about the level openness to other opinions as a stereotypical religious zealot.

We need different words (or perhaps phrases) for "mainstream (US) liberalism" and "classical liberalism". The problem is that "liberalism", without modifiers, used to mean "classical liberalism", and now most often means "mainstream liberalism". This leads to confusion (sometimes deliberate, as mainstream liberals try to wrap themselves in the mantle of respectability that classical liberalism earned).

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#146

Post by nickik »

freeflight wrote: post #128
nickik wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is requiring you to use 12 apps. The point is that there are 12 (and actually many more) apps that people could choice if they were in any way unhappy with their current choice. Even search, where google has the clearest leads other offers exists. You can not expect your definition of monopoly to be 'any costumer must be able to immediately switch service without any transaction cost on any of the many, many a…

> Nobody is requiring you to use 12 apps. The point is that there are 12 (and actually many more) apps that people could choice if they were in any way unhappy with their current choice. I can only make that choice for myself, if my family and peers are on none of these apps, then what gain will I get from switching to them? > You can not expect your definition of monopoly to be 'any costumer must be able to immediat…

You can't just expect your own decision to change the market. There are of course network effects and eventually you have to make a choice if you want to support all clients and thus all people or if you don't want to do that then you have to make choices.

The point is that there are many networks and there is lots of competition on every level and as a costumer you have the choice how to organise your live.

> I didn't define any monopoly at all, I'm merely pointing out that there's something to be said about keeping it simple and "centralized" with certain things.

I agree, if the market is relativly free and a dominant player emerges, it is usually an efficent result, even if many people are not very happy.

That is why many free-market economist don't agree with the idea that anti-trust law is needed to prevent the centralisation that marx proclaimed and many modern progressive economists defend in new ways.

So I'm quite ok with one player, like Whatsapp, dominating for a time. For myself however, I dislike centralisation in fundamental infrastructure, so I make the personal choice to also have Signal, Matrix and many other chats. Depending on what group of friends I use a different app.

So we need to be carful with what are your personal choices and interest, and what are our acceptable market outcomes. Many people have a much to narrow view about how the market outcome 'should' look based on their assumtion of cost (typical example is transportation threw centralised nodes that many people think 'make no sense').

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#148

Post by nickik »

ch4s3 wrote: post #86
nickik wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are a local monopoly (and in case of comcast more then just local). But you see this is very different. This is essentially a state created monopoly, so the left does never really seem to care about them. They were pretty much born as monopolies. The left is only interested in the 'free market great monopolies and we need to protect the people with regulation narrative'. The right on the other hand does not real…

This is a categorically false assertion. Almost everyone hates comcast. And left, right, and center numerous municipalities are trying to break Comcast's local monopolies, but are being stopped by state legislatures. Regulatory capture is a big problem, and the buying of politicians is a problem on both sides politically in the US. *Edit: I'd be curious to know why people disagree with my statement.

Maybe you are misunderstanding me. Maybe I was not clear.

With state I'm 'the government' not 'state government' in case this was not clear.

I was just trying to say why on federal level does not try to fix these issues on a higher level. My point was that neither sees it as a important enough issue, not to mention complicated because of all the different levels.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#149

Post by mikebenfield »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #144
supernovae wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how so? another comment without context.

All right, here's some context. People are classified as "racist" for believing that the culture that came out of northern Europe is not inherently oppressive. (Source: Watching what's happened on university campuses for the last couple of years. I can't point you to a specific documentation of a specific event at the moment.) When that's the definition of "racist", then racism is indeed "nearly meaningless" - it's b…

> Watching what's happened on university campuses for the last couple of years

Have you been on a university campus recently?

Contrary to what some reactionary conservatives seem to think, they are not generally oppressive places with no tolerance for conservative thought.

Yes, occasionally 19 year olds say and do some silly things. That's kind of what being young and having your first taste of adulthood is supposed to be about. And if you only consume media that highlights those silly things and never actually visit a university and talk to young people, yeah, you can easily get a very negative view of what universities and academic culture are like.

> People are classified as "racist" for believing that the culture that came out of northern Europe is not inherently oppressive.

Well, it is inherently oppressive, as is just about every other traditional culture, and citizens have to be constantly vigilant about to make sure that oppressive nature is held at bay as much as possible. Can there really be any doubt about this? Consider, among many other facts, the fact that Alabama just very nearly elected to the US Senate a man who thinks the US was better under slavery and that the constitutional amendments granting women and blacks the right to vote should be revoked. If that's not enough to convince you that racism is a serious problem I don't know what would be.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#150

Post by nickik »

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…

You are missing my point. You are assuming a perfect regulater in your imagination. However this is not how the real word works.

Do you remember all the democratic autrage about Net Neutrality. How everybody cried about how unfair it was.

Who are actually the exact people that get to make these choices. How do you enforce fair proceedings? How do you handle appeal? How do you do all this without making it fundamentally undemocratic?

Do you want a democratic vote to make these choices?

Do you want the Senate as a whole to vote on these issues?

How about a congressonal subcommity?

Do you want a largly unsuprivised undemocratic burocracy to just make these chocie by fiat?

The list of problems goes on. What is the legal bases for these effect and how do you punish people who don't follow the rules? How about the US not controlling the internet and if the US goes away from global standards it could massivly hurt the US as a industry standard.

These are real conceptual issues that have caused many issues in many of these ideas that people have where they assume that 'if only I could make these choice the way I want, it would be better for everybody'. However the outcome that you imagine is probebly not the outcome you are gone get, specially if you don't think about these issues.

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