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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

#201

Post by thethirdone »

tscs37 wrote: post #123
humanrebar wrote: post #13

This is the first I heard of the Prager U parental filtering and demonetization. The videos are certainly conservative, both culturally and economically, but the ones I've seen aren't objectionable in any way. In many ways, they are less objectionable than a lot that goes out over the AM radio bands in the U.S. Ars Technica on the story: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/prageru-sues-you... Best I can find…

Some of the PragerU videos are rather disturbing but I'd rather have them public because picking them apart with friends is quite an interesting activity. They are an amazing conversation starter on a variety of topics. I'd hate it if Google started removing them completely, despite me not even closely aligning to their ideology.

> Some of the PragerU videos are rather disturbing but I'd rather have them public because picking them apart with friends is quite an interesting activity.

I hadn't watched one before, but I just watched the facism one to try picking it apart. I was expecting something considerably more in line with conspiracy theorist youtuber's I have watched.

Its rather disturbing how the roughly correct facts (I'm not sure about complete correctness as I haven't read much about fascism) are quickly assembled into an argument that conservatism is "better" than liberalism.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#202

Post by sintaxi »

rorykoehler wrote: post #199
sintaxi wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a natural process of any organically evolving system. It keeps what helps it and expels what doesn't. I don't think it is natural, I think its a sickness. The goal isn't to improve things the goal is to have an enemy to destroy. There is no point where behaviour of the un-purged will be acceptable enough. > Regarding shining light on the ideas... this is pointless So you understand the arguments, learned th…

I never said I don't want others to go through the same process. Just don't expect anything from me. We all live in our own realities and I'm lucky to be privileged enough to be able to ignore hardcore Nazis. Life is too short to waste energy on debating them. I suspect many feel this way. If it comes to a head and I find that I suddenly can't avoid them anymore I know where I stand and will act accordingly. If you s…

Those are wise words.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#203

Post by nailer »

supernovae wrote: post #130
ithilglin909 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I find a lot of US faux-'liberals' to be quite bigoted in terms of acting like measures against against illegal immigration from Mexico somehow are racist - implying all Mexicans are illegal immigrants. Similarly the same people speak as if all black people are working class, all white people are middle class, etc., which is also bigoted.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#204

Post by briandear »

platz wrote: post #127
humanrebar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question is have we reached a point where technology and globalization provide such enormous returns to the economies of scale that we can't go back or is all this corporate concentration just due to a lack of government enforcement? At some point, America decided that only horizontal monopolies counted, not vertical ones. Many of our concerns about antitrust would be assuaged if regulators started keeping sepa…

RE: Antitrust - on the right track. Consumer's can't solve this from the ground up. What's needed is to prevent certain kinds of key acquisitions. The law around acquisitions is too permissive in an age of network effects; acquisition laws were fine pre-internet but don't solve their intended purpose anymore. Normally, the market corrects against the biggest players because the biggest players are slow to change cult…

As a very free market libertarian, I actually agree with this completely. Facebook buying Insta was a very anti-competitive situation. It wasn’t a purchase for a particular tech — it was a purchase specifically to capture a competitor. Grabbing WhatsApp is an even more severe example — it effectively gave Facebook ownership of a vast percentage of messaging networks — both their own and WhatsApp.

Google is a harder one though because Google doesn’t rely upon network effects to the same extreme FB does — meaning, my dad’s search engine choice has no impact on me — but my dad’s messaging client absolutely does.

It’s relatively easy to start a new search engine — it’s close to impossible to start a new general purpose messaging system or social network — at least not one that survives.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#205

Post by briandear »

acover wrote: post #188
platz wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RE: Antitrust - on the right track. Consumer's can't solve this from the ground up. What's needed is to prevent certain kinds of key acquisitions. The law around acquisitions is too permissive in an age of network effects; acquisition laws were fine pre-internet but don't solve their intended purpose anymore. Normally, the market corrects against the biggest players because the biggest players are slow to change cult…

What about a consumer group to assert pressure? Edit: a consumer group could have monopsony powers and be capable of negotiating concessions. Such as an open api.

Consumers already can do that — they can refuse to use FB products — but they don’t. So a consumer group is pretty useless without enough consumers to actually exert their power.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#206

Post by wdn »

euyyn wrote: post #25
humanrebar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question is have we reached a point where technology and globalization provide such enormous returns to the economies of scale that we can't go back or is all this corporate concentration just due to a lack of government enforcement? At some point, America decided that only horizontal monopolies counted, not vertical ones. Many of our concerns about antitrust would be assuaged if regulators started keeping sepa…

Microsoft got in trouble for a good deal of illegal things they did to protect the Windows monopoly from Java :) Integrating IE into the OS was fine in itself, but part of the bigger strategy for which they were sentenced.

Microsoft biggest crime was they didn’t spend any money lobbying. Apple doing the same thing Microsoft did and worst, you cannot even change the default, yet no anti-trust on Apple. Different is Apple one of the biggest spender on lobbying.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#208

Post by Houshalter »

rorykoehler wrote: post #190
ithilglin909 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've heard all the alt-right arguments, long before the term alt-right made it into contemporary vernacular, and concluded that they are meritless ideas coming from idiots who lack the ability of genuine critical thought. They can say whatever they want, I don't really care, but I reserve the right to mock them and discriminate against them for being dangerous idiots. Being open to new and alternative thoughts is not…

Everyone believes their opponents are dangerous idiots. Democracy only kind of works because people listen and tolerate each other anyway. The massive amount of political polarization you are creating is going to destroy the country.

Re: The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

#210

Post by atomi »

dragonwriter wrote: post #89
atomi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's something: ask your Google Assistant how old the Earth is. Now ask how old the Moon is. Do you think it's just an innocent oversight that Google Assistant doesn't reply with the age of the Earth? Perhaps it is.

Given that it gives the wrong answer for the moon (even though it's source has the right answer!) and given its spotty coverage of other similar information pairs where there is no credible ideological motive (e.g., sunrise times vs. moonrise times), yes, I think “Knowledge Graph is spotty, incomplete, often inaccurate, and has insufficient human attention” is the Occam’s Razor-compatible answer, despite how fun cons…

Or it could also be that the source knowledge graph has inconsistent information because of religious mis-information - there's that Occam’s Razor-compatible answer for you.
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