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Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

reuters.com

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Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#251

Post by philote »

nostrademons wrote: post #235
dkonofalski wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part that I don't understand. Facebook, in the grand scheme of things, is still an incredibly new development for people. Most users (at least those who abide by the age limit) have spent most of their lives not being on Facebook. What grand utility does Facebook provide that makes it so difficult to stop using it? I cancelled my Facebook account a few years ago and the only time I ever even thought about…

Facebook (along with Google, Amazon, EBay, AirBnB, Stripe, etc.) get their strength from the long tail. I had deleted it off my phone and logged out on desktop, but then I heard (via email from my sister, who heard it on Facebook) that my aunt was in a coma and my cousin was posting updates on Facebook. That was enough to bring me back. And my cousin posts updates on FB because it's by far the easiest way to distribu…

I'd argue that communication via email can work just as well as FB. It's a little harder to "opt in" to updates, but with spam filters and other email features, it seems like it can be a lot less noise to have to filter through. But this is coming from someone who doesn't use FB.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#252

Post by bepotts »

gambler wrote: post #216
bepotts wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a dumb comparison and too many people make this argument. You couldn't use any technology without paying the Microsoft tax. There were no smartphones, no internet-of-things, and the internet was just getting started. Everything you did had to be done on the desktop. That is no longer the case. You don't want to use Google? Type in www.bing.com. You don't want to use Facebook? Use Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat,…

>You couldn't use any technology without paying the Microsoft tax. You could use Mac or Linux. Except you wouldn't be able to interoperate with everyone else. This is precisely the situation with Facebook/Twitter. >You don't want to use Google? Type in www.bing.com. Their monopoly isn't on the user side, but on the provider side. If you want your web content to be discoverable, you have to play by Google's rules. If…

> You could use Mac or Linux. Except you wouldn't be able to interoperate with everyone else. This is precisely the situation with Facebook/Twitter.

Still, to this day, Microsoft owns over 80% of the desktop market. Microsoft's dominance weaned not because they lost the desktop market but because the desktop stopped being the place where all the content was. This why Microsoft cares more about services and Azure instead of just pimping Windows.

> Their monopoly isn't on the user side, but on the provider side. If you want your web content to be discoverable, you have to play by Google's rules.

And if Google does something egregious, or uses their monopoly in a manner that prevents anyone from challenging it, then let's break up Google. But Google hasn't done anything like that, so your hypothetical is meaningless.

US antitrust doesn't exist to prevent monopolies or "promote competition" like the EU - it exists to prevent inefficient monopolies from using their monopoly to prevent a more efficient alternative from existing.

Google and Facebook, regardless of what people think about their influence, are offer damn good products. You might not like them, "elites" might not like their influence, but they aren't using their monopolies to harm their competitors. They just offer very important services that are high quality. That is everyone's problem with them. It's completely transparent and US regulators are smart to ignore this.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#253

Post by m_ke »

flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #249

>Before breaking them up, we should see whether they are not just disrupted by a small player beating them out of the market Like Youtube, Instagram, or WhatsApp perhaps? Jokes aside, I don't see how an internet giant who is flush with cash and data in 2018 would fail to see the next biggest thing and acquire it before it grew large enough to knock them off their pedestals.

Yes, Google, Apple and Facebook know more about these startups than the companies themselves.

Google has an insider look at all of your metrics, your market and your competitors through the combination of search, Gmail, Android, Google play, maps, YouTube, Google analytics, adwords and Google Ventures.

Same goes for Facebook and Apple. On top of that they are the gatekeepers to the main platforms and can kill you if you refuse to play along.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#254

Post by mattmaroon »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #90
mattmaroon wrote: post #79

I don't think you could break them up in any meaningful way. What would you break Apple up into? The company that makes iPhones and the company that makes iPads? Or Facebook? Two social networks that get half of the population each? Breakups only make sense for vertically integrated companies. I guess you could break up Google (it's already done so itself to some extent with the Alphabet reorg) but not in a way that'…

> What would you break Apple up into? Apple the device manufacturer and iTunes (or whatever) the streaming content service provider. > Or Facebook? Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. > I guess you could break up Google Alphabet makes this easy. YouTube, Cloud Compute and the other things. > it's basically a natural monopoly Natural monopolies don’t have to acquire potential competitors to protect their flanks. Facebook m…

Neither do the people above. Apple isn't acquiring any other phone makers. Google isn't acquiring any other search engines.

The breakups you suggested would make them slightly smaller companies but wouldn't solve any of the problems. the problem with Google if there is one is that it's the only search engine anybody uses. It's 90% of the market. Taking away YouTube doesn't change that.

Instagram isn't really a competitor with Facebook. Facebook would still be an effective Monopoly. Same with apple without iTunes.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#255

Post by paulddraper »

bilbo0s wrote: post #70
WC3w6pXxgGd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you trust governments so much?

To be fair, all sides trust the government. We're trusting the government to go in and properly split up a company. Or you're trusting the government to properly regulate a company. The people who don't trust the government, don't want the government to take ANY action. They believe the market will solve the problem.

> To be fair, all sides trust the government.

> The people who don't trust the government, don't want the government to take ANY action

Which is it?

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#256

Post by richardwhiuk »

onion2k wrote: post #182
arendtio wrote: post #20

I am not sure, but sometimes I think splitting the companies is not even what we need. Instead, companies with > $1 billion annual revenue should be bound by law to built federated platforms and provide the software to participate in such a network. I mean, you could split up Google into Search, Youtube, and Mail. But in the end, Youtube would still use Analytics and provide Search with all the data they need for the…

Instead, companies with > $1 billion annual revenue... That would just turn the issue in to an accounting problem. Facebook would license their logo from Facebook Logo Inc, the like button from Thumbs Up Ltd, their servers from Facebook Servers PLC, and so on. Every one of the companies would make, at most, $999,999,999 in revenue. A much simpler and easier legal solution would be to tax companies based on the number…

Because only rich people should get access to computing resources.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#257

Post by dragonwriter »

TimJYoung wrote: post #211
dragonwriter wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the solution may lie with changes to, or removal of, Section 230 of the CDA [...] > I suspect that forcing those that host 3rd party content/discussion to actually moderate and control the discussion [...] CDA Section 230 was largely adopted to encourage active moderation, since without it active moderation made a host a “publisher” rather than a mere “distributor”, which triggers strict liability for a num…

Yes, but is it being used that way ? Everything that I've seen has indicated that service providers use this law to play it both ways: they actively control what users see through algorithms, but then claim that they are (largely) not responsible for the moderation of questionable content. IOW, they are not just a passive distribution point for information, and, in many cases, actively control the flow of information…

> Yes, but is it being used that way ?

Yes, most hosts have and enforce (though imperfectly) content rules as they would be disincentivized from doing without CDA 230.

> Everything that I've seen has indicated that service providers use this law to play it both ways: they actively control what users see through algorithms, but then claim that they are (largely) not responsible for the moderation of questionable content.

That's not playing it both ways.

> IOW, they are not just a passive distribution point for information, and, in many cases, actively control the flow of information.

Yes, the entire point of CDA 230 is to allow them to actively moderate without becoming strictly liable for all content, since without that allowance they would be disincentivized from moderation. Removing CDA 230 would not encourage active moderation, it would make active moderation a gateway to unmanageable liability.

> Doesn't that intrinsically make them a publisher ?

Yes, without CDA 230 it would, restoring the “if you moderate content at all, you must succeed in capturing every bit of user-submitted illegal content or be fully liable as if you had deliberately originated it yourself” rule that was in place before CDA 230 (with the added challenge that there are more content regulations now than before the CDA was adopted), which is not something that promotes moderation, it promotes either no moderation or no user content hosting at all, leaving moderated hosting for operators outside of US jurisdiction.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#258

Post by segmondy »

zug_zug wrote: post #101
asaph wrote: post #3

> “If you put a drop of love into Twitter it seems to decay but if you put in a drop of hatred you feel it actually propagates much more strongly. And you wonder: ‘Well is that because of the way that Twitter as a medium has been built?’” How exactly is breaking up the tech giants going to solve this problem?

Suppose tech companies were no longer legally allowed to use the network effect (i.e. they had to provide open-access to their public data via API). Then this would enable alternative front-ends on twitter. This would then enable me to filter messages by positivity, or whichever criteria I choose (e.g. non-Russian-bots, non-shills). This is turn would then change the whole ecosystem. It would remove the perverse ince…

Will you pay to access that front-end? I'm not a fan of closed systems but I notice that folks want access to other people's system and data without paying for it.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#259

Post by hobofan »

choko wrote: post #25
exhaze wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's actually been working on solving that exact problem: https://www.fastcompany.com/90243936/exclusive-tim-berners-l...

It's interesting that he is pushing the decentralization concept while at the same time decrying hate speech on the web. Wouldn't a non-centralized version of the web make it harder to police said speech? As a disclaimer, I am not advocating the policing of speech in any way and am against that concept.

> Wouldn't a non-centralized version of the web make it harder to police said speech?

It might make it easier, by not connecting to those parts of the decentralized web where hate-speech is prevalent. Of course, this might then amplify echo-chambers.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up

#260

Post by paulddraper »

criddell wrote: post #76
WC3w6pXxgGd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you trust governments so much?

You don't have to have a lot of trust in the government, just more than you do in corporations. That's not a terribly high bar.

> You don't have to have a lot of trust in the government, just more than you do in corporations.

Corporations (sans legal monopoly) have power over their constituents insofar as their products are desirable.

Governments have power over their constituents with physical force.

It is 1000x easier for me to delete my Facebook account than for me to move to another country and change my citizenship.

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