Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech

Post by OCASM » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

pytester wrote: post #45

Barrin92 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is always repeated within the first ten minutes of these discussions, but I don't really understand why anyone assumes that competition is somehow the panacea to every problem on the planet. I don't want ten unregulated facebooks who all leak my data, I want one facebook that plays by reasonable rules. The dynamics of social networks which don't deliver value if they're fragmented has made the competiti…

This oversimplified "regulation is bad" idea is pushed by a lot of think tanks (e.g. CATO, americans for prosperity, freedomworks, heritage foundation) set up by the Koch brothers. They have close links with the media, which is why these weirdly specific views get parroted a lot. If you've ever read a story about the evils of hairdresser licensing (for instance), it's from them. They have been on a crusade against re…

Post by _bxg1 » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 2:37 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #24

aj7 wrote: post #14

Warning. Regulation almost always favors incumbents.

This argument is always repeated within the first ten minutes of these discussions, but I don't really understand why anyone assumes that competition is somehow the panacea to every problem on the planet. I don't want ten unregulated facebooks who all leak my data, I want one facebook that plays by reasonable rules. The dynamics of social networks which don't deliver value if they're fragmented has made the competiti…

Post by entropea » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 2:40 PM UTC

shams93 wrote: post #43

Pinckney wrote: post #29

It sounds like he wants to require tech companies to ban speech that the US is constitutionally forbidden from banning itself.

Yeah its not really about protecting democracy it always boils down to protecting monopolies from competition.

Post by entropea » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #49

pytester wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This oversimplified "regulation is bad" idea is pushed by a lot of think tanks (e.g. CATO, americans for prosperity, freedomworks, heritage foundation) set up by the Koch brothers. They have close links with the media, which is why these weirdly specific views get parroted a lot. If you've ever read a story about the evils of hairdresser licensing (for instance), it's from them. They have been on a crusade against re…

You make it seem like some weird fringe view funded by a handful of people. To the contrary, it’s been the dominant mode of public policy since the 1980s across the whole western world. Reagan, Clinton, Thatcher, Howard, Harper, etc. Even Trudeau and Macron, who are ostensibly left-leaning, are doubling down on privatization and deregulation: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2016/nov/... ; https://f…