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Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

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Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#71

Post by grishka »

Barrin92 wrote: post #62
toiletaccount wrote: post #53

sometimes I wonder how people and politicians would react to a user-friendly decentralized and distributed social network with strong crypto in the right places and no hierarchy. if such a thing were ever made, it would be very difficult to monitor or moderate.

That's what Mastodon is. It looks good and is about as easy to sign up for as it gets with a federated network. I don't think there's much demand for it. A lot of people seem to overestimate how relevant decentralization is to the vast majority of users. The inherent complications or disadvantages of decentralization aren't worth it for most people.

It's easy to sign up but then you don't know what to do because you have no way of finding people you know on the fediverse. Any social media platform that has had any semblance of success had at least one of the two ways to bootstrap your social graph: either by importing your contact list from somewhere else, or through global search with enough parameters to find someone by name and city. Mastodon has none of this.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#72

Post by kwere »

Barrin92 wrote: post #65

Not sure if there's a more eloquent name for these kinds of "throw enough shit and hope some of it sticks" arguments but the article is very confused, from claiming ad hominem attacks are as bad as racism, to ranting about millenials and throwing in WMD's in Iraq for good measure. The actual key issue is somewhere in the middle of that article: > "When tech companies take it upon themselves to arbitrate what is or is…

The issue about policing Is not "muh private property, people choiche", but about controlling a "public utility" like a nation Wide communication medium. Here the society needs hamper the private business (or monopolization in general) side, Like in journalism, food safety, health services. I would dare say that any social medium that get Mass adoption and can influence massively society needs public oversight & regulation (with good regulators). Facebook & Co. Need to comply as Purdue had to when society realized their shenanigans in a "lasseiz faire" enviroment

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#73

Post by rosmax_1337 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #65

Not sure if there's a more eloquent name for these kinds of "throw enough shit and hope some of it sticks" arguments but the article is very confused, from claiming ad hominem attacks are as bad as racism, to ranting about millenials and throwing in WMD's in Iraq for good measure. The actual key issue is somewhere in the middle of that article: > "When tech companies take it upon themselves to arbitrate what is or is…

Regulation of private companies is sane and normal, there is no need to appeal to their inherent freedoms and such, everyone should be on the same page about that. If you ideologically believe that no regulation should ever be imposed on a company, or individual, then take that idea to where it goes logically. Add problems like ecology, climate, transportation, and yes: control over information.

The problem is rather __who__ will regulate a __global company__, when infact companies like google arguably hold more political power than many smaller countries do.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#74

Post by grishka »

creato wrote: post #56
toiletaccount wrote: post #53

sometimes I wonder how people and politicians would react to a user-friendly decentralized and distributed social network with strong crypto in the right places and no hierarchy. if such a thing were ever made, it would be very difficult to monitor or moderate.

It also sounds difficult to curate (just another kind of moderation), and much of the success of the current social media heavyweights is due to their curation.

It's a fallacy. Good social media platform doesn't need curation. It doesn't need any recommendation system whatsoever. Every single thing you see in your feed is the result of your conscious decision to follow someone. It's just you and your friends. And exactly zero content from people you don't know.

Current social media doesn't respect you because being respectful doesn't drive metrics.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#75

Post by dj_mc_merlin »

I'm not going to comment on the author's credibility or overall quality of his arguments.

However, I think he brings up a very important point: who gets to decide what's misinformation?

* Private organizations are run by fallible humans, chasing money and reduced liability

* Governments lie. If you don't believe me, read any history book

* Scientists are not a spherical mass floating in a vacuum with a unified opinion, nor are they correct by default

Furthermore, only engineers believe most of the important issues in the world actually have an objective answer to them.

So, who gets to decide? Who gets the power of saying what thoughts are bad and what thoughts are good? Is it someone you agree with? What if it changes to someone you don't?

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#76

Post by whatshisface »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #75

I'm not going to comment on the author's credibility or overall quality of his arguments. However, I think he brings up a very important point: who gets to decide what's misinformation? * Private organizations are run by fallible humans, chasing money and reduced liability * Governments lie. If you don't believe me, read any history book * Scientists are not a spherical mass floating in a vacuum with a unified opinio…

Who gets to decide who goes to jail? All of the same fallibility arguments apply.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#77

Post by Barrin92 »

tangjurine wrote: post #70
Barrin92 wrote: post #65

Not sure if there's a more eloquent name for these kinds of "throw enough shit and hope some of it sticks" arguments but the article is very confused, from claiming ad hominem attacks are as bad as racism, to ranting about millenials and throwing in WMD's in Iraq for good measure. The actual key issue is somewhere in the middle of that article: > "When tech companies take it upon themselves to arbitrate what is or is…

> [explain] to me, in plain English, why we ought to abolish the very important freedom of deciding for themselves who and how private entities do business with The explanation for this is the same explanation for why eminent domain exists. If you own a piece of land that will be in the middle of a busy road, in the US you likely can't construct that part of the road yourself and charge people or arbitrarily restrict…

Eminent domain exists because land use is exclusionary. Land owners have the ability to hamper development by exercising coercive power. If AT&T or your phone provider start to cancel you, you have a pretty good analogy.

Services and products on the internet however are not landowners. The reason eminent domain exists is because land is not fungible. Mailchimp however does not sit on mail-land. There is nothing that prevents dozens of mailchimp competitors to exist, offering whatever content policies people prefer. Google does not sit on search-land and somehow excludes anyone from building a search engine. Tech companies, in almost all cases, derive their value from the intellectual property that they built, not some sort of analog to land they stumbled upon. If that was the case we would be on MySpace.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#78

Post by andi999 »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #75

I'm not going to comment on the author's credibility or overall quality of his arguments. However, I think he brings up a very important point: who gets to decide what's misinformation? * Private organizations are run by fallible humans, chasing money and reduced liability * Governments lie. If you don't believe me, read any history book * Scientists are not a spherical mass floating in a vacuum with a unified opinio…

If the government enacts a law to ban misinformation, I am sure there will also be a ministry of truth by that government, which will decide what information is truthful and what information is not.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#79

Post by dj_mc_merlin »

whatshisface wrote: post #76
dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #75

I'm not going to comment on the author's credibility or overall quality of his arguments. However, I think he brings up a very important point: who gets to decide what's misinformation? * Private organizations are run by fallible humans, chasing money and reduced liability * Governments lie. If you don't believe me, read any history book * Scientists are not a spherical mass floating in a vacuum with a unified opinio…

Who gets to decide who goes to jail? All of the same fallibility arguments apply.

Yes, I agree. My arguments extend to the law too. Previously, you could've gone to jail for being black or having a beer. Women got to vote in 1920.

I personally follow the law so I don't go to jail, since historically it has been made by idiots.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#80

Post by hobs »

Barrin92 wrote: post #77
tangjurine wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [explain] to me, in plain English, why we ought to abolish the very important freedom of deciding for themselves who and how private entities do business with The explanation for this is the same explanation for why eminent domain exists. If you own a piece of land that will be in the middle of a busy road, in the US you likely can't construct that part of the road yourself and charge people or arbitrarily restrict…

Eminent domain exists because land use is exclusionary . Land owners have the ability to hamper development by exercising coercive power. If AT&T or your phone provider start to cancel you, you have a pretty good analogy. Services and products on the internet however are not landowners. The reason eminent domain exists is because land is not fungible. Mailchimp however does not sit on mail-land. There is nothing that…

I dont know if your defense applies as much to Google search as it does sit on an existing search-land, if you scrape someone's website like google does you'll find different policies apply - on this website alone people link sites using referral tricks to accomplish the same thing, scraping as if we were googlebot.
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