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Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

greenwald.substack.com

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Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#131

Post by jmyeet »

syrrim wrote: post #125
jmyeet wrote: post #61

So there are 3 ways the government could influence Big Tech: 1. Infiltration. An agent or asset could be in a position of power to enact desired policies and changes, provide a backdoor or whatever; 2. Jurisdiction. The platform falls under US jurisdiction so is subject to various forms of law enforcement, secret or otherwise. National Security Letters, FISA warrants, pen registers, that sort of thing; and 3. Propaga…

To say that the US is in any way responsible for Ukraine is to deny ukraine agency. They are caught between a lion and a bear. They could reject the aid of the lion, but that would throw them into the hands of the bear. They choose to accept US help in their defense, but that makes them vulnerable to US invasion. This is a choice they made, and they bare the consequences. The US in offering that help might have sough…

> To say that the US is in any way responsible for Ukraine is to deny ukraine agency

No, it doesn't. This war has highlighted just how simplistic people are in that someone has to be the bad guy and someone has to be the good guy (hint: the US is always the good guy). Any suggestion that more than one party can bear responsibility or blame invites histrionics about victim-blaming.

The US friend zoned Ukraine, basically. The US knew it was never going to happen. Sure, Ukraine should figure that out (which they didn't seem to) but there's enough blame to go around.

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#132

Post by nemothekid »

incomingpain wrote: post #112
notacoward wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occam's Razor has nothing to do with this, and its improper invocation is fallacious. Literally it means "do not multiply entities beyond necessity"; in practice it's also called the principle of parsimony, meaning that one should not assume a more complicated explanation when a simpler one will do. Positing a connection between Twitter and the US government, without supporting evidence but just because it "makes sen…

>ccam's Razor has nothing to do with this, and its improper invocation is fallacious. My mistake. Maybe I can't think of the one I'm trying to think of. I don't need a name or rule really. Philosophically speaking, if you have a few competing ideas and no way to come to a conclusion. The simplest explanation is the best one to go with. > Positing a connection between Twitter and the US government, without supporting…

>The S&P500 is full of zombies? Is this seriously happening? wow. I haven't seen anyone talking about this. What the hell happened?

People have been talking about it[1]; it's just that Elon hasn't so it doesn't end up in the media hype cycle. The S&P 500 is really just the 5 big megacap stocks.

That's what makes this Twitter so weird, as a company it's relatively unremarkable; it's not larger than Snapchat both in terms of marketcap and MAU, but in the media you would think it's the primary competitor to Meta.

Twitter gets a lot of flack about censorship and free speech; but it's by far the most libertarian platform - it still has a chronological timeline! If you had followed Donald Trump on Twitter, you would see all his tweets whenever he tweeted them. If you followed him on Facebook, Facebook would hide most of his posts on your feed! And yet Twitter is the boogeyman, the enemy of free speech.

Twitter the company, and Twitter the boogeyman are two seperate entities. If you read about Twitter from NYT headlines, maybe it makes sense they are government controlled. If you actually spend time on the platform you will find a platform that largely hasn't changed in the past 10 years, but still trying to wrangle it's political influence since the Arab spring days.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/10/investing/sp-500-tech-stocks/...

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#133

Post by alphabetting »

None of their arguments are that convincing to me but I do think there's something to the broader argument in a US/China lens. The Chinese govt is backing up the dumptruck investing into AI while good ole boys in DC are passing around billion dollar contracts on fighter jets. Google and Facebook are leading the west in AI innovation in my opinion. If AGI is possible, it would really suck for the world if China got there first.

Imagine how different the world would be if China beat us to the internet and the Great Firewall was the world standard, but with AGI it will probably be able to rapidly become more advanced and prevent others from coming close to it.

If the US were to get serious in AI investment I wouldn't care about breaking up big tech but that doesn't seem to be the case at all.

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#134

Post by pessimizer »

aweiland wrote: post #49
chasil wrote: post #7

James Clapper is a signatory? The man who perjured himself in front of congress? I think not. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/19/james-clap...

I don't put much faith in things Turley writes. He went off the deep end a long time ago and went into crazy town. Marc Elias has, correctly IMO, labeled him as "the pillow guy, but with tenure."

> He went off the deep end a long time ago and went into crazy town.

Stop saying this about journalists who you used to agree with, but now disagree with.

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#135

Post by pessimizer »

salawat wrote: post #76
willis936 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Hanlon's razor, isn't it?

Hanlon's Razor is qiite rusty compared to Occam's, and it's self-evidentness is massively in question. It's more a crutch leaned on to lubricate interaction between executive decision makers than anything else. Unfortunately, I've seen it cut the user more than the situation in my lifetime.

We could cut the prison population by 90% if poor people got the benefit of Hanlon's Razor.

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#136

Post by mikevm »

jmyeet wrote: post #61

So there are 3 ways the government could influence Big Tech: 1. Infiltration. An agent or asset could be in a position of power to enact desired policies and changes, provide a backdoor or whatever; 2. Jurisdiction. The platform falls under US jurisdiction so is subject to various forms of law enforcement, secret or otherwise. National Security Letters, FISA warrants, pen registers, that sort of thing; and 3. Propaga…

> You see this at the huge backlash you get, even here among relatively educated and informed commenters, when you dare to suggest that the US bears some responsibility for Ukraine's predicament even though Russia is of course wholly responsible for an unjustifiable invasion.

Here's the thing, the people who keep saying that US bears responsibility for Ukraine's predicament are wrong. I'm Russian so I follow various sources (both Russian and Ukrainian) in the original languages. Putin has had his eyes on Ukraine at least since he came into power 20 years ago. In 2014 Igor Girkin (among others) was sent clandestinely to take over Crimea and start the war in the Donbas. Girkin is a monarchist and believes in "the Greater Russia". He believes that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people (an opinion Putin shares and has publicly proclaimed before the war).

The FSB has a whole department (the 5th service) devoted to subversion of Ukraine, including payment/bribes of billions of dollars to various gov't and media officials (one of whom, Viktor Medvedchuk, was captured by the SBU recently while attempting to flee house arrest).

Blaming this conflict on NATO and the US is part of Kremlin propaganda, including their "de-nazification" claims. If anything, this conflict has shown just how important NATO is in keeping people like Putin in check, as he would've gladly continued to the Baltic states and maybe others if his Ukrainian campaign succeeded (in fact, some Russian politicians have publicly stated this on national Russian TV recently).

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#138

Post by AnimalMuppet »

weeblewobble wrote: post #123
incomingpain wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a cool idea. Largely speaking you can see Elon's point of view. He was on Babylon Bee's show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvGnw1sHh9M 2.4 million views in last 3 months. In this video they in detail discuss the problem with political banning. 2 months later, Babylon Bee got banned off twitter for a joke. Clear political banning and violation of section 230.

For the record Babylon Bee is not banned, they can unlock their account any time by deleting a Tweet that jokingly gives a "man of the year award" to a real individual transwoman by name.

So they aren't banned, just the one tweet is. Sounds good, but the reality is that unless and until they recant that one tweet, then they are banned.

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#139

Post by pessimizer »

TrispusAttucks wrote: post #41

Suppression of liberty and free speech is against the founding ethos of America. Should we abandon that ethos, we have abandoned the very idea of America. -- "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees." ~ Emiliano Zapata -- "Live Free or Die" ~ U.S. state of New Hampshire -- "Give me liberty or give me death!" ~ Patrick Henry -- “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety…

"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic..."

~ Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. writing for a unanimous Supreme Court about why antiwar pamphleteers should be jailed.

--

"We think ... that [black people] are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time [of America's founding] considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."

~ Chief justice Roger Taney, for the Supreme Court majority in Dred Scott vs. Sandford

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#140

Post by Mikeb85 »

jmyeet wrote: post #61

So there are 3 ways the government could influence Big Tech: 1. Infiltration. An agent or asset could be in a position of power to enact desired policies and changes, provide a backdoor or whatever; 2. Jurisdiction. The platform falls under US jurisdiction so is subject to various forms of law enforcement, secret or otherwise. National Security Letters, FISA warrants, pen registers, that sort of thing; and 3. Propaga…

> You see this at the huge backlash you get, even here among relatively educated and informed commenters, when you dare to suggest that the US bears some responsibility for Ukraine's predicament even though Russia is of course wholly responsible for an unjustifiable invasion.

Only 1 country is killing Ukrainians: Russia. There's no US troops massacring and raping Ukrainians... The only thing the US is responsible for is that they could have maybe threatened Russia enough to not invade.

Anyhow, I've been sceptical of US hegemony at times however one thing is clear: the world is far better with the US as the dominant power than it would be if Russia or China were dominant. At least the US allows its citizens and those of its 'protectorates' (or whatever you want to call US allies/countries it protects) a large degree of personal freedom.

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