Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

greenwald.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 235 posts

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

#141

Post by jmyeet »

mikevm wrote: post #136
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…

We can agree the whole "denazification" argument is complete BS. That's propaganda for domestic consumption.

As for Putin having eyes on Ukraine, let me argue it this way: NATO was never going to allow Ukraine to join. Germany, in particular, was always going to veto it. So even if you think that Putin had his eyes on Ukraine, NATO was never going to be a solution.

So what do you do? You get Ukraine to adopt a policy of neutrality similar to Finland, Sweden or Switzerland. You build your entire military around being a defensive army to make the cost of invasion so high as to dissuade anyone from trying. To be fair, Ukraine's military has exceeded all expectations here but the invasion was (IMHO) always doomed (at least for the entire country). It's simply too big and too populated. Russia simply can't maintain control of it.

Russia may well have invaded anyway but then we're in exactly the same situation we are now so what have we lost?

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

#142

Post by pessimizer »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #120
Barrin92 wrote: post #69

The hilarious thing about this is that China is at the same time cracking down hard on its own tech sector for reasons of domestic competition and concentration of power. So on the one hand you have the country of freedom that must preserve its monopolistic structures and accept the lesser evil to fight the enemies abroad but the communist security state is busy... reigning their giants in? Probably a good time to qu…

This is only because the CCP wants full control over these entities and to shut out any Western/Non-CCP approve opinions and messages quickly and permanently.

Why would they care about Western opinions if they already have absolute authoritarian power and believe in nothing? Are they demons?

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

#143

Post by pessimizer »

archontes wrote: post #57

I think Greenwald's characterization of the letter's contents is a bit disingenuous. The letter makes the claim that recently proposed legislation that would enforce non-discriminatory access would do so in a way that would include foreign adversaries. Greenwald takes that and elevates the claim to, "Any attempts to restrict Big Tech's monopolistic power would therefore undermine the U.S. fight against Moscow." The l…

> that letter was still well-founded at the time.

You should be explaining this claim rather than speculating about "hallmarks."

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

#144

Post by pessimizer »

archontes wrote: post #95
refurb wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”that letter was still well-founded at the time” They had zero proof it was Russian disinformation. They just made that up despite indications the laptop was in fact authentic. And they did that right before a Presidential election. That doesn’t concern you? You feel that the letter was “well founded”? Founded on what? A politically convenient guess?

Without knowing what information they had at the time, I will say we now know that there was plenty of disinformation about it being manufactured and spread. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/04/hunter-biden-la... Perhaps the most concerning thing is that a group of such blatantly unscrupulous people has actual political support in the US. I feel the need to draw a parallel to Trump's refusal of military aid…

Mother Jones has the hallmarks of a media outlet deeply connected with US intelligence.

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

#145

Post by rufusroflpunch »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #140
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…

This viewpoint is simplistic to the point of absurdity.

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

#146

Post by pessimizer »

bavell wrote: post #101
refurb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have a rationale argument against the points he raises? Or just trying to smear him?

Seems like just another low-effort dig at greenwald? He's got haters for sure but they never seem to have substantive arguments... or at least none that I've seen.

Greenwald reply guys are probably the second vilest on the internet after Ilhan Omar reply guys.

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

#147

Post by jaywalk »

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.

"They're not banned! They are free to continue tweeting as soon as they abandon their principles and bow down to Twitter's arbitrary rules!"

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

#148

Post by pessimizer »

Tehchops wrote: post #23
incomingpain wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What is this talk about “the algorithm,” as in Musk saying “they should open source the algorithm.” Is this the traffic boosting and suppression mechanism? If for example you make a post that says "Vaccines cause autism". They dont have enough humans to moderate this. They write an algorithm that generally sees that and you get shadowbanned or equivalent. What are all the subjects in which you may not talk about on…

It's not biased to moderate something like "vaccines cause autism". It's been legally and scientifically established as outright misinformation. The genesis of that theory was a disgraced researcher who pushed fraudulent claims with misrepresented data. The paper was retracted for "scientific misconduct". And yet now moderating false claims that have a detrimental effect on public health outcomes is seen as a "leftis…

> It's not biased to moderate something like "vaccines cause autism".

Would you support this sort of unbiased moderation being expanded to telephone calls?

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

#149

Post by weeblewobble »

jaywalk wrote: post #147
weeblewobble wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"They're not banned! They are free to continue tweeting as soon as they abandon their principles and bow down to Twitter's arbitrary rules!"

It's not an arbitrary rule, it's spelled out in their Terms of Servoce

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

#150

Post by octopoc »

Yoric wrote: post #127
helen___keller wrote: post #44

I'm sure if it was on the table, intelligence and national security officials would issue a jointly signed letter that implementing a "Great Firewall" in America is necessary for national security. Luckily, these people don't get a say in what congress does. I will continue to vote for legislators who advocate busting tech monopolies.

Didn't the Trump admin basically suggest this? Except the Great Firewall included most Western countries. I forgot how it was called. Something like "Safe Internet"?

Are you thinking of the "Clean Network" initiative? It wasn't a Great Firewall, it was about not using Chinese telecom equipment for the internet.
Post reply on HN