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Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

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Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#191

Post by MRD85 »

ppod wrote: post #67

>Many people, it seems clear, experience surveillance capitalism less as a prison, where their agency is restricted in a noxious way, than as an all-inclusive resort, where their agency is restricted in a pleasing way. The possibility that a free, democratic publishing platform increases the agency of the average citizen is not permitted here.

I don't find surveillance affects my agency. My decisions on how to live aren't affected by whether I believe someone is watching me. I'll say this as clearly as I can:

I like targetted advertising and I like these companies knowing things about me that I don't even know.

The best example I can provide is my USB powered hand warmers. I do a lot of study at night and early mornings during winter. My desk is in a very large area and to keep my fingers warm enough to type I needed to warm the entire area. Facebook served me an add for USB powered hand warmers that now save me a significant amount on my power bill in the colder months.

Disclaimer: 10 years in the military, where you have no rights. You sort of become accustomed to people wanting to control you.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#192

Post by ppod »

blub wrote: post #167
ppod wrote: post #67

>Many people, it seems clear, experience surveillance capitalism less as a prison, where their agency is restricted in a noxious way, than as an all-inclusive resort, where their agency is restricted in a pleasing way. The possibility that a free, democratic publishing platform increases the agency of the average citizen is not permitted here.

The notion that any of those platforms is democratic is laughable. They are heavily censored for starters, among other things because they were cesspools of manipulation (hello election manipulation scandal!) and bullying/violence (hello Myanmar genocide!). They're also intentionally filtered at the behest of the owners themselves and tuned to elicit user dependence on the platform. Their cost is just hidden, they're…

>The notion that any of those platforms is democratic is laughable.

They are democratic as publishing and research platforms because every citizen has equal access to them, subject only to a device and internet connection. Only 20 years ago, the ability to publish and spread an opinion was heavily restricted by your power and financial status. With the exception of countries with good public libraries (a small minority of the world) the same was true of libraries. You're comparing to a non-existent utopia, not actual universes that have ever existed anywhere.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#193

Post by simonh »

grigjd3 wrote: post #176
humanrebar wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom is assembly and freedom of speech add up to freedom of group speech, including unions, political groups, ethnic groups, and so on. I don't know why corporations would be special groups without that right. But, yeah, corporate personhood and bailouts need to be revisited. It's too bad that we need to have a functional policital culture to make any significant changes like that.

Corporations exist to limit the liability of owners, in particular to decrease risk to owners. Given that owners of corporations are given such special treatment, it makes perfect sense that such an organization does not inherit the rights of the citizens that are protected from the results of the corporation's actions.

Corporate personhood cuts both ways. If a corporation doesn't have free speech rights or any of the rights of a person, does it have legal obligations? Can it be sued? Can it enter into a contract and be held to it's terms? The ability of courts to hold corporations accountable under the law and the constitution, in the United States, also relies on the notion of corporate personhood.

The notion that people do not lose their legal and constitutional rights when acting collectively seems to me to be a very dangerous one to want to revoke, and it's not obvious to me that any legal right granted by a specific law should entail any unstated or implicit revocation of any other such rights.

Newspapers are corporations. Do they have no right of free speech? OK so you could start carving out all sorts of technical exceptions, but that way lies madness and a bonanza for the legal profession at little benefit so far as I can see.

Finally as to limited liability, as I understand it limited liability corporations are generally subject to additional taxes as a cost of their liability privileges and that seems to me to be a practical and proportionate arrangement.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#194

Post by skh »

humanrebar wrote: post #158
skh wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own some Apple stock. I don’t influence in any meaningful way how Apple spends its money. I don’t influence in any meaningful way their corporate policy. The owners of Apple, save for a few individuals, don’t have a real say in how Apple uses its freedom of speech. Apple is not a group of people coming together in the same way political organizations are and Apple/Google/Exxon, etc. have far more money to send on p…

> I don’t influence in any meaningful way their corporate policy. And donating $15 to AARP doesn't give you any meaningful influence over its positions. > The owners of Apple, save for a few individuals, don’t have a real say in how Apple uses its freedom of speech. But that's mostly true of any consumer-level involvement of any very large organization. It doesn't matter if it's Apple, Greenpeace, or the Libertarian…

A company is not an organization of people who come together to exercise their free speech. This is especially true of large corporations. Large corporations are controlled by a few individuals and those individuals have at their disposal large sums of money. They have an outsized influence on the political process in a system that does not cap their ability to spend on political purposes. A company ought not have any free speech rights. It’s not a person and indeed is not a single individual. The free speech rights of employees and directors of a company are not in any way curtailed by limiting the ability of a company to influence the political process of a country.

As I stated in my previous post the amount of money at a large corporation’s disposal far exceeds that of any other organization of people who come together to advocate on their behalf. Professional societies of doctors can’t come close to the amount of money that Apple or Google have at their disposal. The difference in money between the dishwashers and doctors is dwarfed by the difference between doctors and Apple.

Countries like France and Germany are generally considered free and yet their corporations don’t have free speech rights and are limited in what they can do in terms of political spending. Before Citizens United most Americans considered America a free country and yet corporations weren’t considered to have the same free speech rights as humans. It’s been recognized by most people that money greatly influences elections and policy. Hence societies concerned about becoming oligarchies tend to have strict controls on political spending by a single individual and corporation.

A corporation is not at all like a professional society of doctors or of any other group of people. It’s a matter of magnitudes of scale and differing purpose. We used to have laws against one company owning too much media and yet we felt free at the time. I’m not going to convince you to change your mind on whether or not corporations should have free speech. I’m just pointing out that corporations are, indeed, not like a professional society of doctors.

A professional society of doctors is free to have a rule that members must pledge to be of a particular religion. Can a company have that rule? A company is not a group of people coming together for the purpose of influencing policy or expressing their free speech.

I almost forgot to mention another thing to consider. Apple is owned in part by people living in other countries. Most people of a given country don’t want their politics unduly influenced by people who don’t live there.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#195

Post by SamReidHughes »

skh wrote: post #194
humanrebar wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t influence in any meaningful way their corporate policy. And donating $15 to AARP doesn't give you any meaningful influence over its positions. > The owners of Apple, save for a few individuals, don’t have a real say in how Apple uses its freedom of speech. But that's mostly true of any consumer-level involvement of any very large organization. It doesn't matter if it's Apple, Greenpeace, or the Libertarian…

A company is not an organization of people who come together to exercise their free speech. This is especially true of large corporations. Large corporations are controlled by a few individuals and those individuals have at their disposal large sums of money. They have an outsized influence on the political process in a system that does not cap their ability to spend on political purposes. A company ought not have an…

Citizens United is a conservative non-profit organization, formed expressly to influence policy. Examples of a for-profit company engaging in free speech would be the New York Times Company, or Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#196

Post by SamReidHughes »

grigjd3 wrote: post #176
humanrebar wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom is assembly and freedom of speech add up to freedom of group speech, including unions, political groups, ethnic groups, and so on. I don't know why corporations would be special groups without that right. But, yeah, corporate personhood and bailouts need to be revisited. It's too bad that we need to have a functional policital culture to make any significant changes like that.

Corporations exist to limit the liability of owners, in particular to decrease risk to owners. Given that owners of corporations are given such special treatment, it makes perfect sense that such an organization does not inherit the rights of the citizens that are protected from the results of the corporation's actions.

What that means in practice is that corporations that are friendly to the establishment can say whatever they want, and those that oppose the establishment are subject to prosecution.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#197

Post by humanrebar »

skh wrote: post #194
humanrebar wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t influence in any meaningful way their corporate policy. And donating $15 to AARP doesn't give you any meaningful influence over its positions. > The owners of Apple, save for a few individuals, don’t have a real say in how Apple uses its freedom of speech. But that's mostly true of any consumer-level involvement of any very large organization. It doesn't matter if it's Apple, Greenpeace, or the Libertarian…

A company is not an organization of people who come together to exercise their free speech. This is especially true of large corporations. Large corporations are controlled by a few individuals and those individuals have at their disposal large sums of money. They have an outsized influence on the political process in a system that does not cap their ability to spend on political purposes. A company ought not have an…

> A company is not an organization of people who come together to exercise their free speech.

Except for news companies, entertainment companies, education companies, advertising companies, companies that place advertising, and companies whose interests need to be represented to elected officials and the public, sure.

And think of it from the other side. If the New York Times gets special free speech rights for journalistic reasons, who decides that they qualify as special? Does the government get to decide what counts as journalism? There's no mechanism for that either.

As to international concerns:

- Many of the things I mention (like deciding who gets especially free speech) are broad concerns, not ones specific to the U.S.

- Because of the principle of freedom of association, people from other countries are free to stay away from companies or countries, at least to the degree their governments allow that freedom.

It's fair to be concerned that corporations have negative impact at times. But large companies also use free speech to promote social, health, and environmental causes all the time. We don't complain about pink ribbon campaigns, global warming awareness initiatives, partnerships with nonprofits, sponsorships of publicly produced content, and other corporate speech like that.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#198

Post by JoeAltmaier »

humanrebar wrote: post #197
skh wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company is not an organization of people who come together to exercise their free speech. This is especially true of large corporations. Large corporations are controlled by a few individuals and those individuals have at their disposal large sums of money. They have an outsized influence on the political process in a system that does not cap their ability to spend on political purposes. A company ought not have an…

> A company is not an organization of people who come together to exercise their free speech. Except for news companies, entertainment companies, education companies, advertising companies, companies that place advertising, and companies whose interests need to be represented to elected officials and the public, sure. And think of it from the other side. If the New York Times gets special free speech rights for journ…

Disagree. Those companies exercise their owner's or editors' free speech. The rest of the large organization are functionaries with severe limits on their speech, like at any other corporation.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#199

Post by skh »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #195
skh wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company is not an organization of people who come together to exercise their free speech. This is especially true of large corporations. Large corporations are controlled by a few individuals and those individuals have at their disposal large sums of money. They have an outsized influence on the political process in a system that does not cap their ability to spend on political purposes. A company ought not have an…

Citizens United is a conservative non-profit organization, formed expressly to influence policy. Examples of a for-profit company engaging in free speech would be the New York Times Company, or Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11.

I meant Citizens United as a reference to the Supreme Court case not to the specific entity in that case. The effect of the cas was that corporations in the U.S. have free speech rights.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#200

Post by SamReidHughes »

skh wrote: post #199
SamReidHughes wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizens United is a conservative non-profit organization, formed expressly to influence policy. Examples of a for-profit company engaging in free speech would be the New York Times Company, or Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11.

I meant Citizens United as a reference to the Supreme Court case not to the specific entity in that case. The effect of the cas was that corporations in the U.S. have free speech rights.

Citizens United overturned a recent law. People were calling the law unconstitutional when it passed. And nobody serious says the New York Times doesn’t have free speech rights. That has been protected by previous rulings.
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