Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by Tehchops » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 1:28 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #30

Tehchops wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 The paper was retracted for "scientific misconduct".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". It is biased. As is any and all moderation, inherently. Biased toward science. A bias toward the rational is a positive, healthy bias. Rather than cowering about bias, Twitter should very openly and very aggressively stake out a clear and biased position; ie, this is our ground: we're pro science, pro vaccines, and we're going to hold that ground,…

Well sure, but in the context of this discussion "bias" implies political.

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

#32

Post by incomingpain » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #14

incomingpain wrote: post #2

On april 17th I made the prediction that the US government was in control of twitter for probably this reason. I got flagged for this. A day later a bunch of former intelligence people basically said this is a good idea. That's funny to me.

Found: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31057193 Thanks, vouched even though I'm not sure your claim about "every major player" being out is correct ( https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s... ). Still, easier to have that conversation elsewhere now that there's a general public conversation about it, so it's harder to hand-wave it away as conspiratorial.

>Thanks, vouched even though I'm not sure your claim about "every major player" being out is correct (https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s...). Still, easier to have that conversation elsewhere now that there's a general public conversation about it, so it's harder to hand-wave it away as conspiratorial.

Institutions like Blackrock or Vanguard don't get to vote, they may at most provide a proxy vote at cost.

The typical 'conspiracy' around those 2 is that their management can threaten entities like twitter with delisting. Twitter is then removed from their holdings at tremendous cost. So they have kind of a little threat and they get some say to do stuff like climate change and diversity stuff. Ultimately the orgs still take this upon themselves. It's an easy thing to bluff against.

Yes maybe some of these institutions have some players involved but I dont see it.

Twitter looks tremendously undefended.

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

#33

Post by moistofreason » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

_bohm wrote: post #6

the_optimist wrote: post #3

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?

The algorithm that chooses what tweets populate the feed, I believe.

And search suggestions, search results, follow/friend suggestions, push notifications, up next on YouTube or IG stories. See the work of Robert Epstein

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

#34

Post by adventured » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 1:31 PM UTC

formerkrogemp wrote: post #13

adventured wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What moral high ground do we hold now? Vast amounts of ground, fortunately. How about the fact that we can have these conversations fully uncensored? That little thing known as freedom of speech, which is still overwhelmingly alive and well. I enjoy its use, aggressively, on a daily basis without persecution and have for decades uninterrupted.

We can have this conversation now, but vigilance is good.

Certainly. Nothing in my comment suggests otherwise in the least.

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

#35

Post by moistofreason » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 1:31 PM UTC

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…

Ok, but where is the line drawn and who decides where it is drawn? The point of Musk advocating to open source the algorithm is to provide transparency on this.

E.g. not all issues are as cut and dry as your example.

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

#36

Post by incomingpain » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #29

incomingpain wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We used to fund distributed disruptive technologies to subvert Soviet censorship. Chinese censorship was seen as proof of our superior freedom 20 years ago. Now it is viewed with envy by those in power. What moral high ground do we hold now? The bigger point to discuss. If twitter is under control of the US government. I have no idea if it is or not, it just seems to be the case. You dont get to make the comment 'tw…

>You dont get to make the comment 'twitter is private, free speech only applies to government' because twitter == government. it's true, twitter == government but not twitter === government. Meaning that the conversion happens in the underlying JIT engine where government hacks twitter to do what it wants. So the idea is that you could make a first amendment complaint against the government for hacking twitter if it…

I get the complication of the position. Occams razor puts me back to the plain option that twitter is simply controlled by us gov.

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

#37

Post by mschuster91 » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #17

adventured wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What moral high ground do we hold now? Vast amounts of ground, fortunately. How about the fact that we can have these conversations fully uncensored? That little thing known as freedom of speech, which is still overwhelmingly alive and well. I enjoy its use, aggressively, on a daily basis without persecution and have for decades uninterrupted.

Except that freedom of speech does not protect us from intolerance, as Karl Popper observed. For example, private entities are not required to uphold freedom of speech.

Funny enough, in Germany - which is definitely more restricted, and for good reason, on the US understanding of "free speech" - Facebook and Twitter are routinely seen as public discourse forums and have to unban users as long as what they post isn't against the law [1].

[1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-urteil-faceboo...

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

#38

Post by vernie » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #28

vernie wrote: post #10

Times are tough after your golden goose dies.

> Times are tough after your golden goose dies. Which golden goose has died or is going to? Tech profits are through the roof and have never been better, while growth continues unabated. The only thing big tech is facing are speeding fines and regional constraints on growth , which it can trivially afford (it has been a decade of the same talk while big tech has gotten massively bigger). Operating income: Apple $117…

I’m talking about Greenwald and Snowden.

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

#39

Post by politician » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #17

adventured wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What moral high ground do we hold now? Vast amounts of ground, fortunately. How about the fact that we can have these conversations fully uncensored? That little thing known as freedom of speech, which is still overwhelmingly alive and well. I enjoy its use, aggressively, on a daily basis without persecution and have for decades uninterrupted.

Except that freedom of speech does not protect us from intolerance, as Karl Popper observed. For example, private entities are not required to uphold freedom of speech.

Good news- We aren’t required to tolerate institutions that don’t uphold freedom of speech.

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

#40

Post by JKCalhoun » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

incomingpain wrote: post #36

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You dont get to make the comment 'twitter is private, free speech only applies to government' because twitter == government. it's true, twitter == government but not twitter === government. Meaning that the conversion happens in the underlying JIT engine where government hacks twitter to do what it wants. So the idea is that you could make a first amendment complaint against the government for hacking twitter if it…

I get the complication of the position. Occams razor puts me back to the plain option that twitter is simply controlled by us gov.

Controlled how?

I ask because I'm pretty sure real (non-US government) people post to Twitter and get real retweets. How is the US government controlling it?

I imagine this would have blown wide open a long time ago if true. (Also Occam's Razor?)