Robert
Reich is in anguish over how somebody ejected his beloved media from its gatekeeper seat. While you weren't paying attention, Facebook and Twitter became uncontested conduits for Trump's lies to 65 million people. Stop laughing. It's serious business! Even the evil Fox News reaches only a few million daily. I blame myself. I had no idea Facebook and Twitter were in the bag for conservatives.
Antitrust should be used against Facebook and Twitter. They should be broken up.
So instead of two mammoth megaphones trumpeting Trump’s lies, or those of any similarly truth-challenged successor, the public will have more diverse sources of information, some of which will expose the lies.
Now, this isn't a bad idea in itself. It's just a couple of decades late, and backwards. No doubt some self-knowledge will creep into Reich's psyche soon. Any day now he could remember both the text and the rationale of the First Amendment.
10 comments:
I remember Bill Clinton complaining that it was unfair that he could say something and then Rush Limbaugh would have a whole three hours to refute it, five days a week.
Fifteen whole hours on the radio! Compared to the platform of being The Most Powerful Man in the Free World. The nerve.
Further evidence how narcissistic they are, deeply resenting that anyone else gets a say without them getting the last word in.
I'm not convinced Facebook and Twitter should be broken up. Having monopoly power is not illegal, and correctly so--it's not even wrong. Abusing monopoly power is correctly illegal--and wrong--and we have tools with which to deal with that.
Facebook's and Twitter's censorship does want addressing, but I confess to not knowing how without running afoul both of the 1st Amendment and the free market principle of letting a private enterprise run itself without Government interference.
Reich, though, isn't alone in crying over the loss of the NLMSM as our source of what passes for news and opinion. Christiane Amanpour, an icon of the Left's press, has cried actual tears over the loss of the NLMSM's place as the gatekeeper of what we're allowed to know about the doings of the world and of our government, and Howard Kurtz, self-proclaimed media critic and icon of the right-of-center Fox News, has also decried (though without the facial watering) the descent of the NLMSM from gatekeeper to also-ran on the news and opinion track.
All three--Reich, Amanpour, and Kurtz--with their plaints, though, thoroughly insult the intelligence of all of us and present for all to see their utter contempt for us average Americans.
Eric Hines
My suggestions for dealing with the Facebook / Google / Twitter / YouTube issue is to revoke their liability shield under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act if they choose to curate their content. If Facebook has the resources and inclination to decide which posts to allow and which posts to prohibit based on their viewpoint, then they are behaving as a publisher, not as a neutral platform.
This should clean things up nicely. There is NO WAY the platforms can afford to have direct liability for actions on their platforms, thus they would have to stop content-based curation. Conversely, leave it to those alleging copyright infringement to demonstrate the site has curated content. If so, they lose the section 230 immunity.
They are trying to wield the power of a publisher, while simultaneously claiming to simply be a platform any time the liability of a publisher appears.
Wayne
My suggestions for dealing with the Facebook / Google / Twitter / YouTube issue is to revoke their liability shield under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act if they choose to curate their content. If Facebook has the resources and inclination to decide which posts to allow and which posts to prohibit based on their viewpoint, then they are behaving as a publisher, not as a neutral platform.
This should clean things up nicely. There is NO WAY the platforms can afford to have direct liability for actions on their platforms, thus they would have to stop content-based curation. Conversely, leave it to those alleging copyright infringement to demonstrate the site has curated content. If so, they lose the section 230 immunity.
They are trying to wield the power of a publisher, while simultaneously claiming to simply be a platform any time the liability of a publisher appears.
Wayne
"My suggestions for dealing with the Facebook / Google / Twitter / YouTube issue is to revoke their liability shield under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act if they choose to curate their content. If Facebook has the resources and inclination to decide which posts to allow and which posts to prohibit based on their viewpoint, then they are behaving as a publisher, not as a neutral platform."
Problem I see with this in the case of FB is that their entire system centers around the "Newsfeed", which really HAS to be selective. If someone has, say, 500 FB "friends"...which is not uncommon...and every post from every one of those "friends" showed up in their Newsfeed, it would be an impossible volume of posts every day. Not sure how the Newsfeed-selecting algorithm works, but their clearly is one.
I guess they could take an approach were each FB user has to set a priority on each friend, and posts show up in the Newsfeed in priority order each day until some limit is reached....
Wayne
Has pinpointed the issue. E Hines also brings up a correct and critical point, which is that evil, DS, or Left hand path wins either way. IF social media is allowed to be controlled by totalitarian CIA funded (Facebook's founder got some interesting capital funds there) or if the government is given power to control even more corporations, then it is not the common people winning there.
and every post from every one of those "friends" showed up in their Newsfeed, it would be an impossible volume of posts every day. Not sure how the Newsfeed-selecting algorithm works, but their clearly is one.
That is not an issue as Amazon and Netflix do the same thing, but they are closer to publishers and their limitations.
FB and Google intentionally altered and destroyed the accuracy of their algorithm, merely to get rid of certain content, like AJones or Flat Earth Theory. This was obvious to some careful watchers of the last few years.
FB do not have control of their algorithm or at least it is more difficult for them to change it, but they have to selectively determine which is good or which is bad. If it was merely an algorithm, then it would be fairer, but it is not. These are their employees suppressing individuals, just like IRS did. This is NOT AN ACCIDENT, the way certain people like to spread misinformation. This is not a computer "glitch" either.
If my Plan goes through successfully, humanity will have ALL their gate keepers wiped from the face of existence. It will not be a war, but merely annihilation.
It's ok when nobody understands this. Nobody understood how a nuclear device worked either until it manifested. Of course "nobody" is a rather ironic term, given how much more is going on than people know.
If someone has, say, 500 FB "friends"...which is not uncommon...and every post from every one of those "friends" showed up in their Newsfeed, it would be an impossible volume of posts every day.
Impossible for whom? The person in question can decide whether he needs 500 "friends." He can easily unfriend them--which is a first (and perhaps only necessary) step in set[ting] a priority on each friend.
Eric Hines
I have about 700, because the main purpose of my FB page is to reach as many residents of my county as are interested in what I have to say. I review my feed now and then. It's potluck which friends' posts will pop up, which is OK with me. I "snooze" anything annoying, which is a bit of a personal filter.
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