Big Tech Authoritarianism

Werewolf said:
IIRC they do actual already automatically block certain things depending on country, for example if your account is registered as being in German the platform automatically blocks an awful lot of nazi related nonsense, as German law has restrictions in regards to the Nazi's, so some people set their location as Germany to get the benefit of that rubbish being reduced in their feeds.
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I would guess certain people think Germany should allow Nazi speech back into its society. I mean what possible harm could that do right??
 
Nerusy said:
Just seen this (apologies if this was already linked) - "Merkel attacks twitter over trump" - https://www.ft.com/content/6146b352-6b40-48ef-b10b-a34ad585b91a

In the end this event did get people talking about big tech regulation, Merkel sees the need to regulate big tech so that the public will be the one to decide what is right rather than a company. Good.
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Got a link where it can be read? Its behind FT paywall.

I don't think anyone would argue big tech needs regulating, well maybe the owners and shareholder would. It absolutely needs regulating and parts of it breaking up. It has become far too much of a monopoly.
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
Got a link where it can be read? Its behind FT paywall. . . .
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Independent - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...witter-steffen-seibert-eviction-b1785409.html
Daily Mail - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...rkel-Trumps-Twitter-eviction-problematic.html

Like you, I agree that Social Media Companies need regulating and that the regulation should be independent of the owners, the shareholders AND independent of Governments.

Such regulation is inevitably going to cause problems with a Global presence; in Germany they will be opposed to any support for Nazis, in Scotland they might be opposed to criticism of Nicola Sturgeon, in England they might be opposed to criticism of Boris Johnson and Chums, in Iran they will undoubtedly be opposed to criticism of some brands of Islam, etc.
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
I don't think anyone would argue big tech needs regulating, well maybe the owners and shareholder would. It absolutely needs regulating and parts of it breaking up. It has become far too much of a monopoly.
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Big tech isn't the problem, it's not like we rely on social media like we do with oil and gas.

Everyone could easily walk away from it and go back to how it was 20 to 30 years ago........ Newspapers and TV.
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
I haven't watched Question Time in a long time. To be honest I rarely watch TV anymore. My issue with Question Time is a lot of questions are terrible and a lot of answers even worse. If politicians were fact checked and called out there and then then maybe it would be better. I do remember Farage being on there a lot.
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But who fact checks your fact checkers? This is a terribly naive view.

The Running Man said:
I think you either have one universal standard that is applied to everyone equally, it's like equality or something. That's what we all want right?

Or you don't but if you don't then of course you will be open to both scrutiny and ridicule if you relax the rules for some then its equality and one group may use this as ammo to show a difference on perceived fairness.
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You are using the wrong terms, it's called EQUITY when you make up a different set of principles and standards based on subjective ideas. Equality is old news, get with the program ;)
 
Werewolf said:
Or more likely just wants to use it in it's purely purgative meaning without consequences.

It's the same with most complaints about "ooh we have to be sooo PC these days" when what they mean is that random insults based on race, religion or disability are recognised by most people as being unacceptable and now carry consequences for those that use them (or to put it another way you don't get a free pass at insulting others just because of some random difference).
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Imagine Father Ted was about an imam...

The scenes...

This is why people have a problem, some groups are protected from any sort of ridicule , not insult, and others are not.

People want equality but we can't have it due to protectionist groups stopping it from happening.
 
mmj_uk said:
The big corps are colluding to shut down competitors who have rules different to theirs, like I said in initial post with the Nazi quotes they're only really allowing a particular ideology to thrive on their platforms and shutting down any others through bannings/censorship/algorithmic suppression etc. They're not just policing their own users but attacking other platforms across the internet who allow free speech consistent with law.

If you do a quick search of Twitter you'll be able to find loads of posts of leftist Antifa types inciting violence against MAGA/Trump voters and they go largely ignored because most of the people in charge of enforcing those T&C's are of the same ideology. The T&C's are basically weaponised against a particular group in an uneven way because they want to promote a particular ideology that is largely intolerant of other views.
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Still waiting on those examples.
 
from ft article .. has De/Eu actually enacted laws they would use in this case, which, needed, some immediate reaction,
if the laws rolling then haven't seen any social media prosecution for SM negligence.

"But Ms Merkel said through her spokesman that the US government should follow Germany’s lead in adopting laws that restrict online incitement, rather than leaving it up to platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to make up their own rules.
The intervention highlights a key area of disagreement between the US and Europe on how to regulate social media platforms. The EU wants to give regulators more powers to force internet platforms such as Facebook or Twitter to remove illegal content.
In the US, technology companies have traditionally been left to themselves to police their own sites, though momentum is gathering behind political moves to curtail their regulatory freedoms. Several members of Congress are working on bills which would limit the legal protections social media companies have from being sued for third-party content posted on their sites. Others are pushing for a new federal data privacy bill that could mirror the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation."
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Nerusy said:
Just seen this (apologies if this was already linked) - "Merkel attacks twitter over trump" - https://www.ft.com/content/6146b352-6b40-48ef-b10b-a34ad585b91a

In the end this event did get people talking about big tech regulation, Merkel sees the need to regulate big tech so that the public will be the one to decide what is right rather than a company. Good.
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Uh, she should know better than anybody about the paradox of tolerance.
 
FirebarUK said:
But who fact checks your fact checkers? This is a terribly naive view.
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Why is a terribly naive view? Some lies or untruths are easily proven. Fact checkers are exactly that. You don't think major newspapers use fact checkers or serious news programs use fact checkers before they publish or broadcast their pieces? Making politicians be more truthful because they know if they lie or are untruthful that it will be called out there and then has to be a good thing.
 
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The Running Man said:
Imagine Father Ted was about an imam...

The scenes...

This is why people have a problem, some groups are protected from any sort of ridicule , not insult, and others are not.

People want equality but we can't have it due to protectionist groups stopping it from happening.
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That's a ridiculous example. Father Ted works because we live in a Christian part of the world. Ireland especially is still very Christian. So the **** can be taken out of it and its not offensive.

If a Father Ted like show in the Muslim part of the world was made it would have course star people from that part of the world and so would work with their in culture jokes. The fact it would probably cause those makers problems is not the same issue at all.

Unless you were thinking a Islam version of Father Ted be made with white actors in brown face? If so there could be even more problems with that idea.
 
@FirebarUK is right, who watches the watchers? Who fact checks the fact checkers?

In a time when professionalism as gone out of the window, were everyone and his/her dog or cat is pushing some kind of agenda, what makes these fact checking companies any different to the news media companies that we once trusted?

I find it difficult to understand how people, whatever their political views are, think its great when multiple private companies all act as one to stop a legal point of view. I think its human nature that we're not all going to agree on every issue. There will always be debate. There will always be the extremists on both sides trying to cause trouble and friction. We don't win an argument by default that there is nobody on the other side to debate it. Also not everyone on the 'other side' is beyond the reach of reason. As some have said on this and the other thread, banning whole platforms because of a legal view will make some people think it looks like bullying. Its going to end up with people in the middle, the ones who don't usually get involved in debates, to have sympathy for who they perceive as the underdog. So there will be non-extremists that will join the other platforms.

I think we also have to remember, this isn't just a right wing thing. Many left wing people are getting banned too. I've posted before in previous threads were people called for censorship of right wing content creators only to find themselves censored too. It is the unintended consequence. This is why both the Democrats and Republicans elected in the US are both annoyed with big tech, particularly social media.

Facebook and Google are run by today's robber barons. Break them up
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...are-run-by-todays-robber-barons-break-them-up

Tech giants are the robber barons of our time
https://nypost.com/2018/02/03/big-techs-monopolistic-rule-is-hiding-in-plain-sight/
 
BowdonUK said:
. . . I find it difficult to understand how people, whatever their political views are, think its great when multiple private companies all act as one to stop a legal point of view. . . .
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I suspect that Trump was booted off many Social Media platforms because of anassessment that he was encouraging violence and lawlessness - even in America I think that such an activity would rightly be against the law, don't you?

If Twitter et al were to allow this to continue they would perhaps be considered to be aligning themselves with and encouraging a dangerous, rabble-rousing liar.

Whatever, Trump should have been denied the oxygen of publicity when he came up with his insane ideas about Medicinal Bleach :rolleyes:


ps - I don't use either Facebook or Twitter, I pay my Licence Fee to support the BBC :)
 
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