Interesting Article

[MtnCreek]

In early 2016, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his country would no longer bomb the Islamic State. Defending this decision, the prime minister stated: “Call us old-fashioned, but we think that we ought to avoid doing precisely what our enemies want us to do. They want us to elevate, to give in to fear, to indulge in hatred, to eye one another with suspicion, and to take leave of our faculties” [Canada IS airstrikes: Trudeau announces 22 February end date, BBC, May 13, 2018] This was famously paraphrased by Gavin McInnes, among others, as, “If you kill your enemies, they win.” Though Justin Trudeau never actually said this, it encapsulated his worldview so precisely that many people assumed it was true.

Unfortunately, most Conservatism Inc. operatives saying the same kinds of things about technology oligopolies. The Beltway Right acknowledges censorship, demonization, and marginalization by tech mega companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but doesn’t want to do anything about it. Thus, even though the Republican Party controls both Congress and the White House, the conservative and nationalist online activists who won Donald Trump the presidency in an unprecedented upset are being systematically suppressed and “the Conservative movement” is saying nothing.

For example, in a recent interview with Breitbart, Klon Kitchen, the Heritage Foundation’s senior research fellow for technology, said Facebook has the right to censor whomever it wants. “I think Facebook is a private company,” Kitchen stated. “[T]he Heritage Foundation is going to be very clear about a private company’s right to organize and conduct its business as it sees fit”. [Heritage Foundation defends Facebook’s ‘right’ to censor, will oppose regulation, by Allum Bokhari, May 3, 2018]


In a separate piece, Breitbart’s Bokhari denounced both Heritage and the Libertarian think tank “TechFreedom,” another group opposing regulation of Facebook and other social networking giants [Bokhari: ‘Free Market’ Defenders Of Tech Giants Are Useful Idiots, Breitbart, May 6, 2018]. Bokhari argued Establishment conservatives are failing to understand the core issue:

"None of these free market geniuses have grasped that Google and Facebook aren’t just monopolies (any first-grade economics teacher can tell you that a market dominated by monopolies is not “free”), they are unique in the vast power they have over the flow of information. No other organization in history has had the power to shape opinion, control public discourse, and influence democratic voters."​

Full Article: https://www.vdare.com/articles/if-y...why-conservatism-inc-won-t-defend-free-speech
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[1J04]

You lost me at "Justin Trudeau". I give less than 1/10th mil what he or anybody else has to say regarding that lizard lipped piece of shit. I'm thinking it's pretty well known at this point "He Just Doesn't Matter". He could get ass raped to death tomorrow by a 3 legged 800 lb Black Bear that somebody painted a white stripe down it's back and NOBODY would give one iota of fuck. Not one !

 

[MtnCreek]

If you were to read it, you'd find out that it's not an article about him. I know, I know, reading's HARD. Maybe take in a paragraph per day and before you know it, you'd have it licked. :-D

 

[1J04]

If you were to read it, you'd find out that it's not an article about him. I know, I know, reading's HARD. Maybe take in a paragraph per day and before you know it, you'd have it licked. :-D

I actually perused the first paragraph, then meh. More visual stimulation would be nice. Just say'n.

 

[Fig]

Math is hard. Reading is fundamental!

I agree, but I'm not sold government regulation is the solution. I don't just SAY I have faith in markets. I actually do, and I do not believe the barriers to starting a website and growing it are so large, or that these current tech giants will last forever.
So while I think there are valid points, I'm not sure I accept the premise entirely.

 

[Mike Casselton]

If you were to read it, you'd find out that it's not an article about him. I know, I know, reading's HARD. Maybe take in a paragraph per day and before you know it, you'd have it licked. :-D

Reading about Justin Trudeau is like eating a dirty ass.
Once you get past the smell, you got it licked.

 

[Rthur]

It's obvious we haven't any antitrust laws left.
One hand feeds the other.

R

 

[Nik H]

What I want to understand is the information sharing agreements that these companies have with each other.

I see it as a triangle - Google, Amazon and FB. Doesn't matter what item you click on in FB, it appears in your suggestions on Amazon or Google and vice versa. Now I know all about cookies and their uses and understand what they were intended to do . However, what they are now being used to do from a data collection perspective is pretty staggering. Yes you can delete history to eliminate them but are you going to do this daily?

It appears to me that the onus has shifted from the internet companies to the user to police what information they are broadcasting back to companies. I think that sucks. That is even if cookies are the mechanism that is being used to collect all of your data. I know no other method but I am not a SW guru either.

At any rate, it seems that these companies have an unbridled authority to do as they please

 

[Bender]

FB won’t be forever. Just like MySpace... just like IBM or the Ames shovel company. In fact, less than 1% of the biggest companies from 100 years ago are even still around. The markets work.

I agree 100%, no legislation of FB.