Justice Department to Open Broad, New Antitrust Review of Big Tech Companies

Depends on the regulation. Regulation isn’t all bad or all good.

As an ex..

Without FDIC regulation, no customers dare to deposit cash in the new little guys on the block.

I’m not sure if it quite translate but one may argue without Privacy and Data security protection, users will simply stick with the large known established name, or avoid all of them altogether.

 

Yes, BUT in this case they are politically aligned against the GOP, and taking active steps to promote their political agenda, with practices that adversely affect conservative users. I would think the argument would be that they are violating free speech.

Personally, I don't know what regulation might help with this. I do think because of that, steps may be taken to simply break these companies up. They have all mostly acknowledged what they are doing, with the retort 'if you don't like it start your own (conservatively based) company'. The problem is, of course, that such a company wouldn't be able to compete with Google, Facebook, etc. So, the Justice Department may well find the 'remedy' is to break those companies up. If I were Facebook or Google, I'd be concerned about this.

As for being in favor of big gubmint, or more regulation...no. You can find a situation that requires remedy without needing to be in favor of that. The research shown here CLEARLY shows that these companies are swaying elections, and swaying them in demonstrably significant fashion. As such, they are meddling in our elections....in a far more significant fashion than Russia ever did. No research ever demonstrated that what Russia did had any impact on the elections, much less millions of votes.

FWIW...I'd be against this if it were swaying things the other way as well. These companies shouldn't be able to intentionally manipulate their platform to achieve a political goal. Is there any disagreement over that?

 

The "research" stems from a psychology professor who has a personal ax to grind with Google who has no formal education in computer science using arguments such as 'Google e encourages people to go out and vote and statistically since a slight majority of Google users are liberal leaning(because the overall population is liberal leaning), they are in effect helping Democrats).'

And he spends nearly half the testimony trying to qualify his "study" with his personal resume and Harvard education in an obvious attempt to compensate for the very obvious conflict of interest he has.

His testimony has no insight on their algorithms and relies on a premise that since MSM surces are highlighted which tend to lean slightly left, the assumption is "Google has a liberal bias,x rather than the Occam's Razor answer of "MSM sources tend to be more popular". Basically pure conjecture.

To give an analogy, think of the white supremacists who use the IQ racial bell curve to suggest that the black race is genetically predisposed to lower iq when the IQ bell curve is a purely an empirical set of data in regards to test scores, not a genetic analysis of the average African genome with a study of which genes suppress or enhance intelligence. They use conjecture based on "data" and try to determine a causation from a coorelation. Again, in this analogy, Occam's razor suggests that the slave trade, colonialism, a lack of access to education, malnutrition etc has more to play than an assumption of genetic predisposition.

Back to the Eipstein testimony. I'm not claiming his data is falsified. I'm claiming his conflict of interest made him jump to a conjecture and tried to determine a causation based on a coorelation with no underlying evidence possibly due to that conflict of interest.

 

Holding certain social views is one thing. Manipulating your platform to actively discriminate against those with other views is completely different. If this was just deciding how THEY wanted to opine on their views, regardless of what they were, that would be fine. But what they are doing is restricting the ability of others to opine their views...and doing so in a way clearly designed to thwart those who hold views different than theirs. This may or may not be contrived on their end (ie, maybe they are doing it for the marketing reason you state)...but that doesn't even really matter.

Perhaps if we take this out of the social platform realm, it would become more clear. What they are doing is the same thing as a major publishing company refusing to publish material that goes against their own social views, thereby restricting the ability of those wanting to share their views (free speech), to the degree that it is having a marked effect on our elections. It would be wrong even on an individual basis, it is massively wrong at their scale.

 

Propagandists will make the whole "social media companies are trying to deplatform me because I'm right wing" argument because it's it's convenient. They will ironically do their narrative of the said platform deplatforming or demonetizing them on the platform they are criticising.


Here is a more realistic take on corporate MSM bias in platforms such as YouTube without the "YouTube is anti-left or right wing" dogma.

 

That is quite possibly true. But that doesn't make it invalid, particularly when it was independently reproduced.

Let me ask you straight out: do you believe that Google does this? There is tons of evidence out there that they do, and they've as much as admitted it themselves. The only thing this research is then attempting to do is quantify the impact. Or do you disagree with the premise?

 

Does what? What does Google do exactly that you are claiming?

Here is a scary realization for you given your political leanings that you aren't factoring in in your accusations:

The western world has a slight liberal bias. Google reflects that with their search results. Any claims about their algorithms gaming the system for a left wing bias is pure conjecture that ignores the contextual reality of the western world.

Google or Alphabet is a publicly traded company. They have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders. That is reflected in their search algorithms. Blame capitalism for Epstein's results.

 

This is just the truth of this.

Use Gab. That's what I'd say...but then again, why would I, as a black man, get on gab? The one time I did saw the n-word more times than a Childish Gambino album. Along with a flood of racist comments, tags, etc etc. Gab is finding out what happens when you let the inmates run the asylum.

The fact is, companies like Google, Twitter, do what they do to ensure their consumers come back to their platforms.

Tim Pool's example of Conservatives vs Transgender people is a perfect example of this. If I were Trans, why would I want to get on Twitter if every day I logged on and was harassed and misgendered and dead named? I wouldn't get on, I'd just find another online community, that's not want Twitter wants. They want everyone to be part of their community. Conservatives too, it's just that conservatives have this tendency to be edgelords.

 

...btw...

...whatever happened to that Conservipedia thing that the red-meaters had that was supposed to be the great un-liberal digital place of actual facts without the liberal bias of the MSM?

...that was something I always thought had potential...

 

https://www.conservapedia.com/Barack_Hussein_Obama

Such knowledge, much facts...

 

I dare you to read the biography section. It's a cringe fest.

It's so bad, I question if conservapedia is a parody conservative site.

 

...you know...

....that whole birther thing about Barack Obama might have held just a bit more water (with me, anyway)...

...if all those conservative conspiracy theorists had said that Barack Obama had plagiarized his autobiography from this Hans Massaquoi guy....

...but I could see where chasing around Hillary Clinton's caravan of child slaves could be an honest distraction...

 

That article doesn't just stop there with it's hilariocity. Look at the section about his marriage history and religion.

 

Wow.

that site is like the onion.

Michelle Obama: Believed to be previously married.

i mean really WTF.

 

Dude, they just asking questions. Did you know while Obama was in college, there were photos of him with a ring on his left hand. Therefore maybe he had a secret marriage. Just asking questions bro. It's called being a skeptic.

 

The whole site is filled with cringe takes on everything, the page on Climate Change starts... "Climate change is the new name used by liberals for their global warming hoax, which they coined as it became obvious that there is no crisis in global warming."

Since it is a wiki form it is entirely possible that others have used it to write hoax articles mocking these stances.

https://www.conservapedia.com/Unplug_the_NFL

This one is something else.

 

Ok that has got to be a troll posting.

Right?

 

Well, that is a fair question. Evidence on both sides. Personally, I'm not as concerned about Google as I am Facebook and Twitter. They have been banning right leaning posters...something fairly unique to those platforms.

I'd be curious to understand how you know what I am or am not factoring in? I will say that almost without exception, whenever someone else, particularly someone who's never even met me, makes claims about what or how I think, they're wrong.

What evidence can you provide that backs up your conclusion? I will admit that evidence supporting it is all over the map. But is there any actual evidence it isn't happening? If so, please share.

I don't necessarily disagree with your hypothesis here, but that doesn't lead to the conclusion you state. It's easy to see how/why Google would do this...just because they can. Human nature. If you run a huge company, and can use that huge company to sway political leanings in your direction...why wouldn't you? It's at least certainly not that far out a thought. Does that mean it IS happening? No. Does your reasoning mean that it isn't? Also, no. What is needed is empirical evidence. Do you have any to share?

 

Just like you did with conservatives?

Not defending conservatives but just pointing out pots and kettles

This forum could be a lor better with better decorum from both sides