The Fractured Tech Lobby's Uphill Battles (axios.com) 51
Silicon Valley's leading lobby, the Internet Association, is struggling to manage the competing interests of the companies it represents just as the industry faces a tide of bipartisan anger. From a report: Tech will fight policy battles around antitrust, content moderation and privacy without a unified industry voice. Major tech firms have drawn attention in recent days for pressing pause on political donations in the wake of last week's deadly attack on the Capitol. But lobbying, the other major path for currying favor in Washington, hasn't been working for tech for a while.
Too many firms working at cross purposes. The Internet Association was founded almost a decade ago to be Silicon Valley's voice in Washington. But now its biggest members -- companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon -- increasingly bump heads as they each seek to channel policymakers' fury away from themselves, and they can have wildly different goals from smaller members. Facebook, for instance, has signaled that it's open to new federal laws introducing privacy regulations and modest updates to Section 230, tech's liability shield. Smaller companies worry giants could handle the burden of complying while they'd struggle to survive.
Too many firms working at cross purposes. The Internet Association was founded almost a decade ago to be Silicon Valley's voice in Washington. But now its biggest members -- companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon -- increasingly bump heads as they each seek to channel policymakers' fury away from themselves, and they can have wildly different goals from smaller members. Facebook, for instance, has signaled that it's open to new federal laws introducing privacy regulations and modest updates to Section 230, tech's liability shield. Smaller companies worry giants could handle the burden of complying while they'd struggle to survive.
Naturally. (Score:5, Interesting)
Each one of them wants policies that are good for their profits and their monopoly. The only thing they can all agree on is their disinterest in any policies at all that benefit the rest of us.
It doesn't matter whether their leaders are extreme liberals, extreme conservatives, or right in the middle. All that does is add flavor to their arguments. They all want money and power, and that's all they want.
If you wiped them all out today, whoever replaces them tomorrow would be the exact same way. This is what humans transform into once they are put in such positions.
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Power hates competition, and the powers in Washington want to find a way to suppress/control the power in Silicon Valley.
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Power hates competition, and the powers in Washington want to find a way to suppress/control the power in Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley isn't competing with Washington, they are colluding. The same goes for the media companies in New York. There's a political divide in Big Tech, Big Media, Big Energy, and Big Government. Those on one side of this political divide are all colluding with each other. The other side is disorganized because they don't have any grand plan, they just want to be left alone.
Both sides believe they are acting in the best interests of the nation. Even the most evil tyrants in history believed they
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People in power don't want colluders, they want servants. Colluders can change their minds, servants can't.
The D team knows that they got help from Silicon Valley. They don't want Silicon Valley to change and help the R team. What they will do about it, I don't know, but they will try.
Tech industry (Score:2, Insightful)
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This. "Can silence the president" doesn't hold up.
If you're mad that "well kinda because everyone is on the facetweets" then that just means you have a problem upstream: Everyone being dutifully addicted to the facetweets
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When Jack Dorsey
I mean to be fair. If the Government was actually serious with giving the President an online platform, they would have already built it/bought it/merged with it. If Twitter is some "de facto" platform of official government business, then the Government needs to pay some form of upkeep and have some sort of clearly defined rules by which to operate it from. As it stands, the Government (Trump included) have just punted on doing anything about the situation and complained the whole way that a private bus
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So tell me, what kind of law would you have? Would any public-facing forum site have any ability to enforce a terms of service? What metric would you apply? People keep saying "repeal section 230 and end the censorship!" but what does that look like. If I have a public forum, does that mean every message posted on it needs legal review before it's approved? Or does it mean I can't have any terms of service at all? Please explain this new regime that the tech community has been asking for 15 years.
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So tell me, what kind of law would you have?
See this is why I don't come here often now a days. The level of replies are lazy non-sense. Like what does this statement add to anything? Suddenly I'm a lawmaker that has the power to change laws? You want that question answered, head over to senate.gov and house.gov and ask it damn it. The government drags its feet on several topics, that's nothing new. And pardon me if I express how little I give a fuck about some idiot not getting a place to spew because of a decade of inaction, including the dud
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So no real answer then, other than people should retain the copyright of material they post on Twitter.
Oh shut up already (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody is silencing Trump. He has a fucking dedicated room in his house for talking with the media. Perhaps you should be asking him why he isn't using it? You also seem confused about something else so this chart will help. https://i.redd.it/uazhmn3neta6... [i.redd.it]
Re: Oh shut up already (Score:4, Insightful)
Uum, I don't know how you managed to twist literally ALL the media blocking him into "Nobody's silencing him", but did you go to the Trumpist school of mental gymnastics? Because you are just the same.
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Are you slow or something? Literally every single news website is reporting on Trump. Fox, CNN, NBC, CBS, AP, all reporting on what Trump is doing and saying.
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Go ahead and find some video of Trump using the press briefing room. He’s barely used it in months. Somehow presidents managed to communicate with the public for two centuries before Twitter came along. In fact he released a video yesterday saying he doesn’t agree with the riots. You can clearly tell it was written by lawyers in damage control mode.
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No, he's on mainstream media just fine.
He's just not on a few particular websites. But he's got plenty of websites of his own - whitehouse.gov is still maintained by his team and he's been completely free to use it.
He can post all the short thoughts, videos, and other things that he wants on that website just
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Uum, I don't know how you managed to twist literally ALL the media blocking him
Well here's the thing. What LEGAL duty does any reporting agency owe to the President? What fucking law dictates that CNN or OAN or anyone has to give that piece of shit two seconds of air? If the President is being an asshat, reporting agencies have every reserved right to give the President the middle finger. That's literally freedom of press. The press owes no obligation, no duty to our government or any agent thereof. Nobody owes any platform to the President outside of the ones that have been cre
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I think President Trump is a disgusting, evil, dangerous man.
But that makes no difference here.
Censorship is wrong whether I agree or disagree with the political views being espoused.
Just as discrimination is wrong, whoever it favours.
The left - the people who are normally on the side of doing what is right - need to take a good look at themselves and the positions - for censorship and discrimination - that they are taking.
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So if you come to my house and start spouting off things I find offensive, I have no right to insist you stop, or, if you refuse to, to make you leave my house? Are you saying I have no right to censor what guests say in my house?
Even committees abide by rules of conduct that inevitably will infringe on certain kinds of expression. In a legislative assembly, the Speaker generally has the power to silence members who go on offensive rants, and in some cases to throw them out of the chambers (in most assembli
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Your private home isn't a public square of any kind. Also, if someone was saying enough stuff or otherwise threatening you in your own home, then of course you could remove them from your private home.
Twitter's is as public as you can get when it comes to communication. They invite everyone to come talk on their website and ideally they want you to say something super interesting because it generates more traffic on their site.
I will still agree that Twitter is allowed to kick people off their service but l
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Shout anything as loud as you want on twitter and nobody will notice because you have no followers.
100% Wrong. You are completely ignoring the various sharing mechanisms which amplify dangerous BS beyond a circle of immediate followers.
Regarding your previous point:
Justice Anthony Kennedy disagrees, he called social media the modern public square for a reason.
As an AC noted in another comment: "Until Justice Kennedy convinces four of his peers, this is worth precisely nothing."
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If you start letting ISPs ban you from running a website, then we essentially are letting private companies ban you from the Internet.
That's more or less the real rule change we need. ISPs should be common carriers just like the electric company or the water company.
Ugh, somehow I missed the first sentence of the above quote and subsequently the whole point of your post. Please ignore my public square diatribe.
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Appreciate the appalling moderation here ?
Where factual replies to a point are clearly modded down because people don't like what the stated facts imply ?
While I can see all the inane ascii art swastikas that pathetic children can produce ?
I most definitely do NOT appreciate the moderation here, no rational person can.
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Re:Tech industry (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump has been allowed to get away with things on Twitter that would get just about anyone else suspended an banned. That Trump is President shouldn't create an atmosphere of deference in which he can literally say anything he wants, unless you truly believe being President absolves you of any responsibility or obligation to abide by the terms of the services you use. If Dorsey can be criticized for anything, it's for not shutting down Trump years ago.
I'm always curious about this notion of free speech that first and foremost insists private property owners have no right to control what gets placed on their property, and second of all requires that they create a special class (say, politicians) who just do whatever they want, regardless of the potential damage to reputation to the property owner. I'm really beginning to feel that a good many Trump supporters have very little respect for property rights, or to put it more bluntly, the property rights of people who invoke those rights in a way that restricts Trump supporters. Twitter should totally be bound to allow inflammatory, racist or even seditionist posts stay up because of some notion of "fairness".
The world isn't fair. Business isn't fair. Shareholders want return on investment. They're not running charities. If you want communal ownership of private property, then just call yourself what you really are, a Marxist who believes the "People" have an absolute right to use other peoples' online real estate without any kind of limitation. At least at that point an honest debate could be had. Otherwise, it just appears to be a rather disingenuous argument where you say "The guy I support was shut down, and Twitter should be forced to keep up everything he writes." But keep in mind, every time any platform has basically had no moderation or enforced terms of service, like the alt. hierarchy back in the old Usenet days, it simply devolves into trolling, flamewars and spam, and is abandoned by just about everyone else.
Which leads to my other suspicion. You just want Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and the like to simply disappear. It's not about some philosophical stand on free speech (however you define it), but simply the desire to avenge yourself upon those platforms you view as enemies of your political cause. So what is it? Are you a Communist? Are you just pissed off and want revenge? Because if you're trying to assert that being President just magically means you shouldn't be bound by contact law, then I have to pretty fervently disagree with you. The Framers did not create the President as a Absolute Monarch, who is untouchable and not bound by any legal framework; civil or criminal.
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When Jack Dorsey, who received precisely ***zero*** votes in the last presidential election can silence a democratically elected United States President
I am sure that Trump can get his voice heard somewhere.
What you actually seem to want is that corporations be forced to carry speech they would rather not touch.
Good luck with that one.
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Facebook wants laws that shield it (Score:2)
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At this point, it's just Trump supporters wanting revenge. It's not about ideology or philosophy. They want to kill Facebook and Twitter, and they don't care that the way they want it done would in fact lock the Internet down even more. Anonymous or semi-anonymous posting would die on most forums, or at least any forum that ever got to be of any size. They'd have to have your name and contact information, they have to have teams of moderators literally scouring every message before its approved for public v
Just so you remember... (Score:1)
Up to the 90s / early 2000s, lobbyism was seen as a major crime, deserving equal time in prison as other froms of treason. Even a rumor o lobbyism was a major thing that made politicians step back.
Yes, nobody can remember or even believe that anymore. Nowadays "We always fought Eastasia^W^Waccepted lobbyism." I'm even starting to doubt myself nowadays. In a few years I'll be saying it too...
It is treason, though. No exception.
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History_of_lobbying_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
-You do seem to have the 'dumb bullshit' part mastered.
Not the companies that need to be represented (Score:1)
Those companies FOUNDED the IA, FFS ! (Score:2)
"But now its biggest members -- companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon"
That disingenuously makes it sound like those companies somehow took over the IA.
They did not, they founded it:
"The Internet Association is an American lobbying group based in Washington, D.C., which represents internet companies. It was founded in 2012 by several companies, including Google, Amazon, eBay, and Facebook"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
What is a Tech company? (Score:2)
We use technology to solve practical solutions.
I am going by these companies core business models they have a lot of crazy overlap.
Amazon is a retail company, who uses technology to sell good to people
Apple is a hardware manufacture company, who builds technology to sell
Google is an advertising company, who give users "free" tools to make sure they go on the site and view their ads
Facebook is an advertising company as well, where it designs to bring a lot of like minded people together so they can show off
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Right, Amazon became a "tech" company when they started doing technically innovative things, like moving to a clustered architecture for their ecommerce site. Today they're the dominant cloud provider as a result of their going down that road, and then deciding to sell those services to others, and there's no question about whether they are a tech company in addition to being a retail company.
They said, "Make your own Twitter." (Score:2)
"Big Tech" is getting fractured in their lobbying efforts because they chose to pick political sides. When Twitter decided they didn't want Trump on their platform any more then people just told the "Trumpsters" to build their own Twitter. So they did, and Parler came along. When it started to look that like might actually work then other politically slanted tech companies came to Twitter's defense and tried to close of Parler by other means. I heard somewhere, and I can't find it again right off, that
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Newspaper publishers have been using their publications as a means of conveying a political message since the dawn of that industry. Even if Twitter and Facebook have some overt and conscious bias, what of it? It's their property. They should have as much right to control what is said on their platform as I exert over my living room.
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Even if Twitter and Facebook have some overt and conscious bias, what of it? It's their property.
It is their property, and their politics are driving people to choose other platforms. Twitter is not in the newspaper business. It's in the business of bringing what people want to say to those that want to listen. If Twitter doesn't want to let certain people speak freely then they can expect people to leave.
Twitter got where it is by allowing people to speak freely. Now that they have what is effectively a monopoly they are using this position to their political ends. I would consider this a kind of
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Because having neo-n@zis and seditionists is always a sound business model, that shareholders and advertisers are going to be totally hip with. "Yeah, let's get those Boogaloos, Proud Boys and National Socialists on here planning acts of insurrection, threatening other people and posting racist crap! Advertisers will totally love having their brands associated with Q Anon cultists!"
Tell me, even if Parler manages to find a new hosting service, just how long do you think the Mercers are going to bankroll it?
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What will Big Tech do then?
Push their ISP to drop them, push peering backbones to not peer with their ISP if they don't drop them, push domain registrars to drop them. All things that have happened before.
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Parler got shut down because it had a contract with Amazon AWS, a part of that contract limiting the kind of content and activities Parler, or anyone using Amazon's services, can do. Parler claims that it was just simply shut down, apparently, some lawyer their lawyer hired, in violation of antitrust laws. Amazon claims that they told Parler some of the content and activities was in clear breach of the contract, even sent them screen shots of some of the posts that Amazon viewed as violating that contract,
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On July 5, 1994, Bezos initially incorporated the company in Washington state w
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What will Big Tech do then?
Monopolies going to monopoly. News at eleven. Every time someone in Congress talks about breaking companies, everyone jumps on the "socialism" bandwagon. Every time someone does nothing to break companies, everyone like, "Big (whatever) is taking our freedoms!" At this point fuck it, we get what we get. Clearly nobody gives a damn to stay consistent.
It's just good business to stay out of politics
No seven figure business does this. I mean fuck, Hobby Lobby some shit-tastic crafting store that's doing some Raider's of the Lost Ark shit on the side i
Easier to buy an administration? (Score:2)
I'm sure I'll be crying a river for that poor, embattled lobby.