This quote from Deimos himself sums the problem this article gets at pretty well: Sure, the US can moderate what Facebook does just fine but what about literally everyone who's everywhere else?...
This quote from Deimos himself sums the problem this article gets at pretty well:
Companies like Reddit are doing weird things like selectively blocking certain subreddits (and in some cases individual posts) from being accessed by users that appear to be from countries with more restrictive laws, like Germany, Russia, and Pakistan. Facebook moves into countries and becomes almost like communication infrastructure, with little or no understanding or concern about the country's culture. Sometimes they only have a handful of employees/contractors that even speak the language (or none at all), so they can hardly moderate, and hate speech and misinformation flourish on their effectively-unmoderated platform. They don't see the problems, and don't see the effects.
There are a lot of weird effects that come from having foreign companies run the major internet platforms in your country. In the UK, they were quite sure that misinformation on Facebook had a major effect on Brexit, but they can't even get them to respond to requests for information or to come and address parliament. It's an essential part of communication in so many countries now, but almost completely unanswerable to all of those governments.
Sure, the US can moderate what Facebook does just fine but what about literally everyone who's everywhere else? What do we (as in the US government) do about this? What happens when the entire world depends on whatever the US says about it's tech companies? What happens when anyone looking to get into office on any democratic nation other than the US can be shut off by Facebook and be able to do nothing about it? Canada and the EU have (mostly) comprehensive policy on Internet hatred and privacy, but what good does that bring you if all the corporations are American and can lobby the US government to do whatever they want in your country? If this does change, then who will be responsible for moderating these internet companies?
The individual governments of every country these companies operate in?
The U.N?
The WWW consortium?
The ministry of truth?
And what about China and all the other countries that blocked western Internet? Do they have a say in how the Internet is run, or only what's within their firewall?
As time goes on it seems to me that a stronger global governmental body may be the only way to manage corporation. Some body that explicitly rather than implicitly can tax and manage a corporation...
As time goes on it seems to me that a stronger global governmental body may be the only way to manage corporation. Some body that explicitly rather than implicitly can tax and manage a corporation regardless of where they try to hide their money or use their slave labor.
Is that going to happen? Who knows? Would any government agree to it? Probably not!
I read the novel Infomocracy (first few chapters available free at the publisher) a few years back, in which a corporation called simply 'Information' pretty much runs the show (administers a...
I read the novel Infomocracy (first few chapters available free at the publisher) a few years back, in which a corporation called simply 'Information' pretty much runs the show (administers a massively federated democratic system). It seemed a bit of a stretch when I read it. But I've been thinking back to it more and more as not so strange a future after all...
This quote from Deimos himself sums the problem this article gets at pretty well:
Sure, the US can moderate what Facebook does just fine but what about literally everyone who's everywhere else? What do we (as in the US government) do about this? What happens when the entire world depends on whatever the US says about it's tech companies? What happens when anyone looking to get into office on any democratic nation other than the US can be shut off by Facebook and be able to do nothing about it? Canada and the EU have (mostly) comprehensive policy on Internet hatred and privacy, but what good does that bring you if all the corporations are American and can lobby the US government to do whatever they want in your country? If this does change, then who will be responsible for moderating these internet companies?
The individual governments of every country these companies operate in?
The U.N?
The WWW consortium?
The ministry of truth?
And what about China and all the other countries that blocked western Internet? Do they have a say in how the Internet is run, or only what's within their firewall?
As time goes on it seems to me that a stronger global governmental body may be the only way to manage corporation. Some body that explicitly rather than implicitly can tax and manage a corporation regardless of where they try to hide their money or use their slave labor.
Is that going to happen? Who knows? Would any government agree to it? Probably not!
I read the novel Infomocracy (first few chapters available free at the publisher) a few years back, in which a corporation called simply 'Information' pretty much runs the show (administers a massively federated democratic system). It seemed a bit of a stretch when I read it. But I've been thinking back to it more and more as not so strange a future after all...