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19 votes
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How Beijing influences the influencers
5 votes -
Microsoft, Google, Facebook and other tech firms are pressing lawmakers to stop prosecutors from secretly snooping on private accounts
3 votes -
Why Telegram had to follow Apple and Google when they suspended a voting app
9 votes -
Facebook paid FTC $4.9B more than required to shield Mark Zuckerberg, lawsuit alleges
11 votes -
Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, detained in China almost three years, now on plane home. Chinese tech executive Meng Wangzhou left Canada earlier Friday evening.
15 votes -
Peter Thiel's origin story: His ideology dominates Silicon Valley. It began to form when he was an angry young man.
11 votes -
Google, Apple remove Alexei Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
13 votes -
Sophie Zhang risked everything to expose how Facebook enables global political manipulation. Now she’s telling her story.
14 votes -
The MAGA-targeted “Freedom Phone” has a breathtaking amount of red flags
15 votes -
Norway says cyber attack on parliament carried out from China – attack had utilised a security hole in Microsoft's Exchange software
10 votes -
Interview with Jonathan Rauch on epistemic disruption
4 votes -
Trump files lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter and Google
14 votes -
Judge tears Florida’s social media law to shreds for violating First Amendment
16 votes -
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's jeremiad against online sanctimony
9 votes -
In leak investigation, tech giants are caught between courts and customers
9 votes -
US Democrats circulate draft antitrust bills that could reshape Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google
15 votes -
King County, WA is first in the country to ban government use of facial recognition software
15 votes -
EU set to unveil digital wallet fit for post-Covid life
7 votes -
Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this
17 votes -
Florida has passed an unconstitutional law to allow suing and fining social media companies (except ones that also own theme parks) for censoring users or de-platforming politicians
20 votes -
We found Joe Biden’s secret Venmo. Here’s why that’s a privacy nightmare for everyone.
17 votes -
My strange, slow, twenty-year quest for broadband
12 votes -
Inside the all-hands meeting that led to a third of Basecamp employees quitting
30 votes -
A third of Basecamp’s workers resign after a ban on talking politics
18 votes -
Florida bill would fine social media platforms for banning politicians— with exemption for Disney
14 votes -
Dutch MPs in video conference with deep fake imitation of Alexei Navalny's Chief of Staff
11 votes -
Foxconn and Wisconsin have amended their contract to reflect a $672 million investment, instead of the $10 billion promised in 2017
17 votes -
Team Navalny apologizes after database of email addresses registered for planned protest leaks online
7 votes -
How Facebook let fake engagement distort global politics: a whistleblower's account
11 votes -
Let's get Right to Repair passed!
14 votes -
EU antitrust czar and Big Tech's fiercest opponent – Margrethe Vestager has become famous for putting up a fight against tech giants
6 votes -
Twitter: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders
14 votes -
Big Tech critic Tim Wu joins Joe Biden administration to work on US competition policy
9 votes -
Facebook to lift Australia news ban after government agrees to amendments to proposed legislation requiring them to pay publishers
6 votes -
Joe Manchin's bid to pierce US tech's shield
4 votes -
Parler CEO John Matze says he was terminated by the company's board, which is controlled by investor Rebekah Mercer
8 votes -
Why is Big Tech policing speech? Because the government isn't: Deplatforming President Trump showed that the First Amendment is broken - but not in the way his supporters think.
12 votes -
US President Joe Biden's FCC appointment is a big step toward net neutrality's return
10 votes -
Uganda cut its internet off from the rest of the world, one day before the country's general election
5 votes -
The Great Deplatforming: An alternate explanation for the Parler, et al, shutdowns
A common current narrative is that tech monopolists are suddenly acting of their own initiative and in concert to deplatform the burgeoning fascist insurgent movement within the US. I approve the...
A common current narrative is that tech monopolists are suddenly acting of their own initiative and in concert to deplatform the burgeoning fascist insurgent movement within the US. I approve the deplatforming strongly, though I suspect an alternative significant motivating and coordfinating factor.
An example of the "tech monopoly abuse" narrative is Glenn Greenwald's more than slightly unhinged "How Silicon Valley, in a Show of Monopolistic Force, Destroyed Parler"
Greenwald's argument hinges on emotion, insinuation, invective, a completely unfounded premise, an absolute absence of evidence, and no consideration of alternative explanations: an overwhelmingly plausible ongoing law enforcement and national security operation, likely under sealed or classified indictments or warrants, in the face of ongoing deadly sedition lead by the President of the United States himself, including against the person of his own vice president and credible threats against the President-Elect and Inauguration.
Such an legal action is, of course, extraordinarily difficult to prove, and I cannot prove it. A critical clue for me, however, is the defection not just of Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Stripe, and other tech firms, but of Parler's legal counsel, who would have to be an exceptionally stealth-mode startup to fit Greenwald's, or other's, "it's the tech monopolists" narrative. I've tempered my degree of assurance and language ("plausible" rather than "probable"). Time will tell. But a keen and critical mind such as Grenwald's should at least be weighing the possibility. He instead seems bent only on piking old sworn enemies, with less evidence or coherence than I offer.
This is the crux of Greenwald's argument. It's all he's got:
On Thursday, Parler was the most popular app in the United States. By Monday, three of the four Silicon Valley monopolies united to destroy it.
I'm no friend of the tech monopolists myself. The power demonstrated here does concern me, greatly. I've long railed against Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple, among other tech monopolists. Largely because as monopolies they are power loci acting through their occupation of a common resource, outside common control, and not serving the common weal. Hell: Facebook, Google (YouTube), Reddit, and Twitter played a massive role in creating the current fascist insurrection in the US, along with even more enthusiastic aid and comfort from traditional media, across the spectrum. Damage that will take decades to repair, if ever.
But, if my hypothesis is correct, the alternative explanation would be the opposite of this: the state asserting power over and through monopolies in the common interest, in support of democratic principles, for the common weal. And that I can support.
I don't know that this is the case. I find it curious that I seem to be the only voice suggesting it. Time should tell.
And after this is over, yes, Silicon Valley, in its metonymic sense standing for the US and global tech industry, has to face its monopoly problem, its free speech problem (in both sincere and insincere senses), its surveillance problem (capitalist, state, criminal, rogue actor), its censorship problem, its propaganda problem (mass and computational), its targeted manipulation adtech problem, its trust problem, its identity problem, its truth and disinformation problems, its tax avoidance problem, its political influence problem.
Virtually all of which are inherent aspects of monopoly: "Propaganda, censorship, and surveillance are all attributes of monopoly" https://joindiaspora.com/posts/7bfcf170eefc013863fa002590d8e506
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24771470But, speaking as a space alien cat myself, Greenwald is so far off base here he's exited the Galaxy.
Update: 2h30m after posting, NPR have mentioned sealed indictments and speculated on whether the President might be charged, in special coverage.
Late edits: 2022-1-23 Typos: s/inconcert/in concert/; s/would bet he/would be the/;
19 votes -
The scary power of the companies that finally shut Trump up
25 votes -
Twitter should immediately and permanently ban Trump
16 votes -
Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump
50 votes -
Facebook bans Trump "indefinitely" with Mark Zuckerberg explaining that "the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service... are simply too great"
36 votes -
Open-source developer and manager David Recordon named White House Director of Technology
14 votes -
Experts lay out the criteria for choosing Biden's CTO, who will be faced with using tech to tackle everything from climate change to vaccine distribution
6 votes -
National Police Association 2020 Year in Review: "Another thing furries are doing is dredging the Internet looking for ways to cancel us"
9 votes -
Trump promises to veto crucial defense-spending bill unless it includes a full repeal of CDA 230, the law that protects online platforms from liability
27 votes -
Dutch researcher claims that he accessed US President Donald Trump's Twitter account by guessing password
21 votes