about a year or so ago i started making references into what would happen with Facebook and other "too big" social media companies. while i agree and am on the "if you don't like it, don't use it" mantra, i also said our government and mindset just doesn't work that way. i watched MS go from the total domination they had to their being called a monopoly despite the fact you did have options. MS, apple, linux. but the #'s were with MS so they become the focus and battleground and suddenly it's a whole new game.
social media is now most certainly in that mix. they drive a lot of our economy, our interactions, and if i just stopped using facebook for example, i'd lose touch with many people i do in fact consider friends. that's about the only reason i stay on facebook. find out what is happening and where the gang is going this weekend and being able to talk to a bulk of my friends at once about my own life.
i've just learned not to talk politics on there cause it's not worth the backlash. i do think SJW's are a dying breed and no one would give much of a shit about hambre today, for example. complete rage can only go so long before you just tire out and move on.
people are moving on these days.
what would you do with them? break up instagram / facebook / whatever? to what end? they can still talk to each other via api's as they want to so the integration wouldn't really end any time soon. people use them for different reasons or just stick to 1 anyway.
people just need to learn to stop letting stupid headlines lead them around and to actually study a topic before making up their mind about it.
If you ever stopped using Facebook you could still correspond with anyone via e mail, phone, or even another social media platform
and tell me how much more difficult that would be?
i can spend 10 minutes on facebook and see what 4-5 different groups of people are doing easily that i'd never see otherwise. also, many people post their local events on fb - if i'm not there, what other platform also has these i could use that wasn't facebook related?
i already said i could stop and what i'd miss, your reply doesn't change what i'd miss.
About as difficult as it was before Facebook.
IOW not that difficult.
There is no need to regulate Facebook any more than there is a need to regulate your local newspaper.
local newspapers are pretty much gone. and while they may say "xyz show is at 123 club tonight" it won't tell me which of my friends are going. now i need to call many people at once to find out what i can do in a minute on FB.
so yes, does serve a purpose. never said it didn't. i also said it should be left alone to do what they want to do - so don't preach that my way. all i'm saying is regardless of how people may feel, companies tend to reach a certain level of growth that eventually makes them a target. FB playing into the left vs right war is their own downfall eventually but eventually they were going to get hacked up anyway.
It wasn't like they haven't been getting repeated warnings.
The practice and effect of collaborative deplatforming is unmistakable. These companies are all on the same page. This is a form of racketeering, whose social repercussions are glaringly evident. Just ask Laura Loomer, Milo Yiannopoulos, Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, Bosch Fawstin, Faith Goldy, Gavin McInnis, and Tommy Robinson, among others who have been banned or suspended, some intermittently, some permanently. Meanwhile, these same sites are rife with crackpots, conspiracy mongers, anti-Semites, and Muslim jihadists preaching hate and violence.
This is the purpose of antitrust law. It exists for a purpose: to prevent fraud, racketeering, and anticompetitive control of the marketplace. There are a series of antitrust laws and amendments dating from the 1890 Sherman Act, the most salient of which for present purposes is the Federal Trade Commission Act (or FTC). The general intent according to the
FTC guide is “
to protect the process of competition for the benefit of consumers” and to ban “
unfair methods of competition” and “
unfair or deceptive acts or practices." It is crystal clear that the “acts and practices” of the major internet platforms are unfair and deceptive, prohibiting access to those whom they regard as political competitors via command of the technology and thus exercising control over ideas and opinions they regard as “exclusionary,” “extremist,” “alt-right,” “white nationalist” and—the all-purpose term—“hateful.”
Most of these terms are simply cowcatchers, meant to sweep perceived interlopers off the ideological tracks. They are shape-shifters, trickster words, empty categories that can be stuffed with random designations. “Hateful,” of course, can mean anything the skinwalkers want it to mean, anything they wish to suppress in favor of their own political message. These platforms thus exert a distinct monopoly over the dissemination of ideas and do so in order to produce a preferred electoral result. They can be regarded as cartels,
defined as “
a group of independent businesses whose concerted goal is to lessen or prevent competition.” Such independence may be apparent but what is common to all is the limiting of supply, which is forbidden by law. The definition is plainly appropriate with respect to restrictive measures applied to the “supply” of supposed schismatic, dissenting, contradictory or unorthodox sentiments, perspectives or beliefs.
Deplatforming the Platformers: Why Antitrust Legislation Is the Way to Go