Government’s Intolerable Failure to Regulate Social Media Monopolies

DB Daily Update ^ | David Blackmon

[EyesOfTX]

One of government’s most fundamental responsibilities is to protect its citizen’s life liberty and property. It is clear to any intellectually honest person that they have failed in this on many levels; this is intolerable. I am not talking about the riots and bogus shutdowns that are killing small business and people’s livelihood, although that is another failure. I am talking about censorship, identify theft and the permitted invasion of privacy.

Twenty-three or so years ago I dated a computer network engineer and she explained the concept of the open and free public internet. She told me how it was going to be an open forum unregulated and untaxed. I found the whole concept to be unbelievable; ultimately everything needs to be controlled in some manner or there will be complete anarchy.

What we have now is all the anarchy of the open forum of the public internet and the dictatorial unfettered control of a handful of tech giant leaders who determine whose message is heard and what information is disseminated. It is the worst of both worlds. This thought control is every bit, if not more so, as pervasive as much as the six or so traditional ‘news’ and entertainment networks.

Worse, the people who run these big tech social media platforms and their algorithms censor political thought are nameless and faceless. They operate anonymously with near impunity. Unlike the traditional media where we can at least see who the propagandists are and turn off the channel or drop our newspaper or magazine subscriptions; we have no such option if we want to engage in the social media arena with conservative views. Rather than have true open forums for thought, we are slaves to what they want us to see, hear, think, and how we ultimately vote.

By an amazing coincidence virtually all the rulers of these social media tech giants support the Left and the Democratic Party. And they are providing free “in-kind” donations worth millions, if not billions to that party and its candidates. This is clearly intolerable. Where is the FEC; that worthless “watchdog” commission that is supposed to ensure “free and fair” elections?

Who runs the feckless FEC? I suspect it is the same never-Republicans and Democratic loyalists who control the Debate Commission. I now call them never-Republicans as they are not just “never-Trumpers” sandbagging President Trump; they have done it to most Republican politicians over the years.

No one is more anti-government regulation than me, but I realize a free and prosperous society must have laws, rules and regulations in order to remain free, prosperous, AND protected from charlatans who take advantage of their positions of wealth and power. This is why we have the FDA, the EPA, OSHA, consumer protection organizations and the FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISION. It is why the FBI, DOJ and the alphabet intelligence agencies exist: to protect the law-abiding American citizens from fraud and damage. They are failing in that most basic mission and need to be greatly reformed or disbanded.

One of the most galling aspects of the whole internet “thing”, as Biden would say, is how the government has utterly failed in protect its citizens from all the problems associated with the internet.

How is it we have a whole new private industry created to protect people from internet identity theft and protect individuals from computer viruses and other internet driven maladies? Frequent commenters on this site have recently been reporting all kinds of interference on our free speech rights from malware and other attacks and apparently nothing can be done to prevent any determined individual or group from engaging in such malicious activity.

Who says crime doesn’t pay? It is certainly paying all the security companies vying for our dollars to protect us from electronic data crime. It seems we get monthly news stories about how some big retail chain, tourism company, or investment firm and even the federal, or a state or local government gets hacked and millions of people’s personal data could be exposed, stolen or compromised.

Where is the government, our supposed protector, in this? Where are the ‘news’ stories of arrests and convictions of hackers and identify thieves? Isn’t it amazing how some local arrest resisting minority criminal suspect who nobody ever heard of gets killed in a confrontation with the police and half the county erupts in chaos and violence for months on end; yet nary a peep is ever reported about hackers who cost society billions of dollars every year and ruin lives of thousands? The cost we must pay for our ‘data security’ must be added to the overall cost of criminal activity our government is supposed to but fails to protect us from.

Why is there no outcry from the competing information (news) industry about how big-tech social media platforms censors political free speech? The answer to that question is simple: their message is the same; they are just birds of a feather flocking us together.

Under the previous administration(s) many government agencies were corrupted to suppress freedom of speech of conservative groups and no one – not the media, not the FBI or the DOJ, no inspector general at the IRS or any other people controlling agencies – of weight said a peep or showed any concern about these egregious violations of public trust, safety and security. If there were any “whistleblowers” they were squelched, and no one gave a whit about it.

Where are the “99 plus percent“ of the “good people” in these agencies sounding the alarm? Yet we get some unnamed hack raising hell and who officially remained anonymous given congressional notoriety in an effort to bring down President Trump on a bogus accusation; which had the effect of pausing the agenda of the Trump Administration and probably hurt the initial COVID-19 response. Apparently only “whistleblowers” of a certain political persuasion are protected, while opposing “whistleblowers’ – if they exist – are intimidated into silence and/or ignored by the various departmental HR and IGs and especially the MSM (D).

It must be a priority of a second Trump Administration to protect the American people from the ravages of the “internet”. Many, if not most of the agencies charged with protecting American Citizen’s rights, freedoms and property must be either reformed or abolished. Part of that reform would be moving them out of the DC Beltway Cesspool and busting up big tech through anti-trust laws and regulations.

President Trump might and should make those reforms happen; a Biden administration certainly will not. Biden is a 47-year statis quo/quid pro quo swamp-rat; why would he do anything to punish the people who carry his water?

That is all.

[faithhopecharity]

we have seen MUCH government “regulation” in our lives and I have to concur with the Union Pacific Railroad man who supported creation of govt regulation of his industry on the grounds that the industry could (and DID, and still do, as do many other major regulated utilities and corporations!) control the so-called “regulators’ and thus the corporations would secure access to deploying governmental powers for their private corporate and profit interests.

it has worked well for most of them for over a century already. so I believe we do not need more govt regulation. we need simply the govt to break up the monopolies
.. then, competitive market forces should work well to protect us, the public against monopolist abuses including, yes, censorship

[butlerweave]

It’s a Dictatorship in there ,you sign up and you sign away ALL YOUR RIGHTS

[z3n]

If it wasn’t okay for railroad, steel and oil barons to run over workers and build empires and monopolies, maybe we need to do what they did. Organize.

Like labor unions, information consumer unions will ban together to collectively bargain with these fat cats.

Sounds brilliant.

...but it’s not. People don’t care about what they can’t see. To workers in 1910, being forced to payback almost every bit of the pittance that you earned to live in labor camps and eat crumbs is a real struggle. Having foreign powers aggregate all of you personal information from every topic you browse, everything that you buy, and everyone you talk, as well as having all of your information and news filtered by faceless people, is not a real struggle. So politicians don’t care.

[robel]

To be clear, it’s not the government, it is the GOP’S failure. The democrats and social media are one and the same. As is the education system, mainstream news, the judicial system, election boards, almost all government agencies, etc. The GOP hasn’t been effective at keeping a balance in anything.

[arthurus]

If/when Trump wins the electiin there will begin some heav pressure to bypass FB and titter. I suspect Parler will gain traction and it and/or other alternatives will take off. The fly in that ointment is that Google etc. will simply wait until they see that Competition is beginning to get serious then buy the offending upstarts to shut them down. Our side may be waiting for the free market to work but there is no free market in tech and social media. The monopolies have way too much cash and way too much access to more cash should their own be insufficient.
China will provide all the buy-out cash that might be needed. China might even be the buyer.

[Brilliant]

Don’t regulate them. Just break them up.

[libertylover]

What we have now is all the anarchy of the open forum of the public internet and the dictatorial unfettered control of a handful of tech giant leaders who determine whose message is heard and what information is disseminated.

Seems a contradiction to me saying we have both an open forum and "tech giant leaders who determine whose message is heard". We have tech giant leaders determining who is heard, therefore we do not have an open forum.

In my view, Twitter and Facebook monitors should have a simple rule when monitoring traffic: Let the comment pass no matter how crazy they personally think the comment is, or call the cops because someone is making a threat.

[Terry L Smith]

Why would Congress want to hamper a source of money?

[Intar]

Bit of a sticky subject, but let me try to explain why this is a mess and how to really fix it.

The internet freedom issue has three major problems that need to be solved:

Net Neutrality

Network carriers like AT&T, Verizon, Frontier, Spectrum, Comcast, COX, etc. cannot both operate communications lines and the content delivered across them as it creates a conflict of interest. Carriers also should not allow certain customers to be able to deliver content faster than others over their networks when both customers are paying for the same data rate. In networking, you can allow some traffic to travel faster then other traffic over the same speed line –like an express toll lane on a freeway – as this allows larger and richer companies to easily out compete smaller and poorer companies; It creates an unfair barrier to entry in the streaming entertainment market. For example, if I create the Conservative Streaming Network to stream Dinesh D'Souza 24/7, I could using current SEC and FCC rules buy exclusive rights to D’Souza content, then negotiate a contract with major network carriers to prefer my streaming service traffic over, say, Amazon.com’s. In reality, Amazon and Netflix already have these contracts and often buy exclusivity rights to content, so I would have a hell of a time trying to gain enough capital to out spend the big fish and get the content or the prioritization traffic with the carriers. If I want to stream content owned by one of the carriers (say HBO, which ATT owns), I will have to pay whatever price they want to set, which will result in a higher subscription cost to my customers since ATT can and will charge less (if they allow me to stream HBO content at all) and they can prioritize their service over mine. End result is my customers pay more and experience slower delivery of the content (buffering…) than what ATT offers. Again, I can’t compete.

Copyright and Patent Law

Copyrights and Patents are an essential form of creative protection that a society that respects the rule of law must have and respect. However, they can and are easily abused. This is actually the biggest issue and far outweighs Net Neutrality in harm to the people. It used to be that if I create a unique invention – a thing – I can apply for a patent to claim ownership of the idea. This allows me to sue anyone else who produces the invention for a reasonable period of time. If I create a piece of creative work – written document, painting, sculpture, etc – I can apply for a Copyright which allows me to sue anyone who reproduces or distributes that same work without my authorization for a period of my lifetime plus 50 years (from my memory).

The issue here is that at some point in the 1980s, patent/Copyright lawyers started patenting and copywriting ideas instead of inventions or works. Ideas such as “device for entering text into a digital system” or “display of digital text and/or objects on a television or monitor screen”. These “ideas” are so vague that literally anything technological can fit the test of patent/Copyright infringement. Large companies use this abuse of patent/Copyright law to exert monopolistic force on many industries, especially the technology industry, to the point that if a large firm such as Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Amanzon, etc decide they don’t want to compete with, say, Conservative Streaming Network, they first try to buy the competition out, and if they refuse, litigate to death using the vague patents or Copyrights they have been hording for the last 20 years. And this has been done over and over again. Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Oracle are the worst offenders.

Mega-Corporations

Markets tend to be dominated by the best players as the market reaches equilibrium in non-monopolistic competitive markets. This means that in industries that produce highly expensive, rare, or complicated goods that require highly skilled workers are usually dominated by the players that offer the goods and services demanded at the prices and needs desired by the most consumers. What these large players have discovered is when the market flatten out (reaches equilibrium), the only way to grow profits is to enter into new markets. So, what do they do? They merge with other companies and grow via acquisition. This is why Apple not only makes computers, but now makes music players, then music distribution, and now produces content; It’s also why Microsoft expanded from making computer operating systems to productivity software, database systems, console gaming, cloud computing, biotechnology, military contracting, etc. It’s the mantra of “grow or die” that has transformed American business into what it is today. The issue is that despite all of the benefits it this has provided society (and there are many), it has now created behemoth companies that dominate not just one market but many. These huge companies are so powerful that they are effective monopolies that use their resources to keep new companies from entering or effectively competing in the market as previously described.

Political Contributions

Corporations are legally “people” and thus can contribute to political causes and candidates. I have thought a lot about this and have come to the conclusion that this needs to be outlawed. A company has far more resources at its disposal than any single person and thus can exert far more influence on politicians than even large groups of the electorate. This means legislation is made and passed that benefits companies and other special interests over the interest of the people. This also creates massive corruption of our political class who answer to the special interests over the people. This just needs to stop.

Now these issues are far more nuanced and complicated than how I have described them, but it kind of gets to the jist.

Now to solve these issues requires four things:

1. Forbid network providers from owning and distributing content or offering some customers priority over their network except for certain essential services such as E911.

2. Reform Copyright and patent law to forbid the filing of vague terms or ideas; only concreate inventions or bodies of work can be patented or copyrighted. A better test needs to be developed to ensure this.

3. Forbid companies from growing past a certain size or into a limited number of industries in an effort to protect market competition.

4. Make political contributions or gifts on any kind from companies, charities, or other organizations illegal. Only individual citizens should be allowed to make contributions, and those contributions should have a maximum limit of no more than $100,000 in a calendar year and must be reported to the IRS and made publicly available via the IRS website.

[Intar]

I meant four major problems...

[Mariner]

Regulation requires government to enshrine them as monopoly.

Instead, simply revoke Section 230 and let nature take its course.

And thereby enshrine them in the dustbin of history.

[DoodleBob]

As addressed elsewhere, first things first. Can anyone point out where in the Constitution is Congress granted an explicitly enumerated power to break up companies?

Right.

Secondarily, prescinding from the (il)legal basis for "trust-busting," the govt is populated with employees like those working at the DMV...do you really want to entrust this sort of thing to THEM?

Third, quite simply, the market is more efficient than the govt. Remember Netscspe? Few people do. But at one time it had 90% of the browser market share. Then Explorer took over, and had 90% market share. Today...IE has between 2-5% market share. Today's leader Chrome (which is AWFUL) is at about 65% market share (except on tablets where it is Safari). In a few years, Chrome will be a has-been too.

Markets don't move as fast as we'd like many times. But that's largely because markets don't work on coercion. The market usually gets it right, and the firms that scare us today likely will be shadows of themselves over time. To wit: here's an example of the firms that used to be Big and Bad that are defanged today.

It happens. It always happens. And yes while we 'suffer' under the lies of FB et al, does anyone really think the Justice Department will get it right? I bet, if Justice got started now, by the time the 2024 election happens and we get some loser Dem in the WH, the case will still be ongoing.

Then it'll be dropped...and then the Dem Justice Dept will sue JimRob to break up Freerepublic. Why? Well, because someone will think FR is too powerful and needs to be destroyed "in the public interest." We will cry "foul" and they'll say "well...the same power you granted the govt out of thin air to kill FB is being evenly-applied to FR."

Nobody has all the answers except God. But, Tucker Carlson just caused Twitter to go down. Not the government, but some other force... somehow I suspect the Lord also doesn't like anti-trust law and favors private action.