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Meet The GOP Senator Who Wants To Eradicate Social Media Companies
Townhall.com ^ | May 27, 2019 | Matt Vespa

Posted on 05/27/2019 11:40:25 AM PDT by Kaslin

Social media companies, whose base of operations are on the Left Coast and operated by staff who are almost universally left wing, are squeezing conservatives. There have been some pretty glaring examples of bias, specifically the whole notion being accounts being suspended on Twitter for entirely arbitrary reasons. Yes, Facebook banned Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam for his long history of bigoted remarks, like calling Jewish people termites, but his account wasn’t suspended on Twitter. Oh, and even without using examples of bias, Twitter itself admits that the environment is so left wing that conservative employees cannot speak up without fear. Still, while the tech giants of Silicon Valley are very, very…veryliberal, they still like making money. Hence, why Facebook has dedicated staffs to serve its conservative and liberal clientele. Despite conservatives being cracked down harder than liberal users, Twitter still knows that they need Right America to stay engaged on their platform. 

Whether we like it or not, social media is where business, political, and cultural news spread and intersect. Many have called it a cancer on society. They may be right, but they’re here to stay for now—and debates circling the issues that we face as a nation are shared on these platforms. Still, that doesn’t mean that some on the Hill view the ever-increasing power of social media companies as a problem. There has been talk about regulating these companies, breaking them up, or doing away with them altogether. One Republican Senator, Josh Hawley (R-AR), says that these companies have done more harm than good, that they’re dabbling in the “addiction economy,” and that they should more or less be eradicated. Hawley made these claims in an op-ed for USA Today last week. Vice added the impact social media is still in its infancy, but added that the basis for Hawley’s criticism of the social media giants isn’t without merit. Making them go away probably isn’t realistic, but breaking them up could be an option (via Vice):

A Republican senator who works on antitrust says that social media, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, have done more harm than good and they should “disappear.”

[…]

“Social media’s innovations do our country more harm than good. Maybe social media is best understood as a parasite on productive investment, on meaningful relationships, on a healthy society,” he wrote. “Maybe we’d be better off if Facebook disappeared.”

[…]

Some lawmakers asked Zuckerberg why Facebook shouldn’t be broken up, but, for the most part, Zuckerberg has gotten off easy by pitching himself as living the quintessential American dream: From humble beginnings in a Harvard dorm room, a college dropout made an all-American company that has connected the world and created many thousands of high-paying jobs.

Hawley called out those lofty claims in his op-ed: “Ask the social giants what it is they produce for America and you’ll hear grand statements about human interaction,” he wrote. But “Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—they devote massive amounts of money and the best years of some of the nation’s brightest minds to developing new schemes to hijack their users’ neural circuitry.

[…]

“High salaries and stock options have encouraged a generation of our brightest engineers to enter a field of little productive value. This is, to put it mildly, an opportunity missed for the nation,” Hawley wrote. “What marvels might these bright minds have produced had they been oriented toward the common good?”

Hawley’s argument is persuasive, but there is, of course, no way to magically make social media disappear. Considering that he’s on the subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy, and consumer rights, breaking the social media giants up might be the next best choice.

What say you?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; US: Arkansas; US: Missouri
KEYWORDS: 2ndamendment; abortion; arkansas; banglist; buildthefence; daca; declassification; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; dreamact; dreamers; facebook; fascistbook; fbi; fisa; genderdysphoria; globalwarminghoax; greennewdeal; homosexualagenda; idiocy; impeachment; incometaxes; infanticide; internet; joshhawley; louisfarrakhan; markzuckerberg; mediawingofthednc; medicareforall; nationofislam; nra; obamacare; partisanmediashills; presstitutes; secondamendment; smearmachine; socialmedia; stupidity; taxcutsandjobsact; taxreform; tcja; technotyranny; twitter; zuckerberg
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1 posted on 05/27/2019 11:40:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

None of the feds freaking business.

GET GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR LIVES!!!!


2 posted on 05/27/2019 11:43:31 AM PDT by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: Kaslin

Mixed feelings here. Conservatives can just as easily own and operate social media entities and censor at will, no?


3 posted on 05/27/2019 11:43:40 AM PDT by Fester Chugabrew
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To: Kaslin

The bottom line is we cannot let social media take over the internet. However, it requires a major tech breakthrough, because the feminine does not like to do the work of researching on the internet. Like with the iphone which is a supercomputer which back then was only accessible to a male geeky audience, women and millennial emasculated men want this one button and my apps do it all for you.

This is a reincarnation of America Online bull sht.


4 posted on 05/27/2019 11:45:43 AM PDT by JudgemAll (Democrats Fed. job-security in hatse:hypocrites must be gay like us or be tested/crucified)
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To: Kaslin

I am against breakup, but a rico suit of conspiracy of racketeering and pimping a feminine audience by socials is real.

Pimping can be done with bits just as in the real.


5 posted on 05/27/2019 11:47:12 AM PDT by JudgemAll (Democrats Fed. job-security in hatse:hypocrites must be gay like us or be tested/crucified)
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To: Kaslin

Not to mention the harm done by sexual predators, industrial spying, billions of hours of productivity wasted, recruiting by militant Islam, international crime scams, addictive pornography....truly a tool of Satan.


6 posted on 05/27/2019 11:48:27 AM PDT by txrefugee
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To: Fester Chugabrew

The thing is they are pushing legislation to force , say, christians to post “gay wedding” message cakes for them but they get away with murder here.

Social media is different because it offers the free access through an access to do business with advertisers. What they are doing is the equivalent of telling black people in the 50s that they cannot be clients.


7 posted on 05/27/2019 11:50:38 AM PDT by JudgemAll (Democrats Fed. job-security in hatse:hypocrites must be gay like us or be tested/crucified)
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To: Kaslin

I know that newspapers should be broken-up.

In Michigan one company bought all the newspapers in the state, took them digital, and then banned all the conservatives.

MI media is nothing but a liberal puke echo chamber.


8 posted on 05/27/2019 11:54:23 AM PDT by Beagle8U (It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame.)
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To: Kaslin

I hate social media. But this is speech and protected


9 posted on 05/27/2019 11:56:11 AM PDT by Vaquero ( Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: Kaslin

I say:

LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF ANTITRUST LAW ON THE ‘SOCIAL MEDIA’ COMPANIES ....

...make them provide a public forum for FREE SPEECH w/o ANY censorship based on political points of view ... let the markeplace of ideas decide who wins ...


10 posted on 05/27/2019 11:56:18 AM PDT by Simon Foxx
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To: Fester Chugabrew

No


11 posted on 05/27/2019 11:56:40 AM PDT by JonPreston
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To: Jim 0216
Keep saying that.

The people in charge of those companies appreciate your ignorance.

12 posted on 05/27/2019 12:02:18 PM PDT by Lakeshark (Trump. He stands for the great issues of the day. Stay the course!)
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To: Lakeshark

Yup, and the Leftist tyrants who hate the Constitution will dearly appreciate your ignorance as “a useful idiot” of the Left.


13 posted on 05/27/2019 12:04:03 PM PDT by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: Kaslin

Josh Hawley, (R-MO)—NOT AR!!!!


14 posted on 05/27/2019 12:04:24 PM PDT by Honorary Serb (Kosovo is Serbia! Free Srpska! Abolish ICTY!)
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To: Kaslin

How is social media defined? Is FR social media?


15 posted on 05/27/2019 12:06:00 PM PDT by oincobx
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To: Jim 0216
Is anti-trust legislation a thing of the left?

What you spouted was leftist nonsense. These companies use their platforms as a means to destroy everything you claim to stand for. Masquerading as neutral platforms, they take down all things conservative in hopes that people like you will allow them to do so.

Good job.

16 posted on 05/27/2019 12:07:40 PM PDT by Lakeshark (Trump. He stands for the great issues of the day. Stay the course!)
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To: Fester Chugabrew
Conservatives can just as easily own and operate social media entities and censor at will, no?

NO. Unless you have a couple of billion you want to risk to see if a no censor or a conservative censor social website can make money or not?

17 posted on 05/27/2019 12:07:46 PM PDT by stig
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To: Kaslin
“What marvels might these bright minds have produced had they been oriented toward the common good?”

Appeals to the "common good" are the language of collectivism. They have no place in any genuine conservative's rhetoric.

18 posted on 05/27/2019 12:08:44 PM PDT by Mr. Jeeves ([CTRL]-[GALT]-[DELETE])
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To: Kaslin

That’s not the solution either. The problem is the people are too passive and allow the social media companies to control what they see and hear.


19 posted on 05/27/2019 12:09:58 PM PDT by I want the USA back (Islam, not a religion, a totalitarian political ideology aiming for world domination. -Wilders)
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To: JonPreston; Fester Chugabrew

I think Fester deserves a serious answer to a serious question.

The answer is No, but there’s a bit more to it than that, IP (Intellectual Property) law grants a temporary protection for commercial ideas that are patented.

To the degree that social media platforms use patented algorithms and/or copyrighted software they can not be duplicated.

A sufficiently motivated and clever enough person or group can often figure out a way to achieve much the same, or better results.

This is not a trivial exercise when a multibillion dollar company is trying to beat you to every improvement and alternate methods, and to patent or copyright them first.


20 posted on 05/27/2019 12:10:25 PM PDT by null and void (The press is always lying. When they aren't actively lying, they are actively concealing the truth.)
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