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?
I’m female-and big part of my work is doing product research online for bids, so don’t paint all women with that dumbass woman brush or put us in the same category as emasculated men-that s*** you are describing is confined to vapid, lazy liberal females and the aforementioned soyboys...
One partial angle. Trump says he’s going to enforce Bill Clinton’s law charging sponsors of legal immigrants for all of their welfare expenses. The law’s been unenforced for 20 years, although I don’t know how far back other laws will let Trump go to to collect, much less how far back we’d have adequate documentation to determine the charges Social media companies have used a lot of cheap programmers on H-1B visas over the years. Do they count as the responsible sponsors? Certainly plenty of tech companies have gone under and Trump won’t be getting anything out of them. BUT there also have plenty of — liberal — mega-billionaires made by long standing social media companies which likely have longstanding documentation. They and their companies offer deep pockets for as much as Trump can justify charging. Politically it would be a win win for Trump, soaking the rich for taxpayer expenses which which shouldn’t have occurred, but were because their business models were designed to shortchange american workers.
They entered into an open conspiracy to do just that the very day after the 2016 election.
It's on video.
No, not really.
[Government is outsourcing totalitarianism to the likes of Facebook. You can’t virtue signal your way out of this problem.]
yep
[Example: President Trump should have a 70% approval rating based on his performance. That he is barely treading water is no accident - at least half of the electorate has been completely brainwashed]
yes
But it could be so defined if that redefinition allowed statists to destroy it, couldn’t it?
Forget it, let them cling to their dogmas. The Left is using Silicon Valley and Wall Street to stamp out all opposition and if these guys rather commit seppuku over their scruples, so be it.
Yes
“Tech-lords” issues do not excuse unconstitutional federal government acts of tyranny.
I am nor sure they are all brainwashed. I think some are not really convinced by the brainwashing but will vote against Trump anyway. Some of this is not even a matter of truth. If a leftist believes that it was "Hillary's turn" in 2016, that is just an opinion, but such an opinion is pretty much outside the realm of facts. Others believe the lies.
My good FRiend, I am not ceding anything that was mine in the first place. However, there are many seemingly liberty-loving people who reach for the "friendship" of government (that, as stated earlier, isn't based in the Founders' intent of the Commerce Clause), when they fear commerce they can't control.
First, understand I'm not Pollyanna about the current state of affairs. Of course I see the blatant statist bias of Twitter, Google, and FB, I know Trump won by 76k votes and the MSM has conspired to push the plethora of DNC lies since Nov 9, 2016.
That said, please... we are not living in a Brave New World, "where citizens are engineered through artificial wombs and childhood indoctrination programmes into predetermined classes (or castes) based on intelligence and labour." We still have homeschooling, natural childbirth, economic mobility, no govt-imposed caste system, and an Epsilon-minus semi-moron can still become a Congressional representative or CEO.
I love Scott Adams but I get my information about society...well...by walking out my front door and taking in actual observations from actual people. I see incredibly bright Millenials and pathetically stupid Baby Boomers, I see men AND women at the range, and punk rockers who support Trump.
Yes, I also see the usual losers on the left doing what they've always done, and will continue to do. I just refuse to surrender my morality for the sake of expediency.
Why? Because history hath shewn that power in private firms has scared some people...perhaps the same people who asked for Ma Bell to be broken up, as well as IBM, Kodak, Microsoft, and now FB. And yet....Notice how efficient the Invisible Hand has been against Kodak et al.
And even IF anti-trust law WAS rooted in the Constitution, you are arguing that we should have full faith and comfort in the government (which includes the Deep State) to get such a ruling right? Why?
"Because the same people who give us the Department of Motor Vehicles will rule correctly."
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>>>Facebook has a monopoly
On what do they have a monopoly?
FR already is social media, the definition of which is:
Interactive forms of media that allow users to interact with and publish to each other, generally by means of the Internet.
One definition of social media.
Social media is an interactive computer-mediated technology that facilitates the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks.
Free Republic would seem to fit into that definition. I guess zotting will become a thing of the past if this legislation passes.
I’d say their minds have been infected by Gloria Steinem, Ellen, Oprah and Lifetime.
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