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?
but they’re here to stay for now
And you can’t fool me. I know that oincobx
is dyslexic for coinbox! ;)
No.
Blacklisted from processing credit cards.
Blacklisted by advertisers.
Blacklisted from search engines.
Blacklisted from major phone company apps.
And get government off Facebook!
Many small towns and other government units around where I live provide access to critical public information only through Facebook. Making government use of Facebook illegal should be a very high priority.
Just build your own credit card then! /s
It can be done.
Let President Trump do an “EO”. Done.
“They will, however, go out of business over time and go the way of the buggy whip. They are an outdated technology experiencing a waning reader base. “
You must have missed the part where I said they went Digital (went online), then kicked all the conservatives off.
Remember, a lot of secret Trump supporters out there.
Yeah, I was like, What happened to Boozman and Cotton???
That is why Trump became President and will again in 2020.
Government use of Facebook IS illegal! Totally unconstitutional. (The Constitution is the Supreme law of the land (U.S. Const., Art IV, Sec. 2), trumps all federal law (Id.), and is the ONLY source of legitimate federal action.) Unconstitutional federal laws and acts are illegal, invalid, and are acts of tyranny.
Our TOP PRIORITY must be to DISMANTLE the 80+% unconstitutional portion of the federal government!!!
Would to God you and the Right had the same passion against the evil of the tyranny of the mostly unconstitutional federal government that you have against Facebook.
May God raise the right man in 2024 to finish the job Trump started.
Why would you want to read a newspaper or a website that would kick you off if your comments were conservative? Don't give them the chance. Stay away.
I wouldn't engage with liberal websites who don't want your traffic. Go somewhere else that isn't in the hate business.
I don't watch TV news or read newspapers or news magazines at all.
I get all my news from Drudge links and FR. I stay informed but not through the conventional methods.
Then I can make up my own mind and know I'm not being fed a steady stream of liberal, fake news.
And their teachers from school.
Break them up as illegal monopolies or regulate them like utilities. That would mean no discriminatory provision of service to anyone. No censorship of any but (key words) CLEARLY ILLEGAL speech. As it is they are acting like publishers exercising editorial control, yet they are being regulated like platforms which have no editorial control. That is unacceptable.
and for the record, Alphabet is worse and more dangerous than either facebook or twitter.
...Not Secure—
Shows up before www.freerepublic.com on my browser every time I come over here. I can come, but it’s “not secure.” What, if anything, does that mean?
It only happens here. Never shows up if I google Twitter or New York Times or any other place I might want to go.
International communication on the internet.
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