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
It’s a Dictatorship in there ,you sign up and you sign away ALL YOUR RIGHTS
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.
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.
Don’t regulate them. Just break them up.
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.
Why would Congress want to hamper a source of money?
The internet freedom issue has three major problems that need to be solved:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.