Clinton Hammond That's true, but why should they have a voice on what is a public subscription free service? And their left leaning counterparts should not have a voice either. Pay to subscribe to whatever your poison is...
Clinton Hammond Twitter, and for that matter Facebook and social media generally, will end up being regulated as public utilities if they continue with this exact attitude you have. They will either clean up their act or have it cleaned up for them by the state.
There is a lot more going on here than just private business anymore. Their footprint on public affairs looms rather large and invites a regulatory response. Also, perhaps, a little trust busting.
Clinton Hammond Self regulated markets: working since never. You'd think people would've learned this lesson by now, and especially since 2008. But no. The dream of freedom dies hard.
I blocked ol' Clinton some while back. I kinda reach for the Block option more often than not, for two reasons. First, I'm on blood pressure medication - second, I just can't allow myself to become annoyed online, it's childish, of me.
But to the point about Twitter and Infowars and Alex Jones, this sort of problem has existed for a surprisingly long time, going right back to the invention of the printing press. No sooner was it possible to rapidly duplicate a point of view than surprisingly awful people started in the slandering business. Martin Luther's rebellion against the authorities was much-enhanced by the printing press: those 95 Theses he famously nailed to the door of Wittenberg Castle were not handwritten. They were printed. That document spread all over the Western world.
The Internet will evolve, fairly quickly on this front, as the Facebooks and Twitters lose relevance - and their fate is assured. How many iterations of Cool Beans must appear out here before thoughtful people realise today's Facebook is tomorrow's MySpace ?
I can't speak for everyone, but Facebook is just terrible. It doesn't take a accounting genius to realise Facebook's only possible business model is to sell your information. During the 2016 US presidential election, fawning articles began to appear - saying oh the Republican Party has finally grasped the significance of digital media after Obama's dominance . The GOP and Cambridge Analytica were just buying Facebook data, doing what every such skeevy operator has been doing since the codification of the mail addressing system: buying a list.
Here's the future, from a hardcore cynic who learned early from this Canadian guy Marshall McLuhan - never predict anything which hasn't happened yet. Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh and Fox News - all those fearmongers are going to start looking like that junk mail you get all the time, trying to look like bills or important paperwork you ought to examine - do you ever open that stuff? No, you don't. Like me, I'll bet you have enough trouble just staying current with the actually important stuff, but sorting through and disposing of the crap is so obvious, you never even think about it.
The message of the fearmongers is becoming irrelevant: their target audience was always old reactionaries and those old crocodiles are dying off. Children are getting married and having children themselves who never knew a world without the Internet. They're immune to the fearmongers. True, there's always going to be a component of alienated racist skinheads in the world but they'll never run the world. The Internet has not only integrated us all in ways we could never have imagined - but it has segregated and immunised us to the point where I don't even think twice about blocking a jerk, any more than I do throwing away junk mail.
The big three, Twitter, Facebook, Google, have lost their way. Monetary gains outweigh doing the right thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd the twit Zuckerberg tells CNN that Infowars offers opinion and analysis and will staty on FB. smh
ReplyDeleteNobody makes you read or subscribe to InfoWars....
ReplyDeleteClinton Hammond That's true, but why should they have a voice on what is a public subscription free service? And their left leaning counterparts should not have a voice either. Pay to subscribe to whatever your poison is...
ReplyDeleteTwitter is not public.
ReplyDeleteTwitter is a private business. Their rules are their rules, and you can like them or lump them.
Block the key word "InfoWars" on Twitter. Then you never have to see anything they post.
Clinton Hammond Twitter, and for that matter Facebook and social media generally, will end up being regulated as public utilities if they continue with this exact attitude you have. They will either clean up their act or have it cleaned up for them by the state.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot more going on here than just private business anymore. Their footprint on public affairs looms rather large and invites a regulatory response. Also, perhaps, a little trust busting.
This is the Standard Oil of the information age.
They are not public utilities.
ReplyDeleteThey won't ever be.
If you want to start a "Social Media" and run it as a public utility, go for it.
Thinking you have the right to force other to is erroneous.
Clinton Hammond Yet.
ReplyDeleteThe public interest will assert itself, sooner or later, if private business refuses to address its own problems.
Monopolies and abuses of power generally aren't going to be tolerated forever.
Social media can either do this the easy way. Or the hard way. Their choice.
Sounds to me like you're advocating for the Free Market, just like I am.
ReplyDeleteYou want to vote with your $ one way, and I want to vote with my $ another way. I guess we cancel each other out eh.
But I and I alone take personal responsibility for my social feeds... I do not want or need you nor anybody else to curate them for me, thanks.
Gonna try to tell me what movies I can and cannot watch, or what book I can or cannot read next? I already have a mother, thanks.
Clinton Hammond I don't believe in "free markets." I believe in well regulated ones.
ReplyDeleteThat's where we disagree then.
ReplyDeleteA Free Market is self regulating. That is faaaaaar preferable to Government meddling.
Next you'll try to tell me, or rather my ISP what web sites I can or cannot visit? It's none of your business, thanks.
Clinton Hammond Self regulated markets: working since never. You'd think people would've learned this lesson by now, and especially since 2008. But no. The dream of freedom dies hard.
ReplyDeleteYou say Freedom, but you want regulation??? How's that oxymoron working out for ya?
ReplyDeleteBon chance eh
Clinton Hammond The only person yammering about "freedom" here is you. You sound like a typical libertarian nitwit to me.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's the pejoratives that indicate someone's intelligence has run out.
ReplyDeleteThanks for trying though.... Vana has a case of Turtle Wax and a copy of the home game for you on your way out.
I blocked ol' Clinton some while back. I kinda reach for the Block option more often than not, for two reasons. First, I'm on blood pressure medication - second, I just can't allow myself to become annoyed online, it's childish, of me.
ReplyDeleteBut to the point about Twitter and Infowars and Alex Jones, this sort of problem has existed for a surprisingly long time, going right back to the invention of the printing press. No sooner was it possible to rapidly duplicate a point of view than surprisingly awful people started in the slandering business. Martin Luther's rebellion against the authorities was much-enhanced by the printing press: those 95 Theses he famously nailed to the door of Wittenberg Castle were not handwritten. They were printed. That document spread all over the Western world.
The Internet will evolve, fairly quickly on this front, as the Facebooks and Twitters lose relevance - and their fate is assured. How many iterations of Cool Beans must appear out here before thoughtful people realise today's Facebook is tomorrow's MySpace ?
I can't speak for everyone, but Facebook is just terrible. It doesn't take a accounting genius to realise Facebook's only possible business model is to sell your information. During the 2016 US presidential election, fawning articles began to appear - saying oh the Republican Party has finally grasped the significance of digital media after Obama's dominance . The GOP and Cambridge Analytica were just buying Facebook data, doing what every such skeevy operator has been doing since the codification of the mail addressing system: buying a list.
Here's the future, from a hardcore cynic who learned early from this Canadian guy Marshall McLuhan - never predict anything which hasn't happened yet. Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh and Fox News - all those fearmongers are going to start looking like that junk mail you get all the time, trying to look like bills or important paperwork you ought to examine - do you ever open that stuff? No, you don't. Like me, I'll bet you have enough trouble just staying current with the actually important stuff, but sorting through and disposing of the crap is so obvious, you never even think about it.
The message of the fearmongers is becoming irrelevant: their target audience was always old reactionaries and those old crocodiles are dying off. Children are getting married and having children themselves who never knew a world without the Internet. They're immune to the fearmongers. True, there's always going to be a component of alienated racist skinheads in the world but they'll never run the world. The Internet has not only integrated us all in ways we could never have imagined - but it has segregated and immunised us to the point where I don't even think twice about blocking a jerk, any more than I do throwing away junk mail.