re: Tigerdropping’s Democrats Thoughts On Censorship

Posted on 1/8/21 at 8:28 pm to unotiger21

Posted by lostinbr

Baton Rouge, LA

Member since Oct 2017

12727 posts

Posted on 1/8/21 at 8:28 pm to unotiger21

Long post.. apologies in advance, but this is an issue that I care about.

I’m registered “no party” but would likely be viewed as a lib by many on this board - c’est la vie.

My thoughts are that the Google/Apple situation is very different from the Facebook/Twitter situation.

Tackling social media giants first - Facebook and Twitter are within their rights to set and enforce rules as they see fit. They are, at their core, no different than any other website. TigerDroppings suspends/bans people for inflammatory remarks. If you go on TexAgs and start talking about how much you hate Reveille or posting TD Aggie gifs, you probably won’t last long. If you go on Christian Mingle and put references to the Koran in your profile, you probably won’t last long.

The only difference with Facebook and Twitter is their size. But I remember when MySpace was all the rage, and we know how that turned out. None of these social media companies are invincible, and none of them are particularly necessary either. If anything, my view is that they’ve been a net detriment to society. So if they choose to alienate half of their user base, let them.

This is very different than censorship, in my view, as long as the government is not involved with the decisions to ban certain users or content. And that is a MAJOR point. As long as the internet itself is free and open, I’m fine with it.

That’s the irony of the Section 230 repeal talking points, in my view. Section 230 was never intended to force individual platforms to be arbiters of neutrality. It was intended to allow innovators & entrepreneurs to capitalize on the framework of a free and open internet without worrying about criminal or civil liability for their users’ actions. Section 230 exists to create a marketplace, not to regulate how the companies within that marketplace choose to manage their websites. And it’s a huge part of the reason that the social media giants are headquartered in the US. It’s a VERY different framework than, say, China - the classic example of a “closed” internet.

Now.. about Google and Apple. These guys are a little different in my view. Both of these companies have been showing signs of getting too damn big for years now. Apple, in particular, has been using its hardware market share to force out competition in the software side. It is, ironically, very Microsoft-esque. Google, on the other hand, is a company (like Facebook) whose entire business model is built on invading our privacy. Both have become too big to fail and it’s a problem, in my view.

Which leads me to my point - my issue with Google and Apple isn’t so much how they go about deciding who can be listed on their app stores. It’s that there is no meaningful competition in the smartphone OS market space and there are significant barriers to entry. You could argue that this is exactly the type of thing that led to the anti-trust suit against Microsoft.

Ultimately, a lot of this (with the possible exception of Apple) comes down to one key factor in 21st century America - we have completely sold out our privacy for the sake of convenience. If the business models of Facebook, Google, and Twitter weren’t built around using our data against us, I don’t think we would have the type of political vitriol we see today. These business models have been great for GDP. But have they been great for society? Does Twitter really make anyone’s life better?

In my opinion, the answer is no.