The Power of Big Tech

[SweetPea]

Interesting discussion here on the creeping and disturbing power of Big Tech.

The first comment under the video is particularly disturbing:  See David Wood’s latest video on YouTube about Twitter allowing a child rape video to reach 160,000 views, despite the 13 year old  victim asking it to be taken down. A subsequent comment stated Twitter were being sued over the afore-mentioned.

Big Tech and Free Speech: Has Online Censorship Gone too Far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOzaAE1Dyvo

[Nearly Sane]

Interesting discussion here on the creeping and disturbing power of Big Tech.

The first comment under the video is particularly disturbing:  See David Wood’s latest video on YouTube about Twitter allowing a child rape video to reach 160,000 views, despite the 13 year old  victim asking it to be taken down. A subsequent comment stated Twitter were being sued over the afore-mentioned.

Big Tech and Free Speech: Has Online Censorship Gone too Far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOzaAE1Dyvo

Apoligies, if some of this os coveted in video discussion but don't have bandwidth to watch just now. It's not an easy problem to solve, and I am a bit confused that you highlight an obvious failure to censor in relation to whether censorship has gone to far.


We don't really have a working model for this type of interaction, and I think it's a mistake to see any of it as deliberate. We could move to a position where posts have to be approved (premodded) but I don't think people will accept that, and itactually increases the power of the tech companies. Though it would also be a huge cost.

It's not easy to legislate on this as it demands either legislationt too detailed which would be out of date as soon as it is passed, or legislation that leaves the situation more or less as is but by removing the idea that they are not the same as publishers brings us back to premodding.

ETA Of course the state could take control of such companies or sufficient to control them but that just compounds the problem.

[SweetPea]

Regards the obvious failure to censor, I think from the commenter and my own thoughts was to show how in this instance appalling content can be left uncensored while milder content is taken down.

I agree with your thoughts on any solution. The idea of the state taking control of these platforms would certainly take us into totalitarian territory. We are living to a degree in an Orwellian 1984 society already.               

[Nearly Sane]

Regards the obvious failure to censor, I think from the commenter and my own thoughts was to show how in this instance appalling content can be left uncensored while milder content is taken down.

I agree with your thoughts on any solution. The idea of the state taking control of these platforms would certainly take us into totalitarian territory. We are living to a degree in an Orwellian 1984 society already.               

Well yes but then again not really. The idea that we can post so much freely from so many people so widely is completely opposed to the idea of 1984. Indeed one of the main problems is not that information is in any sense as controlled as in 1984 but that we have the opposite - a surfeit of information with no checks which ends with people thinking that in the absence of an authority they trust, they will believe in what they agree with and say that makes an authority.

As to the non censorship of the child rape, I think that has to be approached separately from examples  of actual.censorship.

[Nearly Sane]

Tobias Ellwood calling for break up and regulation of Big Tech. The solution feels just as problematic as the problem.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9232557/TOBIAS-ELLWOOD-world-better-place-without-Facebook-Google-Amazon.html?ito=facebook_share_article-top&fbclid=IwAR3PvaBQP_mV938cZYVAKIxjbPlFJnaLeGk-7mQOUudDT6RE8r7iR8TZyJE