Japan Preparing to Regulate Big Tech in Collaboration with U.S. and Europe

[grjj]

Big Tech needs to be regulatated. Twitter especially. Locking the account of the NY Post????

Right, privileges and obligations.
In the US you have a right to free speech and freedom of the press, in that the US Government cannot pass laws infringing on those rights.

No-one has an obligation to provide you an audience or access to their platform so you may spread your ideas and advertise your newspaper for free. If Twitter doesn't like the post they have every right to ban then from the platform. SHOULD THEY? That's another question all together, but there's nothing illegal about it.

This is a thing that escapes many people: just because you have a right, does not necessarily mean I have an obligation.
A guy screaming on the street corner is exercising the right of free speech, but his right starts infringing on nearby homes to live in peace and quiet(they have no obligation to listen to him) and we now have an issue that requires the courts to iron out the order of precedence for the associated rights.

None of this is simple, certainly not as simple as sound bites and comment snippets would make it out to be.

 

[827538]

This is a good thing.

When companies become so monopolized that they stifle innovation, expression, and the free exchange of ideas, that's the point where it is acceptable to endure the entry of government regulation into the arena.

To be honest, the tipping point occurred for me the past few weeks. Regardless of your leanings on US politics, when Twitter and Facebook felt they had the right to censor the free exchange of information by one of the most largely circulated newspapers in the country, and do so with impunity, they pierced the veil of protection provided by Section 230.

They decided they were the editor, and not simply a re publisher of third party content.

These platforms that were once considered de facto monopolies are now prima facia monopolies with agenda driving filtering of content no different than other mass media like radio and TV, and quite simply should be regulated in the same fashion.

As far as Amazon, Apple, and Google? IMHO they're a different animal from the above listed social media platforms. Amazon, like Apple will eventually get too big for it's britches and fall down. Even Jeff Bezos has said he expects some disruptive technology to come along and bankrupt Amazon some day. Some shark will come along and eat the pieces and leave the chum for the rest. It will continue to exist in some form, but not the form it does now.

Apple will have the same sort of "short pantsing" that MSFT did. They will have to agree to some fines and concessions on their app store and access to software platforms, but like MSFT will continue to be a mega company much as they are today.

Google, I don't know. It's just so huge with so many subsets. I don't know what happens to it. I just have to admit I'm at a loss on that one and move on.

But I DO believe we are beyond AT&T territory here. Beyond ALCOA. Beyond DuPont/GM.

Given the legal precedent, it's only a matter of time before the government takes action as they have in the past. And often, the results were positive. Particularly in the breakup of AT&T....

Fully,100% agree. When I saw Twitter blocking what is probably the biggest political corruption story of all time I knew push had come to shove. I really believe the fairest way to go about it is declare them publishers and remove the protections they have as a platform. Because they are quite simply behaving like a publisher.

If Apple simply allows default apps to change to whatever you want then honestly I don’t have a problem with what Apple is doing. Apple has a lot of competition, it just happens to be offering better products in my opinion.

Google is the hardest one, they are clearly past a point where regulation needs brought down on them. Their manipulation of search results to benefit one political side is clear. Just Google or YouTube any controversial subject and you will see a wall of CNN/NYT/MSNBC. No diversity of thought is promoted. Prominent results are wiped. It’s why I use DuckDuckGo now because the actually return the results they should.
I’d like to see Alphabets various components broken apart.

 

[827538]

Right, privileges and obligations.
In the US you have a right to free speech and freedom of the press, in that the US Government cannot pass laws infringing on those rights.

No-one has an obligation to provide you an audience or access to their platform so you may spread your ideas and advertise your newspaper for free. If Twitter doesn't like the post they have every right to ban then from the platform. SHOULD THEY? That's another question all together, but there's nothing illegal about it.

This is a thing that escapes many people: just because you have a right, does not necessarily mean I have an obligation.
A guy screaming on the street corner is exercising the right of free speech, but his right starts infringing on nearby homes to live in peace and quiet(they have no obligation to listen to him) and we now have an issue that requires the courts to iron out the order of precedence for the associated rights.

None of this is simple, certainly not as simple as sound bites and comment snippets would make it out to be.

You’re casually ignoring the responsibilities a platform has vs the rights a publisher has.

 

[yellow8]

Europe isn't a country

Oh! Really?

 

[decisions]

The Post shouldn't even exist. It's a crapfest, not a newspaper.

It's about time Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and again Microsoft, need restrictions that make sense.

Even if we had the word of God that the laptop, receipts, and information in the article was all fabricated by Russia, supporting the censorship of tech companies that lets them decide what information is credible is embarrassing. That is a principle that will live on and come back to haunt all free societies. If a story is obviously false, people should be smart enough to see that for themselves.

 

[I7guy]

Not all innovation is good. When it hurts consumers or other businesses more than it helps, it deserves to be regulated.



Maybe when they let these companies operate in their countries, they weren't abusing their power to the extent they are now? Or they offered more value than they currently do. Of all people, you'd think tech fans would understand that things can change over time.


None of these companies are going to pull out. They want marketshare and money, and even if regulation limits their ability to make the kind of profits they do now, less money is better than no money.

Playing robin hood is wrong on so many levels as is stifling innovation through draconian regulation. It doesn't work out well for anybody. See AT&T, and cable franchises for examples.
[automerge]1603126725[/automerge]

Unforeseen consequences. I’d say there are ways in which the iPhone, for example, has made life both better and worse for all of us.

Same can be said for Facebook, as well.

 

[boss.king]

Playing robin hood is wrong on so many levels as is stifling innovation through draconian regulation. It doesn't work out well for anybody. See AT&T, and cable franchises for examples.

How is anything I said "playing Robin Hood"? Acting in the interest of the people is the whole point of a government, if they're not doing that then why have them at all? Companies left to their own devices rarely act in the consumer's favour. I'm not American so maybe if you were a bit more specific than just listing off a few companies and industries it might help make your point.

 

[Shirasaki]

Human is the expert of destroying stuff. Government and tech giants are no exception. I don’t have the expertise or background knowledge to scramble my stance on this matter, but it will be very interesting to see how this goes, if destruction ends up being the way to go.

 

[Karma*Police]

Big Tech needs to be regulatated. Twitter especially. Locking the account of the NY Post????

So you’d rather have the government make such decisions? That can only end very badly... like 1984 bad. If people don’t like Twitter’s policies, another Twitter will emerge. That’s how free markets work. Who could have predicted Tik Tok’s meteoric rise in social media? Microsoft’s monopoly wasn’t toppled by governments, it was toppled by Google and Apple.

 

[deevey]

Even if we had the word of God that the laptop, receipts, and information in the article was all fabricated by Russia, supporting the censorship of tech companies that lets them decide what information is credible is embarrassing. That is a principle that will live on and come back to haunt all free societies. If a story is obviously false, people should be smart enough to see that for themselves.

When all the news sources being pushed to you are feeding you with the same narrative, how do you suppose that the lay-person can distinguish the truth from the lies? Or when an article appears on Facebook thats been "Fact checked" .. people will believe it.

Facebook / Google / Twitter and the rest of the social media outlets are acting as publishers by pushing only the narratives they know will keep you engaged and enraged.

I'd warrant that the vast majority of folk will believe what they read 3 or 4th hand out-of-context on Facebook over a real newspaper because it reads better into their viewpoint than the real story (which can take alot of digging to find).

People are sheep.

 

[decisions]

When all the news sources being pushed to you are feeding you with the same narrative, how do you suppose that the lay-person can distinguish the truth from the lies? Or when an article appears on Facebook thats been "Fact checked" .. people will believe it.

Facebook / Google / Twitter and the rest of the social media outlets are acting as publishers by pushing only the narratives they know will keep you engaged and enraged.

I'd warrant that the vast majority of folk will believe what they read 3 or 4th hand out-of-context on Facebook over a real newspaper because it reads better into their viewpoint than the real story (which can take alot of digging to find).

People are sheep.

I agree with you for the most part, I mean I certainly agree that FAANG companies have determined that a huge factor in engagement is establishing a comforting confirmation bias that keeps people coming back to the site. But to me that means that some legislation against what they can do is a good thing. A company should not be able to posture themselves as an unbiased public platform but then pick and choose what news stories people are seeing.

Some people are sheep, others are very smart. The way to make more people smart is not to censor more information and tell them what to think, that will only increase the size of the herd. So we need good legislation here, obviously government legislation on this isn't just guaranteed to be good, and could be just as or even more dangerous than what it is supposed to prevent against.

 

[deevey]

Microsoft’s monopoly wasn’t toppled by governments, it was toppled by Google and Apple.

1 Trillion Dollars and a 77%+ desktop marketshare says otherwise. They are definitely not a toppled Monopoly.

 

[now i see it]

In the dog eat dog world of tech capitalism, either eat smaller companies or eventually get eaten. The situation we have now with a few giant behemoths controlling everything is an inevitable result.

 

[ian87w]

Welp, 2020 is going downhill real fast at its end...

 

[I7guy]

How is anything I said "playing Robin Hood"? Acting in the interest of the people is the whole point of a government, if they're not doing that then why have them at all? Companies left to their own devices rarely act in the consumer's favour. I'm not American so maybe if you were a bit more specific than just listing off a few companies and industries it might help make your point.

I didn't say you said "robin hood" (which was a general comment), but that is what government wants to do, IMO. Sometimes government acts in it's own self-interests and are not really aligned with the interests of the people. I'm not against regulation, but as companies grow and prosper within the regulations, don't back-track and then decide growth is not good.

 

[Karma*Police]

How is anything I said "playing Robin Hood"? Acting in the interest of the people is the whole point of a government, if they're not doing that then why have them at all? Companies left to their own devices rarely act in the consumer's favour. I'm not American so maybe if you were a bit more specific than just listing off a few companies and industries it might help make your point.

The question is, are governments acting in the interest of the people by regulating success or are they harming them? After all, companies that don’t act in the consumers’ interests won’t survive in this environment. And it was the consumers’ decision to make Apple and Android a duopoly. They chose Mac and Windows to be a duopoly. They chose Facebook to dominate social media. They chose Amazon to dominate ecommerce. They chose Walmart to dominate retail. Why? Because it benefited them. Scale brought lower prices and conveniences that smaller competitors couldn’t match. As far as I can tell, competition is still very much alive and well and many of these companies are one bad decision away from being overtaken by another innovative startup. Just look at Tik Tok’s overnight success.

What I see are greedy governments trying to score brownie points with the uneducated masses that harbor some ill will towards the super successful and simultaneously generate additional tax revenue to shore up the deficits they’ve racked up by mishandling hard-earned taxpayer money.

 

[deevey]

I agree with you for the most part, I mean I certainly agree that FAANG companies have determined that a huge factor in engagement is establishing a comforting confirmation bias that keeps people coming back to the site. But to me that means that some legislation against what they can do is a good thing. A company should not be able to posture themselves as an unbiased public platform but then pick and choose what news stories people are seeing.

Some people are sheep, others are very smart. The way to make more people smart is not to censor more information and tell them what to think, that will only increase the size of the herd. So we need good legislation here, obviously government legislation on this isn't just guaranteed to be good, and could be just as or even more dangerous than what it is supposed to prevent against.

Completely Agree. I don't know what the solution is. If it's not the governments though who can it be ? I'm sure the tech giants themselves would try and push for some sort of self-regulation board, but that just isn't going to work. Make a global ethical social regulation editorial something something foundation ? Dunno if that would work too well either as the globe is so split on what's what in each respective country.

It's a question without any clearcut answer, the best intern solution would probably be to use the existing publication laws that are in place regarding the editing of content and expand on them over time.

If it walks like a duck ..

 

[boss.king]

I didn't say you said "robin hood" (which was a general comment), but that is what government wants to do, IMO. Sometimes government acts in its own self-interests and are not really aligned with the interests of the people. I'm not against regulation, but as companies grow and prosper within the regulations, don't back-track and then decide growth is not good.

There's nothing inherently wrong with backtracking if it brings a better outcome. Governments aren't infallible, so if they make mistakes they should be allowed to correct them. I also don't think any government has ever said growth is bad, but rather the consequences of some companies growing to be too powerful.

And yes, sometimes governments do act in their own interest or against the people, but that's a failing of that country's government, and voting should be expected to correct that if its a big enough issue.

-----

The question is, are governments acting in the interest of the people by regulating success or are they harming them? After all, companies that don’t act in the consumers’ interests won’t survive in this environment. And it was the consumers’ decision to make Apple and Android a duopoly. They chose Mac and Windows to be a duopoly. They chose Facebook to dominate social media. They chose Amazon to dominate ecommerce. They chose Walmart to dominate retail. Why? Because it benefited them. Scale brought lower prices and conveniences that smaller competitors couldn’t match. As far as I can tell, competition is still very much alive and well and many of these companies are one bad decision away from being overtaken by another innovative startup. Just look at Tik Tok’s overnight success.

What I see are greedy governments trying to score brownie points with the uneducated masses that harbor some ill will towards the super successful and simultaneously generate additional tax revenue to shore up the deficits they’ve racked up by mishandling hard-earned taxpayer money.

That's the whole point of this - some tech companies have become so powerful that they can withstand the effects of working against consumer intererst. Look at Facebook: with all the evidence of what a terrible company they are and all the shady tactics they use to grow and crush their competitors, combined with the negative sentiment around them, you'd think they'd have been forced to clean up their act. But they don't have to. They pay a fine, and then get back to being a despicable company because seemingly no one and nothing can stop them.

 

[I7guy]

There's nothing inherently wrong with backtracking if it brings a better outcome. Governments aren't infallible, so if they make mistakes they should be allowed to correct them. I also don't think any government has ever said growth is bad, but rather the consequences of some companies growing to be too powerful.

And yes, sometimes governments do act in their own interest or against the people, but that's a failing of that country's government, and voting should be expected to correct that if its a big enough issue.

A better outcome for whom though? Did consumers get a better outcome with the break-up of AT&T, it's arguable. The telcomm industry is a mess. Cable franchises are another mess. Not all great outcomes, which is why government should keep it's nose out of certain things an do what they do best...which is not regulating tech companies that haven't done anything against the law.

 

[boss.king]

A better outcome for whom though? Did consumers get a better outcome with the break-up of AT&T, it's arguable. The telcomm industry is a mess. Cable franchises are another mess. Not all great outcomes, which is why government should keep it's nose out of certain things an do what they do best...which is not regulating tech companies that haven't done anything against the law.

I don't get your example. You say breaking up AT&T helped consumers, and then go on to say that the government should have minded its own business? Also, weren't they broken up because they were breaking anti-monopoly laws? Like I said, I'm not American and am not completely familiar with the example, but wasn't this seen as a massive win for consumers in both cost and choice?

That's not to say it's perfect, American carriers are still a nightmare from the sounds of things, but that seems to be the result of govt regulation not going far enough, not that it went too far.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

Corrupted nation Japan can do whatever they want. They even deny world war II invasion and existences of sex slaves during the war.

Ah, the typical white American hypocritical response.

As if the US recognizes its own sins with human trafficking, homegrown terrorist groups, and the systematic oppression on non-white, non-"Christian", and non-straight American citizens, since 1776.

I wouldn't go throwing stones in glass houses, if I were you.

 

[grjj]

You’re casually ignoring the responsibilities a platform has vs the rights a publisher has.

What responsibilty? Can you point to a law that requires Twitter to provide equal access to anyone who wants it and removes their right to free expression? Not just that you think they should, but that they're required to?

Rights are inherent in the US, the 9th and 10th amendments basically say that all rights not assigned to the states or fed are retained by the people. Courts have generally ruled that those rights also belong to "non person entities".
You have the right to punch people in the face but those people have the right to put you in jail and seek civil restitution for it because you infringed on their right to not be punched in the face.

You have a front yard, it's privately owned but publicly accessible property (like Twitter). Your argument can easily be used to say that I should be allowed to put signs in your front yard even if you don't like them there, or what I have to say on them.

 

[calzon65]

The number of pre-installed non-microsoft Apps on Windows nowadays is worse than ever.

Fresh install of Windows 10, went to install Spotify, imagine my surprise that was already installed by default ! Thats the kind of thing that should be a much bigger issue with governments.

I have no issue with OS developers bundling their own software e.g. Photos, iMovie, Facetime or Skype being installed as the default chat app on a Microsoft system or Edge as the browser or hell even windows movie maker. It makes sense as they develop them and they help make for a more complete out-of-the-box experience.

But third party apps like Candy Crush for example - really ?



And don't forget the Media Empires while you are at it

I don't know what version of Windows 10 you are installing, but Windows 10 I downloaded from Microsoft is only Windows 10.

 

[IIGS User]

Ah, the typical white American hypocritical response.

As if the US recognizes its own sins with human trafficking, homegrown terrorist groups, and the systematic oppression on non-white, non-"Christian", and non-straight American citizens, since 1776.

I wouldn't go throwing stones in glass houses, if I were you.

Sorry sir, but I have to call you out on this one.

Every country has "shenanigans" in their past. Every last one. Every religion, every race, every ethnicity.

That being said. Japanese "shenanigans" during WWII put them in a league all their own.

I mean they DID align themselves with Nazi Germany. Just for starters. I think you're fighting an uphill battle on this one...

 

[Eriden]

Twitter is not a government entity, as a private (corporate) company they have the right to allow whatever they want or don't want, It is the consumers right to then use them or not. Just like any other company...Apple, Samsung, etc if you don't like their products or practices don't buy or use them.

Twitter, like so many other social networks, was only able to grow thanks to the liability shield in Section 230. Twitter is obviously acting with editorial discretion, not as a mere platform. Plus, the social networks ARE the new public square, and Constitutional Law related to viewpoint discrimination should absolutely apply.

People on the left side of the spectrum love to talk about how the cakeshops, wedding photographers, and churches should be forced by the government to provide their services equally, but the minute you start taking about government forcing the tech companies to treat conservative voices equally, they cry, "muh private business can do as it likes!"