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FCC Chairman Keeps Up Assault on Social Media (axios.com)

Posted by msmash on from the no-turning-back dept.

Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is doubling down on his critique of tech companies, asking whether social media is "a net benefit to American society" in remarks at the Media Institute on Wednesday. "Now, I will tell you upfront that I don't have an answer." From a report: What he said: Pai made the case that social media has been key to the politicization of many aspects of American life. "Everything nowadays is political. Everything. ... This view that politics-is-all is often made worse by social media," he said, per his prepared remarks.

5 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Benefit to American society? by DickBreath · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I might be able to agree that social media is not a net benefit to American society. But for entirely different reasons than Ajit Pai.

    Ajit Pai doesn't like it because people can express opinions -- oh my!

    I think it is simply a huge black hole for time that could be productively used for employment, study, personal enrichment, and trolling slashdot. With the additional benefit of avoiding more ads. Don't get me started about TV.

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    1. Re:Benefit to American society? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1, Interesting

      CGP Grey did a good video on why social media is bad. Basically in a world where clicks and comments and shares is the metric, people create content which makes people angry

      This Video Will Make You Angry

      Or as Andrew Klavan put it 'outrage is the Devil's cocaine'

      See also

      I can tolerate anything except the outgroup

      Add in the fact that most social media platforms have a very strong bias because they are full of young, college educated people and that people who try to derail the continuous Three Minute Hate against the outgroup(them) get banned for 'hate speech' and you can see why it is cancer.

      And the final insult is that the people who run these companies want regulation of the ISPs, aka Net Neutrality to stop them doing things like zero rating and then claiming it's about free speech. Even though the FCC didn't actually ban zero rating when T Mobile did it

      https://www.engadget.com/2015/...

      So a US ISP can do exactly what Portugal's MEO did even if Net Neutrality stays in place

      http://www.telecomsense.com/20...

      And of course Google and Facebook launched a non Net Neutral service with zero rating in India.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      I.e. they're lobbying for it because they think it will stop zero rating, which would might force them to pay ISPs to be zero rated, and it won't. We know that because even when it was in place the FCC had no problem with T Mobile's Binge On. They don't actually have a principled objection to zero rating, because they did it themselves.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  2. Re:"Rebublican Chairman" by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He is also Republican in that he decries the large role of politics of society and in doing so denigrates politics overall - part of the game plan of any authoritarian sect. Remember that if you don't have politics deciding issues, you have authorities deciding issues. Yes, democracy and the resulting politics sucks, but they suck a lot less than the alternative.

    --
    That is all.
  3. Re:Also by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    His policy ideas? I am not sure they are really his. I remember very similar ones from 80's Bulgaria.

    The government had become very interested in "Non-formal social groups", and was looking very hard at which ones were beneficial to Communist society, and which one were not. The leader of 'non-beneficial groups" would find themselves harassed and 'counseled' if they were innocuous enough, or set up, compromised, and possibly expelled/fired/reeducated if they were deemed threatening.

    I did not expect to see the same thing happen again when I made a life for myself in the United States. But on the bright side, I guess the criteria by which targets are judged will be different in Trump's America compared to Communist Bulgaria. Although I bet at least two things will not change. There will be a lot of subjectivity involved and Muslims will be on top of the shit list.

    I'm curious as to which operations will end up having been conducted with more skill and success.

  4. Re:Also by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually, I just did. And you know what? It is scary how much his language mirror the Communist justifications. Losing touch with the real world, divisiveness, contrary to the national values, the works...

    In the 80s, it was about high school students listening to Heavy Metal instead of Communist songs and people's (folk) music, or about minorities or locals discussing their history and traditions. Now, I guess it is a threat to free speech to have a group where you can discuss whatever interests you, if that happens to be disliked by the Powers of the Day. I guess it is terrible if people can post about how Pai is fighting against the commie monsters who are trying to prevent Comcast from wisely steering you away from substandard Internet content.

    We most definitely need government policing communication between citizens, or better yet, allowing service providers to benevolently lead us to all the right places.