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Senate Democrat Floats First Serious Proposals For Regulating Big Tech (gizmodo.com)
On Monday, Senator Mark Warner published 20 proposals on how to regulate big tech platforms. What's interesting is that none of the proposals call for breaking up the pseudo-monopolies. Instead, they aim to start a substantive debate by laying out different paths to address problems posed by the platforms. Gizmodo reports: What may be more important than the individual proposals themselves is that the document is at least trying to organize a holistic way of thinking about the issues now on the table. It breaks down the areas that need addressing into the promotion of disinformation, privacy and consumer protection, and ensuring competition in the marketplace. Just to highlight a few of the good issues on the table, the white paper blessedly brings the conversation back to privacy and data ownership -- something that seems to have been lost as the conversation has turned to content moderation. The easiest recommendation is to implement what it calls "GDPR-like" data protection legislation that would give Americans similar data rights as EU citizens gained in May. The jury is still out on the long-term consequences of those reforms, but they require greater transparency and consent for a company's terms of service, along with many more tools for keeping track of what information a company collects on you.
On the competition side of things, the proposal suggests a data-transparency bill that would give users a more granular idea of how their data is being used and how much its worth to an individual platform. One concern it addresses is that platforms expand how they monetize a person's data while the user is often unaware of how much they're actually giving up, value-wise, when they agree to hand over their data in exchange for a particular service. Another benefit would be that regulators would have a better idea of what they're evaluating in antitrust enforcement cases. The proposals relating to disinformation are a little more worrisome. A requirement that platforms "clearly and conspicuously label bots" wouldn't be so bad, but it's a daunting task and opens up the potential for false positives. Likewise, demanding networks identify a user's true identity is unrealistic, and the option of anonymity online should be protected. Axios was first to publish the list of 20 proposals compiled by Warner's staff. Is there a proposal that resonates with you? If not, how would you regulate the Big Tech platforms?
On the competition side of things, the proposal suggests a data-transparency bill that would give users a more granular idea of how their data is being used and how much its worth to an individual platform. One concern it addresses is that platforms expand how they monetize a person's data while the user is often unaware of how much they're actually giving up, value-wise, when they agree to hand over their data in exchange for a particular service. Another benefit would be that regulators would have a better idea of what they're evaluating in antitrust enforcement cases. The proposals relating to disinformation are a little more worrisome. A requirement that platforms "clearly and conspicuously label bots" wouldn't be so bad, but it's a daunting task and opens up the potential for false positives. Likewise, demanding networks identify a user's true identity is unrealistic, and the option of anonymity online should be protected. Axios was first to publish the list of 20 proposals compiled by Warner's staff. Is there a proposal that resonates with you? If not, how would you regulate the Big Tech platforms?
"pseudo-monopolies."
What? Perhaps you mean oligopoly?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
There needs to be some serious thought on how to best address data migration and pseudo vendor lock-in. Data migration is easy. I should have the ability to download all my data from facebook and upload it to google plus (or some other competitor) and vice versa.
Pseudo vendor lockin is a bit trickier. If all your friends are on facebook then you can't move to a new platform without convincing all your friends to move too.
I think the solution for this is to require companies to allow interoperability between sites. If I want to create a facebook clone, I should be able to allow my users to sync their account with facebook so that posts on my new site are crossposted on facebook, etc...
There are already some marketing tools that allow this to a limited extent but it should be explicitly allowed so that people can more easily hop from platform to platform.
Currently, trying to do a true sync of facebook with a facebook clone would be against facebook's TOS.
What's interesting is that none of the proposals call for breaking up the pseudo-monopolies
Not interesting. Break up into what pieces? Monopoly of what? You chattle are so retarded. You don't even understand how you're being corralled.
fuck off ivan
you are an illiterate fucking idiot
Sites have lots of ways of detecting bots.
It's gone far past the old (a couple years old) systems.
Anything that fails gets labeled a bot. There needs to be allowance for people to get their bot status rescinded, but if they don't they might as well be bots.
Unlike the US constitution, you're a bot until you prove otherwise.
prefixing posts with "Posted by a bot:" will rip the teeth out of most fake news, and other BS.
A whole new round of pointless "This site uses cookies, if you don't like it then fuck off" popovers, and a lot of other unworkable bullshit and disclosures that 99.99% if the world won't care enough about to read or understand.
The only thing to look forward to is earning and brandishing an official twitter Bot Badge, presumably by posting absolutely anything positive about Trump.
"I think the solution for this is to require companies to allow interoperability between sites." - Well, sorry but go fuck yourself, legally speaking. Bad idea, zero chance of happening, back to the drawing board. Sorry but that's just dumb.
Am I the only one who thinks they should simply be required to have profit sharing or otherwise pay you for the data, rather than try to stop it?
I'll stick with the Wild West.
It's kind of amazing how on the internet, where literally anything can be decentralized if you want it, and starting a competing website is cheap, all the power goes to one website (in each field). In Facebook you could say "it's because of network effects," but it's not really true with search engines. When freed, we just kind of......flock together.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What happened to FREE SPEECH.
FAKE NEWS is still FREE SPEECH. First Amendment, BITCHES
Say hello to universal ID and Zero anonymity on the internet.
I hope you are the first person in court fighting for your life after someone steals your identity and does something illegal with it.
I hear nowadays just being accused of certain crimes destroys your future... no one will even wait until you go to trial to find out if you are innocent... you are automatically guilty... even if you eventually get a "not-guilty" verdict.
Identity theft is about to get a lot worse after someone like you gets a hold of the problem.
And no, data migration is NOT easy. Businesses spend ass loads of money on migrations all year round with many of them either resulting in failures or projects that did manage to finish but are only limping along.
Just talk to a few systems admins and engineers... they will be happy to tell you how broken a lot of shit is.
The fact that detecting bots would require ending anonymity is not a bug of the system. It's the feature they want. You can't demonize anonymous critics. Just so we are clear: this Democrats circling proposals to dox all users. And, no, this is NOT a hyperbole. It's what they have been accused of for a while now. When they come for you, there will be no one left to speak up.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
"I think the solution for this is to require companies to allow interoperability between sites." - Well, sorry but go fuck yourself, legally speaking. Bad idea, zero chance of happening, back to the drawing board. Sorry but that's just dumb.
I must be dumb then, because I don't see why it's a bad idea. Can you explain it to me?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Why else do you think these "regulations" are being asked for by the very players that will be regulated by them?
Can you imagine if, every time we wanted to amend criminal law, we went around to all the prisons and ask the burglars and drug traffickers (sorry, stakeholders) how it would affect their business model?
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... none of the proposals call for breaking up the pseudo-monopolies. Instead, they aim to start a substantive debate by laying out different paths to address problems posed by the platforms.
Let's not propose a solution, let's not propose a method of making a *plan* for a solution, let's propose several plans for how to approach a solution, and have a debate!
Bureaucracy at its finest.
(Futurama quote: "Don't quote me the regulation! I chaired the committee that reviewed the proposal to change the color of the book that regulation is in." --Bureaucrat 1.0)
just think about the problem and it should come to you. But like most other voters, thinking about anything but the next reality TV show is verboten. You just want to hear some smooth sounding politician to say "we go this" right?
Here is just a small reason why it is a bad idea. Once the government can force a business to be interoperable... then all businesses will have to become interoperable. Big businesses with money will quickly increase the complexity of this interoperability so that it will not be easy or cheap for competitors to be interoperable making it easy to squash them and simultaneously raise the barrier of entry. Not only that, but you will become universally tracked by default. Everything about the interoperability will most definitely be used to track everything you do and fed to the government... in case you are a terrorist, or a malcontent that needs to be monitored, or someone that did something bad that can be used against you in a court of law next time you need to fight a custody battle with your spouse or fight off a litigious business or individual.
It might even become bad enough that only certain businesses will be allow even have websites on the internet because before you can be allowed to register, you have to prove that you are "interoperable" before getting a domain.
so Yea, very bad idea...
Or "village wee todd"
This is a non-sequitur.
Regulations do not always result in criminal prosecution.
And in the case of business regulatory agency... talking to the burglars and traffickers is pretty much 'exactly' what they do when they amend regulation.
Oh, and before I do forget, it actually might be genuinely a good idea to talk to those criminals before amending criminal law. You do understand that many of the laws in place actually increase recidivism rates instead of reducing them. After all, the more you treat petty criminal like a major criminal, the more they will feel like they cannot get a break and will return to their former life style or worse. If you talk to them, they might give you a clue on what might actually cause them to stop their criminal ways... but its not like you care or anything right? They are just criminals that need to be taught a lesson and never deserving of any forgiveness and most certainly not deserving of being listened too...
I would take many of those criminals as fellow citizens before someone like you. The moment I made a mistake you would try to crucify me... at least they might be a bit for forgiving... after having be screwed by a system with logic like this.
Too easy to regulate them, make it more expensive to be privacy invasive dick brains than it is worth.
So want to be real harsh, all companies, 'ALL COMPANIES', must forward details of the information they store about individuals to the individuals concerned and if the individual demands they delete the information, the company must delete the data. Note this is just data stored, not stories about individuals, just databases and obviously data required for taxation purposes must be kept. There also needs to be a distinction between information they hold privately and information they hold publicly (think psychological manipulation databases and public information databases).
The individual should have the right to decide whether they will allow a company to keep, manipulate, distribute private information about the individual. Tie this into random audits with custodial sentences and things should settle down.
Bots are really kind of arbitrary, people tend to scatter when they comments don't agree with their preconceived ideas. Like all the typical ways the corporate Democrat identitarian bullshit fails, people just leave. The googlites are learning that lesson the fuck cunts, trying to control people, all they do is wander off else where.
As for fake news, all to fucking easy. Simply regulate the word 'NEWS', you use that word and tell porky pies and you'll earn yourself a custodial sentence, done and finished. Want to make up news stories, no problem, do not use the word 'NEWS' anywhere. Another step foward, regulate journalists, make it a profession, 'Public Investigators' (there is more to that but still not the time).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I like your ideas, now... how are you going to convince a politician to implement these? As a voter you offer very little money to their coffers and lets me honest, you are not going to get enough fellow voters to remove them from office for this issue alone. In fact this issue is not even going to register in any meaningful way for the next 30 years. The politician is going to take the money from the businesses and regulate them as they agree to be regulated.
I am going to just go with history and make the bet that we consumers get screwed again. Better to have no regulation and control what my browser does with scripts before they gain/bribe enough regulatory power/influence to get government to agree that they have a default "right to my data" as a government blessed and regulated monopoly or oligopoly.
So yea, if we could send the message to them that these are the ONLY regulations allowed, then it would be great! but that is just not going to happen.
Fuck off ivan? He has a very valid point. Fuck all this regulation. The best way for a democracy to work is to have a free market of ideas. The day you decide someone has the right to declare info as good or bad on behalf of you, the citizen, is the day you trade your freedoms for the tyrant of a king you just made. Why undo the revolutionary war? Don't you want the freedom to decide who you want to believe rather than have someone make the choice for you? Isn't that your right?
That's pretty much exactly it.
Nonsense. "Free markets" don't exist, first of all, and unencumbered commercial behavior is anathema to democracy.
The revolutionary war was not about democracy, it was about exchanging one aristocracy for another. The Founding Fathers were very careful to limit the democratic impulses of Americans and make sure that the wealthy elite, who they believed know better than everyone else, could rule without being encumbered by democracy.
Did you grow up somewhere that history is not taught?
You are welcome on my lawn.
demanding networks identify a user's true identity is unrealistic, and the option of anonymity online should be protected.see more about this...............www.kingstar5.com
Free speech in the real world isn’t anonymous. Why should the internet be?
Or are you afraid others will discover your pornhub habits?
Only posting as AC because I can’t protect myself from other ACs, not knowing who you are.
Nonsense. "Free markets" don't exist, first of all, and unencumbered commercial behavior is anathema to democracy.
Um, no. The only thing that encumbers commercial behavior is regulation by the state (bad), and competition (good). It is always better to have options, rather than instructions.
The revolutionary war was not about democracy, it was about exchanging one aristocracy for another. The Founding Fathers were very careful to limit the democratic impulses of Americans and make sure that the wealthy elite, who they believed know better than everyone else, could rule without being encumbered by democracy.
Um, no. They established a democracy, rather than an aristocracy specifically for this reason. Go read Thomas Jefferson. It took almost 100 years for everyone to get the right to vote, but they laid the bedrock of this great civilization. We have the free'est people because we are allowed to express ourselves. There are going to be bad ideas and bad opinions, like the Westborough Baptist Church. That's the price you pay for freedom. It is a price many have and will fight for, and die for.
Did you grow up somewhere that history is not taught?
I was taught history. What does that have to do with anything? Besides, history is taught by the victors. Decide for yourself. Unless you need this Democratic Senator to decide for you. I will be deciding for myself, thanks.
Now that's a good troll.
Kill all tyrants
Nothing you said is untrue. But at one point, there were:
The idiots who believed in evolution against the church!
The idiots who believed the mixing of blood with other races was a punishable thing!
The idiots who believed there really were witches in Salem!
The idiots who believed that prayer would heal you, and taking medicine was the work of the devil!
Do you really want to live in a world where authority to determine what is right or wrong is given to someone in power? Really?
Go to North Korea then. See what it's like.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it.
A free exchange of ideas sounds good. But it stops at lies. Journalists and advertisers are not allowed to propagate lies. (Exceptions may apply. And lies by ommission seem to be acceptable.) Now that even news agencies get their info off Twitbook, it is easier than ever to spread lies with impunity.
But there are reasons why lies are not welcome in this marketplace of ideas. We cannot hold everyone publishing on a public forum to the same standard as professional journalists and advertisers, for purely practical reasons.
But do we want this "free marketplace of of ideas" to become an arena about whose lies are less implausible? Then we may just as well forego journalism altogether and go back to church. Or succumb to the brainwashing of "scripted reality" and of "entertainment" shows emulating the presentation styles of news shows.
By the way, I really can not believe that in 2018 we are having a real discussion about weather the freedom to think and speak what you believe in is up for debate! Wasn't this settled in like the 1790s? Thats why we have a first amendment!
C'mon. Really?! IF you really want someone else to decide for you. Follow that person. But please, don't try to force the rest of us to by codifying it into law!?
I read the first 4 pages and then skimmed the rest. It reads like a 2nd year college student wrote it.
"The hope is that the ideas enclosed here stir the pot and spark a wider discussion..." These colloquialisms are scattered throughout.the paper. Hard to believe that this is supposed to convince legislators.
The list headings:
Duty to clearly and conspicuously label bots
Duty to determine origin of posts and/or accounts
Duty to identify inauthentic accounts
Make platforms liable for state-law torts (defamation, false light, public disclosure of
private facts) for failure to take down deep fake or other manipulated audio/video content
Public Interest Data Access Bill
Require lnteragency Task Force for Countering Asymmetric Threats to Democratic
Institutions
Disclosure Requirements for Online Political Advertisements —
Public Initiative for Media Literacy
Increasing Deterrence Against Foreign Manipulation —
Information fiduciary
Privacy rulemaking authority at FTC
Comprehensive (GDPR-like) data protection legislation
1*‘ Party Consent for Data Collection
Statutory determination that so-called ‘dark patterns’ are unfair and deceptive trade
practices
Algorithmic auditability fairness
Data Transparency Bill
Data Portability Bill
Interoperability
Opening federal datasets to university researchers and qualified small businesses/startups
Essential Facilities Determinations
According to Wikipedia, this Senator Warner is a former venture capitalist. I expect therefore that his proposed rules will do nothing to protect citizens from predatory companies, and much to protect predatory companies from competitors who aren't owned by the old boys club.
With search engines it is still a network effect: The more people use it, the more feedback it gets on the relevance of its results, improving its usefulness.
Didn't the EU do just that?
Just try to edit anything on wikipedia without a man child admin and his goons reverting and trashing even your minor edits.
Vladimir Putin pickpocketed me in the subway!
"if you trade liberty for safety, you deserve neither."
More important than what you deserve - if you make that trade you GET neither liberty nor safety.
There is no reliable way to "clearly and conspicuously label bots". Even if you require all registered users to prove a human identity, they could still let a bot use their account. A smart bot implementor could even pay users to utilize their identity and to install a VPN host so that the bot can make its posts from their IP.
But, you can be assured that proving identities would still be the first thing they jump to if this is required. It moves the blame. Kaspersky would get the internet where all users have to prove their identities that they have pushed all of these years.
They may also criminalize it. Criminalizing anything that has value usually increases its value. We should know well by now how well that works.
Are bots really the problem? Or is it the way we are making decisions?
I know people who will debate me with statements like "well, so and so had xyz happen, so it happens". First of all, they don't know that so and so told them the truth or even really knows the truth. People rarely remember even their own experiences in a accurate fashion. Second, anecdotal evidence doesn't rise to a level of any statistical relevance in trying to understand any truth about the massive society or complex world we live in. Basing your beliefs or fears on miniscule samples from your personal life or news stories you've seen without tempering it with large sample sets is the path to a very twisted and often unreasonably panicked view of the world.
The problem is that people aren't being taught why we have the scientific method. They aren't being taught just how horribly flawed their reasoning without it is and why our society started exploding in success when we started using it. You can't protect people from that lack of knowledge. If they don't have it, others will always find a way to use their ignorance.
Um, no. The only thing that encumbers commercial behavior is regulation by the state (bad), and competition (good). It is always better to have options, rather than instructions.
I think you'd best have a look around. Any society and/or economy would do. And even a brief look should suffice. Then you would see that regulation by the state is absolutely essential. The alternative is all the power coalescing in a few commercial interests (bad).
The end point of unrestrained capitalism is a slave class of underlings (if there's even any point in having them alive at all) and a ruling class of capital owners. Regulation is essential to keep capitalism as a useful economic engine for the benefit of everyone.
One obvious example is our shared environment. Without regulation to prevent it, commercial interests would destroy all environmental amenity. "Externalities", they call them.
We have the free'est people because we are allowed to express ourselves.
As opposed to whom? We have freedom of speech in our constitution e.g. here in Norway too.
Well, you just gave yourself all the answer you need. History is taught by the victors.
The oligarchs are the victors. They're the ones teaching you that "free markets" and "less regulation" are a good thing. You have been lied to.
I'm guessing you're on the young side. It probably hasn't been that many years since you read Ayn Rand and thought she was profound. You have been well-indoctrinated by the people with the power and wealth. A day will come when you question what you've been told. Whether you decide to find answers to those questions or stay in your stall in the slaughter house is entirely up to you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Just teach school children how to set up their own Amazon, Facebook, Google, or whatever. It probably won't remove the oligopoly, but it will get it into people's heads that anything anyone can do on the internet, anyone can do on the internet, and nobody is at the mercy of any domain for anything.
Yep, usually gottta give 'em a pair of concrete shoes.
The Chinese government gives LOTS of br.. oops, I mean donations.. to the Democrat party.
Not sure why Democrats want to kill off the tech industry so bad though, considering they are the only donors other than Goldman Sachs who give barrels of cash to the DNC...
It's a ruse to limit competition for their friends and to limit speech for their political opponents. Which companies will have the resources to successfully abide by these rules? Who will be the arbiter of what needs censoring? The friends of the democrat party get on their knees and beg for more regulations. Even when it appears they will suffer. It artificially creates a monopoly and they return the favor to their masters in the form of censoring and money.
They need regulate banks, large corporations (pharmaceuticals, food industry, medical supplies, medial hardware and so on), tech companies, medias outlets, foundation and law companies.
The two first plus the last one, can take us to WFC again in a very fast pace, like 2008, actually worst. The other ones are the ones to blame for the direction the people go.
#credulous
1. Remove superpacs like Shareblue astroturfing on social media sites
2. Put in common carrier laws for sites like facebook/twitter etc
99% of problems solved.
Please do not forget that people with computers do a whole lot of things from construction to medicine to space exploration and beyond.
Big Tech(tm) is a broad term. If you want to mention facebook just say it and stop beating around the bush trying to be vague.
At first yes... we will do the same as well... at first! But like I said... how do you get them to ONLY do that? Look at what is going on now. The EU now wants to add more regulations... like the ones I said would come after these making my very point. Again... how are you going to keep them from doing more than what we want? You can't. They will quickly become drunk on the power of regulation.
https://www.theguardian.com/me...
There is at least a double whammy to this issue. One is the opening of the flood gates to regulate now... each and every time a group of politicians get their knickers in a wad they will think of ways to control social media, they are already visible salivating over the prospect. The other whammy? That will be social media quashing anything that looks suspect, anything that can even be construed as false or fake news and whammo... the government has just "indirectly" but still successfully stifled free speech even more.
Of course they are going to start with the good stuff first... it's the same strategy from since before any of us where born. You get the nice tasting stuff fed to them and make them happy... and right as they open their mouth for the next bite you powerslam a plate full of shit right down their gullet!
Works most of the time too!
Sure, leave it to Democrats to further entrench the Fascism.
That's a kind of bullshit definition of fascism, though in fairnes, the link you posted points out how it's a much a Republican thing as democrat. Though given your blind, hyper-partisan zeal it's not really surprising you pick out th eother tribe.
Anyone interested in a better description of facism (not you, since youre impervious to anything that you don't believe is "rah rah republicans") should go here:
https://www.nybooks.com/articl...
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Er, what does this have to do with liberal? People, regardless of race religion or politic are sick of having their private data harvested
Are you saying that because of your political affiliation you would like your data and your family and friends data harvested for ads just to prove some sort of point about how things work better when there is no regulation? That is insane! Would you cut off your own nose to spite your face as well?
A proper society has both socialist and capitalist elements mixed in with some other elements that don't have a pleasant easy name like mobility mapping etc. If you are truly dedicated to the republican idealism of pure capitalism why not move to mexico? Mexico is following the republican philosophy to the letter in terms of no regulation, barely any taxes etc...the result? Well go take a look, but it doesn't look like a utopia to me.
So true, it has happened so many times.
"It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad. "
~Madison
I would say that Madison was very short sighted in his prognostications... he failed realize or at least mention that these dangers, real or pretended, can also be from home. But then again, in those days "free enterprise" was the ideal so very few quotes directly mention them, but still apply 'in logic' all the same.
Good point. If freed of speech is still controversial 200 years later, then the framers were wise to keep it in the Constitution.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"The oligarchs are the victors. They're the ones teaching you that "free markets" and "less regulation" are a good thing. You have been lied to."
When why do they call for regulations and install revolving doors between themselves? Are you that easy to fool? They stand at the podiums and decry that they hate regulation for your ears and then they run to the back rooms and create themselves deals.
What they say and what they do are two very different things. Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, Elon Musk, and many like them are all calling for regulations on multiple things. According to you, these "oligarchs" should be shunning regulations right?
It would be you that has been well indoctrinated. I wait for the day for you to question what you have been told. Have you not noticed the trend? We have more regulations than ever before, and we also also have a larger wealth gap than ever before. Do you know what else we have? More large monolithic monopolistic umbrella and holding companies than ever before. We have mega-mergers now.
The Oligarchs have been successful in making you give them what you think they do not want. Regulation. In truth they want regulation, just not the type of regulation you are pedaling. But you are not clear headed enough to know that regulations is a meaningless buzzword that means absolutely nothing. Regulation can be good or bad, productive or counter productive. You have damaged your own position by boiling regulation down to a partisan issue where regulation = good even when those regulations grant monopolies and harm consumers and de-regulation = bad even when the removal of those regulations would invite new competition.
The only thing you have is the illusion of choice. Less regulation means nothing, more regulation means nothing. If you want more regulation we can give that to you, but it will all benefit the businesses more than the consumers you "claim" to seek to protect. More it is then! Enjoy!
So you think having to authenticate with some kind of face id before logging on the internet will help protect your data somehow? Seems like it will just make your date more valuable once everything you do on the internet is tied to a verified identity, which is of course why this lobbyist / venture capitalist / congressmen is so excited about it. (richest member of congress according to wikipedia, due to investing in telecom companies that he helped "regulate")
I would take many of those criminals as fellow citizens before someone like you.
Just FYI, this is the precise point where I started disagreeing with you. You don't know me.
We do indeed treat white collar crime very differently from lower-class crime, even though white collar crime is more often motivated by greed rather than (say) desperation.
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Indeed they were, but it also speaks to another often undiscussed issue that voters have.
*Eternal Vigilance*
We the People are supposed to be in a free market where we can apply our Eternal Vigilance to everything. But we don't, why? Because it is just easier to say... I don't want to fight the big businesses, I want government to do it for me. I don't want to be eternally vigilant... it's too much work.
Shortly after they all wonder why their nation is falling apart. There is no eternal vigilance any longer. It has all fallen victim to the tragedy of the commons, but people are not able to see it or understand how and why it is.
This lack will also result in the loss of the 1st, in fact, it is already lost, we are now just discussing how lost it will be.
The UK supreme court has agreed that the police can tell a potential employer about a case where the accused was found not guilty. https://www.theguardian.com/uk...
"You don't know me."
Then why do you think that a criminals should not be consulted on punishment? Sure individually they are going to be biased, but collectively they are likely not because at that point, they are no longer evaluating themselves, they are evaluating others that have performed the same crime and you may find that they will be far more insightful than you would be about the problem.
"We do indeed treat white collar crime very differently from lower-class crime,"
I agree
", even though white collar crime is more often motivated by greed rather than (say) desperation."
I do not subscribe to this logic. I have seen desperate rich people still screw people over and greedy poor assholes steal in a mixture to call this into question. Imagine a rich klepto, some people do it because they have a problem. Some people do it because they are just desperate, and not just for reasons of economic destitution, though I will say that nearly universally, greed is a majority driving factor. Again, I am not talking about exceptions disproving the rule here... I am talking about greed, in general, being the driving force no matter the economic situation.
If someone broke into my house to steal a loaf of bread because they were hungry and had no money, I would forgive them.
If someone kept breaking into my house to steal bread because they were too greedy with their money to buy their own, I would press charges.
If someone broke into my house to steal a loaf of bread because they thought I owed it to them, I would consider them a deadly threat and shoot to kill because they are clearly "hostile" in their intent.
Greed fits 2 of those scenarios and desperation only 1.
Suddenly creating the most powerful economy in at least 40 years, enforcing our laws when others wouldn't, and speaking our enemy's names aloud is going "rogue".
You are a seditious and twisted fuck. In simpler times you would be hanging from a lamppost, with your screaming children and crying wife kneeling in the gutter beneath you.
I long for the return of those times.
Do you really want to live in a world where authority to determine what is right or wrong is given to someone in power? Really?
Go to North Korea then. See what it's like.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it.
Yeah I get that, I was responding in terms of access to knowledge, and the quality of that knowledge (and even the quality of that access) instead of political freedom to say whatever you want.
For political needs, I'd agree with the free speech idea.
For knowledge based needs, there does need to be a certain standard to be met before something can leave the realm of opinion or a hunch or hypothesis to be considered a fact. Peer review is great at this
The jury is still out on the long-term consequences of those reforms.
Which jury? Where? Not around here (Europe) is it.
The long term consequences are known. Questions about the GDPR that everyone is waiting for include
Certainly the GDPR has made additional work for people, including me. It has not brought out the orchestrated hostility I see from the USA. I have not seen anything in the press here against it. Perhaps our government and its tabloid press controllers don't want us to think too much about it so that they can water it down in a couple of years. That sort of thing is less succesful than it used to be. Corporate foulups with security will keep people aware of it.
What sort of changes might be needed? They may need to raise the maximum fines. What is $5 billion to the likes of Google? They may need to use more effort in getting top executives to actually turn up and not just send some underling. I'm not complaining though. So far, so good.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Its not data I care about, its the spread of stupid ideas and lies. I want to know who the idiots and liars are so I can keep them away from my family and out of my companies.
What a load of horse shit.
That's why phone calls are tracked.. because phone numbers are portable -- yes?
Nothing needs to be 'tracked' because someone can download an XML document, and a bunch of associated data (images, video, whatever), or some other standardized format -- and then be able to import it somewhere else. If sites make the process difficult, then there is a complain levied.
Think of it akin to 'all wordprocessors must support RTF" or some blather.
Why on earth you think this moved to "tracking everyone" is insane.
That said, I don't think the idea has much merit or value.
I'm not sure he is actually rogue.
I mean, maybe his "loud bluster followed by appeasement" is his plan in truth. It's what he did with North Korea, and what he did with China, and what he has done over and over with Russia.
Maybe appeasement is his primary foreign policy?
Maybe it is deliberate treason?
RE: the word "NEWS". I appreciate the hope behind your words, but unfortunately it won't help.
Why?
99.9% of the population doesn't even pay attention to.. anything. Except for the screaming headlines.
I'm the curious sort, and I speak to random people .. people in elevators, on planes, public transport, etc. How else can you find people you'd never normally find, outside of all contact with your social / economic circle?
Do you know how many people don't even know that the government spies on people? That aren't aware of equifax? Of fake news? Of anything you'd read -- anywhere? Or, even know what means?
The vast majority of people are incredibly ignorant of the world around them. The internet hasn't helped, not really, because they only absorb "fun", like links to cat pictures, and people falling down. Nothing wrong with "fun", but if that's all you do.. all you read?
The internet isn't really helping expand intellectual horizons.
Back in the day, a surprising number of people used to think the "National Enquirer" was "news". It was however fake news, left right and centre.
And lastly -- how to do regulate 'news' versus 'fake news' anyhow? How do you ensure that news is 100% scrubbed of political opinion (you can't), and how do you prevent people from showing stories to put pressure on the government or industry?
For example.. let's say you have the government covering something up. OK, you run a news story. You have a little proof, but not really much. Now what? It's fake news, right? Innocent until proven guilty, right?
How do you run stories about tobacco? The industry had tonnes of studies they funded, showing it wasn't harmful. There was no consensus, because decades ago, there wasn't as much collected, studies evidence. So, fake news!
Where's the bar?
You could take pictures/video, and just display them without any comment. Just pictures/video or direct copies of text. That's mostly free of political bias.. or, is it? You have a city in a tornado, and then you find the most unharmed, undevastated portion -- and then just show pictures from here.
See! The tornado wasn't bad at all.. I guess those people don't need help, I won't vote to help them! I won't donate to help them, it's a scam.. there's no damage at ALL!
News is really, really, really, really hard to regulate, if you want to ensure that news can also be used to protect "the people" from political malfeasance and so forth. It needs to be 'unfettered'.
And yes, I agree that current issues with the news are a massive problem.
The oligarchs are the victors. They're the ones teaching you that "free markets" and "less regulation" are a good thing. You have been lied to."
Unfortunately, both sides have been lied to. First of all, I'll absolutely agree that regulation is necessary for public safety, and to limit corruption. But also, and we do a very bad job of this, limit monopolistic behavior, including local monopolies (cable for example). That said, anyone trying to run a small business these days is going to see a huge chunk of margin eaten away by unnecessary regulatory overreach. I grew up watching my dad run a small business that sold specialty containers to the auto industry. Shortly before he passed he'd told me that he couldn't even start up that company in the current environment due to the time and expense required to simply follow the regulations.
Just another day in Paradise
Without regulation, competition will inevitably turn into a monopoly, or at best an oligopoly with 2-3 players colluding not to compete, as stronger companies gobble up weaker or smaller ones. Once this happens you have no price pressure nor incentive to innovate or expand services.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Like a perfect ploy to enact draconian censorship with the ability to get the majority of ding dongs using technology to welcome it. It is extremely alarming that in this day and age we have this strange notion that disinformation and 'fake news' is a reprehensible thing that must be stopped at all costs. No. Instead it needs to be protected. That was what the 1st Amendment was about and once it has drifted to Congress, we have crossed that line and the alarms must be sounded.
I know some of you are easily duped. I know some of you have this ego that thinks all disinfo must be abolished. But the 1st Amendment can be as painful as teeth to endure. But it is necessary.
It also draws into question exactly what is disinformation. We can fact check nearly every mainstream article, and find errors, misinterpretations, and cases of blatant bias in an attempt to smear the person the article was about. This is a dangerous slope we are on here. Orwell wasn't a fiction author after all.
Peer review is great at this
It would be if peer review was actually done as much as it should be. There are plenty of articles on what's going on with peer review that you can easily google, but the short story is that there's no money/fame/promotions in reviewing papers done by others.
Just another day in Paradise
You missed the REAL reason for this.
Sponsored by a DNC Senator. That means it will be a way to force censorship, through government regulation, on these platforms. They tried with the FCC and that blew up on them, so now they will try another avenue. When it comes to court time they will claim the 1st amendment says "Congress shall pass no law..." and say Congress didn't pass it, its an Executive branch regulation.
At this point, ANY thing Congress passes related to "social media" will include censorship of opinions they don't like. They've lost the ability to lie outright and keep that hidden and it is costing them elections at this point.
Yes. Exactly. Peer review worked great in Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union too. Likewise the DDR;
people would inform the Stasi on their comrades. Yes, peer review works really well.
Hello. MSM is FAKE news.
MAGA!
WWG1WGA.
maybe, the new law will loop in some sort of government access, permanently.
Free enterprise was by no means the ideal in Madison's time. The "invisible hand" was only conceived of in 1776, and "the free market" as an ideal goal took more than a century after that to prevail. See Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation for the whole story.
Of all of the ideas in the original document, the Right To Be Forgotten - something already in the GDPR - is the one that I would like to see implemented. Thankfully GDPR compliance has forced many tech companies to implement this already, so if it isn't already available to non-Europe locations they can just flip a bit and turn it on.
RTBF is the IT world version of "this relationship is over, don't call me, delete my number from your phone," and I don't think that is an unreasonable request at all.
Requiring disclosures for political ads, just like we have on television and radio (This ad paid for by Derpy McDerpface For Congress PAC) is also not unreasonable. First Party Consent for data collection is, again, not unreasonable, although I would like to see a provision for cookies so that we can escape the slew of "by the way this site uses cookies, bet you were surprised, huh?" banners.
Other proposals in the document are unworkable. For example, requiring that providers determine the source location of the account. Easily defeated with a VPN or proxy service. Others would just be a pain in the ass - for example, trying to define some kind of interop data format for social media. Something like that will not be able to keep up with new innovations in the market.
Requiring sites to take down "deep fakes" / manipulated video or face lawsuits is, in my mind, dangerous. I can see the concern, but I am afraid that it would be heavily abused to censor satirical content / political commentary.
Yes. Exactly. Peer review worked great in Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union too. Likewise the DDR; people would inform the Stasi on their comrades. Yes, peer review works really well.
Hello. MSM is FAKE news.
MAGA! WWG1WGA.
A wild MAGA idiot appears!
It's simple enough. No one can read anything identified with you unless they identify themselves.
The Founding Fathers were very careful to limit the democratic impulses of Americans and make sure that the wealthy elite, who they believed know better than everyone else, could rule without being encumbered by democracy.
That's a popular revisionist concept. If it were true, we wouldn't have the bill of rights, the press would be run by the government, no right to bear arms (allow the peasants firearms?!?) certainly no right to trial by jury, and absolutely no fourth amendment protections.
The issue is, because the system doesn't work perfectly, people assume it must be skewed towards the rich. It does allow for rich people to become rich, however, it doesn't enable them to stay rich, which is why you don't see a lot of Vanderbilts, Astors or Carnegies as senators and governors these days.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Once the government can force a business to be interoperable... then all businesses will have to become interoperable. Big businesses with money will quickly increase the complexity of this interoperability so that it will not be easy or cheap for competitors to be interoperable making it easy to squash them and simultaneously raise the barrier of entry.
Requiring them to allow and not inhibit interoperable is not the same as requiring them to have a specific interface. Although it would be nice to have a standard like email or ftp, it would be enough for them to not outright ban or block it. Facebook does already have an api so it's already possible if they would allow it but it would be easy enough for a company to reverse engineer and/or scrape a website for the needed information for an end user. If anyone tried it though they would get sued. It would be enough for the government to say that the end user owns their own data so if they want to give their credentials to a third party so that third party can download or post on their behalf then that end user is allowed to do that.
I'd rather they focus on addressing the issue of data collection that we are not willing parties to. Facebook data to Google+, who gives a damn? All that will do is provide a mechanism for the Cambridge Analyticas of the world to trick you into giving them even more. Focus instead on the data that Facebook, Google, and others have on us that weren't explicitly shared- my location, likes, dislikes, the 'dossier' that they build either directly connected to accounts or shadow accounts. Regulate that.
In Facebook you could say "it's because of network effects," but it's not really true with search engines. When freed, we just kind of......flock together.
With search engines I think it is likely enonomy of scale and probably some patents thrown in there. Because google is so huge, they can afford to index more of the web, they can afford to hire thousands of PHDs to analyse their results. They also have some of the network effect that allows billions of clicks to give them realtime feedback about how good of job they are doing. They now have billions of dollars of R&D most of it behind closed doors that runs their search engine and they are receiving billions of dollars in advertising revenue each month that allows them to continue to improve it. They also have inertia. In order for a company to compete with google they would have to be significantly better so people actually want to switch and that's going to be really hard for any company without very very deep pockets.
Pseudo vendor lockin is a bit trickier. If all your friends are on facebook then you can't move to a new platform without convincing all your friends to move too.
That's what you get for having friends.
just think about the problem and it should come to you. But like most other voters, thinking about anything but the next reality TV show is verboten. You just want to hear some smooth sounding politician to say "we go this" right?
The people around you are having an intelligent discussion, stop posting this kind of garbage. They aren't idiots.
Why would Vanderbilt want to be a senator? It is a relatively boring work, you have to bother about public image to get elected, your actions are public and vulnerable to criticism. Much easier to pay lobbyists to keep you rich. Fund election campaigns and call favors later. Buy media giant and make the little people dance to your tune. Now, this is fun.
What they say and what they do are two very different things. Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, Elon Musk, and many like them are all calling for regulations on multiple things.
In other words, they are admitting that they won't do the right thing unless forced to. Assholes.
Oh, you mean like the people who promote farcical Russia conspiracy theories to undermine the results of our election? You mean those people? Yes, they should be fired, and jailed.
It does allow for rich people to become rich, however, it doesn't enable them to stay rich, which is why you don't see a lot of Vanderbilts, Astors or Carnegies as senators and governors these days.
Check again, while factoring for name changes and actual finances. Turns out political office isn't the sole means of power.
Shortly before he passed he'd told me that he couldn't even start up that company in the current environment due to the time and expense required to simply follow the regulations.
Genuine question: what kind of regulations are these? When I hear regulations on business, I tend to thing about health and safety, proper accounting rules, worker's rights ... things that seem like they would protect the worker from the potential greed of the company, which was historically a big deal. What other kinds of hoops are companies jumping through that are unnecessarily burdensome, and that aren't providing benefits? Most of the anti-regulation folks just say "regulations" and leave it at that, as if it's obvious and universal, but it isn't to me.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
So you're a new startup and you're just putting together a new social network. Not only do you have to pile on interoperability onto that limited budget, but if you're actually innovating you have to come up with a way for people to clone your innovative idea and give the big companies a way to steal all your users.
Data is done. It is called GDPR. yet as with many things (metric, pin on cards) they will not do it because if the US did not come up with it, it must be bad.
At least that is how it feels a lot of the time.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Those in power.
But keep sucking at your partisan teat. Its poisons course through your veins, a narcotic drug that leaves you dependant and weak, crippled in your ability to think and beholden to their lies.
It's easy to have a point when you're arguing against a straw man.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
LOL, right, because only Democrat voters are allowed to destroy mob and destroy property. When Republican leaning votors stop it, it's "fascism".
Fascism is totalitarianism. In fact, fascism is fascism, while communism (Marxism / Leninism) is fascism too. A lot of people wrongly think that institutionalized communism (not to be confused with anarcho-communism) can't be a fascism, but they're wrong.
Fact is, these violent "liberal" are on the wrong side of history - just like the Nazis and Communists before them.
Life is not for the lazy.
for pushing Democrat talking points...
The fact that you call it "my data" indicates that you already had a copy of it, that you had uploaded to facebook. So just upload that copy to Google. Why do you need Facebook's copy of the data?
And then it raises the question as to why you think Google would want data uploaded in mass, instead of piecemeal through their usual forms. Say Google prefers to not host posts about penis birds and hot grits, whereas Slashdot is fine with it. You download your comment history from Slashdot and then upload it to Google, to circumvent their hot grits comment filter? Or suppose they let you upload it but this doesn't circumvent the filter, so they aren't going to let it be your Google comment. Do you expect them to store (but not show) your penis bird comment, so that you can download it later from Google?
Store your own shit! Disk space is very, very cheap. People don't need to use websites for storage anymore. It's not even as convenient as doing it yourself anymore, thanks to stuff like NextCloud, AirSonic, etc.
Everyone's getting their panties in a bunch over a bunch of websites that are constantly right on the edge of obsolescence. Why enact laws to try to save them, when letting them go gets you so much more? If Facebook isn't going to be a thing by 2020 unless you pass new laws, maybe don't pass those new laws!!
What happens if you try? Say your friend tells you "I wanted to send you a message but I couldn't find you on Facebook." You reply by telling him your email address. Explain how you think he's going to respond, keep in mind that you're saying that he's really your friend. What's your concern? That he's going to say "I don't do email?"
So, I wanna stress, I think it's very good that you want this. In real life, most of us have been dealing with this problem forever. And the answer has always been that it's up to the user to think about what dependencies they're creating, and then either decide it's unimportant, or else that it's too important to do.
If you need/insist_upon interoperability, then just use standard services. If someone comes along that doesn't live up to your standards, Just Say No.
Why is sticking a gun in their face better than Just Say No? The old reliable Just Say No strategy is: 1) easiest 2) most reliable 3) most fair 4) most options. You gun solution is pretty shitty compared to users using their judgment.
That sounds like a reason to abstain from agreeing to Facebook's TOS. Surely that worked out for you, and is why you're not on Facebook. Either that, or it's an issue that you considered unimportant. Did you change your mind?
How is this "Insightful"? The MSM lies every day. Here's one for you.
You have a very serious reading & comprehension problem. You are those who pick-and-choose a part of the whole write up. As a result, you completely misunderstood what the parent meant. You actually are those who are destroying the USA.
Conservatives have been ruining lives with marijuana convictions, engaging torture as official United States policy, kidnapping children while deporting their parents (and keeping the children), and ending lives with police brutality under color of law. But "a mob" of "democrat voters" pooped on a cop car and broke some windows, and that's the real fascism.
We the People are supposed to be in a free market where we can apply our Eternal Vigilance to everything. But we don't, why?
Because Republicans have succeeded at gerrymandering, and because the president is selected, not elected. "Representative democracy" only works when there is in fact representation, and gerrymandering and the electoral college both interfere with that. The former is a hack to prevent it, and the latter was deliberately installed to avoid it from the start so that the same rich white pricks who were already running most things could run all things. That's why they didn't give the vote to all citizens, only white male landowners, and it's also why we have the EC.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The U.S. is not, and has never ever been a democracy. We are a republic. We do not want to ever be a democracy; and none of the founders ever declared us a democracy; so stop calling the U.S. a democracy. WE ARE NOT!!!
"To the REPUBLIC for which it stands", not "To the DEMOCRACY for which it stands."
I take it they don't teach that sort of thing in school any more?
This space unintentionally left blank.
I'd settle for tougher penalties for data breaches and failing to follow standard industry IT security practices. There seems to be a collective shrug whenever our data is stolen when the holder of the data took no precautions to prevent such intrusion. The minimum should be at least encrypting the databases and changing the admin password from "admin".
I don't suppose it means anything to you that fascism is a far-right wing terminology, opposed to liberalism, is supportive of ultranationalism (like don't dare do the wrong thing at sporting events as an athlete), etc. How this sounds like the Democrats I have no idea.
*sigh*
the white paper blessedly brings the conversation back to privacy and data ownership -- something that seems to have been lost as the conversation has turned to content moderation.
Translation: Congress wants to prevent the states from passing any laws that would in any way make it harder for a tech company to use your data without permission. States with laws protecting you from companies using your biometric data, for example.
This makes some sense as far as it goes. Companies shouldn't have to deal with fifty states' laws. The fact that sales tax still exists and is different in every county in the country is insane, for a comparable example of where we might otherwise be in fifty years.
The problem is that Congress will likely do almost nothing that actually protects the data (and if they do, it will serve as a competitive moat around big data). And they may prevent anyone from protecting consumers' data for decades to come. (They did the same thing with a law about mortgage foreclosures decades ago when states were protecting people from banks that were acting especially nasty--although there they did actually put in some protections, so it could happen. The problem is nobody can ever update it, even when it's obvious and makes sense to everybody that it should be updated, because it's a lot harder to get Congress to do anything than it is to get a state legislature to do something).
Bottom line: neither Congress nor the companies involved are really consumer advocates. And big data companies have a LOT riding on this (billions each) and will spend as much time and money as they need to on it.
On the competition side of things, the proposal suggests a data-transparency bill that would give users a more granular idea of how their data is being used
Translation: In order to give themselves and the companies political cover, Congress proposes the idea of a privacy policy. Nobody will EVER read it (and no, you don't count if you're the one person in a hundred thousand who reads one). It's just there in case the company gets sued for something horrible and the company wants to show it to a jury. It's not a protection for consumers, it's a protection for the companies.
What you said are all ideal, but there is no guarantee and is very unlikely that it will ever be followed because this is the real world.
So want to be real harsh, all companies, 'ALL COMPANIES', must forward details of the information they store about individuals to the individuals concerned and if the individual demands they delete the information, the company must delete the data. Note this is just data stored, not stories about individuals, just databases and obviously data required for taxation purposes must be kept. There also needs to be a distinction between information they hold privately and information they hold publicly (think psychological manipulation databases and public information databases).
How do you know that the information has been completely deleted? How do you know that no one else who does not belong to any of those companies has a copied of your information (e.g. individually scraping websites)? In other words, it is a good idea, but there would, in no way, be implemented in the real world.
The individual should have the right to decide whether they will allow a company to keep, manipulate, distribute private information about the individual. Tie this into random audits with custodial sentences and things should settle down.
This needs a clear guide line of how an individual could do that because majority of people aren't smart enough to understand what to do. It will be a big mess trying to come up with a "one-size-fit-all" solution. Again, it is a very good idea, but at the same time, it is an extremely difficult to implement.
Bots are really kind of arbitrary, people tend to scatter when they comments don't agree with their preconceived ideas. Like all the typical ways the corporate Democrat identitarian bullshit fails, people just leave. The googlites are learning that lesson the fuck cunts, trying to control people, all they do is wander off else where.
Actually, there are bots nowadays that are effective in the way they are being used. Not all bots are used to post comments. Yet, some that do can tarnish reputation, and they are very good at their work. This kind of bots can be used for both good and bad at the same time.
As for fake news, all to fucking easy. Simply regulate the word 'NEWS', you use that word and tell porky pies and you'll earn yourself a custodial sentence, done and finished. Want to make up news stories, no problem, do not use the word 'NEWS' anywhere. Another step foward, regulate journalists, make it a profession, 'Public Investigators' (there is more to that but still not the time).
Yes, it is very easy to just say it. You seem to show others that you are not living in the real world but rather a simulate one. It is easy to set up a rule. The most difficult part is to enforce it. You can come up with whatever rules you want, but don't forget that they are useless if there is no enforcement.
Overall, your ideas are good, but you don't offer how to implement/enforce them. As a result, it is just as good as a talk but not walk.
Good question, and to be honest I didn't quiz him on it, and didn't get to observe the situation closely since I had my own career. I'm all for regulations that are necessary for employee safety and such, but I think that many of the compliance/reporting requirements have put a much higher burden on them. As a hiring manager in a major company now, I see some of what I consider silly compliance requirements. For example, when I want to hire someone, I'm required to open a requisition and interview a minimum number of applicants even if I already know who I want to hire...I have to waste the time of at least two other people for an opening that they have no chance of getting.
For the sake of further discussion, these might be appropriate...
https://www.bizjournals.com/bi...
https://www.businessinsider.co...
Just another day in Paradise
I used to get upset about Gerrymandering. Obviously it's unethical. Then I realized the real problem isn't gerrymandering, it's the general public who allows it to happen. Basically everyone knows what it is but apparently are ok with it for some reason? I would get upset about the general public for good reasons but there are too many of them. It gets tiring.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Because Republicans have succeeded at gerrymandering, and because the president is selected, not elected. "Representative democracy" only works when there is in fact representation, and gerrymandering and the electoral college both interfere with that. The former is a hack to prevent it, and the latter was deliberately installed to avoid it from the start so that the same rich white pricks who were already running most things could run all things. That's why they didn't give the vote to all citizens, only white male landowners, and it's also why we have the EC.
The electoral college was installed so you wouldn't have the same issues that Parliamentary democracies have. In Canada, if a party wins 90% of two provinces(Ontario & Quebec), they have an elected dictatorship without having any seats in the other 11 provinces/territories. As someone who has spent a lot of time in the other provinces, this sucks. Due to a couple of your states having huge populations, without the electoral college, everything would be given to a handful of states that "matter" the rest could GTFO, because all of them together don't have enough votes to be valued.
Do you really want all of US policy to be based on what is best for New York, California, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio?
No, that's not why the electoral college was installed.
The electoral college was installed because the slave-holding states wanted their slaves to weigh in on the elections of the day without actually casting a vote. The electors were numbered such that 3/5ths of slaves were counted towards population for purposes of representation.
Go jack off in your own back yard bigot. You think that republicans are the only ones who Gerrymander. What a fucking hypocrite. The electoral college asshole was so that the most populated states could not dictate to the rest of the country. Read the federal papers idiot for a true understanding of why things were written the way they were. Don't like it, start your own revolution or civil war. Or fucking leave. Better yet, bring on your Antifa and start a civil war.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Thats so true. It was designed to be innocent until proven guilty. But now, the social media crucifies you to where your reputation is destroyed. And not repairable, even if all charges are proven wrong. Or even if you are never charged.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Social media is not broadcast media. I'm not worried about too much regulation there. Let them have it.
They tried to regulate and even govern the internet before. They never could.
And almost all of them still don't understand why.
Some newspapers tried to take on Google with new legislation.
It turned out that they need Google, but Google doesn't need them.
So that backfired spectacularly.
So what if they regulate Facebook into obsolescense?
Nobody will lose anything over it.
Except for the politicians that rely on Facebook to mobilise their voters.
Not even Facebook will lose anything. They already own WhatsApp and Instagram.
And there have been companies in the past that tried to affect open discourse on the internet more invasively than Facebook ever could.
They don't exist anymore.
They ran out of customers.
There was a time when there was an outrage over the availability of pornography on the internet.
There was a time when music downloads where painted as the end of civilisation.
There was a time when unsolicited bulk e-mail (but not unsolicted postal bulk mail) was made illegal.
Let them regulate. Consumer rights are a good thing. And for anything else I am not worried.
Go jack off in your own back yard bigot. You think that republicans are the only ones who Gerrymander.
Pretty much, yeah.
Better yet, bring on your Antifa and start a civil war.
You know how to avoid the attention of the alt-right? Be rich and white. You know how to avoid the attention of the alt-left? Don't be a fucking Nazi.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm so sick of hearing this shit. "Republic" just means you don't have a King, "Democracy" means the people choose their leaders. They are not at odds with each other at all, and basically every democracy takes place in a republic.
horror vacui
I would be happy if they made one small change in the current "sharing" regulations.
Today, sharing is opt-out - information can be shared by default, anyone who gets it from you just has to tell you:
You can stop us from sharing your data - call this number during a full moon and give us your user number, shoe size and blood type.
I think that sharing needs to be opt-IN, with statutory penalties for sharing without permission.
This would make held data a liability, instead of the asset it currently is.
This alone would have broken Equifax, as they deserved.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I agree with the breaking of monopolies but simply breaking companies because they are "too big" without quantifying eBay it means leads to abuse both by squashing competitors that are getting bigger and de facto government control/blackmail of the large players.
Same with false information - who gets to be the arbiter of true information then? What sorts of metrics do we have to measure truthfulness.
As bad as the invisible hand of the market works, it's a lot better than politicians telling us what is and isn't allowed.
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Comrade BeauHD, why stop there? Sen. Warner should also include newspapers, broadcast, and cable media for regulation also. After all, calling it Big Tech does not change the fact that all the web 2.0 social media platforms are publishing venues, which historically have been called out for corrupt influences and influencing. Why, there's a Pulitzer or two there. We should also extend this to campaign financing, like that Lessig fellow tried a few years ago. We can't have these ignorant boobs destroying all our flexibility, er, progressive legacy.
Sigh, ok, all derision aside, and I'm not a fan of FBGoogleInstaTwitplex by any means, but Warren's huge turd here is unconstitutional as hell. Perhaps that's really what you meant to get at.
There are some similarities, in that the people are supposed to be the ultimate decision makers, but there are also some important differences.
A Republic is the form of government where each citizen rules via their representative and has rights that the majority can't take from them.
A Democracy is where majority vote on a matter wins no matter what.
The two do conflict with each other when the majority wants to trample on or take away rights. The point of a constitutional republic is to spell out the limits on what the government can do, even if the majority wants it to do more than that.
When Ben Franklin was asked which form of government the Constitutional Convention of 1787 gave us, the answer was "A Republic, if you can keep it."
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
The public is the victim. You are victim-blaming.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Tyger-ZA is a paid shill it seems.
Fascism is, most certainly, not a terminology. Perhaps, you meant "ideology"? Still wrong...
You got it all wrong. Fascism and Socialism/Communism are both Collectivist ideologies, mostly identical and differing only in a few insignificant details. Both consider the cantankerous Individual to be inferior to the Glorious Collective. To wit:
Now, almost all of the above points are part of the traditional Democratic platform. All of the above are part of the platform of the Socialist-wing of the Democratic party — its dear darlings, from Sanders to Ocasio-Cortez.
If you haven't guessed, where the actual list came from, look here.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Can we call that Astroturfer's Corollary to Ben Franklin, or something like that? :D
That is actually a pretty good addition.
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Fascism is, most certainly, not a terminology. Perhaps, you meant "ideology"? Still wrong...
To get pedantic, I mean item of a larger terminology. And yes, the word happens to describe an ideology. Every historian classifies fascism as right-wing. Don't take it up with me - it's settled history.
That is not fascism, those are the tenets of the Nazi party. Fascism might have inspired it, but they are not the same. And both have very populist and actually good ideas. It's both the implementation and the motive that are the problem in both cases. That's not to say that the motives of any political group in this country are pure either.
Nah.....there are too many people in the public who are happy when their side wins......even if they win by Gerrymandering. Some members of the public are victims, and that's unfortunate.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Nah.....there are too many people in the public who are happy when their side wins......even if they win by Gerrymandering.
They're victims too, because they think that's their side due to ongoing brainwashing... and the deliberate compromise of education systems by their governments. By the time they figure out that they were lied to, they're old and broken. Or, they never do.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You fuck off, you decietful fucking fascist. Why didn't you post the COMPLETE definition? I know why, it describes you perfectly. Add this to the end of what you typed:
"etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism."
These are not Democratic policy subjects. We fight against them, but you CONservatives embrace them early and often.
What's revisionist about it? You guys tell us to go read the supporting documents the fathers wrote while making the Constitution. I suggest you do the same. You'll see what motivations were present, what concessions had to be made, and how amemdments such as your beloved 2nd were weasel worded into practical uselessness. Furthermore there are tons of legacy families still running things. They change their names whether on purpose or due to things like marriage and adoption. There are still direct decendents of the founding fathers running the government today. Your lazy ass just has to read.
That's just not true. But even if it were true — and you are offering no citations — it does not help you. Because now you have to define "right wing"... Meh...
Appeal to Authority.
Whether they are from actual Fascism or not, you are spot-on regarding them being tenets of the Nazi party. And of the Democrats...
Voila, ladies and gentlemen! The same Democrat, who started the day firmly rejecting Nazism as the greatest evil, ends the day admitting, he likes the Nazi ideas... I'll leave it at that...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Tyger-ZA is a paid shill it seems.
If I were really a paid shill, I'd be posting as an anonymous coward, so you wouldn't know it was me.
And I'd deflect criticism by accusing others of being paid the shills.
Sounds like your behaviour :)
Considering that you accused me of being a shill after the MAGA idiot comment, I'm guessing that you're a MAGA idiot, or even the same MAGA idiot that I was replying to earlier
Wow the level of blind partisan tribalism is strong here.
OP: Other tribe is bad!!! Here's a link.
ME: That link sayy your tribe is equally bad.
You: NO! Your tribe is BAD!!! BAD! Your tribe BAAADDDD!!
Fascism is totalitarianism.
Read the link. I mean you won't because it's long and you're probably too dim and with too little attention span to actually process the substantial number of words. But you really ought to.
Also drop the fucking tribalism. You're part of the problem.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Conservatism is dead, and the remaining freeloaders are wanting more shit from the guberment. How is that getting paid for? Oh, who cares, they will figure it out. Right?
Venezuela wasn't a warning, it's the answer. Full steam ahead to "shit-hole nation" status.
Son: Dad, why is it called a shit-hole?
Father: Well son, it's what happens when a nation is so poor, people must dig a hole and shit in it. If they've got any manners, they will back-fill it up with dirt again.
Son: So no potty to sit on?
Father: No son, only squatting. Oh, and remember, the green leafs are softer for wiping.
Develop eye scanning technology to identify greedy sociopaths. Then, send a bunch of Blade-Runner-type agents into Silicon Valley to hunt them down and terminate them.
Bonus side-effect is that housing costs will plummet.
I think you're both right. Omnichad's point is that the sum of policy actions make the 'national socialists' far-right. Then you're correct to argue that declaring fascism to be synonymous with far-right isn't valid either, due simply to association fallacy.
Somewhat like how the 'Democratic Party' has lawyers that argue it is actually a private organization that is not beholden or liable to any such principle. Branding is important, but not accurate or even honest.
The same Democrat, who started the day firmly rejecting Nazism as the greatest evil, ends the day admitting, he likes the Nazi ideas... I'll leave it at that...
Which is why everyone should just understand Association fallacy. Particularly the yellow journalism media that refers to Antifa as 'anti-fascists'.
Only a few hours before expressing his liking of Nazi ideas, Omnichad wondered, how can Democrats be possibly associated with anything Fascist. His ignorance and my educating him can not possibly be "both right".
Nope, the fallacy you speak of is not applicable to our little chat. I'm not claiming, Democrats are Fascists, because members of both groups have 32 teeth, nor based on any other similarly irrelevant common trait.
The points I listed really are, what makes Democrats Democrats — the idea, that the benevolent power of the State ought to be used to coerce, compell, and outright force the insolent and cantankerous Individuals into doing The Right Thing, is essential to any Democrat of today, Omnichad himself included. It is this Collectivism, that makes them — and a sizable chunk of Republicans — Fascist...
Not evil Fascists necessarily like Hitler, just the bad-for-freedoms-and-economy Fascists like Franco. Better than Communists, but only by so much...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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Fascism is libertarianism. In fact, fascism is fascism, while libertarianism is fascism too. A lot of people wrongly think that insitutionalized libertarianism (not to be confused with lawless mob rule) can't be fascism, but they're wrong.
We can play the game of redefining the meaning of 'fascism' to say all sorts of shit.
Any serious understanding of 'fascism' needs to account for the fact that it arose primarily as a reaction to socialism. Fascism is, at its base, a virulent anti-socialism ... socialism standing on its head, going even to the extent of mimicking socialist forms of organisation, art etc. (as the diametric opposite closely reflects that which it mirrors). True historical fascism only ever gained momentum and came to power in response to a realistic threat of a socialist takeover. Where no such realistic threat exists, 'fascism' is only being used figuratively. (Neo-fascism is arguably a different creature again).
'Totalitarianism' otoh, is a term that gained currency during the cold war, and was employed to overcome the problem that socialism (as instituted by communists, as opposed to 'socialism' set up by social democrats) was the polar opposite of fascism, but we disliked both. Thus by wrapping them together in a single term we were able to conflate them. This was so successful that today many people actually believe that "communism" is essentially equivalent to fascism. Nice piece of mass communication!
Of course no communist party actually ever claimed to set have up a communist government (institutionalised communism), that's another great piece of marketing. They set up 'Socialist Republics,' because as per Marx' definition communism isn't achieved until the state fades away. Which I'm sure our good "communists" had no intention of allowing to happen.