SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
[...] tech companies are under fire for creating problems instead of solving them. At the top of the list is Russian interference in last year's presidential election. Social media might have originally promised liberation, but it proved an even more useful tool for stoking anger. The manipulation was so efficient and so lacking in transparency that the companies themselves barely noticed it was happening.
The election is far from the only area of concern. Tech companies have accrued a tremendous amount of power and influence. Amazon determines how people shop, Google how they acquire knowledge, Facebook how they communicate. All of them are making decisions about who gets a digital megaphone and who should be unplugged from the web.
Their amount of concentrated authority resembles the divine right of kings, and is sparking a backlash that is still gathering force.
Is it that the tech companies are creating problems for society as a whole, or merely disrupting the status quo for the old Powers-That-Be?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 14 2017, @02:05PM (1 child)
Peddling enough legislative influence is a naturally emergent property of the "free" markets. The government is just another tool, basically serving as security of property, globally.
True net neutrality would give us the dumb pipe we need to compete with Google, Amazon, and that handful of other giants. We shall not let the ISP dictate what services we can run. They should just sell the bandwidth with no conditions. Bottlenecks are fixed with fatter pipe, not service restrictions. Anything less is not net neutrality. Tech giants are a threat because they have too much control.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday October 14 2017, @02:20PM
I agree but I don't think grassroots is going to get your grandmother off of Facebook; that's where the pictures of her grandbabies are. Net neutrality is not a sufficient solution.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.