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[...] 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: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Saturday October 14 2017, @02:53PM (4 children)
Russia is not a tech company. Russia is a huge chunk of land. Russia cannot interfere with anything except, perhaps, plate tectonics. Any alleged interference would have been done by people not a place. Painting an entire country with the alleged actions of a few people is egregious groupthink.
Citation required. I don't recall that promise.
Amazon is one of the few companies that let me look for what I want to buy. Brick and mortar stores shove at me what they want to sell. Not to mention that they're incredibly inefficient. The sooner they finish dying off the better.
Yes, amazon tries the shoving technique too, but it is either in the background or relevant to what I want to buy. All they need is a few competent competitors. Just one or two even would be nice. Anyone???
And this is the true danger of centralization. Why is this not obvious to the masses? Communication should be based on standards not companies. Imagine if gmail users could only email other gmail users. Absurd!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 14 2017, @03:19PM (2 children)
It's a political structure that happens to control a huge chunk of land. It's no stretch of language to label the elites running that show as "Russia" for purposes of assigning blame for the actions of the structure.
And what enforceable standards should exist here?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Saturday October 14 2017, @03:43PM (1 child)
Imprecise words muddy the meaning, leading to confusion the miscommunicators use to their advantage. Later, they can say "Amazon shipped a package to Russia" and now suddenly OMG Amazon is part of The Plot!!!
Well obviously the billions did not consult me for my opinion before stampeding off to madness, but anyway, I am not an advocate of force so much as enlightened self interest. I would hope that eventually people will realize that communication standards are in their interest, and communication companies are to be shunned like the infection they are.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 14 2017, @04:14PM
I don't buy that's even remotely a problem. If you look at some of the linkages people make, it's not even that firm a connection. "Alice knows Bob who shows up once in a picture with Carl. I have decreed Carl is part of the plot, thus Alice is as well."
What communication standard goes with Facebook or Google? Google's interface is pretty straightforward. You type in word fragments and get search results. All the other search engines do the same thing. That's a standard.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 14 2017, @07:16PM
O.K. pedant, read the quote: Russian generally refers to the people, not the geographic territory, that would be the Russia to which you refer.
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