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posted by martyb on Saturday October 14 2017, @12:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the follow-the-money dept.

[...] 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?


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 14 2017, @07:07PM (1 child)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday October 14 2017, @07:07PM (#582374)

    MSM like Fox news, talk radio, etc.? They and their "base" live in their own echo chambers, and disregard NPR, MSNBC and the rest just like the libtards disregard Rush Limbaugh.

    The world was a simpler place when everybody listened to Walter Cronkite (or a carbon copy of his script) 5 times a week. That was actually a relatively short period in history - we're getting back to listening to the news we want to hear and ignoring the rest.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @12:59AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @12:59AM (#582457)

    Calling "talk radio" "mainstream news" seems off-kilter to me.

    This in addition to ascribing an implied positive aspect to a nation listening to a single source of misinformation [aim.org], as opposed to lies and misinformation being the underlying problem.

    If your viewpoint rests in "unity at any cost" over honesty, I can safely disregard everything you have to say.