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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @04:37PM
"The problem is defining what this "interference" is."
I really don't care how they scope the question, provided that the specs of the compromise are made public. i.e. "Here is the code they inserted, here are the versions and models of equipment that were effected" etc. etc.
If on the other hand they are talking about Russia running its own personal 501(c)4 (PAC) organization and buying advertising with it, that isn't election interference. It is a violation of the emoluments clause of Article 1.
Now the problem with that is this: If that is what they are referring to (which they probably are) then EVERY investment in a PAC should require validation that it originates in the U.S. should it not? Which is why they are saying "Russian interference" and not "crime against article 1".
There is a fuck ton of foreign money in our political process from nearly every 1st world nation. It is a Constitutional crime. Everybody knows it. But they are bitching about the "Russians", instead of quoting the law. Why is that? They are lawyers are they not?
The simple answer is: for the same reason they've being doing it since the McCarthy hearings. It isn't about law, and it isn't about crime. It is about instilling fear in the American people, so that we all going running to the people offering solace in one hand, and a fist fuck with the other. i.e. The RNC/DNC alliance.
At some point you have to assess whether your fears are because there is something to fear, or because somebody is trying to make you afraid. And in that capacity, both parties are indestinguishable.