As far as power over information goes, it's _completely_ precedented. Until the late 90s half a dozen conglomerates controlled over 90% of all television, radio, and book publishing. The capacity for some random guy in his basement to reach millions of people around the world is what is unprecedented, and the old media and politics - the…
As far as power over information goes, it's _completely_ precedented. Until the late 90s half a dozen conglomerates controlled over 90% of all television, radio, and book publishing. The capacity for some random guy in his basement to reach millions of people around the world is what is unprecedented, and the old media and politics - the Cathedral, if you like Yarvin's designations - have hated this and tried to destroy it from day 1.
The social media platforms were always a bait and switch, and they never existed for any purpose other than to re-centralize control over information. The answer is not an absurd and futile attempt to ensure access to them through legal means. Doing so aids and abets their consolidation of power.
One thing that might help is to realize that these HR departments, content moderation teams, C-suites, and the politicians so many people are begging to regulate them are all the same people. They went to the same schools, they have the same ideas about how to manage society, grew up in the same cities (SF, LA, DC and NY mostly) and the same cultural values - which as you say are illiberal to put it mildly.
Zuckerberg isn't lying when he says he would love for the government to regulate social media. Every market leader loves having their power recognized and enshrined in law, and they love barriers to entry even more. By asking for regulation you're just asking for the right hand of the cathedral to shake the left, which will result in some monstrosity like the FCC - which ushered the last century of total corporate control over information, not by accident but by design.
Media consolidation did not peak in the 90's, media consolidation had different ebbs and flows for its constituent parts, your three examples (television, radio and book publishing) oddly fails to consider newspapers. Amongst other things. I could go on.
Sure, it's not an exhaustive list. I can't think of any medium or media industry that doesn't suffer from some degree of convergence.
You could argue that there were counter-narrative moves (e.g. Fox news, National Review, Reason) but they seem to get hijacked and incorporated into the Narrative pretty quickly. If not wholly then partially, such that while they have a few dissident voices they play the role of controlled or loyal opposition E.g. some people like Tucker, but acknowledge that Fox News as an institution is mostly controlled - so if Tucker is 10% of Fox, and Fox is 10% of the media, then Tucker is 1% vs. 99% - numbers illustrative only. These ebbs and flows are pretty temporary things.
Contrary to the anti-moderation stance, part of the problem is this libertarian sense of "everyone should be free to talk here about anything they like" - this is an invitation to the opposition to embrace, extend, and exterminate. See Vice magazine vis Gavin McInnes, Tim Pool, and basically everyone else who founded and built Vice. See Reddit.
So welcome "all voices", and the monovoice installs itself and purges dissent. This is already in progress on the second- and third-wave attempts at creating "open platforms". See Parler, ThinkSpot; watch out for MeWe, Minds to drop next.
Stop welcoming "all voices" and take a firm stance against Metatron, and you'll be erased - first they came for Daily Stormer, then Infowars, Gab, etc. Watch out for Bitchute, LBRY, et al.
The first strategy is a proven loser. The second strategy has technical issues at a minimum, but may also be a loser. Either way, mere technical solutions aren't sufficient (see Ethereum: DAO catastrophe - no matter how tight your tech, there are humans behind it and they will break the tech whenever it violates some deeply held principle). The proposed third strategy - force everybody to be an "open platform" - is a recipe for a new FCC. Which is a proven loser.
As far as power over information goes, it's _completely_ precedented. Until the late 90s half a dozen conglomerates controlled over 90% of all television, radio, and book publishing. The capacity for some random guy in his basement to reach millions of people around the world is what is unprecedented, and the old media and politics - the Cathedral, if you like Yarvin's designations - have hated this and tried to destroy it from day 1.
The social media platforms were always a bait and switch, and they never existed for any purpose other than to re-centralize control over information. The answer is not an absurd and futile attempt to ensure access to them through legal means. Doing so aids and abets their consolidation of power.
One thing that might help is to realize that these HR departments, content moderation teams, C-suites, and the politicians so many people are begging to regulate them are all the same people. They went to the same schools, they have the same ideas about how to manage society, grew up in the same cities (SF, LA, DC and NY mostly) and the same cultural values - which as you say are illiberal to put it mildly.
Zuckerberg isn't lying when he says he would love for the government to regulate social media. Every market leader loves having their power recognized and enshrined in law, and they love barriers to entry even more. By asking for regulation you're just asking for the right hand of the cathedral to shake the left, which will result in some monstrosity like the FCC - which ushered the last century of total corporate control over information, not by accident but by design.
Media consolidation did not peak in the 90's, media consolidation had different ebbs and flows for its constituent parts, your three examples (television, radio and book publishing) oddly fails to consider newspapers. Amongst other things. I could go on.
Sure, it's not an exhaustive list. I can't think of any medium or media industry that doesn't suffer from some degree of convergence.
You could argue that there were counter-narrative moves (e.g. Fox news, National Review, Reason) but they seem to get hijacked and incorporated into the Narrative pretty quickly. If not wholly then partially, such that while they have a few dissident voices they play the role of controlled or loyal opposition E.g. some people like Tucker, but acknowledge that Fox News as an institution is mostly controlled - so if Tucker is 10% of Fox, and Fox is 10% of the media, then Tucker is 1% vs. 99% - numbers illustrative only. These ebbs and flows are pretty temporary things.
Contrary to the anti-moderation stance, part of the problem is this libertarian sense of "everyone should be free to talk here about anything they like" - this is an invitation to the opposition to embrace, extend, and exterminate. See Vice magazine vis Gavin McInnes, Tim Pool, and basically everyone else who founded and built Vice. See Reddit.
So welcome "all voices", and the monovoice installs itself and purges dissent. This is already in progress on the second- and third-wave attempts at creating "open platforms". See Parler, ThinkSpot; watch out for MeWe, Minds to drop next.
Stop welcoming "all voices" and take a firm stance against Metatron, and you'll be erased - first they came for Daily Stormer, then Infowars, Gab, etc. Watch out for Bitchute, LBRY, et al.
The first strategy is a proven loser. The second strategy has technical issues at a minimum, but may also be a loser. Either way, mere technical solutions aren't sufficient (see Ethereum: DAO catastrophe - no matter how tight your tech, there are humans behind it and they will break the tech whenever it violates some deeply held principle). The proposed third strategy - force everybody to be an "open platform" - is a recipe for a new FCC. Which is a proven loser.
What now?