The tough dilemma of Silicon Valley's social networking kings

It is popular sport on ATS to bash the leaders of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites. Heck, I do it myself. These people are engaged in rank censorship, they are deeply partisan, and it's getting worse. Nothing wrong with calling them out.

But here is the thing. Zuckerberg and friends are sort of caught between a rock and a hard place. Here is the scuttlebutt I have received from a source in the know. (Either believe me or don't...I'm not going to jump through hoops to prove this).

The leaders of the social media companies are liberals, but they aren't as liberal as you might think. They are businessmen first, and they realize full well that alienating half the country (conservatives) is not a moneymaking strategy.

However, these companies are largely staffed by young, "woke" hipsters who are putting pressure on the upper management to move to the left. The upper management faces the choice of alienating half their customers or dealing with an employee revolt, as hyper-leftoid twentysomethugs pitch hissy fits if they even have to look at the letters T-R-U-M-P in that order. The staff is pushing for hyper-censorship. If the upper management doesn't throw them a bone they risk possible workplace chaos.

At the same time, the CEOs are getting hauled in front of congress and screeched at by both the Repub and the Dem lawmakers, who want opposite things.

So imagine you are the CEO of one of these companies. Whatever decision you make, you are going to enrage half of congress. At the same time, you face the choice of a mutinous workforce that can bring your operation to a screeching hault, or a disgusted 150 million Americans who see you as a censor.

I'm not asking you to have sympathy for these people. They dug their own grave and I have little sympathy to spare for billionaires in any case. But it's important to remember it isn't entirely a result of "CEO desire to censor." What the CEOs really want is to drag their heels enough so they don't have to be drawn and quartered by all these conflicting stakeholders. But with the screeching on the left and the groaning on the right, they are running out of wiggle room.

Which way will the clownshow break? Or do the tech CEOs have enough torque to stay relatively neutral and avoid radical breaks?

The First Amendment on freedom of speech does not give them or anyone else the right to lie, lie and lie some more.

If they are a social platform then they do not have the right to silence any voice that they disagree with.

What they are doing right now in silencing half of the people must be illegal.

Perhaps when the US has had enough, the 2nd Amendment will rear its ugly head and these lying people will get a wakeup call. Or otherwise as the 2nd Amendment allows.

I thought We The People should have arisen from their sleep about 50 years ago with Kent State. But nope, still asleep. I believe a few are waking up slowly.

The 2nd is there for a reason.

P

When something becomes an effective monopoly then the government needs to step in if they can’t properly police themselves. We have reached that point.

a reply to: pheonix358
My personal view is that their "platform protection" needs to be removed and they should no longer be considered neutral actors.

However this comes with a risk: they are then free to censor at will. Which they will do.

Probably this should be countered by breaking them up under antimonopoly legislation. You would then have a situation like the MSM where you could have liberal, conservative, and neutral networks competing for eyeballs.

Except somehow that's not really how it works with the MSM, which is fragmented but still heavily left-leaning.

So the absolute best solution would be to have them out of the censorship business all together, like public telephone carriers. Does the telephone company shut down your conversations for political reasons? (Not yet anyway). But the social networks have already shown they can't be trusted to be operated that way. So we are back where we started.

There are no easy answers.

If these idiots censors go on strike it might not be a bad thing. Might take a while to get some new staff up to speed, long term it gives these companies a better chance to stay relevant. Otherwise these platforms are just going to become fake news, left wing echo chambers and open up the market for new players and systems to enter, perhaps even take over if they can do it better.

If I was the owner of Facebook I would do it this way.
One. I would offer two types of platforms.

Two. One platform would say you can do this

Three. One platform so you can't do this.

so this way it would be an open real true form of discussions and conversations that would be neutral for one party yet not neutral to the other party but having this type of problem in front of them my suggestion would solve it to the best it's possible.

The bigger problem is that everyone believes silicone valley is some organic situation where nerds struck it rich on the internet from their dorms and garage.
Facebook/Lifelog

Facebook was taken live the same day lifelog was shut down.
The same guys started Google and probably Amazon.

Total control of the standard of communication and commerce on the net.


Congress at the "grilling" the other day...."ok, will you promise to come back and talk to us in a year?"
Lol...what?

a reply to: pheonix358

The First Amendment on freedom of speech does not give them or anyone else the right to lie, lie and lie some more.

Perhaps when the US has had enough, the 2nd Amendment will rear its ugly head and these lying people will get a wakeup call. Or otherwise as the 2nd Amendment allows.

Lol, I like how you make them fit the meanings you want.

Going from strict on the first to loosely using the second against those deemed abusing the former.

Are the social media companies sending you to jail over speech? No. Is it in the constitution you have the right to companies services? No.

Just don't use them. I don't use Facebook or Twitter because I think it's a whole bunch of self absorbed twats who need constant validation and ego hand jobs.

But people threatening to use weapons because of bans from silly, nonsensical, and luxury services is something else.

Just stop using the services and they'll go away.

"bUt tHeY'rE tOo bIG"... AOL used to be the biggest act in town, look at them now. Look at Netscape, Yahoo, MySpace... Tech companies are too big to fail one second and forgotten the next.

I don't think calling for government regulation is what cures imbalance in the market. I think smart consumers is what does that. If half the country is being silenced by them as you say, go somewhere else. Half the country would be an equal competitor.... Unless your numbers are off, which they most certainly are.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

So what do you think about the Lifelog angle?

originally posted by: Mandroid7
a reply to: CriticalStinker

So what do you think about the Lifelog angle?

Not familiar with lifelog to be honest. What is it?

a reply to: CriticalStinker

Check out my link above.
In a nutshell....darpa/Pentagon was running a program just like Facebook.
They were pulled in front of Congress and told to stop.
Facebook was registered as a private company the SAME DAY.
In other words, they made their program private to circumvent laws protecting citizens and gave it a douchey leader with a feel good rags to riches story.

So massive caution is needed when trying to even discern what the "tech companies" are up to, or who even runs them.
Also highly relevant to your statement about private companies.
The deeper you look into these companies, the more obvious it gets.
There is no 1st Amendment requirements for private companies and when they create the standards of communication, that is highly dangerous.

You just need to watch the behavior of FB, Amazon and google.
The fake congress grilling with no repercussions, massive subsidies spent, no regulations, heavy spying, property tax avoidance on huge data farms everywhere.

It's a giant trap imo

a reply to: Never Despise

Pull Section 230.
No Sympathy for these creeps.

Pull the plug.
Furthermore, declare ISP services as
Public Utilities.
All riders henceforth bound to the
rules and regulations put forth by
The Supreme Court and The Constitution
of the United States of America.

Let it be Written, Let it be Done.
S&F

Tough dilemma for American civil liberties.

Speech is being supressed by political ideologues effectively turning this country in to a one party state.

If you think that's what 'democracy' should look like.

Your wrong.

Seize their websites.

You can hardly claim foul.

a reply to: Never Despise

As a business man myself, allowing the tail to wag the dog will always lose.

Move. Move to lower taxes and more equitable viewpoints.

a reply to: Never Despise

I think you have managed to miss the most vital and important factor in your OP. The deepstate and revolving door policy these companies have with the CIA

originally posted by: Mandroid7
The bigger problem is that everyone believes silicone valley is some organic situation where nerds struck it rich on the internet from their dorms and garage.
Facebook/Lifelog

Look at Zuck in that photo, he looks like a robot. Dead eyes.

Sounds good to me; keep the pressure up so that the companies are forced to brake up.

Even besides the censorship I don't look fondly on social media platforms and think they are one of the biggest existential threats facing our society.

As an engineer in the tech industry I am not a luddite I do believe there is an outsized place for new ways to work and interact that rely heavily on new technologies.

But social media of today has been designed to be nothing more than a technology driven drug delivery system. It has been highly engineered to affect the brain chemistry of the user forcing them to send more and more time using the platform. And all while stealing your personally information.

I see my kids generation and I fear for their personal development. Its hard even with my own children as I try to limit their use ... all their peers use excessively and are building social hierarchy based on social media use. So I am left with the choice of saving my kids from social media at the expense of turning them into outcasts.

I see two angles to this... It is anyone's guess which is more correct.

The first is that the tech companies are just responding to the social pressures within their own bubble. Jack Dorsey, CEO of twitter basically admitted this during his testimony. They will receive a lot of complaints about something and then they move to censor the information. Of course, we all know SJWs can sometimes be a minority of opinion, but they often have the loudest voices.

The second is that these companies are being directed by an unknown entity. These companies seem to act in concert which leads me to believe this to be the case. It is not uncommon to see Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube ban the same people all around the same time which leads me to believe they aren't acting independently.

The NSA has backdoors to the companies. It is also well known that the CIA has a venture capital arm. I also wouldn't be surprised if these companies are merely front operations or compromised in some sort of way.

When I sawa Jack Dorsey being interviewed, he really looked like he was being pressured to say they don't censor, but deep down he knows they do. He also came off like he is being directed to take this position. T

a reply to: Never Despise

However, these companies are largely staffed by young, "woke" hipsters who are putting pressure on the upper management to move to the left. The upper management faces the choice of alienating half their customers or dealing with an employee revolt, as hyper-leftoid twentysomethugs pitch hissy fits if they even have to look at the letters T-R-U-M-P in that order. The staff is pushing for hyper-censorship. If the upper management doesn't throw them a bone they risk possible workplace chaos.

here's the thing, most states are at will states. if the employees are told to stop blocking posts and there is no contract with them fire their asses. there are other young, "woke" hipsters hyper-leftoid twentysomething pansy's" that would kill to be able to work at a place that you can sit in the employee lounge six hours a day playing video games, drinking frappuccinos, iced lattes, or double mochas, working out in the company gym, taking naps on the lounge couches, or any other of the woke bennies offered. that will do what they are told to do.

no it's comes down from on high, Dorsey, Zuckerberg and Pichai have taken a page out of the gates playbook and think they can make the world what they want it to be and that the public in general are to stupid to stop them.

Let me ask you, how does a company like Twitter generate revenue. Ad deals and promotions don't build a companies worth like they have.

Either shady deals or on the backs of the government. Not mutually exclusive either