The (Current year) General Political/Salma Hayek discussion Thread Part V

[Ingomike]

My o My. Conservatives arguing for restriction of free-market capitalism.

Free markets work! Free Markets can be manipulated! Free market manipulation must be dealt with...

 

[BugI02]

And they can only do this because of the internet exemption law. The law needs a simple revision, if the company engages in any kind of editorial judgment, they lose the exemption. They have it both ways right now and I do not understand why conservatives that complain about this do not just fight to change the law.

It should be very simple, all traffic that is legal flows on the network, illegal can be knocked down, we the citizens give an exemption for any responsibility for the content of that traffic, i.e. FB not responsible for a defamatory post.

If the network decides what can and cannot be the on their network, they are responsible for what is on their network, i.e. FB responsible for a defamatory post...

Yeah, I always find it funny that seemingly the same folks who argued that simply giving ISPs the ability to throttle traffic, like Netflix, free-riding on their infrastructure investment was the end of free speech as we knew it are perfectly happy to have platforms engage in actual censorship of free speech.

Sound kind of like the end justifying the means

 

[Kutnupe14]

Neither BN or NF are or were near monopoly status.

Buying out competition is a barrier, to the market. A barrier to the consumer looking for options. Building a better mousetrap is part of the market, buying a competing mousetrap maker to reduce competition is anti-market...

You'll have to explain to me why a business that is able to do so, should be prevented from doing so. The thought baffles me. A person works hard builds an empire. A competitor takes over a small part of the market, and the is approached about possibly selling their business to the larger one. The smaller company agrees. Government steps in and say "you can't do that." It would seem that only person doing something wrong is the government.

 

[BugI02]

My o My. Conservatives arguing for restriction of free-market capitalism.

My oh my, Liberals arguing for corporate restrictions on the marketplace of ideas

 

[actaeon277]

how is there "free market" if there is only one company?

 

[Alpo]

Free markets work! Free Markets can be manipulated! Free market manipulation must be dealt with...

Sentence 1: Yup

Sentence 2: Manipulation is in the eyes of the beholder. What Would Hayek Do?

 

[Kutnupe14]

how is there "free market" if there is only one company?

Because other entities are free to enter the market, and if there is only one company, consumers have the option to consume that product or not.

 

[actaeon277]

Because other entities are free to enter the market, and if there is only one company, consumers have the option to consume that product or not.

The only way to get the money to compete with them, is to become publicly traded.
Become publicly traded, and the monopoly buys you.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Justice Dept. decides not to pursue charges against former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe

 

[KG1]

McCabe gets a pass. Flynn got the shaft.

 

[Birds Away]

McCabe gets a pass. Flynn got the shaft.

All of the actual co-conspirators have gotten a pass.

 

[Kutnupe14]

All of the actual co-conspirators have gotten a pass.

It does not appear McCabe was a co-conspirator. He said he would beat the charges, and viola, he did. They convened a grand jury, and then mysteriously dismissed them... then the DoJ asked for an indictment? Don't grand juries have like a ridiculous record of retuning indictments? Further, this was had been going on since late-2018. Even the judge was asking why it was taking so long to develop. Well, some in the DoJ may have never intended to change McCabe in the first place, and simply wanted to stall. What I did not know, was that McCabe's pending charges held up the release of requested documents via the FOIA. So one can only suspect that there may be another shoe drop soon.

 

[BugI02]

I believe one difficulty is McCabe and Comey's security clearances were revoked, so they can no longer be questioned about a great many areas where their perfidy lies. In any event, it ain't over until the United States Attorney for the district of Connecticut sings

 

[Ingomike]

You'll have to explain to me why a business that is able to do so, should be prevented from doing so. The thought baffles me. A person works hard builds an empire. A competitor takes over a small part of the market, and the is approached about possibly selling their business to the larger one. The smaller company agrees. Government steps in and say "you can't do that." It would seem that only person doing something wrong is the government.

Our country, through government, has long monitored the business world, to stop anti-competitive behavior. If the purchase creates a monopoly the proposed merger is not allowed to proceed. Take a merger of Sirrius and XM, yes it created one satellite provider but there are dozens of consumer options so no harm to the public. The Internet mapping was largely Google maps and Apple maps, Waze was a better mousetrap and Google snapped it up to avoid a non Apple competitor.

When there is one and only one social media for the vast majority of the world, that is a different problem. They are curating the only news millions receive. This is not to say government should shut them down, just split up divisions. I have proposed a breakup that FB could run the infrastructure, any other provider could provide a consumer interface, while paying FB to connect to the infrastructure. That way the interface could be tailored to the consumer, the security minded could get a super private connection that may cost cash, folks with other priorities could be offered what they want, trading data for the interface. Right now it is one size fits all from the monopoly.

The problem with social media is the monopolistic closed nature of their networks when everyone wants to connect to everyone. Can you imagine if your ATT cell phone only connected with ATT customers?

 

[KG1]

McCabe gets a pass. Flynn got the shaft.

Justice department opens inquiry into the Flynn case.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/ju...y-fbi-interview-heart-flynn-s-guilty-n1136481

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Our country, through government, has long monitored the business world, to stop anti-competitive behavior. If the purchase creates a monopoly the proposed merger is not allowed to proceed. Take a merger of Sirrius and XM, yes it created one satellite provider but there are dozens of consumer options so no harm to the public. The Internet mapping was largely Google maps and Apple maps, Waze was a better mousetrap and Google snapped it up to avoid a non Apple competitor.

When there is one and only one social media for the vast majority of the world, that is a different problem. They are curating the only news millions receive. This is not to say government should shut them down, just split up divisions. I have proposed a breakup that FB could run the infrastructure, any other provider could provide a consumer interface, while paying FB to connect to the infrastructure. That way the interface could be tailored to the consumer, the security minded could get a super private connection that may cost cash, folks with other priorities could be offered what they want, trading data for the interface. Right now it is one size fits all from the monopoly.

The problem with social media is the monopolistic closed nature of their networks when everyone wants to connect to everyone. Can you imagine if your ATT cell phone only connected with ATT customers?

Several years ago, it almost was like that. An ATT cell customer could call any other ATT customer (cell or landline) for free, but were charged if they called a phone on another carrier.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Our country, through government, has long monitored the business world, to stop anti-competitive behavior. If the purchase creates a monopoly the proposed merger is not allowed to proceed. Take a merger of Sirrius and XM, yes it created one satellite provider but there are dozens of consumer options so no harm to the public. The Internet mapping was largely Google maps and Apple maps, Waze was a better mousetrap and Google snapped it up to avoid a non Apple competitor.

When there is one and only one social media for the vast majority of the world, that is a different problem. They are curating the only news millions receive. This is not to say government should shut them down, just split up divisions. I have proposed a breakup that FB could run the infrastructure, any other provider could provide a consumer interface, while paying FB to connect to the infrastructure. That way the interface could be tailored to the consumer, the security minded could get a super private connection that may cost cash, folks with other priorities could be offered what they want, trading data for the interface. Right now it is one size fits all from the monopoly.

The problem with social media is the monopolistic closed nature of their networks when everyone wants to connect to everyone. Can you imagine if your ATT cell phone only connected with ATT customers?

Monitoring is fine. Trying to replace the invisible hand to create fairness, not so much. I don't even like that govt steps in when companies DO erect competitive barriers, but at least I understand why it's done. Free market, should be "sometimes" free. It wasn't until the 20th Century, that societies came up with this fairness doctrine that hinders the right of business to act as they please within the confines of law. Prior to that what was the issue? Thousands of years of business and things seems to be working relatively well.... and please no one say anything about Upton Sinclair.

 

[Ingomike]

how is there "free market" if there is only one company?

Because other entities are free to enter the market, and if there is only one company, consumers have the option to consume that product or not.

The only way to get the money to compete with them, is to become publicly traded.
Become publicly traded, and the monopoly buys you.

We had the beginning of a good conversation here, would love to continue it.

To Kut's point the power that Google wields is unfathomable. How can any upstart even compete? The internet is not the free frontier it was 20 years ago. If they were just the search giant that would be one thing. They control Internet video, and something we have not discussed is advertising, they control 70% of all internet advertising. Another monopoly. How many do we the people let them have before we break then up into competitive separate units?

 

[BugI02]

What if that ship has already sailed? Their physical plant and corporate headquarters can be anywhere, say tax friendly Ireland and they will be beyond the reach of US law. Luckily, the EU is even more interventionist than we are, but it could still be Google.pl or Google.bg

 

[jamil]

Free markets work! Free Markets can be manipulated! Free market manipulation must be dealt with...

I think it’s important to say what we mean by free markets. Because plenty of people mean it one of two ways. One is laissez faire free markets with zero regulation. The other is a market kept free of manipulation through some regulation. The latter seems quite compatible with the idea of preventing “take it or leave it” markets. And this is what we have now with social media companies.

I think it’s good for free markets to make media companies decide which market they’re in. Are they in the platform business, where they’re not responsible for content? Or are they publishers who are responsible for their content.

To keep the market free for all players, media companies shouldn’t be able to straddle the line to get the benefits of one without the consequences of the other. Pick your market. And if facebook decides it’s a publishing company, let the lawsuits flow freely.