No matter how much the definition of monopoly is twisted, I’m sorry, but FaceBook isn’t one. Having the biggest audience and being monopolistic are not the same thing. I’ve never used FaceBook yet here we are talking through a similar medium. I don’t use Twitter, but I can still publish a blog. It’s seriously problematic when people try to redefine words to suit the argument of the day, because the erosion of the language persists and communication breaks down.
Nothing about FB is equivalent to living in a town owned by your employer, complete with public services, law enforcement, and grocery stores. YouTube is dominant, because poeple make a totally free choice to use it, not because competition can’t exist. Nothing about being dominant in a market or network effects directly implies a monopoly. It’s not as though we’re dealing with Standard Oil, and if you want heat or a running vehicle you do business with them, or get bent!
No matter how much the definition of monopoly is twisted, I’m sorry, but FaceBook isn’t one.
Monopoly isn't important. It's the control of discourse within an entire community which is key. Hell, it's not one entire community these companies control. It's hordes of communities across entire forms of online discourse for huge fractions and even the majority of populations online.
YouTube is dominant, because people make a totally free choice to use it, not because competition can’t exist.
Due to network effects, effective competition can't exist. This gives YouTube the potential to nearly absolutely control the very broad category of video discourse online.
Nothing about being dominant in a market or network effects directly implies a monopoly.
In 2019, this just seems ridiculous. This has got to change.
It’s not as though we’re dealing with Standard Oil, and if you want heat or a running vehicle you do business with them, or get bent!
It's as though we're dealing with Standard Oil, and if you want to be a full time political vlogger, you hew to YouTube's rules and politics, or get bent.
First you say that “monopoly isn’t important” and then go on to claim:
Due to network effects, effective competition can't exist.
And
>Nothing about being dominant in a market or network effects directly implies a monopoly.
In 2019, this just seems ridiculous. This has got to change.
And then
It's as though we're dealing with Standard Oil, and if you want to be a full time political vlogger, you hew to YouTube's rules and politics, or get bent.
Now first of all your last point is conflating the right to express yourself with the right to make a career on someone’s platform expressing yourself. The latter is not protected, but as you live in a free country you are welcome to try to change the law I guess. You can after all still be a full-time political vlogger without YouTuber, Alex Jones seems to manage it (unfortunately). It will be harder to find a mass audience and make money, but that isn’t protected and neither does it imply monopolistic practices.
As far as the need for network effects to be classified as monopolistic, I disagree, but again if you feel otherwise then by all means, try to get that passed into law. What isn’t acceptable is pretending or arguing as though it already is. I suspect that your attempt to pass such a law would be met with scorn and incredulity, because after all you’d be arguing for the inaliabel right to make a living spouting views online. As it stands no one is stopping you from attempting to do so, and no one owes it to you either.
First you say that “monopoly isn’t important” and then go on to claim:
The 20th century concept of "monopoly" is entirely insufficient. This is the underlying cause of the pseudo-paradox.
Now first of all your last point is conflating the right to express yourself with the right to make a career on someone’s platform expressing yourself.
Controlling monetization+virality/discovery is too potent a combination to let a single entity control for censorship purposes.
As far as the need for network effects to be classified as monopolistic, I disagree
It's hard to convince someone of a fact, if their bread and butter depend on their not acknowledging it.
As it stands no one is stopping you from attempting to do so, and no one owes it to you either.
If a bunch of people want to hear, and others are blocking, then the right to Free Speech is being abrogated. If people want to pay, and others are artificially blocking, then the right to Free Speech is also being abrogated.
3 newspapers dominate the news industry. Their circulation reaches the majority of people in a country. They refuse to publish editorials / letters from a certain point of view.
That fits all of the tests that you have outlined above, yet I think most would agree the newspapers have the right to editorialize and selectively publish what they choose.
You can definitely political vlog by renting space on a CDN to host your own webm's. Or BitTorrenting them and sharing magnet links. Google can't stop you.
In 2019, the potent combination is virality/discovery+monetization. Google along with the rest of the SV CEOs and other people of equivalent status can indeed withhold that, despite the wishes of large numbers of people. Just "putting things online" is so 1990's. In 2019, the real power comes from that dynamite combination of virality/discovery+monetization. A 2019 formulation of Free Speech needs to account for that.
We saw this before in the 1980's with Manufacturing Consent. The western papers technically weren't censoring like Pravda. But in effect it amounted to the same thing.
The litmus test should be: Are there people who want to hear, yet a few are using infrastructure control to stop them? Then Free Speech is being blocked. Are there people who want to pay, yet a few using infrastructure control to stop them? Then Free Speech is being blocked.
Again, you're conflating free speech with indexing. You're as entitled to be listed in a newpaper's classifieds as you are entitled to be indexed on a search engine or hosted on a private website. Freedom of speech is not freedom to be listed by someone else through force.
Again, you're conflating free speech with indexing.
In 2019, indexing gives you the capability to define reality. People riding on the coattails of giant SV corporations have been using this capability to basically put words into the mouths of people and ascribe positions to them that have no real bearing on the truth.
In 2019, indexing is part and parcel of Free Speech. In 2019, you don't have Freedom of Speech if you aren't indexed, and you can't trend. In 2019, trying to exercise Freedom of Speech like that is like giving a 19th century speech with a tracheotomy. It's not the same by literal orders of magnitude. It's as disingenuous as giving one man a club and your political crony a rifle, then declaring trial by combat and saying it's a fair fight.
And in 2019, Freedom of speech is not freedom to be listed by someone else through force. Reality is not the internet, cable tv, radio, or the printing press.
"No" and "No," then. "Strangers don't find out about my podcast" is nothing like "nobody can hear me." "PayPal won't middle-man my transaction" is nothing like "I can't get paid" (mailing checks or cash is a thing).
That's technically true in the same way that western media technically didn't censor news favorable to the Soviets. It did appear, but buried in the back, expressed in bland language.
The salient truth, is that corporate oligarchs are trying to game the system so that their own side has several orders of magnitude more voice, and everyone they don't like has several orders of magnitude less voice -- then try and claim it's "Free Speech" and "fair." No. The system is rigged, and the disingenuous arguments are made simply because the law and cultural norms haven't caught up with technical reality yet.
A 15 second google shows the top social media sites based off monthly active users. Tell me an equivalent, viable platform to rival Facebook/Instagram that doesn't share the same political values.
Having the biggest audience and being monopolistic are not the same thing.
Heinz Ketchup is the utterly dominant brand of ketchup in America by an order of magnitude. They sell more ketchup than every other brand combined in the U.S. and it is not a monopoly. Every attempt to make some new upstart ketchup has failed, and generations are totally sold on just Heinz with a degree of brand loyalty FB would kill to get... and yet they are not a monopoly nor has it been seriously alleged that they are.
Right, because it's extremely easy to find other brands that are effective in the same way. A social network's purpose and efficacy is directly related to the number of users in that network. Not at all analogous
Not about an analogy, it’s just illustrating the point that market share and monopoly are not synonyms. As to a social network being effective in direct proportion to the number of users, it would really depend on what you want to use it for. Eternal September theory certainly shoots down the general case of your claim though.
"it would really depend on what you want to use it for"
It was my understanding that social media platforms were for connecting with people and sharing content/ideas with them.
If you're trying to rebut my claim, you're going to have to actually do it, not point to something else and claim that it does.
A 15 second google shows the top social media sites based off monthly active users. Tell me an equivalent, viable platform to rival Facebook/Instagram that doesn't share the same political values.
I’m not seeing a claim there, and what you did bring up (marketshare) I’ve responded to. If you want an alternative to mainstream social media, they exist and aren’t as popular, but since we’ve agreed that popularity isn’t monopolistic... who cares?
The 1990's notion of "monopoly" is as outdated as farmers owning the sky above their farms. The power in media in 2019 comes from the combination of virality/discovery+monetization. A small number of people controlling virality/discovery+monetization can seek to effectively control all speech that matters and seek to control public thought. Doling out virality/discovery+monetization on an ideological basis, contrary to the wishes of large numbers of people in public basically nullifies meaningful Free Speech in 2019.
Nobody's stopping these "large numbers of people" from swapping URLs.
They may get stopped from having their message show up in the "recommended videos" column on YouTube, and that's fine. Nobody has a right to be in that column.
(When the man said "The revolution will not be televised?" This is what he was talking about. ;) )
Nobody's stopping these "large numbers of people" from swapping URLs.
In 2019, you might as well restrict those guilty of wrongthink to standing on soapboxes and distributing pamphlets. Everyone you don't like will be restricted to the technology of 20 years ago.
(When the man said "The revolution will not be televised?" This is what he was talking about. ;) )
Basically, in 2019, if you don't have virality+monetization, you don't have the franchise.
In 2019, you might as well restrict those guilty of wrongthink to standing on soapboxes and distributing pamphlets.
Putting aside the hysterical Orwellian reference, the world would be a better place if everyone from ISIS to Nazis had to go back to shouting on street corners. This implicit argument you keep making about parity of amplification being equival not to free speech is ludicrous. Given how often people in this thread alone have confronted you on the issues with it, and the cagey nature of your responses it’s increasingly difficult to assume you make this argument in good faith.
You can believe that people are owed a Youtube channel and a Facebook page, but at least recognize that no law or principle in law supports that belief.
To further Pharmakon's point - being a popular product on the market doesn't mean monopoly or lack of competition. A monopoly is a company with dominant marketshare, but not all companies with dominant marketshare are monopolies. Facebook has competition.
"Monopoly" as formulated back before the 1990's is outdated in terms of the issue of Free Speech in 2019. Mere dominant marketshare enabled by network effects can be used to enact effective censorship. Censorship doesn't need to take the form of absolute censorship -- and hasn't since the 1980's. (See Manufacturing Consent)
The power of viral trending and discovery, combined with the synergistic economic advantage of monetization amount to an insurmountable advantage in 2019. A small group of Silicon Valley oligarchs reserving this power for only the opinions they like is absolutely dangerous. Calling the situation "fair" would be like calling "fair" a race between someone in a Tesla and someone on horseback.
Opinions guided by such power have nothing to do with debate or seeking truth. That's all just power controlling discourse, and through that, controlling society's thought. That's like declaring a vigilante group to have "won" the public mandate, because they have all the guns, and no one speaks up against them. If SV's CEOs really want the right ideas to win in the marketplace of ideas, they need to create fair stages and level playing fields. They need to fully acknowledge the human right of Free Speech. They need to stop coercing.
It's the bias and use of power (essentially corruption) which fuels the horrible voices.
Social media in the late 20-teens were a bizarre (and, arguably, pathological) special case in world history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI