Rupert Murdoch Believes In The Free Market... Until His Company Is Struggling: Then He Wants To Regulate Competitors
from the hypocrite dept
Oh, Rupert Murdoch. When we last checked in with him, he was literally begging Facebook to pay News Corp. money because (he claimed) News Corp was "enhancing the value and integrity of Facebook." We noted at the time that Murdoch -- a staunch public defender of free market capitalism and a loud opponent of "socialism" -- seemed to be a bit hypocritical in effectively demanding a corporate handout from other, more successful companies, when his own company had struggled for years to adapt to the internet.
He's not done yet. Apparently, if Facebook (and, one presumes, Google) don't want to just hand him money for nothing, he's now demanding that they be heavily regulated:
Robert Thomson, the CEO of Murdoch’s company, News Corp., took a step beyond criticism last week in an investor call, when he advocated the creation of an “algorithm review board,” which would essentially regulate the secret formulas platforms use to determine, among other things, what news is shown to which people.
What a fucking hypocrite. Just compare this to what Murdoch was saying just a few years ago about free markets, competition, regulation and s haring:
But while we’ve won the efficiency argument, we have yet to persuade people that the market does better because it is more moral — or that socialism fails because it is largely immoral in its denial of fundamental freedoms.
To the contrary, too many people think that the market succeeds because it is based on a vice — greed. And that socialism is better, because it is based on a virtue — sharing.
Naturally, they conclude from this one of two things: that the way to make capitalism more just and more humane is to temper it by injecting a large dollop of government-mandated sharing, or that, like President Obama, government is better.
Or how about this gem:
How often do you hear the same people who say they are for free trade then push for stronger anti-dumping laws, a backdoor form of protectionism?
How often do we hear the same politicians who say they believe in free markets go on to carve out a special tax credit for some industry they favor?
Oh, Rupert, why it happens all the time. Sometimes from people like yourself.
Crony capitalism is not capitalism. It’s cronyism.
Yes. So why are you trying to get your crony's to regulate your competitors who have done a much better job than you in the market?
The market succeeds because it gives people incentives to put their own wants and needs aside to address the wants and needs of others. To succeed, you have to produce something that other people are willing to pay for.
And if he fails to get people to pay for it, Rupert Murdoch will run to the government, demanding that more successful companies just pay him, and then will also advocate for heavily regulating those companies while pretending to be for the free market and against cronyism.
What’s fair about taking money from people who’ve earned it and giving it to people who didn’t?
Says the guy demanding money he didn't earn from internet companies...
In short, as we work for freer markets, we must also work to persuade our fellow citizens that we do so not simply because a free market is more efficient but because it is fair and just and right.
Yes, Rupert Murdoch believes this right up until his own companies have trouble adapting and competing. Then he goes running to government to regulate those companies who are actually succeeding.
There may be reasonable arguments for certain kinds of regulations. But Murdoch's only reason for calling for regulations of internet companies -- after whining about socialism and talking up free markets -- is pretty blatantly an attempt to whine for a handout for his own businesses that have failed to adapt to changing times.
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Filed Under: algorithms, competition, free market, internet, regulations, rupert murdoch
Companies: facebook, google, news corp.
Reader Comments
The First Word
“I think it's less about "meeting in the middle" than using the right tool for the job. In some cases, that's capitalism; in some, it's socialism; in some, it's some combination of both; and in some, it's neither.
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Even a hypocrite is righter than a Masnocrit!
gizmodo.com
"YELP Co-Founder: [GOOGLE] 'Snuffing Out' Competition..."
www.cbsnews.com
For Masnick's view of "capitalism" go to:
http://copia.is/
and look at the graphic with his "sponsors".
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Re: Even a hypocrite is righter than a Masnocrit!
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Or is he simply just an old senile hypocrite?
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He's the definition of the old generation screwing over the new generation in his 'I got mine' hypocrisy with his demands for these Internet regulations.
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Re: Re:
It doesn't invalidate capitalism, but certainly puts into question if the people living by its extreme aren't egoistic rather than actually ideological.
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Rupert proves my point!!!!
Rupert is proving what I have always told you all about regulations. Regulations are nothing other than tools/laws for businesses to buy from politicians to protect themselves from competition.
This is why the FCC has failed you all for so long and why NN is only going to fail you. It does not matter one iota if NN passes or dies, you have all be successfully tricked into hating free-market ideals enough to ensure that a free-market cannot exist.
"What a fucking hypocrite."
For once Mike, Bravo! You are correct here. Rupert is obviously being hypocritical.
I would ask that you all remember that monopolies are anti-free-market and to stop blaming free-market for the existence of monopolies!
I appreciate you taking the time to post an article that proves what I have been saying for some time despite you personally saying that I should GFTO of TD.
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myspace
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Re: Monopolies
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Re: Re: Monopolies
You argument is a fallacy and the equivalent of saying that an unlocked foot locker is responsible for thievery in this world.
"If it weren't for dick heads like you there would be no thievery int his world!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j3_iPskjxk
Free market is the best defense against monopoly because a monopoly is anti-free market action. So in a free-market the moment someone builds a monopoly and tries to abuse customers is the moment a challenger can easily take their customers. Pound for pound, regulation WILL create more monopolies, stronger monopolies, and more abusive monopolies than a free-market will.
Natural Monopolies are a different story, I would support increase regulation on those, but they cannot be manufactured natural monopolies like the telecom sector and utilities.
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Re: Re: Re: Monopolies
This is a wonderful fairy tale you've imagined.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Monopolies
I will happily take my fairy tale over your delusion.
How is your ass feeling since it has been getting pounded by those monopolies that your regulations are supposed to protect you from? Oh wait... I bet you already have it up in the air with a stamp reading "over here murdoch!"
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Would you like a quote anyways? Maybe not, it's not likely you are interested in learning from people greater than yourself! Unless I am mistaken and you can attach your name to having helped create a nation somewhere on earth? I'm guessing no. The best you can do is cast aspersions and offer no substance. You would not happen to be on Murdoch's payroll would you? Based on your vitriol I bet you want regulations, just as Murdoch is asking. Sounds like Murdoch has you thinking exactly how he wants you to think.
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Re: Re: Re: Monopolies
1. “Economic barriers: Economic barriers include economies of scale, capital requirements, cost advantages and technological superiority.
2. Economies of scale: Decreasing unit costs for larger volumes of production. Decreasing costs coupled with large initial costs, often due to large fixed costs, give monopolies an advantage over would-be competitors. Monopolies are often in a position to reduce prices below a new entrant's operating costs and thereby prevent them from competing.
3. Capital requirements: Production processes that require large investments of capital, perhaps in the form of large research and development costs or substantial sunk costs, limit the number of companies in an industry this is an example of economies of scale.
4. Legal barriers: Legal rights can provide opportunity to monopolise the market in a good. Intellectual property rights, including patents and copyrights, give a monopolist exclusive control of the production and selling of certain goods. Property rights may give a company exclusive control of the materials necessary to produce a good.” (in the case of ISPs this is right of way, 1 touch make ready, and other laws the ISPs have convinced State governments to pass)
5. “Manipulation: A company wanting to monopolise a market may engage in various types of deliberate action to exclude competitors or eliminate competition. Such actions include collusion, lobbying governmental authorities, and force (see anti-competitive practices).”
(list pulled from Wikipedia)
I know how fixated you are on Google so for example the ISP’s barriers are so massive they stopped Google from competing. Where the f*** do you think competition is going to magically come from when the barriers are so great that not even Google can breach them? Do you get it now? Your cry of free market makes no sense when even the biggest most powerful company you whine about can’t break into a market. I’ve heard you argue then we need to get more competition not regulation but you never say how that should be accomplished. Our idea is regulate the hell out of the ISPs such that maybe a Google can get a foothold. What is your brilliant idea for creating competition?
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I compete fairly
You take advantage of my work
They steal everything we do.
I call for fair and balanced regulation
You call for restrictions
They want full blown censorship
I am a free marketeer
You show worrying tendencies to state control
They are communists
We are freedom fighters
They are terrorists
I use enhanced interrogation techniques
They torture innocent bystanders
Identical actions can attract very different descriptions ...
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Re:
You cannot bring fairness or balance through regulations.
All work takes advantage of another's work.
Harming a person in anyway to extract information is torture.
Terrorism is a farce used by politicians to spread fear!
"Identical actions can attract very different descriptions ..."
Only when the observer has cognitive dissonance/double standards, which is pretty much most people.
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Doesn't that just about sum it up?
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It's naive and tiresome.
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'They did it too!' is not an acceptable excuse
You mean ignore blatant hypocrisy simply because 'they all do it'? No, I don't think so. If anything that should be even more reason to call them out on it.
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Re: 'They did it too!' is not an acceptable excuse
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Re:
I think it's less about "meeting in the middle" than using the right tool for the job. In some cases, that's capitalism; in some, it's socialism; in some, it's some combination of both; and in some, it's neither.
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hint...
free-market, which is the system that gives us lowly consumers the power to have more of a say in things. The problem is that it requires effort from people usually not willing to give any effort.
Capitalism is just the idea that businesses can be privately owned. It does NOT require a free market to exist. But a free-market requires capitalism to exist. Which means, if you want a say in the market, you only have one choice... free-market capitalism. all other forms that I can think of only takes your power and voice away.
You either get told what you to buy, or you get told what your choices of purchase are which are equally hardly much of any choice.
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Isn't that an oxymoron?
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For years
They do the SAME as every corp and CUT THOSE on the bottom before anyone on the top can feel it..
All those Consumer protection laws are being DROPPED..
ALL those pollution laws are Disappearing..
Love those words, FREE MARKET, FAIR TRADE..and what THEY DONT MEAN..
Unregulated Commercialism and Corporatism and anything else a CORP controlled nation can be..
Corps that send ideas, instruction and asks for things to be built in other nations, shipped HERE, then charges the customers 10-100 times for the products..
They cut all regulations so they can process Food in this country with Little to NO federal protection on Quality..(look up all the Food poisoning)
3 agencies and they can only cover 8% per year and request the Corps get independent verification..
When they cant BUY UP another opponent/company they TRY to kill it out right. ASK MS and Apple how they have done it for years..
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hmmm...
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All Regulations
Is that about right? I'm being completely serious here.
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Re: All Regulations
It is very "Simploe". My Arguement is that All Regulations are Bad, and also that I never Said all Regulations are Bad, Ever, I definitely "never" said That, and you are all a bunch of Stupid Liers for "saying" that I said that all regulations are "bad", which I definitely Never Said.
Regulations are "bad" because Free Markets should Decide. Why should we have "speed Limits" to tell me How fast I can "drive", or "regulations" saying that my CAR should have a "steering" Wheel and Bakes? Let the "Free market" decide! Techdirt Wants more Government Tegulation, Always! because you are Stupid! so very STUPID! Not "smart" like ME. I am very "Smart". You can tell that I am "smart" Because I always "talk about" How smart I "am", which is Definitely a Thing that "smart" people "Do".
I am "Smart" because I "graduated" from Forth Grade at Smilin' Jim's Unaccredited Forth Grade Academy at the "top" of my class of Two People, which consisted of "me" and Also a dead "gopher". Sure, "Smilin' Jim " was not an "Accredited Education Instituion" and may have Possibly been a Deranged "Hobo", but who is the Government to "say" that He is not a Good School? Let the ree Market Decide!
Every Nation eats the Paint chips it Deserves!
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Re: Re: All Regulations
But your argument is very thought provoking.
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Re: Re: Re: All Regulations
It is Very "VERY" Simple.
Out of The "Blue" wants Common "law" REgulations to "protect" Him from his "Posts" being "Flagged".
MyNameHere wants "Regulations" to punish All the Filthy, Filthy "pkrates" he Sees everywhere.
I am "against" All Regulations, and Also I never "said" I was against "all" Regulations.
Alexander "Hamilton" invented "eail".
We are Completely Different!
Every Nation eats the Paint chips it Deserves!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: All Regulations
Because you are each a bothersome bore that believes your performative (or actual) idiocy is making a point.
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I wouldn't say they're boring, they can each provide different forms of entertainment, even if only one of them is actually trying to do so.
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Who hated the process of due
Each film that he'd paid
Was DMCAed
And shoved up his ass with a screw
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His one goal in life is to make money.
Everything he says, his position on laws, regulations, whether pro or against, is solely for the purpose of making money, of gaining an advantage.
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