Klobuchar, Cotton Competition Bill Latest To Pretend 'Big Tech' Is The Only Industry With Problems
from the myopia-is-very-fashionable dept
So we've noted a few times that the recent Congressional fixation on "big tech monopolies" is weirdly myopic. As in, the United States is absolutely jam-packed with heavily monopolized sectors including banking, telecom, energy, and air travel that simply aren't seeing anywhere near the same level of hyperventilation. While it's true that giants like Facebook, Google, and Amazon are engaged in dodgy behavior at unprecedented scale, most of the "solutions" bandied about so far are oddly selective, sometimes harmful, and routinely performative.
For example, back in June we noted how the big "antitrust reform" bills being proposed in the Senate ignored entire industries and had major carve outs that didn't make much sense. Several of the bills, for example, applied only to companies that made more than 50 million monthly active U.S. users and have a market cap of over $600 billion. They effectively ignored that countless other companies (Visa, Walmart) or industries (telecom) even exist, which is...odd.
Amy Klobuchar and Tom Cotton formally introduced their Platform Competition and Opportunity Act (the counterpart to a similar bill proposed in the House) last Friday. The bill, purportedly, helps thwart companies that capture and kill their competitors via acquisition:
"Big tech firms have bought up rivals to crush their competition, expand their market share, and to harm working Americans," said Cotton in a statement. "Sen. Amy Klobuchar and I have a bipartisan bill to block these killer acquisitions."
Existing antitrust standards require that regulators prove that a deal is anticompetitive if they want to block it. Given our fairly broken court system, significant corruption, and steadily eroded antitrust standards, that's often ridiculously difficult even in obvious cases of harm. This bill would require that tech giants (and only tech giants) have to prove a merger helps competition before it will be approved. But there are a few problems with such a narrow focus. This aggressive destruction of competitors is how countless U.S. business sectors operate, but nobody is doing a damn thing about most of those.
The bill's definition is so narrow it won't even apply to sectors like telecom, where crushing competition via acquisition has been a 30 year favored pastime. Or companies like Target or Walmart, despite the fact they compete via the, you know, internet. The bill only applies to companies that as of the bill's signing have a market cap of $600 billion, meaning that non "big tech" companies who grow overlarge later wouldn't be covered. Which is, again, a weird thing to include if you're genuinely concerned about corporate and monopoly power:
"Two companies that are currently under the $600 billion line and thus exempt from the bill are mega-retailers Target and Walmart. These companies are both worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and their e-commerce platforms are growing at a faster rate than Amazon's. But under the Klobuchar/Cotton law, it wouldn't matter if Target and Walmart overtake Amazon—they would be immune from this new antitrust action, as long as they are small enough on the day the bill is signed."
Target is headquartered in Klobuchar's home state (Minneapolis, Minnesota). Walmart is headquartered in Cotton's home state (Bentonville, Arkansas). Surely that's a coincidence, though.
So why are these proposals so weirdly narrow? In part because the only "monopolies" the discourse cares about right now are of the "big tech" variety. The few Democrats who do care about monopolization see an opportunity to leverage GOP outrage to push some fairly narrow bills under the idea that narrow and weird progress is better than no progress at all. The problem? The GOP's beliefs on "antitrust reform" are hugely performative, and they historically never show up when it's time to vote for actual reform.
The press and much of the discourse can't admit it, but the GOP doesn't genuinely care about monopolization or unchecked corporate power. There are 40 years of documented evidence showing how a primary party platform has been to enable and protect monopolies in the telecom, banking, and energy sectors.
That's not to say that a lot of what Google and Facebook have been doing isn't hugely problematic. The recent revelations of Google paying both wireless carriers and smartphone vendors not to compete in the app store space is pretty cut and dry. And the recently unredacted portions of the AG lawsuit against Google (oddly ignored under the din of Facebook news) also shows a company that was clearly and aggressively anticompetitive on the ad front. But again, most of these are behaviors the entirety of Congress are perfectly ok with across numerous other industries. We've done virtually nothing about, say, Comcast, for example.
But I'm not entirely sure that corrupt and gridlocked Congress, at least this incarnation of it, is actually capable of fixing any of these these problems in big tech or elsewhere. The bills we've seen so far offer some inconsistent help, but even here I'm doubtful that GOP and centrist Democratic policymakers have the stomach to support even piecemeal reform. I think we'll see several years of posturing on "big tech," followed by very few if any competent solutions out of Congress. Any change that arrives will likely come via lawsuit, the Lina Khan FTC, or in response to bad press. And given the limitations of all of those avenues, that's probably not going to be enough.
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Filed Under: amy klobuchar, antitrust, big tech, tom cotton
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But They're Doing It Too!
Because the other industries don't directly threaten the nation's basic constitutional liberties. The first amendment doesn't give you the right to an airplane trip, or the right to fill up your fuel tank. The right to free speech is paramount.
-Getting censored proves that your opinion is the strongest.
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Re: But They're Doing It Too!
The fact you triple, quadruple an ever more down on bullshit doesn't prove anything other than you are obstinate and really not going to convince anyone of anything.
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Intentional...
Whack-a-Mole. Congresscritters not interested in real reform.
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Re: But They're Doing It Too!
Koby, considering how you fail to turn in any homework assignments this semester, my professional recommendation is that you be shot out of a cannon into the sun.
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You need to look at the big picture
Those sectors are paying the expected percentages of their revenue as bribes (also known as campaign contributions and lobbying) which, being disbursed over a much smaller number of recipients, is a lot cheaper than paying the expected percentages of their revenue as taxes.
The social media giants, in contrast, are a comparatively new addition to the business landscape and are just not accustomed to correctly interpreting the "grease here" nudge-nudge wink-wink say no more signposts. So they need some additional prompting.
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Re: But They're Doing It Too!
Wanting to force your way into all conversations on all platforms is a gross abuse of other people rights to decide who they listen to and converse with.
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Because they're not causing the same degree of societal harm. I'd love to see all monopolies broken up as much as the next guy, but you have to pick your battles.
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Re:
If "causing the same degree of societal harm" were considered a problem, the modern Republican Party would not be a thing.
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Re:
What specific societal harms do you think Google, FB, Twitter aka "Big Tech" causes to a larger degree than those mentioned in the quote?
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A turd is still a turd even if you try to polish it..
No, in most cases it only proves that the person is an dishonest asshole with opinions and views that nobody wants to hear.
As always, you are entirely free to name specific examples of opinions that has been "censored". Strangely enough, you never do. Why is that?
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Re: But They're Doing It Too!
Because the other industries don't directly threaten the nation's basic constitutional liberties.
Neither do any of the big tech companies.
The first amendment doesn't give you the right to an airplane trip, or the right to fill up your fuel tank.
Nor does it give you the right to post on someone else's website, Koby. In fact, it provides those websites the right to moderate how they want.
The right to free speech is paramount.
Right. Including the right for a private company to moderate the content on their own website. That's part of the 1st Amendment.
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The big company's know how to use the system , donate to Politicans, America is falling behind other country's in the area of tech because big telecom company's do not want to provide high speed broadband in many areas or provide services to low income users allowing telecom mergers in wireless mobile telecom company's makes the situation worse reducing competition many Americans can only use the Web on phones its expensive to run fibre or cables to areas outside city's and urban areas
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Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
They are not moderating in good faith. Just as techdirt also engages in bad faith moderation, as evidenced above. The rules are not applied consistently, and are instead a fig leaf for political bias. This is why support for section 230 reform continues to grow.
-Getting censored proves that your opinion is the strongest.
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Define "good faith" and explain why a company shouldn't be allowed to have a political bias.
Also what opinions are being "censored"? Be specific...ah, what hell. You are a coward so I don't expect an answer.
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Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
Are you implying that the registered users who flag your comments are doing so in bad faith? If so, how would laws that are meant to eliminate/reduce bad faith moderation deal with site users downvoting in bad faith? Simply get rid of downvoting, and only allow upvoting?
Or are you implying that your comments getting flagged are solely the result of actions of the admins, and that us users clicking "flag this comment" have no effect?
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Re: But They're Doing It Too!
[Hallucinates facts contrary to all evidence]
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Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
[Hallucinates events not in reality]
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Re: But They're Doing It Too!
"-Getting censored proves that your opinion is the strongest."
Repeating the same bullshit over and over again without proof is how you ended up in summer school in the first place son.
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Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
But where will we find another commenter of his caliber?
...Having built a cannon, it seems wasteful to use it just once...
I'll show myself out, thanks.
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Re: Intentional...
Not these ones, anyway.
There are some people in Congress who have been trying to pass real reform for years, but it's tough to gain traction when you've got people like Klobuchar in the Senate, let alone Cotton.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
It doesn't sound to me as if anything is being implied. Instead, you use the report button as a disagreement button. Meanwhile, the admins are actively engaging in editorialization, and not moderation. We all know what's going on.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
No, I don't know what's going on. Please spell it out.-
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
Who's this "we", Kobysabe?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
Much like the assholes they constantly defend for some mysterious reasons Koby refuses to accept that there might be very good and legitimate reasons why people constantly flag their posts(like being grossly dishonest and refusing to engage in honest conversations), and so instead they have to wrap themselves up in the persecution complex so beloved by that lot and pretend that people are just being big dumb meanies to them for no good reason.
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Re:
Which of course is why the bill is based upon how much the company is worth on the day the bill is signed, because the best indicator of societal harm in the good old US of A is how profitable someone is on a very specific date.
This has bugger all to do with societal harm(and I'm rather curios as to what harm you think the tech companies are causing) and everything to do with going after the current political punching bags to score points with the gullible.
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'A company this rich on this date is harmful! Only them though'
Nothing like defining harm as how much a company is worth/earns and then locking that amount in to a very specific date so that even other companies that hit the threshold don't qualify as harmful to really expose some blatant corruption.
I mean damn, usually they at least put some effort into hiding the blatant corruption but they didn't even bother this time around.
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That's what I thought... Koby's "strongest opinion" is just a mirage in the conservative desert because every time we ask him to specify what opinions are being "censored" all we get are tumbleweeds...
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Re:
After texas republicans made crystal clear what opinions 'conservatives' are so very concerned about protecting it's hardly a wonder that Koby's too cowardly to come out and do the same, even they've got to know that answering that question will not work in their favor and so they're reduced to making vague assertions with no details and then running away when someone asks for specifics.
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Re: Re: Intentional...
How likely is this bill to pass?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
" political bias."
Suggest something that ISNT from 1 side or the other.
Suggest an article that can be debated.
"the admins are actively engaging in editorialization, and not moderation. We all know what's going on."
Find a Article where ANY of the politicians are favoring the Citizens over the corps.
Nice word, did you read them?
This site is Editorial. They pick the subjects we can debate. yes.
Not moderate? TRUE.
GREAT. Its the posters that get to Moderate, and its not a bad way either.
Stick to a subject, make Fair comments with a few facts, be willing to debate some of it.
Most people here dont go back more then 1 day on the subjects. Allot of folks just read the subject and some of the comments. Never posting.
If you want an opinion, only. with no facts or much logic. Tall us its an OPINION. Maybe it will get posted if its not derogatory, or off subject to far, Or off subject and into the weeds.
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Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
think of it this way.
How many of my weird comments would be edited, cut, deleted, Censored if there wasnt much understanding in the this group?
I may have other ways to say and see things, but I try to stick to subjects. Show a perspective of the subject that May not be normal, but may be true in some fashion.
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Re: Re: Re: Intentional...
Between 0 and 100%.
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But: But But: But: But They're Doing It Too!
"We all know what's going on.
Yes "we" do.
You lie.
Then you get the flag.
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Re:
Because they're not causing the same degree of societal harm.
Whhhhhhhaaaaaat?!
Go home, you're drunk.
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Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
nonono
Say it this way.
Then You must be real happy. Can you tell us other sites you are as happy about?
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Re: But They're Doing It Too!
Koby is the poster boy for Grievance Addiction.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
Koby, do you know what is the clinical definition of dementia? It's the repeated acts of shit-posting on the same website, expecting different results every time.
Even when you've already been flagged into Troll-ville, I unhide your shit-post and flag it some more, just to run up the up the numbers of your unpopularity. I can no longer maintain any sense of sympathy for your inability to correctly perceive the world around you. As the professor did in "The Paper Chase", I have shaken out and hung the shroud over the banister - you are forevermore persona non grata.
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Re:
"Because they're not causing the same degree of societal harm."
You don't think banking, broadband and energy monopolies cause significant societal harm? Nobody ever lost their home or froze to death because of Facebook!
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Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
"But where will we find another commenter of his caliber?"
Among the 70-90 million americans still believing in The Big Lie I'm sure we can find at least a few dozen literate enough to replace Koby.
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Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
"They are not moderating in good faith. Just as techdirt also engages in bad faith moderation, as evidenced above."
No such thing exists. If the bar owner wants you gone from his bar he really doesn't have to give you a reason.
No one needs to provide good faith when it comes to showing an asshole the door out of THEIR PERSONAL PROPERTY
You have been told this again and again, Koby, and the fact that you don't grok something this simple just implies to me that you're in the wrong country. Maybe North Korea would suit your tastes better.
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Re: Re:
"Nobody ever lost their home or froze to death because of Facebook!"
No, it's far worse than that. Racists and bigots are denied the ability to say the N-word in front of a large audience because of Facebook. THAT is the republican grievance.
The democrat grievance is at least rooted in good intentions even if the end result - government compelling speech - is just as bad.
The fact that alt-right trolls come crawling out of the woodworks to prop up that exact suggestion from democrats they've lambasted for everything else speaks volumes.
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Re: But They're Doing It Too!
"Because the other industries don't directly threaten the nation's basic constitutional liberties."
Nor does this one. You alt-right trolls keep arguing that a private corporation is government. It's not.
Social media is no more threatening the national basic constitutional liberties than a bar owner is when he shows the nazi patrons the door and tells them to never come back.
You on the other hand keep trying to abolish those exact liberties by implying that government should compel a private entity in regards to the speech it should, according to you, have to carry.
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Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
Its actually quite simple, if the companies do not please the government, the government can fuck the companies, so therefore the companies do the governments bidding, how hard is this to figure out? Do you think that WeChat is censoring its users as a private company, or on the behalf of the government, and why are the American tech companies any different?
Furthermore what stops the government from selling the post office, and now allegedly you don't have a "right" anymore to use the mail to send your "racist" content to willing recipients. How is the mail whether USPS or fedex any different than the telephone or the internet, other than the fact that the data is on a physical medium?
Finally, what is your opinion about the big tech companies banning discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop before the election, and emails demonstrating that Hunter Biden was arranging kickback schemes with foreign companies? Is that yet another example of private companies removing "racist" content?
Freedom of speech is a principal in addition to a constitutional right, our idea of self government relies on the ability of people, to receive information based upon which they can make decisions about the world, including information about what different countries and "races" do, such as use gain of function research of coronaviruses ... a theory which was also called "racist" before it was proven true.
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Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
Does the First Amendment allow a private company such as, your telephone company, or lets say the Federal Express, to censor based on content, even if the government shut down the USPS.
Can every ISP, telephone company, television company, mail company, decide to "deplatform" former president trump, because they are private companies, to create a communication black hole around any person they disagree with?
Or is it that the mail, like the telephone, like the ISP, like the social media companies, not actually in the business of creating content but carrying other peoples content, so therefore they must all behave as common carriers and therefore should be immune from the liability of what they carry?
The companies shouldn't have it both ways, they cant have "first amendment" protections because they aren't a publisher, just as the telephone company and Fed Ex is not a publisher. If they DO have "first amendment" right as a publisher, then why are we giving them immunity, when they choose what to "publish".
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Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
Yes, because the first amendment doesn't limit private companies - it only limits the government. The whole thing about "Congress shall make no law..." should have clued you in on that. But there are other laws that makes it illegal for these companies to arbitrarily listen in on phone conversations or opening mail to check the content.
The answer is yes and no, and that's because you are asking the wrong question. The real question is: Why should a private entity be forced to associate with someone against their wishes, outside any federal or state regulation saying otherwise?
Don't conflate things. A transport company distributing newspapers can never be liable for an article defaming someone, just like how carrying mail or telephone conversations doesn't confer liability of what is said. Social media on the other hand is analogous to bulletin board, if someone nails up a message that defames someone - is the owner of the property containing the bulletin board liable for that message? And if the owner removes messages he doesn't agree with, that is fully within his rights.
You are laboring under the misapprehension that "transporting" speech and hosting speech is the same thing, it isn't. You are also laboring under the misapprehension that they have immunity, they don't.
The first amendment clearly states that people are free to associate without government interference, they are also free to speak their mind for the same reason. These two things in conjunction means that when you are using someone else's private property to speak, they may terminate their association with you if they don't like what you say. It doesn't in any way guarantee the use of someone's private property against their wishes.
For any situation where you use someone else's private property after agreeing to their rules, they are within their rights to terminate their association with you for any reason they can come up with (there are exceptions to this, like protected groups).
Everyone has first amendment rights, being a publisher, a platform or the nutcase standing on the corner screaming that the world is ending doesn't matter one bit.
In short, social media or any other company doesn't have it "both ways". The whole "both ways" argument is just a red herring that distracts people from what the first amendment actually says, that you are free to speak your mind, that people are free to associate with others, but it doesn't say anyway that you can force association on unwilling people, that you can force others to carry your speech.
It also distracts people from the question who is actually liable for what. If you defame someone, you are liable for that. If a newspaper publishes an article that defame someone, they are liable for that. If you defame someone on social media, it's you that's liable because it's your speech. The distinction between a publisher and a platform that you don't seem to grasp is that it's the one who decides to publish speech on a platform is the one liable for that, not the platform hosting it.
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Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
If we take your comment at face value, then it's not social media moderating the assholes - it's the government. So why are you complaining about big tech when "its actually quite simple" just the government forcing them to do it.
Oh goody, a strawman so stupid it was born burning. Your argument is built upon some incredible farfetched scenario with no basis in reality and can thus be ignored and you ridiculed.
Yeah... They didn't ban discussion about it at all. They removed links to the New York Post article and they also removed pictures or posts showing the content of the laptop/emails. So either you have problems with factual reality or you where dishonest. Either way, I have yet to see anyone actually prove that the emails where legit.
Regardless, private companies are fully within their rights to police their social media platforms as they wish - or perhaps you don't believe in private property rights?
You are free to point out when anyone was stopped from receiving information. But that doesn't really matter because what we have seen the last years is that a rather large percentage of the US population refuse to take in factual information, they prefer to believe in tall tales and lies from grifters and random people on the internet.
The problem with the theory was that many presented it as proof that the Chinese designed the virus and some even went with a modified theory, that the Chinese then released the virus. And there is no doubt that some of these posts where racists.
I find it funny that you think the theory was proven true, because there never really was a theory - just people speculating about things they couldn't be arsed to actually look up. Gain of function research in Wuhan was funded by the US somewhere between 2012-2016 if I remember correctly. There where a huge dustup between Fauci and someone else about it in 2017, since gain of function research was forbidden during that period in the US. That the knuckledraggers and conspiracy nuts thought they had some kind of gotcha that China was up to no good just proves that they rather bleat in indignation than actually learn something new.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
"Who's this "we", Kobysabe?"
That'd be Koby and his friends in the alt-right all feeling butthurt that every time they start trying to explain about the chemtrails and the protocols of the elders of zion, the gay frogs and how the Bad Black Man stole Christmas they get thrown out of the establishment they're in by the owner of that establishment.
I mean, they're not wrong. They are assholes no one wants around. It's just that in their view the state should swoop in and protect their fragile snowflake egos from the personal opinion of their peers.
THAT is what is going on.
Of course, Koby might put it differently.
I.e. whine ambiguously about mistreatment while making damn sure he's never clear as to why he and his pals are being "mistreated".
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Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
"...if the companies do not please the government, the government can fuck the companies, so therefore the companies do the governments bidding, how hard is this to figure out?"
In Russia and China, sure. In the US its usually the other way around. Anywhere else a functioning democracy exists, not so damn much.
"Do you think that WeChat is censoring its users as a private company..."
Because CHINA is the United States of America, eh? Let me give you a hint; assuming that your readership are all morons tends to backfire the very first time one of them turns out not to be one. I guess this time I had the honor of doing that.
"Finally, what is your opinion about the big tech companies banning discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop before the election..."
You mean discussing the dictionary-definition slander case where Rudy Giuliani lied his ass off about a laptop a liberal politician would have allegedly given to a repairman operating from a different state and who was fanatically devoted to Trump?
You know, I'd ban that too. At least until Rudy produced the damn laptop rather than an email I could forge myself in five minutes.
"Freedom of speech is a principal in addition to a constitutional right, our idea of self government relies on the ability of people..."
...to decide whether or not they want to hear you out or not, yes. Freedom of speech and association also means Facebook is free to choose with whom to associate and to provide guest rights.
Now if you believe private entities sufficiently popular are government then that's your insanity to deal with. Its not how shit works nor how freedom works either. It is, however, how an undemocratic autocracy like China works. If that's your preference, feel free to move.
"such as use gain of function research of coronaviruses ... a theory which was also called "racist" before it was proven true."
Just when I thought you'd hit the bottom of the alt-right moron barrel you find something deeper still.
No, that theory wasn't called "racist". It was called "Not true". Simply because extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence and a bunch of racist fuckwits desperately looking for a way to make china look bad by spreading a conspiracy theory about how Sars-CoV-2 is an engineered bioweapon isn't extraordinary evidence, or even an indication.
And indication would be scientific concensus that Sars-CoV-2 isn't a logical emergent from the pre-existing Sars-CoV-1. A tough call to make when epidemiologists have been screaming about this exact pandemic being on the way for decades.
I guess it may not come as new that I - and I guess, most other people - will just be flagging your collection of false premises, flawed assumptions, red herrings and straw man arguments for the ripe bullshit it is.
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Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
Your pile of bullshit collapses without your false premise that free speech is censorship.
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Re: Re: Re: But They're Doing It Too!
ECA, I often find your comments hard to follow, but they are always on point (and often have little nuggets hidden away in them).
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