Snowflake Josh Hawley Seems To Think The 1st Amendment Means Simon & Schuster Has To Give Him A Book Contract

from the not-how-any-of-it-works dept

As a reminder, Josh Hawley is a sedition supporter who should never be near any position of power ever again. In response to his ongoing support for overturning the will of the people, book publishing giant Simon & Schuster made the totally reasonable call that it would refuse to publish the book he was preparing called (hilariously) "The Tyranny of Big Tech." Make no mistake about it: this was Hawley's campaign book to push for the nomination in 2024. The key authoritarian strongman move is to claim that someone else is the tyrant and that you're hear to "save" them. That's Josh Hawley's entire play over the last couple of years: "big tech" is the "tyrant" that he's here to "free" you from, through idiotically bad laws. But it's all a game to him.

Simon & Schuster's statement was pretty straightforward:

After witnessing the disturbing, deadly insurrection that took place on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., Simon & Schuster has decided to cancel the publication of Senator Josh Hawley's forthcoming book, THE TYRANNY OF BIG TECH. We did not come to this decision lightly. As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints; at the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom.

Right after that came out, I joked that Hawley -- as per his nonsense attacks on social media -- would claim that this was "unfair censorship" and introduce a new law requiring Simon & Schuster to publish his book. That joke turned out to be closer to reality than even I expected. An hour or so later, little whiny snowflake Josh Hawley, a self-proclaimed Constitutional lawyer, who has a law degree from Yale Law School and clerked at the Supreme Court, claimed that Simon & Schuster not publishing his book was somehow an attack on the 1st Amendment.

The statement reads:

My statement on the woke mob at Simon & Schuster:

This could not be more Orwellian. Simon & Schuster is canceling my contract because I was representing my constituents, leading a debate on the Senate floor on voter integrity, which they have now decided to redefine as sedition. Let me be clear, this is not just a contract dispute. It's a direct assault on the First Amendment. Only approved speech can now be published. This is the Left looking to cancel everyone they don't approve of. I will fight this cancel culture with everything I have. We'll see you in court.

Every single thing that Hawley says in this is utter bullshit. It's almost embarrassing. First of all, anyone who thinks that one of the world's biggest publishing houses is a "woke mob" is delusional. But, it's even worse to use the word "mob" the day after you helped inspire an actual mob to storm the Capitol building in order to overthrow the results of an election.

Hawley has no legal claim here at all. The 1st Amendment doesn't govern this at all. He has every right to speak his mind, but he has no right to force a giant publishing house to give him a massive book contract to help his nascent Presidential campaign. If he wants to publish such a book, I hear Amazon has pretty good self-publishing tools that would allow him to do so. As to a bunch of other self-publishing platforms. Isn't technology amazing?

And, since Hawley wants to be "clear" the only Orwellian here is Hawley himself -- trying to spread his populist authoritarianism by redefining what words mean to suit his own naked greed and ambition.

But, really, all of this is just consequences for your own actions, Josh. You know, the kind of thing you used to pretend was what "conservatives" believed in.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, authoritarian goofball, big tech, cancel culture, contracts, free market, josh hawley, sedition
Companies: simon & schuster

Stop Pretending The Trump GOP Genuinely Cares About Monopoly Power

from the gullible-and-adorable dept

Over the last year or two, a constant drumbeat has permeated tech news coverage. It goes something like this: the GOP is embracing a "populist" agenda by standing up to "big tech." The modern Trump GOP (with heroic consumer champions like Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn in the lead) we're told, have become stalwart opponents of monopolization, especially in tech. They're just super concerned about what this power means for free speech, especially given that conservative voices are routinely "censored" on the internet.

One problem. It's all bullshit. And there's a long line of journalists and experts who still somehow haven't quite figured that out yet. Or have figured it out but are too afraid of upsetting readers or advertisers to be honest about it.

Case in point: the New York Times, which this week explored how the GOP's interest in "reining in big tech" has stalled because "solutions" to modern tech problems could hurt revenues or don't include adequate hand-wringing over "conservative censorship":

"The Republicans’ chief objections to the report are that some of the legislative proposals against the tech giants could hamper other businesses and impede economic growth, said four people with knowledge of the situation. Several Republicans were also frustrated that the report didn’t address claims of anti-conservative bias from the tech platforms. Mr. Buck said in “The Third Way” that some of the recommendations were “a nonstarter for conservatives."

The Times, like most big outlets, proceeds from the assumption that the Trump GOP genuinely cares about reining in "monopoly power" in technology. But that gives the GOP way more credit than it has earned or deserves, and helps prop up bad faith bullshit as legitimate grievance.

For one, the GOP's breathless concerns about "monopolization" aren't apparent anywhere else. As the GOP freaks out over "big tech," for example, "big telecom" has been allowed to effectively guard the chicken house and eat the lion's share of the chickens. The GOP-controlled FCC effectively neutered itself at AT&T's and Comcast's request. Terrible job and competition killing telecom mergers have been repeatedly, rubber stamped by the GOP. Similarly there's zero evidence of any serious attempt to rein in other monopolized sectors from banking and airlines to pharmaceutical and energy.

There's also still no evidence that "conservatives are being censored." As in, none. Oddly, the New York Times can't be bothered to mention this. The lion's share of those being kicked offline are being kicked offline because they're simply...behaving like assholes on the internet. And in fact, there's far more evidence that platforms like Facebook are ignoring their own rules to protect right-wing speech because it's more profitable to let inflammatory bullshit bumble around the information ecosystem (see: Breitbart being a trusted news ally and nobody giving a damn that Ben Shapiro games Facebook systems to inflate traffic).

Here's the thing. This steady flood of shitty Section 230 bills aren't about policing monopoly power. And folks like Marsha Blackburn and Josh Hawley, who've never had a single bad thing to say about telecom monopolies, couldn't give any less of a shit about monopoly power. They do however care about political power. And the over-arching goal right now is to apply enough pressure on Silicon Valley giants that they don't start adequately policing political disinformation. Because if they do, many of the cornerstones of the modern Trump GOP (race baiting, divisive bullshit, inflammatory garbage, rampant disinformation) fall apart.

Yes, Democrats have plenty of bad ideas and frequently can be found doing nothing or making things even worse. Congress needs a reboot and fresh blood on a tragic scale. But that doesn't change the fact that the entire, multi-year GOP quest to tackle "big tech's monopoly power" has never actually been about monopoly power. It's about political power and money. It's about trying to shovel more ad revenue to accountability-immune telecom monopolies or Rupert Murdoch. It's also about preventing anybody from tackling the mountains of hateful internet bullshit that has become the cornerstone of Trumpism.

And despite countless gullible news reports and experts eager to portray GOP "big tech" pearl clutching as a good faith, earnest examination of the very real problems popping up in tech, it's simply not. And those who continue to pretend otherwise are part of the problem.

Filed Under: antitrust, big tech, gop, josh hawley, marsha blackburn, monopoly, republicans

Josh Hawley Is A Lying Demagogue Who Has Built A Fake Fantasy World About 'Evil Big Tech'

from the get-over-it-dude dept

What's up Senator Hawley? What's bugging you today? Yesterday, Hawley went to the floor of the Senate to try to sneakily move forward one of his many, many bills to destroy the internet and take away Section 230. He tried to sneak it through without letting folks who he knew would oppose it know, in the hopes that they might not show up to stop him. In fact, he did it at a time when the key person blocking his bill -- Senator Ron Wyden, who authored Section 230 and knows that Hawley is lying about it -- was in an important committee meeting.

What happened then is what you can see in this video below, in which Wyden raced over and had to give unprepared remarks to explain to Hawley that he's a lying idiot.

Almost everything that Hawley says here is a lie or is garbage. It starts out with him gravely staring at the camera, saying that we're approaching an important election, and then it goes into this nonsense:

But there are a group of people who seem intent on influencing the people's choice on manipulating it, on shaping it, according to their own preferences.

Yes. The Russians seem intent on that. As does your political party, including the President and the Attorney General, who have repeatedly made moves to try to invalidate the ability of the public to vote. Is that who you're talking about?

And I'm not talking about China, or Russia, or Iran.

Oh. But they are actually trying to influence the vote. The intelligence community has reports on it -- though they've stopped briefing the President because it makes him sad.

I'm talking about a group of corporations, the most powerful corporations in the history of this nation, the most powerful corporations in the history of the world.

News Corp?

I'm talking about big tech. We know who they are. They run the giant digital platforms, the places where Americans communicate and share their opinions.

Wait, the websites that allow the public to criticize you and your lies? You can't possibly mean them.

But those platforms are more than that. They're more than places to talk or buy things, Facebook and Google, Twitter and Instagram and YouTube. These are the platforms that control more and more of our daily lives.

Dude. Come on. They don't control our lives.

And yes, I said, control.

You must think the public is a bunch of weak-minded fools. No one in Silicon Valley "controls" anyone.

These platforms control our social communication, the way that we talk to each other, when and how, where and on what terms. They control what news we read, or even what news we see.

This is literally not true. There are tons of different ways to get news, and the companies you named can't stop any of them. Nor do they.

They control more and more journalism in America, right down to what's in news articles and how the headlines are written. They control how elected officials communicate with their constituents when they can run advertisements what their messages can say and can't.

They don't control journalism. They don't control how headlines are written. They don't control how elected officials communicate. You can do all of that without them. And yes, many websites do use their platforms to spread their news, but not all of us do. And, sure, they may limit some advertisements. If they're bullshit lies, or inciting violence, but that's kind of their right as private companies. Which you should know... Because you were the lawyer for Hobby Lobby in bringing their case to the Supreme Court on the very principle that private companies get to decide how to run their own businesses with regards to certain 1st Amendment rights. Or do you not remember that?

Of course, if you're a mendacious demagogue and your only goal is to rile up your constituents with a bogus culture war to make sure you're in the headlines, then I guess maybe this nonsense makes sense.

And they want to control us.

No. They don't. Dude, rather than creating this fake bogeyman, maybe go out to Silicon Valley once and talk to the engineers who hold the internet together with bubblegum and duct tape. They're not competent enough to control anyone. This isn't science fiction. There is no mind control. They're just trying to build useful internet platforms, and you and your friends decided to use those platforms to go fascist. And some of them said "I don't want a part of that." Which, again, is their right.

The big tech platforms relentlessly spy on their customers, you and me. They track us around the web. They monitor our every move online, and even when we're offline. They track our location. And whether we're in a car or riding a bike around the street, they track the websites that we visit. And when they track the things that we buy, they track the videos that we watch, they track what our children are doing, they track everything all with the purpose of getting enough information on each one of us to influence us to shape our preferences, and opinions and viewpoints.

First of all, you can turn off most of that. It's not that hard. If there weren't this pandemic going on, I'd stop by your office and show you how. At the very least, it's not that hard to, like, install Privacy Badger. It's nice. It'll help you.

Also, they're not tracking you to "shape our preferences and opinions and viewpoints." That's what advertisers want to do. And Fox News. You don't seem mad at them.

This is enormous power--unheard of power. And the big tech platforms are intent on using it. They are intent on using it in this election.

This is just silly. If you actually spoke to the people at these companies, they want nothing less than to have nothing to do with this election. Why do you think many of them are saying "no political advertising at all"? Why do you think so many of them are trying to bend over backwards to stay out of anything that even looks remotely like influencing an election. You're literally making this up because you have nothing real to run on and you can only succeed by creating a fake enemy to rail against. You are a little man with no plan and no principles. So you make up enemies and try to turn your constituents against them, because you think that your constituents are rubes who you can lie to and they'll believe you.

Let's just cut to the chase. The big tech platforms are owned and operated by woke capitalists.

Um. What? "Woke capitalists"? I thought Republicans were complaining that the "woke" people were socialists? Now they're capitalists? Can you guys keep your ridiculous conspiracy theories straight?

They're leftists. They're liberals. They're not conservatives. They're no friend to conservatives.

Both Facebook and Google have policy shops with well known Republican officials in senior positions. Come on. Multiple reports have shown that Facebook favors right wing nonsense, and bends over backwards not to pull it down, even when it's utter bullshit.

They fervently oppose the election of Donald Trump and other conservatives in 2016. They fervently oppose it this year.

Well, first, Donald Trump is a moron who is incompetent. Anyone can see that. But, there is no evidence that any internet company is doing jack shit to stop him. Again, Facebook has bent over backwards to help him and his campaign out. Twitter remains his primary tool of communication. If Silicon Valley companies did 1/10 of the shit you accuse them of, that would be a huge deal. But they're not. You're just lying.

And now they're trying to use their power to shape the outcome of an election.

No. They're literally not doing this. And employees at Facebook are quitting because they're letting the President spew hatred and lies and incite violence on the platform.

For months, the tech platforms have been engaging in escalating acts of censorship, political censorship, aimed at conservatives.

We've gone over this a million times. There remains no evidence at all that they're targeting conservatives. They are targeting insane, outlandish lies, hate speech, efforts to incite violence, and such. If your party is doing more of that, well, perhaps that's on you.

They've censored the President of the United States.

No, they haven't. Twitter fact checked him. You know, adding more speech. Didn't you used to be one of those "the answer to bad speech is more speech" kind of Republicans?

They have banned pro life groups from their sites.

No they haven't. I just searched and there are literally dozens of pro-life Facebook groups with thousands of members. You're just making shit up that's easy to fact check.

They have tried to silence independent conservative journalists like the Federalist. Now this censorship is never against liberals, notice. Now Joe Biden isn't censored. Pro choice groups aren't discriminated against. Liberal new sites, they don't get threatened and bullied and shut out. Now big tech targets conservatives for censorship for a simple reason. They don't like conservatives, they don't agree with conservatives. They don't want to see conservatives get elected.

Why do you chuckleheads always go back to that bogus Federalist story. We faced the same thing (and currently have no ads on our site). Did we lose our ads because of anti-tech news bias? Slate -- which is generally considered left-leaning -- also faced the same demonetization threats. In that link, it's noted that Buzzfeed also got the same notices that we got, Slate got and that The Federalist got.

But notice that only the Federalist is crying victim. Only you are claiming that it was because of anti-conservative bias -- rather than the reality. The same reason that The Federalist, Techdirt, Slate, and Buzzfeed all got these notices: some of our content tripped a wacky AdSense algorithm. It's got nothing to do with bias, and you know it. You know it because I sent that information to you. Once again, it happened because these companies and their algorithms aren't the all-controlling puppetmasters you claim. They barely work most of the time. And they spew out all sorts of false claims. But it's only you and your whiny friends who take it so personally.

And then you go to the floor of the Senate and you lie about it. Because you think the public are idiots.

And here's the thing. If they are allowed to use their power in this way, if they are permitted to leverage their control over news and information and data to silence the voices of conservatives, then we will be turning control of our government over to them will be concerning control of our elections over to them, control of the nation to them. And let's just be clear, no corporation should run America. No set of corporate overlords should substitute their judgment. For the judgment of we the people no woke capitalist should be able to shape the outcome of an election by silencing speech. And that's why we have to act and act today.

Boy are you going to be upset when you learn about Fox News.

There is a simple, straightforward solution to the censorship power of these digital platforms. Let those who have been censored claim their rights, let them sue. Let them go to court. Let them challenge the decision to the tech platforms and have their day before the bar of the law. Now right now federal law prohibits this. It prevents Americans from challenging the tech platforms and their censorship. It prevents Americans from challenging just about anything that the tech companies do. That should change.

You're a constitutional lawyer. How do you not know the difference between Section 230 of the Communications Act and the 1st Amendment. Because it's the 1st Amendment that lets internet companies decide what content is published on their websites and what is not. What would "their day before the bar of the law" even look like? All that would happen is judges would laugh every one of the sad sacks you've convinced to go to court, telling them they have no right to force anyone to host their speech. And just like your client, Hobby Lobby, was free to screw over its employees thanks to your diligent lawyering, leading plenty of people to take their business elsewhere, if people don't like how the big internet companies moderate, they too can go elsewhere. Aren't you on Parler yet, Josh?

And that is why today, Mr. President, I urge this body to adopt my legislation, which I proudly have introduced along with Senator Rubio and Senator Cotton, Senator Braun, and Senator Leffler to give every American who is unfairly censored the right to have his or her day in court, the right to stand and be heard the right to fairness and due process of law. This is a stand we must take in defense of free speech, in defense of our elections. But more importantly, above all, in defense of our democracy, and the rule of we the people.

Again, the 1st Amendment says you're a lying fool, Josh. You're not defending free speech or elections. You're making a mockery of them.

At this point, an exasperated Senator Ron Wyden pops up to object to Hawley moving forward with this nonsensical, unconstitutional bill, pointing out that Hawley did not do the usual procedure of alerting others that he was going to make a request for unanimous consent to move his bill forward, and that he picked a time (perhaps deliberately) when Wyden was testifying before the Ways and Means Committee to make this move. So, Wyden had to respond, off the cuff, without a prepared speech, to highlight that basically everything Hawley said was utter and complete nonsense. Wyden seems rightfully pissed off.

I just want to say to the Senate, in my time in this body, this is one of the most stunning abuses of power. I have seen in my time in public service. I think my colleague knows that I was setting until five minutes go in the Ways and Means Committee, where I was invited to testify about Social Security.

And I was given a message that the Senator from Missouri was going to stand up and basically try to throw in the garbage can, a bipartisan law that I and a conservative Republican, former congressman Chris Cox, well known to conservatives, wrote, because as we thought about the formulation of technology policy, our big concern was for the little guy, the person who didn't have power, the person who didn't have clout, we were picking up accounts, that if they were just trying to come out with their invention might be something they put up on a website or a blog, it could be held personally liable, personally liable for something that was posted on their site that they'd have no idea of.

So we said, we can't do that to the little guy. We can't strip them of their voice.

And by the way, my concern about the little guy that led to the passage of this law, is something is something I continue to focus on today. This law is hugely important to movements like "Me Too," and "Black Lives Matter." Because it gives Americans the opportunity to see the messages that they want to get out. We've all seen the videos, frankly, the establishment media, I don't think would have even run a lot of it, because they would be sued. So the original interest in this was making sure that the little guy had a chance to be heard. That's the interest today. That's what the Senator from Missouri wants to throw in the trash can. So that's number one.

Number two, the effect of what the Senator from Missouri wants to do. And for colleagues who've just come in, I just learned about this. Five minutes before the Senator from Missouri went on to the floor. The net effect of this is that Donald Trump can force social media and he's already working the rest to print his lies. The thing that concerned me right at the outset, was the lies about vote by mail. He wanted to force Twitter to print his lies about vote by mail. That too, is something that we sought to constrain in the bipartisan legislation.

In other words, if your complaint is about unfairly influencing elections, Josh, maybe look at your own President first.

Now, many people think it's a 26 words, that really began a policy of empowering the little guy to be heard.

He then goes on to push his own bill, the Mind Your Own Business Act, that would actually propose jail times for big company CEOs that violate certain privacy principles. He points out that if Hawley actually cared about taking on big tech, he'd sign onto that bill. But Hawley's not interested in really taking on big tech. He's trying to build up an evil bogeyman that he can scare people with. He's demagoging.

And, of course, he couldn't let Wyden just make him look like a fool, so Hawley got up to spew more lies:

I will just say, Mr. President, that my friend, the Democratic Senator describes a world that doesn't exist. He says section 230 protects the little guy. Section 230 protects the most powerful corporations in the history of the world. Google and Facebook aren't the little guy. Instagram and Twitter aren't the little guy, you know, who is left vulnerable by those mega corporations.

This is where Hawley is completely misrepresenting things again. What Section 230 does is allow these, and every other website that hosts content, to exist without fear of being bogged down by overly burdensome litigation. And it does help the little guy. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube have all enabled many, many, many "little guys" to speak their mind and get attention, and build huge followings and businesses. Including tons of conservatives. And it's enabled there to be new companies and new entrants. And individual sites. It absolutely protects the little guy.

If Hawley's unconstitutional bill became law, that would hurt the little guy. The platforms would be much less willing to host user content. It would be that much more difficult for small sites or individual websites to be put up. But Hawley needs to make an enemy and thus he has to lie and lie and lie again.

The people who don't have a voice that people who when they get deplatformed don't have an option. If you're silenced by Google, or Facebook or Twitter, what's your option? None. Nothing, you can't be heard. You can't go to court, you can't do anything.

Oh, come on. There are so many other platforms -- even those catering to fascists and Trumpists. Free market? Competition? Didn't Republicans used to support that kind of thing. You can set up your own website. You're not "silenced" by Google or Facebook or Twitter. You have other options. And it's not like those companies are quick to shut down anyone's accounts anyway. In most cases, you have to have done something really, really egregious.

I mean, I see Josh Hawley posting all sorts of bullshit on Twitter daily, and his account remains.

Every American should have the right if they're unfairly discriminated against because of their political views to at least be heard in court. Now, section 230, as it exists today, and as it's currently being applied, it protects the most powerful corporations. It protects and has protected human traffickers. It protects some of the worst abuses of free speech in our society. And that's why Mr. President, I will continue to fight to have it reformed to continue to fight to give the American people a voice.

What's with the weird aside about human traffickers? That's simply not true and again Hawley knows it. Trafficking violates federal law and nothing in Section 230 blocks the DOJ from going after federal criminal violations. On top of that, Hawley was a key supporter of FOSTA which already carved more issues related to trafficking out of Section 230 (and it's been a total disaster). And, again, it's not clear what you think anyone will get from "being heard in court" other than judges laughing at them that they think they have a god-given right to force private companies to host their racist nonsense.

At this point, you can tell that Senator Wyden was pissed off about all these lies. He got permission to speak again, and it's worth watching the video of this part, because he starts yelling, righteously, about just how full of shit Hawley is. You can tell that Wyden is pissed off both about Hawley's lies, but also about the procedural gamesmanship of trying to move the bill forward without alerting Wyden about these plans.

Once again, the Senator from Missouri is getting it all wrong. He talked again about how this law, this bipartisan law, is basically not for the little guy, but he's taking on the big guys. Well, the reason that's factually wrong is that on this floor, a previous effort was made to deal with sex trafficking. It was called SESTA and FOSTA. And the desire was we're all against this horrible smut online, we're all against it. The desire was to block it. And as the debate went forward, I and others said you're not going to be able to block it. You're going to be able to block Backpage, like eventually happened under existing law, which I supported, not under this new thing. Well guess who supported this SESTA FOSTA deal that is pretty much like the Senator from Missouri [wants]. IT WAS FACEBOOK. Facebook supported the last effort. Last time I looked, they're a pretty big company. So the Senator from Missouri is just getting it all wrong here.

I've seen Senator Wyden speak many, many times. I've never, ever seen him this angry.

... what we've always been about is the little guy and you see it every day. With MeToo, Black Lives Matter and so many voices from the community, because of this law can be heard. Do not--not just on this because I have objected so it can't go forward--do not accept this idea that this is somehow the path to solving problems and communications because under SESTA FOSTA, which is really the kind of model the Senator from Missouri is talking about, the only thing that happened was the horrendous people involved in sex trafficking went to the dark web. And so now we have an even bigger problem.

He then goes on to repeat his procedural concerns, that if he were trying to advance a bill that he knew Hawley had objections to, he would have notified him ahead of time, not tried to sneak it through while Hawley was otherwise occupied.

So, let's just be clear on this. Josh Hawley is lying. He's lying to the American public. He's making things up because the only thing he knows how to do is to demonize. He knows how to create enemies who he can then smack down. And he's decided that "big tech" is the enemy. The only problem is that it's not actually true. So he has to lie and lie and lie again. This won't be the last time, but Josh Hawley has shown his true colors once again.

Filed Under: big tech, elections, free speech, josh hawley, lying demagogue, ron wyden, section 230
Companies: facebook, google, twitter

As Speakers At The RNC Whined About Big Tech Bias, You Could Only Watch The Full Convention Because Of 'Big Tech'

from the stop-shitting-where-you-eat dept

There was much nonsense spewed at this week's Republican National Convention, and as has been expected given the nonsense narrative about "anti-conservative bias" in big tech, there were plenty of people using the podium to whine about how the big internet companies are working against them. Thanks to the folks at Reason for pointing out how utterly stupid and counterfactual this actually is. Indeed, if you actually wanted to watch the RNC speeches (and I'm not sure why you would), the only place to actually watch them uninterrupted was... on those internet platforms that the speakers swore were trying to silence them.

And yet if there was ever a televised event that demonstrated the lameness of the conservative anti-tech position, it was the first day of the RNC. No major tech platform censored any of the content—on the contrary, they granted easy and unrestricted access.

Multiple YouTube channels aired the RNC in full. It was possible to watch the event live on the GOP Convention's Facebook page, and to find it on Google (it's the top video result). Even Twitter, the platform most obviously hostile to conservatives, made it perfectly easy to watch. All of the platforms provided unlimited access to the remarks by Kirk, Parnell, and everyone else who spoke—and importantly, this access came at no cost to viewers.

Meanwhile, the other options -- mainly cable news including Fox News -- regularly cut away from the coverage:

Contrary to the anti-social media perspective peddled by Kirk and others, it was traditional media outlets that restricted conservative speakers. CNN, MSNBC, and even Fox News cut away from the convention repeatedly. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow was petrified that unfiltered access to Republican speakers would cause her audience to succumb to disinformation, and thus she ceaselessly intervened to explain why certain GOP talking points were false. (Unsurprisingly, there was no live fact-check of the Democratic National Convention.)

Viewers with a cable subscription who preferred a selective, biased curation of the RNC could turn on their televisions. Viewers who just wanted to watch the event without interruption or interjection could do so for free on any of the major tech platforms.

As Robby Soave at Reason points out, there's a lesson here, if Trump's crew of whiners actually were interested in learning, not just playing the victim.

To the extent that there are genuine anti-conservative biases on social media, they pale in comparison to the biases of the traditional media. It's true that tech platforms occasionally make arbitrary or contradictory rulings about politically extreme speech; meanwhile,

The New York Times opinion page apologized for publishing a provocative but fairly mainstream opinion piece by a major Republican senator, fired the editor responsible, and essentially vowed never to make this mistake again. Conservative voices have flourished on Facebook, where articles from Breitbart and The Daily Wire praising President Donald Trump are routinely among the most shared content. At the same time, there's not a single reliably pro-Trump columnist at the Times or The Washington Post.

While I disagree that an op-ed proposing turning American troops on American citizens is a "fairly mainstream opinion piece by a major Republican Senator," the rest does stand. As we've pointed out many, many times, the problem people have is not so much with censorship, but rather that they don't like anyone having editorial discretion over them. Yet, that happens much more in the world of traditional media than on social media. And a big part of the reason for this difference may be because Section 230 exists.

Section 230 allows social media to host whatever nutty idea the RNC and its supporters want to post. The NY Times and others, by contrast, recognize that publishing dangerous nonsense might make them liable, should that dangerous nonsense run afoul of the law. It is still perplexing why any Republican who is upset about perceived (not real) anti-conservative bias is against 230. Without it, many platforms just wouldn't bother with their nonsense at all.

Filed Under: anti-conservative bias, bias, big tech, charlie kirk, convention, internet, media, rnc, tech, victims
Companies: facebook, twitter, youtube

House Judiciary Spends 5.5 Hours Making Themselves Look Foolish, Without Asking Many Actual Tough Questions Of Tech CEOs

from the what-did-I-just... dept

How was your Wednesday? I spent 5 and a half hours of mine watching the most inane and stupid hearing put on by Rep. David Cicilline, and the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial & Administrative Law. The hearing was billed as a big antitrust showdown, in which the CEOs of Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon would all answer questions regarding an antitrust investigation into those four companies. If you are also a glutton for punishment, you can now watch the whole thing yourself too (though, at least you can watch it at 2x speed). I'll save you a bit of time though: there was very little discussion of actual antitrust. There was plenty of airing of grievances, however, frequently with little to no basis in reality.

If you want to read my realtime reactions to the nonsense, there's a fairly long Twitter thread. If you want a short summary, it's this: everyone who spoke is angry about some aspect of these companies but (and this is kind of important) there is no consensus about why and the reasons for their anger is often contradictory. The most obvious example of this played out in regards to discussions that were raised about the decision earlier this week by YouTube and Facebook (and Twitter) to take down an incredibly ridiculous Breitbart video showing a group of "doctors" spewing dangerous nonsense regarding COVID-19 and how to treat it (and how not to treat it). The video went viral, and a whole bunch of people were sharing it, even though one of the main stars apparently believes in Alien DNA and Demon Sperm. Also, when Facebook took down the video, she suggested that God would punish Facebook by crashing its servers.

However, during the hearing, there were multiple Republican lawmakers who were furious at Facebook and YouTube for removing such content, and tried to extract promises that the platforms would no longer "interfere." Amusingly (or, not really), at one point, Jim Sensenbrenner even demanded that Mark Zuckerberg answer why Donald Trump Jr.'s account had been suspended for sharing such a video -- which is kind of embarrassing since it was Twitter, not Facebook, that temporarily suspended Junior's account (and it was for spreading disinfo about COVID, which that video absolutely was). Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Rep. Cicilline was positively livid that 20 million people still saw that video, and couldn't believe that it took Facebook five full hours to decide to delete the video.

So, you had Republicans demanding these companies keep those videos up, and Democrats demanding they take the videos down faster. What exactly are these companies supposed to do?

Similarly, Rep. Jim Jordan made some conspiracy theory claims saying that Google tried to help Hillary Clinton win in 2016 (the fact that she did not might raise questions about how Jordan could then argue they have too much power, but...) and demanded that they promise not to "help Biden." On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Jamie Raskin complained about how Facebook allowed Russians and others to swing the election to Trump, and demanded to know how Facebook would prevent that in the future.

So... basically both sides were saying that if their tools are used to influence elections, bad things might happen. It just depends on which side wins to see which side will want to do the punishing.

Nearly all of the Representatives spent most of their time grandstanding -- rarely about issues related to antitrust -- and frequently demonstrating their own technological incompetence. Rep. Greg Steube whined that his campaign emails were being filtered to spam, and argued that it was Gmail unfairly handicapping conservatives. His "evidence" for this was that it didn't happen before he joined Congress last year, and that he'd never heard of it happening to Democrats (a few Democrats noted later that it does happen to them). Also, he said his own father found his campaign ads in spam, and so clearly it wasn't because his father marked them as spam. Sundar Pichai had to explain to Rep. Steube that (1) they don't spy on emails so they have no way of knowing that emails were between a father and son, and (2) that emails go to spam based on a variety of factors, including how other users rate them. In other words, Steube's own campaign is (1) bad at email and (2) his constituents are probably trashing the emails. It's not anti-conservative bias.

Rep. Ken Buck went on an unhinged rant, claiming that Google was in cahoots with communist China and against the US government.

On that front, Rep. Jim Jordan put on quite a show, repeatedly misrepresenting various content moderation decisions as "proof" of anti-conservative bias. Nearly every one of those examples he misrepresented. And then when a few other Reps. pointed out that he was resorting to fringe conspiracy theories he started shouting and had to be told repeatedly to stop interrupting (and to put on his mask). Later, at the end of the hearing, he went on a bizarre rant about "cancel culture" and demanded each of the four CEOs to state whether or not they thought cancel culture was good or bad. What that has to do with their companies, I do not know. What that has to do with antitrust, I have even less of an idea.

A general pattern, on both sides of the aisle was that a Representative would describe a news story or scenario regarding one of the platforms in a way that misrepresented what actually happened, and painted the companies in the worst possible light, and then would ask a "and have you stopped beating your wife?" type of question. Each of the four CEOs, when put on the spot like that, would say something along the lines of "I must respectfully disagree with the premise..." or "I don't think that's an accurate representation..." at which point (like clockwork) they were cut off by the Representative, with a stern look, and something along the lines of "so you won't answer the question?!?" or "I don't want to hear about that -- I just want a yes or no!"

It was... ridiculous -- in a totally bipartisan manner. Cicilline was just as bad as Jordan in completely misrepresenting things and pretending he'd "caught" these companies in some bad behavior that was not even remotely accurate. This is not to say the companies haven't done questionable things, but neither Cicilline nor Jordan demonstrated any knowledge of what those things were, preferring to push out fringe conspiracy theories. Others pushing fringe wacko theories included Rep. Matt Gaetz on the Republican side (who was all over the map with just wrong things, including demanding that the platforms would support law enforcement) and Rep. Lucy McBath on the Democratic side, who seemed very, very confused about the nature of cookies on the internet. She also completely misrepresented a situation regarding how Apple handled a privacy situation, suggesting that protecting user's privacy by blocking certain apps that had privacy issues was anti-competitive.

There were a few Representatives who weren't totally crazy. On the Republican side, Rep. Kelly Armstrong asked some thoughtful questions about reverse warrants (not an antitrust issue, but an important 4th Amendment one) and about Amazon's use of competitive data (but... he also used the debunked claim that Google tried to "defund" The Federalist, and used the story about bunches of DMCA notices going to Twitch to say that Twitch should be forced to pre-license all music, a la the EU Copyright Directive -- which, of course, would harm competition, since only a few companies could actually afford to do that). On the Democratic side, Rep. Raskin rightly pointed out the hypocrisy of Republicans who support Citizens United, but were mad that companies might politically support candidates they don't like (what that has to do with antitrust is beyond me, but it was a worthwhile point). Rep. Joe Neguse asked some good questions that were actually about competition, but for which there weren't very clear answers.

All in all, some will say it was just another typical Congressional hearing in which Congress displays its technological ignorance. And that may be true. But it is disappointing. What could have been a useful and productive discussion with these four important CEOs was anything but. What could have been an actual exploration of questions around market power and consumer welfare... was not. It was all just a big performance. And that's disappointing on multiple levels. It was a waste of time, and will be used to reinforce various narratives.

But, from this end, the only narrative it reinforced was that Congress is woefully ignorant about technology and how these companies operate. And they showed few signs of actually being curious in understanding the truth.

Filed Under: antitrust, bias, big tech, david cicilline, greg steube, house judiciary, jamie raskin, jeff bezos, jim jordan, jim sensenbrenner, joe neguse, kelly armstrong, ken buck, lucy mcbath, mark zuckerberg, matt gaetz, politics, sundar pichai, techlash, tim coo
Companies: amazon, apple, facebook, google

So Wait, People Really Think The Barr DOJ's Investigation Into Google Is In Good Faith?

from the bad-faith-clown-show dept

Late last week, news emerged that the DOJ would likely be bringing a massive antitrust lawsuit against Google. Reports suggest this is the culmination of a full year of saber rattling by Bill Barr, who has made "antitrust inquiries" into "big tech" a top priority at the DOJ:

"the DOJ's antitrust inquiries into Google, Facebook and other Silicon Valley powers has become a priority for Attorney General William Barr, who has asserted greater control of the probes and has said he wants to make a decision on Google by the summer."

The news was quickly met with celebration by numerous folks, many of whom have correctly noted that US antitrust enforcement has become toothless and frail, and our dated definitions of monopoly need updating in the Amazon era. The announcement was also highly celebrated by a litany of folks eager to see Google's domination of search, advertising, and other sectors disrupted -- for both justified and competitive reasons.

Oddly, much of the coverage of the DOJ's potential antitrust case operated under the premise that Barr's efforts are being conducted in good faith, and might actually result in useful remedies at the end of the battle. The problem with that assertion is multi-fold. One, Bill Barr just got done making it abundantly clear his DOJ isn't actually interested in the rule of law. The Trump DOJ has also made it abundantly clear it's not above weaponizing antitrust for petty grievances, as we saw with the ridiculous lawsuit against California over vehicle emissions.

Barr's DOJ also isn't what you'd call consistent on antitrust and monopoly enforcement, either.

Barr's DOJ, for example, just got done rubber stamping the $26 billion merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, despite a laundry list of warnings from economists that concentration in the telecom sector would reduce competition, raise rates, lower overall sector pay, and result in up to 20,000 to 30,000 job losses. Yet DOJ antitrust boss, Makan Delrahim, not only rubber stamped the deal without listening to experts, he used his personal phone and email accounts to help ensure deal approval. That is what "antitrust enforcement" looks like at Donald Trump and Bill Barr's DOJ.

The DOJ's lawsuit to hamper the AT&T Time Warner lawsuit was also treated with furrowed brow seriousness by the press, despite it being well out of character for a Trump administration that generally panders to AT&T, has a less than zero interest in consumer protection, and usually has no problem with industry consolidation -- provided you're an ally of the administration. There's ample indication the DOJ's lawsuit was driven by Trump's disdain for CNN and his ally Rupert Murdoch, who saw two attempts to buy CNN rebuffed by AT&T and had been working overtime to scuttle the deal for competitive reasons.

Why is monopolization in telecom and other sectors ok, and monopolization in Silicon Valley not ok? Because, as we've noted previously, much of the Barr DOJ's sudden, uncharacteristic interest in "policing monopolies" is being driven by the telecom sector (Barr you'll recall used to be Verizon's General Counsel). Giants like Comcast, Verizon, and others have been hungrily eyeing Silicon Valley's stranglehold over advertising revenues for the better part of the last fifteen years, and there's absolutely no doubt in my mind they're driving a lot of the anti "big tech" animosity you're seeing from the likes of Bill Barr and Marsha Blackburn, whose interest in consumer protection, level playing fields, monopolies, or consolidation is utterly nonexistent on any other Sunday.

A desire for stronger antitrust enforcement or concern for monopoly domination isn't what's driving the Barr DOJ here, and press outlets assuming this is a good faith effort are clowning themselves. It's being driven by telecom sector allies and Trump pals like Rupert Murdoch, who are eager to boost their own advertising market share. It's also being driven by heaps of partisan nonsense about how Conservatives are being "censored by big tech," which as we've documented repeatedly isn't based on anything remotely resembling reality.

None of this is to say that there aren't very obvious monopolistic problems Google presents that need addressing. And the separate antitrust inquiry by state AGs (expected this fall) is far more likely to be conducted in good faith, even though there too you have a lot of AGs that were just fine with monopolization in sectors like telecom. But anybody who thinks the Barr DOJ's effort in particular is driven by a genuine interest in reining in monopoly power simply hasn't been paying attention.

Filed Under: antitrust, big tech, competition, doj, internet, william barr
Companies: facebook, google

Unshocking Report: Trump Admin Is Historically Terrible At Reining In Destructive Monopolies

from the dysfunction-junction dept

You need only look at its treatment of the telecom industry to understand that the Trump administration doesn't give a flying damn about U.S. monopolies (or the impact those monopolies have on consumers, prices, innovation, or the market). Despite being one of the least competitive (and least popular) industries in America, the administration has taken a hatchet to telecom consumer protections, often using bogus data and fraud to do it. Massive, competition and job-eroding mergers are rubber stamped before the administration even sees the data. Any pretense at meaningful oversight is theater.

A new report by the American Antitrust Institute suggests that despite the administration's rhetoric around "big tech," its apathy to monopolies is fairly uniform. Experts have noted for a decade than US antitrust enforcement has grown toothless and frail, and our definitions of monopoly power need updating in the Amazon era. Antitrust enforcement had already waned under the Obama administration, getting severely worse once Trump came to power:

"Despite its anti-corporate concentration rhetoric on the campaign trail, key metrics of cartel and merger enforcement have declined since the Trump administration took over. And in 2017 and 2018, the DOJ did not open one monopolization investigation, the longest span of inattention to dominant firms in the last 50 years."

That's not particularly surprising for those who watched the head of the Trump DOJ antitrust division, Makan Delrahim, not only ignore the input of his staff and approve T-Mobile's competition eroding $26 billion merger with Sprint, but personally helped usher the deal through the process via his personal phone and email accounts.

The report notes that cartel investigations, fines, and the amount of fines levied are down overall as well, with the number of corporations fined by the Trump agencies in 2017 and 2018 falling by about 45% compared to the Obama administration. This sort of corruption isn't new, and it's certainly bipartisan. Trump's just exponentially worse at disguising feckless obedience to profit and corporate power as a more elaborate ethos. For years, America routinely embraced mindless "deregulation" of broken markets like telecom under the belief that antitrust enforcement would come in and maintain some semblance of proper balance. That is, again unsurprisingly, proving to be total fantasy in practice:

"As markets have changed over time, deregulation garnered broad support through bipartisan efforts intended to remove regulatory barriers that were thought to impede competition more than their benefits could justify. This was based, however, on the assumption that lost government oversight would become unnecessary due to active antitrust enforcement. Conservative administrations have often deregulated without concern for whether antitrust enforcement or competition policy would effectively fill the gap."

When the administration does act, it often acts for the wrong reasons, as seen with the short-lived "antitrust investigation" into the auto industry for adhering to pollution standards. Or the administration's lawsuit to stop the AT&T Time Warner deal, which had less to do with protecting markets and consumers, and more to do with making Rupert Murdoch happy and getting revenge on CNN for critical coverage of his bumbling and corrupt administration.

Throughout all of this, somehow, many policy folks and tech reporters still somehow take Trump's rhetoric about reining in "big tech" monopolies seriously. The DOJ's announcement of "investigations" into everyone from Google to Apple are treated with deadpan seriousness by a press and policy ecosystem that doesn't seem to learn from experience. Some Economists advise we perhaps should stop doing that, since there's zero indication the administration takes Section 2 of the Sherman Act seriously, and there's very little indication any of these investigations will result in substantive action:

More often than not, such investigations are being used more for leverage on other issues (see: Barr's war on encryption, or more positive coverage and ranking). Because in reality, Trump cares about three things: attention, power, and personal enrichment. It's not clear how much more idiotic theater we need to witness before policy experts and tech reporters understand that, and stop treating egomania, grift, and corruption as "very serious policy."

Filed Under: antitrust, big tech, doj, monopolies, telcos

So Wait, People Seriously Think Bill Barr Will Rein In Tech Monopoly Power?

from the ill-communication dept

So we've noted for a while how while a lot of the anger against "big tech" is certainly justified, there's a sizeable segment of this growing DC chorus that's being quietly orchestrated by telecom giants. Companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast just effectively convinced the FCC to self-immolate, dismantling huge swaths of its broadband consumer protection authority (what could go wrong?). At the same time, the DOJ and FCC have been rubber stamping every terrible telecom merger than comes down the pike. When it comes to telecom monopolies, you'll hear nary a peep from the Trump administration.

Contrast that to the GOP and Trump administration's sudden, breathless interest in "big tech" monopolies. In case you'd missed it, top telecom lobbyists have spent the last two years pushing ironically for a massive regulatory crackdown on "big tech" companies. For example Mike Powell, former FCC boss turned top cable industry lobbyist, put it this way at a 2018 appearance at an industry trade event:

"Our governmental authorities need to get a handle on what kind of market power and harm flow from companies that have an unassailable hold on large pools of big data, which serve as barriers to entry, allowing them to dominate industries throughout the economy," he said. "For years, big tech companies have been extinguishing competitive threats by buying or crushing promising new technologies just as they were emerging. They dominate their core business, and rarely have to foreclose competition by buying their peers. Competition policy must scrutinize more rigorously deals that allow dominant platforms to kill competitive technologies in the cradle," he added."

So you'll notice here that telecom is accusing big tech of all the things telecom routinely engages in, from buying competitors to stifle competition, to laying claim to massive troves of consumer data with little accountability or oversight. This bizarre asymmetrical policy positioning, where Silicon Valley monopolies are bad but telecom monopolies apparently don't exist, has since become a DC mainstay, as reflected by the positions of folks like Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn. Neither have so much as mentioned telecom in passing in their conversations about monopoly power, and the latter of the two has literally never seen an AT&T policy proposal she didn't support.

Enter Bill Barr, the former Verizon General Counsel who spent years helping Verizon crush competitors, violate privacy and wiretap law, and generally engage in all the kind of behaviors he's now supposedly policing. On that end, reports this week emerged stating that Barr has slowly been taking control of numerous antitrust inquiries at the DOJ from DOJ antitrust boss Makan Delrahim:

"Barr has centralized oversight of antitrust matters under a handful of appointees in his office and that of his deputy attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen. Those moves have sidelined the Antitrust Division’s current leadership, headed by Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, who for the past year has been the public face of DOJ’s investigations into Silicon Valley’s treatment of its users and customers."

Delrahim of course flubbed the AT&T Time Warner lawsuit, which I still believe had more to do with pleasing Rupert Murdoch and pissing off CNN than any serious concern about monopoly power. Such concerns are violently out of character for the Trump administration, which only seems to embrace such rhetoric when it serves a political purpose (see: the nonexistent censorship of Conservatives). Delrahim also just came under fire recently for rubber stamping the controversial Sprint T-Mobile merger in some very problematic ways, tying himself in knots to approve the competition-eroding deal.

On one hand, you could believe that Barr suddenly and uncharacteristically cares about monopolies and is engaged in a good faith effort to more seriously police them, as Matt Stoller suggests here:

"He has an understanding of what it’s like to be in competition with these monopolists. He understands what’s at stake,” said Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, an anti-monopoly nonprofit.

“I have more faith in Barr than in Delrahim,” added Stoller, though he still predicted that Barr and the DOJ would bring a narrower antitrust suit against the tech platforms than he believes is warranted.

The problem with this claim is Barr has never, in history, shown the slightest interest in seriously reining in monopoly power, as his time at Verizon makes pretty clear. It's far more likely that Barr's interested in using the DOJ's antitrust enforcement authority as a political and personal blunt weapon. Notably to help this administration's BFFs in the telecom sector wage regulatory war on companies they (not at all coincidentally) are trying to erode video ad market share from. It's similar to the way that Ajit Pai has bizarrely demonized Netflix while just completely ignoring much worse problems in telecom.

As Mike noted in a recent interview with Mathew Ingram, it's also very likely Trump sees these inquiries as a great way to gain leverage in efforts like his misguided war on encryption:

"In reality, Barr has been (misleadingly) complaining about encryption to support his authoritarian impulses to want to have access to all information. This has never been the way the world works, and thanks to technology, law enforcement already has more access than ever to most information about people. The real goal here for Barr was just to use 230 as a wedge to try to break encryption."

There's really been zero evidence to suggest most of these "big tech" inquiries at the DOJ are being seriously conducted in good faith. In fact there's ample evidence the wheels of DOJ antitrust enforcement have been hijacked for what has often been bizarre and petty vendettas on behalf of Trump. But sure, a guy who spent years propping up US telecom monopolies and has never shown the slightest genuine interest in the problems monopolies cause is just the guy to finally fix the nation's longstanding monopoly problems, why not.

Filed Under: antitrust, big tech, competition, doj, fcc, makan delrahim, michael powell, telcos, william barr
Companies: amazon, apple, facebook, google, verizon

Defeating Tech Giants With Open Protocols, Interoperability, And Shared Stewardship

from the alternative-approaches dept

Across the ideological spectrum, there seems to be a consensus that something must be done about the biggest tech companies — that the legal mechanisms we currently have to address monopolization in the United States are inadequate to deal with the realities of the digital market. While recognizing how powerless our institutions have become in the face of Big Tech's massive lobbying power, there's an idea that's gaining traction as a viable approach to curb the societal and economic impacts of tech monopolies. The idea is to restore the core of a healthy internet ecosystem: interoperability and the revival of open protocols.

Lawmakers, policy experts, and even Twitter, are advocating for tech companies to open up their platforms to enable other services and start-ups to enter the playing field. There are different approaches to doing so and varying layers of interoperability that are possible. The overarching goal, however, would be to get rid of the worst aspects of tech monopolization and bring about a new era of competition and innovation.

As a writer and nonprofit tech entrepreneur who has focused on projects promoting digital justice and community networks, I became interested in these ideas. Why do we need to extend interoperability into the application layer? How do we create new Internet standards that open up our networks and platforms in ways that invite new features and applications that better respect our individual and collective rights online? As I examined the three most likely scenarios being discussed, I realized that we had much to learn from the past. We need to revive the power of standards bodies, and ensure that they stay relevant and effective by observing known principles about how to successfully govern a commons.

A Brief Overview of Interoperability and Competition

What made the early Internet so exciting was how quickly it changed. Different services like bulletin board systems (BBS), email, and Internet relay chat (IRC) came about and allowed people to communicate in ways that were impossible before. That rich ecosystem of tools and services were enabled by downstream innovation. New applications and features could be built with existing technologies with or without permission from the prevailing tech companies. Yes, there were plenty of lawsuits against these start-ups back then. But people were still willing to take the risk, and there were investors that wanted to back them up. There were less onerous laws hindering experimental technologies.

Perhaps most importantly, much of the Internet ran on open protocols and standards. The academics and others who initially designed the protocols wanted to build a relatively free ecosystem, so they made it possible for services to interoperate with each other. Standards bodies like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) established shared protocols in the name of the collective interest. These institutions have helped companies and organizations come together and set rules based on agreed upon needs, making them transparent and representative of the interests of more than one stakeholder. At standards bodies, companies sit alongside non-profit organizations, educational institutions, policy experts, and academics.

But standards bodies have grown increasingly inefficient and exploitable. Not only were they always slow and under-resourced, tech companies grew powerful enough to bend them to their will or ignore them altogether by building walled gardens with no interoperability built into their platform (besides providing some public APIs with varying levels of consistency). In the era of Move Fast and Break Things, there was little patience for the kind of multi-stakeholder dialogue and decision-making that is required to build and conform to shared technical standards.

There has been little incentive for tech companies to play well with others. Not only that, it's become the norm for tech monopolies to destroy any competition. Laws that regulate the internet such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) have had a chilling effect on the types of innovation that was characteristic of the early internet. These regulations can be weaponized by big players to crush new start-ups over even the most trivial violations. If they don’t sue them, tech companies can easily buy them out or throw all their resources into imitating the services of their smaller competitors until they crush them.

Now most people communicate, get news, and publish their work through closed platforms run as web services. When people think of the Internet, they think about the platforms, not the protocols that run beneath them and make them work. To many, email is Gmail, chat is Slack, and discussion forums are Facebook.

Of course the underlying protocols are still core to the Internet’s functionality. But these closed platforms severely lack the traits of interoperability. As we’ve become dependent on them, our digital lives have been left at the mercy of companies whose primary goal is to enclose as much of the Internet’s infrastructure as they can get away with. Especially when it comes to social networks, their ability to mediate every aspect of our relationships and interactions online has come at an immense cost to our right to free expression, privacy, and access to knowledge.

Possible Paths Towards an Interoperable Internet

There are those who are calling for a revival of antitrust enforcement to break up the tech monopolies. But federal agencies in the U.S. such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) move too slowly and are under-resourced. And then there are others who say that breaking up the tech companies is entirely the wrong approach — that we need to build protocols to again make the Internet more interoperable as it was in the early days.

The European Commission, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Mozilla, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and others are calling for a revival of interoperability as means to address Big Tech's dominance over the Internet. Among them they present three possible ways this could come about, with or without state intervention.

1) State Antitrust Enforcement

Through litigation or legislative action, the state could require companies to make their platforms more open and interoperable. Mozilla's Chris Riley asserts that the agency best suited to take this on would be the FTC, which has the explicit mandate to protect consumer protection and enforce U.S. antitrust laws. Harold Feld of Public Knowledge calls for an entirely new agency empowered to oversee any implementation of any proposed law enforcing digital platform competition, given the specific technical complexities of enforcing such a law.

There is precedence for this in Europe. The European Commission brought a case against Microsoft in the early 2000's that resulted in the company being required to release information enabling competing software to interoperate with Windows desktops. The U.S. and Europe have their own approaches to antitrust, of course. Interoperability enforcement would look very different depending on which state(s) had the mandate to move forward with this type of action.

2) Established Platform Companies Seek Standardization

One of the big players could willingly embark on a path to build open protocols. In December, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced Blue Sky, an initiative to help develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. In his Twitter thread about the project, Dorsey says that Twitter would fund further development of an existing decentralized standard or as he says, "create one from scratch".

Many responded to him asking about ActivityPub — the protocol behind Mastodon, the federated alternative to Twitter. Why wouldn't Twitter invest its resources into that? Dorsey responded that it might be possible, but that it's up to the Blue Sky team to decide whether that protocol would be best. It's worth pointing out that ActivityPub has already gone through discussions at the W3C and is officially a recommended standard.

It makes sense that a major platform would want to decentralize their platform, the most obvious reason being to relieve themselves of the responsibility over content moderation. The second reason is to fortify itself against even bigger competitors, like Facebook, that threaten to enclose even more of the Internet.

3) Building Open Protocols from Scratch

Within the last seven years there's been an explosion of decentralized protocols, dealing with everything ranging from currency and commerce to social media and decision-making. We are way beyond the proof of concept stage. There are all kinds of ways to build decentralized protocols — based on gossip, distributed files, blockchains, or federated databases. The issue isn't whether decentralization is technically feasible. The issue is that there are so many ways to do it and how each protocol is appropriate for different use cases.

Developer and writer Jay Graber compared a few of the most well-known decentralized social network protocols. She explains the pros and cons of each protocol and how they operate. Protocols that put users in full control over their data and identity in a network can be too technically challenging for the average user. Protocols that rely on append-only logs, such as secure scuttlebutt, make it impossible to edit or delete posts. Federated networks can carry many of the same user-friendly features as centralized networks, but still leave the server administrators hosting the network with the same challenges — such as overseeing content moderation and platform security. So while protocols can be more neutral than platforms they still contain biases.

This Is a Human Problem, Not a Technical One

If we're talking about interoperability, we're talking about public Internet infrastructure. Open protocols and standards are part of a digital commons, and a commons thrives when people use and maintain it together.

As economist Elinor Ostrom declared in her Nobel Prize winning work, commoning is a social practice. What Ostrom asserted was that the success or failure of a commons, or what she called a "common-pool resource", rested on "how a group of principals who are in an interdependent situation can organize and govern themselves to obtain continuing joint benefits when all face temptations to free-ride, shirk or otherwise act opportunistically." For any type of commons, it's the relationships between those governing and relying on shared resources together that's central to its success.

Standards bodies were in many ways an implementation of Ostrom's eight principles for a commons — what she found were the basic elements needed for a commons to be governed sustainability and equitably. Thus Dorsey's call to build an "open community" around a new social media protocol is encouraging. It suggests the need to build organizations that keep various stakeholders engaged in an open dialogue about how we make social networks open and interoperable. This is the promise of a functional standards body. When they’re robust and effective, they can play a critical role in ensuring that the Internet remains free, open, and equitable.

Overcoming the Challenges

It's exciting to see this resurgence of energy for greater interoperability. But I'm not going to let myself get too hopeful. Anyone involved in this project needs to prove that this is going to be done right. Whether due to state-driven antitrust enforcement, tech companies' self-motivation, or from the bottom up with a new decentralized protocol, the manner in which protocols come about will be critical.

There are foreseeable issues with all three paths towards interoperability. Even if the government were to regulate companies, the state is feeble in the face of overpowering influence from corporate lobbyists. The revolving door that exists between private industry and public oversight bodies nearly guarantees a compromised process. Companies can't be trusted either. Independent developers have been continually burned by companies being unpredictable and negligent regarding the availability of public APIs — not to mention the hundreds of other ways they've violated public trust. Finally, nearly all of the decentralized web protocols were built by lone geniuses who collectively represent one demographic. If new protocols are to address the needs of diverse online communities, more types of people will need to be involved in their development.

Internet interoperability cannot be a project embarked on for the sake of profit, power, or someone's ego. Who is or is not in the room when critical decisions are being made about the protocol will make or break whether it will succeed in bringing about a more interoperable internet. We ought to learn from experts who know what it takes to govern shared resources together. If we’re serious about re-building the Internet as public infrastructure, we need to be prudent enough to assemble the types of organizations that can steward the Internet protocols of the future.

—

Further Reading

• European Commission, "Competition Policy for the Digital Era" (April 2019)   

• Mozilla's "A framework for forward-looking tech competition policy" (September    2019)

• Jack Dorsey, a twitter thread on Twitter's bluesky project

• George J. Stigler, Center for the Study of the Economy and the State "Committee    for the Study of Digital Platforms: Market Structure and Antitrust Subcommittee" (May    2019)

• Harold Feld, Public Knowledge "The    Case for the Digital Platform Act"

• Mike Masnick, Knight Foundation "Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech" (August 2019)

• Cory Doctorow, Electronic Frontier Foundation "Adversarial Interoperability: Reviving an Elegant Weapon From a More Civilized Age to Slay Today's Monopolies"    (June 2019)

• Chinmayi Sharma, University of Virginia School of Law “Concentrated Digital Markets, Restrictive APIs, and the Fight For Internet Interoperability” (January 2020)

• Irina Bolychevsky, Redecentralize "Instead of breaking up big tech, let’s break them open" (October 2019)

Filed Under: big tech, communities, competition, infrastructure, interoperability, platforms, protocols
Companies: facebook, google