McCarthyism sweeping Democratic Party

[GURPS]

The Significance Of Sen. Al Franken's Call To Impose Net Neutrality On Google, Facebook and Amazon


In a recent speech at an Open Markets Institute panel session called "Are Tech Giants Too Big For American Democracy?" Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) had a surprise for big tech.

Not only does the Senator want to preserve government oversight over information flows in the form of regulated "net neutrality" for Internet service providers (the rules that Federal Communications Commission under Ajit Pai wishes to roll back); Franken also wants to extend the neutrality concept to content companies.

Addressing the prominence of firms like Google, Facebook and Amazon in data gathering and advertising, Franken wrote in the Guardian (contemporaneous with his speech):

As tech giants become a new kind of internet gatekeeper, I believe the same basic principles of net neutrality should apply here: no one company should have the power to pick and choose which content reaches consumers and which doesn’t. And Facebook, Google, and Amazon – like ISPs – should be “neutral” in their treatment of the flow of lawful information and commerce on their platforms. ... While we fight to preserve the Order, we must now begin a thorough examination of big tech’s practices in order to secure the free flow of information on the internet.​

...........................................................................................................................................

Franken argued Hillary’s loss demanded government censorship over social media on the Internet. He wrote the following:

Last week’s hearings demonstrated that these companies may not be up to the challenge that they’ve created for themselves. In some instances, it seems that they’ve failed to take commonsense precautions to prevent the spread of propaganda, misinformation, and hate speech.​

In advancing his argument for government censorship, Franken asked the following rhetorical questions:

The platforms that big tech has designed may now be so large and unruly that we can’t trust the companies to get it right when they do start paying attention. If you have five million advertisers a month using your highly sophisticated, nearly instantaneous ad platform, can you ever really know who all of them are? Can you ever catch all the signals that would seem obvious to a pair of human eyes – for example, political ads that are paid for in rubles?​

Franken got immediate push-back from Michael Snyder, a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, who penned a rebuttal in EndOfTheAmericanDream.com.


SEN. FRANKEN DEMANDS SOCIAL MEDIA CENSORSHIP OVER “RUSSIAN COLLUSION”
New McCarthyism sweeping Democratic Party overestimates minimal 2016 Russian social media activism


Internet Crackdown Begins: Senator Al Franken Wants Google, Facebook, & Twitter Censor Political Speech

 

[glhs837]

While we fight to preserve the Order,

Nope, not creepy at all....... SInce when did it bbecome the providers reposnsibility to vet what I see and hear, THATS MY ####ING JOB!!!!!!.

 

[GURPS]

Nope, not creepy at all....... SInce when did it bbecome the providers reposnsibility to vet what I see and hear, THATS MY ####ING JOB!!!!!!.

Progressives believe in the POWER of GOV. to protect you from making selfish / stupid decisions [as they see fit]


just vote for us, we will protect you, you are otherwise too stupid to think for yourself

 

[transporter]

Infowars and zerohedge are two of your sources

If regulation of content ever comes to pass, you would be the poster child for why it occurred...you ONLY post propaganda.

 

[GURPS]

Infowars and zerohedge are two of your sources

so you HAVE NOTHING to counter what Franken said

 

[glhs837]

Infowars and zerohedge are two of your sources

If regulation of content ever comes to pass, you would be the poster child for why it occurred...you ONLY post propaganda.

So you prefer regulated content, where someone else decides what information you receive? Who decides who decides? How does that not scare the living crap out of you, that the folks who cant even pass a damn budget for what, 8-10 years will decide what information is "authorized" for dissemination? I want to see what the Russians are saying, what the Chinese are saying. Why should my content be limited because lazy people cannot research? Screw that.

 

[GURPS]

So you prefer regulated content, where someone else decides what information you receive?

Of Course She Does ...
like EVERY Other Progressive anything but their world triggers them and they don't want to hear it



from the days of trying to revive the 'Fairness Doctrine' to Net Neutrality

 

[Clem72]

So you prefer regulated content, where someone else decides what information you receive? Who decides who decides? How does that not scare the living crap out of you, that the folks who cant even pass a damn budget for what, 8-10 years will decide what information is "authorized" for dissemination? I want to see what the Russians are saying, what the Chinese are saying. Why should my content be limited because lazy people cannot research? Screw that.

There is almost no way to have an intelligent conversation on the topic of "net neutrality" because both sides distort the definitions, conflate the issues, and resort to ad absurdum arguments.

Yes net neutrality is regulation, but it's regulating the middle-man (the ISP) from limiting/altering/censoring your access to information. If you want to see what Putin is saying on Russian Twitter, then you should be in support of net neutrality because without it there is a financial/political/whatever incentive for your ISP to redirect any requests you have to what Putin is saying on American Twitter, or their sanitized english translated version of twitter. Or hell, they may just send you to CNN since it's owned by their parent company to watch Wolf Blitzer tell you how you should react to what Putin said (but not really what he said, what the producer cobbled together from sound bites to provide a narrative).

 

[GURPS]

 

[Lurk]

How does that not scare the living crap out of you, . . . .

It relieves her of that other process that is so taxing, thinking.

 

[glhs837]

There is almost no way to have an intelligent conversation on the topic of "net neutrality" because both sides distort the definitions, conflate the issues, and resort to ad absurdum arguments.

Yes net neutrality is regulation, but it's regulating the middle-man (the ISP) from limiting/altering/censoring your access to information. If you want to see what Putin is saying on Russian Twitter, then you should be in support of net neutrality because without it there is a financial/political/whatever incentive for your ISP to redirect any requests you have to what Putin is saying on American Twitter, or their sanitized english translated version of twitter. Or hell, they may just send you to CNN since it's owned by their parent company to watch Wolf Blitzer tell you how you should react to what Putin said (but not really what he said, what the producer cobbled together from sound bites to provide a narrative).

"Send"? what is this send? Nobody sends me anywhere. they present me options that I choose, and yes, the options are weighted. I account for that, just like I account for the lean of the Post or of Fox. Same way I counter the wind when I ride my motorcycle. We would be better served as a society to not install the freaking intellectual training wheels that net neutrality would entail. When I see a report about American territorialism regarding the Chinese built islands in the South China Sea from RT, I know where that's coming from. When I read about new weapons capability that India is testing by the Times of India, I allow for the fact that that report is going to have Indian biases built in.

I will always favor expecting people to do things for themselves over having the govt decide what gets weighted. Even that implies the govt not only decides what's fair or not, but that the govt has the power to compel obedience with those choices.

 

[Clem72]

"Send"? what is this send? Nobody sends me anywhere. [...]
I will always favor expecting people to do things for themselves over having the govt decide what gets weighted. Even that implies the govt not only decides what's fair or not, but that the govt has the power to compel obedience with those choices.

Just because you say a thing emphatically doesn't mean you understand what you are talking about. Do you have the IP address memorized for every website you visit, or do you type in a domain name? If it's the latter, you are being sent somewhere based on blind trust.

And if you somehow believe that existing net neutrality regulations equate to government "weighting" of options, again you show your ignorance.

Feel free to respond and try to convince others here that you know what you are talking about (the ones that haven't already read your endless struggles in the cord-cutting topics). The technically literate among us know you are parroting talking points and don't actually understand how things work. I however will not be responding any longer to someone who has so thoroughly swallowed the hook.

 

[glhs837]

Just because you say a thing emphatically doesn't mean you understand what you are talking about. Do you have the IP address memorized for every website you visit, or do you type in a domain name? If it's the latter, you are being sent somewhere based on blind trust.

And if you somehow believe that existing net neutrality regulations equate to government "weighting" of options, again you show your ignorance.

Feel free to respond and try to convince others here that you know what you are talking about (the ones that haven't already read your endless struggles in the cord-cutting topics). The technically literate among us know you are parroting talking points and don't actually understand how things work. I however will not be responding any longer to someone who has so thoroughly swallowed the hook.

I didn't say the existing ones, I was speaking of what Sen Franken is proposing, which is not quite the same. No, I don't surf on IP, and it's possible when I click a link for a Times of India story, I'm really getting a Pakistani misinformation site. Enforcing content "neutrality" on content providers, not access providers.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...trality-rules-for-google-facebook-and-amazon/

"As tech giants become a new kind of Internet gatekeeper, I believe the same basic principles of net neutrality should apply here: no one company should have the power to pick and choose which content reaches consumers and which doesn't," Franken wrote yesterday in an op-ed for The Guardian. "Facebook, Google, and Amazon—like ISPs—should be 'neutral' in their treatment of the flow of lawful information and commerce on their platforms."

So, what does that look like, this enforcement of content neutrality? Because regulation without enforcement is pointless, agreed? So, explain how you regulate and enforce this neutrality of ideas?