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What about private industry acting as a government, with similar power.
by takenpilot 6y ago
What about private industry acting as a government, with similar power.
- jf22 6y agoSure, but a 1984 comparison is not appropriate here.
- fsflover 6y agoWhy not? Will you care who oppresses you?
- jf22 6y agoThis reply cannot possibly be a good faith addition to the discussion.
- tarboreus 6y agoAccusing people of bad faith is against HN policy.
- Sohcahtoa82 6y agoWhile true, fsflover has not made any statements and is only posting questions. He's "JAQing off" [0], so to speak. It's a hallmark of bad faith arguing. [0] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions
- fsflover 6y agoI honestly don't understand why the 1984 comparison is not appropriate here, because the book is about the oppression. I don't know how it's for you guys (that's why I asked), but for me it does not matter who oppresses me, government or corporations.
- mansion7 6y agoIt most definitely is.
- NuSkooler 6y agoAgain, private companies really need to remain smaller. The size of the companies are completely out of control. So do they have too much control? Of course. With that said, they are only doing what they know the masses want. So in a way, they're just doing the people's bidding. If Google thought the majority wanted Parler and hate speech, they'd certainly have kept it up.
- psyc 6y agoWhen I worked at Facebook, the wide-audience internal feeds were kind of dominated by very um.. progressive, enthusiastic messaging that I’d even call activism. And it was considered cool to participate and be in that.. well, ‘clique’ may not be exactly the word but it’s close. I actually did think it was cool! However, if there were any right wing folks there, naturally they kept quiet. Also, there are a huge number of conservatives and moderates using Facebook. The main point I’m trying to make is that it is misguided to believe that these companies do not have their very own conscience / worldview / quite strongly held political values.
- watwut 6y agoFacebook literally tweaked algorithms to advantage right conservative websites. If the planned change would disadvantage them, the change was modified until they ended up on top.