Should 'Big Tech' be reined in?

[Joe]

...given the recent announcment that Parler will be shut down?

I commented on this before, but nobody said anything, so I thought I'd post a separate thread on the issue.

The activities of the Tech giants haven't gone unnoticed by reputable publications, webstes and news organizations.

It's one thing to silence an out of control President Trump, but to shut down an entire service because many members decided to abandon the likes of Facebook and Twitter is another issue.

It seems that the Big Tech Consortium (Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Google and others) have overstepped their bounds. That they are not acting in the best interests of public safety, but their own for financial gain and to kill off the competition.

Even major respected publications like the Wall Street Journal have remarked on these practices:

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Can right-wing populist sentiment be banished from American life by the brute force of social-media censorship? We’re about to find out. After Wednesday’s mob invasion of the Capitol that disrupted the counting of electoral votes, big tech firms have moved, aggressively and in unison, against Donald Trump and his supporters. The companies say they want to marginalize the violent fringe, but their censorship will grow it instead.

On Thursday and Friday came the Facebook and Twitter bans of Mr. Trump. Given the extraordinary circumstances, some commentators who normally oppose web censorship were untroubled.

An exception who deserves to be listened to is Alexei Navalny, the Russian democracy advocate and scourge of Vladimir Putin who was poisoned last year. He pointed out that, unlike the open election process that ousted Mr. Trump, social-media decisions to de-platform elected officials are unaccountable and arbitrary. “Don’t tell me he was banned for violating Twitter rules. I get death threats here every day for many years, and Twitter doesn’t ban anyone,” Mr. Navalny tweeted.

He added that while Twitter is a private company, “we have seen many examples in Russian and China of such private companies becoming the state’s best friends and enablers when it comes to censorship.”

Then the tech giants moved against Parler, Twitter’s free-speech competitor that is a haven for Trump supporters as well as more extreme figures.

 

[Oerdin]

Absolutely.

 

[Admin.]

Nah, Trump will out commission. Very soon.

 

[Joe]

 

[Lokmar]

yea joesephine, that happened a while ago.

 

[Joe]

yea joesephine, that happened a while ago.

Checked out the website, nothin there Lokmeer.
You Repubs have no voice in the Presidency, House, Senate or the Internet Lokmeer.
They've tied every hand behind your backs.
Right or Left, I thought democracy meant everybody is supposed to get a voice.
Doesn't seem like a level playing field to me.
No fan of Trump, but the actions of Big Tech are outrageous.
They're resorting to censorship.
They need to be regulated because theyre destroying free speech and democracy itself.

 

[Lokmar]

yea joesephine, that happened a while ago.

Checked out the website, nothin there Lokmeer.
You Repubs have no voice in the Presidency, House, Senate or the Internet Lokmeer.
They've tied every hand behind your backs.
Right or Left, I thought democracy meant everybody is supposed to get a voice.
Doesn't seem like a level playing field to me.
No fan of Trump, but the actions of Big Tech are outrageous.
They're resorting to censorship.
They need to be regulated because theyre destroying free speech and democracy itself.

Yes josephine, you people doing this is a great thing! All of this is like when hitler attacked Russia and declared war on the US. Dumb ass bit off about 10X more than he could chew and it was your, I mean his demise.

Dont say I didnt tell ya josephine!

 

[Joe]

yea joesephine, that happened a while ago.

Checked out the website, nothin there Lokmeer.
You Repubs have no voice in the Presidency, House, Senate or the Internet Lokmeer.
They've tied every hand behind your backs.
Right or Left, I thought democracy meant everybody is supposed to get a voice.
Doesn't seem like a level playing field to me.
No fan of Trump, but the actions of Big Tech are outrageous.
They're resorting to censorship.
They need to be regulated because theyre destroying free speech and democracy itself.

Yes josephine, you people doing this is a great thing! All of this is like when hitler attacked Russia and declared war on the US. Dumb ass bit off about 10X more than he could chew and it was your, I mean his demise.

Dont say I didnt tell ya josephine!

I never had nothin ta do with it Lokmeer.
I have no affiliation with the Democratic Party..
I just watch current events and comment on them.

And There's nothin in it for me to support Big Tech.
I use their apps, but I don't like them.
Never have. Now the events unfolding have confirmed my suspeicions about them.
So I have no trouble running down Fascistbook or Shitter cuz I never had any attachment to em.
And I don't profit from those companies nor am I beholden to them.

They're just big corporate conglomerates that just ruthlessly snuff ou t the competition and step on ordinary folk.
I hope you Repubs and Righties launch a case against them , sue them and win.

Facebook is worse than it was 10 years ago.
If that's how they've 'progressed', then someone like Parler should give em a run for their money and force them to improve. The concerns which Parler users have brought up, have been festering for a long time among people who have nothing to do with the alt Right.

I see it more as a competition/customer service issue rather than a political one.

Anyways I was hoping that something like Parler or gab.com would displace them.

Google should definitely be broken up. At very least, the government should force Google to sell off YouTube and make it a separate company again. There's no way that google and YouTube should be owned by 1 player.