BigTech is now Rule of Law
With the censorship online and the coordinated removal of the Parler app, BigTech operates together and creates its own rule of law online.
Social media Section 230 is creating a scenario where BigTech is becoming even more powerful. When the foundations of democracy and free speech are jeopardized, this is what you get. It’s not as if YouTube, Facebook or Instagram are very good at moderating themselves.
Parler, let’s just delete the app. At the Last Futurist we have no political preference, neither conservative or liberal, sometimes called Democrat or Republican in more fake democratizes. But when social media becomes the mainstream media, and as BigTech you operate as a unit, things get very bad for the future of censorship online.
Facebook Groups and Twitter let it get to this point, they amplified diverse fringe groups, echo bubbles and algorithmic behavior modification, and then when it gets dangerous, they pull back? That’s not an ethical use of power of BigTech.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which was passed in 1996, says an “interactive computer service” can’t be treated as the publisher or speaker of third-party content. They don’t operate as media companies, even when that’s what they are. Facebook has made $Billions amplifying disinformation, and what would Twitter be without Trump and Elon Musk who are like propaganda agents.
When you interfere with free speech while simultaneously stoking extremists via algorithmic echo bubbles, you are manipulating the future of democracy. That’s exactly what Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have done to America. You play both sides until you are the rule of law. That’s not corporate social responsibility of BigTech, that’s manipulation of an unregulated system of capitalism and democracy.
Section 230. The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls it “the most important law protecting internet speech.” But what happens when rule of law fails online? When you can manipulate democracy until it becomes a matter of big corporations wielding the real power? Is that also free-market capitalism and free-speech democracy? Or has America shifted into the grey zone where Covid-19 and civil unrest are being used to move us into a different State.
For the last few months, the Parler app had been the talk of the town, especially by people who are finding Twitter and Facebook to be a little overwhelming and sometimes even a tad bit toxic, but as soon as it drew more attention, the up and coming social media network was soon banned from Google, Apple, and even Amazon’s services.
That’s very suspicious behavior from BigTech, a bit like anti-trust actions. We already know BigTech shares data with each other in a strategic way, but now they are claiming rule of law on our future of communication.
What BigTech is doing to free speech is a bit like what Covid-19 variants are doing to the world. They are inventing new ways to gain even more dominance. Now there is a Brazilian variant of Covid-19. The question is what will BigTech invent next to become even more powerful, evade regulation and increase their rule of law on America?
At the Last Futurist, we have no political view of this and we are from Canada and do not have any vested interest in what happens to social media apps one way or another, but what is happening to free speech in the United States is disturbing and BigTech is at the root cause of it all. BigTech is hastening America becoming a one-party state. There’s a name for that, Oligarchy.