In 1912 Woodrow Wilson was an unlikely Democratic candidate for the presidency, a sometime law professor and president of Princeton who had only served in public office for two years, as governor of New Jersey. But then it would be an unusual election, with a three-way fight. When the incumbent, William Howard Taft, defeated Theodore Roosevelt, his predecessor in the White House, for the Republican nomination, Roosevelt ran as a “Progressive”, splitting the Republican vote and allowing Wilson to win the presidency with little more than two-fifths of the popular vote.
American Paranoia: How the First World War triggered a wave of xenophobia and a Red Scare
Tag: antitrust
GOP Stops Pretending It Ever Actually Cared About ‘Antitrust Reform’
GOP Stops Pretending It Ever Actually Cared About ‘Antitrust Reform’
To be clear, despite the press narrative to the contrary, I don’t think either party is particularly serious about antitrust reform. Congress is simply too grotesquely corrupt, and the combined cross-industry lobbying opposition to meaningful reform too great, to currently be overcome without some sort of major policy and cultural trajectory shift and a massive upheaval in Congress.
Related:
Big Tech Antitrust Push in Congress Is Blunted by GOP-Led House
The appointment of Massie, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained inventor who has filed dozens of patents, signals that the Judiciary Committee under Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio will shift its focus away from legislation aimed at curbing the power of the largest tech companies. Jordan has been more focused on free-speech issues, including big tech’s perceived liberal bias.
“We’re all united in wanting to stop the censorship of conservatives and the suppression of free speech,” Jordan said in an interview. “That’s going to be a focus of the full committee work.”
Funny, that’s not what Massie told Breitbert. 🤷🏼♀️
Josh Hawley Wants In On The TikTok Moral Panic Attention, Proposes Nationwide Ban
Insurrectionist sprinter Josh Hawley has joined the growing chorus of GOP politicians who’ve spent years doing jack shit about U.S. consumer privacy abuses, and now want to pretend that banning a single app — TikTok — will protect American consumers from a problem they themselves created.
Josh Hawley Wants In On The TikTok Moral Panic Attention, Proposes Nationwide Ban
Justice Department sues Google to break up its advertising empire
Congress’ Best Idea to Save Local Journalism Would Actually Hurt It + Some Temporary Good News
Congress’ Best Idea to Save Local Journalism Would Actually Hurt It
Meta reported $114.93 million in ad revenue in 2021, whereas Google reported $209 billion. But determining how much of that publishers should get is difficult—and the JCPA doesn’t even try. One version of the JCPA proposed platforms and publishers negotiate an agreed-to payment, and if they couldn’t come to a consensus, they’d enter forced-arbitration with no formula for what is fair. But whether the money would end up being vast or a modest bump to the bottom line, not every publication stands to benefit if the JCPA becomes law. While the JCPA’s alliances allow for partnerships, exclusionary elements of the JCPA would encourage big brands to unite selectively at the expense of smaller ones and shut out niche independent journalistic outlets altogether.
Related:
JCPA Update: The Dangerous Link Tax That Still Won’t Save Local Journalism
The original text of the JCPA already authorized print media companies to form one or several cartels and collectively bargain with the largest online platforms—defined in terms that single out Facebook and Google. Although the bill hinted at these news cartels being able to demand payment for merely linking to their content, or hosting snippets like the results you get from Google News, the mechanism by which they would be paid was left vague. However, the fact that the bill allowed news companies to withhold content strongly suggested a claim to some sort of property right, or ancillary copyright, that the targeted platforms would owe for hosting links and snippets.
Some Temporary Good News: None Of The Really Bad Internet Bills Seem To Have Made It Into The NDAA
This would also hurt independent media and bloggers (you would have to pay a ‘link tax’ to corporate media for linking to their articles—see below image)! So far, it hasn’t passed (it was attached to the NDAA) but there’s still the omnibus spending bill and the next session of Congress!
U.S. Accelerates Three-Tier Plan To Reduce Oil Prices
U.S. President Biden has three key strategies in place to lower oil prices.
– The first and foremost strategy is the implementation of the NOPEC bill.
– The second pillar of the plan is to release more crude from the U.S. SPR.
– The third element of the plan to bring oil prices down is to be a concerted effort to encourage U.S. oil firms, shale or otherwise, to increase their production.
U.S. Accelerates Three-Tier Plan To Reduce Oil Prices
Peace Train: Silencing contrarian voices
In the U.S., we proudly point to the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights that was adopted in 1791.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Peace Train: Silencing contrarian voices
Related:
Techbro Influencer Scott Galloway Heads To The Fainting Couch Over TikTok
Techbro Influencer Scott Galloway Heads To The Fainting Couch Over TikTok
This week, Galloway spent his time pushing the hot DC claim du jour: that TikTok is a profound menace to the planet and should be banned. He made the point at the Vox Code conference, then hopped over to Bill Maher’s HBO show to make a similar pronouncement:
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Actual evidence of TikTok being uniquely dangerous (especially any indication China has used or could use TikTok to bedazzle U.S. children) has been sorely lacking, but that doesn’t stop folks from heading to the fainting couches. This face fanning has been especially popular among a certain set of xenophobic DC politicians, and companies that don’t want to have to directly compete with China.
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The problem: the U.S. is a corrupt, xenophobic, superficial dumpster fire, so most of the “solutions” to this potential problem have been stupid and performative.
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Here’s the thing: you could ban TikTok immediately, and China could hoover up location, browsing, and behavior data from an ocean of completely unaccountable and hugely shady data brokers and middlemen. And they can do that because U.S. privacy and security standards are hot garbage. And in some instances, they’re hot garbage because of the same people now complaining about TikTok.
Both Carr and Cruz have extensive histories of undermining regulatory oversight and privacy rules at absolutely every opportunity, yet both are lauded by Galloway in a blog post for being heroic leaders in the “ban TikTok” crusades. Galloway’s a top pundit, yet somehow can’t see that Carr and Cruz are engaged in a zero-calorie xenophobic theatrics, and couldn’t care less about actual consumer privacy.
For literally thirty straight years, at absolutely every single turn, we prioritized making money over transparency or consumer privacy. As a result, consumer privacy protections are garbage, regulators are toothless, governments exploit the attention economy to avoid having to get warrants, and any idiot with a nickel can easily build gigantic, hugely detailed profiles about your everyday life without your consent.
“Banning TikTok” does nothing meaningful if you’re genuinely interested in meaningful surveillance and privacy reform. There will always be another TikTok. There’s an ocean of companies engaging in the same or worse behavior as TikTok because we’ve sanctioned this kind of guardrail-optional hyper-collection and monetization of consumer behavioral data at every step of the way.
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Many of the folks beating the “ban TikTok” drum may be well intentioned but just don’t really understand how broken the consumer privacy landscape is. They may not understand that this is a problem that’s exponentially more complicated than just what we do with a single app. Freaking out exclusively about a single app tells me you either don’t really understand the data-hoovering monster we’ve built, or don’t really care if anybody other than China exploits it (waves tiny American flag patriotically).
Many of the other folks calling for a TikTok ban aren’t operating in good faith. Facebook/Meta, for example, spends a lot of time spreading scary stories about TikTok in the press and DC because they want to crush a competitive threat they’ve been incapable of out-innovating. Similar, Politico’s owner is on the Netflix board and simply wants to curtail what he sees as a threat to market and advertising mindshare.
Then there’s just a ton of Silicon Valley folks who believe they inherently own and deserve the advertising market share TikTok occupies. And then of course there’s just a whole bunch of rank bigots who are mad because darker skinned human beings built a popular app, and try to hide this bigotry behind patriotic, pseudo national security concerns.
All of this converges to create a stupid, soupy mess that’s devoid of any actual fixes to any actual problems. Hyper surveillance and propaganda are very real problems that require a dizzying array of complicated fixes, including media and privacy policy reform, antitrust reform, tougher consumer protection standards, education reform, and a meaningful privacy law for the internet era.
Previously:
The NATO to TikTok Pipeline: Why is TikTok Employing So Many National Security Agents?
The White House is briefing TikTok stars about the war in Ukraine
How Government Officials Bully Social Media Companies Into Censorship
A new Cato report sheds light on “jawboning,” or attempts by state actors “to sway the decisions of private platforms and limit the publication of disfavored speech.”
How Government Officials Bully Social Media Companies Into Censorship
White House Releases Performatively Ridiculous ‘Principles’ For ‘Tech Platform Accountability’ That Include Removing Section 230
from the last-minute-homework dept
Fri, Sep 9th 2022 09:50am – Mike Masnick
During the 2020 campaign, there were a few times when candidate Joe Biden insisted he wanted to get rid of Section 230 entirely, though he made it clear he had no idea what Section 230 actually did. When I wrote articles highlighting all of this, I had some Biden supporters (even folks who worked on his campaign) reach out to me to say not to worry about it, that Biden wasn’t fully briefed on 230, and that if he became President, more knowledgeable people would be tasked to work on stuff, and the 230 stuff wouldn’t be an issue. I didn’t believe it at the time, and it turns out I was correct.
White House Releases Performatively Ridiculous ‘Principles’ For ‘Tech Platform Accountability’ That Include Removing Section 230
Doesn’t matter who’s in charge, they both want to cancel each other and censor whatever they determine is disinformation, whether it’s domestic or foreign policy!
Related:
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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