CEOs Testify Before The House

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify before the House Antitrust Subcommittee.

I didn't want to make a new thread for this as I know it will just devolve into the same ***with a new title. I don't want this to be in P&R instead of "culture and media" It is more about culture as a whole than politics.

It's very interesting to see congress, both sides, united (for different reasons). Both sides are very outspoken about how monopolistic these four companies are. and that directly influences literally every aspect of the entirety of the internet (and business in general). Even so far as to consider googles cornering of ads in the buying of and selling of, insider trading.

And the consistent lack of answers and accountability is staggering. albeit not unexpected. I don't think there has been even one honest answer the entire time. Standard not recalling, disagreeing on merit and "refusing" to answer based on wording. "following up" another big theme of "not answering". The full gambit from deflecting to flat out lying.

The question in regard to "not using slave labor or selling products created by slave labor" I almost lost an eyeball I eyerolled so hard. Same vein as counterfeits etc.

I think that while everything discussed in the 7 hours of testimony is all things that you as a consumer SHOULD already know, it's a good learning opportunity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpPHLh7cI0g

tl;dw is that Apple FaceBook Google and Amazon are using their presence/standing to effectively destroy "the American dream" (insofar as to carve your own section if you chose to do so).
In so many words, it is impossible to compete against them, and if you managed to even become a blip on the radar you would be crushed (undercut), blacklisted/shadowbanned etc from listings, threatened with "clones" or bought outright. And that their access to mountains of your data and competitor data make them unstoppable.

I dislike how all of them actively participate in censoring like we're in China or something. Let people think for themselves on COVID or anything, stop censoring them.

yes, these testimonials before Congress on these issues are quite important...

1. They were needed 8 years ago

2. It is quite ironic that the people who repeatedly have renewed the Homeland Security Act are looking into these companies for (among other things) data collection and antitrust actions.

Sorry, man, but there is zero chance this doesn't go full bore politics. I've moved it to P+R.

mah bad.

You have to draw a line somewhere.

"letting someone decide" what they want to believe is just a bad idea. it is too easy to weaponize lies.

It's tantamount to letting someone get on tv and exclaim that fire is not hot and will not burn you. We.... all know that to be untrue. We all should agree that it would be harmful to let someone make that statement. We don't let someone hear all sides of that story and make the decision for themselves right?

There must be some level of censorship. it is inevitable. Humans can't be entrusted to make 'educated' decisions, as long as someone is allowed to straight up lie. And even only going that far isn't nearly far enough. As long as there is profit to be made from lies and no real consequences for it, no progress can ever be made.

I don't believe any "information source" should be allowed to have an opinion. Report the facts and save the "shock value" and "entertainment" for non "news" There needs to be a distinction.

Just as an example; facebook/twitter are not "credible news outlets" they should remove anything that resembles "news" that is not the place for it. and by extension, "news" should be ONLY "news"

"crazy *** roleplaying doctor" don't deserve a platform.

It wasn't you specifically, just a "no, I've heard this song before, I know how it ends".

Sad. For no other reason than lack of edit button at the least.

Actually... it's kind of in the theme of the problem. Your google overlords will smite you for letting "heated debate" come out. And there are no alternatives.

quite agree. There's this fine line between monetizing the media so they can survive, thus inserting possible bias thru keeping that money flow going so they can function...or completely removing money from media, and the only way to truly do that is with government media- which always seems to start out with the high goals of "opinionless news", and ends up with a complete destruction of a media instustry.

Where's the happy medium? Where's enough money so that media can function independently of government intervention, but not too much to bias the news? Well, we had a "better" situation when you PAID directly for your news thru buying a newspaper. Did that fully fund them? Certainly not. But it allowed the advertiser funding to be a small enough percentage that there still was integrity in the news.

But with "free" news now expected, that balance has shifted, which makes us question our news. Its a scary time. Or- maybe its just a hard time- a hard time to find the proper direction for the next 50 years.

Hearings with the tech CEOs have happened before. In the past, I was always struck by how little the members of Congress prepared. This time was different. Most of the committee members who spoke did research and had points. They could follow arguments down through sub points even. The bar for politicians is so low these days, I guess it's sad that I'm impressed that they seemed to be doing their jobs in this instance.

In terms of the censorship debate in regard to the law, the harm of the speech being censored needs to be weighed against whether the resulting harm is dangerous and imminent. There are some times where letting people represent their opinions as fact isn't too harmful in the short term, but, in situations like Covid, trying to give equal weight to positions contrary to science would likely qualify as the type of dangerous and imminent harm that can allow free speech to be curbed. The law aside, a culture where conspiracy is elevated to be equivalent to fact among lawmakers is extremely dangerous, especially in the long term. Freedom of speech echoes capitalist ideology in some regards - one point in particular is the notion that the market place of ideas will be a battleground and the winners will be best ideas. It's laudable in theory. However, much of the time, the loudest voice wins, not the best ideas. The problem is particularly enhanced with the megaphone that is social media. Also, the premise that the best ideas win out in a battle of free discourse functions better where the society as a whole embraces the pursuit of knowledge and truth.

This investigation has been going on for a year now, and the Democrats were incredibly prepared to pepper Zuck and Bezos with antitrust allegations that essentially read like indictments, and they had no answer. It was disappointing, but not shocking at all, that with the exception of Kelly Armstrong, the Republicans focused solely on their years long conspiracy that conservatives were being targeted by social media. And of course that went nowhere.

But Amazon and Facebook are likely staring down antitrust litigation in the very near future.

Just to be reminded of the dirty ***they've been doing over the last 10ish years is mind blowing.

The whole process of just undercutting diapers.com to the tune of two hundred million dollars loss. Just to undervalue diapers.com. Force them to sell to amazon. Then amazon to reraise the price of their diapers now that the competitor was eliminated.

Yeah... that's the premise, word for word how capitalism works, but it doesn't make it not "shady as ***".

Amazon "let's you" sell on their platform for a cut (like a damned mob boss) then when you make too much money, they delist you, steal your product/idea, undercut you at a loss, and you have no choice but to sell to them.

And the whole premise of "well that's good for the consumer, they can go to one place and get everything they need in one spot" doesn't fly. It's price fixing, at the barest minimum level.

Then none of it even begins to cover the fact that "fulfillment" centers are literally taking over the country. Strangling out all other businesses, not just other fulfillment or online stores. Everyone wants to go work for amazon because it pays better than target, walmart, meijer, "mom and pops" regardless how shitty the job actually is. (one hundred and four fulfillment centers open and planned in the US)

Internet ate my post.

All free speech is "imminently dangerous" to the government, there isn't a single thing someone here can say that I can't create a seemingly legitimate reason for controlling. Thankfully the Supreme Court has already clarified and ruled on the matter and the bar is stupendously high. Publishing bad information is not "imminently dangerous", not even close. Telling people to eat Tide Pods, while stupid, does not meet the legal bar of Imminently Dangerous". That's been defined as one person directly instructing another person to break the law.


Holy *** hell balls....

Freedom of speech has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism, like not related, connected or in the same chapter or even book. Freedom of speech is the natural right for every person to speak what they believe, worship however they wish to, tell others what they feel to be true, and publicly air their grievances to the government, all without fear of government retribution.

This is a fundamental concept baked into the foundation of the USA, as in it's in the declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights which later become part of the US Constitution. The guys who created the USA debated and discussed this idea of days / weeks before finalizing one of the most important documents in the USA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights_and_legal_rights

https://www.crf-usa.org/foundations-of-our-constitution/natural-rights.html

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/822/natural-rights

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript


Natural rights are from the Creator / Nature (insert favorite higher power here) and therefor above and beyond the Government. The Constitution didn't grant people rights, those rights already existed from Nature, instead the Constitution forbade the Government from interfering in the expression of those rights.

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript

Proposal



They thought the third article was so important that it should be moved ot the first, followed by the second.

Actual Bill of Rights



Each comma is a separate expression of this fundamental right.

Now for this particular situation, these companies are private and therefor not subject to the First Amendment. Discussing "Free Speech" and Facebook / Google / Youtube is just silly. A privately held company can make whatever rules it wants to about what you can and can't say in the office and on it's platform.

That being said, it needs to be consistent or it runs afoul of other regulations, especially those that govern platforms and publishers. A News Paper can publish practically whatever it wants, even Britney Spears having the illegitimate baby of Elvis. As it's a publisher is has sole discretion over it's content along with a responsibility to ensure it's content doesn't run afoul of defamation laws. Defamation laws exist and were recognized by the founders are a requirement to protect a person's public image. A person's publish image is considered their property and a person/ entity deliberately spreading misinformation with malicious intent is subject to a civil lawsuit. That is how defamation laws avoid First Amendment issues, they are civil not criminal in nature and are treated like property damage.

Now normally a News Paper would be very careful not to publish anything that would be defamatory by using specific words and phrases like "could be, "might have", "possibly involved". It's 100% correct and non-defamatory for me to say that Rooks "could possibly be involved with space aliens". I didn't say he was, only that he "could possibly be".

Now lets get to Facebook / Youtube and friends, are they publishers? Back in the 90's a court ruled that since they publish content and have the capacity to moderate that content, they therefor had a duty to ensure it wasn't defamatory. Meaning every post on a web forum would have to be moderated / censored to ensure it's non-defamatory. That's insane and impossible to do and thus Congress made a special exception for online services that provided a special kind of service.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230






That is why this is an anti-trust hearing, are these companies abusing their position to control the information flow of the US public? They were given that special protection to promote the public good, it's not in the public good's best interest for a handful of companies to control virtually all the information for the countries population. It's even worse if they are actively manipulating that information flow to advantage themselves or anyone they support.

I agree with this, I truly do, if these were sane times. But as I've said many times, who is making the definitions?

Like, I honestly cannot fathom how people with eyesight can see a crowd on TV burning and destroying public and private property and then call them victims when they get arrested. I cannot see how that's not just a no-brainer; you act this way, you get arrested. Just one example, there are others from the other side as well. So who is deciding what gets censored and what is allowed is the actual current problem, because there are few things we all agree on in this arena these days.

I have a buddy how is a dentist (and does triatholons for fun...one of those guys). He's never been a "hippy" or political, at all. He actually rarely has an opinion on much of anything.

So it shocked me last year, he did some work on my teeth (yanked one) and we decided to go burn some brush at his parent's property, drink a few beers, etc. I said I had to go to Walmart to grab a new HDMI cable, and he wouldn't go in with me. Said he had never been in the Walmart in our city and honestly, our town only has a population of about 40,000 and really, Walmart is really the only place to get certain things. But he said he doesn't like how Walmart comes into towns like ours, undercuts everything til all the small businesses shut down, then hike the prices back up. And I did see his point, but, since there is no other place to get such things in our town...and I didn't want to wait 4 days for an HDMI cable...is what it is.

Again this isn't about free speech, though the forefathers already spoke about that and the Supreme Court validated it again and again. It doesn't matter if someone stood in the middle of town and screamed that stabbing yourself was healthy. It's absolutely protected speech. As long as it's not a person directing another person to break the law, it's protected. Not inferring, not generalizing, not guiding or suggesting, no they must directly be saying to break the law.

This is to prevent "disagreeing with the government might hurt people therefor it's illegal to disagree with the government."

As for these companies,they can do whatever they want with their private property. They will suffer the consequences of antitrust / anticompetitive laws. They will also get into very hot water for directing information to influence elections.

"who gets to decide" is a big contention point, probably brought up at least 10 times, who gets to be the arbiter and why.

As far as the "walmart(amazon) takeover etc" What can you realistically do. nothing. it's another by the balls deal.

It's *** no matter how you slice it. that should be illegal too, coming into a small town and destroying everything else. Logistically being the only "store" within like... 20 miles? is no different than a monopoly. And we all know exactly what will happen when a company like that builds a new building, it's not like it's organic small business failure.

I'm kind of all over the place on this topic. While I fully recognize the inherent dangers of businesses such as these having too much power, they're still optional services (for the most part) and people use them mainly because they like them. Meanwhile, utility companies around the country get sweet, sweet monopolies that are highly prone to corruption because of their inherent connection to the politicians that regulate them. It's much easier to protest against Amazon and Facebook's practices by simply not using them than it is to protest against your one and only power company, especially in places where the ruling political party has little competition.

On another note, one particular logical leap that I cannot seem to understand is how certain individuals recognize the dangers of hyper-powerful corporations running everything but think that having a hyper-powerful central government running everything would be so much better.

In theory if the gov controlled "all the electrical output" there would be no profit to gain, no competition to crush, no reason NOT to innovate and improve efficiency.

As well as, allowing citizens to freely make use of solar/geothermal/wind/hydroelectric power sources... instead of having "big coal" and "big oil" lobby for "zoning restrictions" on those things and complaining about lost profits.

This is a dramatically more optimal scenario..... provided, greed can't (inevitably) find it's way in. There's nothing stopping us from right now having a "solar city"... except that all the corps have all our 'representatives' in their pockets.

"competition" is not "good or healthy" in our society. It doesn't innovate. It doesn't drive success. It largely only motivates people to *** each over for money.
Why bother making something new when you can just steal it and undercut it. And then why bother making something new when it will just be stolen/counterfeited/reverse engineered and undercut.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how competition works and its relationship to innovation, because practically nothing that you just said makes any sense.

it all makes perfect sense, that's the problem. Our system makes everything *** backwards.

Everyone is paying everyone else to keep everything the same. because it works for them.

I mean Christ, we should've stopped using coal 30 years ago. But we can't because there's too much money in it.

Should've been long done with gasoline too. So many better alternatives. Again, too much money in it.

Change is bad for profit in the short term. That's all anyone with any influence cares about. Money. Now. "*** them kids" mentality.

You're conflating multiple issues. Competition isn't what is killing innovation, even in your chosen example. The government choosing winners and losers is a competition killer, and there is little need to innovate so long as you're being propped up by government money.

Yep and that's what needs to be avoided at all costs, it destroys any desire to be more efficient. Why spend money and resources to conduct product R&D when I can just throw some kickbacks to my government sponsors to ensure I stay the only choice.

Under the best scenario the Government is mediocre, usually it's terrible at everything it does. The less we have under Government control the better.