You are right and that is what I fear most.
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Data as an instrument of war
- Thread starter Hair Warrior
- Start date
No one should be surprised that a business prioritizes profit regardless of whatever optic they choose to present to the world as marketing.
It is woke when they deliberately censor (or set up algorithms that more frequently censor) certain ideas that the company staff and management don’t agree with.
Really? I thought woke implied a level of liberalism/activism in their editorial choices otherwise all business would be "woke" in choosing to make a profit.
re, data as an instrument of war...Via the Equifax and OPM data breaches alone, China was successful in compiling the most comprehensive HUMINT targeting database the world has ever seen. All they have to do is then cross reference that with all VISA applications, passport entry scans, airline manifests. It's pretty amazing.
I was an incident responder in the private sector with thousands of hours of billable work. I left. It was depressing. The impacted companies could have given two f*cks about what was happening so long as there were no fines or bad publicity. They really did not get the strategic impact of what was happening. Americans are too stupid and ignorant to care. They want cheap gas, next day Amazon China goods, and another season of the Batchelor.
If we had GDPR style laws here things would have a chance of changing. But no, we are here arguing over nonsense (vaccines, etc.) and they are literally breach loading us on the cyber front. Same with Russia. They successfully waged, and continue to wage, major disinformation campaigns on U.S.-company owned social media networks, knowing that Americans lick it up like pigs at the trough.
We have no one to blame but ourselves.
I was an incident responder in the private sector with thousands of hours of billable work. I left. It was depressing. The impacted companies could have given two f*cks about what was happening so long as there were no fines or bad publicity. They really did not get the strategic impact of what was happening. Americans are too stupid and ignorant to care. They want cheap gas, next day Amazon China goods, and another season of the Batchelor.
If we had GDPR style laws here things would have a chance of changing. But no, we are here arguing over nonsense (vaccines, etc.) and they are literally breach loading us on the cyber front. Same with Russia. They successfully waged, and continue to wage, major disinformation campaigns on U.S.-company owned social media networks, knowing that Americans lick it up like pigs at the trough.
We have no one to blame but ourselves.
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Convince me why it can’t it be both.
Twitter can ban US politicians and personalities due to ideology, and then also do the bidding of China/ Russia by also banning their dissidents or curtailing speech at the regime’s request, in a business move to maintain Twitter’s access there.
In the non-tech sector, the NBA and Nike can push certain US policy agendas domestically, then cater to Chine (e.g. by not recognizing Taiwan, or ignoring Hong Kong protests) to preserve their Chinese business relationships and revenue.
Your writing isn't effective if you don't use the widely accepted meaning of words.
I think what you meant to say is something like "big tech prioritizes profits over American government policy." In which case I'll go back to "what else do you expect of private businesses?" Businesses turning a profit over everything else is the deal with the devil we've made as a capitalist society and one that we, as shareholders via our 401s, TSPs, etc, all hope pays off.
Well, no, I don’t quite mean that. It’s nuanced.
There’s zero profit in banning a former POTUS who - like him or not - brings an incredible volume of clicks to your platform, and was a freely elected head of the freest nation in the history of the world. This behavior by the tech company would indicate they are willing to sacrifice profits/ user clicks to make a domestic American political statement. (Full disclosure: I didn’t vote for him, but I sure as shit support his right to have a dang Twitter account.)
The tech giants don’t do this abroad, though. In fact, they do the opposite. They support global strongmen regimes by catering to the regime’s desire to stay in power and subvert speech against that regime. Tech giants claim altruism on this by saying they “cooperate with local laws and authorities” but we all know that China, Russia, and other countries like Thailand and certain Gulf states have crafted draconian censorship and lawful intercept rules designed to root out and punish those who support freedom. The US has lawful intercept and censorship policies, too, which the tech giants hide behind - but this censorship is like censoring child porn, not censoring genuine free speech ideas; and our lawful intercept system is backed by a free and mostly impartial court system that despite its faults is freer and fairer than anything in Russia, China, DPRK, Iran, or other authoritarian states.
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You can add Tik Tok to that list.
Of course.. It's safe to assume they linked the Equifax and OPM hauls with social media.
Tencent. Huawei. ZTE. Lenovo. Any data China or its proxies touch becomes the regime’s.
FIFY
I mean, seriously... Twitter bent over backward throughout Trump's candidacy and administration, excusing the most vile and flagrant TOS violations because he was the President. You whining about it being ideological is a Chef's Kiss of partisan bad takes.
Funny you mention TOS. The TOS are the problem. First of all, TOS are not law, regulation, or policy. They are made up fairy dust. Any company can write whatever TOS they want, right? Well, not so fast, as the Supreme Court has ruled. Businesses cannot play favorites with their TOS. You can’t open a bakery to the public then refuse to bake a gay wedding cake. That is illegal, in fact, and for good reason. And yet, the woke tech giants are doing exactly that in the digital domain, picking and choosing who wins and loses on their platforms, stating that their TOS are self-determined and absolute, and they can adjudicate TOS violations in private without transparency. Everyone knows it’s a bullshit argument. Twitter is not a publishing house that can select which books it publishes. It’s a bakery that should be required to bake customers’ gay, straight, and any other wedding cakes alike, regardless of the Twitter staff’s personal views.
- No one has a "right" to a Twitter account. Individuals enter into a business agreement with Twitter that is bound by the TOS. Individuals who break the TOS are asked to leave much like the guy who starts fights at the bar. I'd also add that there was a large popular sentiment to ban Trump due to his actions so I'm guessing plenty of risk based calculus went into what the right action was.
- The actions you describe seem to fall within the normal bounds of a business looking to maximize profit in various international sectors. Doing things that will get their service blocked by national firewalls is not within their interest. Twitter is not the Voice of America.
Again, an incredibly bad take. Sure, Twitter writes its own TOS, but your gay wedding cake analogy falls flat. Trump was kicked off Twitter for, among other things, inciting violence. That was the straw that broke the camel's back.
From the Twitter TOS:
Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence.
Abuse/harassment: You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. This includes wishing or hoping that someone experiences physical harm.
I'm assuming you don't have a problem with either of these requirements from Twitter's TOS. I don't see anything in there about partisan or ideological speech... or gay wedding cakes.
Pro Tip: Every time you use phrases like "woke tech giants," you relinquish any semblance of credibility in discussing topics like this, but you do you.