If the Progressives who run Facebook, Twitter, Google and the rest get stripped of their power by a bipartisan movement to breakup these monopolies, can you imagine your future on a truly free internet? After the breakup of Ma Facebook, when hand-crafted algorithms no longer control what you see, what you don’t see, and which content creators can thrive or survive, how will that change politics in the United States?
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After the Facebook Breakup: Your Future on a Truly Free Internet
If the Progressives who run Facebook, Twitter, Google and the rest get stripped of their power by a bipartisan movement to breakup these monopolies, can you imagine your future on a truly free internet? After the breakup of Ma Facebook, when hand-crafted algorithms no longer control what you see, what you don’t see, and which content creators can thrive or survive, how will that change politics in the United States?
19 replies on “After the Facebook Breakup: Your Future on a Truly Free Internet”
Bill…are you sure you can’t choose a different electric power provider in CA? I worked in the electric power industry in IL for 17 years. The first 15 years of that Commonwealth Edison Company had a monopoly on the business in northern IL and parts of surrounding states. Then deregulation hit. We knew it was coming and we even kept a close watch on Southern California Edison because we wanted to see how deregulation would affect them. Edison International, the owners of Southern CA Edison, eventually bought out ComEd in IL and splinter companies started popping up all over the state. ComEd retained ownership of the distribution system, and although your electricity would still be coming from the same place, the name on the bill could change. Edison Int hired a union busting organization to break up the IBEW’s hold on the workers and a strike ensued. While the IBEW is still the union for what was once ComEd, it’s in name only. I left after 3 months on the picket line and pursued a different career. A month later the strike ended, Edison Int let the workers back in and began systematically laying off people left and right. The IBEW had filed a wrongful practices suit against EI and after 10 years was awarded damages but the manpower at the plants never recovered. The station I worked at had at one time 120 maintenance mechanics. They now have only two. Sadly, after President Reagan stepped in on the air traffic controllers strike, it took away the bargaining tool effect of strikes.
I do not understand why every video states “like us on FB and Youtube” instead of “bookmark our website (or youtube channel) and check it every day.” You know, like we still check Drudge (who writes his own headlines, BTW, digging out those buried ledes) or other websites for content. Bill is right that it was a huge mistake to go for the FB spoonfed model. I think that’s true for more reasons than the fact that FB turned out to be a dishonest gatekeeper.
To an audience like BW’s, taking charge of our own content individually, and more or less quitting social media sites, should be self-evident. I stopped using FB years ago (though I check it occasionally) more or less over privacy concerns, and social media addiction concerns (the studies about dopamine hits stopped me cold). This website, BW, is my social media site. That last point was a major factor in my deciding to subscribe. If I’m going to be part of an online group, it’s going to be this one, not one run by Big Tech. I can only afford one subscription (time-wise as well as dollar-wise), and this site is it.
There are other ways to reach an audience, even old-school tools besides the browser bookmark, like email lists. We got away from those some years ago because people complained about all the junk in their inboxes, but that ship has sailed. And an email list is the simplest way, outside of FB and Youtube, to spoon-feed those who want to be spoonfed instead of taking the initiative to use a web browser and a bookmark.
There are new-school methods too: Phone apps and Roku channels and Vimeo and other competing sites. There are lots of open-source building blocks available, not to mention freelance coders who can build such things for you. While I’m thrilled with the amount of content y’all are producing these days (usually I can’t keep up), I’d like to see a few of my subscriber dollars going to viable work-arounds to wean off of FB.
Facebook is not a common carrier and the comparison between it an AT&T, a common carrier, doesn’t hold water. I could go into a long dissertation on the breakup of AT&T inasmuch as I not only lived through it but also had some close connection to it. Sadly, I lack the motivation to do so and doubt if many would have the motivation to read it all. So, let me jump to the bottom line and say two things. I may then respond to objections on specific points. (1) The breakup of AT&T was instigated by a scam. (2) The breakup of AT&T did not result in lower phone bills or better service. On the contrary, the overall cost of phone service rose and service quality declined. Now, if you want to compare the Internet to AT&T and treat it as a common carrier, that’s a fair comparison. YouTube, Facebook and all the other social media aggregators are not. If you don’t like how they run their business, stop using them. There are other choices. I see all PragerU videos on the PragerU website. They send me an email with a link every time a new one is posted. I see every Bill Whittle video on the Bill Whittle website. You don’t even have to send me an email. I check every day. And I contribute directly to websites that provide products and services that I want. I only use those other social media because family and friends are too lazy to look around for the contest they want and carry on conversations in which I have a modicum of interest. I also know full well of the shenanigans they employ to hide content from me, content of which they disapprove. Sadly for them, I’m not as stupid as they think I am. Finally, I have my own website on which I post stories and other content that I produce. It doesn’t cost me much (a couple hundred dollars per year that comes from my own pocket). If someone wants to contribute, I would be surprised and somewhat leery of accepting their money (I’d expect them to want to exert some sort of control in the exchange)
My perception of the breakup of AT&T more or less agrees with yours, and I remember how difficult it was to use the new services; (calling cards, argh!). But it seems to me that over time, prices did come down, and I speculate that if AT&T had not been broken up, cellular service would have taken a lot longer to establish itself.
I’m also wary of antitrust and agree that people are “free” to choose not to use FB, for example. (See my comment above.) But I also understand that human nature is lazy, and most people aren’t willing to be proactive about the content they see. While it’s true at some level that they deserve what they get, it’s also true that Big Tech is taking gross advantage of them for political purposes.
I’m wary of antitrust, I’m wary of any governmentally-imposed solution, and I’m wary of the federal courts. But I think the voting-by-pocketbook solution that only barely works for BW and the site membership, won’t work on Big Tech aggregators. I sincerely hope that a technological solution will emerge, because we are reaching a tipping point. But I doubt that solution will emerge before the next presidential election. Fortunately, Trump is like antimatter when it comes to taking on Leftists, the media, and Big Tech.
I just had an idea. Maybe a White House petition for Trump to use his own money to come up with a non-governmental, technological end-run around Leftists/media/academia/Big Tech.
Not really. Once upon a time anyone could have a phone in their home, basic service, for a mere pittance. Long distance, mostly business calls paid the bills. With the advent of competition, no one really wanted to compete for local service. They all wanted the lion’s share of the long distance business. What were the poor to do when the paradigm changed? Well, government had to step in and underwrite (pay for) it. Of course, that meant that the price of basic phone service went through the roof for everyone including you and me. Now look at all those taxes tacked onto your phone bill, even today, your cell phone carries a lot of taxes.
I can remember when websites had link lists. Each website would have a page that listed other sources of information (or entertainment) that were recommended by the website you were on at the time. It made for a comfortable start of networking. You didn’t get a feed, of course, but if you were new to a particular topic and liked what you saw, it made it easier to broaden your own horizon. I’ve got four websites I keep up with consistently. Don’t have a feed for any of you, but you better bet I don’t miss anything you put out.
One question that came to my mind months ago when I first read about PragerU and others with high subscription numbers but low watch rates was: How many people subscribed in the past but do not check on a regular and frequent basis? How many people also follow too many channels/pages/sites and get inundated with 100 notifications as a time (if they check every couple days to once a week) and just cannot deal with that much content?
Youtube’s recent ejection of Steven Crowder and a host of other historical and teaching channels that happen to include documentation of past abuses just shows how ideological and incompetent their censor department is, but some of the numbers can be explained by “ascribe not to malice what can be explained by stupidity” though less stupid and on the part of the customer (well consumer of) Facebook/Youtube).
Another issue is the hosting companies do need to be paid one way or another. We can decry their sales of data to advertisers and quote the truism that “you’re not the customer, you’re the product” but the server farms full of cat videos need to pay for themselves somehow. I don’t think we can put the targeted ad genie back in the bottle and this I like Steve’s “pay me my cut” idea but maybe that can be combined with the “pick one: common carrier or publisher, not both” choice. Are you the largest newspaper in the city that everyone reads because you’re the largest, but risk the little weekly taking over because they work harder, smarter and get better news, or are you the natural monopoly that exist because there just is only room for one, and get considerations as long as you play fairly? I would think some might like to choose that common carrier status, because then they wouldn’t have to worry about kowtowing to various lefty rage mobs and just say “we’re sorry, we cannot remove him”… except I suspect the Jack Dorsey’s of the media world like imposing their doctrines on the Crowders and thus need to be forced into that choice.
For most of the Facebook users, a wordpress / blogspot account would be better than a freewheeling no-privacy Facebook account I think. Blogger just needs a standard ad frame, clearly marked, that appears on every free page and is enough to fund the hosting costs. Run over and you either are suspended a few days (the old slashdotting effect or Instalanche that took pages offline in the “old days”) or would ask you to pay a nominal fee for hosting and bandwidth. By now we could easily have apps that let us post pictures and video from phones and tablets to our blog platform of choice, be that MeWe, FB, Gab or bitchute.
and I think I should post this also as a blog entry. I think I ran a little long.
While it’s true that information overload undoubtedly plays a part in low viewership rates, it is also true that FB’s algorithms do prevent subscribers from seeing content on their feeds. The reason Praeger is suing is because the viewership rates went down not just dramatically, but by orders of magnitude, after FB implemented a new set of algorithms.
While I don’t doubt the causes I am also unwilling to believe that there is no one in the company with access to such algorithms that wouldn’t post “IF PragerU THEN drop subs” kind of code. On the other hand, especially with what we’ve seen of the AdVoxpocolypse they people they have running things are not the most capable and quite possibly could have written something that had the side effects we see but without the directly malicious intent.
I suppose the proper counter is finding conservative outlets who have not had a drop in viewership and determine if outside marketing cause is the reason. If ALL of BW’s viewership on Youtube came from notices here, and we were all subbed on Youtube but never logged in there, we wouldn’t see a difference. Does someone like Rush Limbaugh have a following on youtube that has changed or does his radio show and own web site drive enough to cover any drops in Youtube only watchers?
I find it interesting that this video came out the day I saw that FB & Google are changing their “rules on HATE SPEECH” to include a dramatically enlarged number of statements that will get you banned and ‘ejected.’ I am reminded of the Law Canada and California passed to supposedly protect the LGBTQ people from “hate” speech by REQUIRING you to use someone else’s preferred pronoun or be fined/jailed. Totalitarian rule always starts with control of speech and communication. Can threats of violence (the law) be far behind? This might be the outcome if/when we ask the Government to ‘regulate’ the Tech Companies….they end up regulating US!
I joined FB to help transport rescued animals (I’m retired). When I quit doing that gig, I got off that asap. I found the people there to be delusional and nasty. Some called you friend, but I believe the term would be faceless acquaintances
Yesterday I saw where Facebook’s lawyer in the Cambridge Analytica case tried to get the case dismissed because there’s no expectation of privacy on Facebook. Apparently it’s a public town hall when convenient to them. Who is it that owns the town hall? Which company keeps claiming it’s a “community” with “community” standards? Okay, let’s take them at their word. Give them 90 days to dissolve their current tyrannical governing structure and install a democratic one. If they refuse to comply, send in the army to depose the petty dictator.
Have you ever tried editing at Wikipedia? It has democratic structures, but those structures are fully corrupted by literal petty bureaucrats who get high on their own power.
Not really, I’ll take your word for it though, it sounds likely. I’m not seeing any downside. The truth is they know full well that Facebook is not a community or a town hall but if they want to play these kind of games, then let’s play.
I did try editing on Wikipedia once. I tried to add my thoughts on what “MOS” means in film making. Within a few days, someone took all I had to say off and repeated what they thought it meant with more anger. So I found out that someone else can just take what you say off, so I quit trying.
Ten years ago, it was impossible for a mere mortal user to create his own 1080p video. Videos were limited to very low resolution button hole sized clips of short duration. Yet, today, such a thing is almost trivial.
Ten years ago, I had to have a significant PC (>$2000) with a high performance video card merely to view a DVD video. Today, I have a 4″x4″x2″ inch self contained computer capable of generating and editing a 1080p video with content and duration of my choosing. It cost me ~$600 in today’s dollars.
How long will it be for us to have a very high speed broadband network so that mere mortals can host video steaming from their own computer? The cost of which will be less than the PC I used 10 years ago merely to view DVD videos. I suspect it can be done now but almost certainly in a very few years.
Thus competition will not only be possible, it will likely be easy and within the economic reach of anyone who cares enough to make it happen. I predict the life time of the so called social monopolies is soon to come to an end. That is unless government makes their continued existence and monopolies mandatory by the use of brute force upon the market place by prohibiting competition.
Perhaps another option is to enforce current laws that state if you are open to the public… you may not discriminate on the basis of race sex or creed (creed being a belief and political beliefs are under the umbrella of creed).
I do not think “antitrust” is the way to go, but there are current laws that can be applied.
A federal judge stopped Trump from blocking a so-called journalist (Because “free speech”) Then twitter cannot ban anyone because they are being denied access to hear what their congressmen and women have to say.
All of social media is riding the fence between platform and publisher.
MAKE them declare what they are at the outset and MAKE them follow the appropriate laws.
The long term answer is don’t join and work to compete with them. If they don’t have members, they don’t exist and can’t compete with those who have members. It is the consequence of stopping feeding them and your working to feed yourself.
You have the right to compete. You don’t have the right to succeed. You must earn your success by providing what your customers want at a price they are willing to pay. Difficult? Yes! Impossible? No!
Do the work and earn your position without demanding that government is to protect you while you earn your position by handing you wealth stolen from those who created it and power you did not and cannot earn.
(Mark Zuckerberg, doing his beet Eric Stratton impersonation):
“Come on Billy, you can’t spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You f***ed up – you trusted us!”