Well, This is what HN posters want. As evidence by the numerous downvotes I get about not wanting the government involvement in tech. Even after the dog and pony show with the CEO’s last week where one representative grilled Zuckerberg about Twitter’s treatment of Don Jr.
Fwiw I did not see your gov comments but I can be both for more gov oversight in tech and against one politician deciding unilaterally what apps are allowed.
If it is necessary to curtail what apps can collect, let's make it a law and apply it evenly to all companies.
The worst political development over the last decade is the very wide embracing of corporate censorship. It is now widely accepted that media platforms have an explicit duty to control public opinion.
In this context any large foreign media outlet becomes a threat.
Social media platforms are tools of information warfare and propaganda. This is what advertising is to begin with, and outside of that obvious function most of these platforms are further optimized to drive engagement by presenting misinformation.
The idea of politicians discriminating against the ones they don't like is repugnant, but these platforms already are already used to control public opinion in ways that are against the public interest, and it's certainly reasonable to suspect that a platform such as TikTok (which is controlled by a competing empire) might be used to that empire's advantage.
I keep hearing this mostly from the conservative side when Trump got elected mostly by bypassing traditional media and using Twitter and social media.
What do you propose? More government involvement to tell tech what they can do on their own platform? Isn’t it kind of hypocritical that the anti regulation party wants regulation when it suits them?
