

Silicon Valley's insufferable self-righteousness - RockyMcNuts
http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2012/03/12/silicon-valleys-undeserved-moral-exceptionalism/

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funkah
There's a case to be made here, perhaps, but Mr. Cox sure isn't making it. I
recommend against paying him any more attention than he's already getting.

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fatjokes
can you elaborate on why you think he's failing?

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chc
I think the most egregious example is his recap of the SOPA blackout. He
accuses Google of "looking the other way" on copyright violations (a _AA
talking point that they have never substantiated), points out in a nudge-nudge
sort of way that "it was remarkable how quickly legislators caved" after the
blackout, and then notes that "tellingly" Google didn't participate in the
blackout but the nonprofit Wikipedia did. There is no coherent argument there,
just a bunch of _AA talking points clumsily thrown around. Like, Google's
really into profiting off copyright violations, so Wikipedia blacked out its
site? Huh? It's just plain sloppy.

Even worse is what he left out: Nowhere does he acknowledge the real issues
anyone had with SOPA, even in passing. If all you had to go on was this
article, you'd think it was the most benign thing ever and the only people who
opposed it were those who can't stand the idea of copyright in general. And to
support the _AA narrative of "Silicon Valley abused its power," he skips
straight from the blackout to SOPA being withdrawn, completely ignoring that
it was ultimately the public backlash fanned by the blackout that did SOPA in.

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rprasad
Silicon Valley's tech barons are not even remotely close to the robber barons
of the Industrial Era.

