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Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2021-05-25 13:02
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2021-05-17 15:08
CLELAND: The Achilles Heel Of Big Tech’s Cancel Power | The Daily Caller
DAILY CALLER OPINION SCOTT CLELAND |CONTRIBUTOR|May 17, 20211:04 PM ET
CLELAND: The Achilles Heel of Big Tech’s Cancel Power
Big Tech’s unchecked.
If the four CEOs of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon collectively could cancel online a sitting Republican U.S. president and his political allies with impunity in January, what checks them from collectively cancelling tens of millions of Republicans again?
What checks Big Tech from using their Section 230 impunity in the 2022 midterm elections and collectively canceling many Republican Senate and House candidates, their political allies and online followers that express broadly held Republican views that Big Tech deems objectionable?
It is in the raw political interests of the government’s incumbent party and unchecked Big Tech to collectively cancel the opposition party online to retain control of their levers of power long term.
Do any checks stand in the way of “The Collective Cancel” political precedent becoming practice?
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2021-04-23 12:17
https://dailycaller.com/2021/04/23/cleland-why-repeal-not-reform-section-230/
DAILY CALLER
CLELAND: Why Repeal Not Reform Section 230?
SCOTT CLELAND -- CONTRIBUTOR -- April 23, 2021 10:20 AM ET
Repeal of Section 230’s 1996 lawless Wild West Internet policy is inevitable because it is based on an immoral premise and has inflicted severe damage to America’s constitutional liberties, national security and economic prosperity.
Repeal vs. Reform
Repeal of Section 230 would serve America and Americans much better than reforms that perpetuate lawless U.S. Internet policy and guarantee Big Tech remains unaccountable and Americans remain unprotected online.
Repeal would affect a major national policy change, while reform incrementalism would preserve the online status quo.
Repeal would be a comprehensive and constitutional solution, while content moderation reforms are piecemeal solutions that carry constitutional risks.
Repeal would empower 2022 and 2024 voters with a national policy conversation that asks candidates if and how they are going to ensure Big Tech is accountable and Americans are protected online?
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2021-04-19 12:02
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2018-08-03 12:01
What business trade-offs must Alphabet-Google make to continue to grow revenues at its 25% annual rate -- i.e. +$27b in new revenues in 2018, +$35b more in 2019, and +$45b more in 2020 -- to become another company worth a trillion dollars?
Alphabet-Google has decided apparently, whatever it takes.
Maybe no single Google action tells us more about where Alphabet-Google stands in its twentieth year as a company and what it believes it must do to succeed as it wants in the next twenty years, than “Google Plans to Launch a Censored Search Engine in China” – the main driver of Google’s apparent new China-first growth strategy revealed in The Intercept’s scoop this week.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2018-03-22 08:41
U.S. Internet policy politics has shifted.
Congress has learned that any new legal accountability for, or regulation of, Internet platforms likely won’t survive court challenge, unless the new legislation also amends a 1996 law, Section 230, that selectively immunizes Internet platforms from most government legal accountability, and federal and state regulation.
Courts have interpreted Section 230 so broadly that Internet platforms like Facebook, Alphabet-Google, Amazon, Uber, and Airbnb, grew confident that they could operate their businesses largely above the rules and outside the law that applied to everyone else.
The proof of this "Jekyll and Hyde" legal double standard, is that this week Congress had to amend section 230 to narrowly override its sweeping Internet platform immunity powers to legally enable child victims of sex trafficking to seek redress for their harms in court.
Yesterday the Senate passed FOSTA, the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act,” with 97% support (97-2). Three weeks ago, the House passed it with 94% support, (388-25). Both passed over the strong opposition of Alphabet-Google and some other members of the Internet Association. President Trump is expected to quickly sign it into law.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2014-07-14 22:25
Please read my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “Google’s Right to Be Forgotten Hypocrisy.”
Whenever Google plays the victim you can bet they are hiding something. Don’t miss learning what it is.
It is Part 42 of my Google Disrespect for Privacy series.
***
Google's Disrespect for Privacy Series
Part 1: Why Google is the Biggest Threat to Americans' Privacy; House Testimony [7-18-08]
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2012-12-17 22:08
Please sing to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas."
On the twelfth day of Christmas the FTC gave to me:
Twelve winkers winking
Eleven fibbers fibbing
Ten bluffs a bluffing
Nine Google's poodles
Eight flacks a flacking
Seven fawns a fawning
Six cov-er-ups
No enforce-ment! ...
Four lap-dog-gies
Three big passes
Two lame-ex-cuses
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2012-11-12 11:44
David Carr's (NYT) excellent analysis of how the mainstream media missed the truth behind cycling legend Lance Armstrong's systematic cheating and deception -- that ultimately led to the International Cycling Union stripping him of his seven Tour de France titles, to Nike dropping him as a sponsor, and to his resignation as Chairman of his cancer-survivor foundation LIveStrong -- got me thinking about the many sad parallels there are with how the mainstream media and blogosphere have missed the truth behind tech legend Google's systematic cheating and deception.
Just like the mainstream and sports media had much self-interest and fear in challenging Mr. Armstrong's representations, i.e. the loss of advertising and reporter access to top people in the sport, the mainstream media and tech blogosphere also have much self-interest and fear in challenging Google's representations, because Google is the overwhelming source of Internet traffic for the media (via Google Search, News, YouTube, and Android), and is also the primary monetization mechanism for the blogosphere.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2012-10-09 19:08
FT just reported that Google has moved to settle antitrust charges with the EU "by offering to label information from its in-house services that are included in its search results pages..."
I am republishing below a satirical June 26th PrecursorBlog post which anticipated this exact offer of a Google labeling antirust remedy to settle antitrust charges.
- The satirical recommendation memo from Google's lawyers to Google's CEO puts Google's munificent "labeling" offer of cooperation in perspective.
Google's Labeling Antitrust Remedy: "One Trick Away" -- A Satire
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