Social media algorithms of course influence the Overton Window. It doesn't matter if the developers are consciously conspiring to do it or not; algorithmic bias is naturally inherent.
I'm not meaning to suggest that algorithms don't have unconscious (WRT their designers) biases. I'm saying the algorithms used for compliance and compliance-adjacent tasks skew very heavily towards recall, resulting generally in poor precision. In many cases, the precision is so low that it overwhelms any conscious or unconscious bias in the algorithm.
>changed the justice department policy to go after smaller 'fines' as settlements instead of prosecuting crimes.. only because of the simple fact that fines are easy to win, and criminal cases can be lost.
This policy change could also perhaps be attributed to lobbyists seeking to maximize profits and minimize risks for corporate clients who are knowingly breaking the law.
Sure, which is the fault of the people and the government, as far as I’m concerned. If an elected official is corrupted or doing something we disagree with, it’s our job to fix it.
"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day."
He's saying they _can_. If you can make the case that foreign countries can influence elections via social media platforms, how much more then do the platforms themselves have influence?
Not by restricting the posts of world leaders. Twitter is a private company offering a free service that comes without guarantees, even for world leaders.
That's a non-sequitur. The fact their service comes with no guarantees makes no difference whatsoever to the fact that they are in a position, by virtue of the size of their audience, to influence any subject anywhere in the world.
Maybe it's a non-sequitur if we're discussing your personal feelings, but the fact that twitter is a free service offered by a private company without guarantees means that twitter has no obligation to provide service. Just because some group of people decided to congregate on twitter doesn't mean that the fundemebtal nature of twitter transforms into something owned by the commons. If it was twitter's desire to ban all conservatives from the platform that would be their right, twitter owes nothing to the users, the amount of users on twitter is completely irrelevant (and an arbitrary statistic)
>Maybe it's a non-sequitur if we're discussing your personal feelings, but the fact that twitter is a free service offered by a private company without guarantees means that twitter has no obligation to provide service.
Just repeating "non-sequitur" is not an argument. If you have nothing else to add I'll just reiterate what I wrote above. It doesn't matter how popular twitter is, you don't have to use twitter and twitter isn't obligated to provide service for free.
> Though in general, each business may decide with whom they wish to deal, there are some situations when a refusal to deal may be considered an unlawful anti-competitive practice, if it prevents or reduces competition in a market.
So based on your own link, "refusal to deal" has nothing to do with this situation since stifiling the posts of world leaders is not anti-competitive, in fact, it creates a competitive opportunity for platforms that might offer better service to those users.
>tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting opinions, and it tries to make it a new normal that all actors should censor any undesirable or potentially undesirable opinion.
No, very simply they are protesting censorship, which is the opposite of what you're implying.
You are saying that boycotting is itself censorship- no, it is a tool, that can be used by many people, with many POVs, and like most tools it can be used as a weapon either in defense of liberty or against it.
Money is just a useful abstraction to get economic exchange to happen more easily. So long as the money supply is vaguely in line with the demand for real goods and services the details don’t matter too much.
As long as the government can keep spending more every year, everyone is happy. This will apparently work forever. Best not to ask questions about how this affects the poor that don't have inflation hedges such as real estate or stocks.
The poor can easily get those things as well, especially with apps like robinhood that make buying stocks easier than ever. Also you have cryptocurrencies now that can basically be purchased in seconds.
Just to clarify: by "material basis" I dont mean "intrinisic" but rather "representational" like how when money was first invented, 1 unit of money represented 1 unit of material wealth (i.e. one cow)
>hating on Facebook is an excellent excuse for people to feel superior to the general population. "I know better than those ignorant proles, I wish they'd do what I think is best for them instead of what they want to do."
Ironic; that's the same ethos being espoused and implemented by those who run Facebook.
Its inherent in the business model: profiting off making people think, do, and buy things they otherwise would not have. Ever since the news feed ceased to be chronological, FB has become increasingly forceful with their filtering and sorting of people's minds primarily in accordance with what increases FB's profits.
I don't. Most free market thinkers aren't the GOP talking heads you see in the news. Those guys made their fortunes via regulatory capture, war and protectionism for the most part. Frankly it seems they have ridden that train into the ground the values of conservatives can only bend so far before voters start asking questions the politicians can't answer. Only socialism can provide the level of market control that the corporatists crave. Notice how firms got 'woke' all the sudden? Do you really think Pepsi is all about social justice?
