Happy Utopian-dystopian Christmas Everybody

Published by Olly Blackburn

And let’s celebrate with a strong analysis of how social media was inspired by lefty utopians only to become the best friend of authoritarians. Check Tim Wu, he saw this coming ages ago.

 

https://harpers.org/archive/2019/01/machine-politics-facebook-political-polarization/

 

“ Social-media technologies have spawned enormous corporations that make money by mapping and mining the social world. Like the extraction industries of previous centuries, they are highly motivated to expand their territories and bend local elites to their will. Without substantial pressure, they have little incentive to serve a public beyond their shareholders. Companies such as Facebook and Twitter are coming to dominate our public sphere to the same degree that Standard Oil once dominated the petroleum industry. They too should be subject to antitrust laws. We have every right to apply the same standards to social-media companies that we have applied to other extraction industries. We cannot allow them to pollute the lands they mine, or to injure their workers, nearby residents, or those who use their products.”