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'America Has a Monopoly Problem': Coalition Backs Legislation to Break Up Big Tech

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#4

From the recommendations:

The Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching (ACCESS) Act [H.R. 3849], to require Big Tech platforms to allow users to take their data with them if they decide to leave;

This is key, i applaud inclusion of this recommendation, but i advocate going much further:
We need a constitutional amendment declaring personal data and metadata to be unalienable, not subject to any other individual or corporate claim, limitation, sale, access fee, “terms of use,” advertising, marketing or monetization by any means.

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#5

No objection here to “breaking up Big Tech.” But we need deeper reform than anti-monopoly action against the identified Big Tech firms.

We need to transform the basic operating unit of the economy, the corporation:

  • abolish the limited-liability, investor-owned corporation;
  • abolish corporate personhood that obtains human, civil or constitutional rights for corporations (and the fiction that money equals constitutionally protected free speech);
  • transform accounting and accountability, so that accounting for ecological and social outcomes is superior to accounting for financial outcomes, when assessing the viability of any enterprise / organization.
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#6

Interesting to learn that about China.
The “thing” about Zuckerberg and the rest of the CEOs is that they are not operating a vital industry, nor are they under duress to do whatever it is they do.
You’re right to point to corruption, as we do little if any regulation of corporations.
The notion - let alone the practice - of offering “limited liability” to a corporation or partnership speaks for itself.

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#7

It was invented as an invitation to looting and an engine for colonization, the first such corporation being the Dutch East India Company. Many early “free-traders” were pirates, looters, slavers. It “unleashed the entrepreneurial spirit”…

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#8

No wonder we’ve been saddled with it ever since.

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#9

I don’t facebook.and I don’t twit. But I still think the rest of the internet is jerky. The system of paying for internet service is cheap for its limited service, and then most of the other businesses operating on the internet try their best to steal your data, force reading unwanted material, and sign you up for stuff you don’t want. And it gets worse day by day.

I can remember when cable tv first became a available, a service to allow people to watch tv without ads! Wonderful. Until. A few ads. Then more and more. I think of this almost every time I am forced to close an ad or refuse a service. Now I pay for internet service, but the same deal is here with the internet.

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#10

There is a big advantage for some to have all of their friends and family connected on Facebook. I just refused.

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#12

They couldn’t stand broadcast radio and tv, because they could not track the impact of the ads at the point of contact. So they took on the vast expense of laying new wire everywhere, because the value of being able to monitor specific watching habits was vast. (Of course that’s not the narrative they sold us in their advertising campaigns, they of course entirely erased their own motivations from the propaganda.)

Then the internet came along! And took everything up several levels - and we’re still on that escalator of ever-increasing monitoring, ever-increasing exposure to propaganda (ads), and ever-more refined monetization (colonization) of pretty much anything and everything but especially our attention.

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#13

OK, but Facebook does not have to exist for that - or any other purpose.

#14

Monopoly.
GM had a vertical monopoly. They produced all the components, sub assemblies for their autos and trucks. It took them 30 years to move to the Ford basis of having outside suppliers.
Today, who controls our taconite, iron ore from Minnesota and Michigan? They now own the steel mills and a new facility in Toledo. This is a very strong monopoly.

We have permitted businesses from China to Saudi to purchase American land, resources, factories, and other businesses. They do not give us the same outright ownership opportunity.

25 years ago, there were thousands of search engines for science, math, medicine, etc. google is just one who collects fees to place your address on the first page. YouTube, Facebook follow the same income in addition to advertising.

Do not fear the monopoly unless it fails to deliver results. Such as the French wheat guys who waited too long to buy from outside when the wheat fields north of Paris had a bad year = revolution. Happened two more times during the next 14 years. Then, Napoleon

#15

guess the message to tech is they better up their —bribes!

if only there was a way to stop this evil—I wonder???

#16

America (and the world ) has a Capitalism problem–it is at the root of almost every crisis facing us–it is capitalism that is a fueling the collapse of our societies and our ecosystems–capitalism is the deadly disease that kills millions yearly for their profits–push wars for their profits–will destroy our only planet for their profits—these ARE NOT honorable people–they are the toxic pond scum that kills --for a profit

2 Likes
#17

Clean fuel buses are good for the economy, and the environment. Electric cars are not good for the environment. Think of all the millions of mile of concrete for parking, roads, highways, parking garages, etc. instead of green space, homes, farms, etc.

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#18

NPR would not do a good piece like this, because they are anti worker rights and pro Wall Street.

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#19

> “Recent polling found that 57% of Democrats and Republicans and 61% of Independents believe that Big Tech companies should be broken up.”

Remember this when Congress fails to enact legislation to break-up these monopolies, having received “visits” from “lobbyists” prior to applying anti-trust law.

1 Like
#20

Congratulations. I thought I’d miss Facebook but truth is, I kept hearing from a small group of people who began to bore the hell of me. Facebook was really ghetto that way, and their censorship was out of control. I was put in Fb jail for a month for having the temerity to claim that bad as Trump is, his followers are even worse. No threats, no insults, no profanity – you see, I had committed ‘thought crime’ by being thoughtful.

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#21

“Pull out the rug from under Zuckerberg, but then what?”

We should put Amazon atop the short list of high tech corporations to pull down. Its transportation model is unsustainably excessive thus heavily polluting and bankrupts local businesses. Ordering products online through local businesses would reduce transport distances and open new sources of supply locally. Addressing global warming requires reducing long-distance transport.

#22

I’m reading Ernest Callenbach’s 1975 novel “Ecotopia” again and halfway through his 1981 “Ecotopia Emerging.” His vision of the future I plan to incorporate in the Part 5 summary of my essay “The Walking Communities of 2040” series in 5-parts. The basic premise of Ecotopia was banning personal automobiles and restructuring society around cooperative living arrangements. They’re really a “must read” classic pair read together.

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#23

My town in China was using natural gas quite a lot. Taxis and buses especially. It was cheaper, maybe burns cleaner but I’m not sure. It takes up a lot more room in your vehicle. Taxis kept the tank under the passenger seat. The lines at the natural gas station were quite long some days. I guess supply was limited.
Old folks used electric cars. Slow. Could not go on highways. Kept to the side of the road or in bike lanes. About the size of golf carts. Lots of electric motorcycles.
Lovely, they were silent! But some places had accidents because they were so silent and fast that they might hit an unsuspecting vehicle as they zipped around them.

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#24

Countries without oil and gas supplies will lead the way to clean transportation. Too bad China has coal reserves.

1 Like