One somewhat longer one today, then a fun one. I think I’ll keep wrapping up with a fun item each day, for balance.
It’s Buzzfeed, so you have to read between the lines, but this is the kind of thing I was alluding to yesterday in my video on fixing the Internet. The Big Social companies got a rude awakening in 2016. They found out if they allowed everyone to use their platforms freely – which was a big part of how they became popular in the first place – smart people on the other side of the political aisle could use those platforms to beat them in elections. When they say “manipulation,” they really mean “the other side playing by our rules.” When they say “election protection,” they mean “making sure our platforms help our side win.”
It’s not about “Russian troll farms,” which do exist, but can be hired by both sides, and aren’t effective anyway. It’s about Americans on the Right organizing and passing effective memes and ideas around on social media. These companies and their CEOs are pouring millions into the campaigns of open-borders globalist candidates. They see no reason to let their own systems be used to oppose them. The only reason they didn’t shut down all dissenters on November 9, 2016, is that their business model depends on keeping a critical mass of users, so they can sell that data. There’s no point in being on Facebook (or Twitter, Google+, etc.) if your friends and people you want to follow aren’t on it. If they openly turn their platforms into left-wing echo chambers, they’ll be setting themselves up to be replaced the way Facebook replaced MySpace.
They know that, but at the same time, they’re already billionaires, so some of them may figure they can afford to lose some money for the cause. And they’re very angry at Americans for voting for President Trump, to the point where some of them aren’t really thinking straight. So they’re trying to shut down dissent anyway, but piecemeal, picking away first at “extremists” like InfoWars before moving on to more moderate dissenting voices.
When a handful of companies control an entire industry and collude to decide what products will be allowed in their marketplace, they run up against anti-trust law. When they do so to manipulate elections, you can add election law to that. Their butthurt over 2016 is going to get them in big trouble if they don’t wise up. Some of the CEOs seem to realize that, but they’ve surrounded themselves with a SJW workforce that doesn’t. Looks like they’re headed for the cliff.
One thing you can say for the Internet: it’s made it easier than ever for artists to produce work and get paid for it. I’m not some kind of hipster, searching for obscure music you probably never heard of, but there’s just a ton of good, inventive stuff out there to stumble over. Of course, half the time I’m probably “discovering” someone that everyone else already saw on a reality TV show three years ago. Oh well, it’s new to me. Here’s a good one.