Matt Taibbi

I think the questions of how we regulate social media are complex and deserve discussion. A laissez-faire approach clearly hasn't worked, but all the other attempts seem clumsy/overbroad and asymmetrically applied, at best. I guess you could try to monitor comment sections to see if the conversation was turning ugly, but I could see groups gaming those algorithms to try to get their opponents kicked off the service.

DJI, I do agree with your statement, really. I should have stated it more clearly.

xp ok but i don't think many people on ilx think this guy has anything positive or unique or even good faith to add to that discussion, for reasons discussed extensively over the eight years this thread has existed, in between the trump stuff.

for tech/speech regulation, check out zeynep and tim wu, if you haven't already.

A laissez-faire approach clearly hasn't worked, but all the other attempts seem clumsy/overbroad and asymmetrically applied, at best.

In the past society developed very clear rules for holding people responsible for speech that harmed individuals or society, but those rules required that speech could be directly traced to its speaker and that publishers were responsible for what they published. Social media lobbied successfully to be sheltered from both these social responsibilities. All that is required is to rescind that special protection.

The fact that various internet companies are capitalized at hundreds of billions of dollars is the obvious hindrance to applying this simple and obvious remedy. I say that promoting profits over the social good is the only mechanism at work here and choosing sides ought not to cause a moment's hesitation or puzzlement.

xp thanks for the recs.

xp Which protection are you talking about? Making them responsible for what they publish, or requiring them to trace the identity of anyone posting content on their service?

The first one would basically shut down social media, and eliminate all kinds of diverse and important voices. The second one would require invasive technology. Both would probably require massive governmental intervention, which I'm not opposed to, but I don't think it's as simple as just removing safe harbor protection.

Which protection are you talking about? Making them responsible for what they publish, or requiring them to trace the identity of anyone posting content on their service?

The first one would basically shut down social media, and eliminate all kinds of diverse and important voices. The second one would require invasive technology. Both would probably require massive governmental intervention, which I'm not opposed to, but I don't think it's as simple as just removing safe harbor protection.

Perhaps social media should be shut down. And "diverse and important voices" will find other ways to make themselves heard, as they have in the past. There was a world before social media, you know. And people communicated with one another back then, too. The idea that social media is somehow necessary, virtually a utility, is a form of capitalist realist thinking — now that we've had it, life without it is unimaginable. But that life happened! Not that long ago! I mean, I remember when I signed up for Twitter. I wasn't born with a Twitter account, you know?

it's not really a specifically capitalist way of thinking. its the way of technology. once a technique is established - and generally techniques are established on the basis of being the most efficient way of doing something, in social media's case it is the most efficient way to communicate with the biggest number of people in the quickest time - it is never disestablished, whether or not the technique is beneficial or has improved our lives

I don't think it's as simple as just removing safe harbor protection.

If social media cannot happen without the massive harm it has been inflicting on society, then shut it down. If it can maintain accountability for those who are responsible, then let them figure it out and implement it. By removing accountability we have created a monster that is impossible to tame.

Exactly how is this a real problem, other than saying it is hard to do or unprofitable?

And "diverse and important voices" will find other ways to make themselves heard, as they have in the past.

https://i.swncdn.com/media/800w/cms/CCOM/66102-luther95theses-wikimediacommons.1200w.tn.webp

tbf there were a lot of interesting voices available before social media: Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Lyndon Larouche. It was cool back then.

Exactly how is this a real problem, other than saying it is hard to do

Real problems are hard to do.

This 'problem' is in some way analogous to the massive harm done by allowing wealthy individuals and criminals (but I repeat myself) to create networks of anonymous shell companies and legally funnel money into and among them via established financial institutions and international banking protocols. This shell game could be abolished very simply by requiring all banks to do business only with known individuals or corporations which fully disclose all officers, board members, and major shareholders. Nothing prevents this but the profitability for banks of letting it continue.

Just shutting it all down is not a serious idea. If you say you don't see any positive benefit to any of social media, I don't think you're being honest.

But as far as trying to remove safe harbor, should we have government-based social media with some kind of identity tracking? Should we have some kind of biometric ID?

Also, there are plenty of people who use anonymity to shield themselves from harm. Should we force those people to find a "respectable" media outlet before they can share their stories?

Would ILX now be responsible for the content of every post?

Real problems are hard to do.

No, real problems are hard to solve. If you define the solution as requiring that social media to remain much as it now is, but with some kind of technological mechanism that transparently identifies the authors of shared material, then combining those two traits might be very difficult.

If you define the solution as only requiring only that social media companies must meet their responsibility to allow accountability or they cannot exist, because lack of accountability is inimical to society itself, then the solution is not hard: they fix themselves or they die. Harboring powerful, vast, fast-growing, and wholly irresponsible entities is too dangerous to allow. You must either control them or kill them.

only requiring only

I don't think the government requiring something (verified IDs of users) that isn't possible without governmental help is a solution.

Or should the social media companies create their own biometric database of their users?

You're just way too attached to social media, is all.

LOL the only time I read Twitter is when Ned posts shit in the Poilitics threads.

I just like the idea of All Gas No Brakes Live TV

Or should the social media companies create their own biometric database of their users?

You know what? It isn't my problem to solve. But I don't understand why biometrics would enter into it, other than as a scary boogeyman to ward off calls for removing their safe harbor protections.

Matt Taibbi claims that "there's a core of emotional truth animating the Qanon conspiracy theory... but the Russia thing... doesn't really have a correlation to anything that makes any sense."
Maté agrees. pic.twitter.com/lzMMs7o3m4

— Matthew Dimitri 🐍🧪 (@themattdimitri) February 23, 2021

he's saying he feels a kinship with fascists and not with establishment liberals

I mean there IS a shady global cabal of powerful pedophiles tbf

i hope that that someday soon taibbi will be able to convince everyone to stop being so obsessed with this russia stuff. every time i look at the news, every headline is russia this, russia that. its all you hear about in the news, russia russia russia. enough already! we have to end this russia obsession. to accomplish this, lets talk at length about something rachel maddow said about russia two years ago.

there is a paedo elite and Q is bullshit (also trump and russia had mutual interests and "russiagate" is bullshit). so what if fascists are accidentally right about one thing when it's for the wrong reasons and they're wrong about everything else. shall we praise david duke for opposing the invasion of iraq

man, back in the day Taibbi would have rolled over someone who thought coining "Blue Anon" made them a clever boy

"core of emotional truth" = i am talking out of my ass

yup

I mean, there WAS a pedophile cabal, run by Epstein. There was also a ton of actual evidence in the Russiagate case.

but the evidence didn't resonate with the heart

I think it's a pretty fair argument to say that no one who wasn't already invested in hate-watching Trump news 24/7 gave a shit about Russiagate.

*weighs factors*

you are objectively pro-oligarch, howja like them apples, ha CHACHACHA?

Taibbi has succumbed to pundit's syndrome, a condition induced by the pressure to prove you are a worthy pundit by constantly coming up with fresh original thinking, but which finally just sucks your head further up your own ass.

It's when they slide from "see, the left also has an issue with this, to some extent" to "both sides are the same" where it turns into a dumb (and, sadly, lucrative) hot take.

sorry, awful sentence there.

I’ve gotten progressively less sympathetic to Taibbi over the last few years. I think the big blind spot that he either shares or somehow forgets to acknowledge is the bizarre oligarchy/kleptocracy that’s endemic to Russia, and to some extent, was inculcated there by the US through example and economic advisory consulting in the early/mid 90s. It was a great deal for the US to have an economic base run by entities that were, if not friendly, capable of grabbing enough power to destabilize any sort of resurgent Soviet tendencies.

This, as in the US where we’ve got entrenched corporations as opposed to individual oligarchs, has bitten the international community in the ass as these people have little interest in doing anything other than fucking with other individuals and entities in the interest of solidifying their own power and keeping others in chaos. I think the Russian state has some role, but they’re really busy negotiating a bizarre detente with their internal entities, who also would like to fuck with the US and other governments as well. So there’s a Russian state and an oligarch state, just like the US has a tenuous relationship with the corporate entities that would go nuts the moment they couldn’t buy influence and stability in our country

which is bizarre too because acknowledging & reporting on that was supposed to be the whole selling point of the eXile

i thought the selling point was how when you're a man they let you do it, you can do anything

Say what you will about Taibbi, but he's still doing yeoman's work on the unfairness and absurdity of the US economy:

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/student-loan-horror-when-you-think

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/financial-devils-dictionary-spac

Fox is one channel that no longer represents real institutional political influence in this country anymore. The financial/educational/political elite with all the power is on the other side, and I think they’re the people to be worrying about.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) June 3, 2021

Uhhhhh

TAKE THE RED PILL, NEO

next he'll say it was corporate shills who pushed him further right

Well done, snobs of the #Resistance. You made the Horseshoe Theory real.

ah, shit. Time to take a long look in the mirror, guys.

did this all start with him getting #metoo'ed over that book he wrote years ago? and ironically didn't that turn out to be false and propagated by the right (turned out book was mostly fictional)?

yeah it’s all the feminists’ fault

let me point out a yet again that he has a ton of active namesearchers on twitter to defend him on that specific issue which is suspicious af, that he & ames did not claim their writing was fictional or satirical until they were called out for how repulsive it was, that even it was it would be indefensible & anyone who doesn’t see that is a fucking danger, that this trajectory was entirely fucking predictable & was in fact predicted precisely by the people who were called shrill, scolds, witch hunters & far worse for taking these great men to task for their bullshit

also using the hashtag in that way is a scumbag move