30 Aug 2018

Go Get Them, Donald!

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I’m almost never a fan of the government regulating what private companies can do, short of actual crime. However, what choice would there be if, for instance, the phone company possessing a de facto monopoly decided to block calls made by Republicans?

We have already extensive public accommodation law precedents, and the giant left-coast social media and search engines are currently getting away with unconscionable bias toward certain customers.

Zero Hedge agrees with Trump that these companies are treading on dangerous ground.

On Tuesday morning, President Trump lashed out at Google, with his remarks later broadening to include Twitter and Facebook, accusing it of “rigging” search results by presenting only results “from National Left-Wing Media” and accused “Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good.”

Those companies “better be careful because you can’t do that to people,” Trump said later in the Oval Office. “I think that Google, and Twitter and Facebook, they are really treading on very, very troubled territory and they have to be careful. It is not fair to large portions of the population.”

Google immediately responded, condemning Trump’s charge, and claiming that “Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology.”

And yet, as so often happens, in Trump’s crude delivery, the politically incorrect truth was once again found.

According to a memo posted on Facebook’s internal message board titled “We Have a Problem With Political Diversity”, and which was published by the New York Times, senior Facebook engineer Brian Amerige confirmed Trump’s allegation writing that “we are a political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views” and shockingly admitted that “we claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack — often in mobs — anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology. We throw labels that end in *obe and *ist at each other, attacking each other’s character rather than their ideas.”

The scathing indictment of Facebook’s liberal “mono-culture” continues:

    We do this so consistently that employees are afraid to say anything when they disagree with what’s around them politically.​ HR has told me that this is not a rare concern, and I’ve personally gotten over a hundred messages to that effect. Your colleagues are afraid because they know that they — not their ideas — will be attacked. They know that all the talk of “openness to different perspectives” does not apply to causes of “social justice,” immigration, “diversity”, and “equality.” On this issues, you can either keep quiet or sacrifice your reputation and career.

“These are not fears without cause” Amerige writes, and continues the stunning disclosure of the company’s biased culture, “Because we tear down posters welcoming Trump supporters. We regularly propose removing Thiel from our board because he supported Trump. We’re quick to suggest firing people who turn out to be misunderstood, and even quicker to conclude our colleagues are bigots. We have made “All Lives Matter” a fireable offense. We put Palmer Luckey through a witch hunt because he paid for anti-Hillary ads. We write each other ad-hoc feedback in the PSC tool for having “offensive” ideas. We ask HR to investigate those who dare to criticize Islam’s human rights record for creating a “non inclusive environment.” And they called me a transphobe when I called out our corporate art for being politically radical.

RTWT

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One Feedback on "Go Get Them, Donald!"

bob sykes

First, the social media, Facebook et al., should be treated like the telephone companies, and they should be prohibited from monitoring and censoring transmissions. Legislation is needed to clarify this point.

Second, I reject the idea that private companies and schools are not bound by the first amendment. Perhaps you could make that argument in 1800, when the whole West was open to dissidents, a West where they could disappear and start over, as many did.

But. Not. Now.

There is no hiding and no reboots of lives any more.

No company or school or institution of any kind can have the power to punish employees or students or clients for anything they say or write on their own time. And there should be extremely severe penalties for doing so, penalties that threaten the actual existence of the company, school or institution.

And these penalties should extend to the individual managers and stock owners. The usual barrier between stock owners and company liability should be eliminated, and to Hell with the Wall Street whores and whiners.

Companies deserve protection from the bad behavior of people when they are actually representing the company. But not otherwise.



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