Tim Berners-Lee: we must regulate tech firms to prevent 'weaponised' web
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
They are indeed very active in removing ideas and opinions which are deemed unsavory. A recent example in from our neighbour country, Sweden.
"Google is facing criticism in Sweden for its failure to prevent anti-Semitic material from topping searches featuring the term “Jews in Sweden.”" https://www.timesofisrael.com/swedish-jews-complain-google-s...
"Journalist Willy Silberstein, editor-in-chief Helle Klein and former TV4 CEO Jan Scherman are some Swedish Jews who are on an anti-Semitic list online. Their legal representative has reported the list to Google for more than a month that it should not appear in search results by their name. Only now – after Expressen and DN's audits – Google starts backing and promises to remove 24 people from the list from their search results." https://tech2.org/sweden/google-starts-backing-after-critici...
I think the above serves well to illustrate the issue of weaponizing the web. The nazis are using the web as a weapon to list celebrity jews. The jews on the list are using the web as a weapon to wield power over Google's decisions and actions. Google is the weapon used by all the groups involved.
I would be surprised if this capability is not already weaponized by CIA in the attempts to win hearts and minds of countries being liberated.
This also shows that Google is a power-deficient gate-keeper, because they are buckling under pressure over search results.
Somewhat OT: Wikipedia has a list of Swedish Jews[0], but Helle Klein, for instance, is not on that list. She does have a Wikipedia article and it clearly has her on a different list of Jews.[2] In fact, Wikipedia has a list of lists of lists of Jews.[3] Wikipedia probably gets zero flak over this fact, because there is zero neo-nazi rhetoric surrounding the lists.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Swedish_Jews
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Sweden
So yes, I do care what he says because it is relevant to my interests.
Then why is his name is in the title? He's not the first person to make these points. The only reason The Guardian has to publish this over the thousands of other sources of the same opinion is his name. That was my only point. I didn't even read the article because I already disagree with the premise, give more control to the wrong people, just like with DRM. Regulations become legal "weapons" just as often as they actually help society. When they do, its usually the existing big companies that can A) afford to comply and B) know how to exploit the regulations to burden their competitors.
And? It's not a very solid point tbh. "Other people said it too" isn't an argument against anything.
> I didn't even read the article because I already disagree with the premise, give more control to the wrong people, just like with DRM. Regulations become legal "weapons" just as often as they actually help society. When they do, its usually the existing big companies that can A) afford to comply and B) know how to exploit the regulations to burden their competitors.
You see, that is an actual argument against the premise of the article. Or atleast the title since you skimmed over the contents. Though I disagree that regulation will make things worse considering how bad things already are.