Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

It's becoming more and more clear that there's a problem with these corporately-controlled "free markets" that are neither free nor are they markets. It's time for Congress to do more than just write strongly-worded letters to large tech conglomerates hoping that these kinds of anti-consumer practices stop. It's funny (or sad) that the meme du jour is "build your own app store, bro." We need: (1) transparency and (2) accountability.

First of all, we can't have stuff getting arbitrarily censored or kicked off stores, because even though it may start with alt-right QAnon nonsense, it will lead to things like Hey, Epic, Fortnite, Robinhood ratings being scrubbed, WSB being banned, or now Element. The slippery slope is not hypothetical. It's here.

Secondly, we can't just have AAPL, GOOG, FB, etc. merely say "oops, our bad" when the shit hits the fan. People get mad, they say "oops" -- even though the app may have lost thousands of customers and reputation -- and everyone forgets the snafu ever happened. This is not okay, and as consumers we should not be okay with it. I promise you Google will release a statement saying "certain groups" on Element "used some poopoo language" and the apologists will, yet again, be totally cool with it.

(I don't feel my comment is particularly controversial, yet I'm being mass downvoted with no counter-arguments.. weird.)

The Digital Citizen has rights. And its time to draft them.

It's a shame nobody saw this coming fourty years ago and devoted his life to the cause.

The infrastructure is run by private parties -- but since the advent of encryption it ought be possible to lay down some basic principles or precepts of the online denizen. "The Right to be Forgotten" is a strong step in the right direction, but anonymity sometimes makes people act rashly -- which reminds me of the need for Nettiquette. I believe the difficulty comes in guaranteeing backdoors for law-enforcement and crime-deterrence while still affording a strong level of privacy. It's unlikely that law enforcement will simply "get used to" the fact that encryption works and is difficult [and in the case of ECC likely intractable] to decipher. The alternative is state-run applications and tech-companies with cross-sectional presence of politically inclined people, or some weird tryst of tech companies, lobbying, legislation, and law-enforcement that effectively elevates tech companies to governance level without the primary oversight of elections to place them there. If there is a third option I'd love to hear it.

Free software. Guaranteeing backdoors is a terrible strategy that should not even be considered.

I believe it was Franklin who said "The man who sacrifices liberty for security will get neither" (paraphrasing) ... however, it's not a common sentiment among law-enforcement officials who prefer quiet over creativity. You are right that it ought not be considered by sane citizens in a free country, but what do you tell the appointed officials that try so desperately to make it so?

Nothing. If they try to pressure it's inclusion we remove it, if they sneak it in we'll find it. That's the beauty of free software.

Hardware is not so easily audited

A design choice, not a necessity.

Parent is concerned what will happen in the world where we actually exist.

Merely outlining the main antagonistic forces to actual free speech -- I'm more concerned with the weird oligarchic relationship between tech giants and law enforcement that cookie-cuts the electoral process out of the equation ... is that what you were getting at?

"The Right to be Forgotten" is a strong step in the right direction

You mean "The Right to Rewrite History"?

Uh, yeah, as if youtube or any digital screen-based media cannot be instantaneously rewritten or shuffled between visits. Hello "memoryhole" (if you're familiar with 1984)

Nobody named Stallman did. Shame indeed.

It's a mistake to enshrine these companies though. Break out their app store and android division and make them a utility, but don't make google a permanent part of our lives by making them a necessity. I don't want to live in a world where these centralized platforms have a government mandate.

What I want is true competition and laws that make that happen.

Hear, hear!

For the people who see no issues with any of this, shall we shut off their water and electricity too while we're at it?

They can build their own water and electricity!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com