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It has, however, also become a thing that allows powerful people to manipulate much less powerful people, for their own ends.
 
It has, however, also become a thing that allows powerful people to manipulate much less powerful people, for their own ends.

Just like books which can also contain religion, superstition, political ideology, conspiracy theory, crackpot ideas, dangerous fantasies etc etc. It’s just a communications medium. Humans do some really ugly and stupid shit. Blame them, not the tools.
 
You likely see the internet through the lens of a university educator and scientist, just as the US military saw Arpanet as a defence tool.

Yes. That's what I was saying - *but* with the addition being we can regard some uses as 'good' and others as 'not good'.

The thing is no one person or entity gets to define the internet

Again, what I was (in part) saying.

However given that some parts and practices are harmful - e.g. telling lies to the gullable about vaxxing, climate change, 'good investments', etc - we do need to face the fact that some regulation and thence comeback may be needed for some behaviours and actions.

I can easily produce pages I think/hope are educational and beneficial, just as you can run this Forum in a well-managed way. That's fine. But its NOT the same as facilitating the expolitation of others by misinforming, intimidating, exploiting, spreading lies about them, or stealing their money. All of which happens, sometimes faciliated by billion-dollar companies as a 'side effect' of their assuming they are entitled to regard themselves as beyond the law and have no responsibility.

This is why democratic societies make laws for the benefit of the population. Or at least they *should* benefit, not the wealthly tax-dodgers who get the money from anti-social behaviour on the net.
 
Just like books which can also contain religion, superstition, political ideology, conspiracy theory, crackpot ideas, dangerous fantasies etc etc. It’s just a communications medium. Humans do some really ugly and stupid shit. Blame them, not the tools.

Books have publishers and authors. They have legal responsibilities and can be held to account in a court of law. However the anti-social media duck this and claim to be above such account or law.
 
Just like books which can also contain religion, superstition, political ideology, conspiracy theory, crackpot ideas, dangerous fantasies etc etc. It’s just a communications medium. Humans do some really ugly and stupid shit. Blame them, not the tools.
One thing I thought we’d learned after Thatcherism and Reaganism was that you can’t trust ‘the market’ to regulate itself. I’m not sure why you think the internet is somehow different.
 
However given that some parts and practices are harmful - e.g. telling lies to the gullable about vaxxing, climate change, 'good investments', etc - we do need to face the fact that some regulation and thence comeback may be needed for some behaviours and actions.

I can easily produce pages I think/hope are educational and beneficial, just as you can run this Forum in a well-managed way. That's fine. But its NOT the same as facilitating the expolitation of others by misinforming, intimidating, exploiting, spreading lies about them, or stealing their money. All of which happens, sometimes faciliated by billion-dollar companies as a 'side effect' of their assuming they are entitled to regard themselves as beyond the law and have no responsibility.

This is why democratic societies make laws for the benefit of the population. Or at least they *should* benefit, not the wealthly tax-dodgers who get the money from anti-social behaviour on the net.

This is where we will never see eye to eye as you believe you can define ‘good’ and ‘bad’. It is also where I detach from the political left as I fundamentally oppose authoritarianism. Politically I believe very firmly in progressive taxation and high-quality state infrastructure that benefits all and provides a safety net to those in need, but beyond that I’m really independent and libertarian in mindset. This is one reason I can’t buy the tedious red team vs. blue team bullshit we are offered. I believe people have the fundamental right to be as pigshit stupid as they like. I’ll happily argue against things I consider to be daft and dangerous all day long, and I’ll certainly remove such shite from my website as is my absolute right, but I won’t argue they should be banned from their own grubby places on the internet. I just don’t believe any state should police Orwellian thought crimes. Real crimes, e.g. terrorism, child pornography, harassment etc, yes, that is illegal under existing law, but not thought crime or basic stupidity.
 
One thing I thought we’d learned after Thatcherism and Reaganism was that you can’t trust ‘the market’ to regulate itself. I’m not sure why you think the internet is somehow different.

I’d argue both were corrupt right-wing ideologues, not representative of a free market at all. I’d certainly trust neither to define the operating scope of the internet any more than I would Priti Patel, Jeremy Corbyn, or Vladimir Putin! Best keep all of them well away from it IMHO.
 
I’d argue both were corrupt right-wing ideologues, not representative of a free market at all. I’d certainly trust neither to define the operating scope of the internet any more than I would Priti Patel, Jeremy Corbyn, or Vladimir Putin! Best keep all of them well away from it IMHO.
You miss my point. They both advocated free market policies. The market was supposed to be inherently self-regulating. They very much didn’t define the operating scope of the market, quite the opposite. Things like the Big Bang policies to free up the market and unshackle its potential. That went well.
 
They both advocated free market policies. The market was supposed to be inherently self-regulating.

Again I see their argument as political rhetoric. I don’t know the fine detail of Reagan to anything like the same extent, but Thatcher was a right-wing ideologue who’s smokescreen of “free market capitalism” was propped up entirely by North Sea oil and was little more than a political weapon to deindustrialise the UK to break the unions. The was not free enterprise in the way I understand it, e.g. I’d cite companies such as Rough Trade, Creation, Sinclair, Acorn, Linn, Naim, Quad, Rega etc as the definition of a real free-market economy. Real innovators innovating and reaping their rewards. It is all too easy to get sucked back to the images of unionised mill workers vs. landed gentry as that is all our dumb binary political pantomime system sells us, but in reality the economic world is very different to my eyes.

Regardless I think your bringing up Thatcher couldn’t be a better reason not to let UK politicians anywhere near the regulation of the internet. Especially now as the choice is really that the internet remains the wild west (my vote) or we get Preti Patel and Nadine Dorries to regulate it by blocking everything they don’t like (or maybe outsource that decision to Murdoch and Dacre). That’s really the only choice on the table here.
 
I think that’s a rather simplistic and naive viewpoint, with all due respect. And not entirely consistent. You have a business which provides a platform for free speech on the internet, but you reserve the right to decide who gets to say what. On what grounds? If people have a right to say stuff, you expect others to give them a way to exercise that right. Isn’t that a bit of a cop out?
 
One thing I thought we’d learned after Thatcherism and Reaganism was that you can’t trust ‘the market’ to regulate itself. I’m not sure why you think the internet is somehow different.
It’s quite amusing to see those who get all het up about the Government seeking to appoint the likes of Dacre to head Ofcom wanting that same Government to regulate the internet (as if such regulation was in any case enforceable without draconian laws as apply in China and other dictatorial states).
 
It’s quite amusing to see those who get all het up about the Government seeking to appoint the likes of Dacre to head Ofcom wanting that same Government to regulate the internet (as if such regulation was in any case enforceable without draconian laws as apply in China and other dictatorial states).
Not really. The government doesn’t regulate anything. It makes the rules and sets others to do the regulating. This would be no different. Whereas appointing Dacre would be a step towards the government actually doing the regulating, by proxy.
 
I think that’s a rather simplistic and naive viewpoint, with all due respect. And not entirely consistent. You have a business which provides a platform for free speech on the internet, but you reserve the right to decide who gets to say what. On what grounds? If people have a right to say stuff, you expect others to give them a way to exercise that right. Isn’t that a bit of a cop out?

That was exactly my point! The internet isn’t one ‘thing’ at all. It is billions of entities created by all manner of individuals, organisations and businesses to their own specific design criteria and aims. I have just as much right to define what content I carry as say a high st record shop has to refuse someone trying to put up a EDL poster, or for that matter a newspaper has the right to define its editorial policy and political slant.

The internet being open and unregulated as a concept doesn’t suggest those who build upon it can’t do exactly as they please. That is the whole point, the key strength! Everything exists. Whatever your views you are catered for somewhere, or if not you can create your own site and make your own point exactly how you please. Twitter and Facebook actually blocked a US President FFS, and I absolutely defend their right to do so! I’d boot that hateful racist shithead out of here too if he ever turned up! It is their platform, they have as much right to define it as you have the right to define who you invite into your own front room.

The internet is just like air to a voice. It is but a transmission medium. A communication tool. It should never be defined beyond this IMHO. An unlimited space upon which everyone can build whatever interests them. A place to speak truth to any power, no matter how tyrannical. I will inevitably hate much of it, arguably the vast majority, but others will feel just the same about my small corner, and that is absolutely fine. There are huge swathes of the internet I’d never dream of visiting, but neither would I set foot in a Wetherspoon's!
 
The market isn’t a ‘thing’, either. And much of what you say above applies to ‘the market’. It still needs regulating though.
And Joe, regulators are invariably carefully set up so as to be independent of government. It’s why we need to vigorously push back when that independence is threatened.
 
No regulators are appointed by ministers in the sense you infer; many are interviewed by a select committee. Ministers may sign the contract, most regulators have a ‘sponsoring’ government department - in the case of Ofcom it’s the DCMS - so the minister leading the DCMS will sign the contract and thus ‘make the appointment’ but the appointment process is much more accountable than that.

That’s why there was such a fuss about the government attempt to install Dacre.
 


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