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Net Neutrality Gave Us Shadow Banning
Where are the 
liberal free speech advocates? Conservative thought is being silenced. Silicon Valley’s powerful programmers are hiding voices with which they politically disagree by using statist-like media restrictions not dissimilar from North Korea. Kim Jong Un approves. Just this week we saw two new examples:
Project Veritas latest investigation demonstrates Twitter’s shadow banning of conservative accounts:
Twitter Engineers To “Ban a Way of Talking” Through “Shadow Banning,” Algorithms to Censor Opposing Political Opinions”. This results in far fewer people seeing conservative Twitter accounts.
Daily Wire reports:
Google Targets Daily Wire, Other Conservative Sites With Left-Wing Fact Checks, Immunizes Left-Wing Sites. Suffice it to say that the use of left-wing fact-checkers as truth police is a massive step in favor of media bias, not against it.
Free market advocates, like myself, firmly believe government control of a product or service reduces competition, decreases quality while increasing pricing. In deregulated markets such as airlines and telecoms, we have seen more options, which increase quality all while allowing lower prices for consumers.
We complain about the paying for luggage or pillows, but the reality is the cost of airfare is still very affordable. Low-cost carriers turned the antiquated airline industry on its head and while you probably hate Spirit Air, they do a service in keeping United and Delta in check.
And when was the last time you screamed at your kids for calling another area code?
When the powerful elite entices government to put its thumb on the scale, the state ends up picking winners and losers. Today’s winners are our Silicon Valley betters who dictate progressive values through suppression of any Deplorable’s alternative thought, quite possibly yours.
YouTube (Google), Facebook and arguably Twitter own the marketplace of user-created content. When programmers are politically motivated to silence your voice, you have little recourse. Currently, there are no other content platforms of comparable reach. Everyone needs to be on the big three.
For small/medium size content providers, the ability to rise above the noise has always been the challenge and Net Neutrality made it harder to remain financially viable. But now with the repeal of Net Neutrality, producers of content, whether a blog, podcast, or video service now have the ability to compete with the behemoths like YouTube and Facebook. In fact, internet service providers will start offering their own video hosting sites to creators of content and, as free-markets always do, provide more options, at a lesser cost.
ISP’s now have the freedom to determine pricing structures that best suit their own business model, as opposed to working around the states one-size-fits-all. If you are Google or Facebook, which many now compare to utilities, you were very happy with preventing serious competition. But if ISP’s can now launch their own versions of YouTube for their own customers at faster speeds with less ideological programming, suddenly there are more options.
The biggest complaint by activists against the repeal of Net Neutrality is that ISP’s who choose to create their own platform for their users may in-turn increase pricing to users who wish to access YouTube. That this may result in fewer people watching Honest Trailers (one of my favorites) on YouTube, thus YouTube loses ad revenue, as does Screen Junkies (the producers).
But, in free markets, water always finds it’s own level. Content creators such as Screen Junkies will have more choices where to put their content, which may include smaller, but more cost-effective platforms. Those platforms then grow and, voilà, more competition to YouTube. It’s then likely YouTube, no longer a monopoly, will have to adapt or die.
Small/medium-sized content creators will likely leave YouTube and Twitter, or at least spend fewer resources on those platforms and spread their investment over multiple outlets.
Whether or not Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe’s new investigation catches a gust of wind and results in change, it’s important to remember that due to the repeal of Net Neutrality, free markets can provide us the power to fight back.
Published in General
Won’t 5G solve many of these infrastructure issues? I understand no one really yet knows the full potential of 5G, but folks at this week’s little convention in Vegas seem to be thinking nothing will ever be the same.
PragerU and other right-of-center think sites (Rubin Report) have complained about having their content demonetized by Google’s YouTube. There are other sites such as Patreon which are user funded. Watch this model as many predict it will be the next step in the evolution of content.
Nothing will ever be the same? I am always skeptical of the oversell.
5G solves the problem of “Last Mile” of access to high speed internet. A wireless technology that can bring high speed internet into homes and business outside of major population centers, would be a huge boon.
Its also an interesting experiment in supply side economics. Suddenly there is a new supply of internet bandwidth available to people who could never afford it before. What will they do with it? More cat videos? I would expect to hear and see more videos and content from the ‘fly-over’ America. the parts of the country that never had much access to high speed internet before…
Light Bulb Moment!!! This is why the major New Media companies lean left – they’re catering to the values of their clients in major metropolitan areas which tend to be lefty democrats…
I have never used Facebook or Twitter, and I no longer use Google Search. I have my own personal blog, powered by WordPress, on which I am free to publish anything I want to, no matter how incendiary. I pay for my domain, a whopping $26 per year. I constantly get spam comments urging me to invest in SEO, which I always delete. As of today, I have 245 followers over at RushBabe49.c0m. Anyone can register, and follow me, and send all their friends. I don’t think there’s anything preventing conservatives from starting their own social networks-maybe it’s time.
I saw this a long time ago, and it was pretty funny:
Google 2000 – Don’t be evil
Google 2008 – A little diabolical is spicy
Google 20?? – We heard that!
Patreon will ban thoughtcrime too.
All the people in those shadow-banned tweets did.
@ctlaw , my apologies for not getting back to you sooner. I wanted to check in with some folks to be sure I had this correct before I answered.
The answer is this: if you were attempting to provision cable TV services, you’d need a geographic franchise, yes. And this is largely due to federal law, and it’s flat on it’s butt wrong. But way back when, when folks didn’t know what they were doing, we put these regulations in to place. And as the industry progressed, those regulations began, more and more, to hurt consumers. They are, more than anything else, what prevents competition.
Having said that, if you were providing private line stuff, say fiber? You don’t need anything but permits.
Now, I realize that most people that are within the service area of a major cable operator are getting cable TV and they are getting broadband internet across that same cable. But, the industry is rapidly changing. We are moving to a world in which it’s just bandwidth. We are moving to a world were, as was mentioned before, cellular data services are more than adequate for many folks. At my company I can get two different ISPs. Where I live there are at least two alternatives to my cable operator. This isn’t a reality for everyone, I get it. And it won’t be if cable operators and upstream providers cannot charge lowly Netflix to run their traffic across the network. All of that infrastructure costs money. Someone’s gotta pay.
Yes. You put better than me. As usual.
No for three main reasons.
First is the question of how the spectrum is allocated. The main reason the US has had 1-4G cell/wireless service that would embarrass the third world is that we granted a hodgepodge of highly local licenses. We could have set up 8 networks with great national coverage (I’ll arbitrarily assign that coverage a value of 10 in all metros) and able to compete with each other. Instead, we end up with a situation where in any metro area one network has moderate coverage (e.g an 8), another has a 6, another has a 4 and finally one has a 3. Around here that is something like Verizon 8, ATT 6, Sprint 4, and T-Mobile 3.
Second is local restrictions on cell towers.
Third is data volume. Wireless just does not have the bandwidth to accommodate uses that are currently over cable along with any new uses.
Actually I found this wonderful video that explains the evolution of the Gs. from 0 to 5. Its 24 minutes long, but well worth it. Also it explains the technology in non-technical language.
There is an excellent example of robots communicating at 4G speeds, as they co-operate to balance a ball. They then switch to 5G, and the difference is astounding. (its about 12 minutes into the video)
You are wrong, here CT. While wireless technologies won’t be the sole answer, they will be part of the answer. If you are a single person, say, living in an apartment complex, who doesn’t need to stream gigs and gigs of data, an “unlimited” data plan with your wireless provider may just be all you need. And that’s true more and more. In India, there are more people on the internet via mobile devices than there are using “traditional” methods.
The Video I posted above address these issues directly, and does explain how 5G technologies use wave shaping and signal duplexing, as well as expanding the available bandwidth up to 3.8 Ghz, in 20 Mhz channels. To allow up to 1 million devices per square kilometer (or was it mile?) as well as use unregulated bandwidth in the 5Ghz bands (Bluetooth and WiFi zones).
These higher frequencies will require smaller cell phone cells. Towers will be dropped to street level – maybe even placed on light posts, or on rooftops.
No you are wrong. You emphasize “if” and “may” for something that is supposed to be a revolution. You are literally basing your argument on the proposition that a low end marginal user will be able to live like a third worlder. Hardly a panacea.
No, you are wrong. This is happening. Right now. Is it the sole solution? No. But it is part of the solution. Many people are, right now, using their mobile carrier as their sole means for connecting to the Internet. And they are streaming movies across that without issue. To suggest that the advent of high speed wireless bandwidth is not a factor in this industry is to ignore the facts on the ground.
Most people who support net neutrality rules do so on the basis of looking backwards instead of forwards. That seems to be what you are doing.
I’m looking both forward and backward. Backward toward lies we know we’ve been told in the past. Forward realizing demand will increase. Your “many people” are a tiny minority and would represent low total usage. Hardly a predictor for the future. Consider: https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/18/fcc-mobile-internet-broadband-replacement/
Oh, so the government has created an arbitrary baseline for what is and what isn’t “Broadband” based on “speed”?
Ok. I’ve got three bars of Verizon 4G as I sit here, and my speed is 130Mbps up, and 20Mpbs down. And I live in a po-dunk little town. So I guess mobile broadband IS a decent solution for the individual.
The point is, we don’t really know what the future is going to hold. The industry is radically changing. So why apply decades old rules to emerging technology? Proponents of Net Neutrality haven’t a clue. They just know “big company mean, big government fix!”
Numerous problems. You do not have that bandwidth sustained while there is a similar volume from other users, let alone users shifted from other ISPs. Being in a po-dunk town may help. I live within sight of cell towers, but I also live within sight of I95. Even moderate car traffic overwhelms cell service.
BTW, If Verizon is your panacea, why do they throttle you? FYI, they throttle you in ways they do not tell you about. I routinely experience delays in downloading email attachments, etc that should be almost instantaneous.
Ok, so you admit then that the FCC’s definition of “broadband” is flawed and arbitrary. Since the same exact problem exists within the HFC network. So we can take your article off the table for this discussion.
Regardless of whether a particular boundary is arbitrary or not, the relative bandwidths of land and wireless is highly relevant.
ctlaw, I am unfamiliar with the various Latin terms used when debating a subject. Is there one that applies when your sparring partner says you said something that you didn’t say?
For example, if Person A says something on the order of “Well, there is One Aspect that isn’t everything but it is something” and Person B says “Well One Aspect isn’t the panacea that you say it is.” What is that called? I’m not sure the term “straw man” applies. But it’s close.
See, I said that mobile broadband is an option for some, and part of the solution to the problem with a lack of competition in Internet provision space. I didn’t say it was the solution, nor did I say it was the best solution among many. I simply said it was part of the solution. And one that has gained ground in places where tight regulation prevents deployment of “traditional” networks. And that is true.
But you have not even remotely put forth a case that wireless is anything but a trivial competitor for hardwired broadband for some hypothetical small fraction of users. The terms “strawman” and “canard” apply to making those arguments.
You are right of course, and I see it now that you’ve explained it to me. I take it back. We really should regulate a growing and changing industry. And the people who create those rules should be even more clueless than I am about all of this! Because that makes everything all better!