Re:Twitch bans Confederate flag, racist emote usage in new c...
by danShumway on Friday December 11, 2020 @09:51AM
(#25386395)
And so is the free market. What you're seeing is just how unrestrained Capitalism works. Businesses respond to market pressures and implement features/constraints based on what their customers want. In this case, Twitch has made a business decision that advertisers/users want this stuff off of the platform; and honestly as a user, I do want that stuff off of the platform. I want to be able to read Twitch chat without being subjected to racism.
But that's always been how Capitalism has worked. That's why people get concerned about excessive privatization and mass corporate consolidation. That's why it's not a good idea to blindly privatize literally everything. Free speech won't save you in an Anachro-Capitalist world, it wasn't designed to save you from that world.
I know that there's sometimes a perception that support for the 1st Amendment is a Conservative/Libertarian vs Liberal issue, but the irony here is that it was far-Left candidates like Warren who were pushing hardest for companies like Amazon to be broken up. Those people recognize that Twitch censorship isn't the problem, Amazon ownership of the entire streaming market is the problem.
I'm not trying to tell people how to vote or start an argument, but if you're actually concerned about private tech dominance over public spaces like communication and social networking, antitrust law should be one of the top solutions that you're looking into. A lot of the Republican solutions getting pushed through Congress right now are basically just the Fairness Doctrine v2. I don't think those people have thought through the implications and consequences of directly attacking private platforms' freedom of association.
I see a lot of people who get 90% of the way to "it's bad for a single company to control the entire market", but that for some reason haven't made the final jump to "the problem is lax laws around monopolies." If you're a Libertarian, donate money to Peertube, they're working on adding streaming support right now. If you're not a Libertarian, support sensible Democratic market regulations to make the market more competitive. And also consider donating money to Peertube anyway, just because it's the most promising federated alternative out there right now.
But that's always been how Capitalism has worked. That's why people get concerned about excessive privatization and mass corporate consolidation. That's why it's not a good idea to blindly privatize literally everything. Free speech won't save you in an Anachro-Capitalist world, it wasn't designed to save you from that world.
I know that there's sometimes a perception that support for the 1st Amendment is a Conservative/Libertarian vs Liberal issue, but the irony here is that it was far-Left candidates like Warren who were pushing hardest for companies like Amazon to be broken up. Those people recognize that Twitch censorship isn't the problem, Amazon ownership of the entire streaming market is the problem.
I'm not trying to tell people how to vote or start an argument, but if you're actually concerned about private tech dominance over public spaces like communication and social networking, antitrust law should be one of the top solutions that you're looking into. A lot of the Republican solutions getting pushed through Congress right now are basically just the Fairness Doctrine v2. I don't think those people have thought through the implications and consequences of directly attacking private platforms' freedom of association.
I see a lot of people who get 90% of the way to "it's bad for a single company to control the entire market", but that for some reason haven't made the final jump to "the problem is lax laws around monopolies." If you're a Libertarian, donate money to Peertube, they're working on adding streaming support right now. If you're not a Libertarian, support sensible Democratic market regulations to make the market more competitive. And also consider donating money to Peertube anyway, just because it's the most promising federated alternative out there right now.