Free speech and tech giants

[DonkeySkin]

Thread to discuss the implications of public discourse being controlled by a handful of private companies in the US, and what (if any) remedies are available.

This issue concerns everyone, obviously, but has particular implications for women, given the dominance of men in tech.

Tech companies are the new seat of world power and they are overwhelmingly male. While women have been diligently working towards getting equal representation in government, men have been building a 'Brotopia' in Silicon Valley.

The term 'Brotopia', should not be regarded flippantly. It is a quite literal description of a society designed solely according to (mostly young) male preferences. Previously such men would have had to negotiate with young female preferences, the controlling hand of older men and, particularly, the wisdom of older women. Read Emily Chang's research on what happens to social norms when young (or youngish) men don't have to cleave to traditional strictures designed to curb the extremes of male behaviour:

www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/01/brotopia-silicon-valley-secretive-orgiastic-inner-sanctum

The creation of a Brotopia doesn't even have to be deliberate. It's purely a numbers game. Men gravitate to tech in much greater numbers than women, hence the priorities of tech will reflect the priorities of those men (many of whom have ASD traits). The result is that we are heading towards a society almost totally devoid of the wisdom of grandmothers. AFAIK that has never happened before in human history.

That might seem tangential to the issue of free speech on the internet, but I think it is connected, in the sense that if speech is seen to threaten men's sexual freedoms (to mimic women for pleasure, or to access the desired number and variety of women, or to sexualise children), then that speech will be shut down. As we are seeing currently, with reddit shuttering r/gendercritical while leaving up subs dedicated to documenting and eroticising rape and female sexual trauma for male pleasure.

People who say 'How can women talking critically about gender be 'hate speech', while rape pornography is not?' are missing the point. 'Hate speech' is the pretext for what is really the assertion of male sexual freedom as the supreme value: rape porn is obviously protected under such a rubric, while women talking about paraphilias and child protection is a threat, so reddit's logic is entirely consistent.

I don't discount the impact of other factors here, not least of which is the wholesale abandonment of enlightenment values on the left, and the widespread mob madness induced by social media, which seems designed to cultivate our worst instincts.

I just wonder what we are going to do about it. It feels like everything is rapidly intensifying. New and creative thinking on the part of feminists is required.

The demonetisation of YouTube videos is now pretty commonplace, but only occurs to channels that are considered ‘socially conservative’ and never those on the far left. Demonetisation of entire channels is now routine (Tim Pool for example). There are conservatives in the USA who have had not only their Patreon accounts but also their bank and Paypal accounts closed due to their problematic views expressed on YouTube/Twitter. The bans from the platforms were quickly followed by the closing of Paypal accounts

TheRealMcKenna

All of this is extremely worrying. As is the number of people who agree with #no platforming. The power of the tech barons is an existential threat to freedom of speech.

This thread is touching all my panic buttons, all the things I worry about. Money/tech controls speech therefore thought. Journalism is a lost profession with most of them in a ditch somewhere humming to themselves. The people who used to use their knowledge/wits to fully understand events and the news and inform their readers, are just fiddling about on Twitter and regurgitating what they see there. It isn't just that if we don't sort this out, women's rights are fucked. If this does not get sorted out, everything is fucked. Critical Theory 101-- the end of the world as we know it.

This is a fascinating thread thank you everyone who has posted.

@Tigerty

I posted about the FB advertising as it made my Spidey senses tingle

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3951484-Facebook-advertising-rules

It appears it's trying to stop adverts which class certain groups as a threat. Religion is one of the protected characteristics (if you will). I wondered if this would effect charity adverts raising funds for one religious group fleeing persecution from another for example. It's not acceptable to characterise groups of people as a threat if they aren't...but what if they are?!

@KaronAVyrus

Very interesting. I’ve long been concerned about just how powerful these companies are (and not just from a deee speech angle) but their insane wealth and influence is very worrying.

Me too. I've also been concerned about their power and virtual monopoly on public discourse.

Politicians and democratic institutions seem weak and fragile in comparison.

This is a v v important issue to discuss. My fear is that people are not aware of it - and how could they be, given that they get their information from the same channels that are controlled by the tech bros. Discussion is becoming more and more stifled when certain topics (those deemed uncomfortable or threatening to male sexual wants) are banned, but that is not the only way to steer speech and thought.

One day I was thinking, isn't it strange how liberal feminists now view prostitution? That sex is just another commodity to be sold, and that it is "empowering" and "freeing" to do sex work (even though the HUGE majority of sex workers are trafficked and/or abused). I'm pretty sure this change of opinion was spoon fed by a loud contingent of social media users, mostly males of course, who promoted the happy hooker myth and celebrated women's right to "choose" selling sex. I'm not saying that this is a big conspiracy. I'm saying, if a large majority of social media users are males, many of them sexually frustrated incel types, their views are promoted and published more. And slowly their thoughts become "what the people are now thinking about this." This issue, naturally, is just one example.

Thanks for starting this discussion.

I did a google search (the irony after reading the other thread on them) as per bovaryx suggested. Scary.