This is how centralization and sweeping censorship/fascism seems to work in the new modern era we live in. Govt bodies react to pressing problems by increasing regulatory footprint so much that only companies like Facebook, Google/YouTube, Twitter, could possibly comply with. At the same time, these companies are at increasing pressure both from frequent public outrages to politicians to do something about users and types of content shared on their network. It’s easy to dismiss how these companies comply with regulatory bodies and react to public pressure to ban certain types of content and users so long as it is possible to create alternative networks. With stuff like this, it’s not so far fetched to imagine it increasingly difficult to launch platforms similar to YouTube and Facebook/Twitter, if not prohibitive without special deals and partnerships with major media companies. We need a new internet
The point I think is important here, is that (in my opinion) it's lobbied censorship/control though. This isn't the Government forcing their ideology through regulation - this is Corporations lobbying and buying out politicians, and the Government is the accessory to it.
Have you ever considered that this might be the inherent nature of politicians, and that we might be better to go without them and their local-monopoly called "government"?
Which pressing problem is this solving? I agree with the rest of your statement for the most part but I disagree with your initial framing that all of this is the result of governments trying to solve "pressing problems".
“Pressing problems” is an umbrella term I’m using to describe things that are lobbied for, corporations, copyright holders, foreign interference/ misinformation campaigns, botnets issues.. etc. Basically whatever issues are the current topic of debate either politicized or lobbied for by the public or private enterprise
So-called "public pressure" is often made up. It usually goes like this - a lobbying company pays journalists to run a story that X causes Y. Journalists look in their network for people willing to confirm X causes Y and that they are outraged. The story is then exaggerated and run numerous times so that people get an emotional connection with the actors and start to believe X causes Y. This is an opportunity for a politician to offer a "solution". In the end, a company gets favourable legislation, a politician gets points and media get clicks and views. But society loses.
Most people will always flock to the “free” option that all their buddies are on. It’s entirely possible for me to host streaming video on my web server that I pay for. Hell, it may even be within my skill set to deploy it. But if you watched my video(s) on my sever, there would be no easy, one-shot way to populate similar videos on all my friends own web servers. The same applies to (micro)blogging services like Facebag and the Tweeter.
You get what you pay for, and most don’t want to pay a subscription fee to watch random cat videos whenever the feeling strikes.
> This is how centralization and sweeping censorship/fascism seems to work in the new modern era we live in
With thunderous applause. It's amazing if we take a retrospective look at how big web tech became the enemy, how the feeling was derived, our ideas of perceived harms, and our perception of helplessness of both the masses and existing laws. It reminds me of terrorism a generation before, drugs a generation before that, communism a generation before that, etc. There's little comfort knowing we cannot grow beyond our sheparded-sheep ways.
