Os Porteiros da Internet e das Redes Sociais

Não sei até quando manterei meu blog e Facebook, os "porteiros" (Google, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Amazon, Apple) defendem comportamentos sociais que eu desprezo e abomino.

No meu livro, Perspectivas do Comércio Exterior do Brasil em um Mundo Caótico, eu falo muito sobre como esses "porteiros" têm afetado o debate político atual, inclusive com corrupção da informação, mentiras mesmo (fake news), sem falar em avalanche de dinheiro para políticos esquerdistas.

Li recentemente um artigo no site Breibart sobre essas grandes corporações da internet.

Esses "porteiros" não estão do lado da liberdade de informação, eles estão do lado do domínio da informação.

Vejam do texto do Breibart abaixo:

Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the Real Threat to ‘Net Neutrality’

By ALLUM BOKHARI24 Nov 2017

Net Neutrality reform has begun, which means that half of the internet is rejoicing that the web will no longer be tyrannized by big government, while the other half despairs that it will now be tyrannized by big corporations. Who’s right?

First, a note to the latter: the web is already subject to the tyranny of big corporations. Their names are Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Apple, and Amazon. Together, they have monopolized the public square of the web and destroyed the idea that anyone, no matter how controversial their opinions, can have a voice and build a following.

If you write an app, Apple and Google will be your gatekeepers. If you write a book, Amazon will be your gatekeeper. If you make a video, YouTube will be your gatekeeper. If you wish to share your content, Twitter and Facebook will be your gatekeepers. Their speech codes, already more akin to Angela Merkel’s Germany than First Amendment America, grow more stringent by the day.

Furthermore, there is no oversight, no checks and balances, and only threadbare legal recourse to stop these companies from abusing their colossal concentrations of power. Nothing can stop Twitter from suddenly silencing a popular voice, and it has already done so on countless occasions. Nothing can stop Google and Apple from denying an app creator access to the only relevant marketplaces for their products, and they have alreadydone so.

If left-wing Net Neutrality activists are serious about their demands for “content neutrality” and a “free and open web”, then where have they been for the past few years, as control of the web slowly fell into the hands of a few unaccountable companies?

While they’ve largely ignored the blatant watering-down of content neutrality, by companies that once boasted of their commitment to it, they’ve instead focused their attention on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T.

Do ISPs have the potential to become the content police of the internet, absent regulation? Yes they do, and that is a legitimate concern for defenders of internet freedom. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which an ISP, pressured by governments, activists and the media, decides to cut off access to a loathed website (say, the Daily Stormer), and in doing so undermine the principle of the open web.

But it’s weird for ISPs to be the primary target of such fears, when it’s online platforms and services (the ones not currently subject to Net Neutrality rules) that did precisely that. Specifically Google and GoDaddy, which cut off domain support for the Stormer, and Cloudflare, which cut off DDoS protection to the site.

ISPs could conceivably do the same thing, but they haven’t yet, outside of authoritarian countries like China and Turkey. Moreover, they are considerably more resistant to the kind of advertiser boycotts that forced YouTube away from content neutrality, because they’re reliant on subscription rather than ad revenue. They also know that if they take any steps towards censorship, well-funded Net Neutrality activists and their allies in Congress will pounce.

That’s why they, unlike Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms that censor with impunity, have made public pledges not to act as gatekeepers.