Saturday, May 4, 2019

Control of the Marketplace

Note: in the interests of proper attribution I am giving the links in the open rather than using hidden links.

Standard Oil is considered the bogey man of monopolistic companies and its breakup under anti-trust laws in 1911 was considered long overdue. The company was founded in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller surrounded himself with a number of outstanding associates and together they operated a company that emphasized “economic operation, research, and sound financial practices.” They bought oil directly in the field rather than from jobbers. They made efficient use of the oil, getting more kerosene out of a barrel of oil than did their competitors. They cut the cost of refining by about 85% between 1870 and 1885. For their efforts they were accused of predatory pricing.

https://fee.org/articles/41-rockefellers-standard-oil-company-proved-that-we-needed-anti-trust-laws-to-fight-such-market-monopolies/

Kodak put photography into the hands of the common person. They held a dominant part of the market for years. This put them in hot water on at least two occasions. In 1921 Kodak entered into a consent decree in which they agreed to rid themselves of what were called “exclusionary practices.” One aspect of that decree was that Kodak could not “private label” film — a restriction that is still in place. In 1954, Kodak owned 90% of the color film market in the United States. The price of a roll of color film included the cost of processing, giving Kodak control of 90% of the color film processing market by default. I don’t know if they are required to do it anymore, but I remember seeing notices on rolls of Kodak color film saying that the cost of the film did not include processing.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit/1300513.html

Years ago, during the “studio era” of Hollywood, the studios not only owned the means of production of films, they also owned many of the theatres as well. There were independent theaters, but the studios engaged in a process called “block booking.” That meant that theaters had to bid on a group of films. They could not just show a blockbuster, they also had to show whatever dreck the studio had made. Studios were found to have an oligopoly, where a small number of companies control the market. U.S. v Paramount Pictures 1948 resulted in studios having to divest themselves from the presentation end of the motion picture industry.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-supreme-court-decides-paramount-antitrust-case

Today three companies have an oligopoly in the social media market. Google, Twitter, and Facebook all hold dominant positions of their particular markets. There is prima facie evidence to suggest that these three companies have engaged in systematic blocking of conservative viewpoints. Both liberals and conservatives have argued that since those companies are not government it can't be said that they engage in censorship.

I am willing to accept that argument. However, their control over the exchange of ideas cannot be overlooked. As shown, other companies have been broken up because it was felt that they had too much control over the marketplace. I strongly believe that the social media marketplace is also under the undue influence of a limited number of companies. I do not, at this time, advocate breaking up those companies. What I do propose is to declare those companies as “common carriers.”

The Free Dictionary says
A common carrier is legally bound to carry all passengers or freight as long as there is enough space, the fee is paid, and no reasonable grounds to refuse to do so exist. A common carrier that unjustifiably refuses to carry a particular person or cargo may be sued for damages.
In other words, if it isn’t illegal, then they cannot refuse to carry it.

In 1980, Barry Commoner ran for President. He knew he would not win, but he wanted to bring attention to his cause. To achieve this he made a radio commercial that used the word “bullshit.” That word used one of George Carlin’s seven dirty words, so how was Commoner able to use that, at least back then? Simple: U.S. broadcast stations did not have the right to control the content of commercials in races such as the Presidential race. They had to run that spot. They had no choice.

I believe that social media should have the same constrains placed on them. They are too powerful to have the ability to pick and choose what people say in the marketplace of ideas providing those ideas are not illegal. As demonstrated above, there is legal precedent that private companies can not do whatever they want.

7 comments:

  1. "Common carrier" is the crux of this argument.

    Excellent post Matt, thank you.

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  2. Great post, Matt. Breaking up successful companies isn't my cup of tea, but neither is blatant political censorship.

    We must build our own platforms. We could wait for decades for the Big Three to be declared common carriers. Or can President Trump do that with the stroke of his pen? I'm not sure on this one.

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  3. Facebook has removed EVERY right of center site from my news feed, with the exception of Gateway Pundit. Their strategy there was to flood my page with ONLY posts by GP. That was the ONLY thing on my news feed. So I removed GP so I could see content by friends and family. Pretty blatant, if you ask me.

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  4. Matt, thanks - like the ladies said, excellent post. The facts speak for themselves. They aren't all the relevant facts, but they are facts most often left out.

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  5. Very good, Matt. Something must be done. Many will not go to Gab, and I understand that, even though it simple to block disgusting and/or bigoted posters there.

    Even if many more were there, it is under the radar for media, and therefore not an alternative that might change anything in the public discussion, as it would be ignored.

    The fact is, that common carrier status, or perhaps the same laws that cover the public airwaves (same laws? Don't know) are needed as the Liberal opinion controllers, and that is what these are trying to be, must be reined in, or the shallow thinkers will never even get a glimpse of the deeper end of the thought pool.

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  6. A question for Vikram - Where did the list of comments go? It used to be on the sidebar, and made it easy to follow the latest that people had to say

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    Replies
    1. Dances - the short hack around is to do this: go to the address bar in the browser and delete the 's' at the end of "https" - hit return - then you should see the comments in the sidebar

      Then bookmark that exact link.

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