In its current form, globalization has exacerbated inequalities. Globalization 2.0 must address the political ramifications and power imbalance of these cleavages, particularly in trade, data and technology, finance, tax, and climate change policies.
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Wed, Apr 14th 2021 10:48am
Eric Goldman
Last week, we had a post about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas very weird statement in a concurrence on mooting an unrelated case, in which he seemed to attack free speech and Section 230. Law professor Eric Goldman has written up an incredibly thorough response to Thomas statement that we thought the Techdirt community might appreciate, and so we re reposting in here.
Last week, the Supreme Court vacated the Second Circuit’s Knight v. Trump ruling. The Second Circuit held that Trump violated the First Amendment when he blocked other Twitter users from engaging with his @realdonaldtrump account. Other courts are holding that government officials can’t block social media users from their official accounts, but they can freely block from personal or campaign accounts. Vacating the Second Circuit opinion probably won’t materially change that caselaw.
Yves here. Get a cup of coffee. This is an in-depth but accessible discussion of how the Big Tech monopolists abused their powers to secure and perfect their advantaged positions. The good news is that the government sleeping giant has awoken to the threat they pose to its authority, and it pulling out antitrust weapons with the aim of cutting the monopolists down to size.
Consider a conversation Alastair Mactaggart had among friends at a social outing. The San Francisco real estate developer asked an engineer working for Google whether we should be worried about privacy. “Wasn’t ‘privacy’ just a bunch of hype?” Mactaggart asked. The Google engineer’s reply was chilling: “If people just understood how much we knew about them, they’d be really worried.”