I wonder when US Government's crackdown on US tech firms will begin. US politicians know full well by now that they're at the mercy of Zuck, Pichai, Dorsey, and a small handful of other people. I'm sure they understand that even if they benefit from this symbiotic arrangement (which at least half of them do not), their fortunes could turn on a dime if they pass a "wrong" law or something, and the situation will only get worse over time. IMO it's only a matter of time before they impale at least one of the trillion-dollar monopolies that are allowed to exist today to set an example for others and bring them to heel. That's what Xi is doing. That's what Putin did 20 years ago (with oil companies which are the dominant sector in Russia). Seems like a pattern.
> The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled unanimously upon awarding compensation of $50 billion for the company's assets, that Yukos was the target of a series of politically motivated attacks by Russian authorities that eventually led to its destruction, and that Russia had expropriated Yukos' assets in breach of the Energy Charter Treaty. The treaty does not prohibit governments seizing or nationalizing commercial assets, but requires investors to be fairly compensated. Though Russia never ratified the full treaty, these clauses were still legally binding under both the treaty and Russian law until 2029. According to the Permanent Court of Arbitration's ruling, the primary objective of the Russian Federation was not to collect taxes but rather to bankrupt Yukos, appropriate its assets for the sole benefit of the Russian state and state-owned companies Rosneft and Gazprom, and remove Khodorkovsky from the political arena.
> Although weak at the time of the auctions and the economic downturn of the mid-1990s, from 2000 the government under new leader Vladimir Putin grew in strength, until it became able politically to outweigh the power of the oligarchs. On October 25, 2003, Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested on charges of fraud and tax evasion. Leonid Bershidsky, founder of Russian business newspaper Vedomosti, wrote: "Any of the oligarchs could have faced similar charges; Khodorkovsky's imprisonment made them so docile that Putin confined himself to making an example of just one victim".
It's not a "spin", that's exactly what happened. The Hague has no bearing on these facts whatsoever. Khodorkovsky at the time owned half the Duma (Russia's Congress) and was basically writing his own laws. Imagine, if you will, Charles Koch or Jeff Bezos deciding unilaterally how to spend the US tax revenues, and what regulations to have. That's what Knodorkovsky was. Ask a Russian who was there at the time about this, they'll confirm. "Regular folks" outside liberal intelligentsia wondered the same thing as Bershidsky - why the fuck aren't more of them in jail. I was wondering the same thing, even though the obvious political motivations and the sheer speed and mercilessness with which this was carried out irked me a bit. Yet the fact remains - the dude deserved every bit of what he got just on the stated charges alone. Every single Russian oligarch evaded a shit ton of taxes illegally - it was not possible for businesses to operate without that back then.
The reasons became clear later on - the government understood that oligarchs can serve a useful function in the power hierarchy and so it wasn't interested in eradicating them as a class, which they could do, by the way, with very broad popular support (at least 90%). They have extensive kompromat on every single one of them, without any exceptions.
Putin, at the time, wasn't entirely in charge either in spite of nominally being the president - the national security apparatus has just installed him, so I doubt the decision to make an example of Khodorkovsky in particular was entirely his own. But this was a success in the end, and now the oligarchs know their place and do not try to undermine the state like they used to in the 90s. Boris Berezovsky (another odious oligarch who could, in the 90s, do whatever he wanted in the Kremlin) "hanging himself" in London in 2013 might have done something as well to reinforce their non-interference.
> Hasn't media (newspapers, radio, television, periodicals, etc.) in the United States always been this way? Why would this time be any different?
In the past, there were laws preventing single individuals or companies from owning too much of the media. Like literally "you're only allowed one station in each region" type laws to ensure that diverse viewpoints (or at least, the viewpoints of oligarchs with different interest) could get through.
1. The "new" media has a lot more money, and therefore power.
2. Algorithms and realtime, granular targeting for brainwashing.
3. Truly immense and all-encompassing amounts of tracking data these companies control.
4. New media is relatively free of regulation, and they, thus far, have borne no responsibility for anything that's going on on their platforms, or any censorship / algorithmic boosting.
I could continue the list. But then again, you too could continue the list. We've been talking about this list on this site for years now.
> regulators told gaming companies, including Tencent, that they should stop focusing on profits and instead concentrate on reducing adolescents’ addiction to playing.
> China’s biggest e-commerce groups—Alibaba, Pinduoduo and jd.com—are being forced to confront many of the monopolistic practices that bolstered their earnings in the past.
> Meituan, a super-app focused on food delivery, has been ordered to provide better support to its armies of drivers. Such changes will erode companies’ profits and clobber their share prices.
> Chinese regulators have railed against the “disorderly expansion of capital” by tech firms.
Say what you will about the means, all of these changes sound positive to me.
I wish the U.S. government would grow a spine when it comes to putting citizens interests over investors.
Agreed. One big problem seems to be division. One camp will say it's only entertainment and it's serving a purpose, another camp will claim industries are wasting humanity's time and productivity. On the one hand media does not influence behavior (violence does not make people violence) on the other hand sexism, androgyny, misogyny, etc. are bad on film or TV. How can they simultaneously have no effect but also be bad?
It's like gambling vices. In moderation (small amounts) it can be entertaining, but the casinos' interest is to get people hooked consequences to society be damned. It's not too dissimilar from the Opium wars: profit at all costs.
US actually has legal frameworks in place, which China is lack of and start to implement. For example, Tencent in US would get sued by parents; Alibaba's monopolistic behaviour would result in fines.
12 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 42.1 ms ] threadThat's an interesting spin on history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukos
> The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled unanimously upon awarding compensation of $50 billion for the company's assets, that Yukos was the target of a series of politically motivated attacks by Russian authorities that eventually led to its destruction, and that Russia had expropriated Yukos' assets in breach of the Energy Charter Treaty. The treaty does not prohibit governments seizing or nationalizing commercial assets, but requires investors to be fairly compensated. Though Russia never ratified the full treaty, these clauses were still legally binding under both the treaty and Russian law until 2029. According to the Permanent Court of Arbitration's ruling, the primary objective of the Russian Federation was not to collect taxes but rather to bankrupt Yukos, appropriate its assets for the sole benefit of the Russian state and state-owned companies Rosneft and Gazprom, and remove Khodorkovsky from the political arena.
> Although weak at the time of the auctions and the economic downturn of the mid-1990s, from 2000 the government under new leader Vladimir Putin grew in strength, until it became able politically to outweigh the power of the oligarchs. On October 25, 2003, Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested on charges of fraud and tax evasion. Leonid Bershidsky, founder of Russian business newspaper Vedomosti, wrote: "Any of the oligarchs could have faced similar charges; Khodorkovsky's imprisonment made them so docile that Putin confined himself to making an example of just one victim".
The reasons became clear later on - the government understood that oligarchs can serve a useful function in the power hierarchy and so it wasn't interested in eradicating them as a class, which they could do, by the way, with very broad popular support (at least 90%). They have extensive kompromat on every single one of them, without any exceptions.
Putin, at the time, wasn't entirely in charge either in spite of nominally being the president - the national security apparatus has just installed him, so I doubt the decision to make an example of Khodorkovsky in particular was entirely his own. But this was a success in the end, and now the oligarchs know their place and do not try to undermine the state like they used to in the 90s. Boris Berezovsky (another odious oligarch who could, in the 90s, do whatever he wanted in the Kremlin) "hanging himself" in London in 2013 might have done something as well to reinforce their non-interference.
In the past, there were laws preventing single individuals or companies from owning too much of the media. Like literally "you're only allowed one station in each region" type laws to ensure that diverse viewpoints (or at least, the viewpoints of oligarchs with different interest) could get through.
Several reasons:
1. The "new" media has a lot more money, and therefore power.
2. Algorithms and realtime, granular targeting for brainwashing.
3. Truly immense and all-encompassing amounts of tracking data these companies control.
4. New media is relatively free of regulation, and they, thus far, have borne no responsibility for anything that's going on on their platforms, or any censorship / algorithmic boosting.
I could continue the list. But then again, you too could continue the list. We've been talking about this list on this site for years now.
> China’s biggest e-commerce groups—Alibaba, Pinduoduo and jd.com—are being forced to confront many of the monopolistic practices that bolstered their earnings in the past.
> Meituan, a super-app focused on food delivery, has been ordered to provide better support to its armies of drivers. Such changes will erode companies’ profits and clobber their share prices.
> Chinese regulators have railed against the “disorderly expansion of capital” by tech firms.
Say what you will about the means, all of these changes sound positive to me.
I wish the U.S. government would grow a spine when it comes to putting citizens interests over investors.
It's like gambling vices. In moderation (small amounts) it can be entertaining, but the casinos' interest is to get people hooked consequences to society be damned. It's not too dissimilar from the Opium wars: profit at all costs.
Good luck.