Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)
While political reporters are still doing their view-from-nowhere “Democrats say this, Republicans say that” dance, tech and legal journalists have been watching an unfortunately recogn…
While most news media keeps on endlessly reporting on what politicians say, tech and law commentators by definition focus on what is being done. In a world where what is being said is not only irrelevant, but flat-out weaponized, this is the only kind of reporting that matters.
So, here’s the bottom line: when WaPo’s opinion pages are being gutted and tech CEOs are seeking pre-approval from authoritarians, the line between “tech coverage” and “saving democracy” has basically disappeared. It’s all the same thing.
That's the thing I've been most worried about. The media have largely capitulated out of (justifiable) fear of reprisal and violence. The fear is legit, but we depend on the media to speak truth to power especially when democracy is on the line.
This is why I no longer believe this will end without violence.
Also just fear of going out of business by alienating any potential customers. When your revenues have been steadily dropping for decades now and it's starting to look like you're going the way of Kodak, it becomes more tempting to pander to the middle and try to avoid pissing as many people off as possible. This in turn means you can't speak the truth anymore.
There's a perspective that some technologically literate people have (not all of them, certainly) that enables them a clearer view of what is going on re: tech oligarchs. That is how much we rely on other people's computers. Most people don't think about what is going on when they browse a website or post something on social media, set up their own shop on squarespace, sell a product on Amazon, stream music or TV or movies or games.
Giant tech companies own it all. They own the computer you use to do all these things. They own the computers other smaller businesses use to run their companies. You invented a product and want to drive your cart to the market square? Pay a tax to King Bezos, the market square is Amazon. Did you make a game? Pay Gaben and you can sell it at his marketplace. Don't wanna use these marketplaces? Wanna set up your own shop? You still have to use Amazon's, or Microsoft's, or Google's computers.
These tech oligarchs are more like feudal lords -- enclosing lands (computers) and charging the peasants and merchants access to them.
I work in startups like many of us and forget I can see the code in the matrix sometimes. Even 20 yrs ago working in IT infrastructure VARs, I knew tech was just the toolset for business functions.
Digital feudalism... I suppose that does make it easier to call up large armies of peasant levies when you need to wage an information war.
Right... But the digital feudalism seems to be well into transformation into regular feudalism and regular people don't seem to notice.
I've worked and lived in a lot of developing countries. I can't shout into the void any more then I already do, that I've seen this a dozen times.
Colleagues of mine that lived under corrupt kleptocracies with things like massive state surveillance of average people for simply being in the wrong political party tell me how great it is that the US has finally caught up with them.
The commonality is that we have already, in 6 weeks, hit a point of it taking a generation to undo what's been done.
The people who aren't freaked out are either normal people that don't have a sense of what's coming and can't comprehend life outside the status quo, and those that think they'll directly benefit from it all.
Hey OP, can you edit the link to remove the #comments fragment at the end? The way you submitted it, clicking skips over the article and brings us to the comments section instead.
Incase you missed it or didn't finish the article they're looking for support (I suspect they won't be getting any from the government)
Their Patreon https://www.patreon.com/techdirt
I have been finding myself suddenly saving techdirt articles for my reading list day after day, and I guess now I know why. Not to say I wasn’t interested before, but they’ve been providing analysis and commentary lately that has just hit different/ has been scratching a particular itch. Please, keep that train rolling.
techdirt has been gold across multiple decades now. I'm really glad more people are starting to become aware of it!
Yeah honestly after the first couple I was like, crap I’ve been missing out. You can tell they’re legit because the website looks like forum websites I used to frequent in the early 00s (sounds like a dig, but I swear it’s not, the modern web is damn awful to read most of the time).
Shut up and take my money
I'm glad Techdirt still exists.
Mike Masnick is a good egg, which makes him valuable in times like these... Just like good eggs.
Most of tech media are not journalists, they sell gadgets and stocks. Most of American tech media were a Democratic Party blogs during US presidential election cycle already. Brace yourselves for even more low quality partisan poo-slinging.
However true, nature abhors a vacuum, so there will be actual journalism coming from unlikely sources: and not just tech.
I don’t think this can come from tech media at all, the system is rotten to the core because of ads and widely accepted sloppiness. The only reason they’re looking to diversify is that new gadgets are no longer that different from last year’s gadgets and AI bubble is about to burst.
Good journalism could still come but people will have to accept it won’t come free.