BC SOCIETY
Saved by @jay_millerjay

When it's railroading time, you get railroads.

When the railroads turn into the personal satrapies of rail-barons, you get trustbusters.

A couple decades ago, it was online service time. We had the users, the telcoms systems, the computers, the modems, so we got platforms.

1/

 We had that, but we lacked something important: effective antimonopoly enforcement. Lax merger laws allowed companies with access to capital markets to buy out or neutralize all their competitors, so we got monopolies.

Right on schedule, we're getting digital trustbusters.

2/
Now, some people aren't technically sophisticated, but they do understand a lot about competition law. That's how you get meat-and-taters antitrust proposals like @amyklobuchar's #CALERA, which address the structural problems with antitrust law.

https://t.co/lnyP1LcG6I

3/
Klobuchar's bill is hugely important. The reason we have monopolies is that we stopped enforcing anti-monopoly law 40 years ago. Monopoly isn't a tech problem, it's everywhere from sneakers to glass bottles to pro wrestling to candy to aerospace.

https://t.co/s82POZAJ1k

4/
Klobuchar's CALERA doesn't just seek to apply antitrust law to tech - it also explicitly restores the pre-Reagan basis for fighting monopolies: we fight monopolies because they concentrate power and corrupt our politics. All monopolies are guilty unless proven otherwise.

5/
But though industries all attained their monopolies through similar tactics - predatory acquisitions and mergers, vertical integration - they also each have their own technical characteristics that must inform our demonopolization tactics.

6/
Take emergency care: monopolists love ERs because we don't choose which ER to use, nor when. You can't shop for an ER from the back of an ambulance. You don't know going in whether you're going to spend $1m or $1k. And you'll buy whatever services the ER tells you to buy.

7/
Or power-grids: demand for electricity is both inelastic (you need power when you need power) and price-insensitive, and that inelasticity INCREASES with demand: that is, when it's freezing or boiling out, everyone wants electricity.

8/
Tech, of course, has its own technical characteristics. Chief among these is its flexibility. At a deep, theoretical level our digital tools and networks are capable of interoperating with one another in ways that no physical technologies can match.

9/
Think of the Australian rail-system. In the mid-19th century, would-be rail-barons laid differing gauges in hopes of conquering the nation's logistics and transport. For 150+ years, engineers have tried to solve the "multi-gauge muddle" by designing multi-system railcars.

10/
Hundreds of designs for cars that retract and extrude different wheelbases have been tried, and none ever caught on. Instead, Australia is tearing up and re-laying thousands of kilometers' worth of track. With physical tech, "compatibility" often means starting from scratch.

11/
Not so with digital tech. If you are an OS company whose rival has locked up all office docs in a proprietary format, you don't have to convince all its customers to abandon their documents and start over. You just make a compatible program:

https://t.co/aU37ggN3AW

12/
With digital and physical tech, network effects drive high switching costs, but when it comes to digital, network effects are a double-edged sword.

13/
With interoperability, a walled garden can easily become a feed-lot, where customers for a new service are neatly arrayed for competitors to come and harvest.

https://t.co/RDTy6WyQNM

14/
Good tech policy emphasizes interoperability when it comes to demonopolizing the digital world. Long before the US ACCESS Act and the EU Digital Markets Act, @mmasnick published his seminal "Protocols, Not Platforms" paper.

https://t.co/RDTy6WyQNM

15/
And @daphnehk's work on "Magic APIs" presaged the ACCESS Act's idea of forcing tech companies to expose the APIs they use internally so that competitors can plug into their services:

https://t.co/bGgXxTRr3S

16/
(that paper is outstanding, BTW, with clear-eyed assessments of alternatives, like a digital fairness doctrine, "common carriage" rules, an "indecency" standard for content moderation - basically a checklist for "So you've got a plan to fix tech - did you think of ____?")

17/
Masnick's "protocols" are a vision for a decentralized, better internet. Keller's Magic APIs describe a legal path to getting there. My own work on Competitive Compatibility (nee Adversarial Interoperability) describes how we'll STAY there.

https://t.co/Tw7DPaiiY4

18/
Because monopolies are good at subverting regulation, so any Magic API rule would be brittle - dependent on the tech companies not sabotaging those APIs by moving the important data-flows away from the mandatory APIs.

19/
That's why we have to strip monopolists of the power to ask a court to block interoperators: take away the wildly distorted copyright, patent, terms of service and other legal doctrines that Big Tech ignored during its ascent, but now enforces against would-be competitors.

20/
With both interop mandates and a legal right for new entrants to force interoperability through technical means, tech giants will face consequences if they subvert antimonopoly rules.

21/
The choice becomes: either respect the intent of a mandate and preserve interop; OR be plunged into a chaotic arms-race with competitors who switch to scraping, bots, and reverse-engineering.

22/
All of this is incredibly wonkish, a highly specialized debate that involves highly technical propositions about how digital technology works today, how it used to work and how it might work - layered atop a similar, highly technical understanding of antitrust law.

23/
The Venn overlap of "deep understanding of digital tech" and "deep understanding of antitrust debates" isn't so much a slice as it is a sphincter, and the debate has been equally narrow, but when it's railbaron time, you get trustbusters.

24/
The tech monopoly/interop debate is going mainstream. @FukuyamaFrancis and his colleagues at the Stanford Working Group on Platform Scale have proposed an intervention similar to the ACCESS Act, where trusted third parties mediate between monopolists, new entrants and users.

25/
The Stanford proposal calls them "middleware companies," but they're conceptually interchangeable with the idea of a "data fiduciary": companies that act as referees when a new co-op, startup or nonprofit wants to plug into a monopolist's service.

https://t.co/YM6yMpFB7u

26/
This is clearly an idea whose time has come - it's present in the EU's DMA and the US Access Act, and latent in the UK CMA report:

https://t.co/vkmzze0LGb

27/
Importantly, it's an approach that recognizes the distinctive character of tech - taking account of the power of interop to break open walled gardens and unravel network effects.

28/
What's especially interesting about this work is that it appears to have been developed in parallel to pre-existing work from Masnick and Keller (and me) - it's a case of convergence between the tech-policy world and the broader world of policy.

29/
After all, while Masnick and Keller's work is well known inside of tech policy, that's just our obscure, nerdy corner of the policy world - now they're escaping that corner, becoming self-evident to people from traditional policy backgrounds.

https://t.co/Ltchly91C9

30/
My hope is that the trend continues - that we see ideas about Competitive Compatibility/Adversarial Interop join the idea of API mandates, so that we produce durable anti-monopoly systems, not just anti-monopoly rules.

31/
Most important, though, is restoring an appreciation for the importance of interoperability in PREVENTING monopolies and promoting technological self-determination for communities and individuals.

32/
Because such a sensibility can escape the legislative world and be enacted via fast-moving, easier-to-use policy tools. For example, we could (SHOULD!) make interop a feature of all government procurement rules.

33/
No school district should buy devices for students without securing the right to sideload the apps they need on them - imagine buying 50,000 Ipads at public expense and then having Apple boot the app you rely on out of the App Store!

34/
Likewise, no district should buy Google Classroom without securing a legally binding guarantee not to block interoperators who want to integrate other ed-tech services into the curriculum, with or without Google's cooperation.

35/
Procurement and interop are as old as the Civil War, when the Union Army demanded firearms and ammo that had multiple manufacturers. As the state-level Net Neutrality rules (which bar governments from using non-neutral ISPs) showed us, procurement can shape markets.

36/
Procurement is just for starters. Right now, tech companies caught breaking the law are handed down fines that are less than the profits their lawbreaking generated - instead, we could demand interop as part of any settlement.

37/
One major barrier to interop is contract law: terms of service, EULAs, noncompetes, arbitration, etc. States wield enormous power over contracting terms: states can declare certain contractual language against public policy and thus unenforceable.

38/
If, say, California were to pass a rule nullifying the mountain of abusive garbage that has become standard in digital "contracts," it would be in a position to export fair usage terms to the country in just the same way it exports robust emissions standards.

39/
Antittrust is primarily a federal manner (that's why 40 years of federal antitrust malpractice has been such a disaster). But every level of government, down to your local school board, can make a meaningful difference in tech antitrust.

40/
Digital technology's inescapable, marvellous, terrifying flexibility can be translated into so many unique, powerful weapons for transforming the industry and empowering communities to control their digital lives and seize the means of computation.

41/
If you'd like to read or share this thread as a single, unrolled blog post, here's a permalink on https://t.co/iSBh8s9m7q, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free, free-to-read site:

https://t.co/RMBDJIjnHX

eof/
CORRECTION: in Tweet 15, the link for "Protocols, Not Platforms" should be https://t.co/1yDSNJehRP

More from Cory Doctorow #BLM

Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
When a new president is sworn in, they gets told a lot of secret stuff - launch codes, backup plans, etc. But one of the best-kept presidential secrets is the "Enemies Briefcase," a collection of "presidential emergency action documents" (PEADs).

https://t.co/A6Jh3Gkip7

1/


These aren't just revelations about the fallback plans for things like a nuclear strike - they are a meticulously maintained collection of emergency authorities that the administrative branch claims it is entitled to.

2/

These authorities are analyzed in legal memos that give the president to unilaterally declare an emergency "imposing martial law, suspending habeas corpus, seizing control of the internet, imposing censorship, and incarcerating so-called subversives."

3/

The PEADs were incredibly well-kept secrets, known only through fragmentary redaction failures, appropriaions and declassifications...Until Trump starting bragging on 'em:

"I have the right to do a lot of things that people don’t even know about." -Donald J Trump

4/

PEADs are particularly ominous given how many non-secret emergency powers the president has - more than 100 powers granted by Congress and never rescinded, dating back to the Civil War, from freezing bank accounts to deploying troops domestically.

5/
SOCIETY
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
The Night of the Short Fingers saw many of the US's largest tech companies blocking Trump and trumpist platforms like Parler, provoking a storm of punditry about What It All Means for the tech companies to have taken this content moderation step.

1/


The best expert I know on the subject is @jilliancyork, my @eff colleague. She's published "an ongoing list" of "everything pundits are getting wrong about this current moment in content moderation."

You should read it.

Here's some highlights:

“Deplatforming Trump sets a precedent."

York: "The only 'precedent' set here is that this is indeed the first time a sitting US president has been deplatformed by a tech company."

3/

But political leaders around the world have already received this treatment: Lebanon, Burma, etc. Even the reach of the deplatforming is nothing new: last summer's US Iran ban saw blocks of everything, up to and including Etsy listings for "Persian dolls."

4/
HISTORY
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Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
As the Qanon prophecies fail and the cult-members struggle to resolve their cognitive dissonance, it's a good time to revisit the history of paranoid, conspiratorial political movements in American history - the "paranoid style" that has dominated since the Revolution.

1/


After all, the very first skirmishes of the US war of independence were based on a conspiracy theory: that the levy on tea was a prelude to a sellout of the colonists to transnational mercantalist interests. US politics have always been conspiratorial.

2/

I found @zacharykarabell's @politico history of the Know Nothing party especially useful, as it tells the story of what happens when surging, paranoid, fractious political movements

The American Party was a secret 19th century organization founded on a conspiracy theory: that Irish immigrants were secretly planning a takeover of the US on behalf of the Pope.

4/
HISTORY
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
A couple days back, I wrote up my best understanding of what happened with /r/wallstreetbets and meme stocks like Gamestop, trying to show how all the different, seemingly contradictory takes on the underlying financial stuff could all be true.

https://t.co/xWzre4r0Yj

1/


In the days since, a new series of contradictory takes has emerged, these ones disputing the meaning of this bizarre financial spectacle, and likewise what response, if any is warranted as it unfurls.

2/

I think that all of these takes can also be true, and as with the trading itself, reconciling them requires that we widen the frame.

Let's start with Jimmy Carter.

3/

In 1978, Carter's IRS created the 401(k), a tax-sheltered account for people who wanted to gamble on stocks to fund their retirement.

That was a fringe proposition at best.

4/

The normal retirement system was a "defined benefits" pension where your employer guaranteed you a certain monthly percentage of your salary from retirement to death.

The vast majority of Americans wisely prefered a guaranteed payout to a tax-advantaged gambling account.

5/
TRADING
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
There is no shortage of takes about what's going on with Gamestop (and other surging stocks), Robinhood and Reddit's r/wallstreetbets, many of them contradictory - at least on the face of them. But I think it's possible for most of these takes to be right. Here's how.

1/


First you need to understand the underlying mechanics of the story. Stock markets are fundamentally a way of making bets, including bets on the outcome of other peoples' bets, and bets on the outcomes of THOSE bets.

2/

All this complexity creates lots of exploitable opportunities. Some of these opportunities are considered legitimate and are given respectable names like "arbitrage." Others are considered illegitimate, and are called disreputable things like "stock manipulation."

3/

A hypothetical Martian observing all this through a telescope could not tell you which kinds of bets were honest and which were dishonest, because the difference isn't about any objective standard, but rather, about power.

4/

The strategies of powerful people are legit, while the strategies of their would-be dethroners are not legit. Sometimes, even outright frauds are OK if they're done by people with enough power.

5/
TRADING , STOCK MKT

More from Society

John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
Our pretensions to civilization have become very thin. Political violence was legitimized last year and is spreading wildly now. "Might makes right" is clearly the only "principle" behind freedom of speech. That's why Chinese Communists will never be censored by Big Tech.

When every "principle" becomes nothing but a ruthless exercise of power, it's not surprising that a growing number of people conclude they must demonstrate some sort of power in order to be taken seriously. Violence is the crudest exercise of power.

A well-run civilization makes it clear *universally* that violence is absolutely unacceptable. Giving free passes for irresponsible rhetoric and destruction to groups favored by the dominant political ideology of the State undermines that message.

We must also people peaceable means of expressing themselves and controlling their own lives, to relieve the pressures that can lead to violent outbursts and other forms of lawlessness. The less healthy discourse and freedom of action you have, the more pressure builds up.

It's dangerous when large numbers of people begin drawing the conclusion that might makes right, that laws and principles bend easily for those who have the political strength to bend them. Might makes right is the code of anarchy and barbarism, the antithesis of civilization.
POLITICS , SOCIETY , ALL
Mohamed Samaan Mhukhuthar (\u29d6) \U0001f1f2\U0001f1fb\U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8\U0001f1eb\U0001f1f7\U0001f3f4
Mohamed Samaan Mhukhut...
@samaanslifeDMG
Sandbank Danger, A Thread


Controversy Has Been Caused By The Digging Of A Narrow Channel By A Resort On A Sandbank Near K. Hinmafushi.


Hinmafushi Council President Shan Ibrahim Stated To Sun That The Resort, Which Dug The Trench Creating A River On The Sandbank, Did Not Have Ownership Over The Sandbank.

Officials From The Island Of Hinmafushi Had Traveled To The Sandbank To Stop The Process Of Digging The Trench When They Became Aware Of It, Said Shan.

Officials Were Now Redepositing The Sand Removed From The Sandbank.
SOCIETY
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John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
It's funny how so many people who claim to worship "democracy" also dismiss nationalism as selfish xenophobia. Democracy is absolutely meaningless without strong national sovereignty. Under globalism, citizens of any given state have little influence over how they are governed.

Nationalism isn't just mindless tribalism. People are correct to insist their government has a responsibility TO THEM that vastly outweighs any imagined responsibility to foreign governments they have absolutely no influence over, or foreign populations.

We've seen that point taken to absurd extremes by the Left during the Trump administration, with whack-job judges ruling that foreigners have rights that EXCEED those of American citizens, including absolute rights to enter the U.S. and influence its government.

And we're frequently told that some international elite "consensus" completely overrides our ability to make individual decisions - or even to petition our own government, or vote for representatives who disagree with whatever "the world" has supposedly decided.

All of that is the absolute negation of "democracy" in any form, including the dangerous mob rule and majoritarianism that the Left selectively advocates. (Notice they always have a list of things nobody gets to vote on anymore, no matter how strong the majority vote would be.)
SOCIETY
Somya Lakhani
Somya Lakhani
@somyalakhani
Thread:
A year ago, at this hour exactly I was in Maujpur in northeast Delhi. For days, weeks & months, I -- like several other reporters -- filed multiple stories on the #DelhiRiots. On the violence, the perpetrators, the victims, the burnt homes & shops, the fear.

I remember every minute of Feb 23, 2020 -- from the speeches to smoke billowing from afar. What I can't ever forget is the face of a man who sat alone in front of a shop, his kurta dusty and torn, blood on his forehead, unable to answer who he was & where he wanted to go.

I've his photo, I never posted it anywhere, and I won't either. He was in such shock, and there was no help around. I tried talking to him but he didn't say a word. He was numb.

It'll take me years before I can fully write down what happened that afternoon -- a stampede, stones flying all around me, a colleague who held nu hand & ran, another who lost her slipper for a minute, tear gas, my inhaler, salt.

I sent my mother messages, my hands trembling. At 1 am, I was home -- my head buried inside a pillow between my parents.
SOCIETY
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
@ReichlinMelnick
We finally have the U.S. Citizenship Act Bill Text! I'm going to go through some portions of the bill right now and highlight some of the major changes and improvements that it would make to our immigration system.

Thread:


First the Bill makes a series of promises changes to the way we talk about immigrants and immigration law.

Gone would be the term "alien" and in its place is "noncitizen."

Also gone would be the term "alienage," replaced with "noncitizenship."


Now we get to the "earned path to citizenship" for all undocumented immigrants present in the United States on January 1, 2021.

Under this bill, anyone who satisfies the eligibility criteria for a new "lawful prospective immigrant status" can come out of the shadows.


So, what are the eligibility criteria for becoming a "lawful prospective immigrant status"? Those are in a new INA 245G and include:

- Payment of the appropriate fees
- Continuous presence after January 1, 2021
- Not having certain criminal record (but there's a waiver)


After a person has been in "lawful prospective immigrant status" for at least 5 years, they can apply for a green card, so long as they still pass background checks and have paid back any taxes they are required to do so by law.

However! Some groups don't have to wait 5 years.
SOCIETY , IMMIGRATION

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AAdhira \U0001f319\U0001f1ee\U0001f1f3
AAdhira 🌙🇮🇳...
@Aadhiraspeaks
Shri Hanuman had boon to be immortal. And be present where ever there is Ram stuti.
I came across this beautiful story that I would like to share
#threadstories
#Hanuman ji is believed to live in the foothills of Himalayas. But once he spent a lot of time in Sri Lanka
1/9


Where Ravan's brother ruled for many years..
On his way back he came across tribal people from community called #Mathanga
He gave Darshan to them. The chief of the tribe asked him to keep coming back to guide their generations
Hanuman ji said that whoever recites this mantra
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I will give them Darshan. But there are two conditions
1st he/she must know his relationship with me
2nd there must not be anyone around him in 950 mts radius. If present, that person must also know about my relationship with him /her.

He promised to come after every 41 yrs
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The Mathangs also maintain a ‘logbook’ where they record all the words spoken and ‘leelas’ performed by Lord Hanuman.
They call him their Guru
Who teaches them how to live their lives.
A Sri Lankan organization called Setuu is studying this ‘logbook’ and also conduct
4/9

programmes for Hanuman devotees who can do ‘Sadhna‘ under the guidance of Setuu masters. Devotees who qualify all the criteria will be eligible for Hanuman’s ‘sakshaat darshan‘
The Setuu has certain conditions that need to be kept in mind which includes devoting one complete
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Will Buxton
Will Buxton
@wbuxtonofficial
The Haas / Force India argument is fascinating, and the decision of the stewards may still have consequences. The first key finding is that the stewards ruled Racing Point Force India to be a valid constructor. That means that it builds its own cars.

Haas had argued that the cars had been designed by Force India, but as Haas knows only too well, "outsourcing" is legal. The stewards decided that "there is no regulatory support for the argument that Outsourcing of Listed Parts cannot come from a former or excluded team."

In determining this, the stewards also came to the following conclusion: "In relation to the submission by the Racing Point Force India F1 Team that it is not a new team, the Stewards decide that the Racing Point Force India F1 Team is indeed a new team."

This will have a big knock on effect for Haas in its continued arguments over the rights of RPFI as relates to its eligibility and rights under the complex payments structure. Haas has argued all along that RPFI should be treated as a new team and tread the same path that it did.

TLDR? Haas lost the fight but may have won the war. In having its argument that Racing Point hadn't designed their own car thrown out, they gained clarification that RPFI was a new team.
SPORT
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Vibhu Vashisth
Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet
Did you know?
Ahilyabai Holkar was one of India's
greatest women rulers of all time.

Ahilyabai was Born on May 31,1725 in the village of Chondi,Jamkhed distt,Maharashtra to a man named Mankoji Shinde,who was the Patil(Chief) of a village and a member of proud Dhangar Community.


Despite the fact that girls' education was a farther dream in those days, Ahilyabai was homeschooled by her father.
Ahilya didn't belong to any royal family but in a twist of fate she is still remembered as one of the most revered Queen in the history.


While they were living their humdrum lives, one day Malhar Rao Holkar, commander of the Peshwa Bajirao & Lord of the Malwa stopped in Chondi on his way to Pune, where he couldn't help but notice a young 8yrs old Ahilyabai in the temple service feeding the poor & hungry.

He was so impressed by the sheer innocence&beauty with simplicity character of Ahilyabai dat he asked her hand in marriage for his son Khanderao Holkar.Just like that she got married to Khanderao in 1733 at a tender age of 8&became a bride of esteemed Maratha community of Holkars

But destiny had something else in store for her as her husband died in the Battle of Kumbher in 1754 leaving her widow at 29.Distressed Ahilyabai was to commit Sati when her father-in-law Malhar Rao refused to let it happen.
ALL , AHILYABAIITIHAS
Vikrant
Vikrant
@Trading0secrets
Trading view scanner process -

1 - open trading view in your browser and select stock scanner in left corner down side .

2 - touch the percentage% gain change ( and u can see higest gainer of today)


3. Then, start with 6% gainer to 20% gainer and look charts of everyone in daily Timeframe . (For fno selection u can choose 1% to 4% )

4. Then manually select the stocks which are going to give all time high BO or 52 high BO or already given.

5. U can also select those stocks which are going to give range breakout or already given range BO

6 . If in 15 min chart📊 any stock sustaing near BO zone or after BO then select it on your watchlist

7 . Now next day if any stock show momentum u can take trade in it with RM

This looks very easy & simple but,

U will amazed to see it's result if you follow proper risk management.

I did 4x my capital by trading in only momentum stocks.

I will keep sharing such learning thread 🧵 for you 🙏💞🙏

Keep learning / keep sharing 🙏
@AdityaTodmal
EQUITY , TRADINGTHREAD , TRADINGVIEW
Warrior Axom
Warrior Axom
@WarriorAxom
I am a student of DHSK college, Dibrugarh. I belong to 1 st Sem , History Department. And my generic subject is Political Science. Our history professor Mr Abhijit Baruah on our first day said
1) You Hindus don't have any history
2) If you want to study real history contd...

then study Islamic& European history.
3) He is a hardcore communist ( urban naxal I must say )

4) He says you hindu people don't have any history coz you people were busy writing about your imaginary Gods.

5 ) He says us to read history books of Romilla Thapar ( hindu hater)

He is brainwashing students since 80s. Another professor Mr Biraj Dutta says "we need revolution. Ami Delhi r sorkar uforai pelabo lgibo " Another Comrade professor Mr Sun Gogoi of Pol Sc. Dept says Urban Naxal is a derogatory term used by fascist Hindutva goons to defame (3)

Students of JNU and overall all the student community. He says Lala Lajpat Rai & all the nationalist politicians of that time were casteist including former President of India Mr Rajendra Prasad.

Now the historic DHSK college & all the college's of Assam may doing this from (4)

a long time. Now what should I do ? Should I stand against them. Should I oppose them ? My inner Hindu does not allow me to tolerate anymore.
Should I complain ? But to whom ? Anyone can be an Urban Naxal . Whom to believe? Should I think about my career & keep quite (5)
INDIA