<story><title>Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-technology-www/father-of-web-says-tech-giants-may-have-to-be-split-up-idUSKCN1N63MV</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alexandercrohde</author><text>Suppose tech companies were no longer legally allowed to use the network effect (i.e. they had to provide open-access to their public data via API).&lt;p&gt;Then this would enable alternative front-ends on twitter.&lt;p&gt;This would then enable me to filter messages by positivity, or whichever criteria I choose (e.g. non-Russian-bots, non-shills).&lt;p&gt;This is turn would then change the whole ecosystem. It would remove the perverse incentives of outrage-attention machine.</text></item><item><author>asaph</author><text>&amp;gt; “If you put a drop of love into Twitter it seems to decay but if you put in a drop of hatred you feel it actually propagates much more strongly. And you wonder: ‘Well is that because of the way that Twitter as a medium has been built?’”&lt;p&gt;How exactly is breaking up the tech giants going to solve this problem?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nine_k</author><text>I think that people have an (almost) unalienable power, very strong, and pretty underused.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s the power of walking away.&lt;p&gt;If you find an environment toxic, leave it, and ask your friends to leave it, too. Yes, you have to research alternatives first, and make compromises, at least temporarily.&lt;p&gt;Lately this somehow worked for Facebook. I bet they are going to see that on their bottom line.&lt;p&gt;So, if you dislike the outrage machine, &lt;i&gt;leave it&lt;/i&gt;. Consciously ignore it. Do not retweet, do not link to tweets (instead, quote worthy tweets, they are short).&lt;p&gt;If enough people did that, and migrated elsewhere, that would be noted. Speak to companies in the language they understand, that is, the language of money. Their money comes from your attention spent on their property. Vote with your dollar — the dollar not spent by online advertisers for your eyeballs that are not there.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tim Berners-Lee says tech giants may have to be split up</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-technology-www/father-of-web-says-tech-giants-may-have-to-be-split-up-idUSKCN1N63MV</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alexandercrohde</author><text>Suppose tech companies were no longer legally allowed to use the network effect (i.e. they had to provide open-access to their public data via API).&lt;p&gt;Then this would enable alternative front-ends on twitter.&lt;p&gt;This would then enable me to filter messages by positivity, or whichever criteria I choose (e.g. non-Russian-bots, non-shills).&lt;p&gt;This is turn would then change the whole ecosystem. It would remove the perverse incentives of outrage-attention machine.</text></item><item><author>asaph</author><text>&amp;gt; “If you put a drop of love into Twitter it seems to decay but if you put in a drop of hatred you feel it actually propagates much more strongly. And you wonder: ‘Well is that because of the way that Twitter as a medium has been built?’”&lt;p&gt;How exactly is breaking up the tech giants going to solve this problem?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>RickS</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s so much right with your take here, IMO.&lt;p&gt;It flies in the face of so much opposition from reality – much of it credible – like how the hell do you make money when you eschew walled gardens, engagement boosters, and adtech friendly practices? Do people even &lt;i&gt;want&lt;/i&gt; to make the tradeoffs they&amp;#x27;d have to? Is regulation too heavyhanded?&lt;p&gt;Will it be that for as long as these systems can be turned into money machines, old money will use them to print new money? Perhaps.&lt;p&gt;But the mentality of &amp;quot;open at all costs, profits be damned&amp;quot; feels like one we in the tech industry have gradually let slip from our ethos, and it&amp;#x27;s so core to the old web. I miss it.</text></comment>