This is largely the problem with most social media, and generative AI has made this problem worse just like it has made other pretty terrible facets of human interactions worse.

Anyone who was paying attention on reddit the last couple years (even pre-pandemic) could see that bots were taking over. The main difference (love mods or hate them) was that mods who’s subreddits didn’t rely on bot content to stay active were moderating the bot problem as best they could.

Now, most of those mods aren’t mods anymore and the vast majority only really want the engagement anyway so of course they’ll let bots basically take over.

Reddit the corp never cared about keeping bots off the platform and they care even less now. Bot engagement counts. Bot views of ads count. Removing bots actively hurts their bottom line in the short term so of course they aren’t going to do anything with that.

The actual human users on Reddit don’t care because they’re there to consume. It doesn’t matter to them if the posts they engage with are made by bots or not.

That’s honestly hilarious though. They made Marvin and don’t see the problem with that.

Buy things up in the fallout. The power vacuum the collapse will create will be ripe for anyone who comes out financially ahead in such a situation.

Tech giants welcomed Trump because they thought he would enable two things. A roll-back of regulations, and to increase profits. The thing is, the monkey wrench in this situation is twofold. The first problem is Elon Musk being placed in a position of power that enables him to detrimentally effect the profits and regulations of these industries to benefit his companies first and foremost while also being detrimental to these other tech companies. We see that a lot with the data he’s been stealing from all kinds of government agencies under the guise of saving the government money.

This means that even regulations that are removed that pave the way for these companies to enact policy or even just products to enrich themselves are hindered by Musk being a direct competitor to a lot of them. Facebook/Instagram vs Twitter, Tesla vs Ford, SpaceX vs Blue origin.

The second problem is the tariff situation. It cuts off a majority of tech companies from the cheap manufacture of components, devices, and even just consumer electronics that a lot of tech companies rely on in order to get their products into the hands of users so they can siphon up user data.

A third problem is that Musk has his hands in so much stuff that he’s pressuring the government to place his companies first in the running for. SpaceX and Tesla especially for things like bullet proof vehicles (where previously the government had contracts with other automotive manufacturers), and SpaceX being used for missions that NASA might have previously handled using Boeing products etc.

All these tech companies went to Washington DC to “Kiss the Ring” with the intention not just of avoiding a lot of legislation being leveled at them by previous administrations, but also in the hopes that they could position themselves as Musk had. For further government contracts. Because long after Trump is dead and buried, the contracts would be lucrative.

But that assumes they survive all the upheaval his administration is causing (and not just survive it, but come out largely economically and financially unharmed).

Anything may be possible, but the market has to survive in order for these companies to remain supreme.

Trump’s first administration filed the lawsuit that led to the court determination that Google held a search monopoly. The result of that is the DOJ filed a proposal that Google sell chrome web browser to another entity. Google has been fighting this proposal tooth and nail.

So the answer is, I’ll believe Meta gets broken up when I see it.

They haven’t “won” until Meta has to pay damages. And even then, that win is hollow because not only will Meta try this again if the penalty isn’t high enough, but they’ll use the advantages of our weak leadership to further avoid any serious repercussions.

This article assumes Tik Tok wants to sell or that they are going to sell to a company that’s basically a direct competitor. I don’t understand this assumption.