[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 8

 [Images of the Two Towers and Lord of the Rings]

VO: A very memorable quote from Lord of the Rings from Gandalf says, “There is only one Lord of the Ring, only one who can bend it to his will and he does not share power.”  The title of the book refers to the fallen wizard Sarumon who is corrupted thanks to the dark palantir which lets him see vast distances but ultimately exposes his mind to Sauron as a play thing.  A small glass object that gives all the secrets you could ever want?

[Images of Cell phones]

VO: Sound familiar?

[Images of Devices]

VO: And like the Palantir, the wonders of the valley seem magic.  And they are tools that can be used for good or ill.  Computers dont inherently make bad code, people do.  So why do so many things that the dark valley does have seemingly good intentions and yet ends up being corrupted?

[Images of Money and Stock Market]

VO: Just like Lord of the Rings, the rings given to men, dwarves and elves had strings attached.  The money that starts so many startups has strings attached.  Startups need venture capitalists, these ‘investment angels’ like literal fallen angels from the bible seem benevolent but bring all of the problems that capitalism has compounded by the hubris of engineers who dont consider the consequences their technology has on real people and refuse to take responsibility for.

[Images of Sauron’s Army and then cocaine cowboys and wealth]

VO: And like an army of corrupted elves twisted to the will of a fallen wizard, this need for short term quarterly investor profits at the expense of all else drives some very questionable behavior.  The corporate charter that legally shields investors and makes large modern companies possible has been stripped so now their only reason for being is to make money for shareholders at the expense of every other stakeholder imaginable.

[Images of Bezos, Musk and others brazen displays of wealth including mansions etc]

VO: When computers went mainstream in the 80’s, Wall Street made a lot of money.  When the internet came along in the 90’s, they made a lot more money.  When smart phones and social media came on board in the new millennium, they made obscene amounts of money.  As the valley moves fast and breaks things, old obsolete ways of doing business are set by the wayside but they expect the government (ie us, the public) to clean up the damage.  Sound familiar?

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[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 7 (Continued)

  [Images of Kindergarten, The wild west, fences, sheep]

VO: Remember Kindergarten? We all learned some basic rules then, politeness, sharing, quiet time. Well thatisnt the internet.  At all.  The internet was the wild west, and like the wild west they’re building fences for sheep.  Walled gardens are a thing.  And yet, people think its about the first amendment.  Is it?  Is it that black and white and absolute? It’s understandable why the first amendment is written the way it is.  

[Images of Revolutionary War]

VO: The people that founded this country lived under a tyrannical counter enlightenment monarch who had the power to control what they could or couldnt say.  You could be arrested for simply believing something.

[Images of Torture and Inquisition]

VO: Indeed even a century before that, wars of religion meant that just believing in God the wrong way could get you literally killed.

[Images of Trolls, 4 Chan and the like]

VO: But somehow I dont think most of the founding fathers had this in mind when they wrote “Congress shall establish no laws abridging freedom of speech.”  If people can lie with impunity, then how does that serve democracy? How can you make choices based on the marketplace of ideas when literally anything can be said by anyone at any time?

[Image of a crowded theater and fire, lolcats, snake oil]

VO: The classic ‘fire in a crowded theater’ argument says that you can limit speech when it is actually doing harm.  Any yet time and time again the algorithms that these companies use is a mechanism to do massive harm to the wellbeing of this country.  Bad enough you can sell snake oil on television; now you can microtarget it to the people most vulnerable to it right when they’re watching cute images of a dancing cat and their five year old nephew.

[Images of the park again, dictionary, stacks of books, camels, Ariel having her voice stolen]

VO: But people keep saying that a private company can’t be censorship; is that really true? That’s like saying racism is about a philosophy that one race is superior of another.  Words move on from the definition in the dictionary.  Censorship is more than just government suppression; its about taking people’s voices, and how people feel like they’re being stolen.

[Image of Comic Book Guy, Chet from Weird Science, Trolls]

VO: I mean, its one thing if that voice is lying or calling for women to be enslaved to become baby machines.  But the problem is that the valley feels that since they’re big and we’re small and they provide their service for free we dont have a say anymore.  And that simply isnt true.  Nationalism and imminent domain are real and can and have been used for the public good.  And the internet IS the public square. 

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[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 7

 Scene 7-The Public Square

[Images of Occupy Wallstreet]

VO: Occupy Wallstreet was a movement ahead of its time and changed the narrative of how income disparity is discussed in this country, but one detail that people tend to forget about is that the core movement in wallstreet was in Zuccotti Park.  The park is on private land that was still a public park by proxy.  The term is Privately Owned Public Space.

[Images of different publicly owned private spaces]

VO: There are a lot of reasons for these, but one of them is that sometimes developers make deals with city or regional governments to provide public services such as a park or school in exchange for zoning concessions from the city government.  

[Image of Kleenex, Xerox]

VO: Kleenex and Xerox became so well known for tissue and copying that they lost their trademark due to common usage.  Google is starting to go in that direction already.  I

[Images of the Public Square and Commons]

VO: In the old days, the Public Square was where anyone could say whatever they wished; or at least what the government would permit.  But it was the place of public gatherings, the place where executions and art and town criers brought news of the world.  Now, the public square has become Facebook and Twitter and Tiktok and a thousand smaller shards, but the public square isn't so public anymore.

[Images of Cars and Houses and people going to work]

VO: Governments protect private property so that people have a motivation to cooperate.  A nice home and car are things that most people are willing to work for.  But the ultra rich just assume that the government has to serve them because it always has.  And yet…and yet…technically, governments can change laws, and cultures and nations can and have changed governments.  Just because something is ‘Private Property’ doesn't mean that it can do whatever it wants how it wants.  The public square is STILL the public square, even if it is a Privately Owned Public Space.

[Images of Trolls and Bots]

VO: And the powers that be of the Dark Valley are doing an absolutely terrible job of taking care of it.  As we try to have civil discourse, as we try to decide who to elect, who to like, who to love; they permit noxious distractions, both trolls and bots to howl like mad.  They make token efforts to curate the garden, but its like grabbing a flea or two with a pair of tweezers in an entire orchard.  

[Images of Revolution and Nationalization]

VO: We don’t have to nationalize facebook and twitter of course, though eminent domain absolutely allows the government to seize private property for public projects like roads.  Paleoconservatives howl that the constitution doesnt mention the internet.  You know what? It doesnt mention tanks either yet we still allow the army to buy them.  The internet and social media are the public square, so we definitely can seize it.  Instead, we can graciously allow them to keep the land, but regulate the park.  But there needs to be some rules.

[Script] The Sins of Silicon Valley - Act 1, Scene 6

 Scene 6 - Treason 

[Images of Jan 6]

VO: This only happened 

[Images of Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, Snap Chat, Apple and Google in Senate Committees with Company symbol]

VO: Because they helped make it happen.

Images of Countries, starting with Vietnam, China, Thailand, Australia, Russia, Brazil, India]

VO: We like to pretend that corporations are all powerful and too big to fail; and compared to some small nations.  But when a country threatens an American technology company with not being able to do business if they don’t provide tools for monitoring, censorship or spying on their own citizens as well as visitors from other nations within their borders.  

Images of Shakedown and the Mafia

VO: These companies have no choice but to comply.  The United States government has threatened American technology companies with regulatory pressure if they don't comply with political ends, and while the United States government isn't the worst abuser; imagine what it could do if things became more authoritarian in the United States. 

Image of Markets

VO: What we do know is that democracies are marketplaces of ideas, and when corporations are more concerned about milking their product (ie you) for as much profit as they can get that they actually risk your health and welfare, there is a severe problem.  The problem is, congress is slow to act, slow to understand and heavily influenced by corruption including the Tech Industry.  They spent X dollars in Y year; Z dollars in A year and T dollars in S year all so they could have your fine representatives sit down with them and bend their ear towards friendly legislation.

Images of Russia, Cambridge Analytica

VO: But there have been known instances of foreign agitprop in elections; very specific and very bad including Brexit and Cambridge Analytica, Hate Groups that were only shut down at the last possible minute and worse.  The valley loves to talk about free speech when it is refusing to decrypt your phone to the FBI, but all too willing to pull your account if a foreign government doesn't like what they’re saying.

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