[lapsedacademic]

> If you want to subpoena information, you need to be specific and targeted

On one hand, a congressional subpoena for "non-public moderation discussions and policies" is broad. On the other hand, there is certainly some version of that request that is within reasonable scope for a subpoena. In the hypothetical world where passing legislation in the US were still possible and Congress was capable of regulating Big Tech (e.g. changing Section 230 or so on), this is exactly the sort of thing a Congressional Subpoena would make sense for, since there would be a germane policy making interest in obtaining this information.

> I just don't see what warrants this round of grandstanding.

The paradox of Big Tech: everyone hates Big Tech because they think their political adversaries control Big Tech.

The Left views Big Tech as monopolies controlled by techno-libertarian ultra-billionaires. The Right views Big Tech as Democrat companies controlled by radical leftist censors.

(As an aside: in a sense, both views have a kernel of truth. Big Tech employees skew left, especially on social issues, although not nearly as homogeneously as the right seems to think and individual FAANG employees have far less power than people seem to imagine. On the other hand, the leadership of these companies are definitely not natural allies of progressives, but are also not -- AFAICT -- nearly as villainous as the left seems to think.)

But the real thing that both have in common is conspiratorial brain candy with Big Tech as the modern stand-in for Illuminati or whatever.

[MiroF]

Big tech, like high finance, is a Democrat aligned industry. Big Oil is a Republican aligned industry.

Leftists are anti-corporate power in the public sphere.

None of this is paradoxical.

[Mountain_Skies]

Apparently most self-identified leftists in the US didn't get the memo because they haven't been anti-corporate since corporations rainbowed themselves after Occupy Wall Street ended. The 1999 WTO protests in Seattle could never happen today but a celebration of the WTO and global corporate power certainly could. That's simply what the left in the US has become: another wholly owned subsidiary of Corporation Inc.

[MiroF]

You are imputing a lot of views onto "leftists" that I do not think are accurate. I am unsure how rainbow flags have any relevance to this discussion.

So called "pinkwashing" is well known among leftist circles so to suggest that entire political spectrum has been hoodwinked by American corporations seems wrong?

The real answer is just that the Left isn't particularly powerful in the US, even during the WTO protests.

[deburo]

>Left isn't particularly powerful in the US

There's always the mistake of assuming the person means the US Left as opposed to another country's Left movement, but the Left as understood within the US is quite powerful. It seems really as if both movements divide the country in two.

[choward]

> The paradox of Big Tech: everyone hates Big Tech because they think their political adversaries control Big Tech.

> The Left views Big Tech as monopolies controlled by techno-libertarian ultra-billionaires. The Right views Big Tech as Democrat companies controlled by radical leftist censors.

I guess it's only a paradox if you are partisan and think there are only two types of people. I don't consider myself left or right and big tech is definitely an adversary to me and my beliefs.

[lapsedacademic]

The observation isn't that opposition to big tech is always irrational or partisan.

The observation is that Big Tech plays the role of Powerful Boogeyman for both the left and the right in polarizing narrative construction.

Ofc non-partisans can also dislike big tech, and partisans can dislike big tech for rational reasons. Neither of those is inconsistent with the above observation.