Let me guess. If Patreon vs Benjamin Owen goes through and patreon loses the case, then a sea of lawyers will suddenly start calling all those who had their rights violated by big tech and circle around them like sharks. Did I summarize it correctly?

Not necessarily, though that is one possible outcome. The problem with that approach is that the EULA terms of service outlined in most "platforms" expressly prohibit the use of class action lawsuits and require users to submit to arbitration. There is a streamlined arbitration process through an entity called JAMS which many of these California tech companies use, that makes the whole thing a lot more straightforward.

The problem for Big Tech lies in the fact that many of them will scramble to change their terms of service to avoid having to go to arbitration… but that will run face-first into California law that protects the rights of consumers by requiring the platforms to give them some means of recourse.

So Big Tech will be between a rock and a hard place. They don't want to go through arbitration because of what Voxemort the Dreaded and the Legal Legion of Evil have managed to do to Indiegogo and Patreon, and perhaps eventually to Airbnb as well. But they can't afford to deal with class action lawsuits either.

Note, this only applies to PLATFORMS, and then only to the smaller Big Tech companies. Google, Apple, Faceborg, and so on, will be fine. The reason for this is that arbitration in case of tortious interference ONLY applies when a platform kicks off a creator and severs the connection between that creator and those who pay him for his content.

This is inapplicable in most cases such as Facebook and Twitter. There is no payment involved whatsoever.

YouTube might be susceptible to it – MIGHT BE – but YouTube presents a vastly more difficult target than Patreon, because while YouTube loses like $1 billion a year, it's backed up by the vastness of Google and Alphabet, which have billions upon billions in cash to throw against any possible arbitration or lawsuit.

Patreon and most other "Big" Tech companies are actually running on very thin profit margins and very limited cashflow. Most of them aren't even making any actual money at all.

Like I said, interesting times ahead.

Let me guess. If Patreon vs Benjamin Owen goes through and patreon loses the case, then a sea of lawyers will suddenly start calling all those who had their rights violated by big tech and circle around them like sharks. Did I summarize it correctly?

Regardless of that, it would be interested to see how big tech investors like the CIA and others will react to this.

Well basically the power that Big Tech has comes entirely from Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. That section specifically states that platforms cannot be held liable for the content that is held on their sites and provides distinctions between them and publishers.

The problem is that nobody has ever had the balls, or the will, to enforce that distinction until the God-Emperor came along. And even he hasn't done very much on the issue. So far we're seeing anti-trust probes and threats of enacting S230 measures, but very little action.

The Patreon affair, on the other hand, will likely force Big Tech to wise up in a very big hurry. They are constrained by state and local laws in California that apply fairly stringent consumer protections, and they cannot draft EULAs that strip consumers of all protections completely. They could leave Commiefornia for other states, but those are far less friendly to Big Tech and do not have the built-in infrastructure of Silicon Valley to support companies. Only a handful could really afford it.

We'll see how things play out, but I suspect that there are a lot of corporate suits sitting in Silicon Valley right now, shitting bricks over the precedents that could be established by this situation.

Trump is probably very inclined to kick the tech industry in the nuts, but how much influence does he have when half the politicians in the U.S are bought and sold by tech giants. Also the Republicucks still remain dormant. The tech giants are a bit of a walking paradox though. They seem so disconnected from this world, but they have the democrats in their pockets at the same time. Plus they do well with online marketers, because let's face it, Goolag and Cuckbook have created more internet millionaires than every other platform out there.

Maybe, I'm overestimating them or interpreting their actions wrongly. Either way, they got a good grip on America's balls it seems.

That's how I understand it, but the phrase always seemed odd to me because of the way that it is set up. It's a curious idiom that somehow doesn't sit well in English. But anyway, that's just me being picky.

Thanks for the explanation. I superficially understood it as a version of having something both ways but this makes more sense

That's how I've always understood it.