How Can Conservatives Fight Back Against Big Tech? For A Start, Just Be Sane Again.
from the not-so-hard dept
Right wingers are demanding that their political leaders do something, anything. There must be a response to Twitter’s ban on Donald Trump, and to Amazon Web Services’ shutdown of Parler. Republicans, once so ardent for free markets, want the government to teach private tech companies a lesson they won’t soon forget. Nationalize them. Prosecute them. Whatever. Any measures that convey hate for the scary truth-phobic plutocratic Bolsheviks of Silicon Valley will do.
The first problem, of course, is that the GOP, though strong in anger, is weak in power. Even if they channel their enthusiasm into concrete bills, they control neither the White House nor the Senate nor the House of Representatives.
To be sure, Democrats, too, are mad at the major social media platforms. Their biggest gripe, however, is that those platforms failed to suppress rightwing extremism earlier. Democrats strongly want quite literally the opposite of what Republicans want. They want Trump and QAnon and “Stop the Steal” to remain off Twitter and Facebook.
Even if implemented, most rightwing populist ideas would not serve rightwing populist ends. We are told, for instance, that Section 230 must be repealed. But that would not undermine platforms’ discretion in moderating content. Platforms have First Amendment rights of free speech and free association. When PragerU sued it for placing certain videos in restricted mode, YouTube prevailed not under Section 230, but under the First Amendment.
Actually, repealing Section 230 would ensure that more far-right content gets taken down. Section 230 is most useful, not when a platform removes content, but when it leaves content up. Consider Force v. Facebook, decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 2019. Victims of terror attacks in Israel sued Facebook for not doing a better job of finding and removing extremist content posted by Hamas. The court held both the publishing of the content, and any algorithmic promotion of it, protected by Section 230.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers will not hesitate to treat posts by rightwing extremists as akin to posts by Hamas. Nor will platforms, if exposed to liability for such posts, hesitate to take down marginal material—any post that plaintiffs’ lawyers might try to tie to an attack. It’d almost be worth it, the GOP destroying Section 230, for the spectacle of Republicans empowering plaintiffs’ lawyers to drive the party’s burgeoning conspiracist faction from the commercial Internet.
Another rightwing proposal is to declare each major platform a “public forum” subject to First Amendment restrictions. But this plan is almost certainly unconstitutional. “Merely hosting speech by others,” the Supreme Court recently declared, in an opinion by Justice Kavanaugh, does not “transform private entities into state actors subject to First Amendment constraints.”
Some on the right want to expand this “state action” doctrine to embrace platforms. Others want to apply Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, a 1980 Supreme Court decision forcing a mall to let students protest on its private property, in bold new ways. These efforts are riddled with difficulties. For one thing, a pack of conservatives has recently taken the bench. Most of those judges presumably have little interest in bending the law simply to reach socialistic outcomes.
Populist Republicans will likely conclude that antitrust is their best cudgel for chastising Big Tech. Joining with Democrats, they can seek to redistribute revenue, unwind deals, and punish refusals to deal. When it comes to online speech, however, even antitrust will probably do the right no good.
Freezing a competitor out of a market for economic reasons can, indeed, be an antitrust violation. That is not at all the same as refusing to deal with a company because of the abhorrent opinions it holds, spreads, or condones. After the storming of the Capitol on January 6, a prominent QAnon account proclaimed that a death cult secretly runs the planet, that this cult stole the election, and that President Trump had ensnared the cult in a sting operation. The post received more than 2.2 million views on Parler:
You have a First Amendment right not to associate with a business that amplifies wingnuts. So does Amazon Web Services.
Some Republicans want to use antitrust to break up companies. But would that really change anything? Amazon Web Services has many competitors in the cloud-computing industry. So far none—not even Trump-friendly Oracle—has been willing to accept Parler as a client. Parler hosted a lot of violent, racist, toxic speech. Even if there were twice as many Facebooks and Twitters, they might all refuse to carry such material. And even if there were twice as many cloud-computing providers, Parler might still find itself universally shunned. Again, Parler can’t make other companies work with a partner they find immoral. This is, as they say, a free country.
Which brings us to the rub: a political party that lacks cultural power—that cedes it ostentatiously, in fact, as if doing so were a strategy—is doomed to struggle. It’s not a question of electoral success. Political power counts for little when you have no sway in universities, large cities, the mainstream media, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, or the wider corporate world.
Inter-elite battles matter. If conservative ideas don’t get a hearing at Princeton, at Google, or at NBC, conservative fortunes will suffer. Conservatives should pay more attention, therefore, to ensuring they are present where cultural power is wielded. They can do this by denouncing the GOP’s fringe elements; by supporting principled moderates and by offering a positive vision, one that appeals to the next generation of top talent who will occupy our cultural heights.
Conservative professors, computer engineers, and screenwriters deserve support. Cranks and bigots “censored” by social media platforms do not.
Corbin Barthold is Internet Policy Counsel for TechFreedom
Filed Under: big tech, conservatives, content moderation, section 230
Comments on “How Can Conservatives Fight Back Against Big Tech? For A Start, Just Be Sane Again.”
Great Old Plan
Step 1: Call the news media "mainstream media" then "lamestream media" then just put it out there as "fake news."
Step 2: Remove science from the agenda. Science has no place in medicine, epidemiology (what’s that werd meenz agin?), or schools.
Step 3: Deny that the insurrections at state capitols and the one in DC to stop the electoral count happened… or that if it did it was a false flag op. https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/01/27/oregon-gop-capitol-riot-false-flag-trump-lah-dnt-ac360-vpx.cnn
Step 4: Deny that the orange guy did anything wrong, and say his trial is dead on arrival. Any "juror" (and senators are all jurors in this trial) who said this in a regular court would be dismissed and replaced immediately.
What’s next?
And to bring this Full Godwin:
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Re: Great Old Plan
The ACA isn’t helping millions of people. It’s making things worse for virtually everybody, by driving the cost of health care up.
The ACA nominally took aim at affordable care, but what it actually hit was affordable insurance coverage. These are not the same thing. Insurance is not a health care product; it’s a financial product provided by Wall Street. And as people who didn’t have insurance were forced to purchase it, the effect was precisely what concepts of monopoly economics would predict: price goes up while quality goes down.
Look at the insurance you had 10 years ago. Look what you have now. Today’s version costs significantly more and covers a whole lot less.
Actual affordable care would be provided by reducing the need for Wall Street insurance, not by feeding millions of unwilling people into its monopolistic maw. The proper fix, borne out by actual results when it’s been tried, is what’s known as "restaurant pricing:" hospitals, clinics, etc publish a publicly-available "menu" of everything they offer, and the price each service is offered at, and charge everybody exactly that price. When this happens, when even one hospital does it, prices consistently come down 70-80% not just for that hospital but throughout the entire local area, as the pricing transparency requires the neighbors to compete on price. Which strongly suggests that hospitals are regularly charging between 3.33x and 4x more than they need to to remain in business and profitable, simply because they can.
The Trump Administration got us halfway there, requiring all hospitals to publish their negotiated prices with insurers. The rulemaking survived multiple court challenges (you’d better believe the hospitals fought this tooth-and-nail!) and was recently finalized. They didn’t have the time to complete the other half of it (requiring everyone to be charged that same price) before the Administration was pulled out from under them. We’ll have to see how things play out going forward, but with the Biden administration talking about going back to the bad old days of the ACA mandate, I’m not optimistic…
Re: Re:
…nationalized healthcare, like every other industralized nation in the world offers to its citizens.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
While I don’t deny that the American healthcare "system" is often terrible, despite what many republicans assert, nationalized healthcare is far from problem-free. Ironically enough it shares one of its greatest problems with typical the typical US system. The consumer has no economic say in it. This results in healthcare everywhere being excessively expensive as there are no direct incentives to increase efficiency. Not as bad in nationalized systems, but still bad. In nationalized systems, there is also no incentive to improve the availability of healthcare in areas that have, for whatever reason, become underserved. At least until it becomes so bad that the political paymasters start feeling the heat (or activist raise the temperature in advance of that).
As an example, for a while in Ontario Canada, the time spent on waitlists for cancer treatment grew to months (actually, more than a year). In some cases, I believe there were patients who could expect to wait longer for treatment than they could expect to live.
I don’t know what the best solution is or even what it might look like, but I don’t think we’ll find it until we address a number of problems:
Without addressing these issues (some of which are inter-realated, I freely admit), no healthcare system will provide generally acceptable healthcare.
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This is a very good comment. I just want to add one thing. There are some concerning stories about wait times in countries with nationalized health care, but it is important to consider that the US spends FAR more per patient than other industrialized nations. We could switch to a national system, substantially reduce our spending compared to what it is now, and still not encounter those problems to the extent seen elsewhere, simply by virtue of still throwing way more money at the problem.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
"it is important to consider that the US spends FAR more per patient than other industrialized nations"
This is something that always needs to be stressed. Per capita, the US spends was more than other nations, in the region of 42% more compared to the next most expensive country (Switzerland). For that, you get 3 different public healthcare systems that a large proportion of the population still cannot access, many people pay huge private premiums on top of that to companies that are incentivised to deny care or payment and a general lack of incentive to take advantage of much cheaper preventative care that avoid expensive health issues later in life. Then, of course, whereas for people elsewhere private healthcare is available as an optional employment bonus which might help a decision to change jobs, Americans are often afraid to change jobs in case they lose healthcare, something not possible in many other countries.
Public healthcare is far from perfect and needs major overhauls in some places. But, I always go back to my own experience in the last year of my father’s life (UK) – he required nearly 3 months hospital care including 5 weeks in the ICU and regular home visits for the rest of the year until he finally passed.My family and I only had to worry about parking and food at the hospital when visiting. Oh, and any medication needed was around £10/prescription. I can’t imagine going through that with the spectre of hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay off afterwards.
What AC says about there being issues with quality of healthcare depending on where you live is true, and nobody is going to say the NHS or other public healthcare systems are beyond reproach. But, how anyone can defend the status quo in the US is beyond me especially if the concern is cost.
Re: Re: Great Old Plan
My perspective, borne out by many news reports:
The ACA has provided health care options for people who were not and could not afford to be covered before. This is important.
Your perspective (also true):
The ACA raised rates and lowered coverages.
As with all insurance programs – even mandatory vehicle insurance – if the government requires its purchase, the government should regulate the price. The restaurant menu metaphor doesn’t apply because you’re not required to purchase from that restaurant.
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Re: Re: Re: Great Old Plan
Government, WITHOUT exception and especially at the Federal level, is Patently INCAPABLE of establishing a price for services or goods that reflects either actual cost of/to the producer or actualized value for the consumer.
Re: Re: Great Old Plan
Fun isnt it.
Take a 300 page Document for medical. Hand it to Congress, and now its over 3000 pages.
Insted of taking control the States requested the Corp insurance agencies to regulate things, WITH no power to do so.
Insted of controlling the PRIVATE hospitals and the overhead to keep prices down. The Politics, dont KNOW how this all works, and dont care as the STATES took over the workings.
Re: Re: Great Old Plan
Look at the insurance you had 10 years ago. Look what you have now. Today’s version costs significantly more and covers a whole lot less.
Now look at the same situation 20 years ago, and the significant increase in costs from 20 years ago to 10 years ago. It’s 4x greater than the increase in the last 10 years. Nothing will stop the costs going up, especially when you have for-profit healthcare.
Re: Re: Re: Great Old Plan
Agree’d but there are concerns.
Testing equipment Is hardly bought, its leased.
AND those prices are Inflated also.
Its funny as Xray machines used to be used in Shoe Sizing, and now the machines are so Big you cant get them into the store.
Most Clinics and the Doctors dont have room, nor enough time for a Tech that handles all the hardware. SO they lease access and just send us to the Hospitals.
In the long run I could believe that most of that equipment is fairly cheap to make, just More expensive to sell.
Re: Re: Great Old Plan
Ten years ago I didn’t have health insurance because I was (and still am) self employed, insurance was quite expensive and I made too much money to qualify for Medicaid. Now, I am insured and have been able to get treatment for my issues before they reach the emergency room level.
Re: Re: Great Old Plan
That’s a strange way of phrasing "they lost the election".
Re: Re: Re: Great Old Plan
The mental image is hilarious though. Imagine them standing on a big rug that’s suddenly pulled out from under them whereupon they all fall over like pins in droves bleating in consternation.
Re: Great Old Plan
Godwin already stated that you can’t cite Godwin’s Law on actual Nazi or Fascist behavior.
Re: Great Old Plan
I’d call you on this reductio ad Hitlerum argument…if it weren’t for the fact that you just put down a bullet list of factual events matching both 2021 and 1932 history.
It’s at times like these I really wish I didn’t see quite as many perfect echoes of the rise of the reich in contemporary USA.
I remember a fond time when lunatics were only on street corners.
The GOP is fueled by fear, anger, and hatred. This applies as much to certain kinds of people (e.g., queer people, people of Middle Eastern descent) as it does to facts and science. The GOP and its base must learn to deal with reality, as opposed to a fantasy world where…
Republican rule is the default mode of government;
QAnon is fact instead of fiction;
queer people are trying to make the world gay/trans;
global climate change is a hoax;
being a billionaire is as ethical;
education is for elitist dipshits;
arts and culture are nigh useless (and artists are all pompous leftist assholes);
homelessness is a crime;
crime isn’t a failing of the government to prevent conditions that make people desperate enough to commit crimes;
poverty is a moral failing instead of a societal (or governmental) one;
women aren’t allowed out of the home;
the Confederacy wasn’t a failed state built on the notion that Black people are inferior subhuman trash;
Black people are all inherently criminal;
leftists are simultaneously scared-ass snowflakes and sociopathic violent extremists;
“pro-life” means being against abortion and (in one way or another) in favor of the death penalty;
capitalism is the perfect economic model; and
Until the GOP gives up all those fantasies, nothing will change.
And given how Senate Republicans seem ready to both acquit the former president of insurrection and filibuster/vote down any- and everything the Dems bring up for a vote? Nothing will change for conservatives any time soon.
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You’ve put enough elements in that list that pretty much everyone in the GOP will point to one or another element and go "who’s scruffy looking?"
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Well, it’s not my fault they’re nerf herders.
Re: Re: Re: lore
Fun fact: most imperial forces were just regular people who did not want to see the clone wars happen again “higher ups excempted” and saw the rebellion as a that chaos coming back.
It can actually be argued that what we have now in the republican party is worse then the imperial military.
Re: Re: Re:2 lore
That fact is, though, a retcon, just like your standard republican thought.
Although as an illustrative reference to the current state of a work of fiction, it is internally consistent and i can’t fault it.
Re: Re: Re:2 lore
I thought what we have now is more like Starship Troopers.
Would you like to know more?
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I love how the Far Right tends to Think they are more Moral(?).
More this and that, and more religious.
Then they didnt see the money get sent to the corps as savings in taxes. And then the Merger of 3 ISP’s that Lost 30,000+ jobs?
Then all the department heads became Goons, hired and Forced on trump by the repubs. and the corps. And nothing GOT done.
Morgan Freeman Voice
But they could not.
They had sowed their fields with distrust & now were reaping the benefits of a crazy following… ignorant that crazy can turn on you in a heartbeat.
They have forced themselves into a corner following dear leader over the cliff, if they appear to waiver 1 iota from the story line that entire cabals control the world (yet so incompetent they were unable to stop Trump from being elected the first time or make sure 13% approval McConnell was not reelected) they now know that armed psychos will storm the sacred halls with zipties & drag them to the hanging platform to be punished.
They created the monster & now must serve its whims or be Tokyo under their heels… and still after seeing how close they came to a high profile member of their party getting grabbed, ‘tried’ & executed some of them are still courting this group sure that they will be able to maintain control as some of them learn that Trump wasn’t the messiah & for 4 years they were played for suckers giving blood & money to those who never cared about them or their causes.
The U.S.’s center line is so far right that the right wing of the U.S. is extreme, way past reality and filled with cranks and bigots. The "conservative professors, computer engineers, and screenwriters" who deserve our support are all over on the left side of that line closer to reality
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That’s why we should not have let them keep shifting the Overton Window.
I’m not sure they can salvage the republican party, they’ve spent decades celebrating ignorance, attacking expertise, glorifying superstition and trying to roll back the clock on all social progress made in the last century. Whenever they get power, they go straight for the education system because they want their voters to be as dumb as possible, to limit their options in life to make it harder for them to want more and to get outside of the world they grew up in, packed with guns, bibles and ignorance. In vast chunks of america, they have had decades to do just that, to put the republican dream into practice, deleting vast chunks of history and science to fit the political views of those in power, and now we have generations of people ignorant and angry, willing to lap up whatever lies Fox, OANN or Facebook tell them that confirms the world view that was drilled into them from the moment they were born. It’s going to take generations to pull the right out of the dive towards fascism, and the GOP will fight and scream about bias every step of the way.
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I wouldn’t even give them that much credit, they aren’t trying to sway the electorate, they are trying to win with poor support
When they get power they go straight for the election system since they know the majority of citizens want them out, and they go straight for anything that can’t be easily fixed or undone because they know even with the field being tilted as far as they can get it in their favor their days are still numbered
Pandering to the same people you're trying to backstab
There’s some dark irony in the idea that the same party that is desperate not to offend the deranged cultists that Trump drew in and that they now depend upon to stay in office are also pushing for something that will result in a lot more of those deranged lunatics finding themselves shown the door on social media and a lot quicker.
Gut 230 and make it so that platforms are liable for user content or even have an obligation to remove problematic content and large chunks of their voter base are going to find a very cold reception online(especially after the failed insurrection has platforms on edge) as platforms purge users at even the hint at violence, bigotry or conspiracy theories, and while that’ll certainly help the persecution fetish that lot seems to cherish it’s not going to leave them many places to communicate on that aren’t filled with nothing but people who already agree with them, which is going to make drawing in new members just a tad difficult.
Re: Pandering to the same people you're trying to backstab
Pandering to the same people you’re trying to backstab is a rich tradition in fascism. The Night of Long knives took care of their SA freaks once they were no longer useful and made the remnant irrelevant.
Denouncing the GOP’s fringe elements
“Senate Republicans Signal Acquittal for Trump as His Standing Improves Among GOP Voters”, by Eli Yokley, Morning Consult, Jan 27, 2021
Who are the GOP’s fringe elements?
What counts as “fringe” amongst that party?
Re: Denouncing the GOP’s fringe elements
If you look at the same questions in the "amongst all voters" category you have your answer.
The numbers went the opposite direction.. The number of GOP people supporting trump didn’t go up it went down, only the percentage when up because the sane people left the GOP. The fringe elements are those who believe in what the GOP is doing and are still standing by them and thus haven’t abandoned the party yet
Re: Re: Denouncing the GOP’s fringe elements
All fringe, no flag?
Isn’t there some threshold where you just say, “No, those folks aren’t fringe elements of the GOP, they’re the central core of the party” …?
Re: Re: Re: Denouncing the GOP’s fringe elements
When you stop playing No True Scotsman, that’s the threshold.
Re: Re: Re:2 Denouncing the GOP’s fringe elements
Oh, but No True Republican would support white supremacy, insurrection, anti-queer sentiment, or fuck liberals, in general. Right?
I think the main issue right now is that yes, the GOP is a bit shaken as the few sane people able to even perceive observable reality are turning their backs on the monster they find themselves part of…
…but the GOP have had their beer hall coup now. The gloves are off and the message well received. Inept or not those clowns aren’t going away.
I’d pay very close attention to the candidate they’ll put up for 2024.
Re: Re: Denouncing the GOP’s fringe elements
The fringe elements are those who believe in what the GOP is doing and are still standing by them and thus haven’t abandoned the party yet
If those same people are still voting R I see no reason to see or treat them any different than the direhard ‘The Dear Leader can do no wrong’ lot, because ultimately whether they like it or not that’s what they’re supporting.
"Right wingers are demanding"
…that everyone else agree with their lies and delusions.
Pass. I’ll stick with reality.
Conservatives spent decades fighting tooth and nail so that corporations could do whatever they wanted. Now the chickens are coming home to roost and I’m loving every minute of it, savoring every salty tear.
It’s hilarious how brazenly and openly hypocritical these people are.
Re: Re:
Hello, Hollywood from the 1950s just called, they want to be able to blacklist actors, writers and directors again.
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Conservatives shouldn’t have a problem with that. They were all for those exclusionary acts back then.
Words have meaning.
"Conservative" means catering to traditional values. Once your catering to traditional values trumps truth, decency, and other traditional values, the correct term is "reactionary".
I am really pissed at what is done to language these days. "Tragic" means "unfortunate", "conservative" means "destructive", "liberal" means "controlled", "republican" means "unconstitutional", "war" means "peace", "freedom" means "slavery", "ignorance" means "strength".
Maybe we can stop using "equivalent" labels and just use the proper names of the entities we are talking about? At least that keeps the roughshod ridden over the language in check.
If we cannot save anything else.
Re:
What values are those, might I ask? Because if any of them are fiscal responsibility, personal responsibility, bipartisan compromise, equality and justice for all under the law, working for the benefit of all Americans, and anything that goes along those lines, Republicans as a group haven’t held those values in a long goddamned time.
Re: Re: Re:
The George HW Bush Administration, perhaps? I don’t think he was a good president, but he was the last Republican president who behaved, and governed, like a grownup.
The last Republican president I’d describe as a good president would be Eisenhower. And even in those days you had Republicans like Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn.
Re: Words have meaning.
You started out with something of a point…
I frequently put "conservative" in quotes for this very reason. But hell, in politics, if they want to self-identify as such, that’s pretty much how you refer to them when they are pretty much all the people on that side of the spectrum. Want it changed? And "real" conservatives in existence can take it back.
The problem with "conservative" from the get is: They want things to be like some imaginary former time, many are conservative in ways that have nothing to do with the nation’s founding, and the founding itself was in a progressive tradition. The name was always a damn facade
Re: Words have meaning.
There’s a worthwhile discussion to be had about how the meanings of words change, and how words like "conservative" have come to mean something very different (at least, in the US) than they did in the 1950s.
But that meaning has changed, and railing against people for using words in the same way most other people use them is not a productive exercise.
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I'm just going to leave this here
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There have to be limits to "freedom of association" here
Once you get down to bandwidth providers, you are entering into an area where people simply cannot just go out and start their own provider. You run into all sorts of local and state laws and bureaucracies that make it extremely difficult to legally and effectively start a competitor.
It’s also ludicrous to cry "muh 1A" here about "hosting speech" or doing business because we have laws that explicitly forbid telecoms from regulating what people say over their lines even if it’s downright felonious speech. The camel’s nose is already under the tent here because the courts recognize that people can’t just go out and wire up their own fiber and phone services because of the myriad, state (and sometimes Physics) issues involved.
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If Amazon were an Internet access provider/telecom, you might have a point here. But it’s not. So you don’t.
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It’s that "let’s make a slippery slope in a negative gravity zone" argument.
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In fairness: Any discussion about the morals and ethics of Amazon booting Parler is valid. But any argument about the legality of Amazon booting Parler is not.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
"Any discussion about the morals and ethics of Amazon booting Parler is valid."
I’m not even sure of that. Sure, if it were an argument about them being struck with a ban out of the blue with no recourse, for purely political reasons (as the right-wingers are desperate to pretend), then maybe. Although, I’m not sure there’s any ethical problem with a non-monopoly player with hundreds of competitors doing such a thing.
But, that’s not what happened. Amazon had been trying to work with them for months to abide by their T&Cs, gave them chance after chance to comply despite having thousands of outstanding issues and a growing reputation for censoring speech that Parler didn’t like while ignoring the request from others.
Re: There have to be limits to "freedom of association" here
"Once you get down to bandwidth providers…"
…you’ve ended up in a totally different argument that has nothing to do with the one at hand. Although, amusingly, it is the one that net neutrality protections would have ensured would not be able to do what you’re scared of, until the Republican installed muppets like Pai dismantled those protections.
"we have laws that explicitly forbid telecoms from regulating what people say over their lines"
Yes you do. What does that have to do with non-telecom companies like hosting providers?
Are you guys capable of making an argument here without wild fantasies and distortions of irrelevant information, or is this all you have to avoid just acting like a grown adult online?
They are
At this point though the Republican Party:
Is hamas????????????????
Re: They are
Hamas?
No, if Hamas had half the advantages the clowns at the capitol had, half the senate would be dead and the Capitol a smoking ruin. Hamas consists of those who’ve been able to survive the best and brightest of the IDF for decades on the IDF’s own turf.
The Capitol Clowns consist of hillbillies and rednecks whose major challenge, for the same time period, has been in figuring out how to raise and light a cross without setting themselves on fire and in learning how to spell "Bengazi" and "But Obama!".
I guess if Hamas consisted exclusively of Homer Simpson clones there might be some similarity…
Biden and his Chief of Staff have both said they wanted to repeal 230. The repeal of 230 is not a partisan issue. Why do you guys continue to make it one?
Re:
Democrats want 230 repealed because they think services like Twitter under-moderate. Republicans want 230 repealed because they think services like Twitter over-moderate. Which one sounds like an attempt to force speech onto Twitter that the service might not want to host?
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Does it matter? The first one allows the platform to weaponize it’s beliefs in such a way that it can undermine Democracy, and the other takes away their freedoms as a company in which to do so.
I feel like were legitimizing one bad reason while demonizing the other. Why can’t both be bad, and why don’t we point out both with the same vigor?
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[Asserts facts not in evidence]
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
"“The idea that it’s a tech company is that Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one. For Zuckerberg and other platforms,” Biden said. “It should be revoked because it is not merely an internet company. It is propagating falsehoods they know to be false.”"
-President Biden.
"[Asserts facts not in evidence]"
Tell that to our President.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
That’s cute, but irrelevant to my comment.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Disagree.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
You: "I’m mad the Republicans weren’t able to manipulate the election."
Me: points out your "undermine Democracy" projection
You: "Here’s an unsourced quote supposedly from Biden about an unrelated point from a different commenter."
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Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Your predictably childish. Find some new material.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
Projects the kid who hasn’t yet reached the "your/you’re" part of grade school that copypastes worn-out talking points.
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Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
LOL. Don’t have an argument so you resort to grammar Nazi. So predictable.
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
So… do you not know what the saying means, or not know what grammar is?
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
Nor does he understand Hitchens’s razor.
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Yes. One approach is trying to remove more speech from Twitter and the other is trying to push more speech onto Twitter. Guess which is which and you win a No-Prize!
Are we talking about Gab and Parler? Because Gab and Parler are the platforms where a fair number of the Redcaps did their planning for the insurrection.
I didn’t think that was a problem for conservatives, given that they think Twitter should be forced to host “conservative” speech.
One reason is about trying to force Twitter to host speech. One is. That said…
…yes, they’re both bad reasons for repealing 230. But between the two, one is a blatant attempt to undermine the constitutional protections granted to Twitter and force people who don’t want to associate with racists, misogynists, xenophobes, anti-vaxxers, and Curt Schilling into either associating with those people or leaving Twitter. The other is a blatant attempt to have platforms police speech to the point where they may as well be the kind of family-friendly forum 230 was designed to protect.
If you don’t see how one bad approach is inarguably worse than the other bad approach, I can’t help you.
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Proofreading is your friend, folks — and so is the Preview button. ????
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…"…yes, they’re both bad reasons for repealing 230."
That is all you had to say.
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If that’s all you read from his comment then you either missed the point or are deliberately ignoring it. A broken finger and a severed arm are both bad but you’re not likely to want to get treatment from a doctor who looks at both and acts as though they are equally bad, because one of those is demonstrably worse and deserves more attention.
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I never said they were "equally bad", nor do I believe they are.
You seem to want to point out the extreme differences. I like your analogy so lets go with it. Yes, cutting off an arm is much worse than a finger, but that doesn’t mean I believe that cutting off a finger is ok. So while were treating the arm, lets treat the finger too.
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I kinda fucked that up, but you know what I mean lol
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Yes, both options suck. But thinking a severed finger is equally as awful as a severed arm shows the flaw in your thinking. Of the two options, take care of the more harmful one first. The less harmful option then becomes much easier to manage.
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Dude are you fucking mental? I never said they were equally bad, I said we should attack them both with the same vigor. I even went on to clarify that I didn’t believe they were the same buy spelling it out exactly in a follow up comment; "I never said they were "equally bad", nor do I believe they are. "
You are trying really hard to put words in my mouth to justify attacking a position that I don’t subscribe to. I actually agree with what your saying and you STILL attack me. What the fuck is wrong with the people around here?
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To-may-to, to-mah-to.
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You need to seek immediate professional help.
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It’s a common saying and perfectly apt in the way it’s used here. What’s your problem with it?
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[Projects facts not in evidence]
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
I never said they were "equally bad", nor do I believe they are.
Assuming you’re the same AC who posted the original comment then it might be a mistake in phrasing then, because this…
Why can’t both be bad, and why don’t we point out both with the same vigor?
… would seem to suggest that they be dealt with with the same amount of attention, which only really makes sense if you think that they are roughly equal. If that’s not what you meant then I suppose this should be chalked up to a mistake in communication.
You seem to want to point out the extreme differences. I like your analogy so lets go with it. Yes, cutting off an arm is much worse than a finger, but that doesn’t mean I believe that cutting off a finger is ok. So while were treating the arm, lets treat the finger too.
If you’ve got two problems then it makes sense to deal with both, sure, but when one of them is significantly worse then it makes sense to give that one priority both in which gets treated first and in how much attention is given to it.
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I give up. You win. I spelled it out no less than 3 times and I’m not getting through.
Kind of late to the party, but what Corbin is describing is the GOP strategy in California.
It looks like the national GOP is going to follow the same winning strategy: Don’t moderate, double down.
This stuff takes awhile, especially with the culture wars, but the national GOP is a dead white man walking. He’ll walk a long ways but he’s gonna stop walking eventually.
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I would probably try to use a State that’s not a poison cesspool of taxes, drug abuse, and homelessness as your example. It would carry much more weight.
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It is representative of the entire nation, so …
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No it’s not. Stop buying into the propaganda.
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You’d be surprised then what people outside the US thinks of the US. The description of California kinda fits.
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California is a liberal cesspool of homelessness, crime, and drug use. That is not indicative of the rest of the U.S.
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California is the richest and most populous state in the union, with the highest cost of living in some areas, which obviously leads to some social inequality and problems with the number of people it attracts to live there. What’s the excuse of the hillbilly heroin flyover wastelands their taxes help support?
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I never said it was, I just told you what a large part of the world thinks of the USA and its problem with drugs, homelessness and crime.
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It is indicative of conservative cesspools with similar issues, though. Or have you not heard about the opioid crisis that’s slamming so-called red states the past few years?
President Skroob (Trump): Do something!
Dark Helmet (Bannon): Do something!
Col. Sandurz (Guliani): Do something!
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When government agents (Democrats in Congress) demand private companies censor their political opponents, they’re violating the First Amendment by proxy.
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When government agents (Republicans in Congress) demand private companies carry unwanted "political" speech, they’re violating the First Amendment by proxy.
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Therefore, by your own definition, there’s no first-amendment violation happening.
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The Phone Company
The heart of your argument, that you have a 1st Amendment right to not associate with a company that allows free speech that you consider "abhorrent", is specious.
When you buy a cell phone or have a phone line put in your house, the phone company doesn’t get to deny you service based on what you say on the phone line.
It’s as simple as that. All social media should be immediately treated as just another utility like the phone company. These utilities have no business judging and canceling those who have views of any kind. It’s none of their or your business.
And what is abhorrent to you is fine with others. Free Speech is only free speech when the most unpopular (and yes, abhorrent) views are free. You appear to believe that only accepted speech should be free. That’s the antithesis of the foundation of the US, its promise of freedom for all, the reason people want to come here.
It doesn’t matter if these companies are private or not. They must be classified as utilities. How’s that for some sanity? No more school marm’s in tech. No more narrow Overton window nonsense.
Re: The Phone Company
Where do you get this interpretation of the right of free association?
On what basis? The justification for regulating utilities is that they are natural monopolies, and switching from a social media company is as easy as going to a different web site.
Unsurprisingly, you are conflating government and private actors. All speech is and should be free from government interference, other than a few narrowly tailored exceptions. Speech is not free from consequences, including what other private actors choose to do about your speech.
Pretty insane. Fortunately even the people in Congress who want to repeal or "reform" Section 230 haven’t expressed any interest in trying to classify social media companies as Title II common carriers. So I’m not too worried about this terrible idea of yours.
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You, uh…you might wanna check the wording on that claim.
And if Twitter were a common carrier like a phone service, that might mean something.
Why?
Yes, they do. It’s called “they’re not common carriers so they can legally choose what speech they’ll host”.
Go ahead and take free association away from social media. But when the law forces Twitter to host Klan propaganda, it’ll also force Parler to host socialist propaganda. I doubt Parler and its userbase want that outcome. You’d make that happen with your proposal, though.
Anyone who wants to express support for White supremacy, anti-queer “conversion ‘therapy’ ”, anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories, and the collective delusion known as QAnon can freely express such support. The government can’t legally stop them. But no interactive web service is required to host such speech. That isn’t censorship — that’s a service telling assholes “we don’t do that here”.
Now, once more, with feeling:
The First Amendment protects your rights to speak freely and associate with whomever you want. It doesn’t give you the right to make others listen. It doesn’t give you the right to make others give you access to an audience. And it doesn’t give you the right to make a personal soapbox out of someone else’s private property. Nobody is entitled to a platform or an audience at the expense of someone else.
Re: The Phone Company
"When you buy a cell phone or have a phone line put in your house, the phone company doesn’t get to deny you service based on what you say on the phone line."
Yes, because a) they’re common carriers and b) it’s actually illegal for them to spy on you without a court order.
So, are you saying that every part of the internet, including both and ISP (the actual parallel to your example) and websites must be common carriers (good luck with that, since most aren’t hosted in the US)? Or, are you arguing that they should be forced not to montior what you say on their platform?
"Free Speech is only free speech when the most unpopular (and yes, abhorrent) views are free"
It is free. Free from government control, retribution or censorship. What you ignorant tossers seem to believe is that this also means free from consequences, which has never been true, online or offline. You have the right to say something, but others have the right to respond- and if you’re using someone else’s property instead of your own, then the owner of that property has a say.
"It doesn’t matter if these companies are private or not."
So, you’re all for the government seizing control of private property. Why are you guys always so communist without realising it?
The first time you ever show any, we’ll let you know.