'The President's Speech Police': Trump Pushes Forward With Regulating Bias Online

Plus: The EARN IT Act is "a wolf in sheep's clothing," Joe Biden's "Agenda for Women," and more...

On Monday, the Trump administration formally requested that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) look into whether social media companies are running afoul of Section 230, the federal law that allows these companies to moderate content without facing legal peril and says providers and users of any "interactive computer service" are only responsible for their own speech, not the speech of every single user on a given platform.

Conservatives don't like Section 230 because it means Twitter, YouTube, and similar entities have the discretion to delete offensive tweets and suspend any accounts they deem to be violating their terms of service. Progressive don't like Section 230 because it means that only the perpetrators of crimes like harassment, non-consensual sharing of photos (a.k.a. "revenge porn"), or forced prostitution can be charged or sued over theses actions, not whatever digital tool or service they happened to use in service of their bad acts.

Both sides insist that tweaking or abolishing Section 230 will solve their pet problems—that is, doing so would somehow lead to both more and less speech permitted online. In actuality, it would just give the federal and state governments—as well as deep-pocketed entities wielding civil suits—more control over what the average person can say without punishment and what content private companies can allow.

Thankfully, the folks at the FCC seem to realize this. In June, when President Donald Trump first issued an executive order on social media—a day after Twitter affixed a fact-checking note to one of Trump's tweets—current and former commissioners were already skeptical.

"An Executive Order that would turn the Federal Communications Commission into the President's speech police is not the answer," said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said that "the Federal Communications Commission will carefully review any petition for rulemaking filed by the Department of Commerce"—a subtle comment that the agency doesn't take its orders from Trump and Trump can't grant it new authorities.

Re draft #ExecutiveOrder making @FCC police online #speech: As a matter of law, a @POTUS cannot confer on FCC, an independent agency, new legal powers. W/ online platforms being speakers under #FirstAmendment like TV channels & newspapers, this speech control is #unconstitutional https://t.co/1wTT8gvdui

— Robert M. McDowell (@McDowellTweet) May 28, 2020

Trump's June order instructed the FCC to determine the conditions under which moderating social media content can be classified as "the result of inadequate notice, the product of unreasoned explanation, or having been undertaken without a meaningful opportunity to be heard."

As I pointed out last month, it's a strange request, since there's nothing in Section 230 that conditions its protections on entities giving adequate notice about suspended posts or providing users with a reasonable explanation. Section 230 is about who creates content, not how a company chooses to display or suppress that content or how they communicate these decisions.

The end goal may be for Republicans in Congress to somehow use the FCC's recommendations in proposing a future amendment to Section 230, but that's a lot of steps away and would face some serious hurdles. The idea may also simply be to provide courts with new guidance on interpreting Section 230 cases (for instance, if the FCC decides that providing inadequate notice of moderation decisions is a sign of not acting in "good faith," as the law requires, plaintiffs could bring these things up as evidence when asking judges to rule on Section 230-related claims).

Regardless, the administration is moving ahead with recruiting the FCC into Trump's beef with Twitter. On Monday, the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration filed a petition with the FCC formally asking it to clarify the things mentioned in Trump's order.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr put out a statement yesterday saying "I look forward to reviewing and acting expeditiously on the petition." Rosenworcel was less enthused.

"The FCC shouldn't take this bait," she said in a statement. "While social media can be frustrating, turning this agency into the President's speech police is not the answer. If we honor the Constitution, we will reject this petition immediately."

Right on cue last night, Trump began posting angrily about Twitter's trend recommendations, an algorithmically determined selection of popular hashtags and words tailored to each individual Twitter user's habits. This leads to individuals seeing different trends—that is, if a user sees a lot of a certain type of trending topic, it's related to both what other users are clicking on and their own previous activity on the network. None of it is determined by the individuals working at Twitter or the preferences of the company's leaders.

The president either doesn't understand this or is pretending he doesn't understand.

"So disgusting to watch Twitter's so-called 'Trending,' where sooo many trends are about me, and never a good one," Trump tweeted mid-evening on Monday. "They look for anything they can find, make it as bad as possible, and blow it up, trying to make it a trend. Really ridiculous, illegal, and, of course, very unfair!"

Trump's nonsensical comments dovetail nicely with the narrative about social media that he and other prominent conservatives have been trying to spread: that it's deliberately biased against them. But—again—Twitter trends are simply determined by what content is trendy among users, according to the number of people tweeting about, clicking on, and sharing said content.

Trump's comments are actually a pretty glorious self-own, since him never seeing "a good" story about himself trending simply means that good content about Trump isn't popular among Twitter users, bad content about Trump is popular, and Trump himself is frequently checking in on trends about himself without grasping that this affects his trending-topic results.

The "funniest" thing about Trump's stupid "illegal" trending tweet is that trends are customized by your own Twitter behavior, so the "trends" that Trump sees are because he can't stop looking at what people are saying about him on Twitter.

— Scott Shackford (Blue Checkmark) (@SShackford) July 27, 2020

Whether other prominent conservatives are similarly confused about how the internet and social media work, or just like having another excuse to cry victimhood, many have lobbed on to the president's current claim or made similarly asinine allegations in the past.

Last week, for instance, Rod Dreher of The American Conservative insisted Google had briefly de-indexed his blog so it wouldn't show up in search results. But whatever Dreher was doing to convince himself of this, his blog actually remained perfectly visible in search results, as plenty of people who checked up on his story pointed out. Nonetheless, Dreher tweeted at Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) asking the senator to open an investigation into what was going on.

I hope @HawleyMO will dig into what happened. This is a chilling sign of how quickly a company as powerful as Google can effectively silence dissenting voices. #LiveNotByLies

— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) July 21, 2020

Alas, this is where conservatives' combination of tech panic and paranoid victim mentality has gotten us: demanding congressional hearings and federal agency investigations into why Rod Dreher can't find his own blog posts and why Americans like sharing bad stories about Trump.

---

QUICK HITS

The president is tweeting a viral video in which the person speaking says a drug the fda rescinded emergency use for is what people need to combat Covid, not masks or lockdowns. It's the real other side of the coin to some WH officials saying he understands the severity now.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 28, 2020

• Decriminalize Sex Work has put out an excellent video explaining the problems with the EARN IT Act and why it's "a wolf in sheep's clothing."

• RIP Garrett Foster.

• Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden released his "Agenda for Women" yesterday.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden released his "Agenda for Women" yesterday.

A lot of hands on.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

That piece about Forest was sophomoric nonsense.

[Overt]

If you meant the Foster article, yes it was gawdawful.

At the least, I would expect a journalist to portray the facts of the case, but Zuri specifically worded and obfuscated in order to make the reader believe that these protesters were calmly minding their own business, using a crosswalk, when the driver went careening through the crowd. There is ample video showing that BOTH the driver AND the crowd were acting aggressively.

At the least, a dispassionate article should be discussing the libertarian values of either side. It is clear by Forest's own words in a previous interview that he went there to block other peoples' right of free movement and he had brought the rifle to intimidate those "pussies" who would be afraid to do anything about it.

How can you just blindly call a person like that a libertarian? Every thing there- from the choice to block free movement to the decision to intimidate those people you are blocking with a rifle- is a violation of the NAP. Now you might believe it is worth it, but at least make the case.

I am on the fence as to whether the driver was too aggressive or not. But I do know that when the Police abdicate their responsibility to protect bystanders from a protest; when those protesters are intentionally there to infringe on bystanders' rights; and when they back up that infringement with weapons in quick-draw slings and held in an aggressive, ready position, you are asking for a violent confrontation.

It is tragic that this guy's fiance is now without her future life partner. But the greater tragedy is that the leaders in our cities, the police themselves, the cheerleaders of these protestors, and the protestors themselves have steadily escalated things to the point where the logical outcome is a confrontation between two or more armed individuals, which will result in shoot outs.

[Minadin]

I wouldn't say that they were just 'blindly' calling him a libertarian. He actually joined the party a few years back and had posted support for the presidential ticket on social media fairly recently. I haven't done either of those things and I still call myself a libertarian.

Of course, you are not wrong to point out how his actions did not appear to reflect his ideology. Maybe they could have tried some of that in the article.

[Trollificus]

Lots of people saying there's LOTS of footage showing the protest was "mostly peaceful". And Foster was "mostly unshot", with only a few little hole in him.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

"Mostly peaceful" has been the catchphrase of the moment. The Dem bobbleheads were squawking it in the session with Barr today.

And these vermin wonder how NPC became a meme.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

I moved to Austin, TX from Portland, OR, so I have been watching the drama with 'protesters' for going on 30 years now. First, their protests are 100% unethical. They are inappropriate as to time, place, and audience. Which is the point. These are not peaceniks, they are Alinsky-schooled radical marxists. They want want attention, not solutions. They crave a violent response, because it justifies their violence.

From his own words, Foster sounds like a complete dick. He went armed to a protest to intimidate. His group surrounded a driver that had every right to be where it was. To categorize a driver as behaving aggressively when he is trying to navigate an illegal blockade is disingenuous at best. Even if the driver could retreat, there is no reason he should have.

Foster got blown away and he deserved it. His buddy that fired on the car needs to go to prison.

[A Thinking Mind]

But if nothing else, the driver was moving too fast even if this had been just standard nightly foot-traffic. He had a red light and did not even slow down at an intersection as he made his right turn. I wouldn't say he "accelerated aggressively" but it was dangerous enough that he's also a bad actor here. You don't roll through a red light into an intersection.

The one vehicle that caught him on dash-cam might have crashed into him if that vehicle hadn't also been forced to stop by protestors. His light had just turned green and he was started to roll forward when the march walked in front of his car and the assholes waved at him to stop.

All this to say, there's assholes all the way down in that story.

[Official Judge of Performative Outrage]

0/10

[usmannoor]

I basically make about $12,000-$18,000 a month online. It’s enough to comfortably replace my I was amazed how easy it was after I tried it . BVf This is what I've been doing old jobs income, especially considering I only work about 10-13 hours a week from home...........Cash Mony System

[Trollificus]

All the way down, and into the Reason office.

[Earth Skeptic]

And sniffing.

[Don't look at me!]

Did it pass the sniff test?

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

It rubbed me the wrong way.

[Compelled Speechless]

Something about this smells fishy.....nevermind it's Biden's hand.

[perlchpr]

Lots of wonderfully scented shampoo.

[Freddy the Jerk]

Damnit, that was going to be my joke!

[perlchpr]

Sorry, I almost never get to the comments on anything this early. 😀

But don't feel bad, I had to change mine on the way down to the reply box because my original joke got told even faster. :p

[Unable2Reason]

America has too many choices in shampoo scents.

[NashTiger]

Doesn't pass the Sniff test

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[Fist of Etiquette]

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden released his "Agenda for Women" yesterday.

I hope it wasn't organized in a binder.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden released his "Agenda for Women" yesterday.

Grope them and then get all of your other former staffers who want any future in the party to gaslight them.

[ThomasD]

He had to release it. People could hear the screams.

[BigT]

Agenda for women (1970)

Find em
Feel em
Fuck em
Forget em

[Fist of Etiquette]

The president is tweeting a viral video in which the person speaking says a drug the fda rescinded emergency use for is what people need to combat Covid, not masks or lockdowns.

No one believes anything anyone is saying right now. And that's not entirely directly the president's fault.

[Don't look at me!]

If you like your lockdown, you can keep your lockdown.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

If you don't like your lockdown, you can keep your lockdown.

[perlchpr]

You can dance if you want to.

[Dillinger]

my friends don't dance they hide under their beds.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Your mama don't dance.

[Dillinger]

my dad's favorite band was Bread.

[Leo Kovalensky II]

Bread was certainly a staple in my household.

[Dillinger]

i kept Pops' vinyls. Bread in the stack.

[Gray_Jay]

I can't dance. The only thing about me is the way that I walk.

[Dillinger]

+1 dancing with the moonlit knight

[Unicorn Abattoir]

There's a future for you in the fire escape trade.

[Dillinger]

you'd better start doing it right.

[Apollonius]

Yes, Minister. . .

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

You can leave your fears behind.

[NashTiger]

It's not like there is a mountain of evidence from all over the world proving its true.

No, we have to listen to the OrangeManBad pScienceDeniers, because Science

http://www.francesoir.fr/societe-sante/covid-19-hydroxychloroquine-works-irrefutable-proof

[Tony]

"Irrefutable proof" sounds like a very scientific concept.

What's with the hydroxychloroqine thing? It's beyond weird. Trump, Giuliani, Don Jr., all hocking it at the same time? This has to be more about Trump's bruised ego from when he was first called out for playing a medical professional on TV.

The president is a known abuser of corruption rules in order to use his office to get kickbacks for himself, so we have to wonder.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

What's cheaper, an off-patent medicine that can be used as a preventive and in the early stages of treatment, or a brand-new, rushed vaccine with a worldwide demand?

[The White Knight]

Both please, and any other treatments anyone can come up with.

Why create a false dichotomy here?

[Dillinger]

the list of cold vaccines is long & distinguished.

[Minadin]

That isn't a false dichotomy. It isn't even a dichotomy.

[R Mac]

Lol. Asking which one is cheaper is not a false dichotomy. Man you can’t help being dumb, can you?

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

This has to be more about Trump’s bruised ego from when he was first called out for playing a medical professional on TV.

Unlike Fauci, who is also pretending to be a medical professional on TV?

Yet no one is listening to Rand Paul , who actually is a medical professional.

Fuck you all.

[Tony]

When we have a national outbreak of glaucoma, Rand is our man.

[Official Judge of Performative Outrage]

.5/10

[The White Knight]

Hey, that was a good one!

[Official Judge of Performative Outrage]

.00001/10

[The White Knight]

Yeah, fuck that Fauci guy. He only has four decades of experience in immunology.

[Dillinger]

how's the aids vaccine going?

[BigT]

This year he has been right about half the time. Could toss a coin.

[The White Knight]

"What men want is not knowledge, but certainty."

[Leo Kovalensky II]

HCQ is the best example of Trumpism vs anti-Trumpism. Obviously we should let the science bear itself out, but everyone on the Trump side was sure from day 1 that HCQ was a miracle cure, and all the anti-Trumpers out there were sure it meant certain death if you took it. And now you see both sides trying their hardest to prove themselves right no matter the cost.

There is no gray left in American politics, or at least not in the media.

[Nardz]

Way to keep up the "bOtH sIdEz!" faith.
HCQ is an effective treatment and prophylactic.
But people died because ONE side had to deny it for orangemanbad reasons.
And leo is totally cool with that

[Tony]

Citation please.

The president's sales job has led to a global shortage of this wonder drug. A drug that medical authorities say is ineffective.

[R Mac]

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/07/02/michigan-henry-ford-health-study-finds-hydroxychloroquine-lowers-covid-19-death-rate/5365090002/

[Tony]

Ah, the very study being called flawed by all the other medical authorities, like this one. The Henry Ford study was not randomized like the other studies that showed no benefit.

Please note that the word I took issue with was "irrefutable."

[R Mac]

Did you read your cite? It warns of potential side effects, and doesn’t mention the Henry Ford study at all.

[R Mac]

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2020/04/06/here-are-five-doctors-whose-patients-have-seen-recovery-with-hydroxy-chloroquine-n2566409

[R Mac]

https://nypost.com/2020/04/02/hydroxychloroquine-most-effective-coronavirus-treatment-poll/

Interesting, there’s no Bad Orange Man in Spain, so doctors there use it much more frequently than in the US.

[Don't look at me!]

My god! Those fools!

[Leo Kovalensky II]

I don't have a side in this battle. If people want to take HCQ, more power to you. I was merely pointing out that HCQ, like nearly every political issue since about 2008, has become completely polarized. And it's dumb because it's effectiveness and risk can be completely scientifically determined.

[The White Knight]

Exactly!

[Nardz]

Yes, and my point was that this isn't a both sides issue - this is the left, and only the left, actively suppressing treatment because they want to win an election and gain absolute power.
That is totalitarianism.
And it's not both sides

[The White Knight]

No, it’s also Trump’s fault for stroking his own ego by trying to appear smarter than all those do-nothing CDC doctors and talking as if HCQ was a proven treatment while there was still lots of questions about it’s efficacy.

Even if it turns out he GUESSED right, he kicked off another front in the partisan culture war. He could have just let the doctors discuss it, but, no, he had to make it into the miracle cure being pushed by Trump.

[Nardz]

It's Trump's fault for presenting an optimistic outlook to the people, saying he was "hopeful" about HCQ?
Totes good call!

Hey, remember this exchange:
BigT
July.28.2020 at 2:03 pm
This year he has been right about half the time. Could toss a coin.

The White Knight
July.28.2020 at 2:49 pm
“What men want is not knowledge, but certainty.”

[The White Knight]

It’s hard to converse with some people about Trump because they don’t pick up on any non-verbal cues such as body language or facial expressions. They can watch a video of Trump and totally miss that Trump is trying to brag, or make himself look smarter than everyone else in the room, or congratulate himself.

[soldiermedic76]

So basically it's the same thing Obama did.

[Nardz]

So white knight acts like a resentful and malicious psychotic, then blames others for questioning his motivations

[The White Knight]

Yes, Obama has his own problems, including a massive ego. I’ve never said one word in favor of Obama, although many here will swear I have. That’s in their heads.

[The White Knight]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stella-immanuel-trumps-new-covid-doctor-believes-in-alien-dna-demon-sperm-and-hydroxychloroquine

[The White Knight]

^
I don’t claim to know whether HCQ is an effective treatment or not. But this link backs up my assertion that Trump is an irresponsible ass playing doctor.

[The White Knight]

Dr. Stella Immanuel, one of the doctors Trump promoted as a source of knowledge on HCQ, talking about illnesses as a result of demons attacking you in your sleep:

https://youtu.be/nZE0rrEGk0I

Trump sure did a lot of due diligence before using her as a source.

[The White Knight]

Forgot to say skip to 6:30, unless you want to listen to the opening prayers.

[The White Knight]

Trump bragging about what a genius he is and all the doctors are so impressed with how quickly he picks up everything they’re saying:

https://youtu.be/P3nkxrECHKM

[Nardz]

So you're mad that Trump is smarter than you?

Don't worry.
A lot of people are

[R Mac]

Are Republicans forcing docs to prescribe it?

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/29/gretchen-whitmer-michigan-governor-hydroxychloroqu/

[The White Knight]

And along comes Nardz to illustrate how “there is no gray left in American politics.”

[Nardz]

Does that threaten your One True Faith?

[The White Knight]

Which is?

[Nardz]

Bitter BoTh SiDEzErIsM

[The White Knight]

Well, you know bitter.

[R Mac]

Leo, doctors all over the world use it as a treatment. Are they being pro-Trump?

[Leo Kovalensky II]

No. They're prescribing it to help their patients. Hopefully based on a risk/reward analysis that makes since for their patient's individual situation.

I'm referring to the media. MSM was pushing the narrative that people will die if they take it for unapproved usage. Talk radio was pushing the narrative from day 1 that it is the great hope that will save us all. When Trump mentioned it in a press conference, there was barely any evidence either way, but on that day everyone in the media/political class had already determined whether HCQ was good or bad.

[Leo Kovalensky II]

*sense (d'oh)

[Nardz]

So you're criticizing Trump, and the right, for again being correct too fast?

[Yusuke]

I’m not understanding what anyone is saying about this. Is it wrong to be hopeful that a treatment will work? Would it be politically charged w/o all the TDS in the power structure? The only thing I’ve learned for the Trump years is that, to borrow from it’s always sunny, science is a liar sometimes.

[The White Knight]

Yup! Team Red vs. Team Blue partisanship has made an entire country with tons of smart, capable people collectively dumb, and incapable of adult behavior and functional government.

[Nardz]

The white knight confesses about himself

[The White Knight]

Ooh, you’re rubber, I’m glue! Brilliant retort!

[Overt]

"What’s with the hydroxychloroqine thing?"

Surely you can see that it is a bunch of culture war bullshit, but you still choose to engage in it.

Trump said, "Hey this stuff is great" because he shoots his mouth off all the time. Some liberals who happen to be doctors looked up the drug's side effects and then said "OMG Trump is gonna kill y'all".

If it had stopped there, we would have been fine. Because literally millions of people use this drug daily without experiencing the side effects (as a preventative treatment for malaria). It could have been used cheaply, with no effect. But since Trump liked it, everyone and their brother became invested in declaring it arsenic.

If you don't understand your part in this "beyond weird" thing, then you are going to get more of it.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Some liberals who happen to be doctors looked up the drug’s side effects and then said “OMG Trump is gonna kill y’all”."

And what they said had nothing really to do with what they looked up, because any doctor is going to understand the difference between, "Can" cause a side effect, (The potential side effects of aspirin, for instance, are horrific!) and "Is likely to" cause a side effect.

[Earth Skeptic]

But what about political side effects?

[Trollificus]

There is no "kickback" for a cheap generic chemical compound. Now, Fauci and certain CDC officials have connections with Big (or Medium) Pharma...if you're really looking for corruption and not just running "response #4/
IF condition *any*
RUN orangemanbad.exe to LOOP

And no, I don't know why they call you an NPC. I used to, but then I took an arrow...nvm

[Freddy the Jerk]

“Irrefutable proof” sounds like a very scientific concept.

You wouldn't know a scientific concept if it came up and bit you on the ass.

[NashTiger]

It is a statistical concept, a mathematical concept. The sample size was so large (an entire country) that there is virtually no chance the sample is somehow skewed or not representative. A Confidence Interval well above 99%. 95% is good enough for most studies, 97% is there gold standard capturing every possibility within 3 standard deviations

[NashTiger]

99.7, not 97

[A Thinking Mind]

I wouldn't call that "irrefutable." It's a very strong correlation. The article doesn't look into any other factors that might correlate with Switzerland's death rate during that period. Their numbers are lower and more easily skewed. It could be the result of COVID hitting a retirement community around that time and spreading through the residents there.

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

More bad economic news.

Reason.com's benefactor Charles Koch only earned $430,000,000 yesterday.

That means he's still down almost $9 billion this year, with a net worth barely in the global top 20. Hopefully Mr. Koch can weather the storm for another half year until President Biden implements the Koch / Reason open borders agenda.

#VoteBidenToHelpBillionaires

[Official Judge of Performative Outrage]

1/10

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

-.5/10

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

"PROTECT AND EMPOWER WOMEN GLOBALLY"

So, Dementia Joe is not running for President of the United States, he is running for King of the World?

"No woman's hair will be unsniffed!"

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

So back to full on war with the Taliban, I guess.

[Earth Skeptic]

At least the Taliban know enough about the temptations of sniffing to force women to cover their hair.

[perlchpr]

*laughing*

[Gray_Jay]

"At least the Taliban know enough about the temptations of sniffing to force women to cover their hair."

Boys too. Or did you think the Chitrali cap was just for keeping warm?

Only two days till Thursday...

[Unicorn Abattoir]

He took the Obama playbook, and crossed out the name.

[NOYB2]

So according to Reason, limiting a regulation and limiting the ability of individuals to use the legal now amounts to regulating. Bizarre. And not very libertarian.

[Rossami]

I think the squirrels ate a couple words out of your post. Want to try again?

[JesseAz]

What don't you get? It is regulation when you don't grant specialized exemptions and protections to favored groups... or something like that.

If Reason is going to continue arguing their 230 stance, they should expand it to remove the civil law completely regarding civil liability that 230 supposedly protects.

[Leo Kovalensky II]

Suing Facebook for defamation because of a user post is kind of like suing Smith and Wesson when your family member gets shot.

But you don't care about any of that. This talk about Section 230 is nothing more than a cudgel to get the behavior that you want from social media companies.

[Nardz]

Facebook broadcasts user generated content.
If it refuses to broadcast some defamatory content while actively choosing to broadcast other defamatory content, how have they not made an editorial choice?

[Nardz]

If it makes an editorial choice, is that not effective endorsement of some defamatory content over others?
If it doesn't pick and choose which content to allow, all defamatory content gets through and Facebook isn't endorsing any particular point of view.
By making a selection, Facebook is adopting what they have selected as their own speech

[Leo Kovalensky II]

Your assumption makes sense only if Facebook can actively screen every single post. It can't, and you know that. Thus the idea that Facebook is exhibiting any editorial discretion is wrong. That's the whole premise behind Section 230. Legislators knew that the internet allows for real-time communication en masse on platforms that could never be able to moderate all of that content because of the sheer volume, and the necessity for it to be instant for the platform to exist in the way it was intended.

In reality, they are only catching a fraction of content that violates their ToS. You're just upset that it happens to include content you agree with politically.

[Nardz]

http://twitter.com/SamanthLiberty/status/1287739171457687552?s=19

No, because they have this "report" feature.
If they censor ALL posts that are reported, then that would be impartial third party selective editing.
But if they censor only some posts that are reported, and not others, they are endorsing the posts they leave up as their own speech.

[The White Knight]

They have. And they are allowed to make editorial choices. It’s their website.

[Nardz]

Which makes them a crony company benefitting from selective legislation that provides them protections other companies don't have

[The White Knight]

What are you talking about? Section 230 applies to Google or the tiniest chat site.

[Nardz]

Yes, it applies to Tech and only to Tech, not other companies

[Trollificus]

RIght. And this, in the language of the bill itself, makes them a fucking PUBLISHER.

The point wasn't to make them more vulnerable to liability, it was to get them to act like a "communications platform". '

Fuck, I would even argue that, 20+ years ago, it wasn't especially naive to expect that this would result in an evenly-moderated service. Whether heavily or lightly moderated, that was the expectation. And now, in the noble cause of influencing an election, they DGAF. If they're playing politics with their platform, I'm not offended if they get politics in return.

Also, F ENB. Reason has gone to shit, and she's been part of it.

[Uncle Gunnysack]

Here's a link to Sec. 230 if anybody cares to read it who hasn't yet. It's not long.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

What often goes unmentioned among Big Tech's woke cheering section is that the special federal government protections the law affords come with some caveats.

Congress' intention in writing the law was at its root an effort to "preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet" (back in 1996).

It was also meant "to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals." Is that what kicking political commentators that I follow off social media is doing -- maximizing my user control?

It also indicates that the original aim of the law was to foster the idealistic goal of maintaining the web as "a forum for a true diversity of political discourse" -- and that actions taken to "restrict access to or availability of (objectionable) material" must be taken in "good faith" if those platforms want to continue enjoying the advantageous protections provided under the law's provisions.

Given that the monopolistic monoliths that dominate todays internet didn't even exist when this law was created, you kind of have to wonder whether their behavior today honestly advances the objectives Congress was declaring that it wanted to pursue. (And one tool for speculating in that regard might be to ask yourself how much support for continuing the tech giants' seeming unqualified immunity would exist if it were progressives, mainstream media outlets and leftist-friendly libertarians that were the ones getting driven off state-sanctioned platforms rather than conservatives, traditionalists and critics in general of our ongoing cultural revolution.)

[Leo Kovalensky II]

I for one would still support it. Section 230 allows for more ability for speech, period.

Without Section 230 I can't imagine how we could have a Facebook, Twitter, etc as we know it today. No company would be willing to risk being responsible for its users' content when there is no possible way to screen it all, and very few companies who derive their revenue from ads would be willing to let overtly racist speech (as an example) on their forums for fear of losing advertisers.

Even if the giants out there like FB, Google, and Twitter had enough legal clout to get around the issues mentioned above, it would be almost impossible for a startup to compete in that environment.

[Nardz]

Now that's how you really embrace boot-licking!

I guess all you have to do is pretend it tastes good

[JustSomeDude]

"No company would be willing to risk being responsible for its users’ content when there is no possible way to screen it all"

Simple: don't make decisions about banning content or users that are basically editorial choices and they have nothing to be concerned about.

"very few companies who derive their revenue from ads would be willing to let overtly racist speech (as an example) on their forums for fear of losing advertisers."

You are mistaking what advertisers prefer with what they would be willing to do. They would prefer to know everything there is to know about the content and the specific member of the audience each ad is going to, but they are certainly willing to advertise without that information - they just won't be willing to pay as much. For actual content creators, web sites that produce their own content, there would be no change other than potentially an increased demand by advertisers for their audiences.

[The White Knight]

“monopolistic monoliths”

How is Twitter, for example, monopolistic? There are plenty of competitors. Popular does not equal monopolistic.

[Fist of Etiquette]

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said that "the Federal Communications Commission will carefully review any petition for rulemaking filed by the Department of Commerce"—a subtle comment that the agency doesn't take its orders from Trump and Trump can't grant it new authorities.

That monster allowed net neutrality to destroy the internet as we know it. I'm not listening to him.

[MollyGodiva]

Net neutrality was in place from the beginning of the internet until about two years ago. It is what built the internet and is vitally important. It was what allowed new sites and new ways of using the net to flourish.

[NashTiger]

This place isn't for you

[JesseAz]

No it wasn't. Google, namely YouTube, and Facebook, along with other large bandwidth sites, have always paid carriers for extra benefits such as local storage of their content to help improve speeds of their downloads. This is exactly the type of innovation that Net Neutrality would have ended.

[perlchpr]

Can you explain what a "peering agreement" is? No searching for it.

[Overt]

Net Neutrality was LARGELY started, sponsored and pushed by one company: NetFlix. And it was pushed by them because they wanted to force other companies to host their content on the edge close to users for free.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

And the irony was that NN supporters, in response to that, just said, "well, maybe they'll institute bandwidth caps!" So the companies did just that after the Obama-run FCC implemented "NN," which led to screeching by these very same people that companies like Comcast were screwing up the internet experience.

[Nardz]

The same company who, as someone here pointed out in the past, awarded Obama a $100 million production deal as soon as he left office

[R Mac]

Lol.

[The White Knight]

Fist was being facetious. That’s kinda his thing.

[Fist of Etiquette]

How dare you.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Trump's nonsensical comments dovetail nicely with the narrative about social media that he and other prominent conservatives have trying to spread: that it's deliberately biased against them.

Thank that idiot from Google vowing after the election and on camera to not let it ever happen again.

[Mother's lament]

If anyone thinks that the woke tech mavens haven't spent the last four years figuring how to make sure 2016 never happens again, they're incredibly naive.

Today's prophecy: 2020 will see massive voter fraud by the left aided by companies like Google. They will be caught because they're more arrogant than subtle. Both candidates will be delegitimized in the eyes of the other's supporters. Republicans will say that the fraud made the elections invalid. Democrats will insist that they would have won anyway.
This will lead to a slow burning civil war.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Slow burning? We're already there, dude. It's just that the lunacy is largely confined at this point to a few ultra-blue havens.

[perlchpr]

"Fast", "slow", honestly, I dunno what speed courthouses burn at.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Depends on the amount of asbestos present.

[NashTiger]

451F

[Dillinger]

+1 hide the nails and wood.

[Gray_Jay]

"It was a pleasure to burn."

Great book.

[Nardz]

And the fraud is already here too.
The covid terrorism is an abomination and a crime against humanity

[Nardz]

Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin all have D governors.

Trump should win all of them, excepting VA, by huge margins.
But "polls" tell us he's way down.

Fuck leftists for destroying the country, and fuck all their enablers here

[JesseAz]

All 3 of the big ones deleted videos from yesterday's conference involving professors, nurses, doctors, and epidemiologists who dared counter the chicken little narrative they support regarding Covid.

[The White Knight]

Paranoia! The destroyer!

[I, Woodchipper]

Trump’s nonsensical comments dovetail nicely with the narrative about social media that he and other prominent conservatives have trying to spread: that it’s deliberately biased against them.

Every single politician wants to control the information you get, including internet content. This is literally the most 'both sides' case that you can find and you think this is a Trump issue? Please.

[R Mac]

When it’s the Dems, it’s both sides. When it’s actually both sides, it’s Trump. That’s how you Orange Man Bad.

[SQRLSY One]

Orange Man bad?!? He BAD, all right! He SOOO BAD, He be GOOD! He be GREAT! He Make America Great Again!

We KNOW He can Make America Great Again, because, as a bad-ass businessman, He Made Himself and His Family Great Again! He Pussy Grabber in Chief!

See The Atlantic article by using the below search-string in quotes:
“The Many Scandals of Donald Trump: A Cheat Sheet” or this one…

https://reason.com/2019/09/02/republicans-choose-trumpism-over-property-rights-and-the-rule-of-law/

He pussy-grab His creditors in 7 bankruptcies, His illegal sub-human workers ripped off of pay on His building projects, and His “students” in His fake Get-Rich-like-Me realty schools, and so on. So, He has a GREAT record of ripping others off! So SURELY He can rip off other nations, other ethnic groups, etc., in trade wars and border wars, for the benefit of ALL of us!!!

All Hail to THE Pussy Grabber in Chief!!!

Most of all, HAIL the Chief, for having revoked karma! What comes around, will no longer go around!!! The Donald has figured out that all of the un-Americans are SOOO stupid, that we can pussy-grab them all day, every day, and they will NEVER think of pussy-grabbing us right back!

Orange Man Bad-Ass Pussy-Grabber all right!

We CAN grab all the pussy, all the time, and NONE will be smart enough to EVER grab our pussies right back!

These voters simply cannot or will not recognize the central illusion of politics… You can pussy-grab all of the people some of the time, and you can pussy-grab some of the people all of the time, but you cannot pussy-grab all of the people all of the time! Sooner or later, karma catches up, and the others will pussy-grab you right back!

[Official Judge of Performative Outrage]

.0000000001/10

[Earth Skeptic]

"Conservatives don't like Section 230 because it means Twitter, YouTube, and similar entities have the discretion to delete offensive tweets and suspend any accounts they deem to be violating their terms of service. Progressive don't like Section 230 because it means that only the perpetrators of crimes like harassment, non-consensual sharing of photos (a.k.a. "revenge porn"), or forced prostitution can be charged or sued over theses actions, not whatever digital tool or service they happened to use in service of their bad acts."

Snowflakes to the left of me, snowflakes to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with...you?

[SQRLSY One]

As a snowed-under-by-snowflakes SQRLSY One, I heartily endorse this message! (SOOO much snow, I sometimes find it hard to find my nuts!)

[Mother's lament]

I sometimes find it hard to find my nuts
Well you are progressive...

[R Mac]

Cocaine explains a lot. I didn’t realize shrinking your testicles was a side effect though.

[JesseAz]

delete offensive tweets and suspend any accounts they deem to be violating their terms of service

I do like this narrative despite all of the Veritas videos showing that the above simply isn't true. They delete stuff for purely political reasons all the time.

[Brett Bellmore]

And we've all seen the screenshot of the administrator screen with the button for blacklisting trends. "Algorithmically determined" my ass.

[BigT]

Algorithms are written by people and can code for bias very easily. Saying it’s an algorithm and thus unbiased is pure nonsense written to fool the computer illiterate.

[mad.casual]

Not to mention that, once again, the errant Youtube blacklisting is only a symptom of the much larger problem of Google, Youtube, Twitter, FB, Paypal, Patreon, Amazon, Mastercard, Visa, etc., etc. *simultaneous* delisting, dehosting, and demonetization.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The president is tweeting a viral video in which the person speaking says a drug the fda rescinded emergency use for is what people need to combat Covid, not masks or lockdowns.

This isn't the same FDA that held up early COVID-19 responses with its mindless bureaucracy, is it?

[Don't look at me!]

*Bugs Bunny voice* Ehh, could be!

[SIV]

"Harassment" and "revenge porn" are "crimes" now?

This site just gets more "libertarian" every day!

[Leo Kovalensky II]

I'm going to have to do a lot more research before I can form an opinion.

[mad.casual]

But you *feel* like your free speech is being protected, no?

Would it help if I reminded you that section 230 is the 1A of the internet?

[SIV]

Non sequitur much?

1A protects what cancel cunt calls crimes.

[Mother's lament]

"SPEECH POLICE"

Remember, Reason libertarianism only applies to the American federal government (and then mostly to Republicans).
If you're crazy enough to believe that libertarianism as a philosophy should also be encouraged in business and personal interactions, your probably Hitler or at least conservative.

[TJJ2000]

Hitler was a socialist; be nice if people would stop buying the lefties lies.

[The White Knight]

You are reading your own private Reason. The actual Reason writes about freedom issues in business and civil society all the tome.

[Mother's lament]

lol, no.

[Earth Skeptic]

"The president either doesn't understand this or is pretending he doesn't understand."

Trump policy in one sentence.

[Art Kumquat]

At this pint I would say don’t hand new powers over to a potential Biden administration and his full on prog left push for bizzarro justice. It would delay the inevitable for a brief time while the resistance gets better organized.

[Overt]

^ This guy gets it.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

"At this pint"

It's not even lunch yet, and you're already half in the bag!

[perlchpr]

"It's five o'clock somewhere!"

[speedylee]

Who does this style of writing appeal to?

[Mother's lament]

Twitter wokesters under 30.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

I actually wasn't familiar at all with ENB's writing background. I decided to look her up and ran across her Bustle output, which was mostly just clickbait fluff. Her experience with that is probably why she's been doing the Links column for so long now--a few spicy hits and the job is done.

When Shackford, Walker, or other writers take their turn when ENB goes on vacation, their Links columns tend to be quite a bit more beefy.

[NashTiger]

Anybody but the B Team. The entire B Team is gawdawful

[perlchpr]

I am forever going to hear a terrible, off tempo, out of tune rendition of the "A-Team" theme song, complete with sad trombone, every time I see this nickname for the " Bunion, Boom, and Britishguy" trifecta. 😀

"Doot d'doo doooooo, wah wah waaaaaaah..."

[NashTiger]

Pinko journos hoping to get called up to the big leagues (Vox) or at least get invited to the correct cocktkale parties

[Gray_Jay]

"...the correct cocktkale parties"

That sounds absolutely disgusting. Kale is---maybe---edible if cooked with enough garlic, oil, and red pepper flakes. But so would shit, right SQRLSY?

A cocktail with kale? Ugh.

[perlchpr]

"Excuse me, that's my artisanal cucumber, kale, and parsnip infusion you're insulting right now."

[Gray_Jay]

I hope you had the common decency to roast the parsnips first, you Philistine.

[perlchpr]

Have to. It's the only way to caramelize the sugars.

[BigT]

Vomit!!

[mad.casual]

A cocktail with kale?

I assumed it was some oriental group sex fetish but your interpretation is way more disgusting.

[SQRLSY One]

"The FCC shouldn't take this bait," she said in a statement. "While social media can be frustrating, turning this agency into the President's speech police is not the answer. If we honor the Constitution, we will reject this petition immediately."

Agreed! I for one do ***NOT*** look forward to receiving a juror summons from the Ministry of Truth, so as to be tasked with me making a decision, is the following TRUTH or DEFAMATION?

"Government Almighty LOVES us ALL!!!"

[Official Judge of Performative Outrage]

0/10

[SQRLSY One]

Do you recall the awesome enchanter named “Tim”, in “Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail”? The one who could “summon fire without flint or tinder”? Well, you remind me of Tim… You are an enchanter who can summon persuasion without facts or logic!

So I discussed your awesome talents with some dear personal friends on the Reason staff… Accordingly…

Reason staff has asked me to convey the following message to you:

Hi Fantastically Talented Author:

Obviously, you are a silver-tongued orator, and you also know how to translate your spectacular talents to the written word! We at Reason have need for writers like you, who have near-magical persuasive powers, without having to write at great, tedious length, or resorting to boring facts and citations.

At Reason, we pay above-market-band salaries to permanent staff, or above-market-band per-word-based fees to freelancers, at your choice. To both permanent staff, and to free-lancers, we provide excellent health, dental, and vision benefits. We also provide FREE unlimited access to nubile young groupies, although we do firmly stipulate that persuasion, not coercion, MUST be applied when taking advantage of said nubile young groupies.

Please send your resume, and another sample of your writings, along with your salary or fee demands, to [e-mail] .

Thank You! -Reason Staff

[R Mac]

More shit from the shit eater.

[Ra's al Gore]

'The President's Speech Police': Trump Pushes Forward With Regulating Bias Online
Acting could soon be a hate crime
Performers in Scotland could be punished for playing ‘offensive’ roles under a new hate-crime law.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/28/acting-could-soon-be-a-hate-crime/

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Good thing Patrick McGoohan has passed away so he can't be tossed in the clink for his portrayal of Edward Longshanks.

[mamabug]

I see Scotland has figured out how to outlaw Shakespeare.

[Ra's al Gore]

https://twitter.com/Slate/status/1287894095197868033

Slate
@Slate
Are teenagers too young to manage polyamorous relationships?

[Overt]

Aren't there like 500 disney/nickelodian sitcom plots that basically say "yes, but it's good for a laugh(track)"?

[SQRLSY One]

I saw that too... Wow!

Next question for "Slate"-style "Dear Shabby" letter:

Are teenagers too young to opt for species-change operations? Like this guy did? Dennis Avner... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking_Cat

[Mother's lament]

Lol, the comments;

"Are girls too young for 100 guy gang bangs?"
"Why do I get the feeling some groomer wrote this article?"
"A grandma is too young for that imo"
"Because today's teenage girls are the first in history to be double teamed by boys....."
"Yeah I married my 3 wives at 12, 14 and 15. I was 43"
"I see your clickbait, Slate, and decline"

[perlchpr]

As someone who has been poly since being a teenager, and, therefore hung around with other poly folk... I'm going with "yes". Of course, on that same note, most 50 year olds are too, though they generally have at least fewer public flameouts over it.

[Ra's al Gore]

Armed Minneapolis Residents Are Patrolling Their Own Neighborhoods As City Moves To Defund Police
https://www.dailywire.com/news/armed-minneapolis-residents-are-patrolling-their-own-neighborhoods-as-city-moves-to-defund-police

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

I think it was Overt yesterday that pointed out that police were formed in the American West in order to ensure that disputes could be resolved through a mediating force, and to cut down on the number of duels and murders so that innocent people weren't accidentally killed in shootouts, and to cut down on lynch mobs dispensing justice before the county judge could get into town and settle things.

Interesting how diverse, low-trust cities quickly devolve to Wild West-type towns when you remove the police presence.

[Overt]

I didn't say this was why police were created (I don't know, maybe it was).

But I did say that the police have been a mediating force. Before them, you just didn't go about pissing off people, because they were likely carrying guns just like you. I'd also point out that even in the pre-wild west days when men dueled for honor, there were significant cultural safeguards that attempted to formally de-escalate a duel. "Hamilton" (god forgive me) actually has a great run down of the dueling process- where you had a second who would help mediate, and de-escalate the process.

All of those safeguards- police, law, cultural backstops- are gone now. And so we have hot heads with guns running at each other. Shootings will happen.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

I did end up finding that post, FWIW.

“Hamilton” (god forgive me) actually has a great run down of the dueling process- where you had a second who would help mediate, and de-escalate the process.

Yeah, most actual "duels" during that time tended to just be face-saving measures. It was pretty common for each of the duelists to fire in the air or off to the side, say "we're good now" and call it a day because no one wanted to actually risk dying over a stupid argument. Hamilton dramatically underestimated how much Burr despised him and paid the price with his life.

[mad.casual]

“Hamilton” (god forgive me) actually has a great run down of the dueling process- where you had a second who would help mediate, and de-escalate the process.

Anybody with passing familiarity with Jim Bowie's personal history is fully aware that you and/or RRWP have tied a neat little bow around a mess of history. Families rig local elections for Judge or Sheriff, duels ensue, larger brawls break out after firsts play the passive roles (as you describe) and seconds as well as 'supporters' settle their own personal and/or unrelated grudges...

[Rossami]

There are a couple of important steps between 'armed residents patrolling their neighborhood' and 'lynch mobs dispensing justice'.

Neighborhood Watch is hardly a new thing. And I venture to say that some, maybe most, of those patrols were armed even if the watchers didn't advertise it.

[mamabug]

It seems that one of those important steps is the inability to trust that if someone is turned over to the judiciary branch, they will be punished.

How many rioters are being released without charge?

[Michael Ejercito]

Wow, an actual, valid criticism of President Trump.

It has been what, weeks, months, since I saw such a thing on Reason?

[sarcasmic]

There are no valid criticisms of Trump. Haven't you learned anything from the cool kids?

[Sevo]

You don't need to ask if someone is a TDS victim; like all religious fundies, they'll tell you at the drop of a hat.
They wake up in the morning with the sole intent of hating Trump and telling other people they should too, and go to bed at night just the same.
Like other pathetic pieces of shit, it's their LIFE

[sarcasmic]

Funny how some of the worst sufferers of TDS are his supporters. They take criticism of the man personally and have an emotional reaction to it, just like the liberals have an emotional reaction whenever he is mentioned.

The funniest part is the complete lack of self awareness. They don't even see their reflexive antagonism towards detractors, and if they do they certainly don't see how deranged it looks from people who neither hate nor support the man.

[NashTiger]

No one here defending Trump. Just you prattling on with your ediarrhea

[JesseAz]

Is this more sanctimonious sarcasmic who sees windmills in others thinking they are monsters?

I do like you repeating the very observation I made about you last week towards others. The irony of not being self aware. LOL.

They don’t even see their reflexive antagonism towards detractors

Says the guy who will be the second post in a comment thread with a hyperbolic strawman argument of what he thinks his opponents think.

[sarcasmic]

I never called anyone an opponent. You see me as your opponent because you're a Trump supporter and I am not. In your black and white view you're with him or against him. You're with him or against him. Sitting on the sidelines and mocking everyone just doesn't compute in your TDS poisoned mind.

[TJJ2000]

Project much? Your original statement.
"There are no valid criticisms of Trump. Haven’t you learned anything from the cool kids?" ... in response to ... "Wow, an actual, valid criticism of President Trump"

You've have literally emotionally reacted to a "valid criticism" post by trying to pretend the Trump supporters here say there is "no valid criticism" then proceed to explain how you're an opponent because your not a Trump supporter in the face of getting a "valid criticism" post.

No sarcasm; you're an opponent because you manipulate everything even to the point of full on contradiction.

[sarcasmic]

Taking everyone and everything seriously all the time must make your life miserable. If I was capable of empathy I might pity you.

[Gray_Jay]

Is this the part of the show where the clown nose is on?

It's all so confusing.

[sarcasmic]

It's the part where I remind you that I'm not a liberal millennial who gets my news from Comedy Central, and still have no idea of what you are talking about.

[Gray_Jay]

Oh bullshit, Sarc, and you had it pointed out to you recently.

Because repetition is key for education, the clown nose reference was IIRC, originally about Jon Stewart. When he was on The Daily Show, he purported to be both a serious news source and a comic. He'd talk about stories, and if criticism became too heated, he'd claim he was just making a joke, and what's the big deal, anyway?

You do the exact same thing when your post doesn't get the desired response. You stated, "Taking everyone and everything seriously all the time must make your life miserable...." Implying your comment, that had that reaction, was not meant to be taken seriously. Clown Nose on.

'The Internet Is Serious Business', but it is lazy to step away from what you write and denigrate the person reacting to it by claiming it was not meant to be taken seriously.

Which is fine, IMO. I certainly don't write here with the care and detachment I use for my professional writing.

[R Mac]

Yes.

[perlchpr]

Y'know, I never would have guessed that would be a thing. Type "clown nose" into the search bar on PornHub.

[sarcasmic]

At least you're not as bad as Nardz who advocates killing people who disagree with his politics. You never accepted my apology for confusing you with him when he said something about killing people, and I doubt you're man enough to accept it now. But I offer it anyway.

[Nardz]

Yawn.

Sarc doesn't hate me because of his stated reason, he hates me because I call him out for being a midwit shallow thinker with the emotional maturity of a 12 year old girl on her period.

Keep it up, sarc. It's not like all the shit I've been talking about for two years is becoming more and more apparent every day

[The White Knight]

Not just that. He has personally threatened me. Which is kinda hilarious, since he doesn’t know who I am.

Always late at night when I suspect he’s drinking and commenting. When called on it, he’d back off.

[The White Knight]

Yet they try to paint you as being emotional, when Nardz and others lose their tempers here every day. Case of projecting their own emotional problems onto others.

[Nardz]

Blah blah blah

But I am curious. Would you mind linking to these "threats"?

[R Mac]

You mean like losing your temper and stealing handles to try to stop people from hurting your emotions?

That was a fun little experiment.

[The White Knight]

It got people to think about what an ass Tulpa has been around here, it got at least one other person, sarcasmic, to ask the admins to promise to fix it.

[Nardz]

Sigh. Spoofing loopholes not fixed yet, by the way.

[Nardz]

He didn’t lose his temper, by the way.

[Nardz]

Took you long enough

[R Mac]

“Haven’t you learned anything from the cool kids?”

“I never called anyone an opponent.”

Sarcasmic going full Jeff. Don’t ever go full Jeff sarcasmic.

[The White Knight]

It’s really odd to see it here. There’s a long tradition in libertarianism of taking pot shots at those in power, especially the President. There’s also a long libertarian tradition of not engaging in President worship, but here it is.

[Nardz]

"There's a long libertarian tradition of [going along with the groupthink crowd and showing unwavering support for the establishment]"

Is that so?

[Earth Skeptic]

Still not as bad as Vegans.

[sarcasmic]

I once asked a vegetarian woman how she could keep a boyfriend if she didn't eat meat. She shoved me down the stairs. It was so worth it.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

In spite of any injuries you may have received, she did you a favor.

[sarcasmic]

The crowd of people laughing at my joke cushioned my fall.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

Beavis and butthead wouldn’t even laugh at that joke.

[NashTiger]

Vegan Atheist CrossFit Trumphaters

[A Thinking Mind]

^ Basically my reactor to the headline. This is what TDS is-people so desperate to cry about orangemanbad that they can't argue in good faith when it's time to offer legitimate criticism.

[Ra's al Gore]

https://twitter.com/KXAN_News/status/1287946627022573569
Your child can go do their work inside an Austin Independent School Building under YMCA's care while you go to http://work.Here's how it works.

[Ra's al Gore]

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1288090579050668038
Reuters
@Reuters
Portland protesters continued to rally even as federal law enforcement dispatched to the city have drawn national attention for whisking away demonstrators in unmarked cars and tear-gassing activist mothers and the city's mayor

[Ra's al Gore]

https://twitter.com/KXAN_News/status/1287946627022573569
Your child can go do their work inside an Austin Independent School Building under YMCA’s care while you go to work. Here's how it works.

[Overt]

Which just makes me respect the teachers less. This is all about the teachers' unions, and the teachers better realize that if they aren't careful, schools will be back in session for everyone except the teachers.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

One of my buddies lives in a school district where they're doing a wierd, split-day thing where they'll be going to school three days a week and do online schooling for two days. At the high school where his daughter goes, they've set it up so that the kids stay in one room all day and the teachers will rotate every hour to do math, history, etc.

Not sure how that's going to work with some elective and AP classes, but maybe they're eliminating those or going to a strictly online format for the AP stuff.

[Overt]

Yes my daughter is doing the same, and she is PISSED OFF because it was the teachers who made it happen. The majority of students and parents voted to have Traditional or Online only schooling. But the teachers all voted for "Hybrid". For her that means 2 days in school, 3 days online.

The worst thing is that it also means sports are severely impacted. She worked her ass off last year to get into Cheer as a freshman and now they just have 2 zoom meetings each week where they do exercise and that is it. I feel bad for her, but really bad for some of her friends who were on the college basketball track and now lose the coaching and scouting that they needed to get a scholarship.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, our local school district is trying to pull the same garbage. We worked hard to get our kid into a magnet school, and now we're going to be essentially homeschooling him with a little online help?

Just give us the money the school is getting, and we'll be glad to homeschool him without their help. Probably have him graduating high school by the time he's 14, without their ham fisted assistance.

[perlchpr]

Yeah, I've got two nephews and a niece all having their "senior year" this year. None of them are pleased.

Which, I can't tell if they're just being little fuckin' contrarians because they're related to me, but I swear you used to have to practically drag some of these kids by the leg to get 'em to school. Now they're pissed they can't go.

"I don' wanna get up..."

"Well I don't want to stay home, either!"

Little oppositionalist bastards. Gods, I'm so proud. 😀

[Nardz]

Part of the fun of senior year is going to school, then skipping the rest of the day with all your friends

[BigT]

Green Day.

[Nardz]

We had to speed away from the lieutenant governor of ga once, as we were sneaking out of the parking lot when he was being driven back to his car after an assembly

[Gray_Jay]

"Not sure how that’s going to work with some elective and AP classes, but maybe they’re eliminating those or going to a strictly online format for the AP stuff."

Diploma privilege, like how a few states are doing Bar admissions without the Exam?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The squirrels ate my comment, but basically AP is a separate animal and schools have to be certified to teach the courses. Since they're so specialized and you get college credit for high exam scores, they typically have pre-requisites for signing up. It's not really a model that fits well into a rotational learning system.

[soldiermedic76]

Montana's Governor (former Democratic Presidential candidate and now Senate Candidate) wants larger school districts to do the same thing. AP maths, elective maths, sciences etc will be offered online. Students will only receive core corriculum in school. Not sure how you do chemistry etc on line.

[soldiermedic76]

Oh and we will have a football season but contact will be limited during practice to only one day a week, blocking dummies etc will not be used. Did anyone inform them that improper blocking, tackling and being out of shape is the number one cause of injuries in high school football? To protect kids from something that is such a low risk to them, we will be exponentially increasing their risks of severe injuries!

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Yeah, that sounds pretty dumb. Might as well cancel the season entirely or move it to the spring.

[soldiermedic76]

I really thought about telling my sons no on playing this year, but my oldest is a junior and there is only one senior returning. Not stopping because of COVID but because of stupid COVID rules.

[Ra's al Gore]

https://twitter.com/robbystarbuck/status/1287944649827590144
This press conference of doctors had 14 million views on Facebook today. FB took it down shortly after a NYTimes reporter complained. The FB comms person who replied to the NYTImes reporter confirming it was removed used to work for
@SenatorBoxer
&
@dccc
.

[Overt]

This is where I break rank with ENB on the Section 230 stuff. When she says that it is unclear where Trump thinks 230 would allow for investigating the methods and potential bias, it seems pretty clear to me. The Statute says platforms that moderate in "Good Faith" shall be protected. What Trump is trying to do is to setup a framework for evaluating Good Faith.

Mind you, for the reasons ENB said, I do not want the government being the arbiter of what is good faith. And in fact, this won't solve much in the end. FB and Google have no problem saying, "We reserve the right to remove any content that we find objectionable to our political sensibilities, whatever they are at a given time". And at that point, their moderation would meet the definition of Good Faith.

[perlchpr]

Would it have been legal for the Bell Telephone Company to have cancelled telephone service for people who participated in a conference call supporting Communism in the 50's?

I'm willing to entertain arguments (and they probably wouldn't even have to be that vigorous) that at the "site" level, OK, maybe Twitter and Facebook and YouTube don't meet the definition of "monopoly" because it is, at least technically, possible to start other platforms. Yes, starting a new business with 0 customers is hard when you're trying to compete with one that already has several hundred million of them, but that's not the fault or problem of the business you're trying to compete with.

But... if you try and start such a business, well, maybe the domain registrars will decide to fuck with your domain registry. Or the name servers will refuse to publish your DNS records. Or the companies which actually provide network connectivity might not let you attach your server. Or the credit card companies and the banks might not let you collect funds from your customers.

At some point, someone has to hit the definition of "Common Carrier" while we're still playing within the bounds of "having a government" (and if we go full AnCap, well, things get way weirder on the internet infrastructure question), or ironically enough, we've managed to set up the libertarianism-criticism absurdity wherein people question our commitment to property rights by asking, "But what if someone just bought all the land around your house, and then didn't let you leave? Would you just starve?"

[Overt]

"But… if you try and start such a business, well, maybe the domain registrars will decide to fuck with your domain registry. Or...[begin long line of what ifs that would all have to line up like magic to deny your ability to affect change]"

Yes in a fantasy land where every single person in a long chain of supply and demand decided they didn't like you, you might be in trouble. Luckily, we know for a fact that no such fantasy land exists. DuckDuckGo, Bing, etc are all a thing.

[perlchpr]

Yes in a fantasy land where every single person in a long chain of supply and demand decided they didn’t like you, you might be in trouble. Luckily, we know for a fact that no such fantasy land exists. DuckDuckGo, Bing, etc are all a thing.

Some of the pieces of the chain are pretty tenuous.

[Rossami]

re: "Would it have been legal for the Bell Telephone Company ..."

Probably yes, that would have been legal under current First Amendment precedents. However, there is an important difference that the rest of your comment recognizes but maybe doesn't call out clearly enough. Bell Telephone was recognized as a monopoly and explicitly regulated as a common carrier. Based on that legislation, maybe Bell Telephone inherits some First Amendment restrictions. No such legislation recognizes Twitter or Facebook as a common carrier.

Nor do I think there is likely to be such legislation. Unlike a landline phone company, Twitter and Facebook face no natural monopoly based the cost of laying wire. The only thing they have going for them is the Network Effect. And MySpace is ample evidence that network effect alone is insufficient to sustain a monopoly.

The answer is simple. If you don't like Twitter, don't tweet. Find some alternative you like better. Yes, the transition will be frustrating, disturbing and initially unsatisfactory. But you're miserable on Twitter now. Bite the bullet and try something else.

[perlchpr]

You missed the point of the entire rest my post.

Some layer has to be held to common carrier standards.

OK, you can build a new site. But no one can get to it because your DNS info was depublished. And no one will host it, or allow you to hang your own server off the end of their wire. And even if you could, none of the major financials will transfer money for you.

At some point you've created a system where all sorts of seemingly unrelated things by seemingly unrelated companies are notionally privatized to the point where you simply can't bootstrap yourself to the point where you even can have a place to have a dissenting opinion.

[Rossami]

So you're alleging not merely a single competitor but an entire network of companies conspiring to prevent you from launching your anti-Twitter? That seems ... improbable.

But to the extent that it's true, regulating Twitter is the wrong call. You'd have better luck getting the DNS publishers and the ISPs regulated as common carriers. Those are closer analogs to Ma Bell and do not gain their popularity solely from the network effect.

[mad.casual]

That seems … improbable.

So improbable that it happens...

[mad.casual]

repeatedly.

[mad.casual]

I agree that ISPs and DNSs are better candidates for what constitutes Title II entities. However, there is still considerable evidence of anti-Trust going on between Twitter, Google, FB, Amazon, etc. and if you don't want Trump regulating 'good faith' speech on the internet, the solution is to repeal section 230. There is no 'good faith' clause in the 1A and, as you yourself point out, Congress owns no piece of the internet to have any authority to determine what 'good faith' means. The term itself is judicially-oriented as judges and juries (strive to) determine what constitutes good faith while plain-letter laws do not.

The fact that we continue to torture our internet, justice, and legal system over the last shred of an act that was poorly motivated, wrongly enacted, and mostly repealed is baffling.

[Moonrocks]

And yet again.

What would it take to start your own payment processor? Is it even theoretically possible to comply with all the laws and regulations involved?

[mad.casual]

What would it take to start your own payment processor?

It depends on exactly what you mean, but as an individual or a small group of people it would be impossible. If you started a small business and built up some capital you can/could. However, that still doesn't necessarily avoid the problem of connecting to Visa's processing backbone. Once Visa/Mastercard boots you, you are or can be effectively talking about building a bank or credit card from the ground up.

[The White Knight]

“ The answer is simple. If you don’t like Twitter, don’t tweet. Find some alternative you like better.“

It can be somewhat shocking when an actual libertarian point of view is expressed here in the comments.

[R Mac]

Only if you’re as thick skulled as you are.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

maybe Twitter and Facebook and YouTube don’t meet the definition of “monopoly” because it is, at least technically, possible to start other platforms.

And even that is somewhat questionable because when you really dig into the origins of some of these BigTech corps, you often find the government's fingers deep in their orifices. Google, for example, got access to the CIA's Keyhole mapping system via In-Q-Tel, the CIA's investment arm. Reid Hoffman, who has ties to the same arm via Greylock, was one of Facebook's angel investors that enabled it to explode from a podunk college message board to the monster it eventually became.

[Jerryskids]

None of it is determined by the individuals working at Twitter or the preferences of the company's leaders.

You must be some kind of conspiracy nut if you think maybe the social media giants might need some sort of investigation to see if they are acting in good faith, it's already been determined that they are acting in good faith and no investigation of this fact is necessary. Next you'll be claiming The NYT and WaPo might not be entirely unbiased and completely neutral on the question of whether or not Trump is a good President.

[Jerryskids]

Sorry, I probably shouldn't be so sarcastic about that statement, let me try again.

None of it is determined by the individuals working at Twitter or the preferences of the company's leaders.

This is probably the stupidest fucking shit I've ever seen here, and I've read Dalmia's posts. How the fucking fuck do you know Twitter's algorithms are on the up and up and not susceptible to "tweaking" by individuals? Because you know every goddamn time they get caught "accidentally" fucking with non-prog speech, the humans manage to step in and "correct" the algorithms. Could it be that the algorithms are subject to being "corrected" pre-emptively? That shit maybe should be investigated.

[mad.casual]

I'm still not clear on how good faith gets written into law. Legislatively, 'good faith' and 'fuck you, that's why' are opposite sides of the same coin.

It makes sense to me that lawyers, judges, and juries can look at actions, weigh evidence, debate morals, hypothesize outcomes and arrive at something that does or does not constitute good faith in someone's actions or motivations. But the idea written into law is, and should be an anathema to American legislation. The letter of the law should be clear and if there are an abundance of vague good faith exceptions, it's a shitty law. The phrasing itself, as posited by Congress, belies an overt union between religion and state.

How legislation carried written to account for good faith and how legislation written to account for wrongthink would substantially differ is a mystery to me.

[Nardz]

One thing that libertarians must ensure never be done: two advocates arguing each side in front of 12 or so people who then confer amongst themselves to determine if the action was indeed taken in good faith

[mad.casual]

Non-aggression
Contract and Property Rights
Ensure two advocates arguing each side in front of 12 or so people who then confer amongst themselves to determine if the action was indeed taken in good faith *in this case* doesn't happen.

Roger!

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Hope someone archived the press conference before the Ministry of Information nuked it.

[NashTiger]

Not only did the Big Social Media deplatform them, they were deHosted

https://twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/1288169004985724929?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1288169004985724929%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwattsupwiththat.com%2F2020%2F07%2F28%2Fdr-stella-immanuel-v-fauci-tko%2F

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug]

Whether other prominent conservatives are similarly confused about how the internet and social media work, or just like having another excuse to cry victimhood

They are just as much a pussy as progressives are.

[Official Judge of Performative Outrage]

1/10

[Ra's al Gore]

Local story

https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1288078260471988224
.
@ValerieJarrett
on new evidence FBI knew Steele Dossier was garbage: This “was nearly four years ago and I don’t understand why our focus isn’t on what’s happening right now” [via FBN/
@MariaBartiromo
]

[Mother's lament]

Watergate x 10 right out in plain sight and crickets from the Reasonistas.
This is almost as disgusting as their silence on the Uighur holocaust.

[Gray_Jay]

She needs to be in jail. At a minimum.

Nixon is in the afterlife, wondering what in Hell it takes for a politician to get arrested these days.

[Overt]

An R behind their name?

[Unicorn Abattoir]

This “was nearly four years ago and I don’t understand why our focus isn’t on what’s happening right now”

What difference, at this point, does it make??

/history repeating

[Michael Ejercito]

Who said that?

[Ra's al Gore]

https://twitter.com/riotribs/status/1287883988971864066
URGENT THREAD:

Riot Ribs is dissolving completely. We have someone who is trying to profit off of our movement who continues to volunteer in the park, pretending he’s involved with Riot Ribs. /1

[Ra's al Gore]

https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1287995590534500353
National Media: These are peaceful justice protests with occasional minor acts of violence and vandalism brought on primarily by a fascist overbearing federal police presence.

Antifa: WHO WANTS RIOT RIBS?

[perlchpr]

Are they made out of real rioters?

[Don't look at me!]

Tear gas aftertaste.

[perlchpr]

Maybe I'll luck out and the cops will use pepper spray that night?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

They've already re-branded, just like the other Antifa front businesses do in that city when the publicity gets too hot.

One of the commenters the other day thought I was goofing when I called these guys this century's version of the mafia--the people who live in the cities they control pretend they don't know who they are, they have the local politicians in their back pocket, and they use legitimate business operations as fronts for illegal activities.

[Moonrocks]

That's not quite accurate. The mafia acts out of sheer self interest. These people are acting out of religious zeal, more like Islamic terrorist organizations. They're just not quite as violent yet.

[The White Knight]

Have you actually met any antifa types? There is no way they are ambitious and hard working enough to start a business, either as a front or legit.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Dude, stop.

[The White Knight]

Sorry, you’re upset now that I dissed antifa. Got it — WKDS.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Riot Ribs is dissolving completely.

My hot wing sauce does the same thing.

[Ra's al Gore]

https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo/status/1287901143172108289

Videos from a concert held in Southampton on Saturday show egregious social distancing violations. I am appalled.

The Department of Health will conduct an investigation.

We have no tolerance for the illegal & reckless endangerment of public health.

[damikesc]

"I AM GOD. DO YOU PLEBES NOT REALIZE THAT?" --- Cuomo

[Ra's al Gore]

https://twitter.com/BreitbartNews/status/1287954411822686208

REVEALED: A Chinese Communist agent has admitted to using LinkedIn’s “relentless” algorithm to find batches of U.S. government contacts with access to sensitive information.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Social media is cancer.

[Ra's al Gore]

WATCH: ‘We Have To Burn It Down’: Portland Protesters Say Violence Is ‘A Useful Tool’ For Change
https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-we-have-to-burn-it-down-portland-protesters-say-violence-is-a-useful-tool-for-change

“There were groups of people interrogating journalists. They warned me that if I portrayed the protesters in a negative light, I would face ‘street justice,’ and after being recognized, I was pelted with broken glass,” Horowitz continued. “In the words of the protesters that I spoke to, the goal of these protests is to encourage societal breakdown so that it could be rebuilt in their own warped image.”

Horowitz asked a handful of protesters if “chaos” is useful for accomplishing their agenda. “It’s become a useful tool,” one protester said. Another emphasized that the chaos should be “organized.”

After a question from Horowitz, one protester agreed it was time to “end the American experiment.”

“Definitely,” said the protester, dressed in all black with little more than his eyes showing. “If we failed as an American experiment, it needs to be addressed.”

Another protester said that “we have to burn it down.”

On violence as a tool to bring about change, one female protester emphatically agreed, “Yes! Yes! You gotta have violence.” She went on to describe looting and rioting as “part of being protesting.”

[perlchpr]

I don't think they realize just how small of a percentage of the country agrees with them, and will put up with this sort of shit if it spreads out of the places where these people's echo chambers exist.

[Michael Ejercito]

Imagine if the Democratic leadership publicly agreed with them...

[Troglodyte Rex]

I thought silence was violence...

[mad.casual]

“If we failed as an American experiment, it needs to be addressed.”

It's like a bugs bunny cartoon where they put a dress and lipstick on a cannon or bomb and the antagonist can't help but make out with it.

(How) Do you honestly think there's a situation where you violently dissolve the American and experiment and survive?

[Nardz]

Nice analogy!

[Ken Shultz]

I made a prediction here in comments a while back regarding John and soldiermedic76's new dream truck, the electric Rivian, and how just thinking about their fully electric dream truck will make them horny someday.

You know who else was worried about John and soldiermedic76 going gaga over Rivian?

No, the answer isn't Hitler. The answer is Elon Musk.

"Rivian instructed one recently departing Tesla employee about the types of Tesla confidential information that Rivian needs," Tesla's complaint alleges. "Both Rivian and the employee knew full well that taking such information would violate the employee's non-disclosure obligations to Tesla. Nonetheless, the employee expropriated for Rivian the exact information Rivian sought — highly sensitive, trade secret information that would give Rivian huge competitive advantage."

Tesla says it caught the culprits "using recently acquired sophisticated electronic security monitoring tools," and that it expects more employees to be named in the suit as it discovers more instances of theft. In total, Tesla says 178 former employees have joined Rivian."

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-rivian-lawsuit-alleged-trade-secret-theft-former-employees-2020-7

Rivian is avoiding a lot of the mistakes Tesla made. Instead of building the whole vehicle, they're building a platform any automaker can slap a body onto--and Ford will be doing that with their F-150. Instead of building factories from scratch, Rivian went into previously abandoned factories. Instead of revealing the ugliest vehicle I've ever seen in my life, Tesla's stupid looking truck, Rivian's electric truck looks great.

I wouldn't bet against Tesla's stock over the long run, but I wouldn't bet on Tesla's truck to beat Ford in the marketplace. To whatever extent you value that part of Tesla's business, expect the electric F-150 to clean Tesla's clock--and the base model Rivian looks a lot better than Tesla's truck anyway.

[Mother's lament]

Where I live in Canada, for six months of the year, the temperature reduces electric vehicle ranges to feet rather than miles.
It makes me sad, cause I'd love one of those.

[perlchpr]

Regarding that Tesla pickup... Someone needs to tell Musk that we aren't in the CGA graphics era anymore, apparently. 😉

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The key with any electric truck, F-150 or otherwise, is going to be its tow/haul capability and the ability to hold a charge over long distances while moving that extra mass. Truck drivers tend to lean on the side of "it's better to have as much power/torque as I can afford and not need it, than to need it and not have it," even if they're hauling air 98% of the time. Ford would have a built-in advantage just from brand loyalty alone, but that won't matter if the truck can't go more than 100 miles towing a fifth wheel without having to stop and recharge for 20 minutes.

[Gray_Jay]

Another question to ask is, 'Assuming the population switches over in significant numbers to electric vehicles, what does that do to electric power distribution requirements?' Last time I WAGd at an answer, it was something like 30-40 percent of grid output to charge people's cars if half the vehicles were electric.

[Ken Shultz]

The answer is that electric utilities will be falling all over themselves to sell energy to a new and growing market.

Your local electric company will be happy to steal market share from the gasoline industry.

[Gray_Jay]

Great. Now get it to the consumer. You might want to look at current grid usage, capacity, and costs to expand that capacity. Brownouts are a thing, now. Nevermind dumping 30-40% more load on the system.

It's going to be nontrivial, Ken. Not unsolvable, but definitely nontrivial.

[Gray_Jay]

Oh, and the electric company is a regulated utility. Unlike the oil/motor gasoline companies. Getting the electric company to expand capacity and dump the costs for same onto its non EV-driving customers, is going to have political obstacles in addition to the merely fiscal and engineering ones.

Again, not impossible, but definitely nontrivial.

[Ken Shultz]

The idea that electric utilities won't want to sell more electricity because they're regulated doesn't add up.

Electric utilities in areas with a lot of growth upgrade their capacity all the time, and as demand for electricity grows because people are driving more electric cars, there is no reason to think that regulators will oppose that than they do because developers are building more housing developments.

It's a non-issue.

They used to say this stuff about high speed internet access. Why bother offering Napster, Quake III Arena, YouTube, or pornography, when hardly anybody has high speed internet access anyway?

I'll tell you why: Because cable and the telcos have no problem financing network construction when there are consumers who will pay for high speed internet access so they can use Napster, play Quake III Area, watch YouTube, and enjoy pornography from the privacy of their homes.

[BigPoppaPump]

"The idea that electric utilities won’t want to sell more electricity because they’re regulated doesn’t add up."

It's also something no one said.

[Ken Shultz]

Actually, the objection was that there was something about them being regulated that meant they couldn't or wouldn't expand their capacity. Plenty of us are smart enough around here that we don't need everything to be stated explicitly.

[Ken Shultz]

There used to be no internet.

As consumers emerged to pay for high speed internet, the people who wanted to sell it to them built out their networks.

I look for a market where people are willing to pay more to rent office space than it costs me to finance land acquisition, construction, and marketing. When I find that, I build an office building.

This is how things get built. This is not a problem.

[Ken Shultz]

"The key with any electric truck, F-150 or otherwise, is going to be its tow/haul capability and the ability to hold a charge over long distances while moving that extra mass."

They say it will tow 11,000 lbs, which is what you can get from an F-150 without going to the F-250 or F-350.

It has a range of up to 400 miles.

It's giving you 829 ft. lbs. or torque, and it's giving you that torque down at the wheel level. All the action isn't happening in the engine compartment and transferring it to the wheels. The wheels are like four independent motors.

My concern would be about subjecting electrical motors like that to shock all the time and especially what happens when they're covered in water over time. However, they say that's not an issue. It will go through three feet of water.

https://rivian.com/r1t

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

They say it will tow 11,000 lbs, which is what you can get from an F-150 without going to the F-250 or F-350.

Unfortunately, they don't indicate under what conditions those are. The advantage with a gas or diesel F-250 is that you know you're going to be able to get an RV or trailer into the mountains at altitude, for instance. The only things I can find on them doing that kind of work, especially in the winter, the trucks aren't actually towing anything.

That's not to say it can't work, but the torture tests on these things are going to need to have demonstrated capability to the public before dropping tens of thousands of dollars on it.

[Ken Shultz]

This is the platform they're really building:

Slide down a little at this website, and you'll see the platform they're building.

https://rivian.com/technology

You can slap any body you want on top of that. Ford will put an F-150 body on it. Amazon is ordered a hundred thousand of them to slap delivery vans on top of them.

The main two private investors are Amazon and Ford.

I'd definitely invest in Ford rather than Tesla at this point--if I were investing anywhere in the automotive space. You could get ownership in this platform through Ford, without the inflated price of Tesla's stock. From a relative perspective, that makes more sense to me--not that I'd invest in the automotive space right now.

[Echo Chamber]

"The CDC and the European CDC have both released guidelines stating that glove use isn’t a necessary preventive tactic when it comes to COVID-19. CDC guidelines say gloves “will not necessarily protect you from getting COVID-19 and may still lead to the spread of germs.”

Gloves can trick the wearer into complacency, said Allison Bartlett, associate medical director of the Infection Control Program Pediatric at the University of Chicago. She said gloves are not a substitute for good hand hygiene."

Now do masks. People who wear them seem less likely to maintain social distancing too, believing the mask protects them.

[damikesc]

Not Dr. Fauci. He wears masks when nobody is near him but not when people are nearby.

[Rufus The Monocled]

It took them this long to catch up.

/looks at watch. Waits until people who still haven't lost their common sense totally to realize the same thing with masks.

[Echo Chamber]

Set your watch to Nov 4

[perlchpr]

I'm not wearing it because I think a piece of fabric is going to stop the spread of viruses. I'm wearing it because they've threatened to rob me if I don't, kidnap me and lock me in a cage if I object too hard about being robbed, and shoot me if I resist being kidnapped.

[damikesc]

So, ENB, Trump Jr was suspended due to sharing a video of doctors praising HCQ as a treatment.

Can you name what TOS was violated? Twitter cannot, mind you. In what way is this helpful to the country?

You, toots, aren't a libertarian. You're a fucking Karen. A college-educated in an utterly useless field progressive woman who ruins everything you're involved with.

[Lord of Strazele]

Doesn't matter. You don't own the website. So you can go fuck yourself? You might feel better about being a loser? It's never too late to change. By the way, I'd fuck with you fascist pukes all day, every day, if I was running Twitter.

[Mother's lament]

Censor people for touting legitimate treatments, because libertarianism only applies to the feds.
Those who disagree are fascist pukes

Wow, you're such an authoritarian piece of shit, Jeff.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

"fascist"

[Freddy the Jerk]

"Fascist". Libertarians are "fascist". Wow. Lemme guess...you went to public school, right?

[damikesc]

Which is a good reason to applaud Sen Hawley making them live up to their word.

Heard that Patreon is in serious trouble due to mass arbitration cases they have to pay for upfront after trying to change their TOS to prevent it?

Fuck big tech.

[damikesc]

Also, it only makes sense that if Twitter can fuck with anybody they want, anything they leave up is something they chose to publish and they're ultimately responsible for it.

I agree.

[Lord of Strazele]

Nuke it. The internet is a rightwing cesspool anyway.

[damikesc]

I'd be just fine if Twitter ceased to exist tomorrow. Don't think MSM could survive since most of their stories are inspired by it.

[JesseAz]

Ahh, the true libertarian who doesn't believe in Contract enforcement when he likes the company. A true libertarian in Strazele.

[Lord of Strazele]

I'm not a libertarian though I do agree with a good deal of it.

[The White Knight]

So, you’ve perused their entire Twitter Terms of Service and it has a clause in there that says they guarantee they will post your tweet, and if they don’t they’ll give you a really good reason?

[damikesc]

Do you know what a Terms of Service IS?

Yes, it indicates that if you don't break the rules, you will be posted.

And, yes, it is more than reasonable to expect them to tell you what TOS you allegedly violated if they're going to breach their contractual agreement with you.

[The White Knight]

No, it doesn’t. No free-of-charge site is going to promise any such thing.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

Haha. Yeah. There’s probably a lot of things you’d do if you weren’t such a fucking loser whining about “fascists”.

“Everything is so terrible and unfair!”

Haha.

[MollyGodiva]

230 is just fine the way it is. Without it it is unlikely the internet would have grown the way it has. Sites like Facebook, IG, Twitter and Youtube would have been too risky or sued out of existence long ago. 230 allows those site to exits, but still allows law enforcement to go after those who post illegal content. As for sites acting in "good faith", I think that the sites should have the right to not host content that goes against their values. If people don't like that then they can go and create their own hosting site, which they have done many times.

[Ken Shultz]

The controversial views at the crux between conservatives and progressives will eventually be purged from social media by the concerns of advertisers. Advertisers simply don't want their ad for lip-gloss to be seen by a 19 year old girl when she's reading her dad's rant against Black Lives Matter. They don't pay to have their brands associated with content like that--subconsciously or otherwise. Social media is an advertising platform, and the policies for the consumer mainstream will ultimately be driven by the concerns of advertisers--Section 230 or no Section 230.

Conservatives will eventually migrate to platforms where the policies aren't as driven by the concerns of advertisers, or, at least, not by the concerns of mainstream consumer products companies. I understand Parler censors with an eye towards content that conservatives find objectionable. And, yeah, that's exactly the way things should be. I don't know if Parler will take off or disappear, but the more social media caters to progressive tastes, the more alternatives will cater to the tastes of progressives. And without Section 230, those alternatives would never emerge.

[MollyGodiva]

So free market? I can agree with that.

[JesseAz]

A free market that allows favored business to arbitrarily change or modify their contracts with their end users on a whim? Not that free if you ask me.

[Ken Shultz]

How would repealing Section 230 solve that problem?

[The White Knight]

You’ve made this argument twice now. Is there a specific clause in the current Twitter or Facebook TOS, where those companies promised they will post almost anything a user wants to post?

[Nardz]

http://twitter.com/SamanthLiberty/status/1287739171457687552?s=19

Their stated reason here doesn't seem to be applicable

[The White Knight]

And Nardz doesn’t answer the question I actually asked.

[Nardz]

Nope, I mentioned something related but not any answer to your question

[Ken Shultz]

"I don’t know if Parler will take off or disappear, but the more social media caters to progressive tastes, the more alternatives will cater to the tastes of progressives [conservatives]. And without Section 230, those alternatives would never emerge."

----Fixed!

[Overt]

I think a lot of people have a failure of imagination. They don't realize that these changes take time. I mean this is literally how we got Fox News.

People don't remember that circa 2000, Fox was in a knife fight for first place with CNN. Starting in 1996, it took them around 6 years to reach the lead spot. Now 20 years later, it looks like obviously that was going to happen, but it was not clear at all at the time.

That said, it is a bit sad to see the bubbling of culture. Pretty soon, the majority of people simply won't interact with people that don't already agree with them.

[mad.casual]

And without Section 230, those alternatives would never emerge.

Because you say so? Because without section 230 the web would somehow become the oppressive shithole it was in 1996? Because without section 230 legions of trolls would roam the web looking to use the legal sphere to shut down their opposition?

Weird how on the one hand with advertisers, you can take or leave section 230 but, on the other hand you can say it's seemingly critical without evidence but, either way, section 230 is fine the way it is. It's almost like you started with your conclusion and worked, not even very hard, backwards.

[Ken Shultz]

The cost of fighting the slew of frivolous lawsuits would be a serious barrier to entering the market. Maybe that language is more precise.

[mad.casual]

The cost of fighting the slew of frivolous lawsuits would be a serious barrier to entering the market.

This is true of any/every market and yet gay couples manage to walk into any bakery.

I know it might surprise you, but even without section 230, frivolous lawsuits tend to avoid nascent companies that have no leverage and no capital.

[Ken Shultz]

If the solution is new competitors to the dominant social media companies emerging, then creating barriers to entry into the market isn't much of a solution.

[mad.casual]

then creating barriers to entry into the market isn’t much of a solution.

Repealing laws (esp. laws that other industries don't enjoy) is creating barriers? You sound an awful lot like Tony.

[damikesc]

"230 is just fine the way it is. Without it it is unlikely the internet would have grown the way it has. Sites like Facebook, IG, Twitter and Youtube would have been too risky or sued out of existence long ago."

Where's the negative? "Our business model fails if we're held to the same standard as actual businesses" is a condemnation of their business model itself.

[mad.casual]

And keep in mind that, despite the narrative, this isn't the previously unseen wave of 4chan and patent trolls waiting in the wings (and which we also 'just tolerate', have tolerated, and will tolerate); this was after split decisions where one court said, "The trolls have a point." and the other court said, "Fuck off trolls."

"Our business model will make used car salesmen look legit and there's a 50/50 chance people and a court might see us that way and hold us to the same standard as actual businesses."

Remember, you can't refuse birth control to lesbians in your employ, you can't fire a tranny that you employ 'at will' for trying to start tranny league softball on company time, once you commit to one gay wedding cake, you can't rightfully refuse any of them, but if Google hears from someone who hears from someone that you were in the same room as a white supremacist and didn't spit on them, your contracts with Google are fair game.

[The White Knight]

Thank you. Very libertarian of you.

[Lord of Strazele]

Conservatives don't like Section 230 because it means Twitter, YouTube, and similar entities have the discretion to delete offensive tweets and suspend any accounts they deem to be violating their terms of service.

Deciding who visits and how they interact with your website sounds like property rights. And you misspelled conservative. Let me help. It's spelled f a s c i s t.

[Ra's al Gore]

Social media companies should be as liable to lawsuits for what they allow to be posted as the NY Times is for letters to the editor. They want the right to control what goes out, then they are liable for what they allow out.

[Lord of Strazele]

Have you ever perused a comment section on a fascist website like Breitbart, may his soul burn in hell? It's nothing but libel, slander, lies and crazy. You morons would have nowhere to express your disgusting opinions if websites were responsible for the content of the comments.

[Ra's al Gore]

Fine, Breitbart can shut down their comments sections and just run articles. Buh Bye Twitter - you're getting sued out of existence.

[Mother's lament]

fascist website like Breitbart

Bet you read Salon and Jacobin, don't you.

[Lord of Strazele]

Salon, yes on occasion but not the other one but I will check it out now because it sounds interesting.

[JesseAz]

You use words incorrectly a lot.

[damikesc]

Well, Jesse, in his defense, his family tree doesn't really branch

[Nardz]

Breitbart's comments, and even ZeroHedge's, are tame in comparison to the psychos at WaPo

[Freddy the Jerk]

Conservatives are fascist too. Gotcha -- you're trying to take Tony's "most ignorant Reason commenter" award away from him, aren't you?

[mad.casual]

Conservatives don’t like Section 230 because it means Twitter, YouTube, and similar entities have the discretion to delete offensive tweets and suspend any accounts they deem to be violating their terms of service.

Your partisan bullshit is a foil.

I don't like section 230 because pizzerias, bakeries, tire repair shops, construction companies, doctor's offices, abortion clinics, etc., etc., etc. don't get similar protections.

I don't like section 230 because despite the 1A saying "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.", section 230, a law enacted by Congress, does exactly what the 1A says it shouldn't do.

I don't like section 230 because, in spite of the previous dislike, people insist it's the 1A of the internet' as though the 1A somehow doesn't apply to the internet and/or that section 230 does anything remotely resembling what the 1A does.

I don't like section 230 because I don't think Congress (or the President or the FCC) should be deciding a priori what constitutes good faith and what doesn't and who should get what protections based on that good faith and who doesn't.

All of what I've said is true whether Google, Amazon, Twitter or Youtube is summarily kicking off Men or Women or Others or Nazis or Muslims or Jews, left, right, or center.

[Nardz]

^

[Ken Shultz]

"Conservatives don't like Section 230 because it means Twitter, YouTube, and similar entities have the discretion to delete offensive tweets and suspend any accounts they deem to be violating their terms of service. Progressive don't like Section 230 because it means that only the perpetrators of crimes like harassment, non-consensual sharing of photos (a.k.a. "revenge porn"), or forced prostitution can be charged or sued over theses actions, not whatever digital tool or service they happened to use in service of their bad acts."

----ENB

I don't see it that way.

Conservatives don't like Section 230 because it protects social media. Almost every conservative holds at least one view that social media considers problematic, and so social media has effectively been purging conservative voices from the public square. Conservatives want Section 230 gone because they're hoping it will hurt or destroy social media. When you tell conservatives that repealing Section 230 will destroy social media as we know it, you're encouraging them to repeal Section 230.

Progressives don't like Section 230 because it prevents them from holding social media companies responsible for content. In their minds, to oppose reparations is racist and to support a border wall is xenophobic, and how can it be alright for social media to subject black or immigrant users to racism and xenophobia without recourse? We haven't even started talking about misogynistic opposition to abortion or homophobic opposition to gay marriage. The First Amendment doesn't protect hate speech. Didn't you get the memo?

[Earth Skeptic]

Why does this seem like a modern version of Martin Luther vs. Pope Leo? We have clashing ideologies from parties who want to argue the esoteric meaning of an arbitrary construct they both seem to support--but want to control, to the detriment of the other side.

[Ken Shultz]

I think it's the crux of the matter for them. It isn't esoteric to them.

The progressives want to purge conservative views from society, and Section 230 is in their way.

Conservatives don't want to be purged from public square, and they want the law to give them recourse.

[Ersatz]

/\ This sure strikes me as a nice summary

[JustSomeDude]

"The progressives want to purge conservative views from society, and Section 230 is in their way."

Number 1, Section 230 doesn't seem to be very much in the way of progressives purging they views they don't like from society to me.

Number 2, it isn't just conservative views they want to purge from the public sphere, it is all non progressive views: https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/420033-self-described-feminist-banned-from-twitter-says-platform-is-setting-a

[perlchpr]

I'm gonna start Swisser as a competitor. Only, people can't get to my site because GoDaddy revoked my domain registration, the DNS servers refuse to translate domain names into IP addresses if I get that solved, and the companies that all actually connect servers to the internet refuse to allow my packets across their wire. And when I tried to get donations to buy my own wire, all the common websites people use for donations refused to process them after the first couple, and then the bank refused to allow the money to be transferred to me from even those.

Someone tried to set up a rival donation site, but, well, you see...

[Ken Shultz]

Brave allows a way to get around the donation problem. I'm sure I cleared $100 in the last year--more than enough to support a problematic content creator or two. A digital subscription to Reason is only $14.97 a year.

In terms of places to hide, you may need to go to new venues for content creation. Start your own node on Mastodon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software)

It may seem hard to start on a new platform, but I remember when none of these platforms existed. People would complain that you couldn't start your own newspaper or magazine if no one would deliver your paper or carry your magazine on their shelves.

Punk rock bands used to have no record company support, no one playing their music on the air, no internet whatsoever, and very few music venues where they could play. Black Flag, Minor Threat, and the Misfits are more widely known now than they were in 1982.

You want to start a new pizza restaurant? Get around the obstacles. Nobody said it was gonna be easy.

[perlchpr]

"And then all the banks decided to stop doing business with Brave, and everyone was fucked."

I'm just saying. At some layer, people have to be allowed to interact with society.

I'm not complaining about having to start a new platform. I've done my time in the bitmines. I'm complaining about not being able to start a new platform because ICANN decided to engage in cancel culture, or Via and MasterCard decided it was easier to go along to get along and stop allowing funds to be transferred to you over their wire.

[Ken Shultz]

“And then all the banks decided to stop doing business with Brave, and everyone was fucked.”

I'm not sure you understand how Brave works, and I don't think you understand that if a market wants what you're selling, the government probably can't shut it down.

Brave itself is an excellent example. Brave was started by the ex-CEO of Mozilla, who was forced to resign, cancelled really, because he opposed gay marriage and once donated $1,000 to Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California.

He put out his own browser anyway.

In order to get around companies like YouTube, Patreon, and PayPal and let people fund the content creators they want, regardless of whether YouTube demonetizes them or whether Patreon and PayPal financially deplatform them for running afoul of social justice orthodoxies, they had to create their own currency.

So they created their own currency.

Blaming our problems on the rest of the world isn't the solution to anything, and being a victim over long periods of time is a choice. If you don't want to be a victim, choose not to be a victim.

[Ken Shultz]

"If you don’t want to be a victim, choose not to be a victim".

Victim of collision on the open sea
Nobody ever said
life was free
Sink?
Swim?
Go down with the ship?
Use your freedom of choice!

[damikesc]

Ken, I don't disagree with you...but if we ALL are paying for maintenance of a financial service, having a few gatekeepers running the entire system seems contradictory to this. If Visa and Mastercard want to control who can actually make money, then we should not be required to spend a solitary tax penny on the financial system and force them to foot the entire bill.

But we don't do that. So what they're doing MUST be curbed.

...or we could just find their executives and show that people being mad at you on Twitter isn't the worst of possible options, but they REALLY won't like that.

[Nardz]

"or we could just find their executives and show that people being mad at you on Twitter isn’t the worst of possible options, but they REALLY won’t like that."

^

[Ken Shultz]

"but if we ALL are paying for maintenance of a financial service, having a few gatekeepers running the entire system seems contradictory to this."

Yeah, I'm not saying that having a few gatekeepers and having them collude is a good thing. I am saying that the collusion of gatekeepers isn't enough to keep consumers and entrepreneurs from finding each other.

I've written here before about how the Republicans in the 1990s passed a law that required cable companies to carry the signals of local broadcasters. At the time, the concern was that cable operators, like Ted Turner with his liberal CNN, would shut out the newly formed Fox Network--and their more conservative views--from being seen by local audiences. You see, there was no way for a local broadcaster to compete with a natural monopoly like the cable company.

Of course there was a way to get around the cable company. In fact, I now have eight live streaming services to choose from in addition to the cable company, and I stream local coverage through apps from Washington DC and San Diego--to exclusion of other local channels in those cities I don't care about.

It used to be that the only way to send a message from one part of the country to other was to use the post office. How could it be economical for someone to send a message from any point in rural American to any other point in rural America? Actually, FedEx and UPS were invented to get around that gatekeeper, and so was the fax machine and email.

It used to be that you weren't allowed to operate a taxi service in much of urban American unless you paid tens of thousands or sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars for a token. All over America and the world, people didn't wait for the laws to change. Conumsers just started using Lyft and Uber and drivers signed up to drive, and the gatekeepers all whined and cried about it. They stopped the rail system in Los Angeles a few blocks short of LAX so that people would still need to call a taxi to get there. The rail out of McCarren airport in Las Vegas doesn't go to the airport for the same reason.

All they did was create demand for Uber and Lyft. They had to create specific drop off and pick up points at the airports because the demand for Lyft and Uber was so high, it was clogging up the loading and unloading zone. It used to be that only cab drivers with a particular token could pick you up from the airport on certain days. Fucking gatekeepers got run over again!

There is nothing fundamentally different about social media in this regard and the way people are compensated for the content they create. All they're doing is creating demand for social media type systems that cater to an underserved market. Don't bet on the gatekeepers to be successful or effective in their gatekeeping. Bet on entrepreneurs and consumers to find each other without any help from the government.

"Visa and Mastercard want to control who can actually make money, then we should not be required to spend a solitary tax penny on the financial system and force them to foot the entire bill.

Visa and Mastercard got their asses handed to them with internet payments, didn't they? PayPal, GooglePay, ApplePay--shouldn't they have captured all that market share? It's still amazing how much Western Union charges to wire money between the U.S. and, say, India.

We're not being forced to use any of these companies.

[perlchpr]

So they created their own currency.

What I'm hearing here, that you're apparently not seeing from it, is "so they made it really easy to block them from the economy by not exchanging their tokens". Maybe that won't happen, but this isn't some uncuttable thread to the economy.

[Ken Shultz]

They built BAT on Etherium.

Some of the world's largest banks, tech companies, etc. are part of the Ehterium alliance.

https://entethalliance.org/eea-members/

Intel, JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft, they're all in the consortium. I wouldn't bet on the government pulling the rug out from under that bunch any time soon.

[perlchpr]

You want to start a new pizza restaurant? Get around the obstacles. Nobody said it was gonna be easy.

"You wanna start a weed growing business in a state that allows that? Get around the obstacles. Even if that's 'have to be cash only and can't have a bank account' because the FedGov says so. Nobody said it was going to be easy."

[Ken Shultz]

Are you suggesting that not being able to use financial services shut down the marijuana industry?

It didn't.

The marijuana industry flourished despite all the obstacles banks and the government put in their way.

A good reason to oppose the drug war is because it unnecessarily burdens the world with costs and it's ineffective in shutting down the trade in illicit drugs.

The drug war placed tremendous costs, and it was ineffective in stopping the flow of drugs from producers and distributors to customers. Citing that as an example of companies and the government shutting something down is counterintuitive.

[mad.casual]

Are you suggesting that not being able to use financial services shut down the marijuana industry?

Are you suggesting that just because it didn't kill the marijuana industry regulators were right or even just OK to put the hurdles in their way?

You're really getting to be a mendacious piece of shit Ken.

[Ken Shultz]

No. The suggestion was that if if the banking industry shut down an industry, then that industry can't operate.

Actually, it's not only possible for the industry to operate without the legal support of the banks--they couldn't shut it down even with the full force of the banks and the entire law enforcement apparatus behind shutting them down.

[perlchpr]

OK, fine dude. You're right. There's no possible way that making it absurdly more difficult for people to simply make a living because of their positions could ever backfire. Nothing can possibly go wrong with this plan.

[Mickey Rat]

The rather obvious cartel like collusion among tech companies is another problem in itself.

[Ken Shultz]

Yeah, collusion is a problem, but over time, that kind of collusion tends to fall apart. The extent to which these companies profit from the collusion provides the very means for competitors to emerge.

[I, Woodchipper]

Conservatives politicians of EVERY stripe don’t like Section 230 because it means Twitter, YouTube, and similar entities

Fixed that for you

[Nardz]

Section 230 is fascism.
Full stop

[Cyto]

Your summary of the social media conflict omits one huge factor - the left targeted social media for years because they allowed speech they disagreed with. They had been attempting to silence conservative opposition in the media for decades, trying to resurrect the fairness doctrine to kill off conservative talk radio through the 90's and 00's.

When social media became another important avenue for speech they disagree with to circumvent their hold on the mainstream media, they targeted that. Then they began working from inside. Google Chairman Schmidt formed The Groundwork, a company designed to help democrats obtain political power by connecting to the back end of major internet companies and helping to shape the messages people were seeing. It was explicitly created to help elect Hillary Clinton and was touted by the elite of the progressive punditry as their ace in the hole. They attempted to create their own version of "ministry of truth" panels to decide what was true and what was false - appointing activists of the far left to sit on "truth panels" that would decide which opinions would be allowed to be shared by facebook users. Opposition to this strategy was... heated.

When the attempt to manipulate social media failed to secure the white house, the left was apoplectic. For years they had been following Obama's lead from Operation Choke Point, and this development intensified and focused those efforts. They chased conservative voices from social media platforms without any fanfare. They issued much-denied "shadow bans" on conservative voices. Then, they were ready to go public. They had a poster boy in Alex Jones, noted for his love of conspiracy theories and quack supplements. The social media companies acted in concert and banned him and a handful of others - all together on the same day.

This was a declaration of war on free speech in america and on the internet. Companies that had once championed the freedom of the internet where now actively advocating and actually creating an internet where only approved voices could speak.

And when these people tried to make an end run around social media companies - creating their own platforms at great expense - they attacked their ability to buy services. They convinced hosting companies to dump them. The convinced ISPs to dump them. They came after payment processors and banks who allowed their supporters to contribute.

And they escalated the mostly political "fact check" industry into flat-out propaganda. (just look at the last 2 weeks. Several stories were "fact checked" and despite being literally true, the fact checkers labeled them as false. In one case, they all evaluated claims that Democrats started the civil war, started the KKK, created and supported Jim Crow segregation law and opposed civil rights for African Americans. They all said while it was literally true that Democrats were in charge of the south, and the creators of the KKK were Democrats, and the politicians who passed and enforced Jim Crow laws were in point of fact Democrats, it was not fair to blame the Democrat party for this. They labeled it "false". USA Today quoted Trevor Noah as one of their debunking sources in saying that the parties switched sides in the 60's. So all of that was actually done by today's Republicans.

This is the Orwellian background for objections to current immunities for internet platforms. The democrat party has been targeting them for years in an attempt to co-opt them and eliminate an avenue for open discourse. They are succeeding. These platforms are proudly injecting political bias into their TOS. In addition to banning people they disagree with from speaking, they are actively manipulating what people do see.

This is the background for attacks from the right. The left has made (another) power grab, limiting the ability of their political opponents to be heard. The reaction to this has been "stop doing that". It isn't exactly "both sides" when one side is seeking to eliminate the free speech rights of their opponents and the other side is seeking to stop them from doing that. That's like claiming that the shoplifter and the store owner are both wrong. The left actively supports repealing the 1st amendment. They are enthusiastic in their assertions that free speech is not an ideal worth defending. In fact, they are quite explicit that speech they dislike is not actually free speech.

So there is a real reason for these intrusions into internet protections. Those protections are being broken down for political advantage by one side and not the other. Simply calling out the attempts to balance the power is hardly an accurate representation of the issues at hand.

We have a foundational belief in freedom of speech as Americans. Libertarians share this belief. It is a bedrock principle that the answer to speech you don't like is more speech, not less. This goes beyond any system of law. It is critical to the functioning of a free society that all voices have the chance to be heard.

This principle is under attack in the west. And not some theoretical attack with no practical effect. The attack is being successful. The ideology of suppressing speech you disagree with has taken root. The pages of Reason should always provide full-throated defense of an open marketplace of ideas. Now is the time to take up the cause once again, because the window is closing. Although there are countless platforms where you can go to hear kooky fringe political voices, they are being marginalized and hidden. Most people access the internet through the search engine or from shared links from their friends. Squeezing these access points has already significantly narrowed the information presented to most people.

When this happened in the 70's and 80's with TV and newspapers, the pressure squeezed those voices and they found an outlet on AM radio and eventually those informal restrictions on dissenting voices resulted in the creation of Fox News. Ask your own expert - Stossel was there for that era and has spoken about it extensively. Today is orders of magnitude worse.

The squeeze in the 90's and 00's resulted in online outlets like Drudge and Breitbart and Huffington Post (and Alex Jones and a million podcasts). Now they are using the power of social media to eliminate the significance of these outlets.

A real classical liberal would be sounding the alarm. One party control of information is dangerous to a free society. A functioning 4th estate is essential as a check on power. It is how the population knows what their government is doing. Covering this story without including this important context and perspective is irresponsible.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Who remembers the movie 'Talk Radio'?

[Cyto]

Who remembers that movie about that guy who posted long-winded screeds on the internet?

Yeah, there's probably a reason that they never made that one. I gotta start studying Fist of Etiquette. That dude knows how to be succinct.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Heh.

FOE hates dark chocolate.

[Fist of Etiquette]

And vice versa.

[Nardz]

It's a great post.
Sorely needed

[Fist of Etiquette]

Not much to disagree with in it.

[Cyto]

I shoulda called someone fat. That always makes things go viral.

[R Mac]

It’s not to late to call someone stupid. There’s a few here to choose from.

[Cyto]

None of that is to suggest that I support this section 230 tactic.

The solution is to stop blocking the ability of political opponents to speak. That makes the whole problem go away.

All of these companies were founded with principles rooted in extreme freedom of speech ideologies. They have abandoned those principles. Dragging them back will not be easy.

[I, Woodchipper]

They've been completely eaten from the inside by SJW employees on a power trip. It's their own business and they can do what they want IMO... but it's bleedin obvious they are hard core lefty teamplayers at this point.

[mad.casual]

All of these companies were founded with principles rooted in extreme freedom of speech ideologies. They have abandoned those principles. Dragging them back will not be easy.

It's an industrialied, streamlined version of Hollywood. When they had no money and it was work to get subscribers, they let all comers in. Once they got the money and subscribers didn't matter, fuck 'em. As long as the money is safe. It's rather overtly the worst kind of 'evul kkkorporashunz1!1!' that any liberal leftist has decried over the last 20-30 yrs. but, because the corporations take the right public stances, it's OK.

[Ken Shultz]

"Most people access the internet through the search engine or from shared links from their friends. Squeezing these access points has already significantly narrowed the information presented to most people."

A lot of the time, the reason people don't know about things is because they don't want to know about them--especially when they have a preexisting view.

I'd support the Second Amendment even if protecting the right to bear arms did lead to more violent crime, so I'm not terribly interested in the violent crime statistics in terms of gun ownership.

Gun grabbers imagine that if only I paid attention to the statistics, I'd have a different opinion, but much of the time, we form an opinions without all the facts and statistics. We know a lot about the things we care about, not much about the things we don't, and that's not a problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoyRrebUedQ

That's the way it should be.

[perlchpr]

When social media became another important avenue for speech they disagree with to circumvent their hold on the mainstream media, they targeted that.

To be fair, it was an easy shot. They were only two feet away.

Dorsey? Zuck? Brinzilla? When social media became a "thing", it's because it was all built by people who disfavor the speech of people they disagree with. They didn't have to go far for their target of capturing it.

[Cyto]

Well, facebook was about talking about chicks. And then making money. The politics came later.

Google was explicitly free speech - allied with the open source ideology.. information wants to be free.

Twitter? Yeah, I don't know anything about that. Their idea seemed dumb to me at the time - integrating internet posts with text messaging. Yeah, I totally didn't get it.

[perlchpr]

I know people there.

[mad.casual]

Well, facebook was about talking about chicks. And then making money. The politics came later.

Seems like pretty early on Facebook was, intentionally or not, about breaching contracts, fucking over traditional institutions, and, rightly or wrongly, capitalizing on people's false expectations about privacy.

[Earth Skeptic]

"We have a foundational belief in freedom of speech as Americans."

You and I might like to believe and endorse this, but apparently this is neither intuitive for the average people nor convenient for ideologues.

In my fantasy world, we would have clearly defined fundamental ethics for each nation. And people would have to deliberately accept these, or find another nation better suited.

[perlchpr]

Heh. This is basically what I've been saying elsewhere in these comments. *nod*

[Gray_Jay]

Fantastic as usual, Cyto. Have you thought of submitting these to other blogs or media outlets? It's a shame we're the only people who get to read them. Your posts are clearer and more concise than most of the articles here.

[Cyto]

Hey, thanks.

Maybe I can go somewhere and turn my otherwise debilitating social disease into a handsome income.

(hat tip to Martin Mull)

[I, Woodchipper]

^This ... this this.

It takes a confused, delusional partisan mind to think that somehow only so-called conservatives are against free speech in social media. My god... was she born yesterday?

[Nardz]

Would the lockdowns and mask mandates be possible without leftist control of (in the Information Age) the means of production?
And the Green New Deal?

[Mickey Rat]

The internet media platforms regularly delete, demonetize, and ban people for being offensive or violating their terms of service without actially explaining how what they are posting is offensive or violating terms of service. Neither does this seem to applied in an even handed manner. Some things seemed offensive are also objectively true. The platforms hide behind Section 230 to protect themselves from fraud and breach of contract claims. Section 230 needs some reform to require transparency on how these platforms police the speech of their users.

[Rufus The Monocled]

They will silence (if they already haven't) anyone who brings up actual evidence masks are largely ineffective.

I saw a father and son walking OUTSIDE in 35c (40 with the humidex) in medical masks. The natural glare I gave them was intense enough the father looked at me somewhat stunned.

Even if you may have an underlying condition that is NOT healthy nor does it protect you. That poor kid. I don't pass judgment at all but this mask thing is really pissing me off.

The unintended consequences are already starting. First among them is making people believe other people are a threat to their life.

This is bonkers.

[perlchpr]

First among them is making people believe other people are a threat to their life.

They're not wrong.

Those other people probably vote, too, so they've already expressed a willingness to bring weapons into any area in which there may be disagreement.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Then you'll have to apply this logic across the board to all activities with any degree of risk.

We're all a threat to each other.

So they can all go fuck themselves because they're letting FEAR drive their thinking, And an irrational application of it at that.

[MT-Man]

Agreed

[Mother's lament]

They need to decide if they're going to be public utilities or publishers, end of story.
Right now they're getting the advantages of both and the responsibilities of neither.

[MollyGodiva]

Why shouldn't a media platform be free to run their site as they see fit? If the users don't like it then they can go to a different site. Government regulation of the internal functions of sites is not the answer.

[Mickey Rat]

Their TOS and how they enforce it should be transparent to the users and they should not be protected from claims of fraud and breach of contract in regards to how they police their users. Not if they tout themselves as public and open forums.

[perlchpr]

Yeah, if they want to explicitly state their bias, that's one thing. "Our website name is 'Lefty Opinions Only', so, uh, don't be shocked when we moderate or ban people along ideological lines. It's right there on the tin."

But when you say you're for radical free speech, and then act like 'LOO' above, at the very least it's false advertising. 😉

[Overt]

Oh please. I don't agree with these practices by these companies, but trying to tag "false advertising" because a company doesn't conform to your idea of free expression is dumb.

The sooner people like you stop trying to get the government to solve your problems, and instead start your own site, or go support the sites that already exist (Ken is always in the comments giving these alternatives) the quicker this problem will be solved.

[JesseAz]

What's dumb is ignoring actual examples of arbitrary changes to the ToS such as on YouTube where content was created under a set of rules that split advertising revenue with the creator, and then YouTube randomly updates the ToS to new rules and then cuts off the revenue sharing to said content creator.

In no other industry do we allow this.

Stop hiding behind 230.

[mad.casual]

Oh please. I don’t agree with these practices by these companies, but trying to tag “false advertising” because a company doesn’t conform to your idea of free expression is dumb.

Because everybody ever convicted of fraud was really just innocently exercising their right to free speech?

"False advertising" is the nice way of saying you aren't an outright crook but mistakes happen and there's a chance that you could owe some people some money (and, equally, you may be the victim of false advertising).

[perlchpr]

Go back and read all of the comments to this post again. There have been cogent explanations of how this is not just a "site" layer problem. Pay particular attention to a long comment by Cyto, and to any of my comments that include the term "DNS", for details on how being told to set up your own site if you don't like the way another is run is irrelevant if you're not allowed to actually do that.

Then you will have an answer to your question.

[MollyGodiva]

Most of those issues would be solved by bringing back net neutrality.

[perlchpr]

You haven't answered my question about peering agreements yet.

https://reason.com/2020/07/28/fcc-commissioner-says-trump-is-trying-to-turn-the-agency-into-the-presidents-speech-police/#comment-8373126

There's a link to it.

[MollyGodiva]

Peering and CDNs can still be allowed under net neutrality under "reasonable network managment". Only the really big sites benefit from those, and as long as newcomers can set them up on the same terms then it is ok. NN is far more concerned with blocking and slowing down unfavored content.

[I, Woodchipper]

oh my god you can't be this ignorant.

[MT-Man]

Just get rid of social media.

[Overt]

There are no cases where people have been completely barred from putting their platform online. There have been cases where people were kicked by their ISP, or their peering partner, or their payment processor. But these can all be circumvented.

I can still go to Fox News. I can still go to Brietbart. Hell, Wattsupwiththat was legitimately deplatformed the other day if they were to be believed (their rates were raised so much that they are claiming it was malicious), and yet they are moving to a different site.

If you think getting the government involved here is going to result in Conservatives being protected, then you really, really need to look at how the Conservative-passed Patriot Act was used to target Conservatives by the Obama administration. Don't give these guys the rope they will use to hang you.

[JesseAz]

Remember, it is fine to put barriers up for certain sub classes of people as long as they have some type of access somewhere. Even if this includes violation of contract law not allowed in other industries.

[mad.casual]

There are no cases where people have been completely barred from putting their platform online.

"There are no cases where people have been completely barred from selling drugs. Sure, the price of selling drugs legitimately was prohibitively high and there's an unprecendented amount of clusterfucking surrounding the War On Drugs but nobody was completely barred from selling any drugs *anywhere*."

If you think getting the government involved here is going to result in Conservatives being protected,

I don't care if it protects Conservatives or not, it consolidates a power in Congress that the 1A says Congress shouldn't have. It's between unConstitutional and useless and, as libertarians we pretty much universally oppose such laws.

[Ben of Houston]

You have conservatives being targeted by funding platforms.
Let's make this a bit more clear.
BANKS CENSORING SPEECH
If someone accuses you of being hateful, they can and will get your bank account disabled. This is not only a massive blow to your normal livelyhood, but it can be devastating to your credit as well.

Again, no crimes alleged. No judge, jury, hearing, or oversight. Just cripple someone from participating in all levels of society because you don't like their political views.

[Ben of Houston]

When a handful of companies have an effective monopoly on communication, that's not viable, and you know it.

[Ra's al Gore]

https://twitter.com/NoahCRothman/status/1287763506146807808

If the Pulitzer-winning architect of 1619 admits it's not history, should American public schools in districts in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Buffalo, New York be adding it to the history curriculum?

[MollyGodiva]

Because it helps the students understand our history of slavery and how it relates to the present day. It could have a place as part of a history curriculum.

[Don't look at me!]

The same way teaching creationism in biology class would be beneficial?

[Mickey Rat]

At best, it is an ideological statement, at worst, it is propaganda. It should not be taught as actual history.

[mad.casual]

It could have a place as part of a history curriculum.

Not even art history. Maybe as performative art history or some upper-level academic deep dive into speculative fiction.

[Nardz]

Abnormal psychology

[MT-Man]

Are you real? I can't tell if you're some sort of chat bot or a swipe-typer choosing random things from your Iphone?

[R Mac]

She’s just dumb.

[Tony]

I see where you've tripped up. You seem to think the Song of the South narrative our kids get is some kind of default and true version of history and definitely not a lie with a political agenda.

[I, Woodchipper]

ironic!

[Ra's al Gore]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8564247/Are-masks-giving-men-licence-stare-Women-report-rise-aggressive-eye-contact.html

Are masks giving men a licence to leer? Women report a rise in 'aggressive eye contact' since face coverings became commonplace as an expert warns they 'provide anonymity' for threatening behaviour

[NashTiger]

The woman should just cover the rest of her face with a mask. And her hair. And the contours of her body. Then she will be free from lustful looks

[I, Woodchipper]

works great in Iran!

[BYODB]

Too late, certain feminists have already made the claim that the burka is freeing for women for the very reasons you give.

I guess it's true that the world is too strange for satire these days.

[Ron]

first they said my eyes are up here now that men are looking at their eyes they are still mad, typical women

[mad.casual]

Are masks giving men a licence to leer?

The answer is clearly, "No." Leering behind a mask that doesn't cover your eyes is just asking to get pulled over by the leering police. Sunglasses give you a license to leer.

[jcw]

Remember when John said obama was "pissing on the american people" by not attending Justice Scalia's memorial? John definitely lambasted Trump for missing McCain's service, right? I'm sure he will come in and take Trump to task for missing the memorial for John Lewis too.

[Tony]

This place will once again be a hotbed of government skepticism come Jan. 20th, I predict.

[Official Judge of Performative Outrage]

.1/10

[Dillinger]

nobody missed the memorial for John Lewis it was on like 517 channels for three days

[Mother's lament]

"John definitely lambasted Trump for missing McCain’s service, right?"

You mean the one that the family expressly said that Trump should not attend? You can't even get your dishonesty right.

[JesseAz]

They try so hard to understand so little.

[Dillinger]

>>Trump's comments are actually a pretty glorious self-own, since him never seeing "a good" story about himself trending simply means that good content about Trump isn't popular among Twitter users, bad content about Trump is popular, and Trump himself is frequently checking in on trends about himself without grasping that this affects his trending-topic results.

chicksplaining.

[BYODB]

And furthermore, an interesting belief that 'trending' isn't something that Twitter has control of.

Note how disgusting most of the internet is, then wonder at how none of those 'trends' are reflected in what Twitter believes is trending.

Curious. It's almost as if Twitter is on a different internet, perhaps a more tightly moderated internet?

[Dillinger]

>>an interesting belief that ‘trending’ isn’t something that Twitter has control of

good to know i'm not the only one

[Nardz]

In the month I've been using Twitter, I've definitely come to suspect that their "trending" is heavily manipulated

[Dillinger]

>>month I’ve been using Twitter

if I cross the Rubicon i'll never return.

[Formerly Cynical Asshole]

Joe Biden's "Agenda for Women,"

Pretty sure his true "Agenda for Women" involves lots of hair sniffing, awkward touching, and hopefully, if he's lucky, third base.

[SteveRM]

"For Biden, it’s a simple proposition: his daughter is entitled to the same rights and opportunities as his sons."

How is his daughter going to be paid $1M/year for a no-show job if dad is not president?

[TJJ2000]

So twitter is a lefty-rag. Who gives a sh*t... Trump can post on whitehouse.gov where he should be posting anyways. And Democrats and their 'bias media' Russian hoax needs a good slap in the face too. Politicians should be getting elected to protect individual rights and supply justice NOT to play socialistic games of which outlet has bias and how many legal harassment charges they can throw at them.

Another discusting move by Trump...

[AndyWingall]

Yahoo News has suspended the comments section in order to "provide a safe forum." In other words, no expression is better than any that might contradict the narrative. It's hard to believe this is really happening in the US.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

To be fair, their comments section has long been a web 1.0 dinosaur. Killing it off was inevitable.

[Rob Misek]

The cancel culture can’t compete in an environment of free speech.

[Hipernova]

Ngrembug opo to iki?

[Ben of Houston]

I'm sorry, but multiple tech companies coordinated to silence information provided by a sitting congressman and the President of the United States supported by multiple medical doctors.

Even if there is disagreement in the medical community, you have the fact that OUR LEADERS ARE HAVING THEIR WORDS DELETED BY BIG TECH COMPANIES. The reason that they did so was political disagreement with what was being said, a scientific statement on medicine effectiveness.

Sorry for shouting, but this is beyond absurd. This is beyond even having a Ministry of Truth, as those people would be accountable to elected officials. We have a consortium of companies forming an effective monopoly on large scale communication who coordinated to silence political and scientific debate.

Whether or not you agree with their points, if this doesn't chill you to the core, you aren't paying attention.

[Rob Misek]

I get what you’re saying, but do you?

Big tech controlling the narrative is no different than anyone else doing so.

Free speech is a right to ensure that NOBODY EVER CONTROLS THE NARRATIVE and I’m not sorry for shouting.

So what you have suggested is that all censorship must be illegal. I agree.

[Ben of Houston]

I know, Rob. Perhaps I was unclear. However, from our governmental history, the only way that we will ever have freedom is in opposition. No one can be allowed to control the narrative completely, so we have to keep the fight in equilibrium. Some government. Some private.

Silencing government officials, in my opinion, crosses the line six ways from Sunday. If they are being idiots, I WANT that broadcast far and wide. To quote Yul Brynner, "Let him speak, so the world may know him mad".

[Rob Misek]

We’re on the same page.

[TJJ2000]

There is no monopoly -- Leaders have their own .gov websites.

Individual Property rights supersede any believed "right" one thinks they have to anothers property (unless under contract).

If your on MY property you have no RIGHT TO SPEECH on my lawn or post a sign against my will. You have no right to speech inside my house. Your letters and presence can be kicked-out anytime I AS A PROPERTY OWNER decides so. BIG TECH is no exception.

Sick of people pretending their "rights" supersede the property owners rights. You don't get to claim 'rights' to other peoples personal property.

[Rob Misek]

Lying is coercion and should be a crime.

When someone says a site is for “public communication” , censorship violates our right to free speech in public.

Nobody expects anyone to be unbiased. You can be a bigot without anyone caring until you open your mouth in public, then you can expect a public response. That’s why free speech is a right.

Similarly if you say your website is for the “public” in a republic.

[TJJ2000]

"Lying is coercion and should be a crime" -- The crime of fraud (lying) requires intentionally causing physical harm or financial loss. Hurt 'emotions' doesn't qualify and unintended lying doesn't qualify either.

In this situation the BIG TECH companies aren't lying to you. They are just refusing to allow President Trump to post signs on their lawn and they have every right to refuse that. Trump can post his signs on whitehouse.gov... There's no excuse to try and force his signs be posted on BIG TECH's lawn.

[TJJ2000]

... EVEN if BIG TECH is holding a public picnic.. Saying you are open to the public doesn't waiver property rights and make them equal to communist property. As long as that company has claim on ownership - it is not "public property".

[Rob Misek]

The law currently only recognizes lying as perjury in court or fraud which must be quantified.

I said that all lying is coercion and should be recognized as a crime. Lies compel people under the authority of truth to act in the liars interest instead of their own. That’s coercion.

If you’re a libertarian, you want coercion to be criminalized.

If an event is advertised as open for public discourse, it would be lying if the public was censored.

It’s about time that every website be required to post a disclaimer page before access.

THIS IS A NON PUBLIC BIASED MEDIA WEBSITE.

ANY POST NOT CONFORMING TO OUR NARRATIVE MAY BE DELETED AT ANY TIME.

YOU MAY BE BANNED FROM PARTICIPATION WITHOUT EXPLANATION.

How would this affect the income of Facebook and Twitter? Especially when new communication websites have this disclaimer.

THIS IS A PUBLIC MEDIA WEBSITE. FREE SPEECH IS VALUED HERE.

YOU ARE LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENT YOU POST.

I know which sites bigoted cancel culture dipshits would prefer and the rest of us wouldn’t have to suffer them.

[arab page]

Twitter shuts down many Arab accounts
https://www.arabpage.net/126/fawazeer-and-alghaz/