Ted Cruz Isn't the Only Politician Talking Nonsense About Tech Companies and Election Integrity

Unpacking TikTok freakouts, mail-in voting controversies, and money printers going brrr, on the Reason Roundtable podcast.

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Ted Cruz Isn't the Only Politician Talking Nonsense About Tech Companies and Election Integrity

Today's Reason Roundtable podcast begins with this gem of hyperbolic WTFery, from a politician people used to routinely characterize as both libertarian-leaning and smart, Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas):

#BigTech's power over our free speech is profoundly dangerous. @Google, @Facebook, and @Twitter are the single greatest threats to our democracy & free and fair elections. Solving their totalitarianism will be an enormous challenge going forward. pic.twitter.com/KgA2EN1pP1

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) August 2, 2020

Rountablists Nick Gillespie, Peter Suderman, Matt Welch, and special guest star Eric Boehm bounce from there to last week's godawful congressional grilling of Big Tech execs, President Donald Trump's election-delay trial balloon, the logistic headaches of counting mail-in ballots, the great TikTok wars, competing proposals for the next federal corona-package, and the deeply weird return of professional sports.

Audio production by Ian Keyser and Regan Taylor.

Music: "Wicked Things" by Quincas Moreira

Relevant links from the show:

"What Should Have Happened at the Big Tech Antitrust Hearing," by Austin Bragg and Andrew Heaton

"Microsoft May Save TikTok From Trump's Clutches, After President Proposes Ban on Chinese Video App," by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

"The Return of Sports Is Great. It's Also Deeply Weird," by Eric Boehm

"Congress Wants To Regulate Big Tech. They Still Don't Understand It," by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

"Don't Expand Coronavirus Unemployment Insurance," by Veronique de Rugy

"Congress Used the Antitrust Hearing To Peddle Petty Grievances Against Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google," by Eric Boehm

"A Congressman Asked Mark Zuckerberg Why Facebook Censored Donald Trump Jr., but That Was Twitter," by Robby Soave

"Senate Republicans' $1 Trillion COVID-19 Relief Bill Includes Billions for New Fighter Jets, Attack Helicopters, and Missiles," by Christian Britschgi

"The Next Coronavirus Stimulus Plan: More Spending, Smaller Unemployment Benefits, and Tax Breaks for Going Out To Eat," by Eric Boehm

What are we consuming this week?

Matt Welch

• Blue Blood, by X Japan

Peter Suderman

• Gears of War 5

Nick Gillespie

• Yes, I Can Say That: And F*ck U If U Can't Take a Joke, by Judy Gold

Eric Boehm

• The Suburbs, by Arcade Fire
• Hockey Playoffs

---

Comments

[Art Kumquat]

It's hardly nonsense. Google just recently bought a stake in ADT. There is no place safe from corporate and government monitoring and Google just enables this bullshit. And reason koch libs can't get their head around just how badly we are being played.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-adt-stake-idUSKBN24Z1A6

[mad.casual]

I wonder what exactly Google would have to do before Welch and Gillespie et al. would say, "OK, maybe they are evil and/or an existential threat."

[Mother's lament]

Do the exact same stuff that they're doing now, but in a manner that benefits (R)'s instead of (D)'s.

[NashTiger]

ding ding

[JoeJoetheIdiotCircusBoy]

actually threaten our existence?

[mad.casual]

actually threaten our existence?

There's an 'and/or' in there. Or are you saying that you wouldn't consider them evil until/unless they overtly threaten your existence?

You must be a massive fan of child molesting Catholic priests then, huh?

[Gray_Jay]

"I wonder what exactly Google would have to do[?]..."

Support Trump? Come out against open borders? Lobby against more H-1Bs being issued?

It's not 'helping China keep the iron boot on its people', that's for damned sure.

[EscherEnigma]

Evil? Yeah.

Existential threat? Not at all.

[mad.casual]

Existential threat? Not at all.

Not existential as in, "Wipe the human race from the face of the Earth." but existential as in "End the experiment in democracy."

I agree that they aren't an existential threat, I don't agree that Google, FB, and Twitter couldn't collude to succeed in executing any/all sociopolitical threats. Moreover, I meant it as a bit of a goalpost. I'm not entirely sure that Welch, Gillespie, et al. wouldn't need an overt statement along the lines of "We intend to bring an end to Western Civilization." before deciding to jump off the bandwagon.

[Bluwater]

Russia was claimed to be a dead issue till Dems actually needed Russia to be the new big threat and responsible for their loss in 2016. Fast forward to 2020, sub China in for Russia. Not a threat until/unless Dems lose again, in which case Trump magically becomes a Chinese agent instead of a Russian agent. This is as predictable as the Hallmark Christmas movie where the big city girl car breaks down in Vermont and she meets a widower father who wears flannel.

[Compelled Speechless]

Suderman AND Boehm? Haaaaaarrrrrd pass. If i listened to that while I was driving, innocent people would die when the aneurysm it causes sends me straight into oncoming traffic.

[Sioyen]

Hora umum

[Nardz]

So Reason is just going to (keep) pretending they didn't freak out about Russian election "interference" through tech?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Ted Cruz is still about this episode from a few years ago:

TRUMP: Lyin' Ted, Lyin' Ted. His wife is a pig. Lyin' Ted.
CRUZ: Hey, stop right there, Donald. I insist that you retract that comment about my lovely wife.
TRUMP: No can do, Lyin' Ted. She's a pig. Hideous, if you want the truth. I'm tweeting a photo right now, showing just how ugly this pig really is.
CRUZ: Now you've crossed the line, Donald! You want to get me mad, you talk about my family. And now I'm furious. So you just better . . .
TRUMP: Better what, Lyin' Ted? What, exactly, are you gonna do, other than yap about this? Oh, and Lyin' Ted's father killed JFK, because he was just a dirty, dirty foreigner.
CRUZ: That does it, Donald. Now you've gone too far. Why, I'm gonna . . .
TRUMP: Gonna what, Ted? Still waiting here . . . . yeah, that's what I thought.
(a couple of years later . . .)
HOPE HICKS: Mr. President, Ted Cruz is on the line.
TRUMP: Oh, Christ, that limpdick. What does he want? Actually, who cares? hang up on him.
HICKS: Sir, Sen. McConnell has requested that you take this call, Mr. President.
TRUMP: Aw, for Christ's sake. . . OK, put him on.
CRUZ: Mr. President, sir, it's been some time since . . .
TRUMP: Yeah, Ted, so . . . what are we doing here? Are you going to finally do something here, or what?
CRUZ: Why, yes I am, sir, Mr. President, sir. I am going to ask you to come down to Texas to campaign with me!
TRUMP: What? Really? Really? (whisper to Hicks: I wonder. . . does his pig wife know he's making this call?)
CRUZ: Pardon me, Mr. President, sir, I didn't catch . . .
TRUMP: I said that would be really, really great, Ted. . . say, could you do one favor for me?
CRUZ: Certainly, sir, Mr. President, sir. What's that?
TRUMP: Could you make sure your wife is on the stage with us?
CRUZ: Oh, Mr. President, sir . . . I assure you, we wouldn't have it any other way.
TRUMP: Great, Ted. Sure, I'll do it. You're a good boy, Ted. I don't get why no one else in the Senate can stand you. You're a really good boy, Ted. And say hi to that wife for me, would ya, Ted?
CRUZ: You betcha, sir, Mr. President, sir. Thank you, sir.

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

“Yawn”........

[Emilly_ash]

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[Ken Shultz]

Trump's most recent statements on this are indefensible from a libertarian perspective.

“I did say that ‘If you buy it…a very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States, because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen.’ Right now they don’t have any rights unless we give it to them.”

----President Trump

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-says-u-s-should-get-slice-of-tiktok-sale-price-11596479818

That statement is indefensible, but I'm not sure it matters. It's meant to appeal to swing voters in an election year. The interesting questions aren't about what Trump should do or why or whether it's legal, etc.

That same article says that President Trump is banning TikTok on September 15th if the owners don't sell their U.S. assets to Microsoft or some other American company, and both Microsoft and the owners of TikTok have said they plan to have the deal finalized by September 15th--because of that.

Two weeks before the election, President Trump will either be able to brag about having forced a Chinese controlled company to sell its American assets to an American company or he will be able to brag that he banned a Chinese social media company from the United States. Either way, it'll play well in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and that, my friends, is all this is about. It's all about November.

[I, Woodchipper]

That statement is indefensible, but I’m not sure it matters.

It definitely matters. It just doesn't matter in the context of evaluating how it will affect the november election outcome.

But it definitely matters. It's fascist to the core.

[Ken Shultz]

Yeah, it's like the question of whether you prefer Pinochet to Stalin.

At least Pinochet was a capitalist and stepped down when he lost a referendum on his rule.

Stalin on the other hand, . . .

[mad.casual]

Yeah, it’s like the question of whether you prefer Pinochet to Stalin.

Assuming you aren't likening Big Tech to Stalin, it's like choosing between Pinochet, Stalin, and Torquemada.

Joe wins the election and Amazon, Google, Twitter, etc., will continue converting every potential crypto-conservative to their woke progressive religion for the next 300 yrs.

[Cyto]

It doesn't even require any of that.

They simply shut down anyone who starts getting popular support for anti-establishment ideas. It doesn't matter what those ideas are.

Because this always goes the same way. It doesn't have to end with the marxists or the fascists in control. The military-industrial-congressional complex defends itself. There's no reason to believe they won't simply re-center that Overton window around themselves and allow "acceptable" opposition voices. Bush vs Clinton, for all time. No AOC. No Rand Paul or Steve King. Just center-left, center-right. Either flavor giving you exactly similar results.

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

Better that 2A rights are used by the more patriotic end of the masses for its intended purpose, to dispose of the communists.

[Ken Shultz]

"Right now they don’t have any rights unless we give it to them".

Tony believes that.

I'm waiting to see Tony condemn Trump for it.

[DesigNate]

Tony won’t acknowledge that part of the statement. Because Tony is a fucking hack.

[EscherEnigma]

For fear of getting needlessly philosophical†, but if you don't buy into rights flowing from divnity or "natural law", then it's actually a perfectly sensible statement. "Rights" only exist insofar as a group of humans decides to extend them to each other. There is no moral mechanism of the universe that will enforce them, there is no natural law that makes sure they are respected. Just humanity, and what rights we choose to grant to, and recognize in, each other.

Which is not to say that any given granting or denial of rights is moral, but that, at it's core, "rights flow from the barrel of a gun" is often a true statement.
________
†Needlessly because I sincerely doubt President Trump was making a philosophical statement beyond "might makes right".

[Nardz]

If you're taking divinity or natural law out of it, moral doesn't have a place either

[Cyto]

"a group of humans decides to extend them to each other" is exactly the opposite of the enlightenment philosophy and is exactly where the end of rights begins.

The entire point of "natural rights", whether from on-high or innate, is that there are certain rights that are universal to all humans and do not flow from anyone else. They create no obligation in others and cannot be removed, only infringed upon or denied.

This difference is stark when examining things like the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes many of the American concepts of what rights we might have, but then corrupts it with rights that require other people to give up their rights and do things for you in service of your rights. This, of course, destroys the very concept of rights.

These core philosophical principles are important. It is important that all people of a society agree upon their core principles. In the case of the US, one of these core principles that must be agreed upon by all is that we all have the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.... innate to ourselves, not arising from any act of government. We have the right to our own thoughts and ideas. We have the right to express those thoughts and ideas. We have the right to keep the fruits of our labor. We have the right to defend ourselves and our families.

These are fundamental. If we cease to agree on these fundamental tenants, then our society collapses. It collapses because it is these shared ideals upon which it is built. The US constitution only makes sense in the context of these ideas. If rights flow from the consent of others, then the US constitution makes no sense at all. You could certainly organize a society around those principles. But it would be a different society and it would look different to our US system of governance.

[Ken Shultz]

"For fear of getting needlessly philosophical†, but if you don’t buy into rights flowing from divnity or “natural law”, then it’s actually a perfectly sensible statement. “Rights” only exist insofar as a group of humans decides to extend them to each other."

Our rights exist regardless of whether the government chooses to respect them.

Rights are the obligation to respect other people's choices. They arise from agency itself just like morality.

It's okay to hit a nail on the head with a hammer.

It's not okay to hit Ken on the head with a hammer.

The difference between a nail and Ken is that Ken has the ability to make choices, so you're obligated to respect his right to make choices for himself. Nails have no ability to make choices, so you're not obligated to respect their ability to make choices [their rights].

Meanwhile, it's immoral for EscherEnigma to hit Ken on the head with a hammer, but it's not immoral of the hammer you hit me with. That's because the hammer has no ability to make choices, but you do. There can be no morality without the ability to have chosen other than what you chose. Because hammers have no ability to make choices, they have no morality.

There is a word for theoretical systems where people's rights only exist if the government says so. It's called "totalitarianism". One of the disadvantages is that it's delusional.

It doesn't matter whether the government of Alabama has a law that says Rosa Parks doesn't have the right to sit in the front of a public bus--not if she exercises her right despite the law and the law is ultimately changed because of it.

It doesn't matter if the government says that people don't have the right to purchase, grow, sell, buy, and consume cannabis--not if they continue to do all those things regardless of what the government says.

It doesn't matter if the government of the USSR says that consumers and producers don't have a right to trade among themselves--not if the economic system collapses despite the law.

It doesn't matter if China says people don't have a right to criticize the government--not if they criticize the government anyway despite the law.

The law is a delusion. It's people's rights that are real, and the consequences of violating our rights is real--no matter if the government or the law says otherwise. One of the reasons the First Amendment is so effective is because it's a law that so closely approximates reality. In reality, we would still have the right to choose our own religion, etc. even if the government chose to violate our rights. Because people's rights are violated doesn't mean they don't exist. Quite the opposite.

. . . and have you ever noticed that violating people's rights tends to have the same kinds of consequences in the same ways cross culturally and throughout history? Violate people's religious rights during the Muslim conquest of the 7th century, in the Holy Roman Empire during the 17th century, or by ISIS in Syria during the 21st century, and consequences are pretty much the same and for the same reasons, too. It's the same thing with censorship.

And who would argue that violating people's property rights has different consequences in different cultures at different times? People starved in the Ukraine in 1930s in the aftermath of collectivization. People starved in China during the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s and 1960s for the exact same reasons. People starved in the 1970s in Cambodia. The starvation that happened in Venezuela in the 21st century was not only foreseeable but also foreseen. Doesn't matter what culture it is. The point in time doesn't matter. If you violate farmer's property rights, the consequences are always the same--no matter what the law says they should be.

Think property rights are fundamentally different from freedom of religion or other civil rights? Think again. They're all about the obligation to respect other people's choices. You get to choose your own religion isn't fundamentally different from being free to choose what you do with your own property. And that's what property rights are--the obligation society has to respect your right to make your own choices about who uses your property, when it's used, if it's used, how it's used, etc. If violating those rights always has the same consequences no matter what the law says, then it's rights that are real. The law is a fantasy.

Take the red pill.

[Ersatz]

“For fear of getting needlessly philosophical†, but if you don’t buy into rights flowing from divnity or “natural law”, then it’s actually a perfectly sensible statement. “Rights” only exist insofar as a group of humans decides to extend them to each other.”

Our rights exist regardless of whether the government chooses to respect them.

I believe his point is that they DO exist whether govt respects them or not IFF the source of those inalienable rights exist outside our agency. It is our agency that chooses whether to respect those rights much as our agency makes us choose to respect the law of gravity. Men didn't make gravity... but we can choose to regard its lawful function or not - to our own hurt.

[roboteconomist]

Matt's going to be sad when he finds out that Hide is dead.

[MatthewSlyfield]

Are there any politicians talking about "Tech Companies and Election Integrity" who aren't talking nonsense?

For that matter are there any politicians not talking nonsense about anything?

My guess is no on both counts;

[EscherEnigma]

I mean, there are a huge number of politicians in America. We have a hundred senators, some 400-odd House Representatives, untold political appoitnees... and that's in DC alone. Most states (all states maybe? don't feel like checking) have upper and lower chambers, giving them between dozens and low-hundred state senators/representatives, more state-level political appointees, and then you get down to county-level politicians and city/local politicians (which will include city councils, mayors, governors)...

That's a lot of politicians. I'm not interseting in counting, but I don't think it's unreasonable to guess that America has thousands, if not tens of thousands of politicians.

Some of them have to be keeping their traps shut.

[DesigNate]

Considering you still have people trying to say that Facebook helped Russia steal 2016 for Trump, I’m gonna guess not so much.

[Titus PUllo]

Meanwhile all the leading woke papers/media today decided presidential debates are useless and should be stopped (at least in this election cycle)..yep all decided today coincidentially...ha ha

Matt any comment on that or do you not want to get disinvited to the woke NYT parties this weekend?

[Cyto]

Why is this not a serious topic of inquiry?

The left has a propaganda machine that permeates all of mainstream media. They coordinate stories like this and collaborate with election campaigns. They have done so for decades.

Matt Drudge had the story in 2000. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS and CNN were coordinating with the Kerry campaign. They intended to spend a week covering the Vietnam war. Each network was assigned an individual topic to cover each night for a M-F work week. They would coordinate with campaign appearances and advertising, synchronizing the topics. Drudge had this 2 weeks ahead of when it happened.

This is a huge story and highly illegal under federal election law.

The whole thing blew up when Dan Rather fabricated his story on Tuesday, rendering the collaboration somewhat moot.

But it happened. And the FEC didn't even look into it.

We've had journolist and other peeks behind the curtain. But since Obama.... nobody is talking. Yet the coordination continues apace. The coverage of the Kavanaugh hearings, for example, was quite obviously coordinated between the media and the DNC. The only peep we heard about it was a meeting at Schumer's apartment the night before the letter was leaked - attended by luminaries like Savannah Guthrie. The whole Nick Sandmann thing was obviously coordinated as well, Savannah Guthrie being a common player in those two efforts with her comical attempts to repair the story with her second interview of Phillips and her horrific interview of Sandmann.... “There’s something aggressive about standing there, standing your ground.” The press still brings this up from time to time - and not on the right side. From reading the coverage of her interviews in places like USA Today and Time (not known for hyperpartisanship), it seems apparent that she was given the task of driving the case home and they were quite upset that she failed.

This stuff is a big deal. Much bigger than the alt-press is making it out to be. It is a huge threat to democracy having most of the people that the nation relies upon for information deciding together what version of reality they are going to spin. This isn't like minded people having similar views. They are coordinating what version of lie they are going to tell (and what they are not going to tell).

Why is this relevant in a debate about tech companies?

Because tech companies have been targeted by the same people, and they are doing the same things.

Remember "shadow bans"? Remember how they didn't exist? And then all of the tech companies announced - by coincidence - that they were actually banning an identical group of people all on the same day.

There are even actual companies that exist only for the purpose of manipulating what we see from the big tech companies for the DNC. The Groundwork was formed by Google Chairman Schmidt for the explicit purpose of tying the back end of tech companies to political campaigns, specifically with reference to getting Hillary Clinton elected.

This isn't some kooky connect the dots situation. The tech companies have been quite open about what their intentions are - even if they are less open about why they have those intentions.

They all universally accepted principles of free speech and free information for the first decade of their existence. Then the left began pushing. And pushing. And pushing. Obama enacted Operation Choke Point - an important aside. And things began changing. They wanted full control over internet memes and news aggregators. They wanted to control the information we all see and hear, and tech companies were allowing people to get around that. They attacked this avenue from multiple angles... and they finally won (mostly).

The internet is still malleable. A new startup can still steal large portions of traffic away from the second and third generation companies that dominate right now. But the window is closing. With the top 2 search engines and top 3 advertising networks all on board and coordinating what you are allowed to see and hear - in secret - how will you even know if they are killing an important story?

Tulsi Gabbard claimed that her campaign was spiked twice. There were two times that her campaign had opportunities - moments when her TV appearances drove a ton of people online to find out more. And coincidentally, big internet companies killed all traffic to her site both times under the guise of fighting "fake news". They claimed automatic algorithms detected anomalous traffic and shut it down... and after a brief investigation everything was restored. Of course, the moment was lost to Tulsi and her campaign. It isn't like people sat around waiting until later for the answer to their query. The moment passed. Kind of a political version of flattening the curve.

The tech companies are being quite opaque about what they are censoring and how they are doing it. But they are being orders of magnitude more transparent about it than the CNN-NBC-NYT-etc. media. At least we know for certain that it is happening in the tech companies. The media denies that any such coordination exists. But it is the same people pushing for the same control of the same information. Why would you even pretend that it is not related?

And how will you know what you didn't hear about? Once the tech companies get their system worked out to the satisfaction of those who have been pushing for control, how will you know what they are hiding and what they are pushing to the front? They explicitly are not telling us that, and have no intention of doing so.

Pretend that this year is out of the picture... fast forward to 4 or 8 years from now. They have upgraded their system of controlling "fake news" or "hate speech" or whatever you'd like to call it. "Trump must be defeated" is no longer a prime driver of your opinions about such things. Everything is much smoother now... social media quietly stops ideas from spreading that harm the narrative. Political ads are screened so that only approved thoughts are allowed through... but in a way that is opaque and not covered anywhere.

And then something happens. Maybe your local sheriff does some really bad things... but he's for the right team, so there's a quiet lockdown and nobody really hears anything about it. Or maybe it is something bigger. Maybe Susan Rice is has won re-election for the second time, having replaced Biden during his term in office and is looking for ways to get her son elected, but you know he has been getting paid by defense contractors to the tune of tens of millions for BS jobs like speaking fees and board positions. Maybe you are a writer for Reason and you'd like the libertarian position on ending the wars Rice got us into to reach the public.

But your coverage doesn't generate any traffic. And your efforts on social media and podcasts don't go anywhere outside of a small group. You suspect that they are shunting people away from you - but you cannot prove it. And nobody is hearing your stories about your investigation into the ways in which the media is being manipulated...

That's where we are headed. And it isn't slow, it isn't subtle. It doesn't require a lot of tea leaf reading. They are pretty open about their intentions, even if they frame it differently when confronted directly.

Both Team D and Team R are agitating about tech controlling information. But team D keeps saying they want only their information shared, and team R keeps saying they want to stop team D from obtaining that goal. Both threaten to use the power of the state to get what they want - but there is a qualitative difference between demanding that others be silenced and demanding that others not be able to silence you.

Everyone acknowledges that "the media" is more than just a little bit biased toward the left in the USA. Fewer would talk about the coordinated stories that prompted this screed. Nobody in the media will even acknowledge that such a thing even exists. Are you ready for a world where MSNBC-CBS-CNN-NBC-NYT-WaPo-ABC-PBS level transparency and editorial control permeates your search results, twitter/facebook/whatever feed and even the advertising you see?

Sure, you could just say "then someone will make another internet" to take advantage of the opportunity created. Just like Fox News sprang out of the excessively one-sided media landscape of the 80's and 90's.

Do you really want to wait until that moment to call for a different course? Do you want to roll the dice that the people who seek to shut down all dissent won't use the power of the state to protect their success once they have it? They already have been using the banking system to prevent political opponents from being able to get financial support. How does that look when they control the White House, House and Senate? You think AOC and her crowd are going to protect your right to free speech? They are the ones who have been chanting "hate speech is not free speech" in response to people who simply disagree with them.

This is a much bigger issue than most people seem to think. A free press is critical to the functioning of our system of representative democracy. An informed populace is the foundation of the whole thing. That foundation is under attack. The ACLU has left the battlefield. The media has left the field. The few center-left writers and academics who dared to tepidly say that free speech is important were swarmed and lampooned.

If there ever has been a larger, more coordinated and more successful attack on the free exchange of ideas in the US, I am unaware of it. The far left and the far right should be making common cause of this one. Sure, the far left is winning at the moment, but surely the ACLU, NAACP civil liberties left can see the threat. Just because the far left is instrumental in gaining this advantage is no reason to believe that they'll maintain control of the levers. The mainstream DNC/RNC folk have a much wider power base in corporate america. There's a reason Joe Biden is at the top of the ticket instead of Bernie. Do you think the next generation's Pelosi and Schumer are going to allow AOC to control things? Not a chance. Once these tools are in place, they'll use them to make sure they maintain control - just like they always have.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's pretty much the whole of it. While most people were giggling over cat videos, the IT industry were busy constructing an escape proof censorship machine in order to stop any opposition to candidates and causes they like. And they're close to having it finished.

[MikeP2]

Spot on

[Gray_Jay]

Great article as usual.

You've identified the problem. What is a solution? Repeal 230? Go at big media and tech with unfair competition and antitrust laws?

[damikesc]

The Patreon suit seems to be a good starting point. The whole "If you use the site, you accept ALL of our terms" seems legally dubious at best and it's time to soak them.

Patreon drying up due to banning people would make me quite happy

[Shitlord of the Woodchippers]

The progressive entertainment/media/bureaucratic infrastructure must be dismantled. Period. Even running e able on the all three branches of government didn’t do much

In other words, be prepared to actually do something about it, or get ready for communism.

[lap83]

OT: Primary is going on in my state (Kansas) and someone already posted on NextDoor that his and his wife's mail in ballots were stolen out of his mailbox. Probably by disenfranchised handicapped minorities who got confused and thought those ballots belonged to them. He should check his white ableist, voter-ID having privilege

[EscherEnigma]

You know, I tried googling who to report election fraud to in Kansas, and it took me three attempts to find that the responsible person in Kansas is the Secretary of State. All my search results before that were about Republican-committed election fraud.

So anyway, this page has the form for an election complaint. Or you can try to contact Scott Scwab (the Secretary of State) directly.

[lap83]

The case i think you are talking about is a registration with a wrong address and the guy claims it was a mistake. But it doesn't matter...accidental or intentional..Republican or Democrat...still shows the need for a system that makes fraud harder to pull off.

[Pakinfo]

saying about the train.
very tough

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[TJJ2000]

Google had 90% market share in Oct 2018. 90% is far too much for any single company to have without monopoly concerns on data search. I for one would probably support a court order to divide the company.

[CqU]

To minimize the risks from TikTok is to ignore the incredible success of China's hacking to date, and the ridiculous backdoor that is TikTok.

"I'm a nerd who figures out how apps work for a job. Calling it an advertising platform is an understatement. TikTok is essentially malware that is targeting children. Don't use TikTok. Don't let your friends and family use it."
- https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news_but_tbh_if_you_have_tiktiok_just_get/fmuko1m/

https://www.wired.com/story/china-equifax-anthem-marriott-opm-hacks-data/

I mean, come on NG, you're a fan of "The Americans." These hacks are an endless source of blackmail. To what degree does that describe some of the bizarre behavior of our elites?

[bocsci2018]

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[Longtobefree]

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