Glenn Greenwald and Friends: Fearless Adversarial Fox News Contributors

What didn’t work is that it has taken this long for this kind of speech to be pulled down. I’d be happier with regulations forcing on line platforms to enforce their rules evenly rather than the government trying to define pornography again. Start fining these companies a percentage for their revenue when it’s found they aren’t enforcing their rules equitably and they will start.

This started as GG bitching about nazis being deplatformed, which is good. That it took corporations to do that instead of the government I’m on the fence about.

1 Like

I don’t mind people disagreeing with me, and I’m certainly sympathetic to the idea that existing governments would be no better or safer entrusted with this sort of thing than the companies involved. I don’t really want to see ‘moderation’ entrusted in the government, and personally I’d always prefer as little of it as possible. But it’s clear that moderation of the internet is something that lots of groups in society really want to see, and I think it’s important for us to keep as much control over it as possible.

But the quote above does get to me a little bit. It’s perfectly clear that they did effectively do exactly that. He could try and replicate what he had by other means, absolutely. That he isn’t even trying is a comment on his supreme incomptency and laziness. But, that is the effect of what happened. It’s the literal reason it was demanded.

1 Like

Twitter “forced” the President to put a modicum of thought and effort into what he communicated to the public. Is that really a free speech issue, or is it a horrible, toddler-like President issue?

Like, Dorsey bent over backwards not to ban him. He’s on the record saying this!

I think we’re maybe going round in circles now, which is fine but means diminishing returns obviously. I came in saying I don’t think this is a free speech issue, and I have no issue with Trump’s ban in terms of whether its effect is good.

I think goofy’s post is spot on and was what I meant when I said a problem is that the debate only comes up when prominent dickheads get banned. I’ll probably leave my leftist screeds here.

1 Like

The whole idea of Free Speech as envisioned by the nation’s founders just doesn’t scale. I don’t think they had any concept of one person being able to instantly reach a sizable percentage of a country or the world’s population. The asymmetry in modern broadcasting is proving almost impossible to fight without interventions from companies and governments. As a species, I don’t think we have the skills to handle unfettered free speech on the internet. So yes, I’d like some more regulation, but I’m not going to cry when violent speech is banned, regardless of who is saying it.

1 Like

Yeah obviously the last four years would have been much better if the federal government were the gatekeeper.

I don’t even know where some of you think you are going with this.

There are all kinds of programs that exist on platforms outside of controlled app stores.

There are massive communities out there that don’t rely on any of the big internet companies.

I don’t know if the complaints are just due to ignorance or what.

What happens when the government demands UP has to allow ins0 to post whatever he wants here without moderation? Then toothsayer?

I just think people aren’t seeing all the different ways people communicate these days. Because someone chooses only to use lolfacebook and Instagram doesn’t change what’s out there.

Parker’s story is ridiculous because the bulk of the internet grew up without having to outsource to cloud services. Parler could build their own infrastructure, but they aren’t even serious. They are just another grift.

So let’s not start making all kinds of determinations based on one very non serious business who is claiming foul.

Still waiting to hear back from substack.

1 Like

They aren’t effective monopolies though, not even close. As big as Facebook is, what exactly is it monopolizing?

Interpersonal communication? No.

The definition of monopoly might need to be expanded.

1 Like

https://judiciary.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=3429

Also, did the existence of letters, newspapers, shortwave radio sets, and telegrams mean that antitrust action against AT&T wasn’t justified? Or did the existence of roads and ships make the antitrust actions against the railroads unjustified?

1 Like

LOL

You mean AT&T when it was the phone company? Your analogies are bad. You’d be better off trying to bring up the ownership of local tv, radio stations, and newspapers but yolo dude.

Of course I mean when AT&T was the phone company. How is that a bad analogy?

1 Like

In the 80’s the telephone wasn’t a platform with the same kind of reach as mail, newspapers, radio waves, and probably not even telegrams. It wasn’t technically possible to stop someone from making a call on AT&T’s network. Comparing the breaking up of AT&T to breaking up any of the social media platforms is completely apples to oranges. Why do you think it is valid? Do you not think the anti-trust regulators take into account the things you mentioned in your post before acting?

1 Like

I wasn’t comparing those things, I was comparing it to the standard that marksman laid out: a monopoly on interpersonal communication.

In the 80’s who else had access to telephones besides AT&T?

That doesn’t have anything to do with my point. Marksman said that Facebook wasn’t monopolizing interpersonal communication so how is it a monopoly. I was making the obvious point that AT&T wasn’t monopolizing interpersonal communication either. That his standard is a ridiculously high bar not consistent with past antitrust action.

Then why use AT&T at all? They weren’t broken up for de-platforming nazis. They were broken up because there was no competition in the telephone market. Do you not remember going to the Bell telephone store when that was the only place you could buy a telephone? If twitter bans me I can still talk to my friends on Facebook. If Facebook bans me I can still talk to my friends on Slack. Etc, etc, etc. Breakup Facebook for their horrible anti-competitive practices, sure but don’t frame it as being at all involved because there are no other methods of “Interpersonal Communication” available.

Why use AT&T? Because it is a famous antitrust case that Marksman probably agrees with and clearly doesn’t meet the standard he laid out in the post I was replying to.

1 Like