I’m writing this Chicagoboyz piece to clarify the moment we are living in with regards to the Techlords oppression of America’s 1st Amendment constitutional right to free speech on their social media platforms.
I’m calling it “Our 2020 Abbotabad Moment” (see photo) because, like the SEAL Team 6 killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad Pakistan, it was a “Moment of Strategic Clarity“ about the nature of an oppressive & corrupt regime that cannot be unseen.
In Pakistan’s case, it revealed a nationalist, separatist, tribal, and above all a terrorist-supporting regime rent by murderous religious and ethnic hatreds. One where the one thing all the leadership factions there can agree on is fear of India. Think of a nuclear-armed Somalia in the mountains, but one good enough at faking a government to get military & economic aid from stupid foreigners.
By way of contrast, Big Tech’s censorship of the NY Post, the Trump campaign, Trump’s press spokeswomen, the GOP House Judiciary Committee and others, followed by the open endorsement of the “Free Press” on Twitter of these actions have showed we don’t have a “Free Press.”
We don’t have a “Press” at all.
We have OPRESSORS.
They are the propaganda arm of an unelected & unaccountable elite that hates the American Republic.
I’d call these people’s disregard for free speech “Unamerican Activities” but, point in fact, they are as American as the Ku Klux Klan. Or more on-point, the Pinkerton men putting down the United Mine Workers. Complete with Denver Channel Nine’s hiring of a Leftist activist as a security guard who subsequently murdered a Trump supporter at a protest they covered.
If this were the movie “The Empire Strikes Back,” we would be at the point of the film where Lando Calrissian picks up the mike and says “Attention. This is Lando Calrissian. The Empire has taken control of the city; I advise everyone to leave before more Imperial troops arrive.”
Unfortunately, there is nowhere to run. The moment of strategic clarity the NY POST’s censorship has brought shows is this is no longer just a “9/11/2001 election.”
We are on Sun Tzu’s “Desperate Ground” with a choice of acquiescence to enslavement by inches, or a fight for freedom where absolutely nothing is guaranteed, even if you “win.”
And Sun Tzu advises that, on Desperate Ground…FIGHT.
As has been clear since the morning after the 2016 election, “they” got complacent and lazy about rigging it, and weren’t going to make the same mistake this time. Any vaguely “conservative” voice needs to have a plan on how to be heard for the next few weeks, and then a really really strong plan about how to be heard if they’re actually able to shove “Biden” into office. (scare quotes because he’s merely an empty shell.)
If Biden wins, the Squad isn’t going to push him to the Left. It’s going to push him down the stairs.
“oPRESSors” ! Love it! Let’s all try to spread that as much as we can.
You can be sure, that at least some of those directing the Afghan invasion, knew about the very long relationship between the Taliban and Pakistan. Well I hope so, I sure did. That relationship continues to this day.
I’m not sure where it is written that facesbook or twittsonline have to be fair, or pretend to report anything other than what they please. Its their toy after all. One thing I never considered, was joining anything like them, because of that fact.
If Biden wins, it will be back to the deep state control of America. The squad is not what they pay attention to.
we have a ministry of truth, 1984 is a how to manual, so kamala harris’s aide paciello went over to transportation department then twitter and now the biden campaign, you might call this order 66,
was abbotabad that critical a moment, zawahiri had expanded franchises in north africa, in west africa, a new one was underway in syria, I broach these notions in my novella,
I still can’t believe these 2 things about the death of Bin Laden:
1. “No one” seemed to think it was a big deal that no pictures were ever released.
2. “No one” thought the obvious implication that Pakistan was involved in 9/11 should ever be mentioned.
You mean it was the Pakis, that put all those demolition charges in those towers? ;)
“FIGHT”
How?
it was a much wider support network, that the 28 pages fleshed out,
the technique the tech moguls have seized upon, is called ‘the little tale’ as was introduced in castros cuba, counterrevolutionary content like the diario de la marina, was tagged unexceptable, and unreliable,
He who pays the piper calls the tune, thus it has ever been. Why is Trump even on twiter? Isn’t there someone in the White House that could set up WordPress? Are Mark Zuckerberg and Dorsey stupid enough to believe that they do anything but multiply Trump’s reach with their childish obstructions?
Assuming the Republicans take both houses and the Presidency, and I do, they can destroy both by changing about six words in section 230 to make them liable for anything posted on their sites. That should be good for an endorsement from the trial lawyers at least.
MCS: “Assuming the Republicans take both houses and the Presidency …”
One side of my brain says — YES! It would be great if the Republicans could win control of all branches of the Federal government and most of the States. Then we could start to deal with over-regulation, over-lawyering, excessively complex tax laws, excessive government spending, self-destructive open borders, foolish one-sided trade deals that kill American industries & jobs, dysfunctional education, etc, etc.
The other side of my brain says — Remember what happened when Swamp Republicans had control of the House & Senate for the first 2 years of President Trump’s term. Or, to be more precise, remember what did NOT happen!
Subotai of this parish often refers to occupants of the Swamp as the UniParty. Sadly, the observable facts support his position.
Damn! That Anonymous was me … again. How difficult would it be to put a conditional test into the software to check the the name has been filled in?
A while ago, WordPress did some update that hosed the temporary login permanence. I have bugged Jonathan a few times about it, but never thought to look into it.
Apparently this plugin should fix our little problem, if he chooses to install it: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-persistent-login/
Gavin,
I wasn’t intending a complement. I was pointing out that they were making enemies of a group that could squash them like a bug with an afternoon’s effort. The original premise was that they were acting as mere common carriers, like the phone system, rather than publishers like news papers. That is clearly not the case when they take it upon themselves to promote some content while blocking content that they find insalubrious to their partisan position. All while profiting from the cluelessness of their users.
It seems obvious to me that nothing happening is a better intermediate step than positive destruction (two branches go the other way) or grid lock (with split outcome). Restoration of the existing damage requires changes in non political sectors especially education and culture. That is a gradual process, but a couple of significant political actions, such as school choice, could speed that up. Curbing the sale of personal data by social media and making them liable for content censoring ought to be considered.
In the meantime, we might get some positive, if limited, movement in the political arena with a sweep and a neutral supreme court. Go Amy.
Death6
A sweep doesn’t do much more than kick the can down the road. The alternative is marching over a cliff. There may be a few more of the right people getting elected this time, that might in time, make a difference. That still leaves too many “Republicans” that are, at best, a half step better than the Democrats.
MCS: “I wasn’t intending a complement. I was pointing out that they were making enemies of a group that could squash them like a bug with an afternoon’s effort.”
In principle, that is correct. In practice, Congressional Republicrats are mostly on sale to the highest bidder. Oh! Victorious Republicrats might hold a Congressional Hearing or two, which would be seen by the 4 or 5 people who watch C-Span and would not get covered in the New York Times. Then a few campaign contributions in the right places, and Big Tech could carry on unimpeded. I wish it were not this way — but being realistic is not the same thing as being cynical.
This does raise a tough question — if Congressional Republicrats really did want to do something to stop social media from degenerating into wall-to-wall Leftie propaganda, what could they do? If they made Twitter etc legally liable for everything posted on their sites, then Twitter etc would have totally reasonable grounds for censoring whatever they wanted. If Congress decided to take the decisions on what to censor away from the Twitters of this world, they would probably have to set up yet another Federal Agency, which would of course soon be filled with Far Lefties sweeping the internet clean of anything which is not Far Left propaganda.
Perhaps our best hope is that social media will eventually go the way of CB radio — relegated to an insignificant position through the excesses of a minority of its users.
I surely don’t believe that congress can somehow impose good faith on Twitter and Facebook. Rather, who will bother to post to either when their brilliant rhetorical gem will only become visible days later, after being cleared for publication? How will they pay all the censors? That won’t scale. This is already the corner they are being forced into in Europe.
It’s similar to the situation that the drug companies are in. They can afford price concessions in the rest of the world because they are protected by law from having to bargain in the U.S. When that safe harbor ends, they’ll have to confront reality. It’s hard to think of a better trial lawyer fantasy than opening up Facebook and Twitter, huge cash generators, to liability for everything that any random person decides to post.
The way to defang Twitter, Facebook, etc., is to remove or deny their ability to harvest your personal information as their default setting. After all, their business models are entirely predicted on bring able to collect and collate that info, and sell it to third parties (advertisers).
Legislation that makes it illegal to harvest your personal info without your explicit opt-in might do it. And by opting in, I don’t mean simply clicking on “accept” when presented the EULA. Opting in should require a separate wizard during set-up, the settings of which the user should be able to change at any time. Of course, this might mean that your social media isn’t free, but that might become necessary.
“Legislation that makes it illegal to harvest your personal info without your explicit opt-in might do it.” I’m not going to hold my breath waiting. You can be sure that whatever emerged would work about as well as all the laws to eliminate unwanted calls. Anything really effective would reduce the value of users below break-even. By this time, the squash option is most attractive. They’ve made a lot of enemies.
“If Biden wins, it will be back to the deep state control of America. The squad is not what they pay attention to.” from an above comment.
This is true. Those things that we fear, those things on the surface like “the squad” are but distractions. Trump has cut deep, deep into the actual corruption and deception that is our “government”. There is a gash, they fear a debilitating wound. He is the existential threat that they dread, but they are deluding themselves that it is he who is their threat. He didn’t just appear. He was a reaction of 62 million people. Not all of that 62 million voted because they realized the corruption and rot that has become the ruling Uni-party, but a lot of us did. They overplayed that hand with Obama/McCain, Obama/Romney and then their plan of Hillary/Jeb Bush. But they will not go down settling for the vote of the rubes.
This has never ended in history without bloodshed and destruction. I hope to be wrong.
… Col. Dr. Irina Spalko, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
We don’t have to imagine … Facebook, Twitter, and Google already have the power to do this, no crystal skull needed.
They have the power to shape public opinion while maintaining a veneer of “neutrality” that hides their biases and renders their words acceptable as simply The Way All Normal People Think … power at a level that the 19th-century robber barons and yellow journalists could only dream of. And have that power and a de facto monopoly in their respective market sectors … and at least think in lock-step, if not collude, in terms of the dominant ideology.
If existing anti-trust law does not apply to them, new law that does apply to this threat needs to be implemented – this ability to manipulate people without challenge is a subtle, but significant threat to individual liberty.
MCS Said:
I surely don’t believe that congress can somehow impose good faith on Twitter and Facebook. Rather, who will bother to post to either when their brilliant rhetorical gem will only become visible days later, after being cleared for publication?
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Use the same protocol that is being used for copyright infringement. When a libelous article is published, the libeled can notify fecesbook, et al, that legal action will be taken if is isn’t removed.
This puts the legal onus back on whoever wrote whatever is disseminated on their platform.
As for (OMG!) child porn, a simple notification to the platform should be sufficient to get it taken down. Any takedown for illegal activity should require notification to LE about it. Of course, this must be combined with some serious penalties for false reports.
There are ways to keep the nasty crap off these platforms that doesn’t give them the uncontrollable power of censorship.
If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be even a worse fate, you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. – Winston Churchill
buddhaha,
My point was that anything that require human intervention will kill both platforms dead as dead can be. A Republican administration would have no reason, except the restraint of their own good faith, to do anything else. Actually imposing good faith is beyond the power of legislation, destruction is simple indeed.
Once their safe harbor is gone, every post is a potential multi-million dollar liability. It will be like throwing a bleeding animal into a school of piranha, there won’t even be bones left.