MSNBC: Now that Elon Musk Controls Twitter, He Can Rig Twitter's Rules to Favor One Party, Limit the Reach of Certain Speakers, Suppress Stories Before an Election, and Then Hide All His Handiwork With Zero Transparency
Jen Psaki: REPEAL S. 230!

Really, you don't say, Ari Melber.

You don't.

Say.

It's literally unbelievable. I do not believe what I just watched.

What would that look like, Ari? Boy, I'm having a hard time even imagining it.

Cab you imagine -- a tech monopoly, for example, suppressing a major story about a corrupt presidential candidate's son taking millions from China and Russian oligarchs and corrupt Ukranian front companies?!

Or could you imagine a tech monopoly using secret algorithms to throttle speakers of one political orientation while signal-boosting those of another political orientation? Or a tech monopoly using its power as a publisher (not a platform) to falsely claim that some unpopular stories are "Trending" and to falsely claim that some actually-trending stories are not?

All in order to squelch the reach of news that hurts one political party and one political ideology?

I just have no idea what this might look like.

Jen Psaki, meanwhile, admits that the government "engages regularly" "works with" tech monopolies to suppress what government censors call "misinformation."

And then, out of the blue -- and in no way precipitated by Twitter now being in non-leftist hands -- she brings up "reforming section 230" and "anti-trust reform."

She's now advocating section 230 reform and "anti-trust reform" just to punish Twitter. Just because it is no longer in safe leftist pro-Democrat hands. Suddenly this is a government priority.

But the Corporate Fundamentalists of the pseudoright will continue bleating that the right, and the right only, must refrain from attempting to influence corporate (monopoly) behavior, as the White House and key Senators continue threatening compromised, threatened monopolies that they will be broken up unless they carry out the explicitly-demanded censorship policies of the federal government.

Yes, Charles C. W. Cooke and the rest of you Corporate Fundamentalist religious maniacs, it is conservatives who must make sure we do not taint corporate monopolies with government interference, because right now corporate monopolies are completely sovereign and behaving with complete autonomy, free of government control.

I continue to note that National Review refuses to admit that the White House and key Senators and cabinet-level personnel like the Surgeon General continue making specific demands for censorship on the tech monopolies, because, if they admitted that, they would have to admit that the government is already substantially in control of tech monopolies' censorship policy and that a rules-of-the-road/safe-harbor reform of section 230 guaranteeing some free speech rights only as regards users of monopoly free speech platforms would not be an undue intrusion, but would in fact be just be a counterbalance to already-existing leftwing government impositions on the tech monopolies.

Charles, what do you call it when a tech monopoly threatens to stop censoring as the government demands and the government's spokesman announces, sua sponte, with no prompting, that she wants to pursue section 230 reform and anti-trust reform?

That's government intimidation, isn't it? That's the government saying, "You will enforce our chosen censorship regime, or we will act punitively against your monopoly position."

Isn't it?

Seriously, can anyone at National Review even mention that this is going on or have their Google paymasters forbidden them from even acknowledging this fact?

Forget Google allowing free speech on YouTube -- when will Google allow free speech at National Review?

Meanwhile, CNBC casually allows a Democrat strategist to suggest Elon Musk is a child molester.

Even as he admits: We're in even worse shape now that we can't rely on Twitter to block damaging stories for us.

A few more reactions:

Jay Bhattacharya

@DrJBhattacharya

Big tech censorship of anti-lockdown scientists is the moral equivalent of book burning. It is a great shame that public health officials cooperated with the censors in the great deplatforming effort. Most puzzling are the science communication 'journalists' who abetted it all.

Christina Pushaw @ChristinaPushaw

The last straw for @elonmusk that precipitated his purchase of Twitter for free speech was when @TheBabylonBee got suspended for satire.

@SethDillon did not cave to delete the "offending" tweet to restore the account.

Seth, you & your team are awesome and I'm proud to know you!

By the way, I predicted he would gave, reasoning that he had no economic choice.

But then, I didn't know he was talking to Elon Musk behind the scenes, with Musk asking him if Musk should just buy Twitter.

Katie Herzog @kittypurrzog

From this moment forward I will only be using ethical social media sites like Facebook, instagram, YouTube, and TikTok

She's a leftist but she's a dissident leftist who hates the "shitlibs." She's clowning on them.

posted by Ace at 12:03 PM

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