Trump Statement on Censorship

Why he released his "MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT" on the same day as this, I have no idea.

Trump vows to ban feds from ID-ing domestic 'misinformation' if elected

By Steven Nelson; NY Post; December 15, 2022 11:35am

Former President Donald Trump vowed Thursday that he will ban the federal government from using the terms "misinformation" and "disinformation" to describe domestic speech if he retakes the White House.

The 76-year-old Trump made the pledge as part of a broader "free speech" platform announced in a video policy statement shared with The Post -- vowing also to impose a seven-year ban on former FBI and CIA workers handling private-sector US consumer records.

Trump said this month’s "Twitter Files" releases "confirmed that a sinister group of Deep State bureaucrats, Silicon Valley tyrants, left-wing activists, and depraved corporate news media have been conspiring to manipulate and silence the American People."

Link, via andycanuck.

I think I know what Trump means -- maybe -- but how does he distinguish between a federal official telling FaceBook that something is "disinformation," and his own statement that CNN is "fake news"? I mean, I assume he wants to continue to do that latter.

So I assume he means something like, "Federal officials can no longer advise anyone in an official capacity, behind-closed-doors that something is 'misinformation,' with an intent to have that speech limited, deplatformed, shadowbanned, or censored..."

He'll need to sharpen this language up, obviously. It's fine for a statement, I guess -- this isn't legislation -- but he will want to think some of these issues through a bit more.

Trump makes a mistake here about s.230. Section 230 should continue applying to all non-monopolist platforms as is. I don't want to be sued because of something some troll writes just because I'm not neutral.

But for any platform of a specific size or market share, then requirements for neutrality in exchange for s.230 protection should kick in.

Whenever anyone talks about reforming s.230, the paid shills for monopoly tech start shrieking, "Do you want your grandmother to get sued for a comment a third-party writes on her recipe blog?!!?"

And the answer is: No, of course not. No one cares if small platforms -- including small platforms like National Review, whose writers like trotting out the shill claim that your grandma could be sued if s.230 is reformed -- are neutral or not.

Just those which have a dominant/monopoly position.

If you get kicked off of the New York Times comment boards, there are dozens of other similar leftwing media commenting boards you can post on.

But if you get demonetized or banned from YouTube...? Yes I know Rumble is giving it a go as far as competition, but Rumble has, what, 1-2% of the market share of YouTube?

They told us "Make your own Twitter." Then Dan Bongino and others did that -- they made Parler.

And then Apple and Amazon and Google and the rest of them conspired to get Parler taken out of all the app stores, so that no one could actually download Parler on to their phones and computers.

This is not about all platforms. It's only about the monopoly/market dominant ones.

But many people do not emphasize that we're only insisting on Free Speech protections in moderation for dominent/monopolist platforms. In Trump's speech, he does talk about "big" online platforms, but then when he talks about section 230, he doesn't restrict the requirement for neutrality to "big" online platforms. He speaks as if this is a universal requirement.

Thus making the shill argument offered by R Street lobbyists and National Review rentboys true, or true-ish.

Do I think Trump meant to say that? No, not really, but when you're proposing major changes to legislation, and especially when you're facing a stiff counteroffensive from well-funded, well-organized, and I did I mention well-paid propagandists for big tech, you have to make sure you're not stepping right into their talking points.

No one cares if Grandma's Recipe Blog is a publisher or not. No one cares if National Review is "fair and neutral" in content moderation. No one cares if the New York Times' comment moderation policy observes the "time place and manner" viewpoint-neutrality rules of Free Speech.

But for monopolist platforms and services -- Google in search, YouTube in video hosting, Amazon in website hosting,Twitter in microblogging -- then yes, the government can, should, and must demand some level of respect for free speech principles in exchange for the major government benefit afforded by s.230.

If they don't want to grant people a level of tolerance for their free expression -- then they can choose to go without the protections of s.230. It's a free country, after all.

But they cannot have the protections granted to them on the assumption that they are a mere "platform" taking all comers on equal footing while behaving in fact as "publishers" like National Review, the New York Times or yes, Grandma on her recipe blog.

Please everyone stop saying that every blog and every website, no matter how tiny and inconsequential must jump through government hoops to get s.230 protection.

For those who say "well that shows why it's not fair to make Google, YouTube, Twitter, and FaceBook" go through these hoops -- they already are voluntarily spending tens of millions of dollars, willingly, that no one forced them to spend, to patrol the speech of conservatives to placate their censorship-demanding liberal users. They have already put in place all the costly compliance personnel and machinery. Requiring them to abide by heightened respect for the First Amendment imposes no additional financial burdens on them, beyond which they've already gladly undertaken.

In fact, telling them to stop censoring everyone just because Taylor Lorenz and Ben Collins are on their periods would save them money, because they could afford to lay off some of their very substantial censorship staff.

So no, it's not "unfair" to make the richest and most powerful corporations that have ever existed in the history of the entire planet earth do some minor compliance work to make sure they are not running afoul of their first amendment responsibilities.

But I'm sure National Review will see it differently.

>>>But I am much more in favor of just smashing the monopolies. Monopoly is illegal under US law and these companies can - and should - be broken up. This is an unstable arrangement and a new monopoly will surface when it happens because of network effects. That's okay. Break it up, too.

I hear that. I have a feeling they are being protected because the National Security state wants them to continue their research, with all their monopoly power, into artificial intelligence.

So yeah, I think these companies are being protected against anti-trust due to their national security use, especially in the area of artificial intelligence, or near-artificial-intelligence -- like, just gigantically huge information analysis which isn't really intelligent, just massively, massively brute-force number crunching.

But why do conservatives have to lose our free speech so that the NSA and CIA can get their toys?

posted by Ace at 04:18 PM

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