Info Wars "Deplatformed" What Say Ye?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

@ Phone companies. That reminded me of this article about “common carriage laws.”

Quoted from A Response to Online Shadow Banning, WSJ. Emphasis mine.

"…mail service, telephones and airlines operate under “common carriage” law and must serve all customers regardless of their political, religious or social views.

These protections have a long history. Precedents from the 17th century outlawed discrimination by docks, ferries and bailors. Common-law courts extended the idea, as technology developed, to railroads and telegraphs, and then eventually to telephones and air travel. Administrative agencies later codified the protections into regulation.

Should the old principle of non-discrimination apply to social-media platforms?

… Rep. Gaetz announced on July 27 that he filed a complaint against Twitter with the Federal Election Commission. He claims that, by shadow banning him, Twitter “gives his political rivals an unfair advantage” that constitutes an in-kind campaign contribution.

In a recent lawsuit my co-counsels and I filed on behalf Jared Taylor —a self-described “race realist” and “white advocate” whom others consider a white separatist—Twitter claimed the power as a network owner to remove any user for any reason. But on June 14 California Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn rejected Twitter’s claim. The suit, which alleges Twitter failed in its promises to give users a free and open platform, will now proceed.

The entire gamut of 19th-century common-carriage protections cannot be applied unchanged to the internet’s complex offerings. Yet for centuries courts have adapted antidiscrimination protections for new technologies, and they could do so again for social media.

From classical Athens onward, democracies have required an agora, a central public forum open to everyone on equal terms. Today, the dominant social-media platforms have become America’s agora…"

Mr. Candeub is a professor of law at Michigan State University and lead counsel in Jared Taylor’s suit against Twitter.

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62

And just as an FYI Twitter has actually admitted to shadow banning people now.

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63

But couldn’t the counter argument be that Twitter, for example, is like a television channel and not the cable company. You might have the right to get cable TV service but you still have to pay for certain channels.

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Did they admit to shadow banning Republican members of the House of Representatives, or Ronna McDaniel, the GOP National Committee Chairman?

From the article about carriage laws I quoted above.

“Twitter is alleged to have shadow-banned Republican National Committee Chairman Ronna McDaniel, Donald Trump Jr. spokesman Andrew Surabian, and GOP Reps. Mark Meadows (N.C.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Devin Nunes (Calif.) and Matt Gaetz (Fla.).”

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I don’t follow.

66

Do you have a link? I’m getting this from Google.

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Cable companies, telephone companies, airlines, etc., are service providers. Twitter is not a provider, it is something that can be provided. I might have the right to cable, provided I pay, but do I have a right to HBO? Do I have the right to my own show on HBO? Jones still has access to internet service.

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If we’re saying that these social media sites are our new agora, or central public forum, then how would that analogy work?

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Her is twitter’s official statement on the shadow banning claims:
"The best definition we found is this: deliberately making someone’s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poster.

We do not shadow ban. You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile). And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology."

“(although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile)” - this is shadow banning. Literally in the statement denying shadow banning, they admit to shadow banning. Grant it, they still denied that ideology has anything to do with how they shadow ban.

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70

Ah. Gotcha

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I haven’t seen anything on specifics. However, if people on the left tend to be more censure happy (something that seems pretty reasonable) there is going to be a tilt toward shadow banning more conservative voices even if the bias isn’t intentional by twitter.

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72

The further left or right you go the less freedom of speech you will have. Also, this has nothing to do with liberalism or conservatism.

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Yeah. Liberal news outlets pressuring silicon valley corporations to censor. Nothing to do with political leanings at all.

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74

I think you missed the point. Right now there are constant protests and violence from the left in an explicit effort to de-platform and silence opposing views. It would not be surprising if those parts of the left carried that censorship behavior over to twitter.

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75

Whether or not they are liberals is debatable. The fact is, it is not an expression of liberalism. It is more likely about money.

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The right does the same thing. It’s what fundamentalists do. People on the left who do it, don’t do it because they are on the left. Zealots do these things.

If you see the video of those Evergreen Univ students confronting Prof. Weinstein; that wasn’t leftist behavior but entitled brats whose parents never taught them manners behavior.

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Progressivism then since you draw a distinction between classic American Liberalism and leftist radicalism a la Alinsky. Silencing your opposition through coercion and the politics of personal destruction are definitely progressive traditions.

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78

And paranoia is a tradition of right wing politics.

But what you call progressive traditions are not traditions. Nazis killing Jews was an expression of Nazism. Antifa throwing rocks is not an expression of progressivism. People refer to themselves, or get referred to by others, as things that they are not.

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79

Not right now they don’t. Certainly not on the same scale. The right right now does not hold large rallies in an effort to silence the left. There are no people in Congress on the right advocating harassing the other side. left wing speakers are not constantly under threats of violence on college campuses. No big social media companies are filtering out and suppressing people on the left. The vast majority of the push for censorship is currently from the left.i

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80

You might want to watch the news. Ever see a Trump rally?

Given their numbers, I would bet there are some who have and do.

That’s an exaggeration. Some have been. Not all conservatives have been threatened. Those who have issues, like Shapiro, create those issues. He is a provocateur who only goes to colleges to push peoples’ buttons so he can have cool youtube videos.

There is a video of that other phony, Milo, at UMass where a large number of students in attendance are screaming. Oh my God!!! These indoctrinated leftists!!! Given that UMass has what, 30,000 students, it would seem that it was a very tiny, almost insignificant number of crazy lefty sjws. Also, Trigglypuff was not even a UMass student but from a neighboring college. So if you were to add up the students in that area it would probably be well over 50,000. 100 students going all commie crazy seems like nothing to read too much into.