I feel so hopeless so much of the time. But then I get something from you or something from Matt Taibbi and I think all is not lost because there are still people willing to speak truth to power. We used to be the side that fought against censorship but the power on the left consolidated so fast and so few people were willing to challenge any of it. I still can't believe what I saw go down last year. Whenever I hear you speak or see your tweets or read your stories here I always think, FUCK YEAH Glenn Greenwald. You are not afraid to fire up the blow torch and go right for the most powerful.
I actually love the F word. I find it to be a great word. But in this instance, and I can't change it now because there is no edit function, there is a long time internet phrase that is basically F*ckYeahMartinScorsese - that kind of thing. I've only really seen it in ref to film directors but I've always loved it and I wanted to apply it to Glenn Greenwald whom I see richly deserving of the honor. I would not have used it if it wasn't part of that familiar phrase.
It is interesting that fuck and motherfucker and cocksucker and shit etc. are all in Webster’s Ninth!
Years ago when Howard Stern was on terrestrial radio and was complaining about not being able to say any “bad” words, I faxed him all the best ones from Webster’s Ninth and he loved it! Ha!
It's a mainstream word, no different from "hell" or any other other exclamation. Let's not try to censor one of our own. That sort of defeats the purpose of a forum dedicated to free speech.
I would put forth this gentle suggestion, it's more useful to focus on the content of a post than to veer off topic by offering unsolicited critiques of a particular author's choice of words.
Hell, yes. And I put forth this threatening suggestion: Either respond to the SUBSTANCE of a post, or SHUT THE FUCK UP. Trump detractors (especially the fucking media) NEVER opposed Trump on substantive grounds. It was ALWAYS either putting their own words in his mouth, or some variation of orange man bad.
Let me spell out my threat for the snowflakes, whose bones are broken by mere words, who read my threat:
I can't possibly read all your bullshit, but when I do, I will be in your "face," breaking every little "bone" in your "body" with the vicious action of my written and spoken WORDS, you little.......
"ain't" is a non-vulgar, proper word in the English language. Go ahead and look it up. Now, maybe if I were a librarian I would glare at you for casting aspersions on my profession, but not for your language.
No, I don't care that you use the word, I just mean it is so over used, it no longer means anything. I teach college students. If you let them out of class early, they say it. It's just not the edgy emphatic encouragement people think it is. Tho I often hear it in anger as well. (Well, and yes, Catholic school). So, I have no clarity on the meaning of expression? Is it an explicative? Is it a cheer? If you'd like some synonyms we have them in the library.
Just for clarity, are you saying that in the past you were ok with the fuck-word when used for emphasis, but now, with everyone using it, it's lost its punch and should be retired? If so, I disagree. I think it's probably over-used, and I'm certainly guilty of too much reliance on it in certain circumstances. But it's such a great word and a unique one at that. It can mean anything, it can mean nothing. There aren't too many words in the English language like that. To each their own, but I'm hoping that little four-letter gem is with us for a long time to come.
The true poetry was inspired by WWII ....a time deserving of such masterpieces as FUBAR (Fu*cked Beyond All Recognition) and the immortal SNAFU (Situation Normal All Fu*cked Up). I prefer Screw 'em in day to day but our times went into FUBAR abut 20 years ago.
Actually, FUCK, which is actually a word to denote the act of inserting a penis into a body cavity and thrusting it in and out, was used to shock until it became a wholesale epitaph. It no longer has the value it once did and is basically meaningless in modern conversation, but then modern conversation is meaningless anyhow.
Unfortunately, it's all talk. There will be no action because congressional leaders and the tech oligarchs will not allow it. Things will only change when the people force it to change.
A positive I took from this article is that -- surprise! -- someone in Congress actually respects Glenn's opinion on this issue. That is not insignificant. Let us all hope that Glenn's expertise and experience is called upon even more frequently.
I disagree that it is unsustainable. It is eminently sustainable when those in power are free to lie. Look at Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI. Revolution cannot by definition be institutionalized, yet it was simply by lying about what constituted revolution. So, too, can a one-party state - what Mexico was under PRI - be sustained. When it goes beyond two generations it is sustained. Mexico was such for four generations. North Korea is in its third generation. The USSR sustained single-party/thought control rule for 70 years.
We came close not long ago. Democrats became the Majority Party in the House of Representatives when I was six. That did not change until I turned 46. I see a permanent partisan majority being ensured today. Yes, a majority of Americans support the COVID Relief Bill because the only thing they've been allowed to know about it is that everyone gets $1,400 for free. No one is permitted to hear that it institutionalizes racism and creates a permanent ruling class. So, too, with HR1, which mandates practices that allow for fraud in elections. Everyone will hear the idealistic statements about the Right to Vote, no one will be allowed to hear the statements about what responsibilities that right entails, nor how the bill ensures permanent partisan advantage.
Sir, it is indeed sustainable, at least beyond the lifetimes of your readers and their children.
Good points. However, I've come to expect that even the most well intended legislation emanating from Congress will, at best, address a problem in such a manner that it sets up a new and even worse problem. The legislative process, at best, is so slow that nimble capitalists can instantly contrive ways around almost any attempt to rein them in. That's why I think we have to go very big as a democracy to shut off any possible avenue of avoidance. My solution: Ban all online tracking and anything other than display ads (no pop-ups, videos, audio, etc.) online and repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act while siphoning at least 90% of the remaining online ad revenue to a common pot for offline news organizations to tap into based on their number of readers or viewers. This, of course, would be very disruptive of the giants' revenue models. But as these clowns have preached to everyone else, disruption is good! So let's disrupt them.
I don’t see how repealing 230 helps this situation. It might further entrench the tech monopolies. They already have $Billions and armies of lawyers. It’s the little startups that will get crushed under the weight of litigation.
You may have a point there. But I still think otherwise. It's the giants that can't possibly edit every single piece of the billions of pieces of content they carry since their readers are their product. In other words, they have billions of potentially loose cannons. The social media business model would be destroyed with repeal of Section 230. Meanwhile, smaller entities like blogs that generate mostly their own content would have little problem with an easily managed, tiny number of contributors or perhaps only one. Reader comments, however, would have to be monitored.
I think what many of us want to avoid is the tech companies censoring content, not avoid the tech companies being pass through non-publishers.
Repeal of 230 doesn't achieve the goal of avoiding tech companies censoring content. One has to amend the section that gives them broad good Samaritan rights to delete content considered "offensive" by their arbitrary definition.
Keep 230 and (c)(1). Modify (c)(2)(A), possibly simply by removing "or otherwise objectionable"
TEXT OF LAW
(c)Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material
(1)Treatment of publisher or speaker
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
(2)Civil liability
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
(A)any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
As an aside, the thing Apple, Google, and Amazon Web Services did to Parler was very specifically treating them "as the publisher or speaker of... information provided by another information content provider", in that they held Parler accountable for the posts of its users. I think it's an oversight for Parler not to have sued them on this specific basis, probably because without specific clarification many infer that "shall be treated" means by the government. But that's not in the text.
Agreed. The "Federalist"(?) got into some hot water due to some of the comments on their threads, so they killed the comment section. "The Hill", on the other hand, has a comment section so uncontrolled that some of the more "progressive" commenters will claim that if you are slightly to the right of Stalin you are the spawn of Satan....in very colorful language and zero pushback from a moderator.
Guess the moderation is just dependent on the color of your jersey
I do wish people would stop the default assumption of "good intentions". First, it's mostly not true - the intention of government is always to accrue more power to the detriment of individuals. Second, we would be a healthier representative democracy if voters were more skeptical about the motives of their elected leaders and would stop canonizing elected leaders (and entertainers for that matter) as if they had some unique access to wisdom: because they don't (and I'd argue the opposite is true).
I say we make users pay for their services and just ban ads. We could pay $.50 per month for Facebook and they would make the same amount of money they do now... same with Google - charge me for the services don’t steal my private information and sell disinformation campaigns.
Another good idea. Also, the way things are set up, Facebook and other social media have every incentive to spread inflammatory content, which runs counter to their occasional ham-handed efforts at censorship. If we take away that incentive, with subscription fees in place of click-bait ads, we'll do a lot to tame this destructive business model.
Yes, that was what I was trying to say though I didn’t type it specifically. It also has the additional added benefit of keeping some younger kids off of social media, and making it cost more for a troll farm to start spreading crap. I read a good article a couple years ago about how much the those two companies would have to charge to make the same money they do from fees, and the low cost was staggering. I think that has ballooned in recent years though. I think this year the facebook revenue per year per person is more like $25 on FB. Still though, $2 a month is nothing and if they charged as much as “dangerous” glen greenwalds sub stack it would be double that per year per user.
I’m actually not, I just don’t think that is a problem.
The comment section on here is so much better than Facebook because we all pay to be here. The quality would go up immensely if only people who valued the service were using it. I might even start a Facebook for the first time in my life if they charged money for it since the quality would increase so much. Profits also aren’t linear - less users at a higher price make more money, that’s how luxury goods exist.
I also don’t think less users is a bad thing, I see it as a good thing. As the tobacco industry shrinks I don’t shed a tear and I wouldn’t for social media either. So far, it’s been a toxic industry.
Substack has a lot less revenue than FB. There is no way FB can maintain the bottom line by becoming exclusive. Anyway, nobody wants to build luxury on top of toxic waste.
Very true. The beautiful part here is that when they start banning people en mass, down goes the revenue in proportion. Try explaining that to your stock holders.
While I obviously think the tech companies are abusing their power and need to be out in check, i have two points to make. 1. The people in power ain’t going to do any of that especially when they are themselves enjoying the benefits. 2. Repealing section 230 will make the problem worse as that’s exactly what tech companies want- big tech companies will just censor more using AI. Smaller new competition won’t be able to afford AI and thus be unable to compete.
What actually needs to be done is the allow section 230 only to those who don’t editorialize their content, submit to a yearly independent body audit and don’t have over 1 million daily active users.
That depends. Facebook and other social media edit -- badly -- their content. When they do that, they clearly leave the category of platform and enter the realm of publisher and should be subject to the same laws governing defamation as any other publisher. With Section 230 in place, social media have an unfair advantage.
As I understand it, however, Substack is different. It's merely a platform or a mechanism by which authors can publish and take full, individual responsibility for their content. As things stand -- at least theoretically -- if a Substack author defames me and there's provable material damage, I can sue that author, but not Substack. That said, you may well have a point if Substack edges into the practice of content moderation/censorship/cancellation. That would be unfortunate.
Thanks. That's certainly a different take on Section 230 than the ones I've encountered but sounds legit, especially given the title of the act containing it. I'll take a further look.
The problem that remains, however, is the fact that social media are not just eliminating or failing to eliminate obscene content. They are removing content that bears no resemblance to obscenity and clearly doing so for other reasons, such as the infamous squelching of the NY Post's Twitter account ahead of the election when the Post explored Hunter Biden's laptop contents and dealings with China. If providing a shield for the obscenity-removal function was the intent of Section 230, allowing social media to still claim the status of "platform," haven't these outfits since abandoned that status through censorship aimed at what they deem to be misinformation or politically fraught, thus revealing themselves as publishers that no longer deserve Section 230?
As for Substack, you may well be right. But could it be argued that the writers there are also the publishers and Substack is a distributor? And a distributor would be like, for instance, the owner of a newsstand selling newspapers, right? Would that owner bear legal responsibility for the content of one of the papers he sells? That seems a stretch to me.
Regardless, I believe there's room in all of this to formulate reasonable legislation that protects everyone's rights without squashing people's voices. How likely that outcome may be is entirely another matter.
I'm sure the legal rulings are there, but it may be a case of courts going beyond the intent of Congress, however malign or foolish that intent may have been. I'd argue that it's time to take another look at Section 230. The questionable mid-1990s goal of allowing the internet to flourish hardly seems justified if the result is routine distortion and blockage of key news and information avenues to suit the political whims of a handful of billionaires exercising control through proprietary and impenetrable algorithms and other methods while putting more accountable news sources out of business.
I don't understand why we can't force a 2 track system - if you want to use 230 then you have to provide a button that disables ALL filtering - users choice. It should have the same nomenclature across all platforms so that it would be instantly recognizable. Say something like 'Freakin' Ram It To Me Without A Condom!' or something like that.
As I have mentioned before I was a registered democrat, but I didn't like pro-war Clinton so I didn't vote. From the beginning I never believed in Russia-gate. As soon as the DNC e-mails were hacked Clinton's campaign manager, Mooky, claimed the Russian's did it. I thought how does he know, and here we go again blaming the Russians. You can always get Americans to believe in their evil intent, since most of us from cradle to grave have been indoctrinated to believe they are innately evil and capable of anything, while America is all good. From the beginning the democrats assisted by the CIA and FBI tried to oust Trump from office using lies to do it. In other words through their many lies I came to see them as very autocratic, tyrannical. The mainstream media, or corporate media, was in total complicity with their lies, as were many online media sites who identify themselves as liberal. They took up the democrat's cause, identified Trump as a fascist at every opportunity, which included his base. This mentality only reinforced and gave credence to the decisions made by silicone valley and their censorship. Fascism must be stopped at all costs, which also justified it to a non- questioning American audience. Good they ousted the fascist from his twitter account, even though he was an elected president of the US, he's a fascist. It made it easy to accept without question he invoked the overthrow of the US government with no investigation, and he must be impeached so he never can return. I can only expect more of their autocratic rule which they hide behind a so called liberal agenda. Biden can still read off a teleprompter, a speech written by someone else, and praise rings out for him from one news outlet after another. Yuck.
It's difficult to understand how they get away not acknowledging he has a cognitive impairment which seems in the last half year or so gotten worse. I have watched online video clips of him and the difference is so blatantly apparent. It must be to others, even those that voted for him, but I guess anything is better then that "fascist" Trump.
I was under the impression the main reason the "Democrat's" wanted to have anti-trust hearings regarding tech monopolies, was because they view this as a means to the end of maintaining a vice grip on power for a generation or more.
So there is no surprise the "anti-trust" committee is really about issuing "anti-trust exceptions" to the largest media companies like NYT.
What is very surprising is that they invited Glenn to this hearing. Great job Glenn!! Why do you think they invited you?
I was about to observe yet again that the United States is an empire in decline that will eventually collapse under the weight of the carefully cultivated stupidity of its citizens and that Glenn's noble argument, while quite correct, is futile, until I read that Jack Dorsey had "apologized" for brutally suppressing the New York Post's stories on Hunter Biden and the Biden family's corruption and "acknowledged that it may have been wrong."
Now reassured, I realize that Big Brother does love me after all, and I was wrong and selfish to doubt Him. Why does Glenn give Him such a hard time?
A bit of a sidebar, the privacy isssues remain with these tech companies. Back in August of 2020 I deleted my Facebook account; yes, it can be done. However, in January of this year, I decided to see if the deletion stuck, so to speak. I tried to sign in using my previous information (email and password). This didn't work. However, FB invited me to try my phone number and password, which I did, though I had to reset my password. Voila! I got on Facebook -- and into someone else's account. My current phone number was once this person's phone number, but was still associated with his account. Since then I have been trying to make FB aware of this, including writing to FB at an email address given to me by the NY Office of the Attorney General, which I also made aware of this security breach. As it turns out, recycled mobile numbers are a very serious problem when it comes to online security. While tech companies are aware of this, it's something they appear to be willing to live with. (Caveat emptor.) As of this point, I have not received any response, and I still have control of this unsuspecting individual's FB account -- which I am leaving alone.
According to the FBI, lying on social media is now a crime. Thus the 13 or so Russian agents (FB posters) indicted. Which is very bad news to millions on match.com who are posting 10 year old pictures and understating their weight by 30 lbs.
But seriously - this is just one of many ways companies on the internet are exposed to all sorts of leaks and break-ins. And it's also easy for them to turn any of their mess up into some "sophisticated hacker attack".
Sad to witness US giant techs / leftist medias behaving like Communist China (CCP). These giant techs/leftist medias are no longer respectable companies. They are just shameless propaganda machines treating American as idiot. United States will have no future if Amercian let CCP BARBARIAN PROPAGANDA / CANCEL CULTURE invading USA !!
Thank you, Glenn. No, make that I love you, Glenn. You are a brave, wonderful fighter for everything that defines freedom. May you and your family and dogs have the most wonderful Sunday.
I am glad Glen was allowed to speak, and it's good to see him on Tucker's show. We need to keep up the good fight for our freedoms.
A close blogger friend of mine fore year's has advocated the dangers of corporatism and how it should be closely watched. I am learning that he was and is correct.
A presidential candidate of either party could go a long way on just this one issue. Too many people on the unreliable internet, don't like the tech giants using their data for their profit, and don't like google and facebook getting into political speech limitations.
Thank you for your investigative reporting, hard work and your insight, shedding light on the mirror of darkness that social media is becoming. It may not just be "censorship by billionaires" who control these platforms, or their advisory committees (seemingly similar to soviet committees of the past), but the nature of social media itself.... we are so concerned with what other people think, their reactions on social media, that we do not think for ourself, we think and say what we think other people want, we become group think, living a matrix illusion. Independant journalism, and literary thought is more needed now than ever
I feel so hopeless so much of the time. But then I get something from you or something from Matt Taibbi and I think all is not lost because there are still people willing to speak truth to power. We used to be the side that fought against censorship but the power on the left consolidated so fast and so few people were willing to challenge any of it. I still can't believe what I saw go down last year. Whenever I hear you speak or see your tweets or read your stories here I always think, FUCK YEAH Glenn Greenwald. You are not afraid to fire up the blow torch and go right for the most powerful.
My grandmother, a classic liberal, would be rolling in her grave if she saw what has happened over the past decade.
Same, but I see every one on all sides using F word in just this way so it is useless now for emphasis. Otherwise, great post.
I'd go further. The absence of the F word altogether will brighten all written conversations. Just use !!!! instead.
I actually love the F word. I find it to be a great word. But in this instance, and I can't change it now because there is no edit function, there is a long time internet phrase that is basically F*ckYeahMartinScorsese - that kind of thing. I've only really seen it in ref to film directors but I've always loved it and I wanted to apply it to Glenn Greenwald whom I see richly deserving of the honor. I would not have used it if it wasn't part of that familiar phrase.
I don't think the word itself is the problem. It's where it's used. Impossible to imagine "The Big Lebowski" or the original "The Office" without it.
"He peed on my f*cking rug." (I am now nervous to use the word here on substack)
Please don't do that.
Asterisks are SO fucking offensive. ;-)
Fuck these cry babies. The fight is out there. Not in here.
And the room became untied!
Don’t be nervous with or without, still awesome.
Not to mention Team America: World Police
Never Forget: Freedom costs $1.05
Thank you for this. Brought a morning smile.
Literature and the movies, maybe. Ordinary correspondence including these sorts of comments, lack of f****** imagination.
With or without, still awesome.
DH Lawrence.
It is interesting that fuck and motherfucker and cocksucker and shit etc. are all in Webster’s Ninth!
Years ago when Howard Stern was on terrestrial radio and was complaining about not being able to say any “bad” words, I faxed him all the best ones from Webster’s Ninth and he loved it! Ha!
Okay.
!!!!
Nah. It's just not the same.
Keep trying. It'll grow on you.
It's a mainstream word, no different from "hell" or any other other exclamation. Let's not try to censor one of our own. That sort of defeats the purpose of a forum dedicated to free speech.
Making a gentle suggestion is not censorship, in any way, shape or form.
I would put forth this gentle suggestion, it's more useful to focus on the content of a post than to veer off topic by offering unsolicited critiques of a particular author's choice of words.
Hell, yes. And I put forth this threatening suggestion: Either respond to the SUBSTANCE of a post, or SHUT THE FUCK UP. Trump detractors (especially the fucking media) NEVER opposed Trump on substantive grounds. It was ALWAYS either putting their own words in his mouth, or some variation of orange man bad.
Let me spell out my threat for the snowflakes, whose bones are broken by mere words, who read my threat:
I can't possibly read all your bullshit, but when I do, I will be in your "face," breaking every little "bone" in your "body" with the vicious action of my written and spoken WORDS, you little.......
Vulgar language itself recoils as Mr. Timothy is out to wield and enhance it.
Yep!
That's right, Jim. I honestly don't care but I think it just makes any conversations less rich. To me it's like "awesome" or "you are a rockstar."
Ah, see Sasha I’m guilty too! Damn, I mean darn.
Thank you!
Which woke-r decided it was mainstream. It shows a lack of imagination.
Ain't that just like a librarian?
(I mean, "Isn't." Please don't glare at me!)
"ain't" is a non-vulgar, proper word in the English language. Go ahead and look it up. Now, maybe if I were a librarian I would glare at you for casting aspersions on my profession, but not for your language.
No, I don't care that you use the word, I just mean it is so over used, it no longer means anything. I teach college students. If you let them out of class early, they say it. It's just not the edgy emphatic encouragement people think it is. Tho I often hear it in anger as well. (Well, and yes, Catholic school). So, I have no clarity on the meaning of expression? Is it an explicative? Is it a cheer? If you'd like some synonyms we have them in the library.
I know. I was just being a cheeky basta... a smart-aleck. I, too, oppose the coursening of our discoarse. Gratuitously, I mean.
The classic Jack Wagner audio bit spells it out.
Just for clarity, are you saying that in the past you were ok with the fuck-word when used for emphasis, but now, with everyone using it, it's lost its punch and should be retired? If so, I disagree. I think it's probably over-used, and I'm certainly guilty of too much reliance on it in certain circumstances. But it's such a great word and a unique one at that. It can mean anything, it can mean nothing. There aren't too many words in the English language like that. To each their own, but I'm hoping that little four-letter gem is with us for a long time to come.
Fair enough!
The true poetry was inspired by WWII ....a time deserving of such masterpieces as FUBAR (Fu*cked Beyond All Recognition) and the immortal SNAFU (Situation Normal All Fu*cked Up). I prefer Screw 'em in day to day but our times went into FUBAR abut 20 years ago.
Fuck em and feed em fish heads!
...so many to choose and not enough fish heads in Alaska or Maine....Japan?
My bumper sticker says "FUKYALL".
People can take that anyway they want.
Actually, FUCK, which is actually a word to denote the act of inserting a penis into a body cavity and thrusting it in and out, was used to shock until it became a wholesale epitaph. It no longer has the value it once did and is basically meaningless in modern conversation, but then modern conversation is meaningless anyhow.
It doesn’t mean the above when you slam a hammer on your finger!
As a euphemism maybe?
But it sounds good because it ends with a hard CK. That is why people use it I think. There is no word to replace it.
ZUCK short for Zuckerberg!
Your explanation of the word is an example how to use it to achieve the original effect nowadays. A bit mouthful though.
A mouthful. Really? You just had to go there.
Just barely. There are experts on the forum that can expand in that direction dramatically.
Not me... I may seem that way, but I'm just wearing a turtle neck sweater.
Honest.
I believe you. Didn't mean it at all. They know who they are.
Not really. Some people fuck wit out benefit of a penis. Go figure dickhead
It's all good. He has qualified immunity.
what we need: another 20 G.Greenwalds and maybe 20 more Taibbis. truth to power.!!
Unfortunately, it's all talk. There will be no action because congressional leaders and the tech oligarchs will not allow it. Things will only change when the people force it to change.
A positive I took from this article is that -- surprise! -- someone in Congress actually respects Glenn's opinion on this issue. That is not insignificant. Let us all hope that Glenn's expertise and experience is called upon even more frequently.
One of the few things I'm thankful for in these strange times is the reporting by Glenn Greenwald. One of the very few left with any credibility.
I am grateful for him as well. Few speak truth like he does.
Indeed
Isn't it great how someone who adheres to simple journalism -- just the facts and not opinions -- can lead us to better things!
Surely the most valued journalist today as far as I'm concerned. Worth every penny spent.
He’s almost all I can stand to read at this point.
Here's hoping you penetrated some of their thick skulls Sir!
Threats like this call for more troops to Keep our Democracy Safe.
And if so they are rushing to make them even thicker.
I disagree that it is unsustainable. It is eminently sustainable when those in power are free to lie. Look at Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI. Revolution cannot by definition be institutionalized, yet it was simply by lying about what constituted revolution. So, too, can a one-party state - what Mexico was under PRI - be sustained. When it goes beyond two generations it is sustained. Mexico was such for four generations. North Korea is in its third generation. The USSR sustained single-party/thought control rule for 70 years.
We came close not long ago. Democrats became the Majority Party in the House of Representatives when I was six. That did not change until I turned 46. I see a permanent partisan majority being ensured today. Yes, a majority of Americans support the COVID Relief Bill because the only thing they've been allowed to know about it is that everyone gets $1,400 for free. No one is permitted to hear that it institutionalizes racism and creates a permanent ruling class. So, too, with HR1, which mandates practices that allow for fraud in elections. Everyone will hear the idealistic statements about the Right to Vote, no one will be allowed to hear the statements about what responsibilities that right entails, nor how the bill ensures permanent partisan advantage.
Sir, it is indeed sustainable, at least beyond the lifetimes of your readers and their children.
Thanks for representing us, Glenn, so eloquently.
Good points. However, I've come to expect that even the most well intended legislation emanating from Congress will, at best, address a problem in such a manner that it sets up a new and even worse problem. The legislative process, at best, is so slow that nimble capitalists can instantly contrive ways around almost any attempt to rein them in. That's why I think we have to go very big as a democracy to shut off any possible avenue of avoidance. My solution: Ban all online tracking and anything other than display ads (no pop-ups, videos, audio, etc.) online and repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act while siphoning at least 90% of the remaining online ad revenue to a common pot for offline news organizations to tap into based on their number of readers or viewers. This, of course, would be very disruptive of the giants' revenue models. But as these clowns have preached to everyone else, disruption is good! So let's disrupt them.
I don’t see how repealing 230 helps this situation. It might further entrench the tech monopolies. They already have $Billions and armies of lawyers. It’s the little startups that will get crushed under the weight of litigation.
You may have a point there. But I still think otherwise. It's the giants that can't possibly edit every single piece of the billions of pieces of content they carry since their readers are their product. In other words, they have billions of potentially loose cannons. The social media business model would be destroyed with repeal of Section 230. Meanwhile, smaller entities like blogs that generate mostly their own content would have little problem with an easily managed, tiny number of contributors or perhaps only one. Reader comments, however, would have to be monitored.
This is the predictable endgame. Killing all comments.
And articles without comments are worthless.
I think what many of us want to avoid is the tech companies censoring content, not avoid the tech companies being pass through non-publishers.
Repeal of 230 doesn't achieve the goal of avoiding tech companies censoring content. One has to amend the section that gives them broad good Samaritan rights to delete content considered "offensive" by their arbitrary definition.
Keep 230 and (c)(1). Modify (c)(2)(A), possibly simply by removing "or otherwise objectionable"
TEXT OF LAW
(c)Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material
(1)Treatment of publisher or speaker
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
(2)Civil liability
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
(A)any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
As an aside, the thing Apple, Google, and Amazon Web Services did to Parler was very specifically treating them "as the publisher or speaker of... information provided by another information content provider", in that they held Parler accountable for the posts of its users. I think it's an oversight for Parler not to have sued them on this specific basis, probably because without specific clarification many infer that "shall be treated" means by the government. But that's not in the text.
Agreed. The "Federalist"(?) got into some hot water due to some of the comments on their threads, so they killed the comment section. "The Hill", on the other hand, has a comment section so uncontrolled that some of the more "progressive" commenters will claim that if you are slightly to the right of Stalin you are the spawn of Satan....in very colorful language and zero pushback from a moderator.
Guess the moderation is just dependent on the color of your jersey
I do wish people would stop the default assumption of "good intentions". First, it's mostly not true - the intention of government is always to accrue more power to the detriment of individuals. Second, we would be a healthier representative democracy if voters were more skeptical about the motives of their elected leaders and would stop canonizing elected leaders (and entertainers for that matter) as if they had some unique access to wisdom: because they don't (and I'd argue the opposite is true).
I say we make users pay for their services and just ban ads. We could pay $.50 per month for Facebook and they would make the same amount of money they do now... same with Google - charge me for the services don’t steal my private information and sell disinformation campaigns.
Another good idea. Also, the way things are set up, Facebook and other social media have every incentive to spread inflammatory content, which runs counter to their occasional ham-handed efforts at censorship. If we take away that incentive, with subscription fees in place of click-bait ads, we'll do a lot to tame this destructive business model.
Yes, that was what I was trying to say though I didn’t type it specifically. It also has the additional added benefit of keeping some younger kids off of social media, and making it cost more for a troll farm to start spreading crap. I read a good article a couple years ago about how much the those two companies would have to charge to make the same money they do from fees, and the low cost was staggering. I think that has ballooned in recent years though. I think this year the facebook revenue per year per person is more like $25 on FB. Still though, $2 a month is nothing and if they charged as much as “dangerous” glen greenwalds sub stack it would be double that per year per user.
You are assuming that at $2/month they would keep the same number of users which is a mistake.
I’m actually not, I just don’t think that is a problem.
The comment section on here is so much better than Facebook because we all pay to be here. The quality would go up immensely if only people who valued the service were using it. I might even start a Facebook for the first time in my life if they charged money for it since the quality would increase so much. Profits also aren’t linear - less users at a higher price make more money, that’s how luxury goods exist.
I also don’t think less users is a bad thing, I see it as a good thing. As the tobacco industry shrinks I don’t shed a tear and I wouldn’t for social media either. So far, it’s been a toxic industry.
Substack has a lot less revenue than FB. There is no way FB can maintain the bottom line by becoming exclusive. Anyway, nobody wants to build luxury on top of toxic waste.
Very true. The beautiful part here is that when they start banning people en mass, down goes the revenue in proportion. Try explaining that to your stock holders.
While I obviously think the tech companies are abusing their power and need to be out in check, i have two points to make. 1. The people in power ain’t going to do any of that especially when they are themselves enjoying the benefits. 2. Repealing section 230 will make the problem worse as that’s exactly what tech companies want- big tech companies will just censor more using AI. Smaller new competition won’t be able to afford AI and thus be unable to compete.
What actually needs to be done is the allow section 230 only to those who don’t editorialize their content, submit to a yearly independent body audit and don’t have over 1 million daily active users.
That depends. Facebook and other social media edit -- badly -- their content. When they do that, they clearly leave the category of platform and enter the realm of publisher and should be subject to the same laws governing defamation as any other publisher. With Section 230 in place, social media have an unfair advantage.
As I understand it, however, Substack is different. It's merely a platform or a mechanism by which authors can publish and take full, individual responsibility for their content. As things stand -- at least theoretically -- if a Substack author defames me and there's provable material damage, I can sue that author, but not Substack. That said, you may well have a point if Substack edges into the practice of content moderation/censorship/cancellation. That would be unfortunate.
Thanks. That's certainly a different take on Section 230 than the ones I've encountered but sounds legit, especially given the title of the act containing it. I'll take a further look.
The problem that remains, however, is the fact that social media are not just eliminating or failing to eliminate obscene content. They are removing content that bears no resemblance to obscenity and clearly doing so for other reasons, such as the infamous squelching of the NY Post's Twitter account ahead of the election when the Post explored Hunter Biden's laptop contents and dealings with China. If providing a shield for the obscenity-removal function was the intent of Section 230, allowing social media to still claim the status of "platform," haven't these outfits since abandoned that status through censorship aimed at what they deem to be misinformation or politically fraught, thus revealing themselves as publishers that no longer deserve Section 230?
As for Substack, you may well be right. But could it be argued that the writers there are also the publishers and Substack is a distributor? And a distributor would be like, for instance, the owner of a newsstand selling newspapers, right? Would that owner bear legal responsibility for the content of one of the papers he sells? That seems a stretch to me.
Regardless, I believe there's room in all of this to formulate reasonable legislation that protects everyone's rights without squashing people's voices. How likely that outcome may be is entirely another matter.
I'm sure the legal rulings are there, but it may be a case of courts going beyond the intent of Congress, however malign or foolish that intent may have been. I'd argue that it's time to take another look at Section 230. The questionable mid-1990s goal of allowing the internet to flourish hardly seems justified if the result is routine distortion and blockage of key news and information avenues to suit the political whims of a handful of billionaires exercising control through proprietary and impenetrable algorithms and other methods while putting more accountable news sources out of business.
I don't understand why we can't force a 2 track system - if you want to use 230 then you have to provide a button that disables ALL filtering - users choice. It should have the same nomenclature across all platforms so that it would be instantly recognizable. Say something like 'Freakin' Ram It To Me Without A Condom!' or something like that.
As I have mentioned before I was a registered democrat, but I didn't like pro-war Clinton so I didn't vote. From the beginning I never believed in Russia-gate. As soon as the DNC e-mails were hacked Clinton's campaign manager, Mooky, claimed the Russian's did it. I thought how does he know, and here we go again blaming the Russians. You can always get Americans to believe in their evil intent, since most of us from cradle to grave have been indoctrinated to believe they are innately evil and capable of anything, while America is all good. From the beginning the democrats assisted by the CIA and FBI tried to oust Trump from office using lies to do it. In other words through their many lies I came to see them as very autocratic, tyrannical. The mainstream media, or corporate media, was in total complicity with their lies, as were many online media sites who identify themselves as liberal. They took up the democrat's cause, identified Trump as a fascist at every opportunity, which included his base. This mentality only reinforced and gave credence to the decisions made by silicone valley and their censorship. Fascism must be stopped at all costs, which also justified it to a non- questioning American audience. Good they ousted the fascist from his twitter account, even though he was an elected president of the US, he's a fascist. It made it easy to accept without question he invoked the overthrow of the US government with no investigation, and he must be impeached so he never can return. I can only expect more of their autocratic rule which they hide behind a so called liberal agenda. Biden can still read off a teleprompter, a speech written by someone else, and praise rings out for him from one news outlet after another. Yuck.
Fran, may your legions of thinking Democrats grow ...
May legions of informed thinking people grow. Period.
I hope so too, but I kind of doubt it. Thanks!
Biden can read off the teleprompter when he's on stimulants. My opinion.
It's difficult to understand how they get away not acknowledging he has a cognitive impairment which seems in the last half year or so gotten worse. I have watched online video clips of him and the difference is so blatantly apparent. It must be to others, even those that voted for him, but I guess anything is better then that "fascist" Trump.
I was under the impression the main reason the "Democrat's" wanted to have anti-trust hearings regarding tech monopolies, was because they view this as a means to the end of maintaining a vice grip on power for a generation or more.
So there is no surprise the "anti-trust" committee is really about issuing "anti-trust exceptions" to the largest media companies like NYT.
What is very surprising is that they invited Glenn to this hearing. Great job Glenn!! Why do you think they invited you?
I was about to observe yet again that the United States is an empire in decline that will eventually collapse under the weight of the carefully cultivated stupidity of its citizens and that Glenn's noble argument, while quite correct, is futile, until I read that Jack Dorsey had "apologized" for brutally suppressing the New York Post's stories on Hunter Biden and the Biden family's corruption and "acknowledged that it may have been wrong."
Now reassured, I realize that Big Brother does love me after all, and I was wrong and selfish to doubt Him. Why does Glenn give Him such a hard time?
A bit of a sidebar, the privacy isssues remain with these tech companies. Back in August of 2020 I deleted my Facebook account; yes, it can be done. However, in January of this year, I decided to see if the deletion stuck, so to speak. I tried to sign in using my previous information (email and password). This didn't work. However, FB invited me to try my phone number and password, which I did, though I had to reset my password. Voila! I got on Facebook -- and into someone else's account. My current phone number was once this person's phone number, but was still associated with his account. Since then I have been trying to make FB aware of this, including writing to FB at an email address given to me by the NY Office of the Attorney General, which I also made aware of this security breach. As it turns out, recycled mobile numbers are a very serious problem when it comes to online security. While tech companies are aware of this, it's something they appear to be willing to live with. (Caveat emptor.) As of this point, I have not received any response, and I still have control of this unsuspecting individual's FB account -- which I am leaving alone.
Come on, fess up - you're a Russian hacker having performed a sophisticated attack on FB.
He probably forced the poor bastard at virtual gunpoint to vote for Trump.
Exactly. And now coming up with the phone story. Straight from the GRU, KGB, FSB, and Putin's personal combined handbook.
According to the FBI, lying on social media is now a crime. Thus the 13 or so Russian agents (FB posters) indicted. Which is very bad news to millions on match.com who are posting 10 year old pictures and understating their weight by 30 lbs.
Sadly, nothing quite so dramatic.
https://venturebeat.com/2019/02/07/facebook-logged-a-user-into-someone-elses-account-with-a-recycled-phone-number/#:~:text=Each%20year%2C%20telecom%20providers%20%E2%80%9Crecycle%E2%80%9D%20millions%20of%20phone%20numbers.&text=But%2C%20as%20more%20websites%20ask,as%20one%20Facebook%20user%20found.
Yet another excuse...
But seriously - this is just one of many ways companies on the internet are exposed to all sorts of leaks and break-ins. And it's also easy for them to turn any of their mess up into some "sophisticated hacker attack".
If only every American had a unique identifier assigned near birth.....
We really should use our ssn’s openly as all our significant id’s - d license etc.
The only reason stealing ssn’s has an impact is because they are kept private. Elseways it would be easy peasy to tell double usage.
Sad to witness US giant techs / leftist medias behaving like Communist China (CCP). These giant techs/leftist medias are no longer respectable companies. They are just shameless propaganda machines treating American as idiot. United States will have no future if Amercian let CCP BARBARIAN PROPAGANDA / CANCEL CULTURE invading USA !!
Preach it, brother. Borat ain't got nothin' on you!
Thank you, Glenn. No, make that I love you, Glenn. You are a brave, wonderful fighter for everything that defines freedom. May you and your family and dogs have the most wonderful Sunday.
I am glad Glen was allowed to speak, and it's good to see him on Tucker's show. We need to keep up the good fight for our freedoms.
A close blogger friend of mine fore year's has advocated the dangers of corporatism and how it should be closely watched. I am learning that he was and is correct.
Another rewrite to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act is in order.
The present law is fine. It's just not enforced. Isn't Amazon's biggest business managing data centers and bandwidth for government?
From what I know that is correct. It means we will not see any meaningful reform. The fox is guarding the chicken house.
A presidential candidate of either party could go a long way on just this one issue. Too many people on the unreliable internet, don't like the tech giants using their data for their profit, and don't like google and facebook getting into political speech limitations.
I like that solution.
Thank you for your investigative reporting, hard work and your insight, shedding light on the mirror of darkness that social media is becoming. It may not just be "censorship by billionaires" who control these platforms, or their advisory committees (seemingly similar to soviet committees of the past), but the nature of social media itself.... we are so concerned with what other people think, their reactions on social media, that we do not think for ourself, we think and say what we think other people want, we become group think, living a matrix illusion. Independant journalism, and literary thought is more needed now than ever
Corporate media seems to fear a free press.
So does today's press.