One point I didn't go into in the post is that if the administration and the people running the social media are ideological allies, no threats are needed. I was reminded of an old poem by Humbert Wolfe:
The true answer is of course to get the government out of almost everything it sticks its nose into today.
But absent some miracle, mandate that any actions taken by the government against any person or organization must include all communications between the two in the prior 5 years. "Mandate" is working some magic there, but at the very least, it would have to be included in all the evidence the jury sees, and if it's a bench trial, should also include forcing the judge to address all such communications with something more credible than a hand wave.
“The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition. Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; opposition to President Biden’s policies; statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; and opposition to policies of the government officials in power. All were suppressed.”
Noticeably missing from this list is the current toxicity over climate; through the leverage of funding, lawfare, and a friendly (but clueless) media, scientists who question the government’s drive to convince us all that climate catastrophe is just around the corner are shunned, silenced, or, at the worst, suspended. The Murthy v. Missouri case is specifically about speech, but indirectly touches on the power of the “bully pulpit” of the White House and its minions. Those who treasure the climate change scam should be reminded daily about the privilege that the First Amendment protects.
Many people argue that the Bill of Rights “grants” certain rights. It does not. Robert Jackson argued that “the very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” Logically, then, the outcome of an election should not grant the winner the right to suppress those privileges.
I don't know if there was any government attempt to suppress climate skepticism on social media, which is the issue for this case.
Given that the government funds a lot of research it's hard to see how you can avoid selective funding of research that they think is going in the right direction. That's one of the disadvantages of government funding. University departments will naturally prefer to hire people whose research can get funded, which means people who agree with the kind of research the government wants to fund. I saw something a while back by Judith Curry saying that she was no longer taking graduate students because if they told the truth they wouldn't get hired (not how she put it but how I remember her point).
thank you. "Climate The Movie: The Cold Truth" was produced by Clintel, Martin Durkin and Ted Nelson. In that movie, several scientists share their opinions on the veiled censorship that's going on in the climate industry. You can view the movie here, and I would recommend all watch it.
...Fauci is entitled to claim that the lab leak theory is ruled out by the relevant science...
I have to disagree with the entire paragraph this line was taken from. Fauci, and other administration officials are in positions of trust. Lying by my brother is simply lying. Lying by someone in a position of power and trust is fraud. Claiming the Hunter laptop is Russian disinformation was fraudulent.
The President has already much reason to fear Facebook. But only if the President is a Republican.
As for publicity, I think most of the materials - except ones where the government can claim law enforcement or national security privileges - should be disclosable under FOIA? Organizations like Judicial Watch fight valiantly to obtain such documents, but usually it takes many years to sort through the layers of bureaucracy and the court system and by the time the materials are available the public already forgot what it all was about. Which I guess is kinda the point of the whole exercise.
“ I propose that any communication between any government actor in a position to make threats — the local post office worker doesn’t qualify — and any employee of a social media firm in a position to affects its policy should be public information, available in a searchable database online.”
Thanks for the link. I read the piece and put a comment on it. It's an interesting post but most of the comments amounted to "my side good, the other side bad," with no substance. It made me appreciate the commenting community here and the much larger one on Scott's substack.
I don't think the laptop case was as clear as you do. The suppression of information was while Trump was president but government doesn't consist of just the president; Trump did not succeed in replacing government officials, below the highest level, with people loyal to him.
On the other hand, a lot of the pressure for suppressing the laptop story probably came from Biden supporters not in government at the time.
It's a pity we don't have Posner's comment on the case, given his role in the earlier case discussed in the techdirt piece.
The example of the laptop is a good one to show exactly how this works in reality, that the party formally in power in some ways has less real power than the party formally out of power, if the latter is supported by the unelected bureaucracy, and the former is not.
Unfortunately Becker is dead and I gather Posner is in pretty bad shape. I had my reservations about him — if I had been happy with his law and econ text I wouldn't have had to write my own. But he was very smart, knew a lot, and had a lot of intellectual energy.
Anti-trust is nonsense; the only real monopolies are those granted by government (copyrights, patents, AT&T-style) and government itself. There should be NO anti-trust council or any other such government activity.
I'll share an off-topic conspiracy theory by a friend who was absolute genius at coking up ones just good enough that you couldn't dismiss them out of hand, like space aliens building the Egyptian pyramids.
Remember that video Bill Gates introduced? He swore up and down it was a single take, no editing. Then someone pointed out clocks changing time, icons moving around, appearing and disappearing, and other obvious signs of editing.
It was also as the Y2K scare was ramping up.
So his conspiracy theory that Bill Gates was intentionally trying to piss off the judge and lose the case, with a verdict breaking the company up. Then when Y2K hit, and Microsoft software fell to pieces, he could point to the government-ordered breakup as being responsible.
I never once could tell if he believed any of his theories. He was really good at offering them without sarcasm or belief. He liked it best when you'd say "Now wait a minute ..." and never be able to say much more.
One point I didn't go into in the post is that if the administration and the people running the social media are ideological allies, no threats are needed. I was reminded of an old poem by Humbert Wolfe:
You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.
But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to.
The true answer is of course to get the government out of almost everything it sticks its nose into today.
But absent some miracle, mandate that any actions taken by the government against any person or organization must include all communications between the two in the prior 5 years. "Mandate" is working some magic there, but at the very least, it would have to be included in all the evidence the jury sees, and if it's a bench trial, should also include forcing the judge to address all such communications with something more credible than a hand wave.
But that still would be easy to get around.
“The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition. Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; opposition to President Biden’s policies; statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; and opposition to policies of the government officials in power. All were suppressed.”
Noticeably missing from this list is the current toxicity over climate; through the leverage of funding, lawfare, and a friendly (but clueless) media, scientists who question the government’s drive to convince us all that climate catastrophe is just around the corner are shunned, silenced, or, at the worst, suspended. The Murthy v. Missouri case is specifically about speech, but indirectly touches on the power of the “bully pulpit” of the White House and its minions. Those who treasure the climate change scam should be reminded daily about the privilege that the First Amendment protects.
Many people argue that the Bill of Rights “grants” certain rights. It does not. Robert Jackson argued that “the very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” Logically, then, the outcome of an election should not grant the winner the right to suppress those privileges.
I don't know if there was any government attempt to suppress climate skepticism on social media, which is the issue for this case.
Given that the government funds a lot of research it's hard to see how you can avoid selective funding of research that they think is going in the right direction. That's one of the disadvantages of government funding. University departments will naturally prefer to hire people whose research can get funded, which means people who agree with the kind of research the government wants to fund. I saw something a while back by Judith Curry saying that she was no longer taking graduate students because if they told the truth they wouldn't get hired (not how she put it but how I remember her point).
thank you. "Climate The Movie: The Cold Truth" was produced by Clintel, Martin Durkin and Ted Nelson. In that movie, several scientists share their opinions on the veiled censorship that's going on in the climate industry. You can view the movie here, and I would recommend all watch it.
https://eds6.mailcamp.nl/url.php?subid=3vyz2nlq6g5ysm4&nstatid=9gj40j711y&info=n9w3d0v&L=17131&F=H
Second amendment?
Oops. Fixed it. First in the text, then in the subtitle, and just now in the subtitle to the FB version.
The second is the amendment people are always talking about. Clear evidence that I'm really a bot.
I kept waiting for the analogy to the Second Amendment!
...Fauci is entitled to claim that the lab leak theory is ruled out by the relevant science...
I have to disagree with the entire paragraph this line was taken from. Fauci, and other administration officials are in positions of trust. Lying by my brother is simply lying. Lying by someone in a position of power and trust is fraud. Claiming the Hunter laptop is Russian disinformation was fraudulent.
The President has already much reason to fear Facebook. But only if the President is a Republican.
As for publicity, I think most of the materials - except ones where the government can claim law enforcement or national security privileges - should be disclosable under FOIA? Organizations like Judicial Watch fight valiantly to obtain such documents, but usually it takes many years to sort through the layers of bureaucracy and the court system and by the time the materials are available the public already forgot what it all was about. Which I guess is kinda the point of the whole exercise.
I am proposing that one category of documents should be freely available without the need for such efforts.
“ I propose that any communication between any government actor in a position to make threats — the local post office worker doesn’t qualify — and any employee of a social media firm in a position to affects its policy should be public information, available in a searchable database online.”
Great minds think alike: https://www.cato.org/briefing-paper/shining-light-censorship-how-transparency-can-curtail-government-social-media
I'll just share this https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/06/the-good-the-bad-and-the-incredibly-ugly-in-the-court-ruling-regarding-government-contacts-with-social-media/ so people may, if they want, get a view on how shoddy Judge Doughty's ruling was.
Particularly about the "laptop" -- did the Biden administration go back in time to suppress it, before the administration even existed :)
Thanks for the link. I read the piece and put a comment on it. It's an interesting post but most of the comments amounted to "my side good, the other side bad," with no substance. It made me appreciate the commenting community here and the much larger one on Scott's substack.
I don't think the laptop case was as clear as you do. The suppression of information was while Trump was president but government doesn't consist of just the president; Trump did not succeed in replacing government officials, below the highest level, with people loyal to him.
On the other hand, a lot of the pressure for suppressing the laptop story probably came from Biden supporters not in government at the time.
It's a pity we don't have Posner's comment on the case, given his role in the earlier case discussed in the techdirt piece.
This is the deep state that the New York Times (arguably among the most friendly media outlets to the party now in power) recently declared to be "awesome:" https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000009356253/trump-deep-state.html
a mere few years after declaring the same deep state "doesn't exist" when the other party had formal power and was said to be fighting that non-existent deep state: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/world/americas/what-happens-when-you-fight-a-deep-state-that-doesnt-exist.html
The example of the laptop is a good one to show exactly how this works in reality, that the party formally in power in some ways has less real power than the party formally out of power, if the latter is supported by the unelected bureaucracy, and the former is not.
Agree on Posner being sorely missed. Would like to think he'd take a dim view of Doughty's judgement (just on grounds of logical reasoning).
And what a treasure the old Becker-Posner blog was. It is easy to take for granted the steady supply of public intellectuals of such caliber.
Unfortunately Becker is dead and I gather Posner is in pretty bad shape. I had my reservations about him — if I had been happy with his law and econ text I wouldn't have had to write my own. But he was very smart, knew a lot, and had a lot of intellectual energy.
We can put anti trust as far from politicians as the ECB council or the US Supreme Court.
Or even more!
For example, we can make an Anti Trust council chosen by lot from a list experts; they sit in council for 15 years.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PyqPr4z76Z8xGZL22/sortition
I think anti-trust as currently defined; big enough to dominate and doesn’t donate to the party in power, should be abolished.
Anti-trust is nonsense; the only real monopolies are those granted by government (copyrights, patents, AT&T-style) and government itself. There should be NO anti-trust council or any other such government activity.
The problem isn't even the politicians so much as the administrative state.
The Microsoft anti-trust suite was a Clinton administration shakedown.
I'll share an off-topic conspiracy theory by a friend who was absolute genius at coking up ones just good enough that you couldn't dismiss them out of hand, like space aliens building the Egyptian pyramids.
Remember that video Bill Gates introduced? He swore up and down it was a single take, no editing. Then someone pointed out clocks changing time, icons moving around, appearing and disappearing, and other obvious signs of editing.
It was also as the Y2K scare was ramping up.
So his conspiracy theory that Bill Gates was intentionally trying to piss off the judge and lose the case, with a verdict breaking the company up. Then when Y2K hit, and Microsoft software fell to pieces, he could point to the government-ordered breakup as being responsible.
I never once could tell if he believed any of his theories. He was really good at offering them without sarcasm or belief. He liked it best when you'd say "Now wait a minute ..." and never be able to say much more.
Microsoft software weathered Y2K without a bobble.
Giraffes smell yellow when the wheat is taffy.