Posted on 06/12/2019 10:10:19 PM PDT by Kaslin
This has needed saying for a long time. Listen libertarians: the tech lords are going to be advancing communism by cutting off your platform while you are still claiming that the free market will free us from them.
The Anti-Trust stuff should have happened long ago against these companies... but Barry knew they were his meal ticket so no one was going to touch them during his years.
You really seem to have no understanding of social media and the way it’s being used to enslave you.
The one out to lunch on this issue is you and all the Bill Kristols of the GOP, holding their skirts up out of the mud and casting aspersions on Americans who realize there’s no winning this fight without getting dirty.
"These social media corporations are our enemies and hate everything we stand for ... so let's have the government force them to let us join them!"
This doesn't make any sense at all. In fact, it sounds like absolute lunacy.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. You'll have to cite some specific examples here.
That's exactly right. It's astonishing how many conservatives don't see the idiocy of what they're proposing here.
I have no idea what the hell you're talking about -- or even WHO you're talking about.
I've never voted for a Libertarian candidate in any election in my life -- except perhaps for a local race where candidates may be listed on multiple party lines on the ballot.
Enslave me? How does that work? I don't even have a Twitter account. I have SIX Facebook accounts. Three of them don't list my correct gender, none of them lists a date of birth within five years of my actual birthday, and the closest "home" I list for them is 120 miles from where I live.
I hardly use them at all. They're mainly used to sign in to websites that require a social media user ID in order to post a comment.
Like I said earlier on this thread ...
If you really believe that "fighting back" involves shutting down Google and Facebook and sending their management to Gitmo, then I'll gladly listen to you make a case. I might even be inclined to agree with you. But if "fighting back" involves telling me the U.S. government should have control of social media platforms -- including Free Republic, for example -- then you're out of your mind. That's not even fighting at all. That's surrendering.
FB and the rest rely on not being considered “publishers”. They want to not be held responsible for what is said on their platforms. If they are exercising ideological control over what is said, then they ARE publishers and become liable.
It’s simple. The private property rights of a corporation or business do not trump the civil and constitutional rights of a sovereign - the nation and its citizens. A business cannot use their private property rights to strip away the rights of a sovereign. It’s basic common law doctrine. The sovereign is supreme.
Private property comes with a bundle of rights. That includes the right to use, buy, sell, subdivide and develop. That bundle of rights does not include the right to nullify sovereign rights. The sovereign has the absolute power to defend itself from an attack on its rights.
You are right, of course, and anti-trust is not the correct approach to this issue at all. We should look instead to finding leaders with the courage to do what Trump did to CNN during the 2016 campaign. The network will never recover any credibility, and it is their own fault for blatantly taking sides against someone with the courage to fight back.
Anti-trust actions appeal to the "play nice" wing of the GOP, who thinks a government man with a gun can play the role of a neutral arbiter so they won't have to get their hands dirty in the political arena. To me it seems that the success of social media attacks on Trump are based less on the big tech companies' unanimity of thought than on the fact that the people who are supposed to be counterattacking - his own party - are too intimidated to do their jobs. The opposing arguments need to be loudly proclaimed by Republican Senators - instead, they are the first to run for cover whenever Trump says something the least bit controversial.
Facebook and Twitter should be scared to try to hide the Republican side of the story. Consider why they are not.
I agree with this.
My question is: What exactly are companies like Facebook and Google doing to "strip away the rights of a sovereign?"
Please note that what you're saying here directly contradicts Schlichter's original point about the appropriateness of using civil rights laws to nullify the rights of restaurant owners, etc. That was the point of my original post on this thread. Schlichter is arguing AGAINST the private property rights of those he cites in his defense of the regulatory reach of the government.
...alternative social media format that doesn’t engage in the kind of censorship...
_________
It has morphed beyond social media. Now, they pressure banks to deny access. Banks own credit cards. Without a credit card, much of the goods and services on the Internet are not available.
This is not just free speech or the 1st Amendment. It is denial of the ability to participate in society and is the prelude to a Social Credit system.
People can be denied access to travel under Social Credit systems.
They can be denied the ability to purchase what they want and can afford, such as food that is deemed *unhealthy*.
How long before they can be denied the right to vote? Denied the right to an education? Denied the right to work in their chosen profession? Denied the right to procreate? Denied medical services?
THAT is where this is headed and while I understand the *private property* argument and agree with it, this is far and away beyond *private property*. THIS is July, 1983 and 1984 is six months away.
There is no right as a private corporation to create Untermenschen.
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