Trump Jr. says he'd back a new conservative version of Facebook

Donald Trump Jr. said in a new interview that he would back a conservative version of Facebook.

“I’d love to do it. But what I prefer is, take one of the two Silicon Valley conservatives and let them start it,” Trump Jr. told Axios when asked if President Trump’s 2020 campaign might create such a platform. “And then I'd help promote the platform and be all over that.”

Trump Jr.’s comments come on the heels of a report from The New York Times that more than 100 Facebook employees are forming a group to challenge what the group’s founder, senior Facebook engineer Brian Amerige, terms the company’s “political monoculture.”

“We are a political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views. We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack — often in mobs — anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology,” Amerige wrote in a post on the firm’s internal message board that was quickly taken down.

President Trump accused social media of censoring non-leftist speech in a tweet earlier this week.

The president in comments on Tuesday warned Facebook and Twitter to "be careful."

“If you look at what is going on with Twitter and if you look at what’s going on in Facebook, they better be careful because you can’t do that to people,” Trump said at a White House event.

Alternative platforms exist to Facebook, which purport to allow all speech, regardless of content, such as Minds and Gab. However, their membership is minuscule compared to the social media giant.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg are set to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee on September 5 about the influence of social media platforms on U.S. politics.

We don’t need a Conservative echo chamber. We need a rightful place at the table of ALL ideas.

The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing.
- Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
You can, if you wish, think of FR as "a Conservative echo chamber.” But then, if you depart from it what you will miss is the pooling of our (individually inadequate) “incredulity.” And since it is inherently socialist propaganda, “objective journalism” needs a lot of incredulity.
"Conservative echo chamber” is LiberalSpeak for any venue which does not suppress anti-socialist ideas.
sophist 1542, earlier sophister (c.1380), from L. sophista, sophistes, from Gk. sophistes, from sophizesthai "to become wise or learned," from sophos "wise, clever," of unknown origin. Gk. sophistes came to mean "one who gives intellectual instruction for pay," and, contrasted with "philosopher," it became a term of contempt. Ancient sophists were famous for their clever, specious arguments. philosopher O.E. philosophe, from L. philosophus, from Gk. philosophos "philosopher," lit. "lover of wisdom," from philos "loving" + sophos "wise, a sage." "Pythagoras was the first who called himself philosophos, instead of sophos, 'wise man,' since this latter term was suggestive of immodesty." [Klein]
“Liberalism” is naiveté towards government, “justified” by cynicism towards society. But cynicism is not “extreme skepticism” so much as it is naiveté towards the opposite of whatever you are cynical about.

Be careful what you wish for. Facebook is not a public utility. The next demand will be for a “fair” Freerepublic. You don’t want a regulatory commission to decide what’s fair.

Facebook is a crony capitalist monopoly. In exchange for being allowed to operate as a monopoly, Facebook censors speech on their website according to the benefit of their Big Government partners.

FreeRepublic is not that. There is no comparison.

“In exchange for being allowed to operate as a monopoly,”

Wrong. Facebook is not a monopoly, and who is to be the arbiter of “crony capitalism?”

Government regulation of Facebook will lead to government regulation of Freerepublic. In fact, Freerepublic will get a little extra from the cronies in DC.

The Constitution allows for free competition, not fascism.

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