Posted on 06/06/2019 6:19:10 AM PDT by ptsal
The Republican Google engineer who penned an open letter about the company’s “outrage mobs” and “witch hunts” was fired on Friday, The Daily Caller has learned.
Last Wednesday, Mike Wacker was put on paid administrative leave and fired two days later. (RELATED: Republican Google Engineer Pens Open Letter About Company’s ‘Outrage Mobs’ And ‘Witch Hunts’)
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Really? I think it's because you can't come close to articulating a principle around free speech and private property that is even a little bit consistent with what you want.
That's fine, there's a place for special pleading but it's kind of ironic given your righteous rhetoric.
...it is my understanding that Google-Nazi solicited this commentary...
You think Google urged this guy to go on Fox Business and trash them? You might want to re-read the article.
I articulate it well enough, but you are seemingly unwilling to agree on the point that free speech is absolutely necessary to keep our system of governance and our liberties. You place "private property of *COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS*" above protecting the public's right to speak and be heard by whomever is willing.
That's fine, there's a place for special pleading but it's kind of ironic given your righteous rhetoric.
Here's my special pleading.
" I did understand however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government -- that nation -- of which that constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it."
Censoring public speech is a red line so far as i'm concerned.
Bkmk
Your red line has been crossed by every editor/bbs/forum moderator that's made an editorial decision about what to print/broadcast or not since the beginning of time.
Everyone's free to speak. Not everyone is forced to publish and promote your ramblings.
No, it's not. Not at all.
From the article:
"The day before his suspension, Wacker went on Fox Business to discuss the company’s anti-conservative bias, telling Trish Regan..."
They are not f***ing editors. They are people who control the communications infrastructure.
If we do not solve this problem with law, we *WILL* solve this problem with combat. I do not understand how you are so foolish that you cannot see the horrible threat this poses to us all.
Just as Hearst, Pulitzer, Annenberg, Sulzberger, Murdoch, Bezos et al. have controlled communications infrastructure, and rejected content, forever.
You can claim the techs are different because they control everything, but you're wrong. I'm a big consumer of news and opinion yet rely on FB, YouTube or Twitter for less than 5% of what I read.
The idea that these companies can silence anyone is laughable on its face and no one can honestly defend the claim.
What's different about these companies is they offer people a way to make money off of their thoughts without having to make much if any investment in their own infrastructure.
People like money and if someone like Alphabet threatens their income they will come up with all kinds of specious claims - censorship, stifling free speech, conspiracy - to keep the gravy train rolling.
Youtube has deleted "Triumph of the Will".
You are completely unaware of what is going on.
Now this hit home.
For years I subscribed to a user who posted hours of radio broadcasts from that era, all kinds of programs, including Hitler’s speeches.
I go there today, and the account has been banned!
BASTARDS!
Exactly. They claim they are doing it because they don't want to glorify this sort of stuff, but i'm now thinking they are doing it because they don't want anyone to see how similar they are to the original Nazis.
Google is Nazis. We need to once again deal with the Nazis.
We’re going back to the future, where only the “anointed” will have access to information.
So what?
It took me one minute to find the movie on www.archive.org, Amazon Prime, and Netflix.
I suspect that you don't care because this isn't about free speach or silencing, it's about a vendetta against companies whose perceived politics you don't like.
I can find a lot of stuff not on YT on Vimeo or Daily Motion.
I don't have amazon prime or netflix. Don't you have to pay for those?
Also, how long is it going to be before "Amazon Prime" and "Netflix" are on the censorship bandwagon too?
I suspect that you don't care because this isn't about free speach or silencing, it's about a vendetta against companies whose perceived politics you don't like.
My motives are irrelevant to the point. Whether I am advocating that Youtube be destroyed because I don't like their politics, the fact that allowing this sort of censorship is a grave threat to our system of governance is still a valid point.
And for what it's worth, there are dozens of companies who's politics I don't like, and i'm not calling for Federal law to force them to carry business they don't want, though if we were half as mean as the Democrats, we would do this as a matter of course.
I simply see communications as a different class of threat. When one side is excluded from the public square, the other side is free to lie to the people and convince them to vote for something horrible.
Which they will if there are not counter voices or counter information.
Yes, but archive.org is free and I imagine there are many other options.
Does it matter? It isn't enough that everyone has to carry all content, they now have to do it for free?
My motives are irrelevant to the point.
Perhaps, but they might help explain the inconsistent and arbitrary nature of your concerns.
When you argue that only forums with over 1M members are to be regulated or that only select organizations have to carry all content with no curation it indicates that your concern isn't with principle but with a few special actors.
I simply see communications as a different class of threat.
Yet your concern only seems to extend to a select few communications platforms.
Again I ask, what about all of the newspaper/book/movie/TV publishers who select what speech to publish - or not?
Does the word "significant" mean anything to you? I picked "1 million" out of a hat, because you wouldn't grasp the concept of "significant" levels of communications. 1 million is a nice round number that anyone can understand, and it conveys the concept of "significant."
"Free Republic" is not significant in all the mass communications going on out there. Google is extremely significant. So is Facebook. So is Twitter in terms of the effect it has on the public consciousness.
You don't want to force private companies to carry all traffic? Fine. Let's ban private companies from carrying *ANY* communications traffic. Let's make them defacto utilities and require them to carry all traffic.
Not going to tolerate a system that allows liberal bastards to have a voice, and then restricts conservatives from being able to answer them in the public square.
You can’t be this naive.
Which Department Secretary gets to define ‘significant’?
Yes, FB and Twitter are completely opt-in services.
Google doesn’t need to be broken, but any of its patents the effectively deny “usage” to a large segment of the population must be challenged.
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