Monday, May 13, 2019

"Cowardly shilling for corporate donors"

Ace of Spades calls for deplatforming the platformers: It's Time to Trust-Bust. He links to a new book by highly respected blogger Glenn Reynolds. Glenn's book says
Social media giants are poisoning our journalism, our politics, our relationships and ultimately our minds. Glenn Reynolds looks at the up and downsides of social media and at proposals for regulation, and offers his own fix that respects free speech while reducing social media's toll.

Ace also links to David Solway's piece in PJ Media.
Solway makes the point that faced with a near-monolithic media, the only possible vehicle of dissent and change is citizen journalists -- but these are exactly the people the Social Media Monopolies are targeting for deplatforming.

Solway writes,
The left is no longer satisfied to have a hegemonic domination of all forms of media -- nothing will suffice for them any longer but exclusive access to mass communications.

And the hard-left-leaning Tech Monopolies -- who are actually even further left than the establishment media, as Jason Whitlock has observed, and are pulling the establishment media further and further left (because Social Media Monopolies control access and promotion to all other media) -- are Willing Executioners.

...The problem, however, can be circumvented by redefining these large social media systems with vast market share as public utilities to which federal regulations could apply. Additionally, telecom companies that make up perhaps over 90 percent of all web traffic clearly operate in tandem to shut down speech based on opinion they deem objectionable. Author Robert Arvay is keenly aware of the danger. “A common feature in medieval fantasy movies is the wizard,” he writes, “the character whom no one understands and whose powers everyone needs to fear. In real life, the wizards are CEOs of high technology companies, including well known social media platforms and search engines. Their money has been able to buy legislation that allows them to control the public square, to censor those with whom they disagree.” Presumed heretics are thus excommunicated from the debate by the Church of Political Correctness.

Although there may be no documentary proof of insider collusion, the practice and effect of collaborative deplatforming is unmistakable. These companies are all on the same page. This is a form of racketeering, whose social repercussions are glaringly evident. Just ask Laura Loomer, Milo Yiannopoulos, Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, Bosch Fawstin, Faith Goldy, Gavin McInnis, and Tommy Robinson, among others who have been banned or suspended, some intermittently, some permanently. Meanwhile, these same sites are rife with crackpots, conspiracy mongers, anti-Semites, and Muslim jihadists preaching hate and violence.

In the interests of fairness and the public weal, these syndicates must be monitored and regulated to ensure equal hospitality to different and competing shades of opinion, providing they do not explicitly advocate for violence, treason or criminal behavior as defined in law. If President Trump were to avail himself of anti-trust legislation, he would not have to solicit a hostile House composed of terminally decadent Democrats and a quorum of Republican chameleons. He could, as the law permits, approach the courts, in particular, the Department of Justice, to dismantle an information monopoly serving narrow private interests rather than fair business practice and the common good. He may still lose the 2020 election to the Resurrection Men of the left, which would be a national catastrophe and would likely spell the end of the Republic. But his chances of success would improve markedly once the social media plunderbund is brought to heel.
Read more here.

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