Internet Free Markets and the false claim of Social Media Monopoly Power

I recently shared a Yaron Brook Show episode titled YBS: Twitter, Facebook, Social Media & Censorship on Facebook. My caption read,

"I am so happy to live in a country where a private company can ban the president. That's freedom; my ability not to have to listen . . . not to have to give the president a platform - on MY platform . . . That's freedom. You couldn't do this in China." -- Yaron Brook, on Twitter banning President Trump [4:00 - 5:00]. Keep this in mind when you hear hysterical voices calling for government regulation and/or takeover of social media. This is the best and most pro-American and pro-Constitution analysis of the uproar over social media "censorship" I have seen.

Brook defended the right of private companies to “deplatform”--i.e., remove--Trump and others from their social media platforms (although he questioned the morality and commercial wisdom of their actions). The following exchange followed with an acquaintance, whom I’ll identify as “G”, who wrote: 

I'm conflicted on this one. I get that point however they are companies that operate in a public domain and use their power to silence dissenting view points. There can be no right that involves the violation of another's rights; I.e., the right to free speech. It is wrong to extend this right to some but not others based on political beliefs. [sic]

I replied:

Public Domain is a statist legal fiction that undermines rights. I agree that “There can be no right that involves the violation of another's rights'' but public domain theory actually inverts that principle. And we’ve seen this in action before. When gay marriage was legalized, it was followed by the legal persecution of Christian businesses that refused to serve gay marriage ceremonies because it violated their conscientious convictions. Why was this allowed? Because it was said that these businesses operated in the “public domain.” So when the New York Liberty Ridge banquet hall that refused to host a gay wedding and the Masterpiece Bakeshop in Colorado that refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding were ordered by the court to do so, to cite two examples, it violated their First Amendment rights to freedom of religion and association. 

Rights involve not only the right to act, but the right not to act if you don’t agree. The same principles apply to social media. Just as the right of consenting same-sex adults to marry does not mean someone must be forced to provide a minister, a banquet hall, and a cake, so freedom of speech does not mean someone must be forced to provide a microphone, a printing press, a lecture hall, or a social media platform. “There can be no right that involves the violation of another's rights.” Twitter is not silencing anyone. Like the baker and the banquet hall, Twitter’s power does not extend beyond it’s own business. They are private businesses that cannot stop people from going elsewhere. Only the government can do that, which is why we should keep the government out. 

I’m very upset at the social media actions restricting viewpoint expression. I don’t know where this will lead, but I do know it should be resolved in the free commercial market, not in government involvement. The First Amendment is on the side of the social media companies. The baker, banquet hall, and Twitter are in no way public domains. I do know that you can’t defend free speech by crushing it. Right now the most dangerous threat to free speech is coming from the Trump/GOP Right, which wants to repeal the First Amendment-protecting Section 230 or nationalize these companies outright as “public utilities.” 

G responded:

G]reat points and you're correct in pointing out the flaws in my argument with regard to public domain. I do disagree however that Twitter isn't silencing anyone. That seems exactly what they are doing. Twitter is wrong to allow some to speak and not others based on arbitrary whims and ideological differences. This is exactly how statist dictatorships are formed. The suppression of dissenting ideas and speech. Twitter does not have to provide Trump with a platform but they do have an app that is accessible to the public. (Maybe a better way to make my point.) If Twitter had some objective guidlines and could show that Trump had violated those I might see it differently. Twitter, FB and others are simply trying to grab power by suppressing ideas they may not like. [sic]

Me:

If Twitter (or any company) violated their own guidelines, then that is grounds to sue for breach of contract, and the courts are the place to settle that. Other than that, I leave you with the last word. Thanks for visiting.

Another correspondent brought up monopoly power:

Section 203* should not be repealed, but... the companies that are editorializing and not offering the forum they are protected by having should no longer have the protection of Section 203*. What needs to be addressed is the straight up monopoly power. Not just silencing Trump but shutting down the competition by putting them out of business for offering what Twitter does not want to. [sic; a reference to Section 230, not 203]

Section 230 ensures that the people posting the material, and only people posting the material, are responsible for their content, rather than an innocent third party. I believe this is justice. This has been a great boon to freedom of expression for the common citizen. Imagine if newspapers were held liable for content posted in the comments section of articles. It would be the end of the comments sections. It’s the same with universities who rent out their lecture halls to controversial speakers. If universities were held liable for everything outside speakers say, that would be the end of the lecture hall forum. The fact that newspapers, universities, social media, and other hosts monitor what is said on their platforms according to their standards is not considered editorializing.

It’s important to get the understanding of monopoly right. Monopoly power is government force, period. A private company cannot prevent competition. It can only refuse to sell its services, as Amazon and Apple did with Parler. If Amazon was forced to become a public utility, protected from competition by law, that would be a monopoly. Parler and others are free to seek new hosts for their platforms, or build their own internet infrastructure, as Amazon and Apple did.  Who could stop them? Not Apple. Not Amazon. 

In fact, it’s already happening. Parler, which was forced to shut down after Amazon expelled it from its cloud services arm, is back online with new web hosting partners. SkySilk, Parler’s new cloud services provider, said in a statement reported by CNN:

In a statement to CNN Business, SkySilk said it believes Parler is "taking the necessary steps to better monitor its platform."

"Skysilk does not advocate nor condone hate, rather, it advocates the right to private judgment and rejects the role of being the judge, jury, and executioner," the company said. "Unfortunately, too many of our fellow technology providers seem to differ in their position on this subject. ... SkySilk will support Parler in their efforts to be a nonpartisan Public Square."

Parler, for its part, tightened its community standards requirement so that its users can "Speak freely and express yourself openly, without fear of being 'deplatformed' for your views," within the context of Parler’s pledge that it "will not knowingly allow itself to be used as a tool for crime, civil torts, or other unlawful acts."

More broadly, investment is flowing into new services that bypass the supposedly monopolistic Facebook, Twitter, et al. As Zach Weissmueller reports for Reason:

But the great deplatforming of 2021 has also energized the movement to build a new, radically decentralized internet that would allow users to escape whatever form the Reality Czar takes. Many of the projects in this space are trying different approaches to solving the same set of problems, such as how to give individuals control over their own digital identities, and how to store data in the cloud so that it can't be controlled or accessed by a large company subject to political pressure from the state.

Examples of genuine monopolies include Medicare (for 65+ healthcare), the U.S. Post Office (for first class mail), and K-12 public schooling. None of the social media giants are that. This is just the beginning, but already we’re seeing the claim of the monopoly power of big social media platforms belied. In fact, the “great deplatforming” by the so-called "internet monopolies"--Facebook, Google, Twitter--is probably the high water mark for these companies’ “censorship” power. They are likely at the peak of their power, even as we speak. Their days of dominance, earned in the marketplace, are numbered--unless the government steps in to protect them -- which is the only way a genuine monopoly can exist. 

The deplatforming by social media is morally wrong and will, and probably already is, backfire commercially. But there is another element that appears to be happening below the surface: they may also be victims of political extortion. I suspect something really sinister is behind the deplatforming of “right-wing” content. Several politicians, including Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Tom Malinowski, have openly threatened these companies with political--that is, gun-backed--legal retribution. 

Who knows what other regulatory, Section 230, or antitrust threats these companies are facing behind the scenes by Leftist government officials. It’s government censorship-by-private-proxy. It’s quite scary. We should fight like hell to keep the government’s hands off of the internet.

Related Viewing:

YBS: Free Speech & The Internet (Social Media) with Onkar Ghate

Related Reading:

The Banning of Alex Jones: Facebook Choice or Regulatory Extortion?

Dem Rep Malinowski Reprises Trump in Proposed Legislative Attack on Social Media and Free Speech.

Individual Rights is the Solution to the Gay Marriage Conflict

Kim Davis vs. Liberty Ridge Farm

Gay Marriage: The Right to Voluntary Contract, Not to Coercive “Contract”—My article for The Objective Standard

Court Violates Cake Baker’s Right Not to Serve Gay Weddings—Ari Armstrong for The Objective Standard

‘Bigotry Motivated by Religion is Still Bigotry’—True, but Still an Individual Right

Malinowski's Censorship-By-Proxy 'Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act' Advances

A proposed bill that I highlighted in my 3/2/21 post, Dem Rep Malinowski Reprises Trump in Proposed Legislative Attack on Social Media and Free Speech, is advancing in Congress. In Algorithms that suggest songs you may like also direct people to hate groups. It needs to stop, says N.J. congressman, Jonathan D. Salant reports for NJ.com:

If you check out Jon Bon Jovi‘s Twitter feed, you’ll get a recommendation saying you may also like other musicians. Queen, Joan Jett and U2 immediately pop up.

Same goes for all kinds of things on social media, from books to movies. The algorithms designed to keep you interested are aways [sic] saying: If you like that, then you’ll really like this.

If you click on a politician, the site recommends others with the same political views. And then sympathetic groups that share the same ideology. But sometimes that can lead you to hate groups and others spreading disinformation.

Democratic Representative Tom Malinowski doesn't like this feature. 

“The algorithm has no political bias,” said Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-7th Dist. “It knows what you want. If you like Star Trek, it will send you to Battlestar Galactica. If you like cute kitten videos, it will send you cute puppy videos. But if you’re susceptible to conspiracy theories, it sends you to QAnon.”

“Once you go down the rabbit hole, there’s nothing that pulls you out of it.”

Since so many Americans get their news and entertainment from social media sites, Malinowski said they must do a better job of policing what’s on their platforms and stop encouraging customers to seek out misinformation or recommend groups with extremist ideologies.

“Nothing that pulls you out of that rabbit hole?” How about simply clicking out of it? Malinowski doesn’t think you are capable of thinking for yourself. So, in the tradition of tyrants everywhere, he’s going to do your thinking for you. He wants to shield you from content you may be interested in. So he introduced, and is now debating, the Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act. Really!

Malinowski . . . and Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., have introduced legislation that would hold social media companies such as YouTube and Facebook liable if their algorithms feed extremist content to individuals who then launch violent attacks.

There is not a “violent attack” that cannot be traced, somehow, some way, to “extremist content” or “ideology,” however that is defined. Making YouTube and Facebook liable for the violent crimes of users by simply digging up some alleged “extremist” link that appeared at some point on the attacker’s feed is nothing more than a tool of extortion and control politicians and their allies can use to control the flow of information to American citizens. 

Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr., D-6th Dist., said the problem is the formula used by the social media companies to keep their readers clicking.

“The dirty truth is that social media companies are relying on algorithms to purposefully promote conspiratorial, divisive, or extremist content so they can rake in the ad dollars,” Pallone said. “The more outrageous and extremist the content, the more engagement and views these companies get from their users. More views equal more money.”

What is “hate?” What is “disinformation,” or “misinformation?” What is “extremist” content ... “extremist” ideology? What counts as "outrageous" “conspiratorial?” What counts as “divisive”: Indeed, what doesn’t count as “divisive” in politics? Any disagreement can be construed as divisive. With that term, Pallone gets to the real point. Social media is the greatest tool of free speech for the average person to come along since the printing press. This means that politicians are more susceptible to being held accountable by average citizens than ever before. That increased accountability is what Malinowski really believes “needs to stop.” He complains about a recent campaign ad that accuses him of "lobbying to protect sexual predators" as a reason for his bill. Hyperbolic? Sure. But then why force private media companies to ban it, rather than himself answer it? His own party routinely smears opponents of its climate policies as “climate deniers.” How about banning that? Oh, right, that's his position, so it must be true and accurate. Hyperbole is ubiquitous in politics. Ban all political hyperbole? Who will be responsible for separating hyperbole from reasonable rhetoric? What will be left of political campaigns? The only rabbit hole we should fear, and avoid at all costs, is political censorship and idea filtering, and thought control.

Please don’t remind me that these “public servants'' just want to stop violent attacks. That’s a giant straw man. What they really want is the power to impose their own definitions of hate, disinformation, extremist, conspiratorial, divisive—and whatever other vague term they can conjure up on social media companies through open-ended threats of lawsuits and criminal prosecution. Why? To do what every would-be tyrant longs to do--silence dissent and protect politicians from public accountability. 

Of all of the totalitarian assaults on our freedoms coming from the Democratic Congress, the attacks on free speech is by far the most dangerous. See also HR-1 is An Assault on Free Speech, Property Rights, Freedom of Conscience, and Privacy. Under the guise of preventing violence, Malinowski and his ilk want to stop the free flow of speech and ideas, the means of debate and persuasion, and the only alternative to violence. 

It's legislation like Malinowski’s, not YouTube and Facebook sending you links to what “you really like,” that needs to stop. There is no idea that can’t be said to fit one of the categories mentioned above to rationalize Malinowski’s euphemistically-titled Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act. There is no idea that will be safe to express, and no idea that social media companies can’t be pressured to censor. This bill is really a fascist back-door censorship bill. The Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act is really an attempt to protect politicians from scrutiny and criticism.

Protect our intellectual freedom. By all means, punish the violence perpetrators. That’s your job, Tom. That’s not YouTube or Facebook or any other private company’s job, and it is unjust to hold them accountable for others’ criminal acts. Their job is to satisfy their customers and make money. As a citizen of a supposedly free country, mine is to pull myself out of any “rabbit hole” I encounter. Your job, as a government official, is to protect us from criminals by apprehending and prosecuting criminals, rather than passing the buck to private citizens. Rather than pin the blame for violence perpetrated by customers on social media companies and on people who express ideas, prosecute the criminals who violate people’s individual rights through violence. Keep your censorious laws off of social media, do your damn job of prosecuting criminals, and leave information and ideas free to flow and we the people free to sort out and judge the content links that come our way.

Related Reading:

Dem Rep Malinowski Reprises Trump in Proposed Legislative Attack on Social Media and Free Speech.

Hate: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship by Nadine Strossen

No, AOC, It's Not the Government's Job to 'Rein in Our Media': The First Amendment doesn't come with an exception for "disinformation," by Robby Soave for Reason

Americans Abandoning Free Speech Better Brace for the Consequences by J.D. Tuccille for Reason: Government will happily suppress misinformation in favor of misinformation of its own.

“Extremism,” or The Art of Smearing by Ayn Rand

Extremists vs. the Moderates: Why the Left Keeps Winning, and the Right has been Powerless to Stop It

We Need ‘Extremism’ to Move the Political Ball in Our Direction--Capitalism

Social Media and the Future of Civil Society by Jon Hersey for The Objective Standard

Why I Will Never Use the Term “Extremist” by Dr. Michael Hurd

Statistical Disparities Don’t Prove Discrimination in Voter ID Laws

HR-1, the Democrats’ massive bill, is being framed as a “voting rights bill,” even though the bill has nothing to do with voting rights, which we already have. So let’s think about what the Democrats mean when they and their media cohorts call their bill a “voting rights bill.” 

Here are some exempts from the New York Times Morning Report of 3/2/21 {see saved email}

The court will hear a case from Arizona in which Democratic officials are challenging two state provisions. One requires the disposal of any ballots cast at the wrong precinct, and another forbids people — like church leaders or party organizers — to collect absentee ballots for submission. The Democrats argue that these provisions especially affect minority voters and thus violate the Voting Rights Act. (Adam Liptak, The Times’s Supreme Court reporter, explains in more depth here.)

The Arizona lawsuit is an example of a main way that advocates have tried to protect voting rights over the past few decades: through the courts. Along the way, they have won some victories, including in a recent case from North Carolina.

Republican candidates will probably benefit from any changes that disproportionately affect Black and Latino voters, like the elimination of automatic registration. “The restrictions we’re seeing are going to have a greater impact on the communities that have been most traditionally disadvantaged,” says the Times.

[My emphasis]

Notice the framing. We see this a lot. The pros and cons of automatic registration are, at best, secondary. What matters? Statistical racial group disparities. The implication is that if you oppose automatic registration, you are intent on discouraging--suppressing, in Leftist jargon--votes of black and latino people. But why are people who believe individuals should choose to register and then proactively follow some simple registration procedure be branded as anti-voting rights? How is that against voting rights for Blacks and Latinos? Are we to assume that these people are less capable than others of following simple registration and identification procedures because of their skin color or genetics? Or is it perhaps that not everyone wants to register and vote. 

The point of pigeon-holing voter laws into a frame of racial discrimination, in fact, is to suppress debate on the merits of automatic registration and other proposals. That debate suppression starts with a totally unproven correlation--that statistical disparities necessarily “prove” some devious motive, such as racial discrimination.

Look at any voting law in any state, and you will find the Left framing the issue, at least in large part, in this way. There’s more. Consider this insidious paragraph:

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has generally ruled against voting-rights advocates, and most court observers expect the justices to allow Arizona’s restrictions to stand.

Notice the implication. If you oppose any of these voter laws, you are an advocate of voting rights. If you support any of these voter ID laws, you are against the right to vote. In other words, only the Left is for voting rights. Note that in all of these voter law cases, the laws are either not considered on the merits, or the merits are at best minimally worthy of discussion. Voter ID laws are only, or primarily, considered based on how it "affects" Black and Latino voters as per statistics, as if these people can act only on random forces rather than their own volition and initiative. 

Now, automatic registration, what to do about ballots cast at the wrong precincts, and people collecting absentee ballots for submission (known as vote harvesting) are legitimate issues for debate. But random effects on groups tells you nothing about the merits of the law. Statistics are not evidence for or against. Statistics can only point you to an area that may need investigation. Evidence, to be evidence, applies only to real life; that is, real people. If a law is objective and fair on its merits, how the statistical chips fall is irrelevant. If there is hard evidence that a law is discriminatory—that is, is targeted only at some ethic group by making it harder for them than others—that discrimination should be eliminated. But the so-called “voting rights advocates” never do that, at least not that I can see according to press accounts. That’s why they trot out statistics: They have no actual evidence.

Now let’s consider another piece from the Leftist press. In The GOP playbook for New Jersey: Attack voting rights, the New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial board [SLEB] opines:

Jack Ciattarelli, the clubhouse favorite for the GOP [2021 gubernatorial] nomination, . . . proposes “reforms” on his campaign website that actually Stop the Turnout, just like the red states do it: He supports a photo ID requirement at the polls, including a state ID for those who don’t drive, plus an ID-certification requirement for mail-in voters; and he wants to purge voters from the election rolls if they haven’t voted in four consecutive years, and mandate that they contact a county clerk if they want to restore their most cherished civil right.

Also, the ACLU found that voter ID laws are enforced in 34 states with Republican Legislatures for a reason: It is inherently discriminatory. Nearly 25 percent of Blacks of voting age don’t have a government-issued ID, compared with just 8 percent of white voters. Does that work? The Government Accountability Office says that photo ID laws reduce turnout by as much as 3 percent.

So unless your aim is to depress turnout, voter IDs serves no purpose. [sic]

My emphasis. 

Of course voter ID laws are "inherently discriminatory." Any rule discriminates against those who don’t follow it. The very necessity of filling out and delivering a mail-in ballot, or going to a polling place and waiting in line for your turn to enter the voting booth, could be said to depress turnout. Are those requirements discriminatory? Of course. Speed limits discriminate against drivers with a heavy foot. But are these rules racially discriminatory? Where's the evidence? The Star-Ledger provides none, beyond an un-attributed ACLU assertion, and statistical disparities, which prove nothing. What is inherently racist in the requirement for a government-issued ID? What's to stop any one of the 25% of blacks (if you can believe those stats)--or the 8% of whites, for that matter--from getting an ID provided by the government? A NJ Star-Ledger letter writer put it well, 

The editorial stated, that according to the ACLU, 34 other states with GOP-majority legislatures enforce voter ID laws, and the reason is that they are “inherently discriminatory.”

Does this mean that these states are also discriminating when they require people to produce an ID to get a driver’s license, or to show proof of age when buying alcohol or cigarettes? You must show ID to get on an airplane and even for some doctor’s visits. Does that mean that the government, airlines and doctors are being discriminatory?

The editorial states that 25% of Black people of voting age (compared with 8 percent of white people) do not have a government-issued ID. Seemingly, this means that 25% of Black Americans cannot legally buy cigarettes or alcohol, get on an airplane or drive a car. This is difficult to believe. (sic)

The Star-Ledger, which opposes every one of Ciattarelli proposals, does at least attempt to analyze each of Ciattarelli's proposed requirements. But it doesn’t really address any demerits of the proposals. The SLEB simply concludes that each requirement "depresses turnout." But, again, any rule that requires any effort can be said to depress turnout. Will some people not want to bother registering to vote because they’ve decided that the minimal effort to get the required ID is not worth their effort? Possibly. But so what? If that counts as "depressing turnout," then so be it. If a person really wanted to vote, he’d make the effort to comply with the rules (assuming the application of the law is not objectively determined to be rigged in some way against them). 

But then, registering one’s vehicle and complying with state-mandated safety/environmental vehicle inspections could be said to depress vehicle ownership. But it doesn’t, does it? Maybe some people value vehicle ownership more than voting. Surely, many people simply don't want to bother exerting any effort to vote, or have a conscientious objection to voting. If rules depress someone’s action, as any rule necessarily does, does this mean we should have no rules whatsoever? Who would trust an election result then?

The government's job is not to depress or maximize voter turnout. It's job is to ensure secure, safe, trustworthy elections through objectively fair rules. Some form of procedure is vital, and they should be as simple, easily understandable, easily accessible, and as demonstrably necessary as possible within the principles of ensuring secure, safe, trustworthy elections. At a glance, I'm uncomfortable with Ciattarelli's requirement to re-register after only four years. That seems too short. But even the Star-Ledger acknowledges that "the state clearly must keep records current by cancelling registrations of people who died, moved on, or are in prison." How do you do that without systematically imposing on voters to periodically re register? So I guess the Star-Ledger is OK with depressing voter turnout, as long as it is on its terms. 

But no, none of these voter ID proposals are inherently discriminatory based on race, and to my knowledge no one has produced a shred of evidence to back up that assertion, or the assertion that objective voter ID laws in any way violate voting rights. That’s why people who see racial discrimination in every voter ID law they don’t like fall back on the last refuge of every damned liar, statistics.

Once again, the issue is disingenuously framed: “Voting rights” apply only to the Left’s agenda. 

My view is that no intelligent discussion about voter laws can take place based on collectivist or racist considerations. The object of election laws should not be to maximize voter turnout. It should be to maximize ease of registering within the context of ensuring the maximum integrity of the election process. The rest is personal responsibility of each of us as individuals. Every individual has her own mind and free will. The only question is whether the law or procedure is fair, objective, equally enforced, and as equally accessible to all as possible. If it can be objectively shown that some voters face unreasonable hurdles to registering or voting, fix it. But stop race-baiting voter rights.  

Related Reading:

The Vote: Get Off Your Butt and Register—But Keep the Nanny State Out of It

Voting Rights are Not the ‘Most Fundamental Right’—or Even a Fundamental Right

16 Year Old Voters? How About 21?

Memo to John D. Atlas: How About Let's Not Suppress Anybody's Vote, or Voice

Freedom Is Not About the Right to Vote, So I’m Voting Anti-Democrat Across the Board

HR-1 is An Assault on Free Speech, Property Rights, Freedom of Conscience, and Privacy

More Censorship-by-Proxy: Totalitarian Congressional Threat to Media Companies

Walter Olson posted an article titled House Democrats Go Fox Hunting in which he covers a horrific letter sent by two powerful Democratic congresspersons to the major media companies:

When elected officials browbeat the executives of regulated telecom, video, and app companies trying to get them to drop the main news channel of the political opposition—which also happens to be the most popular channel in its market—you may think you’re living in an arbitrary strong‐​arm regime. But it’s happening this week in Washington, D.C.

On Monday, Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney, both California Democrats, sent a letter on congressional letterhead to top executives of various cable, satellite, and communications companies, including Alphabet, the parent of Google, which distributes video via its YouTube TV streaming service and Google Play app.

The letter denounces Fox News, as well as newer competitors to its right such as Newsmax and One America News Network, as purveyors of misinformation and extremism. And it gets directly to the point with its demands: “Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News [and the others] … both now and beyond any contract renewal date? If so, why?”

The tone of threat is not idle. Both Eshoo and McNerney are majority members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which draws up legislation and oversees regulation relevant to cable and telecom providers and technology firms generally.

This is shocking coming from American elected officials, who pledge upon being sworn in to uphold the U.S. constitution. This threat is directly contrary to the First Amendment. They should be impeached. 

It’s also shocking, though in this day and age not surprising, that some Americans agree. Here is one Comment left at the The Dispatch, where Olson’s article was originally published:

I’m all for this idea. Rights come with responsibility, Including the right to free speech. It’s time to stop letting corporations pour poison into the ear of the public for profit.

A middle ground is to separate news and opinion channels, and have regulations for what can be labeled news and what ombudsman policies must be in place in a news organization.

Here is the comment I would have posted if I were a paying subscriber:

If you gave this spiel to a hall full of dictators, you’d get a standing ovation. 

The only responsibility that accompanies individual rights is to respect the same rights of others, especially those who disagree with you. Using the government as your hired gun to silence, fine, and jail people who express views you disagree with is not respect. It is Al Capone politics.

So how do people in a free society sort out news from opinion, misinformation from truth, or oppose so-called “extremism?” Get off of your lazy mental ass and do the intellectual work yourself, then use your own free speech to counter, rebut, dispute, and correct, or in the worst case of libel or defamation, take to the civil courts. That’s how civil people deal with others. Turning to and empowering the politicians, with their coercive legal powers, to decide what is true, or extreme, or to target political adversaries is totalitarian cowardice. 

There is no “middle ground” between authoritarianism and liberty; between evil and good, or between an anti-American and an American. It’s either/or.

Related Reading:

The Banning of Alex Jones: Facebook Choice or Regulatory Extortion?

Facebook Backtracks on Free Speech Policy; Political Extortion?

The Life and Death of a Hollywood Blacklist: Sometimes censorship is a public-private partnership, by Jesse Walker for Reason.

Dem Rep Malinowski Reprises Trump in Proposed Legislative Attack on Social Media and Free Speech.

No, AOC, It's Not the Government's Job to 'Rein in Our Media': The First Amendment doesn't come with an exception for "disinformation," by Robby Soave for Reason

A Conversation About Facebook, the First Amendment, Antitrust, and “The Electronic Octopus”

Democracy Doesn’t ‘Win’ When Free Speech is Suppressed, Voting Rights or No Voting Rights.

I could hardly contain myself when I read the 3/31/21 front page New Jersey Star-Ledger article Murphy just made it easier to vote in N.J. amid national voting rights debate. He’s backed by Stacey Abrams.  Matt Arco, writing for NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, opens with

As a bitter debate over voting rights takes place on a national stage, Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday signed a law that will expand voting in New Jersey by allowing residents to cast their ballots in person up to 10 days before Election Day.

Arco doesn’t make direct reference to HR-1, the Democrats’ House of Representative bill dubbed the “For the People Act” (known as S-1 in the Senate). But that’s what is referred to when Arco speaks of “a bitter debate over voting rights takes place on a national stage.” In a section of the article drenched in disingenuousness, Arco reports: 

[Voting rights activist Stacey] Abrams argued Republicans want to restrict the number of people who vote in an attempt to win elections.

“They don’t believe that quantity matters, that it’s about the quality of the vote. My question is how do you qualify the utility of a vote?” she said. “I believe that citizenship in the United States of America is a premise that we must stand on, and it says that we have the right to be heard. We are always, always as a nation stronger when every voice is included.”

The New Jersey bill passed the state Legislature the same day George’s governor signed the controversial voting package.

“Our democracy wins when we open the door to our polling places instead of slamming them shut,” Murphy said Tuesday.

“Dozens of other states are considering new ways to suppress one of the most fundamental rights of citizenship,” he added. “They claim to love our constitution but only if they get to define who the ‘we’ is in ‘we the people.’”

S-1 is hyped as a “Voting Rights Act.” But beneath that slogan are provisions that threaten more fundamental rights to freedom of speech, association, conscience, privacy, and petition. S-1 severely restricts independent political spending, the means of free speech, by groups of individuals like corporations, unions, and Super Pacs, violating free speech and association rights; provides for “public” funding of elections, violating freedom of conscience by forcing the taxpayer to fund politicians’ campaigns without the taxpayer’s consent and/or even if the politician’s policies violate the taxpayer’s conscientious beliefs; force disclosure of contributions to political action organizations, which violates the donors’ privacy rights by outlawing the confidentiality of donors; sharply increases requirements on lobbying, making it much harder for private citizens to peaceably assemble to petition the government.

Taken together, S-1 is a broad-based rollback of the First Amendment. It violates the very inalienable rights which gives substance, meaning, and effectiveness to elections, and substantially reduces the ability of voters to hold their elected political leaders accountable. 

Abrams “argued Republicans want to restrict the number of people who vote” even as S-1 aims to restrict First Amendment freedoms to speak out and debate election issues. Abrams says “We are always, always as a nation stronger when every voice is included” even as our most important voice, our free speech, is being progressively excluded. Abrams says “I believe that citizenship in the United States of America is a premise that we must stand on, and it says that we have the right to be heard,” even as our ability to be heard, our First Amendment freedoms, are being suppressed. 

Murphy says “Our democracy wins when we open the door to our polling places instead of slamming them shut,” even as S-1 imposes major provisions that slam the door on free expression and public debate. The only “winners” are the politicians, who don’t have to listen to those pesky big-mouth citizens’ criticizing, questioning, and holding then accountable. Democracy, in fact, loses. Murphy says “Dozens of other states [with new voter ID laws] are considering new ways to suppress one of the most fundamental rights of citizenship” even as the Federal Government advances a bill to suppress our much more fundamental inalienable individual rights to freedom of speech, association, conscience, privacy, and petition. Murphy claims Voter ID proponents “claim to love our constitution but only if they get to define who the ‘we’ is in ‘we the people,’” even as Democrats exclude from “we the people” people who engage in political activism through their First Amendment rights. 

The popularly known “Voting Rights Act”—officially labeled, with a straight face, the “For the People Act”—is an insult to actual people who take their actual right to vote seriously. I believe voting should be as easy as possible consistent with laws that secure safe, fraud-free, trustworthy elections. But these alleged defenders of voting rights have a mountain of nerve complaining about Republican efforts to “suppress” the vote. Many of these GOP laws may make little sense. But Democrats Murphy, Abrams, et al should take a look at what their own party is doing to suppress people’s freedom to engage in electoral politics and campaigns. 

With monumental disingenuousness, in response to new proposed voting laws, Abrams whines that “In 43 states across this country, we are seeing an onset and an attack on democracy.” I could sympathize if the issue of the democratic process was really just about voting. It’s not--not even close. Your most powerful voice is not your single, lonely one-among-millions vote. Your most powerful voice is your freedom of expression guaranteed by rights enumerated in the First Amendment and other unenumerated rights covered by the Ninth Amendment, such as privacy. Without intellectual freedom who needs a vote? Who is really attacking democracy? The answer is obvious to anyone who actually understands that American democracy starts with intellectual freedom, not the right to vote.

Related Reading:

HR-1 is An Assault on Free Speech, Property Rights, Freedom of Conscience, and Privacy

The Vote: Get Off Your Butt and Register—But Keep the Nanny State Out of It

Voting Rights are Not the ‘Most Fundamental Right’—or Even a Fundamental Right

Open Primaries Discourage 'Extremism': What's Good About That?

John Farmer's Understanding of Free Speech Rights as Non-Absolute is Dangerous and Wrong