buzzsawmonkey 12/3/2020 6:39:37 AM

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vxbush 12/3/2020 6:48:35 AM

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I try to keep up on any writing that J. Christian Adams does as a former DOJ official who focuses on election fraud and election issues. His recent post at PJ Media explains how the Democrats pushed out more voters through legal but very fishy means. 

Yet again, liberals with big pockets (AKA tech lords) got what they wanted in Dem constituencies. 

vxbush 12/3/2020 8:11:38 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 2:

I will say one other thing--Adams here doesn't seem to give much stock to the claims of voting irregularities, despite the fact that many affidavits have been filed from witnesses to these problems, but I wonder how much of that is because he sees the big money support by the tech oligarchs as the bigger issue long term. 

Occasional Reader 12/3/2020 8:46:49 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 2:

An aside: Whenever I see the name of J. Christian Adams, I always hear Danny Kaye singing "I"m Hans Christian Anderson!" in my head.  But maybe that's just me. 

vxbush 12/3/2020 9:29:06 AM

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In #4 Occasional Reader said: But maybe that's just me. 

No, not just you. 

vxbush 12/3/2020 9:33:13 AM

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I keep going back and forth on the free speech issues about things like Twitter banning a mathematician for declaring in a government forum that there was fraud. This happened while the mathematician was giving his presentation; he was blocked before he ever left the chambers. 

This just isn't right, but I want platforms to have the ability to prevent people from doing outrageous stuff. The problem becomes the definitions. 

JCM 12/3/2020 9:39:51 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 6:

You've also have the issue of those platforms being a non-governmental business.

I'm leery of gov't interference in a business's practices.

However in the case of these platforms the behavior is so outrageous it begs for something to be done.

I fear any regulations placed on platforms being swung around against the wrong targets.

Kosh's Shadow 12/3/2020 10:03:40 AM

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In #6 vxbush said: This just isn't right, but I want platforms to have the ability to prevent people from doing outrageous stuff. The problem becomes the definitions. 

You're banned!!!!//////////////////////////////////////

But it does sometimes seem the social media platforms are run by a jazz guitarist.

Kosh's Shadow 12/3/2020 10:09:45 AM

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Reply to JCM in 7:

The tech platforms have become so big they are now our virtual town squares. It was easier to start a new newspaper than it is to start a new Twitter or Facebook. Because of their monopoly status, they need to follow the 1st Amendment in allowing free speech.

Generally, the Supreme Court has been good at defining what is allowed and what isn't. Defamation can result in a lawsuit. Limitations can be made on what children see.

But short of speech that really directly incites violence, everything else should be allowed. However, these platforms should also not show just what a person wants to see, but opposing viewpoints as well. They don't have to open those links, but if someone looking for Holocaust denial, for example, only gets more denial links, they will never learn. The big tech algorithms tend to keep showing people what they are interested in, and no opposing viewpoints. 

They don't go past one soapbox orator saying one thing on their way to hear the one they want to listen to saying something else.

lucius septimius 12/3/2020 10:22:50 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 6:

Reply to JCM in 7:

Note the left's current strategy.  They have realized that they don't need the power of government to destroy their enemies.  They have been able to pressure corporations into doing their bidding.   Disagree with the left on practically any topic?  Human Resources Trolls will make sure that you never work again.  Dare to speak out against the injustice?  You will be de-platformed and not permitted to speak.  Continue in you pertinacity and you'll be doxxed and face direct threats to your life.  All in the name of "accountability."  And it's all justified because your offense is a crimen exceptum, a crime so heinous that legal protections may be waived.

JCM 12/3/2020 10:25:05 AM

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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 9:

I don't disagree with the sentiment, the platforms must be reigned in.

I have trouble applying First Amendment arguments to a private entity.

Their size, and ubiquity does alter the equation for the private entity argument, I recognize that.

IMAO, moving them to the publisher category is a step.

My worry which may be a secondary concern given the situation is that once we create the levels to control the platforms, how will those controls be misused in the feature.

Kosh's Shadow 12/3/2020 10:42:53 AM

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In #11 JCM said: My worry which may be a secondary concern given the situation is that once we create the levels to control the platforms, how will those controls be misused in the feature.

That's why I don't like bans on specific content. They should be allowed to choose - voluntarily apply the 1st Amendment to themselves, and let courts decide what is allowed speech (good unless the Dems pack the courts), or they must break up and allow competition. The latter would be difficult, especially with the pressure on advertisers to boycott conservative platforms.

I disagree with the groups trying to get the tech companies to ban "antiSemitism", because that will let them decide what is antiSemitism - and the Left is already working on that.

buzzsawmonkey 12/3/2020 11:58:56 AM

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In #12 Kosh's Shadow said: I disagree with the groups trying to get the tech companies to ban "antiSemitism", because that will let them decide what is antiSemitism - and the Left is already working on that.

As I have said before, "antisemitism" is the pseudoscientific word that Jew-haters invented to make their Jew-hate parlor-acceptable; it was "scientific," specifically-race-based---rather than being based on religious/sectarian differences; as the attacks on religion in the name of "science" and "rationalism" advanced in the 19th century, "progressive" types wanted to get away from religion while preserving their hatreds intact.

Creating a definition or term such as "antisemitism" means that one can deflect from the thing supposedly being described by arguing instead over whether this or that falls within the definition, or without it: "Is this (or that) antisemitic?" is an argument over whether the thing described falls within the accepted definition, while ignoring the fact that what is being discussed is Jew-hatred.  

This is similar to the increasing Holocaust-denial-by-inclusion, wherein Holocaust deniers, instead of talking about the horrors of the Nazi regime itself, accuse Jews of "hogging the Holocaust" because they don't talk about the Nazis' other civilian victims.  Conversations of this type are a way to avoid recognizing that there was a distinction between the slave-labor camps, and the death camps---the latter having been built specifically as "the Final Solution of the Jewish problem."

The use of the term "antisemitism" has in recent years increasingly been used to say that the Jew-hate leveled against Israel "isn't antisemitism" because "Arabs are Semites, too," and has also given rise---as I have seen on other sites---to a resurgence of "well, a lot of Jews aren't really Semites, because they come from Eastern (or Western) Europe," so that Jew-hate "isn't really antisemitism" either.

The Jew-haters' pet term "antisemitism," a relic of 19th-century pseudoscience, should be towed out to sea and burnt to the waterline.

Kosh's Shadow 12/3/2020 12:37:12 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 13:

The reason I used that term is because that is what is used in the efforts to control what is said online.

We are seeing the plans to change the definition so real Jews who support Israel and go to shul are "antisemetic" and progressives who are  just fine if real Jews are killed (unless it is by right-wingers) are "Jewish" because to them, Judaism is Progressivism.

I posted at least one article on this recently.

buzzsawmonkey 12/3/2020 12:48:26 PM

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In #14 Kosh's Shadow said: I posted at least one article on this recently.

Saw that.  It is precisely the reason why I am tugging at the coats of passers-by the way the Ancient Mariner did, urging them to deep-six the term "antisemitism."

The term was always a Leftist pseudoscientific scam, and it is being misused in a new way now.