Patterico's Pontifications

8/29/2018

New York Post: Let’s Have Government Regulate Speech!

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:53 am



The New York Post is jumping on the very popular “let’s have government regulate tech giants” bandwagon, with an editorial calling for government oversight over Google:

Tuesday brought endless commentary and reporting on how President Trump was being utterly ridiculous and conspiratorial to accuse Google of bias in its search algorithms. Funny: Just over a year ago, in June 2017, the European Union fined the company $2.7 billion for … bias in its search algorithms.

Yes, Trump’s off-the-cuff charge focused on political bias, whereas the EU verdict (after a seven-year investigation) was about the company “systematically favoring” its own Google Shopping feature. But all the Trump-bashers who were suggesting Google would never, ever put its thumb on the scale seem to have ignored at least one elephant in the room.

As we write, the top headlines on Google News include two CNN stories: “Trump slams Google search as ‘rigged’ — but it’s not” and “Debunking Donald Trump’s latest conspiracy theory on Google.” How is the average Web surfer to trust that Google isn’t weighting those stories?

Clearly, there can be no “trust” in the quality of speech without the involvement of, um, government:

The layman has plenty of reasons to worry about political bias to which the company could be blind: Silicon Valley is a notorious progressive place (except on issues that touch its own interests, anyway), and the internal Google discussion over “dissident” engineer James Damore showed a shocking intolerance for the merest questioning of certain left-liberal pieties.

. . . .

We’re no fans of heavy-handed government intervention, but any free democratic society is going to frown on enormous unchecked power. It certainly seems like some kind of independent oversight is called for here.

“We’re no fans of heavy-handed government intervention, but…” is a scary phrase to see about speech in a major publication. Usually, you might expect to see such phrases on the left. Like: “We’re no fans of heavy-handed government intervention, but this hate speech has really gotten out of control.” Or: “We’re no fans of heavy-handed government intervention, but government must play a role in making sure the community megaphone is available to all viewpoints.”

But no: here we have a right-wing publication calling for government oversight of speech. (And yes: it’s speech. You’re asking a Web site to tell you what the best answers are for your question, and the Web site is telling you what it thinks the right answer is. That’s speech, even if it comes in a non-conventional form that many don’t instantly recognize as such.)

This shows how easily Republicans accept anti-capitalist and pro-socialist arguments, the moment it appears to be to their narrow short-term political advantage to do so. “Enormous unchecked power” by a company is achieved in a free market by providing quality service. A company becomes big and powerful in a free market by doing a good job. For all conservatives’ whining about Google, conservatives mostly use Google for their searches. Why? Because they get you what you want more often, more quickly.

Note that there is a caveat in the above sentences: “in a free market.” True: in a crony capitalist society, companies often get ahead, not just by providing good service, but by scratching politicians’ backs. The solution for that, however, is not to break the successful companies, but to change the rules to make the market more free.

That way, any company with “enormous unchecked power” who is starting to hurt the public interest will simply be supplanted by another that does a better job.

Those who deny this ignore history and can view events only on a small timeline with a crabbed view of reality that assumes that the present situation will remain constant forever. Such people supported an antitrust lawsuit against IBM, because it was literally unthinkable to them that IBM’s iron hold on the relevant market could ever be broken. Today, the kids say IB Who? And that’s not because of a lawsuit, but because of innovators like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

Similar examples can be found throughout American economic history.

Anytime a politician tells you that they will protect you from the speech of the Big Bad Company, Americans’ BS detectors should be instantly sounding the alarm. For a media organization to support such an effort is, quite simply, pathetic and un-American.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

243 Responses to “New York Post: Let’s Have Government Regulate Speech!”

  1. And the telescreens always tell the truth, except for Goldstein and Rutherford and seasons in, but they were thought criminals.

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  2. Aaronson, come on your own experience with wikipedia,should have taught a lesson

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  3. And we never learn. We even teach our kids to watch out for authority.

    https://youtu.be/IEDu9jVpUjI

    I hope it takes.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  4. OK then, just curious: In your view, under what circumstances should antitrust laws be enforced?

    Munroe (14a24e)

  5. People vote for ‘conservatives’ for lots of different reasons. Currently it looks to me that the limited government wing of the party holds very little sway. The part of the coalition that wants the government to do things they personally like is very much in ascendency. Trump won in part because people perceived that he would ‘fight’ for ‘them’. This is in line with that.

    I didn’t like the response from Google. I wish it had included something along the lines of “Also this is our company so the government can please keep out.” We build our services for our customers and our shareholders, not paper pushers and politicians.

    Time123 (797615)

  6. I agree that this is no solution. But there does appear to be a problem. I don’t use Twitter, or Facebook, but have read that there has been a definite bias employed by both. They claim in some instances that they’ve made an error and then correct it. But they consistently err in only one direction. Shadow-banning has also been employed against conservatives.

    What do you suggest as a solution, Patterico?

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  7. Not when den officials sit on the boards of credit card companies like mastercard.

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  8. 4. Munroe,

    Well for one thing when there is clear evidence and data that a problem exists. Do you have
    anything like for the political bias of googles search results? Not anecdotes, real data.

    For another there should be some non-competitive impact. Using search to help your sales arm is a potential example of that. How would political bias give Google and advantage over Amazon, Bing, or Facebook in selling goods or services?

    Whatever rule is put in place will most likely end up entrenching existing companies. They will have a seat at the table when the rules are created through their lobbyists, they will have the resources to afford compliance.

    Finally, imagine that a Democrat, with zero adherence to small government ideals but lots of focus on social justice, gets control of whatever rule is put in place.

    Time123 (797615)

  9. Colonel Haiku, don’t use those social media platforms. That’s the solution.

    Gab is supposed to be the right wing alternative to twitter. Go post there.

    My kids tell me Facebook is platform to communicate with old people. They use Snap and Instagram. Maybe it’s going to die anyway. Unless we create rules that make it impossible for anyone new to enter the marketplace.

    Time123 (797615)

  10. I don’t have a solution either, but that is much more obvious than the Russian spam problem.

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  11. They burned Cambridge analytica to the ground, because they offered the wrong thinking on brexit first then trump.

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  12. That’s no solution. Not when these platforms reach well over 1,000,000,000 people.

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  13. Republicans used to say that enormous commercial power is less dangerous than enormous governmental power. They also used to say they cared about the deficit, about character, etc. Now they seem to care mostly about whatever Trump cares about at the moment. And what Trump cares about most, at all times, is whether people are praising Trump.
    Trumpistas chose to ignore the fact that Trump, characteristically, framed his complaint about bias in terms of what is said about him. Bias against conservatism just comes along for the ride, and there’s little chance that Trump would be complaining much about it if someone else were president.

    Radegunda (400d36)

  14. I’ve read a sampling of the The New York Post. It would be at the top of my list for “regulation”.

    nk (dbc370)

  15. And I l’d already indicated I don’t use them. Again, ignoring the problem is not a solution.

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  16. — What did one tree say to the other tree?
    — I love Kindle.

    nk (dbc370)

  17. 13… this goes well beyond what Trump thinks or cares about.

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  18. To deny that there is a problem, much less consider a solution, just by ranking order you can make any Saturday practically invisible, add the journolist…

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  19. Watch it nk, the Post is mother’s milk to the Noo Yawk division of Team Trump.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  20. It’s all of a piece. It wasn’t that long ago when Trump said that he wanted to tighten up libel laws so that he could sue people who say mean things about him. Apparently, he didn’t think long and hard enough to consider that (1) these tightened-up laws would cut both ways, that people could sue his his loyal supporters when they say something that is false and defamatory about someone, giving that someone meaningful recourse in our courts against his loyal defenders, or (2) that such a law would be unconstitutional.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  21. I know he’s a teetotaler, but there are those persistent coke snorting rumors….maybe he and Kudlow are just mad they werent invited to this shindig: http://www.businessinsider.com/cocaine-waymo-google-employees-controlled-substances-self-driving-car-demo-2018-8

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  22. Which candidate again, actually admitted to be a consumer of bolivias finest, how could he afford it,was an open question

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  23. I’m agnostic if there really is a problem with political bias in Google search results.
    Lots of people ‘feel’ like there’s a problem. But no one is showing data.

    But use another service and let the market pick the winner is a very valid solution.

    Or are you looking forward to a future where the ‘obvious problem’ the government is addressing is how many under-represented minorities show up in the search results?

    Time123 (441f53)

  24. They already do. Just ask the Democrat Party, Media Matters and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    NJRob (b00189)

  25. I remember when the Clinton administration was trying to tangle up Microsoft on anti-trust grounds, because Windows was the dominant operating system. It all seems so quaint now.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  26. “He’d been a talented researcher, an academic, until his friend started a small technology company. He had joined the company and helped it to grow. It eventually became so big that the company had been acquired by one of the tech giants. And so, then, was he.

    He was now paid a fortune to help design the algorithms that were central to what the tech giant did. And he had signed solemn legal documents prohibiting him from speaking to me, or to anyone, about his work. But as the years passed, his concern – indeed his guilt – grew. “It’s power without responsibility.” He paused. “There’s so much power, and so little responsibility. This is not notional abstract power. This is real power about day-to-day lives. It’s both material and cultural and financial. The world has to know that this is how it works . . . There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark,” he said, quoting Hamlet a little melodramatically.”

    … “Truth is dead. There is only output.”

    https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/ridiculously-complicated-algorithms/

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  27. So guess whose vogue new rising star, yes miss Daniels, they are less self aware than HBO late night.

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  28. Yes and the lesson they learned was buy as many lobbyists as you can find.

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  29. NJRob, The three groups you’re talking about are part of why i don’t want a law here. They’ll get a hold of it sooner or later and use it in goofy ways.

    Time123 (441f53)

  30. They already have, and it’s not about that jerkwad Alex Jones,

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  31. Is pj media blocked? Trying to post a link to there showing that google search results are obscenely biased, and it won’t post. Doesn’t even show up in moderation.

    NJRob (b00189)

  32. pjmedia. com/trending/google-search-results-show-pervasive-anti-trump-anti-conservative-bias/

    NJRob (b00189)

  33. Interesting that if I put the complete link it blocks it, but I put the space between . and com and it posted. Wonder why?

    NJRob (b00189)

  34. i’ll read it at lunch

    Time123 (797615)

  35. Time123,

    Robert Horowitz was blocked by Visa and Mastercard do to the SPLC. Took him weeks to get the situation resolved. We are up against the American version of Mao’s Red Guard. The sooner people realize this, the quicker we can fix it before it’s too late.

    NJRob (b00189)

  36. Also, thank you for providing it.

    Time123 (797615)

  37. Sorry, Robert Spencer. Mixing up my names.

    NJRob (b00189)

  38. CTL-F “Obama” yields zero results, hmmmmmm… https://freebeacon.com/culture/times-obama-honored-people-photos-himself/

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  39. Actually David Horowitz freedom center, has been hit as Well, telescreens are fair.

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  40. I admit I don’t have an answer, but as they said in the 80s ‘knowing is half the battle’

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  41. NJ, Robert Spencer suffers for another R. Spencer’s buffoonery, on top of being a stern observer of Jihadi misdeed. His very Mediterranean/Levant looks probably have gotten a lot of “you dont look like a Nazi” from first time readers/viewers.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  42. “The EU does it” is all the reason we need for us not to do it.

    But if you need more, Google is First Amendment protected speech. Its doodle could be “Trump Sucks”, it could link only negative about him if it wanted to, and there’s nothing the government could do about it. This is nothing more than Trump pulling the first wank in a big Trumpkin circle jerk.

    nk (dbc370)

  43. Trump is not remotely a credible champion of media integrity. He had his tabloid-owning pal buy and bury stories unflattering to him. He boasted of the extraordinarily strict NDAs he required people to sign.

    He had (and possibly still has) a practice of starting his day by looking at favorable news reports about himself, carefully selected by a lackey to omit anything unflattering.

    There’s no chance that Trump really wants the media to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

    Radegunda (400d36)

  44. To be fair, stormy has been the subject of how many threads via a vis substantive topics.

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  45. Whereas 70 reporter’s sent their copy to Clintons staff to get before publishing, Shirley you can’t be serious, that overlaps with the ones who had dinner with the diligent miss wolfe.

    Narciso (ceb6f7)

  46. How will government laws or regulations fix this? Won’t the next step be the Fairness Doctrine, and that has never helped Republicans.

    The answer to “bad” speech is always more speech, not less speech or government-control of speech.

    DRJ (15874d)

  47. 44… Yada, yada… yes, you’ve established your NeverTrump bonafides, what else ya got?

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  48. The answer to “bad” speech is always more speech, not less speech or government-control of speech.

    DRJ (15874d) — 8/29/2018 @ 9:36 am

    Agreed, but that presupposes free flow of speech is allowed.

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  49. I read the link. I don’t think it’s a great study because it doesn’t control for volume of output and they forced everything to be either right or left. There is no ‘center’.

    BUT looks like a good case for a better study, not to reject the premise. Basically I’m still agnostic. And still don’t want government action.

    DJR has it correct, the answer is more speech, not government action. Google didn’t exist, it doesn’t have to exist tomorrow. If they start doing a bad job (personally they make my life better in a lot of ways) Bing is right there.

    There are plenty of rich conservatives. Why is this a problem that the government needs to solve? Why can’t a market solution work?

    Time123 (797615)

  50. DRJ,

    I don’t think they will. But I do think monopolies and oligarchies are bad things because they prevent competition or just buy them before they’re big enough to challenge the dominant company.

    NJRob (b00189)

  51. Haiku,

    You have choices. In 2009 wen Obama bailed out GM (and made a mockery of bankruptcy laws), I vowed to not buy another GM vehicle while it was effectively under government control. My parents never owned anything but GM and so had I — countless (30?) GM vehicles going back to the 1950’s — but my last GM purchase was in late 2007. No more.

    Choose, don’t beg government to fix things for us.

    DRJ (15874d)

  52. Toys R Us was a “monopoly” until Amazon put it out of business. Dream up better ideas if you don’t like Google. America used to be a nation of dreams and ideas.

    DRJ (15874d)

  53. That still doesn’t address the problem, DRJ. Suppression of speech by decidedly leftwing arbiters. Or is that just another thing to choke on care of the cultural/media/public education takeover?

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  54. DJR, GM is no longer under government control. Just FYI. Also the new Silverado looks sweet.

    Time123 (797615)

  55. And I haven’t purchased a GM vehicle since the POS 1978 Buick Turbo Regal Sport Coupe I purchased new, same year. That abomination had to be assembled immediately after an extended UAW “coffee” break.

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  56. Is it accurate to describe the New York Post as a right-wing publication?

    Or, since the NYP exists in an environment dominated by far left print and broadcast media, does it only seem right-wing by comparison?

    Additionally, it’s more than a unsupportable leap to assume the fix isn’t in when search results consistently favor leftist views and values: the web site isn’t telling you what it thinks is the right answer – it’s telling you the answer preferred by Big Tech leftists who design, maintain, moniter, and tweek search algorithms to produce just such results.

    ropelight (99ab86)

  57. I got my Chrysler, the year before the takeover, of course it became a wholly owned appendage of fiat

    narciso (d1f714)

  58. they young pod, well I try not to think of him, but they publish walsh, sperry and zito,

    narciso (d1f714)

  59. 57… yes, algorithms are key to search results. We’ve known that for a long time.

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  60. Think “chimp” or “Hitler” during the GWB years…

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  61. CH, For the sake of argument I’ll stipulate the following
    1. Google’s search algorithm produces results that favor the left.
    2. Facebook and Twitter are taking steps to push viewpoints off their platforms that they feel are unacceptable to their values. (e.g. Alex Jones and Neo Nazi’s).
    They are exercising their right to use their property as they see fit. This is a right. It doesn’t need a reason any more than my right to own a colt 1911 needs a reason.
    This may make it harder for Alex Jones to get his message out. This definitely undercuts their moral authority around free speech. But this doesn’t stifle his free speech any more than Patterico not letting me call him rude names in this comment section stifles mine. There are plenty of other venues, they may not be as successful or popular, but they’re out there.
    I’m fine with people critiquing the way they use their property. But using the power of the state is a totally different matter.
    Alex Jones didn’t get kicked off twitter because they were afraid of fines or arrest. He got kicked off because the people that run twitter decided that’s what they wanted to do of their own free will. May If the way Twitter treats conservative is a bad business decision Gab or some other platform will take the business.

    Time123 (797615)

  62. Buick Quality has improved a lot in the last 40 years btw. CR has them near the top for reliability.

    Time123 (797615)

  63. 48 — Do you seriously believe that Donald Trump has a principled concern about ideological balance or integrity in the media?

    What you fail to see is how he poisons an otherwise legitimate concern about media integrity by making it so openly about himself, and by threatening to use his presidential power to make the news more pleasing to him. That ought to be concerning.
    But a segment of the population has decided that what is unacceptable when others do it is perfectly fine and glorious when Donald Trump does it.

    Radegunda (400d36)

  64. today of all day, the notion of a fair press, seems particularly ludicrous,

    narciso (d1f714)

  65. Right now, Google and Facebook and others benefit from being ‘common carriers’.
    If they are not content-neutral, then they are not ‘common carriers’ and do not receive the benefits therefrom.

    Let the lawsuits fly!

    Ingot9455 (4db0d9)

  66. I freely admit I don’t know the answer,

    narciso (d1f714)

  67. 1. Probably an understatement.
    2. Numerous instances of mainline conservatives having problems with Twitter, e.g., account suspension, shadow-banning. For an example of a strange approach to acceptability, for starters, look no further than Louis Farrakhan, who has never been bothered.

    Alex Jones is the canary in the coal mine.

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  68. Yes, Zito, the Yinzer chrome-from-trailer-hitch remover.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  69. 63… CR is for appliances, not autos, for any serious-minded car guy. With the exception of the Corvette, GM – and Buick – can KMA.

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  70. Trump’s constant complaints about “Fake News” and his ego-driven way of looking at the issue and his threats to regulate the media give Democrats and the mass media grounds to argue that conservative complaints about media bias were never really about truthfulness, but about controlling information to serve their own purposes. His pronouncements give fodder to the notion that conservatism is a heavy-handed authoritarianism.

    Radegunda (400d36)

  71. “Enormous unchecked power” by a company is achieved in a free market by providing quality service. A company becomes big and powerful in a free market by doing a good job.

    Quaint. But not always.

    ‘Service’ on their terms is not always ‘good’ but merely representing they’ve done a good job of savvy lobbying.

    There’s a reason cable television packages in America are ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ deals and not a-la-carte as in other lands. Unless, of course, you’re a stockholder and coddle their success in sticking it to you by carrying half-a-dozen Spanish language channels, several HSN/QVC-styled shopping channels, multiple VH1/MTV stations, 60 televised music radio stations, several fashion channels, five public televisions stations, numerous real estate channels and more than enough sports, movie and cooking stations– nearly all of which you’d never watch, but have to pay for.

    ‘According to Nielsen, the typical American watches only about 17 channels on a regular basis.’ – source, LA Times

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  72. 72… leftwing cover for lack of good faith and lack of belief in the first amendment

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  73. Big Tech is dominated by leftists! Why’d the darn leftists had to go and build theyselves a internet instead of sitting around drinking beer and watching NASCAR like decent, patriotic Americans?

    nk (dbc370)

  74. Ot, ryan gosling seems to miss the moon landings were a predominantly American project,

    narciso (d1f714)

  75. well he is literally hitler, well that would be a good thing in their eyes:

    https://freebeacon.com/national-security/palestinian-leaders-bet-future-trump-impeachment/

    narciso (d1f714)

  76. but you know thought crime, can appear anywhere:

    https://twitter.com/prageru/status/1034827892285304832

    narciso (d1f714)

  77. Right now, Google and Facebook and others benefit from being ‘common carriers’.
    If they are not content-neutral, then they are not ‘common carriers’ and do not receive the benefits therefrom.

    Let the lawsuits fly!

    Ingot9455 – except for (maybe) Google, you are absolutely right. If they are editing their content, they should be subject to the same rules as all publishers.

    bendover (8f3556)

  78. 76. OT back at you: there were Canadians in flight control ops at NASA in the Gemini/Apollo era. And through shuttle supporting flight w/’Canada Arm’ ops and such as well.

    But Hollywood is a land of make-believe, so making believe Canadian Gosling is American Armstrong is SOP. And total bullcrap. Read the book instead. I’ve met Armstrong. He was a stellar aviator w/a dry wit and laconic in conversation who demonstrated an economy with words often frustrating to his first wife- and media outlets as well. Excellent traits for a test pilot but lousy for the central character of a multi-million dollar film. I won’t be seeing it. Can’t top the real thing.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  79. All “publishers”…They can’t be both publishers and be common carriers, you can’t argue both sides. Well, you can apparently.

    Even if they were a publisher, that publisher is not required to publish anything that any schmoe wants them to publish. You don’t get to demand that your local paper publishes your manifesto.

    I love the infowars/alex jones set complaining about Youtube, who’s platform they don’t care about as a destination, they care about as a free platform that they’d have to pay for hosting services for, as with infowars over 90% of their Youtube traffic was via embed from infowars.

    So the argument is not only should you print my manifesto, you have to pay for it too. Of course, that’s not how private property rights work in the US, and to argue otherwise is patently anti-conservative.

    Colonel Klink (e6947c)

  80. So Trump Googles ‘Trump News’ and complains about what the search turns up. He outta try Googling ‘Trump Screws’ instead; that should give him a hard-on, too.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  81. DRJ
    I suppose the way to get anti trust laws involved would be to start up a information aggregator and platform that does not censor conservative views and then prove Google is trying to bury you via unfair business practices.

    The only quibble I have with the solution being more speech would be if the lefts microphone has electricity and the rights doesn’t… well not so good, electricity is a public utility.

    How about if one side gets plenty of speech down on a soapbox in the free speech area of the public square and the other side gets the internet. How do you get more speech if you don’t have equal access to platform

    steveg (a9dcab)

  82. Underneath their black costumes, Antifa is whiter than Captain America. Toobin occasionally says smart things, but then he reveals himself as a racecard-throwing knob.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  83. That is true, Paul, though the name does conjer up a African separatist movement (e.g. Biafra), or a Forrest Gump-like mangling of an Olive Garden staple.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  84. Haiku,

    We had a Buick sedan in the 80s that was a real lemon, but my Dad had Buicks in the 50s and 60s that were built like tanks and I loved my 90s-era Riviera.

    Times123,

    I have lost my taste for GM vehicles, which is an example of why dealers care about brand loyalty so much. I used to be a lover of big GM SUVs, so my GM vehicles after 1999 were Suburbans and Yukon XLs. If I were tempted to go back, it would be for an Escalade … but Mercedes has nice alternatives so I am not tempted.

    DRJ (15874d)

  85. Memo to Trump: Ask Jeeves.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  86. The second story in a trump search yields a anonymous report from CNN, ‘re an immunity deal, yes that’s called balance

    Narciso (3ce844)

  87. In Trump’s tweet, he says: “This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!” Which implies that Trump intends to play corporate favoritism and undertake some sort governmental intrusion into the way Google sets it algorithms. Ms. Timpf shouldn’t have to explain how bad of an idea it is, but she does anyway, because someone needs to explain this to Trump in a way that he’ll understand.

    They imply that President Trump is considering looking for a way to use his power to do something about the amount of negative news that’s out there about him, or at least about the accessibility of it. He’s suggesting that he’d like to be able to make the average search result cast him in a more favorable light, and a president manipulating the press is not the kind of thing that we stand for in America. In America, the news media is supposed to operate independently of the government. News sources, including Google, are supposed to be free to publish and feature — or to not publish and feature — whatever news that they choose.
    This isn’t just our model, it’s quite clearly the best one.
    […]
    The beautiful thing about the press in this country is that it provides a check against government power. If the government does something that hurts the people, then the media is going to report on it, and search engines such as Google are going to present those results to the people who search for that topic. I’ve seen people arguing that Trump should be able to do something about Google, and that truly terrifies me. Allowing a person in power to have the right to have any influence whatsoever in deciding what kind of news the people should and should not see is completely unacceptable in a free society. It limits the freedom of the press, which limits the freedom of the people.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  88. Yeah Paul, I find it hilarious that people are getting up in arms over Trump wanting to keep Google, et al, from censoring conservative voices. Trump cares not one wit about that, he wants to actively censor negative stories about him. If he reverts to liberal Trump, he’ll be demanding the censoring of Fox, Breitbart, and infowars.

    There is a reason that the 1st amendment, and 3rd, and 4th…exist, it is to protect citizens from the worst of the excesses of the Monarchy and royal decrees. When president bone spurs is replaced by president fauxcahontas the shoe will be on the other foot, and that shoe will be a boot, and that boot will be right up OUR ass. The constitution works just fine, let’s not meddle with it, OK.

    Colonel Klink (c13fb5)

  89. It’s ironic to see complaints about access from people who are here reading this website. You are here because you found this website somehow, and you stay because presumably it interests you. I doubt you needed Google’s algorithms to find it, and I also doubt you read many of the articles that Google promotes.

    If you don’t like what you read here or at Google, go somewhere else. But the problem is that some people want to be Google and control what other people think and read, without doing the work of building an alternative to Google. Government is a shortcut to power and influence for them.

    DRJ (15874d)

  90. Narciso, Google isn’t trying to be balanced. They’re trying to sell advertising. They do that by providing results people find useful. It’s up to them to figure out if that means

    *Balanced by Right/Left Politics
    *Most recent
    *Most talked about / linked
    *Most relevant over longer time horizon.
    *The one I most want to read based all the information they have about me. I’ve read before that this is their ultimate goal; to develop a search algorithm that gives me what I was really looking for.

    If their search engine doesn’t seem to give me what I want I’ll usually try Bing, DuckDuckGo, or Yahoo. If I’m shopping for something I’ll try Amazon. Why do I need the government mucking about with this? There’s almost no cost to me in trying another search engine. It’s literally the time value of a few seconds. What possible reason is there for me to what the government involved in these results?

    Time123 (441f53)

  91. Yes, I mean wit not whit, because it’s Trump, and that conveys both my meaning and tone:-) Though that may not be as funny when its Google translated by our most ardent readers.

    Colonel Klink (c13fb5)

  92. Youtube is (theoretically) paid for by running ads. Ads run on embeds, right?
    If Google/Youtube refuses to host Alex Jones and refuses to run ads for him, they are damn sure not baking his cake.

    Ingot9455 (4db0d9)

  93. I put in no qualifiers, that’s what I got,

    Narciso (3ce844)

  94. OK then, just curious: In your view, under what circumstances should antitrust laws be enforced?

    None. The only bad monopolies are those created by government force.

    Patterico (c39be0)

  95. What do you suggest as a solution, Patterico?

    There is no acceptable solution achievable without time and effort. It’s like the problem of media bias. The problem exists. We all see it. The solution, however, is NOT government regulation. Nor is there a quick and easy acceptable solution.

    But any solution involves competition, which means working to create alternatives and working to eliminate governmental barriers to such alternatives.

    Patterico (c39be0)

  96. but Mercedes has nice alternatives so I am not tempted.

    DRJ (15874d) — 8/29/2018 @ 12:12 pm

    We agree on that, as well!

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  97. Even Ted Cruz has made noises about government regulation of Facebook. He is not the principled man I once thought him to be.

    Patterico (c39be0)

  98. “If Google/Youtube refuses to host Alex Jones and refuses to run ads for him, they are damn sure not baking his cake.”

    Solution: Alex Jones comes out as a person who self-identifies as a black, gay, transgendered Tourette Syndrome sufferer. They can’t touch him.

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  99. 93… let’s say we no longer require a license to practice law to do so. Anyone who hangs a shingle up can do so. Keep government regulation and intervention out of it. Let the market – and providence – decide.

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  100. When I read the editorial it didn’t occur to me that the New York Post was actually calling for government regulation, but I did re-reaqd it and there is the last paragraph.

    We’re no fans of heavy-handed government intervention, but any free democratic society is going to frown on enormous unchecked power. It certainly seems like some kind of independent oversight is called for here.

    However, I’d sum up the ediotial as confused, like many New York Times’ editorials.

    They definitely don’t want the government overseeing it. They’re looking for “some kind” of “indepedent” (= different from the status quo) oversight to prevent that siort of thing from happening. They haven’t figured out any ideas.

    There is indeed a problem of a “filter bubble” and there may be people who know how to game the system eithrr on the inside to harm what can be called conservative websites, or on the outside to to report violations of website policy (and there would be even more if there was any kind of fized long term rules)

    In the American system there are only two places where subjectivity is allowed to come in:

    1) In voting for people.

    2) On a one-time jury of random individuals

    Sometimes there’s a little bit of something similiar with a supermajority.

    Anything else is dangerous.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  101. 6. Colonel Haiku (b35858) — 8/29/2018 @ 8:23 am

    They claim in some instances that they’ve made an error and then correct it. But they consistently err in only one direction.

    Here is an example: (which may indeed have beenthe main thing that prompted the New York Post editorial)

    (I had a hard time finding this, partly because I thought her column was the Daily News) I did quickly find a washington Times story about it, even with “Daily news”: included in the search terms. It was the lead return. Snippets in Google and Bing helped me. and you often have to do repititive searches.)

    https://nypost.com/2018/08/23/facebook-censored-my-column-and-i-still-cant-find-out-why/

    At 7:55 a.m. Thursday morning, I posted a story I had written for The New York Post on both Facebook and Twitter. It was a reported piece on how people who voted for President Trump were feeling after both former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his lawyer Michael Cohen found themselves on the wrong side of the law.

    Within two hours I started receiving a handful of notes from people who are friends on my personal Facebook page that their posting of my piece, entitled “Why Trump’s supporters won’t care about Cohen and Manafort,” had been removed.

    Sometimes the removal was accompanied by a message from Facebook. “Spam” was the most common reason given, but a couple of people were told Facebook removed the post because “it did not follow our Community Standards.”

    Immediately I went to my original post, which led to the link with this graph: “Right now the value of Trump to the Trump voter is he is all that stands between them and handing the keys to Washington back over to the people inside Washington. That’s it. He’s their only option. You’ve got to pick the insiders or him.”

    The post was gone.

    Why? Facebook had given me no reason why it would censor a story, and asking them for an explanation wasn’t easy.

    First I politely published a public Tweet requesting some direction. No answer. I noticed that their Direct Message was open on Twitter so I asked in that format. No answer. Then I turned to their own page and asked through a series of confusing messaging options that appear to require a Ph.D. to access let alone find, still no answer.

    Ninety minutes after removing it, the article reappeared as if nothing ever happened.

    No one told me why it was taken down. No one told me why the piece suddenly reappeared with no explanation of what had happened.

    Facebook offers no transparency for its methods or decisions.

    The article was based on my conversations with Trump voters. It had no expletives, conspiracy theories, hate speech or sexual language. What sort of algorithm would find it, much less censor it?

    Perhaps someone doesn’t like my stories and complained about it. But then, who is that person and why does Facebook give them that sort of power?

    The third option is that someone working for Facebook actually saw it and made the decision to take it down. If that’s the case, what standards are they working from?

    Facebook has become the world’s biggest publisher, reaching many more people than daily newspapers. Bad enough that they arbitrarily decide what people can and cannot read. Worse is that they won’t tell anyone why.

    Here she is talking about it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Mgf_DRDzs

    You have to figure that, had what she wrote appeared in a publication less establishment tahn the New York Post, it would not have come back so quickly, or at all even.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  102. Trump is claiming, and has claimed in the past – and I don’t know if he believes this – that CNN etc when they get things very wrong about him, don’t have sources who lie to it, or sources they misunderstand, but sourxes that simply don’t exist. I don’t believe that;s the explanation.,

    If it were, they’d make up wilder stories and you wouldn’t have multiple outlets sometimes reporting the sdame wrong story.

    It seems like Trump would rather believe in a conspiracy by the press than in a conspiracy by some of his political opponents.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  103. I wonder if some of the work on secret censorship that Google has done for the Chinese government (and, by the way, they’ll never get that contract – China will use their ideas and algorithms and then adapt it for other secrets where what is being censored is one of the most important secrets of all, but they will never pay them much)

    ….has been carried over to other areas.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  104. 8. Time123 (797615) — 8/29/2018 @ 8:26 am

    . How would political bias give Google and advantage over Amazon, Bing, or Facebook in selling goods or services?

    It might help them collect economic rents. But I think it’s mostly them succumbing to pressure that’s coming mostly from the left.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  105. One thing we may possibly see happening is that conspiracy theories that involve the Clintons are downgraded, but conspiuracy theories that involve Donald Trump are not.

    But there’s a point to be made: Sometimes conpsiracy theories are true. After all, every accusation of corruption is a conspiracy theory.

    And Democrats like them. (Some Republicans too)

    That’s the whole point of mandating all kinds of financial disclosure – so that people can draw up conspiracy theories. Except taht too often the burden of proof seems to be put on Republicans – both to deny guilt of a Republican candidate or to prove guilt of a Democratic candidate for office)

    Now I don’t what kind of artificial intelligence can distinguish between possible and impossible conspiracy theories, but any rule you made would quickly stop working.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  106. It seems to me that these businesses need to declare themselves. Are they a mere conduit for others’ expression, or are they something more?

    To the extent they are “more,” they must be liable to sanction for content. If they simply provide a forum, they are as a utility and soul dbe immune from almost all possible content-based sanction.

    DJT may have stepped in it with Google. I do not trust Alphabet at all. However, I am unaware of proof that it engages in content bias, beyond advertising fees and mass popularity of. Twitter is another animal entirely.

    If I got to make the law? Almost anything would go. Sticks and stones… If a Twitter wants to be a gatekeeper, so be it. I get to create the anti-Twitter.

    Unfortunately, reality is a lousy mishmash of principle and crass concerns. And a Beto can plausibly win. We get what we deserve.

    Ed from SFV (6d42fa)

  107. Whereas Trump was talking about regulating commerce by law or executive order, Putin regulates commerce by defenestration.

    According to Telegram-channel Mash, the senior executive of Novolipetsk Steel Plant (NLMK) Bruno Charles de Kooman fell out of window of the House on the Embankment in the center of Moscow and died.
    According to preliminary data, de Kooman fell out of window of the ninth floor of the House on the Embankment on Serafimovich Street. The Telegram-channel Mash says he was sober.

    Funny how so many folks “fall” out of windows in Russia, although “fell” implies that it was some sort of accident. A better way to say it is that he exited a 9th-story window, cause unknown.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  108. 93… let’s say we no longer require a license to practice law to do so. Anyone who hangs a shingle up can do so. Keep government regulation and intervention out of it. Let the market – and providence – decide.

    Colonel Haiku (b35858) — 8/29/2018 @ 1:19 pm

    Fine with me. Of course, there is no federal licensing of lawyers, it is done by the States but I have no problem if a State wants to experiment with not requiring licenses for lawyers (or doctors, vets, barbers, plumbers, etc.

    Unlike the stranglehold professional organizations have over medical and vet schools, there is almost an unlimited number of law schools to choose from and I think that is good. But when supply increases as a result, I suspect that also results in a demand for more protection for the public in the form of professional exams and government licensing. But does licensing actually protect the public? Does it provide a basic level of legal or other professional/technical competency? Perhaps in a very basic sense. Certified lawyers, doctors, and even plumbers probably know something more than the average persons because of their training, testing, and licensing. But I think what licensing gives us is a remedy or sanction when licensees fail, because we can punish them by taking away their licenses.

    We a!ready license the media. And while you did not suggest it, you imply that government has a role in media control just as it does with lawyers. I certainly don’t want journalists to be licensed, especially now because everyone can be a journalist with the internet. Patterico has broken stories, as have other internet sites, and anyone could do the same with hard work and luck. Free speech is important and I don’t want to encourage government to interfere with it, let alone license it.

    DRJ (15874d)

  109. I cannot speak for the NY Post (hah hah), but if a company like Google has monopoly or near monopoly power, there is an argument to be made that it should be treated like a utility and forced to allow speech by everyone.

    Suppose the electric company decided to cut off electric supplies to an organization whose politics it found offensive. I think there would be an issue there, and regulation could be consistent with free speech principles.

    Also, companies like Facebook have a major government crutch — their immunity under the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Basically, they are completely immune from any liability (other than intellectual property) for third party postings, even if they take down some posts but not others. So the law already insulates these companies from responsibility (at least legal responsibility) for allowing some posts and taking down others. So, arguably, there might be a price for such immunity.

    Bored Lawyer (998177)

  110. There is an argument for treating it like a monopoly, Bored Lawyer, but it isn’t a monopoly any more than Amazon is a monopoly because people choose to buy from it. In addition, wouldn’t treating a company that seems like a monopoly perpetuate its dominance, and isn’t that the opposite of what we want?

    DRJ (46c88f)

  111. How did we survive before Google arrived in 1996?!?! It’s just a quick-click, lazy-azzed method of researching/accessing/disseminating information on your pocket gadgets.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  112. each out, reach out and touch someone, eh, Google?!:

    https://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  113. I don’t understand the equating monopoly with speech regulation, they are completely unrelated, and even if you could find a tangent, what is the remedy? There are few avenues for correcting a monopoly, basically fines and forced break up. If the fine was large enough I suppose that could change behavior, but again how do you tie that to the free service you are getting from Google? They’d fight any fine and win based on the Constitution and the laws of the United States, you’d be more likely to prevail in the EU, and if you made the fine large enough to bother them, the current largest fine on record was Wells Fargo with a $1B fine, you’d be hard-pressed to justify even an equivalent fine, and you’d lose in court anyway. There have been larger civil lawsuit settlements, cigarette companies for instance, but those are not fines, so different animals. Look at the Microsoft settlement as precedence, no monetary fine, and opening up the API for others to get similar functionality to Internet Explorer, and what would any of that have to do with the 1st amendment, they are not the Government, they are not a public utility, which in and of itself doesn’t make them the government, and how would any of this jibe with the constitution, commerce clause etc? They are a private company with all the rights that entails, whether they have 1 employee and zero market share, or a million, and 99%.

    And if you break them up, what’s the remedy? Youtube separated from Google, AdSense separated from Google, Facebook separated from Instagram, etc, how does that remedy the complaint? The separated companies can still censor as is their right, they can set their own policies, again, as is their right, and neither of the remedies is forcing them into being a public utility, Trump is more likely to convince the SCOTUS that he can fly as enforcing something like this.

    So either you misunderstand what a monopoly is and what that actually implies to remedies, or you misunderstand the 1st amendment, as well as the 3rd, 4th, 9th, and 10th, or all of the above.

    Colonel Klink (4bf39a)

  114. ^R

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  115. Well they do cover the story, with a pillow
    L
    https://mobile.twitter.com/politicalelle/status/1034774248475295744

    Oh back in new Mexico, they released 3 of the suspects, guess why.

    narciso (d1f714)

  116. I’ll guess, because the federal government is enforcing free speech rights? That’s got to be it right, it wouldn’t be your continued nonsensical spam? Hmm, spam or on target, hmm, which is it, it’s like idiot roulette.

    Colonel Klink (713e6e)

  117. John Barron tweets:

    “When you see “anonymous source,” stop reading the story, it is fiction!
    5:41 AM – Aug 29, 2018”

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  118. Touche’, DCSCA.

    DRJ (15874d)

  119. 112… I forgot to add the “just being facetious, DRJ”, but a damned fine job there!

    Colonel Haiku (b35858)

  120. Colonel Klink,

    I have not argued for the monopoly analogy so I can’t answer you specifically, but my guess is people think government should be able to tell monopolies and Google what to do. Like you, I don’t know what they expect government to tell them. IMO government is likely to tell them to do things that won’t help anyone but government.

    DRJ (15874d)

  121. Apropos of the CDA immunity I raised, see this report here: http://reason.com/volokh/2018/08/28/senator-ron-wyden-co-author-of-cda-tryin

    It quotes one of the authors of the CDA immunity:

    Were Twitter to lose the protections I wrote into law, within 24 hours its potential liabilities would be many multiples of its assets and its stock would be worthless. The same for Facebook and any other social media site.

    Not saying this clinches the argument, but it is notable that internet companies depend on a government granted immunity denied to other, more traditional media, like newspapers, radio or TV. Food for thought.

    Bored Lawyer (65c323)

  122. I was referring to Bored Lawyer’s opinion, but the general theory is that if you find them a monopoly is going to be able to dictate how they conduct business, but that isn’t how antitrust law works.

    It’s been a long time since we’ve had antitrust actual antitrust litigation here in the US, the Microsoft suit was really not much of one, the GWB admin kind of just let it peter out. So there’s a false view of how it actually works, plus the EU has been pretty active, albeit without the US Constitution and its inherent limitations of big government.

    Colonel Klink (4bf39a)

  123. “None. The only bad monopolies are those created by government force.”

    WE GOT OURSELVES A SOPHOMORIC THINKER OVER HERE

    “There is no acceptable solution achievable without time and effort. It’s like the problem of media bias. The problem exists. We all see it. The solution, however, is NOT government regulation. Nor is there a quick and easy acceptable solution.

    But any solution involves competition, which means working to create alternatives and working to eliminate governmental barriers to such alternatives.”

    I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT ‘NATURAL MONOPOLY’, ‘NETWORK EFFECT’, ‘STARTUP COSTS’, ‘FIRST MOVER ADVANTAGE’, ‘SCALING COSTS’, OR ‘OPPORTUNITY COSTS’ MEANS, BUT I’LL GLADLY ADD MY VOICE TO ANYONE WHO CRITICIZES THE PRESIDENT FOR EXERCISING HIS FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND CRITICISM BECAUSE HE *MIGHT* DO SOMETHING IN HIS POSITION. POWER IS *ALWAYS* FORMAL AND NOT INFORMAL, INFORMAL POWER DOESN’T EXIST, AND WE NEVER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT AN IMBALANCE TOWARD THE LATTER, OR THE NOTION THAT SOME POWER MAY TRY TO HIDE ITSELF FROM RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITS ACTIONS!

    “Even Ted Cruz has made noises about government regulation of Facebook. He is not the principled man I once thought him to be.”

    TRUMPERS COULD HAVE TOLD YOU THAT, BUT TRUMPERS COULD HAVE ALSO TOLD YOU THAT TED IS ACTUALLY SMART EVEN THOUGH HE’S UNAPPEALING, AND HIS EARLY MOVES TO ATTEMPT TO FLANK TRUMP ON IMMIGRATION AND OTHER POPULIST ISSUES WERE SIGNS OF A GUY KEENLY AWARE OF WHICH WAY THE POLITICAL WINDS WERE BLOWING.

    HERE’S SOME ACTUAL ALL-CAPS WISDOM:

    EVERY ORGANIZATION OF SUFFICIENT SIZE, WHETHER A BUSINESS, A COLLEGE, A CHURCH, OR ANY OTHER INSTITUTION, *WILL* BE TEMPTED TO BECOME A DE FACTO GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION THAT USURPS LAWFUL GOVERNMENT POWERS WITHOUT STRICT GOVERNMENT REGULATION AGAINST IT!

    EVERY BUSINESS AND ITS LEADERS WANT SOCIALIST PROTECTIONS AND COLLUSIONS FOR ITSELF AND CAPITALIST COMPETITION FOR ITS ENEMIES…AND ITS WORKFORCE!

    THE SURVIVAL OF THE AMERICAN NATION AND PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER THE SURVIVAL OF ANY INDIVIDUAL AMERICAN BUSINESS!

    THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE OPERATING LICENSE!

    Steppe Nomad (cf1670)

  124. Or maybe all media should have those freedoms, Bored Lawyer.

    DRJ (15874d)

  125. It’s food, but junk food, it is completely immaterial to any discussion of freedom from censorship, I’ve read Volokh on this many times, and he’s universally wrong. 2 things can be true but have no causal relationship. Yes, the CDA exists, but it doesn’t force them to publish ALL viewpoints. So if you want to force them, then NAMBLA has the same rights too. Except there is no right for you personally, or a political viewpoint, to have a platform, conservative isn’t a protected class, politics aren’t a protected class.

    Colonel Klink (4bf39a)

  126. Steppe, good thing we have a Constitution to protect us from that.

    Colonel Klink (4bf39a)

  127. Oh look, the Shouty Supremacist is back.

    Davethulhu (fddbc4)

  128. Wow, arrogant much, legal genius? Quite telling that you’d resurrect NAMBLA.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  129. Yeah, that’s what it said, it’s as if a moron inbred with an idiot, the output in Haiku form.

    Colonel Klink (e6947c)

  130. Thank you, Haiku. Sorry I missed you were being sarcastic/facetious. I have trouble spotting that online.

    DRJ (15874d)

  131. Reading the Constitution and knowing things is being arrogant? Sure, if arrogance is knowing more than you, sure, that is definitely true.

    Colonel Klink (e6947c)

  132. The answer is to tell the tech companies they have to allow all speech, not to help them censor.

    Kevin M (e4323c)

  133. The speech right is not created by government and the constitution only says that government will not infringe. There is nothing that says that Google can infringe, nor that government cannot demand that Google not infringe on a basic human right.

    . (e4323c)

  134. @128. Steppe-it-down, Nomad, before Kirk has Scotty beam you out into deep space to self-destruct.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  135. 137.The answer is to tell the tech companies they have to allow all speech, not to help them censor.

    You want an answer, Ask Jeeves.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  136. Actually the 1st amendment doesn’t say what you think it says.

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

    Also the commerce clause exists, as well as the 3rd, 4th, and 9th amendments, as well as federal law.

    The SCOTUS ruled in Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, unanimously, “Government-enforced right of access inescapably dampens the vigor and limits the variety of public debate. ”

    It was the Reagan administration that finally bounced the Fairness Doctrine for FCC licensed radio stations because they believed that this argument was complete BS, and that was only possible because radio stations licensed to use federal property, namely the radio spectrum.

    So a private web site has none, and can have no mandate to allow everyone equal access. Patterico can bounce you from this site for any reason, the fact that Google, Facebook, Twitter actually gives you recourse if they block you isn’t because they have to, they find it in their interest to give you the illusion that you have have rights.

    Colonel Klink (e6947c)

  137. National Socialism i.e. Trumpkins and Communist Socialism i.e. Sandernistas all samee-samee: “You have it, we want it.”

    nk (dbc370)

  138. Facebook has been losing top executives in the last week.
    I believe some of these executives have a conscience. After billions were pocketed!!

    mg (148243)

  139. Electric Avenue Obama Avenue

    Down in the street they are texting
    And-a will always choose not to talk
    Always looking for teh next thing
    And remember teh Cock of teh Walk

    Good God

    They gonna mince down to Obama Avenue
    And then they gettin’ higher
    Oh they gonna strut down to Obama Avenue
    And then they gettin’ higher

    Workin’ so hard is for losers
    But can’t afford a thing on TV
    Gotta decide to buy booze or
    Buy fast food for they kid, good God

    They gonna stroll down to Obama Avenue
    And then they gettin’ higher
    Oh they gonna stagger down to Obama Avenue
    And then they gettin’ higher
    Oh no
    Oh no
    Oh no
    Oh no

    Who is to blame in this country?
    Ain’t teh folks who work ev’ry day
    But them want something for nothin’
    Can’t see life ain’t better that way, oh no

    They gonna stroll down to Obama Avenue
    And then they gettin’ higher
    Oh they gonna stagger down to Obama Avenue
    And then they gettin’ higher

    https://urbanhollywood411.com/2018/08/29/la-leaders-approve-obama-boulevard/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  140. Always liked that song. Hows the grandkids, Col?

    mg (456edd)

  141. They are absolutely wonderful, mg. We feel so lucky and blessed to have them. Thanks for asking. Stay safe and dry on the Rock!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  142. I think the line goes:

    I’ve been kicked out of better places than this.

    steveg (a9dcab)

  143. “So if you want to force them, then NAMBLA has the same rights too.”

    An idiotic rejoinder. NAMBLA and various other ‘ethical pedophiles’ have had zero trouble not only posting on Twitter but getting various former pedos and other exclusively liberal degenerates appointed to high-level digital “trust and safety councils”.

    To put it in individualist terms for the cheap libertarians, tech likes appointing pedo ‘high priests’ because they’re easy to blackmail, much like the Catholic church found moving pedos around to various other parishes a financially remunerative decision fully consistent with best capitalist practices in the church management industry.

    If anything the unaccountable and arbitrary speech restrictions make it easier for them to mass-brigade report and suspend those who expose them. Robert Stacy McCain was the first high-profile conservative Twitter suspension, and his wheelhouse was specifically exposing the criminality and deviancy of various left-wing online activists.

    The common-sense solution is the “common carrier” solution. Reagan was RIGHT when he broke up the telephone monopolies (should probably do that again at some point to Verizon and others), Trump is simply following in his (and Teddy Roosevelt’s) tradition (if anything, being much more mild about it.)

    Large concentrations of wealth and power with poorly defined limits and management always turn out to be destructive forces while they remain alive and unchecked. The dumb libertarian ‘LET THE MARKET SORT IT OUT’ implies that they don’t actually harm anyone when dying naturally, as if all tumors on the body politic were benign (and not easily hijackable by foreign interests.)

    (Also I never, ever, EVER seem to hear that old-time religion of libertarian reasoning when they full-throatedly support a gigantic unaccountable special counsel that limits pre-trial discovery by offering immunity to people who don’t deserve it, appeals to state secrets whenever questioned, uses plea deals to waive the Brady rule, leaks damaging info about people he never indicts, and outright pays for testimony.)

    Steppe Nomad (62e901)

  144. Typical Trumpkin BS non-sequitor. Nixon started the investigation into the breaking up, not of telephone companies, but THE Telephone company, AT&T. No other telecom company was broken up, as their were barely any local companies because AT&T was the…monopoly. This was in 1974, the final break up happen in 1982. For god sake learn some things before you just spout off.

    Also, AT&T wasn’t broken up because they were censoring speech on the telephone in your house, it was because…they were a monopoly.

    The RBOCs that were formed had the exact same policies as AT&T and regional monopolies for a decade in the settlement.

    Just because you FEELZ monopolies should be conflated with speech, doesn’t make it so. None of this is libertarian, it’s American, as in the Constitution, if you don’t like it, the 1st amendment allows you the freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances in this case in the form of a constitutional amendment modifying the commerce clause, and half the bill of rights, knock yourself out.

    Colonel Klink (2ea433)

  145. 149… announced in ‘82, in effect in ‘84, moronskavitch.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  146. This NY Post has an article about Jack Nicklaus responding to comments by Tiger Woods about Trump. The article is only tangentially about Trump but it includes a strange photo of Trump. I’m not sure why they picked such an odd photo to use.

    DRJ (15874d)

  147. The investigation was announced in 1974, finalized in 82, and implemented in 84. You are a very very very stupid man, needlessly, you could have…binged it in 3 seconds, but you’d rather be stupid. Whether from sheer laziness, or willful ignorance, in either case, end result, stupid.

    I mean I’m shocked I tell you, you post on Patterico a couple hundred times a day, are completely wrong a couple hundred times a day, it’s pointed out to you a couple hundred times a day, but you double down, because one more post saying “nuh uh” is going to shift reality. Man, you must have a superhuman level of hubris that lets you continue day in and day out, it’s amazing. You’ve astounded me.

    Colonel Klink (2ea433)

  148. Layers and layers of editors, DRJ. Some smart-aleck at the paper’s photo archive slipped it in and nobody caught it before publication is my guess.

    nk (dbc370)

  149. Kevin M – how do you maintain a community if you have to allow all speech in that community’s space?

    I’m the moderator of a subreddit devoted to a particular book series. You come into that subreddit ranting about politics, from any perspective, and your post will be removed and if you keep doing it you will be banned — because it’s massively off topic and disruptive, and we can’t preserve this very nice friendly pleasant book reading conversation if we’re being overwhelmed by disruptive political fighting that none of us wants in the space to begin with.

    How do you allow me and the other moderators to enforce those boundaries on the use of our space in the world where you’re telling tech companies they can’t censor? Or is the existence of spaces like that simply something that we have to sacrifice?

    aphrael (3f0569)

  150. DRJ – it’s an interesting argument that the purpose of licensing is to create the power of sanctioning.

    Certainly I don’t think any one of the three bar exams I took actually measured my ability to practice law, and while I *could* legally practice in any practice area, I’d be really concerned about my ability to do a competent job in most areas that I don’t know the details of. I mean, I could pick them up, but who wants to pay me while I’m doing that? 🙂

    aphrael (3f0569)

  151. In my experience, ALL CAPS cancels wisdom.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  152. On the mainland, Col.
    Visiting family, grandkids rock. We are blessed as well.

    mg (456edd)

  153. “Typical Trumpkin BS non-sequitor. Nixon started the investigation into the breaking up, not of telephone companies, but THE Telephone company, AT&T.”

    So THE Social Network, THE fast-access photo-sharing site, and THE standard search engine (all of whom supposedly made independent decisions to suspend Alex Jones on the same day) don’t apply to this analysis…how?

    And if these are supposedly seperate companies but have the…shall we say…DISPARATE IMPACT of acting like they’re a single monolithic entity with single monolithic rules and a tendency to all rely on the same slate of executives, moderators, and contractors, how is ‘monopoly’ anything but a true analysis?

    Are you high, drunk, or just so emotionally incontinent that you feel like you have to reply to EVERYTHING I say no matter how weak your answers?

    “No other telecom company was broken up, as their were barely any local companies because AT&T was the…monopoly. This was in 1974, the final break up happen in 1982. For god sake learn some things before you just spout off.”

    I’ve apparently learned that monopolies can chug along just fine for years, crushing competitors underfoot and destroying opportunity costs for everyone until the government formally bans their operation.

    “Also, AT&T wasn’t broken up because they were censoring speech on the telephone in your house, it was because…they were a monopoly.”

    Now who’s not reading the material?

    “This was prompted by suspicion that AT&T was *using monopoly profits from its Western Electric subsidiary to subsidize the cost of its network*, a violation of anti-trust law.”

    Granted, this is about in the AL CAPONE WAS ONLY ARRESTED BECAUSE HE WAS A TAX EVADER tier, but you’d do the same to me.

    “The RBOCs that were formed had the exact same policies as AT&T and regional monopolies for a decade in the settlement.”

    Still, they were now unable to perform certain grossly monopolistic actions on their own, like, say…”using monopoly profits from its Western Electric subsidiary to subsidize the cost of its network.”

    “Just because you FEELZ monopolies should be conflated with speech, doesn’t make it so.”

    You sound like a man who doesn’t believe diversity is a strength.

    “None of this is libertarian, it’s American, as in the Constitution, if you don’t like it, the 1st amendment allows you the freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances in this case in the form of a constitutional amendment modifying the commerce clause, and half the bill of rights, knock yourself out.”

    Why should I take that slow, dumb, unpopular, outmoded, and ineffective option when the Sherman Anti-trust act, Brandenburg v. Ohio, and usefully reinterprable common carrier laws already exist?

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/chapter-5/subchapter-II/part-I

    In the end, “Private companies can make their own rules” is an absurd and stupid dodge–no mainstream liberal OR conservative would stand for allowing private companies to decide not to hire blacks or to ban gay customers. The actual operating philosophy right now is “Private companies can make their own rules–as long as the public tolerates it.”

    1998: “The Internet routes around censorship, guys!”

    2018: You can be kicked off the Internet for making fun of fat people, fired from your job for voting for a popular proposition, and be denied access to markets and have your income taken away by corporate-controlled Internet platforms at a time of their choosing.

    This is a situation intolerable by any free people. This will not stand for much longer.

    Steppe Nomad (caa1b1)

  154. “In my experience, ALL CAPS cancels wisdom.”

    In my experience, people who never post in all caps or even bother to make emotional flourishes don’t actually have souls or interesting personalities.

    Steppe Nomad (0bdf5c)

  155. “I’m the moderator of a subreddit devoted to a particular book series. You come into that subreddit ranting about politics, from any perspective, and your post will be removed and if you keep doing it you will be banned — because it’s massively off topic and disruptive, and we can’t preserve this very nice friendly pleasant book reading conversation if we’re being overwhelmed by disruptive political fighting that none of us wants in the space to begin with.”

    First off, nobody goes off ranting about politics in Niche Book Series subreddit…

    UNLESS ‘you have been banned from r/worldnews | r/all | r/popular | r/news for saying mean things about Muslims’ by the and they start venting on less overtly political forums that they also have an interest in.

    “How do you allow me and the other moderators to enforce those boundaries on the use of our space in the world where you’re telling tech companies they can’t censor? Or is the existence of spaces like that simply something that we have to sacrifice?”

    I suggest you push hard for the main and popular reddits to be treated as the effective common carriers they are so the subreddits don’t have a constantly and justifiably aggrieved population trickling down.

    Or become small enough to not be worth either censoring or be considered a common carrier, which probably already applies to you, so this entire lament seems a wee bit disengenuous.

    Steppe Nomad (9299f1)

  156. So your response is to continue to triple down on stupid. Great, after circling the bowl a few more times, it’s time for you to go home, so I’m going to flush you no…nope can’t understand you, all I hear is gurgle gurgle.

    You sir have been owned, rather easily I might add. You showed up for a battle of wits with an unloaded weapon, and as you are now spinning away, from the bowels of intellect,where yours are located, to the internet’s version of the municipal waste treatment plant. So buh-bye, won’t be seeing your weak sauce here anymore, you’re on permanent mute.

    Colonel Klink (6e7a1c)

  157. 152: “Man, you must have a superhuman level of hubris that lets you continue day in and day out, it’s amazing. You’ve astounded me.”

    You have completely failed to REFUTE anything I’ve posted, you name yourself after a gigantic buffoon, and you’re posting buddies with DCSCIA, a man who thinks it’s clever to copy-paste the same KRUSHLEVKHEITBORSHCT reply to everyone who corrects his terrible, terrible record.

    Steppe Nomad (caa1b1)

  158. Oh, and no I didn’t miss your pro-nazi screed yesterday, you sanctimonious dirtbag with a sense of narcissistic entitlement. Gurgle gurgle.

    Colonel Klink (6e7a1c)

  159. Apparently the guy who named himself after a concentration camp commandant is calling me a Nazi.

    I GOT MY EYE ON U

    Steppe Nomad (2ce54d)

  160. Gurgle gurgle

    Colonel Klink (6e7a1c)

  161. You must be a double flusher.

    Colonel Klink (6e7a1c)

  162. Colonel Klink seems obsessed with the sound of toilets…must have been all the swirlies he got in high school.

    Steppe Nomad (a02c00)

  163. disingenuous lament?

    on some subjects, maybe. i can imagine it.

    but on this topic? the topic of how we use the internet to form communities, and how to nurture and protect them? that’s been one of my primary interests for more than a decade. i’m asking Kevin M not to score points or to use the example to persuade him to abandon his belief; i’m asking because I respect him and his thoughts, even when we disagree, and I’m honestly curious how he resolves this issue.

    it’s not all about the fight. making it all about the fight is like the exact polar opposite of who i want to be and what i want to do.

    aphrael (3f0569)

  164. > I suggest you push hard for the main and popular reddits to be treated as the effective common carriers they are so the subreddits don’t have a constantly and justifiably aggrieved population trickling down.

    as a technical matter, on what basis can you differentiate the subreddits which should be treated as common carriers from those which shouldn’t be? population / popularity is problematic because there’s no way to prevent an army of bots from creating a bunch of accounts and views; it’s a metric which can, and will, be gamed.

    aphrael (3f0569)

  165. so the second time, I look for trump, google assigns a piece with Xavier Becerra, rocket surgeon, and the soros backed environmental defense fund, yes that’s total coincidence,

    narciso (d1f714)

  166. on the Microsoft feed, you have a piece by the peripathetic mayor of san juan, who is under criminal investigation,

    narciso (d1f714)

  167. Narciso, first link i see is from Fox saying that CNN fires back. It’s Fox and they’re right wing. But the CNN fires back is arguing with Trump. How do you score that one?

    Time123 (457a1d)

  168. Well, maybe you are a closet unimas or telemundo fiend, or, like me, is a contrarian with a Facebook friend roster that’s 80/20 liberal, or those algorithms are wayciss.

    urbanleftbehind (67d95e)

  169. In my experience, people who never post in all caps or even bother to make emotional flourishes don’t actually have souls or interesting personalities.

    I’m glad you’re in touch with your emotions, but how about getting past your feelings and back up your previous comment about most mass shooters being “second-generation immigrants”.
    And as far as “emotional flourishes” go, I’m still trying to get the bad taste out of my mouth after reading your Nazi terminology on partial Jews.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  170. Steppe, in 106 you said

    I suggest you push hard for the main and popular reddits to be treated as the effective common carriers they are so the subreddits don’t have a constantly and justifiably aggrieved population trickling down.

    Or become small enough to not be worth either censoring or be considered a common carrier, which probably already applies to you, so this entire lament seems a wee bit disengenuous.

    This is silly. SOMEONE is going to find a reason to take a thread off topic from the books to politics that seems reasonable to them. Totally in good faith they’re going to want to talk about how politics and the books interact.

    SOMEONE ELSE is going to want to do the same thing for the LOLZ.

    A THIRD person is going to want to do it because they’ve found a way to monetize outrage a tribalism. It’s a solid business model.

    If it’s not politics it’s going to be religion. Can Atheist trolls post at will on pro-Christian subs and websites? If I want to run a site where people talk about mission work do I have to let proponents of the FSM in when all they want to do is mock me?

    What’s your solution? What’s your rule?

    Time123 (457a1d)

  171. 172… I score it as this National Obsession with arguing about Trump is detrimental to the country.

    WTF up.

    Colonel Haiku (6fe2b1)

  172. Thanks for the insightful, intelligent dialogue Colonel Klink.

    Tillman (d34303)

  173. General Burkhalter will be along any minute now

    narciso (d1f714)

  174. how did they say it in proverbs:

    https://www.thecollegefix.com/college-deems-students-9-11-never-forget-posters-bias-incident-for-highlighting-islamic-terrorism/

    you tell them what to respect, and what to hate,

    narciso (d1f714)

  175. Does speech regulate the government? I assume the tension between the two is supposed to be healthy.

    Is it healthy right now? Maybe there is an “in sickness and health” clause.

    steveg (a9dcab)

  176. Speaking very generally about media, the unapologetically pro-Trump Daily Caller reported that Hillary’s emails were hacked by the Chinese, citing two anonymous sources. Yesterday, on biased-against-Trump NBC News, an anonymous “FBI official” denied the Daily Caller report, saying that the “FBI has not found any evidence the (Clinton) servers were compromised,” and referred back to last June’s IG report. If you’re a loyal Trump supporter, whom to believe? Two anonymous sources from the Daily Caller or an official FBI response, presumably with the backing of the Trump-appointed FBI Director? For me, the latter.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  177. Who is the official, what is the proof, were asked to accept this on faith, by an organization which has bent over backwards to absolve her, from a reporter who has multiple conflicts of interest.

    Narciso (919f92)

  178. @182 Narciso

    The burden of proof is on the accuser.

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  179. An McConnell knuckled under to the democrats again

    Narciso (919f92)

  180. Schumer surrendered, not McConnell.

    DRJ (15874d)

  181. #181, Paul, speaking very generally, if we can agree that the FBI declined to look for evidence the (Clinton) servers were compromised, then we can agree that it’s also true that the FBI hasn’t found any evidence Hillary’s servers were compromised. See how that works?

    It’s similar to asking the fox guarding the henhouse if he’s noticed any chickems missing lately.

    ropelight (02e604)

  182. Your subreddit is not a common carrier because:

    It has a set of rules clearly enforced that does not discriminate against any political view.
    It bans all political discussions by rule. In fact it bans all discussions not of a particular niche book series by rule.

    As long as that is properly enforced, it’s not a problem.

    Google/Facebook want the protections of being a common carrier while not following the rules of being a common carrier.

    Ingot9455 (4db0d9)

  183. “The burden of proof is on the accuser.0

    Davethulhu (fab944) — 8/30/2018 @ 8:40 am

    Note the lack of interest in determining the truth…

    Colonel Haiku (6fe2b1)

  184. See how that works?

    If the IG report says that they could find no evidence that her server was hacked, this would imply to me that they looked for evidence.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  185. “China is a staunch defender of cybersecurity. We firmly oppose and crack down on any forms of internet attacks and the stealing of secrets,”

    —- Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying

    Case closed!

    Colonel Haiku (6fe2b1)

  186. Guys, only stories with a proper BuzzFeed pedigree are FISA warrant worthy.

    Munroe (b4102f)

  187. “The fix was in.

    Despite the sprawl of Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz’s 568-page report on the Clinton-emails investigation, there is precious little discussion of the most important issue: The Justice Department and FBI’s rationale for declining to prosecute Hillary Clinton. I believe this is intentional. The inspector general’s message is: “Despite pervasive political bias and investigative irregularities, which I have comprehensively documented, rest assured that nothing too terrible happened here.”

    That silver-lining version of this dark spectacle could not have survived a searching analysis of the decision not to indict.

    In explaining themselves to the IG, Obama Justice Department and FBI officials contended that the make-or-break issue in the case was whether they could prove mens rea — criminal state of mind. In this instance, that involved former secretary of state Clinton’s knowledge and intent regarding the unauthorized transmission and retention of classified information. Investigators say it dawned on them at a very early stage that they could not. Hence, they urge, their decisions to allow the election calendar to impose a time limit on the investigation, to limit the amount of evidence they considered, to be less than aggressive in obtaining evidence, and to draft an exoneration of Clinton months before interviewing her (and other key witnesses), were entirely reasonable.

    Yet their analysis left out the best intent evidence, namely, Clinton’s willful setting up of a private, non-secure server system for all official business.

    For his part (as I discussed in Friday’s column), IG Horowitz took the position that it was not his job to question the correctness of the investigators’ legal conclusions and exercise of prosecutorial discretion. He blithely accepted the investigators’ crimped construction of knowledge-and-intent proof, making it a foregone conclusion that he would find their decision-making defensible — much as their adoption of this crimped standard, uncalled for by the applicable law, made it a foregone conclusion that Clinton would not be charged.

    A comprehensive critique of the investigators’ approach would have described the evidence they chose not to weigh. That would have been consistent with other parts of the report, in which Horowitz dilates on the minutiae of investigative techniques the agents and prosecutors eschewed.

    A detailed description of the grossly improper communications system Clinton established would have illustrated that she knew full well the risk she was running. A large percentage of the secretary of state’s job involves classified matters. We are not talking merely about the exchange of documents marked classified but, more commonly, constant deliberations about sensitive intelligence in classified documents, briefings, and conversations. Clinton’s willful concoction of a home-brew communications network — not a harried official’s occasional, exigent use of private email for official business, but her rogue institution of a private, non-government infrastructure for the systematic conduct of State Department business — made the non-secure transmission and storage of classified information inevitable.”

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/ig-report-clinton-emails-fix-was-in/amp/

    Colonel Haiku (6fe2b1)

  188. Yet their analysis left out the best intent evidence, namely, Clinton’s willful setting up of a private, non-secure server system for all official business.

    Not ALl official business. All unclassified official business that would be done by email.

    Actually she kept a lot of official business off the record. And she used her aides.

    What’s suspicious is what she might really have had in mind.

    I thought that Bill Clinton was afraid she might make mistake and send something incriminating over the government system – or someone would reply to her with somethinbg incrininating – so she simply didn’t use government email or leave much of any kind of record. What she turned over was supposed not to have any problems. Probably in fact similar problems existed with regard to everybody else;s emai, but she was the one who asked rfoa review of all her email (by asking for everythibg to be released)

    She actually did treat classified information carelessly – but that was by fax. She had classidfied infromation sent to her apartment by fax and retrieved by her Philipina maid, who did not have a security clearance (although she had something even better, Clinton loyalty). But her use of faxes were not reviewed

    hat we don’t know if whether she DELIBERATELY turned over classified information to anyone else, in person or by telephone.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  189. I doubt that clintonemail.com was compromised but Hillary could have forwearded stuff on purpose.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  190. So, Paul, what would you say the information at Haiku’s the fix was in comment at #192 ‘implies?’

    ropelight (02e604)

  191. #189

    when “imply” is used that way it sounds more like a feeling than a fact because the logic chain is incomplete.
    the fbi has been playing games with language. they did not say “we did a thorough search of the server and found no evidence it was hacked” and instead used language that implied they did something perhaps because they actually did a thorough search or perhaps they are saying they didn’t find anything because they did not look.

    The fbi is being accused of not looking. They did not address that charge directly and instead coyly said the found nothing when instead they could have put it to bed by being direct.
    This is a pattern of slippery behavior from the fbi and it should stop

    steveg (a9dcab)

  192. Yes Molly Hemingway made that point,

    Narciso (c9b7e2)

  193. Note the lack of interest in determining the truth…

    Colonel Haiku (6fe2b1) — 8/30/2018 @ 9:06 am

    Truth is important. I’d like to see Trump’s past and ongoing tax returns so we can see how much and from whom he is profiting as President.

    DRJ (d18ca6)

  194. The bureau in so many instances seems to ne at near aaleeo at the wheel.

    narciso (d1f714)

  195. Check out Richard Pollock’s article at the Daily Caller:

    FBI Refuses To Confirm Or Deny ICIG (Intelligence Community Inspector General) Warned Of Clinton Server Intrusion

    Be prepared to parse the word anomaly, it’s sure to quickly become a synonym for smoking gun, one pointed at the usual suspects.

    ropelight (02e604)

  196. So, Paul, what would you say the information at Haiku’s the fix was in comment at #192 ‘implies?’

    That his link to McCarthy has nothing to do with her emails being hacked. The IG report referenced a forensic analysis by the FBI which concluded that no evidence was found. I don’t accept that Horowitz “fixed” anything, and McCarthy has been far from perfect in his defense of Trump and his attacks on law enforcement and the IC. As for Horowitz, I recall that Trumpalistas were cheering when he nailed McCabe for his “lacking candor” transgressions. Nevertheless, I also believe that the FBI screwed up and misapplied the law on Hillary. She should’ve been indicted.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  197. Anomaly, Anomaly, Anomaly

    According to the Daily Caller the ICIG briefed top bureau officials on three seperate occasions to warn the FBI of an ‘anomaly’ they found in 30,000 in-bound and out-bound emails.

    The ‘anomaly’ showed a code embedded in Clinton’s server was producing in real time a “courtesy copy” to a third party.

    That 3rd party just happened to be a Chinese company with offices in Washington DC.

    ropelight (02e604)

  198. Paul, has it crossed your mind that you might have your account in the wrong bank?

    ropelight (02e604)

  199. rinos, neocons and antifa, oh my.

    mg (148243)

  200. Jordan needs to be speaker of the house.
    He loves America.

    mg (148243)

  201. @178.General Burkhalter will be along any minute now

    Thank you, Schultz; you know nothin’ ’bout everything.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  202. I miss Happyfeets humor.

    mg (456edd)

  203. I hope the funeral speeches for Sen. Mccain don’t turn into a Wellstone political disaster.

    mg (148243)

  204. Truth is important. I’d like to see Trump’s past and ongoing tax returns so we can see how much and from whom he is profiting as President.

    DRJ (d18ca6) — 8/30/2018 @ 10:41 am

    Tax matters and returns are between the IRS and the taxpayer and the well-heeled taxpayer’s accountant, if necessary. If the taxpayer has been charged with wrongdoing/tax fraud, that will become known and subject to scrutiny.

    I’ve forgotten when this sharing of returns of candidates started and which ninnie initiated it

    Colonel Haiku (6fe2b1)

  205. “The ‘anomaly’ showed a code embedded in Clinton’s server was producing in real time a “courtesy copy” to a third party.

    That 3rd party just happened to be a Chinese company with offices in Washington DC.”

    You mean hacked, like with an ax?

    harkin (0f0199)

  206. I think Candidates releasing tax returns is a GREAT idea and hope trump doesn’t start a trend of no one doing it. We need more transparency, not less. We need too make it harder for them to steal, not easier.

    Time123 (7cca75)

  207. 208.I hope the funeral speeches for Sen. Mccain don’t turn into a Wellstone political disaster.

    Biden spoke for an hour. ‘Nuff said.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  208. Trump refused to put his assets in a blind trust, so he should be transparent about his finances while he is working his second job as President.

    DRJ (d18ca6)

  209. “as a technical matter, on what basis can you differentiate the subreddits which should be treated as common carriers from those which shouldn’t be? population / popularity is problematic because there’s no way to prevent an army of bots from creating a bunch of accounts and views; it’s a metric which can, and will, be gamed.”

    Poor excuse. ‘Armies of bots’ are a metric whose gaming can, and has, been well-understood and generally fixed for the most popular subreddits. (Or in the case of the_donald, deliberately handicapped and used against them by the leftist admins.)

    “it’s not all about the fight. making it all about the fight is like the exact polar opposite of who i want to be and what i want to do.”

    If you do not choose to make SOMETHING in your life about the fight, I guarantee you that others with a greater interest in fighting will find some way to take it from you. ESPECIALLY management, ESPECIALLY when it comes to gaming metrics for their own benefit or their own politics!

    “This is silly. SOMEONE is going to find a reason to take a thread off topic from the books to politics that seems reasonable to them. Totally in good faith they’re going to want to talk about how politics and the books interact.”

    I have a super-sneaky suspicion that ‘r/nicheoldbooks’ is not going to be a topic of continuous national interest that would motivate being treated as a common carrier with concomitant moderation restrictions.

    “SOMEONE ELSE is going to want to do the same thing for the LOLZ.”

    I have a super-sneaky suspicion that ‘r/nicheoldbooks’ is not going to be a topic of continuous national interest that would motivate being treated as a common carrier with concomitant moderation restrictions.

    “A THIRD person is going to want to do it because they’ve found a way to monetize outrage a tribalism. It’s a solid business model.”

    I have a super-sneaky suspicion that ‘r/nicheoldbooks’ is not going to be a topic of continuous national interest that would motivate being treated as a common carrier with concomitant moderation restrictions.

    “If it’s not politics it’s going to be religion. Can Atheist trolls post at will on pro-Christian subs and websites? If I want to run a site where people talk about mission work do I have to let proponents of the FSM in when all they want to do is mock me?”

    I have a super-sneaky suspicion that ‘r/missionarystories’ is not going to be a topic of continuous national interest that would motivate being treated as a common carrier with concomitant moderation restrictions.

    In other words: stop playing dumb, these issues have always been present, they have always had workarounds, and there will always be people trying to work around the workarounds no matter how the law attempts to change.

    Steppe Nomad (497c0e)

  210. The only times I’ve revealed my tax returns has been as part of a home loan application. But, the issue of releasing records of all types is a constant thorn in the side of both those entitled to them and those who are determined to conceal them – as the present dispute between congressional oversight committees and the intelligence services so clearly demonstrates.

    For another example, we’re still waiting for the Vietnam service records John Kerry promised to release when he ran (unsuccessfully) for the presidency.

    ropelight (02e604)

  211. “Trump refused to put his assets in a blind trust, so he should be transparent about his finances while he is working his second job as President.”

    While we’re talking about ‘blind trusts’, Bannon seems to have gotten himself an idea:

    https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/30/media/reliable-sources-08-29-18/index.html?iid=EL

    “Bannon said Big Tech’s data should be seized and put in a “public trust.” Specifically, Bannon said, “I think you take [the data] away from the companies. All that data they have is put in a public trust. They can use it. And people can opt in and opt out. That trust is run by an independent board of directors. It just can’t be that [Big Tech is] the sole proprietors of this data…I think this is a public good.””

    “Bannon said he thinks “this is going to be a massive issue” in future elections. He said he thinks it will probably take until 2020 to fully blossom as a campaign issue, explaining, “I think by the time 2020 comes along, this will be a burning issue. I think this will be one of the biggest domestic issues.” Bannon said the “#MeToo movement has brought the issue of consent front and center” and argued that “this is going to bring the issue of digital consent front and center.'”

    #MyDataMyChoice, eh? Truth be told, messing with their ad model would probably more effectively break up the giant tech monopolies than anything else. (By the way, the ad agencies wanting to sell not only ads but force a common ‘friendly content’ model on all industries is a big driver of unaccountable tech censorship, simply forcing open rule adherence and ban reporting requirements would also but a big damper on Big Tech’s assault on free speech.)

    Steppe Nomad (6d3279)

  212. Yes, because it worked so well for dick Cheney, after he divested from Halliburton.

    Narciso (d02ef1)

  213. I hope the government finds out about Hillary’s emails. It should be important to everyone to know if our leaders are compromised.

    DRJ (d18ca6)

  214. Steppe Nomad,

    Socialism and government control is always the easy answer, isn’t it?

    DRJ (d18ca6)

  215. Paul, has it crossed your mind that you might have your account in the wrong bank?

    I could throw that same question back at you, given that they hired a neo-Nazi to write for them, so this is me reserving judgment on their reporting if or until there’s more reporting on the subject by others.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  216. > ‘Armies of bots’ are a metric whose gaming can, and has, been well-understood and generally fixed for the most popular subreddits.

    this … isn’t really true.

    as a subreddit moderator, i have no tools that would allow me to combat this problem other than harassing the admins, who may or may not do something. brigading of up and down votes is a common complaint in just about every subreddit, including /r/AskTrumpSupporters (where it’s the supporters complaining about the brigading, not the opponents).

    if you don’t trust the admins to enforce policies fairly as it is, why would you trust them to “fix” the army of bot problem?

    this isn’t a problem in my book subreddit. but i’m also the moderator of a regional subreddit, and it’s a *huge* problem there.

    aphrael (3f0569)

  217. > This is silly. SOMEONE is going to find a reason to take a thread off topic from the books to politics that seems reasonable to them. Totally in good faith they’re going to want to talk about how politics and the books interact.

    in that subreddit, the moderators are in agreement that even in good faith that’s going to have to go, because it’s the only way we can keep the subreddit a friendly community.

    > SOMEONE ELSE is going to want to do the same thing for the LOLZ.

    round twenty years ago, I was an admin on a site that at the time was so big that it could, on its own, influence google search results. we were destroyed, in the end, by the fact that we were overrun by people who wanted to f— with people for the LOLZ, and tthe proprietor of the site had neither the desire nor the attention span to protect the community from them.

    this is going to happen anywhere that’s prominent enough to attract attention and which doesn’t have rules requiring such stuff to be removed.

    but how do you remove such stuff if you’ve been awarded common carrier status?

    aphrael (3f0569)

  218. 220… just for you, Montagu… ‘ Was Jason Kessler a Barack Obama supporter?

    True. He told us (and has consistently said elsewhere) that he was an Obama supporter and voted for him. He says he began to sour on Obama and the Democrats during Obama’s second administration because of their focus on what Kessler terms “identity politics.” ‘

    https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/08/17/jason-kessler-soros-deep-state-plant/

    Colonel Haiku (6fe2b1)

  219. I’ll tell you when I lost confidence in The Daily Caller, and it was when they “broke” the story that Senator Menendez hung out with prostitutes during his jaunts to the Dominican Republic with one of his donors. Even though the story completely disintegrated (Wemple followed it pretty closely, examples here and here), Tucker Carlson made no corrections and instead either doubled down or answered with a big wall of denial. The reporter, Boyle, now works for the hacks at Breitbart. Aside from Chuck Ross, their reporting is not trustworthy, and I hope Mr. Ross finds better digs, for his sake.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  220. It’s that Kessler voted for Obama, but he’s a confirmed neo-Nazi who organized Unite the Right events, including Charlottes…”Jews will not replace us!”…ville.

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  221. And the times and the post steadfastly avoided corruption trial for months even though the Balance of the Senate was in play

    Narciso (50a424)

  222. Um, it’s weird that Kessler voted for Obama…

    Paul Montagu (9dcfd2)

  223. 225… so he got all 72 of their membership riled up? You, sir, are in dire need of a perspective transplant.

    Colonel Haiku (6fe2b1)

  224. One would almost think the Democrat media operatives use these ridiculous, ginned-up issues – as they whitewash antifa antics – to divide Americans and further their narrative/agenda!

    Colonel Haiku (6fe2b1)

  225. #229, say it ain’t so, Colonel, say it ain’t so!

    Only unpatriotic, dirty, rotten, commie rats would do a thing like that.

    ropelight (02e604)

  226. And they say Communism is dead!

    Colonel Haiku (6fe2b1)

  227. once upon a time, they were three misunderstood lads like the ones in new mexico:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/30/trump-administration-considering-sending-isil-beatles-fighters/

    narciso (d1f714)

  228. 202.

    According to the Daily Caller the ICIG briefed top bureau officials on three seperate occasions to warn the FBI of an ‘anomaly’ they found in 30,000 in-bound and out-bound emails.

    The ‘anomaly’ showed a code embedded in Clinton’s server was producing in real time a “courtesy copy” to a third party.

    That 3rd party just happened to be a Chinese company with offices in Washington DC.

    If this is true, why is this not officially acknowledged,

    Why have no Republican members of Congress asserted that?

    There must be something distorted about this story.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  229. Man arrested after threatening to kill Boston Globe staffers following editorial against Trump, officials say

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/08/30/man-arrested-after-threatening-to-kill-boston-globe-staffers-following-editorial-against-trump-officials-say.html.

    ‘A California man was arrested Thursday after he threatened to kill staff members at the Boston Globe following the newspaper’s recent editorial piece calling for publications nationwide to take a stand against President Trump’s attacks on the media.

    Robert D. Chain, 68, was charged with making threatening communications in interstate commerce, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced. The California-native is accused of calling the Boston Globe newsroom more than a dozen times to threaten staff members since Aug. 10, when the newspaper first asked other publications to join in on the coordinated response, court documents stated.

    Chain allegedly threatened to kill Boston Globe employees and said the newspaper was “the enemy of the people.” On Aug. 16, when the Boston Globe published its piece against Trump’s press attacks, Chain called the newsroom and threatened to shoot staffers in the head “later today, at 4 o’clock.”’

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  230. Gohmert has, intelligence assessments haven’t been terribly affective of late

    Narciso (0efe62)

  231. #234, Sammy, kneejerk leftists and their media accomplices want to bury the story – DOJ and FBI big shots have been caught lying their sorry rear ends off so many times that even the usual useful idiots are hesitant to stick their necks out again.

    Plus timid Republicans fear it sounds too good to be true. So they’re all waiting for the smoke to clear. It won’t take long.

    You’ll know when it’s about over when they throw crooked Hillary to the dogs in a last ditch effort to save The Big Kahuna.

    ropelight (02e604)

  232. Twitter at it again… https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/08/30/twitter-blocks-conservatives-including-vp-mike-pence-from-moments-feature/

    There may come a day when right-leaning people who use Twitter and/or Facebook are thought to be dupes or enabling assclowns.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  233. I’m sure he thought the wrong way, and the beatings shall continue, yadda yadda.

    Narciso (dcc704)

  234. “Steppe Nomad,

    Socialism and government control is always the easy answer, isn’t it?”

    Miss me with this lazy libertarian belching.

    Given how most of these monopolies were allowed to slowly monopolize for decades before slowly morphing into the Standard of All Oil, the Standard For All Operating Systems, or the Standard for All Content before anyone seriously proposed regulating them: no, not really, no. You can’t really back this lazy slander on Republicans up. Big corporations did not become the backbone of the left without long hours, paid work, multi-year plans, and constant overt and covert pressure by people motivated to CRUSH the insolent normies.

    Steppe Nomad (4bc980)

  235. “in that subreddit, the moderators are in agreement that even in good faith that’s going to have to go, because it’s the only way we can keep the subreddit a friendly community.”

    There’s nothing friendlier and trust-inducing than knee-jerk banning anyone who gets even slightly political.

    “round twenty years ago, I was an admin on a site that at the time was so big that it could, on its own, influence google search results. we were destroyed, in the end, by the fact that we were overrun by people who wanted to f— with people for the LOLZ, and tthe proprietor of the site had neither the desire nor the attention span to protect the community from them.”

    Hmmm…a site that’s big enough to influence pageviews and other things that can cause real gain or loss of real money suddenly attracting a bunch of trolls who totally only did it for the lolz…no WAY that any of those trolls might have been paid to shut you down by any means necessary, right? Sounds like the type of fight that Actual Profitable Companies deal with every day!

    “this is going to happen anywhere that’s prominent enough to attract attention and which doesn’t have rules requiring such stuff to be removed.”

    I am FULLY SUPPORTIVE of these rules, matter of fact, a great deal of the outrage against Big Tech is people getting ganked for reasons that barely comport with stated rules, or no reason at all other than SOMEBODY ANGERED A PROTECTED CLASS.

    “but how do you remove such stuff if you’ve been awarded common carrier status?”

    How do percentages work? How have we ever figured these things out in the past? How do conservatives claim to be protecting the legacy of the past while having zero desire to interface with it?

    My guess is that the particulars are going to have to be fleshed out more openly than they have previously, but I guaran-dang-tee you that there are established precedents in various other fields that you’ve been far too lazy and incurious to take a look at, much like the lazy and aggressively ignorant posturing against anti-trust, anti-monopolism, and centuries of legal precedent against WELL A PRIVATE CORPORATION IS JUST A PERSON THAT CAN DO WHATEVER IT WANTS by other libertardians here.

    Grow up and figure it out. It’s a big country with a big history that’s worth taking a look at.

    Steppe Nomad (8a9be8)

  236. Miss me with this lazy libertarian belching.

    Given how most of these monopolies were allowed to slowly monopolize for decades before slowly morphing into the Standard of All Oil, the Standard For All Operating Systems, or the Standard for All Content before anyone seriously proposed regulating them: no, not really, no. You can’t really back this lazy slander on Republicans up. Big corporations did not become the backbone of the left without long hours, paid work, multi-year plans, and constant overt and covert pressure by people motivated to CRUSH the insolent normies.

    Steppe Nomad,

    Take a vacation for two weeks to consider how to more politely to address good commenters.

    Patterico (115b1f)


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