I am not a lawyer, I don’t even play one on TV. But I am a long time student of the written word, and have read a lot of lawyers’ writings, and here is what I think they have taught me.
The Constitution of the United States does not convey rights, let alone absolute ones; what it does is forbid the Congress from passing laws to interfere with certain rights. 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.”
I am always amused when certain overheated commenters fulminate about being disciplined by Facebook for spreading disinformation/inciting violence/hate speech/etc. “What ever happened to freedom of speech?” they wail.
The answer is, nothing happened to it. You never had the freedom to go into a private business, which is what Facebook is, and shoot your mouth off in a manner contrary to their rules. These are often the same people who talk about “owning” Facebook pages, thus revealing their profound misunderstanding of the situation. They are using a privately owned website, without paying for it, having agreed explicitly or implicitly to the terms of service posted on the website (I doubt any of them have actually read them).
The latest person to jump on this procession of the constitutionally challenged is the Trumpster himself, who has demanded that a federal judge demand that Twitter reinstate his account because, well, you know, freedom of speech. Remember that Twitter bounced him because he used their site to incite violence, contrary to its terms of service.
Poor Donald, he doesn’t know what’s in the constitution. It doesn’t say you have a right to be on Twitter, or CNN, or FOX, or in your neighbor’s house, speaking your mind. All it says is that Congress may not pass a law infringing on your right to speak in your house or in a public space. That’s it.
Now comes the Great Facebook Whistleblower to report to a shocked, shocked! world that Facebook management routinely chooses corporate profits over the public welfare. You can’t mean it! You mean like Exxon, Philip Morris, Big Pharma, General Motors, Wells Fargo, wealth management companies, and on and on? Lady, that’s what corporations do, that was why they were created, to make money. When they become predatory and exploitative, that’s when the government is supposed to step in.
But here’s a problem: while the corporations listed above have actually killed people and broken the law, nothing the so-called whistleblower has alleged so far about Facebook is contrary to any existing law.
Facebook appears to be trying to take over the world, and like every other tyrant, country or business that has tried it, seems to be destroying itself in the trying. (The recent six-hour global outage does not speak well for its internal governance.) Probably all we have to do, as was the case with the Soviet Union, is watch. And then, like Ronald Reagan, take credit for it when it’s over.
The idea that Facebook, Instagram, Google, or Twitter are purely “private” businesses is not entirely correct. I know FB was created largely with the direction and assistance of the CIA, and suspect the same of the other entities (there are certainly close US govt ties for all of them). I know that I personally have encountered entities on FB whom I have strong reason to believe were functioning as gov’t intelligence officers, and provocateurs. The guise of a “private” company simply eliminates the ability to use a FOIA request with them, and is by design.
Any sources at all on the “direction and assistance” provided by the CIA?
Type “was facebook” into Google and you get the top response “was google funded by the CIA?” and there are 280 million links for ya to travel down.
Down the rabbit hole. At number two is a heart-of-the-mainstream link from 10 years ago alleging that “The Platforms” and CIA are rolling around in bed together.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-media-is-a-tool-of-the-cia-seriously/
Facebook Invented by the CIA owns the top stop. Yes, the link is to an Onion piece, and yes, the link is to an Onion piece! Is there anyone doing more credible journalism than Onion these days? Not in my opinion.
As for the censorship question, I hear your argument, its a good one, but the way I feel, outside of nuclear throw-weight, the last thing my country had over China, was our leader could go on these so called “private” forums and publicly plot a coup d’etat, while theirs would never dare.
But no longer. We only have throw-weight now, and the meanness and willingness, born of confusion, desperation, and purposelessness, to use it.
Here’s one of the better researched articles. If you haven’t yet come across Whitney Webb’s work, she’s definitely one to check out. https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/04/investigative-reports/the-military-origins-of-facebook/
Tom, I don’t normally compliment professionals for doing their job; I mean, that’s what they’re supposed to do. But this is simply the best article I’ve ever read on this topic – succinct!
Thank you!!
Tom, you’re partly correct but in being so parsimonious missed a major argument. Barry Lynn has an article in Harper’s Magazine titled “The Big Tech Extortion Racket” (Sept. 2020), which I blogged about on Feb. 14 this year, about how various big tech platforms can no longer be considered private companies but have instead become networks falling under the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. That is a legal argument, which can get long and tortured and doesn’t belong in a comments section. I will therefore limit my comment to one further observation: the network effect (nebulous term applicable in multiple domains) has conferred upon big tech platforms extraordinary power that thus far remains unchecked and highly undemocratic. Apologists’ bland assertion that users signed up for this misses the point, especially when I for one have never been a user of FB, Twitter, etc. (just a lowly blogger) but am nonetheless affected by their open, obvious, and acknowledged derangement of the public sphere.
Those who have a youngest child or grandchild that has navigated the social media age into young adulthood has witnessed the destructive behavior that has been unleashed. The majority who have this witness continue the use of social media.
Being attentive to the complaining that a private company or network, that is reflecting the mindset of users, is capturing all of the profit from their wickedness is wickedly amusing to watch.
Amazing isn’t it? How the same phenomena repeats itself with respect to “knowledge” of the Constitution and the assumption of Rights? I did learn something today.
The same goes for the Second Amendment. Excuse sir/mam, are you part of a well organized militia?
Although an almost throw-way reference at the end, I am glad to see real thinking Americans have a notion how the Soviet Union really ended. We are of similar vintage and lived through the Cold War. However I was on the north side of the 49th and eventually came to see the amount of U.S. propaganda was no less than Pravda. That’s when I came to realization this was not a war of nuclear armament, but one of mind control. The effects of such remain today with mindless exhortations of “socialism” leading directly to communism. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad.
Contrary to the jingoistic belief Ronald Regan took down the Soviet Union by imploring the destruction of the Berlin wall like King Canute holding back the tides, it was you have described. A slow motion suicide caused by their own malfunction of global ambitions. Kudos dude.
Another counterpoint could be added to the grand delusion about the rhetoric the U.S protects the NATO countries including Canada. During the cold war the U.S. first line of defense against ICBM’s was Canada. Canada maintained the DEW line with the U.S. and the long range bomber/interceptors were based in Canada – and still are. It is the northern flank. And the real front-line patrols were – and still are – Inuit with government provided rifles.
I believe that is what one could term a well organized militia.
“… U.S. propaganda was no less than Pravda.”
I took a USSR studies course in ’81, and part of the requirement was that we had to read Pravda and Izvestya daily. The goal was to imagine yourself a Soviet citizen, and what it must be like to always be forced to cut through layer up layer of bullsh*t -to maybe- uncover a few a nuggets of truth.
But the Professor’s point was, you could cut through. The truth was in the papers, he felt, you just had to apply what he called, The Code. The first rule The Code was, always remember, there is no truth in Pravda, and there is no news in Izvestya. But there were several other effective cheats, more technical in nature, like all positive news cut in half, all negative news multiply by three, if an event is said to be not taking place, it means it is well underway, and if some action is said to be well underway, it means the results of the action reached a conclusion quite some time ago.
And so on.
What was cool about it, after about a months of gaining at first a familiarity, and then a certain level of intimacy with the papers, I think we all felt we have a very good sense of what was going on in the Soviet Union, so much so in fact that at the end of semester, there was near unanimous agreement that the USSR was destined to collapse before the century was out.
Imagine, a bunch a unpaid nitwit college kids reading newspapers got it right. Take that CIA!
I think about that semester almost every day. They were readable papers, Pravda and Izvestya. There was wink wink quality to it all, and the constant lies became like good friends. And one always got the sense, that the lying fellow citizens that were bringing you the propaganda were not much better off than you, and they were aware and had full acceptance, that should the ship go down, all will go down, including them.
I get no such feeling when I read the New York Times or the Washington Post, and certainly never when I’m watching CNN or FoxNews. There is a pernicious, almost gleeful malevolence in their “reporting” these days, and what’s growing clearer every hour, they are definitely not in this with us, and will make every attempt to slink off our ship without informing us first it is sinking.
The fact is, the Soviet people knew their collapse was coming. Millions of potato patches had been planted in ever nook and cranny of the USSR in anticipation of the starvation days the lay ahead. I know this, because I read about it in Pravda in ’81, many accounts of how authorities were attempting to crack down on all the private potato gardens that were suddenly springing up in every available public green space in the country.
The Code. What Pravda was telling the people of the Soviet Union, doing service to their fellow countrymen, grow potatoes. They will see you through.
Thanks for this – really interesting.
And of course it still holds true – plant potatoes. In the face of global issues with wheat and rice crops (can’t find the links, do some research), potatoes are a good bet.