Comment by typeofhuman
5 months ago
Not OP, but we did learn the US federal government was instructing social media sites like Twitter to remove content it found displeasing. This is known as jawboning and is against the law.
SCOTUS. Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, holds that governments cannot coerce private entities into censoring speech they disfavor, even if they do not issue direct legal orders.
This was a publicly announced motivation for Elon Musk buying Twitter. Because of which we know the extent of this illegal behavior.
Mark Zuckerberg has also publicly stated Meta was asked to remove content by the US government.
Crazy how fast we got from “please remove health misinformation during a pandemic” (bad) to “FCC chair says government will revoke broadcast licenses for showing comedians mocking the president” (arguably considerably worse).
If you're referring to Jimmy Kimmel. You should probably consider that while the FCC member made that comment, Sinclair (the largest ABC affiliate group) and others had been demanding ABC cancel his show for its horrible ratings, and awful rhetoric which inhibited them from selling advertising. His show was bad for business. It's worth suspecting ABC let no good opportunity go to waste: save Kimmel's reputation and scapegoat the termination as political.
More here: https://sbgi.net/sinclair-says-kimmel-suspension-is-not-enou...
Personally, not going to take Sinclair‘s press release at face value.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/06/trump-fcc-sinclair...
https://upriseri.com/sinclair-nexstar-duopoly-right-wing-con...
I can’t figure out what you’re trying to say. It’s no big deal that the head of the FCC says they’ll pull licenses for media outlets that mock the president, because one media outlet says that would be the right commercial decision anyway?
That can’t be your point, but I also can’t think of a more charitable interpretation.
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>On July 20, White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield appeared on MSNBC. Host Mika Brzezinski asked Bedingfield about Biden's efforts to counter vaccine misinformation; apparently dissatisfied with Bedingfield's response that Biden would continue to "call it out," Brzezinski raised the specter of amending Section 230—the federal statute that shields tech platforms from liability—in order to punish social media companies explicitly.
>In April 2021, White House advisers met with Twitter content moderators. The moderators believed the meeting had gone well, but noted in a private Slack discussion that they had fielded "one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn't been kicked off from the platform."
Is there a difference between the White House stating they are looking at Section 230 and asking why this one guy has not been banned?
from your paste, it looks like Mika B. brought up the section 230 thing?
Also, spreading disinformation about covid has real-world implications.
Orange man getting his feelings hurt because comedian said something isn't even in the same ballpark
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