Saturday, June 5, 2021

Michael Barone: FB Speech Suppression Argues for Section 230 Repeal & Stock Price of Zero

 "A lot of people have egg on their face" for dismissing the COVID-19 lab leak theory, tweeted ABC News  ' Jonathan Karl this week. "Some things may be true even if Donald Trump said them." 

    Or if Arkansas Tom Cotton did. "We still don't know where coronavirus originated. Could have been a market, a farm, a food processing company," he said in January 2020. "I would note that Wuhan has China's only biosafety level-four super laboratory that works with the world's most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus."

    Cotton never said he was certain the virus came from a lab leak and never suggested a leak was deliberate. But as a Trump supporter, he was quickly smeared, as liberal writer Matthew Yglesias shows in a painstaking analysis -- for pushing "conspiracy theories" (CBS News), "spreading rumors that were easily debunked" (Politico), "repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked" (Washington Post), and "repeat(ing) fringe theory of coronavirus origins" (New York Times). 

    In each case, Yglesias points out, writers mischaracterized what Cotton said. "Media coverage of lab leak was a debacle," writes New York magazine's Jonathan Chait, "and a major source of that failure was Groupthink cultivated on Twitter." 

    One newsroom attitude was revealed by a tweet from New York Times COVID-19 reporter Apoorva Mandavilli. "Someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. But alas, that day is not yet here yet." Her assumption that one could doubt China's dictatorial and deceptive regime only out of anti-Asian prejudice shows the vacuous ignorance and vicious bigotry that Times management apparently values these days. 

    Such bias is old news these days, and the internet allows readers to seek other outlets. But one great threat to the free transmission of ideas remains: social media that routinely suppresses free speech. A prime culprit is Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook, which has become the most effective suppressor of freedom of speech in American history.

    That's something it boasts about. In April 2020, Facebook reports slapping "warnings" on 50 million COVID-19 items and adds that 95% of readers don't seek the original content. It boasts that it "reduces the distribution" of information rated as "false" by its "fact-checkers." 

    Garbage in; garbage out. Facebook purports to rely on international and national health agencies, like the China-dominated World Health Organization and the U.S.'s Centers for Disease Control, with its laughable requirement that summer campers wear masks this year. Its ranks of fact-checkers are undoubtedly tilted toward recent graduates of woke universities attracted to its headquarters in the no-non-lefties-allowed San Francisco Bay area. 

    The result is that, until last week, Facebook was suppressing for more than a year -- a year in which governments and citizens were making difficult decisions -- information suggesting the very lively possibility that the coronavirus leaked from China's Wuhan lab.

    Democratic congressmen are constantly pressing Facebook for more speech suppression. They seem to have no doubts which side Facebook's processes will favor. 

    Despite Facebook's boasted bans, doubts about China's and Facebook's insistence that Covid came from China's live animal markets have percolated up in politically unlikely quarters. Among those taking seriously the lab leak theory are:
    --Nicholson Baker in New York magazine last January.
    --Longtime New York Times science reporter Nicholas Wade May 2 in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
    --A group of 18 bioscientists calling on May 13 for a deeper investigation into Covid origins, including the lab leak theory.
    --Former New York Times COVID reporter Donald McNeil May 17 in Substack. You may remember that McNeil was forced off the paper for repeating a word that offended a rich high school girl on a Times-sponsored jaunt to Peru.
  

Then, on May 26, the Biden administration announced it was actively investigating the lab leak hypothesis, meaning that it reversed its shutdown of the inquiry initiated by Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Only after the close of business east of the Rockies did Facebook waddle in (at "3:30 PT") and announce it would "no longer remove the claim that Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured." 

    So, for nearly 16 months, Facebook denied readers information about a serious theory whose exploration might have led to a reduced number of deaths and infections. Nice work, Facebook!

    Facebook has been licensed to censor by Section 230 of the 1996 telecommunications act which was intended to, and for some time did, encourage the free flow of information. It does that by relieving websites of liability for information they transmit or refuse to transmit. Facebook's conduct is in line with liberals' retreat from their once strong support of free speech, which, as lefty reporter Matt Taibbi writes, "has been abandoned in favor of a politics that embrace making us of technology and extreme market concentration to suppress discussion of whose topics." 

    Case in point: last fall's New York Post story on the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop, stifled on laughably baseless charges of "Russian disinformation." Didn't see that on Facebook, did you? 

    The commercial result is that Facebook has grabbed advertising dollars that used to go to newspapers, magazine and television and radio. The civil result is that Mark Zuckerberg enjoys what the interwar Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin said as the aspiration of Britain's press lords: "power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot through the ages." 

    There's increasing talk, among Republicans and Democrats, of repealing Section 230, "to force Big Tech to take more responsibility for the editorial decisions they take." Tech moguls say that would benefit "a small number of giant and well-funded technology companies" is already the situation today. 

    More likely, they fear that repeal would, as left-wing economist Dean Baker predicts, cut into profits by requiring "a huge commitment of personnel" to monitor content and a nationwide legal staff to prevent trial lawyers from hauling Bay Area billionaires before local juries. Another possibility: "a massive migration to old-fashioned bulletin boards and other sites where people could post what they wanted without review." 

    Facebook's record on conspiracy theories has been wretched. It was happy for years to spread media stories on Trump's supposed collusion with Russia, "a truly idiotic conspiracy theory," as The Wall Street Journal's Barton Swaim put it, for which no evidence ever emerged. And Facebook was happy for months to stifle any mention of the theory that COVID-19 emerged from a lab leak in China. That's zero for two, on two huge stories, with both errors pointing in the same political direction. Section 230 was supposed to give us a free flow of information, but instead, it's given us efficient speech suppression. 

    Repeal could destroy Facebook's business model, but from society's point of view, the optimal stock price for Facebook is 0.

    Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

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19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Somebody drank the orange kool-aid. Wow.

Anonymous said...

This knuckle-dragger dares to suggest that Trump might be right? Kingfish should follow Facebook's lead and censor this guy.

Anonymous said...

There is a huge difference between legitimate conservative voices like Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, etc. and the QAnon crazies who have zero credibility.

Anonymous said...

I remember when conservatives believed in letting private companies see to their own affairs.

Just another reason why I am no longer a Republican.

Anonymous said...

If Matt Yglasias is defending Tom Cotton thats a pretty big indictment of the MSM

Anonymous said...

Can't wait for 230 to be repealed. That will rid us of The Facebook, once and for all.

Anonymous said...

"Legitimate conservative voices" like Mitt (Mittons) Romney & Liz (one french fry away from obesity) Cheney???????? Me thinks someone has been testing a little too much of that "medical" marijuana.

Bill Dees said...

If these ignoranuses get their way, does that mean that every newspaper in America will be forced to publish every letter to the editor? Does it mean that KF must post every comment on his private enterprise blog? I thought Republicans believed in free enterprise and capitalism.

Anonymous said...

@Bill Dees - Only when it suits them and/or their corporate handlers

Anonymous said...

My speech was suppressed right here on Jackson Jambalaya just yesterday. I can’t wait until it’s illegal for for JJ to censor my views. As soon as Section 230 is repealed I’m suing this site and its owner deep into the fertile soil of the Pearl River valley.

Anonymous said...

Hey 6:15, I just corrected your post.

"There is a huge difference between legitimate Democrat voices like Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, etc. and the QAnon crazies."

Anonymous said...

I remember when the Republicans used to be anti regulation. They used to say something about letting the market decide. I guess those were the days when the Republicans actually had a platform they believed in other than Cheeto Man.

Anonymous said...

Why can't liberals show some creativity? People who disagree with them is labeled a "Q-Anon crazy."

I know nothing about Q-Anon, but if these guys are hated so much by liberals Q-Anon must have some credibility.

George Gilder said in the early 80's that, "liberals are devoid of the ability to make a rational argument. They can only call names and demonize."

Sadly, today's liberals are worse than those 40 years ago.

Anonymous said...

People confuse newspapers and blogs with Facebook. They are not really that comparable. Yes, Facebook is a private company, so are Entergy and other utilities, like pipeline and telephone companies. I doubt anyone here thinks Entergy should be able to decide which customers it serves based on their political opinions just because it is a private company, nor would anyone argue Verizon should be able to censor its customer’s conversations. Are the big social media giants more like you local mom-and-pop grocery, or more like Comcast? Those are the kinds of issues that are being raised.

Anti-trust laws were created to deal with monopolies, which are private companies which are able to control the market by predatory pricing and other actions to stifle competition. Facebook and Twitter are in many ways comparable to the old Standard Oil. Except they control information, not oil. Google, Facebook, and Twitter are in extraordinary positions of power to control the flow of information to many millions of people around the world. They have no serious competition in the social media market. But for their active suppression of views that do not align with their own, there would be no controversy, but when they are the primary pipelines of information for millions, it isn’t as simple as saying they should be free to do what they want, any more than Standard Oil should be in position to control the oil market. This very small number of social media giants actually have more control over speech than any government outside of N. Korea and China.

Anonymous said...

2:46.
Well said. You make excellent points.

Anonymous said...

June 6, 2021 at 11:38 AM
JJ would fall under publisher and not platform. But that just exemplifies why lefties don't get the argument.

Anonymous said...

Barone is a knuckle-dragger? LMAO.

Anonymous said...

@2:37 - I don’t even know what a liberal is, but if they are as hated by q-anon as you say, they must be doing something right.

See how stupid that sounds? Just own your q-anon views, everyone sees through the playing stupid act.

Anonymous said...

10:49 Midol works, try it sometime.


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Trollfest '07 was such a success that Jackson Jambalaya will once again host Trollfest '09. Catch this great event which will leave NE Jackson & Fondren in flames. Othor Cain and his band, The Black Power Structure headline the night while Sonjay Poontang returns for an encore performance. Former Frank Melton bodyguard Marcus Wright makes his premier appearance at Trollfest singing "I'm a Sweet Transvestite" from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Kamikaze will sing his new hit, “How I sold out to da Man.” Robbie Bell again performs: “Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Bells” and “Any friend of Ed Peters is a friend of mine”. After the show, Ms. Bell will autograph copies of her mug shot photos. In a salute to “Dancing with the Stars”, Ms. Bell and Hinds County District Attorney Robert Smith will dance the Wango Tango.

Wrestling returns, except this time it will be a Battle Royal with Othor Cain, Ben Allen, Kim Wade, Haley Fisackerly, Alan Lange, and “Big Cat” Donna Ladd all in the ring at the same time. The Battle Royal will be in a steel cage, no time limit, no referee, and the losers must leave town. Marshand Crisler will be the honorary referee (as it gives him a title without actually having to do anything).


Meet KIM Waaaaaade at the Entergy Tent. For five pesos, Kim will sell you a chance to win a deed to a crack house on Ridgeway Street stuffed in the Howard Industries pinata. Don't worry if the pinata is beaten to shreds, as Mr. Wade has Jose, Emmanuel, and Carlos, all illegal immigrants, available as replacements for the it. Upon leaving the Entergy tent, fig leaves will be available in case Entergy literally takes everything you have as part of its Trollfest ticket price adjustment charge.

Donna Ladd of The Jackson Free Press will give several classes on learning how to write. Smearing, writing without factchecking, and reporting only one side of a story will be covered. A donation to pay their taxes will be accepted and she will be signing copies of their former federal tax liens. Ms. Ladd will give a dramatic reading of her two award-winning essays (They received The Jackson Free Press "Best Of" awards.) "Why everything is always about me" and "Why I cover murders better than anyone else in Jackson".

In the spirit of helping those who are less fortunate, Trollfest '09 adopts a cause for which a portion of the proceeds and donations will be donated: Keeping Frank Melton in his home. The “Keep Frank Melton From Being Homeless” booth will sell chances for five dollars to pin the tail on the jackass. John Reeves has graciously volunteered to be the jackass for this honorable excursion into saving Frank's ass. What's an ass between two friends after all? If Mr. Reeves is unable to um, perform, Speaker Billy McCoy has also volunteered as when the word “jackass” was mentioned he immediately ran as fast as he could to sign up.


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Jackson Jambalaya is the home of Trollfest '07. Catch this great event which promises to leave NE Jackson & Fondren in flames. Sonjay Poontang and his band headline the night with a special steel cage, no time limit "loser must leave town" bout between Alan Lange and "Big Cat"Donna Ladd following afterwards. Kamikaze will perform his new song F*** Bush, he's still a _____. Did I mention there was no referee? Dr. Heddy Matthias and Lori Gregory will face off in the undercard dueling with dangling participles and other um, devices. Robbie Bell will perform Her two latest songs: My Best Friends are in the Media and Mama's, Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be George Bell. Sid Salter of The Clarion-Ledger will host "Pin the Tail on the Trial Lawyer", sponsored by State Farm.

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If you get tired come relax at the Fox News Tent. To gain admittance to the VIP section, bring either your Republican Party ID card or a Rebel Flag. Bringing both will entitle you to free drinks.Get your tickets now. Since this is an event for trolls, no ID is required, just bring the hate. Bring the family, Trollfest '07 is for EVERYONE!!!

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