Tag: Big Tech

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First Amendment rights free trade & free markets too much government

X Information

big government, big tech, big business surveillance, censorship

For well over a century, politicians have pushed Big Government/Big Business partnerships. The policy, indeed, is as old as politics. While we who like free markets often like [some of] the products of today’s biggest businesses, we must recognize that much of what these corporations sell us comes with strings attached — as we’ve found out to our dismay in the corruption of major social media outfits; as proven by the attacks on our speech and to the undermining of free elections.

Before the #TwitterFiles revelations, Michael Rectenwald, author of The Google Archipelago and other books, wrote a commentary that appeared in the pre-Christmas edition of The Epoch Times: “Who Really Owns Digital Tech?” In less than a thousand words, Rectenwald makes clear how deep governments have been involved in the tech space — particularly the Internet Space.

“Given the evidence of government start-up funding,” Rectenwald reasons, “we may have to concede the argument that the internet might have developed differently, more slowly, or not at all if the Defense Department hadn’t been involved at the outset. Likely, what we know as the internet would have become a system of private networks” — and in this dispersed-power system, free speech would not become a major issue, because not as easy a target.

As it is, however, “Twitter has operated as an instrument of the uniparty-run state, squelching whatever the regime deems ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’” Rectenwald writes, giving us an ominous list of the topics of xinformation:

  • warfare
  • economics
  • pandemics
  • elections
  • climate change catastrophism
  • the Great Reset

There are big gains for . . . some. Big Biz/Big Gov partnerships imply gains for both partners: business people gain access to governmental power and favors, and politicians and functionaries gain leverage to mold the citizenry. 

And that is where we have seen the partnership’s worst.

So far.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Illustration created with DALL-E2

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First Amendment rights free trade & free markets too much government

X Information (alternate illustration)

For well over a century, politicians have pushed Big Government/Big Business partnerships. The policy, indeed, is as old as politics. While we who like free markets often like [some of] the products of today’s biggest businesses, we must recognize that much of what these corporations sell us comes with strings attached — as we’ve found out to our dismay in the corruption of major social media outfits; as proven by the attacks on our speech and to the undermining of free elections.

Before the #TwitterFiles revelations, Michael Rectenwald, author of The Google Archipelago and other books, wrote a commentary that appeared in the pre-Christmas edition of The Epoch Times: “Who Really Owns Digital Tech?” In less than a thousand words, Rectenwald makes clear how deep governments have been involved in the tech space — particularly the Internet Space.

“Given the evidence of government start-up funding,” Rectenwald reasons, “we may have to concede the argument that the internet might have developed differently, more slowly, or not at all if the Defense Department hadn’t been involved at the outset. Likely, what we know as the internet would have become a system of private networks” — and in this dispersed-power system, free speech would not become a major issue, because not as easy a target.

As it is, however, “Twitter has operated as an instrument of the uniparty-run state, squelching whatever the regime deems ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’” Rectenwald writes, giving us an ominous list of the topics of xinformation:

  • warfare
  • economics
  • pandemics
  • elections
  • climate change catastrophism
  • the Great Reset

There are big gains for . . . some. Big Biz/Big Gov partnerships imply gains for both partners: business people gain access to governmental power and favors, and politicians and functionaries gain leverage to mold the citizenry. 

And that is where we have seen the partnership’s worst.

So far.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E2

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies

Just Sue Already

Eric Schmitt, Jeff Landry, Missouri, Louisiana

Two state attorneys general, Eric Schmitt and Jeff Landry (of Missouri and Louisiana, respectively), are suing the federal government for colluding with Big Tech to suppress speech in violation of First Amendment rights.

Their recent filing quotes a ruling which argues that it“violates the First Amendment ‘if the government coerces or induces [a private entity] to take action the government itself would not be permitted to do, such as censor expression of a lawful viewpoint.’”

The plaintiffs observe that this has been happening for years, “culminating in . . . open and explicit censorship programs,” and they ask the court to permanently enjoin such unlawful conduct.

Separately, twenty attorneys general (including Schmitt and Landry) have sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the agency’s new board instituted to counter unapproved speech.

The AGs threaten to “consider judicial action” if Mayorkas doesn’t “disband this Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board immediately.”

According to the letter, the board “will inevitably have a chilling effect on free speech.”

It is, I suppose, conceivable that if a suit were filed the Biden administration would recognize that it can’t win and would dissolve the board immediately. So far, though, the administration has just been barreling ahead with bad policies unless and until legally thwarted.

So why are the AGs even bothering with a letter that must have even less effect than a filing?

Now the letter has been submitted. Fine. Give Mayorkas ten minutes to shut down the board. Has he shut it down? No.

Sue!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies social media

Electoral Fraud, Google-Style

Google, deep state

“There exist many sneaky ways to get other people to do what you want, voluntarily — effectively blurring the line between legitimate persuasion and fraud.”

I wrote that in a Common Sense squib entitled “The Online Manipulation of Democracy,” in which I discussed the work of Robert Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology in California. That was over four years ago. Since then, his research has carried forward, focusing on how “the biggest tech companies influence human behavior, and conducting extensive monitoring projects of bias in these companies’ products, with a particular focus on Google.”

I’m quoting from an article by Masooma Haq and Jan Jekielek, from page A4 of the latest issue of The Epoch Times. In that article, and in an online interview published April 7, we are told how vast this power is — capable of flipping close elections around the world — and how difficult the influencing is to identify.

And that’s not just because Big Tech outfits like Google are sneaky. 

Ephemeral events on our screens, like “a flashing newsfeed, a search result, or a suggested video are the ideal form of manipulation,” Epstein argues, “because they aren’t recorded and are hard to document.”

He insists they “affect us, they disappear, they’re stored nowhere, and they’re gone.” 

Think about what that means: we don’t know we’re being manipulated, and “authorities can’t go back in time to see what people were being shown,” explains Epstein.

But it’s worse: Google, like many “free” online service companies, started out as a Deep State project.

We shouldn’t be shocked to find that sneaky, evasive, ephemeral manipulation techniques have been pioneered by . . . tax-funded spies.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights social media

Google Shareholders vs. Google Censorship

Joe Biden, censorship, big tech

Some Google shareholders are pressing Google for records of its communications with the Biden administration. And not just any old records. They are specifically demanding those pertaining to the administration’s demands for censorship.

Per the First Amendment, it is unconstitutional for government to seek to muzzle people for saying things that government officials disapprove of.

Yet the Biden Administration and others, including members of Congress, have openly (and repeatedly) urged big-tech social media companies to more assiduously censor discussion of COVID-19 policy, COVID-19 vaccines, the nature of COVID-19. The president did this again just last week: “I make a special appeal to social media companies and media outlets — please deal with the misinformation and disinformation that’s on your shows. It has to stop.”

Everything we’ve seen adds up to a slam-dunk case against the government for violating the First Amendment. We know that government officials are asking social-media companies to censor. They’re not hiding it.

Suing the government’s big-tech lackeys — and government officials, when plausible — is one way to combat the evil.

The National Legal and Policy Center, a Google shareholder, is trying to secure a requirement that the company disclose the content of any communications between itself and the government related to the Biden Administrations calls for censorship. Last summer, the administration stated that it was “in regular touch” with the big-tech giants.

Will Google voluntarily produce documents showing that it acquiesced in specific Biden administration demands for censorship?

No. But as Charles Glasser has pointed out, there is precedent for a judicial finding that media are de facto “government agents” when they work “hand-in-hand with government in violating constitutional rights.”

The effort may not succeed, but it’s worth a shot.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling ideological culture

Burning Down the House

burning, house, school

A sign of the times: in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, the Democrat, Terry McAuliffe, is brazenly telling voters: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Presumably, parents should just sit back, relax, and let their children be indoctrinated at will, including with the latest “anti-racist” racism.

Of course, we’re being assailed on many fronts. Things seem to be cracking up faster than ever, which is the theme of a recent Legal Insurrection post, “Gradually and Then Suddenly,” published on the blog’s thirteenth anniversary.

William Jacobson argues that for years now, “all the ‘progressive’ pieces were in place but needed a spark to burn the house down.”

The spark was the death of George Floyd in May 2020, followed by “state-sanctioned lawlessness, rioting, and looting; a vicious cultural purge from academia to corporations to the military to historical monuments; gaslighting and burying of news by a corrupt and dishonest mainstream corporate media and Big Tech; and the solidification of our post-truth world . . . where telling facts some people don’t like can get you fired, denounced, and boycotted.”

In addition to fighting back, Jacobson advises that we prep for the worst. This means, for one thing, stocking up on food with a long shelf life. (The preppers were “early,” not wrong.) We should also rely more on each other rather than on institutions. 

Jacobson provides a bonus tip (one I’ve also advised): If at all possible, get your kids the heck out of the public schools.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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burning house

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