Big week for tech platforms & free speech!

- Twitter & FB banned Trump
- Apple & Google banned Parler
- Amazon kicked Parler off AWS
- Stripe stopped handling payments for Trump campaign

I just wrote a 4,000 word piece on these issues.

Here's a thread with my 10 takeaways...

1. Contrary to what many people have been claiming, no, Big Tech is not more powerful than the government.

The government can tax you, imprison you, and kill you. It can even nationalize private companies.

Tech companies can delete your free account.
2. Trump may be banned from Facebook and Twitter, but he’s still the president of the United States and he has not been silenced.

As @ModeledBehavior reminded us, only 22% of adults use Twitter. (And only 10% are daily active users).

Twitter is not real life.
3. Banning right-wing extremists or those who incite violence is not a slippery slope toward an Orwellian dystopia, and it’s certainly not a civil rights issue (contrary to what @willchamberlain might claim).

Every platform bans some users for speech issues, including Parler.
4. Repealing Section 230 would not solve any of these issues (and might make them worse).

People who claim "this is why we need to repeal 230" are lying to you (or severely misinformed).

Follow experts like @jkosseff & @mmasnick to learn what Section 230 actually says and does.
5. Those who say that Twitter is being inconsistent in enforcing its policies are right!

But that doesn’t mean Twitter should leave Trump and other extremists alone.

Twitter should ban both Trump *and* the Supreme Leader of Iran from its platform (and CCP propaganda).
6. It would be silly for Europe to leave the American-led internet over concerns about the suppression of speech.

The EU values free speech way less than we do!

They have laws on privacy, hate speech, copyright, etc that prioritize other values over speech.
7. No, a private company can't violate your First Amendment rights.

There should be no disagreement on this narrow point...
8. But saying a company can't violate your First Amendment rights doesn't end the debate.

Need to look beyond the false dichotomy of the individual & the state, and recognize there are "mezzanine authorities" in society (h/t @Noahpinion).

Companies can restrict free speech.
9. So how should policymakers proceed?

I propose a tech stack framework that focuses on 3 tiers.

Top tier (apps & websites) should have the most discretion to moderate.

Bottom tier (infrastructure) should default to neutrality (unless there's competition).
10. We should closely examine deplatforming cases when they happen in the infrastructure layer because there is often little competition (consider local monopolies that utility companies have).

At least in the AWS & Stripe cases, there is lots of competition in cloud & payments.
Here's the full piece if you want more detail: https://t.co/9043bu5FuY

More from Trump

Why am RTg this Rush post? Because @AnjillofLight_ just advised me that @rushlimbaugh is handing his show over to @realDonaldTrump tomorrow 10/9.

Playing both the Rush and Trump Cards

Coincidence the movie The Trump Card is out tomorrow 10/9. https://t.co/RT45TDE8HP


I'm your Huckleberry. I knew it.🤣
https://t.co/gqHfFWfxZO


All the Rush graphics are in linked threads throughout
##FLY##
[OWL]

https://t.co/b9px5Mt3iN


Only the full release of docs can give conclusive evidence.

Dangle Operation
Sanctions are coming
11/4
11/5


Make sure you go to the concession stand and get your popcorn, beverage and candy.
https://t.co/laVxyfS5ax
To those who want to actually help Claudia Conway after her mom (Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former aide) posted her underage daughter’s nudes to Fleets, fill out a report on the NCMEC CyberTipline.
CPS refused to help her.
#HelpClaudia


Kellyanne Conway has a well-documented history of verbally abusing, gaslighting, and threatening her daughter. It gets worse when highly public things go viral (such as exposing the truth about Trump and Conway catching COVID-19 last October). Kellyanne coerces false statements.

Insider did a thorough chronological background of the history of exposing her parents abuse and control of her here:
https://t.co/ncjaEyLOSC

We all know that “statement” last year was coerced. She talks constantly about being abused by them.


Personally? I suspect Kellyanne is a narcissist. From my own experience being sexually and emotionally abused by a narcissist, they are obsessed with controlling the narrative (coerced typed statement), discrediting their victim (posting her nudes) & gaslighting

If you haven’t experienced gaslighting or aren’t familiar with it, it’s when someone causing you harm (physical, emotional, sexual, financial, etc) twists the facts and asserts that reality is just you being delusional and you don’t actually understand what happened.
DONALD TRUMP IS SO RACIST ...

— that he restored and increased HBCU funding (which Obama cut permanently) and met with HBCU leaders to find more solutions to bring higher education to black communities!

— that he gave loans to black entrepreneurs when the banks wouldn't.
https://t.co/qiK2Ul7se2

— that Jesse Jackson praised Trump for helping him put together his Rainbow Coalition and for being a model for “people on Wall Street to represent diversity.”

— that he was awarded the 1986 Ellis Island Medal Of Honor alongside Rosa parks and Muhammad Ali for “patriotism, tolerance, brotherhood and DIVERSITY”. They don't give these medals to racists. https://t.co/WliqZHc34j

— that he dated a black woman.

— that he donated to and did personal favors for Rev. Al Sharpton's National Youth Movement. https://t.co/nBTvLiO128

— that he helped sponsor and finance both of Jesse Jackson's presidential bids.

— that when a homeless black woman was found illegally living in Trump Tower he allowed this woman to stay for 8 years, and provided her with three meals a day, and fresh flowers once a week.

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"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."


We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.

Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)

It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.

Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".