Wow, you did great research and tied Ashli's plight, and the plight of all of middle America, into the craziness that happened in D.C that day. Amazing work. Kudos sir!
Great post, Matt. I learned a lot about the power of the FTC that I was unaware of.
Just to add to Ms. Babbitt's story, there is research showing that many of the people who buy into conspiracy theories are just like her, in that they have tried to do everything the right way according to our society's neoliberal rules.
They get training and experience, frequently in the military, as well as vo-tech schools and community colleges. Then they attempt to become entrepreneurs, like the neoliberals tell everyone who has lost a job is the way to personal and financial success. Their laudable efforts are stymied by the oligarchic power structure and the predatory companies they are forced to do business with in order to operate their businesses.
When those businesses fail because of these predators, they turn to conspiracy theories, just as early societies turned to mythology and religion to explain the natural events that destroyed their crops and decimated the animal populations that they depended on for sustenance.
Since most people have little to no understanding of the structure of our economy that promotes those predatory companies and practices, they turn to conspiracy theories to explain their failures. Makes perfect sense to me.
The main difference today is that we have a government that has the power to do something to rectify the situation somewhat, if only we can get good people like Chopra into positions where they can really make a difference.
Sadly, I'm afraid Chopra might remain a lonely voice crying for justice in the wilderness with only infrequent and modest success. Given Biden's history, I'm not optimistic that he will appoint Chopra as FTC chair. I think Biden is far too deeply captured by the corporate oligarchs to do the right thing.
Think there's probably a lot of truth about Biden too far involved in the system to shake it up..but we'll see. Perhaps these next few weeks of violence will shake some of these people awake? Maybe they will begin to really care about the bigger picture (which includes the health and well-being of our planet).
I hear you on Biden, but I also think he's kind of done. He was retired and no one was after him, meaning he had paid his debts. His years of advocacy for credit card companies are behind him and his family is in decent shape. His age may be a benefit because what does he care? How can anyone hurt him? He'll be dead soon and his debts will die with him. I truly think he's always been a good guy and I think he knows the right thing to do, but was constrained in the past. Now, I think he has the freedom to do the right thing and for the most part I think he will. Chopra is in charge of the CFPB, and has a direct ally in the Senate majority. Let's hope Ms. Slaughter got religion working with Mr. Chopra and sees what her office can do.
The thing is, if he were truly a good guy that cared about the issues, he would do something to fix them *before* being at the point that doing so wouldn't negatively affect him. Waiting until then so he isn't hurt by changing things, despite the delay hurting countless others, makes him not such a good guy. Unfortunately, there's nothing unique about him there, as basically all politicians do what's in their best interest.
GitHub, a popular platform for software version control and collaboration, recently, blocked the entire staff of an European company, because one employee had logged in from Iran. GitHub did so without any warning or explanation, so much so, that the CEO of the company had to take to Twitter to get someone's attention at GitHub.
GitHub, is an example of a double monopoly, a monopoly platform owned by a bigger monopoly (Microsoft). As it turned out not even Trump appointed OFAC lawyers approved of a such a draconian interpretation of the US sanctions against Iran, and GitHub was forced to retract.
In a healthy competitive market economy, no company would dare to treat its customers so callously and recklessly.
Doesn’t GitHub have competition from other version control software like GitLab, BitBucket, and other older Git-based versioning software? What, in your eyes, makes GitHub a monopoly in this instance?
It does, so I would disagree that it's a monopoly, but it does have overwhelming market share, so most people/groups/orgs tend to use it. Like how there are alternatives to Edge/Chrome, but most people just use those because they're what's there and what's most well-known (because they're what's there). Not exactly the same, but similar. Even when GitHub was bought by Microsoft and some devs migrated to GitLab, there weren't many that did, percentage-wise at least.
What evidence is there to indicate that Parler was used to organise the riots at Capitol Hill? It would extremely difficult to organise any event on a platform like Parler. It doesn't have any groups facility like Facebook and other platforms.
I volunteered at an organization that spent months monitoring social media platforms for mis/disinformation and threats of violence in the runup to Nov. 3. I'm sure specific planning was going on on secure sites like Signal, but I saw plenty of posts that helped build the swell of people who felt they were patriots with a sacred mission to "stop the steal." Were it not for such sites, I have to believe that the contagion of righteousness would not have reached the level that sent people careening to DC. I am also a first amendment stan, and feel that we have to be very careful about censoring people, but something must be done.
I feel the same way about censorship, both that it's almost never good but that sometimes it has to be done, but I think it's taken way, way too far. The other issue I have is with a liberal (or conservative, it's just that Facebook, Google, etc happen to be liberal) company hiring "fact checkers" to do this. So you have Democrats in charge of determining what people should and shouldn't be able to say and see. And that in itself leads to more division, distrust, and belief in things that may or may not be true ("conspiracy theories," etc), so while it probably helps by removing the more violent/racist/etc posts, it simultaneously hurts things. Sort of the "who's policing the police" thing, who's fact-checking the "fact-checkers." While I completely understand there's a LOT of disinformation out there (and on both sides), something isn't true or false just because an almost certainly biased employee at a most definitely biased company says so. That's far too much power in the hands of a small group, aka an oligarchy, and is *not* how this country is supposed to be run.
Thanks for your gentle and respectful tone; I will try to do the same. I disagree with your conflation of liberal and Democrat: I consider myself pretty liberal, but I'm not a Democrat. And I'm a little reluctant to join you in condemning both sides equally; I think there is only one side that was trying to undermine the election results, or are you among those that suspect that the election was rigged, and so feel the people arguing to confirm the results are guilty of misinformation?
One other thing: FB and Google and Twitter and all these other platforms are corporations, and when they remove posts they are not violators of the First Amendment. I agree that their actions have antagonized the people who support the posts that were removed, but no one can argue that those people don't have the prerogative to stop frequenting those sites. I believe that somewhere in the future they all have to be ruled as either media companies, or not, which will require them to police themselves or have others do it, and that will begin the dangerous process of the government getting involved in censorship.
Can't edit my other post, but I realized it was another reply elsewhere in this thread that I made my position regarding my thoughts on the voting fraud allegations clear, so wanted to mention that in case there's any confusion on that point.
I concede that liberal does not necessarily equate to Democrat; I just use the two terms interchangeably meaning liberal more than Democrat, and I feel that the term liberal is generally used more when trash-talking, and is therefore perceived in a more hostile manner, which is why I try not to rely too heavily on it but rather balance the use of the two terms. I suppose, like anything, you can't win. :P
I'm not sure whether you're saying condemn both sides as far as the election results fiasco or generally. I absolutely *know* (not think, know, because even clearly liberal-slanted publications point out cases of Democrat/liberal politicians caught up in corruption on a regular basis) that both sides are deserving of condemnation generally. With respect to the allegations of voting manipulation, I felt I was pretty clear that I am among those that suspect that. I don't feel so strongly that it existed that I was willing to take up arms, but I do find it hard to dismiss the many claims of various things that happened all over, considering I haven't really seen anything from the other side except general statements that of course it didn't happen and believing so makes you crazy/stupid. Even Matt, who I consider to be very level-headed, seems to insinuate in this post that the woman who died believed it happened due to likely brain trauma from her overseas service, i.e. that you'd have to be brain-damaged to believe in it. As I said, I try to look at both sides of things, from reading and watching news from both sides, reading newsletters from both sides, and discussing, when possible, in a calm and logical manner with people from both sides. And IME, libs/Dems tend to more often be more emotional and offer less practical reasons and evidence about things. I'm not saying people on the right don't act that way a lot as well, just that the left, from what I see, seems to more. And in this example, that shows by my seeing, without even trying, many examples of alleged vote manipulation, yet even when I watch left-biased news and read liberal newsletters, all I see is general, sweeping claims that people that believe it happened are nuts because it didn't happen. No evidence, no specific rebuttals to the various examples given where it supposedly did happen.
For all I know--because, again, both sides are corrupt and both sides lie--90% of those "facts" are BS. I've even caught them lying once or twice when researching their claims. But it's hard to research them, and to not think that a) they're telling the truth, and b) the left is sweeping things under the rug when even when I actively look for stories I hear about from a newsletter, I can't find *anything* on Google, right or left, and I have to go to DDG (or technically Bing, since DDG just uses their results, which I find odd that MS doesn't seem to be censoring or manipulating them) just to find articles about them, and then they're all one-sided, so I can't get a balanced picture.
Even your statement that "there is only one side that was trying to undermine the election results" shows the problem I'm talking about. Liberals, such as you (I say not trying to be offensive or combative, but you yourself put yourself in that group), make comments like that, which only serves to push the other side further away due to what it implies. Matt approaches the issue much more empathetically here, which is why he is more likely to made headway into getting the two sides to actually talk about it instead of fight. Yes, I'm sure there were some, perhaps many, people that didn't really care about whether vote manipulation took place, and simply wanted their man (Trump) to stay. But the majority of people that either believe or, as with me, suspect and simply haven't been convinced otherwise, that it happened aren't trying to "undermine the election results," they/we are genuinely concerned that it happened and, if it did, that it represents a grave threat to democracy/republic. I don't care which side does it, if it happens, it's wrong--and that's a massive understatement--and even claims that it happened *must* be thoroughly investigated, not just brushed off, which is at least the perception of what happened. There is really nothing more sacred than voting in a democracy, because once that's corrupted, that's it.
So that's why I blame the left; not because I think they (i.e. the voters, since obviously if there truly *was* mass manipulation then the Democratic party and at least some liberals were involved) are involved in some mass conspiracy to cover it up, but because they're just blowing it off. I'm sure most liberals genuinely believe that nothing happened and that those claiming it did are wrong, but they seem to dismiss it out of hand as simply wrong because it must be, and treating anyone that even suspects something happened like they're crazy/stupid/etc. Some level of skepticism and mistrust is healthy and necessary, since if we don't question things, corruption will run rampant. And simply trying to brush it off and, worse still, claiming that those who hold that skepticism are automatically nuts/racist/bigots/misogynistic/etc for doing so doesn't help anything, yet that's exactly how many liberals and liberal publications act. I just want to see more civil discussion about it and see it treated as the serious issue it is, true or not. Heck, even if it's not true, the simple fact is the system is far from perfect and has potential for abuse, which has been known for years, yet little has been done to improve it. So at the very least, this may have been preventable, like so many other things, by taking action *before* it got to this point and, like so many things, action to prevent similar situations will probably still not be taken.
As for the corporations, I realize they're not violating the 1st Amendment, but that is the first one for a reason, and even if their censorship isn't unconstitutional, the fact it's silencing speech, which would be unconstitutional if done by a government entity and was clearly considered a very bad thing by the Founding Fathers and still is by many (though maybe not that many) today should mean something. It should show that, despite not being unconstitutional, it's wrong, except in extreme circumstances, but much of the censorship taking place is *not* extreme. And that's why the system needs to change, as Matt advocates. While I question how smart it is to revoke Section 230 outright, since it very likely will have devastating effects on the Internet, I think the current system is in clear need of change. As Matt mentioned, they shouldn't be able to censor like they do, but they also shouldn't have to. And I agree, letting the government get involved in making those decisions isn't a good idea, either. I actually like Matt's idea about simply holding people accountable for what they say, which one would think would be obvious anyhow.
And yes, people have the prerogative to stop using the sites, to a point. But what about when they're *forced* to "stop using them," such as in cases when hosting services kick forums because they don't agree with their politics. Sorry, but corporations, regardless of whether it violates 1A, shouldn't be able to do that. I mean, liberals get upset when bakeries won't cater gay weddings, but then liberal cafes kick people out for wearing MAGA hats and liberal corporations silence conservative speech by altering search results and dropping hosting services. Two wrongs don't make a right, and yes, I absolutely do condemn both sides for the problems in this country.
And even when not forced to stop using a service, such as with Facebook--though even with that there have been many reported cased of it due to Facebook banning people's and organizations' accounts without even giving a reason or responding to inquiries and refusing to reinstate them--for many people, sadly, not using them is difficult, if not impossible. Whether due to addiction, using the services as a primary means of communication with friends, family, social networks, support groups, etc, using them for business, or whatever, many people are tied to them. And because they're monopolies, there's not much else for options. And even if people were to move to another service, assuming that service didn't also ban them, they wouldn't get nearly the same exposure. So these companies, in violation of free speech or not, are using their monopolies to have undue influence on the propagation of speech and ideas, helping to spread the voices of those they agree with and squashing the voices of those that don't. And again, while not unconstitutional, that absolutely should be illegal.
And one final point: even if you don't agree it should be illegal, I would hope you would at least realize the harm it does. Search engines and social media use "algorithms" (I quote it because while some truly are algorithms, there's also very clear censorship going on) to decide which content to show, which people and groups to suggest as possible friends, etc. And both through these algorithms and through their own behavior, people end up locking themselves in to a limited, distorted view of the world by only seeing certain search results and only conversing with certain types of people. This results in an echo chamber that amplifies their beliefs instead of challenging them, and leads to even more dichotomy. It's no coincidence the country has become substantially more divided since the Internet, and especially social media, took off.
There will be lots of fights over the constitutionality of many your proposals, and given the current makeup of the courts, including SCOTUS, I would say the chances of success are pretty low. But still worth trying. It at least gets the debate going.
Matt, you want to put this 'right' for real? An audit of the voting machines. Do that and support for Trump will melt away and he'll be seen as what he is perceived by leftists. Don't do that (audit the actual machines), and you're going to have half of America feeling their vote was stolen. As for the rest of your article regarding the FTC head, social media, etc. that's get sorted as the pendulum swings. Note; let it turn out you can't audit the machines for 'reasons' and we're cruising for trouble in my opinion. Sigh
What, to you, would be auditing the machines? Because the machines were effectively audited in Georgia by two hand recounts. At least according to what I have read:
When people voted on them the machines generated a printout of their votes that the individuals could verify before handing them off. And those same printouts were then hand counted to verify the machine count.
So what else can be done that would add to this hand audit?
I leave the details of 'how' to people smarter than me. Just a good faith effort to validate all the votes as legitimate. Otherwise, I don't think we'll have peace in our country. This tit for tat has to end and that will be in two years when the house and perhaps the Senate ends up again in Republican hands. So prove the voting machines didn't diddle the numbers and the problem is resolved. After all, the charges were put forth and you can count what you told the machines until the cows come home because if someone diddled the numbers, then hand counts mean nothing! Honestly, I believe the only way to settle it(at least in my little mind) is with a forensic analysis. Moreover, I don't doubt there are people supremely qualified to do just that. And I'll tell you another thing, I believe the source code for these things (voting machines) should be open source so that anybody can examine it for trickeration. And no, I don't care what a for-profit voting-machine company thinks or says about needing to protect their intellectual property because all it has to do is add. If it's more complicated than that, then I have to wonder why. And so should you because one day the shoe will be on the other foot. Then it'll be your candidate shouting accusations of malfeasance with the voting machines. As a citizen I say, fix this now. Fix it forever. Or revert to paper ballots, dropped into clear boxes, complete with finger into ink, and hand counted in public. Honest voting can be had, so for America to use a system where there's any doubt is a stain on all of us.
"I leave the details of 'how' to people smarter than me. Just a good faith effort to validate all the votes as legitimate."
You know what man? This has been done. Do your own research - contact your Secretary of State's office (or the office of the Secretary of State of the state you're curious about) and ask them specifically what was done to validate votes as legitimate. Because they did so validate (yes, I know there's still room for cheating - I've read of one instance where a Trump supporting mother filled out her out-of-country liberal daughter's ballot for Trump and signing it in her handwriting, and the daughter had to do a song and dance for the police or FBI or somesuch to keep her mother out of jail; and of course that Republican who requested a ballot for his deceased mother https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pennsylvania-voter-fraud-republican-felony-charges-casting-ballot-for-dead-mother ).
But in both cases the cheating was caught (though unfortunately both votes were counted for different reasons). Validation does take place. Find out what it is, and what holes it doesn't cover, and then figure out how to plug those holes.
Don't take a salesman's word for the cheating, especially not the word of a salesman who has raised over HALF A BILLION dollars in the last year alone on spin that it was needed to prevent said cheating. (Follow the money, man.) A salesman who spins donating his Presidential salary as altruistic when instead without such a small donation he probably couldn't have taken the millions of dollars in tax deductions he took in 2016, 2017, and probably even today ( https://twitter.com/Lafayette_Ket/status/1310595810556547072 ).
I don't take a saleman's word. All I am saying is more than 50% of Americans feel the vote was tampered with. This means a significant % of undeclared voters. Look, if you don't want to know, fine. Me? I'm a nobody. I am just a citizen of the United States. Nobody special. One voice. But my point stands; there's a lot of unhappiness about this and if it take counting again, then do it.
I think you have too much faith in people. I know many of these people who think the vote was "stolen" and when I ask them what it will take to change their minds, they say, as you do, "audit the machines"> And who will you believe when they tell you that an audit was done? And they eventually admit that they won't believe anyone but Trump. The CEO of the voting machine company? "NO!" Their very own Secretary of State or head of the state election commission? "NO WAY!" How about the CEO of the auditing company? "HA! FAT CHANCE! They can easily get to that guy!" Try it yourself. An audit may convince you, but it will never convince the true believers, only trump can do that, and he's never, ever admitting he lost. So there's no hope, at all, for these people.
The problem, as I see it, is the lopsided reporting on it and the censorship of discussion about it. I'm still not convinced one way or the other as to whether there was mass voting manipulation that took place. But what I have read, admittedly in a conservative mailing (I get and read some from both sides, as I prefer to see things from different perspectives, and I myself fall on both sides of the spectrum for various issues and feel both sides are corrupt and out of touch), is that there has been much evidence of fraud that has been summarily dismissed and that the CEO of Dominion Voting Systems has been caught outright lying. Assuming that's true, it's no wonder people don't trust him when he says it didn't happen. And it's no wonder people don't trust when courts, which very well may and likely often are adjudicated by liberal judges, simply dismiss the claims without a proper hearing/trial. Granted, I realize you can't have dozens or more trials popping up everywhere over what very well could be garbage, but there should have been something, perhaps one real trial in each contested state. If they had done that and allowed evidence, whether real or BS, be offered in a public forum, reported on by the press, and had a jury or a panel of judges (state Supreme Courts could have taken a few days to hear cases and doing so would have done much to abate people's concerns) decide, then it would have meant a lot more and would have gone a lot further than simply dismissing the claims outright.
Instead, the strategy of social media, news outlets, and liberals was, as usual, to just silence/censor it. From the right, again true or not, I was getting numerous, specific examples of fraud being proven, yet the deniers that any of it took place didn't, at least from what I saw, do much to disprove any of it except to say none of it (generally, nothing specific) didn't happen and to proclaim that anyone believing it did is crazy/racist/unpatriotic/etc. And I'm frankly sick of that, as that appears to be the go-to for stuff like this. I refuse to look at *anything* published by the NYT anymore after one too many articles saying "if you believe this or feel this way about this issue, you're a racist/bigot." I've also unsubscribed from liberal newsletters for similar reasons. Seriously, talk about divisive. And while I realize certain speech can be inflammatory and problematic, and free speech only extends so far, I do not like the idea of censorship, and social media companies take it *WAY* too far. And all they accomplish by doing so, aside from showing not only their beliefs but that they can and will silence those whose beliefs oppose theirs, is to further fan the flames by getting people up in arms (sometimes literally) by censoring and even banning people expressing certain opinions, and by preventing discussion which could potentially lead to changing people's opinions and helping bring the two sides, which are often both much too far from center, closer together.
I don't use social media, and I don't often post on political stuff online, but I've been especially hesitant to do so lately, since even my moderate views would likely result in people claiming me to be one of the above things (or something else) and in me being censored. I only do so here because Matt seems to be more moderate himself and, more importantly, very deliberative about his position on things and willing to look at things from multiple perspectives, as I do, versus just getting locked into a hateful opinion of those that don't agree with his opinions like so many do.
I'll provide a couple other examples of bias that leads to mistrust and opinions and belief in positions that may seem illogical or offensive or whatever to some. There have been stories about various liberal governor's actions where they disproportionally set rules on what different organizations can and cannot do in response to COVID, which I've read about in one of the conservative newsletters and then gone, as I often do, to try and corroborate through my own research, only to find absolutely *ZERO* results about it on Google. I then do the same, exact search on DDG and at least half, if not 80%, of the results are about the issue. Of course, as you can imagine, they're all from conservative publications. And maybe they're all BS. But the left-biased media clearly chooses to simply ignore it completely vs publishing their own take, so people are not only left with one viewpoint, but with the *undeniable fact* that Google is manipulating/censoring search results.
Another example of this is when you type "Kamala Harris" (without the quotes, though I suppose it wouldn't matter) into Google, then start typing the next word. First, type "e," which will show a handful of results. Then type "l," which will reduce it to just a few. Then "i," at which point you will get nothing. Whether or not you believe she is eligible for the presidency, and therefore for the VP position, wouldn't it be nice for people that see something about it to go do their own research about it and come to their own conclusions? But clearly Google doesn't think so, and they don't want people to even be aware of the question. They'd rather use their power to manipulate people and keep them from being informed. It's reprehensible, and they need to be held accountable, and regardless of people's political opinions they, IMO, should feel that way, though, obviously, they (supposedly) have the right to their own opinion, which is what (supposedly) makes this country great, though the behavior of citizens, politicians, and corporations lately seems to indicate otherwise.
The finger in the ink pot is to preclude people voting twice. And if it called for a fingerprint, then I'd want it in blood. Finger prick like type II diabetics do daily and bang, you seal your vote. Like this as well as the ink. You, me, everybody! Count me in for it. Voting is serious business. Pussies need not participate.
So you're against the secret ballot then? Good to know. Secret ballots include the right not to vote, but you'd like to be sure we can identify those people. I wonder whatever for...?
Solvents and enzymes that can remove even the toughest of inks can be had these days.
In my state, when I vote, my vote is recorded and I get an email saying that it has been recorded (I vote by mail). Because it is recorded that I have voted I cannot vote again, even if I walk to a precinct voting booth. It's simple to record that a person has voted and to disallow any further votes from that person.
In my state (one of the contested ones, btw), I received an email saying a ballot had been requested and asking if it was me. I said not, I'd already requested, and received, mine, and they replied that they were going to discard the request form. I responded asking if maybe they should report and submit it to the authorities since it's voter fraud and they never got a response. I should also mention (or maybe I shouldn't) that the people that volunteer at my voting station are Democrats, some of whom claim not to be, so take that as you will. Anyways, they were *clearly* not concerned at all about the attempt at voter fraud, so that already, before all the accusations even started (the real ones, not the ones Trump started weeks before Election Day), made me uncomfortable with the validity of the results.
Sorry but a recount of illegal votes is just an exercise in counting. Are the votes legal? That's the purpose of doing a forensic audit. Folks who don't mid illegal votes are entitled to their viewpoint, naturally. Me? My very concern is I want an honest vote, and this puts me in amongst the ~50% of citizens who don't believe the vote was legit. I'm merely sharing what in my view would be required to disarm all arguments going forward.
Audit the vote! It's easy peasy and would go a loooong way toward healing!
Even easier would be to get rid of all the "ballot marking devices", many of which can't be audited at all, and require only hand marked ballots, hand counted in public. That's the gold standard around the world. I share your skepticism, John, but I'm not prepared call the vote completely illegitimate.
However, as long as we continue to use machines to record and count votes there are going to be unanswered and unanswerable questions.
I saw an example in the past day or so. If a ballot marking device is programmed to change every 27th vote, there's almost no way to discover that.
The most widely used voting machines are provided by ES&S and I've seen articles that do not give me confidence in their integrity, too many political connections and conflicts of interest.
And, please don't make the mistake of thinking it's only one of the duopoly of political parties. If they didn't both like the status quo, one or the other would be working to change things.
In some cases that would help, but there are some BMD's that print a bar code or QR code to be read by the counting scanner. It only reads the code, not the votes as shown on the printout. There is no way for the voter to verify that the information in the bar or QR code is actually the same as their votes as shown in the text on the ballot.
Another point I didn't mention is that the software for these BMD's is considered proprietary and the owners will not allow anyone to review or audit the coding. Perhaps a court order could open up these black boxes, but first you have to establish probable cause, and not being a lawyer, I'm not sure how you could do that. AFAIK, no one has tried yet.
Once again, everyone worried about the legitimacy of the vote should be lobbying their state and local governments to use only hand marked ballots, hand counted in public.
Sure. However it would be stupid to change enough votes to swing an election because there is no way in advance of the ultimate tabulation to know if an election will be within hand recount range. And a hand recount (two of them over the entire state of Georgia in this election) will catch this.
George W condemned trump sending a bunch of people to attack the Congress based on a lie.
George W sent the US military to attack Iraq based on a lie. He's taken some actions that show signs of taking responsibility and atonement, but an outright apology from him and the senators who voted for the war and the media that didn't listen to the voices of people who (1) knew the war was based on a lie and (2) believed the war would turn out the way that it did.
Fareed Zakaria went on TV to say he was wrong about the Gulf War and I'd like to see some others have that courage. I knew people who had the courage to get arrested to protest that war and it was shocking how little dissent was communicated in the media.
For many people that was "another brick in the wall" for believing the government and other parts of "the system" is corrupt and irreparable.
It's good that you are talking about needs for the system to demonstrate legitimacy -- the trouble we have is that the Democrats demonstrate legitimacy by going through empty motions and the Republicans demonstrate it through displays of extremism (never raise taxes ever.) In China they have an idea which is entirely foreign to us: demonstrate legitimacy by demonstrating competence, but that's antithetical to politicans signalling that they're not going to let somebody ambitious like Ralph Nader come around but rather they make a conspicuous show of leaders failing and not being held accountable (e.g. a Democratic speaker of the house never gets fired no matter how bad they lose an election) because they want to signal it is a "safe space" for powerful people who fail up.
A campaign to start from the ground up to increase the legitimacy of government is what we need, look to Habermas's "Legitimation Crisis" to get some idea of the landscape.
I really appreciate the fact that you are taking a systematic approach to this, as that's precisely what needs to happen. We need long term solutions to the problems our corporate greed is creating. They are robbing our entire country of the "American Dream". It doesn't exist any longer and not only that, we are being reduced to nothing but low income workers with little hope of progressing, unless we work in a few specialized area's within certain corporations. NO THANK YOU. We need to take care of our citizens and show them respect, care and that they have value. Why would anyone care about anyone else when they've been shit on their whole lives (like Ashli)? I get it and we need systematic change and it's going to take people like Chopra, Sanders, Warren, Abrhams, AOC, YOURSELF, etc etc etc..
A Biden staffer must have read your piece, and quickly suggested that Chopra be shunted off to the CFPB, where he can't cause too much trouble for the big boys. (sigh)
Thank you for your extremely informative and entertaining e-mails. I was educated in the US and try to keep in touch with the news there from my home in Tokyo. I’m afraid I find myself in the unusual position of disagreeing with the view in your latest column.
You argue on the one hand that the lack of punishment has encouraged monopolistic companies to continue predatory practices, leading to an endless cycle of bad behavior; you call reasonably for stricter enforcement of the law to rein in such acts. Then you airily dismiss the acts of BLM and Antifa – which violently occupied entire neighborhoods and downtowns, burned down arbitrary establishments like churches, Wendy’s franchises and black-owned sports bars, brazenly stole from shops, terrorized individuals, attacked public buildings like police headquarters and the White House (lest we forget – the president had to be evacuated), and caused an estimated $2 billion in damage to taxpayers and businesses – by saying that “There’s no moral or practical equivalence between these pro-Trump rioters and those who protested against police brutality.”
Violence is violence, period. An attack on a random Wendy’s is also an assault on democracy – a violation of private property, private enterprise and personal safety. When those acts are not prosecuted or even criticized – indeed, when they are actually defended by public officials and the media (CNN: “Please show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful”) – what lesson do you expect the other side to draw? Congress was happy enough when it was just lowly citizens under siege. It’s beyond hypocritical of them to complain now that their space has been violated. You can’t cheer on wanton acts of carnage on public streets, property and people and expect the other side to put up with it forever, whatever the perceived rightness of your cause.
Your talk of “equivalence” is, I’m sorry to say, irrelevant. Protests are fine, but the violence is not and should have been cut off at the start. As with those unenforced monopoly laws, we’re simply seeing the logical consequences of official inaction.
The media here in Japan have been much more balanced in their coverage, asking legitimate questions about the protests over the past year, the election process and the actions of both sides, all without a predetermined opinion. I wish American commenters would take a step back and do the same.
I enjoy tremendously your essays on the creeping monopolization of everything from cheerleading to the increasingly autocratic social media. I hope you’ll keep personal politics out of it.
I don't doubt a solvent can remove all traces of ink but raising this is disingenuous because it involves picayune, or retail, cheating. I am more concerned about wholesale cheating.
Look, when Democrats, under the guise of the pandemic response, mailed unrequested ballots they opened the door to claims of wholesale cheating. So I want a count. And I want an forensic audit of the voting machines. And I want mandatory jail sentences for anyone involved in cheating the vote.
Look, spin it any way you want but this isn't a Republican or Democrat issue. Why not? It's because what was used for the Democrats this time can be used against them next time. So let's lock this down forevermore and ensure an honest vote.
And what if we do a forensic audit of the machines? And what if we spend whatever it takes to confirm a person matches an intentionally cast ballot and also discover wholesale cheating that affected the election? Don't know. Question for another day. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
All I'm saying is this . . . if we want peace in this country, lets double check and know one way, or the other. Otherwise, the persistent thought the election was stolen will spoil the unity of our nation. I repeat, this is bigger than Trump, bigger than Biden bigger than either party.
There are plenty of anti corporate sources on the internet(Matt Stoller,Naked Capitalism,Oftwominds,etc.)but Babbitt chose anti government websites.Magically pretending that the corporations that own our government are never to blame for anything even though she had been directly affected by a corporation.This is the libertarian(mainly comes in two flavors,liberal and conservative) poison that courses through the American empires veins.A nation of suckers and sociopaths.What she and the majority of Americans should be doing is looking in the mirror for the source of their problems.
I have to applaud the efforts of your introductory paragraphs. Such efforts evince a dangerous, and therefore commendable, exercise of the imagination, but your moral analysis proved a little too tidy. Politics today only seems to allow for prescribed answers and approved intuitions. This oppressive tendency that the conspiratorial mindset of the left and the right enforces is a larger problem than certain myths about policing or election fraud. Beware those that do evil and speak of good, and beware those whose virtues are approved by the institutions that secure their station in life. Such people are without imagination. Such virtues are dubious.
On the point of Parker’s removal, being a long-time reader of yours, I was very interested as to what you would conclude. I have a few questions. I agree with you while-heartedly that the likeliest solution, once the various complexities are considered, is to reduce the capacity of social media to radicalize and profit off of people’s loneliness, grievances, and addiction to these products. Some other of your readers’ comments seem to point out what may be missing from your analysis. What is it about Parler, a company that appears miles behind Twitter and Facebook in terms of its capacity to monetize the outrage and addiction of its users, that makes it a unique threat? The answer, it would seem, is that parler is guilty of the sin of omission rather than commission. While it may be true that this allows the worst elements to fester, is it true that this makes parler uniquely useful as a tool of organizing political violence? In the other cases you reference, it seems to me that a business model and a failure to enforce preexisting guidelines, or, in other words, sins of commission and omission, created your ‘product safety’ analysis. This leads me to what may be left out of your analysis of Apple, Google, and Amazon’s decisions apropos parler, and that is where the product safety analogy fails. Products of the non-technological kind can be made safe to pretty arbitrary standards. Coffee served at McDonalds can be served at a temperature that does not cause third-degree burns. Even very complex products, like energy, could be limited to arbitrary and impractical degrees, such that their emissions do not cause the extinction of man on earth. Speech always contains the capacity to create violence and hate. This appears unavoidably true and constitutes a real inconvenience, one that our regulations of the tech sector needs to solve for, difficult as that may be, but I fail to see what makes parler uniquely dangerous in the abstract. I therefore have to conclude that what Apple, Amazon, and Google did is dangerously arbitrary. Free speech, from the constitutional perspective, is not protected because it only leads to good outcomes. It is protected because it is the right of man to think, feel, and speak for himself whatever the outcome may be. I am not a user of any social media, in the sense that I do not have any social media accounts, and my perspective is informed primarily by intuition and your writings on the subject. Considering the innate properties of speech to create bad outcomes, even your solution, regulation such these services be made less addictive, would in certain ways fall victim to your surmise that what parler is doing should be illegal. When every service can be identified as dangerous, it is inevitable that the largest player will decide what can and cannot be used based not on its dangers, but on what danger said service poses to that largest player. That largest player could be the government if a particularly egregious update to the patriot act is passed. Thanks again for what you’re doing. It helps people form views on important issues.
This argument strikes me as very much similar to arguments that the owner of the corner store shouldn't be held responsible for selling alcohol or tobacco to minors.
Not really...Unless they have a process that allows minors/or people suffering a diagnosed mental disability from participating, Parler or Twitter or etc cannot be held responsible. As long as they have procedures that ensure that
On the other hand it may sound like an argument that a store owner, who sells an alcohol to a legal adult who happens to get drunk and cause an accident, should be held responsible
Always learn so much from you. Thank you.
Wow, you did great research and tied Ashli's plight, and the plight of all of middle America, into the craziness that happened in D.C that day. Amazing work. Kudos sir!
Great post, Matt. I learned a lot about the power of the FTC that I was unaware of.
Just to add to Ms. Babbitt's story, there is research showing that many of the people who buy into conspiracy theories are just like her, in that they have tried to do everything the right way according to our society's neoliberal rules.
They get training and experience, frequently in the military, as well as vo-tech schools and community colleges. Then they attempt to become entrepreneurs, like the neoliberals tell everyone who has lost a job is the way to personal and financial success. Their laudable efforts are stymied by the oligarchic power structure and the predatory companies they are forced to do business with in order to operate their businesses.
When those businesses fail because of these predators, they turn to conspiracy theories, just as early societies turned to mythology and religion to explain the natural events that destroyed their crops and decimated the animal populations that they depended on for sustenance.
Since most people have little to no understanding of the structure of our economy that promotes those predatory companies and practices, they turn to conspiracy theories to explain their failures. Makes perfect sense to me.
The main difference today is that we have a government that has the power to do something to rectify the situation somewhat, if only we can get good people like Chopra into positions where they can really make a difference.
Sadly, I'm afraid Chopra might remain a lonely voice crying for justice in the wilderness with only infrequent and modest success. Given Biden's history, I'm not optimistic that he will appoint Chopra as FTC chair. I think Biden is far too deeply captured by the corporate oligarchs to do the right thing.
Think there's probably a lot of truth about Biden too far involved in the system to shake it up..but we'll see. Perhaps these next few weeks of violence will shake some of these people awake? Maybe they will begin to really care about the bigger picture (which includes the health and well-being of our planet).
From your mouth to Dog's ear.
I hear you on Biden, but I also think he's kind of done. He was retired and no one was after him, meaning he had paid his debts. His years of advocacy for credit card companies are behind him and his family is in decent shape. His age may be a benefit because what does he care? How can anyone hurt him? He'll be dead soon and his debts will die with him. I truly think he's always been a good guy and I think he knows the right thing to do, but was constrained in the past. Now, I think he has the freedom to do the right thing and for the most part I think he will. Chopra is in charge of the CFPB, and has a direct ally in the Senate majority. Let's hope Ms. Slaughter got religion working with Mr. Chopra and sees what her office can do.
The thing is, if he were truly a good guy that cared about the issues, he would do something to fix them *before* being at the point that doing so wouldn't negatively affect him. Waiting until then so he isn't hurt by changing things, despite the delay hurting countless others, makes him not such a good guy. Unfortunately, there's nothing unique about him there, as basically all politicians do what's in their best interest.
GitHub, a popular platform for software version control and collaboration, recently, blocked the entire staff of an European company, because one employee had logged in from Iran. GitHub did so without any warning or explanation, so much so, that the CEO of the company had to take to Twitter to get someone's attention at GitHub.
https://twitter.com/sebslomski/status/1344219609923276801
GitHub, is an example of a double monopoly, a monopoly platform owned by a bigger monopoly (Microsoft). As it turned out not even Trump appointed OFAC lawyers approved of a such a draconian interpretation of the US sanctions against Iran, and GitHub was forced to retract.
In a healthy competitive market economy, no company would dare to treat its customers so callously and recklessly.
Doesn’t GitHub have competition from other version control software like GitLab, BitBucket, and other older Git-based versioning software? What, in your eyes, makes GitHub a monopoly in this instance?
It does, so I would disagree that it's a monopoly, but it does have overwhelming market share, so most people/groups/orgs tend to use it. Like how there are alternatives to Edge/Chrome, but most people just use those because they're what's there and what's most well-known (because they're what's there). Not exactly the same, but similar. Even when GitHub was bought by Microsoft and some devs migrated to GitLab, there weren't many that did, percentage-wise at least.
What evidence is there to indicate that Parler was used to organise the riots at Capitol Hill? It would extremely difficult to organise any event on a platform like Parler. It doesn't have any groups facility like Facebook and other platforms.
I volunteered at an organization that spent months monitoring social media platforms for mis/disinformation and threats of violence in the runup to Nov. 3. I'm sure specific planning was going on on secure sites like Signal, but I saw plenty of posts that helped build the swell of people who felt they were patriots with a sacred mission to "stop the steal." Were it not for such sites, I have to believe that the contagion of righteousness would not have reached the level that sent people careening to DC. I am also a first amendment stan, and feel that we have to be very careful about censoring people, but something must be done.
I feel the same way about censorship, both that it's almost never good but that sometimes it has to be done, but I think it's taken way, way too far. The other issue I have is with a liberal (or conservative, it's just that Facebook, Google, etc happen to be liberal) company hiring "fact checkers" to do this. So you have Democrats in charge of determining what people should and shouldn't be able to say and see. And that in itself leads to more division, distrust, and belief in things that may or may not be true ("conspiracy theories," etc), so while it probably helps by removing the more violent/racist/etc posts, it simultaneously hurts things. Sort of the "who's policing the police" thing, who's fact-checking the "fact-checkers." While I completely understand there's a LOT of disinformation out there (and on both sides), something isn't true or false just because an almost certainly biased employee at a most definitely biased company says so. That's far too much power in the hands of a small group, aka an oligarchy, and is *not* how this country is supposed to be run.
Thanks for your gentle and respectful tone; I will try to do the same. I disagree with your conflation of liberal and Democrat: I consider myself pretty liberal, but I'm not a Democrat. And I'm a little reluctant to join you in condemning both sides equally; I think there is only one side that was trying to undermine the election results, or are you among those that suspect that the election was rigged, and so feel the people arguing to confirm the results are guilty of misinformation?
One other thing: FB and Google and Twitter and all these other platforms are corporations, and when they remove posts they are not violators of the First Amendment. I agree that their actions have antagonized the people who support the posts that were removed, but no one can argue that those people don't have the prerogative to stop frequenting those sites. I believe that somewhere in the future they all have to be ruled as either media companies, or not, which will require them to police themselves or have others do it, and that will begin the dangerous process of the government getting involved in censorship.
Can't edit my other post, but I realized it was another reply elsewhere in this thread that I made my position regarding my thoughts on the voting fraud allegations clear, so wanted to mention that in case there's any confusion on that point.
I concede that liberal does not necessarily equate to Democrat; I just use the two terms interchangeably meaning liberal more than Democrat, and I feel that the term liberal is generally used more when trash-talking, and is therefore perceived in a more hostile manner, which is why I try not to rely too heavily on it but rather balance the use of the two terms. I suppose, like anything, you can't win. :P
I'm not sure whether you're saying condemn both sides as far as the election results fiasco or generally. I absolutely *know* (not think, know, because even clearly liberal-slanted publications point out cases of Democrat/liberal politicians caught up in corruption on a regular basis) that both sides are deserving of condemnation generally. With respect to the allegations of voting manipulation, I felt I was pretty clear that I am among those that suspect that. I don't feel so strongly that it existed that I was willing to take up arms, but I do find it hard to dismiss the many claims of various things that happened all over, considering I haven't really seen anything from the other side except general statements that of course it didn't happen and believing so makes you crazy/stupid. Even Matt, who I consider to be very level-headed, seems to insinuate in this post that the woman who died believed it happened due to likely brain trauma from her overseas service, i.e. that you'd have to be brain-damaged to believe in it. As I said, I try to look at both sides of things, from reading and watching news from both sides, reading newsletters from both sides, and discussing, when possible, in a calm and logical manner with people from both sides. And IME, libs/Dems tend to more often be more emotional and offer less practical reasons and evidence about things. I'm not saying people on the right don't act that way a lot as well, just that the left, from what I see, seems to more. And in this example, that shows by my seeing, without even trying, many examples of alleged vote manipulation, yet even when I watch left-biased news and read liberal newsletters, all I see is general, sweeping claims that people that believe it happened are nuts because it didn't happen. No evidence, no specific rebuttals to the various examples given where it supposedly did happen.
For all I know--because, again, both sides are corrupt and both sides lie--90% of those "facts" are BS. I've even caught them lying once or twice when researching their claims. But it's hard to research them, and to not think that a) they're telling the truth, and b) the left is sweeping things under the rug when even when I actively look for stories I hear about from a newsletter, I can't find *anything* on Google, right or left, and I have to go to DDG (or technically Bing, since DDG just uses their results, which I find odd that MS doesn't seem to be censoring or manipulating them) just to find articles about them, and then they're all one-sided, so I can't get a balanced picture.
Even your statement that "there is only one side that was trying to undermine the election results" shows the problem I'm talking about. Liberals, such as you (I say not trying to be offensive or combative, but you yourself put yourself in that group), make comments like that, which only serves to push the other side further away due to what it implies. Matt approaches the issue much more empathetically here, which is why he is more likely to made headway into getting the two sides to actually talk about it instead of fight. Yes, I'm sure there were some, perhaps many, people that didn't really care about whether vote manipulation took place, and simply wanted their man (Trump) to stay. But the majority of people that either believe or, as with me, suspect and simply haven't been convinced otherwise, that it happened aren't trying to "undermine the election results," they/we are genuinely concerned that it happened and, if it did, that it represents a grave threat to democracy/republic. I don't care which side does it, if it happens, it's wrong--and that's a massive understatement--and even claims that it happened *must* be thoroughly investigated, not just brushed off, which is at least the perception of what happened. There is really nothing more sacred than voting in a democracy, because once that's corrupted, that's it.
So that's why I blame the left; not because I think they (i.e. the voters, since obviously if there truly *was* mass manipulation then the Democratic party and at least some liberals were involved) are involved in some mass conspiracy to cover it up, but because they're just blowing it off. I'm sure most liberals genuinely believe that nothing happened and that those claiming it did are wrong, but they seem to dismiss it out of hand as simply wrong because it must be, and treating anyone that even suspects something happened like they're crazy/stupid/etc. Some level of skepticism and mistrust is healthy and necessary, since if we don't question things, corruption will run rampant. And simply trying to brush it off and, worse still, claiming that those who hold that skepticism are automatically nuts/racist/bigots/misogynistic/etc for doing so doesn't help anything, yet that's exactly how many liberals and liberal publications act. I just want to see more civil discussion about it and see it treated as the serious issue it is, true or not. Heck, even if it's not true, the simple fact is the system is far from perfect and has potential for abuse, which has been known for years, yet little has been done to improve it. So at the very least, this may have been preventable, like so many other things, by taking action *before* it got to this point and, like so many things, action to prevent similar situations will probably still not be taken.
As for the corporations, I realize they're not violating the 1st Amendment, but that is the first one for a reason, and even if their censorship isn't unconstitutional, the fact it's silencing speech, which would be unconstitutional if done by a government entity and was clearly considered a very bad thing by the Founding Fathers and still is by many (though maybe not that many) today should mean something. It should show that, despite not being unconstitutional, it's wrong, except in extreme circumstances, but much of the censorship taking place is *not* extreme. And that's why the system needs to change, as Matt advocates. While I question how smart it is to revoke Section 230 outright, since it very likely will have devastating effects on the Internet, I think the current system is in clear need of change. As Matt mentioned, they shouldn't be able to censor like they do, but they also shouldn't have to. And I agree, letting the government get involved in making those decisions isn't a good idea, either. I actually like Matt's idea about simply holding people accountable for what they say, which one would think would be obvious anyhow.
And yes, people have the prerogative to stop using the sites, to a point. But what about when they're *forced* to "stop using them," such as in cases when hosting services kick forums because they don't agree with their politics. Sorry, but corporations, regardless of whether it violates 1A, shouldn't be able to do that. I mean, liberals get upset when bakeries won't cater gay weddings, but then liberal cafes kick people out for wearing MAGA hats and liberal corporations silence conservative speech by altering search results and dropping hosting services. Two wrongs don't make a right, and yes, I absolutely do condemn both sides for the problems in this country.
And even when not forced to stop using a service, such as with Facebook--though even with that there have been many reported cased of it due to Facebook banning people's and organizations' accounts without even giving a reason or responding to inquiries and refusing to reinstate them--for many people, sadly, not using them is difficult, if not impossible. Whether due to addiction, using the services as a primary means of communication with friends, family, social networks, support groups, etc, using them for business, or whatever, many people are tied to them. And because they're monopolies, there's not much else for options. And even if people were to move to another service, assuming that service didn't also ban them, they wouldn't get nearly the same exposure. So these companies, in violation of free speech or not, are using their monopolies to have undue influence on the propagation of speech and ideas, helping to spread the voices of those they agree with and squashing the voices of those that don't. And again, while not unconstitutional, that absolutely should be illegal.
And one final point: even if you don't agree it should be illegal, I would hope you would at least realize the harm it does. Search engines and social media use "algorithms" (I quote it because while some truly are algorithms, there's also very clear censorship going on) to decide which content to show, which people and groups to suggest as possible friends, etc. And both through these algorithms and through their own behavior, people end up locking themselves in to a limited, distorted view of the world by only seeing certain search results and only conversing with certain types of people. This results in an echo chamber that amplifies their beliefs instead of challenging them, and leads to even more dichotomy. It's no coincidence the country has become substantially more divided since the Internet, and especially social media, took off.
There will be lots of fights over the constitutionality of many your proposals, and given the current makeup of the courts, including SCOTUS, I would say the chances of success are pretty low. But still worth trying. It at least gets the debate going.
Matt, you want to put this 'right' for real? An audit of the voting machines. Do that and support for Trump will melt away and he'll be seen as what he is perceived by leftists. Don't do that (audit the actual machines), and you're going to have half of America feeling their vote was stolen. As for the rest of your article regarding the FTC head, social media, etc. that's get sorted as the pendulum swings. Note; let it turn out you can't audit the machines for 'reasons' and we're cruising for trouble in my opinion. Sigh
What, to you, would be auditing the machines? Because the machines were effectively audited in Georgia by two hand recounts. At least according to what I have read:
When people voted on them the machines generated a printout of their votes that the individuals could verify before handing them off. And those same printouts were then hand counted to verify the machine count.
So what else can be done that would add to this hand audit?
I leave the details of 'how' to people smarter than me. Just a good faith effort to validate all the votes as legitimate. Otherwise, I don't think we'll have peace in our country. This tit for tat has to end and that will be in two years when the house and perhaps the Senate ends up again in Republican hands. So prove the voting machines didn't diddle the numbers and the problem is resolved. After all, the charges were put forth and you can count what you told the machines until the cows come home because if someone diddled the numbers, then hand counts mean nothing! Honestly, I believe the only way to settle it(at least in my little mind) is with a forensic analysis. Moreover, I don't doubt there are people supremely qualified to do just that. And I'll tell you another thing, I believe the source code for these things (voting machines) should be open source so that anybody can examine it for trickeration. And no, I don't care what a for-profit voting-machine company thinks or says about needing to protect their intellectual property because all it has to do is add. If it's more complicated than that, then I have to wonder why. And so should you because one day the shoe will be on the other foot. Then it'll be your candidate shouting accusations of malfeasance with the voting machines. As a citizen I say, fix this now. Fix it forever. Or revert to paper ballots, dropped into clear boxes, complete with finger into ink, and hand counted in public. Honest voting can be had, so for America to use a system where there's any doubt is a stain on all of us.
"I leave the details of 'how' to people smarter than me. Just a good faith effort to validate all the votes as legitimate."
You know what man? This has been done. Do your own research - contact your Secretary of State's office (or the office of the Secretary of State of the state you're curious about) and ask them specifically what was done to validate votes as legitimate. Because they did so validate (yes, I know there's still room for cheating - I've read of one instance where a Trump supporting mother filled out her out-of-country liberal daughter's ballot for Trump and signing it in her handwriting, and the daughter had to do a song and dance for the police or FBI or somesuch to keep her mother out of jail; and of course that Republican who requested a ballot for his deceased mother https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pennsylvania-voter-fraud-republican-felony-charges-casting-ballot-for-dead-mother ).
But in both cases the cheating was caught (though unfortunately both votes were counted for different reasons). Validation does take place. Find out what it is, and what holes it doesn't cover, and then figure out how to plug those holes.
Don't take a salesman's word for the cheating, especially not the word of a salesman who has raised over HALF A BILLION dollars in the last year alone on spin that it was needed to prevent said cheating. (Follow the money, man.) A salesman who spins donating his Presidential salary as altruistic when instead without such a small donation he probably couldn't have taken the millions of dollars in tax deductions he took in 2016, 2017, and probably even today ( https://twitter.com/Lafayette_Ket/status/1310595810556547072 ).
END RANT. :)
I don't take a saleman's word. All I am saying is more than 50% of Americans feel the vote was tampered with. This means a significant % of undeclared voters. Look, if you don't want to know, fine. Me? I'm a nobody. I am just a citizen of the United States. Nobody special. One voice. But my point stands; there's a lot of unhappiness about this and if it take counting again, then do it.
I think you have too much faith in people. I know many of these people who think the vote was "stolen" and when I ask them what it will take to change their minds, they say, as you do, "audit the machines"> And who will you believe when they tell you that an audit was done? And they eventually admit that they won't believe anyone but Trump. The CEO of the voting machine company? "NO!" Their very own Secretary of State or head of the state election commission? "NO WAY!" How about the CEO of the auditing company? "HA! FAT CHANCE! They can easily get to that guy!" Try it yourself. An audit may convince you, but it will never convince the true believers, only trump can do that, and he's never, ever admitting he lost. So there's no hope, at all, for these people.
The problem, as I see it, is the lopsided reporting on it and the censorship of discussion about it. I'm still not convinced one way or the other as to whether there was mass voting manipulation that took place. But what I have read, admittedly in a conservative mailing (I get and read some from both sides, as I prefer to see things from different perspectives, and I myself fall on both sides of the spectrum for various issues and feel both sides are corrupt and out of touch), is that there has been much evidence of fraud that has been summarily dismissed and that the CEO of Dominion Voting Systems has been caught outright lying. Assuming that's true, it's no wonder people don't trust him when he says it didn't happen. And it's no wonder people don't trust when courts, which very well may and likely often are adjudicated by liberal judges, simply dismiss the claims without a proper hearing/trial. Granted, I realize you can't have dozens or more trials popping up everywhere over what very well could be garbage, but there should have been something, perhaps one real trial in each contested state. If they had done that and allowed evidence, whether real or BS, be offered in a public forum, reported on by the press, and had a jury or a panel of judges (state Supreme Courts could have taken a few days to hear cases and doing so would have done much to abate people's concerns) decide, then it would have meant a lot more and would have gone a lot further than simply dismissing the claims outright.
Instead, the strategy of social media, news outlets, and liberals was, as usual, to just silence/censor it. From the right, again true or not, I was getting numerous, specific examples of fraud being proven, yet the deniers that any of it took place didn't, at least from what I saw, do much to disprove any of it except to say none of it (generally, nothing specific) didn't happen and to proclaim that anyone believing it did is crazy/racist/unpatriotic/etc. And I'm frankly sick of that, as that appears to be the go-to for stuff like this. I refuse to look at *anything* published by the NYT anymore after one too many articles saying "if you believe this or feel this way about this issue, you're a racist/bigot." I've also unsubscribed from liberal newsletters for similar reasons. Seriously, talk about divisive. And while I realize certain speech can be inflammatory and problematic, and free speech only extends so far, I do not like the idea of censorship, and social media companies take it *WAY* too far. And all they accomplish by doing so, aside from showing not only their beliefs but that they can and will silence those whose beliefs oppose theirs, is to further fan the flames by getting people up in arms (sometimes literally) by censoring and even banning people expressing certain opinions, and by preventing discussion which could potentially lead to changing people's opinions and helping bring the two sides, which are often both much too far from center, closer together.
I don't use social media, and I don't often post on political stuff online, but I've been especially hesitant to do so lately, since even my moderate views would likely result in people claiming me to be one of the above things (or something else) and in me being censored. I only do so here because Matt seems to be more moderate himself and, more importantly, very deliberative about his position on things and willing to look at things from multiple perspectives, as I do, versus just getting locked into a hateful opinion of those that don't agree with his opinions like so many do.
I'll provide a couple other examples of bias that leads to mistrust and opinions and belief in positions that may seem illogical or offensive or whatever to some. There have been stories about various liberal governor's actions where they disproportionally set rules on what different organizations can and cannot do in response to COVID, which I've read about in one of the conservative newsletters and then gone, as I often do, to try and corroborate through my own research, only to find absolutely *ZERO* results about it on Google. I then do the same, exact search on DDG and at least half, if not 80%, of the results are about the issue. Of course, as you can imagine, they're all from conservative publications. And maybe they're all BS. But the left-biased media clearly chooses to simply ignore it completely vs publishing their own take, so people are not only left with one viewpoint, but with the *undeniable fact* that Google is manipulating/censoring search results.
Another example of this is when you type "Kamala Harris" (without the quotes, though I suppose it wouldn't matter) into Google, then start typing the next word. First, type "e," which will show a handful of results. Then type "l," which will reduce it to just a few. Then "i," at which point you will get nothing. Whether or not you believe she is eligible for the presidency, and therefore for the VP position, wouldn't it be nice for people that see something about it to go do their own research about it and come to their own conclusions? But clearly Google doesn't think so, and they don't want people to even be aware of the question. They'd rather use their power to manipulate people and keep them from being informed. It's reprehensible, and they need to be held accountable, and regardless of people's political opinions they, IMO, should feel that way, though, obviously, they (supposedly) have the right to their own opinion, which is what (supposedly) makes this country great, though the behavior of citizens, politicians, and corporations lately seems to indicate otherwise.
So is it any wonder people don't trust?
"complete with finger into ink" - This is unconstitutional (as it violates the secret ballot), and heck, fingerprints can be mimicked as well.
The finger in the ink pot is to preclude people voting twice. And if it called for a fingerprint, then I'd want it in blood. Finger prick like type II diabetics do daily and bang, you seal your vote. Like this as well as the ink. You, me, everybody! Count me in for it. Voting is serious business. Pussies need not participate.
So you're against the secret ballot then? Good to know. Secret ballots include the right not to vote, but you'd like to be sure we can identify those people. I wonder whatever for...?
Solvents and enzymes that can remove even the toughest of inks can be had these days.
In my state, when I vote, my vote is recorded and I get an email saying that it has been recorded (I vote by mail). Because it is recorded that I have voted I cannot vote again, even if I walk to a precinct voting booth. It's simple to record that a person has voted and to disallow any further votes from that person.
In my state (one of the contested ones, btw), I received an email saying a ballot had been requested and asking if it was me. I said not, I'd already requested, and received, mine, and they replied that they were going to discard the request form. I responded asking if maybe they should report and submit it to the authorities since it's voter fraud and they never got a response. I should also mention (or maybe I shouldn't) that the people that volunteer at my voting station are Democrats, some of whom claim not to be, so take that as you will. Anyways, they were *clearly* not concerned at all about the attempt at voter fraud, so that already, before all the accusations even started (the real ones, not the ones Trump started weeks before Election Day), made me uncomfortable with the validity of the results.
They did. It's called a "recount".
Sorry but a recount of illegal votes is just an exercise in counting. Are the votes legal? That's the purpose of doing a forensic audit. Folks who don't mid illegal votes are entitled to their viewpoint, naturally. Me? My very concern is I want an honest vote, and this puts me in amongst the ~50% of citizens who don't believe the vote was legit. I'm merely sharing what in my view would be required to disarm all arguments going forward.
Audit the vote! It's easy peasy and would go a loooong way toward healing!
Even easier would be to get rid of all the "ballot marking devices", many of which can't be audited at all, and require only hand marked ballots, hand counted in public. That's the gold standard around the world. I share your skepticism, John, but I'm not prepared call the vote completely illegitimate.
However, as long as we continue to use machines to record and count votes there are going to be unanswered and unanswerable questions.
I saw an example in the past day or so. If a ballot marking device is programmed to change every 27th vote, there's almost no way to discover that.
The most widely used voting machines are provided by ES&S and I've seen articles that do not give me confidence in their integrity, too many political connections and conflicts of interest.
And, please don't make the mistake of thinking it's only one of the duopoly of political parties. If they didn't both like the status quo, one or the other would be working to change things.
"I saw an example in the past day or so. If a ballot marking device is programmed to change every 27th vote, there's almost no way to discover that."
This is why you print the market ballots out and have the voter verify it before handing it over.
In some cases that would help, but there are some BMD's that print a bar code or QR code to be read by the counting scanner. It only reads the code, not the votes as shown on the printout. There is no way for the voter to verify that the information in the bar or QR code is actually the same as their votes as shown in the text on the ballot.
Another point I didn't mention is that the software for these BMD's is considered proprietary and the owners will not allow anyone to review or audit the coding. Perhaps a court order could open up these black boxes, but first you have to establish probable cause, and not being a lawyer, I'm not sure how you could do that. AFAIK, no one has tried yet.
Once again, everyone worried about the legitimacy of the vote should be lobbying their state and local governments to use only hand marked ballots, hand counted in public.
Sure. However it would be stupid to change enough votes to swing an election because there is no way in advance of the ultimate tabulation to know if an election will be within hand recount range. And a hand recount (two of them over the entire state of Georgia in this election) will catch this.
George W wasn't alone in sending Ashli to Iraq. Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi were all for it, too. At least W is retired.
George W condemned trump sending a bunch of people to attack the Congress based on a lie.
George W sent the US military to attack Iraq based on a lie. He's taken some actions that show signs of taking responsibility and atonement, but an outright apology from him and the senators who voted for the war and the media that didn't listen to the voices of people who (1) knew the war was based on a lie and (2) believed the war would turn out the way that it did.
Fareed Zakaria went on TV to say he was wrong about the Gulf War and I'd like to see some others have that courage. I knew people who had the courage to get arrested to protest that war and it was shocking how little dissent was communicated in the media.
For many people that was "another brick in the wall" for believing the government and other parts of "the system" is corrupt and irreparable.
It's good that you are talking about needs for the system to demonstrate legitimacy -- the trouble we have is that the Democrats demonstrate legitimacy by going through empty motions and the Republicans demonstrate it through displays of extremism (never raise taxes ever.) In China they have an idea which is entirely foreign to us: demonstrate legitimacy by demonstrating competence, but that's antithetical to politicans signalling that they're not going to let somebody ambitious like Ralph Nader come around but rather they make a conspicuous show of leaders failing and not being held accountable (e.g. a Democratic speaker of the house never gets fired no matter how bad they lose an election) because they want to signal it is a "safe space" for powerful people who fail up.
A campaign to start from the ground up to increase the legitimacy of government is what we need, look to Habermas's "Legitimation Crisis" to get some idea of the landscape.
I really appreciate the fact that you are taking a systematic approach to this, as that's precisely what needs to happen. We need long term solutions to the problems our corporate greed is creating. They are robbing our entire country of the "American Dream". It doesn't exist any longer and not only that, we are being reduced to nothing but low income workers with little hope of progressing, unless we work in a few specialized area's within certain corporations. NO THANK YOU. We need to take care of our citizens and show them respect, care and that they have value. Why would anyone care about anyone else when they've been shit on their whole lives (like Ashli)? I get it and we need systematic change and it's going to take people like Chopra, Sanders, Warren, Abrhams, AOC, YOURSELF, etc etc etc..
A Biden staffer must have read your piece, and quickly suggested that Chopra be shunted off to the CFPB, where he can't cause too much trouble for the big boys. (sigh)
Great piece Matt!
Matt: can you find out where Substack content is hosted and if they have a plan to reboot somewhere else if they encounter problems with their host?
Thank you for your extremely informative and entertaining e-mails. I was educated in the US and try to keep in touch with the news there from my home in Tokyo. I’m afraid I find myself in the unusual position of disagreeing with the view in your latest column.
You argue on the one hand that the lack of punishment has encouraged monopolistic companies to continue predatory practices, leading to an endless cycle of bad behavior; you call reasonably for stricter enforcement of the law to rein in such acts. Then you airily dismiss the acts of BLM and Antifa – which violently occupied entire neighborhoods and downtowns, burned down arbitrary establishments like churches, Wendy’s franchises and black-owned sports bars, brazenly stole from shops, terrorized individuals, attacked public buildings like police headquarters and the White House (lest we forget – the president had to be evacuated), and caused an estimated $2 billion in damage to taxpayers and businesses – by saying that “There’s no moral or practical equivalence between these pro-Trump rioters and those who protested against police brutality.”
Violence is violence, period. An attack on a random Wendy’s is also an assault on democracy – a violation of private property, private enterprise and personal safety. When those acts are not prosecuted or even criticized – indeed, when they are actually defended by public officials and the media (CNN: “Please show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful”) – what lesson do you expect the other side to draw? Congress was happy enough when it was just lowly citizens under siege. It’s beyond hypocritical of them to complain now that their space has been violated. You can’t cheer on wanton acts of carnage on public streets, property and people and expect the other side to put up with it forever, whatever the perceived rightness of your cause.
Your talk of “equivalence” is, I’m sorry to say, irrelevant. Protests are fine, but the violence is not and should have been cut off at the start. As with those unenforced monopoly laws, we’re simply seeing the logical consequences of official inaction.
The media here in Japan have been much more balanced in their coverage, asking legitimate questions about the protests over the past year, the election process and the actions of both sides, all without a predetermined opinion. I wish American commenters would take a step back and do the same.
I enjoy tremendously your essays on the creeping monopolization of everything from cheerleading to the increasingly autocratic social media. I hope you’ll keep personal politics out of it.
I don't doubt a solvent can remove all traces of ink but raising this is disingenuous because it involves picayune, or retail, cheating. I am more concerned about wholesale cheating.
Look, when Democrats, under the guise of the pandemic response, mailed unrequested ballots they opened the door to claims of wholesale cheating. So I want a count. And I want an forensic audit of the voting machines. And I want mandatory jail sentences for anyone involved in cheating the vote.
Look, spin it any way you want but this isn't a Republican or Democrat issue. Why not? It's because what was used for the Democrats this time can be used against them next time. So let's lock this down forevermore and ensure an honest vote.
And what if we do a forensic audit of the machines? And what if we spend whatever it takes to confirm a person matches an intentionally cast ballot and also discover wholesale cheating that affected the election? Don't know. Question for another day. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
All I'm saying is this . . . if we want peace in this country, lets double check and know one way, or the other. Otherwise, the persistent thought the election was stolen will spoil the unity of our nation. I repeat, this is bigger than Trump, bigger than Biden bigger than either party.
There are plenty of anti corporate sources on the internet(Matt Stoller,Naked Capitalism,Oftwominds,etc.)but Babbitt chose anti government websites.Magically pretending that the corporations that own our government are never to blame for anything even though she had been directly affected by a corporation.This is the libertarian(mainly comes in two flavors,liberal and conservative) poison that courses through the American empires veins.A nation of suckers and sociopaths.What she and the majority of Americans should be doing is looking in the mirror for the source of their problems.
I have to applaud the efforts of your introductory paragraphs. Such efforts evince a dangerous, and therefore commendable, exercise of the imagination, but your moral analysis proved a little too tidy. Politics today only seems to allow for prescribed answers and approved intuitions. This oppressive tendency that the conspiratorial mindset of the left and the right enforces is a larger problem than certain myths about policing or election fraud. Beware those that do evil and speak of good, and beware those whose virtues are approved by the institutions that secure their station in life. Such people are without imagination. Such virtues are dubious.
On the point of Parker’s removal, being a long-time reader of yours, I was very interested as to what you would conclude. I have a few questions. I agree with you while-heartedly that the likeliest solution, once the various complexities are considered, is to reduce the capacity of social media to radicalize and profit off of people’s loneliness, grievances, and addiction to these products. Some other of your readers’ comments seem to point out what may be missing from your analysis. What is it about Parler, a company that appears miles behind Twitter and Facebook in terms of its capacity to monetize the outrage and addiction of its users, that makes it a unique threat? The answer, it would seem, is that parler is guilty of the sin of omission rather than commission. While it may be true that this allows the worst elements to fester, is it true that this makes parler uniquely useful as a tool of organizing political violence? In the other cases you reference, it seems to me that a business model and a failure to enforce preexisting guidelines, or, in other words, sins of commission and omission, created your ‘product safety’ analysis. This leads me to what may be left out of your analysis of Apple, Google, and Amazon’s decisions apropos parler, and that is where the product safety analogy fails. Products of the non-technological kind can be made safe to pretty arbitrary standards. Coffee served at McDonalds can be served at a temperature that does not cause third-degree burns. Even very complex products, like energy, could be limited to arbitrary and impractical degrees, such that their emissions do not cause the extinction of man on earth. Speech always contains the capacity to create violence and hate. This appears unavoidably true and constitutes a real inconvenience, one that our regulations of the tech sector needs to solve for, difficult as that may be, but I fail to see what makes parler uniquely dangerous in the abstract. I therefore have to conclude that what Apple, Amazon, and Google did is dangerously arbitrary. Free speech, from the constitutional perspective, is not protected because it only leads to good outcomes. It is protected because it is the right of man to think, feel, and speak for himself whatever the outcome may be. I am not a user of any social media, in the sense that I do not have any social media accounts, and my perspective is informed primarily by intuition and your writings on the subject. Considering the innate properties of speech to create bad outcomes, even your solution, regulation such these services be made less addictive, would in certain ways fall victim to your surmise that what parler is doing should be illegal. When every service can be identified as dangerous, it is inevitable that the largest player will decide what can and cannot be used based not on its dangers, but on what danger said service poses to that largest player. That largest player could be the government if a particularly egregious update to the patriot act is passed. Thanks again for what you’re doing. It helps people form views on important issues.
This argument strikes me as very much similar to arguments that the owner of the corner store shouldn't be held responsible for selling alcohol or tobacco to minors.
Not really...Unless they have a process that allows minors/or people suffering a diagnosed mental disability from participating, Parler or Twitter or etc cannot be held responsible. As long as they have procedures that ensure that
On the other hand it may sound like an argument that a store owner, who sells an alcohol to a legal adult who happens to get drunk and cause an accident, should be held responsible