Congress demands tech CEOs censor the internet even more aggressively
greenwald.substack.com
greenwald.substack.com
>Zuckerberg in particular has minimal capacity to communicate the way human beings naturally do. The Facebook CEO was obviously instructed by a team of public speaking consultants that it is customary to address members of the Committee as “Congressman” or “Congresswoman.” ... For every question directed to him, he paused for several seconds, had his internal algorithms search for the relevant place in the metaphorical cassette inserted in a hidden box in his back, uttered the word “Congressman” or “Congresswoman,” stopped for several more seconds to search for the next applicable spot in the spine-cassette, and then proceeded unblinkingly to recite the words slowly transmitted into his neurons.
Anyone even superficially prepared by a lawyer for a deposition (and testifying before Congress may be the most serious deposition possible) is instructed to lengthen all responses to just before the line of "obstructing the questioning."
In this game of modern "congressional investigation," where congresspeople are incentivized to advertise their agenda as opposed to acquire new information (investigate), it is in the best interest of the testifier, as in most depositions, to say as little as possible.
Who knows what Zuckerberg is really like personality-wise. It is likely that how he is in front of Congress is not how he is in a relaxed setting. This fact doesn't generate the clicks that calling him a robot does though...
Honesty gets a bad outcome for the speaker. Lies get bad outcomes for the speakers. Reasonableness gets a bad outcome. Hysterics gets a really bad outcome. The best outcome is boring, forgettable, and managing to not actually say anything that isn't pre-prepared and vetted by a legal professional. It doesn't look good then it goes away after a few days.
No one WANTS to be subpoenaed by Congress. There is no upside. If you want to talk to congress honestly, Mark Z could do that anyway, at any time.
There is only downside in testifying before congress.
I'm confused as to why the author would devote around 15% of an article to something they thought was superficial and/or extraneous.
Besides, explaining away Zuck's weakness as some kind of courtroom tactic is probably what was meant by superficial and/or extraneous.
Is it though? How many people face any kind of consequences for, e.g., lying under oath? (Compared to a civil case or being a witness in a criminal trial.)
...not criminal risk to Mark Z himself.
Unfortunately we have no system to track and weigh articles based on a notion of author credibility. ...which is really too bad.
I would love a HN community credibility score of authors weight-adjusting the ranking of articles posted here.
For both sides of what I'm alluding to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24934835 & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24933054
However, this display of authoritarianism by the gov is chilling and should not be allowed: this is the start of fascism, plan and simple.
As another poster says here. It's the design of these social platforms that pose risks and harm, both to individuals and society. After all, people become depressed and upset using social media. So something's amiss.
Congress is just shaking down social media for lobbying bucks again. And the social media companies actually want the regulatory capture. It's all a show.
Eventually big social will write some legislation for congress to pass, congress-critters get paid and get to say they did something while big social media gets further entrenched.
Meanwhile, Biden's DHS announces that they will be working closely with technology and social media companies to preemptively snatch up potential "domestic terrorists". I think the consequences are clear. I think many people are in denial however.
At best this is something like the Reichstagsbrand. Rationally a completely inconsequential event, but politically exploited for another round of increasing totalitarianism.
Yes it failed, yes it was poorly organized, but that doesn't matter. If I try to hold up a bank using a water pistol instead of a gun while dressed as a clown I'm still attempting a bank robbery.
If the standard is that low then the US has coups semi-regularly. As in, maybe annually. It should realistically be more often than that, except most violent protesters protest government actions by targeting random businesses rather than the government (eg, Occupy Wall-street as opposed to Occupy the Offices of the People Handing Out The Bailouts).
That’s a description of the Beer Hall Putsch, just for comparison to the events in Washington.
There is plenty of evidence that the people who invaded congress wanted to overthrow the election results and keep Trump as President, that many refused to believe that Trump had even lost, and some appeared to be “heavily armed” (though given America’s gun fetish, I don’t know what that means): https://apnews.com/article/us-capitol-trump-supporters-1806e...
Who is more dangerous to freedom. Those rioting idiots who broke existing law and will all go to jail or those making far more of their threat then is remotely reasonable to change law and remove rights?
Heavily armed. I believed that in the aftermath too. Also believed weapons of mass destruction at the time. Pretty angry about both when the evidence came in and it turned out to be deliberate lies to sway public opinion to do unpopular and terrible things.
Not with-in the Capital building, but many were carrying outside (in violation of DC law AFAICT):
> Video footage reviewed by prosecutors also suggests Munchel and his mother carried weapons while in Washington, DC — despite the district's strict gun laws — and abandoned them only before they got into the building.
> "We're going straight to federal prison if we go in there with weapons," Eisenhart told Munchel before they entered the Capitol building, according to prosecutors.
> "We can put 'em in the backpacks," Eisenhart then said, before stashing "tactical bags" outside the building, according to prosecutors.
* https://www.insider.com/zip-tie-guy-capitol-riot-plastic-han...
> None brought cable ties with them […]
At least one seems to have:
> Brock was arrested Sunday in Texas after being photographed on the Senate floor during the deadly riot wearing a helmet and heavy vest and carrying plastic zip-tie handcuffs. The 53-year-old is charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
* https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-fort-worth-texas-e1...
I am reminded of Hanlon's Razor: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
I think a lot of the mob were useful idiots and are being manipulated via populism by those with an actual clue. Georgia just passed the voter restrictions under the popular 'support' of these folks.
>> Brock was arrested Sunday in Texas after being photographed on the Senate floor during the deadly riot wearing a helmet and heavy vest and carrying plastic zip-tie handcuffs
That he did not bring to the riot. Zip ties he picked up when they were left unattended by police. Unattended. Really.
See how that fact, that reputable news sources have corrected, but very quietly, completely changes things? Came with intent to imprison vs well, not that. Possibly making sure they could not be used against fellow rioters? Totally different motive whatever it is. Vastly less organised and malevolent. Vastly lower fear. Vastly lower threat.
Yep and all the other Cherry picked info quoted shows they disarmed before mounting an "armed" insurrection. Yes they're idiots. On a grand scale. And they're going to jail for it. And Saddam also did not have weapons of mass destruction despite all those news reports claiming, confirming and reconfirming he was an imminent threat.
If you're thinking about going straight to prison for entering a building with weapons you clearly are not mounting an armed coup. (And yes, you're probably a monumental fool).
Never let a good crisis go to waste. Who is coming out ahead in power and money here? For good sake don't put on Republican vs Democrat blinders. Bush jr and Obama were indistinguishable on this kind of thing.
Start with: a scarier story gets more clicks and bigger ratings. Then go from there to see the effect of Law changes and who is getting more power in the fbi, cia, nsa etc. Is there something else going on that this needs to be a distraction? Maybe the wealth gain of Bezos & co in a massive crisis where many people are getting poorer? That's a huge story whatever you make of it. Massively bigger than some idiots who are going to jail for rioting in the Capitol. Are there others you can think of that are also bigger and more important?
The Putsch included actual military figures like General Ludendorff.
Hitler tried to win over Kahr (Staatskommissar with dictatorial powers), Colonel Seisser and and General Lossow.
Kahr, however had his own plan with Seisser and Lossow to install a nationalist dictatorship without Hitler and refused.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch
I don't think these events are comparable, since fortunately all U.S. military figures condemned the capitol event.
There was literally a mass rally, hours before the event, where the President and his cronies whipped a mob into a frenzy with lies about fraudulent voting systems and conspiracies to steal the election as the culmination of MONTHS of similar disinformation. They encouraged supporters to take Congress via “trial by combat” in order to prevent the legally elected President from being confirmed.
An attempt to block the legal transfer of power in order to illegally maintain your own is clearly an attempt to overthrow a legitimate government: a coup.
They left their weapons outside the Capitol. People planning to overthrow a government do not leave their weapons at the door.
The fact that Trump told/signalled people to go to the US Capital building can be construed as giving direction, would be put it under the "self-coup" (autogolpe) category:
> Naunihal Singh of the U.S. Naval War College and author of Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups, wrote that the attack on the Capitol was "an insurrection, a violent uprising against the government" and "sedition" but not a coup because Trump did not order the military "to seize power on his behalf".[461][462] The Coup D'état Project of the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research at the University of Illinois, which tracks coups and coup attempts globally, classified the attack on the Capitol as an "attempted dissident coup" which the center defines as an unsuccessful coup attempt "initiated by a small group of discontents" such as "ex-military leaders, religious leaders, former government leaders, members of a legislature/parliament, and civilians" (but not police or the military). The Cline Center stated that the "organized, illegal attempt to intervene in the presidential transition" by displacing Congress met this definition.[463][464] Some political scientists identified the attack as an attempted self-coup, in which the head of government attempts to strong-arm the other branches of government to entrench power.[465] Academic Fiona Hill, a former member of Trump's National Security Council, described the attack, and Trump's actions in the months leading up to it, as an attempted self-coup.[466]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_storming_of_the_United_St...
Are people under the impression that Zuckerberg _deliberately_ keeps his affect flat? That he's proud he has difficulty responding to social cues? That he likes having to think before responding to make sure he isn't unintentionally crossing a line?
Calling someone non-human because of neuroatypicality is just as cruel as making fun of anyone with any other condition, and it needs to stop.
But I completely disagree with your conclusion. The debate was much healthier with fewer limitations. The limits didn't make it more nuanced and interesting, quite the opposite. Instead of making a point, people just squabble over who offended whom. Unbelievably boring.
Since this is from Glenn Greenwald, here's an interview with him where the interviewer straight up calls him a "pinko faggot" and the thing is easily the best interview I saw this year.
https://niccolo.substack.com/p/the-kinshasa-interviews-glenn...
With some lines as:
> Zuckerberg in particular has minimal capacity to communicate the way human beings naturally do.
> For every question directed to him, he paused for several seconds, had his internal algorithms search for the relevant place in the metaphorical cassette inserted in a hidden box in his back, uttered the word “Congressman” or “Congresswoman,” stopped for several more seconds to search for the next applicable spot in the spine-cassette, and then proceeded unblinkingly to recite the words slowly transmitted into his neurons.
And so on. That's not critiquing his character. That's ad hominem at best and bullying behavior that you'd find in grade school at worst.
That's not what I'm criticizing. I'm criticizing the general acceptance of treating people with autism as though they're deficient as human beings.
I’ve been listening Quirkology (the audiobook version the book, not the YouTube channel, though both are by Richard Wiseman), and I suspect the distrust of Autism spectrum is because the outward displays — limited or no eye contact in particular, though it isn’t the only one — are what most people think indicates dishonesty.
Extra bonus irony: the behaviours don’t even really correlate with dishonesty, people just think they do.
Just a passing remark would have been bad enough, but he devotes a significant percent of his article to it even though it is not even tangentially related to his point. He clearly just enjoys mocking it so much.
I believe that political speech is the category of speech which demands the greatest amount of protection and freedom from government meddling, even (perhaps especially) political speech that I disagree with, find inconvenient, or even abhor.
Government overreach by actors that I’m politically aligned with is to be rejected just as much as by actors I’m not aligned with. Don’t think of all the great things a government controlled by “your side” can do with all this power. Think of all the terrible things the “other side” can do with this power when they’re in control.
The whole play here is that congress will not make a law to limit free speech. The tech giants will limit free speech on their own, out of fear that congress will make other laws, such as laws to hurt them and break them down.
They're basically being extorted by congress into doing dirty work (limiting free speech) that congress is forbidden from doing by the constitution.
For example, at 1:14:11 Frank Pallone asks if Facebook is aware that 64% of people in extremist groups joined after Facebook recommended the groups, not because those people actively looked for the groups. Facebook recommending a group (to make money by increasing time on site) is a separate issue from Facebook allowing a group (free speech).
If the platforms are liable for the speech of their users, then they must filter. If they filter, they might be liable.
But if they do not filter, they might not be liable.
I think that common carrier status means that a platform isn't liable if it doesn't filter.
The only thing Section 230 has to say about filtering is that you aren't allowed to sue websites over their moderation decisions. The protection of liability for third-party speech is in no way dependent on whether or not the platform does filtering.
A: Company decides that it won't allow X on its own platform.
B: Government requests company to not allow X on its platform.
C: Government tells company to not allow X on its platform.
D: Government forces company to not allow X on its platform.
Here on HN, we've been having a long conversation about A, and the majority opinion is that it does not violate the First Amendment. D clearly violates it. C also does, at least in spirit, and the more so if there is an implied threat to move to D. B... it's pushing the line, if not more.
So, was this B or C? Or C with the implied threat of D? Or C with the explicit threat of D?
Their testimony is sought not as part of an investigation, not as expert advice, but as an opportunity to publicly berate them.
Here’s the C-SPAN archive of the hearing with searchable text transcripts. https://www.c-span.org/video/?510053-1/facebook-google-twitt...
With offputting digressions such as critique of Zuckerberg's manner of speaking and it not really attempting to address the arguments of the pro-censorship crowd. He doesn't have to refute them in the article itself, but should at least acknowledge their existance and point at a decent attempt at a refutation (likely a book or blog series).
Why don't members of congress lead by example and delete their accounts/memberships with these social media companies? And stop spending their campaign money on social media. Boycott them, as individuals.
Then stop these companies from stalking everyone around the Internet by passing legislation to call it as such. Pass real privacy legislation.
Go after their advertising business model with anti-trust. Prevent tech monopolies from continuing to acquire and conglomerate.
Censorship becomes an unwinnable game of whack-a-mole without addressing the root causes.
When they get around to the fourth and fifth, people will wish they’d acted while they were dismantling the first and second.
Here is Glenn on the CIA, NSA, DOJ, and the FBI infiltrating the news industry:
https://youtu.be/l8pkCZBjgrk?t=252
Here’s Tucker Carlson on the Biden story that Greenwald has gone all in on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXgO7L0rcAQ
Unfortunately when people go all in on exciting conspiracies of scale, I’m inclined to believe they are making a self immolating bet. It’s notable that to mitigate liability, Tucker Carlson’s lawyers have characterized him as a mere entertainer, and that no reasonable person would believe his entertainment show.
some level of censorship is necessary to stop nazis and such from spreading their dangerous ideas, which result in mass shootings.
censorship doesnt automatically mean totalitarian state. every country in the world has some limitations on speech, its working perfectly well in europe.
Uh, correlation does not imply causation. You think maybe that an attempted insurrection caused both the demands and the action completely independently? They are both effects. One did not cause the other.
But it's interesting that politicians are demanding censorship be done by private companies, because they know the constitution prevents it being done by the government.
The legislative threats they imply or state cannot be censorship directly, and they know it.
However it is a question that is pretty open to objective analysis, provided you don’t start at ideological positions.
Right now around the world, in autocracies and democracies, nations are working to manage tech and speech.
1) Media (social/new/cable) and Democracies have been having a falling out.
2) Tech simply accelerates that process, and creates its own new patterns.
Define the problem further, break it down and then solve.
Regulation of social media is a serious issue that deserves serious attention. There's a huge amount of nuance, with lots of deep questions about what publishing and freedom of speech look like in a world where everybody has access to an algorithmically-controlled global platform.
In contrast to that, Greenwald just presents an absolute mash of ridiculous clickbait, dogwhistle phrases, and vague insinuations. It contributes precisely nothing to answering any of those questions.
I thought the stuff I put in there was common knowledge. Sorry if it wasn't
That happened right before the 2016 election.
Greenwald has gone from groundbreaking reporting to political theater and shock jock punditry, palling around with bullshit merchants like Tucker Carlson. He quit the intercept which refused to publish him making clearly incorrect claims about major candidates shortly before the 2020 election https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/glenn-greenwald-resigns-... . Essentially a repeat of 2016 was primed but the rest of the intercept told him to screw off.
They've both gone from the gold standard to completely unreliable political ops.
It's almost like the con artists in the red pilling bullshit machines targeted both of them, it's pretty bad.
Greenwald has 24/7 protection because his recent reporting exposed the corruption in Balsonaro's administration and lead to Lula being freed from prison.
All the journalists who advocate censorship of things they don't like and engage in smear campaigns have never broken or reported on anything meaningful and probably never will. Many of them probably think that Assange deserves to be extradited and charged, even though that is a direct attack on their profession.
Greenwald More Recently has been on shows of hard right people like Tucker Carlson and quit The Intercept because they refused to publish conspiracy theories about Joe Biden right before the 2020 election. Here's the actual hit piece the intercept wouldn't publish https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b... it was an attempted October surprise the paper wouldn't sign on to
Here he basically says January 6 was a bunch of peaceful protestors misrepresented as violent, really https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-false-and-exaggerated-c...
And here he is suggesting vote counting misconducts https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-us-inability-to-count-v...
And here he says you know who the "actual fascist" are? Facebook and Joe Biden https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-threat-of-authoritarian...
Splendid, just great, sounds like my uncle. Dude's totally pilled. The takeaway is effectively "don't trust the mainstream media, Trump is amazing" every time.
The conspiracy land world has a main door via Trump. But there's side doors that can hook people in as well. Through leftism (via strasserism the first time it came around), natural medicine, holistic spirituality, gamer culture, theres a bunch of fascist pipelines out there to hook people.
Look into their Recent records.
They shouldn't be facing state repression of course and should be free to do this.
But it's also just political hackery
> Greenwald More Recently has been on shows of hard right people like Tucker Carlson
He goes on his show because the other outlets are not interested in his topics and therefor won't have him on, probably because they are too busy spouting conspiracy theories about russia. He always says this: https://www.mediaite.com/tv/glenn-greenwald-defends-going-on...
> Intercept because they refused to publish conspiracy theories about Joe Biden right before the 2020 election
That's a news worthy story, especially because they did not deny it, which is basically admitting it. They censored the whole story and even lock the new york post out of their twitter account for reporting on it.
> Here he basically says January 6 was a bunch of peaceful protestors misrepresented as violent,
That's not what the article is about, it's about how the media pushed fake news about the event, most egregiously the death of the officer.
> And here he is suggesting vote counting misconducts
again that's not what the article is about, it's about the US inability to count the votes, which takes literally months.
> And here he says you know who the "actual fascist" are? Facebook and Joe Biden
I disagree, He just points out that how the Silicon Valley - Biden/Harris axis will pursue down the path of censorship. I think this was a correct analysis, just watch friday's hearing.
> "don't trust the mainstream media, Trump is amazing"
the former is true, the latter couldn't be further from the truth.
For instance, he focuses on where the guy got the zip ties but totally ignores the constructed gallows on the lawn or that a guy in military fatigues literally broke into the capitol.
He focuses on the fire hydrant event but totally ignores all the pipe bombs
He's selectively painting a narrative. It's called apologetics.
People have been doing it for centuries. Here's an article from counterpunch https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/30/what-happened-to-gle...
He's super excited about essentially a form of right wing National Socialism, literally what Nazi meant. I'm not kidding https://www.mediaite.com/politics/glenn-greenwald-describes-... ... He thinks it's j-kewl awesome.
He could be reporting anything but it's constantly excuses for right wing terrorists and fanning the flames of conspiracies.
He's free to do it but it's quite literally just propaganda dolled up to pretend it's journalism which is why the only news organization paying him these days is Fox News.
Think about that
Greenwald has always had some right wing views, here he is in 2005 https://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2005/12/yelling-racist-a... but now he's all in.
It's a shame but let's not deny reality here. Some people got pilled, even Glen Greenwald. Fascism is pernicious. Look here for an example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_(experiment) - it's required study in German schools for a reason
He isn't being vague, he is directly accusing the US Congress of authoritarianism. Then later despotism. He names names. He includes video excerpts. He questions if political censorship is maybe not a good idea and makes it clear he is accusing Congress of exactly that.
You can disagree, but he is specific.
It’s not surprising Jan 6 happened; the parallels to the French Revolution are uncanny.
FB was allowing this messaging. Twitter not so much, T was much more aggressive at moderation.
Removing FB is a completely different issue for an app store than Parler, for obvious reasons. Parler also of course was funded by sources that were in US terms problematic.
Apple is going after FB in more structural ways. Google tried, but failed. FB is an issue for DoJ now.
Censoring specific content doesn't solve the design problem - social media will still be an engine for driving social divisions, aggressive behavior, and a general escalation of the level of alarm in society. All it will accomplish will be to give certain groups an ability to bias the direction the toxic impact on society tilts.
I think there are ways you could try to resolve the design problem, for instance:
1. Anti-trust regulation/interoperability requirements to make it harder for a few players to own so much of the online discourse.
2. Regulation on algorithmically generated content feeds, and the use of ML to drive engagement.
The constant encouragement to share / retweet / recycle any content does not help. If people only posted their own unique content, and only people they were directly friends with could see it, half the battle would be solved.
Instead if my aunt ‘likes’ a post that one of her own friends ‘shared’ then suddenly it’s in my feed. Screw that, I don’t need to see it. This stuff isn’t viral because it’s good content, it’s mostly viral because facebook is designed to encourage ‘virality’ to increase the amount of new content you see to make you revisit the app.
Censorship is not the answer, but legislation is required to cut down on the incentive these companies have to design their apps to spread crap and make things viral.
These platforms are literally designed to command your attention as much as possible. We have a history of regulating things which are unreasonably effective at hijacking the human reward system - like gambling, and narcotics. Sometimes I feel like we're an equivalent period to when you could buy cocaine or heroin over the counter at the chemist because society hasn't yet recognized the cost of failing to put some controls on it yet.
Is it Facebook, or are it just a tool for people to endorse it on their own?
The only political promotion they can / need to show is encouragement people to vote.
Should be the same with news promotion. I think except disaster, no news are allowed to be promoted by social media.
However users are free to follow any group / pages they like, whether it is political or news group, and add the regulation of feed algorithm as op suggested.
Social media that failed to follow that need to be regulated as news / political platform.
"Words cannot convey..."
"one of the most stunning displays"
"truly despotic hearings"
Isn't it much more annoying when someone is pushing an agenda and pretends to be objective? At least I can relax and not get trojan-horsed by opinions.
The dean of the Columbia Journalism School basically said it needs to be re-examined [0].
I think one can push an agenda without the over-the-top inflammatory phrases. This is probably just a pet peeve of mine.
[0]https://journalism.columbia.edu/message-j-school-community
section 230 set's up liability protection for communication companies that accept user content IF THEY VOLUNTEER to moderate non private speech.
IE the public speech that occurs in what be called semi-private commons.
Tis is not censorship claimed by title baiting it's protection of the public commons from delving into a huge mess not-safe for anyone to speak into
Up until now, we've been drawing the line at child pornography. Now it seems we're moving the line somewhere else. Who gets to decide where that line is drawn?
You write something as a user, and the social media platform repeats it later to other visitors to the platform. In effect, both you and the platform are “speaking” whatever you write. The platform can’t compel you to say something, and you can’t compel them to say something either.
Conceptually it’s a bit like slogans on vehicle license plates in the US, where it’s legal for you to mask out the slogan on a license plate (though illegal to mask the functional parts of the plate, such as the registration number), and it’s also legal for the state to refuse to put your requested message on a license plate. It’s shared speech, and neither side can be compelled to engage in speech that they object to.
I don’t see a problem, personally, from this perspective. You don’t get to compel someone else to say what you want them to say; whoever you’re asking to repeat your words always gets an opportunity to refuse. And of course, there can then be consequences for that refusal or non-refusal.
where the court found 6-3 that you could not be compelled to display a state motto that you morally objected to.