House Judiciary panel plans contempt proceedings for Mark Zuckerberg
nbcnews.com
nbcnews.com
Somehow I'm thinking he'll avoid the jail time and maybe have to pay a fine that amounts to pocket change for him.
it doesnt matter how much jiu jitsu he knows , a holding cell is not a good place for Z, even for 5 minutes.
I agree that billionaires generally enjoy a different tier of the legal system, but consider that if the House moves forward with contempt, they have to see it through. He has to obey, or be thrown in jail until he does. Because the alternative is that the House demonstrates that it does not enjoy legitimacy. Everyone will begin ignoring House subpoenas because, hey, the House doesn't enforce them. I'm pretty sure there's a few Trump-world people who tried this and it didn't go well for them?
What we learned from the previous administration is that you just need to fight it until the power switches hands meanwhile fighting it in court. Zuck makes some donations to the opposition party candidates and their PAC's, and hope they win.
Or he subverts the controlling party the way Russia would do it, and hire some firm (possibly Israeli) to do a deep background check in the ruling party and use it to blackmail them.
Also it's not a good look when one of the controlling party members chose to ignore a subpoena issues by the same body they control now.
https://dayton247now.com/news/local/rep-jim-jordan-urbana-oh...
This is so stupid and tiring. At this point the only thing I am hoping for is that will be at least as entertaining and idiosyncratic as the infamous Zuck senate hearing from 2018.
Zuck, on the other hand, 'only' has plain-old upper-class-privilege to lean on.
I imagine being a billionaire provides a bit more than plain-old upper-class-privilege
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/590947-house-has-the-p...
They're likely plenty of republican hobby horse issues where they would start subpoenaing other members of Congress once they had power.
Democrats have to be squeaky clean. Republican can stage coup's.
This is what you get when you try to get everyone to vote. Your vote counts! But when too many people who have no idea what's going on vote, the game of who gets elected becomes "who can take advantage of the ignorant masses best?". Which is why we got a reality TV personality as a president and zero pressure by the electorate to get the Democrats to get anything done.
That will really make sure only the right people vote and they only elect the right people.
Don’t be absurd, I’m not advocating for a poll tax or keeping any specific kind of person from voting… except those who know nothing about or would otherwise be uninterested in politics.
Votes are being sought through the same spammy clickbait fear methods that grabs so much attention these days. Such methods to win elections corrupt the political process so the only way to win is to grab the most attention through fear, fake conflict that becomes real, and other sorts of degrading manipulation.
The kind of shit I’m getting constantly from both parties in my inbox is disgusting and directly responsible for the awful state of national politics. Either I’m supposed to step up to battle the evil opponents or I’m supposed to be afraid of what they’ll do if they win (so give now! 5x matching only going on for a limited time.
Everybody who wants to should be able to vote.
No matter how much I block alt-right YouTube channels, google continuously either ignores those blocks, or forces more and more in to my recommended.
It’s crazy to see “right wing content is being censored” claims while google is very very clearly pushing right wing content above everything else.
I don’t use Facebook, but my wife does and Facebook is exactly the same. It is very obviously pushing right wing content up.
When you can open up a video and within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views, it really begs the question of what the hell these people are saying that it’s actually being removed. Cause straight up calling for genocide is not just allowed to thrive on Facebook and google, it is actively pushed on to recommended no matter how much you try to block it.
I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?
I definitely have never had anything even remotely close to your examples. Very bold claims but also very incorrect.
I don't know if I have ever heard of a video with many views openly calling for genocide, but one can certainly spot those calls in the comments of those sources. That shit is coming from somewhere not far removed.
If you see a right wing video and it says “we gotta get rid of these Hollywood elites”, they’re actually calling for the eradication of the Jews.
The right wing spends half of their time online creating and sharing “plausibly deniability” phrases.
Here’s a common dog whistle right here in this very thread:
“You’ll get banned for wrong think”. — just a dog whistle for “I want to drop hate speech and n-bombs with no consequence”
Or
“Different political opinions”. — a dog whistle for the exact same as above.
From my perspective, the internet leans right. This isn't some isolated experience.
The reason they don’t “see it” is because they’re participating in spreading the hate.
I'd say the media is playing both sides except you all can't deny that there is systemic discrimination against white people in multiple countries' law books right now, in 2023.
But, to be fair, I didn't say I don't see antisemitic content. That for sure pops up once in a while in very "muted" language. I've also seen a rising trend for the traditional values of Jewish people to be admired on the right/conservative side, so there is that.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10145969/Public-fur...
No mention of this "controversy" on her Wikipedi page, either.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/professor-under-fire-for-white-ge...
But with a bit more googling, I found some additional ones.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/video-uc-berkeley-professor-un... https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/02/texas-professor-white... https://www.thecollegefix.com/stanford-student-senator-says-... https://jonathanturley.org/2021/04/28/barnard-professor-trig...
Look, I agree these things aren't straight out "hey lets go out and gas white people" (Well one of them is). But the pattern is disturbing, and the media coverage is even more disturbing because they're (I would argue) hiding the level of this stuff, thus preventing us from having the conversation. Why do conservatives feel threatened, this is just Affirmative Action and Inclusion (such orwellian terms that hide their discrimination), so why do you feel that way unless you're secretly racist? Well, it's because there is a sustained, and secretly promoted hatred of white people and it needs to be brought to light.
As an example, the Wikipedia page on Brittney Coopers at Rutgers University. No mention of this pretty-notable controversy about her racist comments. Probably edited for months after the story broke until people lost interest dealing with the Wikipedia rules.
Sure I can. Many of the laws cited as "discrimination against white people" in North America and Europe are either things like affirmative action or laws to the effect of "don't be a dick to minorities". As a white guy I've never felt disadvantaged by such laws, but maybe I'm just made of sterner stuff than people that claim to represent "western values" and prattle on about how weak men are these days.
And to answer your point, I say this in the context of an african country where white people are a minority and yet still discriminated against with laws passed by a "democratic" government. Of course, it's all under the guise of "Affirmative Action" and "Black Economic Empowerment", giving it that "noble" aura of "fairness". Meanwhile the country burns as the laws enrich the elite, keep the black people poor, make the white people poorer, and ultimately cause everyone to blame everyone else.
> I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?
I call bullshit.
There's plenty of racist crap on the internet, but "within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views" is just not believable, unless you're _deliberately_ going into some very dark corners. Facebook isn't suggesting this to the broad audience because it would get immediately flagged -- in some countries, such a video is illegal.
YouTube's algorithms can get twisted up and make recommendations based upon associations we don't see, but "I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?" is just not believable, unless someone in your house is deliberately searching for it, or you think anything non-Marxist is alt-right.
I assume doing this would be a privacy nightmare, and not capture most data 'the algorithm' runs off of.
I've heard of specific studies where fresh accounts are tested and the time until certain 'radical' content starts showing up, but nothing on existing accounts in use by people. I don't have a great handle on this, since I limit the amount I use YouTube's suggestions.
Liberalism has been coopted by authoritarianism and branded as a weird sort of "friendly fascism" [1].
Instead of recognizing the historical dangers of that sort of philosophy, it's wholly embraced - with an illusion of legitimacy pasted on top that exploits our better natures by channeling good intentions (anti-racism, anti-discrimination, self-ownership, public health, environmentalism) into a mechanism for certain people to gain more power and control.
The part of this that I've found the most disturbing is the absolutely bizarre pivot the "left" made from being deeply suspicious of Big Pharma, to a sudden (almost overnight) support of government regulatory partnership with megacorps, with all of the actors in the scenario receiving big money and little scrutiny.
Even asking basic questions and pointing this stuff out gets you shouted down and cancelled (I'm burning lots of karma just posting this viewpoint).
The over 6 billion dollars [2] per year that pharma spends on direct-to-consumer ads on TV, and how that influences the content that's shown on TV and which politicians the media supports are completely ignored.
Somehow the folks that have traditionally been the champions of civil rights, anti-war, and watchdogs against the growth and abuse from corporate power, have instead become cheerleaders for an authoritarian state controlled mostly by the military industrial complex and big pharma.
I don't think it's unique to the "left" - the "right" is certainly guilty of the same stuff, it's just particularly painful to watch coming from the folks I grew up believing were the ones that were supposed to protect us from that sort of abuse.
We live in interesting times. [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
[2] https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/healthcare-industry-...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...
Additionally, stating that all people deserve a good life, and attempting to stop bigotry is not “fascism”. Your definitions of things have no basis in reality.
Stop brainwashing yourself. Start using basic critical thinking skills.
Not all vaccines work. It’s ok and prudent to require efficacy trials and release of information about those trials before making a call on whether a person wants to subject their body to it.
Not all comments that you find bigoted are thought to be bigoted by everyone. Who makes that judgement?
And not all people deserve a good life like murderers and rapists.
Efficacy on Covid vaccines is long demonstrated and you’re still calling it fake news dude.
It is exceptionally clear who is brainwashed here.
Not only that, but your position changes depending on the context of the conversation. Was fast tracking Covid vaccines good or bad? Depends. Are we talking about the fact that Trump was fast tracking them, or are we talking about whether vaccines work or not?
Additionally, you guys don’t even regard what fast-tracking actually means anyway. It doesn’t mean “ignore evidence. Push it through”. It means “if you get a task related to this, you drop everything else and focus on this instead”.
There are lots and lots of kinds of authoritarianism, and Democrats et al have embraced a Leftist type which pushes for egalitarianism through violence, which is antithetical to fascism (the egalitarianism, not the violence). There are a few big name Dem politicians who are pushing a modern brand of fascism, but they're the minority now.
Nothing that follows should be viewed as a defense of the Right.
> Somehow the folks that have traditionally been the champions of civil rights, anti-war, and watchdogs against the growth and abuse from corporate power, have instead become cheerleaders for an authoritarian state controlled mostly by the military industrial complex and big pharma.
Ah, see, that's your mistake. You were fed the cherry-picked history where the Democrats et al were the Good Guys of the 20th Century; this is a common problem when government schools are run by teachers unions that are in bed with one party.
Progressives were never liberal; they were always authoritarians. If you read some of the fascist writers before WWII, they often praised the progressives in the US, including FDR.
Marxists were never liberal; they've used various names over the years to avoid taking responsibility for the tens of millions of people they killed to achieve their utopia, but it's important to recognize how much of the modern US Left draws from Marxism.
During the anti-Communist years after WWII, the Communists tried to rebrand themselves as civil libertarians and the like. This was a show. The ACLU was genuinely liberal, but the Left was also committing terrorist acts as "champions of civil rights, anti-war, and watchdogs against the growth and abuse from corporate power". The terrorism part doesn't get taught in school. Kids hear that the Black Panthers set up lunchrooms, but so do Hamas and Hezbollah. They're still terrorists.
So we should recognize that Democrats et al were never the liberal champions we were taught in school or heard on TV. The reality is always dirtier and more complicated.
Pretend that I also spend 20 minutes typing up why I think the Right is awful, because they've rarely been liberal either.
Goes to show how we all have a different experience. But what is surprising is how the experience is negative for everyone involved...
It's really easy to be agreeable with platitudes. The real world is a complicated and messy place, and asking for specifics helps to ground the conversation in reality.
The real world is complicated, and necessitates nuance, caveats and exceptions, and there's really no better example than watching a conversation unfold about said specifics.
1. The vast majority of right-wing content goes uncensored.
2. A few really choice targets for censorship get categorized as "misinformation", "disinformation", or "malinformation" and are subject to widespread campaigns of suppression.
(... And there may be systematic algorithmic down-weighting of some right-wing ideas or accounts, but I'm not confident enough in the evidence here to call it a serious problem, which is why there's no #3 on that list.)
Probably the most non-partisan example I can think of would be the Christchurch shooter's manifesto, a document which approximately everyone disagrees with. For a while after the massacre, it seemed like every social media platform was aggressively trying to make sure nobody could read the thing. You could find a copy with some effort, but only by skulking around in the shadier parts of the web. You could say that they're private companies and can do what they want -- but if they hadn't censored in lockstep, it's likely that some government displeasure would come down on the uncooperative companies later.
The result of this is a censorship regime that's hard to see because it only goes after the high-value targets.
This is the root of the problem, right? In the US, the government is specifically excluded from doing this either directly or indirectly, except in specific and rare circumstances that were not in play for most of the censorship that has occurred like covid origins, speech deemed racist, criticism of vaccines, speech deemed hateful, and speech deemed incorrect for example.
It's complete grandstanding, and nothing more. Complete waste of time.
Regarding YouTube promoting right wing content mentioned in other comments, I haven't seen that. I watch science and space, maker and tech shows, along with live music. I have never seen what the commenters are complaining about. I get the same recommendations over and over again, which is a bit annoying. Maybe because I ignore most of the algo recommendations I'm missing something.
"A copy of the contempt report asserts that Zuckerberg and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, have "willfully refused" to comply in full with a congressional subpoena stemming from the panel's investigation into any _efforts by the executive branch to encourage social media companies to moderate content_ on digital platforms."
There's plenty of evidence that the government was doing that on Twitter -- it is a big deal when the government goes to private actors and gets them to censor people.
Sure, the GOP might be hypocrites about this but every single liberal should be lining up to say, "In this case they're right, and we'll hold them to the same standard when one of them is president."
The problem is that the Democrats are also hypocrites, both the politicians and their voters are _not_ liberal, and they like the idea of using the government to censor information they don't like.
It think the general case they are making is that Fox doesn’t have Section 230 immunity, and is therefore responsible/liable for its editorial decisions. (See: the Dominion settlement.)
The claim is that social networks are having their cake (immunity from liability of content) and eating it too (getting to make editorial decisions).
The more general issue being that they are using editorial discretion to remove content that the government politely asks them to remove, rather than stuff that any law says they must control. (And the claim is that of course they would not acquiesce if a Republican government made a polite request to remove something they didn’t like.)
The problem here is that the _government_ was conspiring with those companies to censor dissenters -- er, I mean "conspiracy theorists".
We don't need to change Section 230. We need to stop the government from using private companies to do things it's illegal for the government to do.
That wasn't what I wrote.
In the US, the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution protects the right of the people to speech etc.; the government is generally and overwhelmingly prohibited from censoring people.
Instead, we have the US government contacting _private_ (i.e. not government) companies and wink wink nudge nudge having the private companies censor people, _which would be illegal for the government to do directly_.
Personally I think you can make a case for justifying some curtailment of speech during an emergency (specifically sharing outright false or extremely misleading claims, say “young people are immune to Covid”) but again, agreed it should be done through a framework that is legislated and that the courts can challenge/check rather than unofficial channels.
I do think there is some grey area though - if the government is also providing coordination (eg CDC) then it’s not crazy to have a direct channel to the major news/social publishers to coordinate messaging in an emergency. And when they are just providing coordination it’s not necessarily censorship (since the companies would be free to do otherwise). Vs if they are buying license plate data for example, they are clearly actually indirectly doing the thing that they’re forbidden from doing directly.