Let me put it a different way: I don’t like this Georgia voting law at all. On the other hand, corporations trying to coerce state governments is not really where we want to be either. I wouldn’t be happy if Georgia had passed a pro labor law that i liked, and companies tried to punish the state for it by moving the all star game, etc.
Mitch wrapped it all up in leftist woke bumper sticker language that i find somewhat demagogic. And he is a hypocrite.
But in my opinion this is not the same as companies spending a bunch of money to influence elections (which i also don’t like.) That has at least the veneer or persuasion, even if it may in the whole more like propaganda.
I wouldn’t be happy, either. But corporations do stuff like that all the time, and I’ve never heard anyone suggest they were acting “quasi-governmental” by doing so. Every time a sports team tries to get a state to pay for a stadium, or a company tried to get local government to give them tax perks for building a headquarters, they are engaging in this kind of behavior. Maybe it’s bad, but it’s not governmentally bad, imo.
I suppose it’s like the difference between boycotting and voting, on an individual level. Neither feels like anyone is “acting like a government”.
What would you call Twitter banning trump? That seems very governmental to me. I’m glad they did it. But it also unsettles me.
And we aren’t talking about a sports stadium. This is about protecting the franchise. (Ironically, both sides claim this.) I agree though it is more like lobbying than the twitter case.
I think it is all being rolled up into this “anti woke” push which i heard on 538 may poll well with conservative college graduates, many of whom trump lost.
Here is where it is different than the lobbying, I think, and where it does create a kind of republican hypocrisy. Since reagan the r’s have been almost radically small government. They scariest words are: “we are from the government and here to help”, etc. Our rights must be protected from the specter of big government. But now this is reversed. Twitter, facebook, etc threaten our rights to free speech. Government becomes a tool to protect our freedom. This is an argument of the left, not the right.
I would much rather have corporations try to influence things publicly than privately. To that extent, I’d rather see them publicly challenge policies rather than quietly lobby behind the scenes. Or if ACME Corp is going to drop $10 million supporting a candidate, I want their name attached to the ads, not have them funnel it through the Heroes Saving America super-PAC.
The GOP sees themselves as the gatekeepers/rentseekers of corporate and wealthy America. Corporates flexing their power publicly attack the main funding source for the GOP. If corporates figure out that wielding their power publicly is acceptable then they don’t need the GOP. The GOP are forced toward their other source of power, extreme white etho-nationalism. The dems and 'the people" are happy the corporate power flex is in their favor but fail to recognize where successful corporate flexs lead. This is all bad, all bad for everyone - everyone except the very few.
What would you call a shopping mall not allowing the Moonies to proselytize on their property? It feels the same to me as Twitter not allowing Trump to speak in their space.
I think it is concerning that “the marketplace” has been privatized. This is not a new problem, it’s been an issue for a couple of decades. I don’t have a suggested solution.
I think the scope and size makes it different in kind rather than just different in magnitude.
I agree this has long been a problem, particularly for the press. A better comparison would be the 24 hour news networks over the last couple decades. Or the big news gate keepers before that.
I think one difference is these new companies are not journalism companies, and don’t have the same connection to journalist values. Even fox at least kind of pretends to be journalism.
How about private prisons? That is another major example of companies functioning in quasi governmental ways.
Or companies producing planes for the military or nasa. Are these private companies or the government?
I’ve read about complaints from amazon merchants that amazon has entire quasi legal system for dispute resolution. People make their living by helping companies navigate it.
None of this is fundamentally new, but i do think it’s taking on a new form.
In particular most companies seem to have explicitly pursued only profit for most of the last 50 years or so. I think they are probably still doing that, but many companies announced recently they would at least pretend to start pursuing other goals as well. What are these companies, protesting and boycotting? They are private, but not individuals. They are not lobbying groups or political parties. Maybe it will fizzle. But to my original point, I still claim it is different from donating political money to lobbyists or political groups.
It’s quite possible that there are bigger hypocrites out there than McConnell… and he gets props for accepting Trump’s defeat and arguing against the objections to the vote count and graciously congratulating Biden and Harris on their wins, so more than just possible… it’s quite probable, in fact.
But few have his platform for voicing their hypocrisy.
On any sort of weighted basis where you look at how much hypocrisy a person has successfully unleashed on society… McConnell is up there.
To me it seems exactly analogous to the New York Times or CNN deciding to interview Politician A and write/air a favorable story about Politician A… but declining to do the same for Politician B.
Unbalanced, sure. But protected by the first amendment.
I disagree here. Traditionally our platforms were all guarded by both corporate and government interests. TV and print had pretty big moats around them guarding the content that came out. The government monitored things and also the owners of the stations and publications monitored what they printed.
The internet just made it where everyone could put anything they want to out there. It is becoming increasingly clear on a number of fronts that it is not good for society to consume every single person’s thoughts and ideas. It is also very difficult on the internet to tell what is valid information and what is some individuals commentary.
It’s difficult on USA Today to tell the difference between facts and commentary. It’s impossible on Twitter.
Also in my hometown of London, KY there was a local idiot who always carried on about conspiracy theories. He was always hanging around the place where business people gathered for breakfast every morning. Everyone knew he was an idiot and didn’t take him seriously. If someone walked in who didn’t know and he engaged with them they could take social cues from the others and see that they didn’t take him seriously. Today that guy is probably on the internet in some forum with an anonymous ID. You can’t look at him, you can’t get a read from the other people in the room, and even worse most of the people in the room are other towns idiots so they all confirm each other. Now his ideas have some validity due to the nature of the internet. Now they get traction with people who would otherwise have totally written him off. That is the danger here.
I mean that the bill of rights guarantees free speech because there was the expectation that our government, like others, would censor otherwise. And it still did with the sedition acts, at least for a while.
I would say no single newspaper can really censor as long as there are other ones too that operate independently. There is some ambiguity there.
My understanding is also that it is protected by the first amendment.
But for cnn, there is also fox news, the big broadcast networks, etc. and they also follow journalistic ethics, or at least pretend to. Twitter considers itself simply a conduit of information, I think.
I agree with your comments here, but don’t think it contradicts with my earlier comments.
I would only add that i think some of these moats and protections started to break down decades ago with 24 hour news, allowing more consolidation among media companies, etc.
Also, i don’t think twitters ban on trump was actually censorship. By this i mean that I believe them that he was using the platform to organize, or at least motivate, violence, not honestly spread ideas.
I don’t think you’ll find a defender of private prisons on here.
And I don’t think that Lucy said that there’s no such thing as a corporation acting quasi-governmental. I think she said that threatening to take your business out of a state if they don’t do X is not an example.
