Some times I am baffled at how obtuse Republicans are, and how easily Conservatives can fall for a con. Conservative Republicans once again let the Democrats and the Media distract them from the things that matter to the American people to deal with a red herring. Rest assured the current scrutiny on Facebook has more to do with anger over Donald Trump then it does with anger at Mark Zuckerberg, who has become the latest scapegoat for the failure of the liberal political class in the last election. If conservatives are going to prevail in this current political climate we need to support FACEBOOK.
The current controversy ripened and brewed over the announcement that Cambridge Analytica, a market research firm, used FACEBOOK to mine consumer data to target campaign advertising for Donald Trump. In other words, a company that Trump hired to help him communicate his message went to the those who were most likely persuaded to vote for him gathered and posted candidate Trump's FACEBOOK messages to his likely voters. How is that an invasion of privacy? How is that different from the DNC hiring Fusion GPS to target vulnerable voters with their message? How is what Trump did different from what Obama did in 2012? As a matter of fact, how is it any different from what any politician does when they hire a marketing firm to place ads?
In the upcoming 2018 elections politicians will hire public relations firms to place ads in strategic media in order to reach their potential voters. No pro-Second Amendment, pro-life Conservative is going to spend a huge amount of money purchasing ads on advertising time on the media platforms controlled ty National Education Association. The public relations firms will have mined demographic material from the NEA, they will know that the NEA is the political counter balance to the National Rifle Association. In the 2016 campaign then candidate Trump famously quipped, that he could shoot someone on fifth Avenue and his supporters would still vote for him. The NEA type's were outraged. It was the first of many comments that they would use to attempt to paint Trump as a violent lunatic, and his supporters as Cretins, but the fact is Trump was right. The converse is also true were Trump to have given CPR to a resident in one of his hotels and saved their lives, the NEA would have called it a political stunt they would have said, it was staged, or that the person really wasn't in danger. Any one who says that's ridiculous think back to the town hall after the Parkland shooting. The Broward County Sheriff, and Jake Tapper accused NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch of "not being concerned about children." When in affect we now know the Sheriff had failed to protect children and that Tapper and most in the liberal media had done everything they could to demean the character of those calling for more effective tangible security in schools. How does all this relate to FACEBOOK?
The first Amendment gives CNN and the NEA the right to shape their message, and to censor those who oppose it. FACEBOOK has the same right. FACEBOOK recently removed the co-author of this blog from its platform, because in a reply stream with an Islamist, he called him "stupid." Does anyone really believe that had the Islamist called my friend or his conservative views "stupid" FACEBOOK would have removed them? CNN calls conservatives stupid 24 hours a day? How many memes on FACEBOOK imply or openly state that Dana Loesch or the NRA are stupid or heartless? Where was outrage from FACEBOOK when Hillary Clinton called supporters of Trump "deplorable?" Compare the response of the News media to Donald Trump disgusting language on the ACESS Hollywood video to their apathy about the sexual misconduct of former President Clinton. What gives the media the right to be so one-side and bias? It is the FIrst Amendment.
The FIrst Amendment is specifically written to protect the rights of those people whom Hllary Clinton thinks are deplorable. However it is also meant to protect the rights of those that the deplorables find reprehensible. The Women's March that assembled on the DC mall to oppose Trump's presidency on inauguration day refused to admit pro-life women or other conservative voices to their march. Did they have the right to censor those women's message? Absolutely. Several conservative Republican candidates spoke at Liberty University during the last campaign cycle. Were any of the five democratic candidates invited, I doubt it? Would they have gone had they been? While the First Amendment prohibits the Congress from making laws to control speech it does not prevent other entities from restricting speech contrary to their values.
While it prohibits the establishment of a state religion, at the time of it's writing several of the States that ratified the Bill of Rights had state religions, they believed the Amendment protected their right to do so. They did not interpret the First Amendment as prohibiting the exercise of one religion to the exclusion of another. Businesses censorship of speech is both necessary for a healthy work environment and commonplace. I worked for a large insurance company for six years that did nearly all of its charitable giving through the largest strictly privately funded advocate of infanticide in the US. Had any of the employees attempted to publicly disparage the organization or if they had vociferously commented about the issue at work, they would have been fired? Expressing their political views would have disrupted business and turned away customers. The company had the right to prevent me and others from publicly protesting their charitable giving practices. There are many places of business that do not allow Christians to put Bible verses on their cubicles or to conduct Bible Study, or even where a cross on a neck chain, but they allow Muslims to dress in violation of the company dress code to express their faith. The NFL denied the Dallas Cowboys the right to put an image on their helmets in support of 6 cops slain in the line of duty, and they denied a veterans organization the right to run a Superbowl ad in opposition to the national anthem protests earlier in the season. All of this regulation of speech is permissible under the First Amendment, because it is done privately, and not forced by the government.
While the First Amendment does not allow the government to silence it's critics, it does allow me to support causes and organizations that hold to certain values, and to control the message that organization sends. Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse is not require to provide humanitarian aid through agencies that violate it's Biblical world view. I am appalled that my friend was censored from FACEBOOK because of his politically incorrect views. It disgusts me that Diamond and Silk were removed from FACEBOOK, but as a private business FACEBOOK has every right to control the content of it's site for the very same reason the Liberty University has the right to advocate for the Second Amendment. And yet Republicans like Ted Cruz and John Kennedy have joined the call to regulate FACEBOOK's content. Once again they are walking into a trap, and frankly they are too stupid (I bet I do not get removed from FACEBOOK for calling Ted Cruz stupid) to see it. One of the many issues that was debated in the last Presidental campaign was the issue of net neutrality.
Net neutrality is the belief that messages on the Internet should be politically neutral. The idea was that the FCC could regulate the Internet to insure that messages that were widely disseminated were neutral. Really, do we believe that a federal bureaucracy is going to protect the rights of those who are calling for the shrinking of the federal bureaucracy, and frankly what is a neutral message anyway?
Do we believe that a federal bureaucracy is going to protect the rights of those who are calling for the shrinking of the federal bureaucracy, and frankly what is a neutral message anyway?
My wife watches the Food Network, home and garden TV and the Hallmark Channel, sounds pretty innocuous, even they have been accused of bias. One host of a Food network show was forced off the network because 30 years ago she may have used the "n-word." The Hallmark Channel has been accused of bias because the vast majority of it actors are white (of course, no one points out that the Black Entertainment Television network is exclusively black). And anyone who is able to remember the fairness doctrine is aware that it was used to censor Conservative speech. The modern conservative alternative media arose when the fairness doctrine ended. This is because liberal bureaucrat usually operate from a premis that conservatism is inherently unfair. So does anyone really think that government regulation of FACEBOOK will open opportunities for conservatives? If the best predictor of the future actions is past behavior how can anyon expect the Federal Trade Commission to do any better at regulating social media than the FCC did at regulating television? Some will argue that the issue is privacy, that FACEBOOK's mining of information is an "unconstitutional violation of privacy."
I would ask how is what FACEBOOK does any different from what any large corporation does? Credit Bureaus are in business to mine your private information and to sell it to people to do business with you. Equifax just suffered a computer breech that compromised the private data of millions. Where are the calls to restrict Equifax's use of information? Senators Cruz and Kennedy are deafly silent. When you put your debit card in a scanner at at retail store that store and all the organizations to whom it supplies data has all your data. If you apply for a job and your employer runs a credit check, they will get more information from you then what they would get from Facebook. But what's different about FACEBOOK. When I put my card in the card reader or when I apply for a job I have an expectation of privacy, which according to some is routinely violated. Yet when I create my FACEBOOK account, they tell me exactly what they are doing with my information, how I can limit what they do through the privacy settings, and I agree to it.
When I create my FACEBOOK account, they tell me exactly what they are doing with my information, how I can limit what they do through the privacy settings, and I agree to it.
Does anyone who goes on FACEBOOK really have an expectation of privacy? The whole point of FACEBOOK is to engage the world, and the consumer agrees to its use. There are many privacy setting on FACEBOOK that do mitigate some of the violations of privacy. But how can a voluntary surrender of your personal information be a violation of your privacy?It is the equivalent of someone engaging in consensual sex that later regret and call rape. I found it ludicrous when Senator John Kennedy said to Zuckerberg, "your user agreement sucks."
No one forced Senator Kennedy to sign the FACEBOOK user agreement, so if he signed it knowing it "sucks," then does that make him a "sucker?" (Let's see if FACEBOOK removes me for calling a pro-Trump Republican "a sucker.") Could FACEBOOK do better yes, but I would argue that as lax as FACEBOOK is there are no violators of privacy, not one, because consumer is on the platform voluntarily. Where is the outrage over Google's firing of Conservative employees? Where is outrage about Firefox firing there CEO over his support of California Proposition 8 many years before he even worked for them? Do you really think these Senators are concerned about privacy? Or is this an attempt to make sure that an outsider like Donald Trump can never use the most pervasive media outlet in the world to win the Presidency again? No one objected to Barak Obama using it, why does this subject come up now?
How is what FACEBOOK does any different than what a nationally owned newspaper does?
I worked for a Gannet newspaper at one time. They research (or mine) information about their subscribers so they can target market advertising. Some of the ads in your Sunday newspaper insert will be different from a neighbor who lives in a different sub division, because they have sold ads in certain region for products or service based on differening demographics. There is nothing illegal unconstitutional about what FACEBOOK does, but some would argue that the pervasiveness of the platform threatens free speech.
Well if they are so large that they make competition impossible (which might be arguable. after all who uses My Space?) they may be a monopoly. Laws are already on the books to break up monopolies. Standard Oil was broken up at the turn of the 20th century, Bell Telephone in the 80's,Cellular One in the 90's. The government regulates mergers and acquisitions to ensure that the market place remains competitive. If FACEBOOK is a monopoly (which by the way I do not think they are, but that's another post) laws are enforced to prevent the monopolization of the Internet market place. So what should we do about FACEBOOK?
It seems to me that Conservatives in Congress are going down the wrong path by haranguing Zuckerberg? While I have a Constitutional right to express my views, FACEBOOK has a constitutional write to manage it's content, which means they have a right to censor me, my friend, or Diamond and Silk. I have argued in this blog for the right of a florist or baker to refuse to do business for a gay wedding as a matter of Constitutional right. I have argued that the NFL has the right to prohibit it's players from protesting the national anthem. But some say, well FACEBOOK is different, they are so big that they are violating so many's people's rights; they have to be reigned in. It is precisely because they are big that "reigning them in is a solution." If the Federal Trade Commission can require FACEBOOK to post the satire of "Diamond and Silk," then they can require Liberty University to hire a Muslem professor, or worse yet, they can require my local church to hire a Pastor who does not represent my world-views. If they do it to a multi-billion dollar corporation, do you think they will hesitate to go after a church with a budget of one million or less. You see I would argue that the goal of these hearing is the control of political activity to protect the status quo not the protection of privacy.
At Samson's Jawbone we believe that conservative principles are biblical principles and conservatives believe in liberty. Liberty is often misunderstood, for liberty includes both the right to and the right not to. My Religious conviction gives me the right to refrain from participating in activities that I find morally wrong. Liberty is not the same as freedom. Liberty is the freedom to act in reasonable boundaries, and our liberties principally put boundaries on the government. When the government intrudes on the civil liberties of anyone it affects everyone. When Republican Congressman and Senators seek to protect our civil liberties by ending net neutrality recognizing it to be censorship, then claim to be protecting our civil liberties by proposing that the Federal Trade Commission should regulate the content of FACEBOOK it seems rather disingenuous. So what is the solution to FACEBOOKS's media dominance. Again let's look to history.
In the 70's when the Federal Communication Commission created the "fairness doctrine" it it did so under the auspices of giving voice to different views in modern euphemism "leveling the playing field." It had the opposite affect. When the FCC created the "family hour" in television broadcasting" media organizations became much more permissive about what they allowed on the air waves in the non-family hours. Nudity, violence and sexual content that would never have gotten on the air prior to fairness doctrin, became common place and eventually overwhelmed the family hour. Shows that represent American Constitutional and family values became the exception rather than the rule. Secondly the requirement to make sure all views were represented actually resulted in more limitation of conservative speech not less. Media moguls became reluctant to allow "so called controversial speech," which usually winds up being defined as the traditional conservative view, because they had to allow it to be countered. So there became a lot of content that was either so outrageous that it was seen to be non-influential, or so innocuous that no one wanted to watch. In the 80's when President Reagan's FCC ended the fairness doctrine the modern conservatibe media revolution began: cable news networks opened, nationally syndicated talk shows like the Rush Limbaugh program develop and a system of content rating came into television programming so people could make informed choice about the content. Liberty is what created the opportunity for the current media revolution. The free market created Facebook, and the free market can control it best. Based on past history there is no reason to assume that the regulation of FACEBOOK will create a more open Internet market, but what will is the free market.
If you believe, as I do, that FACEBOOK and other Internet social media are becoming oppressive, then I argue that the way to defeat oppression is to preserve liberty, it is not with more restriction and oppression. If FACEBOOK is a monopoly they can be broken up, but even if they are not the free market will create new opportunities for speech. It always does. My millennial son tells me that FACEBOOK is an anachronism, only old people use it. Maybe he should tell that to Senators Cruz and Johnson. There are a number of new platforms arising RIDDIT, Twitch, and others. If FACEBOOK drives conservative their message will not be censored new media will arise to compete with the message. Zuckerberg would like nothing more than to have the content regulated, because it will limit the growth of the competing platforms now arising. It will solidify his monopoly.
In the current debate about FACEBOOK conservatives need to side with FACEBOOK, because our values are superior to FACEBOOK's. We believe in Liberty. We believe in ardently defending the liberty of those with whom we stridently disagree. That is what conservatism is about. And liberty will defeat the tyranny of Mark Zuckerberg. The Federal Trade Commission is no friend of libery. That is why Conservatives need to support FACEBOOK.
