Post AlOnSCYdVvCd9bj9km by cocoaphony@mastodon.social
 (DIR) More posts by cocoaphony@mastodon.social
 (DIR) Post #AlOin8y9YEfuKppTKS by interfluidity@zirk.us
       2024-08-27T16:26:28Z
       
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       good or bad analogy?facebook/twitter/etc is to 18th C newspapers and pamphlets (1st Amendment) like cruise missiles are to 18th C muskets (2nd Amendment).
       
 (DIR) Post #AlOkMcuEL4mBGuTgKe by cocoaphony@mastodon.social
       2024-08-27T16:44:03Z
       
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       @interfluidity bad.The 2A has been overrun by a willful disregard of history. Gun control existed in the 18C and was relatively common in the 19th. Our Court chooses to ignore the history. It cherry-picks based on what individuals feel probably was true rather than anything that was.The 1A concerns you point to have to do with failure to enforce existing anti-monopoly laws. While maybe 18C lawmakers didn’t imagine Facebook, it’s because they didn’t imagine Standard Oil, not the Internet.
       
 (DIR) Post #AlOkjDaUdcRDPP1CZk by interfluidity@zirk.us
       2024-08-27T16:48:10Z
       
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       @cocoaphony but aren’t the issues with monopoly-ish speech lots different than Standard Oil? Standard Oil can raise power muscle out competitors. monopolists who control the public’s attention can sabotage the deliberation that would let the public address Standard Oil, and a whole, large, range of problems. (the analogy between speech and a consumer product of any sort seems pretty tenuous to me.)
       
 (DIR) Post #AlOlQ3TE84m4U02tzk by cocoaphony@mastodon.social
       2024-08-27T16:55:54Z
       
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       @interfluidity Standard Oil (as Exxon) did exactly what you're describing. The whole world of climate change denialism, based directly on the tobacco cartel's "just asking questions" about lung cancer.A constantly repeated point in the founding generation was about aligning powerful interests against each other. (Some argued for abolishing powerful interests entirely, but the ones who won the Constitution took the "opposing powers" approach). 1/
       
 (DIR) Post #AlOmVuZOEaQiZOHjBA by cocoaphony@mastodon.social
       2024-08-27T17:01:56Z
       
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       @interfluidity The 18C and early 19C was filled with outrageous clickbait. That was no surprise.But the assumption was that there would be powerful parties opposed to each other and that would be ok. That's why I point to monopoly and cartel power.In fairness, the major newspapers today also align, even though they compete, because they're all owned by billionaires. So that seems different, like the alignment of Congress and President.
       
 (DIR) Post #AlOmVvP989pX9uV3qq by interfluidity@zirk.us
       2024-08-27T17:08:10Z
       
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       @cocoaphony Yes!One way to characterize the case you are making is that anti-trust always WAS speech regulation.Does it count as “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”? If you are Elon, you say preventing him from doing what he wants with his platform is that. Is preventing, or undoing, the emergence of Twitter, specifically for its effect on a “marketplace of ideas”, then “abridging” as well? 1/
       
 (DIR) Post #AlOmnOsgn5xfV9eRl2 by interfluidity@zirk.us
       2024-08-27T17:11:21Z
       
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       @cocoaphony Whether it is or not, I’m for it. Just like I don’t think private parties have a right to keep or bear cruise missiles.So should we interpret into freedom of speech a kind of limitation of reach, i.e. a right to speak is fully protected as long as any amplification comes from voluntary action by other speakers, but the degree a party may be capable of unilateral amplification might be regulable? /fin
       
 (DIR) Post #AlOnSCYdVvCd9bj9km by cocoaphony@mastodon.social
       2024-08-27T17:18:40Z
       
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       @interfluidity I think this is definitely in line with the principles the 1A was premised on. Clearly, the only people the 1A was really imagined to apply to were white, male landowners (who the Founders generally envision as the "all" in "all men are created equal"). But within that group, there is a clear assumption that one could only be so powerful. Even today, Rupert Murdock doesn't have so much power *personally*. He has it because we invented corporations and gave *them* rights.
       
 (DIR) Post #AlOoPKhEtiMDTtwn8C by interfluidity@zirk.us
       2024-08-27T17:29:22Z
       
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       @cocoaphony Right. Just like cruise missiles and nukes were unforeseen and unaddressed in 2A, speech by and for vast-scale corporate entities, national/global scale broadcast networks, communications-network-effect captured by a single firm, would all have been inconceivable and unaddressed when 1A was penned. (With broadcast networks we got temporarily lucky, we could pretend we were regulating “public airwaves” rather than speech.)
       
 (DIR) Post #AlPAZKZaPRSEzBXYGG by shonin@mastodon.world
       2024-08-27T21:37:42Z
       
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       @interfluidity 18th C newspapers and pamphlets are matches and paper. Privately owned mass and social media are matches and a gasoline tank farm.