Daniel Greenfield June 03, 2021 @ Sultan Knish Blog
A few years ago the Computer and Communications Industry Association
(CCIA) was demanding government regulations that would force internet
providers to carry the content of members like Amazon, Google, Facebook,
and Twitter. Now it's suing Florida to fight regulations that would
force some of those same members to carry the content of ordinary
Americans.
Net Neutrality, or forcing cable and DSL companies to
carry all content without picking and choosing, "helps preserve free
speech, access to information — and democracy," former CCIA boss Ed
Black argued two years ago.
But
when Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law barring Big Tech monopolies
from deplatforming candidates for public office and journalists, and
forcing Big Tech to adopt clear and consistent standards for how they
treat users, including deplatforming, as is the norm in every other
industry, the CCIA went to war against free speech, access to
information -- and democracy.
Governor DeSantis says that Big
Tech is suppressing free speech. Big Tech argues that DeSantis is taking
away its free speech which it defines as censoring people’s speech.
“We
are bringing this suit to safeguard the industry’s free speech,"
current CCIA boss Matt Schruers claimed. “A digital service that
declines to host harmful content is exercising its own First Amendment
rights.”
Does Facebook have free speech? And can speech consist
of denying service to conservatives? Should Mark Zuckerberg’s speech
nullify the speech of millions of Americans?
In 1948, the first
program ran on a computer. It was also the year that George Orwell
finished 1984 with its infamous slogan, “Freedom is Slavery” and
“Slavery is Freedom.” Big Tech’s version of it is, “Free Speech is
Censorship” and “Censorship is Free Speech.”
When Big Tech
censors millions of Americans, it’s engaging in free speech. And when
those Americans rise up and fight back against their illegal monopolies,
that’s censorship.
But Big Tech already dismantled all the arguments it’s putting forward with Net Neutrality.
If
a digital service picking and choosing its content is a First Amendment
right, then why don’t cable companies have the same right to bar access
to the harmful content on Twitter?
A trade association whose
members include Twitter and Facebook insists they have a right to ban
the President of the United States and any conservatives because that’s
free speech, but that AT&T or Comcast don’t have the right to ban
access to Twitter because of free speech.
If censorship is also
free speech then that cuts both ways. Otherwise it’s free speech for me,
but not for thee, which is exactly the argument that Big Tech’s lobbies
and front groups are making.
Amazon, Google, Facebook, and
Twitter want to force internet service providers to have no choice about
carrying them, but they want to pick and choose whose speech they
carry. And yet Google, Amazon, and Facebook have much broader
monopolistic powers than internet service providers. The cable provider
market has too little choice, but it’s incredibly diverse compared to an
e-ecosystem with Google, whose search engine controls 80% of the
market, Facebook, which controls 80% of the social media market, and
Amazon’s massive ebook dominance.
If any aspect of the ‘net’ needs more neutrality, it’s the platforms, not the providers.
If
Comcast’s control of 40% of the broadband market gives it so much power
that it can’t be allowed to pick and choose what content it carries,
what about Facebook’s 80% control?
And if Comcast potentially
deciding not to carry Twitter is an assault on “free speech, access to
information — and democracy”, then why isn’t Twitter’s decision not to
carry President Trump and other conservatives an assault on “free
speech, access to information — and democracy”?
Twitter,
Facebook, and the rest of the Big Tech crew want to argue that denying
access to platforms is an attack on free speech, but that platforms
denying access to users isn’t.
Big Tech’s position is that only
its monopolies have free speech and they should use that speech to deny
everyone else free speech. That’s a surreal mockery of the First
Amendment.
Big Tech’s trade group is relying on the same
compelled speech argument that Christian bakers have used to avoid
baking a cake for a gay wedding. But there’s a multitude of bakeries,
most of whom will be happy to bake a cake for anything if you pay them
enough.
How many Facebooks and Googles are there?
Christian
bakers and photographers argued that they’re artists and taking part in
a gay wedding would compel their speech. Are Mark Zuckerberg and Jack
Dorsey artists? Are Facebook and Twitter their artistic creations that
would be spoiled by allowing conservative speech?
And yet the
same media that ridiculed the idea that a Christian baker should be
allowed to pick and choose which cakes he bakes is insisting that
telling a social media monopoly not to censor candidates for public
office is a violation of Zuckerberg and Dorsey’s free speech rights.
But
if the speech on Facebook and Twitter is the speech of these
billionaires, then they can be held accountable for it. If it’s not
their speech, then free speech isn’t an issue. The CCIA is in the absurd
position of arguing that speech on platforms is and isn’t really theirs
speech. And that platforms express their speech by taking away the
ability of others to speak.
Call it the No Free Speech version of the First Amendment.
If
Big Tech speaks by eliminating the speech of others, then maybe we
would be better off without this novel black hole theory of speech on
whose basis it’s going to war against Florida.
The CCIA was
advocating for the so-called “Save the Internet Act” to impose Net
Neutrality. But the internet appears to be in no particular danger from
the lack of Net Neutrality. Despite all the alarmism about the end of
the internet and even death threats (one activist was sentenced for
threatening to kill the family of Trump’s FCC Chairman Ajit Pai), little
has actually changed.
That’s not the case with Big Tech
censorship which silenced millions of people from POTUS on down,
influenced the outcome of a national election, and defined the national
debate. Net Neutrality advocates could not point to any measurable harm
caused to them, but opponents of Big Tech censorship can easily point to
the harm being done to them and to the United States.
Florida is
bringing real Net Neutrality to the table. Unlike Net Neutrality, which
was an effort by platforms to enlist the government and dumber lefty
internet users into their war against broadband providers, real Net
Neutrality begins with monopolistic platforms not providers.
“The
internet has been historically neutral. After decades of legal battles
by those who want to either make money from discrimination or look the
other way, we are glad to see legislation to protect consumers’ and
businesses’ access to the open internet," the CCIA argued a mere two
years ago in defense of Net Neutrality and the “Save the Internet Act”.
Unfortunately
the internet hasn’t been neutral. It’s dominated by a speech cartel
which deploys the rhetoric of an open internet and free speech when it
serves its business interests, but is fighting tooth and nail when
Governor DeSantis and Florida asked Big Tech to be neutral.
Conservatives
looked the other way while Big Tech consolidated its control over the
internet. They’ve gotten tired of looking the other way, but Big Tech is
just as eager to gaslight them, to hire Republican lobbyists to argue
that speech is censorship and censorship is speech.
We need a real Net Neutrality and a real Save the Internet Act.
The
CCIA has unintentionally made some great points over the years.
Americans paid for the internet, from the earliest networks down to
Google. We put our economy and our political system on the internet. Now
Big Tech monopolies are consuming our wealth and our freedom.
Americans
deserve an open and neutral internet. Consumers and businesses need
access to an open internet, but so do elected officials, journalists,
and anyone who cares about the way that our country is run and has an
opinion about government, culture, and education.
Big Tech
engaged in blatant election rigging and voter suppression in the 2020
election. And it’s marginalizing and suppressing the views of half the
country from the marketplace of ideas.
Its front group laughably claims that it’s suppressing half the country in the name of free speech.
A
true net neutrality applied to the CCIA’s Big Tech bosses would
"preserve free speech, access to information — and democracy." Florida’s
move is a good first step in the war to take back free speech on the
internet and force platforms to host political speech in an open and
neutral way.
Big Tech claims that it loves free speech. Governor DeSantis and Florida are showing what real free speech looks like.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.
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Thank you for reading.
About Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield is a journalist investigating Islamic terrorism and
the Left. He is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz
Freedom Center
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