As Speakers At The RNC Whined About Big Tech Bias, You Could Only Watch The Full Convention Because Of 'Big Tech'
from the stop-shitting-where-you-eat dept
There was much nonsense spewed at this week's Republican National Convention, and as has been expected given the nonsense narrative about "anti-conservative bias" in big tech, there were plenty of people using the podium to whine about how the big internet companies are working against them. Thanks to the folks at Reason for pointing out how utterly stupid and counterfactual this actually is. Indeed, if you actually wanted to watch the RNC speeches (and I'm not sure why you would), the only place to actually watch them uninterrupted was... on those internet platforms that the speakers swore were trying to silence them.
And yet if there was ever a televised event that demonstrated the lameness of the conservative anti-tech position, it was the first day of the RNC. No major tech platform censored any of the content—on the contrary, they granted easy and unrestricted access.
Multiple YouTube channels aired the RNC in full. It was possible to watch the event live on the GOP Convention's Facebook page, and to find it on Google (it's the top video result). Even Twitter, the platform most obviously hostile to conservatives, made it perfectly easy to watch. All of the platforms provided unlimited access to the remarks by Kirk, Parnell, and everyone else who spoke—and importantly, this access came at no cost to viewers.
Meanwhile, the other options -- mainly cable news including Fox News -- regularly cut away from the coverage:
Contrary to the anti-social media perspective peddled by Kirk and others, it was traditional media outlets that restricted conservative speakers. CNN, MSNBC, and even Fox News cut away from the convention repeatedly. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow was petrified that unfiltered access to Republican speakers would cause her audience to succumb to disinformation, and thus she ceaselessly intervened to explain why certain GOP talking points were false. (Unsurprisingly, there was no live fact-check of the Democratic National Convention.)
Viewers with a cable subscription who preferred a selective, biased curation of the RNC could turn on their televisions. Viewers who just wanted to watch the event without interruption or interjection could do so for free on any of the major tech platforms.
As Robby Soave at Reason points out, there's a lesson here, if Trump's crew of whiners actually were interested in learning, not just playing the victim.
To the extent that there are genuine anti-conservative biases on social media, they pale in comparison to the biases of the traditional media. It's true that tech platforms occasionally make arbitrary or contradictory rulings about politically extreme speech; meanwhile,
The New York Times opinion page apologized for publishing a provocative but fairly mainstream opinion piece by a major Republican senator, fired the editor responsible, and essentially vowed never to make this mistake again. Conservative voices have flourished on Facebook, where articles from Breitbart and The Daily Wire praising President Donald Trump are routinely among the most shared content. At the same time, there's not a single reliably pro-Trump columnist at the Times or The Washington Post.
While I disagree that an op-ed proposing turning American troops on American citizens is a "fairly mainstream opinion piece by a major Republican Senator," the rest does stand. As we've pointed out many, many times, the problem people have is not so much with censorship, but rather that they don't like anyone having editorial discretion over them. Yet, that happens much more in the world of traditional media than on social media. And a big part of the reason for this difference may be because Section 230 exists.
Section 230 allows social media to host whatever nutty idea the RNC and its supporters want to post. The NY Times and others, by contrast, recognize that publishing dangerous nonsense might make them liable, should that dangerous nonsense run afoul of the law. It is still perplexing why any Republican who is upset about perceived (not real) anti-conservative bias is against 230. Without it, many platforms just wouldn't bother with their nonsense at all.
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Filed Under: anti-conservative bias, bias, big tech, charlie kirk, convention, internet, media, rnc, tech, victims
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'They won't let me use their soapbox' said the person on it
It's like watching someone screaming about how a privately owned park won't let them speak while standing in that very park. If they really are being 'persecuted' by social media then the companies involved are doing a terrible job of it.
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Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views
Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes?
Con: LOL no…no not those views
Me: So…deregulation?
Con: Haha no not those views either
Me: Which views, exactly?
Con: Oh, you know the ones
(All credit to Twitter user @ndrew_lawrence.)
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Am I censoring when I refuse to listen?
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Long ago.
I wondered where the idea came from about the Gov. being to large. It came up as I was growing up.
So I look into things, and really dont see any complaints coming from most people.
Then I see that laws and regs, created after the fact, that SOMETHING caused a problem, makes Some people bitch about the gov.
In the end it was the Corps and the rich, complaining. And now the idea that the Corps LEFT the USA, so we dont Need those laws/regs anymore, means SOMEONE is dropping the reasoning for those laws/regs.
Now we have a group in charge of our country, that thinks Corps should/can do anything they want. That regulation and a few Bank controls, should be dropped CAUSE no corp would make a mistake ON PURPOSE. Like buying up 2 other corps for OUTRAGEOUS prices, raise their fee's, add more Fee's, Loose Millions of customers, and raise prices again.
Start a fight on the internet, mostly about Who is in charge of it based on the ISP vs the Corps that had forsight to BUILD the structure needed and NOT sit on their butts watching it be created.
Then TRY to control 2-3(?) international Corporations trying to deal with Every nations restrictions/bias/BS, Just cause they are NEW in making money and have found a great way to do it.
Then not pay attention to the Stock market and how a few corps have done/are doing STUPID things. and arnt being regulated to STOP a crash. As the USA corps figure out the backdoor to the system. Over inflate the value of the corps, release Stocks that have little value(in the end) equal to the NEW value of the corp. And the idea that LLC was only for Small business, NOT a mega world wide corp. Allowing them to walk away if they ever go bankrupt from over inflation, and cut backs where NO ONE knows whats happening in the corps.
Then lets not pay China for all the money we borrowed for a 20 year war(still not the longest we have had)(no matter what FOX says). Then after we make our Budget lets CRACK this thing open, and USE more money we dont have. Whats going to happen, next year? ITS a setup. No taxes this year means no REAL money next. So you Pull in all the Excess money form other agencies. CUT everything.(lets cut their wages FIRST, Cut from the top, NOT the bottom).
Good luck folks. this is going to be BIG.
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Re:
Trump would say so, and that voting for anybody else is fraud.
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Re: Long ago.
Please don't shout. Makes my head hurt.
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Media bias vs Citizens United
Wasn’t it the conservatives who said that corporations were people and that by limiting campaign contributions the government was restricting free speech? If a corporation has the right to give an unlimited amount of money to a political party, they have the right to have any bias that they think serves them. They have the right to ban any speech On their platform, period. If that makes you sad then write some boo hoo poetry.
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Re: Media bias vs Citizens United
Corporations now being people means that conservatives can punish the ones that disagree with them the way they have the left for much of the twentieth century. Congratulations guys, you're subject to the whims of whining hypocrites, just like the rest of us! Welcome to personhood!
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For a Republican, in 2020? That's absolutely a mainstream opinion.
What's not mainstream is a(n ostensibly) reputable newspaper printing an op-ed advocating for it.
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Only Big Tech had all of the convention?
Or just watch C-SPAN, a regular cable station, and not one of the "big tech" companies this post is talking about. They played all of both conventions complete, without breaking in to do any far-left 'fact checking'.
Sorry to ruin your narrative.
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Re: Only Big Tech had all of the convention?
C-SPAN is only available to about 1/3 of the US population, which is well below Internet availability.
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Trump pence
It may have escaped most people, but there is a subliminal message in Trump's campaigning - "Trump Pence". The Lizard People have carefully crafted his choice of running mate to indoctrinate the country into accepting Trump's face on a new penny. But this is no ordinary penny. This one will not only displace Lincoln, but will be made of a special alien metal that resonates in the presence of 5G signals and can be used to track and control the holder of the penny. Obviously people may resist such a coin but it will be marketed as able to destroy the coronavirus.
Wait a minute you say- how could people accept that 5G both spreads the coronavirus and can be prevented by these special Trump pence coins? Doesn't that require Dunning-Kruger and Cognitive Dissonance on steroids? Ah, now you get it. By using the very technology platforms that they are railing against, the RNC and supporters have demonstrated how totally effective the Lizard People's plan is. When people unquestioningly use the very thing that they "hate" it shows the plan has reached maturity.
It's also not for nothing that the Democrat candidate is named. The Lizard People are using humour to soften people up. Thus Joe is "Biden" his time. Kimberley Guilfoyle" - gil - FOIL: Playing to the tin/aluminium foil brigade.
And finally, Kimberley Guilfoyle's speech to an empty room reminded me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oL9Cxp08zQ
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Re:
For a little more context: an ABC/Ipsos poll at the end of July showed 78% of Republicans supported Trump's handling of the protests.
Just to be clear, that's after federal police started arresting protesters and hauling them off in unmarked cars. Do you really think the number would be much lower if the federal police were replaced by soldiers?
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Re: Only Big Tech had all of the convention?
Fact checking is not partisan. If you think it is, you may have an issue with your brain not working.
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Re: Re: Long ago.
Didnt try, its the formatting in this site that does it.
Wish it was TXT format and you had to push the button to change to This one.
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One really has to wonder how the party in control, calling all the shots, keeps having to claim they are being attacked to keep people on their side... and these rubes keep believing them.
How can he make America Great Again if he can't go 5 minutes without complaining that no one likes him, no one lets him talk... disproving that with every single tweet.
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Re: Long ago.
ECA there are two buttons underneath the area where you type your comments, under the title Comment Options. One says 'Use markdown' and the other says 'Use plain text'. For a long time, after the switch to the markdown system, the use plain text was the default. Many of us lobbied for the switch to use markdown being the default as we, at times, did not stop to check the correct button when we used markdown, giving some strange looking comments. After a while, Techdirt listened, and Use markdown is now the default.
I am not sure it is possible, and might be a significant amount of work, but if this choice was made in our profiles for registered users, and only part of the Comment Options for unregistered users, we could all get our way. But I do think that there are few who find the default Use markdown an impediment, as you do.
So, either take the time to push the 'Use plain text' button, or stop using those signals that markdown uses for formatting, a list of which you can find here.
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Re: Re: Re: Long ago.
"Wish it was TXT format"
It is if you select the text option, and I'm sure you'd spot the different immediately if you used preview... Maybe you should spend more time looking sat what you're doing and less time typing nonsensical screeds.
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Re: Only Big Tech had all of the convention?
"far-left 'fact checking"
How far in the right-wing sewer do you have to be to believe that facts are a plot against you?
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Re:
"How can he make America Great Again"
By making a gracious exit and allowing the next guy in charge to fix all the damage he caused?
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Re: Re:
Well he seems to mean great in the vast magnitude sense like a great mistake.
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Re: Re: Long ago.
I like this from the site. As I have 3 font sizes in my post.
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Re: Re: Re: Long ago.
The only thing coded in it...
Is the Space after the paragraph.
Then it goes to its Own design setup
But the title went into bold?? I do not see any reference to what I could have done.
Let me ask.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_document-markup_languages
Which one would you like me to use?
And as a counter to the comments, How many people are using any of it? Except for the Article, I see very very little of it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Long ago.
At the bottom of the comment area is the word 'markdown', in blue, which is a link to a cheat sheet for the markdown used on this site. Note _ ms * singular or doubled signal italic and bold. This link gives the HTML codes for characters that need to be escaped. Also, there is a preview button which allows you to see what will appear, and edit the comment until you get it right.
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Re: Re: Only Big Tech had all of the convention?
The plot against them is letting the truth be known.
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Re: Re: Only Big Tech had all of the convention?
If you think it isn't, it's because it confirms your bias.
I could spend an hour detailing the bias of the "fact-checkers," and write a post twenty times longer than this one, but at the end, you'd just say, "well, they're just a few anecdotes!"
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Re: Re: MAGA
That's Make America GRATE Again - like gravel in a gearbox
https://thesaurus.plus/related/grate/grind
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Your “bolded” comments are not bolded text, but rather text placed within a header element (an h1 element, in this instance). Playing around in the Commonmark dingus revealed how you did that: You put linebreaks at the end of every line of text that got “headered” (two spaces at the end of the line, followed by text on the next line instead of a blank line), then put the code for “headering” the text — at least one equal sign character — directly beneath the last line. Had you put an empty line between the last line of text and the equal sign(s), you wouldn’t have gotten the “headered” text.
Header elements also come into play if you use octothorpes (#) at the start of a given line of text. To use “hashtags” when they’re starting a line of text (or are the only text in a given line), you must escape the octothorpe by using a backslash (\). (That would look like this when you’re inputting text: \#HashtagText) You can also prevent the “headering” of text via octothorpe by applying style formatting (i.e., italics/bolding) to the text (e.g., *#HashtagText*). (Yes, I tested that last bit by using the preview function on this comment before posting it.)
Accidental use of header elements in comments is understandable, though it can be prevented by using the “preview” option and adjusting the text accordingly. Intentional use of header elements in comments is what a not-zero number of people refer to as a “dick move”. I trust that yours was accidental, so I don’t begrudge you for the mistake.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Long ago.
"Which one would you like me to use?"
The one the site tells you to use when you click on the word "markdown".
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Re:
So it was a Double space at the end of a line, with a blank line after?
Then it automatically did it on its own.
Strange.
What is fun/Funny tends to be that Some of the tutorial, Shows it Very difficultly. As I would have abit more Syntax in the original, that it does not like to carry, That has no ramifications on the End format.
It would be best to say, in 2 of them(as Im only on number 4) to Make the 2 sections match. As they adjust as you do things, the instruction suggests that the 2nd window is what I have to Match, not create.
And on 05, it adds better formatting on the creation side(an extra space) to show the other side, but doesnt need it.
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Apparently not. Techdirt’s Markdown implementation does line breaks automatically so long as the text is on consecutive lines rather than broken up by an empty line. But the header code is still the broader issue here, so be sure to put a blank line between the text and the equal sign(s) if you don’t want “headered” text.
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I am a minister and I'm trying to get funded with a 497 FICO score to start my Chapel I have no luck I'm willing to give somebody half of the loan or 5 or 7% of all business proceeds please help me wisestreet Ministries San Pablo California my email is intact please contact me I'm so willing to do pay I'll even pay for a cosigner sign over my business proceeds for the first couple of months whatever I have to do to pay you back I can't get funded I have tried everything please help
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Long ago.
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Re: Re: Only Big Tech had all of the convention?
Fact checking isn't necessarily partisan, unless you only check your opponents, your own facts are partisan or warped to achieve partisan ends, you're "checking" points of pure opinion, or whatever (all things Reason is well known for doing in its own "fact checking"). I haven't watched the broadcasts referred to in the article, but if the Reason article isn't lying about the MSNBC coverage, they were being partisan.
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Re: Re: Re: Only Big Tech had all of the convention?
"Fact checking isn't necessarily partisan"
It can be made partisan, but at that point it's not really fact checking any more, it's just another method of lying. Accurate fact checking is by nature non-partisan, since the facts don't change depending on who is being checked, unless you are changing them to fit your narrative, at which point it's also a form of lying.
"unless you only check your opponents"
That doesn't make the fact checking on any individual fact check partisan, it just means that it's unequally applied. There can also be non-partisan reasons for doing this - for example, if you only fact check the party in power, is it really partisan just because you're not checking people with no power equally? If you only check in response to complaints and your "side" gets zero complaints, is the person doing the checks partisan?
"if the Reason article isn't lying about the MSNBC coverage,"
Given Reason's known track record, that's a very big if.
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Re:
One really has to wonder how the party in control, calling all the shots, keeps having to claim they are being attacked to keep people on their side... and these rubes keep believing them.
Perpetual victimhood is a character trait of being a conservative christian. They won't be happy until we're all living under the christian equivalent of sharia law.
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Calling that easy or nonrestricted is nonsensical.
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Or, to paraphrase Kellyanne Conway, it’s telling us “alternative facts”.
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Re:
Calling what 'easy or non-restricted'?
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Re:
Depends on who you ask. The sniveling crowd of racists and bigots who feel that being forced to consider every human as an equal being a direct assault on their liberties would say so. After all, if you aren't listening to them you must be a sympathizer with black people and working women. And that makes you the enemy.
Of course they'll consider an "enemy" to be oppressive and your refusal to listen to them censorship.
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Re: Re:
"They won't be happy until we're all living under the christian equivalent of sharia law."
Even then they won't be happy. The many divided sects of Christianity can't even agree on who is a "true" Christian now, the arguments they would have when there's real power involved would make the Troubles is Ireland look like a mild disagreement.
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Re: Re:
"By making a gracious exit and allowing the next guy in charge to fix all the damage he caused?"
A cursory look says "that's not possible". Not even if Biden walked on water he'd just hand-waved into Merlot.
Internally Trump screwed up so many things it's dubious several of the organizations can be fixed save by gutting and rebuilding them - including, by now, the CDC, Post Office, EPA, FCC...and a dozen others. Trump's handling of Covid alone has made the US a plague-rat nation with - by now - 180k dead who didn't have to be. 25% of the global infectees on just 4% of the global population. The economy isn't going to get up and march easily. Especially not with a nation so polarized it's now tearing itself apart.
If Biden becomes the next president he'll have 4 years worth of putting out fires while Trump's demolition work makes the country collapse around his ears. No bet against the GOP blaming Biden for every one of Trump's disasters, and even bets they'll be able to produce a "strongman" capable of inheriting Trump's voter block of fanatics. I don't know whether the next president will be Trump or Biden but whoever follows them will be worse by far than either.
Externally Trump's managed to convince the rest of the world that the US is not only not a leader - It is willing and able to openly do what no president has done before them - selling its own longtime allies down the river. The Kurds will never again trust the US after they were sold to Turkey. NATO as a whole was met with stunning contempt and it's staunchest members publicly lambasted by a sitting president.
It'll take tens of years of patient diplomacy before the US can regain the political capital it has utterly squandered. And it has neither the time to do so nor the political will and ability. If anything the odds are that either Biden or his successor will have to finagle themselves another ill-conceived war of aggression in the middle east to bolster at-home support. Clamping another lead weight on the ankle of the already sunk US reputation abroad.
The US has been sliding for a while but Trump's administration kicked it over the actual brink. "Making America Survive" is the barely reasonable motto now.
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Re: Re: Re:
"Even then they won't be happy."
All too true. The mess which is US christianity resembles the old european "two popes" era, magnified a thousandfold. Every little clannish Westboro Baptist Church-style congregation loosely united only in what they hate. Should that loose congregation of warring tribes actually win I predict it'll take them all of a week to start crusading all over one another.
But it's slim comfort to know that if the radical evangelical doom cults start slaughtering each other it will be over the bodies of every rational person in america.
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Re: Re: Re:
"A cursory look says "that's not possible"
Not easy, but not impossible. At least as long as there's not the usual cycle where the incoming Democrat gets blames for the dumpster fire he's been handed, then gets voted out the moment it's under control to be set on fire again.
"Internally Trump screwed up so many things it's dubious several of the organizations can be fixed save by gutting and rebuilding them - including, by now, the CDC, Post Office, EPA, FCC...and a dozen others"
Well, there will be problems but the saving grace here is that Trump has been so openly corrupt and incompetent that the fixes should be relatively obvious. He's either refuse to staff a great number of positions at all, or has installed heads who are either woefully unqualified for the position, or openly hostile to the very department they are in charge of. In theory, all Biden needs to do is staff every position with a qualified professional and the fixes will start coming in.
Some things might need more work (for example, USPS would likely need the rule that forces them to pre-fund 75 years of pensions overturned before it returns to profitability), but the basic groundwork should be common sense.
"It'll take tens of years of patient diplomacy before the US can regain the political capital it has utterly squandered"
This, sadly, is true. The world will be very happy that Obama's former VP is now in charge and it will be refreshing to see adults in the room again. But we thought that when W´s team was replaced, and the resulting good will was rewarded with a bankrupt, corrupt, idiotic gameshow host. A generation or so of sanity will be welcome, but it will be a long time before trust returns to last century's levels, if ever.
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