Senator Elizabeth Warren Goes Over The Line; Threatens To Punish Amazon For 'Snotty Tweets'
from the that's-not-how-any-of-this-works dept
It's no secret that Elizabeth Warren thinks the big internet companies should be broken up. She's made that argument emphatically over the years. I'm not exactly clear what breaking them up actually accomplishes beyond punishing the companies, but as a Senator, she can certainly make the arguments for why it makes sense, or pass laws that impact how antitrust works.
However, what she cannot and should not do, is threaten to punish a company for its speech. And, yet, that's exactly what she did. Amazon tweeted at Warren after Warren said that Amazon exploits loopholes and tax havens, and that she was introducing a bill to make the company pay more taxes. In response, Amazon said in a short tweet thread:
You make the tax laws @SenWarren; we just follow them. If you don’t like the laws you’ve created, by all means, change them. Here are the facts: Amazon has paid billions of dollars in corporate taxes over the past few years alone. In 2020, we had another $1.7B in federal tax expense and that’s on top of the $18 billion we generated in sales taxes for states and localities in the U.S. Congress designed tax laws to encourage investment in the economy. So what have we done about that? $350B in investments since 2010 & 400K new US jobs last year alone. And while you’re working on changing the tax code, can we please raise the federal minimum wage to $15?
It's maybe not the most politically savvy way of doing that, but that's how Amazon chose to go about it. Warren responded thusly:
That is her saying:
I didn’t write the loopholes you exploit, @amazon – your armies of lawyers and lobbyists did. But you bet I’ll fight to make you pay your fair share. And fight your union-busting. And fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets.
Neither party comes out of this looking very good, frankly. It seems kinda silly for Amazon to get snarky about this. And Warren has every right to look into changing tax laws -- or to complain about lawyers/lobbyists seeking loopholes. That's her job.
But, even if you hate Amazon and love Elizabeth Warren her last sentence should greatly trouble you. It doesn't matter if Warren has lots of other good policy ideas regarding Amazon, or well documented reasons for breaking up the company. It doesn't matter that she was being snarky on Twitter in response to probably uncalled-for tweets from Amazon. At no point should a government official say that anyone should be punished for their speech. And that's what Warren has said by saying that she would "fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets."
Everyone should have the power to heckle Senators with snotty tweets. That's a core, fundamental principle of the 1st Amendment. Warren wipes away whatever goodwill she might have, and undermines her policy proposals and ideas when she attacks a private company for its speech. It no longer seems like a principled position. It no longer seems like a position based on what's best for the country. It now allows people to say she got upset over nasty tweets.
And, yes, that's even given everything else. Yes, she has plenty of other reasons to want to break up Amazon. Yes, this isn't a change in her position. Yes, she's being snarky on Twitter, and that's what Twitter is for. But none of that matters, just like it didn't matter when former President Donald Trump threatened companies for their speech, and his supporters said "aw, he's just joking" when people called him on that.
At no point is it appropriate for government officials to threaten to retaliate against speech, even jokingly.
It is an inherent threat and is blatant censorial intimidation. Amazon may not care, but lots of other companies are also watching this, and noting that when challenged, Warren threatens to attack companies for their speech and harm them to the point that they no longer feel comfortable speaking. That's a real problem. And courts have recognized this over the years. Even if you think what someone is saying is bad, government officials aren't supposed to intimidate them. That was the lesson in the Backpage v. Dart case a few years back:
With very limited exceptions, none applicable to this case, censorship—“an effort by administrative methods to prevent the dissemination of ideas or opinions thought dangerous or offensive,” Blue Canary Corp. v. City of Milwaukee, 251 F.3d 1121, 1123 (7th Cir. 2001), as distinct from punishing such dissemination (if it falls into one of the categories of punishable speech, such as defamation or threats) after it has occurred—is prohibited by the First Amendment as it has been understood by the courts. “Threatening penalties for future speech goes by the name of ‘prior restraint,’ and a prior restraint is the quintessential first-amendment violation.” Fairley v. Andrews, 578 F.3d 518, 525 (7th Cir. 2009). The Supreme Court, in enjoining a state commission from sending threatening letters to distributors of books that the commission deemed obscene, found that the “notices, phrased virtually as orders, reasonably understood to be such by the distributor, invariably followed up by police visitations, in fact stopped the circulation of the listed publications.” Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, supra, 372 U.S. at 68. The court held the state’s “system of informal censorship” unconstitutional, pointing out that “though the Commission is limited to informal sanctions—the threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion, persuasion, and intimidation—the record amply demonstrates that the Commission deliberately set about to achieve the suppression of publications deemed ‘objectionable’ and succeeded in its aim.” Id. at 67. The distributor of the plaintiffs’ books, corresponding to the credit card companies in this case, received first from the Commission a written request for ”cooperation” and then “follow up” visits from police, corresponding to the follow-up calls promised in Sheriff Dart’s letter. Id. at 63, 68. The distributor bowed to the Commission’s demand “rather than face the possibility of some sort of a court action against ourselves, as well as the people that we supply.”
In other words, even if "informal," the mere threat of speech suppression is intimidation and when done by a government official is a violation of the 1st Amendment. Elizabeth Warren should apologize.
Incredibly, when I tweeted this argument out this morning, many people got very angry with me. They mostly seemed to come from people who like Warren and dislike Amazon. And that's fine. You can like Warren and dislike Amazon. You can even agree with Warren's policy proposals regarding antitrust. But no one should accept it as okay when a Senator directly says that she wants to break up a company to the point that they can no longer tweet snarky tweets at a Senator. That is intimidation and it is an unconstitutional attack on speech.
Warren has great power at her disposal, and she is going to try to use that on Amazon. If so, she should defend that on the merits, not even hint (or even joke) about the idea that it may have been due to snarky, but protected, speech.
And that's true, even with the additional context of the big angry fight over unionization in an Amazon warehouse, or other mishaps with Amazon's snarky ill-targeted tweets -- such as telling Rep. Mark Pocan that its employees have not had to pee in bottles, a charge that Amazon's social media person mocked:
For many, many, many reasons this was a poorly thought out tweet, not the least of which was that it presented a wide open opportunity for the media to point out not only that Amazon workers have, in fact, at times needed to pee in bottles, but that there are Amazon memos detailing this.
Amazon may be deserving of mockery or contempt for its tweets. But the 1st Amendment is pretty clear that it should not face legal consequences from them -- and Warren should never have done so, even if she was just being snarky back. If she doesn't like being heckled, she has every right to leave her government job. Other than that, it is the public's right -- and often civic duty -- to heckle government officials even in snarky ways.
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Filed Under: 1st amendment, antitrust, elizabeth warren, intimidation, snotty tweets
Companies: amazon
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Way to shoot your own foot there Warren
Making a statement about punishing a company for being snarky with the goal of knocking them down enough that they won't be able to do so in the future is not only stupid(if doesn't require being Amazon-sized to be snarky, to politicians or otherwise) but just seriously undermined any credibility she might have had in efforts against tech companies, because now in addition to the whole 'she doesn't respect the first amendment' issue there will always be the question as to her motivations.
Is she going after tech companies because she honestly thinks that they're problems and she's trying to serve the public by reigning them in, or simply because she doesn't like them and wants to muzzle them?
I'm all for closing loopholes in the tax codes so that massive companies and individuals pay a decent share, and I'm not a fan of companies making use of those loopholes to the point that a random schmuck on the streets might pay more to the government than a massive company, but lashing out and issuing a threat like that because one of those companies pointed out that those loopholes exist and companies would be stupid not to exploit them is well over the line and just undermined her own efforts, position, and reputation.
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Re: Way to shoot your own foot there Warren
The first loopholes they should close on anything are tax abatements, etc., meant to "foster growth" or whatever. No, Mr. Government, you can't do a deal with an industry or property developer to lower taxes as an inducement.
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Re: Re: Way to shoot your own foot there Warren
If properly done, taxes are on profits, and since profits are excess income over and above what is needed for a company to operate and recoup its costs, it can even be argued that higher taxes actually do more to induce companies to work hard. With low or non-existing taxes, they might very well become lazy with the status quo as long as the profits are high enough to make the shareholders happy -- especially if you also have the law-makers on board with a heavy dose of regulatory capture -- which is the real killer if you want to "foster growth."
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Re: Way to shoot your own foot there Warren
Making matters worse they already had a lesson from Trump getting his travel bans overturned because he was surprised that judges would take his quoted racist reasons as a sign of being discriminatory. Politicians really are a learning-resistant bunch.
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I think it's a dumb, nonsensical line -- making snotty tweets to a senator takes no power whatsoever; anybody can do it -- but I think reading it as a threat of retaliation for speech is a bit of a stretch. I don't see how it articulates a position toward Amazon that's any different from the one Warren's been taking for years.
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Re:
I don't see how it articulates a position toward Amazon that's any different from the one Warren's been taking for years.
If it's not showing a position she hasn't had for years then that just means that she's had a horrible position for years.
It would be one thing to snap at them for being snarky and pointing out that they're just using the loopholes provided to them by congress by shooting back out that she didn't create those loopholes and she'd be all for closing them, but saying that she wants to break them up so they aren't able to make snarky comments is where she crossed the line, even if it's not reasonably possible without gutting the first amendment because anyone can be snarky towards her, powerful or not.
If that's not what she meant then she needs to be in damage control mode, making it crystal clear that she misspoke and her goal is not to silence a company she doesn't like but merely to rein in what they're doing that's problematic, because when no less than a senator makes comments about working to eliminate anyone's ability to be snarky to them that's something worth calling attention to and calling out as unacceptable.
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Re: Re:
I don't think "break up Amazon" is a horrible position at all.
I think y'all are reading way too much into a dumb one-liner.
Which I guess could be Twitter's slogan.
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Re: Re: Re:
When you listened to by people who can act on them, you have to be very careful with words, less someone hears your words and goes and murders an archbishop.
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In fairness, Elizabeth Warren isn’t some pissant pundit or a regular jackoff like you or I — she is a sitting United States Senator with the power to help write and pass laws that could damn well “break up Big Tech so [it’s] not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets”. I’m someone who generally approves of what Liz Warren stands for and all, but that line still gives me pause.
Would she be saying the same thing about a small Mastodon instance that heckles her with “snotty” posts? Doubtful. But the fact that she said it about Amazon/“Big Tech” still doesn’t help her avoid looking like a thin-skinned asshole in this situation.
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Re:
No, she couldn't, because that doesn't even make sense. Anyone can heckle a senator with a snotty tweet. It has nothing to do with how powerful you are.
It reeks of a spur-of-the-moment comeback that needed more time in the oven.
Like, okay, this one time a friend of mine was making fun of a coworker for having a man-purse. As the coworker was leaving, my friend said, "Taking your purse for a walk?"
The guy responded, "I'll show you how it walks."
That's how this reads to me. "So you're not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets" is Warren's "I'll show you how it walks." It's a failed attempt at shit talk.
And don't get me wrong, senators shouldn't be indulging in shit talk on Twitter in the first goddamn place. We used to have a president who spent all day doing that, and I'm relieved we don't anymore. Warren should know better.
But I feel like all this garment-rending about how she's threatening Amazon as retribution for talking shit on Twitter is really reaching. That's the line Amazon PR is going with -- "look what she just did! look!" -- and I'm disappointed to see people falling for it.
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Re: Re:
Does context matter if a PR guy for one of the world's largest and most powerful corporations starts clutching his pearls about how "One of the most powerful politicians in the United States just said she’s going to break up an American company so that they can’t criticize her anymore" and people start repeating that narrative uncritically?
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Re: Re: Re:
Gonna assume that was meant as a reply to my comment and that's actually exactly what I was talking about regarding how badly she screwed up and how important it is for her to quickly walk back and/or clarify that that's not what she meant, because noting that a US senator(and I cannot stress enough how important that detail is) seems to be suggesting that a company should be muzzled so they can no longer 'heckle senators with snotty tweets' is not 'pearl clutching', that is a very valid, very real concern that doesn't just become no big deal because the one pointing it out happens to be rich.
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It’s less about whether she can follow through with the threat and more about a sitting U.S. Senator making the threat in the first place. And I’m not here to carry water for Amazon — I’m here to criticize someone whose work I generally agree with because she fucked up and it’s my civic goddamned duty to say so.
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Re: Re:
"Anyone can heckle a senator with a snotty tweet. It has nothing to do with how powerful you are."
Yes, which makes "fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweet" an absolutely idiotic position, since a company with a single employee could do the same thing.
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Re: Re:
I agree with That One Guy and Stephen T. Stone more than you on this matter. Principles matter, even if you far more prefer the offending entity than the defending one.
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Re: Re:
Geez Thad, wow. :D No garment-rending here. I am not imagining that many here believe it is an actual evil threat. But it is some really, really bad shit talk, chilling-effects-level shit talk. Sure, many people might just "lol, Warren". Some may not. Others might enjoy using the same rhetoric because hey if Warren can get away with it...
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Re: Re: Re:
I don't think "break up Amazon" is a horrible position at all.
Depending on what exactly that means and the details it might be, might not be as there are things worth looking in to, but that wasn't the horrible position I was referring to rather I was talking about the idea of silencing companies, though I suppose we could be talking past each other and that's not what you meant in which case my comment wouldn't really apply to yours in that sense.
I think y'all are reading way too much into a dumb one-liner.
Context matters.
If a random person makes a dumb one-liner about how they believe that only men(or women) make good parents in single parent households that's a lot less concerning than if the person saying that is a judge who decides custody of kids in divorce cases.
If a random person on the street makes a dumb one-liner about how only the true religion deserves any consideration and society should value it's models after those found in that religion that's a lot less concerning than if the mayor of a city says it.
And if some non-politician makes a dumb one-liner about cracking down on companies so that they're not able to make snarky comments to politicians that is a lot less concerning than when the person saying it is a US senator, someone who is supposed to value and follow the first amendment and not make suggestions about shutting people or companies up so they can't talk back to their betters.
Like I said if that's not what she meant then she needs to clarify and make clear her position, because as it stands that line is only making her look worse and undermining any efforts she might take against the likes of Amazon by bringing her motivations into question.
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Re: Re: Re:
"I don't think "break up Amazon" is a horrible position at all."
"Break up Amazon because they're a monopoly player with too much power in the market and they have abusive employment tactics" is not a horrible position. "Break up Amazon because a person manning their Twitter account was mean to me" is definitely a horrible position.
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Re: Re: Re:
Well yeah, but that's the whole thing, isn't it? Government officials should actually think about what they are saying. Maybe you imagine that, coming from Warren, one shouldn't make a big deal out if it? But what if someone else said it? What if (inevitably) someone who is against all of Warren's policy goals want to use that one stupid sentence (and it is bloody stupid for other reasons too) against her?
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Re:
"I don't see how it articulates a position toward Amazon that's any different from the one Warren's been taking for years."
That's kind of the point - it undermines any reasonable position she may have presented in the past. There is a problem with some of the things she's trying to address, but issuing threats over speech she doesn't like raises major questions over everything else. In fact, saying that snotty tweets by some minor low level employee requires breaking up the company and imagining that no smaller company would be able to do such a thing makes her look absolutely deluded.
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Re:
Warren does not believe corporations have speech rights. She does not think that 1a should extend to them. So you are very wrong here. The "power" is a constitutional one that Warren does not want to exist.
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Yeah, as much as I like the idea of Liz Warren metaphorically tearing Amazon a new asshole or five, that last line is not helping her case.
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Re: I like the idea of Liz Warren
... Warren is a far left authoritarian who believes strong government control of the private economic sector is best for the nation overall.
Other people share that genealpoint of view, but are more circumspect in its implementation.
Warren is essentially proposing a legislative Bill of Attainder to punish Amazon.
As a lawyer and Senator, she knows this is specifically prohibited by the Constitution, but she is dismissive of laws that do not serve her objectives.
This is a very dangerous quality in a senior U.S. public official.
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Re: Re: I like the idea of Liz Warren
If you think Warren is "far left," I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
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Re: A. Stephen Stone misogynist can't stand strong women.
OOOH, so horrible to respond with mildly catty words to a Globalist mega-corporation! You just hate everything about women, doncha? They're not supposed to have opinions, especially not against the corporations you Nazis like.
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…fucking what
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Re: Re: A. Stephen Stone misogynist can't stand strong women.
Marked funny for the sheer idiocy. Well done.
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Wait,.. WHAT?!
soooo,... SHE writes a law at the behest of "a" corporation, and the corp is wrong for performing within that law? Sounds rather like a child whining to stay up late, female parent states, "ok, i will write a law so you can stay up late;" next night,... "WHY ARE YOU STAYING UP LATE?!?!?!?!"
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Re: Wait,.. WHAT?!
...what law are you saying she wrote?
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Re: Re: Wait,.. WHAT?!
the /IMPLIED/ aspect of my statement is that she is apart of the Government that itself allowed said law being complained about to be written. So she is speaking AS the whole Government. Sorry, I thought that point would have been painfully obvious.
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Does Elizabeth Warren herself exploit any loopholes in the tax law in order to pay less tax herself by any chance?
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Sen. Warren & Loopholes
Senator Warren claims that she didn't write the loopholes which companies like Amazon "exploit". And yet, the loopholes were in the bills passed by Congress. Therefore, we must assume that Senator Warren either does not read the bills before voting, or she is paid lots of money to not read the bills before voting.
Hopefully, the basket of wonderful Democrats in her home state will not vote for her continued incompetence in the next election.
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Re: Sen. Warren & Loopholes
To be fair, anything that could be construed as a tax loophole was probably included in a budget (or continuing resolution), and these laws are generally monstrosities with 5000 things in them. You can't vote on each part individually; it's yes or no to the whole thing.
(Then you get political ads saying "Politician X voted against funding to feed children!" when all they did was vote against a budget which had that as one of its many items.)
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Re: Sen. Warren & Loopholes
One caveat: Any bill that Senator Warren voted against is a bill that cannot truly be laid at her feet unless she did, in fact, write the text of the bill.
And yeah, it does happen that a legislator votes against a bill they wrote, from time to time. Sometimes because the bill that came out of committee was fatally flawed, sometimes (rarely, but still) because they have an epiphany.
But still: you vote for it, it's yours, warts and all.
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Re: Sen. Warren & Loopholes
I don't know her record one way or the other, so i make no claims about Warren in this regard, but... voting and/or speaking against bills which are subsequently passed into law does not retroactively make one to have voted for it. Laws pass despite the resistance of some. It's a thing.
Further, sometimes, because the way legislation gets packaged, one might have to vote for a largely good thing with some crap shoved into it. This happens as well.
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The more I see, the more I wish
for a constitutional amendment that states something along the lines of "Any elected representatives who propose, or advocate actions in violation of this constitution shall be immediately removed from office and made ineligible for any future elected public office."
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A corporation is NOT "anyone", it's a LEGAL FICTION.
Ignore his dissembling lies over no doubt hastily chosen words: Corporatist Maz is actually outraged and alarmed by this severe and direct threat to corporate profits:
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Re: A corporation is NOT "anyone", it's a LEGAL FICTIO
At no point should a Masnick lecture a sitting Senator, particularly since it's possible that soon might want support -- Maz claims to have some influence / notice in DC -- but every artificial fiber of his foul corporatist ichor-pump reacted to even the possibility of breaking up Big Tech. Maz can't help his reaction, any more than the next Ivy League indoctrinated Corporatist can. They believe they're ordained by God to rule through corporations.
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Re: Re:
Nobody believes you, RIAA fanboy.
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Sadly Amazon found a loophole in their statement...
Aren't their delivery drivers gig workers and not employees?
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Re:
There is also some truth to the part where Amazon isn't at fault - it IS hard to find a public bathroom these days. As a Walmart employee, I see (and direct) many delivery people to the bathrooms because we're one of the few places where bathrooms are open to the general public. Amazon can't put bathrooms in delivery trucks... I don't think there's anything beyond long-haul buses/trains/planes that have bathrooms. If a delivery driver suddenly NEEDS to go and is not close to something like a Walmart, there's not much Amazon can do about it. Saying Amazon should be punished because of that is stupid.
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Re:
Many of them work for subcontractors but have cameras in the trucks whose recording or streams is or can be sent directly to Amazon. (Because apparently that's ok to spend money on, but the peons working at anything other than a heart-attack-inducing pace gets them canned.)
Also, it isn't just deliver people. Literally in the fulfillment warehouse environment, people have to pee in bottles and shit in bags.
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Re:
Depending on the State(s) involved, contractors can be considered employees in some contexts; in particular anything that falls under the broad category of basic workers rights like health & safety. So I doubt that quibble would survive in court.
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Not a threat
The conversation is silly, but I just don't see the supposed "threat" by Warren. Beyond the rhetoric, she's just reiterating her two usual points, that big corporations:
1) write the laws to benefit themselves;
2) strong-arm the politicians by various methods (including money and positive or negative publicity).
You may agree or not with those propositions. When it comes to Australia and Murdoch, however, we all seem to agree that it happens.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210222/23213246298/facebook-caves-to-australia-will-res tore-links-after-government-gives-it-more-time-to-negotiate-paying-news-links.shtml
Warren has some proposals to change the situation, does any of them propose to write a law which name-calls Amazon? I didn't see any. What she wrote would sound worse if she were in an executive position to advance targeted action against Amazon. You wouldn't want a FTC member or federal judge to look partial like that.
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Re: Not a threat
Oh? So you missed this line completely?
She clearly threatened to break up companies that back-talk to politicians. If you don't see the threat, you're part of the problem.
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Friendly reminder that Techdirt’s commentariat loves to feed and flag trolls, but TD regular ECA is allowed to post drunken misogynistic ramblings about Elizabeth Warren that don’t receive any attention or countering from the other regulars.
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Re:
Note: The above troll's claim is disproven by their own link.
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Re: Re:
I sure don't see Stephen, That One Guy, or PaulT telling him to knock that shit off like they do to other trolls or those with incoherent ramblings.
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Re: Re: Re:
It's very simple: ECA isn't an asshole and he's not a hypocrite. Sure, his posts can be hard to parse from time to time and contrary to real trolls he is usually on topic and tries to make a point.
That you can't be bothered to take the time to understand what ECA posts doesn't mean that the rest of us don't, so this is more of an you problem than anything else.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
His point was that he thinks that Elizabeth Warren got her Senatorial position through nepotism rather than hard work, and ends off his comment with, and I quote, “Its not who you know, its Who you Blow.”
If you’re trying to tell me I just don’t “get” the shit that spews from ECA’s mouth, you’re doing a real bad job of it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, his comment was not specifically about Warren since he throughout his post referred to them and they and how politicians in general get power through nepotism and backroom deals.
I can only suggest you learn the difference between she and they/them to get the correct context before blowing your top.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So that makes him saying “Politicians are all the same, they just suck dick to get their jobs” okay. Got it. Have you tried sucking Mike’s dick to get articles written about you, like That Anonymous Coward?
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Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, I don't tend to respond to posts I haven't read yet.
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Re:
The difference, Jhon, is that ECA doesn't kick up a fuss when he gets ignored. He doesn't threaten to depose everybody in a press release either, how's that coming along by the way?
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Re: Re:
ECA also knows how to gather their thoughts and put them all in one comment. You know, instead of posting and then thinking of an "oh yeah and furthermore!" super-clever gotcha for another 1-5 posts in a row.
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As much as I despise Amazon, I don't think they were stupid with their tweet. When I first read it and Sen. Warren's response, I wondered if they successfully baited her into saying something they could use in a lawsuit against one of her bills.
Now even if she manages to pass a break up big tech bill, the tech companies will run to the court and claim the bill was written to satisfy her personal vendetta against them and not for any proper financial purpose.
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Re:
"As much as I despise Amazon, I don't think they were stupid with their tweet."
Even if they were, a high level politician responding to their exercise of free speech with a threat to have the government intervene and force changes to their business is way more problematic than anything they could have said.
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This article reminds me of when you isolated one sentence of a lengthy article from Elizabeth Warren and her campaign team, taking it out of context so you could use it to claim that she wanted to implement the European Copyright Directive stateside.
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Re:
Context other then "government person makes (joking or not) threat about silencing speech" is irrelevant.
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Re: Re:
Masnick's other article about Warren where he takes something out of context and blows it up into being more important than it actually is? That's indeed relevant.
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Re:
I mean, he specifically called out that it was a single line at the top of the post you linked.
Was it stripped of context? Sure, but there's a link to the original.
Was the connection Mike made tenuous? Sure, in my opinion.
Does any of this negate Mike's point? No.
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Amazon's next tweet should be..."Now go away or I will taunt you a second time."
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Ms. Warren, if you want to break up big companies, I'd suggest starting with AT&T and Verizon. The rest of the country will thank you.
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On the one hand, threats of punishment for speach is bad, on the other hand it was on Twitter which is hardly the place people go to have a nuanced and thoughtful debate.
Also I think Warren replied in the tone of Amazon's response so I can't really say her response bothers me. Maybe I'm slowly giving up on sacred principles I should hold dear and in a few months I'll be advocating genocide or something.
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Amazon a time traveler?
How goddamned senile is Elizabeth Warren if she thinks Amazon had a role in passing tax loopholes long before its birth? It took until the 00s for Amazon to start getting huge as online shopping took off. Bezo may have had a bit of a silver spoon but not "lobby like a vested interest in start up days" money. The NOL carryforward of losses and investment dates back to 1918 - over a century ago. If Amazon has a time machine I would recommend being far more careful about bad mouthing them so they don't slip birth control into your mom's drinks 9 months before you were born.
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Amazon: and screenshot
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borkage on site today
bcs the maz likes to censor
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Re: borkage on site today
[Projects facts not in evidence]
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but will this get in this 20th or so time?
Follow up: Maz wrong, didn't question as smart people did:
Report: Amazon Started a Social Media War with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Because Jeff Bezos Got Mad
https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/3/28/22354604/amazon-twitter-bernie-sanders-jeff-bezos-union-ala bama-elizabeth-warren
https://theintercept.com/2021/03/25/amazon-drivers-pee-bottles-union/
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Re: but will this get in this 20th or so time?
Yes, it did. Just like a switch was clicked.
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Re: Re: but will this get in this 20th or so time?
If only you put as much time and effort into understand the words other people are saying as you do in your endless battle with the spam filter whose method of operation is still somehow a mystery to you, despite it being explained in great detail countless times over your decade of fighting this pointless fight.
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Re: Re: Re: but will this get in this 20th or so time?
My quoted is THE FIRST MENTION OF BEZOS HAVING PERSONALLY INTERVENED. That's relevant when Maz attacks Warren personally, isn't it?
SO how do you downplay first mention of a multi-billionaire causing at attack on a Senator? That's NEWS and that Maz didn't mention it is evidence of Maz's pro-corporate, pro-billionaire bias.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: but will this get in this 20th or so time?
"My quoted is THE FIRST MENTION OF BEZOS HAVING PERSONALLY INTERVENED. That's relevant when Maz attacks Warren personally, isn't it?"
The rest of the post is also relevant, but you ignored that. context.
"SO how do you downplay first mention of a multi-billionaire causing at attack on a Senator?"
Why do you think that a person loses 1st amendment rights and should have government censoring them in response due to the amount of money they earn? This is especially interesting in the face of your constant claims that people here should lose their rights to tell you to STFU. Nobody here earns Bezos level money, so what is the income level you think that requires the loss of free speech rights?
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Re: Re: Re: but will this get in this 20th or so time?
Okay, in 25 words or less 'splain how the mighty filters block me first, then let all the same text in with "Resend" or on subsequent attempts. -- OR since you say HAS been done, link to ANY such instance.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: but will this get in this 20th or so time?
"Okay, in 25 words or less 'splain how the mighty filters block me first"
You post random bullshit that doesn't address what's actually said, then when you've been correctly flagged as a troll and/or spam, you try spamming more. Filters are imperfect so occasionally you bypass them.
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Re: but will this get in this 20th or so time?
So you couldn't even bother to read the whole article, in which Mike not only linked to your intercept article but even embedded the memo in question.
If you can't read this article and realize that it's not supporting Amazon your reading comprehension skills are what's actually "borked"
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Re: but will this get in this 20th or so time?
You know, you'd get further in claiming to have greater knowledge than others if you read the entire article up to the point where it links to the same page you do, including screenshots from said article.
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Re: Re: but will this get in this 20th or so time?
YOU, though, NEVER get any further than stoopy ad hom, trying to ignore substance.
Maz didn't mention Bezos PERSONALLY involved, while ranting that Warren is attacking 1A "rights" -- of a billionaire and globalist corporation.
Objective readers can ask: Which side is Maz on? Yours or mega-corporation?
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Re: Re: Re: but will this get in this 20th or so time?
Like I said - you seem to be attacking things without understanding context or even the point of the articles.
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In other words, even if "informal," the mere threat of speech suppression is intimidation and when done by a government official is a violation of the 1st Amendment. Elizabeth Warren should apologizeI have a better idea - how about we start giving our constitutional law some teeth, and punish government officials who break it? Warren shouldn't apologize, she should be suffering some very real consequences for thinking the 1A is just so much toilet paper.
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