Josh Hawley Was The Democrats' Partner In Trying To Regulate Big Tech; Then The Public Realized He Was A Fascist
from the there-goes-that-plan dept
Karl recently wrote about how Congress' antitrust efforts are flailing (even with the plan to hold a hearing on Senators Klobuchar & Grassley's antitrust bill) and one reason why the efforts have stumbled may be Senator Josh Hawley's decision to really show off his fascist side.
We've been pointing out the serious problems with Hawley and his policy ideas since long before January 6th of 2021. Even though it was fairly clear from early on that his hypocritical posturing and populism were little more than a cynical attempt to get the Trumpian base to back his massive ego and ambition for a potential Presidential run, a bunch of Democrats were happy to cynically embrace Hawley because he was "anti-big tech" and willing to hate all the same people that some Democratic Senators hated as well. Of course, January 6th and Hawley's now infamous raised fist appear to have resulted in Democrats realizing that even if he hates Mark Zuckerberg too, that doesn't mean he's worth working with.
Now the Washington Post has noted that since January 6th, Democrats suddenly were no longer willing to partner with Hawley on bills that regulate "big tech," which is a bit of a problem, since he was their Republican co-sponsor on a variety of "bipartisan" legislation.
By this time last Congress in January 2020, Hawley had partnered with Democrats to lead at least eight letters on tech issues, including with Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), then the Senate minority whip, according to a review by The Technology 202. The topics spanned from data privacy to kids’ online safety to potential risks posed by tech firms with links to China.
But a year into this Congress, during which his top issues have only gained prominence, Hawley hasn’t led any bipartisan letters on tech policy issues that his office has publicly released, according to a review. All of the new tech bills he’s introduced this past year have been either a solo or Republican-only effort. And of those four bills he co-led early last Congress, only one has been reintroduced — without him on it.
The article claims that this means that Hawley's "once-glowing prominence in the debate has faded," though I question that premise. He's still out there bashing tech in stupid, nonsensical ways. He's just doing it on Fox News and to an increasingly ignorant base who still thinks that he can magically ignore the 1st Amendment and force Twitter to allow idiots to spew nonsense. The fact that he can't actually advance any legislation is kind of meaningless here. Possibly (and this is good) it slows some of the legislation down, but Hawley has never been interested in actually passing legislation in the first place. It was always about getting his name in lights among the right people. And he got his headlines from Democrats who were willing to look the other way on Hawley's populist/fascist tendencies when it was politically convenient for them. And now Hawley doesn't need them any more to get the kind of headlines he needs.
The real thing for me is looking at just how cynical Democrats were to join up with Hawley on this prior to last January 6th. It was no secret -- certainly not in and around the Senate -- about Hawley's populist/fascist views, and his willingness to stomp all over principles or rights to feed his ambition. But they were willing to do so because it helped them out. It's good that they're apparently no longer willing to team up with Hawley to give him any kind of legislative "win" on this topic, but it remains ridiculous that they were ever willing to do so in the past -- back before Hawley was so commonly and publicly associated with the insurrection.
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Filed Under: antitrust, big tech, bipartisanship, josh hawley
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would love to see
Someone create a site and TAg every representative, with the Labels of how they are really acting.
Lets count how many times in 1 year they goto Church.
Lets see how many contributions they give from all the money they make.
Lets see which side they prefer, the worker or the Owners of corps.
All this and MORE.
It might Light up a few faces when they understand that there is no such thing as a REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT, except by label.
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Re: would love to see
Come on. It’s 2022 and you are still saying there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats?
Have you been living under a rock?
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Re: Re: would love to see
Im 62, Iv seen both sides of each party.
What are the odds you have seen a Communist advert? 0', Iv seen 2. Iv seen Porn on broadcast TV and even PBS, before all those MORAL rules ran around, cause someone got their feeling hurt.
I have a friend almost as old, that didnt realize Bush was a republican.
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Re: would love to see
"It might Light up a few faces when they understand that there is no such thing as a REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT, except by label."
People keep saying this, especially older people. And I have to say they're wrong.
Democrats and Republicans used to be comparable. A few ideologists, a bipartisan divide between progressive and conservative, a similar bipartisan divide between authoritarians and liberals.
But that all changed after Reagan. The democrats are still business as usual - politicians of varying degrees of shady, occasionally trying to wedge a few actually constructive and benevolent bills in between carrying water for their biggest campaign contributors while largely being utterly ineffectual at addressing the most primary ills to plague the nations because that would upset those people they're beholden to.
It's just that today their Big Tent contains all the progressives and liberals while the republicans have slid down to where they now no longer have any platform other than populism and no ideology other than outright fascism.
You're half right. The democrats are largely the same as they always were. Their playbook remains that of stale old realpolitik.
The republicans, however, have changed to where they are no longer on the same page. Their playbook is now literally Mein Kampf. And that should surprise no one given that Hitler wrote that manuscript while thinking of how to undermine a barely functioning democratic republic by quiet means with his beer hall coup having failed.
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Re: Re: would love to see
only real diff, I see is Who gets the money, and HOW they wish to regulate the corps. BOTH think the corps are the answer. IT ISNT.
Its like they say, the constitution is nothing to the corps, and neither are most of the laws, Esp. the ones they killed AFTER Reagan.
http://www.stand.la/history-of-oil-in-los-angeles.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of _Superfund_sites#:~:text=Superfund%20sites%20are%20polluted%20locations,Act%20(CERCLA)%20of%201980.
We installed tons of regs for capitalism and for Monopolies and for pollution. Can you tell me how many are left?
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Re: Re: Re: would love to see
"only real diff, I see is Who gets the money, and HOW they wish to regulate the corps. BOTH think the corps are the answer. IT ISNT."
THAT is the only difference you see?
I beg to differ. I don't know if americans have actually started to normalize the shit-show which is the GOP by now but when one of the parties hit every last one of Umberto Eco's 14 defining characteristics of fascism then that is most decidedly not a party playing in the same ring as ordinary politics;
Many political parties and politicians hit a few of these. Some openly fascist parties don't hit all of these. The GOP? Ten-rings every last one. And in doing so may be the first truly major political western body after the nazis to do so.
There is no both sides debate here. No more so than you can put the drug-dealing murderous thug on the same page as the misbehaving child just because both break the rules.
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Why Techbribe why?
Senator Hawley just wants free speech online. Make sure companies and customers of YouTube respect copyright to put people in jail for violating copyright law by watching or putting up copyright videos. Protecting speech and copyright is part of are constitution. Hawley knows who you are dirty tech and will NEVER FORGET THE NASTY COMMENTS THAT WERE LEFT ON THIS SITE ABOUT HIM. You will pay when the lawyers come
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Re: Why Techbribe why?
wut?
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Re: Why Techbribe why?
It's very important you let oxygen rich air reach your lungs. A healthy human can usually easily achieve this by ensure their nose has adequate access to fresh air. Other the other hand covering your entire head in water or dirt is not conducive to avoiding severe brain damage.
Hope that helps.
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Re: Why Techseance why?
HELLO SPIRIT!
Is there a Jhon Boi Smith among you? Does this entity speak with his voice? Is the entity crying ethereal tears about how it will appeal and win? Is this entity threatening to call the PsiBI should we fail to take its ghastly claims seriously?
SPEAK O SPIRIT SKEAK!
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Re: Re:
I remember when John Smith could, at the very minimum, put up some brief façade of civility in his Strike 3/Prenda Law shilling before his lies got disproved, at which point he'd dive straight into the terribly written Masnick fanfiction and his desire to anally penetrate his critics.
After the Jan 6th coup attempt it's like the collective intelligence of the copyright camp just went down several notches. Not that it was a brightly shining font of wisdom before, mind you.
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Re: Re: Re:
"After the Jan 6th coup attempt it's like the collective intelligence of the copyright camp just went down several notches. Not that it was a brightly shining font of wisdom before, mind you."
I remember when old Bobmail used to have these meltdowns on a regular basis, back on TorrentFreak. His love for fascism was obvious even back then and his recurring cries of "You'll all pay! PAY I Say!" were well known.
But he can't get back on Torrentfreak because there's login verification now and he can't dwell on Ars because they're even harder in their restrictions and so he's relegated to spending all his time here, prompting most of us to agree with Mike and Tim that "There's motherfuckers, stupid motherfuckers, and then there's you" about him.
It's just that every now and then poor Baghdad Bob just can't muster the energy to wrap a word wall around his sadism, ghoulish glee and fascist inclinations and that's when his loosened sphincter leaks stuff like what we just read in some poor defenseless text box.
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Re: Why Techbribe why?
[Hallucinates facts bearing not the slightest resemblance to anything in reality]
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Re: Why Techbribe why?
I sincerely hope this is sarcasm, otherwise I fear that the gene pool has already been polluted beyond any hope of recovery.
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Re:
You know, at least Hamilton knew to put some effort in his delusions of grandeur and fantasies of an imagined glorious heritage. And this was while throwing his weight behind a misguided schmuck who had the balls to sue this site, based on a disproved claim.
Like... If you're going to shitpost, don't do it using the name of someone who kicked the bucket three months ago. If this is the quality of pro-copyright fucknuggets your movement is doomed, friendo.
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Re: Re:
"If this is the quality of pro-copyright fucknuggets your movement is doomed, friendo."
I think I recognize that particular brand of incoherent nonsense followed by an all caps statement that "PUNISHMENT awaits. Any day now".
My guess is Bobmail/Baghdad Bob/Jhon Smith/out_of_the_blue is in his "meltdown" phase again. It's where he fails to pour the products of his trembling sphincter into a wordwall before tipping it into the comment textbox. We've seen it before.
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Re: Why Techbribe why?
"Senator Hawley just wants free speech online"
"Hawley knows who you are dirty tech and will NEVER FORGET THE NASTY COMMENTS THAT WERE LEFT ON THIS SITE ABOUT HIM. You will pay when the lawyers come"
Fuck me, you people are getting stupider by the minute. He believes in free speech but will instantly destroy you with lawyers if you state an opinion about him that you don't like?
Even for the low standards you have set before, this is incredible.
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Re: Re: Why Techbribe why?
Remember that what Jhon wants is the freedom to defraud courts into punishing people who say true things.
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Re: Why Techbribe why?
Ah, the incoherent ramblings lauding copyright and fascism finished with a "YOU'LL ALL PAY!". Pure Baghdad Bob drivel, like a word salad made by an AI weaned on Mein Kampf and old Rote Armee Fraktion PR slogans. Delivered, as per usual, with a random anon nick.
I'm sure we're all impressed.
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Stealing Their Thunder
Remember, it's the Democrats that primarily need to advance legislation right now. To me, it doesn't look like section 230 reform is very much a priority for the Democrats. But Hawley is still serious, and that could boost Republican election numbers later this year if it becomes an issue. Hopefully, this will come to the forefront if there's a big turnover of the legislators.
Also, section 230 reform can very much benefit free speech on social media, such as with new proposals that would denote that content created by the users then belongs to the users, and would disallow monetization unless a user's content and followed network remains uncensored.
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Re: Stealing Their Thunder
I'd respond to your debunk talking points, but they've been debunked over and over that it's barely worth my time answering them (even in a paraleiptic fashion such as this).
It seems like your main role here is waste everybody's time and oxygen.
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No, it can’t. It literally can’t. And your proposal about denoting what is and isn’t user-generated content doesn’t even need 230 reform.
Also, I’m more than happy to bust out this copypasta for you for the first time this year.
Yes or no, Koby: Do you believe the government should have the legal right to compel any privately owned interactive web service into hosting legally protected speech that the owners/operators of said service don’t want to host?
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Re: Stealing Their Thunder
Your objectives of getting your message out is not served by ruining social media platforms as fast as they become popular. The big social media sites moderate in a fashion that maximizes their audience, and ban people who would drive that audience elsewhere. The lack of an audience on gab, 8kun etc. due to their small user base is an indication of just how popular the speech hosted there is.
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Re: Stealing Their Thunder
Ahh K-dawg, I thought I smelled the stench of failure.
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Re: Stealing Their Thunder
"To me, it doesn't look like section 230 reform is very much a priority for the Democrats"
There are indeed many other more important issues than soothing the butthurt of right-wingers and white supremacists who blame section 230. Especially when not even Gettr, the platform set up to gather them together when they get told by other people that they're not welcome, can do business without also telling them to GTFO because they're so toxic.
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Re: Stealing Their Thunder
Conservatives don't want 'free speech', they want to be in charge of the banning, that's all this is really about.
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Look at all the book bans and anti-CRT bills/laws across the country: Not only are they led primarily (if not entirely) by Republicans/conservatives, they’re primarily targeting books by people of color.
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Re: Re: Stealing Their Thunder
Sure they want 'free speech', they just think that it's short for 'consequence-free speech' and that it only applies to them.
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If Josh Hawley had been in charge of the Jan 6 putsch...
Hawley would have recruited the hard men needed to push it to a successful conclusion.
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Re: If Josh Hawley had been in charge of the Jan 6 putsch...
Hawley reminds me, to an uncanny degree, of Rudolph Hess. The "reasonable" voice of fascism combined with the unswerving efforts to make Dear Leader's dream reality.
I'm not sure Hawley even puts his pants on in the morning without wondering how he can combine that with giving Trump another reacharound.
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Re: Re: If Josh Hawley had been in charge of the Jan 6 putsch...
Actually, I more had in mind what Josh Hawley might do for himself, in 2024 (if Agent Orange does not run), or 2028.
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Re: Re: Re: If Josh Hawley had been in charge of the Jan 6 putsc
"I more had in mind what Josh Hawley might do for himself, in 2024"
It will take Il Duce Arancione being literally dead for him not to run, I think.
No, I believe Hawley will kneel and bob before Trump until Dear Leader finally ceases being politically relevant. At that point, not before, is when he'll wipe his lips, stand up, and loudly deliver the narrative that as a lifelong proudly independent statesman he's the best candidate to run the nation.
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“… willingness to stomp all over principles or rights to feed his ambition.” describes just about every politician pretty well. Almost every elected political hack wants to do this. Hawley is so very wrong on tech, but he is no wronger than any other politician trying to force someone else to do (or not do) a thing the politician wants them to. The only difference is the ox being gored.
And twitter already allows idiots to “spew” nonsense. So many idiots. So much nonsense.
As a reminder, those who use “spew” about the exercise of speech indicate that their argument is partisan rather than principled.
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Re:
"Almost every elected political hack wants to do this"
Indeed, which is why I personally wish a lot fewer people would elect hacks.
"And twitter already allows idiots to “spew” nonsense."
Within their terms of service, and then some of these people choose to spew nonsense elsewhere about how they were somehow censored when they break those terms and face the prescribed consequences.
"As a reminder, those who use “spew” about the exercise of speech indicate that their argument is partisan rather than principled."
No, it doesn't, it simply means that there's an observation that some people choose to exercise that right use it to talk absolute nonsense and/or spread disinformation that participate in the actual exchange of ideas honestly. Which is their right, of course, you're just missing a large part of the point if you believe that it comes without the possibility of retort or consequence from other private citizens.
Just a reminder - part of my free speech rights involve choosing adjectives like "spewing" to describe yours if I view it as being something other than positive or factual. You're then free to retort if you wish.
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Re:
"As a reminder, those who use “spew” about the exercise of speech indicate that their argument is partisan rather than principled."
You were doing so well until the point where you decided to make a personal judgment and claim it was objective.
No, someone using a pejorative only means that person chose to use a pejorative. Some terms are politically loaded, to be sure, but those are fairly limited and recognizable.
"Fake News" for instance is a term which in a land of tort and lawyers essentially replaces "If I take a complaint over this to court they'll all find out the implication I object to is true enough to bother me really bad so I'll just try to dismiss the implication with a one-liner and run". See also Goebbel's Lügenpresse for the normal use of this term.
Multiculturalism is a dogwhistle word usually deployed heavily by bigots when they don't want to make with the ethnic slurs out loud. Another way of saying it's inherently dangerous for white people to be too closely associated with people from Asia, Africa or the Middle East.
And so on. I don't see how someone saying "idiots spewing nonsense" is a partisan statement. But I do see how the targets of that evaluation might do their damnedest to marginalize that evaluation. A derivative use of "Fake News".
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With Friends Like This...
This is another example of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" principle. But now that it's clear that Sen. Hawley foments sedition, it would be prudent for Hawley's former "friends" to question every point of agreement with him. Instead, some Democrats will keep pursuing the same bad ideas that Hawley supported and still supports--rationalizing to themselves that by cutting Hawley out of their game, NOW they are on the path of righteousness.
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Re: With Friends Like This...
America's friend (The First Amendment / Section 230) is the enemy of America's enemy (Josh Hawley).
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Re: With Friends Like This...
Josh Hawley supported the Jan 6thers, just not enough to bail them out of trouble. They were useful to him, up until they stopped being so, and thus no longer offered any value.
Now he's on the opposite side of that equation.
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