No, Getting Rid Of Anonymity Will Not Fix Social Media; It Will Cause More Problems

from the not-this dept

There's an idea that pops up every so often among people who are upset about misinformation online but don't actually understand the realities of online communities and the dynamics of how it all works: it's the idea that "anonymity" is the root cause of many of the internet's problems. We've spent years debunking this, though it's been nearly a decade since there was a previous focus on this issue -- and it's now coming back.

Unfortunately, part of the reason it's coming back is because a friend of Techdirt, Andy Kessler (who we've even published on Techdirt), wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal calling for the end of anonymity online. I will note, that a large part of the article is correct: the part that accurately notes that Section 230 is not the problem and reforming or repealing it will do a lot more harm than good. That is exactly right.

But then Andy goes off the rails and decides that getting rid of anonymity is the real solution.

He's wrong, and we'll get into why in a moment. But, tragically, his piece has picked up some supporters in high places. Senator Ron Johnson, one of the key enablers of spreading disinformation in Congress (under his own name, of course), tweeted a link to the article, saying that perhaps we should end anonymity online:

That says:

I'm concerned that Congress’s involvement in Section 230 reform may lead to more harm than good.

One solution may be to end user anonymity on social media platforms. Social media companies need to know who their customers are so bad actors can be held accountable.

The next day, Senator John Kennedy, another famed Senatorial spreader of disinformation under his own name, announced that he was going to introduce legislation to ban anonymity online. Specifically, he said social media companies would have to verify the legal identities of every user, and said that this would "cause a lot of people" to "think about their words."

There are three big problems with this idea:

1. It's unconstitutional.
2. It doesn't work.
3. It creates real harms & puts marginalized and vulnerable people at risk.

Beyond those three things, it's a lovely idea. Did I say lovely? I meant short-sighted and half-baked.

Let's go through it bit by bit.

It's unconstitutional.

Basically, throughout the 20th century, there were a series of cases that reached the Supreme Court on the question of anonymity and whether or not the government could force the revealing of names. The most notable was McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission in 1995, where the Supreme Court was pretty explicit:

Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority.... It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation--and their ideas from suppression--at the hand of an intolerant society. The right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. But political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse.

Some people might argue that "this is different" thanks to social media, but the details of the McIntyre case suggest that is very much in line with what is happening today. Some may argue that since we're often talking about speech trying to influence an election, it is different. Or what about to stop fraud? Or defamation? Literally all of that is covered in the McIntyre ruling:

The state interest in preventing fraud and libel stands on a different footing. We agree with Ohio's submission that this interest carries special weight during election campaigns when false statements, if credited, may have serious adverse consequences for the public at large. Ohio does not, however, rely solely on §3599.09(A) to protect that interest. Its Election Code includes detailed and specific prohibitions against making or disseminating false statements during political campaigns. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§3599.09.1(B), 3599.09.2(B) (1988). These regulations apply both to candidate elections and to issue driven ballot measures.... Thus, Ohio's prohibition of anonymous leaflets plainly is not its principal weapon against fraud.... Rather, it serves as an aid to enforcement of the specific prohibitions and as a deterrent to the making of false statements by unscrupulous prevaricators. Although these ancillary benefits are assuredly legitimate, we are not persuaded that they justify §3599.09(A)'s extremely broad prohibition.

As this case demonstrates, the prohibition encompasses documents that are not even arguably false or misleading. It applies not only to the activities of candidates and their organized supporters, but also to individuals acting independently and using only their own modest resources. It applies not only to elections of public officers, but also to ballot issues that present neither a substantial risk of libel nor any potential appearance of corrupt advantage. It applies not only to leaflets distributed on the eve of an election, when the opportunity for reply is limited, but also to those distributed months in advance. It applies no matter what the character or strength of the author's interest in anonymity. Moreover, as this case also demonstrates, the absence of the author's name on a document does not necessarily protect either that person or a distributor of a forbidden document from being held responsible for compliance with the election code. Nor has the State explained why it can more easily enforce the direct bans on disseminating false documents against anonymous authors and distributors than against wrongdoers who might use false names and addresses in an attempt to avoid detection. We recognize that a State's enforcement interest might justify a more limited identification requirement, but Ohio has shown scant cause for inhibiting the leafletting at issue here.

Basically all of that would apply to social media as well.

Kessler's WSJ piece suggests that this would be no different than Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements in the financial industry, but that is quite different. That is an explicit rule developed for determining fraud. It is easily distinguishable from what is being demanded here on two key points. First, social media involves tons of 1st Amendment protected speech, so any law attacking anonymity there would require strict scrutiny to make sure that it was narrowly targeted and the only effective way to meet a specific goal (which it is not). Separately, the goal of having a KYC setup for social media is not to stop fraud. As Kennedy himself said (revealing its unconstitutional purpose), it would be to make people "think about their words."

It doesn't work.

Proof? Facebook already requires real names.

I really shouldn't need much more than that, but just to humor you: back in 2016 we wrote about a huge study involving half a million comments online and found that trolls tended to be even worse when using their real names.

Results show that in the context of online firestorms, non-anonymous individuals are more aggressive compared to anonymous individuals. This effect is reinforced if selective incentives are present and if aggressors are intrinsically motivated.

This is not to say all people using their real names are overly aggressive. Or that all anonymous users are lovely. But the idea that anonymity is the problem is just... not supported by the facts.

And, just to point out something important: the storming of the Capitol was pushed for by a ton of people using their real names. They didn't do it thinking they were anonymous.

It creates real harms & puts marginalized and vulnerable people at risk.

Back in 2011 we had a post talking about the damage that can be done by requiring people to identify themselves on social media. It included a list from another site of reasons people gave for wanting to use pseudonyms, and you'll realize there are some really good ones. The original link is now gone, but I'll repeat them here:

• I am a high school teacher, privacy is of the utmost importance.
• I publish under my nom de plume, it's printed on my business cards, and all of the thousands of people I know through my social networks know me by my online name.
• I have used this name/account in a work context, my entire family know this name and my friends know this name. It enables me to participate online without being subject to harassment that at one point in time lead to my employer having to change their number so that calls could get through.
• I do not feel safe using my real name online as I have had people track me down from my online presence and had coworkers invade my private life.
• I've been stalked. I'm a rape survivor.
• I work for a private club. I have to carry a card around which states I will not share any element of the club with any sort of media. So, If I want to talk about work (and I do) on the net, I have to use an alias.
• I've been using this name for over 10 years in the "hacking" community. There are a nontrivial amount of people who know me *only* by that name.
• As a former victim of stalking that impacted my family I've used [my nickname] online for about 7 years.
• Under [this name] I am active in a number of areas of sexual difference for which it would not be wise for me to use my flesh legal name.
• My actual real name is utterly non-identifying, as 1) it is the name of a character in a movie, and that overwhelms google search results 2) it's not unique at ALL.
• [this name] is a pseudonym I use to protect myself. My web site can be rather controversial and it has been used against me once.
• I started using [this name] to have at least a little layer of anonymity between me and people who act inappropriately/criminally. I think the "real names" policy hurts women in particular.
• I use the pseudonym to maintain my online anonymity because I am polyamorous and have no desire for professional acquaintances to discover this.
• I enjoy being part of a global and open conversation, but I don't wish for my opinions to offend conservative and religious people I know or am related to. Also I don't want my husband's Govt career impacted by his opinionated wife, or for his staff to feel in any way uncomfortable because of my views.
• I have privacy concerns for being stalked in the past. I'm not going to change my name for [social media]. The price I might pay isn't worth it.
• We get death threats at the blog, so while I'm not all that concerned with, you know, sane people finding me. I just don't overly share information and use a pen name.
• This identity was used to protect my real identity as I am gay and my family live in a small village where if it were openly known that their son was gay they would have problems.
• I go by pseudonym for safety reasons. Being female, I am wary of internet harassment.

Such a list can go on and on. As Danah Boyd has written, requiring people give their real names is itself an abuse of power. And, just to back that up, note that the people now calling for it are the powerful.

The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who are most marginalized by systems of power. “Real names” policies aren’t empowering; they’re an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people.

Boyd notes that in collecting data on teen use of social media, she found that people of color were significantly more likely to use pseudonyms, while white teens were more likely to use their real names.

And, of course, none of this discusses what a total pain this would be for most sites. We've always allowed people to comment anonymously on Techdirt. If we were required to verify every commenter, we'd most likely shut down the comments -- which remain such a key part of the site here. It's also where we learn so much, often from anonymous or pseudonymous commenters. I have no idea the identity of nearly all of our best commenters, and I don't want or need to know.

So, please, can we dump this silly idea? Anonymity doesn't solve the problems you think it would, and it would put people at risk.

Filed Under: anonymity, john kennedy, ron johnson, social media, trolling

The Senate Snowflake Grievance Committee Quizzes Tech CEOs On Tweets & Employee Viewpoints

from the this-is-not-how-any-of-this-works dept

On Wednesday morning the Senate Commerce Committee held a nearly four hour long hearing ostensibly about Section 230 with three internet CEOs: Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, Sundar Pichai from Google, and Jack Dorsey from Twitter. The hearing went about as expected: meaning it was mostly ridiculous nonsense. You had multiple Republican Senators demanding that these CEOs explain why they had taken actions on certain content, with some silly "whataboutism" on other kinds of content where action wasn't taken. Then you had multiple Democratic Senators demanding these CEOs explain why they hadn't taken faster action on pretty much the same content that Republicans had complained some action had been taken on.

The shorter summary was that Republicans were demanding that their own lies and propaganda should be left alone, while Democrats demanded that lies and propaganda should be removed faster. Both of these positions are an anathema to the 1st Amendment, and the people advocating for them on both sides should be embarrassed. While each platform has the right, under the 1st Amendment, to host or not host whatever speech they want, based on whatever policies they set, Congress cannot and should not, be in the position of either telling companies what content they need to host or what content they must take down. And yet, we saw examples of both during the hearing. On the Democratic side, Senators Markey and Baldwin, among a few others, pushed the companies to take down more content. This is extremely troubling on 1st Amendment grounds. On the Republican side, many, many Senators demanded that certain content should be unblocked -- in particular the NY Post's Twitter account.

And there were a few (very limited) good points from both sides of the aisle. Senator Brian Schatz noted that the entire hearing was being done in bad faith by Senate Republicans to try to bully the companies into not removing disinformation in the final week of the election. He noted that, while he had many questions for the three CEOs, he would not participate in this "sham" by asking questions during this particular hearing. Kudos to him. On the Republican side, Senator Jerry Moran noted that changes to Section 230 were the kinds of things that the three companies before the Committee could handle, but which would hamstring smaller competitors (to be fair, Jack Dorsey made this point in his opening testimony as well).

But I wanted to focus on some specific grandstanding by a few key Senators who made particularly ridiculous statements. And, I will point out upfront that these all came from Republicans. I'm not pointing that out because I'm "biased" against them, but because of the simple objective fact that it was these Republican Senators who made the most ridiculous statements of the day. The key theme between them was a ridiculous sense of grievance, and a false belief that the company's moderation practices unfairly targeted "conservatives." Except nearly all of them assumed that because more Republicans were moderated, that was proof of bias -- and not the idea that, perhaps, Republicans do more things that violate the policies of these companies. In the same manner that I'm picking on mostly Republican Senators here, that has more to do with their own actions, than any personal "bias."

What was most frightening, however, in the comments from these Senators is how at home they would have been in the days of Joseph McCarthy. Multiple Senators demanded to know about the personal ideological viewpoints of people who worked for these companies. Both Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg correctly pointed out that they do not ask their employees about their political leanings (Pichai stated that they hire from all over, implying that there was a diverse ideological pool within their workforce).

It is stunning and dangerous for Senators to be demanding to know the political leanings of employees at any particular company. Senators Mike Lee, Ron Johnson and Marsha Blackburn all asked questions along these lines. Lee, who historically has been aligned with libertarian viewpoints, completely misrepresented the content moderation policies of these companies and insisted that they disproportionately target conservatives. They do not. If conservatives are violating their policies more than others, then that's on those people violating the policies, and not on the policies themselves. Lee also fell into the ridiculous myth that Google's policies directly targeted conservatives in demonetizing The Federalist. As we've discussed multiple times, that's utter bullshit. We received identical treatment to The Federalist. So did Slate and Buzzfeed. Lee, ridiculously, argued that the companies saying -- accurately -- that they do not target moderation decisions based on ideology perhaps violated laws against "unfair or deceptive trade practices." Basically because Lee falsely believes these companies target conservative speech (because he's so deep in his own filter bubble he doesn't even know it hits others as well), that they're engaging in deceptive practices.

Lee demanded that each company list "left leaning" accounts that had received similar treatment, and the various CEOs promised to get back to him, but this was a nonsense argument.

However the most ridiculous part of Lee's grandstanding was his disingenuous framing of content moderation. He started asking about how these companies "censor" content. In the past, we've discussed how moderation and censorship differ, but Lee stretched the definition to insane levels:

I think the trend is clear, you almost always censor -- meaning.... uh... when I use the word censor here I mean block content, fact check or label content, or demonetize websites.

In what fucking world does Senator Lee live in that fact checking is censorship? This is utter nonsense. Indeed, when Sundar Pichai actually pushed back and said "we don't censor," Lee jumped in obnoxiously to say that "I used the word censor as a term of art there and I defined that word." That's not how it works. You can't redefine a term to mean the literal opposite of what it means "as a term of art" and then demand that everyone agrees that they "censored" when your own definition includes fact checking or responding to a statement with more speech.

Senator Ron Johnson's time was particularly egregious. He read the following tweet into the record.

It's a tweet from a "Mary T. Hagan" saying:

Sen Ron Johnson is my neighbor and strangled our dog, Buttons, right in front of my 4 yr old son and 3 yr old daughter. The police refuse to investigate. This is a complete lie but important to retweet and note that there are more of my lies to come.

Yes, he read that whole thing into the record, and then whined directly to Jack Dorsey that this should not have been left up, and that people might not go to the polls and vote for him if they read it. It's hard to know where to begin on this one. Especially since it came right after Johnson was mad about other moderation choices Twitter had made to takedown content. But the most incredible bit was that the obvious point of this tweet (which seemed to fly right over Johnson's head) is to make fun of Johnson's own willingness over the past few months to push Russian-originated propaganda talking points, and then whine that the media won't do anything about it and that law enforcement won't investigate.

So, a simple question for Johnson to answer would be: if he wants this tweet removed, how about removing his own efforts at pushing unverified propagandistic nonsense about Joe Biden?

But, really, this was par for the course for so much of the hearing. Senators (both Democrats and Republicans) showing a vast misunderstanding of how content moderation works, would call up a single example of a content moderation choice and demand an explanation -- often ignoring the explanations from Dorsey and Zuckerberg who would calmly explain what their policy was, why a certain piece of content did or did not violate that policy -- and then scream louder as if they had found some sort of "gotcha" moment.

But honestly, the most insane moment of the hearing most likely involved Senator Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee. Blackburn has a long history of saying the complete opposite argument depending on which way the wind blows at any particular time. For example, during the net neutrality fight she screamed about how it was an example of government interference with innovation and that if we had net neutrality it would destroy "Facebook, YouTube, Twitter" (literally those three companies). Yet a few years later, she supported a bill to regulate the internet in the form of PIPA, a pro-censorship copyright bill.

Then, four years ago, she insisted that internet services had an obligation to delete "fake news." Yet, in the hearing on Wednesday, she flipped out at the companies for trying to moderate any news at all.

And then she took it one step further, and demanded to know if a Google engineer who made fun of her was still employed at the company.

Blackburn (R-Tenn.) asked CEO Sundar Pichai whether Blake Lemoine, a senior software engineer and artificial intelligence researcher, still has a job at Google.

“He has had very unkind things to say about me and I was just wondering if you all had still kept him working there,” Blackburn said during the hearing, where she and other GOP lawmakers accused tech companies of squelching free speech.

Pichai said he did not know Lemoine’s employment status.

Breitbart News reported in 2018 that Lemoine had criticized Blackburn’s legislative record in excerpts of internal company messages and said Google should not “acquiesce to the theatrical demands of a legislator.”

“I’m not big on negotiation with terrorists,” Lemoine said, according to Breitbart.

Having a sitting US Senator specifically call out an employee for criticizing her, and asking to know his employment status is fundamentally terrifying. It is, again, reminiscent of the McCarthy hearings, and having elected officials targeting people for their political viewpoints. If people were serious about calling out "cancel culture," they'd be screaming about how dangerous it is that Blackburn was saying something like this.

The end result of the hearing was a lot more nonsense grandstanding that demonstrated that too many Senators simply do not understand the nature of content moderation, and because they personally disagree with certain policies, or the implementation of certain policies, it means that the companies are somehow doing it wrong. But this is the very nature of content moderation. No single human being will agree with every decision. To immediately leap to the assumption of bad intent (or bad policies) because you disagree with a small sample set of decisions is intellectually lazy and dishonest.

Oh, and Ted Cruz also did some theatrical bullshit, that was mostly performative idiocy, but since he only did it to get a few social media snippets and headlines, we're not going to play that game, and just say simply that Senator Cruz came off like a total disingenuous jackass, who wanted to make the hearing about himself, rather than anything even remotely substantive.

Filed Under: content moderation, ed markey, grandstanding, jack dorsey, mark zuckerberg, marsha blackburn, mike lee, ron johnson, section 230, senate commerce committee, sundar pichai, ted cruz
Companies: facebook, google, twitter

Move Over, Series Of Tubes, The Internet Is Now A Bridge Over A Creek For A Dozen People?

from the senators-say-the-darnest-things dept

What is it about Senators and their awful internet analogies around net neutrality? It's been just over a decade since the late Senator Ted Stevens gave his infamous "series of tubes" analogy in which he tried to explain the internet and net neutrality. Remember?

"I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially... They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

Given how viral that went, and how widely mocked Stevens was, you'd think that any competent Senate staffer would prepare their bosses not to make a similarly idiotic statement. But, no. Not the staffers of Senator Ron Johnson. They sent him out to a hearing with the current FCC commissioners... and had him say that the internet is like a bridge between neighbors. Or something. I've watched this clip over and over again and I'm still trying to figure this one out:

Let's break this down, because the level of wackiness is hard to comprehend without exploring each and every beautiful inane thing said. First, the transcript of Johnson's key "analogy":

We all agree that we want greater innovation. We want expansion and greater access to high speed broadband. I think one of the things that inhibits that is all the rhetoric and slogans and buzzwords and I want to cut through a little bit. I know net neutrality sounds great. And in trying to convey why that harms investment and innovation, I've come up with analogy. I kinda want to run this by you and see if this is pretty accurate.

Let's say a group of neighbors want to build a bridge over a creek so they can cross over and talk to each other a lot, so it's really for a neighborhood, maybe a dozen people. But then they find out that the local government is going to require that that bridge is open to the entire community of a million people, no prioritization whatsoever. They don't get to cross first to go see their neighbor. A million people can come onto their property, ruin their lawns, and walk over that bridge.

Isn't that kind of a similar analogy, is that a pretty good analogy in terms of what net neutrality is all about, not allowing for example a company that is going to invest billions of dollars in the pipeline, not allow them to sell a prioritized lane, for, oh, I don't know, doctors who want to prioritize distant diagnostics? They're going to have to share that same pipeline, no prioritization, with for example people streaming illegal content or pornography? Tell me where that analogy is maybe not accurate.

Whoo boy. For someone who wants to "cut through" the "rhetoric and slogans and buzzwords" he sure chose to come up with what may be the dumbest analogy for the internet so far. It actively makes people less informed on the issues. It's that bad. Literally nothing about the analogy is even remotely accurate. This isn't a situation where a small community is building a tiny community bridge and is suddenly overwhelmed with millions of people "ruining their lawns" without allowing the little community over the bridge. None of that makes any sense at all.

Net neutrality is about how massive, giant internet access providing monopolists and duopolists want to double dip and double charge for the value provided at the endpoints, rather than being satisfied with getting paid for the value they provide in connecting the end points. The issue has nothing to do with millions of people rushing through a "pipeline" that was built for "maybe a dozen people" and somehow "ruining lawns" (?!?) while doing so. Nothing in net neutrality has anything to do with over-clogging local pipes. In fact, it allows for standard network management. And again, going back years and years and years, internet backbone experts have pointed out that there's capacity to spare. There are no ruined lawns. There are no distraught home owners wishing to "talk a lot" to their 11 closest neighbors, dismayed that a million people are trampling their lawns.

A more correct analogy is that the government granted some private companies land and rights of way and massive subsidies in terms of grants and tax rebates to build giant highways. And to pay for those roads, they could charge tolls to get on the road. So far, so good. But then, after the highways were built, the corporate owners of these highways saw that others were using the roads themselves to make money. They saw lots of UPS trucks and FedEx trucks. And they decided that it "wasn't fair" that UPS and FedEx got to make money by delivering stuff, even though each UPS and FedEx truck was paying the proper toll to enter the road. So they decided that from now on they'd cut deals. Maybe, FedEx would have to pay double. Or maybe FedEx would have to cough up a piece of the cost of every package delivered to the road company -- let's call it the American Road and Runway company (AR&R for short). Or, maybe, AR&R would decide to just buy up one of those companies, like UPS, and allow it to travel on the roads for free, while telling FedEx, it couldn't travel along those roads at all. Or maybe it wouldn't let FedEx off the road at prime locations where most of its deliveries were targeted. Or maybe it would let UPS use faster lanes while telling FedEx it could only ride on the shoulder.

All net neutrality did was say, "hey, you can't do that." If you're building a road, especially, with all this government support, you have to provide it equally to everyone. You can't pick and choose which companies to favor. And you can't block some companies from getting on the road because they compete with some other business you have.

As for the whole telemedicine vs. pornography thing, that's just pure bullshit. Someone fed Senator Johnson that line and him repeating it is basically proof he has absolutely no clue what he's talking about. Because the very FCC net neutrality rules that he's attacking, explicitly say he's wrong. As Jon Brodkin over at Ars Technica points out:

there is a way for telemedicine offerings to get paid prioritization under the FCC’s existing rules. The FCC distinguishes between “Broadband Internet Access Service (BIAS),” the usual type in which all Internet content shares the same network capacity and “Non-BIAS data services,” which are given isolated capacity to ensure greater speed and reliability. VoIP phone offerings, heart monitors, and energy consumption sensors qualify for this category, which is exempt from net neutrality rules. Telemedicine (another word for remote medical diagnosis) can also be exempt if it’s delivered over the network in the same way.

“We note that telemedicine services might alternatively be structured as ‘non-BIAS data services,’ which are beyond the reach of the open Internet rules,” the FCC’s net neutrality order said. The FCC reserved the right to scrutinize non-BIAS services to ensure that they don't harm competition, but the specific reference to telemedicine indicates that the FCC would not oppose isolated network capacity for remote medical diagnosis. The FCC did not provide any similar allowance for pornography.

Isn't this the kind of thing that a sitting Senator discussing net neutrality is supposed to know? Or is quoting from the actual FCC order that "rhetoric, slogans and buzzwords" Johnson was talking about?

Now, here, was a point in which FCC Chair Ajit Pai had the chance to show some intellectual honesty. I know that we've criticized Pai a lot in the past, but I genuinely think that he's a smart and knowledgeable guy who isn't some clueless drone. I've met him a few times and always found the conversations thoughtful and enlightening. But he blew it here. Big time. He could have, and should have, noted that while he dislikes the current net neutrality rules, the analogy presented is not an accurate description of the issue at all. Instead, he says:

I think you put your finger on one of the core concerns...

But, uh, he didn't. He made up a silly analogy that has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the debate at hand. But, okay, go on...

... which is that all of us favor a free and open internet, where consumers can access lawful content of their choice.

And what does that have to do with the inane analogy that Johnson put forth? Absolutely nothing. Yes, I know, Pai is being political here and it's not a good idea to tell a sitting Senator who has oversight powers that his analogy may be the dumbest thing you've ever heard about net neutrality. But, we're not done yet. Pai jumps to his easily debunked talking points about net neutrality decreasing investment:

We also want to incentive the construction of these networks, which requires massive capital expenditures -- especially as we go into the future with 5G networks and the like. How to balance those concerns is something I think people of goodwill can disagree on. But our goal is obviously, to make sure -- to use your analogy -- that those bridges continue to be built. That they continue to be maintained and upgraded as traffic modernizes over time.

Except that wasn't Johnson's analogy. In Johnsonland, twelve neighbors get together to build a bridge, and net neutrality brings a horde of millions to trample their lawn. That's not about getting more bridges built or maintaining them. These things have nothing to do with one another.

But Johnson's not done yet:

Yeah, in my example, I don't think too many neighbors would chip in to build that bridge, when they realize, we're not ever going to be able to use it, or certainly not get priority on it.

(That last half of the sentence didn't make it into the video clip above, but that's what he said). But, that's... just wrong. Again. First of all, nothing about net neutrality says that the people building the network can't use it. What the hell does that even mean? I mean, you could just as easily turn much of this analogy around on Johnson and argue that it's him expressing strong support for municipal broadband -- something I'd almost guarantee he's against. Indeed, Johnson signed a letter slamming municipal broadband not too long ago. And that's even though it's basically what he's describing: a group of neighbors getting together to build their own bridges to the internet.

But getting back to the net neutrality argument, Johnson's statements are ludicrous. The "bridges" he's discussing aren't being built among neighbors. What's happening is that the giant companies (AR&R from above) have already built the bridges, and are telling the neighbors that FedEx won't be able to deliver to them any more in a convenient, timely or cost effective way... unless FedEx agrees to pay up (meaning that the community will have to pay more since the costs will be passed on). And, again, his claim that investment would go down under his analogy that has nothing to do with net neutrality is just... factually wrong because all of the big broadband providers are public companies where their capital expenditure data is public. And it shows that they've increased spending on their networks with the open internet rules, rather than the opposite.

How is it that a sitting Senator can make statements so ridiculously wrong and no one calls him on it?

Filed Under: ajit pai, congress, fcc, net neutrality, ron johnson, series of tubes, ted stevens

Key Fighter For Civil Liberties, Russ Feingold, Running To Return To The Senate

from the good-news dept

We've pointed out for years how strong a supporter of civil liberties Senator Ron Wyden has been, but the one guy who probably had an even stronger record on that front was Senator Russ Feingold. Feingold was the only Senator who consistently voted against the PATRIOT Act and increases to government surveillance. In fact he was the only Senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act in the first place. And, at that time, he gave a speech in which he accurately predicted how the NSA would abuse the PATRIOT Act:

And under this new provisions all business records can be compelled, including those containing sensitive personal information like medical records from hospitals or doctors, or educational records, or records of what books someone has taken out of the library. This is an enormous expansion of authority, under a law that provides only minimal judicial supervision.

Under this provision, the government can apparently go on a fishing expedition and collect information on virtually anyone. All it has to allege in order to get an order for these records from the court is that the information is sought for an investigation of international terrorism or clandestine intelligence gathering. That's it. On that minimal showing in an ex parte application to a secret court, with no showing even that the information is relevant to the investigation, the government can lawfully compel a doctor or hospital to release medical records, or a library to release circulation records. This is a truly breathtaking expansion of police power.

If anything, Feingold underestimated how this provision would be used, because even he didn't predict it would be used to have phone companies hand over every record on every phone call. Feingold was also the first to raise the alarm about "secret interpretations" of the law, well before others started pointing that out as well.

Thus it was ridiculous and disappointing to see Feingold voted out of office in the 2010 "Tea Party" wave. He lost to Senator Ron Johnson, a Tea Party favorite... who went on to vote in favor of key bills to expand the spying power of the intelligence community.

Feingold has now announced that he wants that Senate seat back, and will be challenging Johnson in the 2016 election:

"[L]et’s fight together for change. That means helping to bring back to the U.S. Senate strong independence, bipartisanship and honesty," Feingold said in a video announcing his campaign. "So today I'm pleased to announce that I'm planning to run for the United States Senate in 2016. And this effort begins with listening to you. "

His announcement didn't mention anything about surveillance or civil liberties, but considering his track record on that front, he would be an important addition to the Senate on these key issues -- especially since we lost Senator Mark Udall in the last election, after he had picked up many of the civil liberties issues that Feingold used to champion.

Filed Under: civil liberties, patriot act, ron johnson, russ feingold, senate

Senators On Jihad 2.0: We'll Take Down ISIS With 'Fancy Memes'

from the retweet-if-you-think-terrorism-should-be-stopped dept

Al-Qaida has been replaced by ISIS at the focal point of counterterrorism efforts. When legislators talk about fighting terrorism, they talk about taking on ISIS. ISIS, like any other organization out there, has used social media platforms to spread its message. Whether or not its efforts have been more successful than previous like-minded organizations hasn't really been quantified, but for sheer shock value, it has every other terrorist outfit beat.

Because images and recordings of its atrocities have spread through the internet with amazing speed and ease, it's tempting to view ISIS as a group of digital natives -- people whose entire life has been filled with some sort of internet outlet for sociable sharing. The group seems to contain much sought after viral power, but that's likely due to its audience spending an increasing amount of time viewing the world through a browser, rather than through nightly news reports and morning papers.

The perception is the truth and a few US senators are seeking to counteract ISIS's viral power by utilizing the same playing fields. This may be a good idea, but it's also providing for some inadvertent hilarity as legislators put two and two together and get Voice of America: Buzzfeed edition.

“There’s an obvious piece of legislation that we need to start working on,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., said during a Homeland Security Committee hearing on “Jihad 2.0“.

“Let’s face it: We invented the Internet. We invented the social network sites. We’ve got Hollywood. We’ve got the capabilities… to blow these guys out of the water from the standpoint of communications.”

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., backed his colleague’s appeal. “Look at their fancy memes compared to what we’re not doing,” Booker said, displaying examples of jihadist online postings.

This doesn't bode well. The average member of America's governing bodies may generally find the use of the adjective "fancy" to still be perfectly normal, but the internet battlefield they're wishing to enter has never combined the words "fancy" and "meme" before. Booker's youth puts him in shouting distance of digital natives, but his clumsy phrasing could not have separated him further from the hearts and minds he's wishing to conquer.

Booker does raise valid points, though. There is some value in deploying counterpropaganda using the same communications channels. He later lamented the "millions" being spent on tools of dubious effectiveness, like Voice of America.

There are ways to deter potential ISIS sympathizers and recruits, but the US is engaged in roughly none of them. A constant military presence that alternated between surges and drone strikes isn't likely to result in fence-sitters opting for the American way. What's worse is the FBI's ongoing Grow Your Own Terrorist!™ program, which has succeeded in saving the world from a collection of "terrorists" whose only criminal act was playing along with undercover agents' suggestions in exchange for the occasional self-esteem boost. As a result of these so-called sting operations, those who could actually use help in dissuading friends or family members from being swayed by ISIS's message are instead keeping their concerns to themselves.

[National security expert Peter Bergen] noted that Muslim families who see a son or daughter radicalizing online are deterred from reporting the matter to the FBI out of fear that he or she will be thrown in jail for more than a decade.

When the purchase of plane tickets to certain nations is construed as "providing material support" for terrorism, there's something wrong with the system.

This isn't meant to be a total and preemptive condemnation of potential US efforts to engage ISIS on the digital battlefield. The problem is that the government is the entity least likely to do this effectively, seeing as it's largely unused to deploying anything with subtlety or agility. That it's calling on Hollywood to help it with its counterterrorism efforts is also a bit concerning, considering it conjures up images of Uncle Sam running a propaganda mill out of a studio backlot. Not only will this do little to sway potential ISIS sympathizers, but it's also apt to turn more citizens against their government, even if they agree that ISIS is a worthwhile target.

Filed Under: cory booker, counterterrorism, isis, memes, propaganda, ron johnson, social media, terrorism