... it's not healthy for small-d democracy to allow social-media oligopolies to control access to the modern-day "public forum" based on their own private agendas and subjective whims. Nor is it healthy to silo different viewpoints into different forums that are rarely visited by citizens who don't already hold those viewpoints. I believe there are legitimate grounds for regulating social-media companies with significant market shares as common carriers and for imposing a Fairness Doctrine on them.
I can imagine fewer futures more dystopian than one where corporate oligarchs get to effectively control who can say what to their fellow citizens. At some point, we need to acknowledge that the authors of the Bill of Rights did not anticipate today's extreme concentration of media (whether traditional or social) nor the existence of the network effect when they limited the First Amendment's applicability to public actors. Given that our our Constitution was designed to be nearly impossible to amend, it's going to require flexible and enlightened judicial interpretation to avoid turning it into a suicide pact for democracy (a process that is already well under way in other areas, like campaign financing and conflicts of interest).
@z!: Usage and grammar are ultimately descriptive, not normative. What you're objecting to is "disappear" as a transitive verb, and that usage is already accepted by most dictionaries. (Ditto for "ask" as a noun.) You'll be happier if you learn to accept that language evolves. After all, what does it really matter how people express themselves, so long as their intended meaning is clear?
[T]he 1st Amendment only applies to the government and Google is not the government.
And isn't that a convenient legal fiction for a corporation that controls such a huge chunk of public discourse and information flow. Alphabet/Google is ranked # 2 on Fortune's US 500 and # 30 on its Global 500, and its primary shareholders rank high in the Forbes 400. In the US, with its laughably weak conflict-of-interest and corruption rules for politicians and its lack of constitutional protections against "private" abuses of power, that makes Alphabet/Google a powerful member of the de facto government.
In some states, courts or legislatures have found that privately owned shopping malls and the like are de facto public fora and mandate that political speech like petition-gathering be allowed there -- even though the shopping-mall owners "aren't the government."
I'm not arguing that repealing Section 230 is the solution or that Tulsi Gabbard is God's gift to humanity in all things, but the author needs to rein in the one-sided invective. The road to inverted totalitarianism is paved with specious arguments distinguishing private actors from government ones. When Google suspended Gabbard's campaign advertising in the wake of a successful debate performance, that was gross interference in the political process by a leading de facto oligarch, and Google should have been kneecapped for it in court.
First came the emoji defense. Next comes the emoji fatfinger defense, where you have to show that the emoji you meant to tap is right next to the one you actually did. The emoji fatfinger defense is going to be particularly important to us members of Generation Rotary Dial, when we go off on one of our dementia-fueled rants. Thankfully, a lot of appellate judges are members of Generation Rotary Dial, too.
The handling of TTIP isn't so much supposed to be distracting us from anything as attempting to hide the fact that TTIP (and TISA and TTP) will accelerate the international race to the bottom in labor, environmental, public health, and social welfare standards, hobble governments' ability to engage in meaningful, beneficial regulation, and generally establish untrammeled, unanswerable supranational corporate sovereignty.
I can't speak for European politicians, but on this side of the Atlantic there is nothing a politician (or staffer) looks more for than revolving-door payoffs ... and the corporations behind TPP, TTIP, TISA and their ilk have really deep pockets.
It would really be nice to know the legal grounds on which Alexion is challenging the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board's constitutional authority to regulate drug prices.
A couple of observations:
* The government's deadline for responding is apparently Monday 12 October, one week before Canadian federal elections. Stephen Harper's Conservatives are running neck and neck with the social-democratic NDP, and Harper has got to be weighing the electoral consequences of his response.
* If the PMPRB is using US prices as a benchmark, I have to wonder if this dispute (over a 4% or 5% price difference) isn't faux-regulatory theater. It would be interesting to know what prices France, the UK, the Netherlands, and Japan have negotiated (or dictated) for Soliris.
"ISP's should be forced to tailor their advertising based upon the average, or median speeds that customers in a given area experience, no more of that 'Speeds up to...' crap, when the reality isn't even close to the numbers they're providing."
Absolutely. I'm not sure how the FCC and FTC officially divide their jurisdiction over ISPs with respect to unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices, but the FTC could certainly end the near-universal misrepresentation of Internet speeds within a matter of months by adopting a rule mandating something along the lines of your suggestion.
Even with my one year of high-school German over forty years ago -- okay, and with a lot of help from the graphics -- I was able to figure out that the title was facetious and the video a critique of ISPs' opposition to net neutrality. And if there was any doubt, the link to SaveTheInternet.eu at the end put it to rest.
I run a bandwidth monitor full time. When I subscribed to Comcast's 25Mbps downstream package, the fastest real-world download speeds I ever achieved (outside of well-known speed-test sites) were around 2.1Mbps. After complaining to my local regulatory authority about two prolonged outages, Comcast bumped me to 50Mpbs (plus a TV package for my non-existent TV) at no extra charge, supposedly for a year, and my maximum real-world download speeds jumped to 4Mbps. Who knows? With a 75Mbps package, they might actually go all the way up to 6Mbps. If the FCC, the FTC, and state AG offices were doing their jobs, ISPs wouldn't be pulling this crap. It's consumer fraud, pure and simple.
Any judge who might conceivably be called to sit in judgment on Assange on currently known facts had cause to avoid the session featuring Assange. Any such judges who boycotted the *entire conference* because of Assange's participation is open to accusations of personal bias that might debar them from *ever* sitting in judgment on Assange. And any judges who are *not* likely to ever sit in judgment on Assange on currently known facts and who boycotted the entire conference are government toadies who, I hope, didn't let the door hit their asses on the way out.
The Fourteenth Amendment states, "[No state shall] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . ."
So, does "Whoa! Here's a bunch of cash! We're taking it! If you want it back, you can hire a lawyer and sue!" meet the requirements of due process? I don't have the legal acumen of Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia, and Kennedy, let alone a Wyoming governor, so I'm having a hard time figuring it out on my own.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Peter CM.
Notwithstanding current legal precedent ...
... it's not healthy for small-d democracy to allow social-media oligopolies to control access to the modern-day "public forum" based on their own private agendas and subjective whims. Nor is it healthy to silo different viewpoints into different forums that are rarely visited by citizens who don't already hold those viewpoints. I believe there are legitimate grounds for regulating social-media companies with significant market shares as common carriers and for imposing a Fairness Doctrine on them.
I can imagine fewer futures more dystopian than one where corporate oligarchs get to effectively control who can say what to their fellow citizens. At some point, we need to acknowledge that the authors of the Bill of Rights did not anticipate today's extreme concentration of media (whether traditional or social) nor the existence of the network effect when they limited the First Amendment's applicability to public actors. Given that our our Constitution was designed to be nearly impossible to amend, it's going to require flexible and enlightened judicial interpretation to avoid turning it into a suicide pact for democracy (a process that is already well under way in other areas, like campaign financing and conflicts of interest).
Personally, I'm on tenterhooks ...
... waiting to see what lavishly compensated deferred payoff Pai will golden-parachute into.
Re: Re: Downloading is killing streaming!
@z!: Usage and grammar are ultimately descriptive, not normative. What you're objecting to is "disappear" as a transitive verb, and that usage is already accepted by most dictionaries. (Ditto for "ask" as a noun.) You'll be happier if you learn to accept that language evolves. After all, what does it really matter how people express themselves, so long as their intended meaning is clear?
And isn't that a convenient legal fiction.
And isn't that a convenient legal fiction for a corporation that controls such a huge chunk of public discourse and information flow. Alphabet/Google is ranked # 2 on Fortune's US 500 and # 30 on its Global 500, and its primary shareholders rank high in the Forbes 400. In the US, with its laughably weak conflict-of-interest and corruption rules for politicians and its lack of constitutional protections against "private" abuses of power, that makes Alphabet/Google a powerful member of the de facto government.
In some states, courts or legislatures have found that privately owned shopping malls and the like are de facto public fora and mandate that political speech like petition-gathering be allowed there -- even though the shopping-mall owners "aren't the government."
I'm not arguing that repealing Section 230 is the solution or that Tulsi Gabbard is God's gift to humanity in all things, but the author needs to rein in the one-sided invective. The road to inverted totalitarianism is paved with specious arguments distinguishing private actors from government ones. When Google suspended Gabbard's campaign advertising in the wake of a successful debate performance, that was gross interference in the political process by a leading de facto oligarch, and Google should have been kneecapped for it in court.
(untitled comment)
First came the emoji defense. Next comes the emoji fatfinger defense, where you have to show that the emoji you meant to tap is right next to the one you actually did. The emoji fatfinger defense is going to be particularly important to us members of Generation Rotary Dial, when we go off on one of our dementia-fueled rants. Thankfully, a lot of appellate judges are members of Generation Rotary Dial, too.
Re: Re: What is the handling of TTIP supposed to be distracting us from?
Re: Really?
No link to pleadings?
A couple of observations:
* The government's deadline for responding is apparently Monday 12 October, one week before Canadian federal elections. Stephen Harper's Conservatives are running neck and neck with the social-democratic NDP, and Harper has got to be weighing the electoral consequences of his response.
* If the PMPRB is using US prices as a benchmark, I have to wonder if this dispute (over a 4% or 5% price difference) isn't faux-regulatory theater. It would be interesting to know what prices France, the UK, the Netherlands, and Japan have negotiated (or dictated) for Soliris.
Re: "less" versus "fewer"
Re: Re: Re: It's beyond puffery; it's consumer fraud.
Absolutely. I'm not sure how the FCC and FTC officially divide their jurisdiction over ISPs with respect to unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices, but the FTC could certainly end the near-universal misrepresentation of Internet speeds within a matter of months by adopting a rule mandating something along the lines of your suggestion.
Re: German NET NEUTRALITY KILLS video
Re: Re: It's beyond puffery; it's consumer fraud.
It's beyond puffery; it's consumer fraud.
They've either preserved their ability to sit in judgment on Assange or debarred themselves from ever doing so.
Re: Mr. Ed
This doesn't bode well for my new brand of Boston baked beans for kids.
A legal question pertaining to the Fourteenth Amendment
So, does "Whoa! Here's a bunch of cash! We're taking it! If you want it back, you can hire a lawyer and sue!" meet the requirements of due process? I don't have the legal acumen of Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia, and Kennedy, let alone a Wyoming governor, so I'm having a hard time figuring it out on my own.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Peter CM.
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