Conservative commentators such as Glenn Beck and lawmakers like Ted Cruz have been all over the airwaves in the past week condemning Twitter and its CEO Jack Dorsey. At issue is the fact that Twitter was actively suppressing a story by the New York Post regarding Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings. Republicans seem to think that this some kind of violation of free speech and that Jack Dorsey owes it to the American people to cover news items that they deem untrue or un-newsworthy.
Jack is under absolutely no obligation to cover anything, in any way, period. And I’m speaking as a conservative Republican who likes President Trump. And I’ll concede that the stories about Hunter Biden are increasing looking to be true and not to be some sort of Russian disinformation campaign as Democrats allege.
My conservative colleagues are making the same argument against Twitter, that many developers are making against Apple. It goes something along the lines of this.
This is outrageous. Governments can’t tell private companies what to do just to ensure “fairness”. Where were Republicans when AM talk radio was deregulated and drifted to almost unanimous conservative talk radio sympathetic to Republicans? Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other conservative talk radio hosts breathlessly relayed alarm bells anytime the Democrats talked about imposing fairness doctrine upon the AM radio waves. It was un-American and anti-capitalist they said for the government to intrude upon these private companies. “Let the market decide” they said.
And now Glenn Beck and Ted Cruz want to impose their own version of the fairness doctrine on social media. Why? The only difference that I can see between the two is that the Liberals are winning in social media whereas the Conservatives were winning on AM radio. I thought principles were what was important and not who was winning or losing?
While social media is vastly important in today’s world, it’s not a monopoly on the news any more than AM radio. Social media doesn’t even create any original content. If Twitter is run by a bunch of hippie liberals who want to help Joe Biden, so be it. It’s their prerogative. If they want to spike any story that puts Trump in a positive light, let them. The government has no right to intrude and tell them how to run their company.
Twitter makes somewhat of an effort at being non-partisan, not because they are any obligation to do so, but because of their capitalist desire to make more money. The last thing they want to do is drive away 50% of their users. But if they decide to veer hard left at election time, it’s entirely within their right to do so. The real question is for Twitter to decide who or how large they want their audience to be. If they willingly decide to amputate half of their audience for a short-term win, then the market will reward them justly. As Rush Limbaugh said in the 2000’s regarding AM radio, “let the market decide”.
Glenn and Ted try to justify their cyber version of eminent domain by citing that Twitter or Facebook have become too large to allow unregulated. And that these companies have become the virtual town square. To this I say poppycock. These companies didn’t even exist when the twin towers came down on 9/11. The world would continue to run just fine if they all disappeared tomorrow. That’s because they are only one avenue that people use to get information. I don’t use social media so these two companies don’t affect my life at all.
In 2008 when President George Bush and Congress passed TARP in response to the financial crisis, many Republicans scoffed when Bush uttered the following phrase. "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system". Now it’s 2020, and it’s Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck who want to abandon free-market principles, in order to save a free-market system. Well, I’m sorry, but if we live in a nation that can assert control over private companies for political gain, I’m not sure that system is worth saving. And it’s certainly not “free-market”.
My conservative colleagues are making the same argument against Twitter, that many developers are making against Apple. It goes something along the lines of this.
- These are private companies.
- These companies don’t have exclusive monopolies. (Services or news)
- They have grown so large that the government needs to step in to ensure fairness.
This is outrageous. Governments can’t tell private companies what to do just to ensure “fairness”. Where were Republicans when AM talk radio was deregulated and drifted to almost unanimous conservative talk radio sympathetic to Republicans? Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other conservative talk radio hosts breathlessly relayed alarm bells anytime the Democrats talked about imposing fairness doctrine upon the AM radio waves. It was un-American and anti-capitalist they said for the government to intrude upon these private companies. “Let the market decide” they said.
And now Glenn Beck and Ted Cruz want to impose their own version of the fairness doctrine on social media. Why? The only difference that I can see between the two is that the Liberals are winning in social media whereas the Conservatives were winning on AM radio. I thought principles were what was important and not who was winning or losing?
While social media is vastly important in today’s world, it’s not a monopoly on the news any more than AM radio. Social media doesn’t even create any original content. If Twitter is run by a bunch of hippie liberals who want to help Joe Biden, so be it. It’s their prerogative. If they want to spike any story that puts Trump in a positive light, let them. The government has no right to intrude and tell them how to run their company.
Twitter makes somewhat of an effort at being non-partisan, not because they are any obligation to do so, but because of their capitalist desire to make more money. The last thing they want to do is drive away 50% of their users. But if they decide to veer hard left at election time, it’s entirely within their right to do so. The real question is for Twitter to decide who or how large they want their audience to be. If they willingly decide to amputate half of their audience for a short-term win, then the market will reward them justly. As Rush Limbaugh said in the 2000’s regarding AM radio, “let the market decide”.
Glenn and Ted try to justify their cyber version of eminent domain by citing that Twitter or Facebook have become too large to allow unregulated. And that these companies have become the virtual town square. To this I say poppycock. These companies didn’t even exist when the twin towers came down on 9/11. The world would continue to run just fine if they all disappeared tomorrow. That’s because they are only one avenue that people use to get information. I don’t use social media so these two companies don’t affect my life at all.
In 2008 when President George Bush and Congress passed TARP in response to the financial crisis, many Republicans scoffed when Bush uttered the following phrase. "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system". Now it’s 2020, and it’s Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck who want to abandon free-market principles, in order to save a free-market system. Well, I’m sorry, but if we live in a nation that can assert control over private companies for political gain, I’m not sure that system is worth saving. And it’s certainly not “free-market”.
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