@LouisIngenthron as organs became less influential, they became less regulated. i don't think that's a coincidence — "the constitution is not a suicide pact", and a media organ of sufficient reach and near-monopoly influence supplants government authority if it is not, overtly or tacitly, regulated by it. "constitutional muster" helps determines forms, but is independent of that fact.

@LouisIngenthron Public spectrum was the pretext. But I don’t think they’d have gone unregulated had they achieved comparable dominance by other means (any more than facebook / twitter google etc will, tacitly already have).

And it was hardly viewpoint neutral. The fairness doctrine demanded presentation of viewpoints a publisher might wish not to present, and let the state affirmatively define what viewpoints counted and what could (in fact should, must) be excluded.

@LouisIngenthron I'm not sure the desire is a neutral platform. It's exercising a degree of democratic agency over vast platforms, recognizing that your and my right to say what we want on exactly our own terms has different implications than, say, letting ABC/CBS/NBC (if you r old enough to get that) do the same. (The state de facto exercised a lot of control over broadcast networks, despite the first amendment. We might have this stuff better worked out now if it had been less tacit, de facto)

Very large social media companies _______ be able to moderate content on their platforms as they see fit, without regulation or interference by government that wouldn't also apply to, say, a small-circulation magazine or an internet discussion forum with a few hundred participants.

@Jonathanglick perhaps it's too easy to reach for this, but the fact that academic incentives are based on attribution might render academics more focused on tracing antecedents (and policing plagiarism) than might otherwise make sense. if you, or your mentor, are part of the genealogy of an important and current set of ideas, surely you/they deserve that prestigious chair.

i find arguments over intellectual genealogy to be mostly unhelpful. there aren't just two parents of ideas. to a first approximation, every new thing has been influenced by every older thing. we end up arguing over matters of degree, and i end up wondering why.

my “hot-or-not” site for rating insults will be “singe-or-cringe”.

she was not my favorite as an entrenched politician, but i am very sorry when the humans die. i wish her family well. i wish she’d had these last years for other things.

this event, and the gamesmanship that may follow, will be an uncomfortable reminder that age in politics really does carry risks.

You can earn points.

@elfin (thanks!)

@admitsWrongIfProven i’d watch that porn.

@rrwo@floss.social @myeyesaredim an oppressor in every pocket!

why do people say “good god!” when they encounter things not obviously consistent with that hypothesis?

@LouisIngenthron in media influence may suffice even where the profit is not obvious.

@admitsWrongIfProven sure. just watch the word independent. it’s often used in the bamboozling.

@admitsWrongIfProven sure. for the entangled to use the institutions for not necessarily the their benefit….

@admitsWrongIfProven which part of us? we contain multitudes, and every institution is entangled with some of us.

i’ve come to think of independent media like independent central banks, independent of whom or what, but then quietly dependent on and influenced by whom or what, because in banking and media and life there is actually no such thing as independent.

@sliminality i can take your place!

(sorry.)