Censorship vs. Suppression

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Libertarians – me included – have wrestled long and hard with this one: Is it censorship when private entities do it?

No – not in a legal sense. Because these private entities do not have the power to forbid publication, per se.

But they do have the power to suppress (and even to punish) publication when the entities at issue effectively control the means of publication – and so it amounts to the same thing as censorship.

It may even be worse, since one can always get around government censorship (see, for example, the underground Samizdat press in Tsarist Russia or, later, the anti-communist press in East Germany and Poland).

But how does one “get around” private control of the all-encompassing Internet and related “social media platforms”?

There is no alternative Internet – nor is one (given present technology/infrastructure) even conceivable, regardless of one’s financial ability.

Suppression of speech via private entities is a new – Internet Age – issue.

Before the Internet, a relative handful of media organs – the big chain newspapers and their wire services, the three major TV networks – dominated the media. But it was perfectly possible to publish outside of their control and without legal or financial repercussions.

They could not prevent you from publishing.

One might start out with leaflets or with a small-scale newsletter. One could also conceivably launch (or buy) an existing newspaper or magazine and secure advertising based on circulation.

While the majors did control the preponderance, they did not control everything and the key point is there was always the possibility that an upstart newspaper or magazine or TV station would upend their proverbial applecart. May did so.

There are several examples:

In print media, there is – well, was – The Washington Times (where I once worked as an editorial writer and columnist) which established itself as a counterpoint to the very establishment, very left-liberal Washington Post – and on the Post’s very turf. There were boxes selling the Times on the same streets where there were boxes selling the Post.

All that was necessary was someone willing to invest in the physical resources – the building, press equipment and so on – and pay a staff to produce the thing. In this case, it was Rev. Moon. Critics have always used that fact to browbeat the Times – but the point is that anyone with resources and the desire to do so could launch a large-scale paper outside the orbit and control of the major establishment media.

In radio, there still is Howard Stern – who utterly changed the nature of talk radio.

Whether you like the changes he forced is immaterial. He was able to do it because he wasn’t prevented from doing it, is the point. All it needed was a station willing to hire him – and to broadcast him.

The airwaves weren’t closed to him.

On TV, there’s Fox News – and also CNN, even. Both started with almost nothing and became – if not everything – a very big something. Each was able to carve out a new niche – eventually, quite large niches – on the almost limitless and available space that had opened up on the new medium of cable. And which was open to anyone with the means and willing to make the investment.

Entry wasn’t free. But there was a free market.

No one was legally prohibited from publishing by government edict, which would be the technical/correct definition of censorship.

And none were prevented from publishing by private entities which had it in their power to make it impossible for them to publish because they controlled every medium of publication.

The New York Times did not own every single printing press – every typewriter – in the country. A physical newspaper is a physical newspaper and can be sold (and mailed and otherwise distributed) just the same as any other.

ABC and CBS and NBC could not prevent Fox and CNN from launching new cable TV channels.

The government did try to censor Howard Stern – via the Federal Communications Commission – but Howard was able to end-run government censorship by moving over to satellite radio.

Today – in the Internet Age – things are very different.

A small handful of interlocking privately owned mega-corporations have the power to suppress publication (more here) of any point of view – written, verbal or visual – they dislike by dint of their control over the medium of its dissemination, the Internet and related “social media platforms.”

One cannot buy a new Internet to compete with the existing – and only – Internet.

One could launch new “social media” venues – and heretical voices (these include Joe Rogan, Adam Carolla and my friend Tom Woods) have gone Podcast as a way to end-run the corporate control over Internet publishing.

But all are vulnerable to suppression by the entities which control the Internet, who are also the same entities who control it monetarily – via their control over advertising and (most recently) their control over online financial transactions.

This latter thing is a very ominous development.

Podcasters – and contrarian web sites – have been able to survive in the emerging neo-Stalinist digital gulag by relying on the direct support of their audience, which does so via online payment mediums (PP, etc.). But these have recently begun cancelling the accounts of publishers they deem “offensive or who have “violated” inscrutable “terms of service,” which are never clearly defined but amount to – If we decide behind closed doors that we don’t like you we will stomp you and will do so at any time, at our pleasure and without ever telling you exactly why. More on this here.

And then what?

There is no Internet Samizdat – nor can there be. There is just the Internet, which is the only known means for the dissemination of information in the digital age.

There is also the fiction that the handful of entities which effectively control it and all the critical peripherals – which includes both “social media” and online advertising and online payment mechanisms-  are private and so we can’t – as Libertarians – object to their machinations.

Nonsense.

They may be privately owned, but so is Tesla – and it is very Libertarian to object to the rent-seeking and crony-capitalism of Tesla. Because Tesla – and the online entities under discussion – leverage the government for their private gain.

Where, after all, did the Internet come from? Was it the privately-funded creation of Goo-gul? Or did Goo-gul, et al, exploit what the taxpayers had been forced to finance the development of?

At the least, we are due some kind of refund.

What’s happened is even more obnoxious than what Jefferson wrote about being forced to provide money for the distribution of opinions one finds repellent – because it’s not just that. One is also precluded even from using one’s own money – whatever’s left, after all the tiers of government theft – to publish opinion contrary to the opinions one finds repellent.

Lech Walesa, phone home.

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unit472

Phone home is the better example. Back when AT&T ( NYSE symbol T for telephone) ran America’s telephone communication system they charged you to use their system. Ten cents for a local payphone call, a monthly fee for a home telephone ( they owned the phone too). They were a natural monopoly. However “Ma Bell”,as it was known, did not control content. I could say anything I wanted to to anyone whose number I dialed and as long as it was not a ‘bomb threat’ or an obscene phone call to a person who did not want to know ‘what I was holding in my hand’ it was OK. I could use racial slurs, curse words whatever I wanted to express my ideas and as long as the party I called did not hang up on me AT&T didn’t care.

Now Facebook and other internet platforms allow users to ‘block’ people the user does not want to hear from. E-mail can be consigned to a ‘Trash’ folder and discarded unread. Any ISP or social media operator who cannot design a system that allows a user to ‘hang up’ on content they do not want to view or hear should be censored not the content creator.

Anonymous
Anonymous

They are not private entities … they are public … they have a charter allowing their operation issued by government (that is, it can be revoked by government, ergo they are public).

Even if private … we have laws that prohibit private individuals from depriving other private individuals of their constitutional rights … if you buy that argument, then it also must stand for (cough) private corporations depriving other private entities of their constitutional rights.

Ham Roid
Ham Roid

One answer might be the forms of communication that are deemed outdated. Broadcast television is becoming more attractive due to its cost (free) and the fact that cable is and has always been a rip-off. Limbaugh is on radio. I don’t always agree with him. But he has power to piss off progressives.

What’s wrong with newsprint? Fuck the environmentalists. Let’s cut down some trees and fight back against the lies and corruption of the crony elite that have torn this country apart for their pleasure.

It’s not as easy as creating a Facebook page. But it’s a helluva lot harder to hide from the masses.

MarshRabbit
MarshRabbit

The underground press has a long history in America (see link below). The Brits probably viewed Thomas Paine’s Common Sense as underground. I don’t see environmentalists as an impediment, but the logistics of obtaining materials, a surreptitious place to opperate presses, and a distribution network will be a challenge. Also, ordering quanties of paper and ink without a convincing cover story will attract scrutiny.

http://depts.washington.edu/moves/altnews_intro.shtml

See Also: Pirate Radio:

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120358447

Brian Reilly
Brian Reilly

The internet is right where the powers-that-be want you. They can and do monitor every single keystroke that they are interested in monitoring. Every single thing is archive for posterity and/or prosecution. They can turn it off and on at will, and insert anything they like. As soon as the time is right for them, only thoroughly vetted content will be allowed. It won’t be too long for that, they are close and testing the gates right now.

Paper still works. So does radio (Ham radio still exists). So does public discourse. Of course these are more difficult to monetize and, let’s face it, there are damn few people willing to take a vow of poverty in order to get an important message out or listen to one. When a lot more people (who think today that they have some “money”) get schooled into abject poverty, they will be a lot more willing to listen to and seek out real alternatives to the crew that screwed them. People who establish some presence and ability to work in the new/old ways will be ahead of the pack.

It is also time to face squarely up to the fact that the big tech companies, and all the governments of non-shithole nations are all directed by the same globalist crew. Google is NSA is MI6 is DOJ is US Fed is Wells Fargo is BBC is Fox is IRS is Facebook and so on…. All drinking the same whiskey from the same bottle. Suck one of their dicks, and you are sucking them all.

Fritz Berggren

A better example is Rosa Parks and the Private bus company Montgomery City Lines. A private company told Rosa to move to the back of the bus. She refused. She as arrested and fined and the Supreme Court later ruled that practice (of discrimination) as illegal. Liberals howl in outrage that a private company could discriminate, but there certainly is no such outrage today. Ditto with the lunch counter sit ins where Blacks weren’t welcome — seems to me these examples are appropriate to this digital age.

Why can’t some enterprising law students sue the bejesus out of Google/YouTube and Facebook and Twitter on the same grounds as Rosa Parks sued that private bus company?

Or should Rosa Parks been told “this is a private company and even though it is the only bus company in Montgomery, you’ve got to sit in the back of the bus.”

I don’t care which way they rule on this, but the Left can’t have it both ways. And this exists today in every Fortune 100 corporation — they have zero leeway to discriminate based on race or religion. In my mind religion and politics are not distinct realms and Googles discrimination based upon politics isn’t any more legitimate than discrimination based on skin color, gender, and what have you. Either we CAN discriminate against all those, or we cannot — but not one set of rules for one group and ignoring the other.

I mean, if they can discriminate against my religion/politics/philosphy, why can’t I discriminate against their sacred cows (whatever they may be)? Works both ways.

MarshRabbit
MarshRabbit

The bus company, Montgomery City Lines, was complying with Section 10 of the Montgomery City Code which required “Separation of races” on bus lines. The bus line’s position was “we have to obey all laws just like any other citizen. We had nothing to do with the laws being passed, but we expect to abide by all laws, city or state.” The real target of the Montgomery Bus Boycott was the city ordinance, not the bus company.

http://www.archives.state.al.us/teacher/rights/lesson1/doc1.html

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/591507/pdf

Anonymous
Anonymous

Sure, so that just further demonstrates that the supposed ‘Private/Public’ opposition in fact is a canard that does not really exist.

james m dakin

Anyone could start a ‘zine back pre-Internet. Xerox copies and a stamp. You can do the same today, the only problem being lack of instant gratification some readers expect. Payment is cash or postal money order. You’ve just bypassed the two blocks of Silicon Valley. If you can’t afford all those print copies, PDF on a CD. I’m headed that way on my publications.

fred
fred

Anti Whites: Why is diversity, mass immigration, open borders, for White populations only???

“Diversity is our strength” means “White people are our problem”

Diversity means White GENO cide

– STOP Anti White Torture and Murder in South Africa –

Ironhorzmn
Ironhorzmn

The Ku Klux Klan was also a ‘private organization’.

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