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Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

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Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#21

Post by rayiner »

tarboreus wrote: post #16

Is anyone finding this terrifying? When did democrafts, the party I vote for, become the people calling for tight censorship in every sector? Weren't the last people to make this move (more more ineffectively, thankfully) the Christian right? Is there something we can do to stand up for speech?

Democrats were proponents of free speech when Republicans controlled the media, culture, and institutions. Increasingly, the media, culture, and institutions are controlled by progressive Democrats (and I think there is a growing schism between liberals and progressives on this front), and traditional liberal ideas of the free exchange of information have no more value.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#22

Post by saurik »

So, one thing that is interesting to me here is that cable companies do choose which companies to allow as channels. Like, they aren't merely a dumb pipe to access the world of television, hopefully having a disregard for what customers watch, but instead take an active role in curating their catalog to choose channels and content that will be accessible to their customer base.

Due to this, while I personally find the premise of this demand chilling, it more argues to me that cable companies almost deserve their fate here: I think it would be entirely fair to try to hold cable companies at least somewhat liable for all of the content broadcast on all of their channels.

Like, arguably, to me, this feels the same as the Section 230 controversy, but since a cable company isn't an "interactive computer service" I guess they are left out in the cold. If you really believe in Section 230, maybe you feel like it should be expanded to cover this scenario. And, if not, maybe you feel like cable companies it's catalogs of channels should either 1) do tons of fine-grained limitations and/or filtering or 2) simply not exist so that people can get their information from an actual platform (which cable companies actually already provide anyway: the Internet).

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#23

Post by kodah »

qntty wrote: post #15

Is anyone else confused at how this is legal? I have no expertise in law, but my understanding is that the Supreme Court has agreed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama that. > Racial discrimination in state-operated schools is barred by the Constitution and "[i]t is also axiomatic that a state may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally fo…

There was nothing about race in this entire document.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#24

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

runlevel1 wrote: post #5

There is no such demand in the PDF linked. EDIT: In case the title gets changed, it is currently "House Democrats Demand Cable Providers to Censor Misinformation [PDF]" EDIT 2: After all the downvotes, I looked again but still am not seeing it.

This is correct. There is no per-se demand, but there is a strong suggestion of expectation that these networks should be exerting some kind of pressure against the misinformation in shows they carry.

Frankly it still seems pretty ridiculous to me.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#26

Post by HeckFeck »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #4

"How many of your subscribers tuned in to Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN on U-verse, DirecTV, and AT&T TV for each of the four weeks preceding the November 3, 2020 elections and the January 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol? Please specify the number of subscribers that tuned in to each channel ." Does this strike anyone else as a nakedly partisan move?

Just elect some honest politicians and they'll be morally capable of fighting 'misinformation'.

Still waiting for a possible world like that to exist.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#27

Post by opwieurposiu »

katmannthree wrote: post #20
kodah wrote: post #9

It's a letter to AT&T that encourages them to do something about Fox and OANN. I'd say sure, do something about them, but let's also look inward. There was a lot of misinformation abound after the Capitol Riots that was simply there to stir up Democrats and a lot of this information was very racially angled. Though Democrats play up the death of the Capital police officer now, their constituents were absolutely promo…

Would you be able to give specific examples of left-focused misinformation on the capitol riots, that is specific news articles from "trusted partisan" sources (CNN, etc) containing unsupported conspiracy theories?

The fire extinguisher attack turned out to be BS.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/capitol-police-officers-...

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#28

Post by kogus »

This intimidation is veiled as thinly as the skin of those in Congress.

The misinformation and disinformation that is excreted from Fox, NewsMax, etc. is not nearly as repugnant as lawmakers who demand an explanation from private companies as to why they don't shield the innocent ears of voters from the specific version of sanitized truth that they'd prefer.

The first amendment forbids Congress from restricting free speech by law. It doesn't forbid "pressure" of this sort. But it's worth noting that the authors of the first amendment engaged in campaigns that made today's "disinformation" look like a children's sticker book.[1]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/08/20/the-dirtie...

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#29

Post by qntty »

kodah wrote: post #23
qntty wrote: post #15

Is anyone else confused at how this is legal? I have no expertise in law, but my understanding is that the Supreme Court has agreed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama that. > Racial discrimination in state-operated schools is barred by the Constitution and "[i]t is also axiomatic that a state may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally fo…

There was nothing about race in this entire document.

Ignore the part about race.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#30

Post by garg »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #24
runlevel1 wrote: post #5

There is no such demand in the PDF linked. EDIT: In case the title gets changed, it is currently "House Democrats Demand Cable Providers to Censor Misinformation [PDF]" EDIT 2: After all the downvotes, I looked again but still am not seeing it.

This is correct. There is no per-se demand, but there is a strong suggestion of expectation that these networks should be exerting some kind of pressure against the misinformation in shows they carry. Frankly it still seems pretty ridiculous to me.

Who do you think should exert pressure against networks that broadcast misinformation and propaganda to millions of people?
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