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Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

eshoo.house.gov

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

#461

Post by meragrin_ »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #426
thrwaway2day wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The violent attack on the capitol was the result of the sitting President of the United States claiming the election was stolen and telling them to march on the capitol. If true, this would be much more convincing with a direct quotation and a source, rather than your interpretation.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolutio...

> we're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.

> I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-s...

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

#462

Post by finnthehuman »

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.

Court precedents are about the legal principals. When the supreme court rules on forth amendment matters in a murder case, the precedent also applies to drug cases.

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

#464

Post by bhupy »

pwinnski wrote: post #455
PixyMisa wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The First Amendment forbids any such legislation.

And yet the Fairness Doctrine was the rule for 38 years, and the US Supreme Court agreed it was within the purview of the FCC to do so. It's not about free speech, it's about what's broadcast over public airwaves.

But that was only in the context of radio broadcasting, where there is a scarcity of frequencies. Even while it was active, the Fairness Doctrine never applied to cable television: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ronald-reagan-fairness-doc...

https://fair.org/extra/the-fairness-doctrine/

"Since cable’s infrastructure is privately owned and cable channels can, in theory, be endlessly multiplied, the FCC does not put public interest requirements on that medium."

In the context of cable news and journalism on the internet (basically infinite supply), there's no version of the Fairness Doctrine that would hold up.

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

#465

Post by _-david-_ »

kube-system wrote: post #401
_-david-_ wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the fringe people were on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube it seems like we should be banning them not Parler.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are a clear example of the latter group in my previous comment.

Your analogy is incorrect though.

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Parler are all bars. The gang members (insurrectionists) went to the Facebook, Twitter and Youtube bars and got into fights. The Methodist (non-insurrectionists) went to Parler and did not get into bar fights.

According to you the solution is not to ban the bars where the bar fights took place but the place where there were no bar fights. It really makes no sense.

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

#466

Post by jancsika »

jimbokun wrote: post #406
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~75 million people voted for Donald Trump - it is hardly socially unacceptable to vote for a republican and you have a secret vote anyway.

For the most part, it is socially unacceptable to vote Republican if you live in a large US city, and it is socially unacceptable to vote Democrat if you live in a rural area.

I've never seen any evidence that it's "socially unacceptable" in any meaningful sense of the term to vote Democrat in a rural area. Where are you getting this?

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

#467

Post by sokoloff »

Spooky23 wrote: post #432
PixyMisa wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The First Amendment forbids any such legislation.

It absolutely does not do any such thing. Speech can be well-regulated, just like other constitutional rights. Your right to speak does not mandate a megaphone. What I described was the law from the 1930s until the 1980s. Our predecessors saw what happened in fascist and communist states and wisely took measures to avoid that.

I think there's a legitimate difference whether the Fairness Doctrine was imposed as a condition of licensing the use of a limited, public resource (frequency spectrum allocation) or as an attempt to regulate freedom of the speech or press.

Because of the way it was implemented, I believe it was a condition of the use of public spectrum, not a regulation on speech broadly.

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

#468

Post by specialist »

munk-a wrote: post #256
shakezula wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is there's a non-trivial amount of people who consider their ignorance equal to your research, your facts, your studies, your anything.

That isn't a problem unless you're discussing something where anonymity is key - or it wouldn't be if the internet didn't make anonymity the rule by default. Anonymity is really great for private citizens, but people trying to spread information need to be held to a higher standard since their words shouldn't be preemptively censored but must be held to account after the fact. Oh also, taking away anonymity is quite…

aka Authentic speech. Anything less is gossip, or worse.

One can only guess at the motives of Freedom Speeches™ partisans who conflate trolls, bots and sockpuppets with IRL people.

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

#469

Post by jodrellblank »

hpcjoe wrote: post #110
pfortuny wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From "how many people" to "what people" there is only a single step. And it is very very very easy to take it. That a congressperson makes this kind of question speaks volumes about him. Unbelievable .

I know I'll be downvoted for this, but fundamentally this definition[1] includes "and forcible suppression of opposition". In what way is this letter not the first step in this direction? I'm no fan of the previous president. Really didn't like him. But this ... this attempt at shutting down of opposition communication, is the hallmark, the signature of nascent oppression. And a slide into fascism/socialism/etc. [1]…

In what way /is/ this letter the first step in this direction?

> "But this ... this attempt at shutting down of opposition communication"

... is completely imaginary? A member of Congress writing a letter to Tyson Chicken asking what steps they took after the COVID incident of placing bets on how many workers would get infected, is not something you can reasonably turn into "this attempt at shutting down food production". It's not like these are secret backroom letters with threatening content released by whistleblowers to embarrass the senders, these letters were announced by official press release[1].

There is no attempt at shutting down of opposition communication in writing a letter that asks questions to which the media company can reply "we don't censor content". Do Anna Eshoo or Jerry McNerny have any unusual influence over funding or licensing (etc.) decisions for Cox, Alphabet, AT&T, Dish, than any other Congressperson, in a way that would make the letters carry more weight than their content suggests?

[1] https://eshoo.house.gov/media/press-releases/eshoo-mcnerney-...

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

#470

Post by joshuamorton »

Spooky23 wrote: post #432
PixyMisa wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The First Amendment forbids any such legislation.

It absolutely does not do any such thing. Speech can be well-regulated, just like other constitutional rights. Your right to speak does not mandate a megaphone. What I described was the law from the 1930s until the 1980s. Our predecessors saw what happened in fascist and communist states and wisely took measures to avoid that.

> Speech can be well-regulated, just like other constitutional rights

Broadly, the opinion of SCOTUS has been that speech cannot be regulated outside of very particular circumstances, and those circumstances have, in general, been shrinking over time (from undefined to "clear and present danger" to "imminent lawless action" to clarify that "imminent lawless action" really means right now, and not just relatively soon)

The Fairness Doctrine isn't a regulation on speech, it's a regulation on use of government licensed airwaves.

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