So I’m assuming that Sinclair will be demanding that Tucker apologize and donate and that the FCC will be threatening to cancel his podcast.

  • Hector@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    That ignores the fact that the government leans on these people behind the scenes. So it is a thinly veiled end run around government censorship, as we have seen with social media, Homeland Security giving lists of names for them to ban for other reasons.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      10 hours ago

      I wouldn’t say it’s ignoring it. I’m incredulous that DHS would pressure Facebook to cancel an account or something for the same reason I’m not as bothered by it happening: it doesn’t have real consequences.

      If the government censors you, it can take your money or your freedom. Not only does it have much higher stakes, it has stakes you can’t get around. You can’t go to a platform that doesn’t mind and keep going.

      If the government leans on a company, first of all that’s still government censorship and it’s not legal for the government to get a company to do what it cannot. If the specifics of the behavior are legal, it’s still government censorship and wrong (with aforementioned caveats).
      That being said, the consequence of that type of censorship is loss of a social media account. You can find another venue and all they can do is keep asking people to remove the content. If someone refuses or you host overseas, there’s not really anything they can do.

      There’s a benefit to society, in my opinion, for people to reject an idea. Refusing to help someone spread a message is about the most passive way to do that.

      I’ve worked in the webhosting industry. If someone has a Nazi website and they need tech support, you need to ask yourself if you’re willing to take that support request or if you’re letting your manager know you’re not gonna help that message.
      If the employees at a company don’t want to help you and it’s not unjust discrimination, I have a really hard time saying that it’s wrong to tell Nazis to take their website elsewhere.