What some of the current speech freedom maniacs conveniently
forget: the first amendment applies only to congress and law making. It
doesn’t apply to you. It doesn’t apply to Rupert Murdoch. And it doesn’t
apply to the Daily Worker newspaper.
It doesn’t apply to your church. It doesn’t apply to (uh,
oh!) Twitter, Facebook or Amazon.
Who was it said there’s no freedom of the press if you don’t
own one? The web cesspool Parler didn’t own its press. It rented
distribution from Amazon’s hosting service. Amazon decided to kick out
the tenant because it was a hotbed of danger.
It’s the same deal as if, say, Jared K was wandering through
one of his slums and found a meth lab in Apartment 3B.
That tenant would soon be out on the street. Parler was
Amazon’s tenant. Pseudopresident trump was a tenant at Twitter with a summer
palace rented from Facebook. They threw him out, just as the trump organization
might evict a troop of tap dancers who kept all the other renters from a good
night’s sleep.
So, with these big platforms gone, what’s a bunch of True
Real Gen-Yu-Wine Amurkans do once they’re finished cleaning their AK’s, cooking
their Meth (Hey Honey, what’s for dinner?) and um… courting... their
cousins?
Why it’s back to the internet where lesser but more user
friendly chat sites are ready to welcome them with open (and uncontrolled)
arms.
At the moment, according to the news website Axios, “Signal”
is the fastest growing of the newcomers. But CloutHub and Rumble aren’t that
far behind. Ever heard of any of them? Probably not. Well, now you
have.
Thing is, they’re scattered. They haven’t coalesced
into a force yet. That may dampen the fun planned for inauguration
day. Not to worry. They’ll grow.
But chances are, they won’t reach the scale of a Twitter or
a Facebook.
The same is true with right wing TV. Fox will get its
act together. There are some talented newsies there. And executives
frightened of drops in ratings and revenues. So, they’ll have their
buyouts and layoffs. And their swollen balance sheets will be … um, fair and
balanced. But the junior players like Newsmax and AON don’t have the reach,
called “clearances,” that it takes to build a solid national audience.
As for free speech restrictions… the Supremes ruled out the
kind that we often summarize as “you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”
These days, you can’t do that anyway. There are three reasons:
1.
Many if not most
movie theaters are closed.
2.
Those that are open
don’t get all that crowded these days and
3.
It’s tough to hear
the guy disrupting the 15 viewers in Screen Room One if you’re in Screen Room 8
down the hall with the other 15.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome
to them. ®
Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com
© WIR 2021
No comments:
Post a Comment