It’s a big stretch here, guys, but, then, critical thinking is not a feature of those who typically read the material at Think Progress. Simple blind obedience is
RNC Chair complains about internet bias on Fox News after Republicans killed net neutrality
The chair of the Republican National Committee complained on Friday morning that conservatives are being censored by Silicon Valley, citing the debunked conspiracy theory that Twitter and other net platforms are intentionally targeting voices on the right. But even if the problem were real, her party has done everything in its power to make that sort of Internet censorship possible.
Debunked, eh? Well, Twitter kind admitted it was doing it, especially when they go and fix it.
Back in the Obama years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enforced a 2015 regulatory policy called “net neutrality,†aimed at protecting an open Internet. Under those rules, service providers were prohibited from throttling or blocking Internet sites. “We cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas,†then-President Barack Obama explained as his administration implemented the protections.
Blocking and throttling. Now, let’s wait for the liberal logic jump
McDaniel’s party was outraged. In their 2016 Republican National Committee platform, they vowed to repeal the protections and to allow companies to censor content as they saw fit. In an Orwellian “Protecting Internet Freedom†section of the platform, they wrote “The survival of the internet as we know it is at risk. Its gravest peril originates in the White House, the current occupant of which has launched a campaign, both at home and internationally, to subjugate it to agents of government. The President ordered the chair of the supposedly independent Federal Communications Commission to impose upon the internet rules devised in the 1930s for the telephone monopoly.â€
Net Neutrality would not stop any sort of shadow banning, banning, nor removal of content. It’s not what it was about. Realistically, had the Leftists on the FCC not over-reached and deemed the Internet a public utility like a 1930’s telephone monopoly, it might still be in effect. Had they taken a light touch, instead of putting in a massive Big Government solution, it would have been left alone.
“It’s important to our political dialogue that the thought police of Silicon Valley are not determining what voices get through on their social media platform,†she argued. Internet companies, she demanded, “have to address that they’re allowing free speech on their platforms and they are not suppressing conservative voices and opinions just because they don’t agree with them.â€
Perhaps McDaniel might want to have a word with Trump’s FCC.
Yet, this thing was happening during the brief time Obama’s 2015 Net Neutrality was in effect. So, that means NN has no bearing on what Think Progress is screeching about. But, the point here was to create nebulous links for unthinking liberals to yammer about on social media platforms (and then run away with a “bye. Blocked” when they lose the argument because they have nothing more than vapid talking points.)
