That, uh, might be a bit of an overcorrection.

That’s what has been happening in the media space - Murdochs, Turners and Bezos now own vast sum of media sphere. And social medias just use them as proxy for “fact checks”.

Because "we'll revoke your First Amendment rights if we don't like how you're using them" is a very big step on a very steep and very slippery slope.

Assange's defense is likely to revolve around the First Amendment. Weakening it would hurt him, even.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Brown_(loyalist)

> Brown requested the liberty to hold his own opinions, saying that he could "never enter into an Engagement to take up arms against the Country which gave him being", and finally met their demands with pistol and sword. The crowd seized him and struck him with the butt of a musket, fracturing his skull. Taken prisoner, he was tied to a tree where he was roasted by fire and scalped before being tarred and feathered. Brown was then carted through a number of nearby settlements and forced to verbally pledge himself to the Patriot cause before being released. This mistreatment resulted in the loss of two toes and lifelong headaches.

Cancelling someone is also known as freedom of association.

edit: Media stirring shit up was a thing pre-Revolution, too, including at least two Founding Fathers participating themselves! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre#Media_battle

Personally, I don't care that it's age old. It's still not okay, and I don't care whether it's better or worse in modern times. I'm not even sure how far outside of propaganda some of this stuff falls, which ironically has the opposite reception from the public.

Trying to conflate “cancel culture” with the already-illegal concepts of stalking and harassment is disingenuous. Trolling and “narrative manipulation” are pretty clear protected free expression.

The founders largely were oligarchs, heirs of oligarchs, or married into the families of oligarchs,and certainly were not people to whom the idea of someone, or some group, within that class investing heavily in media to promote their political ideas would be surprising.

> look how the mainstream media would love to cancel certain people they don’t like.

Both before and after independence, political cancel culture in the early US involved much more forceful, and often permanent and total, cancellation than what is complained about today.

That sounds to me like a problem with the existence of billionaire oligarchs and not a problem with the first amendment.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/a-court-ruled-rachel-maddow...

https://www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-karen-mcdougal-case...

Look, these talking heads are simply well-paid entertainers - nothing more. All they spew is lies, propaganda and downplay the things that are really happening. Unfortunately they have a willing audience in the majority of Americans who cannot see through all the bullshit. I personally cannot recall when last I tuned in to any of the mainstream media outlets.

So I'd recommend that they be stripped of all of those protections and get the same punitive treatment that we, the People (we are the ones who pay taxes, BTW), get when we talk shit. Trust me, that'll make them sit up.

Entertainers have First Amendment rights, too.

> They enjoy misleading and diverting attention away from the things that really matter.

If I feel your argument does that, do I get to revoke your rights?

> So I'd recommend that they be stripped of all of those protections and get the same punitive treatment that we, the People (we are the ones who pay taxes, BTW), get when we talk shit.

We, the People, are similarly protected by the First Amendment. Weakening it would impact us, too.

There's no way to tell these days. I feel bad for The Onion, really. Parody is dead.

Nobody here knows what you actually believe. Without the benefit of that shared context, a sly vocal intonation, or a wink of the eye all we can do is take you at face value as someone who actually believes what you’re saying.

That having been said: the First Amendment is not absolute, and there are exceptions to the general principle that people are free to say what they feel (Assange, for example, could be tried on espionage if he's extradited). But in general, exceptions are carved with a jeweler's chisel, and only when extremely necessary and when there are no other possible remedies.

In this case, the sickness you've highlighted has several potential non-first-amendment remedies, including enforcing monopoly laws, passing new monopoly laws, and taxing billionaires at a rate that would make it difficult for them to keep the surplus cash-on-hand to buy 70% of the US's newspapers. And changing the market via law to find a new way to pay for news since the Internet era has completely ingested and digested their traditional advertising model.

Jokes aside, I'm against censorship. I think information should be available to all but maybe with caveats and accountability.

BTW, I agree with the proposed remedies. But - Who's gonna bell the cat though? It ain't going to be any of y'all's Senators, CongressPeople or the Executive Branch. And we all know for damn sure that it's never going to be the Supreme Court.

... emphasis on the last part.

I'm sure if you thought through the implications of removing Constitutionally recognized, inalienable rights, you wouldn't say this. Let's assume it is done, the press is now stripped of its rights, and ask some questions about the world and political reality thereupon:

Do individuals still have this right to free speech or is it only media that no longer does?

Does an individual who becomes a journalist still have the right to free speech?

Who would oversee the speech of journalists? Would it be you or right-thinking people like you who decide what is acceptable for the media to say? Or would it be whichever political party were in power at the time? Or billionaire oligarchs?

How would this oversight work? A "free speech oversight" committee? How does one get into the committee? Appointment? By whom? Election?

If I want to run for election in the committee, can I say unpleasant things about my incumbent opponents? Or will the committee declare this speech to be out of bounds? What if they become corrupt? Who can report the truth about that corruption?

If I dislike the committee for some reason, can the committee oversee my criticism, declare it out of bounds?

Could the legal precedence of overriding the inalienable right to free speech also be used to override other inalienable rights? My right not to have to barracks soldiers in my house, for instance.

I think the Assange case is an excellent reminder that "our media" doesn't really have any First Amendment protection. You don't need First Amendment protection if you are spewing DC blob talking points all day. And if you challenge the DC blob, like Assange did (or Gary Webb and others), it very quickly becomes clear that those protections don't exist at all.

Anyone who cares about freedom of speech for anyone should defend it for everyone because if nazis, tankies, and journalists can't have freedom of speech, none of us can. First they came for... you know how the rest goes.

If you take away the first amendment protection, doesn't that just mean that the government controls 100% of the media instead of 70% or whatever you think the number is?

Free speech is the only thing that makes it slightly possible to not parrot the official government narrative.

You think the oligarchs should hold the media they allegedly control accountable for the things they say so that we can get less biased media? What?

You can say whatever you want, but you can't charge people for it and you can't lie and pretend you're selling one thing (truth) when you're selling another (self-righteous feelings).

Won't ever happen because the government and media are in bed with one another, but that's what I'd like to see.

If the media and government are in bed today, won't that get worse when the government can arbitrate what truth is harming the not mainstream media?

Right now? It wouldn't work. It's an angry pipe dream.

Point taken.

Also I always love a good Orwell reference.