When I started writing this post, it was about Facebook's decision to suspend Trump's account indefinitely, and at least until Joe Biden is inaugurated in a couple weeks. I had lots to say on that... and then Friday afternoon, Twitter decided to ban Trump's Twitter account permanently. This is a bigger deal, not just because it's permanent, rather than indefinite, but because so much of Trump's identity over the last four years (and before that) is tied up in his Twitter account and followers.

Certainly, all of this has kicked off a whole new storm from across the political spectrum. You have Trump supporters who are furious and (falsely) claiming that this is "censorship" or unprecedented and heavy handed (it is none of those things). Then you have Trump haters who are screaming about how this is all way too late and is trying to close the barn door after the horses have long since bolted. I think neither argument is accurate. Will Oremus has a long (and very interesting!) look over on OneZero about how Facebook supposedly chucked out its own rulebook to come up with an excuse to suspend Trump's account:

Yet Facebook’s “indefinite” ban on Trump marks an overnight reversal of the policy on Trump and other political leaders that the social network has spent the past four years honing, justifying, and defending. The unprecedented move, which lacks a clear basis in any of Facebook’s previously stated policies, highlights for the millionth time that the dominant platforms are quite literally making up the rules of online speech as they go along. As I wrote in 2019, there’s just one golden rule of content moderation that every platform follows: If a policy becomes too controversial, change it.

Zuckerberg’s claim that Facebook has allowed Trump to use its platform in a manner “consistent with our own rules” is laughable. The only thing that has been consistent, until now, is Facebook’s determination to contort, hair-split, and reimagine its rules to make sure nothing Trump posted would fall too far outside them. The Washington Post wrote a rather definitive account of the social network’s yearslong Trump-appeasement campaign earlier this year. Among other Trump-friendly measures, the Post noted, “Facebook has constrained its efforts against false and misleading news, adopted a policy explicitly allowing politicians to lie, and even altered its news feed algorithm to neutralize claims that it was biased against conservative publishers.”

And Twitter is also justifying its decision by saying that the reason was a rules violation:

We assessed the two Tweets referenced above under our Glorification of Violence policy, which aims to prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

This determination is based on a number of factors, including:

I don't need to post the factors. You can take a look yourself if you want. So, Oremus is mostly correct that they're making the rules up as they go along, but the problem with this framing is that it assumes that there are some magical rules you can put in place and then objectively apply them always. That's never ever been the case. The problem with so much of the content moderation debate is that all sides assume these things. They assume that it's easy to set up rules and easy to enforce them. Neither is true. Radiolab did a great episode a few years ago, detailing the process by which Facebook made and changed its rules. And it highlights some really important things including that almost every case is different, that it's tough to apply rules to every case, and that context is always changing. And that also means the rules must always keep changing.

A few years back, we took a room full of content moderation experts and asked them to make content moderation decisions on eight cases -- none of which I'd argue are anywhere near as difficult as deciding what to do with the President of the United States. And we couldn't get these experts to agree on anything. On every case, we had at least one person choose each of the four options we gave them, and to defend that position. The platforms have rules because it gives them a framework to think about things, and those rules are useful in identifying both principles for moderation and some bright lines.

But every case is different.

And no matter what you think of Trump, his case was different.

The regular rules could never apply to Trump because Trump is not a regular person. And, no, not even comparisons to foreign leaders are apt, because as silly as American exceptionalism is, the United States is still different than nearly every other country in the world. And, it's not just the position he's in (for the next few days anyway), but also Trump's willingness to use his account to make pronouncements unlike pretty much any other world leader (or at least, world leader of consequence).

Trump is, perhaps, the perfect example of why demanding clear rules on social media and how they moderate is stupid.

As for the question of why now? Well, clearly, the context has changed. The context is that Trump inspired a mob of goons to invade the Capitol building this week, and there remain legitimate threats that his cultish followers will continue to do significant damage. Certainly some people have insisted that this kind of violence was always a risk -- and it was. But it had not actually erupted to this level in this fashion. Again, we're talking about context. There's always more context.

And given that the situations are always edge cases, that the context always matters, and that things are always shifting, you can totally see why it's a reasonable decision to ban Trump from their platforms right now, based on everything else going on, and the likelihood that he might inspire more violence. I think it's worth reading Ben Thompson's analysis as well. He's long explained the risks associated with banning Trump from these platforms, and suggested why they should not have in the past. But the thing that changed for him, beyond even just the threat to democracy, is the threat to the rights of both individuals and companies to make their own decisions on these things:

Remember my highest priority, even beyond respect for democracy, is the inviolability of liberalism, because it is the foundation of said democracy. That includes the right for private individuals and companies to think and act for themselves, particularly when they believe they have a moral responsibility to do so, and the belief that no one else will. Yes, respecting democracy is a reason to not act over policy disagreements, no matter how horrible those policies may be, but preserving democracy is, by definition, even higher on the priority stack.

Turn off Trump’s account.

But here's the more important point -- especially directed at the people who will falsely claim that this is somehow censorship: President Trump is not being censored. He is not being limited. At any moment of any day (certainly for the next two weeks, and likely beyond) he can walk out of his office and have every major TV news channel (and every internet streaming platform) broadcast whatever he wants to say, and people will see it.

And to those who think that Twitter should have done this earlier, or that it would have made a difference, recognize that your concern is not so much with Twitter, but with Trump himself. Remember that while Trump might not be able to send a tweet right now, he still (literally) has the power to launch nuclear missiles at Twitter's headquarters. And, really, that's the problem. Trump is obviously too toxic for Twitter. But he's also too toxic for the White House. And the real complaint shouldn't be about Twitter or Facebook acting too late, but about Congress failing to do their job and remove the mad man from power.

Summary: Any site that relies on uploaded content has to be wary of hosting pirated content. In most cases, allegedly infringing content is removed at the request of rights holders following the normal DMCA takedown process. A DMCA notice is issued and the site responds by removing the content and -- in some cases -- allowing the uploader to challenge the takedown.

SoundCloud has positioned itself as a host of user-created audio content, relying on content creators to upload original works. But, like any content hosting site, it often found itself hosting infringing content not created by the uploader.

Realizing the potential for SoundCloud to be overrun with infringing content, the platform became far more proactive as it gained users and funding.

Rather than allow the normal DMCA process to work, SoundCloud allowed one major label to set the terms of engagement. This partnership resulted in Universal being able to unilaterally remove content it believed was infringing without any input from SoundCloud or use of the normal DMCA process.

One user reported his account was closed due to alleged infringement contained in his uploaded radio shows. When he attempted to dispute the removals and the threatened shuttering of his account, he was informed by the platform it was completely out of SoundCloud's hands.

Your uploads were removed directly by Universal. This means that SoundCloud had no control over it, and they don't tell us which part of your upload was infringing.

The control of removing content is completely with Universal. This means I can't tell you why they removed your uploads and not others, and you would really need to ask them that question.

Unfortunately, there was no clear appeal process for disputing the takedown, leaving the user without his account or his uploads. A little less than 18 months later, SoundCloud finalized a licensing deal with Universal Music, shortly before the site's subscription service debuted.

Decisions to be made by SoundCloud:

• Does allowing labels to perform their own takedowns bypass protections SoundCloud should be granting to their users?
• Are resulting licensing deals more profitable than subscription fees collected from users?
• Is the risk of litigation too high to allow for a more equitable takedown system?

Questions and policy implications to consider:

• Will alienating/shedding users via skewed takedown processes result in decreased funding in the future?
• Do policies like this make SoundCloud an extension of major labels, rather than a platform that caters to independent creators?

Resolution: SoundCloud continues to allow labels like Universal to perform content removals without utilizing the DMCA process or engaging with the platform directly. Users are still on their own when it comes to content declared infringing by labels. This appears to flow directly from SoundCloud's long-running efforts to secure licensing agreements with major labels. And that appears to flow directly from multiple threats of copyright litigation from some of the same labels SoundCloud is now partnered with.

Originally posted to the Trust & Safety Foundation website.

As Techdirt readers know, there's a lot of hatred for social media in some circles, and lots of lies being told about why Section 230 is to blame. Against that background, it's useful to remember that, as their name implies, they are just media -- things in the middle of people communicating to others. As such, they are neither good nor bad, but tools that can be used for both. In addition, social media posts themselves can be used in good and bad ways. Examples of the latter include the Bellingcat investigations that frequently analyze social media to tease out information about major events that is otherwise hard to obtain. Sometimes, the information is so easy to find, you don't even need any special skills. An article on Ars Technica points out that identifying the leading insurrectionists who participated in the recent events at the US Capitol is going to be pretty straightforward, thanks to social media:

the DC Metropolitan Police and the FBI will probably need to look no further than a cursory Google search to identify many of the leaders of Wednesday's insurrection, as many of them took to social media both before and after the event to brag about it in detail.

Things are made much easier because many of those taking part in the rioting did not wear masks, despite requirements to do so in some locations. As a result, the authorities have thousands of really clear pictures of the insurrectionists' faces. In addition, Witness, an organization that "helps people use video and technology to protect and defend human rights", was encouraging people to save livestreams of the riots, and to share them with "investigating organizations like Bellingcat". The Ars Technica article notes:

Neither would an agency need actual photos or footage to track down any mob participant who was carrying a mobile phone. Law enforcement agencies have also developed a habit in recent years of using so-called geofence warrants to compel companies such as Google to provide lists of all mobile devices that appeared within a certain geographic area during a given time frame.

This underlines a fact that law enforcement doesn't like to talk about: far from things "going dark", there is more useful data that can be used to identify and convict people than ever before. In this case, it could perhaps also have been used to prevent the violence, since far-right supporters openly discussed their plans online beforehand. But it wasn't -- we don't know why. This plethora of readily-available information is another reason why backdooring encryption is not just foolish, but completely unnecessary. Today, there are so many other sources of key information -- not least the much-maligned social media.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter, Diaspora, or Mastodon.

Over the last few months a wide variety of activists, experts, engineers, and academics provided their insights into broadband access (or a lack thereof) in the COVID era. We'd like to thank all of the participants for their insights during a difficult and complicated time, and hope readers gleaned something useful from the exercise. You can peruse all of the contributions here if you missed any of them during the busy holiday season.

Our first two Techdirt Greenhouse panels, focusing on content moderation and privacy, saw no shortage of elaborate solutions for extremely complicated subjects. While broadband access can certainly be complicated (especially when it comes to policy, legislation, and network management), in many ways it's the simplest subject we've tackled so far.

42 million Americans still lack access to any broadband whatsoever, double official FCC estimates. Millions more can't afford access (given US broadband pricing is some of the highest in the developed world). The primary reason why: 83 million Americans can only obtain broadband access through a single provider (aka a monopoly). Hand-in-hand with regulatory capture, the result has been decades of high prices, slow speeds, stifled competitive potential, and abysmal customer service.

The reason isn't that complicated: We've let natural telecom monopolies dominate the market and (with the occasional exception) dictate state and federal policy. These politically-powerful monopolies have then cultivated an environment of apathy or outright denial. And instead of driving more, creative solutions to market, the US solution to this problem has (again with the occasional exception) been to downplay or deny there's a problem, or to use flawed data and sloppy policy to throw millions in subsidies at giant companies for networks routinely left half deployed. Often with zero penalty.

The one-two punch of monopolized access and apathetic/corrupt regulators/lawmakers has calcified a problem that should have been solved a decade ago. That's left a discordant chorus of folks, usually on the state or local level, scrambling to fix the problem using limited funds and bad data, usually without adequate federal support. All while being undermined at every step of the way by powerful entrenched monopolies whose top priority is to deny there's a problem, unfairly demonize creative solutions to said nonexistent problem, and keep the broken status quo intact.

Peggy Schaffer, in charge of expanding broadband access in Maine, discussed how federal data is so lacking, states have been forced to crowdsource their own home-grown solution simply to identify US broadband gaps. As Pew's Anna Read confirmed, there's a lot the federal government can learn from watching state efforts to bridge this persistent digital divide.

For years the internet saw ample debates over whether broadband was a luxury or an essential utility; the latter generally opposed by industry because it creates greater urgency to actually address monopolization. With COVID making it clear broadband is essential for survival, opportunity, health care, education, and employment, experts like Consumer Reports' Jonathan Schwantes argue that it's time to treat broadband as the essential service it is.

Experts like Gigi Sohn say the federal response during the COVID era has been a profound disappointment. And, as Francella Ochillo and Andrea Kelemen noted, the most vulnerable among us are usually the first punished by our collective failure.

Fortunately, this is all fixable, and COVID could finally provide the impetus to break through decades of policy dysfunction.

Most of our experts agree the first step is better data and better maps to accurately identify the scope of the problem (Blair Levin), something we've only just begun with the recent passage of the DATA Act. From there, the solution involves supporting local, creative efforts to drive more competition to market, whether that comes in the form of innovative mesh networks (Terique Boyce), or local community broadband builds (Christopher Mitchell). It also involves giving regulators at the FCC the authority and resources to actually do their jobs (Dana Floberg), and applying antitrust enforcement consistently.

Again, the solutions are difficult but not impossible, though they all start with challenging entrenched, politically-powerful monopolies, which has never been America's strong suit. But while COVID has taken much from us, our COVID-era educational failures (Brandon Forester, Deb Socia, and Geoff Millener) could finally provide the motivation we need to take America's broadband affordability and availability problem seriously.

It should be pretty clearly established by now that giving the finger to public officials (in every case listed here, police officers) is protected expression. Even if the expression isn't protected, it sure as shit doesn't justify detainment, arrest, or the seizure of someone's property.

Decisions have been handed down by both state and federal courts saying giving a cop the bird is protected expression. And if it isn't necessarily protected (due to courts not seeing anything that justifies deciding this point in certain), it's pretty clearly not evidence of any criminal act, no matter how much offended cops wish it to be.

If you're a cop on the receiving end of this hand gesture, it's best to just move on. Choosing this hill to die on just means the officer now has multiple ways to lose their qualified immunity. First, there's the Fourth Amendment violations, which include detaining people when no actual criminal activity is suspected. Then there are the First Amendment issues, which included illegally retaliating against people for exercising their rights.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest to add to this body of case work that says engaging in any law enforcement response to a flipped bird is unwise, at best. In this case, the officer who decided it was impossible to ignore an erect middle finger has lost her qualified immunity. This decision [PDF] not so gently reminds cops that being an asshole isn't a crime. (If it was, can you even imagine the number of cops under indictment?)

Ruben Garcia sued officers from the New Hope, Minnesota police department after being hassled excessively by Officer Kaitlyn Baker, whom he first encountered near a local school.

The first encounter was innocuous, but somehow laid the groundwork for officious retaliation later in the day.

On February 1, 2016, Officer Baker was on school patrol at Sonnesyn Elementary in New Hope, Minnesota. That morning, Garcia drove by the school and saw Officer Baker motion for him to stop his vehicle. He stopped. Officer Baker shouted for him to slow down, but Garcia responded that he was going the speed limit. Garcia then drove away. Officer Baker did not issue Garcia a citation.

Had this been the end of it, there would be no federal case. But both parties persisted. Unfortunately, the party with the thinnest skin had the power, the gun, and the badge. Ruben Garcia rolled by the school later that day, again encountering Officer Baker. He sent his love.

Later, in the afternoon, Garcia again saw Officer Baker at the school. This time, he extended his hand out of his car window and raised his middle finger at Officer Baker as he drove past her.

This was apparently too much for Officer Baker. She activated her dash cam and followed Garcia. Her only reason for this initial pursuit was captured by her camera: that Garcia had "flipped [her] off" and supposedly had "argued about speed when children" were present.

Engage bullshit. Baker pulled Ruben over and began to make stuff up.

Officer Baker approached Garcia on his passenger side window. Using his phone, Garcia began to video the traffic stop and then asked Officer Baker why she pulled him over. She replied, “You drove by and you flicked me off and I’m curious as to why you did that.” Id. at 01:07–01:11. Garcia asked if his actions were illegal, and Officer Baker replied that there was a woman with her children at the school patrol and that his actions constituted disorderly conduct.

"There was a woman with her children at the school patrol." That was the alleged reason for the stop. The real reason was in the first part of Officer Baker's statement: "you flicked me off and I'm curious as to why you did that."

Baker demanded ID and insurance info. Twice. Garcia refused. Twice. He stated the officer was violating his First Amendment rights. Baker did what cops often do when faced with accusations of rights violations: she called for backup. Garcia escalated.

Officer Baker asked Garcia for his license several more times. He replied that he would give her the license but repeatedly asked her if she was going to shoot him.

Garcia then asked for Baker's badge number. She stated he could find it on the citation she was going to write him.

Two more officers showed up. Baker demanded Garcia hand her his "goddamn D.L." He refused. Officer Anthony Gust approached the vehicle. Garcia still refused to hand over his license. Having run out of lawful options, Officer Baker decided to try some unlawful approaches.

Officer Baker walked around the vehicle to Garcia, yelling for Garcia to get out of his vehicle. She opened the driver’s side door and demanded that Garcia get out of the vehicle. Officer Baker then grabbed Garcia as he stepped out of the vehicle, placed him against his vehicle, and handcuffed him. Officer Baker threw Garcia’s wallet on the ground. Officer Gust helped Officer Baker hold Garcia against the vehicle.

This "suspicion" was helpfully corroborated by another backup officer, but one who had (wisely) chosen not to respond to an extended middle finger with a search and seizure.

Officer Baker also told the arriving officers that Garcia would not give her his license and “that’s why he’s taking a timeout for right now.” Id. at 05:02–05:05. Officer Johnson related that once he saw Garcia’s license plate, he realized that Garcia had raised his middle finger at him before.

Having found nothing criminal about Garcia's admittedly abrasive actions, Baker and the other officers gave him back his wallet and sent him on his way. Garcia got the last word.

Officer Baker held Garcia in the car for around seven minutes, and during that time, he continued to talk to her about how the officers were dangerous and unprofessional. Officer Baker issued Garcia a citation. Officer Gust then took Garcia out of the squad car and removed his handcuffs. As Garcia left, he yelled “f**k you” at the officers. Id. at 12:56–12:58. He then drove away in his vehicle.

A hero drives among us.

Garcia was cited for disorderly conduct and [checks police recording] a license plate violation. Let's hear more about this "violation."

As to the license plate violation, Officer Baker noted in her incident report: “During the traffic stop, I observed the license plate having a plastic cover over the entire plate and a red plate frame obstructing the view of the month and year stickers.” Ex. 1 at 38, Garcia v. City of New Hope, No. 0:17-cv-03574-NEB-ECW (D. Minn. Nov. 19, 2018), ECF No. 51-1. She later clarified that she noticed the license plate during the crosswalk encounter and mentioned the violation in the wrong portion of her incident report. Officer Baker also stated that she did not inform Garcia of the license plate violation because she could not have a conversation with him. Garcia denies that he had a cover or frame over his license plate.

Ohhhhhhhhh. It wasn't about Officer Baker's "curiosity" about Garcia's hand gestures. And it wasn't really about the people in the crosswalk. It was about a license plate violation the court says it can't clearly see on the recording and the protected speech the court says is protected.

The court says the record isn't clear either way when it comes to the license plate violation. It's possible there was a legitimate reason to stop Garcia.

[T]he district court determined that even if Officer Baker made a mistake, it was a reasonable mistake. The court noted that the other officers saw the frame, the license plate was not clearly discernible on the squad car video, and Garcia entered into the Agreement instead of disputing the violation.

But there's also no exoneration. The facts are still disputed. No other officer offered testimony that backed up Officer Baker's claims about a license plate violation. As long as this question remains unsettled, even an honest mistake of the law isn't enough to grant qualified immunity… especially given the other facts at hand.

It is true that we have found that an officer made a reasonable mistake about a license plate violation where the license plate was not centered on the front bumper and “it was dark outside, making it difficult for [the officer] to fully scan the vehicle for a front license plate.” United States v. Payne, 534 F.3d 948, 951 (8th Cir. 2008). But the blurry video does not show that Officer Baker’s view of the license plate was hindered. In fact, the video depicts a clear day and shows that Officer Baker—who was right behind Garcia’s car—had a clear view of the license plate. Officer Jacobs’s testimony and the blurry video are not enough to show that Officer Baker had an objectively reasonable belief—based on the totality of the circumstances—that the license plate was unlawfully covered.

The court then says Garcia's decision to enter into an agreement on the license plate charge has no bearing here. It's not an admission of guilt. The agreement he signed does not contain any admission or stipulation that Garcia's license plate violated state law. No qualified immunity on the BS "license plate violation" excuse for this stop.

Therefore, at this stage of the litigation, Officer Baker is not entitled qualified immunity based on the absence of a Fourth Amendment violation because there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether she had probable cause to conduct a traffic stop of Garcia’s vehicle.

That cues a reversal of the lower court's decision. It was clearly established -- and Officer Baker does not contend otherwise -- that probable cause is required for a traffic stop. An extended middle finger is not probable cause.

And there's no qualified immunity for targeting a single finger. The court reiterates that indicating the police should fuck themselves is protected speech.

Garcia’s raising his middle finger at Officer Baker is a rude and offensive gesture but nonetheless, under current precedent, is a constitutionally protected speech activity.

Any detainment originating from this would logically deter people from engaging in protected speech. No qualified immunity here either.

Officer Baker does not dispute that Garcia’s right to be free from First Amendment retaliation was clearly established at the time of his arrest. “Criticism of law enforcement officers, even with profanity, is protected speech.”

[...]

Based upon the record before us, we hold that the district court erred in granting qualified immunity to Officer Baker on Garcia’s First Amendment retaliation claim.

There's a dissenting opinion. And it's ridiculous. Judge Shepherd prefers to believe First Amendment speech should be subjected to the same standard as Fourth Amendment violations. If anyone did everything Garcia did during these interactions with local officers, Officer Baker should have been free to believe making some shit up to justify detaining someone for offending her was cool and Constitutional.

In my view, Garcia’s conduct was prolonged and goes beyond that of constitutionally protected speech. Garcia made the obscene gesture while driving through a school zone in broad daylight while a crossing guard was present. He extended his head and entire arm out of the car while raising his middle finger. Further, Garcia’s aberrant and aggressive behavior, which included the obscene gesture, occurred after a previous contentious encounter that morning with Officer Baker at the same school crossing. Although an officer is expected to exercise more restraint than the average citizen in responding to offensive or critical speech, I believe the facts here demonstrate an escalation of offensive and aggressive behavior that both disrupted and interfered with Officer Baker’s ability to monitor the school crossing.

[...]

Further, even if Garcia has shown the violation of a constitutional right, it was not clearly established on February 1, 2016, that driving through a school zone during school hours and in the presence of a crossing guard, leaning his entire head and arm out the window of his vehicle to raise his middle finger, all following a confrontation about Garcia’s rate of speed in the same location earlier that day, was protected by the First Amendment.

Sorry, Judge. But that's not how the First Amendment works. Even under the extremely permissive qualified immunity guidelines, the limits of the First Amendment are pretty clearly defined. And it's pretty clear Officer Baker's -- despite her belated obfuscation -- real reason for pulling over Garcia was to punish him for being rude to her. This addition to the opinion only shows one judge would forgive officers for punishing citizens for hurting their feelings. Ridiculous.

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On Thursday, a day after his boss helped incite a mob to storm the Capitol, only then did outgoing FCC chair Ajit Pai finally "distance" himself from Trump and say he won't go forward with Trump's plan to have the FCC reinterpret Section 230.

In an interview on C-SPAN's "The Communicators," Pai told Protocol and C-SPAN co-host Peter Slen that he does not intend to move forward with a rule-making on Section 230, which was laid out in Trump's social media executive order. He said he won't "second-guess" the decisions made by Facebook and Twitter to bar Trump from posting. And he said the president bears some responsibility for the riots that engulfed Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

Specifically on 230, this was the exchange:

On Oct. 15, you said that you intend to move forward with a rule-making for clarity on Section 230. What's the status of that?

The status is that I do not intend to move forward with the notice of proposed rule-making at the FCC.

And why is that?

The reason is, in part, because given the results of the election, there's simply not sufficient time to complete the administrative steps necessary in order to resolve the rule-making. Given that reality, I do not believe it's appropriate to move forward.

If you could, what do you think should be done on Section 230?

There's now a bipartisan consensus among elected officials that the law should be changed. Obviously the president believes it should be repealed, President-elect Biden has campaigned repeatedly on its repeal, but within Congress there appears to be a consensus also that it should be revised or reformed in some way. Obviously in terms of changing the law, that's a decision for lawmakers to consider, but I do think there are certain bipartisan consensus areas forming regarding how it should be revised.

It's a very complicated issue, one that I think Congress will have to study and deliberate on very seriously. I personally would think about it more carefully in terms of the immunity provision, for example, but those are the kinds of things that I think the next administration and Congress will think about very carefully.

He's trying to escape this one with his reputation intact, and no one should let him get away with it. He could have spoken up earlier. He could have actually defended the 1st Amendment and the fact that internet websites have the right to moderate as they see fit. That's what his ideologically aligned colleague on the FCC, Mike O'Rielly, did in calling out that social media moderation is not an issue for the government. Pai sat by and said nothing, and watched as his colleague, who had backed up every other nonsense position Pai has taken for years, got fired for it.

Then Pai could have done the correct thing and refused to even bother to take up the issue of CDA 230 after the NTIA, under orders from Trump, sent over a petition. He chickened out and asked for comments, wasting everyone's time. Then, he could have taken those comments -- in which every single substantial comment explained how he had no authority and shouldn't be engaging at all -- and decided not to move forward. But, he spinelessly moved forward with it anyway, pushing out a laughable legal justification that was diametrically opposed to everything he had said about the net neutrality issue.

It's only now -- with two weeks left in the Trump Presidency, after more and more people (including Republicans) have come to realize that maybe Trump is a destructive mess who helped incite a riot at the Capitol -- that Pai pretends to find a backbone and push refuse to move forward on this issue. And he does it in the weakest possible way -- saying that he's run out of time. It's a spineless move from someone who has spent nearly all of his years in public office publicly patting himself on the back for standing by his "keep government out of business" principles.

Obviously, Pai has made a political calculus here, and he's hoping to slide away from this mess and the stench associated with it on the same day that a bunch of other Republicans hoping to revitalize their reputations are doing so as well. But it's not principled to wait until the politically convenient point to do what you should have done months ago. The truth is simple: Pai isn't the principled defender of "free markets" and "light touch regulation" he has positioned himself as over the years. He's just another political hack who took the convenient path.

We've noted repeatedly how fifth-generation wireless (5G) was painfully overhyped. To spike lagging smartphone and network hardware sales, carriers, equipment makers, and the lawmakers paid to love them spent years insisting that 5G would change the world, ushering forth amazing new cancer cures and the revolutionary smart cities of tomorrow. But while 5G is an important evolutionary step toward faster, more resilient networks, it's not some magical revolution, and US 5G speeds so far have proven to be much slower than overseas counterparts, and in many instances actually slower than 4G.

You'd think industry and experts would view this as a sort of cautionary tale about hype. You'd think pundits and industry would understand that by over-promising what 5G is capable of, they've associated the branding with empty hype and bluster in the eyes of the public. You'd be wrong.

Some wireless industry executives have already started insisting that 6G will be a lot like The Matrix (it won't). And this week, telecom trade magazine Light Reading cited a few companies and experts who are already arguing that 6G will somehow enable Star Trek-esque transporters and the ability to taste and smell things over the internet. Seriously:

"But what if future virtual reality systems allowed their users to taste, touch and smell as well as to see and hear? Seated in their New York or London homes, executives could effectively teleport themselves to Barcelona's gothic district for the full gastronomic accompaniment to their deal-making banter."

To be clear, 6G isn't even a thing yet. It's a future standard that hasn't been developed yet. And the technology to taste or smell things over the internet doesn't exist either, though the idea has long been tinkered with. The idea that 6G will be akin to magic appears to have come from a few academics, tasked with trying to imagine futuristic ways companies can monetize future network standards:

"Tafazolli and his colleagues are determined to break this pattern. In their view, the setting of hard targets for connectivity speed has brought little payoff for operators while lumbering them with multi-billion-dollar bills for the rollout of more advanced networks. By simply cranking up the bitrate or cutting latency, each successive generation looks even less like a breakthrough and more like a mere evolution of mobile technology.

"They give users something to play with, but they don't really generate more money," said Hendon. "We are trying to do things in a completely different way." A businessman who does not have to fly around the world to wine and dine his clients might be willing to spend quite a bit more on his mobile service, he said."

In many countries (Canada, America), consumers already pay some of the highest prices in the world for mobile data. Carriers are mad that they weren't able to charge customers even more money for 5G. Verizon tried to charge consumers $10 extra per month just to connect to 5G networks, but then had to back off the ambition after consumers (quite correctly) failed to see the value proposition. Especially given US 5G speeds (so far) are a flimsy disappointment.

With net neutrality dead (for now), and US carriers already discovering creative new ways to nickel-and-dime consumers (like charging you extra for HD, or charging you extra to have your games and music throttled), there's really not much doubt that providers would love to charge you extra to enjoy simulated scents and smells over your wireless connection. But at this juncture, fresh off 5G hype, it's just kind of silly to take seriously.

The whole premise appears to be little more than a thought exercise by a few academics working in concert with industry on ways to justify higher rates, though it's obviously dressed up as something more noble and intellectual than all that:

"This is not just a university having a bright idea," said Hendon. "Vodafone and BT and Telefónica have all signed up to this – they understand it as well as we do, and we are responding to what they say." Putting the operators' commercial interests and pressing need for a growth story ahead of the technology considerations could help this particular initiative to stand out."

On the one hand, there's nothing wrong with creative thought exercises that try to envision the technologies of tomorrow. But fresh off of consumer disappointment with 5G, caused directly by three straight years of bullshit and hype about what the standard is actually capable of, you'd think folks would be a little more careful about tempering expectations moving forward.

As a reminder, Josh Hawley is a sedition supporter who should never be near any position of power ever again. In response to his ongoing support for overturning the will of the people, book publishing giant Simon & Schuster made the totally reasonable call that it would refuse to publish the book he was preparing called (hilariously) "The Tyranny of Big Tech." Make no mistake about it: this was Hawley's campaign book to push for the nomination in 2024. The key authoritarian strongman move is to claim that someone else is the tyrant and that you're hear to "save" them. That's Josh Hawley's entire play over the last couple of years: "big tech" is the "tyrant" that he's here to "free" you from, through idiotically bad laws. But it's all a game to him.

Simon & Schuster's statement was pretty straightforward:

After witnessing the disturbing, deadly insurrection that took place on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., Simon & Schuster has decided to cancel the publication of Senator Josh Hawley's forthcoming book, THE TYRANNY OF BIG TECH. We did not come to this decision lightly. As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints; at the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom.

Right after that came out, I joked that Hawley -- as per his nonsense attacks on social media -- would claim that this was "unfair censorship" and introduce a new law requiring Simon & Schuster to publish his book. That joke turned out to be closer to reality than even I expected. An hour or so later, little whiny snowflake Josh Hawley, a self-proclaimed Constitutional lawyer, who has a law degree from Yale Law School and clerked at the Supreme Court, claimed that Simon & Schuster not publishing his book was somehow an attack on the 1st Amendment.

The statement reads:

My statement on the woke mob at Simon & Schuster:

This could not be more Orwellian. Simon & Schuster is canceling my contract because I was representing my constituents, leading a debate on the Senate floor on voter integrity, which they have now decided to redefine as sedition. Let me be clear, this is not just a contract dispute. It's a direct assault on the First Amendment. Only approved speech can now be published. This is the Left looking to cancel everyone they don't approve of. I will fight this cancel culture with everything I have. We'll see you in court.

Every single thing that Hawley says in this is utter bullshit. It's almost embarrassing. First of all, anyone who thinks that one of the world's biggest publishing houses is a "woke mob" is delusional. But, it's even worse to use the word "mob" the day after you helped inspire an actual mob to storm the Capitol building in order to overthrow the results of an election.

Hawley has no legal claim here at all. The 1st Amendment doesn't govern this at all. He has every right to speak his mind, but he has no right to force a giant publishing house to give him a massive book contract to help his nascent Presidential campaign. If he wants to publish such a book, I hear Amazon has pretty good self-publishing tools that would allow him to do so. As to a bunch of other self-publishing platforms. Isn't technology amazing?

And, since Hawley wants to be "clear" the only Orwellian here is Hawley himself -- trying to spread his populist authoritarianism by redefining what words mean to suit his own naked greed and ambition.

But, really, all of this is just consequences for your own actions, Josh. You know, the kind of thing you used to pretend was what "conservatives" believed in.