It's not hard, don't hide data and don't collude with private companies to do an end run on Constitutional rights.

From a look at public-private informational control by el gato malo.  The subheading is is the sunshine about to finally get in?  Read the whole thing, but this is the frame of the issue.  I largely agree with him.

It is striking that we have the January 6 show-trial going on with nothing to be found there while no one is looking at the thing, corporate-government information management collusion, which seems obviously to be occurring.  

i am a free speech and free association absolutist. i think the government has no place limiting or mandating either. on the other hand, private entities, no matter how large or important, are different. they may do as they like and no one has any right to demand that they be allowed to use a private service or that it must amplify or even allow their voice. just as i may ask you to leave my house if you say things i find sufficiently objectionable, so too may they curate their content.

the rules about “section 230” are just legalism and to my mind, like so many other government policies, not terribly well conceived. just because i will not allow dog-supremacists to comment on threads because the clear truth is that #TheFutureIsFeline does not and should not make me responsible for all other comments. pretty much nothing else in life works this way around user generated content.

what we allow ought be up to us.

But, and this is a big “but” this agency of private entities to publish as they please really only works under full, free, and fair markets.

if a doctor has the right to “speak freely,” but government agencies and boards will take his or her license should the physician caution against covid jabs or puberty blockers, then this is just first amendment violation by proxy. this is not “free to speak and free to accept the consequences.” this is government sponsored speech suppression by convolution.

and that is a horse of an entirely different color.

such proxy enabled violation can get very nasty and provides both the backbone and the telltale hallmarks of fascist systems. it’s the government picking favorites and demanding that business do its dirty work for it either by menace, preferencing, or some other form of pay for play or crony corporatist collusion. and this lands us in the realms of threats, extortion, and bribery.

when then government stands around outside your office flipping a nickel and says “nice search engine you got there. be a shame if someone came along and used anti-trust on it” or demands fealty in exchange for preferential treatment or safety from scrutiny, we’re getting into mobster behavior or worse, into the sort of public-private corporatist collusion that keeps donations flowing, ensures services are rendered, and keeps competition at bay.

“oh, did something anti-competitive happen to PARLER, i didn’t notice...?”

such seating of government and big business together in the same car will inevitably result in the vehicle in question being driven right over we the people. it’s the road to oligopoly and oppression and if it’s going on, we the people have a strong vested interest in knowing about it.

State Attorney Generals are pushing back on the Executive Branch and a federal court has just granted discovery to proceed.  Should be interesting.

The establishment parties have both of them been eager to hide their decision-making processes.  Are I think both are prone but the Democrats seem to have been especially eager to hide their actions from the public.  The most recent example was their Covid-19 vaccination approval process which they sought to have hidden for 75 years.  We now understand why they wanted it hidden.  They made no decision in the interest of public health taking into account harms and benefits and empirical evidence.  They simply made the decision they wanted and then tried to use the data any old way to appear to justify that arbitrary decision.  Banana republic kind of incompetence.

We need to bring back government "Of the people, By the people, For the people" once again and the first step towards doing so is transparency.  Not hiding data or colluding with private companies to do an end run on Constitutional rights.