The “internet has a clear winner”—pointing out two things said on different occasions by Robert Reich and laughing at their inconsistency—is just wrong, I think.
#1: Reich says that Donald Trump is filing lawsuits alleging that various corporations are infringing on his First Amendment rights, and that that’s silly because the First Amendment doesn’t oblige corporations to help you spread your words and ideas.
#2: Reich says that Elon Musk’s admirers who say “if you don’t like what Musk does with Twitter, just go elsewhere” are missing the point because there isn’t any even-roughly-equivalent elsewhere to go for what Twitter provides.
There is no inconsistency between these. It could be the case that (1) US law does not in fact give you any legal recourse when a corporation stops letting you use its services to spread your words, and also that (2) sometimes losing the use of a corporation’s services for spreading your words is a bad thing you can reasonably get upset about.
(It’s clear that Reich has less sympathy for Donald Trump than for the anti-Musk brigade, but laughing at him for that seems clearly unreasonable.)
The “internet has a clear winner”—pointing out two things said on different occasions by Robert Reich and laughing at their inconsistency—is just wrong, I think.
#1: Reich says that Donald Trump is filing lawsuits alleging that various corporations are infringing on his First Amendment rights, and that that’s silly because the First Amendment doesn’t oblige corporations to help you spread your words and ideas.
#2: Reich says that Elon Musk’s admirers who say “if you don’t like what Musk does with Twitter, just go elsewhere” are missing the point because there isn’t any even-roughly-equivalent elsewhere to go for what Twitter provides.
There is no inconsistency between these. It could be the case that (1) US law does not in fact give you any legal recourse when a corporation stops letting you use its services to spread your words, and also that (2) sometimes losing the use of a corporation’s services for spreading your words is a bad thing you can reasonably get upset about.
(It’s clear that Reich has less sympathy for Donald Trump than for the anti-Musk brigade, but laughing at him for that seems clearly unreasonable.)