there’s a bigger problem here about how we are going to control the channels of communication in this country. In 1927 we had the Radio Act, 1934 the Communications Act. Congress stepped in. We made rules. FCC wasn’t great, but it’s still regulating the broadcast industry. You can’t use vulgar language and do all of these things with speech.
The reason we have an FCC has nothing to do with content—it had everything to do with scarcity. With the technology of the time, there was only a limited amount of low-fidelity bandwidth available to broadcast, and for decades, that bandwidth had to be rationed. More extreme restrictions on content, such as the Fairness Doctrine, were struck down.
With the Internet, we're not yet near the capacity or bandwidth. You talk about a guy like Zuckerberg... yeah, he's evil. He's abused the corporate structure to sell huge chunks of his company and shield himself from liability while still containing full control of it. But it's amusing that all this discussion only happened when Elon Musk, who's more of a kook than a villain (though his use of government subsidies to get rich ought to be scrutinized), decided to take control of publicly traded Twitter, which has a
long history of micromanaging what can be said and who can say it on their platform.
The idea of platforms allowing people to challenge the prevailing dogma scares these types. It should tell you everything about how flimsy the ground is on which they stand.
