Comments on: NEW COLUMN: Justice Thomas’ Solution to Big Tech’s Social And Financial Excommunication

By: Ilana Mercer

Ilana Mercer — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 05:46:41 +0000

Interesting. I still have another, 3rd, installment on this Deep Tech topic, put off by the Afghanistan saga. In it I offer my solution. Stay tuned.

By: Richard Ong

Richard Ong — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 05:10:04 +0000

There’s a third approach which is to treat tech giant censorship as government censorship by means of private entities acting on behalf of the state. This is straight out of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence where private individuals can perform searches and turn over what they find to the state . . . if they act independently. If private person’s act at the behest of the state, the results of their searches are inadmissible. Here the state is effectively regulating content.

The Court is so gutless, however, that it will punt here as elsewhere.

By: ?????

????? — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 11:01:48 +0000

This is a genuine dilemma. Although Justice Thomas is clearly annoyed with Big Tech’s partisan behavior, he may not know exactly what the solution is. Like me, he probably does not relish the possibility of government regulation of speech or innovative economic sectors. As I recently noted, Justice Thomas’s friend, Judge Laurence Silberman of the District of Columbia Circuit, has also called for a review of internet-era speech. Silberman is alarmed at the tech and media platforms’ censorious behavior and thinks New York Times v. Sullivan may need an overhaul. (The ruling barred public officials from suing for defamation.) But like Justice Thomas, he admits there is no easy solution.

By: Rock Montrose

Rock Montrose — Fri, 13 Aug 2021 14:37:35 +0000

You make a good case and, I see, you’ve left us with another cliffhanger. Color me intrigued. I guess the trouble is that we’re left counting on the GOP to get off the frickin’ dime and do something. Judge Thomas—God bless him!—has basically drawn them a road map. Do they have the guts? Or even the inclination? I’m pessimistic. They better act fast. This is unusual for the judge to be this public. He used to be content to take in the cases quietly and with no questions, and then make his decisions, based on his very well-informed reasoning, leaving his friend, the late Nino Scalia, to take the spotlight. Thomas could be signaling to the Republicans that they had better act fast, while there still exists a SCOTUS that will back them up. I think it’s fair to say that any legislation entailed by this plan of attack is liable to end up in the Supreme Court, and who among us is convinced that Sippy Cup Joe (h/t to Sean H.) will not be able to pack the court any day now?

You are right to call Clarence Thomas a hero. He has been a stalwart for nearly three decades. His nomination to the SCOTUS almost makes up for the great disappointment that was the short reign of George Bush the First. I say almost because Bush screwed up royally with his first SCOTUS pick, the ever-after horrendous David Souter. At that time, for those who remember history, Thurgood Marshall was still on the court. Had Bush picked Thomas at that time, his nomination wouldn’t have caused a ripple. Liberals may not have liked Thomas, but they wouldn’t have objected to a 2nd Black on the court (remember Scalia was confirmed unanimously because no one wanted to vote against the first Italian on the court). Conservatives would have been, as they later were, enthusiastic. But when Bush nominated Thomas to replace the retiring Marshall, he came under attack for #1- treating that as a token seat; and, #2-replacing Marshall, a Saint among the liberals, with a conservative. Because of Bush’s political blunder, we got those awful hearings, the protracted “high-tech lynching,” plus we all got to learn more than we ever wanted to know about Anita Hill and Long Dong (sic) Silver.