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Glenn Greenwald Profile picture
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14 Jan, 7 tweets, 3 min read
I really enjoyed this discussion about Silicon Valley monopoly & censorship power on @briebriejoy & @virgiltexas's podcast. I didn't agree with @ZephyrTeachout on everything but did on most. There are few people as informed about the dangers of SV monopolies & how to combat them.
As a side note, every time I appear on a podcast like this I hear it means you're "reduced" to using platforms like this. One day, compare the audience for the top podcasts to your favorite cable shows, or how many people read a Substack article v. your favorite liberal website.
It's true that if you go on MSNBC or CNN, you get to talk to 2 million geriatric liberals with Biden2020 on their car bumper, or wine moms with pictures of Joe&Kamala in their Twitter bios. But corporate media is not the main way you get heard. Independent platforms are thriving.
The last time Snowden went on Joe Rogan's show, *15 million people* watched on YouTube alone. When he was on Brian Williams' MSNBC show the next month, 1.4 million people saw it. Ridicule podcasts & independent media, but that's who is reaching huge numbers of non-hyper-partisans
One key issue that has been in the latest controversies over Silicon Valley censorship is that the Dem-controlled House Sub-Committee on Anti-Trust issued a superb, 450-page report in Oct warning that Apple, FB, Google & Amazon were dangerous monopolies:

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…
Ironically, one of the key warnings of this report concerning Apple & Google was their control not only over phones but the ability to limit access to everyone through their power to ban platforms from their app stores - exactly the power Dems urged them to use to ban Parler.
But I hope people will focus on the content of that report. It not only details why these four Silicon Valley giants are classic monopolies and why that's so dangerous to economic & political freedom, but also proposed meaningful solutions to combat it.

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

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More from @ggreenwald

Glenn Greenwald Profile picture
15 Jan
The 3 journalistic units most devoted to demanding online censorship are CNN's media reporters, NBC's "disinformation team," and NYT's tech reporters.

Here's the latter laying the groundwork for making encrypted apps Signal & Telegram the next targets:

nytimes.com/2021/01/13/tec… Image
When the internet and encryption proliferated in the 1990s, the Clinton Admin seized on the Oklahoma City bombing to demand back-door access to all encryption. Bush & Obama used 9/11 to radically expand internet surveillance.

Now it's CNN/NBC/NYT journalists who take the lead.
Three events in the last 3 months have been major attacks on a free internet: FB & Twitter uniting to censor NY Post pre-election reporting on the Bidens (a shocking breach); the removal of POTUS from the internet; the monopolistic destruction of Parler. A huge escalation.
Read 7 tweets
Glenn Greenwald Profile picture
14 Jan
Liberals are having their 9/11 moment (again):
Amazingly this article hypes the new Domestic Terrorism Law authored by Adam Schiff, easily one of the most authoritarian and militarist members of Congress.

Even if you're happy for news laws to punish your right-wing enemies, this will be used against all protest movements. Image
Anyway, I genuinely recommend reading the article. @billscher is one of those earnest liberals who takes the time to calmly and rationally lay out his thinking as clearly as he can, so it will give insight into the authoritarian liberal mentality of the moment.
Read 4 tweets
Glenn Greenwald Profile picture
14 Jan
This @washingtonpost article today on Laura Poitras' firing from First Look Media (parent company of @theintercept) again notes that Intercept editors *still* refuse to provide any public accounting of the newsroom fuck-up on the Reality Winner story.

washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/medi…
Many people (including myself & Laura) spent months demanding that accounting. Their original excuse was they didn't want to help DOJ in its prosecution. But that prosecution has been over for 2 1/2 years. Where is that accounting? Provide the transparency you demand of others.
The reality is top Intercept editors never provided any accounting of what happened in the Winner case - who fucked that up and why? - because they knew I was being widely blamed, despite having *zero involvement in the story and were happy about that & didn't want to come clean.
Read 4 tweets
Glenn Greenwald Profile picture
13 Jan
Some deceitful idiot from the New York Times yesterday posted a screen shot of my tweet, out of context, to imply I said no Parler users were involved in the protest.

Anyone literate could see my point: FB & YouTube were used far more, exactly what this new reporting shows:
WPost: "A growing body of evidence shows Facebook played a much larger role than Sandberg suggested.

The #StopTheSteal hashtag was widely used on the service ...when a search on Facebook reported 128,000 people were talking about it and ... using it to coordinate for the rally."
That prompts again the same question I asked in my article and tweets (that the NYT reporter blatantly distorted):

Why didn't Dem politicians, and journalists, demand that Apple & Google remove *FB* from their stores given the much larger role it played than Parler?
Read 6 tweets
Glenn Greenwald Profile picture
13 Jan
The @ACLU spent years suing over the no-fly list, insisting it was a grave abuse of power.

Does ACLU have a position on Schumer's call for Americans to be put on that list with no trial, and the Chair of the House Homeland Security Comm calling for 2 Senators to be put on it?
I spent years reporting on the no-fly list, including @ACLU's lawsuits. It's monstrous. But in the War on Terror, the argument was: it prevents terrorists from coming to US or boarding planes to blow them up. Does anyone think Cruz & Hawley will do this?

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Here's the @ACLU's summary of the evils of the no-fly list, and why they spent so many years suing to end it. Kind of amazing to see Dems not demanding it be *expanded*, to include people not yet convicted as well as sitting US Senators:

aclu.org/issues/nationa…
Read 4 tweets
Glenn Greenwald Profile picture
12 Jan
How Silicon Valley, in a Show of Monopolistic Force, Destroyed Parler

greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-…
In the last three months, tech giants have censored political speech and journalism to manipulate U.S. politics -- banning reporting on the Bidens, removing the President, destroying a new competitor -- while US liberals, with virtual unanimity, have cheered.
The ACLU said the unity of Silicon Valley monopoly power to destroy Parler was deeply troubling. Leaders from Germany, France and Mexico protested. Only US liberals support it, because the dominant strain of US liberalism is not economic socialism but political authoritarianism.
Read 9 tweets

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