Ari Cohn Profile picture
Jul 6, 2021 8 tweets 3 min read Read on X
When the bedrock, lead-off of your case is that college students not wanting to date Trump supporters reveals a predilection for infringing on people's rights, you've lost the argument in a way that veers way too close to incel-ville.

Yikes.

nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/… Image
He literally CANNOT stop talking about who college kids want to date. Image
Oh good, I was beginning to get worried that he was ignoring the mating preferences of us non-students. Phew.

This. is. so. weird. Image
*citation needed Image
"De facto common carriers?" I guess we can just call people legal concepts and use "de facto" and like...whatever, it's cool.

Two can play this game: The author of this lengthy whine about how people don't like his views is a de facto Superfund site. Image
"We should protect free speech by protecting against political discrimination, EXCEPT for beliefs not worthy of respect in a democratic society, as defined by the government" is some galaxy-brain shit. Image
At it's core, this is just a de-religionized version of Sohrab: In order to win the war against society rejecting our ideas, we must curtail the freedoms of those of who disagree with us and have the ability to impact our lives in some way. Image
People will indeed say it is authoritarian, Eric. Because it is. And saying "nu uh, it's LIBERAL" isn't going to magically change that. Image

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More from @AriCohn

Aug 16
If only someone had counseled people to take a deep breath and not panic over speculative fears that have not been borne out in a single election cycle.

Oh wait. I did.

politico.com/news/2024/08/1…
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I did it when I testified in the U.S. Senate: techfreedom.org/wp-content/upl…
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I did it for the Senate's AI Insight Forum on Elections: techfreedom.org/wp-content/upl…
Image
Read 6 tweets
Jan 31
Senate Judiciary is having a hearing today on "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis," in which senators will yell at a bunch of social media platform CEOs and likely say some very wrong things. Follow along in this thread, if you dare.

judiciary.senate.gov/committee-acti…
2/ Durbin kicks off by showing a video from victims of online CSE and their parents. Undeniably horrible stories, and if the hearing really focuses exclusively on platform efforts to combat CSE/CSAM, I'll be on board--platforms SHOULD be doing more.

But that's unlikely.
3/ And not for nothing, Durbin's STOP CSAM Act swings the pendulum too far, threatening end-to-end encryption and incentivizing takedowns of lawful content and campaigns of false reporting. EFF has a good explainer: eff.org/deeplinks/2023…
Read 111 tweets
Aug 8, 2023
1/ I must respectfully take issue with this piece, for a few reasons.

First, as a normative matter, to mee it comes too close to equating the harms of CSAM with the effects of minors looking at porn. Whatever you think about the latter, the former is *inestimably* worse.
2/ Second, the "secondary effects doctrine" is a heaping MESS that gives government an end-run around the First Amendment, even for non-porn speech. Expanding it to the online world rather than physical locations would be terrible.

SED should be retired, not broadened.
3/ Third, there is no distinction between the age verification mandates being proposed now, and the ones struck down in the Great COPA Wars, practically or constitutionally.

The curtailment was in fact being forced to verify your identity before accessing disfavored content. Image
Read 14 tweets
Jun 30, 2023
1/ So @MiamiSeaquarium, which tortures Orcas by keeping them in confined spaces, have filed suit because Phil published drone pictures and criticized them.

It's evident that they didn't like being criticized, and are trying to shut him up.

Complaint: https://t.co/EwdXgkcQOvtinyurl.com/muhbjzr7
2/ I'm no expert in Bird Law, so the claims involving drones are not in my wheelhouse.

But @MiamiSeaquarium also alleged defamation (a good indicator of SLAPPiness)--kind of.

It seems that their lawyers are not entirely competent. This is the entirety of the defamation count:
@MiamiSeaquarium 3/ This is plainly a deficient pleading. Why?

Because notice what's missing: any identification of the allegedly defamatory statements.

You can't just waltz into court and say "they said defamatory things." You have to actually say what those things were.
Read 8 tweets
Jun 16, 2023
1/ On Wednesday @TechFreedomfiled an amicus brief with the 6th Circuit in Johnson v. @kathygriffin.

Our PR and the brief can be found here: techfreedom.org/protect-intern…

In case you're unfamiliar with the litigation, let me refresh your memory & explain why it's important.
2/ In April 2021, a video started circulating on social media showing a man accosting a teen taking pre-prom pictures with his boyfriend at a hotel restaurant, because the teen was wearing a dress.

Super normal stuff.

When Kathy saw the video, she tweeted about it a few times.
3/ In her first tweet, she identified the man as Sam Johnson, and noted that he worked at VisuWell, a telehealth software company from what I gather.

A couple tweets later, VisuWell announced Johnson's firing. Griffin asked if he was going to remain on the board. They said no.
Read 27 tweets
May 24, 2023
Oh hey, did you know that you can wreck a @Target display and doing that enough will get them to pull the products you're vandalizing about? Image
The War on Christmas is gonna be EPIC this year. Get ready, @Target!
@AskTarget how many people, exactly, need to trash your terrible produce section before you cede ground and stop trying to sell mushy apples?
Read 4 tweets

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