Thread by @BerinSzoka

1. I've disagreed with @gigibsohn about the biggest telecom issues for 15 years—but those issues aren't why her nomination floundered. Multiple Dem Senators feared supporting someone who had called out Fox for what it was in the Trump years: "state-sponsored propaganda"

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1633181343256576000

2. In 2020, Senate Republicans summoned Twitter, Facebook & Google CEOs for a hearing on their alleged "bias" against conservatives. The Dem chair asked why broadcasters weren't there. Gigi tweeted this:

https://twitter.com/gigibsohn/status/1321456221740847106?lang=en

3. 🐘s claim Gigi wants to "censor" Fox News. Nonsense. She merely objected to🐘s weaponizing the hearing against new media companies they hate for nakedly political reasons, while saying nothing about old media that spew MAGA propaganda

4. Of course the First Amendment protects Fox News from government meddling just as it protects Twitter, Facebook & Google. The issue becomes murky only because the Supreme Court said broadcasters weren't fully protected by the 1A in Red Lion 1969

5. So, yes, FCC got away with regulating fairness in broadcasting for decades. But:
—🐘s opposed the Fairness Doctrine bitterly
—🐘s now want a FD for the Internet
—SCOTUS would probably strike down Red Lion today
—Fox News, as a cable operator, isn't subject to Red Lion anyway

6. Bottom line: there's nothing the government could do about bias online or on Fox News. Gigi asked a purely rhetorical question: why be selective about targeting specific media?

7. That Q is how courts think about the First Amendment. When the government discriminates among speakers, courts presume that it's trying to advance a political agenda against disfavored speech. To a lawyer, her point was obvious. It's sad that her point was so badly twisted

8. In the end, the problem here wasn't Republican Senators, it was Democrat Senators' fear of how their Republican opponents would weaponize support for Gigi against them: "Senator _____ wants the FCC to censor Fox News!"

No, it's not remotely fair, but it's sadly understandable

9. And yes, there were many dimensions to the campaign to sink Gigi. The other most absurd part was attacking her for being on the board of EFF, which has heroically defended user privacy and security from the push for backdoors that break encryption
latimes.com/business/story…

10. The smear campaign against Gigi also insinuated that she might somehow support grooming

Again, the problem here is that those attacks worked: they made a few Democratic Senators afraid of countering 🐘💩

11. Gigi would have been the most experienced Commissioner put on the FCC in many years, a welcome break from the trend (on both sides) of nominating Hill staffers with little to no telecom experience

There's no one I would rather have disagreed with on *real* telecom issues

12. So what will Democrats do next? They'll probably err on the side of caution by picking a nom with no track record. Not an academic or someone who's been outspoken in civil society, but another Hill staffer: a cipher who's had to keep their mouths shut throughout their career

13. One last tribute to @gigibsohn: in 2005 @PublicKnowledge led the challenge to the FCC's rule to requirng TVs to include a broadcast flag—the biggest overreach in the FCC's history. She fought it and won, and the IP lobby has loathed her ever since
ala.org/ala/washoff/WO…

14. So it's sadly ironic that the thing that really made Democratic Senators afraid to support her now was... fear of FCC overreach (against Fox)

She wouldn't have weaponized the FCC against speech she didn't like—not, for instance, the way the Trump Admin asked the FCC to...

15. Total nonsense from Ted Cruz, who cheered the Trump Executive Order cracking down on content moderation by tech companies conservatives don't like like (and asking the FCC to make a rule that gutting #Section230's protections for content moderation) nexttv.com/news/fcc-nomin…