[NCUC-DISCUSS] Trump speaking about the internet

[Ayden Férdeline]

- This quote is over a year old, and it is not clear whether these sentiments still represent the views of President-Elect Trump.

- If you read the full transcript of his remarks, it is clear that President-Elect Trump was not speaking about closing up the entire Internet, or even of implementing a firewall like China has in place. He was speaking about the need to prevent terrorist organisations from using social media to recruit new members, which has demonstrably happened.

- That may or may not be a slippery slope (in my view it is), but it is not an outlandish view. It was the view of every single candidate in the US election this year (bar perhaps Rand Paul), including [Hillary Clinton, who said almost the same thing word-for-word](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/07/us/politics/hillary-clinton-islamic-state-saban-forum.html?_r=1&referer=). I suspect this view - that platforms should not harbour terrorists - is held further abroad, too. Freedom of speech is not and has never been absolute.

- Some people like freedom and others do not. Some people want to curb free speech because they consider some language to be offensive. Some political parties want to tax one industry but not another. Some societies fear that allowing women an equal say in decision-making deprives the men of the power to protect and provide for the women and children. In any society which builds itself on the oppression of others, the granting of freedom equals loss of control and loss of status. Freedom implies the possibility that you and others can either engage in or be subject to dangerous, destructive, damaging behaviour. We are afraid that we might hurt someone, because we are not responsible enough, or we are afraid that other people might hurt us, because they have freedom but not our sense of responsibility. My point is, what Trump said about freedom online is neither controversial nor a minority view, because the human condition tends to run towards runaway inequality and eventually to aristocracy and beyond (see: history).

- It is interesting that Trump thinks Bill Gates would be the gatekeeper of the Internet. I wonder if he said this because he knows his base knows who Bill Gates is, but may not be familiar with the likes of Mark Zuckerberg.





Ayden Férdeline
[linkedin.com/in/ferdeline](http://www.linkedin.com/in/ferdeline)



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] Trump speaking about the internet
Local Time: 2 December 2016 1:42 PM
UTC Time: 2 December 2016 13:42
From: cveraq at gmail.com
To: Aaron Eitan Meyer <aaron.eitan.meyer at gmail.com>, Remmy Nweke <remmyn at gmail.com>
ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org


‎From time to time, freedom requires someone to threaten it, to remember how valuable it is.

Carlos Vera

Enviado desde mi smartphone BlackBerry 10.



De: Aaron Eitan Meyer
Enviado: viernes, 2 de diciembre de 2016 08:22
Para: Remmy Nweke
CC: ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org
Asunto: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] Trump speaking about the internet




Every time I see something like this, I'm reminded of EDPa Judge Stewart Dalzell's conclusion in ACLU v. Reno, two decades ago that “As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from governmental intrusion.... Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the First Amendment protects.”





Everyone is already aware, but it's worth reiterating that when the Supreme Court ultimately struck down the Communications Decency Act, it was 9-0.





Aaron Eitan Meyer, Esq.


Sent from my iPhone


On Dec 2, 2016, at 7:29 AM, Remmy Nweke <remmyn at gmail.com> wrote:




Interesting times indeed for the Internet community.
We shall see how the Trump Presidency manages this and 'headache' associated with the politics of Internet governance.
Remmy






On Dec 1, 2016 6:20 PM, "DeeDee Halleck" <deedeehalleck at gmail.com> wrote:


"We're losing a lot of people because of the Internet," Trump said. "We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening. We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that Internet up in some way. Somebody will say, 'Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people."

--

http://www.deepdishwavesofchange.org

xx
dd

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