Read on Twitter
1/ a thread on the surprising ideological origins of Trump’s call for communications collectivism (in light of his new Executive Order calling for government controls on social media platforms: https://techfreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/EO-Preventing-Online-Censorship.pdf )
2/ Craziest thing about Trump conservatives saying social media should be regulated public forums is not just that they're abandoning #freespeech rights, it’s that they're betraying PROPERTY rights. Treating private media like a public square entails a taking of private property.
3/ Amazingly, Trump and his followers have taken over the old “media access movement” and given it their own spin. Media access advocates look to transform the First Amendment into a tool for social change to advance specific political ends or ideological objectives.
4/ Media access theory dispenses with both the editorial discretion rights AND private property rights of private speech platforms. Private platforms become subject to the political whims of policymakers who dictate “fair” terms of access. It’s communications collectivism.
5/ The media access movement’s regulatory toolkit includes things like: the Fairness Doctrine & “neutrality” requirements, right-of-reply mandates, expansive conceptions of common carriage (using “public forum” or “town square” rhetoric), licensing regs & agency threats.
6/ The intellectual roots of the media access movement were planted by leftist media theorists like Jerome Barron, Owen Fiss in 60s & 70s, and later by Marxist communications scholar Robert McChesney. Here’s my old 2005 short history of the movement: https://techliberation.com/2005/05/10/your-soapbox-is-my-soapbox-thoughts-on-the-media-access-movement-in-general-and-the-media-democracy-coalitions-bill-of-media-rights-in-particular/
7/ “This arrogant, elitist, anti-property, anti-freedom ethic is what drives the media access movement and makes it so morally repugnant,” I argued in that essay. It’s still just as true today, even when it’s conservatives calling for collectivization. https://techliberation.com/2005/05/10/your-soapbox-is-my-soapbox-thoughts-on-the-media-access-movement-in-general-and-the-media-democracy-coalitions-bill-of-media-rights-in-particular/
8/ Best book ever written about dangers of media access movement was Jonathan Emord’s “Freedom, Technology and the First Amendment” (1991). He perfectly summarizes their goals (and now Trump’s) as follows:
9/ for more background, I also wrote two old books with chapters on the dangers of media access theory and calls for collectivizing communications and media systems: “Media Myths” (2005) & “A Manifesto for Media Freedom” (2008, w Brian C. Anderson).
10/ It’s astonishing, yet nonetheless true, that the ideological roots of Trump’s anti-social media campaign lie in the works of extreme Leftists & even media Marxists. He has just given media access theory his own unique nationalistic spin & sold this snake oil to conservatives.
11/ of course, don’t forget that Steve Bannon scripted all this out back in 2018. See this CNN interview for what happens next: https://mailchi.mp/cnn/rs-august-29-296013 This is now Trump’s playbook, and it’s incredibly frightening...
12/ Finally, there certainly could come a day when Trump's opponents on the Left just take this media access playbook up again and suggest this same medicine is exactly what’s needed for Fox News and other right-leaning media outlets. Trump's already scripted it out for them...
and here's the complete write up over at @TechLiberation blog: https://techliberation.com/2020/05/28/the-surprising-ideological-origins-of-trumps-communications-collectivism/
