Guy Pushing Hawley's 'Viewpoint Neutrality' Concept In The Media Used To Write For White Supremacist Site
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Senator Josh Hawley's law to wipe out CDA 230 protections for internet platforms unless they apply to the FTC for a special certificate, which they can only get if they show 'clear and convincing evidence" that their moderation practices are "politically neutral," is dumb in many, many ways. But one of the most ridiculous parts is that it literally requires internet platforms to give extra weight to Nazis, and to punish any site that does not give the Nazis a platform. NetChoice made this point with its statement on the bill:Sen. Hawley's Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act, would force online platforms to host politically extreme content that most of us would prefer to avoid online, such as views and videos produced by the KKK. The bill itself does this by saying that you could not receive such a certification (to get Section 230 protections) if you had a policy that would:"... negatively affect a political party, political candidate, or political viewpoint." That, of course, would include things like the American Nazi party. Or politicians espousing blatantly racist positions. Some have suggested that this was done on purpose by Hawley, though I'd hoped to give him the benefit of the doubt.Still, in a bit of inauspicious timing, just about the time that Hawley was releasing his bill, Buzzfeed published an article about a former Republican operative with close ties to a bunch of white nationalists, who has been publishing anti-tech opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal and Forbes. One of those WSJ opinion pieces? It was entitled Keep Twitter Accountable Without Censorship with the subhed: "Social-media companies should lose their liability exemption if their rules aren't viewpoint-neutral." Sound familiar?The co-author of that WSJ piece is Mark Epstein. As Buzzfeed notes:But Epstein, who worked for the conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, was a key figure in nativist and white nationalist political circles from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s. In 2006, he founded the now-defunct Robert A. Taft Club alongside [noted white nationalist Richard] Spencer and Kevin DeAnna, another leading white nationalist. Invited speakers to that club included influential white supremacist Jared Taylor and the journalist John Derbyshire, who would eventually be fired from the National Review in 2012 for a racist column.Epstein also helped run Youth for Western Civilization, a far-right student group, founded by DeAnna and Taylor, whose members included white separatist and neo-Nazi Matthew Heimbach. From 2004 to 2009, Epstein, under his full name, wrote for VDare, where his posts came with provocative headlines like [Howard] Dean Is Right - GOP Is "The White Party." So?; It Depends On What Your Definition Of "Jim Crow" Is; and White Refugees And Culture. Epstein, for what it's worth, denies being a white nationalist or even having white nationalist beliefs, though you can read what he wrote and make up your own mind about his positions.So, yeah, it's not the greatest look for Hawley's bill that the intellectual underpinnings supporting it come from someone at least closely associated with white nationalists, even as he denies being one, and one of the main impacts of the bill would be effectively forcing social media platforms to host Nazi content. And, yes, as some will point out, Nazis have free speech rights too. But no private platform has any obligation to host their deranged ideology and propaganda.
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posted at: 12:00am on 22-Jun-2019
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The Paywall Conundrum: Even Those Who Like Paying For News Don't Pay For Much News
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For years, we've tended to mock newspaper paywalls -- not because we don't want to see news publishers get paid (that would actually be good!), but because it just doesn't seem like a really sustainable way to build a news product for nearly every publication. In other words, nearly all media paywalls are destined to fail -- often spectacularly -- because they can't generate nearly enough paying subscribers. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between. Large general interest news sites like the NY Times and the Washington Post seem to have made it work. Small, narrowly focused sites can sometimes get by as well -- if their content is unique and special enough. But most general interest news sites are unlikely to be able to make it work -- and a new study drives home that point. Even for people who like paying for news, they tend to only pay for one news subscription. Really.As publishers worldwide put up paywalls and start requiring payment for their content about 50 percent of respondents in the U.S, Denmark, Australia, and the Netherlands say they bump into one or more paywalls each week when reading news; that figure is 70 percent in Norway we find only a small increase in the numbers paying for any online news whether by subscription, membership, or donation, the researchers write. Following the Trump bump of 2017, the percentage of U.S. respondents who pay for news in the U.S. is stable at 16%, and stable at 11% in an average of nine other countries. Norway and Sweden are seeing particular success in getting people to pay up and industry data reveal that Norwegians and Swedes are prepared to pay online for tabloid titles VG and Aftenbladet (premium models) as well as more upmarket titles such as AftenPosten and Dagens Nyheter.In the U.S., by contrast, the main subscription focus has been at the quality end of the market. The people who pay for news in the U.S. are wealthier and better educated than those who do not.No matter how rich and educated they are, though, most people are only paying for one subscription. The average (median) number of news subscriptions per person among those that pay is one in almost every country. And here's the thing: unless you're pretty damn confident that enough people will buy into your paywall, moving to a paywall likely forecloses the ability to succeed with most other business models, by vastly limiting your audience (some publishers try to have it both ways with a "leaky" paywall, in which it's not that difficult to get around it, but more and more sites appear to be moving away from the more leaky options).This is why I still think there are better approaches. Get past the idea of a paywall -- which is clearly a negative for users -- and focus on adding value for people who want to pay, rather than punishing those who don't or are unable to do so. It's why we here at Techdirt focus on a kind of membership model for what we do -- encouraging people to pay to support us, not to "get around a paywall" or to "read the news," but to get extra, useful, valuable features. Some may argue that these are basically the same thing, but I think the difference is extremely important. A paywall is about locking up the news. A membership model is one in which we make our content available, but save certain features and access to those who are willing to support us more fully. One is about putting up barriers and tollbooths, and the other is about offering a better reason to support, while expecting that the free news still continues to drive more support of the other offerings. In other words, it's a complementary business model that can work in conjunction with other stuff, rather than counter to it. Plus, it's just more respectful for your community.
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