Visiting Column #25 -- Please Don't Fact-Check, Mr. Facebook!

The living embodiment of the Peter Principle, Maxine Waters, along with a host of Democrat House members, brought in Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook this week to answer their questions on his desire to start a Facebook cryptocurrency.  Well, nominally that was why he was brought in, but the questioning took an unsurprising turn.

Now, Zuckerberg is not the greatest witness from an entertainment standpoint.  He would start all his answers by addressing the questioner as "congressman" or "chairman", or whatever, which was so stilted and rehearsed as to put you to sleep, right before he avoided answering the question the best he could.

This got to be fun when the lefties on the committee quickly diverged from talking about cryptocurrency, which they don't understand, and started asking him about "fact checking", the idea that Facebook -- which, we have to note, is a social media platform, not a news organization -- should review all the content posted on it and "fact check" the content, particularly from politicians.

Facebook has over 2.2 billion (with a "b") regular users worldwide.  Even if you restrict that to just the politicians, we can agree that determining the accuracy of what they post would be a herculean effort, and that's before we get to the notion that my assessment of the factual nature of a statement may not be the same as say, that of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

Yes, "fact-checking" is a fool's errand. My facts are not necessarily your facts, especially when the news media have allowed their editorial bias to infect their reporting.  No one should claim primacy on what the facts actually are, especially in politics.

But the lefties on that panel were taking Zuckerberg to task for not doing fact-checking of political speech.  And I have a world of problems with the notion that they should even think of doing so.

Facebook is a platform.  The opinions of the 2.2 billion (with a "b") people who post are their own opinions, not Facebook's.  Facebook is a thing, and things don't have opinions, people do, even when they answer robotically like Mark Zuckerberg.

That, in a nutshell is Reason #1 why I do not want Facebook to do any fact checking of anyone's postings, not the president's and not Maxine Waters's.  Even though, I should add, I am not one of those 2.2 billion people (I don't use Facebook).  Here are all the reasons:

1. Facts are not necessarily facts.  Donald Trump famously said that the Mexicans were sending over the border "their rapists ...", which was often misquoted as referring to all Mexicans, as if he had said "they're rapists ...".  With that New York accent of his, and the fact (yes, fact) that it was spoken and not written, I'm not sure what was actually said, except that I'm pretty sure he wasn't calling all Mexicans rapists, and so are Democrats, except that they won't admit it and keep spouting, as what they call a "fact", that he did.

2. Given #1, there would have to be an arbiter, and there is exactly zero in the makeup of Facebook that qualifies them to do so.  They're a social media platform that sells advertising, and that does not qualify them to assign people to a role like that.

3. The pesky Constitution, although it only applies to this country, affords us freedom of speech.  If I want to say that Barack Obama is a communist, or that he corruptly used the FBI illegally to spy on an opposing political campaign, I have the right to say it.  If Facebook feels that what someone says crosses the line into criminality or libel, well then, call it to the attention of law enforcement -- but do not take it down yourselves.

4. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.  If your views are repugnant, airing them will convince us all of their repugnance.  Censoring them will drive them underground, and underground is where the nutrients of the soil will make them grow.  Get it?

5. If the airing of anything on Facebook causes someone else harm, the liability is, or at least should be, with the person who posted the content in the first place, not the medium by which it was delivered.  We don't hold the US Postal Service liable when a threat is mailed.  The moment we hold Facebook, or YouTube, or LinkedIn, or Instagram, or Twitter, liable for what someone co-opted their platform to say, they will cease to exist, and we will have corrupted the legal principle that assigns liability to the actual criminal.  Facebook is not an accessory to that.

I think it is kind of ironic that the oligarchs in the Democrat Party are now somehow insisting that Facebook, of all things, should take to fact-checking and censoring content.  There is no organization outside Moscow that spouts more non-factual propaganda than today's Democrats.  Adam Schiff himself had to be given the "four Pinocchio" treatment by the far-left Washington Post, for doing just that in an Intelligence Committee hearing this month.

The only reason the left wants Facebook to be the nation's censor is that there, well, aren't any conservatives working there.  YouTube and Twitter are already censoring conservative postings and we know it, while letting leftist and Islamist content slide right through.  If Facebook were to fact check, you know which side would be advantaged.  They'd love that.

Through the questioning, though, it seemed evident that Zuckerberg wanted no part of fact-checking his subscribers' words and advertisers' content.  Even though he'd probably love to do that, it is clear that the cost of doing so would be huge, given the volume of input, with no revenue offset.  Also, the legal liability would be enormous as well, given that they would be taking on a role that imputes decision-making authority to a public company.  Zuckerberg wants no part of that.

For whatever reason he doesn't want to do it, I don't want him to either.  I would like for people to be able to post their views freely, advertise whatever, and if there is a criminal problem or a civil conflict, well, refer the content to the authorities and let them handle it.  Facebook should not take a single word down without a court order.

That's probably one of the more libertarian positions I've held over the years, but I have to hold it to be consistent with my views.  I now, after all, have 1,025 columns online, and I'd be obliged if Google, who owns Blogger and whose leaders are surely diametrically opposed to almost everything I've written here, would just leave me and my words alone.

I don't need a fact checker, thank you.  And neither does the USA.

Copyright 2019 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around.  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

Visiting Column #24 -- Nancy Gone Fishin'

One endearing quality of the left is that it's all about the "now", and all about the power.  If something they do today has effects that will be a problem five years from now, well, as long as they can get or hold power now, that's fine.  The press won't hold them accountable, nor air contradictory past statements, as we know.

Nancy Pelosi, of course, is well aware that she can do whatever she wants and darn the consequences, as long as it helps her hold on to her speakership.

How else do we explain the otherwise bizarre "inquiry" going on at her instigation in the United States House of Representatives, all dressed up as an "impeachment inquiry" but not really one, given that the only allowed participants are Democrats.  I understand that impeachment is a political and not a legal activity, but still ...

Here is what a rational, otherwise-disinterested passer-by would look at what is going on and think.

President Trump had a phone call with the president of Ukraine a couple months back.  There is not a specific recording of the call, but there are transcriptions of it, released readily by President Trump.  Notwithstanding long pauses for translation (the president of Ukraine is not a native English speaker, of course), the translation was produced by the intelligence folks who were listening in.

Now, there were a fair number of topics discussed between the two leaders, and during the call the issue of corruption was raised, specifically corruption in Ukraine by the new president's predecessor and a prosecutor or two.  The president had been elected on a promise to eliminate such corruption, and President Trump had supported that effort.

In the course of it, Trump asked the new president to "do us a favor" and take a look at a specific area of corruption involving a Ukrainian energy company that had put then-VP Joe Biden's son on its board despite lacking knowledge of Ukraine or energy, and paid him a spitload of money.  So something was corrupt, either inside Ukraine, where the energy company could wave the younger Biden's name to suggest it had influence with the USA, or inside the USA, where the aforementioned spitload of money could be interpreted as a purchase of influence for ... who knows what.

Nowhere in the call was there any suggestion that in return, the USA or the Trump Administration would do anything, or not do anything, to or for Ukraine if they were to do this favor for "us."  As if to bear that out, we now have a fairly contemporaneous text from the American ambassador to the European Union to another American diplomat, chiding him for suggesting there was such a return favor, and stating that President Trump had specifically ordered that there be no such "quid pro quo."  Noteworthy is that this text was prior to the current foofaraw.

Having failed to come up with anything in the vast wasteland of the Mueller investigation that even the most Trump-deranged Democrats in the House could use, apparently Mrs. Pelosi has decided that their method of reversing the 2016 election they hated would be to "go fishing."

Think about it.  The Constitution describes the grounds for impeachment as being "high crimes and misdemeanors", which sort of suggests that at a minimum, a violation of Federal law be demonstrated before any honorable congressman would be persuaded to vote for impeachment.  I'd like to think that we would be actually defining what law is suspected of having been broken, right?

Well, no.

As we speak, there is an unvoted-upon, unauthorized "impeachment inquiry" going on, involving only Democrats in the House, and there is no crime upon which the "inquiry" is based.  Literally, this is pure Trotsky -- show me the person and I'll find a crime.

Talking to the Ukrainian president is not a crime.  Asking him to investigate a very warranted suspicion of corruption, even if it involves a person who is, at the time, running for his party's nomination for president, is not a crime, certainly less so than Mr. Trump's predecessor deploying the FBI to create the appearance of some kind of dealings with Russians.

So the rational, otherwise-disinterested party looks at what is going on, and says something like "It appears to me that if you want to impeach a president, and your party has the House majority, all you have to do is get access to a transcription of a conversation that president has had, and call some part of it a "high crime" or "high misdemeanor", even if it is not illegal according to the United States Code.  The press won't point that out."

Right?  I've read the transcript of the call, and there is not the hint of an actual crime involved.  Mrs. Pelosi is calling it a crime, and using that to hold an inquiry, but only inviting Democrats to participate.  Rather than fishing continually for something actually criminal, which would be bad enough, she is fishing in the first spot that she got to, even though it is devoid of fish.

And now the main point.

Donald Trump may well be impeached by the House, but he sure is not going to be removed from office by the Senate, which has to find him guilty of whatever high crimes and misdemeanors the Pelosi types come up with in their bill of impeachment.  He will continue to be president, and will likely leverage the injustice of the Democrats' kangaroo court straight into another four years in office.

But there will have been, etched in our history, the experience of a sitting, duly elected president being impeached without the commission of a crime, on the basis of a politically biased House extracting criminality from the transcript of a conversation where no law was broken.

With that precedent, will the Democrats simply do that again, the next time the nation offends them by actually rejecting them and electing a Republican president?  Get someone in the White House to record calls and then claim that some interpretation of the content constitutes an impeachable offense?

What is going on now, and has been going on since the day after Mr. Trump was elected (borne out by published media), is a long, drawn-out coup attempt.  If it is allowed to proceed (i.e., if no one metaphorically slaps Nancy Pelosi in the face to wake her up to what she is doing), it will have long and unpleasant repercussions as an example to the future of what appears to be "normal practice" in American government.

Foreign leaders will be reluctant ever to speak with our leaders.  And good Republicans (and less-extreme Democrats) will be deterred from interest in running for president.

We are better than that.  Apparently Nancy Pelosi is not.

Copyright 2019 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around.  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

Visiting Column #23 -- What Do They Teach Now?

I would like to describe George White as a "friend", although I have not seen him for over five years and hadn't seen him for 40 years previously.  At my age, our former high school teachers are often no longer alive, let alone people we would think to call "friends" at this point.  George -- excuse me, "Mr. White" -- is about 83.

The last time I saw him was at the funeral of my brother-in-law, and while we sat down for a few minutes to chat, it was not with the opportunity, let alone reflective of the appropriateness of the situation, to have discussed any issues.  I told him what my family had been up to, and that was that.

I thought of Mr. White this past weekend while watching some news wrap-up show that prompted my best girl and me to consider the teaching of USA history at the high school level.  During my high school days, we had a requirement to take American history in both junior and senior years in order to graduate, and the local approach was to start with Christopher Columbus as juniors, and work up to the current period by the end of senior year.  For us, "current period" meant six months into the first Nixon Administration.

There is not a great deal I can recall about high school, now fifty years removed from it, but I do fairly distinctly remember that it was taught, including by Mr. White, in a very non-opinionated, unbiased curriculum that focused on what happened, why, and what the implications were.  We eventually debated the merits and demerits of the then-raging Vietnam war, but certainly not in the "America is bad" school of pedagogy.  I think he was a Democrat, but you really wouldn't know.

When I saw the news clip over the weekend, it became fairly obvious that had the events been the same, but this had been 1969, the senior American history classes would have had some lively discussions, and it would have been the teacher's challenge to keep the students focused on the facts, on critically assessing what was actually known, and on not taking the media as gospel.

But while I could see George White leading such a class, I wondered about some things.  Is there even American history taught as a mandatory class anymore, in all 50 states?  I don't know that.  We had two full years of it, taught at an age where we could legitimately discuss it, but what about now?  Who is teaching it, and what biases might they be dumping on innocent ears?

Yep, I thought about that, but I also asked myself a question I didn't want to answer.  Is there even a cadre of teachers of the subject who are sufficiently prepared to teach pre-colonial, colonial-period, 19th and 20th Century, and contemporary history in a manner without infecting the room with bias?  If I had children in the public school system now, what would I expect their brains would be filled with when they came home, and would I have to challenge their actual teachers?

I hope you remember this piece from five years ago and will read it (it's a quick read).  I stressed the fact that people need to grow a good deal past age 17-18 or so before they are able to think critically, unless we actually teach them to do so.  That it takes a few decades of life experience before you can connect an action with its likely outcome.  That the ability to make that connection is what we call "maturity."

How on earth is the most contemporary history in this country being taught?  How is it taught, knowing that teachers are members of the NEA, about the most leftist labor union out there?  How is it taught, knowing that the nation is so substantively divided, exacerbated by social media?  How is it taught, knowing that in a majority of homes, the students will come home to news programs that are severely slanted to the left?  How is it taught, when on-air opinion is no longer distinguished from actual reportorial journalism?

I want to have that conversation with my friend George, who ultimately went from teaching to school administration, and who therefore could clarify some of my concerns -- not assuage them, mind you, but clarify and offer some facts.

I want to ask him, "How would you teach today if you were in the classroom?  What would you expect to encounter?"

I'm not sure I even know where in the country he is, but I think I might want to try to find him and ask.

Copyright 2019 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around.  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton