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FCC Chairman Keeps Up Assault on Social Media (axios.com)
Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is doubling down on his critique of tech companies, asking whether social media is "a net benefit to American society" in remarks at the Media Institute on Wednesday. "Now, I will tell you upfront that I don't have an answer." From a report: What he said: Pai made the case that social media has been key to the politicization of many aspects of American life. "Everything nowadays is political. Everything. ... This view that politics-is-all is often made worse by social media," he said, per his prepared remarks.
It's worse than that, and Americans should be alarmed and outraged by this.
You should be alarmed and outraged because he's pas the point of "informed discussion". He's literally counter-attacking the people who have pointed out his lies about net neutrality.
This is full on Soviet-era deflection, more or less insinuating that you shouldn't listen to Twitter when they say net neutrality is good, because after all, what Twitter does is evil and sketchy and they're probably enemies of the state.
He has outright decided that facts and informed discussion are pointless, so he's going straight to trying to portray them as not being "net benefit to American society". He's basically threatening them in public that if they continue to disagree with him, things could get messy as they pursue other options to beat them down.
This is naked thuggery, and people actively refusing to engage in informed discussion. This is making thinly veiled threats at people who point out you're a lying sack of shit.
If America has reached this point, we're deeply fucked. Because this administration is pretty much showing it will do anything it wants, and if you oppose them they're going to come at you ... basically he's going at Twitter the same way Trump the idiot attacks everyone else on Twitter.
This is appalling, and pretty much means civility and reason are dead in America. This is essentially an explicit tactic, it's not just some clown who is making false equivalents ... he is deliberately suggesting that Twitter is a bad entity to then say "so don't listen to them when they point out I'm lying".
He hasn't jumped the shark, but America is in the middle of doing so.