President Auto-Pen auto-signed a bunch of alleged “pardons” for his family members and a whole host of January 6 scam and coverup participants that weren’t actually pardons.
This is a pardon: “(A) governmental decision to absolve an individual for a criminal conviction….”
What President Auto-Pen auto-signed were preemptive blanket amnesties. The Constitution doesn’t empower him to do that.
The Constitution doesn’t empower Congress to do it either. But that’s exactly what Congress did for Big Tech with Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.
The idiotic law - and several subsequent idiotic court rulings - have rendered 230 a blanket amnesty for anything and everything Big Tech wants to do to US.
Behold the idiotic law’s “magic” twenty-six words:
"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
DC-to-English translation? You can’t sue Big Tech for something someone said on their websites. It is blanket amnesty from third party liability, which makes sense until you think about it for about five seconds. Then you realize how stupid and crony it is.
Section 230 gives Big Tech protections NO ONE ELSE gets:
“If I owned a small neighborhood bar, I would have to purchase liability insurance to protect me should one third-party patron punch another third-party patron in my place. Or I would have to go to court and convince a judge or jury that it took my place in my place - but not because of my place.
“Why do the biggest and richest companies in the history of Planet Earth get government-imposed blanket third-party-action immunity?”
Still an excellent question.
And here’s the dirty little secret Big Tech and their very many lackeys don’t mention: No judge on the planet would find Big Tech liable for something one of their billions of users says or does. Because it is idiotically obvious it is not Big Tech’s fault. They don’t need Section 230’s blanket amnesty.
My neighborhood bar would be more likely than Big Tech to be found responsible for third party action - because I am slinging liquor. And most of the time I wouldn’t be found liable.
But my bar doesn’t get blanket amnesty from DC. Big Tech does.
Individuals are responsible for their own actions. And even Ivy League judges and justices know this.
Let’s game out a typical lawsuit against Big Tech.
Let’s say you call me an idiot on Facebook. (And to be clear, I’ve been called an idiot on Facebook more than a time or two.) Section 230 says I can’t sue Facebook.
But say Section 230 didn’t exist - and I could sue Facebook. No judge or justice would find Facebook liable for what you said about me on Facebook. Because duh.
My case would be dismissed in about five seconds. And now it’s legal precedent. The next time someone decides to sue Big Tech it would be dismissed in about three seconds. And my dismissal would be part of the reason why.
That happens a few more times and no more lawsuits will be filed ever again.
But Big Tech gets blanket amnesty from DC. And my bar doesn’t.
And while I may refuse bar service to a person here or there, Big Tech has been for nearly two decades censoring many millions of their patrons, and done so for being conservative, Christian or otherwise not Marxist.
Because Big Tech is a wide-open “platform” - and not an editing “publisher.” Right?
Oh: And Big Tech has done all of this in crony collusion with Big Government.
The same Big Government that gave Big Tech its Section 230 blanket amnesty.
Ain’t that cozy? Big Gov grants Big Tech blanket amnesty. And then Big Gov colludes with Big Tech to censor US. And we can’t sue - because Big Gov granted Big Tech blanket amnesty.
All of which is absolutely not a violation of the First Amendment.
If you’re an idiot.