If at first you can't convince people with good ideas, make it illegal for them to share their own ideas.
The California Senate just passed SB-771 Personal rights: liability: social media platforms, which essentially negates Section 230 and will make social media platforms liable for any "hate speech" published on their platforms. This is not getting much attention, but it would be a terrible precedent to set and would put X, YouTube, Meta, Twitch and other platforms at risk of having to pay millions in fines.
The bill stipulates that only platforms with more than $100,000,000 | 890 BTC in revenue per year would be subjected to this law. Interestingly, the California lawmakers are attempting to use the "feed algorithms" as a loophole to get around Section 230 by claiming that "deploying an algorithm that relays content to users may be considered to be an act of the platform independent from the message of the content relayed." (highlighted in red in the third screenshot)
It will be interesting to see how this plays out and whether or not it gets taken to the Supreme Court if and when Gavin Newsome signs it into law, which is the last step. If signed, it will go live on January 1st, 2027.
It's funny to see the Center for Countering Digital Hate cited in the bill. They threw TFTC on a list of "new climate deniers" and lobbied YouTube and other platforms to censor our content in 2023. I'm pretty confident their efforts got our content shadow banned on YouTube for awhile.
Be aware, freaks. If you exhibit hate speech toward the designated groups laid out in the bill (and one of the individuals happens to be a resident of California?), the State of California could charge and fine the social media platform you publish it on. It looks like California is trying to pressure the platforms to censor their users by threatening them with fines.
This is an egregious affront to free speech in the digital age. I find it hard to believe that if California decides to act on this bill and charge one of these platforms for spreading hate speech that it won't get taken to the Supreme Court. Since the law doesn't go live until January of 2027, the best move for the social media platforms who would be subjected to this law to make would be to preemptively geo-fence California and deny their services to California residents. Though, this is very unlikely considering that most of the platforms are domiciled in California and would inflict pain on themselves. That may be necessary though.
The other option is to give into the demands of the California government, which presides over the largest state economy in the union. This would likely be a damning precedent that would tip the scales of censorship in the country and lead the platforms to preemptively censor all of their users. Ushering us closer to the dystopian hellscape we've been talking about in this rag for years.
Luckily for us, censorship resistant communications protocols like Nostr exist and it is much harder for governments to exert control over neutral protocols like Nostr. Another thing working in Nostr's favor is that there isn't a client (that I'm aware of) that is doing more than $100,000,000 in revenue per year (yet). Regardless of what ultimately comes of this bill, it highlights the importance of open source and distributed protocols like Nostr. When the state begins to lose control of the narrative, it clamps down on speech. When the clamp down comes, it's important to have alternative options that make it very hard for the state to control. Open protocols and freedom tech are the way forward.
Don't think that the desires of the authoritarians in California will stop at speech. If their efforts to curb speech fall short because people are able to flock to open protocols to share their "hate speech", they'll move back to the tried and true route of attempting to ruin individuals' lives by attacking their access to monetary rails. It's probably best to make sure you have bitcoin in self-custody before that reemerges.
Ed Dowd laid out a stark reality: our institutions have become systematically corrupted across every major sector. He pointed to the COVID vaccine debacle as prime evidence - safety signals that should have triggered immediate withdrawal in February 2021 were ignored, while media outlets function as government mouthpieces through what he suggests is a continuation of Operation Mockingbird. Meanwhile, Dowd highlighted how banks engage in "extend and pretend" tactics to hide commercial real estate losses, and the Tri-Color Auto bankruptcy exposed predatory lending to undocumented immigrants without proper documentation.
"I should not have existed if things were working properly."- Ed Dowd
This institutional rot extends beyond finance and pharma. Dowd argued that universities have abandoned their educational mission for ideological indoctrination, while intelligence agencies manipulate both mainstream and alternative media narratives. The systemic nature of this corruption suggests we're not dealing with isolated bad actors, but rather a comprehensive breakdown of the checks and balances that once protected society from such widespread institutional capture.
Check out the full podcast here for more on the housing bubble, Fed policy mistakes and spiritual warfare
Trump Endorses Milei at UN Speech - via X
Bitcoin Payments Launch in Cape Town - via X
Powell Confident in Fed After Rate Cuts - via X
Trump Ridicules Europe's Carbon Reductions - via X
Google Admits Biden Censorship Pressure - via X
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Final thought...
My soccer practice small talk game is improving materially.
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