On October 5, former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen testified before the US Senate, decrying her former employer’s “destructive impact” and warning that “without action, divisive and extremist behaviors we see today are only the beginning.”

Per Haugen’s theory, lack of “action” by social media platforms is the cause of social ills such as violence  in Myanmar and Ethiopia. Because, as we all know, Myanmar and Ethiopia were oases of tranquility before Facebook came along and ruined everything.

What kind of “action” Does Haugen advocate?

Presumably the kind of “robust content modification” US Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) demanded from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey last November to combat election  “misinformation.”

And presumably  “robust content modification”  of the kinds of posts that, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted in July, the Biden administration “flags” for Facebook as “problematic” for differing with the administration’s claims about COVID-19 vaccines.

In their early days, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook held themselves out as part of the “public square,” with value sets that at least implicitly included unfettered speech.

That quickly changed as those platforms came up against the need to sell ads.  Mortgage brokers and insurance firm don’t want their ads appearing alongside porn, Holocaust denial, etc.

Which is fine: Their platforms, their rules. It’s not a freedom of speech issue, because they’re not preventing you from saying anything. They’re just deciding whether you get to use their platforms to say it. That’s not censorship. If you don’t like their rules, there are other platforms with different rules (in fact, some with no rules at all).

But, increasingly, the government’s getting involved. Richard Blumenthal and his friends on both sides of the partisan aisle agree that they should get to control what you’re allowed to say. They just disagree on the details.

The Big Two in social media — Facebook and Twitter — are obviously ready to make a deal. In return for government regulation that  protects them from competition by raising the costs of getting into the social media market, they’re willing to suppress speech on behalf of whoever happens to be in charge in Washington, DC.

And that IS censorship.

Richard Stallman tells us to “think of ‘free speech,’ not ‘free beer'” when discussing the free software movement. The marriage of legacy social media platforms to government censorship reverses that proposition. Use of the services is “free” (actually, you pay with your data and attention), but you only get to say what the politicians tell those platforms to allow you to say.

Free speech requires complete separation of social media and state.

The most direct route to that goal would be for politicians to abide by the First Amendment, but that’s obviously not happening.

The less direct route — and the inevitable result of the direct route being closed off — is users moving to social media platforms that aren’t, and in fact can’t be, regulated by government.

Such platforms do exist. Punch “distributed social media platforms” into your preferred search engine to find them.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“The Biden administration,” Eric Garcia reports at The Independent, “is attempting to shift the blame for the nation’s current supply chain crisis at the feet of the Trump administration as the nation faces a series of problems with shipping.” White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain refers, in a tweet, to the traffic jam at US ports as “like many other problems we have inherited.”

Naturally, Trump’s having none of it. “COVID is raging out of control, our supply chains are crashing with little product in our stores, we were humiliated in Afghanistan, our border is a complete disaster, gas prices and inflation are zooming upward — how’s Biden doing? Do you miss me yet?”

Klain and Trump both omit the inconvenient fact that where actual policy is concerned — on COVID-19, on trade, on the economy, on Afghanistan (the one bright spot), on travel and immigration — Biden has thrown himself with gusto into serving Trump’s second term.

After four years of trade wars and 18 months of trashing various sectors of the economy in the name of “fighting COVID-19,” all while cranking up the fiat currency printing press and handing out fat stacks of money to all comers, the US government has attracted a flock of chickens home to roost their tailfeathers over the American economy.

Not real chickens, mind you. Poultry is in such short supply that WingStop has re-branded itself as ThighStop “to combat the volatility of chicken wing pricing.”

Ships are stacking up outside US ports, without enough longshoremen to unload them or truck drivers  to haul the cargo off to store shelves.  Health care workers are getting fired over, and Southwest Airlines pilots are conducting a wildcat strike over, vaccine mandates, even though Biden’s proposed OSHA rule has yet to actually go into effect.

In my January 19 column, I predicted that the Biden administration would be “business as usual, as usual.” I was wrong. It’s business as usual on steroids.

Government is always a drag on an economy. Every dollar it spends — after looting it from your paycheck or borrowing it in your name — is an “investment” in making us all poorer than we’d have been if left to run our own lives. Every rule it comes up with makes it harder for us to prosper.

Usually, however, we produce wealth faster than a Trump or Biden can steal it and blow it. Years of terrible trade and economic policy, combined with the eagerness of politicians to expand their power by currying and exploiting mass hysteria over COVID-19, have reversed that equation.

Government was always too expensive, but now we’ve reached the point where we clearly can’t afford it at all anymore. Not if we want to survive, anyway.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“Young investors have a new strategy,” National Public Radio’s Tim Mak reported on September 21:  “Watching financial disclosures of sitting members of Congress for stock tips.”

Under the Stock Act, members of Congress must disclose their own stock trades, and those of their spouses, within 45 days. One member of a TikTok investor community refers to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as the “queen of investing” due to lucrative trades made by her husband.

The obvious implication is that members of Congress often engage in “insider trading,” using information they receive pursuant to their duties, or information concerning the likely effects of upcoming legislation, to buy and sell (or have family members buy and sell) profitably and mostly with impunity (there’s an occasional ethics investigation, but seldom serious punitive action).

No wonder Congress is one of the wealthier groups in America. A majority of its members are millionaires, and their median net worth exceeds $1 million. And many of them seem to rack up a lot more wealth while actually serving in Congress (as opposed to before running for office) than the $174,000 base salary would account for.

There’s a way to fix that. Don’t hold your breath awaiting its adoption — the very members of Congress who benefit from insider trading would have to pass rules implementing it — but it’s still worth suggesting.

First, preemptively raise congressional pay: In addition to the base salary, generous allowances for dependent spouses and children (let’s say $50,000 per dependent). Not that $174,000 per year isn’t sufficient to support a family of four, but let’s head off any complaints about that.

Second, require members of Congress to put their FAMILY wealth into “blind trusts” so that they don’t know how the money is invested. Of course, congressional spouses aren’t automatically bound by congressional rules, but members could be given the option of convincing their spouses, or resigning, or being sanctioned by losing committee seats, being barred from leadership, or even being expelled.

Third, tax those blind trusts at a rate of 100% for all gains above and beyond the inflation rate. After all, the rich should pay “their fair share.”

Finally, forbid moonlighting. Congress is supposedly a full-time job. US Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) should have to choose between serving in Congress and knocking down  book advances larger than their salaries, as both did in 2020.

Would these measures eliminate corruption in Congress? Not even close. Among other tricks, they’d still be able to sell their influence in return for cushy think tank positions or “private sector” lobbying jobs once they leave office.

But it would be a start. The goal here is for no one to leave Congress wealthier than he or she entered it.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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