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MillennialExistential's avatar

If they manage to repeal Sullivan it should be open season on right wing media. After all, no one loves slanderous claims more than them.

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Maggie's avatar

The desired Times vs Sullivan overturn is more horrifying when coupled Florida and Texas laws blocking social media companies from moderating content (both are in court I think,).

DeSantis wants to make traditional media outlets responsible for good faith errors in reporting. He also wants to ban social media companies from stopping the deliberate spread of misinformation, banning bad actors, and amplifying hate speech, which amounts to forcing social media companies to hand megaphones to conspiracists, insurrectionists, and in some cases terrorists.

The way I see it, this has nothing, NOTHING to do with first amendments right. This is DeSantis and friends building their own, de-centralized version of Pravda out of his newly acquired "troll army" that JVL mentioned a few weeks back. Use lawsuits to de-fang real journalism, replace it with artificially magnified messaging that benefits DeSantis.

As of reading this Morning Shots, I can not give any more credence to the idea that DeSantis would be preferable to Trump. He would be worse. What Trump achieved through incompetence and malice will be deliberately amplified by a DeSantis presidency. Trump wanted people to punch a reporter. That's bad. DeSantis wants to neuter the free press with a scalpel and then pump up a mis-information machine with anabolic steroids. That is so, so much worse.

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