Did you know Canada gives foreign aid to China? China? That's how bad things are in China, and here's why: It's because China is the worst country in the world, politically, militarily, economically, and culturally.
00:17:09.640I do know that it makes an argument which is slightly different to to previous lawsuits against the tech companies.
00:17:16.700Most previous lawsuits, that is, which is that the tech companies colluded with the state because they were taking advice from public health officials, which which obviously takes it beyond the realm of a private company.
00:17:32.000And it's more a case of the state and private companies colluding.
00:17:35.460And that makes it more of a First Amendment issue.
00:18:07.720But I I'm unfamiliar with the America First Policy Institute.
00:18:11.600Maybe they are the best and they have the best arguments.
00:18:16.040But if you're going to take on the mightiest, richest corporations in America, Twitter, Facebook, who have unlimited funds to hire not just the best lawyers, but to hire all the best lawyers.
00:18:30.180You'd better be going in there with the sharpest knives in the drawer.
00:18:34.460Maybe the America First Policy Institute has those.
00:18:37.500But without knowing more, I'm nervous because I saw, you know, I think of some of the more colorful legal claims that were made between November and January by Trump's team.
00:18:51.720And a lot of them fell apart under scrutiny.
00:18:55.920And, you know, the America First Policy Institute, Brooke Rollins, they're primarily known as one as good fundraisers, which I suppose is good if you're, you know, going up against the tech giants.
00:19:08.080Two, for being in the orbit of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
00:19:13.480And, you know, that's not exactly a compliment in MAGA circles.
00:19:19.020But, you know, you can certainly say that the crowd is maybe a little bit more competent than some of the people who were involved in the election challenges.
00:19:27.100I do know that, you know, there are some, you know, pretty decent legal minds who have advised the case, people who know their stuff on this issue.
00:19:36.940So hopefully it won't be a whole clown show.
00:19:40.940But even if it's like a really solid case with really solid lawyers behind it, it's still going to run into this Section 230 issue.
00:19:49.500And it didn't need to be that way because, you know, Trump being a Florida citizen could have taken advantage of some Florida law against tech censorship.
00:20:00.760There was a Florida law against tech censorship.
00:20:02.640But, one, it didn't regulate the tech companies as common carriers or places of public accommodation, as Clarence Thomas advised.
00:20:10.860And it was, you know, as a result of that, it was, you know, knocked down by a federal judge.
00:20:18.000And, you know, he would have tried the same thing if it was a common carrier bill or public accommodation bill.
00:20:23.100But I think it would have been part of him to do that if it were the case.
00:20:26.300Now, just, I'm a former lawyer myself, but I'm not an expert in what common carrier means.
00:20:31.840That's basically when, for example, there's a freight train going or a phone company.
00:20:37.020They have to let you on for the same fee you pay everyone else.
00:20:41.620It's basically a way to stop monopolies from, if I had to guess without looking it up, it's probably the kind of thing that was brought in after the oligopolies, the great robber barons said,
00:20:54.880well, I own this rail line and I'm not letting you put your coal on my rail line because I'm trying to bankrupt you.
00:21:00.420If I had to guess, that's where common carrier law probably has some of its policy roots.
00:21:07.040So basically, am I right in understanding common carrier means?
00:21:12.060If you're an airline's fallen with this category as well, it's a type of business that's expected to provide its services to all customers on reasonable, non-discriminatory grounds.
00:21:23.600Yeah. Well, I tell you, I sure hope someone does something because every day the censorship gets more and more brutal.
00:21:31.320And just, I mean, we've talked about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which when it was passed decades ago,
00:21:38.380was designed to protect Internet companies from legal liability for things they didn't know about.
00:21:47.540And basically, you brought something to their attention.
00:21:50.560If it was obscenity, really, I mean, you could see it right there in the name of the law, the Communications Decency Act.
00:21:56.300If there was obscenity on their system, you brought it to their attention, they could take it down and be immune from liability,
00:22:05.880both for putting it up in the first place and, second of all, for taking it down.
00:22:10.560But the fact that that is being used to justify censorship in 2021 has so far from the original intent of that section.
00:22:21.340Yeah. And it also justifies defamation.
00:22:25.340I mean, Wikipedia uses this law as well.
00:22:28.860If there's one company that I think should be liable for defamation, it's Wikipedia, arguably the most powerful publisher in the world,
00:22:35.200yet it's still claiming to be a platform under this law.
00:22:37.700Yeah. Well, you know what? Let me just throw something at you.
00:22:40.760I don't know if you know this, but there is a Canadian mining magnate who's actually in the orbit of the Clintons.
00:22:50.660His name is Frank Giustra, and he's a pretty wealthy guy, and he donated a ton of dough to the Clinton foundations.
00:22:59.100I don't know that much about him, but I know that he's a donor of the Clintons. That tells me a lot.
00:23:03.800He was defamed on Twitter repeatedly, and he sued Twitter in Vancouver, Canada, for defamation.
00:23:13.020And they argued Section 230, and the judge said, you're not in Kansas anymore, Toto, or really, you're not in America.
00:23:21.720Section 230 is an American law. We're in Canada. You defamed this man in Vancouver.
00:23:27.380He has the right to sue in Vancouver for the damages done to him in Vancouver.
00:23:32.520He doesn't have to go down to California where you get the benefit of the First Amendment, or you have the benefit of Section 230.
00:23:42.080I'm sure that that will be appealed all the way to our Supreme Court, because imagine what would happen to Twitter, YouTube, Google, Facebook, if this caught on, and you could sue in non-free speech jurisdictions.
00:23:57.540I believe in free speech, by the way, Alan, but the absolutely unrestricted partisan bias of these companies.
00:24:05.840I'm not a Frank Jooster fan, but I think that's an important win for accountability against these tech giants.
00:24:13.520Arguably so, yes. I mean, I think there's a case to be made for social media platforms to have some sort of liability shield for hosting content.
00:24:22.380I think in the case of Wikipedia, it's completely different, because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
00:24:27.980That's how it brands itself. It publishes things, and it still hides behind Section.
00:24:32.860And it's, you know, the biggest defamer on the Internet, in my view.
00:24:35.820Its results appear right at the top of Google results, and you've probably seen how it talks about Rebel News, Breitbart News, any conservative.
00:24:46.000Just, you know, all these articles just laden with smears.
00:24:49.560So I think it should be liable for that.
00:24:51.940It's interesting, you mentioned that the judge in Vancouver said you're not going to be covered by Section 230,
00:24:58.060because one of the provisions of USMCA is a Section 230, essentially a clone of Section 230.