Nikki Stumbles, But Has a Point
The reaction to her social media "regulation" comments was as bad than her imprecise comments. But that's not her real sin. She sounded like a Democrat.
In the world of politics, you can be right and wrong simultaneously. It most often happens when you conflate two separate but related issues. And nuance always takes a hit at times like this.
Take Nikki Haley, for example. The former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina Governor had much to say about social media last week, mostly courtesy of the previous week's Ruthless Podcast. “@ComfortablySmug,” a popular conservative anonymous account on X, formerly known as Twitter, was among the cohosts. She doubled down on a Fox News interview. Courtesy of the New York Post and Bongino.com:
Haley proposed forcing social media users to verify their identities before posting, citing “national security” concerns.
The former South Carolina governor’s plan is part of a set of social media reforms aimed at transparency — which she pushed during an appearance on Fox News — that has rankled some of her primary opponents.
“When I get into office, the first thing we have to do, social media accounts, social media companies, they have to show America their algorithms,” Haley said. “Let us see why they’re pushing what they’re pushing. The second thing is, every person on social media should be verified, by their name. That’s, first of all, it’s a national security threat. When you do that, all of a sudden, people have to stand by what they say. And it gets rid of the Russian bots, the Iranian bots and the Chinese bots. And then you’re going to get some civility when people know their name is next to what they say, and they know their pastor and their family members are going to see it.”
Take Ron DeSantis, another example, the current Florida Governor, with whom Haley has clawed into a two-way tie for a distant second place in Iowa and well past him in New Hampshire GOP polling.
DeSantis also proved you can be right and wrong at the same time. In his case, he and a bunch of conservatives devoid of historical knowledge blatantly abused examples of media anonymity by the authors of the Federalist Papers and others to seize - pounce - on a rare opportunity to pound the surging Haley.
There’s a lot to unpack in Haley’s broadside and DeSantis’ response.
First, anonymous media (loosely defined) has existed since ancient Mesopotamia, if not before. Yes, it was around at the founding of our nation, including by framers John Jay (first Supreme Court Chief Justice), James Madison (fourth President), and especially the prolific Alexander Hamilton (first Secretary of State). They famously wrote “The Federalist Papers” under the pen name Publius.
The purpose of The Federalist Papers - written after the War of Independence (no fear of censorship from King George III) and once the Constitutional Convention completed its work. Messrs. Jay, Madison, and Hamilton sought to foment public support for the new founding documents to replace the deeply flawed and unworkable Articles of Confederation that guided our country for nearly a decade.
They did not fear reprisal, censorship, or cancellation of their views. However, since they were all closely associated with the Constitutional Convention, they feared their ideas might be dismissed with their names attached. Also, they collaborated on some of the 85 papers published over a couple of years, and ratification of the Constitution was no forgone conclusion. It was barely ratified after a nearly three-year campaign.
Oh, and by the way, other anonymous accounts crafted “Anti-Federalist” Papers, including such names as “Federal Farmer” and “Centinel,” among others, fearful of a centralized and powerful federal government.
I wonder what they would think and say today. Perhaps Gov. DeSantis and other self-proclaimed conservatives should’ve mentioned Anti-Federalist Papers instead of the authors of our now-overbearing and intrusive government.
One of the most egregious examples is the anonymous writing of Mrs. Silence Dogood, beginning in 1722, who was a 16-year-old Benjamin Franklin. The Future Founder felt compelled to write anonymously for the New England Courant when its publisher - Franklin’s brother, James, refused to publish his younger brother’s works under his actual name. Dogood was making fun of colonial life, not fomenting independence from Great Britain or hawking a proposed Constitution. One America Network’s Liz Wheeler should spend less time hawking her book and more time in one, preferably on American history.
Second, at least one major social media outlet - Facebook - does not permit anonymous accounts (you can find ways to post anonymously). Every outlet - and there are dozens aside from X. Substack’s Notes, Reddit, Truth, MeWe, BlueSky, Gab, Mastodon, GETTR, Gab, USA.life, CloutHub, and others - each has its own rules under the large umbrella of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. They can avoid liability for things published so long as they stay true as a platform, not a publisher. Those lines aren’t entirely clear, and there’s much legislation and debate over how to do that. It’s an evolving space with significant First Amendment implications.
But someone forgot to tell pre-Elon Musk Twitter, which happily worked with federal government agencies to censor content our federal betters found unwelcome, whether so-called Covid-related “misinformation” or the suppression of the New York Post Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020.
Social media is how we predominantly communicate now. How a plurality (soon to be a majority) gets our news and information, engages in commerce, and so much more. Look for Congress to step in and regulate those companies, like utilities, under a new federal regulatory agency. It’s the American way.
Anonymous Accounts are Protected Speech, Sort of
Third, there’s nothing inherently wrong with anonymous accounts - my former Twitter account was anonymous for a while to insulate me from cancel culture vultures. When Musk purchased Twitter, given his promises to clean up the bot-infected site and expose and eliminate its left-wing bias and censorship, I became “real” again (@KHostages).
He still has a lot of work to do. In some ways, X has gotten worse. Read on.
And yes, anonymous accounts probably are protected, to a degree, from the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no laws. . .”). But there are limits, starting with the fact that the First Amendment may protect you but limits only the government. Experts also widely interpret it to focus on political speech, not other forms, such as commercial speech. It is why commercial speech - advertisements, labeling, etc. - are highly regulated by federal and state agencies, so long as there is a “substantial” government interest. In the food world, longstanding federal law requires the USDA and the FDA to regulate commercial speech so it is “truthful and non-misleading.”
Imagine giving that kind of power over political speech to a federal agency.
Some anonymous sites on social media are terrific. @AGHamilton, who also has a terrific Substack, is an outstanding center-right media critic. @EndWokeness is a favorite news aggregator on cultural issues. Others include @amuse, @foiafan, and a hilariously excellent A.I. photo site, "@Trump_history45.
Interestingly, the former free speech mavens in the media and The Left love to doxx and expose anonymous conservative accounts. Two good examples include meme creator @CarpeDonktum (Logan Cook) and @LibsofTikTok (Chaya Raichik). The latter was doxxed by a disreputable Washington Post technology writer and cyberbully, Taylor Lorenz. In both cases, they have embraced their doxxing and now operate popular online sites, such as this one.
Not Just About “National Security”
But, fourth, bots are a problem, not just over “national security.” Many are foreign-based and feature stolen, if not fake, photos and phony names and profiles, and exist basically to propagandize, scam, or steer you to their “Only Fans” porn pages.
The worst of the bots may not be those from China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. They may be based elsewhere, and they’re designed to draw you into online “relationships” and invest with them in crypto schemes with the intent to walk away with your life savings.
A prosecutor in Santa Clara County, California, Erin West, is making a career on such cases. It’s a scam called “pig butchering,” where primarily southeastern Asia scammers use romance scams to fatten up and slaughter the finances of the unsuspecting. X and LinkedIn are primary entry points that move to other personal chat apps like WhatsApp. It’s estimated to be a $1.3 billion annual business.
I encountered a phony airline customer service scam site via X while looking for a refund for a canceled flight to Tel Aviv in mid-October. They’re clever, insidious, and everywhere, and X is having difficulty keeping up. Red flags should fly high when scammers try to move the conversation away from a website to WhatsApp.
One of the more insidious and practical uses of anonymous accounts came about early in the Donald Trump Administration, especially after the 2017 Charlottesville fiasco. Trump had created an economic council of corporate CEOs, including the one I worked for. After the “good people on both sides” hoax was perpetrated by anti-Trump forces, anonymous organizations went to work to flood corporate offices with tens of thousands of largely phony email messages demanding they resign from Trump’s council. Led by Merck’s CEO, Ken Frazier, others feel quickly in line, often at the prompting of grifting political consultants.
I received some of those “messages.” They almost all looked the same. Different messages, but the same short, cryptic, one or two sentences, no identifying information other than a phony email, no return address or contact information. I suspected bots, but I could not prove it then, and our company was eager to escape the controversy.
Looking back, I have no doubt the campaign was largely manufactured.
Haley’s Real Sin: Sounding Like a Democrat
Gov. Haley’s political sin may have been falling into a trap usually occupied by thin-skinned members of The Left who despise effective anonymous accounts on the right. A recent example. Now-retired Lt. Col. (don’t forget the rank! He earned it!) Alexander Vindman, a perpetrator of the first Trump impeachment, was on (and is believed to have leaked) the infamous call between the then-US President and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump was accused of pressuring Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s family.
Vindman - whose “whistleblower” twin brother, Yevgeny, is running as a Democrat for Congress in northern Virginia - has peddled himself as a consultant to Ukrainian officials for a $12 million project that would US taxpayers have paid for. I’m guessing ten percent for the big guy. A classic grift.
Fast forward to a few days ago. Vindman retains celebrity status among never-Trumpers but didn’t like comments about him from an anonymous Substack account that operates under a pseudonym, Yuri Bezmenov, the long-deceased Soviet defector and propagandist. Vindman comically called on Canadian intelligence services to investigate the site, which is also a personal favorite of mine. The site’s author responded with his usual aplomb.
Haley’s sin was sounding like Vindman and other Democrats who don’t like conservative anonymous accounts and are happy to have the heavy hand of government intervene.
But she’s right about one thing: eliminating anonymous accounts would help clean up social media and improve civility. People find it easier to be nasty when they can hide behind a keyboard and a pseudonym. Just scroll through almost any X account, especially in the comments section. For sure, the intemperance will happen whether anonymous or not.
And then there are the plethora of posts celebrating the Hamas savagery on October 7th. At least Elon Musk has pledged to terminate accounts that promote genocide against any people.
But what counts as “advocating?” Participating in protests that defended or supported the 10/7 savagery? How about, “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free?” That is clearly articulated with the eradication of the state and people of Israel in mind.
And just in case you think this is protected under the First Amendment, you may want to consult an America’s New Majority Project poll (Newt Gingrich) recently conducted by GOP pollster John McLaughlin:
That’s interesting. Barely half think protesting Israel’s military response is protected under the First Amendment. Keep reading.
Lots here to digest. While I’m on board with much of this, a cautionary note: Don’t confuse free speech rights based on your views. That certainly explains, in part, our growing censorship culture. And while it may still apply predominantly to the censorious left and their festering cancel culture, lots of conservatives think that they can play this game, too. That’s troubling.
Gov. Haley issued a “clarifying” statement that said anonymous accounts were okay, but not foreign bots (phony accounts designed for nefarious purposes, including propaganda, malformation, and worse). The controversy is dying, but what conservatives see are discomforting totalitarian impulses. Haley:
It’s helpful to remember that we don’t have free speech rights everywhere in America. Not in private homes. Not in workplaces or schools and not on private social media platforms. It’s not okay anywhere to intimidate, threaten, or incite violence. We need a major national crash course on the First Amendment and its history before it’s too late.
As Mr Johnston says, lots to digest here.
First, I’m leery of any person or organization deciding what constitutes “intimidation, threats, incitement”, etc. The whole notion of “hate speech” is offensive, as it is necessarily not well defined; it’s purely subjective. As such, I would oppose any limits on public speech. Quite frankly, if a reader can’t tell the difference between “we should kill ___” and “I hate ___”, for instance, that reader should probably settle for romantic fiction instead. People can spout their hatred or ignorance all they like; those with more sense can ignore, correct, or expose them, but not shut them up.
Second, it makes no difference whether anyone writes anonymously; the point is to address the substance, not the author. Remember, even authors of legitimate, reasonable arguments can face recriminations and worse for expressing the “wrong” opinions, as determined by ... well, whom, exactly? Merrick Garland?
Third, requiring media platforms to monitor and perhaps censor speech turns them into enforcement agencies. Worse, untrained enforcement agencies — who directs them, who decides the procedures to be followed? Indirectly, some government entity is ordering them to do the dirty work of spying on and silencing citizens. That’s totally unacceptable in a supposedly free, constitutional republic with balanced, divided powers, and should be resisted with all our might.
Last, no legal regimen will ever guard effectively against vitriol, porn, or media fostered child abuse. Same as with predatory financial schemes — a scam is exposed, Congress acts, eventually, but by that time a new class of scammers has figured out new ways to cheat not covered by whatever the new rules are, while ordinary, legitimate businesses labor under a heavier burden of regulations. It’s nuts; delusional! Accept reality: only we ourselves are our own best guardians; nobody else has our interests at heart to the degree we do. Let the buyer beware!
Inside every rule-making do-gooder is a tyrant itching to impose his or her priorities on the rest of us. Don’t let them!
As an aside, I found that poll excerpt frustratingly misleading when it asked about “non-citizens”. Legal immigrants aren’t citizens, but have, and are certainly entitled to, the same protections as US citizens. The distinction isn’t whether or not they’re citizens, but whether or not they have a right to be here in the first place. Illegal aliens (they’re not “immigrants”; immigration is a legal process), by definition, don’t; they’re invaders, and have no rights whatsoever. The question was poorly worded, perhaps intentionally, to elicit a desired response. Ignore those replies.