alt.hn

2/14/2026 at 3:49:56 PM

Platforms bend over backward to help DHS censor ICE critics, advocates say

 https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/platforms-bend-over-backward-to-help-dhs-censor-ice-critics-advocates-say/

by pjmlp

2/14/2026 at 5:19:50 PM

What I find most interesting about this is that US tech companies are doing what people accuse China of doing.

In fact, theoretical Chinese informed was the entire (performative) justification for the Tiktok ban. The reality of course was that TikTok wouldn’t censor what the US government wanted to censor.

The irony is that these companies are sowing the seeds for their own destruction and the US government is undermining US tech dominance, which is a potent foreign policy tool.

I think Steve Jobs would be rolling over in his grave at Tim Cook’s capitalization. I once trusted Apple to be more user-forest than any other platform. Now? I think I’d trust Huawei more.

by jmyeet

2/14/2026 at 5:25:14 PM

At this point I think the biggest tangible difference between China and the US is that one country has high speed trains and affordable health care and the other has neither.

by kdheiwns

2/14/2026 at 5:46:25 PM

This kind of reductionist pithy comparison needs to stay on Reddit. Sure stuff is messed up here, but there are very real differences in both the degree and breadth of government abuse of power when you compare with China.

by XenophileJKO

2/14/2026 at 6:14:04 PM

Care to elaborate?

by srcreigh

2/14/2026 at 6:30:15 PM

As an American, I can freely oppose the current regime. I routinely say, both online and in real life under my government name, that Donald Trump and his cronies are criminals, that everyone should work hard to stop them from achieving their goals and ideally they should all get life sentences once we throw them out of office. I’ll never face legal or even professional consequences for saying this, and even within the most authoritarian regime in generations few officials argue that I should.

Unless I’ve been severely misinformed, someone saying similar things about Xi Jinping on a Chinese tech forum would be swiftly banned and likely arrested.

by SpicyLemonZest

2/14/2026 at 7:33:24 PM

The US regime allows its citizens to criticize politicians. That doesn't mean you are free to criticize those in power.

by srcreigh

2/14/2026 at 7:43:56 PM

Yes, actually, it means just that.

by CamperBob2

2/14/2026 at 6:51:39 PM

Buddy what article do you think you are currently commenting on?

by mrguyorama

2/14/2026 at 7:20:42 PM

I'm commenting on an article about an American advocacy group filing a lawsuit accusing high-ranking government officials of misconduct, another thing that similarly situated people in China cannot do. Again, happy to admit the possibility I could be wrong: are there cases I don't know about where Chinese citizens file lawsuits accusing the Ministry of State Security of misconduct?

The content of the lawsuit argues, correctly in my view, that American speech protections are so strong they go beyond mere criticism. American citizens have a right to publish detailed information about the location of government agents, even if this information makes law enforcement harder and even if the agents fear being tracked might be dangerous for them.

by SpicyLemonZest

2/14/2026 at 8:51:04 PM

Thank you. Your reply is more respectful than I earned.

On paper americans have all these rights, but surely you are seeing how the paper is not matching the reality in many ways, and very little is being done to fix that as tens of millions of americans outright support the paper being ignored, so how can you trust that disparity to not come for your paper rights to speak? Already those same courts you are relying on have thrown away real rights, and the administration itself flouts those same courts regularly.

Chinese citizens have a lot of rights on paper too, including right to freedom of expression. I would bet you could find occasional cases or situations in China where some lowly citizen "wins" against the government, as that always looks good, but that doesn't make it meaningful and I can't read or speak any Chinese languages to back up this suspicion.

It's only going to take one Supreme Court case to change the paper rights. Do you feel this supreme court has shown a preference for principles over administration?

by mrguyorama

2/15/2026 at 4:34:15 AM

I mostly don't agree that the paper isn't matching the reality. The Trump regime does a lot of terrible things, and works hard to create the impression that this means they're omnipotent and can do whatever terrible things they want to anyone who steps out of line, and I think it's entirely correct to be stressed and worried that one day they might be able to put that into practice. But today it's not so. A guy yelled to Trump's face that he's a pedophile protector last month (https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/ford-worker-keeping-job...), and Trump could not do anything in response other than impotently flip him off.

by SpicyLemonZest

2/16/2026 at 4:11:42 AM

Trump complained to Ford about it and they immediately suspended him without pay.

What protected him wasn't being in America - it's that he had a strong union. Which most Americans don't have.

by Schmerika

2/14/2026 at 5:28:53 PM

No one's murdering innocent citizens on the streets of China

by mktk1001

2/14/2026 at 6:32:28 PM

This is an especially hilarious comment given what happened in June 1989 [1].

It's the prototypical example of authoritarian crackdowns and mass slaughter of innocent protestors.

Discussion or even mention of it is still forbidden in China.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests...

by AnIrishDuck

2/15/2026 at 12:44:43 AM

Going back 35 years to point out a time when protestors were killed is always a strange thing to me. You can go back just a few weeks until you reach a point where the US killed protestors. Then there's stuff like the Black Lives Matter protests where the US government violently suppressed protests and people died/disappeared.

If 1989 is all a country has as a problem, then that's a sign it's doing great.

by kdheiwns

2/15/2026 at 2:02:04 AM

There are plenty of other more recent examples in this thread.

I was simply replying to the original statement that China doesn't kill protesters in the street. The notion is so risible that in hindsight it may well have been sarcasm or bait.

But, if you wish to expand the scope of this discussion, sure. There are several clear distinctions between the (horrible) events you list and what happened in Tiananmen Square.

The most obvious is that we are free to talk about them now. I submit that the Chinese state's continued censorship of the subject is a sign that (1) the state is still complicit in these crimes and (2) it is not "doing great".

The scale of brutality is also just incomparable. I say this fully agreeing the events you list were terrible. The horrors committed at Tiananmen Square were simply on another level.

by AnIrishDuck

2/14/2026 at 5:32:22 PM

No the murders happen in camps eg. What's happening to the Uyghurs.

That said, they also use them as slave labors.

Maybe that's what ICE is going to do with the plan to setup large detention centers in the US

by hasperdi

2/14/2026 at 7:30:01 PM

While it's correct to criticize China's authoritarian policies and lack of civic and religious freedoms that are often taken for granted here, it's still very much a pot-calling-the-kettle-black situation. The US's treatment, both historical and modern, of it's black, native, and immigrant populations have been just as or even more brutal than China's crackdown on Islamism. Mass incarceration and criminalization of the poorest sections of society in the US are at levels far beyond what exists in any other country in the world. Political corruption and nepotism have been normalized for decades, and the deep-seated culture of elite impunity is apparent in the total lack of consequences from the Epstein files. US citizens should not be wasting time criticizing other countries for problems our own country has yet to fix.

by t-3

2/14/2026 at 5:34:56 PM

Look up the "zero idleness" program at CECOT where the Trump administration is sending deportees.

by hypeatei

2/14/2026 at 6:20:32 PM

They've been successfully blocked (for now). No current deportees are headed there so far as I know. But they are busy trying to build the system right here at home.

ICE detention is already beginning to resemble the Salvadoran prison system.

Due process rights get violated. Detainees get shuttled around to different facilities to be lost in the system through engineered incompetence, making it difficult for legal counsel or family to find them, or even to know who has been taken. They subject them to torturous conditions, abuse, and often hold people who've committed no crimes for months.

They are thwarting oversight and defying court orders left and right. And they are trying to scale up like 10x+. And once they do, the detention system won't just be for immigrants. They are going to target anyone they want.

D's have successfully blocked DHS funding for now, but if they (or SCOTUS) allow any of this to go forward, things are likely to get far worse

by SmirkingRevenge

2/14/2026 at 4:36:59 PM

Including Apple. If it's that easy, how long do we really expect Advanced Data Protection to be free from government backdooring?

by amelius

2/14/2026 at 5:47:08 PM

>If it's that easy, how long do we really expect Advanced Data Protection to be free from government backdooring?

Taking down an app is hardly unprecedented. Forcing companies to add backdoors in secret is, so it's a stretch to think that ADP is compromised.

by gruez

2/14/2026 at 6:00:01 PM

> Forcing companies to add backdoors in secret is

We have precedent: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...

  Apple has since confirmed in a statement provided to Ars that the US federal government “prohibited” the company “from sharing any information,”

by bigyabai

2/15/2026 at 12:18:59 AM

To be fair, most apps are guarding against this now by having the push notifications contain just a wake-up signal, the app then wakes up and retrieves the real content.

by wolvoleo

2/14/2026 at 6:18:07 PM

"secretly sharing notification data" (ie. asking for records kept in the usual course of business[1]) is not the same as "forcing companies to add backdoors in secret"

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1732

by gruez

2/14/2026 at 7:50:48 PM

I think it's safe to assume that there's a Room 641A (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A) at every major US company that deals in communications. That said, there's no reason to think that ICE or local law enforcement get access to the data being collected. iCloud may be completely backdoored either way, but there's a big difference between the NSA and ICE in terms of what they care about going after and what capabilities they want publicly confirmed.

by autoexec

2/14/2026 at 6:29:43 PM

Thinking something is "unprecedented" is not an argument against it happening. Apple has surprised us before, I see no reason to expect ADP is any different.

by bigyabai

2/14/2026 at 6:53:23 PM

>Apple has surprised us before

It really isn't. The reason I used the specific wording for "records kept in the usual course of business" is that's the legal standard for subpoenable information. It shouldn't be surprising to any legal expert that it was fair game for the government to request. The only thing surprising is that we didn't know it specifically happened before, so it's only as "surprising" as chatgpt logs being subpoenaed. Yes, it's "surprising" for the people using chatgpt as their therapist and think it should have been protected, but ask any lawyer and they'll all agree it's fair game. On the other hand forcing apple to specifically insert a backdoor runs into all sorts of constitution/due process issues.

by gruez

2/15/2026 at 1:07:41 AM

Forcing companies to add backdoors in secret has been precedented for nearly a decade now.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/09/australia-thr...

> Technical Capability Notices (TCNs): TCNs are orders that require a company to build new capabilities that assist law enforcement agencies in accessing encrypted data. The Attorney-General must approve a TCN by confirming it is reasonable, proportionate, practical, and technically feasible.

by tremon

2/15/2026 at 12:34:28 AM

They recently started requiring you to set a safety person instead of just giving you a code to write down... Smells

by culi

2/14/2026 at 4:41:21 PM

Was it ever?

by dixie_land

2/14/2026 at 4:42:18 PM

The British Government believes it to be secure. That’s why they were asking for a back door.

by Tagbert

2/14/2026 at 5:09:13 PM

Brits: can we have access to the backdoor?

Apple: sure, but only if you pretend you didn't get access

Brits: jolly good

by amelius

2/14/2026 at 4:53:49 PM

Another way to interpret it is they think it's secure against the British Government, and were asking for the same back door the US has.

by eesmith

2/14/2026 at 6:41:38 PM

While they did did get a backdoor they did get Apple to withdraw the product from the UK so it no longer impedes mass suveillance.

by graemep

2/14/2026 at 5:57:22 PM

That only means that the UK government doesn’t have access to the backdoor.

by lambdasquirrel

2/14/2026 at 7:22:42 PM

Exactly they built one for the Chinese government. It's not if they have a back door it's who gets to use it

by dixie_land

2/14/2026 at 5:59:43 PM

according to the snowden documents it is quite obvious that if the US government had a backdoor then the UK government would have one through five eyes

by breppp

2/14/2026 at 7:21:09 PM

It’s possible that the back door already exists, and they already have it. So if they had conducted unlawful surveillance using these methods, then they may have to come up with some plausible explanation as to how they got that information legally. You could imagine a scenario where there is no plausible explanation for how the information could have been legally obtained. If they codify the use of the back door into law, then there is no need for all this theater.

One of my favorite conspiracy theories is that this is what the CIA Stargate program was. You don’t leak the existence of informants or satellites because you just got the information from “a psychic“.

by GorbachevyChase

2/14/2026 at 4:54:25 PM

It's just that the British Government doesn't have access to the backdoor whereas the American Government does have it. It's in no way secure.

by OutOfHere

2/14/2026 at 4:29:24 PM

What a surprise, IIRC in Hong Kong there was a platform that was fully decentralized. HK protesters used it on their phones during their uprising and China could not block it.

Maybe it is time people move to that. Sadly I forgot its name or where to get it. Of course the app stores could block that too.

There is always USENET I guess. I wonder if there are apps on Cell Phones that can access USENET and format the posts to work with the small screens. And of course reformat posts to comply to USENET formatting requirements (ie: wordwrap at Col 70).

by jmclnx

2/14/2026 at 4:35:16 PM

Bridgefy, Firechat, Bitchat and other bluetooth/wifi peer-to-peer SoMe's are great as long as you're enough people around. As long as you don't rely on one of the big tech app stores (or use an iPhone), it's not hard to get them even when the government is being tyrannical. It would be interesting to build something that would work over the various IoT networks which basically span all of Europe, but I guess that would be hard in countries where there are large areas of "nothing". It also depends on farmers choosing open source technology for their tech since you'd need a lot of farming IoT equipment to connect cross rural areas.

by Quothling

2/14/2026 at 4:38:23 PM

> It would be interesting to build something that would work over the various IoT networks which basically span all of Europe, but I guess that would be hard in countries where there are large areas of "nothing".

A portable device that could effortless hook up to the existing decentralized wireless networks would be even better, Freifunk covers large part of Germany, Guifi covers large parts of Spain, probably there are more somewhere else too, but AFAIK there is no portable device that lets you easily just connect and chat, still requires a bit of setup to participate.

by embedding-shape

2/14/2026 at 4:58:08 PM

A centralized platform with marginally cleverer cryptography can technically allow posts and comments to belong to a user, but not be traceable back to the user! When asked by the government who made a particular post or comment, it should not be possible for the platform to readily identify who made it. Of course the IP address should not be tracked either, certainly not beyond 1h. The logged in user would still be able to view and manage all of their posts and comments, also see responses, because they would have the cryptography key to do so. So what about spam and guardrail control -- one solution is to let AI classify it. Much more can be possible with cleverer uses of cryptography. In short, it is not formally necessary to switch to a decentralized or federated solution to address the anonymity issue.

by OutOfHere

2/15/2026 at 12:23:48 AM

Why not just set the author ID to null?

by pocksuppet

2/15/2026 at 4:34:33 PM

The issue with that is that the author won't be able to edit or delete the message at any time. These are useful requirements. On Reddit I sometimes edit a message after several years, so there shouldn't be a time limit either.

by OutOfHere

2/14/2026 at 5:50:35 PM

Anything that is P2P E2EE is hard to block by utilizing traditional measures. Personally I use and trust Tox. If you also want anonimity you can pair it with tor.

by Tha_14

2/14/2026 at 6:05:17 PM

All apple has to do is remove it from the app store. Doesn't matter how P2P or E2EE it is.

by malfist

2/14/2026 at 6:26:19 PM

> Of course the app stores could block that

That is the problem with technical solutions. Governments can ban them, or mandate on device scanning to monitor your usage.

by graemep

2/14/2026 at 4:33:21 PM

The Censorship-Industrial Complex is troubling no matter which party benefits.

by sys32768

2/14/2026 at 6:53:38 PM

Center/right voter here. I agree.

Add to the list of grievances social media platforms that include bot farms and organized political operatives. Also political activist celebrities.

All of these diminish the one person / one vote / one voice ideal.

by RickJWagner

2/14/2026 at 6:06:10 PM

[flagged]

by throwawaypath

2/14/2026 at 7:34:06 PM

So in the context of this topic about current events, let's ignore the extremists who aren't in power right now, avoiding the temptation to feel better from bashing an easy straw man. Then we can better focus on the extremists who are in power right now, driving and advancing censorship as we speak. Right?

by mindslight

2/14/2026 at 6:28:21 PM

[flagged]

by imperio59

2/14/2026 at 7:41:37 PM

Yes. During COVID so many opinions were censored, including the medical opinion of actual Medical doctors and experts, if it did not fit the "accepted narrative".

There was no "accepted narrative," as the public health sector was forced to deal with the rapid spread of a novel virus. Ultimately, a million Americans died prematurely from that virus.

Your side advocated the use of horse dewormer and bleach. So, when the rest of us told you to pipe down, that could be considered an immune response in itself. Nothing personal, you understand.

by CamperBob2

2/15/2026 at 1:28:29 AM

They say, "actual medical doctors and experts," well, call me too skeptical, but claiming that demons inseminate people in the night really calls their other medical opinions into question.

Dr. Demon Semen (who agrees with them) is a medical expert we are dismissing unfairly. 99.9% of climate scientists (who disagree with them) are quacks. Just more regular doublethink in action.

It is so funny how they hypocritically whine about "the narrative." They somehow don't remember the whiplash switching from all-in on hydroxychloroquine to all-in on ivermectin. Happened nearly instantly when their far-right grifters figured out which of those two drug would turn a profit.

by plagiarist

2/15/2026 at 1:32:43 AM

...but claiming that demons inseminate people in the night really calls their other medical opinions into question.

Very true. And for those who have no idea who you're talking about, this is who you're talking about: https://www.yahoo.com/news/stella-immanuel-theories-relation...

When someone like the OP refers to the "established narrative" or "accepted narrative", it should be recognized as a shibboleth of stupidity, indicating exactly where they're coming from.

by CamperBob2

2/14/2026 at 5:04:56 PM

> Unless there’s proof of incitement to violence or a true threat, such expression is protected.

AFAIK the bar is even higher - incitement to violence is allowed, as long as it's not 'imminent': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action

by like_any_other

2/14/2026 at 5:27:06 PM

The bar in the US right now seems to be if someone with any authority feels like killing you.

by HighGoldstein

2/14/2026 at 6:55:37 PM

[flagged]

by RickJWagner

2/14/2026 at 7:26:11 PM

> nobody has been killed that wasn’t carrying a gun with extra ammo or striking cops with their vehicle.

The video evidence shows beyond peradventure that Renee Good didn't strike the ICE agent — who isn't a cop — with her vehicle.

EDIT: See the NY Times's frame-by-frame, time-synchronized compilation of the various videos [0], especially starting at about 3:42 in that video [1].

The agent wasn't hit by Good's vehicle - starting at 4:53 of the video [2], he was standing well away from her vehicle (see 5:42 [3]), leaning on it with his hand on the front fender, and his feet slipped as she was trying to pull away.

He wasn't hit or run over — at most he was slightly pushed by the vehicle. His reaction — "fucking bitch" [4].

As to Alex Pretti: You're focusing like a laser on a fact — if such it be — that's completely irrelevant.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9R9dAmws6M And yes, I firmly believe the NY Times tries to get it right, and corrects their errors on the rare occasions that they make them.

[1] https://youtu.be/D9R9dAmws6M?si=hqGlX9J0Iwpveqwu&t=222

[2] https://youtu.be/D9R9dAmws6M?si=UKhDNxdXaCFhvdr0&t=293

[3] https://youtu.be/D9R9dAmws6M?si=7WNCsHcPm7b6ycJ-&t=334

[4] https://youtu.be/D9R9dAmws6M?si=RiHOgMrJGxgqmq_8&t=389

by dctoedt

2/14/2026 at 7:39:48 PM

> The video evidence shows beyond peradventure that Renee Good didn't strike an ICE agent

Let's not get caught up arguing about the play-by-play details. There will always be rabid disagreement regardless of merit, causing us to miss the crux of the matter. The important big-picture dynamic is that the agent set up the situation so he'd have an excuse to kill the next person who tried to drive away from him, directly contrary to ICE's own policies. That would be second degree murder, if the perp weren't a member of a protected class.

by mindslight

2/14/2026 at 10:58:09 PM

[flagged]

by RickJWagner

2/14/2026 at 11:34:31 PM

> Struck the ICE agent with her car

One of the above comments gives a pretty clear cut showcase of how this is not, in fact, a fact.

> I think they both contributed to the tragedy.

"Between me and Jeff Bezos we are worth several hundred billion dollars". The ICE agent contributed the bullets that made this a tragedy, the victim contributed not following the orders of people who are not police officers, I'd say it's not much of a "both" situation.

> Nobody protesting peacefully gets shot.

At least one person already has, but something tells me you'll just move the goalpost of what "peacefully" means.

by HighGoldstein

2/15/2026 at 2:10:16 AM

Sure, sure.

Use your car to block armed federal agents from doing their job. When they give you instructions, ignore them and taunt them. When they come to take you out of your vehicle, drive your vehicle at them as you try to get away.

Sorry, that’s just not peaceful protesting. That’s putting lives in danger, obviously including your own.

There is blood on the hands of the people encouraging such behavior. MLK showed us that peaceful protest is effective protest. Vehicular assault protest is dangerous and illegal protest.

by RickJWagner

2/15/2026 at 11:39:30 AM

> Vehicular assault protest is dangerous and illegal protest.

You need to watch the video compilation linked to above. It wasn't anything resembling "vehicular assault protest" — it was a woman trying to verrrry slowwwwly drive away and an armed ICE agent shooting her when his feet slipped.

by dctoedt

2/15/2026 at 12:36:27 AM

It's a peculiar type of insanity to insist that it is the responsibility of everyday citizens to react perfectly calmly and rationally while being assaulted by armed agents of the state (themselves often acting impulsively and aggressively), and to then justify people being summarily executed when they inevitably do not.

Furthermore, it's disingenuous to talk about "unlawful behavior" while skipping over the federal government violating the much deeper laws that were explicitly written into its charter. If you want to keep closing your eyes to what is plainly in front of you, that is on you.

by mindslight

2/15/2026 at 2:01:10 AM

What I find insane is that people are going completely bonkers over Trump using ICE, but they didn’t say a word about Obamas use of ICE. The ACLU wrote plenty about what Obama did, but the protesters don’t seem to know about it.

Maybe if they disavowed Obama, and treated him like a pariah, then you might think they only recently became aware of what was going on. They’d be acting with integrity. But I don’t see that.

That’s what looks crazy to me.

by RickJWagner

2/15/2026 at 3:05:41 AM

When you put it that way, it makes it sound like you're okay with the federal government (no matter who's in charge) having gangs of masked men kidnapping people off the streets.

by fragmede

2/15/2026 at 1:21:35 PM

The agents are enforcing laws passed by congress. They did it under Obama, they do it under Trump.

How else should they compel people to leave the country? If there was a better way, I’m sure any president would use it.

by RickJWagner

2/15/2026 at 5:33:33 PM

You keep focusing on these small slices of the issue where you can go A+B->C "yup looks good!". Meanwhile the larger context here is exactly what's important.

Personally I'm basically ambivalent about deporting illegal immigrants. I am NOT ambivalent about the first amendment, the second amendment, abducting citizens/legal immigrants, due process and coercion, inhumane conditions, an administration that doesn't respect the loss of American life, an administration that continues to announce that their goal is to deport many more people than merely illegal immigrants, etc.

I thought Obama was running/supporting an inhumane machine as well, although I was both-sidesing at the time so I didn't see a political lever that could be pulled to affect it. But has it occurred to you that even if you consider the net actions the same, fewer people protested Obama precisely because Obama could sell those policies by engendering trust and demonstrating respect for at least some traditional American values?

by mindslight

2/15/2026 at 9:39:02 PM

I respect your integrity if you are willing to condemn Obama as well as Trump.

I think one side is just more likely to protest. Since Trump’s been in office, there have been numerous protests: the Women’s March ( complete with pink hats ), No Kings protests, anti-ICE protests, etc. Wikipedia has a page for them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_Donald_Trump

Meanwhile, the other side had one notable protest, J6, that was confined to Washington DC.

Why is that? I think it’s a combination of party demographics, party operative strategies, and an imbalance in Karen count ( maybe that’s part of demographics ).

If Vance succeeds Trump, we’ll see if your theory is better. He hasn’t engaged in Trump’s childish ( yet politically effective ) manner, so if Vance protests erupt I’ll feel my ideas seem more likely valid.

Edit: this New Republic article makes some of the points for my argument. https://newrepublic.com/article/205820/left-protests-hyperpo...

by RickJWagner

2/15/2026 at 10:44:01 PM

It sounds like you just don't like protests?

Of course it is going to seem like everyone is unprincipled when you assume that to start. It's taken us what, three comments here for you to admit to yourself that I'm coming from a principled place? Three comments of you writing off everything I am saying as if I am only saying it in bad faith to try and manipulate you, rather than as part of some consistent worldview that might help explain all of the opposition you see.

And then even after that, rather than accepting it and maybe seeing that some productive understanding could be had, you launched right back into firing off a bunch of wild partisan assertions - presumably hoping that I won't continue to walk the principled tightrope as perfectly, and you can go back to writing me off!

I'll be first in line to criticize how pathetically captured the Democratic party is. I'm not and never have been a Democrat - I just begrudgingly vote conservative now that open fascism is upon us. The Democrats thought they could phone it in in 2024, just like they were able to do in 2020. Their current strategy seems to be pointing out "this is really bad!", but never sticking with it to make a solid stand - just the occasional glimmer of inspired opposition, that is then left to sputter out. Lazily hoping that in 2026/2028 things can somehow go back to business as usual. I actually think the appalling lack of any sort of discussions about how we can possibly rebuild all of our societal institutions that Trump has burnt down is one of the most appalling things about our current situation.

by mindslight

2/16/2026 at 12:09:56 AM

[dead]

by KeepOnTopic

2/15/2026 at 8:13:55 PM

The top-right video of your first link, at the 47-55 second time mark, literally shows her car hitting him.

by like_any_other

2/15/2026 at 8:23:16 PM

That's not how it looks to me. Her vehicle seems to come close and might even touch the agent's leg — maybe (the narration says no). But "hitting him" doesn't seem to be a reasonable way to describe it, even granting that the video clip is in slow motion.

https://youtu.be/D9R9dAmws6M?si=xdxZIHQGODS9fB3e&t=323

by dctoedt

2/15/2026 at 8:45:39 PM

The agent was leaning significantly forward, and suddenly acquired backwards momentum just when the car got close, despite his center of mass being in front of his feet. The only way he could move like that was by getting hit by the car.

by like_any_other

2/15/2026 at 8:54:04 PM

> The only way he could move like that was by getting hit by the car.

He had a hand braced on the left-front fender and was leaning against it, with his feet maybe a yard away — apparently on icy pavement. The vehicle could well have pushed him as it moved; that's not the same as hitting him.

by dctoedt

2/15/2026 at 10:36:47 PM

So she rapidly accelerated at him, and her car pushed him away, either by hitting his torso or his arm. And that in the 1-2 seconds the agent had to figure out her actions and intent, he arguably made the wrong call, is rephrased as:

"Speech is disallowed if someone with any authority feels like killing you"

by like_any_other

2/15/2026 at 10:41:50 PM

You’re seeing what you want to see.

by dctoedt

2/14/2026 at 7:43:05 PM

[flagged]

by simianparrot

2/14/2026 at 8:26:21 PM

See my edited comment, with a link to the NY Times's frame-by-frame, time-synced compilation of various video angles. She didn't run over him or even hit him.

by dctoedt

2/14/2026 at 8:51:19 PM

They don't care

Nazi sympathizers don't care about facts

by hackable_sand

2/14/2026 at 9:08:53 PM

I know. But being nasty to (him?) would just make it that much less likely that he’d ever see things in a different light someday.

by dctoedt

2/15/2026 at 4:49:57 AM

That day is right now

There are no second chances

by hackable_sand

2/15/2026 at 2:01:00 AM

The only thing that seems to change minds is when it happens to them or their family.

by plagiarist

2/15/2026 at 8:53:39 PM

It only takes that to be a «nazi» sympathiser huh. And my comment flagged. You might need to go read up on what the nazis were like. I’m in Europe. We _really_ know what the nazis were like — they occupied my country. I live in a street named after resistance fighters who died fighting them. You’re extremely naive and disrespectful of the victims of the nazis.

by simianparrot

2/14/2026 at 6:19:11 PM

> Advocacy of force or criminal activity does not receive First Amendment protections if (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and (2) is likely to incite or produce such action.

You'd need to say something which directs others to violate the law or commit acts of violence, at a specific time ("imminent"), and your statement must be likely to be effective at causing them to do so.

Protesting, encouraging others to protest, expressing your political beliefs, organizing a protest, etc. are not incitement to violence. Nor is "doxxing" (filming, identifying) a public employee. None of these activities satisfy those criteria.

Remember the "Twitter files" nonsense? I recall they were upset at the government influencing the expression of political views on social media. Not hearing much backlash about this from the same people, because this is what they were claiming, but 100x worse.

by electrondood

2/14/2026 at 4:26:41 PM

All the tech ceos are on the trump train this time around, it was a specific strategy of the trump campaign. Using words like “caved” as though they were pressured and not already aligned with the government is a disservice.

by tehjoker

2/14/2026 at 4:34:35 PM

I interpret ‘caved’ in this context to mean they’re not gaining much in return - they make a loss by doing this, just they make an even bigger loss if they were targets of a Trump tantrum.

by michaelt

2/14/2026 at 6:16:02 PM

Judging by the financial reports they don't make any loss doing this, quite the opposite. Let's not weep where no weeping is due.

by soco

2/14/2026 at 4:43:01 PM

That’s fair, I don’t think the CEOs are fully aligned culturally with Trump but they are sick of pretending to be liberals that care about other people and they want to make more money.

by tehjoker

2/14/2026 at 5:44:14 PM

> I don’t think the CEOs are fully aligned culturally with Trump

Does it matter? If all their actions are in support of a regime, does it matter if they secretly don’t agree with it and don’t even say it? Does it matter that your neighbour says they don’t agree with ICE of they still rat you out to them? Ideologies without action aren’t worth much. At this point, we should assume these CEOs are fully on board with and support Trump’s policies. There’s no reason to make up excuses that they might not be when they repeatedly demonstrate the opposite.

by latexr

2/14/2026 at 6:03:41 PM

In the Nuremberg trails I doubt "but I secretly didn't believe we should kill all the Jews" would have passed muster.

by malfist

2/14/2026 at 4:47:25 PM

Depends on who you mean. Some of them are nodding and smiling while they count the days until Trump dies. Some of them are “pilled” and totally on board.

by api

2/14/2026 at 5:52:25 PM

And ultimately the consequences of both group is the same. The only way to get rid of fascism is to fight against it, there is no "neutral" position possible unfortunately.

by embedding-shape

2/14/2026 at 7:56:24 PM

I agree. I’m just saying that public companies have less power against the state than you think they do.

by api

2/14/2026 at 11:07:07 PM

We're not talking about public companies being "fully aligned culturally" or not though, we're talking about individuals who have as much choice as everyone else, if not more, to align themselves or not.

by embedding-shape

2/14/2026 at 5:54:29 PM

May shame and disgrace follow them for the rest of their lives.

Having been around for a while, to go from optimistic, but sort of naive techno-libertarianism that was once a thing in Silicon Valley to kissing up to a would-be authoritarian is a very sad arc.

by davidw

2/14/2026 at 5:10:13 PM

They know what they are doing. To survive as a large entity during this administration you have to kiss the ring. If you don't, you'll get targeted for being 'woke' or whatever. In fact, kissing Trump's ass is more important for success than actually making a good product at this point.

I definitely don't think what these CEOs are doing is moral, but it's certainly rational.

by yoyohello13

2/14/2026 at 5:55:41 PM

Kissing up to the bully just means they come back to extort you for more the next time. I don't think it's even rational behavior.

by davidw

2/14/2026 at 7:03:19 PM

The shareholders don’t care. Yet another example in the long list of late stage capitalism problems.

The only thing these executives are allowed to care about is money & profit. If Trump is able to unilaterally threaten those profits (via tariffs or other regulations), obviously the executives have to respond to that.

Plus, Trump has proven to be extremely receptive to farcical “bribes” — just look at the “FIFA peace prize.” It doesn’t take much to placate his ego.

So the rational, easy path through for the executives is to get with the program and play nice with Trump.

Are they spineless cowards? Sure, but since when does capitalism and shareholders incentivize anything else?

by anon7000

2/14/2026 at 5:57:48 PM

No, the matter of fact is that Apple would survive no matter what. But would they (the people involved, not the company, Cook & other executives) make as much money if they went against the administration compared to how much they could make while playing along? Also no, and is why you're seeing people bowing down, they personally make much more money then.

by embedding-shape

2/14/2026 at 7:05:47 PM

Survive was probably too strong a word. But I stand by my point that, right now, business success is closely tied to how much Trump likes you.

by yoyohello13

2/14/2026 at 7:24:53 PM

> business success is closely tied to how much Trump likes you

And I'd still make the same point I've done so many times before; sometimes maybe there are more important things than "business makes much money so I make much money".

by embedding-shape

2/14/2026 at 8:16:21 PM

Yes 100%! I’m not saying I condone or agree with what’s happening. Just pointing out the reality.

by yoyohello13

2/14/2026 at 11:43:57 PM

> Just pointing out the reality

I'm just disagreeing with that "To survive as a large entity during this administration you have to kiss the ring" is actually the reality. The reality as I see it is that individuals want to make money, lots of money, and authoritarianism is more favorable for that.

They'll still make lots of money if they fight against it. But they'll make less.

by embedding-shape

2/14/2026 at 5:33:14 PM

This is unacceptable behavior, and terrible that anyone would think this way. You're telling me that if Tim Cook wasn't getting on his knees every couple of weeks Apple would end? That's farcical.

by scblock

2/14/2026 at 7:09:55 PM

You should watch this video: https://youtu.be/RPzcGeiNYvk

And it IS farcical! I mean, look at the FIFA “peace prize.” They literally invented it to give to Trump because he was threatening US World Cup matches. What’s farcical is that this behavior actually apparently works on the president.

by anon7000

2/15/2026 at 2:06:59 AM

Well, he is a demented nitwit with a giant ego who loves ostentatiously tacky gold-plated objects. You wouldn't be surprised if a crow traded you something for a bottlecap. The crow is smarter.

by plagiarist

2/14/2026 at 6:32:17 PM

> You're telling me that if Tim Cook wasn't getting on his knees every couple of weeks Apple would end? That's farcical.

I think that a 30%, 64% or 145% tax on Chinese imports would be a huge blow for a $400 billion business importing Chinese-made phones.

And Trump can impose such taxes (and grant exemptions from them) at will, apparently.

by michaelt

2/14/2026 at 7:03:39 PM

Is it? You think if Tim Cook took a stand and said no to Trump there wouldn’t all of a sudden be a rush of new tarriffs/lawsuits? I’m not so sure.

by yoyohello13

2/14/2026 at 7:12:49 PM

As an anecdote, a few days ago Kagi's Research (Experimental) model had no problem generating critical images of Trump and Vance. But yesterday it expressly refused to generate the likeness of Pam Bondi.

(This is surely the underlying component models' censuring, not Kagi's.)

by treetalker

2/14/2026 at 9:23:58 PM

That’s anecdotal evidence demonstrating the wonders of simple probability. There’s so much opacity to refusals that claims like this (currently) can’t have enough rigor to be used to make an argument.

To strongly make the claim you’re making you’d have had to perform extensive before/after tests to be able to compare.

That said - the lack of transparency that’s making you feel uncomfortable with this whole thing, that is concerning.

by cadamsdotcom

2/14/2026 at 11:20:31 PM

I don't disagree. Like I said, just an anecdote.

I'm curious to have other Kagi subscribers try it out to see what can and cannot be done.

by treetalker

2/14/2026 at 8:31:00 PM

They can use AI to generate images of and mock protestors crying while being arrested, but you can't use AI to mock them. Nice.

by morkalork

2/15/2026 at 11:10:12 AM

Why are we expecting businesses to act against the interests of the entities that allow them to operate?

by ozlikethewizard

2/15/2026 at 1:28:53 AM

Gotta demonstrate loyalty to the king

by Havoc

2/14/2026 at 5:05:44 PM

Careful before trusting that any of the quotes in this article are real! Default assumption should be that it's all hallucinated unless you've checked it personally. They don't check it in-house.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47013059

by arduanika

2/14/2026 at 5:47:43 PM

Now I experience doubt when I read this article whether the journalist actually interviewed anybody, or just cut and pasted ChatGPT.

by trollbridge

2/14/2026 at 6:04:45 PM

This comment is getting downvoted because it didn’t provide context: Are Technica was caught sharing hallucinated quotes from someone yesterday and they quietly deleted the article when caught: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47013059

by Aurornis

2/15/2026 at 1:57:07 PM

Right. I just now have nagging doubt from yet another other formerly credible journalistic outlet that any of it’s real.

by trollbridge

2/14/2026 at 5:53:42 PM

Welcome to Slopworld.

by FeteCommuniste

2/14/2026 at 4:14:54 PM

I thought Republicans were for small government and were anti-censorship.

by tjpnz

2/14/2026 at 4:29:07 PM

They were also supposed to be for state’s rights.

My entire life it’s been about nothing more than domination of the “immoral” and the end justifies any means when the alternative is someone else winning the vote.

They are the people the phrase “there is no hate like Christian love” is referring to.

by kayodelycaon

2/14/2026 at 4:19:52 PM

Turned out they just were the selfish assholes everyone always said they were, with everything they say just being poor attempts at rationalization of their deep lack of morals, including their self-serving primitive religion.

by dsabanin

2/14/2026 at 5:29:59 PM

> I thought Republicans were for small government and were anti-censorship.

They are against very specific parts of big government and censorship

by HighGoldstein

2/14/2026 at 6:42:46 PM

They're for small government and anti-censorship in the same way they are for "secure elections". An election is secure when they win. It's fraudulent when they lose.

Republicans today are far-right extremists straight out of an authoritarian regime, operating within the friend-enemy mode of politics ("everything for my friends, the law for my enemies"). And the project is to preserve this hierarchy with themselves at the top.

https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/your-comprehensive-guide-to-...

> The far right is animated by the revolutionary project of reconfiguring society along the exclusionary or hierarchical lines patterned after a “divine” or “natural” order. Far-right figures envision societies organized through hierarchies—whether racial, ethnic, religious, or ideological. They aspire to deploy state power to defend the “true people” (sometimes called the Volk), who often already occupy the top rungs of society, from a constellation of perceived enemies or from relative or outright disempowerment. The far-right ideal is a homogeneous society, and that ideal is diametrically opposed to a liberal, pluralistic order. The far right believes that liberal pluralism represents a dangerous and unprecedented upheaval of the natural order. The far right blames most or all social problems on that upheaval—that is, on liberalism. Instead of seeing social order as emerging from the interactions of many diverse persons and groups cooperating in a polycentric system, the far right believes a homogeneous order must be imposed—and imposed in a holistic fashion, incorporating all forms of social interaction, from the structure of the nation-state to the most intimate relationships in the home.

> The far right’s commitment to freedom extends only to the “true people,” whose values align with far-right goals. This is an exclusionary conception of freedom, entirely contraposed to a neutral rule of law. Generally for the far right, discussion and deliberation are denigrated in favor of authoritarianism and “decisive action,” although the far right will also frequently invoke values like “freedom of speech” to exert pressure on discourse communities to welcome its ideas and rhetoric (see Why do far-right groups often talk about “freedom”?).

by SmirkingRevenge

2/14/2026 at 5:27:00 PM

Remember, it’s only censorship if they block what I want to say, if the block what I don’t like it’s for the greater good

by croes

2/15/2026 at 12:51:06 AM

Republicans and Democrats. Both in the Epstein Files.

by balls187

2/14/2026 at 4:44:19 PM

I mean obviously they never were. I think what really surprised people is that it turns out that despite it's supposed "libertarian" roots, the tech community has largely broken hard right authoritarian when the rubber hits the road. Kind of reinforcing the old adage that libertarians are just republicans who want to legally smoke weed.

by fanatic2pope

2/14/2026 at 5:08:30 PM

[flagged]

by like_any_other

2/14/2026 at 5:27:15 PM

That was almost 7 years ago, the world was in a very different place back then.

by OKRainbowKid

2/14/2026 at 5:33:41 PM

Those policies are still in place, as far as I know, so why the past tense?

by like_any_other

2/14/2026 at 5:27:53 PM

It's not 2019 any more.

by 1986

2/14/2026 at 4:42:06 PM

This is why the both sides argument is frustrating to hear.

Yes. Both sides censor people. I'm sure we'll see a comment about Biden censoring anti covid vaccine posts and the poster is somewhat right.

The difference is the Republicans run on freedom of speech making them hypocrites.

Being a hypocrite is the worst attribute a politician can have in a representative democracy

by Braxton1980

2/14/2026 at 5:18:26 PM

I'm not sure it's the worst attribute you can have, but I definitely agree with the sentiment.

As I've gotten older, I've become less fond of slippery slope style arguments. People love making them for censorship-related rules and laws.

"Oh if <biden> is allowed to ask/tell social media to stop publishing so many lies about covid then that means trump will be able to <whatever>"

First of all, trump and his ilk are probably going to do <whatever> regardless of what people did in the past and the technical legality of the actions seems to be of only minor concern.

Secondly, I hate this idea that laws and rules can't have nuances. We can, with our collective brain power, probably come up with a law that helps reduce covid lies and doesn't also apply to government criticism or whatever.

I get the appeal of a simple "all speech is free! No laws about speech allowed!" But fairly obviously you're going to have laws about fraud/threats/slander/"porn" at which point we're back to nuances and deciding which bits we allow and where.

As for modern republicans, I'm not old enough to have ever believed their states rights/small gov/freedom lies, but I thought I could at least count on them to be anti-russia invading other countries.

by wredcoll

2/14/2026 at 4:37:26 PM

No, that's just the nonsense they say to hide their bigotry/fascism focused goals.

by JCattheATM

2/14/2026 at 4:45:49 PM

[flagged]

by co_king_4

2/14/2026 at 4:56:27 PM

[dead]

by jalapenoj

2/14/2026 at 5:15:47 PM

[flagged]

by somenameforme

2/14/2026 at 6:04:06 PM

Are we not allowed to know where cops are operating? I would support all US cops and ICE and any other state sponsored authority to wear GPS and body cameras at all times.

by AngryData

2/15/2026 at 8:22:43 AM

Do you not feel you'd just be creating a utopia for criminals? You could take that data and create a program to show, amongst other things, minimum response time by area greatly facilitating crime. And then of course you'd also be essentially ending any undercover operations which are very important for breaking up criminal organizations.

I'm fully on board with bad apples in the police being held accountable, but I'm not sure this sort of idea that you're proposing would accomplish much beyond greatly easing crime and criminality.

by somenameforme

2/15/2026 at 7:08:17 PM

Any criminals with more than a single brain cell already know what cop response times are in their area. In the 60s-90s everybody had police scanners and cops talked over open radio about their locations and calls but crime still dropped massively in that time.

We already live in the safest time in the last few hundred years atleast, if not of all human history, all these fears about rampant crime are unfounded. And most crimes are committed by people you already know. Hell the biggest source of theft in the US, which dwarfs all other forms of theft combined, is employer wage theft. The cops deserve no trust because they have spent the last 6+ decades doing everything possible to militarize and become more draconian while extorting the poorest of society for fines and funding. Civil forfeiture laws are still abused on the daily and the entire US population knows it. Trust is earned, not given, and US cops and courts have done everything possible to destroy any trust between them and average citizens.

Maybe if I could trust that being executed on the side of a road by a cop in full view of the public and on camera would result in them going to jail people might support them having a bit of leeway, but they have repeatedly destroyed that notion. Cops are a far bigger threat to me than any petty criminals, most criminals were driven to crime through desperation so I can atleast sympathize with some of them. I have yet to meet a cop that wasn't a complete and utter asshole looking for any excuse to arrest or harass me or others around me.

by AngryData

2/16/2026 at 2:55:52 AM

Crime rates were substantially lower in the 50s, and prior, than they are today. The narrative about collapsing crime relies on starting sampling near the 60s at which point crime started exponentially skyrocketing, peaking at the 90s - where we hit the highest rates seen in modern history. The collapse of crime starting around that era correlates with an exponential rise in incarceration. In 1960 something like 400k Americans were imprisoned. Today it's around 2 million with the US having the highest incarceration rate in the entire world.

Similarly, the idea that crime is mostly by people you know is driven by another falsehood. That is only when the relationship between the victim and offender is known. The wide majority of crime has an offender that was either unknown to to the victim, or "relationship unknown." And the total number of cases of people killed by police who were not instigating physical resistance or aggression towards them is very near zero. There have been some really egregious cases, but they are very far and few between.

And yeah the 'cop personality' is pretty common, because it's cultivated in the training. They are going after the sort of people you probably don't even know exist, certainly not in the quantities that they do - especially with this image of reasonably people driven to desperation you've built up in your mind. These people will take any sign of hesitation or weakness as something to exploit. The 'cop personality' is a tool to help them do their job, even moreso than the tools on their belt.

by somenameforme

2/14/2026 at 5:31:17 PM

They are both fully legal.

by oceansky

2/14/2026 at 5:43:02 PM

That's, at the minimum, debatable. The primary point of people reporting on the location if ICE agents is to enable other people to evade or interfere with law enforcement. And that walks right into the illegal zone in various ways - accessory, obstruction, interference, aiding and abetting, and so on.

by somenameforme

2/14/2026 at 5:55:19 PM

Pointing out police checkpoints aren't illegal. Waze is partially based on that.

by oceansky

2/14/2026 at 8:40:54 PM

It really isn't debatable. You aren't responsible for what other people do with information you give them. If someone told you "I'm going to commit a crime, tell me if the police are nearby" it would be probably illegal to tell them (as furtherance to a conspiracy), but without an agreement to help commit an illegal act it's totally legal

by adgjlsfhk1

2/15/2026 at 7:09:27 AM

No agreement is necessary under law, only knowledge of an illegal activity and an intent to help it succeed. Agreements just tack on new charges like criminal conspiracy. This is why the peer comment about Waze is interesting. They likely have a fairly strong argument that it's simply sharing publicly available information - which is of course 100% legal, while I think ICEBlock will likely lose a very open and shut case because it's entire purpose is to facilitate the evasion or disruption of law enforcement.

I expect the government is probably thrilled to get sued by ICEBlock precisely because of this. It's probably about as favorable a case as they could ever find, and ICEBlock losing will set a highly useful (from the government's perspective) legal precedent which will then probably be weaponized to go after stuff like Waze.

by somenameforme

2/14/2026 at 4:32:16 PM

That'd be the Libertarian Party

by __s

2/14/2026 at 5:50:25 PM

It's not hard to find similar dunks for the other side, eg. "I thought Democrats were for bodily autonomy" (with regards to vaccine mandates/passports) or "I thought liberals were for free speech" (with regards to cancel culture).

by gruez

2/14/2026 at 6:59:00 PM

No side is perfect, but contrary to popular misconception, Democrats/liberals have generally been much better when it comes to restrictions on state power and support for civil liberties.

Until the COVID-conspiracism came around, vaccine mandates had been supported by a massive bi-partisan consensus - for decades - because they make sense. Just take a look at this article on The Federalist of all places, from 2015: https://thefederalist.com/2015/02/03/the-insane-vaccine-deba...

> Fundamentally, the protection against life-threatening plague is one of the original reasons government exists. We’ve had mandatory vaccines for schoolchildren in America since before the Emancipation Proclamation. The Supreme Court has upheld that practice as constitutional for over a century, and only the political fringes believe there ought to be a debate about such matters. This is one of the few areas where government necessarily exercises power.

> You shouldn’t be compelled to vaccinate your child, but neither should the rest of us be compelled to pretend like you did.

> It’s the failure to deal with those consequences that frustrates me about this debate. If you choose to not vaccinate your children, that is your choice. In the absence of an immediate threat, such as a life-threatening plague or outbreak, the state doesn’t have a compelling reason to administer that vaccination by force or to infringe on your rights. But that doesn’t mean there are no tradeoffs for such a decision. If you choose not to vaccinate, private and public institutions should be able to discriminate on that basis.

by SmirkingRevenge

2/15/2026 at 2:30:32 AM

Damn I am nostalgic for a time when it was just a few delusional new-age nutjobs who were trying to kill their children and expose everyone around them to preventable deadly illnesses.

Sometimes I like to look up the stuff people are throwing a little fit about.

> On November 4, 2021, OSHA released an emergency temporary standard (ETS) that generally requires private employers with 100 or more employees to establish and enforce a policy that either (1) requires all employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccination, subject to legally required exceptions; or (2) requires employees to receive either a COVID-19 vaccination or provide proof of regular COVID-19 testing and wear a face covering when indoors or occupying a vehicle with another person.

Looks like it was private companies' choice whether or not to allow face covering and regular testing in lieu of a vaccine. Requiring masks indoors during a global pandemic. The comparison to women being denied medical care was and is still offensive.

by plagiarist

2/14/2026 at 6:14:40 PM

>"I thought Democrats were for bodily autonomy" (with regards to vaccine mandates/passports)

The liberal position on bodily autonomy (and indeed most things) has never been absolute. If an action is likely to cause harm to others (and forgoing a vaccine in the midst of a deadly pandemic is indeed likely to cause harm to others), then reasonable action to curtail the harm is justified. As recently as the 2010s, both parties supported vaccine mandates. I remember conservatives making fun of the antivax movement as liberal lunacy as recently as 2019.

>"I thought liberals were for free speech" (with regards to cancel culture).

Cancel culture is itself a form of free expression and association.

by p_j_w

2/14/2026 at 6:07:01 PM

Free speech absolutely does not mean free from consequences speech.

by malfist

2/14/2026 at 6:15:36 PM

I don't think you realize it, but your retort could be easily applied to the story in the OP just as easily as it could be applied to cancel culture. The point isn't whether either side is "right" or not, but that both side's positions shouldn't be distilled down to 1 liner dunks like the original commenter was engaging in.

by gruez

2/15/2026 at 2:35:41 AM

No. The First Amendment does not protect from consequences between non-government entities. A government agency attempting to track down people when it disagrees with their speech is explicitly what the First Amendment was intended to protect. Hope that helps.

by plagiarist

2/14/2026 at 7:09:05 PM

The difference is “cancel culture” is not official policy of the state.

by yoyohello13

2/14/2026 at 4:59:52 PM

I wonder how much the tech bros are going to regret having bent over for Trump in 2028 when a Democrat is sitting in the Whitehouse looking at rolling out some retribution using the new legal tools the Trump team succeeded in securing during his second term. We might see some heavy regulation descending onto the industry as a response.

On the other hand, the long term trend of billionaires and large companies getting their way politically will likely continue.

by ttul

2/14/2026 at 7:32:08 PM

If it's a Democrat like Gavin "I will protect the wealthy" Newsom I don't think they'll have any regrets at all.

by nullocator

2/14/2026 at 5:03:13 PM

"When?" There is still plenty of time for the Reichstag fire.

by plagiarist

2/15/2026 at 12:23:07 AM

Why would the Democrats do that?

by pocksuppet

2/14/2026 at 5:51:49 PM

How is a Democrat going to be sitting in the Whitehouse when Trump/Vance is still there with a large contingency of loyal armed ICE agents looking to target dissenters?

by ndsipa_pomu

2/15/2026 at 3:25:54 AM

Isn't Democrats retaliating just the status quo for them?

Democrats have been picking on the poor tech billionaires ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, when they were thought to be at fault for getting Trump elected.

by saint_fiasco

2/14/2026 at 5:13:44 PM

> I wonder how much the tech bros are going to regret having bent over for Trump in 2028.

I'm going to guess they'll have fled the country with their winnings by then.

by yoyohello13

2/14/2026 at 8:36:13 PM

[dead]

by techsocialism

2/14/2026 at 8:49:15 PM

Fondly

by TOMDM

2/14/2026 at 4:10:55 PM

[flagged]

by DonHopkins

2/14/2026 at 6:39:49 PM

[flagged]

by mannyv

2/14/2026 at 4:44:49 PM

Licking the boot provides shareholder value.

by cyanydeez

2/14/2026 at 4:37:41 PM

Now that it’s targeting dems, maybe can get some bipartisan support to limit government power here.

by ggfdh

2/14/2026 at 6:26:57 PM

That'll never work; what works is building un-censorable platforms, that cannot be banned in the same way it's impossible to ban torrents no matter how hard they try.

by logicchains

2/15/2026 at 12:29:07 AM

And the platform will simply be banned and its creators (if identifiable) arrested. See Tornadocash. Still operating, because it's uncensorable, but the people who made it will never see daylight again.

by pocksuppet

2/14/2026 at 6:26:35 PM

Of course they do. We gave the DHS (and any other government agency) far too much power and they flex it.

We have so many agencies that can regulate businesses to death without any congressional intervention that it would be beyond idiotic to stand against them.

Not to mention that it's been proven again and again that the American populations attention span is far too short to do anything meaningful about the aforementioned powers / abuses.

Maybe it's age, or the attention I've paid to the erosion of liberties post 9/11. but is this headline a surprise to anyone?

by dizlexic

2/14/2026 at 6:35:09 PM

They also usually cooperate with government around the world. The "must abide by their laws thing"

by graemep

2/15/2026 at 5:26:45 PM

we're talking about the threat of regulation not "must abide by their laws" thing.

It's common in the EU that if you don't do what they say they threaten to put regulations that compel you, but it's still different. it's a threat not a reality. That's the issue my dude.

by dizlexic

2/14/2026 at 4:44:07 PM

Large corporations, especially publicly traded ones, have zero power to resist their sovereign government. Publicly traded companies are heavily regulated and dependent on their stock price, making them trivially vulnerable to political retaliation.

I’m not sure why people look to corporations for political resistance. It’s the wrong place to look. They’re not structured for it and it’s not their purpose.

by api

2/14/2026 at 4:49:50 PM

Corporations are people and money is speech, making corporations the strongest forces in politics. Obviously they're not on your side but there's no mystery why people would want to influence them.

by svachalek

2/14/2026 at 4:58:14 PM

All the more ironic when those selfsame corps act as arms of govenment agaist official enemy governments/people. See the recent brouhaha by Facebok over getting banned from Russia and years previously from China over pretty similar demands.

And the way they all fell inline with sanctioning the ICC (Microsoft/Google) when the only laws in play were US domestic ones being pushed globally.

by rzerowan

2/14/2026 at 5:13:25 PM

Then what’s all the lobbying money for?

by coffeefirst

2/14/2026 at 4:56:27 PM

I disagree.

Sure corporations have to respect the LAW in their juradiction, even if said law is unpopular or unethical. But they don't have to, and shouldn't where ethics and human rights are involved, go beyond what is required by the law. Since Trump has come to power a lot of big organsations seem to be reversing their previous positions to gain political favour, which is wrong.

The solution is probably for them to appeal to the public. "We stand up to ICE abuse" would probably help them in the markets.

Something interesting happened recently in France where it turned out that the American subsiduary of CapGemini was selling serives to ICE. They were forced to sell that subsiduary after public outcry.

by mfuzzey

2/14/2026 at 4:57:41 PM

One Trump tweet can destroy a company’s stock price. Trump has amazing power over public companies as the absolute king of the attention economy.

by api

2/14/2026 at 5:26:04 PM

its not just the tweets. this administration came out of the gate swinging with its extortionate demands. it claims the power to redirect, cancel, and append conditions to congressional funding. its has as its disposal all of the departments who ostensibly exist to serve the populace, and use them to file lawsuits, charge people with crimes, remove or establish new regulations or targeted taxes, all in service of whatever the president might desire.

by convolvatron

2/14/2026 at 5:57:32 PM

Again and again with the fascists, the accusation of weaponization of government was really a confession of their own crimes.

Same with the Epstein files, same with the accusations of groomer while their ranks are filled with rapists, same with the Jan 6 insurrection, and likely this fall, accusations of election fraud and intimidation.

by dashundchen

2/14/2026 at 5:56:12 PM

I wish I understood how that works. Retail investors are so small, compared with hedge funds and whatnot, that "average people" cannot move a stock price significantly. So, when Trump tweets about a company, how does the stock move? Who is actually doing all that selling to drive the price down?

And, since the price almost always recovers within a week... does it even matter?

by nilamo

2/14/2026 at 6:57:47 PM

Trump has big money friends that control non-retail investment. The tweet is just signalling.

That kind of access and "control" is why they think they can just tweet at Coke to stop using artificial dyes instead of, you know, changing the rules at the organization they run.

by mrguyorama