alexandria ocasio-cortez – Techdirt (original) (raw)

When Will Jim Jordan Hold A Hearing About Elon’s ExTwitter Bias?

from the let's-see-how-many-angry-commenters-read-past-the-headline dept

I’m curious how Republicans would react if AOC suddenly sought to hold a hearing questioning Elon Musk’s bias in endorsing and promoting Donald Trump on ExTwitter. I imagine there would be apocalyptic outrage and nonstop cries of tyranny over such a blatant abuse of power to punish someone for their political views.

And they’d be right.

But it’s striking that no one batted an eye when the Republicans did that over the past few years.

For years, we highlighted how the claims of supposed “leftwing bias” in content moderation at the various big platform websites was total bullshit. Studies repeatedly showed that it wasn’t true at all. If anything, these websites bent over backwards to cater to rule-breaking Trumpists.

And yet, Congress held multiple hearings, in which Republican senators and congressional reps would drag the CEOs of the companies into hours-long hearings to demand to know why they were “censoring” conservative speech and to harangue them for their biases.

As we said at the time, this was deeply problematic and an attack on free speech (something you’ll never hear any of the free speech grifter crew ever mention). In one hearing, the CEOs were asked to reveal the political registrations of their employees, which is none of anyone’s business.

Either way, as things stand right now, Elon (who once insisted that Twitter must remain “neutral”) has loudly endorsed (and promised to fund the campaign of) Donald Trump.

Since then, his ExTwitter feed is just a non-stop flood of pro-Trump content.

And, to be clear, he is absolutely free to do this. That is his free speech. And also, ExTwitter, as a company, also has its own free speech rights to do the same exact thing.

Meanwhile, companies like Meta have chosen to hire one of the main authors of the Project 2025 plan from Heritage Foundation, which is the playbook of authoritarian vengeance and retribution planned for the second Trump administration. The biggest VCs in Silicon Valley are all lining up behind Trump under the cynical belief that a chaotic 2nd term will somehow help the tech industry.

It’s almost as if the idea that the industry were just bastions of leftist thought, who used their power to stifle conservatives was always overblown nonsense, used to try to punish the companies for their own (and their employees’) speech.

So, why isn’t Congress calling for investigations?

I mean, obviously, the answer is that it was all grandstanding nonsense for the ignorant. It was all for show, control, and power. It was never actually about policy, because Washington DC these days isn’t about policy. It’s pure politics of power.

And, again, let me be clear: it would be a travesty for anyone to investigate Elon’s company (or the other platforms) for bias now. It would be an attack on the platforms and their owners for exercising their First Amendment rights. But it was equally bad the last few years as well, and that didn’t stop the Republicans in Congress from doing so. Nor were there many voices raised in protest about the types of questions they were asked, because attacking tech was seen as a bipartisan game (though the attacks were different).

So, of course, I’m not really calling on Congress to go through that nonsense again. But it does seem worth pointing out the utter hypocrisy of those who called and cheered on those show trials and how they will never even think about doing the same thing now.

It’s almost as if Congress isn’t concerned with the actual policy issues, but rather abusing their power to harass those they view as political opponents.

Filed Under: alexandria ocasio-cortez, anti-conservative bias, bias, congress, content moderation, donald trump, elon musk, grandstanding, jim jordan
Companies: meta, twitter, x

AOC Supports Full Repeal Of FOSTA

from the good-for-her dept

Late last year, a bill was introduced to study the impact of FOSTA. This is important, as all of the evidence to date suggests that it has failed by every possible measure. There is no indication that it has helped to decrease sex trafficking — in fact the indications are that it has enabled more sex trafficking. Indeed, law enforcement has directly admitted that the law has actually made it more difficult to track down traffickers. And, of course, there’s tremendous evidence that it has had a real human cost in putting (non-trafficked) sex workers at significant risk.

As more in Congress realize this, it’s been good to see some calling for a careful study into the impact. And now Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been the first (as far as I can tell) to come right out and say the law should be totally repealed, specifically calling out the harm that it has done to sex workers. It’s great to see politicians realizing that all the lame rhetoric that was pushed out in favor of the law was bullshit.

Of course, because AOC is such a polarizing figure in these insanely partisan times, the usual crew of AOC haters have immediately started spewing absolute idiocy online claiming — falsely — that she supports sex trafficking. It was this kind of bogus rhetoric that helped get this damaging law passed in the first place. But, since Republicans love to try to mock everything AOC says, we get silly statements like this from Rep. Pete Olson saying that she wants to “re-open the floodgates of human trafficking” and pointing to “64 human traffickers busted” in Fort Bend (in his district). While it is true that local officials arrested 64 people in a sting operation, and told the press it was for trafficking, few details have been provided. In most similar announcements, later research often found that the operations had little to do with trafficking, and were just standard sex work. Either way, if FOSTA was supposed to stop such “trafficking,” it seems like Olson is flat out admitting that it didn’t work here.

And, of course, Senator Josh Hawley — who you may recall, has decided that he alone should make all UI decisions for the internet — has ridiculously claimed that this is AOC “supporting big tech and sex trafficking” when it’s literally neither of those things. The idea that partisan idiots are jumping on this just because of who is suggesting it is perhaps not surprising, but still disappointing.

Even if you disagree with AOC on other things, it’s a good thing that she recognizes what a failure FOSTA has been and how it’s put lives in jeopardy. Repealing FOSTA is the right move and kudos to AOC for being the first Congressional Rep to come out and advocate for it.

Filed Under: alexandria ocasio-cortez, aoc, fosta, intermediary liability, josh hawley, pete olson, repeal, section 230, sex trafficking

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Apologizes And Unblocks Critic Who Sued Her

from the a-step-in-the-right-direction dept

Right after Donald Trump lost the case against him for blocking people on Twitter, we noted that Dov Hikind, a critic of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez launched a similar lawsuit against her for blocking him. Again — because it’s important to repeat — the court rulings in the Trump case made it clear that politicians who used Twitter for part of their job representing the public could not block people, as that’s a violation of the 1st Amendment. The specific criteria laid out by the courts were that (1) if you’re a public official, and (2) using social media (3) for official purposes (4) to create a space of open dialogue, then you cannot block people from following you based on the views they express.

It appeared that the @AOC account met all of the criteria, and therefore should not be able to block critics for expressing their dislike of her stances or policies. Ocasio-Cortez, on her part, stood by her right to block people by claiming that she only blocked 20 people, none were constituents, and that they were only blocked for harassment which, she argued, was “not a viewpoint” (i.e., this wasn’t viewpoint discrimination). Either way, just as the Hikind case was about to go to trial, Ocasio-Cortez has settled the case, admitted she was wrong to block Hikind and apologized:

?Mr. Hikind has a First Amendment right to express his views and should not be blocked for them,? the Queens-Bronx congresswoman said. ?In retrospect, it was wrong and improper and does not reflect the values I cherish. I sincerely apologize for blocking Mr. Hikind.?

The Knight 1st Amendment Institute, which had brought the lawsuit against Trump and had sent Ocasio-Cortez a letter arguing that she was incorrect to block people with her account, announced that they were happy with this result. According to their Senior Staff Attorney, Katie Fallow:

?We applaud Rep. Ocasio-Cortez for recognizing that she was wrong to block critics from her Twitter account. As the courts have affirmed, when public officials use their social media accounts to carry out official duties, they create a public forum and can?t prevent people from participating simply because they don?t like what they?re saying. We hope that other public officials who are blocking critics from their social media accounts take Ocasio-Cortez?s lead.?

That said, while this case was settled and Ocasio-Cortez admitted to being wrong, she still seems to be standing by the idea that she can block some users:

?I reserve the right to block users who engage in actual harassment or exploit my personal/campaign account, @AOC, for commercial or other improper purposes,? she said.

There might be cases where it would not be a 1st Amendment violation to block users, but the details would matter quite a bit — and the argument that harassment, by itself, would constitute a reason for blocking seems iffy, at best. Same with “exploit[ing]” her account “for commercial or other improper purposes.” It will be interesting to see if other such cases are brought, or if the @AOC account choose to block others in the future.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, alexandria ocasio-cortez, aoc, blocking, dov hikind, free speech, public spaces, social media
Companies: twitter

In These Partisan Times, The Only Thing That Gets Bi-Partisan Agreement Is That Blizzard Sucks

from the crossing-aisles dept

We live in partisan times. The left and the right might as well be cats and dogs, mostly incapable of living together and the subject of fascination by the public when they manage to work together in the slightest way. The country needs a rallying cry. Something to bring both sides of the aisle together to demonstrate to all that they can actually agree on things.

Blizzard appears to be that something. In the wake of the backlash against Blizzard for its actions taken to silence and punish eSports competitors that chose to voice support for the ongoing protests in Hong Kong, it seems that everyone from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Marco Rubio agrees that the company needs to do much, much better.

Today, United States Senators Ron Wyden and Marco Rubio signed a bi-partisan letter with support from Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mike Gallagher, and Tom Malinowski addressed to Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, over the recent suspension of professional Hearthstone player Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai.

“We write to express our deep concern about Activision Blizzard’s decision to make player Ng Wai Chung forfeit prize money and ban him from participating in tournaments for a year after he voiced support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong,” the letter reads. “This decision is particularly concerning in light of the Chinese government’s growing appetite for pressuring American businesses to help stifle free speech.”

Now, it’s true that this particular letter is toothless. It’s also true that Blizzard has already reduced some of the penalties it levied on Chung, even though such a reduction was entirely besides the point and lowered the temperature on this controversy not at all. Still, what this really should highlight for the reader is that the public backlash against Blizzard has reached a volume that Congress critters are making public statements about it, and in a bi-partisan way. That’s no small thing.

There is a great deal for one side or the other of the political aisle to be angry about these days. For Blizzard to unify that anger against itself should really inform the company’s assessment as to how beneficial it is to bow to Chinese demands to stifle the speech of its competitors.

Again, this is a toothless letter…for now. But if it changes the calculus on future decisions Blizzard might take, that’s a good thing.

Filed Under: alexandria ocasio-cortez, blitzchung, free speech, hong kong, marco rubio, mike gallagher, ron wyden, tom malinowski, video games
Companies: activision, activision blizzard, blizzard

Knight Institute Warns Rep. Ocasio-Cortez That She, Like Trump, Can't Block People On Twitter

from the as-noted dept

Earlier this summer, we wrote about the 2nd Circuit appeals court affirming a district court ruling against Donald Trump, saying that it’s a 1st Amendment violation for him to block followers on Twitter. The reasoning in the decisions was a bit nuanced, but the short version is that (1) if you’re a public official, and (2) using social media (3) for official purposes (4) to create a space of open dialogue, then you cannot block people from following you based on the views they express. The four conditions do need to be met — and the lower court at least noted that such public officials can still “mute” people. That is, the officials don’t need to listen — but they cannot limit access to the narrow public space that is created in response to their official social media posts.

Right after that ruling came down, we pointed out that someone had already sued Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for blocking people on Twitter as well, and our analysis was that she certainly seemed to be violating the 1st Amendment in the same way as Trump was. Now, the Knight 1st Amendment Institute, which filed the initial lawsuit against Trump, has sent a letter to Ocasio-Cortez making the same point. This is interesting, because when the original lawsuit against AOC was filed, and the media requested comment from the Knight Institute, there was at least some hesitation, saying that they needed to look at all of the details. Now that the details have been explored, it appears that the Knight Institute has come to the same conclusion.

As the letter makes clear, the @AOC account meets all the criteria that the court required to say that blocking is not allowed. Apparently Ocasio-Cortez is trying to argue that the @AOC account is a personal account, and she had another more official account. But, as the Knight letter explains, that’s not at all accurate:

Based on the facts as we understand them, the @AOC account is a ?public forum? within the meaning of the First Amendment. You use the account as an extension of your office?to share information about congressional hearings, to explain policy proposals, to advocate legislation, and to solicit public comment about issues relating to government. Recently, for example, you used the account to discuss new ?policy approaches we should consider wrt immigration,? and to ask the public, ?[w]hat commissions would you want to see Congress establish?? The account is a digital forum in which you share your thoughts and decisions as a member of Congress, and in which members of the public directly engage with you and with one another about matters of public policy. Since you first took office, the number of users following the @AOC account has reached more than 5.2 million. Many of your tweets staking out positions on issues such as immigration, the environment, and impeachment have made headline news. The @AOC account is important to you as a legislator, to your constituents, and to others who seek to understand and influence your legislative decisions and priorities.

Multiple courts have held that public officials? social media accounts constitute public forums when they are used in the way that you use the @AOC account, and they have made clear that public officials violate the First Amendment when they block users from these forums on the basis of viewpoint. Most relevant here, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently concluded that President Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking users from his Twitter account, @real- DonaldTrump, because ?he disagree[d] with their speech.? In another recent case, the Fourth Circuit held that the chairperson of a local county board violated the First Amendment by blocking an individual from her Facebook page.

In pending litigation, your attorneys have argued that the @AOC account is not subject to the First Amendment because it is a personal account. As we have explained above, that characterization is incorrect. Further, while we understand that you have another account that is nominally your ?official? one, the fact remains that you use the @AOC account as an extension of your office. Notably, the Second Circuit rejected President Trump?s argument that his account is a personal one even though he has other accounts?@POTUS and @WhiteHouse?that are nominally official. The Court wrote, ?the First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise-open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees.?

So far, AOC responded to this by saying that she’s only blocking 20 accounts and that she’s blocking them for “harassment,” rather than viewpoint discrimination.

1. I have 5.2 million followers. Less than 20 accounts are blocked for ongoing harassment. 0 are my constituents.

2. Harassment is not a viewpoint. Some accounts, like the Daily Caller, posted fake nude photos of me & abused my comments to spread it. No one is entitled to abuse. https://t.co/0QWKqJFzRe

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 29, 2019

But, again, as the lower court said in the Trump case, the remedy there should be “muting,” not blocking. I get that being a public figure on Twitter is not always fun — and especially for polarizing political figures (which both Trump and Ocasio-Cortez undoubtedly are). And I get that it must suck to have assholes clog up your feed. I’m barely known and, while I use Twitter’s block button sparingly, I have found it useful at times. But I’m not a publicly elected official using my account for official business as an elected politician. The fact that one of the accounts AOC is blocking is a media outlet, even one as ridiculous as The Daily Caller, only highlights the 1st Amendment concerns here.

I’ve seen some people supporting the case against Trump, but not supporting it against AOC (and I’ve also seen the reverse). In most cases, though, those opinions seem to be driven mainly by whether or not one feels politically aligned with one or the other politician. And, while I have seen some good faith arguments that “harassment” should be considered something different, there is a very slippery slope there. Put that into Trump’s hands and he’ll just as quickly claim that everyone who is criticizing him is “harassing” him as well. We have a 1st Amendment for a reason, and politicians on both sides of the traditional aisle should respect that.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, alexandria ocasio-cortez, donald trump, free speech, harassment, public officials, public spaces
Companies: knight institute

Following Trump Ruling Against Twitter Blockade, AOC Sued For Her Blocks On Twitter

from the yup dept

So we just wrote about the 2nd Circuit Appeals court affirming a victory for the Knight 1st Amendment Center against Donald Trump, making it clear that he cannot block followers on social media. As we noted, the case is very fact specific, and people shouldn’t read too much into it. But, in general, it does find that if someone is a public official, using social media for official government purposes, and creating an open public forum out of that, they cannot block followers based on the views of those followers — as that is the state engaging in impermissible viewpoint discrimination.

Some Trump supporters then spun that around on the other side of the aisle, picking out the fact that freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has blocked people on Twitter as well. Indeed, as Scott Greenfield points out, in the wake of the 2nd Circuit ruling, former NY State Assemblyman Dov Hikind has already sued Ocasio-Cortez, pointing out that she has him blocked on Twitter.

And, again, the whole point we tried to make with our post about the Trump ruling is that the rules are very fact specific — but based on what’s known so far, it looks like Hikind is absolutely correct. AOC famously uses her Twitter feed for official government business all the time. And if she’s blocked Hikind for the way he expresses his views, it seems likely that she, too, is on the wrong side of the Constitution. From the lawsuit, it appears Hikind is very much blocked by AOC:

I’ve seen some people trying to distinguish the two cases — but mostly that seems based on their political views, and whether they tend to support Trump or AOC. And that’s a problem. There may be distinguishing factors that come out later, but from what’s laid out in the lawsuit as presented, it seems like Hikind’s case is pretty much identical to the Knight case, and AOC shouldn’t be allowed to block people from this particular account. One possible distinction would be if AOC can prove that the decisions to block were not based on content (a violation of the 1st Amendment), but on actions, such as harassment — however, it would be very, very difficult to make that case in a credible way that doesn’t also create all sorts of knock-on consequences for speech.

I’ve seen some raise issues about how she should be able to make use of the tools provided on the platform to block trolls and harassers, but, again, that applies equally to Trump. And going back to basics, if the government official is creating an open forum, they cannot block people based on their expression. That’s sort of fundamental to the 1st Amendment. And thus, if you agree that Trump can’t block users, it seems that should apply equally to AOC, no matter if you support one of them, neither of them or even (amazingly) both of them.

Filed Under: alexandria ocasio-cortez, blocks, donald trump, dov hikind, first amendment, free speech, public forum, social media
Companies: twitter

Copyright, Culture, Sharing, Remix… And A Congresswoman Dancing As A College Student

from the copyright-fun dept

So… this post is going to discuss something involving freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. For a variety of reasons — some good, some bad, some truly awful — Ocasio-Cortez (or AOC, as people call her) seems to elicit quite a strong reaction from people, both pro and con. This post is not about her, or her views, or whatever you happen to think about any of it. If you want to argue about her in the comments, feel free, just know that you’ll be off-topic and will look silly. Rather, this post is about copyright — a topic that we talk about frequently, and one on which AOC, in her new job, may at some point be asked to weigh in on as a legislator.

The latest “controversy” (if you can even call it that) began as one of the various attempts by some of her critics to dig into her past to try to prove… something(?!?), in this case by unearthing a video of her in college dancing. I remain unclear of what awful thing her critics thought this proved, but apparently it was something about how people can’t possibly have been poor if they once had fun dancing. At least that was the suggestion I saw passed around, and it’s about as nonsensical as copyright term extension, but alas…

There’s actually a much more interesting copyright story underneath all of this, much of the history of which we’ve covered in detail on Techdirt in the past, but which Parker Higgins did a great job recounting on Twitter on Thursday afternoon:

The delightful dancing video of AOC that is being circulated right now* is actually part of a pretty storied, if now mostly forgotten, remix culture phenomenon. If you'll allow me…

—
* apparently by numbskulls incapable of joy

— Parker Higgins (@xor) January 3, 2019

Wired later turned much of Parker’s thread into an article as well. The short version is that almost exactly 10 years ago, Sarah Newhouse put together a video taking scenes from various 1980s “brat pack” movies (mainly, and most prominently, Breakfast Club, but a few others as well) and put clips of the actors dancing to a (then) new song by the band Phoenix, called Lisztomania:

Notably, that is not the original video. Despite the band being super happy with that video (and everything that later came from it), somewhere along the way, Newhouse got dinged for it and other videos and had her entire YouTube account taken down over copyright infringements. Gotta love that DMCA requirement for a “repeat infringer” policy.

Soon after that video, a guy named Ian Parker, inspired by Newhouse’s video, recreated it with his friends on a rooftop in Brooklyn:

That version is still online. It then inspired a ton of other people and social groups to build on that work and create their own, starting with a group in San Francisco. Except… that version is no longer online due to a claim by IFPI that the use of the song is infringing (remember, the band itself was thrilled about the attention this gave them…). But, of course, another version has popped up:

And there are lots and lots of others… including one from Boston University, which has a (just slightly) younger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez having fun with some friends and recreating a localized BU version of the same video. That one’s been online since 2010, just months after this whole craze started:

It is not entirely clear why the sudden spreading of clips from this video were seen as “new” since that original video has been up for nearly a decade, and it’s also not at all clear why the “new” video changed the music, though if it was an attempt to hide where it originated from, that failed. I saw the initial tweet that was promoting the video, and it was obvious from the clips that this was one of the many Lisztomania videos, and it would be obvious to anyone who watched a bunch of them back then.

Earlier in 2010, Julian Sanchez had done a fun explainer video on the Evolution of Remix Culture, which we talked about a few times over the years:

Sanchez makes a few points in that video, but the key one is that the complaints that traditional copyright folks have about remix culture totally misses the point. These videos and the sharing of our unique versions of such memes is not about “freely” using someone else’s stuff, but about social interactions with our own friends and communities, and putting our own stamp on things. Sanchez doesn’t make this point, but it’s actually a very similar situation to the way culture used to happen: storytellers would take the ideas of others and build on them and make their own versions and spread them.

Of course, Sanchez’s own video was taken down (multiple times) with various bogus copyright claims. While one might argue that the fair use claims on the original videos were less strong (I’d disagree, but there are better arguments there), the idea that Julian’s video was not fair use was… crazy. He was clearly commenting on the use of this music and videos for remix purposes, and it would meet all four criteria for fair use easily. Eventually, after Sanchez complained publicly about the takedowns, the demands were removed and the video lives on.

Soon after Sanchez’s presentation, Larry Lessig himself used this example of remix culture — highlighting Sanchez’s video… and a whole bunch of these videos.

However, a few years later, as we covered here at Techdirt, the label with control of the copyright, Liberation Music, issued a takedown on one of Lessig’s lectures about this. This was, exceedingly bizarre. Remember: Lessig was using the video clips from Julian’s video, which is an explainer about the social situation and copyright policy questions raised by all of the other videos… and Liberation claimed it was infringing. Even worse, when Lessig counternoticed, Liberation told him if he didn’t remove the counternotice, it would sue him. Lessig and EFF then sued Liberation seeking a declaratory judgment of non-infringement and (importantly) seeking fees for violating 512(f) of the DMCA — which is the almost entirely toothless clause for pushing back against bogus DMCA takedowns. This was one case where it might actually have teeth. Realizing it was sunk, the following year Liberation ended up settling the case and paying an “undisclosed sum,” while promising to adopt new fair use-respecting policies.

And that was, more or less, the end of that meme, until it suddenly came rushing back due to some people’s infatuation with a particular Congresswoman. But there are a lot of really important copyright points embedded in this story — starting with all of the lessons both Sanchez and Lessig highlighted in each of their videos (seriously, watch them both). But it’s even more punctuated by the fact that so many of the videos that I discuss above were at one time or another taken down by copyright claims — many of which seem entirely bogus — and where the band has made it clear it was thrilled with these videos (as it should have been, as it gave that song a huge boost in attention). Indeed, Phoenix issued a statement (miraculously still available on Tumblr) stating: “We support fair use of our music” and also (apologies for the all caps screaming, but that’s how they wrote it):

NOT ONLY DO WE WELCOME THE ILLUSTRATIVE USE OF OUR MUSIC FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES, BUT, MORE BROADLY, WE ENCOURAGE PEOPLE GETTING INSPIRED AND MAKING THEIR OWN VERSIONS OF OUR SONGS AND VIDEOS AND POSTING THE RESULT ONLINE.

ONE OF THE GREAT BEAUTIES OF THE DIGITAL ERA IS TO LIBERATE SPONTANEOUS CREATIVITY – IT MIGHT BE A CHAOTIC SPACE OF FREE ASSOCIATION SOMETIMES BUT THE CONTEMPORARY EXPERIENCE OF DIGITAL RE-MEDIATION IS ENORMOUSLY LIBERATING.

WE DON?T FEEL THE LEAST ALIENATED BY THIS; APPROPRIATION AND RECONTEXTUALIZATION IS A LONG-STANDING BEHAVIOR THAT HAS JUST BEEN MADE EASIER AND MORE VISIBLE BY THE UBIQUITY OF INTERNET.

IN A FEW WORDS:

WE ABSOLUTELY SUPPORT FAIR USE OF OUR MUSIC,

AND WE CAN ONLY ENCOURAGE A NEW COPYRIGHT POLICY THAT PROTECTS FAIR USE AS MUCH AS EVERY CREATORS? LEGITIMATE INTERESTS.

So, we have a copyright policy that pissed off the actual artists — and only served to stifle or silence many people who were building off of it in truly creative ways that enabled a community endeavor. As Julian noted in his talk (and Lessig specifically called out), a big part of the question here is “what level of control copyright has over our social realities” and how copyright policy that is too locked down serves to limit our ability to express and share our social realities.

In his big thread, almost as an aside, Parker made a key point in this discussion that is worth repeating (over and over and over again):

Sometimes copyright maximalists seem to live in a world where every use of culture can be enumerated, quantified, and licensed. But that's not how culture works. Not at all.

— Parker Higgins (@xor) January 3, 2019

Indeed, this is the entire point that the Article 13 debate in the EU is about. The supporters of Article 13 are demanding — literally — that the entire internet “be licensed.” But think about how the above story plays out in such a world. In short, it doesn’t. And while that might mean one less way for some internet morons to self-own themselves in trying to make fun of a new Congresswoman, I’m not exactly sure that’s what we should be optimizing for.

Indeed, this whole story is a lesson in the power of culture and communities to actually rise above the ridiculousness of today’s copyright laws (mostly) to actually showcase their communities and personalities, and that’s something we should be championing. And one hopes that when copyright policy is up for discussion in Congress, that AOC gets that, now having some firsthand experience with it.

Oh, and I should note that the nature of remix and copyright and culture has continued to expand. Following from this whole mess with AOC, someone has set up a Twitter account called AOC Dances To Every Song, and it delivers exactly what it claims to. Here are just a few examples:

There are a lot more… though it would not surprise me at all to find that account is eventually shut down for… claims of copyright infringement. Because this is the insane world we live in.

For what it’s worth, AOC herself has now evolved this even further by dancing in a new video, and making fun of the “controversy.”

I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous.

Wait till they find out Congresswomen dance too! ??

Have a great weekend everyone 🙂 pic.twitter.com/9y6ALOw4F6

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 4, 2019

I wonder if copyright maximalists will demand that she also “license” that clip as well?

Filed Under: alexandria ocasio-cortez, copyright, culture, dancing, julian sanchez, larry lessig, lisztomania, parker higgins, phoenix, remix, sharing