Marc
Andreessen,
the
influential
venture
capitalist,
is
exhibiting
a
startling
disconnect
between
his
stated
beliefs
in
free
markets
and
free
speech,
and
his
recent
authoritarian
threats
against
those
who
disagree
with
him.
In
recent
statements,
Andreessen
has
threatened
criminal
charges
against
advertisers
choosing
not
to
associate
with
certain
platforms
and
accused
an
imaginary
“government-university-company
censorship
apparatus”
of
violating
free
speech
rights.
These
authoritarian
demands
completely
contradict
the
free
market
and
free
speech
principles
Andreessen
claims
to
champion
in
his
“techno-optimist
manifesto.”
As
a
board
member
of
Meta
with
inside
knowledge
of
content
moderation
practices,
Andreessen
should
know
better.
His
descent
into
promoting
baseless
conspiracy
theories
and
attacking
the
very
rights
he
purports
to
defend
is
deeply
troubling.
Over
the
last
few
years,
Andreessen’s
views
on
innovation
have
taken
him
down
a
path
that
often
seems
detached
from
reality.
It
started
with him
claiming
that
Elon
Musk
is
“pro
free
speech,” when
it
was
blatantly
obvious
that
he
was not
even
remotely
supportive
of
free
speech.
Things
got
worse
last
year
when
Andreessen
published
his
bizarre
“Techno-Optimist
Manifesto,”
which
had
plenty
of
good,
but
non-controversial,
ideas
in
it,
and
then
a
few
that
made
no
sense,
including
claiming
that
“trust
&
safety”
was
an
“enemy
of
progress.” I
wrote
a
long
response
to
it as
my
final
post
of
last
year,
noting
that
avoiding
breaking
shit
that
doesn’t
need
to
be
broken
(the
role
of
“trust
&
safety”)
isn’t
holding
back
progress,
it’s
making
sure
that
innovation
and
progress
proceeds
in
a
way
that
more
people
are
willing
to
adopt
rather
than
freak
out
about.
Earlier
this
year,
Andreessen
made
a
big
bet
on
Donald
Trump
for
President,
and
now
he’s
won
that
bet.
He
claimed
he
only
supported
Trump
because
he
believed
Trump
was
better
for
what
he
calls
his
“Little
Tech
Agenda.”
Historically,
I
would
have
expected
him
not
to
leap
to
the
gloating
stage
so
quickly,
but
I
was
wrong.
He’s
spent
a
few
days
basically
showing
that
his
supposed
“Little
Tech
Agenda”
gets
tossed
out
the
window
when
he
gets
near
the
hands
of
power,
to
the
point
that
he
is
looking
to
weaponize
the
criminal
justice
system
to
punish
his
perceived
critics.
Andreessen
seems
to
ignore
that
his
plan
to
punish
people
completely
obliterates
what
he
claimed
he
believed
in
his
“tech
optimist
manifesto.”
So
let’s
go
through
a
bit
of
it.
In
the
manifesto,
he
writes:
We
believe
free
markets
are
the
most
effective
way
to
organize
a
technological
economy.
Willing
buyer
meets
willing
seller,
a
price
is
struck,
both
sides
benefit
from
the
exchange
or
it
doesn’t
happen.
Profits
are
the
incentive
for
producing
supply
that
fulfills
demand.
Prices
encode
information
about
supply
and
demand.
Markets
cause
entrepreneurs
to
seek
out
high
prices
as
a
signal
of
opportunity
to
create
new
wealth
by
driving
those
prices down.
I
agree
with
that
sentiment.
But
Andreessen’s
recent
actions
contradict
it.
On
ExTwitter,
Andreessen
wrote:
That’s
him
tweeting:
The
orchestrated
advertiser
boycott
against
X
and
popular
podcasts
must
end
immediately.
Conspiracy
in
restraint
of
trade
is
a
prosecutable
crime.
He’s
wrong.
To
an
extraordinary
degree.
Conspiracy
in
restraint
of
trade
applies
to
collusive
behavior
to harm
competitors.
In
1982,
the
Supreme
Court
made
clear
that boycotts
are
a
form
of
expression,
protected
by
the
First
Amendment.
The
only
exceptions
are
if
those
boycotts
were
done
for
“illegal
aims.”
And
“sorry,
we
don’t
want
to
advertise
on
your
site”
is
not
an
“illegal
aim.”
It’s
especially
galling
since
choosing
not
to
advertise
is
clearly
part
of
both
the
free
market
and
the
free
speech
right
not
to
associate.
The
only
cases
where
boycotts
may
be
illegal
is
if
they
are
in
pursuit
of
something
illegal,
such
as
for
antitrust
purposes,
like
when
Toys
R
Us
used
its
(then!)
dominant
position
to block
toy
makers
from
selling
to
Costco.
But
advertisers
deciding
“we
don’t
want
our
ads
showing
up
on
Elon
Musk’s
Hellsite”
are
making
a
business
decision.
You
know,
like
what
free
markets
enable?
Willing
buyer.
Willing
seller.
Except
here,
some
of
the
buyers
aren’t
willing.
And
Marc
is
claiming
that’s
criminal.
His
misunderstanding
of
free
speech
continued.
That’s
him
saying:
Everyone
involved
in
the
longstanding
illegal
joint
government-university-company
censorship
apparatus
should
take
care
to
preserve
their
files
and
communications.
Sunlight
is
coming.
First
of
all,
you
don’t
issue
litigation
holds
by
tweet.
That’s
not
how
any
of
that
works.
Second,
there
is
no
“joint
government-university-company
censorship
apparatus.”
That’s
literally
not
a
thing
that
exists.
We’ve
talked
about
this
quite
a
bit
here
at
Techdirt,
and
even
the
Supreme
Court
just
recently
pointed
out
(in a
ruling
written
by
Amy
Coney
Barrett)
that
there
appears
to
be
no
evidence
of
such
a
thing
existing
(other
than
a
bunch
of
made
up
nonsense
by
a
bunch
of
grifters).
There
were
a
bunch
of
university
researchers studying the
flow
of
disinformation,
mostly
around
voter
intimidation
and
the
like.
One
government
agency,
CISA,
did
team
up
with
some
of
those
researchers
to
act
as
a
clearing
house
for
connecting
election
officials
who
might
see
potentially
problematic
voter
information,
such
as
false
information
about
where,
how,
or
when
to
vote.
Through
this
effort sometimes that
information
would
be
flagged
to
companies to
review
against
their
own
policies.
This
was
nothing
controversial
or
problematic.
Every
company
has
their
own
policies
on
what
they
allow.
Most
companies
don’t
want
to
enable
election
interference,
so
they
say
“hey,
maybe
we
shouldn’t
allow
information
that
tells
people
to
vote
on
the
wrong
day,
because
maybe
that
violates
our
rules.”
As
we’ve
explained
multiple
times,
even
as
these
researchers
flagged
some
content
for
the
companies
to
review,
the
companies
quite
frequently did
nothing
in
response and
there
were
no
threats
or
legal
consequences
as
a
result.
Flagging
is
something anyone can
do
(still,
to
this
day,
if
you
find
something
that
you
think
violates
the
rules
on
any
social
media
platform,
you
can
flag
it,
just
like
these
researchers
did).
Again, Stanford’s
report on
what
happened
stated
that
the
social
media
companies
kept
up
nearly
every
reported
URL,
and
in
the
small
number
of
cases
when
they
took
action,
they
mostly
focused
on adding
more
speech (which
is
a
very
“marketplace
of
ideas”
concept)
such
as
pointing
out
that
mail-in
ballots
are,
in
fact,
pretty
damn
safe
and
secure.
We
find,
overall,
that
platforms
took
action
on
35%
of
URLs
that
we
reported
to
them.
21%
of
URLs
were
labeled,
13%
were
removed,
and
1%
were
soft
blocked.
No
action
was
taken
on
65%.
TikTok
had
the
highest
action
rate:
actioning
(in
their
case,
their
only
action
was
removing)
64%
of
URLs
that
the
EIP
reported
to
their
team.)
I
need
to
repeat
this
because
it
seems
to
keep
getting
lost
every
time
I
write
about
this. Anyone can
report
things
to
social
media
companies.
It’s
the
“report”
button
you
see
all
over
the
place.
These
academic
researchers
did
report
stuff
to
the
companies,
and only
13%
of
that
content
was
removed.
And
even
that’s
distorted,
because
TikTok
removed
64%
of
URLs
reported
because
TikTok
doesn’t
care.
So,
the
reality
is
that
the
other
companies
(mainly
Facebook,
Instagram,
and
Twitter)
removed
less
than
10%
of
what
was
flagged
by
folks.
Some
of
them
they
“labeled”
which
is
just
“more
speech”
in
the
marketplace
of
ideas.
And
the
rest
they
left
alone.
And
even
if
you
claim
that
the
13%
of
removed
links
is
too
much,
the
details
suggest
you’re
wrong
about
that
as
well.
The
report
showed
that
the
largest
%
of
content
that
was
removed
after
researchers
reported
it
was
related
to
phishing
scams.
In
other
words,
people
posted
election-related
content
that
was
made
to
trick
people
into
giving
up
their
personal
info,
and
it
was
reported
to
the
companies
and
they
removed
it
to
protect
users.
This
is
not
a
censorship
scandal.
This
isn’t
a
“joint
government-university-company
censorship
apparatus.”
This
is
“local
election
officials
were
scared
about
scams
and
election
interference,
and
wanted
to
be
able
to
report
it
to
companies
to
review,
and
some
academics
who
were
studying
disinformation
helped.”
Sounds
a
lot
less
problematic
that
way,
right?
And
here’s
the
thing: Marc
Andreessen
knows
all
this.
Because
Marc
Andreessen,
who
claims
he
does
everything
in
support
of
his
“Little
Tech
Agenda,” is
on
the
board
of
Meta,
one
of
the
biggest
“Big
Tech”
companies
there
is.
And,
over
the
last
few
days,
I’ve
spoken
to
way
too
many
current
and
former
executives
at
Meta
(many
of
whom
are
frustrated),
who
all
made
it
clear
to
me
that
in
Marc’s
role
on
the
board he
has
been
directly
briefed
on
what
is
happening
regarding
disinfo/trust
&
safety
efforts
and
why
it’s
not
nefarious.
I
don’t
know
if
Marc
ignored
those
briefings.
I
don’t
know
if
he
forgot
those
briefings.
I
don’t
know
if
he
doesn’t
care
that
he’s
misrepresenting
reality.
But
I
do
know
that
Meta
execs
are
not
particularly
thrilled
that
he’s
now
spreading
a
nonsense
conspiracy
theory
suggesting
that
the
very
company
he
is
on
the
board
of
is
somehow
engaged
in
First
Amendment
violating
state
action,
a
thing
that
every
court
that
has
looked
at
this
issue fully has
rejected
completely.
Because
this
is
not
a
thing:
That’s
Andreessen
claiming
that
“every
participant
in
the
orchestrated
government-university-nonprofit-company
censorship
machine
of
the
last
decade
can
be
charged
criminally
under
one
or
both
of
these
federal
laws.”
The
“federal
laws”
he’s
talking
about
are 18
USC
241 and 18
USC
242:
“Conspiracy
against
rights”
and
“Deprivation
of
rights.”
These
are
both
laughable
claims.
Your
“rights”
do
not
grant
you
the
freedom
to
use
someone
else’s
private
property
for
your
own
purpose.
Again,
you
would
think
that
Mr.
“we
believe
in
free
markets”
and
“willing
buyer
meets
willing
seller”
and
“I’m
on
the
board
of
Meta”
would
at
some
point
realize
that
part
of
the
free
market
where
willing
buyer
meets
willing
seller
is
that
private
property
rights
matter.
If
the
private
property
owner
doesn’t
want
you
on
their
property,
they
can
get
you
to
leave.
Even
if
we’re
just
looking
at
this
through
the
free
speech
lens,
the
right
of
free
speech has
to include
the
right
of
association,
and
that
includes
the
right
not
to
associate.
Marc
must
believe
that
too,
because
I’m
pretty
sure
that
if
I
showed
up
at
one
of
Marc’s many
mansions and
started
screaming
on
his
lawn,
he
would
have
me
forcibly
removed.
That
would
be
his
right
as
a
private
property
owner.
Is
that
“depriving
me
of
my
free
speech
rights”?
Of
course
not,
because
Marc
has
no
obligation
to
allow
me
to
speak
on
his
property.
The
same
is
true
of
Meta,
on
whose
board
Marc
sits.
It
has
no
obligation
to
enable
anyone’s
speech.
Their
property.
Their
rules.
And
yes,
it’s
true
that
the
government
can’t
forcibly
remove
speech,
but
there’s
no
evidence
that
happened.
Instead,
you
had
some
academics
and
non-profits
who
used
their
own
free
speech
rights
(which
Marc
seems
to
think
don’t
exist)
to
share
their
thoughts
with
the
companies,
sometimes
highlighting
content
they
thought
broke
the
company’s
rules,
or
sometimes
advocating
for
different
rules.
Which
is
their
free
speech.
The
only
way
speech
“rights”
can
be
deprived
is
via state
action,
which
has
to
involve
the
government.
And
yes,
Marc
wants
to
keep
arguing
that
the
government
is
involved
in
this
“government-university-nonprofit-company
censorship
machine”
but
as
the
Supreme
Court
noted
just
a
few
months
ago,
what
is
happening
does
not,
in
any
way,
appear
to
be
state
action
to
deprive
people
of
their
rights.
At worst, government
actors
were
trying
to persuade private
actors
to
act
differently,
which
is
allowed.
The
problem
only
comes
in
when
the
government
tries
to force action
through
threats
and
coercion.
Yet
no
one
has
turned
up
any
evidence
of
that.
Unlike
Marc,
the
Supreme
Court
appears
to
be
adept
at
differentiating
between
cases
involving
potential
government
coercion.
In
the
Murthy
case,
the
majority
opinion
authored
by
Justice
Barrett
found
no
evidence
of
coercion
against
social
media
companies.
And
the
plaintiffs
in
that
case
tried
every
angle
they
could
and
threw
a
ton
of
ideas
against
the
wall.
Conversely,
in
the
Vullo
case,
heard
on
the
same
day,
the
Court unanimously
agreed that
a
New
York
official’s
demand
for
insurance
companies
to
deny
coverage
to
the
NRA
constituted
coercion
and
violated
the
First
Amendment.
In
short,
the
Supreme
Court
knows
when
the
government
is
depriving
people
of
their
free
speech
rights
and
didn’t
see
that
(at
all)
in
how
social
media
companies
do
content
moderation.
Again,
I
know
that
plenty
of
internet
randos
and
highly
motivated
partisans
have
been
misrepresenting
this
reality
for
a
few
years
now.
And
it’s
pointless
to
respond
to
them.
But,
of
all
the
people
in
the
world,
Marc
Andreessen
should
know
what’s
actually
going
on.
Multiple
Meta
execs
told
me
that
he’s
been
told
about
it.
Yet
he’s
making
a
mockery
of
his
own
“manifesto”
by
supporting
the
literal
criminalization
of
being
a
“non-willing
buyer”
in
a
marketplace
where
he
has
a
stake.
He
undermines
his
own
claims
of
supporting
free
speech
by
suggesting
it’s
criminal
for
private
property
owners
to
decide
whose
speech
to
associate
with.
He’s
further
contradicting
his
free
speech
stance
by
threatening
criminal
action
against
academics
and
non-profits
who
use
their
free
speech
to
criticize
companies
where
Marc
Andreessen
is
either
an
equity
holder
(ExTwitter)
or
a
board
member
(Meta).
And
that’s
not
“techno
optimism.”
It’s
certainly
not
a
“little
tech
agenda.”
If
you
can
force
companies
to
do
the
bidding
of
the
biggest
tech
companies
out
there,
while
simultaneously
creating
criminal
charges
for
merely
saying
“hey,
does
this
violate
your
rules?”
you’re
creating
a
world
in
which
startups
will
be
loathe
to
do
business,
out
of
fear
of
what
arbitrary
nonsense
the
Marc
Andreessen/Elon
Musk/Donald
Trumps
of
the
world
will
impose
on
them.
At
Techdirt,
we
frequently
call
out
hypocrisy
and
inconsistencies
from
public
figures.
In
many
cases,
these
stem
from
ignorance
or
misunderstanding
of
the
complex
issues
around
technology
and
policy.
What’s
so
troubling
here
is
that
Marc
is
not
ignorant
of
what
has
happened.
He
has
had
these
things
explained
to
him.
Yet
he
is
misrepresenting
them
to
a
very
large
audience,
riling
them
up
to
believe
things
that
are
simply
not
true.
This
goes
beyond
mere
inconsistency
—
it’s
a
direct
distortion
of
reality
from
someone
who
should,
and
likely
does,
know
better.
The
end
result
may
be
that
he
gets
to
punish
his
perceived
enemies
if
the
Trump
administration
is
willing
to
take
such
marching
orders,
but
it
doesn’t
change
the
fact
that
he
is
misrepresenting
reality.
In
doing
so,
he’s
not
just
violating
his
own
stated
principles,
but
undermining
public
understanding
of
critical
issues
around
free
speech
and
platform
responsibility.
For
someone
who
claims
to
be
a
“techno-optimist,”
that’s
a
deeply
pessimistic
and
damaging
approach.
You
Don’t
Believe
In
Free
Markets
And
Free
Speech
If
You’re
Demanding
Criminal
Charges
Against
People
For
Their
Free
Market,
Free
Speech
Decisions
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TikTok
Ban
For
The
Benefit
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Billionaire
Buddy
Ukraine
Denied
EU
Trademark
For
‘Russian
Warship,
Go
Fuck
Yourself’
Seventh
Circuit
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Long-Term
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Camera
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Isn’t
Unconstitutional
Staci
Chris
