6 ms·

Trump sues Twitter, Google and Facebook alleging 'censorship'

48 points by Angostura 5y ago

cratermoon 5y ago
https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
- not_jd_salinger 5y ago
  While I love XKCD and am not a fan of Trump, limiting the philosophical idea of "Free Speech" to explicitly being about the Federal Government is a fairly dangerous idea. When this country was founded Government was by far the most powerful agency in people's lives. Merchants where important, had a lot of influence but still could not be too aggressive with a regent. Today the Government has far less influence over your daily life than large corporations and you employer. In 1776 most people where farmers, the only agency that could deny your livelihood was the government (they ultimately had control over your land). Today government policies have far less of an impact than your employer on your livelihood. The fact that a handful of oligarchs can decided that Trump doesn't need a voice is not democratic solution to a politician I radically disagree with that I would like. If you feel like the list of things you can't say publicly without ruining your career is shrinking, that is certainly a threat to the spirit of free speech.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    You're correct about the control of speech. At the moment at least Twitter, Google, and Facebook are private companies, and under the law and in the eyes of the Free Market, they can choose what they want to show and what they don't. It's their product, their rules. They kept the former occupant of the oval office on their platforms for as long as it was profitable to them. The solution entails more than questioning the philosophical idea of "Free Speech", it involves considering the nature of government and human rights in an entirely different light than the currently dominant neoliberal economic consensus.
  - pstuart 5y ago
    Let's try it out with HN? Maybe start a petition to demand that there is no more flagging/banning, etc. Anything goes in this marketplace of ideas, right? Let's stop letting dang tell us what we can and cannot say, eh? Let's stop the censorship now!
  - thrill 5y ago
    "Today the Government has far less influence over your daily life than large corporations and you employer." ... let me know when the average employer has the right to bust down your door and shove a gun in your face because you decide to grown some weed in your basement.
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    The East India Company finds your lack of historical perspective amusing.
- cherryturnover 5y ago
  If the government allows companies to buy all the avenues to free speech, do you really have free speech? For reference, North Korea has rights to freedom of speech and assembly. But it definitely does not mean they actually have that right. So arguing that the façade of a private company being allowed to shut you down is somehow rational is nothing beyond absurd. If you cannot express your speech anywhere because a mob disapproves, you don't have freedom of speech. Freedom of Speech is not "Freedom to only listen to the things I want to hear." Otherwise there is no free speech, just what is culturally acceptable.
  - not2b 5y ago
    The solution to things like that (and we are nowhere near that) is antitrust law. But we are nowhere near that state today; the far right dominates talk radio and owns tons of local radio stations, and has Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN to get their message out, as well as lots of content on Facebook and Youtube even if those platforms ban some things.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    Oh, I'm not saying it's rational. I'm pointing out that it's the current state of the neoliberal economic consensus. Companies can determine and who and what to amplify or block because Free Market fundamentalism outweighs human rights concerns, globally. > the façade of a private company being allowed to shut you down is somehow rational is nothing beyond absurd Indeed, it is, but that's where we are. > a mob disapproves In this case, it's not a mob. It's a handful of people who care more about making money than upholding rights. > there is no free speech, just what is culturally acceptable. "Yet if all cannot be of one mind—as who looks they should be?—this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian, that many be tolerated, rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which, as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate" - John Milton, "Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England", 1644 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/608/608-h/608-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/608/608-h/608-h.htm Free speech has always been constrained by what is culturally acceptable.
  - Splognosticus 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Karsteski 5y ago
You know, it's strange, but as much as I want to reject the idea that companies are able to "censor" people, the reality is that large social media platforms have become de facto public squares in 2021. In that regard, he was actually silenced on a very large scale. I live in Canada and not the US so I know little about how US laws work, but it does seem that both countries need to work on addressing the power that giant tech corporations have over speech. Ideally I would like some sort of government sponsored, decentralized platform similar to matrix, but I imagine that both governments are incapable of producing or unwilling to produce anything of the sort... I'm also very wary of government intervention given how little representation both the US and Canada peoples have, compared to who actually lobbies politicians. As much as I do not care at all for Donald Trump, I do still want people, whose ideas I do not agree with for the most part, able to speak their mind.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  People can speak their mind, it's just that nobody else is obligated to host you speaking your mind. The issue isn't Donald Trump being silenced, the issue is wannabe tinpot dictators like him trying to coerce private business into doing his bidding. That's the actual free speech issue if there is one. Nobody should be compelled to host anyone else's speech. Social media sites are not 'de facto public squares' in any way. It's trivial technically to create an alternative site to the incumbents, that's why there's already like half a dozen alternatives spawning around Trump's political ecosystem. It's just that the content on those sites is so godawful within days of them going online that everyone runs for the hills who has a few brain-cells left. It is so ridiculous to paint people like Trump, literal oligarchs, as victims of private business lol.
  - AuryGlenz 5y ago
    It’s in no way trivial to create an alternative site. What makes those social media platforms what they are is the network of people. That’s like saying if Ma Bell decided to kick someone off the telephone system in the 70s that they could just create an alternative network. That’s without even talking about stuff like being kicked off app stores, AWS, other hosting, or even their domain name.
tester756 5y ago
Even if you hate Trump, then I think it's hard to not agree with him on that
- smoldesu 5y ago
  With what? He violated the TOS, and as a private citizen (or Commander in Chief, for that matter) he is not above the arbitration of digital contracts. There's no way this case isn't instantly thrown out, provided the judge has even a cursory familiarity with software licensing.
  - cherryturnover 5y ago
    You can violate a TOS that encroach upon your rights granted by the government you know.
  - ctdonath 5y ago
    What TOS? He posted nothing violating TOS, considering how far worse is regularly overlooked just because of political origin. ...which is the point of the suit.
    - not2b 5y ago
      You are incorrect, and if these suits ever reach court, the defendants will demonstrate that.
- jonahbenton 5y ago
  No no no. As a political office holder, he is not a private citizen. His speech is by definition government speech. Attempting to force private entities to broadcast government speech is...precisely the opposite of censorship.
ipv6ipv4 5y ago
This is showmanship for the base. It has exactly zero legal merit or even intent.
- starlust2 5y ago
  It's grift. He's already sending out fundraising emails for the lawsuit.
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    Ha, good point. Since his accountant got charged just recently, I guess the fundraiser will say "Donate to my legal costs" and won't specify that it's not just (or even) to pay lawyers to fight the tech companies, but actually to pay lawyers to defend himself against the NY lawsuits.
    - not2b 5y ago
      His fundraising isn't even that restricted; it goes into a super PAC that can use the money for essentially anything: legal costs, future campaigns, transfers to other politicians he likes. He can even pay himself or family or cronies a salary out of it if he wants, and maybe he'll have to do that when the Trump Organization runs into a wall because it can no longer finance its debts.
- ds206 5y ago
  You've just described the job description of "politician" ;)
starlust2 5y ago
Trump launches latest grift, seeking donations for a meritless lawsuit using fraudulent language. A better title.
not2b 5y ago
He sued in Florida, despite terms of service agreements saying where any disputes must be settled, so the suits will be immediately tossed. But he's fund-raising off of this, and that's the real reason he's doing it.
- ctdonath 5y ago
  Mind-reading? You know his motive?
  - not2b 5y ago
    If he were serious about winning, he'd have his lawyers do their homework and file a credible case in the proper courts. But his fundraising appeal went out immediately.
    - ctdonath 5y ago
      Correlation does not prove causality. Filing the case is reasonable on its own. Leveraging the fundraising opportunity it creates is normal politics. Insisting the core motive IS fundraising is mind reading.
      - tzs 5y ago
        How is filing the case in the wrong court reasonable on its own?
      - Splognosticus 5y ago
        Eh? Who has suggested it does? Disregard for the moment that it's Donald Trump so that we can speak without partisanism mucking things up. It doesn't take a mind reader to gauge the intent of another person based on their actions. Just basic empathic ability and critical thinking. If you disagree with the conclusion then okay, go ahead and make an actual counterpoint. That's the whole point of discussion. Don't go accusing people of such outrageously ridiculous things as thinking that they have telepathic powers. You know perfectly well that sort of hyperbolic nonsense won't sway anyone.
ctdonath 5y ago
Issue is common carrier vs publishers. Common carrier: service provider is not responsible for any information customers transmit. Publisher: service provider is responsible for which customer-supplied information is transmitted. Section 203 bends the line between these, absolving service provider from liability of content while allowing good-faith effort to cull bad content. T/G/F broke that line by conflating “opposing views” with “bad content” unto sociopolitical ends. At some point a court or legislature must clarify that making bad-faith deletions of content nullifies the 203 protection. Here we go.
- not2b 5y ago
  No, they didn't ban Trump for "opposing views", but for calling for violence and spreading demonstrably false information, repeatedly. They can document this, along with the dozens of warnings they gave Trump, and they will whenever Trump, after losing the first round instantly (terms of service say you must sue company X in the state where it is headquartered, you chose Florida, go away), refiles in the proper places, they'll do that.
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    Exactly. No one's "deplatforming" (:eyeroll:) George Will for being a conservative. The sane, rational conservative voices still have full access to those platforms. (I'm not a conservative, but I can appreciate that there are still clear heads on the right who have interesting things to say even if I disagree with them.)
  - ctdonath 5y ago
    Construing common opposing views as “violence and lies” does not, historically, end well.
- rektide 5y ago
  Section 230 is literally designed to give content providers freedom to moderate & keep their site as they please. It's designed to allow sites to have liberties to do as they please. This desire to re-imagine 230, to invent these differing categories, or to imagine additional obligations to carry content, is fabricated made up nonsense with zero basis in fact. It's a complete schtick. Personally, to me, it comes off as a vengeful control act, often by influences/camps who rightfully these platforms should want to stay away from for good cause, but that's a weakly held opinion of myself. I normally am horrified by corporate rights, by treating corporations as people, but in this case, I 100% think 230 did the right thing, and allowed companies to build the sites they wanted to build, rather than having to get swamped by whomever came by & wanted to use the site for whatever dreadful horrible affairs they wanted.
klodolph 5y ago
I’m sure that in the time leading up to Trump’s ban from Twitter & Facebook, the companies had multiple C-level meetings and spent countless personnel-hours coming up for a plan outlining if and when Trump would be banned from the platform. I’m sure that legal counsel was deeply involved in the decision-making process, as well as PR. Twitter & Facebook were waiting for the perfect storm: 1. Their decision had to have good optics—the company had to appear, to the public, that it was doing the right thing. 2. Their decision had to be consistent—the relevant policies had to be written down and enacted long in advance. 3. Their decision had to have the right timing, politically. I’m also sure that there’s a massive stack of CYA documentation that these companies can produce on a moment’s notice. It’ll be interesting to watch the court case, because I’m interested in seeing what kind of CYA documentation these companies produce. They knew that Trump is eager to litigate. They knew this lawsuit was coming, and they were preparing for it long before they banned him.
- kjsingh 5y ago
  ya they must have put in some amount of legal insulation into their plan
squarefoot 5y ago
I wonder if the trigger happy cowboys who flagged this story as soon as it appeared on the front page would have done the same with any other unknown person in place of Trump.
- plorkyeran 5y ago
  It would not have made it to the front page in the first place if it wasn't Trump. People file spurious lawsuits that get dismissed instantly all the time.
  - squarefoot 5y ago
    My point is that it's three big tech companies that got sued, so it'd be normal to read about that here, and nobody would have reasons to flag the post.
- Splognosticus 5y ago
  In fairness it's reasonable to not want the sort of inevitable flame war that will come of simply mentioning that Trump did anything whatsoever. Much as I'd like to, it's nearly impossible to have a measured conversation on the merits of the case itself when people keep steering it pell-mell into the wall. :\
mcphage 5y ago
> "We are demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and cancelling that you know so well," he said. Is this an instance of shadow-banning? My understanding is shadow-banning is when a user thinks they're contributing, but nobody else (except admins) sees their contributions. I think that's how it's used on Reddit, at any rate.

48 points by Angostura 5y ago

cratermoon 5y ago

https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/

not_jd_salinger 5y ago
While I love XKCD and am not a fan of Trump, limiting the philosophical idea of "Free Speech" to explicitly being about the Federal Government is a fairly dangerous idea. When this country was founded Government was by far the most powerful agency in people's lives. Merchants where important, had a lot of influence but still could not be too aggressive with a regent. Today the Government has far less influence over your daily life than large corporations and you employer. In 1776 most people where farmers, the only agency that could deny your livelihood was the government (they ultimately had control over your land). Today government policies have far less of an impact than your employer on your livelihood. The fact that a handful of oligarchs can decided that Trump doesn't need a voice is not democratic solution to a politician I radically disagree with that I would like. If you feel like the list of things you can't say publicly without ruining your career is shrinking, that is certainly a threat to the spirit of free speech.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  You're correct about the control of speech. At the moment at least Twitter, Google, and Facebook are private companies, and under the law and in the eyes of the Free Market, they can choose what they want to show and what they don't. It's their product, their rules. They kept the former occupant of the oval office on their platforms for as long as it was profitable to them. The solution entails more than questioning the philosophical idea of "Free Speech", it involves considering the nature of government and human rights in an entirely different light than the currently dominant neoliberal economic consensus.
- pstuart 5y ago
  Let's try it out with HN? Maybe start a petition to demand that there is no more flagging/banning, etc. Anything goes in this marketplace of ideas, right? Let's stop letting dang tell us what we can and cannot say, eh? Let's stop the censorship now!
- thrill 5y ago
  "Today the Government has far less influence over your daily life than large corporations and you employer." ... let me know when the average employer has the right to bust down your door and shove a gun in your face because you decide to grown some weed in your basement.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  The East India Company finds your lack of historical perspective amusing.
cherryturnover 5y ago
If the government allows companies to buy all the avenues to free speech, do you really have free speech? For reference, North Korea has rights to freedom of speech and assembly. But it definitely does not mean they actually have that right. So arguing that the façade of a private company being allowed to shut you down is somehow rational is nothing beyond absurd. If you cannot express your speech anywhere because a mob disapproves, you don't have freedom of speech. Freedom of Speech is not "Freedom to only listen to the things I want to hear." Otherwise there is no free speech, just what is culturally acceptable.
- not2b 5y ago
  The solution to things like that (and we are nowhere near that) is antitrust law. But we are nowhere near that state today; the far right dominates talk radio and owns tons of local radio stations, and has Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN to get their message out, as well as lots of content on Facebook and Youtube even if those platforms ban some things.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  Oh, I'm not saying it's rational. I'm pointing out that it's the current state of the neoliberal economic consensus. Companies can determine and who and what to amplify or block because Free Market fundamentalism outweighs human rights concerns, globally. > the façade of a private company being allowed to shut you down is somehow rational is nothing beyond absurd Indeed, it is, but that's where we are. > a mob disapproves In this case, it's not a mob. It's a handful of people who care more about making money than upholding rights. > there is no free speech, just what is culturally acceptable. "Yet if all cannot be of one mind—as who looks they should be?—this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian, that many be tolerated, rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which, as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate" - John Milton, "Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England", 1644 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/608/608-h/608-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/608/608-h/608-h.htm Free speech has always been constrained by what is culturally acceptable.
- Splognosticus 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Karsteski 5y ago

You know, it's strange, but as much as I want to reject the idea that companies are able to "censor" people, the reality is that large social media platforms have become de facto public squares in 2021. In that regard, he was actually silenced on a very large scale. I live in Canada and not the US so I know little about how US laws work, but it does seem that both countries need to work on addressing the power that giant tech corporations have over speech. Ideally I would like some sort of government sponsored, decentralized platform similar to matrix, but I imagine that both governments are incapable of producing or unwilling to produce anything of the sort... I'm also very wary of government intervention given how little representation both the US and Canada peoples have, compared to who actually lobbies politicians. As much as I do not care at all for Donald Trump, I do still want people, whose ideas I do not agree with for the most part, able to speak their mind.

Barrin92 5y ago
People can speak their mind, it's just that nobody else is obligated to host you speaking your mind. The issue isn't Donald Trump being silenced, the issue is wannabe tinpot dictators like him trying to coerce private business into doing his bidding. That's the actual free speech issue if there is one. Nobody should be compelled to host anyone else's speech. Social media sites are not 'de facto public squares' in any way. It's trivial technically to create an alternative site to the incumbents, that's why there's already like half a dozen alternatives spawning around Trump's political ecosystem. It's just that the content on those sites is so godawful within days of them going online that everyone runs for the hills who has a few brain-cells left. It is so ridiculous to paint people like Trump, literal oligarchs, as victims of private business lol.
- AuryGlenz 5y ago
  It’s in no way trivial to create an alternative site. What makes those social media platforms what they are is the network of people. That’s like saying if Ma Bell decided to kick someone off the telephone system in the 70s that they could just create an alternative network. That’s without even talking about stuff like being kicked off app stores, AWS, other hosting, or even their domain name.

tester756 5y ago

Even if you hate Trump, then I think it's hard to not agree with him on that

smoldesu 5y ago
With what? He violated the TOS, and as a private citizen (or Commander in Chief, for that matter) he is not above the arbitration of digital contracts. There's no way this case isn't instantly thrown out, provided the judge has even a cursory familiarity with software licensing.
- cherryturnover 5y ago
  You can violate a TOS that encroach upon your rights granted by the government you know.
- ctdonath 5y ago
  What TOS? He posted nothing violating TOS, considering how far worse is regularly overlooked just because of political origin. ...which is the point of the suit.
  - not2b 5y ago
    You are incorrect, and if these suits ever reach court, the defendants will demonstrate that.
jonahbenton 5y ago
No no no. As a political office holder, he is not a private citizen. His speech is by definition government speech. Attempting to force private entities to broadcast government speech is...precisely the opposite of censorship.

ipv6ipv4 5y ago

This is showmanship for the base. It has exactly zero legal merit or even intent.

starlust2 5y ago
It's grift. He's already sending out fundraising emails for the lawsuit.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Ha, good point. Since his accountant got charged just recently, I guess the fundraiser will say "Donate to my legal costs" and won't specify that it's not just (or even) to pay lawyers to fight the tech companies, but actually to pay lawyers to defend himself against the NY lawsuits.
  - not2b 5y ago
    His fundraising isn't even that restricted; it goes into a super PAC that can use the money for essentially anything: legal costs, future campaigns, transfers to other politicians he likes. He can even pay himself or family or cronies a salary out of it if he wants, and maybe he'll have to do that when the Trump Organization runs into a wall because it can no longer finance its debts.
ds206 5y ago
You've just described the job description of "politician" ;)

starlust2 5y ago

Trump launches latest grift, seeking donations for a meritless lawsuit using fraudulent language. A better title.

not2b 5y ago

He sued in Florida, despite terms of service agreements saying where any disputes must be settled, so the suits will be immediately tossed. But he's fund-raising off of this, and that's the real reason he's doing it.

ctdonath 5y ago
Mind-reading? You know his motive?
- not2b 5y ago
  If he were serious about winning, he'd have his lawyers do their homework and file a credible case in the proper courts. But his fundraising appeal went out immediately.
  - ctdonath 5y ago
    Correlation does not prove causality. Filing the case is reasonable on its own. Leveraging the fundraising opportunity it creates is normal politics. Insisting the core motive IS fundraising is mind reading.
    - tzs 5y ago
      How is filing the case in the wrong court reasonable on its own?
    - Splognosticus 5y ago
      Eh? Who has suggested it does? Disregard for the moment that it's Donald Trump so that we can speak without partisanism mucking things up. It doesn't take a mind reader to gauge the intent of another person based on their actions. Just basic empathic ability and critical thinking. If you disagree with the conclusion then okay, go ahead and make an actual counterpoint. That's the whole point of discussion. Don't go accusing people of such outrageously ridiculous things as thinking that they have telepathic powers. You know perfectly well that sort of hyperbolic nonsense won't sway anyone.

ctdonath 5y ago

Issue is common carrier vs publishers. Common carrier: service provider is not responsible for any information customers transmit. Publisher: service provider is responsible for which customer-supplied information is transmitted. Section 203 bends the line between these, absolving service provider from liability of content while allowing good-faith effort to cull bad content. T/G/F broke that line by conflating “opposing views” with “bad content” unto sociopolitical ends. At some point a court or legislature must clarify that making bad-faith deletions of content nullifies the 203 protection. Here we go.

not2b 5y ago
No, they didn't ban Trump for "opposing views", but for calling for violence and spreading demonstrably false information, repeatedly. They can document this, along with the dozens of warnings they gave Trump, and they will whenever Trump, after losing the first round instantly (terms of service say you must sue company X in the state where it is headquartered, you chose Florida, go away), refiles in the proper places, they'll do that.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  Exactly. No one's "deplatforming" (:eyeroll:) George Will for being a conservative. The sane, rational conservative voices still have full access to those platforms. (I'm not a conservative, but I can appreciate that there are still clear heads on the right who have interesting things to say even if I disagree with them.)
- ctdonath 5y ago
  Construing common opposing views as “violence and lies” does not, historically, end well.
rektide 5y ago
Section 230 is literally designed to give content providers freedom to moderate & keep their site as they please. It's designed to allow sites to have liberties to do as they please. This desire to re-imagine 230, to invent these differing categories, or to imagine additional obligations to carry content, is fabricated made up nonsense with zero basis in fact. It's a complete schtick. Personally, to me, it comes off as a vengeful control act, often by influences/camps who rightfully these platforms should want to stay away from for good cause, but that's a weakly held opinion of myself. I normally am horrified by corporate rights, by treating corporations as people, but in this case, I 100% think 230 did the right thing, and allowed companies to build the sites they wanted to build, rather than having to get swamped by whomever came by & wanted to use the site for whatever dreadful horrible affairs they wanted.

klodolph 5y ago

I’m sure that in the time leading up to Trump’s ban from Twitter & Facebook, the companies had multiple C-level meetings and spent countless personnel-hours coming up for a plan outlining if and when Trump would be banned from the platform. I’m sure that legal counsel was deeply involved in the decision-making process, as well as PR. Twitter & Facebook were waiting for the perfect storm: 1. Their decision had to have good optics—the company had to appear, to the public, that it was doing the right thing. 2. Their decision had to be consistent—the relevant policies had to be written down and enacted long in advance. 3. Their decision had to have the right timing, politically. I’m also sure that there’s a massive stack of CYA documentation that these companies can produce on a moment’s notice. It’ll be interesting to watch the court case, because I’m interested in seeing what kind of CYA documentation these companies produce. They knew that Trump is eager to litigate. They knew this lawsuit was coming, and they were preparing for it long before they banned him.

kjsingh 5y ago
ya they must have put in some amount of legal insulation into their plan

squarefoot 5y ago

I wonder if the trigger happy cowboys who flagged this story as soon as it appeared on the front page would have done the same with any other unknown person in place of Trump.

plorkyeran 5y ago
It would not have made it to the front page in the first place if it wasn't Trump. People file spurious lawsuits that get dismissed instantly all the time.
- squarefoot 5y ago
  My point is that it's three big tech companies that got sued, so it'd be normal to read about that here, and nobody would have reasons to flag the post.
Splognosticus 5y ago
In fairness it's reasonable to not want the sort of inevitable flame war that will come of simply mentioning that Trump did anything whatsoever. Much as I'd like to, it's nearly impossible to have a measured conversation on the merits of the case itself when people keep steering it pell-mell into the wall. :\

mcphage 5y ago

> "We are demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and cancelling that you know so well," he said. Is this an instance of shadow-banning? My understanding is shadow-banning is when a user thinks they're contributing, but nobody else (except admins) sees their contributions. I think that's how it's used on Reddit, at any rate.