The last time Ethics Alarms had anything positive to sat about Nikki Haley, who briefly emerged in the last few weeks as a ray of hope for those who regard avoiding the dreaded, ethics-free Trump-Biden contest next year as an existential necessity, was when she was ambassador to the U.N. The Ethics Alarms position on her since is “Haley has proven herself to be a hypocrite, a cynical opportunist, and devoid of integrity.” She has again validated that negative assessment, adding some Democrat-style First Amendment hostility to the mix.
During an interview on Fox News, Haley reiterated her pledge to make anonymous commenting on social media platforms illegal, arguing that “every person on social media should be verified by their name.” If she is elected president, Haley said, social media companies would be required to authenticate people’s identity before allowing them to comment.
“When you do that, all of a sudden people have to stand by what they say,” she said. “And it gets rid of the Russian bots, the Iranian bots, and the Chinese bots. And then you’re going to get some civility when people know their name is next to what they say, and they know their pastor and their family members are going to see it.”
Well, Republicans pounced, as did anyone else who knows what’s in the First Amendment. “Forcing disclosure of names and registration, that’s what China has done. China did that recently,” Florida governor Ron DeSantis said. “That is totally inappropriate for the United States of America.”Glenn Greenwald, no Republican he, tweeted in part, “Is Nikki Haley aware that the Federalist Papers were written by founding fathers using pseudonyms?….This is blatantly unconstitutional.” Duh. How could Haley say such a thing without her ethics alarm ringing so hard it rendered her unconscious?
Then, after being scorched from all sides, Haley, demonstrating the kind of integrity, consistency and honesty that has so enamored her to Ethics Alarms, immediately denied that she meant what she said and has said more than once. Haley told CNBC that “life would be more civil” if people were prohibited from posting anonymously but that anonymous accounts would still be allowed for American citizens under President Haley. That’s the exact opposite of what she said very clearly on Fox News. “I don’t mind anonymous American people having free speech,” Haley told CNBC while flip-flopping. . “What I don’t like is anonymous Russians and Chinese and Iranians having free speech.”
Then Haley’s campaign reassured all that Nikki reveres the First Amendment. “What Nikki doesn’t support is letting the Chinese and Iranians create anonymous accounts to spread chaos and anti-American filth among our people,” it said. “They’re doing that as we speak and it’s a national security threat. Social media companies have to do a way better job policing that.”
Wait…and why didn’t she say that in the first place?
Ethics Alarms 
When I first heard the comment I thought that having social media sites, like this one, validate users some how makes sense. Boys tend to clog up systems and create a false sense of consensus. One way to do that is to send an email with a code to the given email address to validate the user.
I don’t think government should have any role in the matter of verifying or warehousing data about users. Validating users by social media firms might have a beneficial value to advertisers. Recall that the Twitter negotiation revolves around the stated number of users and the estimated number of real users by Musk.
While I prefer to use my real name on social media I can understand why others may not.
Nikki Haley has demonstrated to me that she is not truly ready for prime time.
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Found it! It’s up!
““Haley has proven herself to be a hypocrite, a cynical opportunist, and devoid of integrity.”
That would seem to put her well above the mean of current candidates, ethics-wise.
If “every person on social media should be verified by their name”, why stop there? Perhaps we should force people to use their birth names? Right, Nimarata?
How does this contrast with your post about Yik Yak?
The problem with YikYak is that it is a gossip site targeted to individual schools. This wouldn’t be too big of a problem if the students weren’t addicted to social media. If it were only the gossips on YikYak, and no one else saw the posts, no problem. The issue is that everyone has at least 1 friend telling them ‘Did you see what they are saying about you on YikYak?’. Then they look it up and find a comment such as “Did you see her go up to receive that award? She looked really fat in that and why does she think those clothes go together? Why is she getting that award anyway? I heard that she is sleeping with the Student Council President and that is how she got the award. I hope his girlfriend doesn’t find out.” The issue is, this isn’t an abuse of YikYak, this is the POINT of YikYak. I hear from students who don’t want to do anything that would get them noticed because of the abuse that will be heaped on them with YikYak.
YikYak isn’t about politics, or government figures, or comments on things people post on the internet themselves. It isn’t someplace where there are some abusive comments but also a lot of valuable information. YikYak is about making sure that anyone who does anything is thoroughly abused and ruined.
“Wait…and why didn’t she say that in the first place?”
Irrelevant. Her later statement is no better.
There is a quotation that I thought about posting in response to one of your recent posts (I forget which, but it is relevant here): The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
The eternal vigilance is two-fold. The easy case is that we need to be eternally vigilant against those who want to infringe on our freedom. The much more difficult case is that we need to be eternally vigilant that we don’t infringe upon the freedom of others.
The history of every government is the inclination to clamp down on freedom.
We were not far into our youth as a country when we started trying to police speech with the Sedition Act.
People want to control the actions of others; they are equally disinclined to want to control their own desires to police others.
Haley’s claim of a security threat is just one more reason to violate the First Amendment’s clear restriction on the Federal Government’s power to police speech.
-Jut
I am reminded of this gem from 1994.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/03/31/Public-housing-residents-want-gun-sweeps/3117765090000/
It is the same mentality that drives public support for assault weapons bans.
I understand all you’re saying in this post.
The problem is that elections are a zero sum game – someone wins and the other side loses.
So we’ve got to choose someone. If the choice is Haley or Trump, which do you choose. If the choice is Haley or Biden which do you choose?
And, worst case, if the choice is Trump or Biden….
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Yes, I think this is the utilitarian argument. But whatever her flaws, will Haley be a better choice than the alternative. Can she, rather than DeSantis, beat Trump? If both can, then we have a genuine choice. If only one can, then I personally have to back that one. If neither can beat Trump? Well, it’s going to be a long next four years.