David Mamet filed a short story about airplanes to back Texas’ terrible social media law

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A short story about a lost airplane pilot was filed last week by David Mamet, who is known for plays like Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow.

You should just read Mamet's brief, which is two pages long. Here is a sample of the prose.

The Map is not the territory. The territory is the territory. The pilot’s answer to the question “where am I?” lies not on the map, but out the windscreen. That’s where he is. It doesn’t matter where he calculated he should be, the territory below him is where he is.

The map is a metaphor for the internet. The legal argument is that social media platforms have distorted the map by banning people who support Donald Trump. Mamet supports a Texas law that is meant to discourage web services from moderating conservative posts. Later on, this gets a little more explicit.

Navigating requires using tools correctly. The confused citizen has a map. But, if he worked from his observations back to it, he might discover that he can’t find his position pictured there.

Looking out he might, for example, see a free, prosperous, and good country, in which there was little actual poverty, scant racism, and no “systemic” racism, where minorities and women, rather than being discriminated against were treated preferentially. (This belief might be correct or incorrect, but unless we prefer a Ministry of Truth, the belief is his own and surely he’s entitled to it.)

Referring back, then, to his “information,” the citizen might not be able to correlate it with his observations. He knew where he was, as he’d just looked around. But he found no corresponding position on his map.

You can find diversions like an etymology lesson referencing Greek mythology along the way.

I report as an outdoorsman, that Panic is real. It is the loss of the mind and will to Pan, God of the Woods. The affected loses his reason, and runs about unable to recognize those actual signs (a road, his own footprints), which might bring him back to safety.

Mike Masnick of Techdirt has analyzed Mamet's argument and his decision to copyright the legal filing, something that is theoretically possible but very rare. Mamet's logic hinges on casting a partial government ban on moderation by private companies as protection from government censorship, and calling web platforms that control information conduits, and are privileged and subsidized by the government.

A judge probably won't be swayed by a legal brief that doesn't include any actual legal references or arguments. I'm not going to complain if state legislatures make me cover ill-conceived and possibly unconstitutional social media laws.