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FCC To Move on Trump Plan To Weaken Social Media Legal Shield (bloomberg.com) 247

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said the agency will consider President Donald Trump's request to weaken legal protections for social media companies such as Twitter. From a report: The FCC will begin a rulemaking to "clarify" the meaning of a law that gives broad legal immunity to social media companies for their handling of users' posts, Pai said in an emailed statement. The action follows a request by the Trump administration for regulators to dilute the decades-old law that Facebook, Twitter and Google say is crucial. The request was called for in an executive order that Trump signed in May. Tech trade groups, civil liberties organizations and legal scholars have slammed the action and said it isn't likely to survive a court challenge.
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FCC To Move on Trump Plan To Weaken Social Media Legal Shield More

FCC To Move on Trump Plan To Weaken Social Media Legal Shield

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  • Neutrality (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:12PM (#60611666) Homepage Journal

    S.230 provides protections to neutral platforms.

    As soon as a platform vociferously supports one political party by allowing rampant discussion of their conspiracy theories, but blocks articles harmful to their party's political odds until metaphysical certitude has been obtained about the claims, then they're a publisher, not a platform.

    Their bet is that their technology can be weaponized to provide enough election interference that their party gets into power and they don't get prosecuted.

    To be fair, anything the FCC does at this point is anemic and if the incumbents lose then everything will be reversed before the appeals are over. Political courage would have been making such a move a year ago, but "political courage" doesn't describe the current incumbents (with very few exceptions).

    • I have not seen any statistically reliable evidence "Big Tech" are biased toward a party, just cherry-picked complaints. Cherry picking is improper statistical sampling. For some reason, much the population doesn't seem to understand this principle, and thus end up being willing tools of fallacy-filled trolls.

      • Anecdotes matter.

        Please cite a single time an anti-trump story was blocked by these social media companies.

      • These are the same outlets who hosted four years of ranting and raving about Trump-Russia, Trump pee tapes, Trump-Ukraine, all on anonymous sources. They ran with tons of tweets and posts and likes about Trump with porn stars and prostitutes, without any actual evidence, and that stuff is all still up (the porn star never provided evidence other than that Trump paid her to go away and shut up, but she illegally breached the NDA she signed when she blackmailed then-businessman Trump, and the products of that

    • Re:Neutrality (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ly4 ( 2353328 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:45PM (#60611878)

      S.230 provides protections to neutral platforms.

      Incorrect.

      https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... [eff.org]

      • The weirdest part, is all these "conservatives" demanding this "neutrality" when they're against things like equal time policies for exactly the reason that the neutral position is not objectively definable.

        They're so busy yelling they can't remember what they were yelling about in the past.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by MobileTatsu-NJG ( 946591 )

      ...blocks articles harmful to their party's political odds...

      Those articles also happen to be harmful to Public Safety.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by quantaman ( 517394 )

      S.230 provides protections to neutral platforms.

      No it doesn't, it provides protections to platforms. There's no mention of a requirement for political neutrality.

      As soon as a platform vociferously supports one political party by allowing rampant discussion of their conspiracy theories, but blocks articles harmful to their party's political odds until metaphysical certitude has been obtained about the claims, then they're a publisher, not a platform.

      Their bet is that their technology can be weaponized to provide enough election interference that their party gets into power and they don't get prosecuted.

      First, this claim is irrelevant. Social media companies don't have to be neutral.

      Second, in addition to being irrelevant it's also wrong.

      You did well to dance around mentioning political affiliation since you're undoubtedly a conservative complaining about the "censorship" of conservatives on social media.

      But the reason conservatives are disproportionately moderated is the overwhelming majority

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Chas ( 5144 )

        Media companies don't have to be neutral.

        And S230 doesn't have to provide immunity from prosecution as you're then acting as a publisher.

    • Re:Neutrality (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @05:05PM (#60612008)

      S.230 provides protections to neutral platforms

      You either just made that up or are repeating something you heard elsewhere without having done your due diligence, because Section 230 says nothing of the sort. Quite the contrary, the whole point of Section 230 was to open things up, provide people with more choices, and remove restrictions like the ones you're talking about [wikipedia.org]. Don't believe me? Here's a snippet of what Section 230(b) itself says that it's intended purpose is (emphasis mine):

      (b) POLICY- It is the policy of the United States-- [...]
      (2) to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation;
      (3) to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet and other interactive computer services; [...]

      And then a bit later:

      `(2) CIVIL LIABILITY- No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of--
      `(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected;

      Notably, there are no caveats about needing to remain neutral, nor any inkling of anything you're talking about as you read through the various definitions. But perhaps you think I'm cherry-picking quotes to suit myself? Here's the full text of the Telecommunications Act [fcc.gov] in which you'll find Section 230, straight from the horse's mouth. Let me know when you find anything that corroborates what you're talking about. For your convenience, I've reproduced the entirety of Section 230 below.

      SEC. 230. PROTECTION FOR PRIVATE BLOCKING AND SCREENING OF
      OFFENSIVE MATERIAL.
      `(a) FINDINGS- The Congress finds the following:
      `(1) The rapidly developing array of Internet and other
      interactive computer services available to individual Americans
      represent an extraordinary advance in the availability of
      educational and informational resources to our citizens.
      `(2) These services offer users a great degree of control
      over the information that they receive, as well as the
      potential for even greater control in the future as technology
      develops.
      `(3) The Internet and other interactive computer services

      • There's a very important phrase there. "Good faith". And acting in good faith is manifestly what Twitter and Facebook are not doing.

        • Re:Neutrality (Score:4, Informative)

          by Aighearach ( 97333 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @07:58PM (#60612818)

          Now look up "good faith" and see if it means "stuff that makes me feel good" or whatever the fuck you were thinking.

          https://legal-dictionary.thefr... [thefreedictionary.com]
          "Good faith is an abstract and comprehensive term that encompasses a sincere belief or motive without any malice or the desire to defraud others. It derives from the translation of the Latin term bona fide, and courts use the two terms interchangeably."

          All good faith means is that when they delete or block your content and they tell you it is because it is offensive, that they really decided, or believed they had decided, that it was offensive. That's what it means.

          For example, lets say you had paid $1 to post 10 items, 1 per week, in my newsletter. And you have to mail me your text each week. And I gave you a bunch of rules that your post has to follow. And there is no time for corrections; if your item isn't approved, you lose your chance to post that week, and you don't get a refund. OK, so then I reject 5 of your posts, and I told you they didn't follow the rules I set. But maybe you hired a bunch of lawyers to make sure your posts did follow the rules I set, so you sue me for fraud. And as part of discovery, I have to turn over a bunch of emails to you. And in those emails, you find evidence that I had actually ordered the person approving the posts to increase rejections by 15% to improve profits. Those extra rejections were not in Good Faith.

          That's what Good Faith means. It just means that I really believe what I said, or at least that I believe that parts that are material representations about some business that we're doing.

    • S.230 provides protections to neutral platforms.

      As soon as a platform vociferously supports one political party by allowing rampant discussion of their conspiracy theories, but blocks articles harmful to their party's political odds until metaphysical certitude has been obtained about the claims, then they're a publisher, not a platform.

      WRONG.

      There is no provision in 47USCs230 for losing protection.

      Here is the full text of the law [cornell.edu]:

      47 U.S. Code 230 - Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material

      (a) Findings
      The Congress finds the following:

      (1) The rapidly developing array of Internet and other interactive computer services available to individual Americans represent an extraordinary advance in the availability of educational and informational resources to our citizens.

      (2) These services offer users a great degree of co

    • S.230 provides protections to neutral platforms.

      As soon as a platform vociferously supports one political party by allowing rampant discussion of their conspiracy theories, but blocks articles harmful to their party's political odds until metaphysical certitude has been obtained about the claims, then they're a publisher, not a platform.

      Section 230 doesn't say a word about neutrality. It also doesn't make a distinction about platform or publishers.

      230(c)(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
      No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

      How about you actually go and read up on Section 230 before

  • Enjoy political irrelevance, idiots (Score:3)

    by Cid Highwind ( 9258 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:20PM (#60611708) Homepage
    If Facebook and Twitter were publishers who had to remove every libelous post or face legal action in 2016, Hillary Clinton would own both companies and there would never have been a "Trump administration".

  • Social media companies are supposedly showing you what their algorithms have determined what will keep you on their site. They say this is done (mostly) without care about the actual content. They are simply trying to keep give the you what they think you want.

    As long as the companies are not biasing what they are showing you to advance their agenda or that of another then I think they might be in the clear. However, it gets slippery because they are pushing advertisements which some might consider an ag

    • As long as the companies are not biasing what they are showing you to advance their agenda or that of another then I think they might be in the clear. However, it gets slippery because they are pushing advertisements which some might consider an agenda.

      The fariness doctrine got tossed out by the Supreme Court a long time ago. The equal-time law is so narrowly written and even more narrowly interpreted that, while it technically still exists, it's irrelevant.

      Political advertising is very heavily protected, and Google is accepting more from Republican PACs than they are from anyone else, from my own sampling. That's where the money is. But regardless, the Trump Supreme Court is vociferous about defending the rights of corporations to do anything they dam

  • Biden will lose badly (Score:3, Interesting)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:26PM (#60611752)

    Not enough democrats will mail in their ballot and Biden has scared them from voting in person. Democrats core voters under age 24 have never mailed anything in their life. People aren't used to mailing things anymore .. not even tax returns. The fact that Republican Mike Garcia recently won a heavily Democrat district in California by a whopping 12 points with mail-in ballots when all the polls right up to election day said it must lean Democrat. REference: https://www.rollcall.com/2020/... [rollcall.com] Other statistics such as from North Carolina have found its mostly minority and democrat votes getting rejected. Reference: https://www.newsweek.com/black... [newsweek.com] Based on statistics from the primaries, USA Today estimates that a minimum of 1 million votes will be rejected due to lack of signature or arriving late. Reference: https://www.usatoday.com/in-de... [usatoday.com]. And that's based on primary voters who tend to be more experienced and not doing things last minute.

    In addition, without in person "go vote today" encouragement, a lot of democrats won't go vote. Their friend would have already mailed in their ballot and they won't bother.

    Add to all this that Republicans are putting fake ballot boxes especially in democrat areas and then discarding them. Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/1... [nytimes.com]

    Basically, democrats may not only lose the swing states but other supposedly guaranteed states because democrats have traditionally not been good at turning out votes and especially now with Covid they will have even more trouble as many people will wait until the last minute.

    TL;DR: Most democrats won't mail in their ballot and they won't be encouraged to vote in person either. Meanwhle republicans are going door to door and encouraging both.

    • The ballot boxes aren't "fake", ballot harvesting is LEGAL as long as they properly submit those ballots, If they are destroying them that would be another matter, but that would require proof.

      • Oh come on, it's virtually guaranteed they are destroying most of them ..after sorting out the democrat ones and re-enveloping the GOP votes.

        • maybe they are but that would require proof. probably that state and some othres should eliminate ballot harvesting, eh? But it's legal right now. That stupidity of allowing it is biting them in the ass.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AvitarX ( 172628 )
          That would be a terrible idea (sorting and re enveloping).

          We know democrats are more likely to vote not in person from polling (2:1), and one can make sure the boxes are in areas that lean democrat in general.

          It would be MUCH less detectable and have a HUGE impact to just throw out a significant portion of mailed/dropped-off ballots.

          Also, if anybody looks into missing ballots, there wouldn't be statistical evidence of selective destruction. It could be played as clearly overworked workers making mistakes.
        • You must be a very sad, angry person that you think such horrible intent about fellow Americans.

          Please note you are accusing a straw man of a federal crime. You should evaluate your feelings for doing so, you might find a way to a healthier life.

          • Hey didn't your guy claim democrats were doing ballot fraud? Didn't he say democrats were printing fake ballots? Quit your projecting. You don't follow the news at all, so your opinion is false.

        • You haven't been paying attention. In contrast to your one citation for California, there have been many stories in the last 4 weeks of Republican mailed ballots being discarded. While dishonest tactics tend to follow the party in control of a particular state, the USPS is a quasi-governmental entity whose employees are mostly Democrat and have a choke hold on mailed ballots.

      • If you're talking about the ones in California, they're fake because they have "official ballot drop box" written on them without actually being official ballot drop boxes. And they're also illegal because, from what I'm given to understand, Californian law doesn't allow people to just collect ballots and submit them without some extra steps that aren't possible with a drop box.

        • Nope, it is legal and why the Republicans won't back down on placing the boxes, they know law is on their side. You are only reading sour grapes of officials who are realizing something they allowed to benefit their party is now biting them in the ass. Proof would be required that they're improperly processing collected ballots, sure if that happens then they are "illegal" and "fake". But that hasn't happened yet.

        • Now you're making things up. There were a few mislabeled as official, but those labels have been removed. And notably, the drop boxes are at usual gatherings of people like churches and political party headquarters. There is actually no California state law banning the use of unofficial ballot boxes.

          Legal or illegal is a fact. You can't claim that something is illegal when it's just your opinion.

          As to the law, it's here: https://leginfo.legislature.ca... [ca.gov]

          But I'll quote the relevant text for you.

    • Add to all this that Republicans are putting fake ballot boxes especially in democrat areas and then discarding them. Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/1... [nytimes.com]

      Your own link directly contradicts your claims: "The dark gray metal boxes have been popping up over the past two weeks near churches, gun shops and Republican Party offices, mostly in conservative areas of a deep-blue state"

      All they're doing is taking advantage of ballot harvesting rules that Democrats put into place.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

      TL;DR: Most democrats won't mail in their ballot and they won't be encouraged to vote in person either.

      Biden is going to lose, but that's not the main reason why.

      The main reason why is that he's repeating Hillary's 2016 campaign playbook. He's trying to run up the score in red states in order to get a landslide win and targeting Republican voters in the theory that he can get them to flip on their party.

      It didn't work in 2016 and it's not going to work in 2020. Some Republicans may opt to not vote for Trump - but they're not going to vote for Biden, either. And because he's not campaigning (and not running "

      • With regard to refusing to commit to not packing the Supreme Court, Biden explicitly said that the public was not entitled to know his intentions on that subject. This is unusual arrogance in a candidate for public office.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
        I'm in Ohio - I am seeing plenty of Biden advertisements on tv that talk about what he wants to do. Very little mention of Trump other than his lack of leadership.

        From the Republicans, all I get are mailers that simply say "vote down the party lines.. just because".

        As far as I know, Ohio is still a swing state... oh how I hate election season.

  • Not sure he/they've thought this throiugh ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @04:28PM (#60611770)

    agency [FCC] will consider President Donald Trump's request to weaken legal protections for social media companies

    Weakening the liability shield will result in the companies blocking *more* posts, not fewer, to help prevent themselves from being sued/fined for allowing inappropriate content. Weakening the safe harbor rules will result in companies being *more* cautious and (potentially) more restrictive. Trump and conservatives may get more things "censored" so they should be careful what they wish for...

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by inhuman_4 ( 1294516 )

      You're right, conservatives will probably face more censorship if the protections are stripped. But conservatives are already facing heavy censorship on social media, while the left gets a free pass. Stripping the protections means that conservatives can somewhat level the playing field by taking these social media companies to court.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DewDude ( 537374 )
        Except they will be the ones setting the standards. It's working exactly how they want...they'll get to make corporations block liberal ideas while saying "we're not doing it, it's the law and there's no constitutional violations."

      • Take them to court for what?

    • Weakening the safe harbor rules will result in companies being *more* cautious and (potentially) more restrictive.

      ...and when the lawsuits start pouring in, those lawsuits will shape that more restrictive censorship.

      Perhaps to the point that the censorship begins to resemble the will of the people instead of the will of some pixies.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DewDude ( 537374 )
        Unless you pack-in judges. The chances of a Trump appointed judge allowing a lawsuit for something like that is nil. The judges will be the ones declaring it illegal in interpretation of the law. Barret is going to get reamed on the SCOTUS...and when it reaches them..that 6-3 majority will GLADLY make liberal censorship 100% legal.

        We're fucked. There is absolutely nothing we can do now. The Republicans stacked the cards strictly in their favor. They'll be the one making the laws...they'll have a court on t
        • So your theory about what might happen in the future, is worse than whats happening now, because it might happen to you?

          More directly: "What my side is doing right now, unchecked by law, would be terrible if it happened to us... checked by law"

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DewDude ( 537374 )
      It will mean the party in absolute power will be sure to maintain that power by dictating what's legal. It won't harm them...it will do exactly what they want; essentially enable them to make liberal ideas 100% illegal by using private industry regulations.

      The government can't directly take your rights...but they can do it through private industry.

    • I'm not sure how committed they are to going through with it. Keep in mind that these clowns, despite their insistent claims to the contrary, have out-politicianed the politicians at every turn. They demonstrate it Every. Single. Time.

      It reads more like threatening to sue. Or, in this case, open the floodgates to have 100 other people sue. Recall that the one pulling the strings here has a decades-long history of threatening to sue anyone that spoke negatively (that is to say, factually) about him. I'm not

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Weakening the liability shield will result in the companies blocking *more* posts

      How do you figure that? If they lose safe harbor protection for blocking anything for reasons other than illegal content, they will have to restrict themselves to only that. And they will have to back their decisions up with evidence so a jury can agree, "Yeah. That looks illegal."

  • The reason we have tech monopolies is Congress drafted laws that allowed the firms to turn into behemoths. In gratitude, these firms then showered their favorite politicians with cash, in order to avoid getting the Microsoft treatment. This allowed the firms to get bigger and turn the thank you cash into threats. It is not unrealistic to think these firms are now able and willing to blackmail politicians with information gleaned from their social media, e-mail and mobile devices.

    The starting point for thi

    • You want them to allow spam? Slashdot or any other forum especially speciallty interest forums wouldn't exist without that law. -- they would be inundated with spam and rational discussion would be impossible.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DewDude ( 537374 )
      I got news for you. Republicans fully support walled gardens. I fully see the current FCC and current GOP dictators allowing ISPs to stop providing real internet in favor of whatever they want.

    • I don't disagree with your logic... but your conclusion is wrong.

      You say :

      If Twitter, for example, is regulating speech on its platform, then it is no longer covered by Section 230, because it is clearly able and willing to act as a publisher. We call a dog a dog because it has all the characteristics of a dog. Twitter/Facebook/etc are publishers because they now have the vital characteristics of publishers. Applying the original logic of the law to them means they either stop censoring people or they transform into something else.

      That is FALSE. There is no provision in the law for losing their protections.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      The reason we have tech monopolies is Congress drafted laws that allowed the firms to turn into behemoths.

      Yeah. There were a few pre-CDA lawsuits that threatened the likes of AOL, Compuserve and some of the big ISPs running Usenet feeds. But most of the Usenet was immune to lawsuits because it was distributed and nodes were too small. There was nothing to sue.

      The big boys realized that there was no way to consolidate such a distributed network into multi-billion dollar enterprises if that meant creating deep pockets and a resulting feeding frenzy of attorneys. So we got them a broad liability immunity for purg

  • First, the first amendment to the US Constitution doesn't apply to non-governmental entities.
    (Go ahead, Republicans, scream all you want, but Fox news gets to decide what's on their
    "entertainment" platform and so does Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik-Tok, and my butt.)

    The FCC took their own jurisdiction away. They can do nothing about the Internet.
    This is simply an act of ingratiation to make Trump think Ajit is doing his master's bidding.
    Something something something dark side. Something something some

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      You do know that Fox News has a different standing under US law for the material that they broadcast than Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tik-Tok. The latter all would like the same editorial rights as Fox with none of the responsibility (liability exposure). If they want a level playing field, it looks like Trump is ready to give it to them. In spades.

    • Well, to listen to the Democratic debates, apparently it's ok to alter or abolish 230 if the companies don't censor harrassment the way politicians want.

      For some reason, this isn't a violation of the First Amendment, even though every other rationalized law whose real purpose is censorship gets kicked by the Supreme Court.

      We saw this most recently in one of those cake baker cases, where there was ample evidence the politicians behind the law did it out of hatred for the religion, rather than some ostensibly

  • https://youtu.be/eUWIi-Ppe5k [youtu.be]

    Basically, Trump has no idea (or doesn't care) about the consequences that lie beyond his demands, because he doesn't know (or doesn't care) of the history that brought about Section 230.

    Without these companies self-regulating their platforms, the internet devolves into an unusable troll playground.

    And as another youtube comment points out, "misinformation warnings are commentary", and as such are protected by the 1st Amendment.
    "The 1st Amendment doesn't protect you from the soci

  • Simple as that, always has been, always will be, private company, they can do whatever they want. Go start your own goddamned platform if you don't like it, it's still a free country.

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