FCC To Move on Trump Plan To Weaken Social Media Legal Shield (bloomberg.com) 247
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.
Neutrality (Score:3, Interesting)
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).
Don't forget evidence, science, and statistics (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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Please cite a single time an anti-trump story was blocked by these social media companies.
it's hardly just unsubstantiated rumor that... (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
S.230 provides protections to neutral platforms.
Incorrect.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... [eff.org]
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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.
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...blocks articles harmful to their party's political odds...
Those articles also happen to be harmful to Public Safety.
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It isn't the personal info "could be used for doxing" it was that the post was of stolen content. This was literally the "dox" having been already stolen, and posted.
And probably fake anyway. But "claimed to be stolen" is enough to reject it.
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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
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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, Insightful)
But the reason conservatives are disproportionately moderated is the overwhelming majority of easily discredited conspiracy theories are posted by conservatives.
Ah yes, and of course the sensical progressive liberalism that has destroyed our education system is churning out an excellent grounded group of individuals who never bring forth their own flavor of batshit insanity? Yes, tell me more about the 112 genders we must legally recognize or be Cancelled by those of a certain Culture. Or maybe we can explore why biological women, are no longer able to compete in sports today. Gosh, it's almost too much logic to handle!
First, this is about conspiracy theories, not your pet-peeves regarding how to deal with transgender and intersex people.
Second, I know plenty of people who don't really know more than 2 genders and haven't been cancelled, as well as plenty of biological women who compete in sports.
You're complaining about issues that only a tiny, tiny minority of people will experience.
The fact is that social media companies are trying hard to apply their standards impartially but end up moderating conservatives more because conservatives are far more likely to violate whatever standard they set.
The liberals who own and run these platforms, freely admit they are liberals. And this isn't about violating. This is about offending fragile weak minds who literally cannot handle the truth. And I mean the ACTUAL truth backed up with science and fact, not "facts" backed up with feelings and the usual "racist/bigot" tirade of ignorance if you ever dare do that human thing and disagree.
Liberals might actually be able to bring forth a point to make here, if they were ever brave enough to actually debate an intelligent conservative. They refuse. Damn near every time. Perhaps you can explain why that is, because logical intelligent people ARE willing to have civil discourse with anyone.
It's rather enjoyable to debate someone. Or at least it can be, if the person can mentally handle being right or wrong. I will admit I'm wrong all day long if you prove it to me. I'm human, after all.
I guess most liberals, aren't human.
I've sought out intelligent conservatives to discuss with in the past, and frankly they're a dying breed as Trumpism and Fox News have taken over the debate.
And if I'm to be honest, the fact that you instantly turned the conversation from censorship of discredited conspiracy theories to complaints about race and gender, and started ranting about the "ACTUAL truth" while complaining about being called "racist/bigot" tells me that there's not much point in trying to have a productive conversation with you.
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Then I'm afraid the only thing you've demonstrated here, is your ability to assume, without even furthering civil discourse. I've already stated my ability to be dead wrong, and my ability to accept and learn from it. That alone, speaks far more than the opposition can manage.
Maybe you should stop debating Trump followers and Faux News fanatics for starters. Intelligent discourse, meets in the middle. It doesn't hang out with the fucking nutjobs on the bleeding edge, and we sure as hell shouldn't be morphing society or policy around them.
You have zero interest in discourse, intelligent or civil. You're just looking for a fight.
This was a discussion about censorship. The OP, whom I disagreed with, posted misinformation, but on-topic misinformation, and I replied with a discussion about censorship and misinformation.
You brought up race and transgender people which has almost nothing to do with the story because you wanted to get into a great big argument, and for that you were rightfully modded 'flamebait'.
I gave you the slightest response (p
Re:Neutrality (Score:5, Informative)
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
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Re:Neutrality (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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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]:
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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
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If you pick and choose, then you are literally a publisher choosing what may be published.
So it's okay to force a site to carry speech they don't agree with, with the threat that if they don't do that they'll lose the Section 230 protections against liability for content others posted?
Seems you aren't a big believer in the Constitution and the First Amendment...
Enjoy political irrelevance, idiots (Score:3)
Moderation motivation (Score:2)
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
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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)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 "
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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)
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...
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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.
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Take them to court for what?
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Weakening the safe harbor rules will result in companies being *more* cautious and (potentially) more restrictive.
Perhaps to the point that the censorship begins to resemble the will of the people instead of the will of some pixies.
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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
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More directly: "What my side is doing right now, unchecked by law, would be terrible if it happened to us... checked by law"
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The government can't directly take your rights...but they can do it through private industry.
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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
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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."
Section 230 (Score:2)
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
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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.
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How will spam and topic-specific discussion be allowed if Section 230 is repealed?
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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.
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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
Social media not a publisher. 1st am doesn't apply (Score:2, Insightful)
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
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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.
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And Twitter isn't?
Fox operates as a publisher for its news and entertainment. In either case, they accept a different level of liability than Twitter/Facebook is willing to.
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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
Legal Eagle covered this (Score:2)
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
Don't like it? Don't use it. (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
What happened to republicans wanting a self regulated market and minimal government intervention?
Re: Good (Score:3, Informative)
Itâ(TM)s the regulation that is causing the problems. The constitution as it stands should be sufficient, but big tech wanted to have regulation against being sued. So since they promised to behave as a platform, it was regulated that they canâ(TM)t be sued. They behaved instead as a publisher in order to supplant the classic media, which means their editors should be liable, just like any other unregulated publisher.
Moving to remove or weaken regulation, is not increasing regulation.
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The constitution as it stands should be sufficient, ....
Hardly. The Constitution is an 18th century document written by men in the 18th century. It was made to be changed and modified for the future and for things they never even thought of.
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Some of them had the experience of owning slaves, but being a slave?
Some of them had the experience of being born, but giving birth?
Re: Good (Score:4, Insightful)
The constitution as it stands should be sufficient, ....
Hardly. The Constitution is an 18th century document written by men in the 18th century. It was made to be changed and modified for the future and for things they never even thought of.
True, but it takes 2/3rds of the states to ratify those changes in things called "Amendments", the process outlined in the constitution because the founders in the 18th century where smart enough to understand this would be the case.
However, I would argue that the brilliant folks who authored the Constitution kept the process of government simple and focused on the principles that should govern how government works, what it can and cannot do. As such, it has survived the test of time pretty much unscathed, with really only a set of clarifications and details having to be hashed out after the fist 10 amendments where ratified. Very little of what they wrote in the 1700's has needed to be changed.
So, you cannot use your "it's an old out of date document" argument to just dismiss what it says. You either interpret it based on what the authors intended it to say, or you have to amend it. Anything else amounts to making the country lawless. If laws are not to be interpreted to mean what the authors intended when they where written, then their meaning is subjective and moldable to mean almost anything the interpreter decides they want it to mean. Laws that change meaning over time, subject to private interpretation by every individual, are not laws at all.
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Hardly. The Constitution is an 18th century document written by men in the 18th century. It was made to be changed and modified for the future and for things they never even thought of.
Yep.
eg. The second amendment is an amendment. The second amendment really can (and should be!) amended again - because times have changed.
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the constitution should be sufficient?
What kind of moron are you. The constitution specifically lays out the existence of legislative bodies to pass laws not in the constitution.
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The executive branch (FCC) is supposed to execute the law as written. I invite you to read section 230 for yourself and you'll see that Twitter, Facebook, Slashdot, etc are all within their legal right to censor or not censor ANYTHING they find objectionable. First amendment does not apply to private enterprise with their private property (website). The law even mentions the constitution and it does not matter in this case of private enterprise. Constitution only affects what the government can force privat
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What happened to republicans wanting a self regulated market and minimal government intervention?
Why is this flamebait? These are the same Republicans using the term 'cancel culture' to describe voting with your wallet. You either believe in the free market or you don't.
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You can call it "a mobile, high speed bullet donation program" all you want, but the rest of us recognize a drive-by shooting.
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using the term 'cancel culture' to describe voting with your wallet.
But in most cases it's not exactly voting with your wallet. It's more like voting with someone else's wallet, or rather: pressuring someone else to vote with theirs. Not just warning advertisers "Do you know what kind of opinions your ads support", but threatening them. The people engaging in Cancel Culture bank on on the fear of advertisers (and even employers), not the fear of being associated with questionable opinions, but the fear of being the center of controversy in general, whatever the rights an
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And as we all know, if there's one group that's not known for labeling people, it's the right!
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using the term 'cancel culture' to describe voting with your wallet.
But in most cases it's not exactly voting with your wallet. It's more like voting with someone else's wallet, or rather: pressuring someone else to vote with theirs.
So you're OK with cancel culture, but you're against Free Speech??? Hello, McFly!?!
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Harassing employers to fire employees is not "voting with your wallet".
Indeed, you chucklefucker, that part is under Freedom of Speech combined with Freedom of Association.
That's the whole fucking point of the Constitution; if you're immoral people will talk about it, you'll become unpopular, and people will choose not to associate with you. And that will have an affect on your business. Wah, fucking wah, don't whine about other people's prerogatives.
The part you're complaining about is the Freedom part.
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What happened to republicans wanting a self regulated market and minimal government intervention?
Why is this flamebait? These are the same Republicans using the term 'cancel culture' to describe voting with your wallet. You either believe in the free market or you don't.
Cancel culture is a bit more than what you claim. It involves an effort to intimidate people with views different than you so they will shut up, or get shut down. Yes, it involves the "voting with your wallet" but only in that it is used as a threat, it is inciting the mob to do the same. Companies run scared from this kind of bad PR...
IF it was just voting with your dollars, I'd be fine with you choosing to not buy something because they advertise on Rush Limbaugh or Hannity, but it's quite a different
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Cancel culture is a bit more than what you claim. It involves an effort to intimidate people with views different than you so they will shut up, or get shut down.
Speech is not violence you dumb whiny bitch. LERN US SUM WERDS!
Nobody is trying to intimidate you. Nobody is required to associate with you. You don't have a right to keep your immoral acts secret; if you want it to be secret, it is your responsibility to make sure nobody finds out what you did. If what you did was speech, just shut the fuck up next time you want to say something fucking shitty, unless you're willing to accept the social consequences of being known as a fuckwad. That includes people not wa
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"Cancel culture" is not about voting with your wallet, but mobbing employers to lay off people the movement dislike under the threat of having a lot of bad PR tossed at the company if the person is not laid off.
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Why is this flamebait?
Either they're trying to make an ironic point that misapplied censorship inhibits discussion on the internet, or they're just the butthurt right-winger with mod points du jour.
It's hard to tell nowadays.
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You want totalitarianism? That's how you get totalitarianism!
November can't get here fast enough.
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What happened to republicans wanting a self regulated market and minimal government intervention?
The funniest part is that the companies are mostly owned by Republicans, mostly controlled by Republicans, and mostly block stuff that Republicans report. They got blocked for a couple of their biggest lies, and they fainted at their self-bias.
They don't seem to understand that with the protections they want to review, companies would have to evaluate everything more strictly, and they'd have to reject all that "hate stuff."
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That's exactly what they're trying to do - weaken Section 230 of the CDA, which allows social media sites to avoid legal responsibility for what's on their sites (so, removing the "government intervention"). Thing is, those sites want to have their cake, and eat it, too. They want to control/edit user content, but not be responsible for it legally (e.g. libel, harassment, etc.). It's something
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I'm okay with that as long as the rules are clear, Constitutional, and enforced evenly across all media, including AM talk radio.
If they are used merely to be The Tinted One's personal mood-based bludgeoning tool, then we have a problem.
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This won't have the desired effect.
Social media companies will have a choice. They can become a publisher in which case all the right wingers who want this will get banned immediately, or they can become 8chan V2 and all the users will leave.
The 8chan route has other issues too, like them having to obey the laws in other countries meaning posts very often won't be globally available, or maybe the US will get sandboxed from the rest of the world with only verified accounts allowed to post outside of it.
There
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Remove the liability shield and platforms will simply make the users agree to a new TOS where you are now responsible if something you post gets them sued. Of course, to enforce that, they’ll need to verify your identity before allowing you to have access to the service - probably with a credit card.
Hey, this sounds oddly familiar to what being online was like in the pre-section 230 days. Back when AOL would boot you for saying “fuck” in a chatroom. Yeah, this will be great for free spe
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The problem here is that this is one set of moves that Democrats may not necessarily disagree with. They may not like the methods or motivations, but the social media giants know this is coming, not just in the US, but in many nations. For better and for worse, these companies are on the cusp of a whole new regulatory regimes; whether through the front door or the back.
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A fantasy story that has nothing to do with reality. As it stands, even states like Georgia have become swing states. The tide is against Trump, and I suspect more than a few Republican lawmakers are happy to see it happen, though they're probably pissed that his downfall is going to take some of them with him.
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He has no constitutional power for such a maneuver. Congress holds that power, and I doubt there's any appetite for blocking or overturning the election.
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Not allowing spam is censorship too, how are they going to allow rational on-topic discussion while not allowing spam? It's impossible.
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Moderate it as -1 Spam and it disappears from most people's view. If a few screwballs like reading spam, they can just drop the threshold on their reader.
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Spam isn't libelous. If you start filtering libelous things, then miss some, old school you can get sued for allowing it.
Section 230 allowed companies to make good faith efforts to filter postings without incurring liability risk if they miss something.
An analogy: If you own a virgin forest land, and someone goes onto your property and is killed by a falling branch, that's their problem. If you start regularly trimming away dead branches so they can't fall on people, and miss one, and it kills someone, n
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You can't put on the mantle of an open platform while you work furiously to stifle political voices from one side. That cannot and will not last forever.
Fox News called themselves Fair and Balanced for 21 of their 24 years of existence. Yes, it can last forever. They weren't forced to drop the slogan.
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You can't put on the mantle of an open platform while you work furiously to stifle political voices from one side.
So you're admitting that violent racism, conspiracy theories, and outright lies are core Republican values? That's the stuff that's getting "stifled", not opinions about stuff like tax rates and environmental regulations.
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Believe me...they
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First of all, Twitter frequently does things that many courts would argue are done very much in bad faith.
Courts don't argue much. Bad faith would be telling people that lies are truth, or "Truth isn't truth," or that a disease will soon disappear when you know it wont, or that stocks are safe when you are telling your high-placed friends that things could get really bad. Even a partisan standard for allowed speech is not "bad faith." You can't say things that Twitter doesn't like on Twitter, anymore than you can tell the truth about Trump in the Breitbart or Freerepublic comments.
For example, Twitter is notorious for turning a blind eye toward speech that isn't just offensive, but bordering on (or even outright) illegal to utter even in the USA provided it comes from "approved groups."
An actual example would be he
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No matter what you think about abortion, the fact is that Roe v Wade was made based upon profoundly stupid arguments [wikipedia.org] that amount to a judicial coup against the states. The entire court should have been impeached and replaced with people more competent than that.
It's been my experience that rabid supporters of the roe v wade decision have no idea how the majority arrived at their decision. It's a great read, with the justices trying to debate such things as "when does a baby have a soul?".
I think they did their best with the medical understanding of their time. There was no ultrasound, mri, cat scans, micro-surgery on fetuses, etc. Ultimately they tried to strike some compromise, but in doing so they bypassed the legislatures. Rights created by one court can be
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