Florida Law on Social Media Unconstitutional, Appeals Court Rules (go.com) 213
A Florida law intended to punish social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, dealing a major victory to companies who had been accused by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis of discriminating against conservative thought. Associated Press: A three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously concluded that it was overreach for DeSantis and the Republican-led Florida Legislature to tell the social media companies how to conduct their work under the Constitution's free speech guarantee.
"Put simply, with minor exceptions, the government can't tell a private person or entity what to say or how to say it," said Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, in the opinion. "We hold that it is substantially likely that social media companies -- even the biggest ones -- are private actors whose rights the First Amendment protects." The ruling upholds a similar decision by a Florida federal district judge on the law, which was signed by DeSantis in 2021. It was part of an overall conservative effort to portray social media companies as generally liberal in outlook and hostile to ideas outside of that viewpoint, especially from the political right.
"Put simply, with minor exceptions, the government can't tell a private person or entity what to say or how to say it," said Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, in the opinion. "We hold that it is substantially likely that social media companies -- even the biggest ones -- are private actors whose rights the First Amendment protects." The ruling upholds a similar decision by a Florida federal district judge on the law, which was signed by DeSantis in 2021. It was part of an overall conservative effort to portray social media companies as generally liberal in outlook and hostile to ideas outside of that viewpoint, especially from the political right.
Of course it's unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course it's unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
He's going to own those libs even if it bankrupts the taxpayers!
https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
Re:Of course it's unconstitutional (Score:5, Interesting)
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enough to earn a republican nomination.
This is not Republican, but GOP or Fascists type work.
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That's interesting. And just how do you define fascism?
Re:Of course it's unconstitutional (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally like to refer to Umberto Eco's "Ur-Fascism" and he lists out 14 characteristics of fascism, many of which he lists 14 points, listed in abridged version here. [openculture.com]
I think it's a compelling case and if we can accept those points as primary tenets of fascist idealogy I think there are some definite parralells to todays modern Republican party. To be fair you can probably tie a few of them to the Democratic party as well but in my opinion not nearly to the same degree.
Now I wouldn't feel it accurate saying "Republicans are fascist" but they are definitely flirting strongly with the ideas. It is becoming more and more about the culture and less about economics and policy.
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Re:Of course it's unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
So you generally vote Democratic, then?
Then you haven't really been watching. There are very few moderate Republicans now: the majority are anti-democracy. Look at what is happening to the Republicans who voted against the January 6 impeachment. Look at how many Republicans talk about throwing out votes. Look at how many talk about voter fraud when there is no evidence that there is no more than a tiny amount of voter fraud (most of what there is comes from Republican voters anyway).
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> I personally like to refer to Umberto Eco's "Ur-Fascism"
Thanks.
For those wondering:
"Ur- is a German prefix meaning "original or primitive". So Ur- fascism could be either "original fascism" or "proto-fascism""
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It's mostly pointless to use the term "fascism" because in most cases it means, "someone I don't like." It's just an emotionally charged insult.
It's more logical to say what you don't like about them, "They are trying to overturn elections and are opposed to free speech."
Re:Of course it's unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's an easily digestable and I would still say pretty accurate summation of a pretty nebulous ideaology, he even says it itself is contradictory in nature. The fact that it's kind of economically agnostic makes it pretty squirelly compared to something like socialism which is primarilly an economic mode of production that gets the social stuff tagged onto it.
You can apply the disagreement is treason to either party, despite the fact that both of them are plagued by factious infighting. The Trump effect of how he built his entire administration around loyalty to him, essentionally implying in his own words that if you're not on his side you are against America simply cannot be ignored, sorry. Democrats have their issues but conservatism in America has it's own purity tests, first being you can't agree with "liberals" about anything.
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This is wonderful sarcasm, as Democrats hated corporate speech in the Citizens United decision.
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fascism \fasc"ism\ (f[a^]sh"[i^]z'm) n.
1. a political theory advocating an authoritarian
hierarchical government; -- opposed to democracy and
liberalism.
Even with such a concise definition it's still hard to prove fascism. Ian Kershaw summed this up simply, "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall."
Some examples of goals of fascist groups are:
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I don't dispute anything you've written. Sadly, I also see a lot of what you have pointed out in the modern Democrat party. I don't mean this to be a "whataboutism" post, it's just depressing that there does not appear to be an alternative in US politics to the craziness of the modern Republican party.
Item #1: I don't think the Democrats want to "destroy" democracy any more than the Republicans do (at least on the surface), or even the ruling Chinese party. But like the Chinese, they would like everyone t
Re:Of course it's unconstitutional (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Of course it's unconstitutional (Score:4, Insightful)
Fascism seems popular in Republican circles right now.
That's interesting. And just how do you define fascism?
Here ya go [imgur.com].
Republicans have pretty much checked every item on the list. They're pushing hard on the last item.
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Re:Of course it's unconstitutional (Score:5, Interesting)
True. My father is a life long full red ticket voter despite decades of it going directly against his own personal interests as someone on both social security and disability.
He used to run polling locations for them. I worked at them a couple times as a teenager, mostly to get out of high school. The Republican party of today is completely unrecognizable compared with the one I remember ~25+ years ago.
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He's not governing any more, just trying to 'own the libs' enough to earn a republican nomination.
I imagine his "friend" at Mar-a-Lago might have something to say about that ... and DeSantis won't like it.
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His friend is starting to pivot to the Ivanka presidential campaign.
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The law existed to create a headline on fox news, for florida man's eventual presidential campaign. It was passed knowing that it would be overturned. He's not governing any more, just trying to 'own the libs' enough to earn a republican nomination.
This is certainly accurate, but maybe not the "knowing it would be overturned" part. I'm pretty shocked that a Republican (Trump actually) appointed judge wrote the opinion on this. I'd been pretty used to a lot of Florida stuff being struck down because it's bs, then it gets appealed by the state and the appellate level judges were appointed by Republicans so they reinstate it, then that is appealed and so on.
Re:Of course it's unconstitutional (Score:5, Informative)
I'm pretty shocked that a Republican (Trump actually) appointed judge wrote the opinion on this.
This is the true insight into this whole thing. Republicans have tried to stack the federal courts with judges that will blindly rule in only one predictable way, regardless of the merits of the case, existing rulings, or existing law. That's why some Supreme Court justices are poised to strike down Roe v. Wade in precisely a way that directly contradicts what they claimed under oath at their Senate confirmations. Those Supreme Court justices are preparing to make a ruling based on personal political motivations. That a Trump-appointee would rule based on the merits of the case is surprising.
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That's why some Supreme Court justices are poised to strike down Roe v. Wade in precisely a way that directly contradicts what they claimed under oath at their Senate confirmations
There shouldn't be "oaths" made on how laws will be determined for judges. Otherwise, what is the point of the judicial branch?
The oaths are part of the constitutionally mandated advise and consent process required of the Senate. Ironically, this same violation of oaths before Congress that the Gingrinch Republicans found so egregious that it led to the impeachment of a president is poo-poo'd by the same people as not a thing at all. Oaths, laws, and the judicial process have now evolved through strategic political maneuvers to be malleable, leading to the inevitable erosion of confidence in the judicial process.
limitless speech is not constitutionally protected (Score:2)
Federal, state and local governments do have some authority to regulate business even if that limits the freedom of speech in some narrow cases.
When the legislature gets sloppy in how they pass laws, it comes to courts to interpret the intent and meaning of new laws and reconcile them with precedent and ultimately the public good.
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Federal, state and local governments do have some authority to regulate business even if that limits the freedom of speech in some narrow cases.
Key word: narrow.
The odds are that this case falls under "strict scrutiny" guidelines. In other words, the state better have a damned compelling reason, no other method is possible, and it's as narrow as possible.
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Bless your heart.
Re: limitless speech is not constitutionally prote (Score:2)
This is not unlike the âstates rightsâ(TM) philosophy that allowed slave states to fired other states to extradite humans to be murdered and tortured. In this case, the laws explicitly regulate the lives of those outside the state. He Florida law requires a million user. Florida has 20 million people. The Texas law required 50 million people. Texas has 30 million people
Beyond that, the Florida law created an overt excepti
With our current partisan Supreme Court (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody would've expected Roe v Wade to get overturned so easily and with such flimsy justification (one of the guys quoted in the brief sentenced women to death for witchcraft, and there's multiple legal opinions cited that predate the writing of the constitution and go back so far that you can't even use the excuse of "historical" relationships).
We can no longer count on the constitution to protect our rights. Google "Roe V Wade and Cryptography" if you're wondering why it matters even if you're in favor of criminalizing abortion. All our legal system's privacy protections were based on the same reasoning as RvW. Meaning that once it's struct down it's open season on all of your rights.
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Nobody would've expected Roe v Wade to get overturned so easily
it hasn't happened yet, but yes I did
and with such flimsy justification
All of their justifications are flimsy.
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Though there were problems in the ruling, in that it was too flimsy.
As for your 2/3 women statistic, that is correct, but it's only part of the story.
It actually mostly tracks religiosity [pewresearch.org], making this essentially mostly a measure of how religious Mississippi is, which is fine by me. If Mississippi wants to have a theocracy within the confines of the Constitution, let them. It's not like they can go any further down in any measurable metric.
I was certain that ruling would
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Just more noise to perpetuate the myth that conservative voices are somehow censored online.
Generally quite the opposite is true.
Just a shame that so many people that call themselves conservative are just making shit up that fits whatever their narrative is at that moment.
Real conservative movements have been long dead in the US, unfortunately. Would be nice to get that back for some proper balance, instead of.. Whatever the GOP has become.
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Just wait until the real bombshells drop that'll turn America into a theocracy that'll make even the Taliban shake their heads.
Obviously, this was unconstitutional. (Score:2, Troll)
What does the right care about the constitution? (Score:5, Insightful)
Their only point is to deprive women of their rights over their own bodies; these are the same people who think wearing a mask or taking a vaccine is onerous, lol.
Keep dying in droves from covid, that'll show those libs. rofl.
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They plan to destroy the USA before the die off.
They will do a lot of damage for sure, but they will thankfully die off eventually.
Kids growing up today are much more worldly (because they see it all on the internet), and much less closed minded. Some of them will fall down the rabbit holes being created for them, but I think the majority of them will eventually kick the dinosaurs to the curb, to societies great benefit.
People stuck in the past fear this more than anything, but progress stops for no-one. They can and will slow it down, but there
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Re:What does the right care about the constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
My Body My Choice!
Wait are we talking about vaccines or abortions? Because that somehow only applies to one.
Re:What does the right care about the constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
My Body My Choice!
Wait are we talking about vaccines or abortions? Because that somehow only applies to one.
Please let us know when pregnancy is a deadly, airborne communicable disease with a high contagion factor. Those two situations are not the same.
Re:What does the right care about the constitution (Score:4, Interesting)
Please let us know when pregnancy is a deadly, airborne communicable disease with a high contagion factor. Those two situations are not the same.
Pregnancy can be deadly, and American maternal mortality rates are higher than many other developed nations. It's one reason why abortion must remain legal.
Having said that, pregnancy is indeed not communicable, so GP post is that famously useless non sequitur.
Re:What does the right care about the constitution (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem to be confused about what side of the argument I'm on.
The government can't tell me what to do with my body!
Ok I'd like an abortion then
Government please tell this person what they're allowed to do with their body!
Shhhh (Score:3)
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The right to own firearms, for one.
Also, the right to refuse to create works of art that speak a message of which the artist disapproves.
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There aren't vast swathes of "far left communists" in the US voting base. Those are Russian propagandists LARPing as US citizens.
There is nothing on Earth more hilarious (Score:2)
On the other hand you have fuck nuts like Jimmy Dore who famously said the moon would crash into lake Michigan before Roe v Wade was overturned. So I hope you've all made your peace with God cuz I'm pretty sure we're all going to die. At least everybody living around lake Michigan
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So how do your imaginary leftists propose to live without some form of compensation?
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Well, fuck conservatives into oblivion (Score:5, Insightful)
Conservatism is illogical, and conservatism in one region is not the same conservatism in another region.
Factual, the only thing that is constant is change.
If conservatism was real, then we would still be living in the paleolithicum.
Conservatism is only a mechanism for the rich to suppress the non-rich.
Conservatism kills the world. Conservatism makes real victims. Conservatism only wants to preserve the inequalities in the world. Conservatism has no redeeming features.
Social networks themselves are not liberal (Score:2, Insightful)
People who are calling social networks liberal for blocking certain kinds of speech don't realize that they're not blocking conservative opinions. They are blocking people making threats, trying to drum up violence, and so on. Just because it's mostly conservatives doing this doesn't make the action of blocking that speech inherently biased towards liberals.
I've seen plenty of liberals banned/blocked from Twitter for making threats and calling for violence as well. If more conservatives are being banned/blo
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Now, you and I know that there are only two groups that use "woke" to refer to something: conservatives meaning "Anything that promotes tolerance of people I don't like", and liberals who use it to mean "Aware of racism". Virtually no liberal uses it outside of that context, and it's pretty much unknown otherwise.
Incorrect. It is in common usage when referring to the hash activists have made of modern popular fiction, even among people who are otherwise liberal. Arguing about entertainment has made for strange bedfellows, and common ground among otherwise violently opposed political opinions. The definition of "woke" in that context is "incompetent idiots discarding 400 years of lessons learned in writing entertainment in blind pursuit of ideology". It is believed among liberals who use that definition that thei
Re: Social networks themselves are not liberal (Score:2)
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People who are calling social networks liberal for blocking certain kinds of speech don't realize that they're not blocking conservative opinions.
For some bizarre reason, nobody has ever been able to answer me when I've asked for instances of people being banned from Twitter for advocating for lower taxes or less industrial regulation.
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Oh, bullshit. They blocked the absolutely true Hunter Biden laptop story. They have blocked all kinds of actual true stories while allowing literal fake news on their sites. They claim to block "hate speech", but if you believe that fairy tale search for "fuck white people" on twitter and see how much hate speech is being blocked. They've even codified their racism - Candace Owens did a test where she took anti-white tweets and simply changed "white" to "black" and her account was blocked automatically.
Re:Well, fuck conservatives into oblivion (Score:5, Insightful)
Much like the Texas social media law that was written specifically for Twitter and Facebook. Some democrats tried to have it include Parler and Truth Social but that didn't work as it only applies to companies with 25 million users or more. It also makes it illegal for Facebook and Twitter to refuse service in Texas, which besides being unenforceable is about the least conservative and business unfriendly policy I've ever seen. But yeah they're totally for private business and limited government involvement.
Time you read Roger Scruton (Score:2)
He was a conservative philosopher who offered a coherent explanation of what that ideology means and why it is relevant. Bottom line: a society develops over time, and groups that ignore that reality are doing more damage than they realise. The challenge of course is to realise when the damage is justified - but it's not trivial.
That's because we're intentionally misusing (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm a left wing conservative. The actual meaning of t
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SIze matters (Score:2, Interesting)
This is the sort of thing that the Supreme Court has to decide. The Sherman Act of 1890 had to go to the Supreme Court several times.
The Florida law stipulated a minimum threshold of 100 million users for the law to apply. At this scale, it is a monopoly or oligopoly on private communication, and government is right to regulate.
Should telephone companies be allowed to limit whom you might call, because they are exercising editorial decisions that represent the political views of management?
Size matters. Did
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> Should telephone companies be allowed to limit whom you might call
Private person-to-person calls are nothing like public posts, genius.
Should a news paper be able to editorialize a post in the classified ads? Should a news paper be forced to print anything *you* want?
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> the law would apply to them regarding reader comments
Those comments would simply be disabled.
Should a news paper be forced to print anything *you* want? I'm talking about in print, not electronic comments. Can you force the paper to print your speech?
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The First Amendment doesn't say anything about the number of people involved.
I have the right to say or write whatever I choose. No private entity is required to let me use their property to do it.
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Just like an office supply store can't refuse to sell me a pen or a printer for being a Seventh Day Adventist.
But this isn't really on point.
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No, you are avoiding the question.
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Should telephone companies be allowed to limit whom you might call, because they are exercising editorial decisions that represent the political views of management?
So you're saying you want social media to be under the same regulations as a public utility?
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Should telephone companies be allowed to limit whom you might call, because they are exercising editorial decisions that represent the political views of management?
No, because telephone companies (as well as ISPs and cable television providers) are natural monopolies and should be subject to specific government regulation. The barrier to entry to create your own personal web site and post stuff on it is far lower.
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The Florida law stipulated a minimum threshold of 100 million users for the law to apply. At this scale, it is a monopoly or oligopoly on private communication, and government is right to regulate.
Did email stop working when I wasn't looking? Email is private communication. Social media largely isn't.
Perhaps you meant private in the legal sense, meaning non-governmental entities. In which case email still exists and social media still isn't a monopoly. Quite aside from your ability to put up a public website for the price of three cups of coffee. Are you worried that big social media companies might block access to your personal website? Then what you want is Net Neutrality guaranteed in law, n
This is fascism (Score:5, Insightful)
Ron DeSantis will be running for president soon. If he does something similar to what we saw in January 6th is extremely likely that it will succeed that time.
A lot of Americans do not believe certain people should be allowed to vote or that it should be easy to vote. A lot of people on this forum believe that.
I want to take this moment to remind people that once you give up democracy you don't get it back. And that democracy for some but not for all isn't democracy it's just oligarchy with more steps.
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Ron DeSantis will be running for president soon. If he does something similar to what we saw in January 6th is extremely likely that it will succeed that time.
Nothing would give me more joy than for Biden to tell Kamala to refuse to certify the electoral college results. What, it was perfectly fine when Trump made the request. Are you saying there's something wrong in asking?
Is this kinda trolling worth it? (Score:2)
I guess the folks who put Mao, Xi, Stalin & Putin in charge thought it was a good idea at the time too. I wonder how many of them did it for the lulz though?
Is a Corporation an Individual now? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Corporations have 1st Amendment rights. See Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886), and Citizens United v. FEC (2010)
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I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.
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You're acting like all of this is new. Yes, these rights apply to organizations as well as individuals. Didn't you take civics in school?
The police can't force a church or an amusement park to let them conduct a search for evidence of a crime without obtaining a warrant.
The governor of Texas can't stop The Dallas Morning News from publishing an editorial critical of his policies.
It would be unconstitutional for the Idaho state legislature to ban hunting clubs from owning rifles.
Corporations are formed by individuals (Score:2)
Does the constitution give rights to individuals or corporations or both? If corporations have 1st amendment rights, do they have 2nd amendment rights to arm themselves? Are corporations protected from un reasonable search and seizures? If so why pay taxes or follow regulations. The IRS or EPA can't look at any of your internal information without a warrant.
Because corporations are made up of people, the constitutional protections generally apply. The government can't prevent a person from publishing (freedom of the press), and people organizing as a corporation to publish maintain the same right.
For taxes and regulations, the government does need warrants to search private property. The IRS doesn't work by searching company internal information; corporations supply information to the IRS. Under audit, the IRS can request more information. If the corporation i
Two can play that game then. (Score:2)
"Put simply, with minor exceptions, the government can't tell a private person or entity what to say or how to say it"
Want to ban speech on "my lawn" grounds? Fine. Two can play that game.
NO public Representative will be allowed to professionally use using any private social media platform to communicate with their constituency. You will be forced to use a public platform for your taxpayer-funded public duties. And yeah, that still includes the actual Town Square you can command at any time, as well as entire television channels dedicated to your daily drivel. No bullshit excuses.
Now get the fuck off the lawn. All
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"NO public Representative will be allowed to professionally use using any private social media platform to communicate with their constituency." Interesting? Maybe Good! What is a private social media company? What is email(is O365 a platform?) or a phone call(is the phone network a platform?)?
Hillary Clinton's bleached server should have taught the public something. There should be zero excuse as to why any elected public official is not using an official .gov email address communicating with a fully audited server. Ironically enough, they already have fully compliant O365 GCC High and DoD offerings.
Same goes for phones. Carry a personal one all you want. But any official business happens over the business line. Audit capability is the key concern to be addressed.
What is a Representative?
Game, Check, Match (Score:2)
Every time laws and regulations come up. (Score:2)
"generally open to the public" standard? (Score:2)
https://reason.com/volokh/2022... [reason.com]
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The tech companies will just move their operations offshore. I would then love to see the reaction when the gov decides it wants to block Google from working in the US
At worse, it will kill the web as we know it.
For as much bad shit is in the internet, there is a lot of fun quality content that you could not find anywhere else.
Take away CDA-230 and the only site worth going to would be Wikipedia.
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Kill slashdot now! (Score:2)
> The way to deal political capture and collusion online is to burn down CDA-230
Kill slashdot now!
This place is mostly idiotic conservatrolls anyway.
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As someone in Ron's state I will readily admit I did not vote for him but honestly as someone definitely left of center even though he ran very much as a Trump-centric guy in his first year or so I was actually pleasantly surprised at first. He didn't seem to shy away from environmental issues which are important to the state, things like the everglades and red tide issues he had plans and legislation for and I give him credit for that.
When he picked up steam as "the guy" the party is starting to really lo