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Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

kateklonick.com

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Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#61

Post by adventured »

sulam wrote: post #36
Trasmatta wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The implications are fairly dramatic if this is legitimate and were to be adopted / executed. Can anyone give a tl;dr of what the implications actually are? Maybe I'm just tired, but I'm having a hard time parsing what this would actually do (beyond soothe Trump's feelings after getting called out by Twitter).

It would make them legally liable for the content posted on their sites. Today they can claim that they aren’t responsible for it, the posters are. If they are operating in an editorial capacity, that shield is removed.

> It would make them legally liable for the content posted on their sites.

Exactly as it should be. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and others, now that they're getting into the business of editorializing and dictating the truth as they see it via heavy-handed moderation, should be fully liable for all things posted to their platforms. It should apply to any large platform that makes that shift. It's perfectly fine if these platforms want to do that, and they should be held responsible accordingly. It'll restrict the size and activity of their networks, which will probably be a societal benefit.

Twitter picked a fight they can't win. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Things will never return to the way they were before.

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#62

Post by exclusiv »

dav43 wrote: post #14

America, when are you going to give up on this idiot? I’m genuinely curious, what’s the last straw? He takes a dump on the Whitehouse lawn in order to show how powerful he is? My view of America has forever changed, no matter who comes next.

> My view of America has forever changed, no matter who comes next.

Seriously? What do you think of Russia, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, etc? So dramatic people are these days.

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#63

Post by throwawaysea »

sulam wrote: post #32

If you are a conservative cheering this on, ask yourself what you think would have happened when Trump was using Twitter as a platform to raise questions about Obama’s birth certificate? Do you really want the government to be effectively regulating the treatment of every social media post as they see fit?

I think requiring viewpoint neutrality via regulation from platforms that behave like utilities is perfectly reasonable.

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#64

Post by bmarquez »

throwawaysea wrote: post #55

The large tech platforms are defacto digital public squares. The recent trend they’ve taken on to censor content they disagree with is unacceptable and bad for society. And yes, it is evidence of them behaving as a publisher. This censorship trend was bad enough previously, but it has become a lot worse and more egregious during COVID-19, where only the word of certain public agencies are allowed, even though they’ve…

> In the least it may result in viable alternatives to Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, and Google springing up.

I'm looking forward to this. If smaller social networks (or even federated networks) gain more traction due to this governmental shakeup, it will be harder to get censored as people can switch to the server that has the moderation style, or features (such as no ads but fees) they like.

There could be a silver lining in all this.

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#65

Post by icelancer »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #49
ardit33 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on man, get off your high horse. European here, and lets just say that Europe has its own major problems. Italy has Salvini, UK Boris Johnson (trump mini-mi), Sweden is bungling the covid-19 pretty badly, Hungary has Orban, Poland messed up their Judicial system, Sarcozy is going a criminal investigation, and Macron had hundreds and thousands of protestors just last year. Almost every country can produce bad/aut…

> Trump is probably done, and he will loose next election badly. Is there a prediction market for this? I'm willing to bet 20:1 he wins and I'm prepared to put down $100 right now.

PredictIt. He's 1:1.

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#66

Post by throwawaysea »

rvz wrote: post #19
kreelman wrote: post #5

I think you need to vote Donald Trump out of office. We look from afar and are perplexed by his ruinous actions on the United States of America. These actions feel vaguely like authoritarianism. Originally I thought these actions felt like fascism, but I appreciate that fascism's victims would laugh at this comparison... but I think it's a slippery slope. Is Twitter's flagging censorship? People can still make their…

> These actions feel vaguely like fascism. I begin to suspect that you don't know what the last word in that sentence means in regards to this particular action.

George Orwell, from various essays he wrote in 1944:

> The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable"...In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

> It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.

> But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one—not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long, but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#67

Post by daveevad »

berberous wrote: post #37
sulam wrote: post #2

If I am to believe the poster, this is a draft of an Executive Order anonymously sent to her. As per: https://twitter.com/klonick/status/1265850206396076033?s=21 The implications are fairly dramatic if this is legitimate and were to be adopted / executed. Specifically it would declare that sites like Twitter and Facebook are subject to the Communications Decency Act by virtue of their editorializing the content vs ac…

Wouldn’t this be a great outcome for twitter? I don’t think they particularly want to be in the role of playing fact checker / censor, but have been forced to do so due to pressure. This seems like it would, practically, tie their hands from continuing, due to the negative consequences, at which point they can legitimately say their hands are tied.

probably not, wouldn't that just alienate the other half of their users that would view that as backing down?

it's a good question i hadn't considered though.

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#68

Post by Trasmatta »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #49
ardit33 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on man, get off your high horse. European here, and lets just say that Europe has its own major problems. Italy has Salvini, UK Boris Johnson (trump mini-mi), Sweden is bungling the covid-19 pretty badly, Hungary has Orban, Poland messed up their Judicial system, Sarcozy is going a criminal investigation, and Macron had hundreds and thousands of protestors just last year. Almost every country can produce bad/aut…

> Trump is probably done, and he will loose next election badly. Is there a prediction market for this? I'm willing to bet 20:1 he wins and I'm prepared to put down $100 right now.

https://electionbettingodds.com/ has him at 48.2% currently (against Biden at 43.4%).

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#70

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

erentz wrote: post #58
tly_alex wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I am so disappointed by all the crazy things this so called president did in the last few years.The word "President" use to carry a lot of respect.

There was nothing that respectable about Bush or Obama (or Clinton, or Older Bush) either if you really looked at their records. Foreigners do not get to see the bad state democracy is in here in the US, between the corruption, the heavy corporate funding of candidates and the lobbyists, the corporate control of media, and the suppression of voters. A lot of choice, especially the president is decided for people, and…

The idea that Bernie would be centrist in Europe is an American political meme. Europeans who are familiar with him do not consider him centrist, and there are some issues on which he's actually further from the mainstream in most European countries.
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