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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]

#81

Post by dpbriggs »

wnmurphy wrote: post #53
dpbriggs wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue isn't you or me calling him out, it's whether Twitter is acting as a platform or publisher by annotating the tweet. The document here alleges that they are like a publisher, and will lose vital protection. This has serious implications.

Which would also apply to any news outlet with a moderated comment section, including Fox News, no?

I would think so, yes. In that case I wouldn't be surprised if the comment section is removed, or the moderation team of Fox News more carefully sticks to platform principles. Honestly not sure.

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

#82

Post by dragonwriter »

wmf wrote: post #43
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…

"None of [the CDA's architects] said that there was this intent for platforms to be neutral. In fact, that was the opposite. They wanted platforms to feel free to make these judgments without risking liability..." https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700605/section-230-inte... Can an executive order overturn this? Isn't there already precedent about this topic?

An executive order can neither overturn statutory immunity from liability nor overturn Constitutional freedom of speech.

OTOH, if Trump thinks that the Courts have changed (either in genuine opinion on the legal question, or if he thinks that the courts—or, ultimately, just the Supreme Court—has become partisan enough to simply favor his preferences independent of any genuine legal interpretation) then issuing an executive order conflicting with the present precedent on either of those points is an excellent way to get into position to force a test of them.

And, in any case, it's an excellent way to fan conservative victimhood into an election-year rallying cry to the base.

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

#83

Post by born_a_skeptic »

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.

Aggregator of Betting Odds:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/betting_odds/202...

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

#84

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

I only skimmed the second part, but this doesn't even seem to prevent the actions it complains about.

It's also interesting to think about reddit and subreddits. When a moderator of a subreddit engages in the behavior described here, deleting comments and posts and banning users arbitrarily, stickying editorial commentary in threads, are they acting as publishers? Are the mods now legally liable in the section 230 sense? If not, is reddit a publisher and liable even though they aren't doing the editing? If reddit can enable mods to do it without reddit or the mods being liable, why can't reddit just do it without being liable?

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

#85

Post by bawolff »

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.

That's what its intended to do, but i think what it would actually do is kind of debatable. America isn't a dictatorship (yet)

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

#86

Post by blisterpeanuts »

hondo77 wrote: post #76
geofft wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That text is quoted from Section 230. The reason Section 230 was introduced is that, long ago, if platforms did literally any moderation on their site, they were considered to be taking an editorial role and liable for all the things they failed to moderate (e.g., if someone posted libel, the platform would have liability for it), so there was an incentive not to moderate at all, because you wouldn't get it 100% righ…

Choice 3) kick Trump off Twitter. They don't even have to give a reason like "excessive posting of misinformation". Just kick him off. No law saying they can't. Heck, the entertainment value alone would be worth it.

Maybe not illegal, but is it good business to eliminate a user with tens of millions of followers?

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

#87

Post by foogazi »

Wonder if with this we’ll all enjoy equal representation on twitter’s search engine, timeline & promoted tweets, or will they continue to discriminate based on rank

Twitter’s algorithm determines who sees my tweets. Based on internal criteria my content is ignored while other’s is promoted, limiting my exposure and damaging my brand

/s

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

#88

Post by caseysoftware »

egamirorrim wrote: post #33

I feel like I can see Trump's editorial influence in this. "Put in that stuff about China yeah China and lyin' Google, don't tell me it's ranty and doesn't make sense, put it in"

It makes sense. If Trump demonstrates that some (most?) of these companies act on behalf of or at the request of a government to suppress embarrassing facts/comments, it challenges the assertion this is "only" about flagging misinformation. It also raises the question of "What else are they suppressing?"

Neither point will be fun to respond to.

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

#89

Post by throwlaplace »

WatchDog wrote: post #78
ViViDboarder wrote: post #8

Isn’t a company closing to to promote content for someone else their own right to free speech? If a company has an obligation to promote something against their will, violating their own right to free speech, how could a company like Hobby Lobby get away with an exemption on the same grounds? I don’t see this getting past federal courts, even with a heavily conservative judiciary. The fallout would be far too great.

There was a supreme court case a while ago that enshrined freedom of speech rights for companies, I get the sense that many of the same people that complained about that then, are now advocating for the rights of companies.

Hello there false equivalence. Being upset about money as speech leading to unlimited campaign spending and supporting a company's rights manipulate their own product isn't internally contradictory.

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

#90

Post by tehwebguy »

w3mmpp wrote: post #79

Long overdue, they're publishers just like Google/Youtube and Facebook are publishers. Every conservative who use those services will tell you, they're biased. They've been putting their thumb on the scale for many years, now the chickens have come home to roost. Downvote me to oblivion, I don't care, tonight I'm happy.

1. I would think every conservative would look to the free market to make better, less biased social networks and websites?

2. You think you will be downvoted here, is it due to humans with differing views or this website’s management’s bias, and what does that mean for your point?

3. Do you not know that conservative talking heads and influencers go wildly viral every hour of every day on all 3 of these networks, reaching audiences far outside their conservative following?

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