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Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

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Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#101
post #2

The biggest takeaway, looking past the headline: “This week a federal appeals court, ruling in a case brought by conservative activists against social media companies, affirmed that private websites are not public spaces and social media companies don't have First Amendment obligations. Any truly strong limits to Section 230 would almost certainly require action by Congress.”

Its an interesting thought experiment to assess in what ways Twitter is a "private website". It really is a public web space that is operated by a private company, but I can't help but feel that the nuances and similarities of what Twitter really is and what responsibility they truly hold in society is above the courts comprehension.

One way of looking at it is that the internet is the public space, and twitter is a very large private building in that space. Trump can start his own blog any time he wants, hosted on his own site, and be in the unrestricted public space.

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#102
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One potential outcome here -- social media platforms start _more actively_ banning users to prevent potential liability issues, thus fracturing the market. Highly doubt it will work out that way, but it would be nice (well, maybe...).

Hopefully it will lead to what happened on reddit: the worst go off to a competitor which then fails to gain mainstream attention (e.g. Voat, Gab, etc). While they’ll be in an echo-chamber (which isn’t a good thing at all), at least they won’t ruin other communities.

> the worst go off to a competitor which then fails to gain mainstream attention (e.g. Voat, Gab, etc).

Or, HN :)

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#103
Oh my goodness is he a big dumb stupid moron.

At the risk of this being downvoted to oblivion, why doesn't he think that Twitter, a privately run company, has the right to fact-check claims made on their site? Even if there were some secret evil liberal agenda on Twitter, which there absolutely is not, why aren't they allowed to do that exactly? Is he planning on holding Fox News to the same standard and make them put less racism apologia on their network?

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#104
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has no examples, it's just word salad. The premise is also false - the shield from [liability] applies regardless of the political affiliation, motivation, or actions of the platform. He's trying to convince people that Twitter had some kind of duty to remain neutral, but they really don't. Twitter would have just as strong of a case under current law if they came out and said "yep, no conservative viewpoints allo…

> "yep, no conservative viewpoints allowed here." At least it'd be clear if they said so, nothing worse than the current situation where they think it but won't say it because it'd be bad for business.

Are you implying that twitter doesn't allow conservative viewpoints or that obvious lies ARE conservative viewpoints?

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#105
post #20

I don't think there is legal basis for Trump's order, but Twitter is wading into murky territory with their actions. Twitter's "fact check" singles out a specific Trump tweet. It's clearly a human intervention by Twitter staff, not user generated content. The subject of Trump's tweet was a political dispute, and while Trump certainly had false statements in his tweet, that's basically par for the course on Twitter. T…

Twitter ceased to become a platform when they changed the content of The President's tweet. They literally editorialized his content. That act made them a publisher.

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#106
post #20

I don't think there is legal basis for Trump's order, but Twitter is wading into murky territory with their actions. Twitter's "fact check" singles out a specific Trump tweet. It's clearly a human intervention by Twitter staff, not user generated content. The subject of Trump's tweet was a political dispute, and while Trump certainly had false statements in his tweet, that's basically par for the course on Twitter. T…

> Why is Twitter singling out Trump for his false statements? They aren't. They've labeled other tweets before. > If AOC or Bernie Sanders make false or misleading statements about economics (which they frequently do), will those also receive fact checks and warning labels? Presumably, yes.

It does make a lot of sense to fact check the most viewed tweets first, doesn’t it? If you want to stop the spread of misinformation through your platform, you don’t start with the tweets of a rural politician with 8 followers.

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#108
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One potential outcome here -- social media platforms start _more actively_ banning users to prevent potential liability issues, thus fracturing the market. Highly doubt it will work out that way, but it would be nice (well, maybe...).

That would be a spectacular outcome, especially for anyone who likes ActivityPub and blogs, and wants to see them get a fresh shot of juice. I'm just glad the prevailing call isn't to delete Section 230 altogether, which I think would cause a bit of pandemonium (though maybe that would be a social good as well, and maybe Section 230 was the mistake that made the social media monster).

That would be a spectacular outcome, especially for anyone who likes ActivityPub and blogs, and wants to see them get a fresh shot of juice.

Wouldn't this harm any of these activities, aside from situations where people are directly hosting their own content, because anyone hosting could be held liable for what gets posted?

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#110
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter isn't a public right. He chooses to use their platform so they choose to annotate his lies. I don't see how this executive order would even change exactly what started the whole thing.

Either they're a public utility or they have control (and thus should have some degree of liability) for what is transmitted/published on their platform. They can't eat their cake and have it too!

Predictably you are being downvoted.

Yet no one dares to answer this straightforward question.

Is twitter a public utility, or are they an editor?

They are behaving like an editor. Therefore they should lose their public utility S230 exception.

Its as simple as that

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