He should sign an executive order to stop the Corona virus.
Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]
151–160 of 220 posts
Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Language matters. Fascism is certainly authoritarian but way, way worse than current matters. It waters down the horrors suffered by those who lived under the yoke of it.
Can you define fascism? Only Italian were ruled by fascism per se, but we use the term to described other authoritarian regimes. Should we wait 50 years and the collapse of democracy to find a new name for this phenomena? Or could this debate be just a diversion?
I'm not excited for such sophistry.
You can read an essay by Mussolini on the topic here [0], but consider practice vs theory. Fascism is usually cited in reference to Nazi Germany / Fascist Italy, both of aspired towards totalitarianism, featured callous disregard for human life, and possessed collectivist tendencies. Is the US you live in?
The use of fascism here isn't correct as it misses magnitude. Trump's authoritarian tendencies and nationalism is certainly aligned, but falls far short. It's the same way that 'socialism' isn't an appropriate way to describe the policies of Bernie Sanders.
But please continue to abuse language, knowing full well the power of connotation. You'll water them down to meaninglessness.
Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]
#153If 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…
Or they could stop editorializing their content.
But the children!
Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basically, - Unless they stop calling out Trump, they lose Section 230 protections. Section 230 is what allows a platform like Twitter or Hacker News to do limited good-faith moderation and not be deemed editorially responsible for every piece of nonsense someone tweets/posts that they don't get around to moderating. Without it, you either have to moderate heavily and get everything right, or not moderate at all. (Se…
I think bringing back the CompuServe model would be a good thing. I remember the discussions being unusually free at the time, but was not aware that there was legal reasoning that enforced that freedom.
There's nothing prohibiting you from running a forum on the CompuServe model today - Section 230 permits a forum operator to moderate but does not require them to do so.
There are less-moderated forums out there, but they see less popular in the free market. I think the main argument for Section 230 is it made no sense to legally require the CompuServe model - both CompuServe and Prodigy should have been free to operate as they were doing.
Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]
#155This will actually backfire on him spectacularly, as the social media platforms will go all-in in every way they can think of to defeat the leagues of bots promoting his message and therefore hinder his opportunity to get re-elected.
It’s as if a President in the late 1800s-early 1900s declared war on the printed press.
They’re going to reject his targeted ads, they’re going to aid Democrats in swing states to persuade the undecided swing-voters... it’s going to be mayhem.
Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hacker News has active moderation and would be effectively illegal to operate if you made websites that practice moderation legally responsible for any illegal content posted by their users. If you really believe this is the right path to go down you should stop being a hypocrite and delete your HN account since you clearly believe HN has no right to exist in its current form.
I support figuring out how to make Hacker News work without active moderation. It's simplistic to assume it can't be done.
Moderation by the users themselves could work, but that might not toe the line that HN wants to showcase (but may have to accept if they don't want to get sued and keep it running). On other platforms, advertiser may have to incentivize (monetarily or otherwise) users to post the kind of USG they want their ads nearby (assuming they still want to advertise on the platform).
Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]
#157Earlier 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.
Do you think publishers aren’t allowed to comment on the validity of what they are publishing?
I am not a lawyer. I just read the draft.
Publishers are absolutely allowed to comment on the validity of the content they've published - why are you asking?
Twitter is benefiting from the fact they're classed as a _platform_. Platform != Publisher.
It's up to the courts to decide whether annotating content in the way Twitter has is editorial. Twitter opened a can of worms here.
Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really - there is certainly a "problem" of major social media platforms banning abusive/hurtful behavior , and for whatever reason, such behavior seems to not be evenly distributed across the political spectrum, but there is not a big problem of them banning ideas or good-faith or even mostly-good-faith debate. You can find tradcaths on Twitter, threepers on Facebook, tankies on YouTube, and literally /r/politica…
Ummm... Reddit permanently banned theDonald using dubious reasoning. By “coincidence”, in the election year.
But /r/conservative and plenty of other pro-Trump subreddits are doing just fine. Is there an ideology that has been censored from Reddit, or just behavior?
No platform should be obligated to keep disruptive users around simply because those users happen to have a certain political belief.
Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Actually you have a point. Twitter can "temporarily" shelve this fact checker thing and get back to status quo ante. Dorsey and Trump can both declare victory and move on.
There doesn't seem to be anything there directed against Twitter's editorializing. If anything, this puts online services in the position of having to censor more to avoid nuisance lawsuits.
Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Fox News will be wholly empowered by this. This EO is a reaction to attempts to fact-check the White House, and Fox News is in a different line of business.
No doubt the President would want his friends to benefit. Infotainment is cancer.