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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

#261
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s a simplistic view. No one is arguing Twitter is comparable to a store with a display window. The reality is that Tweets are broadcasted to billions of people. It’s a new reality. It’s a newspaper where anyone and everyone is authoring anything, including presidents, and with the roll of a die, the message is amplified to a multiple of the expected audience. Twitter may technically be a private platform…

>it’s about ethics and morals and how we compose a society with mighty power imbalances, fortified by new tech. But that's not what this is really about. This is about the President being angry that Twitter fact checked him and using executive power to create a chilling effect against any platform doing so in the future. It's about fears of a nonexistent conspiracy controlling the media becoming the basis for authori…

Again, this has been drafted since at least last summer and has little to do with the recent twitter news.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/politics/trump-twitter-social.... > consistent with a draft order whose text CNN first reported last summer

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

#262

The problem with Twitter and Facebook is that the lines are getting blurry with regards to public vs private. Like it or not, a couple tech platforms are the de facto new town squares. Not saying I have any answers, just saying it's definitely not a clear issue anymore.

[flagged]

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

#263
post #4

All because Twitter dared to fact check him.

devil's advocate: why doesn't Twitter fact check everyone? Twitter is picking sides on a comment made by a user so they should be held liable for that content

For normal (high profile) people engaging in this sort of thing, they'd just delete their accounts. A while back, presumably due to questions over Trump, they said they weren't going to delete world leader accounts, but they might fact-check harmful lies.

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

#264

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 pu…

The order does not say that they don't have the right to fact check. It simply says that they don't have the right to fact check and enjoy section 230 immunity.

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

#265

I will reemphasize an opinion I expressed on an earlier thread: this is an overtly totalitarian move designed to intimidate and suppress private entities' protected expression, disguised as a reaction to perceived bias (which would still be an invalid pretense for any such order). It's a disgusting attack on an American industry by our own executive.

No it's not. Twitter currently enjoys immunity from section 230 of the communication decency act. That protection requires that they are not editorializing content. Fact checking content is a form of editorializing. If you want to do that, no protection and you are open to lawsuits. This has bi-partisan support and they are simply reining this in which is long overdue.

> That protection requires that they are not editorializing content.

It doesn't. Here is its text:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

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

#266
post #158
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as there ever really were "small government republicans" there certainly aren't any today. "Owning the libs" is the only reason the current batch of conservatives gets out of bed in the morning. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nratv-dan-bongino-my-life-is-...

Absolutely. To get a slice of that thinking. Here's Rush Limbaugh: (backstory: Trump has been repeatedly peddling an absolutely baseless claim that his TV critic Joe Scarborough murdered his employee couple of decades back. Her husband is now pleading that Trump is causing irreparable damage to their family). Anyway, here's Limbaugh: “The thing here is when you get to Trump and his conspiracy theories, he does it in…

Most people, if they spent their time at work trolling and shitposting instead of doing the job they were paid to do, would simply be fired.

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

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have the right to stand in your community's biggest mall screaming racist things or does the property owner/operator have the right to remove you from the premise?

To play devil's advocate, you can't do that in a public park either. You can be arrested for disturbing the peace or some such. So I'm not sure it's necessarily about private vs public.

You actually can do this in on public property; see for example the Westboro Baptist Church, which funded itself in part by winning lawsuits against government entities that tried to stop them.

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

#268

I will reemphasize an opinion I expressed on an earlier thread: this is an overtly totalitarian move designed to intimidate and suppress private entities' protected expression, disguised as a reaction to perceived bias (which would still be an invalid pretense for any such order). It's a disgusting attack on an American industry by our own executive.

Twitter is _the_ place where political discourse happens. It's an unfortunate state of affairs for some that it happens to be a private company with a bias. And for better of for worse it does have a bias.

Who should host this discourse instead? The government? A perfectly impartial Vulcan? CNN? Fox?

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

#269
Until the tools, devices and technology needed to access the internet are free and universally available to all without restriction, these sites/services are no more of a public square than a country club is a public park.

And no. A public library terminal is not universal access...

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

#270

You know, it would be pretty funny if Twitter banned Trump's account because of some TOS terms have or something. If he actually causes them enough problems over this such that they are already paying for it, it might be worth it as a power play on their part. Trump definitely depends on Twitter far more than Twitter depends on Trump. He could move to Facebook/Instagram, but I just don't see that being a move he woul…

This came up when the "fact check badge" was discussed here yesterday.

I fully agree. Ban the president for literally no other reason than the lulz. Just to troll him. But then they did the typical limp dick liberal thing and tried to to high-road a troll, once again giving the troll the upper hand.

You can't high-road a troll. Now they're stuck in a position of having to maintain their haughty better-than-thou "white knights of facts" position for as long as they can, all while being attacked from every angle. Every time they try to position themselves as knowing better, the facade cracks a bit. They'll be dealing with baseless accusations, but each one will still push the point that maybe they don't know what they're doing. That maybe it was a bad idea.

When dealing with a troll, just say you did because you felt like it and leave it at that. If someone calls you dumb, double down. You wanted to, so you did. No regrets.

Seriously, people (liberal especially) have no understanding of trolls whatsoever and it's a massive unpatched security threat to the country.

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