291–300 of 1001 posts
"It also asks the Federal Trade Commission to report on acts of political bias collected by the White House" Is this not similar to the approach and actions of other large State actors out there that hold a lot of authoritative power?
Even Trump owns his tweets' content and Twitter owns the rest of the webpage.
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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.
I'm not aware of it being illegal to stand on a soapbox and say racist things in a public park. If you're screaming at the top of your lungs, sure, maybe ?
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Jack Dorsey has responded to this question multiple times in several places-- I heard him address it in the Making Sense podcast by Sam Harris some time in the past year. He seemed to show a firm grasp of the nuances involved. Here is a quote from him: "Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate,” [...] “It would…
> I don't know if Dorsey is making the right call here, but he has clearly thought about it a lot, and discussed those thoughts publicly. Similarly, I'm conflicted. I understand Jack's argument, but I'm not sure he's making the right call here. It is highly unlikely Trump could build a platform or co-opt one that has the reach of Twitter. And arguably, the terms of service should apply equally to everyone on the plat…
Thought experiment: if instead of posting on Twitter, he sent an e-mail to a few thousand journalists?
I never use or consume Twitter, but I see screen captures of things Twitter posts all the time.
Granted: one big thing this approach misses is the back and forth. I gather Trump re-tweets quite a bit of stuff, and responds to others. I guess that could be simulated via e-mail.
My point is that as far as his ability to be heard, I don't think Twitter is necessary.
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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. Please cite the law that says that, because it's certainly not S230. S230 was specifically made to empower sites to moderate, editorialize, and remove content as they see fit for their platform.
> Section 230 protect a blog host from liability for “any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.” [1]
The phrase "otherwise objectionable" has come under limited judicial review. It is not a unlimited catch-all, but relates back to the meaning and purpose of the preceding language, mainly dealing with mature themes.
The Ninth circuit reviewed a case against Malwarebytes where they were blocking access to a competitor and they were hoping for Section 230 protection, but the Ninth found that "otherwise objectionable" did not extend to anti-competitive blocking. [2]
I think it's also interesting that in this particular case it is not even really a question of restricting access or availability of material. Twitter is editorializing -- essentially adding a Editor's Note to Trump's tweet.
That Twitter has to right to do this is unquestionable. The question is whether in doing so they have crossed a bridge into become a publisher and not a platform protected by Section 230 immunity.
If you read the history / case law which Section 230 is meant to address, the issue was a contrast between Compu-Serv dodging liability from statements posted by users because they were not moderating topics, vs. Prodigy being found liable for user-posted statements because they were moderating topics.
> Section 230 was enacted in early 1996, in the CDA’s Section 509, titled “Online Family Empowerment.” In part, this provision responded to a 1995 decision issued by a New York state trial court: StrattonOakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. The plaintiffs in that case were an investment banking firm. The firm alleged that Prodigy, an early online service provider, had published a libelous statement that unlawfully accused the firm of committing fraud. Prodigy itself did not write the allegedly defamatory message, but it hosted the message boards where a user posted the statement. The New York court concluded that the company was nonetheless a “publisher” of the alleged libel and therefore subject to liability. The court emphasized that Prodigy exercised “editorial control” over the content posted on its Congressional Research Service site, actively controlling the content of its message boards through both an “automatic software screening program” and through “Board Leaders” who removed messages that violated Prodigy’s guidelines. [3]
CDA's intention was to allow "good faith" / "Good Samaritan" moderation without triggering publisher liability. The CDA was not designed to totally eliminate the entire concept of publisher liability on the internet.
There is a lesser standard of liability which falls upon distributors based on content which they "know or should have known" violated the law. It's a higher standard than publisher liability because it requires establishing direct knowledge of the offending material. Very interestingly, the courts found that CDA 230 actually precludes even distributor liability in the case the service knows or should have known of the illegal content, because distributor liability is a subset of publisher liability and if they don't have publisher liability then they can't have distributor liability. (I'm sure I'm butchering this explanation somewhat).
This has become a problem as of late with issues like revenge porn or online harassment campaigns where service providers had refused to take down material even after being notified it was illegal, and were getting protection under Section 230 for keeping the content up!
[1] - https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/230
[2] - https://www.wileyconnect.com/home/2020/1/22/ninth-circuit-re...
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Well, is Verizon allowed to use packet injection to "fact check" a website you view over their internet connection? Because seems to be presenting themselves as a neutral platform, which they have shown themselves to not be. EDIT: Just to clarify, obviously Twitter is not presenting themselves to users as a neutral platform. But for legal purposes, they are cloaking themselves in the same privileged status as a phone…
> Because seems to be presenting themselves as a neutral platform Eh? Twitter bans accounts _all the time_. It hides stuff from search, and hides potentially explicit content behind an "are you sure you want to see this?" It is in no way a neutral platform. Fact-checking world leaders was originally conceived by twitter as an alternative to just banning them when they get dangerous.
Right, so why are they trying to claim that they are a neutral platform then, for legal purposes, when they very clearly are not one??
Twitter responds to any lawsuits by claiming that they are a neutral disinterested platform, when they very clearly are not. They enjoy the same legal protections as the phone company, when they obviously are not at all the same!
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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.
If enough people feel that it has a bias, and are discontent with it, they are free to start their own platform. They are also free to not moderate their platform, or even moderate it with whatever bias they so choose. This has happened a few times (Voat, Gab) and the utopia of a hands-off content platform has never played out to anything other than a cesspool. Popular platforms remain popular and useful because they…
What people need is not another right wing echo chamber and not another left wing one either.
Twitter was that neural platform for a while where ideas clashed but now they risk the right splintering off and that is not a good thing for anyone.
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.
That own executive will attack any industry he doesn't agree with at any point he pleases. It's how he has done it for years in business and it's how he will do it in politics for as long as he isn't prosecuted and removed from office. As long as the Republicans keep supporting him and have a majority he will just continue to pull more and more crazy stunts and get away with it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jack Dorsey has responded to this question multiple times in several places-- I heard him address it in the Making Sense podcast by Sam Harris some time in the past year. He seemed to show a firm grasp of the nuances involved. Here is a quote from him: "Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate,” [...] “It would…
If Dorsey banned his account, it would probably be a shitshow. Right wing trolls would come out in droves (even more than they do now). If Twitter did ban his account, what about other equally bad but smaller accounts? How many can they ban? It seems like Twitter is in a lose-lose situation here.
Twitter bans many other equally bad ... and many other much less bad accounts.