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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

#311

Post by _-david-_ »

ashtonkem wrote: post #167
orblivion wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of them disagree with this thankfully. But to be fair, I've seen a lot of supposed progressives on Twitter suddenly finding themselves very concerned with the rights of private businesses.

I’m not personally concerned with the rights of private businesses as much as I’m concerned about the unintended consequences of expanding government power. And yes, that is a new position for me. These past few years have been quite the education about the downsides of federal power as a liberal.

This probably has to do with the publisher vs platform debate.

That means it is not about expanding government power but removing protections that the government granted to corporations.

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

#312

Post by vkou »

partyboat1586 wrote: post #289
vkou wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It can be a private company it just needs to be regulated. I think you are underestimating how big Twitter is... It's way bigger than CNN its way bigger than Fox in fact those networks regularly quote tweets.

By eyeball-hours, Fox is much bigger than Twitter among American audiences. Viewers tune into it for hours, on a daily basis.

What kind of regulation is it subjected to? It doesn't have to be neutral, and it has a legally-tested right to lie, and mislead. And that's for first-party content directly produced by it.

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

#313

Post by ww520 »

chasing wrote: post #4

All because Twitter dared to fact check him.

Twitter can fact check him behind door all they want. As long as Twitter does not alter the published content of specific users by adding editorial annotations, they deserve the Section 230 protection. As soon as they modified or editorialized user content, they are a publisher. Media publishing companies don’t have Section 230 protection.

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

#314

Post by partyboat1586 »

epistasis wrote: post #280
partyboat1586 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We really have reached the stage where "facts have a well-known liberal bias", haven't we?

What is and isn't fact is for people to decide by themselves based on evidence. Not whatever Twitter decides is the truth. There are very few hard facts in this world especially surrounding politics.

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

#315

Post by runeb »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #174
cardiffspaceman wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common usage, but mainly among non-Democrats. And it's not a compliment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)

You’re barking up the wrong tree. I wrote “democratic,” thought it looked wrong as it seemed more the adjective of “Democracy” rather than “member of the Democratic Party,” didn’t want to look it up on my phone because I cannot multitask for the life of me on my iPhone, and there you go. Anyway, you do realize that the very fact that I was linking to "here's what someone in a position to challenge or at least refuse…

You felt the need to refer to someone as a proponent of democracy?

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

#316

Post by luckylion »

nullc wrote: post #193
Udik wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, there must be a limit on the amount of "moderation" you're allowed to perform before becoming a publisher. If you start labelling content as misleading (but don't remove it) or even if you privilege certain content instead of another (for example, you privilege social media posts advertising a product because it increases your revenue) then you could be considered a publisher. Let's put in another…

> On the other hand, there must be a limit on the amount of "moderation" you're allowed to perform before becoming a publisher. That isn't clear to me at all. The publisher is essentially the author from a liability perspective. I do agree (see my other post in this thread) that there are serious concerns about the moderation power of the operators of these massive online public forums. But that doesn't make treating…

> That isn't clear to me at all. The publisher is essentially the author from a liability perspective.

In a newspaper that selectively chooses to print some letters from readers, would the author be the publisher or the newspaper? That's an example of extreme moderation ("out of the 1000 letters we received this week, we will print this one") while Twitter is likely closer to the other extreme ("out of these 1000 Tweets, we'll hide/delete this one").

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

#317

Post by jtbayly »

threeseed wrote: post #161
MrJagil wrote: post #143

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…

Newspapers have restricted what they publish for centuries. They don't allow libellous, defamatory, salacious or inappropriate comments for example. So it sounds 'new tech' hasn't really changed anything.

Newspapers do that because they are liable for what they publish. Twitter is not liable for what it publishes. Why should it not be liable? The answer is because they are just providing a platform and others are publishing. But the moment they use their platform to modify and censor what people publish, then they should probably be liable, right?

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

#318

Post by fmakunbound »

partyboat1586 wrote: post #256
akersten wrote: post #130

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.

What’s the bias? It’s verifiable facts versus lies and disinformation.

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

#319

Post by joshuamorton »

zaroth wrote: post #295
akersten wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

IANAL but I think Section 230 does not extend blanket immunity for any moderation "as they see fit," because then they would be a publisher and should be held up to publisher-type liability. > 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, exces…

From the same article:

> Do I lose Section 230 immunity if I edit the content? Courts have held that Section 230 prevents you from being held liable even if you exercise the usual prerogative of publishers to edit the material you publish. You may also delete entire posts. However, you may still be held responsible for information you provide in commentary or through editing. For example, if you edit the statement, "Fred is not a criminal" to remove the word "not," a court might find that you have sufficiently contributed to the content to take it as your own. Likewise, if you link to an article, but provide a defamatory comment with the link, you may not qualify for the immunity.

You may be held liable for the commentary you provide, but you are not liable for the content you provide commentary for, even if you choose to sometimes provide commentary.

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

#320

Post by nsajko »

meragrin_ wrote: post #282
jtchang wrote: post #72

Sometimes I wonder why Twitter doesn't just ban his account like they would any other troll on the internet.

He keeps it only because of his current title. I would not be the least bit surprised if he loses it the second another person is elected president. He will definitely lose it once another person is inaugurated.

Why do you say that Trump will definitely lose it once another person is inaugurated, but only maybe when another person is elected president? Honest question.

Edit: I know election and inauguration are separate, I was wondering about the significance of this to Twitter.

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