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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

#321

Post by ardy42 »

pengaru wrote: post #92

What's surprising is how often I encounter fellow Americans mistakenly asserting the first amendment extends beyond government and into the private sector. It's like they've never even been to a movie theater where they need to shut the hell up or leave. And here we have a US president signing an executive order in response to being moderated on a web site after years of arguably excessive tolerance of his b.s. I'm n…

> What's surprising is how often I encounter fellow Americans mistakenly asserting the first amendment extends beyond government and into the private sector.

It's a confusion between the First Amendment and the principle of free expression, which is kinda forgivable given how closely they are related.

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

#322

Post by _-david-_ »

HPsquared wrote: post #127
wnevets wrote: post #32

Really curious to hear the rational from supposedly small government republicans

To play devils advocate, isn't this a case of _removing_ a law? Sounds like a reduction to me.

It would be removing government granted protections that certain corporations have. The law would in all likelihood remain in tact.

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

#323

Post by akersten »

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…

> of material that the provider or user considers to be [...] otherwise objectionable,

That seems like a pretty blank check for moderation to me, at least. "Otherwise objectionable" can easily be defined in a ToS, and you're off to the races.

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

#324

Post by javagram »

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.

“ Twitter is _the_ place where political discourse happens.”

Say what? https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-tw...

Twitter is a minority.

Fox News Channel is arguably the place where political discourse happens. It’s the most popular cable news network in America.

Should Fox News be regulated and forced to have a democrat on each show?

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

#325

Post by rsynnott »

apostacy wrote: post #297
rsynnott wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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?" 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. Th…

> 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??

Where are they claiming that? There's no such requirement under the CDA (if there was, then any website with a stated political or other stance and a comments section would be in serious trouble).

> Twitter responds to any lawsuits by claiming that they are a neutral disinterested platform, when they very clearly are not.

Examples of this?

> They enjoy the same legal protections as the phone company

No, they don't. Totally different protections.

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

#326

Post by smeeth »

Of course this is being handled ham-handedly, but it seems to me that section 230 is a ludicrous piece of legislative malfeasance that allows content publishers to duck the legal responsibilities of publishing while profiting from behavior that is obviously publishing.

I can't see how a Twitter/FB feed is substantively different from a curated "letters to the editor" section in a newspaper and I cannot for the life of me understand why it is treated different legally.

Would love to hear arguments that either 1) these social media sites are not actually publishing or 2) social media publishing is somehow different from publishing in other media.

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

#327

Post by paulgb »

akersten wrote: post #277
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.

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…

> Popular platforms remain popular and useful because they have the power to make editorial decisions.

Bingo. I think this is a point that isn't made enough: to the extent platforms like Twitter can continue to exist, it depends on their ability to remove spammers, harassers, and other unwanted participants. Imagine using email in 2020 without a spam filter. Because Twitter isn't an open protocol, they provide both the protocol and the spam filter.

To ask them to stop removing any content would be as disruptive to their business as asking GMail to let all emails through.

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

#328

Post by partyboat1586 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #304
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.

> it happens to be a private company with a bias Political speech in public squares are what the First Amendment was written to protect. “Bias” isn’t an exception.

Twitter is now that public square.

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

#329

Post by lgleason »

dgellow wrote: post #258
lgleason wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even if that’s your take, doing this with an executive order feels like a totalitarian move.

edited for typos: Honest question with this comment. Which would you rather have controlling content. A private company that has not public accountability or a political official who was put in office via a democratic election? I get that a lot of people do not like Trump, but currently, even if he wanted to be a totalitarian leader the US currently has checks and balances that protect from that.

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

#330

Post by JadeNB »

partyboat1586 wrote: post #314
epistasis wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> There are very few hard facts in this world especially surrounding politics.

Surely this is false. The world is full of hard facts—politics less than the sciences, sure, but still [0]. What are much rarer (non-existent?) are undisputed facts.

[0] To be clear, I distinguish hard facts in politics, like "Trump is the 45th president of the United States", from hard facts in political science, of which there indeed seem to be very few.

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