391–400 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great move by President Trump, social media companies think they can ban/shadow ban anyone for anything that they don't like, it's time for some reality check.
Why can't they?
Regardless of ones views pertaining to the current president, does anyone feel comfortable with so called "fact checking"? I do not like anyone acting as the sole arbiter of truth, whether it be the president, the pope, or the random fellow screaming in the park. I prefer that corporations trust their users to make their own choices about what people say instead of making edits or including addendum's to peoples post…
No freedom is lost here, people can (and will) decide that the factcheckers are wrong and dumb.
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.
Also if a mass of bipartisan support existed, I expect it would have been rolled into the last changes that modified these liability protections on the topic of sex trafficking content.
No, the truth is that this particular controversy began when the double standard arose on various social media platforms when the current administration's use of social media violated ToS yet was allowed to remain. This in turn prompted greater awareness of all such content and the extent to which it had been allowed or overlooked, resulting in efforts by social media platforms to simply enforce their own ToS.
If there is a problem with the current Twitter actions taken, it's that they continue to try & thread the needle between two opposing goals: Adhering to their own ToS and preserving their platform as something other than a cesspool, and not adhering to their ToS in a way that makes powerful interest groups angry.
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.
Is providing fact-check links to the tweets of a specific person or group considered editorizing? Twitter said offering fact-check was not editorization, but the critics said that fact-checking a targeted group was. I have yet to see anyone clarify that key difference.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most people totally miss the point. Because 'free speech' is literally _all they know_ about the subject. If they did look it up, they would literally see the very first words of the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law (...)". Literally about the legislative branch. Every other consequence of the First Amendment comes from that. Other laws can be more specific and may grant more rights, but this just speci…
Apologies if this is a stupid question; I'm a foreigner so I can't understand freedom like Americans do. But if the first words are "Congress shall make no law", does that mean that the President and his executive orders are not bound by the First Amendment?
This executive order is a directive to the FTC and FCC, which are both bodies created by congressional law.
As a result, neither has power to violate the first amendment since by virtue of being created by congress, they are subject to the literal reading of “Congress shall make no law”.
For what it’s worth - the 14th amendment passed after the civil war has been read to extend the protections of the bill of rights beyond their literal sense anyway.
> Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 (a common name for Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996) is a landmark piece of Internet legislation in the United States, codified at 47 U.S.C. § 230. Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
Through his action, the president appears to be directing the executive branch to use a more narrow interpretation of Section 230 than has been used previously:
> ... Section 230 was not intended to allow a handful of companies to grow into titans controlling vital avenues for our national discourse under the guise of promoting open forums for debate, and then to provide those behemoths blanket immunity when they use their power to censor content and silence viewpoints that they dislike. When an interactive computer service provider removes or restricts access to content and its actions do not meet the criteria of subparagraph (c)(2)(A), it is engaged in editorial conduct. It is the policy of the United States that such a provider should properly lose the limited liability shield of subparagraph (c)(2)(A) and be exposed to liability like any traditional editor and publisher that is not an online provider.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...
(c)(2)(A) reads:
> (c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material
> (2) Civil liabilityNo provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
> (A) 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; or
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
To summarize, the president is directing his administration to disregard "Good Samaritan" protections for services that don't strictly meet the exception given in (c)(2)(A).
The phrases "good faith" and "otherwise objectionable" seem broad enough to allow just about any form of censorship a company might want to engage in, while continuing to enjoy Good Samaritan protection.
If so, what exactly does the administration gain here?
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.
Regardless of ones views pertaining to the current president, does anyone feel comfortable with so called "fact checking"? I do not like anyone acting as the sole arbiter of truth, whether it be the president, the pope, or the random fellow screaming in the park. I prefer that corporations trust their users to make their own choices about what people say instead of making edits or including addendum's to peoples post…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, "…
> The courts have not clarified the line between acceptable editing and the point at which you become the "information content provider." To the extent that your edits or comment change the meaning of the information, and the new meaning is defamatory, you may lose the protection of Section 230.
I'm not qualified to say what the limit is, I'm merely hoping to provide some background on how 230 came about and that it does have some form of limits.
What's particularly unclear to me is that if you have a site under active moderation which could even include editorializing some small percentage of the posts that are made, how does that impact the potential liability from posts which you don't editorialize.