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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

#501

Post by hcknwscommenter »

roamerz wrote: post #383
JChase2 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this is the case anymore. McConnell and Trump have been rapidly filling the courts with young, right leaning justices. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/02/28/thanks-tru...

From my observations left leaning means apply liberal criteria to decisions. Right leaning means adhere to the Constitution and law of the United States of America.

And how did you get to that conclusion? I mean the "right" has been failing to adhere to the Constitution since like forever. The Constitution does not allow restrictions on abortion, but it was affirmed by Supreme Court by Republican majority. The Constitution does not allow warrantless spying on American citizens, but it was affirmed by Supreme Court under a Republican majority. The Constitution does not say that I am free to pollute your lands with my toxic coal smoke spewing smoke stacks without paying for the damage caused, yet our Supreme Court under a Republican majority has decided it does.

From my perspective, left-meaning means having a close association with reality and pragmatism, and right-leaning means do and say anything to make the rich richer.

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

#502

Post by sreedhark »

I wanted to share a debate on topic "Constitutional Free Speech Principles Can Save Social Media Companies from Themselves".

https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/constitutional....

Main Points from the page.

- The First Amendment is content-neutral and provides a nonpolitical framework for regulating speech. It would behoove social media companies to abide by it.

- Rather than resort to censorship, social media companies can offer users tools that block unwanted content, including content that could be hurtful or offensive.

- Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms have become the new public square. Rather than resorting to corporate speech policies, these companies should promote free speech principles in the U.S. and abroad.

- Social media companies are global. The U.S. Constitution is based on American values and, therefore, should not be used to regulate international platforms.

- The spread of hateful digital content dilutes meaningful discourse and, in some cases, causes emotional and physical harm. Social media companies have a duty to offer safe, welcoming platforms for users.

From election interference to “fake news,” nefarious actors are using social media to undermine democracies and deepen partisan divides. Social media companies must act to prevent this type of conduct.

The Debaters

David French - Senior Writer, National Review

Corynne McSherry - Legal Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Nathaniel Persily - Professor, Stanford Law

Marietje Schaake - International Policy Director, Stanford's Cyber Policy Center & Fmr. Member, European Parliament

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

#503

Post by xiphias2 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #362
ardy42 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Not at all, they're directly at odds in this case. The President using presidential authority to restrict what twitter can say on their own platform is directly violating the first amendment to restrict twitter's free expression. You can argue that twitter is also restricting others' free expression, but that is their right, while the government preventing twitter from doing so is a 1A violation.

It would be as simple as you write if social media companies would take responsibility for the publishing rights for what they publish, but they don't. For a long time they are picking and choosing the laws they want to abide by.

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

#504

Post by partyboat1586 »

roganp wrote: post #274
partyboat1586 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is not equivalent to some obscure knitting forum. It is huge. So huge that it gets quoted in nearly every mainstream media article. Twitter matters to political discourse, knitting doesn't.

The owners of printing presses have even more power, but the government does not mandate open access to those machines for dispensing speech. Unfettered access to twitter is not akin to free speech.

Twitter is essentially a big public square the results of which end up getting printed by mainstream press. Publishers are also under more legal restrictions than Twitter is.

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

#505

Post by [deleted] »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #365
ww520 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newspaper doesn’t enjoy the protection of Section 230.

That doesn't matter because we can't even start talking about S230 until we agree that what Twitter did was editorializing, which it wasn't.

[deleted]

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

#506

Post by esoterica »

jtchang wrote: post #72

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

Because Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to use his power as head of the executive branch to retaliate against his political opponents.

Remember how he got impeached for doing exactly this?

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

#507

Post by basementcat »

thrusong wrote: post #61
TheColorYellow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its an interesting thought experiment to assess in what ways Twitter is a "private website". It really is a public web space that is operated by a private company, but I can't help but feel that the nuances and similarities of what Twitter really is and what responsibility they truly hold in society is above the courts comprehension.

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?

Some malls have "free speech areas" (possibly mandated by local ordinance) and occasionally some groups and individuals do exactly that.

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

#508

Post by Izkata »

adjkant wrote: post #497
Izkata wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this particular case, Trump is right, and Twitter is using its fact-check with false information. Just scroll through the confirmed cases of voter fraud here, it's mostly mail-in and absentee: [PDF] https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p...

How exactly does 1000 cases of fraud over 40 years back up his tweets in any way? The voter fraud argument is a political weapon for voter suppression. Not to mention that mail in ballots are already in existence. Heck, I've used them the past 5 years myself.

It's the proportion. A significant amount of the fraud is in mail-in voting, which means it's significantly less resistant to fraud. Shifting everyone from the more-resistant in-person voting to the less-resistant mail-in voting will result in a sharp uptick in voting fraud.

This is exactly what Trump said in the tweet.

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

#509

Post by aianus »

Frondo wrote: post #363
aianus wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly seems that mail-in voting is more easily corrupted than going in person and showing ID and voting in secret. There are tradeoffs with accessibility, of course, but it seems depressingly easy to sell a mail-in ballot to someone else or to be verifiably coerced by a boss or family member into voting a certain way. All-in-all Trump tweets worse, dangerous lies on a daily basis so it's bizarre they're pushin…

If we're just thinking of ways voting can be corrupted, in-person voting can be coerced too. Boss forces you to take a photo of your ballot as you vote in the booth, etc. In reality, several states have had mail voting for years- Oregon for decades- without coercion being a problem. Millions of votes cast without the problem you suggest. It's not a problem, despite using our imaginations to come up with ways it can b…

> Boss forces you to take a photo of your ballot as you vote in the booth, etc.

You can take a picture of the ballot with your boss's choice but then spoil it and get another one.

> several states have had mail voting for years without coercion being a problem

How do you know this? How could anyone know if a wife voted the same way as her husband because she wanted to or because he just filled out both mail-in ballots himself?

There are differences in scale too; It's hard to steal a ballot, for example, when only 1% of the population is voting by mail. It's easy when 60% of mailboxes have a ballot in them on the same day.

Finally even if it hasn't been a problem so far, it is not a "fact" that it cannot and will not be a problem in the future.

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

#510

Post by gamblor956 »

partyboat1586 wrote: post #210
threeseed wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is not a monopoly therefore every web site would be considered a public web space. And so if I run a knitting forum I am not allowed to restrict people who want to turn it into a pornography one. And how would it work for spam. This could end up in a situation where a large spammer could force websites to not remove spam. It sounds unworkable and over the top just to protect some people who aren't even having…

Twitter is not equivalent to some obscure knitting forum. It is huge. So huge that it gets quoted in nearly every mainstream media article. Twitter matters to political discourse, knitting doesn't.

Twitter matters to political discourse, knitting doesn't.

Doesn't matter. Twitter is a privately owned platform not a public one.

SCOTUS has already said that simply being open to the public does not make a business a public platform, see Pruneyard v Robins, applying this reasoning to privately-owned malls.

And yes, that makes all the difference, since SCOTUS has repeatedly held that publicly owned spaces like public parks and main streets are subject to first amendment requirements.

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