Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies • Hacker News Board

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

#651

Post by closeparen » Thu, May 28, 2020, 11:17 PM UTC

Avicebron wrote: post #608

closeparen wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legacy OTA broadcasters were granted exclusive licenses to large chunks of a scarce natural resource (RF spectrum). Their public service obligations are essentially their payments on those licenses. Cable channels are under no obligation to carry news programming, for example, and are allowed to swear.

I don't think it holds up to say that because the internet is not a scare natural resource, rules have to be updated as situations evolve in multiple areas.

If you want to apply a rule like "speech must be a net positive for society according to me" in the general case, the rule you need to update is the first amendment. It's specifically because of that spectrum gift that the government can be so aggressive about public good with OTA broadcasters. Speech doesn't come under government control just because it has a large audience or is culturally important.

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

#652

Post by suyash » Thu, May 28, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

beefok wrote: post #490

suyash wrote: post #368

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.

I disagree wholeheartedly with this mindset. It comes back to the question of whether a company should be able to deny the service of a customer based on its own internal decision making. So lets use a real world example, how about a baker denying service to a person based on sexual orientation. Should the company be forced to provide a service if it goes against their conscience? I believe the answer should and alwa…

Legally I see that you make a good point but morally I do not support such behavior by any corporation, specially as large and dominant as Twitter and FB.

Baker analogy doesn't quite cut it as there are many other bakers in town, give me 5 other alternatives to Twitter?

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

#653

Post by TeaDrunk » Thu, May 28, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

username90 wrote: post #622

metaobject wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you even know what “free speech” means?

Free speech as an idea doesn't just apply to the government, it is just that we only enforce free speech on the government. The ideal of free speech and its merits applies just as well to private actors and we should try to live up to it whenever we can. If you think that companies should be able to use their power and influence to suppress the speech of individuals then I would say that you are more authoritarian th…

I'm so baffled by this because there are plenty of places where speech is suppressed and its fine. A highschool teacher can fail a student for shouting answers in an exam. A person can kick someone out of their house for saying horrible things. A cafe can ask someone to leave for saying slurs. A professor can ask a student to leave a lecture hall for talking...

The right to speech is curtailed all the time in private... We even teach it to our kids, such as raising one's hand, or waiting their turn.

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

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Post by empath75 » Thu, May 28, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

cdolan wrote: post #2

The biggest takeaway, looking past the headline: “This week a federal appeals court, ruling in a case brought by conservative activists against social media companies, affirmed that private websites are not public spaces and social media companies don't have First Amendment obligations. Any truly strong limits to Section 230 would almost certainly require action by Congress.”

Repealing section 230 would make twitter liable for publishing trump’s libelous murder accusations and incitement to violence. They’d be forced to ban him.

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

#655

Post by username90 » Thu, May 28, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

sixstringtheory wrote: post #559

2019-nCoV wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Politics is the mind killer. Would they have the same opinion if Twitter was a right-leaning Trump-mouthpiece that was disproportionately quelling left-leaning voices? Take a step back and recognise you can agree with Trump's action and not necessarily admire the man.

We don't have to speak in hypotheticals here. There are plenty of examples: voat, gab, TD, etc. What laws are/were being pushed by liberal politicians to use the force of law to shut them up? Please do link to government documents or quotes from elected officials.

If tech companies instead shut down people clamoring for unions and worker rights then you'd see the left rushing to introduce measures like the one signed by Donald Trump right now. So this is really a bipartisan issue and not just a right wing one, we should all work together to regulate the power of big tech. They might be mostly well-intentioned today, but it is best we regulate them before they have a chance to turn bad.

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

#656

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 28, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

busymom0 wrote: post #631

https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/legislative-history > The Cox-Wyden Amendment: Section 230 > Worried about the future of free speech online and responding directly to Stratton Oakmont, Representatives Chris Cox (R-CA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced an amendment to the Communications Decency Act that would end up becoming Section 230. The amendment specifically made sure that "providers of an interactive computer s…

[deleted]

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

#657

Post by tomohawk » Thu, May 28, 2020, 11:21 PM UTC

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…

Why does the US government exist? The only reason is to protect the rights of the citizens.

Once upon a time, the rights of citizens only protected them from the federal government's actions. States could (and did) infringe on these rights. Corporations were much less powerful at this time, so were not much of a concern.

We ended up fighting a war over this, and one result was the 14th amendment, which binds the states to also protect these important rights.

Now a days, corporations are powerful enough to infringe these rights. We've dealt with this in the past when "trust busting" was more of a thing. There is established precedent for not allowing monopolies to infringe on people's rights.

There's nothing special about the "private sector" that allows big corporations to infringe people's rights without due process.

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

#658

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, May 28, 2020, 11:21 PM UTC

TheColorYellow wrote: post #35

cdolan wrote: post #2

The biggest takeaway, looking past the headline: “This week a federal appeals court, ruling in a case brought by conservative activists against social media companies, affirmed that private websites are not public spaces and social media companies don't have First Amendment obligations. Any truly strong limits to Section 230 would almost certainly require action by Congress.”

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.

It's arguably a public accommodation, but public accommodations are still private spaces.

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

#659

Post by visarga » Thu, May 28, 2020, 11:22 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #510

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.

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 publi…

There is a large gap between the Twitter user base and the number of visitors in a mall. Are you saying that quantity doesn't matter, we should uphold the principle on its own? I think the more people use a platform, the more society needs to regulate it to its benefit.

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

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Post by triceratops » Thu, May 28, 2020, 11:22 PM UTC

jtbayly wrote: post #317

threeseed wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why should they "probably be liable"?

Twitter isn't liable for illegal content posted by their users, as long as they take it down in time and make good faith efforts to keep it from being posted in the first place. If they weren't free from liability then a service like Twitter would need heavy human moderation and be extremely expensive to operate - perhaps it wouldn't exist at all.

That's the only reason this non-liability exists. It has nothing to do with moderation or censorship. Twitter, as any other web property, have the right to curate their platform and make it pleasant for their other users. It's their personal property.