691–700 of 1001 posts
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Twitter is now that public square.
Not in any way that matters, and certainly not in the legal sense. In a legal sense, Twitter is your neighbor's backyard, and your neighbor is telling you to stop lying about sleeping with his wife or get the fuck out of his yard.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-twitter/trump-u...
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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.
What law did Twitter fail to abide by in linking a tweet to factual information?
'Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" (47 U.S.C. § 230). In other words, online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against a range of laws that might otherwise be used to hold them legally responsible for what others say and do. The protected intermediaries include not only regular Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but also a range of "interactive computer service providers," including basically any online service that publishes third-party content. Though there are important exceptions for certain criminal and intellectual property-based claims, CDA 230 creates a broad protection that has allowed innovation and free speech online to flourish'.
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> They didn't remove his message. They merely pointed out it was misinforming the public. Why should a private company have this power? I don't think that people who run a successful website automatically are qualified to fact check the president and insert blurbs directly in his messages. That needs to be regulated some way.
If you are using my product to harm others, I should have the right to try to minimize the damage you cause.
And no, them being a private company doesn't matter. Currently they have a lot of power thanks to them having a lot of important users, and now that they are starting to use that power we need to quickly come up with regulations for it.
The problem with Twitter and Facebook is that the lines are getting blurry with regards to public vs private. Like it or not, a couple tech platforms are the de facto new town squares. Not saying I have any answers, just saying it's definitely not a clear issue anymore.
Now I'm curious what the historical precedent is for this. What happens (first-amendment-wise) when a company town has a literal private-property town square? Could the company control speech in "its" town square? For that matter: what about malls? Or university campuses? Or public transit infrastructure provided by private government contractors? What are your free-speech rights when in one of these (privately-owned…
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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.
Newspapers are publishers, and are subject to rules and regulations for being publishers. Twitter would not be mandate to open up access to everyone. Instead, the proposed legal changes would merely treat them as publishers, if they act like publishers, and therefore twitter would not have liability protections anymore.
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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…
If those people are lying egregiously to do it then, sure, shut them down too.
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…
I've only ever heard people complaining that people misunderstand the first amendment. I've yet to see someone say they believe the first amendment governs and protects against private censorship.
However, I constantly see people conflating the concept of free speech and the first amendment. Free speech is an ideological principle, not a law.
If you read the first section of the EO it is clear that they are attempting to make an argument that Twitter, by moderating/curating/screening, is no longer protected by section 230, as defined by the famous 90s court cases regarding prodigy, aol, and compuserve. [0] [1]
Spurious argument or not you are mischaracterizing the situation.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod....
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeran_v._America_Online,_Inc.
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Now I'm curious what the historical precedent is for this. What happens (first-amendment-wise) when a company town has a literal private-property town square? Could the company control speech in "its" town square? For that matter: what about malls? Or university campuses? Or public transit infrastructure provided by private government contractors? What are your free-speech rights when in one of these (privately-owned…
In the University of California system they set up "free speech zones" for protestors and activists. They're often complete surrounded by chain link fencing with one entrance/exit.
The problem with Twitter and Facebook is that the lines are getting blurry with regards to public vs private. Like it or not, a couple tech platforms are the de facto new town squares. Not saying I have any answers, just saying it's definitely not a clear issue anymore.
Seems like having the president attack Twitter for their speech (adding extra speech that suggests that some shared information is disputed) is the actual violation of Free Speech. The First Amendment says that the federal government can't stifle free speech, which seems like what is happening here.
Fundamentally the whole exercise is an attempt to conflate Twitters (first amendment!) right to speak its own opinions with somehow "restricting" the rights of their subscribers. And that's insane. Just look at how many people in this very thread are buying into the frame by discussing what big companies should be allowed to censor, when of course nothing of the sort occurred at all.