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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

#891

Post by chongli »

newacct583 wrote: post #885
chongli wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be different (and fine) if Twitter replied to his tweets with their rejoinders, posting on a level playing field with everyone else. They didn't do that. They abused their position as controllers of the site to insert their opinion into his posts. Twitter stepped beyond the bounds of being a neutral platform with moderation. They took up the mantle of editor and began editing people's posts. This should disq…

Um... can you cite the explanation of why the safe harbor provisions of the CDA are conditioned on being a neutral platform? That's not how I understand the law. You're stretching. Twitter did a fact check on the president and he can't handle it, so he's trying to harm the company using the levers of government. And that is ALL that is happening. The legalese that you're misunderstanding is just cover. And the proof…

No. What we don’t want is for Twitter to have their cake and eat it too. That is, to enjoy all of the privileges of being a publisher (editing posts and saying whatever they want) while upholding none of the responsibilities that eg. newspapers and magazines have to uphold.

If Twitter wants to be a communications service (a la Comcast) protected by safe harbour then they need to act like one. That means if they really can’t stand what Trump tweets then they should ban him, just as Comcast would stop carrying a cable channel it no longer wanted to carry.

These social media companies are incredibly powerful and they need to be reined in. It’s as simple as that. This executive order will soon wind up before the courts and that’s where it should be decided.

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

#892

Post by dgellow »

lgleason wrote: post #329
dgellow wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have zero issues with private companies controlling their content. Companies are regulated by laws, if there is an issue with the law, the legislative has the responsibility to change it. Instead here you have a country’s president bypassing the law making system to control a company behavior, that’s by definition an authoritative action as it goes against the separation of powers and responsibilities, which defines in part a democratic system.

Opinions regarding Trump have nothing to do with anything here.

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

#893

Post by shitgoose »

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.

Does Gab silence liberal views? Bans, shadow-bans liberal accounts? Puts "fact checking" marks on their posts? If they do, then liberal politicians are more than welcome to take action.

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

#894

Post by slg »

caminante wrote: post #832
slg wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I legitimately don't understand your point here. You seem to be implying that this specific legislation is a form of regulatory capture. Meanwhile nothing in the Wikipedia article you linked seems to support that. It even notes that groups like the ACLU are strongly in support of Sec 230. I don't think the ACLU normally does the bidding of big telecom. Either way, if the root cause is telecom monopolies, let's actual…

My point is that an anti-trust lens isn't adequate if legislation keeps getting passed that rolls back regulation [0] and promotes formation of trusts. The CDA and §230 was part of the broader Telecommunications Act of 1996. Look at the outcome, which sure seems like "regulatory capture" to me: > Before the 1996 Act was passed, the largest four [Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers] owned less than half of all the lines…

But the current discussion is specifically about this one small aspect of that overall bill. Whether the overall bill is regulatory capture or not is irrelevant to the discussion of the merits of this specific section.

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

#895

Post by tekknik »

natechols wrote: post #880
tekknik wrote: post #849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it up to the company to decide what is defamatory or untrue? If you read the rebuttal twitter posted on his tweet you’ll see it boils down to “no evidence”. This doesn’t mean his claims are not true, it means there’s no evidence they are. These are very different concepts. So now twitter is running around saying it’s untrue when legally it hasn’t been proven untrue. They should instead take a hands off approac…

I personally feel much freer to think for myself if government officials can't force private companies to carry their personal content. Of course it's highly unlikely that Twitter fact-checking the president will make any difference - everyone who's been paying attention made up their minds about the guy years ago - but if Trump is really so triggered by it, he is of course free to post his thoughts elsewhere. It's a…

Trumps EO today did not and will not force companies to carry government content. Instead it removes protections for them if the limit access to things not specifically protected in the Communications Decency Act.

The rest of it you’re welcome to your opinions and interpretation of events. There is, however, quite a bit of people that agree with him.

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

#896

Post by wafn »

tonfreed wrote: post #878
freehunter wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The laws of America already provide a way to resolve that though. If one company is becoming too powerful and unfairly damaging competition because of it, anti-trust exists. Arguably twitter isn’t even that powerful except that the president uses it as an official communications platform. Before this current administration, Twitter was circling the drain. It was an afterthought in modern social media. The president p…

I just think it's a little ironic that the left has been arguing against corprotisation of politics until the companies doing it switch their logos to a rainbow flag one month of the year.

Just a few more days! We get to watch all the hatred for corporations turn to love as they all pander. Good times.

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

#897

Post by jjcon »

FireBeyond wrote: post #613
jjcon wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, this has been drafted since at least last summer and has little to do with the recent twitter news. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/politics/trump-twitter-social... . > consistent with a draft order whose text CNN first reported last summer

1. That link is broken. 2. What was drafted last summer was legislation. Legislation that would likely not stand up to political or legal resistance. This is an executive order to make an end-run around all that "bureaucracy". > has little to do with the recent twitter news. This fails the plausibility test. This came hot on the heels of this incident, Trump _said_ it was related to this incident, and that he'd be do…

Can’t edit so here is the fixed link

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/politics/trump-twitter-social...

And no it wasn’t legislation it was a draft of an executive order from last summer as mentioned in this article.

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

#898

Post by caseysoftware »

gamblor956 wrote: post #887
caseysoftware wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't imply gamblor956 is just making things up. That's inappropriate. I'm looking forward to reading one of the many cases. It's always good to understand a) what the law says and b) how it's interpreted. They're rarely 1:1.

West Virginia v. Barnett. Rumsfield v Forum. There are more. The answers you want are the first search result in Google and Bing for first amendment and compelled speech and are covered by the Wikipedia page on the First Amendment.

I've actually read the Rumsfeld case before but I don't see how it addresses my question from above:

Does a private company have the authority to impede access to Official Statements? If so, under what conditions? If no, is it "never"?

As noted, I suspect this is not a 1st Amendment issue as the "speech" is present regardless and you have organizations, not necessarily people.

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

#899

Post by natechols »

tekknik wrote: post #895
natechols wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally feel much freer to think for myself if government officials can't force private companies to carry their personal content. Of course it's highly unlikely that Twitter fact-checking the president will make any difference - everyone who's been paying attention made up their minds about the guy years ago - but if Trump is really so triggered by it, he is of course free to post his thoughts elsewhere. It's a…

Trumps EO today did not and will not force companies to carry government content. Instead it removes protections for them if the limit access to things not specifically protected in the Communications Decency Act. The rest of it you’re welcome to your opinions and interpretation of events. There is, however, quite a bit of people that agree with him.

This is just disingenuous. The message here is unambiguously "carry our content unedited or you become legally liable for everything posted on your site." Don't pretend that the decision of whose content is "protected" isn't going to be 100% subjective and partisan depending on who appointed the federal regulators. Or do you really think Trump's FCC or FTC (or whichever agency he imagines will enforce his new EO) is going to leap to the defense of, say, an Ilhan Omar tweet?

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

#900

Post by newacct583 »

chongli wrote: post #891
newacct583 wrote: post #885

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um... can you cite the explanation of why the safe harbor provisions of the CDA are conditioned on being a neutral platform? That's not how I understand the law. You're stretching. Twitter did a fact check on the president and he can't handle it, so he's trying to harm the company using the levers of government. And that is ALL that is happening. The legalese that you're misunderstanding is just cover. And the proof…

No. What we don’t want is for Twitter to have their cake and eat it too. That is, to enjoy all of the privileges of being a publisher (editing posts and saying whatever they want) while upholding none of the responsibilities that eg. newspapers and magazines have to uphold. If Twitter wants to be a communications service (a la Comcast) protected by safe harbour then they need to act like one. That means if they reall…

> Twitter [...] editing posts and saying whatever they want

Dude. They fact-checked a tweet.

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