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Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

kateklonick.com

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Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#91

Post by anyon »

adventured wrote: post #61
sulam wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would make them legally liable for the content posted on their sites. Today they can claim that they aren’t responsible for it, the posters are. If they are operating in an editorial capacity, that shield is removed.

> It would make them legally liable for the content posted on their sites. Exactly as it should be. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and others, now that they're getting into the business of editorializing and dictating the truth as they see it via heavy-handed moderation, should be fully liable for all things posted to their platforms. It should apply to any large platform that makes that shift. It's perfectly fine if the…

sorry to see you downvoted. People can disagree with your opinion but it is encouraging a debate. there is no god-given right for these companies to become monopolies. If this were to pass, it could break the monopolies: Decision 1: they choose to stop all moderation Out come 1: Advertisers ditch them because of all the objectionable content that will surely come. Decision 2: They choose to moderate, and take on the liability Outcome 2: Growing bigger becomes more costly and companies fall to some optimal 'Chandra Limit'

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#92

Post by remarkEon »

wmf wrote: post #46
remarkEon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually very much looking forward to seeing this make it's way to SCOTUS (assuming this is legit).

It would take years to reach SCOTUS and during that time more and more damage can be done.

I'm not so sure. In recent issues as contentious as this we've had District Courts make Nation-wide injunctions against these EOs, and they've been fast-tracked to SCOTUS. It might take a year or so, but I think "years" is overstating how fast something that's this emotional can get to the High Court.

There's other problems with the "Nation-wide injunction" but if this EO gets issued that'll for sure be the next thing that happens, and I'm sure Twitter et al are counting on it.

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#93

Post by zaroth »

wmf wrote: post #43
sulam wrote: post #2

If I am to believe the poster, this is a draft of an Executive Order anonymously sent to her. As per: https://twitter.com/klonick/status/1265850206396076033?s=21 The implications are fairly dramatic if this is legitimate and were to be adopted / executed. Specifically it would declare that sites like Twitter and Facebook are subject to the Communications Decency Act by virtue of their editorializing the content vs ac…

"None of [the CDA's architects] said that there was this intent for platforms to be neutral. In fact, that was the opposite. They wanted platforms to feel free to make these judgments without risking liability..." https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700605/section-230-inte... Can an executive order overturn this? Isn't there already precedent about this topic?

From the same article;

> Basically, a distributor under the First Amendment would be liable for content it distributes only if it knows or should have known about illegal content. So that would be a bookstore or newsstand. But a publisher, which would be like a newspaper, can be sued and face the same liability as the author....

Would Section 230 just mean that all online services and websites should be treated as distributors, meaning they’re liable if they knew or should have known about material? But what the Fourth Circuit said is that distributor liability is basically a subset of publisher liability. So by saying you can’t be treated as the publisher or speaker, that means that you’re not going to be liable at all.

That could have been very different. If the Florida court had been the first to rule, there’s a really good chance that you would have had a narrower interpretation of Section 230 that basically said, “Once you know about potentially illegal content, you have to take it down or face liability.” But that’s not what happened. So Section 230 has been this really broad shield.

IANAL, but reading that it sounds like 230 arguably was trying to ensure platforms would remain liable like distributors even in the face of good faith moderation efforts for content that they did not write themselves. But somehow the courts interpreted the statute to remove even distributor-level liability (i.e. for content they know or should have known is illegal) meaning they end up not liable even for illegal content that they know about.

The EO is doing two big things. One it is highlighting the limits within the statute placed on “good faith” moderation efforts — that is to allow platforms to perform “Good Samaritan” blocking of lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable indecent content, without being considered publishers.

Two, it is directing the FTC to consider whether platforms are performing unfair and deceptive trade practices by moderating non-illegal/indecent content which does not violate their ToS.

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#94

Post by lame-robot-hoax »

w3mmpp wrote: post #79

Long overdue, they're publishers just like Google/Youtube and Facebook are publishers. Every conservative who use those services will tell you, they're biased. They've been putting their thumb on the scale for many years, now the chickens have come home to roost. Downvote me to oblivion, I don't care, tonight I'm happy.

This won’t hold up in court. It will be challenged by a judge immediately, and then the only chance it will have is a long process up to the Supreme Court.

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#95

Post by lostdog »

whateveracct wrote: post #6
sulam wrote: post #2

If I am to believe the poster, this is a draft of an Executive Order anonymously sent to her. As per: https://twitter.com/klonick/status/1265850206396076033?s=21 The implications are fairly dramatic if this is legitimate and were to be adopted / executed. Specifically it would declare that sites like Twitter and Facebook are subject to the Communications Decency Act by virtue of their editorializing the content vs ac…

Literally no way this holds up in court. If it does, we have bigger problems than this EO.

Don't forget that Trump has now appointed many of the judges who could decide it's "legality."

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#96

Post by bawolff »

ViViDboarder wrote: post #8

Isn’t a company closing to to promote content for someone else their own right to free speech? If a company has an obligation to promote something against their will, violating their own right to free speech, how could a company like Hobby Lobby get away with an exemption on the same grounds? I don’t see this getting past federal courts, even with a heavily conservative judiciary. The fallout would be far too great.

As an aside, in canada, the first case overturning a law for being unconstitutional for violating free speech was kind of that situation, where the alberta government wanted newspapers to have to publish official "rebuttals" to previous articles, against their will. This was before canada had free speech in the constitution, but violating free speech was considered insufficiently "british", and laws had to be in the spirit of britian.

Obviously none of that is relavent to the USA, but kind of seems similar

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#98

Post by tehwebguy »

throwawaysea wrote: post #63
sulam wrote: post #32

If you are a conservative cheering this on, ask yourself what you think would have happened when Trump was using Twitter as a platform to raise questions about Obama’s birth certificate? Do you really want the government to be effectively regulating the treatment of every social media post as they see fit?

I think requiring viewpoint neutrality via regulation from platforms that behave like utilities is perfectly reasonable.

In what ways is Twitter like a utility?

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#99

Post by daveevad »

tly_alex wrote: post #74
erentz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was nothing that respectable about Bush or Obama (or Clinton, or Older Bush) either if you really looked at their records. Foreigners do not get to see the bad state democracy is in here in the US, between the corruption, the heavy corporate funding of candidates and the lobbyists, the corporate control of media, and the suppression of voters. A lot of choice, especially the president is decided for people, and…

Oh come on man. Any president is far better than Trump, who just lie and act like there's nothing wrong with it. Trump's twitter feed is full of compeltely false claims and racist comments to anyone he believe is a politcal threat.

The decision to invade Iraq in 2003 still seems worse to me than anything this administration's done.

That war was based on a lie and resulted in the death of more than 100,000 civilians and cost $1 trillion.

Re: Draft of Executive Order on Online Censorship [pdf]

#100

Post by rvz »

bmarquez wrote: post #64
throwawaysea wrote: post #55

The large tech platforms are defacto digital public squares. The recent trend they’ve taken on to censor content they disagree with is unacceptable and bad for society. And yes, it is evidence of them behaving as a publisher. This censorship trend was bad enough previously, but it has become a lot worse and more egregious during COVID-19, where only the word of certain public agencies are allowed, even though they’ve…

> In the least it may result in viable alternatives to Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, and Google springing up. I'm looking forward to this. If smaller social networks (or even federated networks) gain more traction due to this governmental shakeup, it will be harder to get censored as people can switch to the server that has the moderation style, or features (such as no ads but fees) they like. There could be a silver lin…

You would need a growing network effect to follow on to that alternative platform for it to be a true challenger to the mainstream social networks. Otherwise it will stay in the fringes of the internet.

Although it is more difficult to censor a decentralised social network, attracting and migrating existing users from other social networks with a growing network effect on to a new platform is even harder.

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