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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

#901

Post by ardy42 »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #884
thomaslord wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not what's happening on Twitter. They're not removing tweets.

They are just using Trump's tweet to promote their own point of view.

> They are just using Trump's tweet to promote their own point of view.

Correction: they're using their own service to promote their own point of view.

I honestly think there are real issues with the public means of communication being privately owned by a smallish number of entities, but it does free expression no good to make the fight about letting lies, disinformation, and other forms of untruth to flow unimpeded.

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

#902

Post by mikekchar »

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…

This is frequently brought up. Does Twitter want safe harbour? I don't think they need it and I haven't noticed them invoking it. Is that incorrect?

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

#903

Post by space_fountain »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #882
colejohnson66 wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m gonna nitpick, but they didn’t editorialize it. They posted their view in the form of a reply. Editorialization would mean changing what he wrote. Literally the root word of “editorialization” is edit.

Twitter as a company didn't even have a presence on Twitter until they posted the fact check.

Does that matter? Are they not allowed to start having a presence whenever they choose?

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

#904

Post by Reelin »

gamblor956 wrote: post #760
Reelin wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep citing cases regarding private malls. I previously pointed out that a reasonable argument can be made as to why that precedent should not apply. I don't claim to know what the outcome of such an argument would be in court, only that it is a reasonable one to make under the circumstances (and thus the situation is fairly complicated). > Last I checked, the President is not a member of Congress, and cannot uni…

Except... it is. In their ruling the court _directly_ compares social media to other venues for public gathering. I'm not claiming that they explicitly rule it to be one way or the other (they don't), but they do repeatedly make direct comparisons that would appear to lean that way. Except the text of the case itself literally does not do that. You need to read the actual text and not just the summary. Importantly, e…

A number of serious misunderstandings seem to have developed in our back and forth here and I'm not sure it's worth writing a wall of text to clarify them. Perhaps I didn't previously word things as clearly as would have been ideal.

> > I previously pointed out ...

> No, you didn't. The ADA ...

That isn't what I was referring to. I initially noted that Twitter has very clearly and intentionally positioned themselves as what I can only think to describe as a public platform. Private malls simply do not do that. They are also so many orders of magnitude larger than any private mall that I fail to see a relevant comparison there. It is my understanding that factors such as intentions and size of influence are important in cases like this. I make no claim as to how that argument would go in court, only that it seems like a reasonable one to put forward.

> You need to read the actual text and not just the summary.

I was very careful to clarify that the court did not explicitly rule on that. When the majority opinion goes out of its way to bring such an issue up and makes direct comparisons, I think it is reasonable to assume that they would be open to entertaining such a line of argument. If they thought it was ridiculous then why did they bring it up and go on about it to such an extent?

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

#905

Post by unishark »

stale2002 wrote: post #875
newacct583 wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly it. Twitter disseminated the president's words as he wrote them to everyone that wanted to see it. They also said it was wrong. 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 d…

Twitter's first amendment rights would not be violated, if they were to be treated as a publisher. This is not about forcing Twitter to do anything. It is instead about having them being treated as a publisher, if they act like one.

I don't know why people are downvoting this. If the president's "attack" counts as censorship then newspapers, writers, and all the rest of us posting here are subject to that same level of censorship.

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

#906

Post by ac29 »

tekknik wrote: post #844
ac29 wrote: post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a strawman - no one is getting banned from social media for having polite disagreements on foreign policy or income tax rates.

You haven’t been to imgur have you? Some sites have a point system and if your “social score” is too low you most definitely can get banned. There’s generally more left leaning people than right leaning people on some platforms, and when someone disagrees with someone else but otherwise can’t refute their statements they hit downvote. Enough of this and you get a ban.

You took my comment too literally - of course there are people who've been banned somewhere online for having opinions another human disagreed with. My point was that no large social media platform has a policy of banning people for civilized political disagreements.

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

#907

Post by space_fountain »

xiphias2 wrote: post #599
joshuamorton wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be as simple as you write if social media companies would take responsibility for the publishing rights for what they publish What do social media companies "publish"? In this case, the only thing twitter published was a link to information about mail-in voting[0]. That's it. They did so in the context of a tweet. So at worst, twitter would be liable for any illegal content in either President Trump's orig…

Twitter is publishing everything any person tweets. Those 2 comments are nothing compared to the power of selectively blocking/publishing users tweets (which communication companies are not allowed to do), but at the same time not be responsible for copyright violations (which other types of media companies are ).

Not to pile on but really do read it. I see how you get to the White House's position but it's a stretch. There don't seem to be any condions tacked on. They don't publish other people's tweats. I think they could maybe be held liable for illegally removing tweats. The protection afforded for filtering does seem dependent on the motivation but I'm not aware of any laws restricting what content they're allowed to remove and again in this case they didn't remove anything

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

#908

Post by joshuamorton »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #777
FireBeyond wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What law did Twitter fail to abide by in linking a tweet to factual information?

>factual information Well... if you really want to get into it. Twitter can’t “fact check” the original statement. Because it was a prediction. It hasn’t happened yet. It’s unlikely to be mass scale fraud, of course, but it’s a future event. It’s his opinion / prediction. As wrong as it is, that isn’t something they should “fact check”. Twitter picked a really bad tweet to make a stand on. Like it or not, they chose…

> It’s his opinion / prediction. As wrong as it is, that isn’t something they should “fact check”.

"I believe that if we allow people to leave their homes, everyone will die of Covid-19". Narrator: "There is no evidence that everyone will die of Covid-19, in fact there is plenty of evidence that everyone will not die of Covid-19".

At which point you claim that the original statement, because it included opinion, could not be fact checked, even though presenting sources that counter the priors required for the claims to make sense is a completely reasonable thing to do.

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

#909

Post by ikt »

lurquer wrote: post #874
jwalgenbach wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure you are dealing with the same issue? Twitter didn't restrict Trump's tweet. It added their own speech (and not masqueraded as Trump). Follow me here: Citizen United says that corporations have the same free speech rights as individuals, thus allowing them to exercise their "speech" by dumping tons of dark money into politics. Twitter exercised free speech by publishing something on their own platform. Th…

This is not a Trump tantrum. The issues are real. As we speak, courts across the country are using Zoom for hearings. Would there be any legal impediment to Zoom automatically inserting a caption on YOUR video feed that says "jwalgenbach is a liar"? If you were to complain, would we be justified in saying "it's just another jwaldenbach tantrum..." Would it be right to simply say, "if jwaldenbach doesn't like Zoom's p…

> Would it be right to simply say, "if jwaldenbach doesn't like Zoom's polices, he doesn't have to use it"?

Yes.

> What is Western Union added a 'fact check' to your telegrams?

Don't use Western Union

> What if Google inserts a 'fact check' in your emails?

Don't use Google?

You don't have to use Zoom, you don't have to use Western Union, if you don't like their policies don't use their products.

Trump uses Twitter because he likes it but it's twitters own site! If they want to put 'Trump is a big orange fat dumb loser' under every one of his tweets they can, if they want they can turn it into the 'we love dogs!' site tomorrow, just replace the whole website with pictures of dogs they can. It would kill the company, but they can do it if they want.

I have no idea where this idea that Trump is being forced to use twitter and they're manipulating his free speech on someone elses website is coming from.

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

#910

Post by takeda »

snowwrestler wrote: post #278
takeda wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were a president visiting that mall, you would be allowed to do a lot of things that ordinary people would be kicked for.

Sure but the mall would certainly be within its rights to put up a sign saying "the president might not be telling the truth today."

But it didn't. Same was with Twitter. Trump constantly was breaking their TOS a lot of people lost their access for much much less.
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