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

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

#931

Post by whitebread » Fri, May 29, 2020, 5:01 AM UTC

wafn wrote: post #896

tonfreed wrote: post #878

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think a lot more people see through the thinly veiled bullshit than you’re saying. A lot of people have been wanting corporations to stop with the “we are all in this together” commercials regarding covid. It’s a similar ploy that will hopefully meet similar responses.

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

#932

Post by nine_zeros » Fri, May 29, 2020, 5:03 AM UTC

takeda wrote: post #915

nine_zeros wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically yes, other branches are not bound by the first amendment. By the spirit of the law, no. A lot of historical laws and constitutional writings were to limit power of the government in general. When the constitution was actually written, the executive was just a puppet with military commander powers. But over the centuries there has been power creep into the executive. Such battles end up in supreme court an…

Actually, the way it works is: legislative branch - writes the law judicial branch - interprets the law executive branch - executes the law FCC, FTC etc were created by legislative branch to make governing specific areas more streamlined, they are still bound by whatever legislative branch is bound.

> FCC, FTC etc were created by legislative branch to make governing specific areas more streamlined, they are still bound by whatever legislative branch is bound.

I would recommend reading up on historical executive orders held judicial review and how they impacted operations of 3-letter organizations

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

#933

Post by space_fountain » Fri, May 29, 2020, 5:10 AM UTC

apostacy wrote: post #191

tombert wrote: post #103

Oh my goodness is he a big dumb stupid moron. At the risk of this being downvoted to oblivion, why doesn't he think that Twitter, a privately run company, has the right to fact-check claims made on their site? Even if there were some secret evil liberal agenda on Twitter, which there absolutely is not, why aren't they allowed to do that exactly? Is he planning on holding Fox News to the same standard and make them pu…

Well, is Verizon allowed to use packet injection to "fact check" a website you view over their internet connection? Because seems to be presenting themselves as a neutral platform, which they have shown themselves to not be. EDIT: Just to clarify, obviously Twitter is not presenting themselves to users as a neutral platform. But for legal purposes, they are cloaking themselves in the same privileged status as a phone…

> But for legal purposes, they are cloaking themselves in the same privileged status as a phone company

Hum I don't think that could possibly be true. What leads you to think this? Phone companies existed before Section 230 and as far as I know their behavior didn't change. Have you read Section 230? It definitely reads like it was passed to give entities like Twitter more power to delete objectionable content and it definitely doesn't read to me like it obligates them to be neutral.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

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

#934

Post by newacct583 » Fri, May 29, 2020, 5:18 AM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #521

CamperBob2 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't disagree with their actions in this case -- if anything, they didn't phrase it strongly enough. ("Get the facts about voting by mail," as opposed to "Caution: this Tweet is unadulterated horseshit.") But I also think that the more Twitter is used to disintermediate political communication, the more it starts to look like a vital public utility. It's tough to say where the line will or should be drawn. I…

> "Caution: this Tweet is unadulterated horseshit." Except it's not. Trump is right here; most of the confirmed voter fraud is on mail-in and absentee ballots, despite being less used than in-person in the past decades. Switching everyone to mail-in will cause a sharp uptick in voter fraud.

> Except it's not. Trump is right here; most of the confirmed voter fraud is on mail-in and absentee ballots,

Thomas Bayes is screaming in his grave, something about cancer diagnoses...

Actually I don't know if that's even true. And almost all the significant cases of any kind of election fraud aren't about ballots at all. It's stuff like voting in the wrong jurisdiction, or count fraud, or registration fraud.

Please cite me where you got the info that most election crime is from remote voting. That info doesn't exist.

What does exist is the facts in the WaPo article that twitter linked, which show that effectively zero mail-in ballot fraud is happening.

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

#935

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 29, 2020, 5:21 AM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #592

jessaustin wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this from friends who are Limbaugh fans, but I'd like to see some other source. Many people on the Left seem to think this whole "voter fraud" concern is a fig leaf for denying minorities their voting rights. When I've listened and asked follow-up questions, the Left's narrative seems more plausible.

PDF of individual confirmed cases: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p... Spot-checking and using search for counts, most are manipulation of mail-in or absentee ballots (many being a bunch of ballots by a single person), with the next highest looking like individual people voting who didn't realize they were ineligible.

[deleted]

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

#936

Post by Corrado » Fri, May 29, 2020, 5:21 AM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #12

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.”

> affirmed that private websites are not public spaces and social media companies don't have First Amendment obligations FWIW this is only thematically related, the order concerns the distinction between immune or non-immune activities under Section 230. If you publish something defamatory on your blog, and you operate it, you may be liable. Section 230 is there to say that if a website merely retransmits your public…

Is this similar to how the phone company operates? As long as they just transmit your voice to the other party they can't be prosecuted for anything you say. But, as soon as they start listening in and commenting on your words they have to listen to everyone's conversations and comment on all the words. Obviously phone companies don't want to be responsible for everyone's words so they don't comment on anyone's words.

The parallel would be Twitter commenting on a tweet. As long as they just pass the tweet on to other people, without commenting on it, then they aren't responsible for it's content. But as soon as they say "hey, this might be false information" about a specific tweet then they are responsible for the content of all tweets.

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

#937

Post by unishark » Fri, May 29, 2020, 5:24 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #557

kryogen1c wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the President is attempting to use government power to infringe freedom of speech, thats an interestating take, considering trump is trying to stop the selective editorialization of individuals covered by the first amendment. are we really taking twitters side of this because we hate trump so much?

>thats an interestating take, considering trump is trying to stop the selective editorialization of individuals covered by the first amendment. Again, the first amendment protects those individuals from being censored by the government. Twitter is not bound by the first amendment. They're allowed to editorialize content. They're allowed to curate, moderate, deplatform and ban people. However, Twitter is also protecte…

The executive order is not touching the protections of the first amendment. The courts are still to protect them for that as always.

The order regards the additional protections of section 230 which even protect twitter for content that is not protected by the first amendment. Trump is essentially trying to say if Twitter takes sides by fact-checking some tweets, then they are also responsible for all the other "facts" they allow to be posted on their platform without fact-checking. And by the way the courts are still perfectly capable of deciding in favor of twitter regarding blame for all those other posts too. Twitter just won't be shielded by a special law from such decisions.

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

#938

Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, May 29, 2020, 5:27 AM UTC

tekknik wrote: post #888

sixstringtheory wrote: post #866

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What statement was made by Twitter that could be followed blindly? All I saw was "Get the facts about mail in ballots". You can only infer a bias on that based on your own preconceived notion about Twitter's biases. A completely ignorant and unbiased individual may just as likely think "Twitter wants to show me why Trump is right" as they are to think "Twitter wants to show me why Trump is wrong". If you really want…

The existence of the link in the first place. You have to be pretty far removed from reality to not know Twitter execs have a left lean to their bias. So the a completely unbiased person will notice that only some tweets show this link and could build a bias based on other psychological factors, such as wanting acceptance from a seemingly majority of peers. I am for neutrality. I’m also a realist. IFF they could pull…

> You have to be pretty far removed from reality to not know Twitter execs have a left lean to their bias.

Is that why they only remove nazis if you set your location to germany? That's bias to the... left?

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

#939

Post by dmonitor » Fri, May 29, 2020, 5:30 AM UTC

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #556

JacobGoodson wrote: post #340

Regardless of ones views pertaining to the current president, does anyone feel comfortable with so called "fact checking"? I do not like anyone acting as the sole arbiter of truth, whether it be the president, the pope, or the random fellow screaming in the park. I prefer that corporations trust their users to make their own choices about what people say instead of making edits or including addendum's to peoples post…

> ... does anyone feel comfortable with so called "fact checking"? This has nothing to do with any real person, but is just a hypothetical situation pertaining to this question in your post: Let's say an account X with many followers calls you a pedophile. You're not, of course, so you responded and said you weren't, but since the followers tend to like X, they don't listen to you. X's followers then dox you, find yo…

The opposite could also happen. You are not a pedophile. The mob says you are a pedophile. The mob runs the fact-checker, which now says that you are a pedophile.

Any “fact-checker” is going to have the problem of needing to arbitrate truth, depending on your arbiter you can have lots of different truths. You include facts that help your case, and ignore or downplay facts that do not help your opinion.

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

#940

Post by joshuamorton » Fri, May 29, 2020, 5:34 AM UTC

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #924

space_fountain wrote: post #903

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Allowed to? Depends how you view publisher vs platform. They are a private company and can do as they like... but if they’re going to “take ownership” of information on their service they are breaking the spirit of neutral carriers and Section 230. This seems like an odd hill to die on. Surely they could have fact checked 100 different Trump tweets with actual misinformation and not just his concerns/prediction. I am…

> breaking the spirit of neutral carriers and Section 230

Section 230 has nothing to do with neutral carriers. Section 230 does not mention, imply, or otherwise suggest that there is such thing as a "carrier", much less that one need be "neutral".

Here's what it says:

> 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

> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or

There's a bunch more, but it's all fluff or irrelevant. There are no relevant obligations (there is one obligation that the law has, it relates to kid-friendly modes in websites).

Note that there is no categorization as "publisher" or "platform". You are protected from certain kinds of content. The New York Times, who clearly publishes their own content, still has Section 230 protections for comments made in the comment box on their articles, because that content is not made by the NYT, but by another individual.

Under section 230, you can only lose protection on a specific piece of content if you are deemed to be the publisher of that specific piece of content. So the worst thing that can happen to twitter here is that they are determined to be the publisher of Trump's tweet for the purposes of things like libel and copyright lawsuits.

Given that, can you explain what spirit of the law is violated, and what spirit of "neutral carriers" (do you mean common carriers?) is related or to this?