FCC Will Move To Regulate Social Media After Censorship Outcry (theverge.com) 325
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: On Thursday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that the agency will seek to regulate social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter at the behest of the Trump administration's executive order signed earlier this year. "Members of all three branches of the federal government have expressed serious concerns about the prevailing interpretation of the immunity set for in Section 230 of the Communications Act. There is bipartisan support in Congress to reform the law," Pai said in a statement Thursday. "Social media companies have a First Amendment right to free speech. But they do not have a First Amendment right to a special immunity denied to other media outlets, such as newspapers and broadcasters."
On Thursday, Pai said that the commission's general counsel said that "the FCC has the legal authority to reinterpret Section 230." He continued, "Consistent with this advice, I intend to move forward with a rulemaking to clarify its meaning." "Pai's decision to move forward with rulemaking follows a series of moderation decisions on Wednesday made by Facebook and Twitter against a New York Post article regarding former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, who has been the subject of political attacks from the right throughout the 2020 presidential election," the report adds.
Facebook reduced the reach of the story, while Twitter banned linking to the story entirely. "These moves from Facebook and Twitter incited an outcry over conservative bias from Republicans," reports The Verge.
On Thursday, Pai said that the commission's general counsel said that "the FCC has the legal authority to reinterpret Section 230." He continued, "Consistent with this advice, I intend to move forward with a rulemaking to clarify its meaning." "Pai's decision to move forward with rulemaking follows a series of moderation decisions on Wednesday made by Facebook and Twitter against a New York Post article regarding former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, who has been the subject of political attacks from the right throughout the 2020 presidential election," the report adds.
Facebook reduced the reach of the story, while Twitter banned linking to the story entirely. "These moves from Facebook and Twitter incited an outcry over conservative bias from Republicans," reports The Verge.
Spam or not Spam (Score:4, Funny)
What if I post stuff here that's non nerdy? Will anyone be able to tell me to fuck off? Free Speech! yay!! fire!
Buy my fart supplement scent pills to stuff up your ass. Only $29.99.
Section 230 this.
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Then everyone who upvotes or even downvotes on digg is taking on the role of publisher and therefore susceptible to libel lawsuits? No, that's not a viable path either .. only crazy people would upvote things. Meanwhile there would be people or maybe even bots willing to get paid to upvote spam.
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I haven't checked yet, but this sounds like someone copy-pasta'd a manifesto for Positive Black Nationalism from somewhere else :)
The thing about identity politics arguments that I think a lot of social justice warlords don't realize is that they're completely interchangeable.
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The other is to just become Digg.
Is that the one that is going to be the "next slashdot" someday?
Re:Spam or not Spam (Score:5, Insightful)
Or if you can’t get advertisers and can’t get your customers to pay a subscription fee, you just pull the plug.
Of course, that’s what they really want, an Internet that exists as a one-way media consumption platform, where he who has the gold makes the rules.
Re: Spam or not Spam (Score:3)
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You know, "Them".
Re: Spam or not Spam (Score:2)
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That and Islamic terrorism. It's funny how Trumptards never complained when we spent the last 20 years silencing Islamic hate preachers and their brand of terrorism. Now their little alt-right/far-right terrorist groups are being censored it's suddenly a problem?
We literally crippled the Islamic terrorist threat this last 20 years not by winning wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (we didn't, we lost) but by cutting off their recruits in the West by censoring their ability to spread hate speech and recruit by doin
Re:Spam or not Spam (Score:5, Insightful)
Last I checked, terrorism was illegal in the United States. There is a big difference between censoring content that's illegal or advocating for illegal activity, versus legal content that you don't like.
Nobody is saying that these social platforms can't have rules or remove content that doesn't align with their business model. The problem is when they enforce rules differently, and choose who may or may not follow their rules.
If you think that it's censorship to require platforms to enforce their rules evenly, then you have a funny way of defining censorship. Most would argue the complete opposite - that's it's censorship when you enforce rules differently and choose what you want to keep or delete regardless of your rules.
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No that absolutely is censorship. As a private entities, technically Twitter, Facebook, ect have the right to (in general) arbitrarily do anything (non violent) they want to anyone. They will retain this right until they are classified as public utilities like the phone. I think what this specific regulation is about is if they are publishers or distributers. Even as publishers they would still be able to endorse a specific political candidate and never publish anything that would not advance his career.
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Bell, Rogers, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, Comcast, Teksavvy, etc have made it work for over 100 years, or since their inception for newer companies. And the postal service has followed these rules for far longer. We tried the whole arresting people for voicing their opinions in public for a long time and decided it did not work very well long term.
This is how the internet worked until 1996.
Re: Spam or not Spam (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you read CDA section 230? Check it out, it's a short read:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... [cornell.edu]
It's clear from the text of the law that the intention of Congress was to indemnify good faith efforts to protect children from pornography; and that its current interpretation justifying partisan censorship of overtly political speech was never even remotely envisaged by Congress.
Re: Spam or not Spam (Score:5, Interesting)
The law might have been written with child pornography in mind but the text of the law is pretty broad. Basically it allows a provider to filter "material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable". The "otherwise objectionable" is an awfully big category that is basically whatever the provider doesn't like. It is also the provider who gets to decide ("considers to be").
Is a story about Hunter Biden that they believe to be false harassing? Even if they thought it was true, it still could be harassing. All they have to do is "consider it to be" harassing. So if in their opinion it is, it is. (If a user considers it to be harassing the provider could also remove it - on a large site like Facebook or Twitter, I guarantee you that I can find at least one user who find just about anything objectionable.)
Dupe? (Score:4, Informative)
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Another dupe? [slashdot.org]
The FCC isn't apparently regulating duplicate posts.... Yet.
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It doesn't matter how many times people repeat it, Pai isn't going to be able to "interpret" the laws that Congress passed.
We have other people that do that. I wonder if they've told him yet.
Headline is misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
Without Section 230's protections sites like Twitter, Facebook & YouTube, etc can't risk letting people upload content or posting (since they're legally liable) without a ton of controls in place. Big Sites like the 3 mentioned will survive by using "Content Aggregators" that take a big cut of the ad revenue, squeezing out smaller posters and channels. Personal websites will be risky to folks like Go Daddy and they'll shut you down at the drop of a hat, chilling free speech.
What pisses me off is how few people get that this is happening. I'm still seeing posts from people who think killing Section 230 will somehow create a free speech paradise because it'll end content moderation. It won't. It'll mean everybody but the biggest guys gets kicked off. Just like Cable TV. Which is exactly what these Establishment Hacks want.
Re:Headline is misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
Big Sites like the 3 mentioned will survive by using "Content Aggregators" that take a big cut of the ad revenue, squeezing out smaller posters and channels. Personal websites will be risky to folks like Go Daddy and they'll shut you down at the drop of a hat, chilling free speech.
How is that different from how the internet operates now? It's pretty much the same except the "content aggregators" are the big 3 companies themselves and aren't held accountable for it.
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aren't held accountable for it.
This is the key phrase. The problem is with people like you that see "being accountable" (i.e.: facing legal consequences) for speaking is a good thing. It isn't.
Everyone, including the "Big 3", should be free to speak and free to allow others to speak without being "accountable" to anyone.
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Sorry, but that doesn't work if the Big 3 can simply censure and censor people based POV discrimination.
Re:Headline is misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
So you don't think corporations have 1st amendment rights? Go and read about Citizens United.
Re:Headline is misleading (Score:4, Informative)
They don't. The Supreme Court deliberately went out of its way to point out in the ruling it wasn't about "corp"-orations as embodied legal people. Rather, the people who own the corporation have First Amendment rights, and take their rights with them wherever they go, and Congress cannot demand they give up that right as the cost of participating in Congressionally-created groupings like corporations.
Re:Headline is misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
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How about "individuals retain their freedom of speech when speaking collectively through an association"?
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Marsh vs Alabama says that the town square becomes public when it is owned by a private company.
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So just have to argue what a town square is. It's not like you need to live on one and only one, of these platforms.
And even in the town square, there's obnoxious behaviour that isn't tolerated, including getting charged with disturbing the peace.
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In Marsh, the Court held that a private entity operating a company town is a state actor and must abide by the First Amendment. Id. at 505â"08. But in Lloyd Corp. and Hudgens, the Court unequivocally confined Marshâ(TM)s holding to the unique and rare context of "company town[s]" and other situations where the private actor "perform[s] the full spectrum of municipal powers."
Tell me when a social media company "perform[s] the full spectrum of municipal powers.". Until then, Marsh vs Alabama is just a curiosity which only applies to actual company towns. Which essentially was what the judge told PragerU.
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If they're enjoying S230 protections, they have some obligations to fulfill.
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Do you know what those obligations are?
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Have you even read it? It really doesn't seem like you have when you say stupid things about it. From the ACTUAL SECTION:
(d) Obligations of interactive computer service
A provider of interactive computer service shall, at the time of entering an agreement with a customer for the provision of interactive computer service and in a manner deemed appropriate by the provider, notify such customer that parental control protections (such as computer hardware, software, or filtering services) are commercially available that may assist the customer in limiting access to material that is harmful to minors. Such notice shall identify, or provide the customer with access to information identifying, current providers of such protections.
That's it. that's their only obligation according to 230. You may not like that, and you might continue to lie like a little bitch about it, but the law doesn't give a fuck what you wish for. It's written right there, for everyone to read. Try that.
It's all about power (Score:3)
And when it's removed, muppet man, and they can be sued for what people post on their sites, do you think they'll be *more* or *less* likely to allow content up that risks them being sued?
It's all about power, homeboy. Where does social media get its power? From all the mindless drones like you who follow it endlessly. If grandma can't get her grand-baby's pictures on Facebook, she's not going to stick around. If idiots can't post all that twattery (as you call it) on Twitter, a good chunk of people are going to disappear. If it's all curated content, we just go back to the 90's with plain old webpages. The power will be removed.
Right now, social media is using that power to influen
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Sorry, but that doesn't work if the Big 3 can simply censure and censor people based POV discrimination.
But they can't. Nothing they do can meaningfully prevent you from building out your own server and paying for your own bandwidth and using it to share whatever the heck you want.
Re:Headline is misleading (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, I kind of think it's more about the government wanting to break the Internet, not so much to force you to hear their propaganda so much as to prevent you from hearing dissenting voices. They want to create a world where your only options are A. highly controlled content from a few trusted providers, and B. a cess pool that nobody wants to visit because it is horrible. That way, they can control the message everywhere that matters. This is, of course, the opposite of free speech.
What we need instead is a third option, but maybe not the current third option. i'd kind of like to see a free-for-all with layers of protection. The highest layer is entirely hand-moderated, then progressively increasing levels of freedom and decreasing levels of restrictions, with filters for things like language, nudity, factual correctness, etc., where if it's legal, it's available in the lowest tier. I'm not holding my breath that anyone will actually implement such a thing, though.
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Re:Headline is misleading (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd be interested to know if any platform in history never engaged in censure and censor based on views they didn't like.
Even 4chan's /pol board has rules. Usenet was always at the discretion of the server operators, they chose which groups to carry.
Can you name just one?
Re:Headline is misleading (Score:4)
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Sorry, but that doesn't work if the Big 3 can simply censure and censor people based POV discrimination.
That's a problem of monopoly and antitrust behavior, and can be dealt with by those appropriate laws. Allowing the government to control freedom of speech (especially the government forcing private individuals and companies to publish speech they disagree with) is a grave danger to democracy.
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The problem is not with their saying what they want. The problem is with their interjecting into what everyone else is saying, especially since they are monopolies. It's the equivalent of the phone company or post office interjecting and deciding to detune you based on your content. That would never be tolerated, and it would be absurd to allow them to do so simply because they own the infrastructure.
Nobody is stopping them from saying what they want. However there is a big difference between them saying it
Re:Headline is misleading (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the equivalent of the phone company or post office interjecting and deciding to detune you based on your content.
I don't have a Facebook or Twitter account and I function just fine. I would not be able to meet my legal obligations to society without a phone or the postal service.
Until people stop being jackasses, discourse requires moderation. On the internet, we have figured out various solutions to this problem. Slashdot has one.
Discourse without moderation devolves into something resembling the last presidential debate: the loud jackass prevents actual discourse from occurring by being a loud jackass.
Re: Headline is misleading (Score:2)
Your snark is not insightful, nor does it refute any point I made. Way to get sarcasm wrong.
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It's all relative. If I accuse you of being a goat raper in public, and your reputation is permanently damaged, you should have some form of legal recourse against me.
If you incite people to kill abortionists-- you should have to face some form of accountability when someone kills an abortionist.
What's absolutely crazy about this is that the reason the US government is wading into this quagmire is that the President is offended by Twitter and Facebook labeling his posts as "nuts", "fake", "debunked conspir
Thanks to S230 you can post just about (Score:5, Insightful)
Those 3 companies provide platforms and an audience for just about any viewpoint you can to find (albeit sometimes with a dog whistle or two). After S230 dies it'll go back to the 1960s. 24/7 All Establishment All The Time.
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Those 3 companies provide platforms and an audience for just about any viewpoint you can to find
And when they don't, you can buy this for 35 coins of the realm [raspberrypi.org], plug it into your own internet connection, type apt-get install apache2, and thank $deity for section 230 when you have to boot people who choose not to follow the rules of your platform.
They should teach this shit in school.
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Even that's not necessary, loads of hard right sites are able to get commercial hosting.
- Gab
- Parly
- ThinkSpot
- Voat
- 4chan
- Infowars
- Daily Stormer
All commercially hosted. What upsets people is not that they can't put their sites online, it that other people refuse to provide them with free advertising and promotion. YouTube has a big audience so naturally they want to be on YouTube to get a slice of it, and get very upset when they are relegated to some niche site.
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Granted, it's a horrible, awful place, but financial deplatforming is an issue.
The issue is that in capitalist western democracies, people vote with their wallets. If I knew somewhere I banked was providing financial services to Gab, I'd yank my business and tell all my friends to do the same. Often it's the only means of protest that works for us.
It's just not worth the bad press Humungous Bank would get to provide financial services to a wretched hive of scum and villainy like Gab.
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He claims he has been "blacklisted" by Visa but there is no evidence that it's true or what the reason was. Maybe he was just way behind on his credit card payments.
That was the situation with Second Amendment Processing. The guy running it turned out to have convictions for financial fraud. Nothing to do with the content.
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Guess you missed the bit where the founder of Gab got all his card processing abilities pulled by banks and then Paypal et al, and then lost his personal bank accounts too.
So? They're private companies, and can do business with whoever they choose. PayPal is absolutely not required to take anyone's business, especially if they feel that the business would be damaging to their brand.
That's how capitalism works.
You and a whole lot of other people here want to have your cake and eat it too. That's not how this system works.
Want everyone to have access? Then it's government funded and controlled.
Want a free market? Than companies get to choose who they do business with.
What you d
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It's truly hilarious that you think the consequence of a change to s230 would be that FB et al censor *less*. s230 protects them for being sued for stupid shit people say on their platforms. If they can be sued for stupid shit that people say on their platforms, they're going to censor people from saying stupid shit. Given that *even today*, some of the stupid shit that Trump says is so fucking stupid that FB et al censor him, it's a truly special level of stupid that thinks the right approach is to make FB
Re:Thanks to S230 you can post just about (Score:5, Informative)
Censor legal content, lose section 230 - simple really, isnt it.
It isn't all that simple. If I set up a discussion site for gardening, I might want to censor any post about basketball. This is legal content, but irrelevant to my site. If someone starts posting about cultivating weed, I might chose to censor it as well as I am perhaps personally against it. And maybe that side-discussion on garden gnomes has to go as well as it really doesn't have much to do with gardening. But it wasn't excluded by the rules so I just changed them because I didn't really think about garden gnomes when I wrote the them. (Don't construe my examples as my actual opinion on a subject, it is just for illustrating a point).
Further, you don't actually have the right to post on Twitter or Facebook. They give you the possibility of doing so but I am sure in their TOS they have the right to rescind it if and when they feel like. You are free to set up your own web site if you like and say what you want (within the bounds of legally permissible speech and perhaps the rules of your hosting company).
Section 230 gives content providers explicit rights to cater their site how they like. You need to actually change the law or get it invalidated in court - it is quite clear on the subject. If you want something else, you need to get that law changed (but think carefully how you would change it... forcing sites to have 100% clear rules is a recipe for lawsuits and ultimately will likely limit speech on your favorite sites a lot more than today).
Real censorship would be if the government decided you couldn't say something, not if Twitter or Facebook chose not to host your post.
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You only have one cable tv connection and a few newspapers in your area. If you have something to say and none of them are interested, then tough, shut up, it's a oligopoly. The big 3 may be big, but there are literally billions of web sites out there. If you don't like one of them make one of your own.
So there is a huge
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An odd tangent, but okay... (Score:2)
I think Bernie wants to help the poor because he is a kind hearted altruistic man. However, his actions will never threaten his personal way of life. Very few people are willing to go that far. If he was into coal mining and made that a life-long career, he could still grow up a Democrat, he could still be a kind hearted altruistic man, but he'd be a Republican today.
Ideology is incidental to self preservation.
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Biden will be busy enough just repairing things. It seems unlikely that there will be much time for a an agenda other than 1) deal with the crisis 2) restaff all the agencies/bureaus/state dept./etc. with people who actually know what they're doing 3) repair our international relations.
It's not like he'll have a second term. Trump has succeeded in the one thing he wanted—he set the country back significantly so it will be difficult to repair. Congress will spend so much money buying us out of a recess
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I really want to see an immediate ban on Donald Trump in response.
"In compliance with proposed rules from Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, we have terminated this account for putting us at legal risk."
#streissand_effect
Or they can NOT have control (Score:2, Insightful)
> Without Section 230's protections sites like Twitter, Facebook & YouTube, etc can't risk letting people upload content or posting (since they're legally liable) without a ton of controls in place.
If Section 230 disappeared entirely (it won't), we'd then be back to pre-230 law. That law gives web sites two options:
1. Don't choose what is posted and you aren't liable (what Slashdot does).
2. Decide what to have one your site, and be responsible for that decision.
What 230 allows is that sites can choos
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How many has it actually won?
Do you believe that the quality of the reporting in this case deserves one?
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Section 230, in the US, is what prevents OTHER countries from applying their own interpretation. US companies have largely been held not liable for their user-generated content. If that changes, kiss away sites like Twitch and Youtube. As long as it was legal to have in the US, the content could exist as long as it didn't stumble into some edge-case where the site ToS would have to kick in. If that goes away, then content will get hosted outside the US, and beyond the reach of US law, to where who knows.
As
Stop Lying RSilverGun (Score:2)
You KNOW thats not true, you are just pissed that the tools of your 'side' to hide their lies are under threat.
Section 230 is not being removed, it is being removed from people who prove that they CAN control the speech on their platforms.
Section 230 was put in place to allow sites that cannot control content to exist - but these few want it both ways, they are controlling the speech AND wanting the protections given because they apparently cannot..
There are no two ways, they should either allow all legal s
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What pisses me off is how few people get that this is happening
That pisses you off? They don't get that, but "that" is way more complex than a ton of political lies/fake information/deceptive tactics that people don't get either. People don't like to think.
Re:Headline is misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
It's far worse than that. You know what they do in dictatorships? Take control of the media. State controlled TV and newspapers that only publish government approved narratives.
This is a very dangerous moment for the US. The government has been attacking the free press for 4 years now. Started by banning ones that asked hard questions from Whitehouse briefings and bringing in their own stooges, and constantly attacking the "lying media" (google "lugenpresse"), and now on to social media. The president is refusing to confirm he will accept the result of the election and already calling it illegitimate. Even the judiciary has been stacked with government loyalists, not just SCOTUS but all down the lower courts too.
This could get really bad if you don't put a stop to it pretty damn quick, and then reform the system to prevent this kind of abuse ever happening again.
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without being required to guarantee a level playing field or free speech
Why such ridiculous requirements in the first place?
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The point is that under Section 230 sites/services like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube very specifically classify themselves as platforms, not publishers, and hence avoid the legal responsibilities that go with being a publisher.
Wrong.
Section 230 specifically defines the parties as an interactive computer service and an information content provider, not platforms and publishers. Further, 230(c)(1) specifically states 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..
230(c)(2)(a) then states that No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in
Truth in advertising (Score:4, Insightful)
Politicians have never liked to be held up to any sort of standard of truthfulness.
Twitter and Facebook are about to receive an unprecedented bipartisan screwing.
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Political statements, including ads, are the most protected speech of all. Even lies are protected, lest the politicians with power become arbiters of the truth said agsinst them.
The only response to this is more speech.
In any event, facebook and friends are not censoring of their own free will, contrary to some statements around here. Rather, they are reacting in terror to a possible Democratic win, when the debators all stood around one-upping each other on how they could alter 230 and other laws so as
in Soviet Russia (Score:2)
If you told me a year ago that Hunter Biden... (Score:2)
Cannot Control and Not Be Responsible (Score:4, Insightful)
How can someone, or company, control what is displayed and not be responsible for what is displayed?
They become responsible once they filter the information, especially if the filtering is not unbiased. "Hacking" by a computer repair shop finding crap on a SSD is not a defense to filter out the article.
I am going to guess that a lot of us on /. have found all sorts of stuff while doing PC/laptop/cell phone support. That was not hacking/cracking.
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Heh... I just realized. This is going to kill independent content creators.
Take YouTube for example. Their moderation is bad enough, and it's all they can do to automate it and use some staff to focus on some of their more visible screw-ups. It might be possible to have a free-for-all or closely moderated text-only social media site... but video is something else. Even without screwing with Section 230 you *must* moderate that and you can never do it perfectly. If the penalty for imperfection is death (fin
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Not if the erstwhile platforms return to being actual PLATFORMS, instead of acting as publishers.
The government delivers real value by using the law to protect these ventures from prosecution.
It's time they stop abusing that privilege to practice viewpoint discrimination and election interference.
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Video, graphical, and audio media must be moderated. A site like YouTube or Facebook/Instagram choosing not to moderate such content is legal suicide already. They must make a good-faith effort to deal with copyrighted and criminal content or risk suffering the same fate as MegaUpload.
Even a text-only social media site can be at risk when left unmoderated. I only think it's possible because the algorithms for detecting text-based violations are easier to make. Any time your politicians have an issue with
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"Video, graphical, and audio media must be moderated."
And we're not talking about Pornhub or Napster here.
We're talking about a common discussion and information dissemination platform.
We're not talking about flat earthers and holocaust deniers.
We're talking about these services silencing ACTUAL NEWS OUTLETS and the government as well.
And not to protect their ass from lawsuits.
But to service their political ideology (and at this point, interfere with a general election).
Forgive the analogy, but (Score:2)
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We are stuck with Democrats threatening section 230 unless internet media censor harrassment, with an immediate facetious chaser that their political opponents are tweeting harrassment, please silence them, and Republicans threatening 230 because the media companies are censoring on behalf of Democrats for the exact same reason.
People fought and died for freedom of speech. What a shameful embarrassment this crop of politicians are. All it does is emphasize that the Founding Fathers, whatever their other f
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So? (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't like their editorial rules, go to one of the social media platforms created for conservatives.
The Republicans use to be big on voting with their feet. Now they whine about bullshit.
Happy to. (Score:2)
Just as soon as the government steps in and breaks up these monopolies.
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Just as soon as the government steps in and breaks up these monopolies.
You can certainly argue google is a monopoly (as in large enough to have a distorting, anti trust effect) on the market for search. And web browsers and a few other bits and bobs.
Twitter isn't a monopoly by any stretch. So go to gab. The trouble is that the conservative, free speech bastions are utter shitholes it turns out.
Waaahh Waaahhhhhh (Score:2)
The party of personal responsibility, supposedly small limited government, and let the market decide, is now throwing a tantrum because they aren't getting enough likes on social media. Please daddy government do something! Punish all those people who don't agree with us!
That said I used to agree with Reagan era republicans and even up until the early Clinton years. Now the party has been hijacked by religious nutjobs along with the good ol' boys club. These people are ideologically closer to the Taliban th
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So switching from twitter to Gab is the equivalent of leaving the country? My god the right are delicate snowflakes.
Section 230 is only a start. (Score:4, Insightful)
They need to be treated as the monopolies that they are. The abuse in this case was to vagrant and too in your face, the fact that big tech was able to shut down the media and the people showed their power to chill free speech in this country. Now if only the politicians had a clue just how much big tech has done to manipulate the 2020 election.
Big tech needs regulated as monopolies and treated as utilities, just like AT&T and the USPS. You can do limited good by breaking them up, but that isn't the solution. You have to treat them with RAND (Reasonable And NonDiscriminatory) This is the standard used to address monopolies by the FTC for a very long time (since the 1800's). This has withstood dozens of reviews in the US Supreme Court so the precedent is about as good as anything that this country has for Supreme Court precedent.
Big tech should not have the power of an oligarch where they get to pick and choose our leaders. Yet they have behaved in exactly that manner, impacting our election with behavior that is orders of magnitude worse than what the Russians were accused of doing in 2016. Even if you don't like Trump this should really bother you as this sets a precedent of Big Tech picking our leaders. Just remember you may not like the leaders that they pick next time.
The idea that a handful of companies can pick and choose the discourse of the American public would once have existed only in the works of science fiction, and never in a positive light. The fact that so many people are supporting those very companies in their censorship is madness. Censorship is wrong and it has no moral acceptably place in a civilized society.
First of all, the internet is big, cheap, and open (Score:3)
Second, social media companies are not in the business of creating content. They facilitate sharing of user-generated content. If some content is illegal, it should be the original publishing user who is liable, not the platform. If I post a lie about Joe Biden on a billboard, and some law says it's illegal defamation or whatever, should the billboard
Re: (Score:2)
Great, so, they will be leaving the content up then.
but no, these sites ARE censoring, they ARE demonstrating control over their content.
In which case, section 230 SHOULD NOT APPLY TO THEM. Simple, really.
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Great, so, they will be leaving the content up then.
Yes if they didn't take down stuff violating their ToS they would instantly become completely overwhelmed with spam. I'm amazed about how many techies seem instantly forgetful about the incredibly obvious things when "their team" is doing something.
Lol slashdot (Score:2)
10 years ago: The internet will simple route around this problem.
Today: Please government do something!
Because ... (Score:2)
"Pai's decision to move forward with rulemaking follows a series of moderation decisions on Wednesday made by Facebook and Twitter against a New York Post article regarding former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, ...
If it's in the New York Post, it must be true, with sources totally above board and reporters dedicated to the highest journalistic standards. /sarcasm
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You'd prefer the New York Times, whose own reporters demand censorship of their own colleagues?
You'd prefer the New York Times, who employ actual racists?
You'd prefer the New York Times, who stealth edit articles at the behest of the Biden campaign?
Crikey, the New York Post must truly be a haven of villainy and corruption.
Consider this... (Score:2, Informative)
Consider this for a moment. Facebook and Twitter are blocking a news article, because the article contains information that came from a laptop that was legally, knowingly and voluntarily forfeit by a customer (likely because they didn't want to pay, or couldn't be bothered). That laptop and the information on it were knowingly conveyed to another party, after numerous notifications and grace periods had lapsed over many months.
Now remember that Trump's personal tax information was leaked by the New York Ti
Re:Consider this... (Score:4, Interesting)
But, he has said, over and over and over, including in the past 24 hours, that he wants to release his tax returns and show the American people what they contain, but that he was unable to due to audit. So, the New York Times is helping him by releasing those documents, and offering exactly what he said he wants. Unless you think, he was really lying, each time he made that statement about his taxes?
Re:Consider this... (Score:4, Insightful)
If your side doesn't want it's stuff banned, then produce true, at a minimum defensible, content.
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Care to show the citations?
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Twitter said no such thing. They said it contains "private" and "unauthorized" information, which, quite the contrary, suggests that the contents are genuine.
I mean... Do you think Hunter Biden gave the Post his spicy videos of himself passed out on drugs, because he just likes journalists so much?
Re:Consider this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider... why did Twitter and Facebook not block a single news article that contained Trump's personal tax data, but they did block the article related to Biden?
Because they determined that the tax data was most-likely true, while the Biden story was most-likely disinformation.
Journalism is not blindly parroting everything that anybody says. It's finding and sharing the pieces that you believe are true and relevant and explaining why.
This is where someone complains about using "journalism" when talking about Facebook and Twitter. But the issue is whether they spread a news article, so that seems to apply.
I thought they are not the same thing (Score:2)
But they do not have a First Amendment right to a special immunity denied to other media outlets, such as newspapers and broadcasters.
Isn't the point, though, that Twitter et al are not a "media outlet" like a newspaper. A newspaper chooses what to publish, even what type of content to think about publishing. Twitter et al are "publishing" whatever some other party chooses to post, and then are given the impossible task of fairly and consistently applying some cleanup rules afterwards. An argument could be made about various promotional mechanisms such as trending or 'suggested' content. Which, now that I think about it, might be how they
Re:hah (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll laugh if they just pick up shop and move overseas.
Yeah, being from the other side of the Earth is what protected Kim Dotcom from the long arm of the law.
Oh wait.
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Yeah, being from the other side of the Earth is what protected Kim Dotcom from the long arm of the law.
. . . and meanwhile, in the Old Wild West District of Washington, DC, on the dusty town square complete with tumbleweeds and wooden sidewalks . . . carpenters are busy erecting a good old-fashioned gallows, with the name Julian Assange on it.