Will Silicon Valley's Next House Member Rewrite a Key Internet Law? (sfchronicle.com) 133
An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from the San Francisco Chronicle's senior political writer:
The next House member representing Silicon Valley wants to change a key piece of federal law that shields internet companies like X, Facebook and Snapchat from lawsuits over content their users post. That protection is considered the lifeblood of social media.
The top eight Democratic candidates vying to succeed Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo in her very blue district agree that something has to change with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which was created in 1996, back when lawmakers shied away from doing anything that could limit the growth of the industry. Their unanimity is a sign that Eshoo's successor won't be a tool for the hometown industry. At least not on this issue. The challenge is what to do next. Whoever is elected, their actions as the voice of Silicon Valley will carry outsize weight in Congress. They can lead the charge to actually do something to clean up the bile on social media...
The good news is that they will have bipartisan support to address the bile and disinformation online. The bad news is that finding the right solution will still be hard.
The top eight Democratic candidates vying to succeed Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo in her very blue district agree that something has to change with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which was created in 1996, back when lawmakers shied away from doing anything that could limit the growth of the industry. Their unanimity is a sign that Eshoo's successor won't be a tool for the hometown industry. At least not on this issue. The challenge is what to do next. Whoever is elected, their actions as the voice of Silicon Valley will carry outsize weight in Congress. They can lead the charge to actually do something to clean up the bile on social media...
The good news is that they will have bipartisan support to address the bile and disinformation online. The bad news is that finding the right solution will still be hard.
Ultimate double edged sword (Score:5, Insightful)
Be careful what you wish for, making these companies culpable will mean the death of forums or really almost any public discussion media.
What company in their right mind would want to take on the liability for the worst of their userbase? It won't happen, they'll just shut down discussion completely and that's that.
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>to address the bile and disinformation online.
I am more concerned with unequal application of the law than 230.
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So does Trump really look like Elvis? https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
I mean probably, after Elvis would found dead on the toilet.
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So does Trump really look like Elvis? https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
I mean probably, after Elvis would found dead on the toilet.
But Trump wears Depends.
Re:Ultimate double edged sword (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed.
"Cleaning up the bile" is a disingenuous way of saying "government censorship".
According to TFA, the Democrats are unanimous in their support.
They will feel differently when Trump is president, and the Republicans take control and weaponize the censorship panels.
Re: Ultimate double edged sword (Score:2)
Who knows?
Re: Ultimate double edged sword (Score:2)
The good news is that they will have bipartisan support to address the bile and disinformation online. The bad news is that finding the right solution will still be hard.
They may agree on the punishment for those responsible, but I doubt the two parties agree on what is and is not "mis-information" or "dis-information"...
I seem to remember a lot of things being labeled as "disinformation" that was later proven to be true, esp around side effects of vaccines, efficacy of most face masks, the value of a common drug in certain cases, and the contents of a certain laptop.
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Facebook won't have any problems (Score:5, Insightful)
What pisses me off about this is that it's the same dumb shit the left wing did with citizens united where they think they can go toe to toe with mega corporations in a fight and win. There's a bunch of dumb law Lefties and neoliberals think that they can use this to kick the Nazis and the racists off the internet.
Those Nazis and racists are extremely useful to large corporations who send them to the polls to vote on pointless culture War issues instead of on important economic issues. So if section 230 gets killed we're still going to have the Nazis and racists but we're going to lose all the spaces where you can agitate for union membership or universal health Care and things like that.
Re:Facebook won't have any problems (Score:5, Interesting)
So if section 230 gets killed we're still going to have the Nazis and racists but we're going to lose all the spaces where you can agitate for union membership or universal health Care and things like that.
Yes, and it has happened before.
In the 1930s, the left passed laws against "un-American activities" to suppress the right. Then, in the 1950s, the right regained power, and Joe McCarthy and others weaponized the same laws to target the left.
Re: Facebook won't have any problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you recall what sparked Citizens United? A movie company wanted to show a movie critical of a Presidential candidate close to a Presidential election... that's it.
Do you remember what provoked the Dobbs decision? Abortion enthusiasts took exception to a state imposed 15 week ban on abortions. And what was the result, Abortion is now up to the states (where it always belonged), and many, many states have imposed limits on abortion far, far worse than anything they could have done during the reign of Roe V Wade. (As a note, the vast, VAST number of so-called First-World nations have limits on abortions around 15 weeks, but we needed to join with Russia & North Korea and try for elective abortions at any point in the pregnancy...)
Democrats, in cases like this, have a tendency to over-reach and then regret ever 'poking the sleeping bear' - in the immortal words of that famous song "...You don't know what you've got till it's gone..."
It's not propaganda (Score:2)
The doctors aren't shitty, they're afraid of being arrested. They don't work at Planned parenthood. You don't got to PP for an ectopic pregnancy. They're not equipped for it. You go to a hospital, who consults a lawyer who then says unless the women is actively dying they can't abort.
Republicans didn't make it illegal because they couldn't. But they tried again and again and again. Republican Voter want to criminalize it and treat it as murder. Every miscarria
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Murder isn't a medical procedure its a crime against humanity. Abortion advocates deserve nothing less then the Nuremberg treatment.
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Be careful what you wish for, making these companies culpable will mean the death of forums or really almost any public discussion media.
It won't happen, they'll just shut down discussion completely and that's that
It could also be used selectively against companies/Sites that don't promote the government view. to kill that site e.g. the company formerly known as twitter. It would be better to go after the author if its truthful with evidence the author will win. If not the author is subject to a slander case
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They never really cared about speech on any media, until it started going against them.
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Anonymous chatting is one of the key benefits of the Internet, period
This goes back to BBS, Newsgroups, IRC or even instant messenger.
If that goes away, what are we left with? A nice vehicle for Amazon.com to sell their shit to you?
Given the current online bullying and associated suicide problem, I'd say nothing bad happens if it goes away. It's entirely up to you to prove otherwise, because the growing mountain of evidence validating that humans can be fucking assholes when given the opportunity. And being an anonymous keyboard warrior enables that opportunity 24/7/365.
And this is coming from someone who remembers the BBS days. I also remember a world before online forums. It still fucking worked.
Freedom of speech (Score:5, Informative)
Freedom of speech is *** INFINITELY *** more important than protecting hurt feelings or preventing idiots from believing misinformation.
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https://xkcd.com/1357/ [xkcd.com] not only the comic, but the alt-text is an absolute banger.
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Depends on why you got banned, etc from a forum.
If you violated TOS (for real) then shrug, bye.
If you got banned because at that week's meeting with the white house, the company was provided your UID on a list of people the WH wants banned then that is a clear 1a violation.
Re: Freedom of speech (Score:2, Insightful)
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It definitely happened, and it's a MUCH bigger deal than any progressive will ever admit. The democratic party went so far as to completely turn their backs on this guy who they were all in favor of during the Bush years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
This is Nixon level shit. The actual story of the watergate break-in falls well within the "who cares" territory. Nixon wasn't actually involved in it either, and to this day nobody believes he was. The scandal was that he tried to cover it up after the fact
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Net neutrality is an idea I've always supported
Weird, since you don't seem to understand what it is.
Net neutrality opposes, for example, an ISP blocking a customer's traffic to/from Netflix unless the customer pays an extra fee.
It's not about censorship, rather it's about service providers treating all Internet traffic equally and not creating artificial tiers of Internet access so ISPs can milk more money from their (often locked-in) customer bases.
Being opposed to crappy ISP pricing structures and being opposed to state-mandated censorship are not the
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1) Go into a Walmart
2) Start yelling about your political beliefs
3) Walmart makes you leave
4) Claim your freedom of speech was infringed
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Your misleading example only applies to forums and discussion boards that are clear what is on-topic and what is off-topic.
For big social media that give people their own profile page and post their own thought, your example doesn't apply. Forums and discussion boards that ban every politic topics are okay. Big social media that amplify political camps the boss like and silence camps the boss dislike, all while pretending the platform is a social tool for all people, are NOT okay.
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Fully, entirely agree with you.
My caveat is that the majority of message boards, chat rooms, reddit, Twitter, etc only provide the ILLUSION of free speech.
There are already laws against libel, threatening people etc. Those still stand and should be applied. No, what I'm talking about is generally termed moderation but invariably ends up a politically twisted censorship where not just illegal speech is blocked but ideas THAT THE MODS DISLIKE ARE THROTTLED.
That's bullshit.
Yes, freedom of speech should be al
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Freedom of speech is *** INFINITELY *** more important than protecting hurt feelings...
Agreed 100%
.. or preventing idiots from believing misinformation.
Well now, if it was just people believing misinformation (i.e. no further consequences) then OK I still agree with you. But when those idiots number in the tens of millions and go to the polls and make voting decisions based on their misinformed beliefs, that can have a very negative impact on everyone else, and that I think raises the importance of the issue to be equal to the importance of freedom of speech.
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Some people's lives are lived only to be a lesson for others.
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Just so we're discussing the same things; which bits of 'medical misinformation' was later found to be actually useful advice against the spread of Covid?
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"The Biden administration tried to censor this Stanford doctor, but he won in court"
"A federal court of appeals ruled earlier this month
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Skeptics misusing intelligen
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Okay, I got your point. The faults in that guy's scientific dissent have been pointed out, which in no way makes the government position and mistakes/erroneous ways okay.
The faults are debatable. And even IF mistaken, they were all reasonable scientific points of view. That's the point, reasonable scientific debate was censored.
But if he wasn't given much exposure on social media because (many of) his points were debunked, then that would be okay.
Debunked - debatable. Even IF debunked, that occurred LONG AFTER the crisis, not at the time of they were offered. And no one is saying he should have been given exposure, just that his reasonable scientific opinion should NOT have been censored. Especially at the behest of government.
Or do you have proof that social media was pressured by the government to give the guy no exposure?
Twitter pretty much admitted to yielding to such requests. And soc
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Twitter: missed that, fair enough.
Governments in Europe reacting more rationally? Now that's also debatable... But the common things were likely more rational.
Anyway, regarding misinformation, perhaps suicidal (nice spell checker correction for social) media moderators did act out the appeal to authority fallacy, but then perhaps scientific debate shouldn't be held on social media channels. Again, word did come out, so there was no blanket censorship, but I certainly see you
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Debunked vs debatable: agreed. Twitter: missed that, fair enough. Governments in Europe reacting more rationally? Now that's also debatable... But the common things were likely more rational.
Anyway, regarding misinformation, perhaps suicidal (nice spell checker correction for social) media moderators did act out the appeal to authority fallacy, but then perhaps scientific debate shouldn't be held on social media channels. Again, word did come out, so there was no blanket censorship, but I certainly see your point of being wary about this. The nasty thing is, if one would have to check the fringe channels for news that got suppressed on the big channels, like men in black checking the fringe papers for alien activity...
Agreed scientific debate is not for social media. However when scientific debate is turning into public policy, perhaps while the debate is ongoing, the public should have some sort of plain language summary of the debate. Regrettably this summary, (abstract ?), needs to go to social media since that is where so many people get their info.
While censorship may not have been complete there was a massive diminishing of potential audience via bans from the most popular social media sites. This played into th
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I think we are in agreement. I just fear things won't be better at the next event. Open debate is often mistaken for giving all opinions equal time, even the crack ones. The problem is, who decides which crack ones shouldn't be heard. Then it's the cacophony again...
True, but I'm hoping real doctors from prestigious universities who happen to disagree with the gov't position will get more visibility and not be treated, due to gov't pressures, like a workout bros (gym rat) repurposing horse tranquilizers. If such a doctor is ignored by the public without intervention so be it.
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Well, I recall a German based doctor who's previously been the head of a very renowned German medical institute, Bhagdi if I recall correctly, who fueled all conspiracy theories with his anti counter measures stance. His points: Corona isn't new, the human immune system can deal with it, since god made it so well, and then some. Things are complex....
I expect other doctors at prestigious institutes and government agencies publicly disagreed with him? That's what I would hope for. The public getting to hear from both sides.
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*Citation needed
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*Citation needed
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
Re: Freedom of speech (Score:4, Informative)
Uh the govt was wrong about: ;it will prevent infection, no wait, it will stop the spread, no wait, it will mitigate the symptoms, and there are no side-effects, wait, there's some side effects, you can't talk about the side effect of the vaccine)
- the efficacy of surgical masks
- social distancing (they just made up a number)
- the effectiveness of the vaccines
- the number of Covid deaths (they included death WITH COVID and classified it as death by Covid, because hospitals got greater reimbursements for treating COVID deaths
- claimed vaccines couldn't be developed in under a year, then delayed announcement of the vaccine approvals after the election
- claimed the vaccine was unsafe when they were approved under Trump, but suddenly the same vaccine with no additional testing became a miracle cure once Joe Biden took office.
You can argue that the science was evolving (it was), but I'm not certain shutting down debate helped move the science along - it likely hurt a lot of people. The scientific method isn't to 'pick a side' and suppress all opposing views.
Re: Freedom of speech (Score:4, Informative)
the efficacy of surgical masks
Nope, not wrong. Wearing a mask does slow the spread [nih.gov] of covid transmission. In fact, wearing a mask worked so well the Missouri governor buried a report [mic.com] showing how well they worked because it didn't coform to his anti-mask nonsense.
- social distancing (they just made up a number)
Nope. That number was based on past studies of healthcare workers and preventing the spread of infectious respiratory diseases [pbs.org] in a healthcare setting. In fact, it was CDC guidance [cdc.gov] from as far back as 2007 which determined the minimum six foot distance.
the effectiveness of the vaccines ;it will prevent infection,
The covid vaccines did prevent infections [nih.gov] (2021), reduced hospitalizations, and deaths. Were they perfect? Nope. No vaccine is 100%. Not measles [cdc.gov], not polio [cdc.gov], nor smallpox [cdc.gov]. And yet, polio no longer exists in this country, and small pox has been wiped from the planet.
the number of Covid deaths
And there's the conspiracy nonsense we've come to love and adore. Hospitals were reimbursed for treating [apnews.com] covid patients, not their deaths, and that was only for people on Medicare.
claimed vaccines couldn't be developed in under a year, then delayed announcement of the vaccine approvals after the election
Say what? Try again [apnews.com]. No one withheld anything.
claimed the vaccine was unsafe when they were approved under Trump,
Were you on drugs when you wrote this? Or off your meds? No one said anything of the sort.
but I'm not certain shutting down debate helped move the science along
When you have people claiming goat paste will "cure covid, when you have supposed doctors saying vaccines don't work, when you have supposed doctors saying masks don't work, when you have supposed doctors refuting every piece of scientific evidence for political purposes, there isn't a debate. It's willful ignorance.
The scientific method isn't to 'pick a side' and suppress all opposing views.
Correct. It's show your evidence. If you believe goat paste "cures" covid, show your evidence. If you don't think masks work, show your evidence. That is not what was done. Supposed doctors, and many non-doctors, made grand pronouncements and every time they were challenged to show their evidence they either pointed to studies which were repeatedly debunked, or whined they were being picked on. When you make a claim you have to show your evidence for your claim. That's the scientific method.
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Free speech is free speech. You don't get to decide what is misinformation or not. Everyone is allowed to public whatever wrong headed crazy ass shit they want. Anything less is the fascism you abhor.
Throughout history the government has told us all sorts of complete lies and utter bullshit. You want those same people to be legally allowed to ban from public forums whistleblowers who call out the government's lies? That is definitely the way to Orwell's 1984.
I'll take the flat earthers and the Russians
Myopic or arguing bad faith? (Score:2, Troll)
Free speech is free speech. You don't get to decide what is misinformation or not. Everyone is allowed to public whatever wrong headed crazy ass shit they want. Anything less is the fascism you abhor.
That is childish blank-and-white thinking and completely ignores the fact that there are many things you can't say, even in public, like trying to incite a riot.
Throughout history the government has told us all sorts of complete lies and utter bullshit. You want those same people to be legally allowed to ban from public forums whistleblowers who call out the government's lies?
More blank-and-white thinking: either the government controls all the information or they control none of the information. Such a law could narrowly target promoters of misinformation of a certain type but you didn't even consider that to be a possibility.
I'll take the flat earthers and the Russians and the left/right wing extremists and everyone else talking nonsense if the alternative is the government decides what is ok for me to hear or say.
The all or nothing argument. You clearly are not even making an effort to understanding every r
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completely ignores the fact that there are many things you can't say, even in public, like trying to incite a riot.
True. But that's a function of the intent of the speech. You can't incite a riot. You can't trigger a panic. But you can't block speech based on communicating ideology alone. And you can't claim that incitement might occur if the ideology doesn't meet your approval.
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True. But that's a function of the intent of the speech.
Which means a particular type of speech is illegal. Thank you for proving my point.
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Which means a particular type of speech is illegal.
Yes. But it's a very narrowly defined type. And it's entirely up to the courts to decide what qualifies. It's not up to individuals or groups outside of the judicial system to grab the idea of "illegal" and run with it, trying to get things banned.
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But it's a very narrowly defined type. And it's entirely up to the courts to decide what qualifies.
And yet you have somehow jumped to the conclusion that the same thing couldn't be applied here.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Yes, I know. Please re-read your original comment, repeated typos and all. I was correcting you in case you actually think that's what it's called.
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I'll take the flat earthers and the Russians and the left/right wing extremists and everyone else talking nonsense if the alternative is the government decides what is ok for me to hear or say.
Those are your people.
But in reality, Facebook telling you to stfu is not harming your right to speech.
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Free speech is free speech. You don't get to decide what is misinformation or not.
Depends on the group. I am an owner of a number of groups, and my rules are simple. You are allowed to take the conversation anywhere you want - I'm not fussy about normal offtopic. Not fussy about much
But if you post any political screed of any sort, you are gone. No warning, not ever getting back on the group, and I put the list on lockdown for a time until booboo feelings go away.
People go into it knowing what the rules are. I've been doing this for a few decades now, and in over 20 years, have onl
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Yes but there must be limitations due to the paradox of tolerance [wikipedia.org].
The "paradox of tolerance" is an odious philosophy.
"We are the tolerant, peaceful, freedom-loving good guys. But common people are too stupid to believe us. Therefore, anyone who disagrees with us must be suppressed and silenced so everyone can have freedom."
If you believe that garbage, you aren't one of the "good guys".
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Second, you assume that misinformation will automatically generate support for it.
It already has.
Finally, who is empowered to remove the right to free speech? Primarily an oppressive government (follow the link).
The current law is that...
* You cannot incite a riot.
* You cannot file a false police report.
* You cannot yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater.
EVERY right has it's limits.
How does one person's speech prevent that of another?
Promoting fascists to power using misinformation will result in the loss of free speech. This is why it's a paradox of tolerance.
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Promoting fascists to power using misinformation will result in the loss of free speech.
You assume that anything more than a small minority can be swayed by misinformation. If that is so, then we can't allow anyone to speak. Say goodbye to democracy.
And how can we be sure that it isn't the communists, socialists, anarchists, etc who are lying?
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You assume that anything more than a small minority can be swayed by misinformation.
Fox News Channel has been misinforming viewers for about three decades and it's caused a radical shift in viewers toward the irrational.
If that is so, then we can't allow anyone to speak. Say goodbye to democracy.
This statement presupposes that a single piece of misinformation is the problem. The truth is that it is a consistent flow of disinformation that is then regurgitated as misinformation that is the problem.
And how can we be sure that it isn't the communists, socialists, anarchists, etc who are lying?
You jest but the final stage of the misinformed is being fearful and uncertain of who is lying and who is telling the truth.
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You jest but the final stage of the misinformed is being fearful and uncertain of who is lying and who is telling the truth.
It's part of growing up. Figuring out who is bullshitting you and who is not. Gen Z may have been brought up expecting the comfort of a world where everyone re-enforces their belief systems with continued recitation of the standard narrative. And some political groups depend on people remaining within this comfort zone. So it's understandable that these special interest groups may fear the truth. Or even alternate points of view. But the population at large just needs to learn to expand their comfort zone.
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You're talking about the concept of a point of view which is NOT the topic. What I'm talking about people who literally cannot tell fact from fiction.
Pull your head out of your ass because having millions of idiots believing the election stolen with zero evidence is a serious problem.
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having millions of idiots believing the election stolen with zero evidence is a serious problem.
Why? There's nothing they can do about it. Let them believe what they want.
Elections are a system of rules. Like a football game. Sometimes the referee makes a bad call. But the ref's word is final, so live with it. In this country, approximately half of the people don't get the president that they want*. But they are expected to _tolerate_ that person for the next four years. What I find disturbing is that so many people seem to want a system of government that has the power to make life and death decisio
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Why? There's nothing they can do about it. Let them believe what they want.
Wrong and dead wrong. Why they do is vote based on this information for people that believe that same bullshit. So now was have a bunch of idiots in federal and state congresses that are passing laws based on disinformation. This is beyond dangerous.
*Hence the recent popularity of ranked choice voting. So the party can claim that the snowflakes did indeed vote for the winner.
Ranked choice is a superior system as it is mathematically more representative of the will of the people. Also, an important function of is is showing what people actually want without wasting your vote on a no-chance candidate. The impact of this feedback into
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Why they do is vote based on this information for people that believe that same bullshit.
You presume to know how people will vote based on one subset of information that they have access to. This is wrong. Well, it's wrong for people on my side of the political spectrum. Perhaps not on yours.
If what you are saying is that there is a significant population of voters that can be swayed by these means, then direct democracy is doomed. We need to stick with the Electoral College, abandon the primary vote/caucus system and turn the selection of candidates over to party leadership.
So now was have a bunch of idiots in federal and state congresses that are passing laws based on disinformation. This is beyond dangerous.
In your opinion. W
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You presume to know how people will vote based on one subset of information that they have access to. This is wrong.
Just look at the Republican party. There are people in federal congress that believe in the "Q anon" bullshit.
Well, it's wrong for people on my side of the political spectrum.
Then you have deluded yourself because people at both extremes are easily fooled. You have people who are terrified of nuclear power on the left and people who are terrified of imaginary problems on the right. Neither of these are things to be scared off but disinformation campaigns keep both scared and voting against those things.
If what you are saying is that there is a significant population of voters that can be swayed by these means, then direct democracy is doomed.
Wrong, ALL forms of representation are doomed if you let disinformati
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Either way, you are not suited to discuss this topic.
Intolerance rears it's ugly head. Burn any good books lately?
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Considering how easily every single point you made was refuted, you cried of "intolerance" come off at "how dare you accurately describe me!"
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Notice that the people that are banning books are also claiming they are being censored. Misinformation and disinformation is dangerous. At the VERY least, it should be illegal to profit from it.
Social media as we know it today ... (Score:2)
The next House member representing Silicon Valley wants to change a key piece of federal law that shields internet companies like X, Facebook and Snapchat from lawsuits over content their users post. That protection is considered the lifeblood of social media.
Social media as we know it today, which isn't referring to anything worthy of defense. Lets hope for a better 2.0.
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Do you honestly believe that political discourse will improve in the U.S. if social media is required to be censored by partisans in the government or by greedy executives of social media companies?
I think it would improve if social media required a real name in a public forum. A real name relieving social media of responsibility. Sort of like how opinion pages in newspapers worked in the past. Name and town included or editor tossed your letter into the trash.
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As I commented elsewhere on this article: "And that is how you end all forms of whistleblowing in the U.S." Some of the most valuable information we have comes from people who were allowed to report it anonymously. Even the government hesitates to require reporters to divulge their sources.
To get into the details, I am not against the occasional anonymous post. If a social media company investigates a claim, finds it true, and publishes it referring to anonymous sources that is fine. It is literally acting as a journalist in that sense and has quite strong constitutional protections. But for the more mundane and common BS, publish names to get immunity from the content.
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IN-the-day newspaper editors acted as censors ... we have moved beyond that.
No, we have made mistakes, and could learn from the past.
Privately owned WWW social media should have well-articulated human moderation. Pick your website ... pick your neighbors ... pick your poison.
As newspapers of old also did, where we picked our papers based on leanings. But we are not talking moderation here, we are talking legal immunity. We have erred there and been too generous and it such generosity has been abused. Social media needs reigning in.
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Free citizens expect for (political) speech not only legal immunity, but also legal protection.
Red Herring. The comment above was discussing a post identifying the actual author, thereby relieving the social media company of any responsibility. The point being, social media does not need the blanket immunity it now has and which has led to unanticipated negative consequences.
No anonymity (Score:1)
If anyone wants to post on any social media
they can't be anonymous.
You have to be answerable for anything you post.
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You first. What's your name and address?
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If anyone wants to post on any social media they can't be anonymous. You have to be answerable for anything you post.
Name and town worked for newspapers, back when there were newspapers. Worked for radio too, back when there was radio. Things were pretty clearly labeled as opinion too.
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Our Founders would disagree with you and a few would have been in prison before the revolution started if they weren't allowed to publish anonymously.
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Social media is not your printing press.
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It is a 1a violation when the government tells a social media company who to block and what to delete and they do it.
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JWZ: "When the response to your argument can be found in the Federalist Papers, you've already lost the argument". (Signed, Publius.)
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That would violate the first amendment. Being anonymous is a right.
Re: (Score:2)
Try driving down the road anonymously (no tags or ID) and see your right in action.
Re: (Score:2)
Try driving down the road anonymously (no tags or ID) and see your right in action.
Freedom of speech (1A) has what to do with driving exactly?
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I seem to have mis-understood you. What part of the 1st gives anonymous speech as a right? Seems it is something a Court added thinking it should be a right and was meant to be there. While I agree that anonymous speech is important, having rights that have been declared by the courts is dangerous as that right can just as easily be removed. At that an originalist reading of the 1st simply means no statuary laws restricting speech, something else the courts have expanded to speech meaning political speech a
Even without Betteridge (Score:2)
The answer is still "no".
Freshman House members have zero power to do anything - except impede progress. And, even then, they only can impede by joining up with others.
What's up with the headlines on Slashdot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
And isn't your post headline a question as well?
And yes, I wrote that as a question too.
Who Should Bear This Future Power? (Score:2)
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Obviously, people who agree with me are smart and honest and educated and trustworthy.
People who disagree with me are lying scum of the earth sub humans.
I shall pick the censors after filtering out the second group.
At least they admit (Score:3)
Its about the government violating the first amendment.
"From 1791 to the present," however, the First Amendment has "permitted restrictions upon the content of speech in a few limited areas," and has never "include[d] a freedom to disregard these traditional limitations." Id., at 382-383, 112 S.Ct. 2538. These "historic and traditional categories long familiar to the bar," Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N.Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105, 127, 112 S.Ct. 501, 116 L.Ed.2d 476 (1991) (KENNEDY, J., concurring in judgment) — including obscenity, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 483, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498 (1957), defamation, Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250, 254-255, 72 S.Ct. 725, 96 L.Ed. 919 (1952), fraud, Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 771, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976), incitement, Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447-449, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969) (per curiam), and speech integral to criminal conduct, Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490, 498, 69 S.Ct. 684, 93 L.Ed. 834 (1949) — are "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem," Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571-572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942).
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12907128943316010890&q=content+based+restrictions+united+states+v+stevens&hl=en&as_sdt=6,38#p1585
Before anyone thinks this is a good idea (Score:3)
Looking at the problem wrongly (Score:2)
The problem is that Joe Blobs is public facing to be abused. As Zuck said from the very beginning, "The dumb fucks" have handed out all their personal details.
So the fact that Facebook then used it to make "someone" the real person is where we get into all the problems. Your presence online shouldn't be your real presence at all. Arguably, Social Media shouldn't exist at all.
Collective Punishments are prohibited (Score:2)
Human evolution unfolding (Score:2)