White House Proposal Would Have FCC and FTC Police Alleged Social Media Censorship (cnn.com) 140
A draft executive order from the White House could put the Federal Communications Commission in charge of shaping how Facebook, Twitter and other large tech companies curate what appears on their websites, CNN reported Friday, citing multiple people familiar with the matter. From the report: The draft order, a summary of which was obtained by CNN, calls for the FCC to develop new regulations clarifying how and when the law protects social media websites when they decide to remove or suppress content on their platforms. Although still in its early stages and subject to change, the Trump administration's draft order also calls for the Federal Trade Commission to take those new policies into account when it investigates or files lawsuits against misbehaving companies.
If put into effect, the order would reflect a significant escalation by President Trump in his frequent attacks against social media companies over an alleged but unproven systemic bias against conservatives by technology platforms. And it could lead to a significant reinterpretation of a law that, its authors have insisted, was meant to give tech companies broad freedom to handle content as they see fit.
If that's the case.... (Score:4, Insightful)
...Twitter should ban the serial Terms of Service violator Trump before this goes into effect. Up the game, gents.
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's the thing though. They are allowed to be biased. They aren't government run companies. They can ban you if your name is Joe if they want to. They don't need to prove shit.
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:3, Insightful)
But bake the cake or lose your business, right?
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:1)
Follow the law.
The law protects sexuality, not partisanship.
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: If that's the case.... (Score:2)
Under the state law of California - where Big Brother Google, Faceboot, and Twatter are based - political affiliation is in fact a protected class.
Yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
Contracts (Score:1)
because sexuality should be a protected class. Adjust what you wrote to: "Serve Blacks or lose your business" and suddenly it doesn't sound so reasonable....
The bakery owners refused to take a contract for a custom cake.
The customers were welcome to purchase any of the non-custom products on display - the owners said exactly that.
Adjust what you wrote to: "Accept a contract [from Blacks] no matter how bad the terms" and it illustrates the true situation.
Honestly, there's so much misinformaiton being thrown around in an attempt to push one point of view or another that it's astonishing(*). This is exactly why the government is looking closely at social media and
Re:Contracts (Score:4, Insightful)
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In that case all opinions posted can be assumed to be representative of the official position held by the website hosting them, and anyone who's suffered harm to their reputation due to false statements posted can sue for libel.
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:4, Informative)
In that case all opinions posted can be assumed to be representative of the official position held by the website hosting them, and anyone who's suffered harm to their reputation due to false statements posted can sue for libel.
[Citation Required]
Btw, this is a very commonly-believed legal falsehood. There's nothing in the law or precedent to actually do what you claim.
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:2)
Publishers certainly can be sued for defamation.
https://www.morse.law/news/pub... [morse.law]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Currently a (mis)interpretation of CDA 230 shields the internet monopolists from being considered publishers. This may change soon.
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Publishers certainly can be sued for defamation.
Yes, and they win those lawsuits about 99% of the time.
Again, moderation/curating does not create liability.
Currently a (mis)interpretation of CDA 230 shields the internet monopolists from being considered publishers
The explicit text of the law is a "misinterpretation"?
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:2)
The text of CDA 230 explicitly states that the "Internet and other interactive computer services offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse".
The law's purpose is to protect children and families from "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing" content; to "empower parents to restrict their children's access to objectionable or inappropriate online material"; and to "maximize user control over what information is received by individuals". The law also speaks of providin
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Faceboot et al are clearly not being good Samaritans when they censor overtly political speech directed at adults.
Please cite anything in the law or precedent that explicitly lists this exemption.
That situation no longer obtains, thanks to the market dominance of the Big Tech internet monopolists
The Daily Stormer is still up. So it turns out you don't need the blessing of Google, et al to be on the Internet.
Congress clearly did not intend the law to facilitate corporate censorship of political speech
Sure! That's why they explicitly said so in the law!!
Oh wait....they didn't.
Well, surely they made some sort of supporting declaration or something, right?
Oh wait.....they didn't.
So, beyond you deciding to define "Good Samaritan", do you have any actual evidence?
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:2)
Shills be shillin'...
"Please cite anything in the law or precedent that explicitly lists this exemption."
Why don't you cite a law where an unamerican and generally scurrilous act like stifling overtly political speech _is_ considered the work of a "good Samaritan"?
"The Daily Stormer is still up. So it turns out you don't need the blessing of Google, et al to be on the Internet."
NO ONE except jackbooted Corporate Nazis like you gives a flying fuck about that obviously-fake outrage site.
"do you have any actu
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Why don't you cite a law where an unamerican and generally scurrilous act like stifling overtly political speech _is_ considered the work of a "good Samaritan"?
So, couldn't find that definition that supports your claim then? Almost like it doesn't exist.....
Also, while the right is adamant that they must be getting censored, they've yet to produce evidence of it. Just things like "my subscriber count isn't going up as fast, so that means I'm shadow-banned". That ignores that the growth in any media slows over time. It's not like Game of Thrones got more viewers in the last 2 years that it got in the first 2 years.
Or they've said something awful and can't cope
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:2)
"So, couldn't find that definition that supports your claim then?"
Sorry, shill, not gonna jump when you say jump.
"the right is adamant that they must be getting censored"
Can't get past that tired right/left trope, eh?
"said something awful and can't cope with the consequences of their actions."
Once again you admit that censorship of political speech is happening. Of course, since you disagree with the censored opinion, whatever they said must be "awful".
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No..if you operate an open forum, you are a de-facto public Commons and must tolerate free speech under the Constitution.
[Citation Required]
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:4, Informative)
Opening a forum does not in itself make you a public commons. The server is private property and you don't have the right to access it without permission (remember all those illegal access to a computer on a network laws?)
Even more so if you're required to register to use it.
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:2)
Not if they want immunity from lawsuits they can't.
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:4, Insightful)
But they also say that the government should stay out of business, just before wanting the government to police Twitter. And yelling about the First Amendment just before getting the government to control what Americans have to put on their servers.
Don't try to make sense of it; the hypocrisy is endless. (And to be clear: liberals can be hypocrites too. But not so constantly, consistently, and obviously. A glass of water and the ocean are both wet, but not really the same wet.)
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The right wing have goals, not principles (Score:2)
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:2)
Correct. However the companies in question, shit for brains, are currently enjoying special govt. protections. Thus, shit for brains, what he is actually doing is saying that if they want the protection, they must play nice.
Re: If that's the case.... (Score:2)
You err in assuming 'liberal' and 'conservative' have static ideological meanings, static populations of adherents, and/or any utility whatsoever for analyzing contemporary American politics.
Without a doubt the Big Tech monopolists actively stifle certain parties voicing fully legal political speech. Those suppressed voices are understandably angry and indignant. Now they are turning to Uncle Sam to redress their grievances.
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Re:If that's the case.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Banning Trump from Twitter is the last thing they are going to do. I'll bet they will even change the Terms of Service to keep him on. No, they want to keep Trump on their platform at all costs. Trump being there brings so much attention to Twitter, and therefor eyes, and therefor dollars.
Beside banning Trump would just lead more fuel to the fire on calls to regulate social media. An now you would the have the full weight of the executive branch behind such calls. An despite what you personally think of Trump, this is the last thing you want to happen.
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"Banning Trump from Twitter is the last thing they are going to do." - admit it, the shitstorm would be fucking unbelievably hilarious. [youtube.com]
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Not gong to argue with that. If there is anything to be said about the Trump administration is it has been very entertaining.
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Not gong to argue with that. If there is anything to be said about the Trump administration is it has been very entertaining.
History repeats itself, first as comedy, then as tragedy, then as a lesson of what not to do - except on Internet time where we get them all at once.
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Well in this case we haven't got to the tragedy yet. I imagine that will happen after Trump leaves office.
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Banning Trump from Twitter is the last thing they are going to do.
Beside banning Trump would just lead more fuel to the fire on calls to regulate social media.
Which is probably why Twitter unlocked Mitch McConnell's campaign account today
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Banning Trump from Twitter is the last thing they are going to do. I'll bet they will even change the Terms of Service to keep him on. No, they want to keep Trump on their platform at all costs. Trump being there brings so much attention to Twitter, and therefor eyes, and therefor dollars.
One other reason: Trump isn't going to stop microblogging because Twitter bans him. If he moves to Gab or Minds or Frendicia, that social network gets a year and a half of free advertising as CNN and MSNBC complain about it. Then, since the aforementioned talking heads will keep calling it "Tweeting", Twitter will either have to endure the brand dilution as "tweet" simply becomes a synonym for microblogging outside of Twitter. If that happens, you can bet half of Twitter's users will move over to that servi
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Twitter already admitted (Score:2)
I think Trump should be banned for the same reason Alex Jones was: inciting violence.
On the plus side Trump keeps taking cheap shots at Fox News. It's pretty obvious he's gearing up to start his own network when he's out of office. Maybe he'll give up on the election in exchange for a pardon from the next president.
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Banning Trump from Twitter is the last thing they are going to do. I'll bet they will even change the Terms of Service to keep him on. No, they want to keep Trump on their platform at all costs. Trump being there brings so much attention to Twitter, and therefor eyes, and therefor dollars.
Beside banning Trump would just lead more fuel to the fire on calls to regulate social media. An now you would the have the full weight of the executive branch behind such calls. An despite what you personally think of Trump, this is the last thing you want to happen.
I actually do. It would lead to discussions about moderating content that are long overdue. Plus, their argument is everyone should be treated equally. I'm all for that...with NO exceptions. Some of the pigs shouldn't be more equal than the others.
But yes, Twitter is all about the Benjamins.
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Freedom of Speech, what's that? I guess an old concept.
It's in the First Amendment of the US Constitution -- something Trump swore to defend and protect. Oh well...
Hooray for the Internet, All of Human Thought... (Score:1)
7.7 billion monkeys with typewriters and Twitter/Snapchat/Facebook is the blurst we can do.
Alexa, play Despacito.
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Boourns!
Isn't it funny... (Score:2, Insightful)
How you can spend 2 years complaining about Russian FB ads and Twitter bots
Then frame improved regulation of content policies on social networks as "unproven conservative conspiracy"
Mental gymnastics should be in the Olympics - its hella entertaining to watch
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Re: "Conservatives" (Score:1)
Coke vs. Pepsi
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Because that's what Republicans used to be.
Then the 1980s happened.
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Actually the 1960's. Johnson supported civil rights which pissed off the southern Democrats, who were courted by Nixon, so the southern Democrats became southern Republicans and the icing on the cake was Reagan courting the religious nuts.
American politics is weird.
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Except in the 1960s they were still conservative. The radicals didn't have much power until Reagan.
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The KKK types weren't radical?
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Not in this context - they were against change. They wanted the status quo that gave them power over other races.
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OK, context matters.
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Bigots might be a better description unless they're stupid enough to consider Poles a different race.
Re: "Conservatives" (Score:4, Informative)
Because in the 1860s, the hate-mongers supported the idea of keeping slavery. Then a conservative Republican president ended slavery, so the hate-mongers jumped to the liberal Democrat party.
Wow, your understanding of American history is worse than even the Russian scholars.
The slavery/abolition tension began as early as the Constitution itself, and the political heat amped up over decades, breaking the Whig Party of the United States after the Kansas-Nebraska act leading to the formation of the Republican Party among which was its very liberal member, Abraham Lincoln, a former Whig.
He was not conservative even by the standards of the time, let alone today, and the actual reason for abolition of slavery was because the Southern Conservatives who were primarily identified as Democrats decided to press the issue by force majeure instead of talking since they knew they had a losing position.
Of course, they lost open slavery, but they managed to keep the system of white supremacy intact in the South and the politicians in the North ignored it as long as they kept political power.
It wasn't until the Soviets could use it against the country that the US began to force a change.
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Johnson and Ford were never elected).
The 1964 election which Johnson won didn't happen?
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> was its very liberal member, Abraham Lincoln, a former Whig.
Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, it's weird that you try to lay claim to him as a "liberal" when he was against permitting people to own each oth
Allowing people to own each other, especially those born into slavery, doesn't seem at all liberal. If you look at it from a libertarian rule of law basis, how can you have agree to agree to a contract to be owned by someone else at conception?
Nakedly unconstitutional (Score:2, Insightful)
As we all know and has been repeated ad nauseum, only the government cannot abridge your right to free speech, according to the text of the Constitution itself. This is pure politics to whip the intentionally uninformed into a frenzy.
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Wrong, dipshit. Regulation and lawsuits are in the works. I can't wait. Social media needs to die as a whole, and I hope this is the thing that does it.
Twitter, Facebook, et al. ar private companies operating public businesses that serve as public spaces of discussion.
Not only are the barred from discriminating based on any protected class (race, sex, etc.), they cannot restrict legal speech on a public platform anymore than the government can restrict protests in a public park by handing off operation o
Re:Nakedly unconstitutional (Score:4, Insightful)
they cannot restrict legal speech on a public platform anymore than the government can restrict protests in a public park by handing off operation of the park to a private entity.
[Citation Required]
Also, keep in mind "handing off operation" is not the same as "handing off ownership". If the government still owns the park, then it doesn't matter who "operates" it. The government is still the owner.
Further Facebook cannot police content without also becoming liable for said content - publisher vs. platform.
This is a common legal falsehood, and not backed up by any law or precedent.
Or if you'd like to counter that, [Citation Required].
And of course, acting in a way that does not specifically target a protected class (like enforcing building codes) is still illegal if it disproportionately affects a protected class (like the immigrants living in the buildings that would be condemned).
"Immigrants" are not a protected class.
Also, "disproportionate impact" cases are not nearly as cut-and-dry as you claim.
The same reasoning is used when discussing voter ID laws - they're totally fair but because some people claim that a protected class would be disproportionately affected, they get shot down.
No, "disproportionate impact" has not been used to strike down voter ID laws. Instead, the authors of said laws were sufficiently public about their motivations, and what IDs count and what don't, that straightforward discrimination cases could be brought.
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As we all know and has been repeated ad nauseum, only the government cannot abridge your right to free speech, according to the text of the Constitution itself. This is pure politics to whip the intentionally uninformed into a frenzy.
The Constitution says Congress can't pass laws abridging your speech. If you want to see government abridging your speech, go into a court room and loudly speak about anything off topic or better call the Judge an asshole.
Judges can also order you to not talk about certain things.
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Can I poop on social media?
Sure. Trump shitposts all the time.
Change in ToS.. (Score:2)
How quickly will all Social Media change their Terms of Service to include:
a.) Signing your privacy and posting rights away completely.
b.) Indemnifying the company against all legal action in perpetuity for all events real or perceived.
c.) Enforce binding arbitration in lieu of litigation.
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During their eight years in control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans added $7.9 trillion to the national debt.
In a report published by the U.S. Treasury Department entitled “The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It,” one need only set the correct date parameters to find out how much the money the self-professed “party of limited government” borrowed, adding to the already unimaginable national shortfall totaling nearly $22 trillion!
On January 4, 2011, the day prior to
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Trump is actually fairly centrist.
In the same way that a man with one foot in a bucket of icewater and the other in a boiling pot is "comfortable". Yeah, on average, but the variance is so large that the mean is meaningless.
The label "centrist" is applied to people who hold opinions that are clustered in the center of mainstream opinion. Trump is most definitely not a centrist.
Re:Well, not that shocked (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree with you except for a few minor bits:
Trump was never centrist. Trump is and always has been Trumpist (which means "supports whatever is best for Trump right now"). Before he started courting the right, he was pretty liberal for any policies which did not affect him or his business, though as you said this was not because of any true convictions.
Also, Trump has been redefining things. Now most conservative people will happily proclaim that trade sanctions are the best trade policies, unlike the le
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What a proactive administration! (Score:2)
Constitutional question (Score:2)
So if a company is censoring something... and the government censors their ability to censor those things... is that government censorship? Like, is it censorship to force them to show something? *head explodes*
Exec orders aren't worth the (Score:2)
We all know that Executive Orders aren't worth the crayons they're written with.
Memo that.
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SubjectIsSubject (Score:2)
-People with the right opinion, or the left opinion in this case
Quisat custodies ipsos custodes (Score:1)
WTF?
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You just lack imagination
no jurisdiction.. (Score:2, Insightful)
if the fcc doesn't have the jurisdiction to slap network neutrality rules on the pipes connecting user to web site (that was one of shit pai's arguments), the fcc certainly has no fucking jurisdiction wrt the web sites themselves. this administration can go fuck themselves raw.
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if the fcc doesn't have the jurisdiction to slap network neutrality rules on the pipes connecting user to web site (that was one of shit pai's arguments), the fcc certainly has no fucking jurisdiction wrt the web sites themselves. this administration can go fuck themselves raw.
This. It would seem the FCC under Pai wants to liberate the service providers, but regulate the content providers. It should be the other way around!
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"IMHO, past history of large Internet websites/companies like FaceBook & Twitter & YouTube
absolutely/clearly shows that, they never really want to deal w/ cleaning/filtering of their own content!"
FaceBook, Twitter & YouTube do not have their own content, so there is nothing for them to be cleaning/filtering.
The person creating the content is responsible for it, not the harmless intermediaries. However, if those intermediaries are not 100% completely impartial and transparent (ie, completely ref
Re: Freedom of association (Score:1)
Tell that to a lunch counter proprietor in 1956 Alabama.
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It's arguable that Twitter is one. The place has verbs based on it's name at this point. That idea is part of the discussion, and you can't just brush it away.
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