McConnell Ties Full Repeal of Section 230 To Push for $2,000 Stimulus Checks (theverge.com) 455
On Tuesday night, McConnell introduced a new bill tying increased stimulus payments to a full repeal of Section 230. From a report: The bill comes amid new momentum for direct $2000 stimulus payments, and increasing pressure on party leaders to appease President Trump's escalating demands. Democratic party leaders criticized the inclusion of Section 230 repeal as an effort to scuttle stimulus talks. "Senator McConnell knows how to make $2,000 survival checks reality and he knows how to kill them," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement Tuesday. "Will Senate Republicans go along with Sen. McConnell's cynical gambit or will they push him to give a vote on the standalone [bill]?"
McConnell's bid for a full repeal of Section 230 comes amid increasingly chaotic negotiating over the level of direct payments to be included as part of stimulus efforts. On Sunday, President Trump signed into law Congress' $900 billion COVID-19 relief and government spending package that would provide $600 in stimulus payments to most Americans. In a public statement after signing the bill, Trump urged congressional leaders to hold a standalone vote on increasing direct payments to $2,000.
McConnell's bid for a full repeal of Section 230 comes amid increasingly chaotic negotiating over the level of direct payments to be included as part of stimulus efforts. On Sunday, President Trump signed into law Congress' $900 billion COVID-19 relief and government spending package that would provide $600 in stimulus payments to most Americans. In a public statement after signing the bill, Trump urged congressional leaders to hold a standalone vote on increasing direct payments to $2,000.
Political Posturing (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty much everything we see from these guys will be political posturing until the Georgia runoffs are done. The Democrats introduced a $2000 per person bill recently [npr.org], fully intending McConnell to swat it down. They knew it wasn't going to pass. Now McConnell's doing the same. If he really wanted to give everyone $2000, he'd let the Dem's bill go up for a vote.
Section 230 cannot be repealed without some sort of replacement. Without it, sites with user-generated content (such as this one) must either become completely neutral and acquire the same immunity ISP's get, or manually review all content before allowing it to be posted. The first option results in every social media site becoming 4chan. Say goodbye to spam and porn filters. The second means there will be no social media sites at all, since it's impossible to turn a profit when you're earning pennies per thousand impressions but each post costs you 10x that to review.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
But Trump might read something that hurts his feelings, and those protections prevent him from reaching for his lawyers like they were a security blanket!
Re:Political Posturing (Score:4, Insightful)
It would basically kill social media as we know it in America.
Why is this a bad thing?
Because it will kill all speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the stuff on the internet is directly or indirectly thriving on user. Kill that and you kill most of the US internet, or the willingness of foreign firm to even have the US as a market or accept stuff from that market : doing business with the US would mean they fall under that law.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It would just make them responsible
I.e. kill them.
They would have to take more care in who is allowed to upload. This would be a good thing.
Well, dumbshits like you certainly won't be able to post anything.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, they COULD allow folks to post freely what they want without editorialization and act more like a common carrier (analogy)....and allow more free flow of ideas, much like the internet was when it was in its early years.
Nope. That doesn't work. "Common carrier" is a very narrowly defined term and it doesn't apply to web sites.
Never mind the fact that without moderation you simply get 4chan/b/.
Re: (Score:3)
I think you missed the part where I was saying this was an analogy to common carrier in the true sense.
It doesn't work. Common carrier is not a "common loudspeaker".
The real problems is having ONE corporate entity being able to mould and censor speech in what has become the modern day equivalent of the public town square.
Then use anti-trust laws. Not state-sponsored censorship, like Republicans want.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it wouldn't kill those sites. It would just make them responsible. They would have to take more care in who is allowed to upload. This would be a good thing.
Not only is it not a good thing for free speech, ironically in light of your view that Section 230 only enables censorship, but it would not be a good thing for these sites, and it would not be a good thing for users. Taking care in who is allowed to "upload" is not sufficient to avoid liability. They will have to make a good faith effort to vet all content, regardless of source, and even then they can easily be bankrupted in court trying to prove that they were making such an effort.
You have sold yourself
Re:Because it will kill all speech (Score:5, Insightful)
You have sold yourself a line of bullshit so that you can avoid thinking about the obvious consequences of such a move, and it is interfering with your reasoning. If we had a perfect legal system you might be right, but we clearly don't, so you clearly don't.
The hardcore right have convinced themselves that some left leaning cabal is in charge and oppressing them. Since those cabal members use section 230, clearly 230 is the problem and scrapping it will kill the cabal ushering forth a utopia of right wing free speech.
Of course when they get what they want (parler, gab, voat), it turns into a shitfest, so it never works out. But you know reality is for teh libruhls.
Re: (Score:3)
It's the users that don't act responsibly. Don't expect that to change.
Re:Because it will kill all speech (Score:4, Insightful)
If web sites can't make their users act responsibly than the sites shouldn't exist.
You haven't thought that through all the way.
This means every statement, every utterance, every meme, every live video, every image, everything must have a human look at the details of the comments and ensure it fits the corporate culture since the company can be held liable. You cannot automate "responsibility", as that is a moral choice. The web site is responsible for pornography or worse if some sneaky poster has put some nudity visible in the chrome reflection of a "for sale" ad. The web site is responsible for IP infringement if a user finds a way to sneak on unlicensed music or leaks a secret recipe. Since users may engage in broader patterns which are "irresponsible", they must have people looking at their posting history, and looking at interaction with others, and ensure there isn't subtle abuse going on, requiring an army of reiviewers. They must consider the future and simple bias: will they be liable for violations because they had subtle pro-white, or subtle pro-men, or subtle pro-straight patterns? Or whatever the next social movement is, there was subtle and unintentional discrimination against $(group) therefore the company is liable for billions of dollars in damages. That model is prohibitively expensive and could not last.
Following to the end line, there are only two options. Either EVERYTHING must be permitted to stay, requiring a court order for removal lest the harm be considered too great because the company has no authority to remove it, or EVERYTHING must be vetted by the company because the company itself is liable so only people willing to bear the cost will publish, much like newspapers and books where only a few vetted, reviewed, and edited speakers are permitted, and even that is often done with money changing hands.
The second option destroys public involvement. The end game either looks like either journals and books where content creators pay and editors curate the content, or it looks like newspapers where reporters collect statements and multiple layers of editors change their language and decide what gets published, what makes headlines, and what is cut. Those unable or unwilling to pay the costs are unable to speak.
230 allows both options. Individuals remain liable for their own posts, while simultaneously websites are allowed to remove spam, hate speech, IP violations, posts they feel are offensive, and also viewpoints they disagree with or don't want to support all without court orders. Web sites can then curate a community, filter out spam and offensive speech and trolling, and promote the gems, promote established experts, and more. In exchange companies must be responsive to legal demands both by posters, those potentially harmed by posts, and law enforcement.
Re:Because it will kill all speech (Score:5, Informative)
The internet got popular enough that it drew the attention of some litigious jerks.
Check out Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. [wikipedia.org]. Stratton Oakmont (the investment firm of "Wolf of Wall Street" infamy) successfully sued Prodigy for defamation because of something a user had posted on a bulletin board that Prodigy operated. What did Prodigy do to expose themselves to this liability? They "exercised editorial control over the messages on their bulletin boards in three ways: 1) by posting Content Guidelines for users, 2) by enforcing those guidelines with "Board Leaders", and 3) by utilizing screening software designed to remove offensive language."
Congress then stepped in and passed Section 230, so that information service providers could not be held liable for their users content on the basis of taking such action.
Re: (Score:3)
Usenet newsgroups existed for decades before section 230.
No they didn't. Usenet started in 1980, and 47 USC 230 was enacted in 1996. But more importantly, Usenet flew under the radar (and was even somewhat sedate) in the 80s. The public at large only started to notice the Internet in the early 90s, just as the seminal cases giving rise to the safe harbor came along, from the then-more popular walled garden online services, CompuServe and Prodigy. The CompuServe case is from 1991, the Prodigy case is from 1995.
I have no doubts that a Usenet case brought against so
Re:Political Posturing (Score:5, Funny)
Why is this a bad thing?
Wouldn't you miss Slashdot?
Re: (Score:3)
With questions like the GP's I'm really carefully considering the answer to your question.
Re: (Score:2)
It would basically kill social media as we know it in America.
Why is this a bad thing?
On one hand, I'm cheering for the death of social media and the mass narcissism and addiction it has created.
On the other hand, I'm well aware of the sheer amount of bullshit jobs that are generated daily by the sheer existence of social media data pimps, and it's hard to dismiss the impact of that when from an employment perspective it would likely rival the impact of a viral pandemic shutting down entire economies, and we sure as hell don't dismiss the impact of that as we pass taxpayer-funded bailouts fo
Re:Political Posturing (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not great for Democrats.Remember, it was the Democrats that utilized it first with Obama's campaign in 2006-8, but then the Tea Party jumped aboard and took over in 2008. Social media is great for parties out of power because it greatly amplifies the voices of people who are upset about things.
Now that the Democrats are in power, they would be smart to kill that tool.
Let's kill the internet [Re:Political Posturing] (Score:5, Insightful)
It would basically kill social media as we know it in America.
Why is this a bad thing?
It is a bad thing because it would kill the internet. The internet basically is a pipe; the law says that the servers are not responsible for what it sent through it, the people originating the material are.
If the servers are responsible for what is sent through the internet: the internet is dead.
It is not a bad thing for America, as social media is what driving radicalization and polarization.
True. Social media tends to amplify the extremes. https://theconversation.com/th... [theconversation.com]
However, it is bad thing for Democrats as social media is one of their key power centers. Therefore, it is unlikely to happen.
Inaccurate. Social media is widely attributed as the tool that Donald Trump took advantage of to win the White House.
Social media is great for parties out of power because it greatly amplifies the voices of people who are upset about things.
Right. In fact, it amplifies all sorts of extremes.
Re: Let's kill the internet [Re:Political Posturi (Score:3)
How does any of that affect my ability to:
Watch Netflix
Update my OS
Install software packages
Connect to my company's GitHub server
Attend Zoom meetings
Buy a game on GOG
Play on my family's Minecraft realm server
Get real news without opinion or bias injected into it
Find a recipe for Siu Yuk
The internet is not social media. Social media is a cancer on the internet and western society and deserves to die.
Re: (Score:3)
It would also kill the small social media. Anywhere where a user can post a comment; game sites, technical discussions, product reviews, feedback, etc. Once a company can be sued and held responsible for the actions of any of its users, then they will forbid user interaction without some sort of security in place (paid subscriptions that come with indemnity contracts perhaps.
Section 230 is NOT just about social media sites. It is about the entirety of the internet. It reads:
“No provider or user of
Re: (Score:3)
I think that this post and the parent post show that it is indeed polarizing :). The fact that the discussion descends into Republicans vs. Democrats so quickly is a problem. People are thinking far too narrowly about the impacts of removing Section 230.
"Social media" is only a small part of what it covers. Section 230 covers many things that people don't associate with that term. Do you think slashdot is "social media" or "just a forum"? What about GitHub? Or Google (the search engine)? Or your Wordpress s
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is not a bad thing for America, as social media is what driving radicalization and polarization. However, it is bad thing for Democrats as social media is one of their key power centers. Therefore, it is unlikely to happen.
No democrat has ever gotten as much out of social media as Trump has, and without it to keep his base whipped into a froth of stupidity he would have lost all popularity long ago. But tell us all again about how dependent Democrats are on it.
Re:Political Posturing (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting, the varying perspectives on this. I think quite the opposite -- Trump's presidency would have been more effective and less polarizing if he had stayed off Twitter.
Re:Political Posturing (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll agree and disagree. The "effectiveness" of Trump's presidency was possibly diminished by his use of Twitter, but he was never really trying to be effective in the usual sense of the word. He was trying to develop a mindless cult following which was overall quite successful, largely due to twitter.
Re: (Score:3)
He was trying to develop a mindless cult following which was overall quite successful, largely due to twitter.
I think you and most people overestimate the effect Twitter has on his base. Go ask your favorite most rabid Trump supporter what his/her Twitter handle is. Of all the Trump voters I know exactly zero has ever used Twitter. Now go ask your favorite Trump hater and then you'll get some takers.
Re:Political Posturing (Score:5, Insightful)
The tweets tend to be consumed indirectly. I've never actually logged into Trump's twitter accounts, but news of his tweets and reposts are everywhere.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Social media can not cover a particular story. But it's still available elsewhere. Social media can't hunt down and kill all the newspapers and websites that promulgate a story.
Re:Political Posturing (Score:4, Informative)
Social media can't hunt down and kill all the newspapers and websites that promulgate a story.
Yes they can. As social media companies are also digital advertisers, they can effectively demonetize newspapers that lost most advertising revenue to digital.
That is fundamentally not the same thing. Newspapers lost their advertising revenue to "digital" (guess what? newspapers are online now, too! amazing!) because they failed to change with the times. Facebook did not come after them in any way. They failed to keep up.
When Twitter went after New York Post it took GOP Senate intervention and a threat of immediate legislation to rein them in.
By "went after New York Post" you mean "temporarily terminated their right to use Twitter's platform to spread disinformation". That's exceptionally disingenuous, even for you. They were following their policies at the time. Due to mass outcry from stupid people who were upset that steps were taken to reduce disinformation, they updated their policies.
Re: (Score:3)
So you believe that the NYP, a commercial operation, is entitled to use someone else's services and infrastructure to make money and that entity has no choice but to provide it? Furthermore, you feel that advertisers must provide revenue to "newspapers", it's remarkable how anti-free market your arguments are.
Advertisers have always had power to the extent that they vote with their wallets and platforms are not required to provide a voice to anyone for any reason. Also, advertising platforms are not adver
Re: (Score:3)
If the New York Post is dependent upon another business to blindly publish without exercising any editorial review to survive, then they're already dead. They exercise their own editorial review before publishing for the exact same reason.
Don't violate the terms of service if you don't want to get kicked the fuck off.
Re:Political Posturing (Score:4, Insightful)
The Hunter Biden story has holes big enough to fly Air Force One through. We know for sure that the President and his family has taken advantage of the presidency for profit [usatoday.com], though.
Re:Political Posturing (Score:5, Insightful)
You're a fool.
Want to know why the laptop story was smothered? Because Rudy Giuliani refused to provide the data from the laptop to anyone in the mainstream media except for Fox news and The Wall Street Journal, who both said that the emails did not prove what was being claimed.
The story died because nobody other than fringe media was reporting it. Nobody but fringe media was reporting it because it was almost pure fiction. We know it was almost pure fiction because if the emails actually proved what was claimed, Giuliani would have immediately spread those emails far and wide, knowing that even one story from non-right-wing media would have ended Biden's chances.
But no. He wanted to create a false narrative, as "proof" that the "liberal media" were "conspiring against President Trump", so that the man with the world's most serious persecution complex could trick a few more voters into feeling sorry for him.
Everything about the laptop non-story and how Giuliani spread it was pure political posturing, with no real substance. And that's why it never took off — not because it was "smothered", but because apart from a few ultra-partisan wingnuts, almost nobody actually believed it.
Re:Political Posturing (Score:5, Informative)
Everything about the laptop non-story and how Giuliani spread it was pure political posturing, with no real substance. And that's why it never took off â" not because it was "smothered", but because apart from a few ultra-partisan wingnuts, almost nobody actually believed it.
Which is exactly like the non-story about election fraud. Trump and his lawyers make accusations against the process in public, but then make no allegations of fraud in the courtroom because they have no evidence. But then I still have to hear from people about how this election was fraudulent. The only evidence of manipulation on any significant scale is Trump's abuse of the postal system. Which brings us back to business as usual. If you are busy doing something, accuse the other side of doing it, because it confuses the issue. It even makes it harder to find relevant results from search engines. If you go looking for nepotism you have to wade through tons of bullshit about Hunter Biden before you find things like information on Kushner running a shell company which pays money to assorted Trumps [vanityfair.com]. The Trumps are as per SOP accusing the Bidens of doing what the Trumps are doing. You point this out to Trumpanzees and they lose their shit and tell you that you're deluded by the MSM, with no sense of irony whatsoever over the fact that Trump has gone to the MSM time and again to spread his lies.
Re:Political Posturing (Score:5, Interesting)
It wasn't just Trump trying to manipulate the vote using the postal system the Republicans also tried to suppress the vote in California with fake drop boxes. I was really surprise that this didn't come up again during the whole process of Trump complaining about fraudulent voting in swing states. I guess since the vote in California was overwhelmingly for Biden it these fake drop boxes didn't have an impact but it still shows that it is actually the Republicans that were trying to manipulate the vote and not Democrats.
It just goes to show you that the Democrats really don't know how to play the game properly. If the Democrats had done something similar in a predominately Republican state you know that the Republicans wouldn't have let it drop that easy.
Re:Political Posturing (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire Hunter Biden laptop story was laughable from its onset. If you paid attention to the entire story about how it was abandoned by the supposed owner, left to sit for such a long time and then for someone to just access it with all of this incriminating data.
No law enforcement agency would even consider looking at it, the chain of evidence was so badly corrupted it was useless. There was enough time for even an unsophisticated group could create a seemingly valid batch of emails and messages on that machine. The illusion would not need to hold up for long, just long enough for people to vote and the attention to go away.
Similar ridiculous claims happened in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. Some of those stories were even more ridiculous; Like the pizza-pedo story, satanic worship and a secret cabal that was in charge of the new world order. The Trump group tried the same thing in 2020 with the Hunter Biden laptop story but this time nobody was biting. It only had play with the most partisan edges of the lunatic fringe.
I bet that you will not hear another serious claim about this laptop. It may suddenly get lost or maybe someone will claim that pizza delivery people with chinese made neodymium magnets snuck in and erased the hard drive.
Re:Political Posturing (Score:4, Interesting)
Trump got elected in 2016 due to Social Media allowing for the propagation of fake news, and its algorithms made sure those who fall for it, would be targeted to receive it.
The big social media sites, really aren't in the game to be political, they are in it to make money. So how well Social Media Affects the voters, is depending on how well the party utilizes the platform.
With the 2020 Election, Social Media was under a lot of pressure to make sure it didn't propagate fake news, so it did basically the minimum that they needed to do to get people off their backs. What makes it seem like they are being politically bias, was the fact that the Republican Groups and Conservative people were more apt to post Fake News that got flagged.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
...The second means there will be no social media sites at all, since it's impossible to turn a profit when you're earning pennies per thousand impressions but each post costs you 10x that to review.
OR, those that created this now-defunct model could reflect back on 20th Century capitalist values and actually look to charge money for a product instead of turning YOU into one. Capitalistic Greed survived and thrived online well before the concept of selling your digital soul in exchange for a "free" service came along. I'm quite certain that between popularity and pure addiction social media could find a way to continue.
And if not, what else is there to say about the death of "social" media? Good rid
Re:Political Posturing (Score:5, Insightful)
OR, those that created this now-defunct model could reflect back on 20th Century capitalist values and actually look to charge money for a product instead of turning YOU into one.
Sorry but that is horseshit. "Digital" didn't invent the concept of a platform. The idea of using users to advertise to is neither defunct nor is it 20th Century. Hell the concept of advertisers paying for users seeing content was invented hundreds of years ago. Combining the advertisement in a newspaper with the local pinboard at the shopping centre does not make it some amazing "turn the user into the product derp derp" concept.
And if not, what else is there to say about the death of "social" media? Good riddance?
That is the fucking dumbest thing I've ever heard. If you...
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slashdot would be gone too (Score:2)
Re: Political Posturing (Score:2)
In great part, the socmed business model came about due to the difficulty of selling digital goods, which largely didn't exist for most of the 20th century.
I'm not suggesting that "CD piracy begat Facebook" - that's dumb on the face of it.
But before Apple managed to sell iTunes tracks to people, it was by no means certain that one could make a business out of selling a digital item that had no cost of duplication, no shipping weight, no packaging to speak of, no large inventory cost, and which could be many
Re: (Score:3)
A cunning plan with one fatal flaw.
This will only apply to US companies. Non-US ones will carry on offering their services for "free". Just like paywalled news sites they will struggle to compete.
Re:Political Posturing (Score:4, Insightful)
OR, those that created this now-defunct model could reflect back on 20th Century capitalist values and actually look to charge money for a product instead of turning YOU into one.
The whole idea that selling PII turns a person into a product is stupid. I am not being sold, that would be slavery.
You aren't being sold, no. But everything about you is. Your age, your race, your education level, your address, your income, your spending habits, browsing history, your friends and family, your email contacts, even your picture, are all bundled together and being sold-not even to the highest bidder, they'll sell that to pretty much any bidder, who can also turn around and sell that data on as well. All for one purpose-to sell you stuff. And the worst part? There's no real indication that it actually even works!Your data is being sold so that companies can make money off of companies hoping to make money off you.
No, you aren't being sold. What they are selling is a soulless, lifeless husk of a clone of you.
Re: (Score:3)
No, you aren't being sold. What they are selling is a soulless, lifeless husk of a clone of you.
To be more specific, they are attempting to sell your attention.
Re: (Score:3)
OR, those that created this now-defunct model could reflect back on 20th Century capitalist values and actually look to charge money for a product instead of turning YOU into one.
The whole idea that selling PII turns a person into a product is stupid. I am not being sold, that would be slavery.
I really don't think we should expect a society who enslaved themselves with every blind "I Agree" button click, to be able to identify it any better than the addiction they also suffer from.
As others have deftly pointed out, everything about you is being bought and sold every day. Often times whether you agreed to it or not. When "in public view" is quite literally the only excuse needed to sell legalized mass surveillance to the masses, it tends to say a lot about both public ignorance and tolerance.
Re: Political Posturing (Score:2, Troll)
Bullshit, it doesn't turn sites into 4chan. That is totalitarian FUD.
Your phone and e-mail address and mailbox aren't 4chan, are they?
You are still free to filter crap, but not for everybody else!
Aka no privatized censorship!
A site can offer parsable comment IDs, and a browser add-on, much like an ad blocker, can pull a list of blocked comments/users for that site from a user-configured URL, that itself came from a database of site-specific URLs, chosen by the user.
And the add-on could offer such a database
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You're wrong about section 230... [techdirt.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong. Without S230, they would have to start filtering for everybody. But the only safe way to do it is at the time of upload, by rejecting the comment until it's reviewed, or you post a bond, or something like that.
And your browser plugin idea would still have to pull the data from somewhere. Whoever hosts the database of "site specific URLs" would have the same increased liability risk.
Re: Political Posturing (Score:4, Insightful)
who the FUCK cares about 'section 230' right now when...
MILLIONS ARE IN LINE FOR FOOD. people are at the end (or beyhond) of their rope and we have NO safety net in the US. the rethuglicans have done all they can to destroy what safety nets we used to have.
I can't think of a more heartless, cruel and INHUMAN group as the current rethuglicans.
how DARE you mingle bullshit like this when people are starving and in the middle of a ONCE IN A CENTURY PANDEMIC.
mcturtle should get covid. I'd drink a toast to that. and its not evil to wish evil on evil people. its not. we want our tormentors to suffer and basically just 'go away' since they have no compassion in their hearts.
sweep them all out since they are doing us no good at all.
when do we say we've had enough of the R's ruining our lives?
don't even try that BSAB bullshit. don't even.
Re: Political Posturing (Score:4, Informative)
We might pay out the arse in the UK in terms of taxes and NI but we get a very sweet deal in return for it, namely that folks who didn't prepare for freak disasters are still kept reasonably safe.
Since you live in the U.K. I will let you in on a little secret... The U.S. has a LOT of safety nets - you just never hear about them.
You may have heard about Medicare - specifically the idea of "Medicare for All" but have you heard about Medicaid? It is Medicare... for low income people, families (i.e. - have kids), are disabled, etc. Also, you can roll into an emergency room and get looked at - which is a stupid and inefficient way of doing it, but you can still do it - even if you are in the country illegally.
We also have SNAP - the supplemental food program - that we spend $60 billion on every year. Again, for low income people. The average person got $125/month - families averaged $250/month. I heard this program got expanded this year, but I don't know the details.
If you want to talk this year, people earning less than $75k/year are getting two stimulus checks totaling $1800 - more if they have dependents. If they were unemployed, they got another $6000 from the federal government on top of their state unemployment. Some states even got an additional 4 weeks at $300. So, they could have gotten $9k on top of their unemployment benefits - which were also extended past the usual 26 weeks. (Some states are shorter, some are longer, but most have 26 weeks of benefits.) In fact, in my state, people were making $1k/week for sitting on their couch for 10 weeks. I talked to a number of managers who said their employees didn't want to come back to work because they were making more doing nothing.
Hey - you can even get a free smartphone and plan under the Lifeline Program by the FCC.
So, yeah... Plenty of lifelines on this side of the pond - especially this year.
Re: (Score:2)
You dramatically over estimate the popularity of 4Chan.
tehre ios no neutrality requirement in S230 (Score:2)
I think you're overstating your case (Score:2)
Porn and spam both fall into regulated categories of behavior already. The former can be blocked under the guise of obedience to obscenity laws; the latter can be hammered with the same legal theory that says that someone cannot randomly plant signs in your yard or business property (especially for financial gain) without your permission. There is no common law or statutory legal theory open to spammers to claim a right to monetize someone else's property.
Re:Political Posturing (Score:5, Interesting)
WTF? Where does it say that "becoming neutral" (what does that even mean?) will cause liability protection to still exist?
Without Section 230, no webmaster can afford to have user-contributed content at all. If your grandma leaves comments enabled on her Wordpress site, she'll be taking a financial risk. Wanna post on Twitter? Get hired as a Twitter employee.
It's not about the GA runoffs (Score:4, Informative)
Before that the Dems had their asses handed to them by McConnell. They gave up everything except corporate liability for COVID and in exchange got just enough to keep 14 million Americans from homelessness. That's pretty standard fare for the Dems. The GOP is strong because they're more than happy to hold those 14 million hostage for a political advantage. The Dems, being kinda decent folk, weren't. So McConnell was in the stronger bargaining position. I'm frankly surprised their held their ground on corp liability.
Anyway the crap bill was set to quietly pass giving Loeffler and Perdue an out when Trump tossed in that bomb. He did that to wrestle control of the party away from McConnell. It's probably not going to work. McConnell's a bastard but he's good at what he does. These poison pills he's added can't even be voted on, any bill that involves money has to start in the House, he doesn't have the right to modify the bill like he just did.
But now instead of us talking about how of the $1 trillion in relief from the last bill 70% goes to big business and how that's all on McConnell and the GOP as the Dems fought and lost for those $2000 checks we're talking about how the Dems are at fault.
McConnell is *damn* good at what he does. He's a shield. He protects the Republican party from criticism for it's terrible policies. And we fall in line with everything he does.
They did write and pass a clean bill 6 months ago (Score:3, Interesting)
Also go read Newt Gingrich's Wikipedia article. Blocking bills that help Americans is a central plant of the GOP strategy for seizing power. It's called "The Contract With America". Hell, the GOP repeatedly threatened to block funding to the government if they didn't get their way, doing so would crash the entire worl
None of them care in the slightest (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:None of them care in the slightest (Score:5, Insightful)
To be clear, the leaders of neither party actually care about you or your family except as a means of retaining power. The unusual thing about what is going on now is that normally it is the minority party that is forced to do crap like this to stall the flow of legislation that their base doesn't like, but Trump is essentially his own opposition party, so even though the GOP holds both the senate and the presidency (at least for a few more weeks), for the past four years McConnell has been forced to kill legislation that would make Trump unhappy, even though much of the original GOP base (pre Trumpers) would have supported it.
The old GOP is no more, the are now ReTrumplicans, to quote Cuomo, and have given up on many of the tenets of conservatism. States rights? Not when you want to overturn the results of another state's election. Fiscal responsibility? Don't make me laugh. There are. few conservatives left who believe in their principles and are willing to work with the other side to get things done, but they are being marginalized and forced out by the Trump-kissers. While I disagree with many of the old Republican policies, having a counter balance kept government from going too far in either direction.
Trump will do everything he can to stay in the spotlight, for it is the attention his ego needs and he craves; so unless his base leaves him he will continue to drive the GOP. Of course, if his base leaves all of a sudden all those ReTrumplicans will suddenly have a change of heart and claim they never really supported him.
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Re: None of them care in the slightest (Score:2, Insightful)
They have been neo-libertarians already, ever since Cheney and his gang infiltrated the party and took over.
Re:None of them care in the slightest (Score:4, Interesting)
The old GOP is no more, the are now ReTrumplicans, to quote Cuomo, and have given up on many of the tenets of conservatism. States rights? Not when you want to overturn the results of another state's election. Fiscal responsibility? Don't make me laugh. There are. few conservatives left who believe in their principles and are willing to work with the other side to get things done, but they are being marginalized and forced out by the Trump-kissers. While I disagree with many of the old Republican policies, having a counter balance kept government from going too far in either direction.
That term doesn't do them justice. I prefer to refer to them as Trumpistas, in reference to the Chavistas, Chavismo, and Hugo Chavez (yes, that Hugo Chavez of Kraken fame). A political affiliation based not necessarily on ideology, but on populism and cult of personality. Like many populist ideologies, Trumpism pulls in the parts of differing and often conflicting ideologies that are most likely to energize the base (see for example the $2000 checks). The constant focus on the "deep state" and "sticking it to the libs" is another example- Trump is by definition part of "the elite" that is always the enemy of populism, so he had to create the "deep state" as the "true enemy" fighting against "the people". Many Republicans, particularly in the Senate with longer terms, have taken a collaborationist approach to Trumpism in order to get the policies they've always wanted enacted, while others. particularly in the House, have fully embraced it since they have both shorter terms and smaller constituencies, leaving them more vulnerable to election loss.
Like all populists, as long as Trump has a platform he will have followers and therefore power. Any media empire he builds post-presidency will (barring mismanagement, which, knowing the history of the Trumps isn't unlikely) live on even after Trump's death, setting up whichever heir apparent he chooses (either Ivanka or Don Jr-I don't think Jared really cares, he already got daddy a pardon and grew his business ties in the Middle East). The only hope is for the GOP to wake up and move away from Trumpism en masse, leaving behind the core, die hard Trumpists to their own little caucus much like the TEA Party had.
On a side note, I can't help but figure that the atmosphere at Mar a Lago must be not much unlike that of the Fuhrerbunker in April 1945 (yes, I rewatched Downfall over the break). Outside loyalists moving in to swear unending fealty to the departing leader in his final days, realists trying to get out while they still can (hello Barr, enjoying those vacations far from Florida Pence and Mnuchin?), loyalists in positions of authority enacting final measures to exact revenge or take down as much as they can before it's all over (see the transition roadblocks, especially Chris Miller at DoD). And finally you have Trump himself, convinced that January 6 will be his savior, much like Hitler was convinced that Steiner or Wenck would ride to his rescue, unaware that there is no possibility of it happening and with no one around him willing to tell him it's hopeless, with plenty of diehards behind him willing to fall on their swords in one last misplaced gesture of loyalty(all those state Attys General, Gohmer and other Reps).
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The old GOP is no more, the are now ReTrumplicans, to quote Cuomo, and have given up on many of the tenets of conservatism.
It is a lot more complicated than that. Democrats fully abandoned working class, telling them to learn to code themselves, instead embracing Woke identity politics. Trump capitalized on this abandonment with his populism and brought many of these people into GOP tent. You can see this by large overlap between Bernie and Trump voters. These people are not ideological, they primary care about pocketbook and family issues. Meanwhile a number of globalist big business conservatives moved over to Democrat side.
Re:None of them care in the slightest (Score:5, Interesting)
Trump capitalized on this abandonment with his populism and brought many of these people into GOP tent. .These people are not ideological, they primary care about pocketbook and family issues.
That worked out real well for them, didn't it? Who'd have thought that a person who spent his entire business career exploiting the little guy would, well, end up exploiting the little guys?
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Who'd have thought that a person who spent his entire business career exploiting the little guy would, well, end up exploiting the little guys?
When I've brought this up to right-wingers they are revealed to be in deep denial. They deny that he's been exploiting people, they say that the people he didn't pay should have had better contracts, they bring up Cuties when you bring up Miss Teen USA... all they have is ignorance and whataboutism. They are simply too deluded and also not smart enough to recognize the validity of what you're saying.
Re:None of them care in the slightest (Score:5, Interesting)
Who'd have thought that a person who spent his entire business career exploiting the little guy would, well, end up exploiting the little guys?
When I've brought this up to right-wingers they are revealed to be in deep denial. They deny that he's been exploiting people
Perfect example is this: over $270 million raised since the election, to a leadership fund that Trump can use for any purpose. Where did that money come from? From supporters donating money to his election fraud lawsuit PAC. The problem is? Most of those donors are going to be donating less than $5,000, and 75% of any donation under $5,000 went to the leadership fund instead of election fraud lawsuits. His supporters basically gave him millions in free money that he can do whatever he wants with, and they cheered while doing so.
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You mean he's the president who most successfully acted like he was trying to do something about it, and thus he got support from easily hoodwinked people? Trump is like P.T. Barnum, except with a big family inheritance and zero imagination.
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He gave them platitudes, gave them the illusion of a soaring economy with tax breaks to businesses to bump up the stock market, and ignored a pandemic that put millions out of work and killed hundreds of thousands of them. What did they get in return? No new coal jobs (this couldn't happened even if he tried, the market is simply moving away from coal), the loss of more manufacturing, a trade war with China that hurt farmers and just increased prices for everyone else, gutted environmental protections, an
Re:None of them care in the slightest (Score:5, Informative)
Big business has the money and amorality to play both sides. They're not anti-trump because they care about family and jobs but because his "MAGA" propaganda isn't a total GOP power-play, Trump actually wants results and what's good for medium business (Which is where Trump, who has less than a billion dollars, sits.) isn't good for big business.
The GOP has enjoyed all the hookers and blow that big business has supplied: They're not about to swap that for giving a shit about family and jobs.
Re:None of them care in the slightest (Score:4, Informative)
Trump actually wants results and what's good for medium business
Trump wants what's good for Trump. That's it. Trump wants Trump to come out ahead. If your name isn't Trump, he doesn't care about you. If you are useful to him you can ride his coattail and make out pretty good, as long as you stay useful to Trump. Once you outlive that usefulness you are at best a useless nothing or afterthought, at worst a sworn enemy. Here is a partial list to prove it: Cohen, Scaramucci, Bolton, Barr, Kemp, Raffensberger, Chris Christy, Gen Mattis, Sessions, John Kelly.
Re:None of them care in the slightest (Score:5, Informative)
Democrats fully abandoned working class
Nonsense. Democrats are the ones standing for higher minimum wage, worker protections and social safety net (you know, the thing that actually protects the working class).
instead embracing Woke identity politics
Nope. Not even close. There are Democrats who are against abortions and pro-guns. Can you name Republicans that are for abortion and anti-guns? Right now you can't be a Republican unless you're fully Woke: 2-nd Amendment fundamentalist, "small government", pro-pollution, pro-theocracy, etc.
Re:None of them care in the slightest (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. Democrats are the ones standing for higher minimum wage, worker protections and social safety net (you know, the thing that actually protects the working class).
Note that you said "Democrats" as in some Democrats are. The Democratic Party has made it clear that they hate those Democrats and that they'd rather they not belong to their party, but aren't quite willing to kick them out because they need whoever they can get to hold the House.
The Democratic Party itself has made it quite clear that it doesn't care about workers in the slightest, it just expects them to vote for it because [random hand waving]. There's a reason the Democratic Party likes to focus on identity politics.
Re:None of them care in the slightest (Score:5, Insightful)
Abortions and guns? Who gives a fuck about these when you have no job, your house is being foreclosed and you have to get up at 5am to line up at the food bank so your kids can eat that day?
70 million Americans seemed to.
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It is a lot more complicated than that. Democrats fully abandoned working class, telling them to learn to code themselves, instead embracing Woke identity politics. Trump capitalized on this abandonment with his populism and brought many of these people into GOP tent. You can see this by large overlap between Bernie and Trump voters. These people are not ideological, they primary care about pocketbook and family issues. Meanwhile a number of globalist big business conservatives moved over to Democrat side.
I think that's backwards.
Democrats never abandoned the working class, they embraced a technocratic philosophy based on listening to the experts, economists, scientists, etc.
The problem is that experts are generally part of the elite, and by definition not working class. So the GOP leveraged tensions between science and religion and changed the framing to one of elite vs working class.
So even though Democratic policies unambiguously favour the working class (healthcare, tax the wealthy, minimum wage, etc, et
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There aren't many sure things in the world, but I'm amused to see that the left can always be counted on to spin silly political theories about that which they are wholly ignorant (in this case about "the right").
Buckley hijacked conservatism decades ago and progressively denounced anyone who was willing to fight for conservative values, leaving us with Conservatism (tm), a society for gentlemanly losers - never offensive, always wilting under criticism.
Reagan managed to break through on sheer charisma, but
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Because the right sees him as a symptom rather than a cause - the product of our hard work; a waypoint on our long journey. Just wait until we find a fighter who has actually been on our side all along - you'll be praying for the New York Liberal to come back.
While I agree he is the result of some deep seated feeling amongst the electorate: i do not think they are necessarily all conservative but rather personal. I think there is a segment of the electorate that feels ignored and see their lifestyle eroding and Trump tapped into that sentiment. While there is no doubt a set of conservative views amongst that electorate they don't all translate to right wing conservatives, but more of what I would call self interested populists. Any politician, left or right,
This sounds great. (Score:5, Funny)
Give me $2000 AND kill facebook at the same time? Sounds great to me.
You don't kill facebook you also kill slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
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Uhm, so who will monitor and moderate your little locally-hosted web platform so you avoid liability?
You? Every day?
What do you do if it gets popular? Hire a moderator?
What happens if you or that person let a post through that gets you sued?
Do you have the financial means to defend yourself against a frivolous lawsuit?
I'm afraid your little pipe-dream is leaking negative consequences all over the place.
Re:This sounds great. (Score:4, Insightful)
They're gonna kill slashdot, too. And reddit. And literally every other place with open discussion on the internet. Still sound great?
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I can live with it.
I know everyone's stuck on section 230, but... (Score:3)
I'm surprised and disappointed no one else is talking about giving everyone $2,000. Or $600 for that matter.
In case nobody's noticed, the federal government spent as much money on COVID19 relief in 2020 as their entire revenue earned in 2019. (source [forbes.com]) How could we afford to do so? Federal debt.
Also, since it's never brought up in the news anymore, need I remind anyone our deficit is at $28 trillion and rising? And the only way why the government is able to budget for such a massive deficit is because it
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When your house is on fire, it's not the time do discuss the benefits of installing a fire suppression system. You need to deal with the immediate emergency, even though that fire suppression system would have been prudent to install.
Similarly, in the middle of a pandemic that's crushing the economy, it's not the time to worry about fiscal responsibility. The time for that is when the economy is doing well, but you folks use that time to be irresponsible and slash taxes, demonstrating you don't actually g
Independent confirmation? (Score:2)
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CNN reported it yesterday too. https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/29... [cnn.com]
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I just did a quick search, and no other news outlet reporting this other than The Verge. While plausible, and The Verge provide leaked bill draft, it is premature to conclude "McConnel tries" without knowing this draft is under serious consideration.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/29... [cnn.com]
https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
https://www.aljazeera.com/news... [aljazeera.com]
https://www.newsmax.com/politi... [newsmax.com]
Shall I keep going? McConnell will never allow $2k checks to go out, and pretty much everyone but Trump knows this.
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Thanks for the links. Yes, I agree McConnell is unlikely to allow $2K checks to go out unless forced. However, I am not sure Trump cannot make it too costly to not do this.
The current session of Congress ends Sunday. McConnell's plan is to ride it out so that the checks can't impact the Georgia runoffs (the 2 GOP candidates already came out saying they supported the checks to get the Trump bump-what happened to fiscal conservatism?) since there is no way the bill would pass the Senate in it's current form. The new session starts Jan 3 at noon, but both GA senators are ineligible to participate, and the GOP has exactly 50 seats so would need 100% support for any bill to pass
Global warming solved by McConnell (Score:5, Insightful)
We can now simply hook the founding father's graves up to a generator and get free unlimited and clean energy.
All it took was through governmental ineptitude to trash the livelihoods of millions and then have the ruling class hold the poor hostage to settle a feud with twitter because the president felt insulted.
What despicable excuses for human beings.
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Both democrats and republicans support either a repeal or change to the abusive section 230 protections. That kinda throws out your conspiracy theory around Trump.
And what about all those smaller "youtubers" who are pretty much banned from talking about a topic, but at the same time, large channels are allowed to speak about those same topics? What about the livelihood of those smaller channels when they're banned or blacklisted? Why do those larger channels get a free-pass at the rules?
Section 230 is a pro
I'm for it. (Score:3, Interesting)
With bipartisan support to repeal or rework section 230, I think this is a beautiful move. You have to get rid of these aged laws that have been abused by social media companies in order for a more suitable one to be created. It's been too difficult to rework this exception and it's not something you can easily "reinterpret". It has to go.
It's almost guaranteed that once it's gone, social media companies will have full support to get ANYTHING similar going even if it's more strict on requirements. This is how the legal system is supposed to work. There will be a lot more cooperation on both sides.
These social companies have a monopoly and their rampant abuse has gone on for too long. Companies like Youtube should not be able to blacklist your video due to a topic while they let larger channels talk about the same thing. Can you imagine if your internet provider started acting the same way? What if they had banned you for accessing a website that they don't like while they let your neighbor go with only a warning? It'd just be wrong and abusive. /end rant
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It's not that bipartisan. While both major parties now have a strong anti-230 sentiment, they differ in both their reasons for it and their ideas of alternatives.
The republicans are unhappy because they see social media moderation as biased. They believe, with some justification, that conservative views are more likely to be taken down as racist, homophobic, or fraudulent. Perhaps this says more about the modern conservative movement than it does about moderation policy, but the perception is of a technolog
The Democrats started it with Pork. (Score:3)
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For a bunch of people who can't shut up about the sanctity of free speech these Republicans surely are fond of limiting free speech.
You misunderstood what Section 230 does. Let me explain.
Section 230 shields any internet company from becoming liable for third-party content they carry. This is good part of Section 230. However, it is overly broad in what it considers a carrier. Social Media exploiting this historical ambiguity by both benefiting from Section 230 protections and also selectively refusing to carry content. What lacking from Section 230 is expectation of neutrality in exchange for these protections.
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I'm afraid it's you who doesn't understand section 230, it's just a clarification of the consequences of the 1st amendment. It's not about being neutral, it's about putting the blame where it belongs while at the same time allowing the owner of a site to moderate it as they see fit.
Just think of a subject matter you like and any sites you visit to discuss said subject matter, now imagine those sites overrun with posts that has nothing to do with what the original intent of the site was. Would you still freq
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Your perspective is funny. If you think we have free speech on Social Media platforms as a result of 230 protections, I have a bridge to sell you.
If you think a bunch of intrepid freedom of speech loving Republicans led by Mitch McConnell repealing section 230 will result in the freedom of speech situation on social media improving I have an iron tower in Paris to sell you. The whole purpose of repealing section 230 is suing into bankruptcy any platform where even a single member of the public says anything at all that thin skinned politicians and their donors don't like.
Please don't gaslight the slashdot community.
You haven't been here very long have you? Are you fourteen years old? ... or di
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It won't BUT it would take the BS umbrella that sites like twitter and fakebook have to act like a publisher while claiming to be a platform.
The problem with your analysis is that it is completely, utterly, and totally wrong. Twitter and Faceboot are absolutely both publishers and platforms. They are publishers when they post their own content (which they do rarely) and they are platforms when other people post content. They already are held responsible for the content they post, like any other publisher.
I don't think should be repealed personally BUT it does need to clarified so they can't censor person's post cause they don't like what they said.
That is exactly what Section 230 is for, and changing that is functionally no different from eliminating that section.
YT example if you say something that fraud and it flipped the 2020 election they will DELETE your video yet they won't apply that to video that say same thing about 2016 election's. Double standards.
Different standards for d
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Twitter and Faceboot are absolutely both publishers and platforms. They are publishers when they post their own content (which they do rarely) and they are platforms when other people post content. They already are held responsible for the content they post, like any other publisher.
They are also act as a publisher when they block posting of specific content while still benefiting from Section 230 protections. This is what needs to change. As social media and search engines managed to insert themselves into our lives where they are in effect act as a news filter for a large segment of population, the power to decide that people don't need to know about something must be reigned in.
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They are also act as a publisher when they block posting of specific content
So, if you invite me into your house I can say whatever I want and you have no recourse to make me stop?
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Repealing Section 230 without replacing with anything will basically kill most of the internet as you now know it. The law will go back to what it was before and sites will be liable for all user-posted comments (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prodigy_Services_Co.).
This will lead to either highly curated comments (i.e. like letters to the editor in a newspaper) or none whatsoever. This includes product reviews on sites like Amazon, all of Facebook, Twitter, slashdot, Youtube, Wo
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We have free speech on the internet. Not necessarily on particular platforms. You are free to set up your own site if you wish, get people to read your blog or whatever. But making Facebook (or Wordpress or slashdot) host whatever content you wish to post seems to be violating their rights to manage their site. Plus, repealing Section 230 without something nearly equivalent will basically repeal 99.9% of comments on internet sites (the law before Section 230 was such that sites were liable for user-posted c
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It matters if anyone in your country uses Facebook, Google, YouTube or any Google product such as Android, or Twitter, or any other social platform based in the US.