Does Facebook Have a Joe Biden Problem? (bbc.com) 401
Last week the Democratic party took control of all three branches of the U.S. government — and the BBC's North America technology reporter notes they dislike Facebook even more now than during the Cambridge Analytica scandal:
Since then, Democrats — Joe Biden included — have been appalled by what Facebook has allowed on its platform. Talking to a CNN anchor in late 2019 Joe Biden said, "You can't do what they can do on Facebook, and say anything at all, and not acknowledge when you know something is fundamentally not true. I just think it's all out of hand." When you're a billionaire, perhaps it doesn't matter that the president doesn't like you much. But what President Biden has a chance to do now is restructure Big Tech and reformulate the relationship that social media companies have with their users.
That could be devastating for Facebook.
Its most obvious problem is the potential repealing of Section 230... Joe Biden has said he wants it removed. In fact, in that same New York Times interview from a year ago he said he wanted it "revoked immediately". That could spell disaster for Zuckerberg. Suddenly all the things people post, all of the defamatory and fraudulent things people say — would be the responsibility of Facebook. It's hard to see how Facebook functions in its current form without Section 230.
And that's before we get into Facebook's anti-trust problems. It's currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 46 states for "illegally maintaining its monopoly position" by buying up the competition. The FTC has also said it's looking at "unwinding Facebook's prior acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp" — i.e. breaking the firm up. Facebook will, of course, fight that. But Biden seems a pretty willing ally to those who want to split up Big Tech. In 2019, he said that breaking up companies such as Facebook was "something we should take a really hard look at".
Jameel Jaffer, a media legal expert at Columbia University, told me: "I would expect the Biden administration to be pretty aggressive in enforcing the anti-trust laws. And to have the whole spectrum of harms in mind, not just the democratic harms, but harms relating to user privacy and consumer welfare."
President Biden is even reportedly thinking of creating an anti-trust tsar, designed specifically to restore competition in areas like Big Tech.
That could be devastating for Facebook.
Its most obvious problem is the potential repealing of Section 230... Joe Biden has said he wants it removed. In fact, in that same New York Times interview from a year ago he said he wanted it "revoked immediately". That could spell disaster for Zuckerberg. Suddenly all the things people post, all of the defamatory and fraudulent things people say — would be the responsibility of Facebook. It's hard to see how Facebook functions in its current form without Section 230.
And that's before we get into Facebook's anti-trust problems. It's currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 46 states for "illegally maintaining its monopoly position" by buying up the competition. The FTC has also said it's looking at "unwinding Facebook's prior acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp" — i.e. breaking the firm up. Facebook will, of course, fight that. But Biden seems a pretty willing ally to those who want to split up Big Tech. In 2019, he said that breaking up companies such as Facebook was "something we should take a really hard look at".
Jameel Jaffer, a media legal expert at Columbia University, told me: "I would expect the Biden administration to be pretty aggressive in enforcing the anti-trust laws. And to have the whole spectrum of harms in mind, not just the democratic harms, but harms relating to user privacy and consumer welfare."
President Biden is even reportedly thinking of creating an anti-trust tsar, designed specifically to restore competition in areas like Big Tech.
Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Insightful)
Most websites would have to shut down all user input... end of story. Why (other than a butthurt Narcissist wanna-be-king) would anyone want to end that?
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Insightful)
If Trump had suggested this, he would have been instantly accused of Fascism.
Therefore I look forward to all the usual shills and astroturfers justifying Biden's reasoning for this proposed repeal.
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook needs to be held to account, and not just for their role in spreading conspiracy theories.
Facebook doesn't want to act against ANYONE. Not even obvious scammers/spammers. The platform is awash with people offering to send out free $1000 gift cards, just send personal information or go to this site loaded with ads and malware. I've reported these before, and every time I get notified that they don't breach facebook's community standards. The platform is a legit cess pool.
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:4, Informative)
Facebook doesn't want to act against ANYONE.
Not so. Facebook will act promptly against anyone who they don't like, which usually means someone who holds the wrong political opinion. Conservatives, libertarians... Trump supporters.
Facebook announced that they would block any posting that contains the phrase "stop the steal". I am not aware of even a single time where Facebook ever blocked phrases the Summer 2020 rioters liked such as "ACAB", "Burn it Down", etc.; nor am I aware of them ever blocking anyone from saying that the 2016 election was stolen by the Russians because Trump was a puppet of Putin.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/facebook-says-its-blocking-posts-with-the-phrase-stop-the-steal/ [arstechnica.com]
Facebook blocked mentions of a New York Post story about the shocking evidence of corruption found on Hunter Biden's laptop. Facebook claimed that this was simply a precaution in case the New York Post story contained factual errors, but I am not aware of even a single time when a news story that might hurt Trump or any Republican was blocked by Facebook for any reason.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/15/facebook-twitter-hunter-biden/ [washingtonpost.com]
According to Larry Correia, Facebook has banned Larry Correia from posting anything at all in the group that was created for fans of Larry Correia. According to him, it's not for anything he has said but it's because of who he is.
https://monsterhunternation.com/2021/01/21/a-farewell-to-facebook/ [monsterhunternation.com]
According to Mark Dice, Facebook is threatening to ban him because he posted the following:
"Censoring Trump supporters isn't changing our minds. It's just confirming our suspicions."
This is listed as a "Community Standards" offense.
https://gab.com/MarkDice/posts/105613364573226051 [gab.com]
I have personal experience that Facebook is scanning what you write in Facebook Messenger and blocking at least some things.
A few years ago, I tried to send a URL through Facebook Messenger, and discovered that Facebook blocked it. I got a self-contradicting message, that said I was being blocked for sending too many messages in a short period of time, but if I felt the link doesn't go against Community Standards I could appeal.
Just now, as a test, I just tried to send it; FB Messenger put an icon next to it -- a red circle containing an exclamation mark. I tried clicking on the red circle to see if more information was available... nope. After a while the red circle went away, so maybe it was delivered?
Here's that forbidden URL: a link to a satirical essay that uses reductio ad absurdum to show that you can't pay for the US government's spending by soaking the rich.
https://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/feed-your-family-on-10-billion-a-day.html [typepad.com]
Personally, I would like to see true reform of Section 230. Right now, Facebook can silence anyone they like without consequence, yet they are not considered a "publisher". They can act like a publisher and "curate" what appears on Facebook all they like without any responsibility. Unacceptable.
I am not a Joe Biden fan but if he followed through and really fought for Section 230 reform, I'd have to give him credit for doing so. Even if he ultimately failed, it would be a point in his favor. However, I don't expect him to do anything at all. Prove me wrong, President Biden, please!
P.S. I must give some credit to Facebook: I have seen some cases where they banned people who needed banning, for reasons I approve. And we'll never know
Re: Repealing Section 230 (Score:2)
Would that be the same hunter biden laptop story that got lost in the mail?
That millionaire Rudy and millionaire tucker shipped it between each other using a $20.00 shipping fee. Instead of securing evedience by paying someone to do a round trip flight to hand deliver it. Inside of 12 hours?
Right like it was actually evedience. When you lose evedience see if the method passes the intelligence test.
Re: Repealing Section 230 (Score:2, Informative)
The evidence is posted online, youâ(TM)re spouting a conspiracy theory. The FBI confirmed and Congress had an investigation ongoing which was cancelled when daddy took office. Even Hunter himself confirmed he was under investigation for tax fraud related to the money he took in the deals. Nobody ever denied the laptop existed, or that it wasnâ(TM)t Hunter in the pictures with the drugs and the hookers.
Re: Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you also notice that despite a billion tax payer dollars spent on investigating Hillary clinton over the last 25 years they never charged her once. Because while she is a bitch, and did some grey stuff none of it was illegal.
Look, I think Hillary's emails pale next to Trump's actions, but that's bullshit. She had her own email server specifically to enable destruction of evidence, and lo and behold a lot of that email went suspiciously missing, so we know they actually did destroy evidence. She illegally and willfully destroyed evidence. They only lacked the will to prove it in court after Comey fucked up the election with his unwarranted announcement of an internal investigation. Comey fucked up everything against both Trump and Clinton. If one were particularly paranoid one might believe that he fucked up both investigations on purpose.
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As convincing as your Gab post and blog links are this isn't actually true.
Facebook does in fact have a bias FOR the right:
https://www.vanityfair.com/new... [vanityfair.com]
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
https://www.vice.com/en/articl... [vice.com]
https://www.vox.com/recode/214... [vox.com]
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The person I sent that Iowahawk blog article URL has informed me that Facebook Messenger did not deliver the URL.
So, the only change is that instead of saying "you have been blocked from sending messages because you sent too many, but you can appeal if you feel the message doesn't violate Community Standards" now it just lights up a little red circle with an exclamation mark, which goes out after a little while.
Same censorship, but now they are hiding it.
Re: Repealing Section 230 (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Indeed. The Biden and progressive marriage with state control of social, economic, communication, and publishing power alongside the end of all class warfare looks an awful lot like fascism per Mussolini to me. I know certain focused interests have tried to shift the definition to focus on being a dictatorship but that wasn't actually a defining characteristic a fascist state need not be ruled by a dictator. And of course nationalism but that is an odd definition since every national government is nationali
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:4, Interesting)
The defining characteristics of fascism are nationalism and far right policies. Since Biden and the Democrats in general are not nationalists or the far right they can't be fascists.
Perhaps you could tell us exactly what you think Biden will do which makes you think he is a fascist. On Section 230 he hasn't actually announced a plan for it yet. With Trump he was quite specific from early on with policies, i.e. stop Muslim immigration and build a border wall.
From the policies enacted so far, what makes Biden a fascist? Re-joining the Paris agreement? Ending the perpetual State of Emergency? Putting scientists back into science based roles?
Re: Repealing Section 230 (Score:2, Informative)
There is such thing as left wing fascism you moron.
Fascism is the authoritarian suppression of democracy, with post-modernist or anti-Enlightenment theories (Eg critical race theory), opening up the opportunity for cult-like, irrational, anti-democratic positions that combine characteristics of the left with those of fascism.
Left wing fascism was identified in the 1950s by sociologists that identified Stalin and Lenin and South American countries as left-wing while employing the same fascist tropes Hitler u
Re: Repealing Section 230 (Score:3)
"Or trying to steamroll through a contested election."
It was not contested in court, where it matters.
" It doesn't matter whether you think it is real or note when 1/3 of the country doesn't vote because they think the elections are all rigged, 1/3 thinks THIS election was rigged, and a 1/3 thinks they won but is opposed to solid review, "
Yes, it actually does matter.
Conservacucks think this election was fraudulent because of lies told by Senate Republicans like Ted Cruz. Then the same Republicans say what
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Insightful)
On Section 230 he hasn't actually announced a plan for it yet.
He said "Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one." If he doesn't have a plan for replacing it, but wants to destroy it which would destroy free speech, then guess what? He's an enemy of free speech. And those of us who care about free speech will continue to consider him one until he puts forth a realistic plan for replacing Section 230, or drops his attack on it.
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In a case like this it's the responsibility of the interviewer to get him to clarify if the statement is unclear.
He is the POTUS, the leader of the free world, blah blah blah. He needs to make his statements clear. It wasn't acceptable when Trump rambled incoherently, and it's not acceptable for Biden to do it either. If he cannot assemble a cogent sentence, he should step aside for Harris.
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Constantly flirted with the far right, who made up much of his base. Tried to overturn an election when he lost through violence and insurgency. Blamed others for all of America's problems. Tried to neutralize the free press by refusing to hold proper press conferences or answer questions, bypassing the "lying media" at every opportunity.
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Insightful)
He did suggest it and he was accused facism. Alongside demanding $2k for stimulus Trump wanted Sec 230 repealed to prevent social media censorship and require big tech to operate as a common carrier for safe harbor protections instead of being able to act like a publisher while being protected as a carrier. The senate passed that back alongside the $2k and the Dems rejected it. Now apparently Biden wants the $2k and section 230 repeal... for the opposite reason, he wants to force them to allow him to be the arbiter of what is and is not truth.
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Insightful)
Repealing section 230 wouldn't "prevent social media censorship", it would mandate it.
When you have a movement constantly making shit up and just constantly lying about people like the QAnon and Maga communities constantly where, it would be utterly infeasible from a commercial position to let them on the platform. Way too much defamation exposure.
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends what (if anything) you replace it with...
If they are a carrier then they're not responsible for speech carried on their platform.
If they're a publisher than they're 100% responsible.
Currently its somewhere in the middle, they control the content they want to and wash their hands of any responsibility for anything they cant be bothered with.
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Insightful)
Just so. Trump wanted them to be common carriers...
Biden clearly wants a 'moral code' to be applied, either enforce the vision of 'truth' he wants or else face government persecution err prosecution.
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Aren't they the same thing? I assumed common carrier status for a social media platform would mean they have to follow rules layed down by the moral guardians at the FCC. Either that, or anything goes, and Facebook turns into 4chan, but with fewer rules.
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Do you disagree with the laws that already apply to user generated content sites, e.g. no involuntary/child pornography, no planning terrorist attacks etc?
If not then where do you personally draw the line? Are there any additional things you would like to see banned, or is the current state of the law already the ideal?
I'd say that recently it has become apparent that the current laws are not adequate to deal with things like revenge porn, for example.
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So your idea is that individuals must pay a literal and probably quite substantial fee in order to exercise their right of free speech on a large forum that is happy to have the individual posting there (either a very large deposit to cover potential damages, or an insurance policy, for which the premium could grow to outrageous amounts, depending on what they say, which would have to be monitored and assessed) or else they can't post except to minor fora. Even though most posts -- the vast majority, in fac
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That's right. Only politicians and the journalists on their payrolls have the right to constantly making shit up and just constantly lying about people.
Waiting for you to tell me how politicians don't lie. I expect nothing else from someone who prefers his bullshit shaken not stirred.
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Informative)
If Trump had suggested this, he would have been instantly accused of Fascism.
His administration did suggest it, and he was accused of fascism.
Therefore I look forward to all the usual shills and astroturfers justifying Biden's reasoning for this proposed repeal.
Well, you're gonna be disappointed, because I'll still call B.S. even if the B.S. is coming from the party I voted for.
Repealing 230 is a terrible idea, because those of us who were online in the pre-230 days remember how things worked. The big providers, such as Compuserve, Prodigy, and AOL, all had rather draconian terms of service. AOL would ban you if a moderator caught you saying "fuck" in a chatroom. Today's kids don't know the struggle.
No commercial platform is going to allow users on their service to run amuck (especially if they earn money by placing ads next to user-generated content). A post-230 Facebook would look like AOL circa early 90s.
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Well, you're gonna be disappointed, because I'll still call B.S. even if the B.S. is coming from the party I voted for.
Why would that disappoint me? I don't consider you one of the shills on this site. Voting for a party doesn't make you a shill for that party. The majority of voters aren't shills, however the majority of comments on websites like this are written by paid-for shills - even when there aren't elections on.
You can tell the shills because they repeat talking points ad nauseum, and don't respond to the logical points in arguments.
I've also been using the internet since the early 90s, and also don't really
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Yup. It's a chilling attack on the community conversation and free speech.
From another point of view: How long did we have free speech but no facebook? I guess speech would be less free without facebook, but wasn't it free before facebook, too?
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From another point of view: How long did we have free speech but no facebook? I guess speech would be less free without facebook, but wasn't it free before facebook, too?
The key metric isn't how long facebook has existed, the key metric is how much of current speech is made on facebook.
The average facebook user spends 34 minutes a day there, and they have over 2.7 Billion active users monthly.
That is a significant chunk of global communication/interaction, and anything that limits speech on that platform has a very large effect.
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Yes, the effect will be large. But the key metric shouldn't be how much communication is happening there, but how much communication couldn't happen if facebook was gone.
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Trump has been saying he's wanted this for years now.
When Trump was saying it, the Democrats were saying that Facebook was a private company and could do whatever it wanted.
Not that the Democrats are in power, they are flipping their positions.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps a re-write of 230 would be best.
You get the protection IF you are truly just a conduit for free speech....legal speech.
If you want to editorialize, then you are a publisher and you have the full brunt of legal ramifications at that point.
That seems basically fair to me....
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:4, Insightful)
+1.
They are either a common carrier (conduit) for speech....legal speech... or they are a publisher.
If they enforce their own version of "community standards", they are a publisher.
Parent overrated - factually wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, I guess I can excuse your lack of reading ability - the truth is just glaring at you from the summary itself.
'Talking to a CNN anchor in late 2019 Joe Biden said, "You can't do what they can do on Facebook, and say anything at all, and not acknowledge when you know something is fundamentally not true. I just think it's all out of hand."'
'[...] New York Times interview from a year ago he said he wanted it "revoked immediately". '
The fact that you've been modded to +5 when spouting nonsense shown false in the very summary of the article you're responding to is however a rather damning indictment of Slashdot's user-run moderation system.
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Back on topic, there are *two* different issues here that the OP (deliberately) confuses.
The first is does Facebook have the *right* to remove content that they don't want on their platform. It certainly seems that our system of government means that they do and so far the courts are affirming
The second is what obligations does Facebook (and ot
Re:Parent overrated - factually wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
'[...] New York Times interview from a year ago he said he wanted it "revoked immediately". '
The fact that you've been modded to +5 when spouting nonsense shown false in the very summary of the article you're responding to is however a rather damning indictment of Slashdot's user-run moderation system.
What Biden said [nytimes.com] was "Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one." I'm no ShanghaiBill fan, but if you're going to argue with factual assertions, you need to challenge them with facts, not Ad Hominem. There's nothing good at the end of a road built from logical fallacies. Biden made that statement without having first made a plan for replacing Section 230. Until and unless he puts one forth which somehow protects free speech, or drops his attack on Section 230 by retracting his statements about revoking it, Joesph R. Biden is an enemy of free speech and should be treated as such. Section 230 is a necessary protection for free speech [eff.org], and without it, free speech will suffer. And as a result, so will we.
What do I think we should replace Section 230 with? Nothing, we should let it stand exactly as it is. What do we need to do to make that work? Make the NSA do their fucking jobs, and protect our networks from foreign interference. To wit, they need to shut down foreign trolls who are making false claims in order to deliberately interfere with the election process.
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So, are we having this propaganda as a dinner, or what?
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Breaking up for supposed trust violations is something entirely else than forcing them to censor more because they allowed too free speech.
The former is still relatively compatible with the classical liberalism which even Democrats in the past still paid lip service to. The media is pushing more and more the narrative that free speech is a little too much freedom for the peons, so politicians seem to be getting a little bolder in the direction of going full commie/fascist on free speech (depending on the si
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Then Harris takes over, and she is a psychopath. No exaggeration, someone who knowingly puts innocent people in jail can't be anything else.
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You mean Daniel Larsen? She probably wasn't even involved with the decision and has publicly stated that she wished she had been consulted on it.
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Besides, wasn't Trumps opinion pretty much similar?
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Just repealing is definitely a bad idea, but surely in amongst all this talk are some ideas for what to do instead. This is after all a piece of legislation from the 90s and the online world is a very very different place. These platforms have enormous power, it's time they took on some responsibility.
Compromise: viewership threshold (Score:3)
Amend it such that if a content item reaches a certain threshold of viewers, the hoster is then responsible for that content as a "publisher" would be under the law.
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I think Biden didn't know what Section 230 says, and maybe still doesn't.
Biden said something similar in a NYT interview: "I've never been a big Zuckerberg fan. I think he's a real problem. [....] we should be worried about the lack of privacy and them being exempt, which you're not exempt. You [The Times] can't write something you know to be false and be exempt from being sued. But he can. The idea that it's a tech company is that, you know, Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked,
Antitrust Tsar (Score:2)
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Most websites would have to shut down all user input... end of story.
By "Most" do you mean "2 or 3"?
Most websites are small enough to be able to moderate properly. Facebook and Twitter just want the law to support a lazy business plan where people supply them with material and they make money off it with minimum effort.
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You are entirely missing the point, because "moderate properly" isn't the same as "moderate away content that can get you sued".
Without 230 that's the reality all sites will have to deal with, fending off baseless law-suits from thin-skinned people or less savory individuals who will use it as a way to extort money (settle or we go to court).
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Countries without Section 230 don't seem to have this problem. It is just special treatment for a handful of big sites who are just parasites on society. Fuck 'em.
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Because other countries have different laws. Imagine that.. Did you know that are countries that require news to be factual and they get fined if they stray to far from the truth? Also, many countries
I think you don't understand the meaning of special treatment since 230 applies to ALL sites within US jurisdiction.
The real sad thing is if you get what you want is that I wont be able to see your astonished face when you get booted from a site since your inflammatory language could attract lawsuits.
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Re: Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Informative)
I think it's important to note that 230 doesn't protect from federal crimes (e) (1) . https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... [cornell.edu]
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Informative)
Remember, speech is free until you use your speech for violence. That is CLEARLY not protected
Wrong.
the courts have affirmed this over and over and over and over again, all the way up to the supreme court.
You are half right. It did go to the Supreme Court. But they said the opposite of what you claim.
In Brandenburg v. Ohio [wikipedia.org] the Supreme Court ruled that advocacy of violence, and calls to violence, are protected speech.
Speech is only illegal if there is a call to imminent lawless action that is specific and targeted.
Disinformation. Slashdot must remove this post (Score:3)
You claim is false. As another commenter pointed out, the SCOTUS ruling is exactly the opposite of what this post says.
Therefore Slashdot must immediately remove your post and ban you from ever posting here again? Is that what you're advocating?
In my opinion, you should have free speech, and those of us who know that your post is false should be free to correct it by pointing out the actual facts, such as Brandenburg v. Ohio, among others.
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As the Supreme Court says:
"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom."
Re:Repealing Section 230 (Score:5, Insightful)
Censorship is a very tricky thing to get right. Too much and we end up stifling free speech. And who gets to decide what is allowed speech and what is inflammatory or inciteful speech? Is the censoring done by a committee or by a single person with acceptable views that align with your viewpoint, my viewpoint, the companies viewpoint, or society in general?
If you want to see an example of controversial content moderation you don't have to look any farther than the user moderation here on Slashdot. How many people mod someone's post as "troll" or "flaimbait" just because the don't agree with the viewpoint of the post? How many mods of "Offtopic" or "Overrated" do people use because the post attacks a favorite theory or individual?
Imagine what would happen if the moderators could completely remove any post they disagreed with. Not just downgrade the post but instantly remove it with no review and no appeal. Or the opposite. No posts would be visible unless some moderator thinks they are worthy of being included in the comments.
Who would the companies trust with this level of censorship, for every forum, every story, every post, no review, and no realistic method of appeal? I have a hard enough time using my mod points in what I consider a fair manner, allowing other viewpoints I might not agree with but don't feel they should be censored. I certainly wouldn't want to be the sole censor for every post on every story, 24x7.
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Remember, speech is free until you use your speech for violence. That is CLEARLY not protected
Oh, that will be interesting for these folks then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Repealing section 230 may sound attractive, but it really isn't: sure, it means the end of Facebook and Twitter, and good riddance too - but it also means the end of every other website that allows user content, such as github, steam, or slashdot. I fully understand why Biden would want that (he clearly has no interest in the public having a channel to talk to the world), but I was disappointed that Trump felt the same way.
R
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Conservatives don't seem to grasp it would silence them as well.
Many conservatives do grasp that, and Congressional Republicans mostly ignored Trump's threats to repeal 230.
Let's hope that Congressional Democrats have enough sense to ignore Biden as well.
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Funny how it's always just one person who reports these things... It's almost like those other frustrated workers didn't come out with it because it never happened. One would think that if there were others who were "unhappy" with this they would come out - this is not about who won the ballgame, but who gets to be a president after all.
Supreme Court (Score:5, Informative)
"Last week the Democratic party took control of all three branches of the U.S. government"
Did I miss something? I clearly remember the Supreme Court having a fairly strong majority of Republican nominated, Moderate-to-Conservative Supreme court justice (even if certain ones don't always agree with their colleages). That's a far cry from saying the Democrats run the Supreme Court.
Re:Supreme Court (Score:5, Interesting)
Did I miss something? I clearly remember the Supreme Court having a fairly strong majority of Republican nominated, Moderate-to-Conservative Supreme court justice (even if certain ones don't always agree with their colleages). That's a far cry from saying the Democrats run the Supreme Court.
You missed that some people fail civics class.
Although with "BBC North America", it's possible a Brit wrote the piece. I'm sure, as an American, there are things I might say about a traditional parliamentary system of government which would end up being erroneous.
On a side note - the last couple of months did show that, as John Roberts has said, for the most part there "aren't Trump judges and Obama judges". They certainly do differ fundamentally in their core beliefs, but most of them take the rule of constitutional law very seriously.
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People familiar with parliamentary systems are familiar with the three branches of government. The only difference is how the leader of the executive branch is chosen.
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In the British parliamentary system, the courts aren't a co-equal branch of government, primarily because there's no written constitution for them to use to override parliament. If parliament wants, it can always override the courts. The executive is also not a co-equal branch of government, precisely because how the leader is chosen--he is a creation of parliament and serves as long as parliament is willing to support him and no longer. Parliament's position as the pre-eminent power of government is kno
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There were several important rulings recently where "conservative" judges suddenly ruled with the liberal ones sometimes tipping the scale.
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Does anyone think the American press today is as free
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Re: Supreme Court (Score:2, Insightful)
The press is not the fourth branch, it is the fifth column...
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Doesn't matter whcich "dide" you're on. (Score:5, Insightful)
So what's the downside? (Score:5, Interesting)
Over the past decade I have fervently come to believe that human psychology is fundamentally incompatible with the way social media operates. Social media monetizes putting us at each others' throats, pushes political viewpoints to extremes, and destroys the art of compromise and respect for the other person's opinion. (This applies to both sides of the political spectrum, by the way.) Social media is poison to a functioning democracy.
Chopping off Facebook and Twitter at the knees would be a net positive for the U.S. and the world in general. They can't die quickly enough, as far as I'm concerned. I'm done with their online mobs.
Cutting off the nose to spite the face (Score:5, Insightful)
Your personal disdain for social media websites is not a good basis for the creation, modification, or revocation of laws. I'm not that big of a fan of Facebook or Twitter either, but just because a proposed action would have the effect of harming something you don't like doesn't mean it's the right action, even if you take it for granted that your disdain is justified. There is way more at play here than just those two websites.
Re: So what's the downside? (Score:2)
We might see that some forums will move offshore to locations with more reasonable ruling. Others might transform into p2p applications similar to bittorrent.
So far it wouldn't be bad to quench Facebook though.
That could be devastating for Facebook (Score:5, Funny)
I'm all for devastating Facebook.
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But then where would we turn for the latest Bernie Sanders meme??
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Imgur.
No (Score:2)
Its most obvious problem is the potential repealing of Section 230..Suddenly all the things people post, all of the defamatory and fraudulent things people say — would be the responsibility of Facebook
No, there would likely be litigation to determine what things are the responsibility of Facebook, and where the liability of websites begins and ends, but saying that "everything people say on Facebook is the responsibility of Facebook" is almost certainly not true unless you can look in a crystal ball and guess how future judges will rule.
Orchestration (Score:2)
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The Prodigy case was a NY State case. It doesn't set a precedence in most of the country. Even the case in New York was before the web, so it doesn't necessarily set a precedence as there are multiple differences between then and now.
NB: Any time a news article is trying to make you feel scared, or outraged, or angry, or some other strong emotion, it's most likely hyperbole.
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It doesn't matter if there's precedent, it doesn't even require the cases to reach a verdict, the death of a million cuts from defending so many lawsuits will be too much for anyone to bear. Except, maybe, huge well-established multinationals... Repealing Section 230 would just permanently enshrine the existing "big tech" companies as no one else could afford the risk of trying to start their own service.
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the death of a million cuts from defending so many lawsuits will be too much for anyone to bear. Except, maybe, huge well-established multinationals
That sounds like a fantasy.
Speaking of multinationals, how are websites in other countries able to survive without section 230 protections?
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Most of them are hosted on American servers and theo only place you will find consistent copy-cats is China.
You don't need an anti-trust Czar (Score:5)
Moreover, how about we enforce anti-trust for things that actually matter? How about we stop letting a handful of mega corps buy up all the hospitals? Or apartment buildings? Or stop approving telecom mergers? Or grocery store mergers? Or... you know what, just fucking enforce anti-trust law already.
Summary is patently false and misleading. (Score:5, Informative)
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Hypocrites (Score:2, Insightful)
So after they leverage big tech to muzzle a political opponent to squeak into power, they now want to make it hard for anyone else to do the same to them.
I guess we should not be surprised.
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Yon you not be a wanker? Please? For me?
You well know that Biden has been talking about repealing 230 for ages, long before he was president. It's in TFS.
It's a really stupid idea, you you pretending it's something else is still wankery. Just stop it, eh?
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook does not have a Joe Biden problem, Facebook has an antitrust problem and a pattern of anti-competitive behavior. If we're being honest about where the problem lies then it would be fair to say that the FTC has a leadership problem because they have been signing off on anything and everything for decades.
No the moment he gets hard to control (Score:2)
It's not tech, it's the money (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem isn't Big Tech having monopolies, it's far more general: companies with historically insane amounts of cash in the bank. Typically companies had the majority of their assets in real estate, physical plant, inventory and other non-liquid forms. That limited acquisitions because companies had to find financing for them and then pay off the acquired debt from that financing so they'd typically only go after acquisition targets that would improve their bottom line significantly. If a company did manage to accumulate large sums of cash in the bank, shareholders typically demanded the company start using it's profits to pay dividends instead of building up a slush fund. Today though big investors look only at share prices, and companies (not just in tech) accumulate large sums of cash with nothing productive to do with it. From there it's a short step to the lesson lots of people learned from the game Monopoly, that if you can accumulate enough money to never have to sell property to pay rents you can simply drive everyone else bankrupt. Perhaps what we need isn't to break up Big Tech or any other field, just change the incentives and penalties to force companies away from large hoards of cash or other liquid assets. Without that they couldn't buy up competitors nearly as easily and many of the problems would solve themselves.
Biden will do nothing but talk (Score:2, Interesting)
His campaign got $400 million from Facebook. Only a fool would believe he won't do exactly as they want. He's been bought.
He also took a massive amount of money from pharmaceutical companies. The first EO he signed got rid of the Trump EO forcing these companies to not charge more for drugs in the US than they do in other countries.
All the big tech companies also gave him buckets of cash. They want their cheap foreign workers back.
Then there's the pipeline. Now that he's axed that deal Canada will be s
The best that can happen (Score:2)
is for social media to stop looking at politics for guidance. Corporations shouldn't try to get into bed with politicians when these truly care for their businesses. One of them always ends up being the prostitute.
Just another corrupt mega-corp. (Score:2)
Facebook is yet another American company with a corruption problem. It's called ignoring the shit out of anti-trust and anti-competitive behavior because of the wheelbarrows of cash being hauled in by the army of lobbyists who buy and sell lawmakers. Trying to ironically use politics in an attempt to hide the obvious, is obvious.
One way or another, America is going to have to start addressing the corruption problem instead of hiring extra-whiny politicians who like to play shit-slinging games instead of
Death wish (Score:3)
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That has always been true. The only thing that has changed is that the price point of saying something has become free, whereas earlier it was limited to those who were in-the-know so to say. The system is controlled top-down and if you actually want to see a system where power is given to the bottom, this is what you will see.
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