US Senators Propose Limiting Liability Shield For Social Media Platforms (reuters.com) 252
Three Democratic U.S. senators introduced a bill that would limit Section 230, a law that shields online companies from liability over content posted by users, and make the companies more accountable when posts result in harm. From a report: Called the SAFE TECH Act, the bill would mark the latest effort to make social media companies like Alphabet's Google, Twitter and Facebook more accountable for "enabling cyber-stalking, targeted harassment, and discrimination on their platforms," Senators Mark Warner, Mazie Hirono and Amy Klobuchar said in a statement. In the wake of the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, lawmakers have been studying ways to hold Big Tech more accountable for the role they played in the spread of disinformation before the riot and about policing content on their platforms. The bill would make it clear that Section 230, which was enacted in 1996 as part of a law called the Communications Decency Act, does not apply to ads or other paid content, does not impair the enforcement of civil rights laws, and does not bar wrongful-death actions.
End run (Score:2, Insightful)
Looks like they are trying to use the law to circumvent the First Amendment by threatening social media companies wallets, making too scared to let users post what they want. Total BS....
Re:End run (Score:5, Insightful)
Never let an opportunity go to waste. The media and the rich (a pointless distinction I know) both would prefer that people not be able to reach the masses without going through their filters.
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This is exactly what they're doing. I hate to break it to them, but "discrimination", whatever that means, is protected by the first amendment outside of maybe an employment or public accommodations context. It's certain protected to the extend of registering your opinions on gender, race, or whatever no matter how dim-witted they may be.
Instead of imposing direct controls, the government will just let "civil" courts do it. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but without government force "civil" courts have no po
Not the problem (Score:3)
Problem #1 is to make companies liable for data protection and also for selling their data to abusive companies. Losing personal data collected should be so expensive that companies will collect it less often and also only save deeply anonymized summaries that can't easily be inverted. You do this via their wallet. And you do that by making it a civil law (so they can be sued) not by crimminalizing it or regulating it with fines.
Problem #2 is some sort of reasonable right to impose speech restrictions.
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Not really. The First Amendment, the Amendment itself doesn't immunize anyone from liability for speech. It never has. That was the whole reason for Section 230 in the first place. It promotes the same underlying interests as the First Amendment, but by means outside the scope of the Amendment.
Re:End run (Score:5, Informative)
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Seems the problem is that, while the town square (internet) is still there and you are free to speak your mind there, everyone is in the big coffee shops and such and people are trying to extend the town square to those coffee shops, which are private businesses.
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The "crowded theater" trope is not applicable. You can't simply shut down everything by shouting "crowded theater!" Please give this red herring a rest.
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In all fairness, saying that socialism is great, is like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. I mean, it is a patently false, highly dangerous statement.
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In all fairness, saying that socialism is great, is like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. I mean, it is a patently false, highly dangerous statement.
No shit, I can’t believe someone finally said it. Why just the other day, I saw a new movie theater actually renovating and preparing to open. When I found out that place was a textbook god damn socialist co-op, I lost my shit and drove my F-550 through the lobby and right into the #3 projector room. Thank god, those hippie stores not only give me the creeps, workers owning the store is just the most anti American and of course communist thing possible!
/s if it’s not obvious
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That's the biggest lie they want you to swallow. Socialism is a threat to their power, which is part of the established system.
They really don't want you to look at Europe.
The red scare is alive and well, and you have been programmed to fear a better quality of life. Now that want to censor it off the internet, on case you get to see behind the forbidden curtain.
Re:End run (Score:4, Insightful)
You CAN yell fire in a crowded theater. The SCOTUS has decided that case a LONG time ago. Schenck was a piss-poor decision made in the middle of a World War. This was eventually overturned in Brandenburg v. Ohio.
The first amendment has very limited limits and only applies to directly inciting crimes. Mouthing off in a speech or on social media ain't inciting anyone.
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Letting webmasters decide what their websites say is fine. That not a problem at all. Messing with 230 is more about moving that decision making away from the webmasters and to the government.
Let's look at the situation with Thomas Paine and "Common Sense." Paine didn't actually own a printing press; he used Robert Bell's. The Brits hated the pamphlet so wanted to make political speech a crime, and the founders reacted to that then-recent history by enacting the First Amendment, saying that you can't have
Re:End run (Score:5, Insightful)
If I am a Land Lord and I rent an Apartment to some people. I have rules where I am not allowed to discriminate on many factors, such as Race, Religion, Age, Sexual Orientation... I may or may not personally like the person but if they are proven to pay the rent and follow the general rules of civility I have created for my property, then they will stay, and I will not be able to evict them just because I didn't like them.
However if I know they are doing illegal activities in my property, then I have a degree of responsibility to try to curve that behavior and not allow it to continue. So I may choose to evict them, or perform other forms of sanctions. This will greatly help reduce my liability toward what someone else has done on my property.
When you use social media, you are using someone else's property. If you post data that falls under unprotected free speech, the Social Media company has some degree of liability, especially if they had done nothing to put a curve to it.
The key difference on why an ISP may get a pass while a Social Media Company doesn't, is primary due the fact that they have the actual data at hand, storing it, and redistributing it, vs just redirecting a usually encrypted packet of data.
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...if I know they are doing illegal activities in my property, then I have a degree of responsibility to try to curve that behavior and not allow it to continue.
If you post data that falls under unprotected free speech, the Social Media company has some degree of liability, especially if they had done nothing to put a curve to it.
If I understand your argument, it's something like "it's ok for landlords to kick out tenants off their physical property if you do illegal activities; therefore it's ok for social media companies to kick out subscribers off their virtual property too". However, I see an important difference between your two statements here: in the second case you're omitting the "illegal" part. It may be unintentional, but you should realize it breaks your simile. That's because it glosses over the large swath of unprotec
Re:End run (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem that illegal speech is often vague. And who judges when it is? Were Trump's tweets illegal? Many times he arguably libeled people, which is illegal. At what point is a site allowed to take it down? When they believe it to be illegal? After court action? If Twitter is obligated not to have illegal speech on their site, and they remove something they think is illegal but then is later judge not to be, should they be liable?
Replace liable with whatever other law you like about speech (e.g. porn, terrorism, whatever). The same logic applies.
If I owned a site with user-posted comments, I wouldn't want to wait for a judge to decide. Especially where it seems obvious (but of course, it never is).
The current rule of "it's the site's choice when to take it down" seems to me to be the least bad solution, especially when there is the potential for imminent harm. Waiting for a court can take a while and be very expensive. (And realize the rules need to apply to smaller sites without the resources of a big company).
Personally, I think that if you want to say controversial things (for whatever definition of controversial you pick), you need to set up your own site if you want to guarantee publishing it. Twitter has no obligation to host what you have to say - and it shouldn't be obliged to do so either. Free speech doesn't mean that others have to help you publish it.
(Twitter here is used as an example, but replace it with whatever other site you like - slashdot, for example).
Re: End run (Score:2)
In that case: ALL HAIL BIG BROTHER^WSISTER!
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(^W means "delete word")
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(ignore this line caps caps caps caps caps caps caps caps.)
propaganda (Score:2, Insightful)
Translation: they don't think they censored ENOUGH
Secondary (Score:3)
This will require anyone hosting user-generated content to have a huge team of moderators. This will favor established players who could afford such an outlay of cash, and, basically, eliminate any startup without a large pool of capital backing them trying to dislodge established players. This is great news for the established social media companies, and capital investment firms.
Re:Secondary (Score:5, Informative)
TL;DR: The word you're looking for is, "regulatory capture".
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Translation: they don't think they censored ENOUGH
Exactly, but we never expected Democrats to agree with GOP that Section 230 allows arbitrary rules and censorship that amounted to editorial control over the platform.
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What did you think S230 reform was about? Surely you didn't buy all that freeze peach stuff?
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studying ways to hold Big Tech more accountable for the role they played in the spread of disinformation
Translation: they don't think they censored ENOUGH
An accurate statement. I don't think they have done nearly enough to combat disinformation. You can claim the "marketplace of ideas" but you should realize that the idea that the Earth is flat has only gained traction in recent years due to social media.
Disinformation is harmful to society because all democracies depend on accurate information.
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You say "combat disinformation".
I say "censor free speech".
Tomato, Tomoto.
Funny how usenet, IRC, BBSes and the internet in general were all fine for decades before the truthiness experts came to free us from all the nasty disinformation.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
There should be a size requirement. (Score:5, Interesting)
The bill would make it clear that Section 230, which was enacted in 1996 as part of a law called the Communications Decency Act, does not apply to ads or other paid content, does not impair the enforcement of civil rights laws, and does not bar wrongful-death actions.
If it is just a clarification of existing law then who cares? But if it creates new obligations for online forums then there should really be some market-share floor or something that doesn't entrench the existing giants. Klobuchar says “We need to be asking more from big tech companies, not less,” but the fact that she is targeting big tech does not mean that the law won't impact smaller websites with nonexistent legal budgets.
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I propose it only applies to content items exceeding a threshold of viewers. Forum hosters can't police every last nut.
Simple Delegation of Powers Issue (Score:2)
This isn't too hard - our society does not allow the government the power to limit free speech. It therefore follows that they cannot offer protections for companies that are limiting free speech - they simply don't have that power, regardless of what any statute claims.
To think that a society could have a limited government but then allow that government to circumvent the limitations by protecting organizations that do an end-run around the limitation is to have no concept of limited government at all.
So,
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God, I can't believe you just wrote something so utterly fucking insipid. I can't even tell if you're being serious or not, it's so stupid.
They aren't offering any "protections" from anyone but themselves, you dingus. What you are proposing is like a mob protection racket. 'Oh, by not shutting you down or allowing our civil courts to send men with guns to take money from you, we are 'protecting' you, so you better fall in line citizen!'".
Did you seriously just have a stroke or something, that is some _real_
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This isn't too hard - our society does not allow the government the power to limit free speech. It therefore follows that they cannot offer protections for companies that are limiting free speech
The problem with this reasoning is that you've missed a few important points. First, this is a case of *competing* private free speech interests. Everyone knows that the government can prevent newspapers from printing things the government disagrees with, but what is less well known is that the government can't force a newspaper to print things the *newspaper* disagrees with. Freedom *from* compelled speech is just as much a First Amendment protection as freedom of expression.
Second, the First Amendment
Fucking idiots (Score:2)
Note to my Senator, Mark Warner (Score:2)
When Senators Hawley and Cruz are your biggest allies on the policy you're pushing? Yeah, you might want to rethink that
Weaponising suppression of dissenting opinion. (Score:2)
Sooner or later we're only going to be allowed to have authorized thoughts online.
We really need a decentralised social media platform where we can talk about whatever we want.
Sure, assholes will talk about being assholes, and law enforcement will do what they've always done by *cough* penetrating *cough* these groups of assholes (and in some cases running them), but why should sensible people be restricted from talking about other subjects (for example Government malfeasance revealed in Wikileaks documents
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We really need a decentralised social media platform where we can talk about whatever we want.
Decentralized platforms exist. No one uses them. The "social" part is entirely absent because there's no one there.
Decentralized platforms will never be popular. There are two reasons for that. One reason is the asymmetry of the vast majority of consumer Internet connections. Downstream bandwidth can be one or even two orders of magnitude slower than upstream. Without the ability to send data as fast as people can download it, no one is willing to use a decentralized system because it's too slow.
Even
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Downstream bandwidth can be one or even two orders of magnitude slower than upstream.
Shit. Backwards. Upstream can be two orders of magnitude slower than downstream.
Comrades how come we never did this for Ma Bell? (Score:2)
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Exactly. And everyone is for it as long as it is the other guy getting censored. Eventually it will be you.
Ma Bell was a *highly regulated* monopoly (Score:2)
We didn't have to sue them. After the breakup the rules changed.
Also, this bill doesn't affect the carriers, only applications that run over the carriers lines.
Welp, there goes the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Make no mistake, this is the folks at the top asserting control of the Internet. If they understood what it was back in the 90s they never would've let us have it in the first place.
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It lives and die by Section 230.
Nope. Some of the better sites on the Internet don't fall under CDA Section 230 protection (being foreign hosted). And they have much stricter slander laws as well. The are doing just fine, thanks. And often are better sources of unbiased information than TwitBook.
Re: Welp, there goes the Internet (Score:2)
See, ... you using the term "unbiased" alread shows, how brutally clueless you are about anything.
Not being biased is literally impossible for a neural net (like a brain). It is its only mode of operation and entire point.
"Unbiased" is just what people call everything that fits their own bias (or the cult they subscribed to), whem they are so full of themselves, that they think the entire world of righz and wrong revolves around them, and they got the ultimate truthiness. Especially if they want to hide tha
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The only thing that is completely free of bias is pure math.
Stating that the area of a circle is Pi times the square of its radius is objectively unbiased.
That said, most people use a less formal (and less pedantic) meaning of "unbiased" in daily conversation (similarly to the culinary meanings of "vegetable" and "fruit" differing from their biological definitions).
For news reporting, a good definition of "unbiased" would be not jumping to conclusions before knowing the facts, not trying to play down (or ou
Such as? (Score:2)
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I understand the sentiment, but you can run a website and say whatever you want at negligible cost. You don't need Youtube or Facebook for that. Section 230 limits liability for third party content, but that's not necessary if you're self-publishing. You're always liable for the stuff you write, whether it's on your own page or on some big corporation's website.
Shielding web sites from the transgressions of their users has caused the concentration of power in a few hands. Arguably this is not what the peopl
You need YouTube because video hosting (Score:2)
We're talking about silencing unpopular opinions that oppose the establishment. The folks running the show don't care how you're silenced. If they can keep you from getting the message out by relegating you to a tiny blog they win and you (and all of us) lose. The status quo (and their wealth and power) is maintained.
Oh, and if
P.J. O'Rourke (Score:2)
"Once you've built the big machinery of political power, remember you won't always be the one to run it."
there are soft measures availble (Score:2)
My favourite one is that stuff that "has been forwarded many times" can only be re-forwarded one contact at a time. I'd love to see the data of how well this works to reduce the spread of nonsense.
Re: there are soft measures availble (Score:2)
You think that makes it better?
Like "But daddy only stuck the tip in my hole... it was a soft measure, he said!"
Re: there are soft measures availble (Score:2)
How else would you recommend slowing down the spread of misinformation, without having moderation on all private conversations?
Pointless (Score:2)
Such a law violates the 1st Amendment and will be struck down.
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Marjorie Taylor Green (Score:5, Interesting)
You think you had it bad with Trump ? Wait till the female version of Trump runs for President in 2024.
Need I remind you that that psychopathic evil bitch is a democratically elected member of Congress ?
How would you like to work everyday in the same room with a person who declared publicly that someone should put a bullet in your head ?
In 2016 I lost all hope in humanity. So I would absolutely not be surprised at all if in 2024, the first female president of the United States would be that purely evil sack of pus. Oh yeah, and I'm never setting foot again in that miserable shithole that is Georgia.
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Is she the one who thinks jewish space lasers started the California wildfires?
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Is she the one who thinks jewish space lasers started the California wildfires?
Not in so many words, but effectively yes.
Having read what she wrote, I can say she seems to believe that space solar power satellites actually exist and were being used in weaponized forms to start the California wildfires. With descriptions lifted directly from the "UFOs are aliens" loonie birds. She may be the most credulous fool to be elected to national office in the modern era. Colossal ignorance on two feet, and proud of it.
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She's a firm QAnon believer. That's all you need to know.
Re: Marjorie Taylor Green (Score:2)
If you leave belief/religion, capitalism, sociopathy/anti-social behavior, partisanship, nationalism, the belief that there is such a thing as races, and general stupidity and insane social viruses that plague US society at home, you're welcome to come over the pond, mate.
Avoid the UK though. Their politics make the US look like amateurs. (And Hungary and other borderline N@zi states too.) ;)
In general, unless you like plattenbau prefab high-rises and vodka, I'd avoid the east.
So it's either hairy passion i
She won't get very far (Score:3)
1. He's a man. The polls are very, very clear about this even if we don't like to talk about them. Voter will vote for a man they don't like but who feel is qualified. They will not do the same for women. This is why women have a harder time winning elections. Discuss among yourselves why this is all you want, but the polling has always born this out.
2. Trump is a celebrity with decades of building that up in a way MTG can't.
She's also an embarrassment to the par
No more Slashdot comments? (Score:2)
Limit liability shields for Congress (Score:2)
Dear senators, (Score:2)
so I can now sue you if soembody commits a crime on the government's streets?
Because I think you should do your damn jobs, and walk the beat, online aswell as offline. And not ofload your duty, that we pay you for, to erect privatized totalitarian virtual police states that think they can do anything "because they are a private business". (Example: Free speech rules not conforming to the laws of the country.)
Many of you effectively support this (Score:2)
All this bill will do is require sites to hire tons of moderators. That favors the incumbents.
But many of you are already fine with this in principle because you think it's A-Ok for Apple and Google to set the content moderation policies for sites that distribute apps on their stores.
You say "no no, that's the free market. It's voluntary actors" and other bullshit. The effect is the same. They have to comply and hire tons of moderators, even some little site with barely 300k active users lost its app becaus
Not Public Spaces (Score:5, Insightful)
None of these companies are public spaces, so what happens in their walled gardens is their business, and arguably should be their liability. 230 appears to protect them from some amount of that liability.
As a possible analogy, these entities are similar to (at least in concept) the old-school malls that largely replaced downtown retail districts back in the day. Once someone stepped onto that property, they were no longer in the public space but on that entity's private property, and then subject to the rules of conduct that the mall owners specified. If the mall owners allowed or sanctioned activities that impacted their business or their tenants, that was their business and liability. There were AFAIK no protections for those brick and mortar entities. Why would on-line entities be any different?
Since none of the on-line companies' walled gardens are public spaces, those who show up in those walled gardens can't claim First Amendment rights to say whatever they wish, if it offends or creates liability for the entity that owns the space.
The town square is a public space. Everyone is free to stand there on a soapbox and say whatever they want. Whether or not it's appreciated by the others in that town square, that's another matter, but that speech is protected.
If you want to say whatever you want, rent yourself a website, and remember that it's not a public space, but one hosted generally by a private entity. And remember that the pipes that connect you to the rest of the world are generally owned by private entities. The Internet as it is today is legally more restrictive than any public space.
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None of these companies are public spaces
Yes, they are. In fact, I'd argue they are even larger that traditional public spaces like those "Hear Ye" street corners or market squares from the days of yore.
They *ARE* public spaces by everyone's natural expectation. Anyone can pull up a Facebook page and read what someone says there. It is, by definition, NOT a private space.
The problem we're all struggling with here is unique (or at least relatively new) where a private company controls what is, effectively, a public space. There has been no prec
Reasonable in theory, but (Score:2)
Unworkable in practice
Using humans to judge content is impractical for two reasons. There are hundreds of billions of posts to look at. Even an army of inspectors would get overwhelmed. People have opinions and biases. What's offensive to one person is fine for another
Using robots is also unworkable. Robots are stupid, really stupid, and people are good at figuring out how to get around their stupid rules. Even if the robots could be programmed to be smart, it would still be a problem. Most people agree abo
There should be a middle ground (Score:2)
There should be a middle ground between no liability and full liability. If there were no shield, then the online companies would have to have a 100% accurate filter for content. Otherwise, a competitor company or some malicious actor could simply bombard that online company with postings that should be filtered. Any legal shield or lack thereof should consider the current practical limitations of filtering, both in terms of state of the art technology and the wide variance in what different people consi
Need a Betteridge's Law for Act names (Score:2)
In case anyone thought this was just shouting, "SAFE TECH" is an acronym (more likely backronym) for "Safeguarding Against Fraud, Exploitation, Threats, Extremism and Consumer Harms". (This is not mentioned in the linked article; here's Warner's release about it [senate.gov].)
I don't have to read a single thing about the bill to know it's near-certain bullshit: I'm not aware of any act or proposal put forth with a name that makes a cutesy-acronym to be anything less than vile. (It's not impossible for a goo
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I don't understand your post. Newsweek is MSM, they are the liars. "Social media" are the ones pointing out the lies.
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I don't understand your post. Newsweek is MSM, they are the liars. "Social media" are the ones pointing out the lies.
Kind of hard for social media to attack and take down the MSM when they've quite often aligned themselves.
And again, when social media becomes THE news source after they've discredited and dismantled ALL other sources taking billions in ratings and ad revenue, who is going to police them? The intelligence community who fucking invented Disinformation Warfare? The Donor Class? Our elected "Representatives"?
I'd rather pick up the Weekly World News. At least it's entertaining bullshit.
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It's high time the dangerous and misleading assertion that socialism is a viable system, is purged from the internet.
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It's high time the dangerous and misleading assertion that socialism is a viable system, is purged from the internet.
100 million dead citizens lay at the feet of 20th Century socialism.
FUCK the human race if they refuse to learn.
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The problem with you absolute retards is you label everything socialism. You're just like the left labeling everyone naz*s or fasc*sts. Nobody takes you seriously.
And I had to put those stars there because Slashdot will not let me post those words, wtf is a lameness filter?
Even some of the worst mainstream left wing policies are just warmed over EuroSocialism which really just means more social spending and higher taxes on the rich - exactly what we have now only a matter of degree.
If you want to look at a
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The problem with you absolute retards is you label everything socialism. You're just like the left labeling everyone naz*s or fasc*sts. Nobody takes you seriously.
And I had to put those stars there because Slashdot will not let me post those words, wtf is a lameness filter?
Lameness filter? That would be the socialism you claim doesn't exist everywhere. Oh, I'm sorry, were you not afforded a choice in the matter? Yeah, get used to it.
Even some of the worst mainstream left wing policies are just warmed over EuroSocialism which really just means more social spending and higher taxes on the rich - exactly what we have now only a matter of degree.
Your "degree" is represented by the country of Ireland, home of the multi-trillion dollar tax loophole. We don't tax the rich worth a shit, and you know it. This is why 1% of the world, now control 99% of the wealth.
If you want to look at a dangerous policy it's that fucking ding-dong Warren's wealth tax, which is really not a tax but simple wealth confiscation. It's laughably unconstitutional, it's not an income tax or a tax at all - it's confiscation. It's also an egregious violation of the fourth amendment. They make it tiny now, but if you start dropping the income requirements and raising the tax and then you've got your 'socialism'.
Absolute retards like you will attack those who are critical of socialism, while painting a picture of "modern" socialism that
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The fact that #BidenLied is alive and well on Twitter undermines your argument a bit.
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The fact that #BidenLied is alive and well on Twitter undermines your argument a bit.
"there was a concerted attempt to hijack the hashtag to save Biden the embarrassment, with social media users tweeting photos of dogs. Oh, and the K-pop Twitter crowd did their part."
It won't be dog photos and K-pop Twitter fans providing the disinformation tactics next time. The only reason the hashtag is alive and well is because Biden forgot (shocking, I know) that he lied to starving liberals too.
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I haven't heard anyone on the left, center or right say they trust social media or are planning to start trusting it. Did you meet an exception? Who were they, and did they happen to be distinctive from the rest of the population in any other ways which might help identify them? If these people really exist, we need to figure out how to insulate ourselves from them. I bet there aren't very many.
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I haven't heard anyone on the left, center or right say they trust social media or are planning to start trusting it.
Are you serious with this? Plenty of people worship social media. We probably wouldn't be there discussing this, if that were not true.
...If these people really exist, we need to figure out how to insulate ourselves from them.
In other words, when social media CEOs are called out on the Congressional carpet for Unconstitutional issues, we should stop accepting the bullshit excuses of "I'll get back to you on that." Because we already know they're protecting profits.
I bet there aren't very many.
34% of the human race is within the monthly Facebook user statistics. They are the ones who take utter bullshit to viral levels. Y
Just the opposite (Score:2)
Re:Confused (Score:4, Funny)
Indeed. Trump was a rubber puppet of Putin.
Re: Confused (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh how I wish he was.
Because if anyone is a world class troll, it's Putin.
He would have gotten you back for installing drunk dancing bear Yeltsin* in Russia, and it would have been way funnier (to unamericans anyway)! ^^
No, I'm not pro-Putin you one-bit serial-interface brains. I'm pro not being a psychopathic deluded asshole.
*Yes, that was you. Said the CIA agents in the Washington Post. Literally meddling with Russian elections, and bragging about it too. Like in literally every country around Russia, or
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"*Yes, that was you. Said the CIA agents in the Washington Post. Literally meddling with Russian elections, and bragging about it too. Like in literally every country around Russia, or related to communism"
Yes. Interfering with dictatorships abusing their people is what the sane parts of the world call a good thing. Complaining about someone disrupting a process by which people no better than you act like ranchers managing you like cattle for your own good is an example of 'not sane.' And we didn't brag abo
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"Yes. Interfering with dictatorships abusing their people is what the sane parts of the world call a good thing."
Yeah, but the way it's being done, the actors involved, and the effect over time, often results, in the perpetuation or radicalization of these countries internal politics, and their citizens paying, often with their life, for the meddling and destruction or co-opting of their civil structures.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the examples of how it goes wrong aren't hard to find.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
The great thing is Trump's defense is being paid for by the epic dummies who donated their money to a "billionaire".
And as much as you nuts parroted "Russia, Russia, Russia!" to mock Democrats and their obsession with it, you sure do like to cry about "China, China, China!".
Re:Confused (Score:5, Informative)
Trump only cared about Trump.
Trump is a Narcissist so all his thoughts and actions are only centered around him. Not the country, not the party, not the Donors, just him.
We hated Trump as president not because of some random Cable News station saying he is a bad man, but from his actions and from his explanation of his actions.
The sad part, is how many people still doesn't realize that. They are supporting Trump because Trump says he is right, They think he is a genius because Trump said that he was a Genius, they think Trump Loves America, just because he decides to Hug the American Flag.
Trump was not fit to run as president. However while in charge a lot of the GOP especially just gave him lip service, just so the rubes who fell for Trump would vote for them, and also it is easy to control a Narcissist by playing to their ego, especially if you want to get something done that he may not especially care about either way.
This is worse than just giving favors to a big Donor, because there is a money trail, and also a limit on how many favors and what type you can make.
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Utter nonsense. Trump was absolutely in a league of his own. This probably bothers me the most: the attempt to say that Trump was just like his predecessors, just less polished. Maybe you can make a justifiable comparison with Clinton (they were both shameless liars), but that doesn
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"Trump is the most evil president to have ever existed"
Substitute that for what the dems have said about any republican president. The boy who cried wolf story is very apt here.
This wolf posted his retarded bullshit online almost 24hrs a day. We don't need a boy to tell us anything Trump didn't tell us himself.
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Trump wants nothing more than to be accepted by the donor class. Of course, they despise him as gauche, uncouth, and patently lower class, despite the fact that he comes from wealth. But at the end of the day, he did what they wanted. He lowered taxes for the rich, got rid of regulations, and made things more difficult for the peons, so they would be more dependent on the largess of said donor class.
In the end, Trump is rich. His own self interest aligns with that of other rich people. And his own self inte
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Trump. But yes, many elected representatives come from wealth, and have the interests of the wealthy inculcated into them from birth. Doesn't let Trump off the hook though, because your dumbass argument was that he was somehow different.
"The difference is Biden is a rubber puppet who is completely beholden to the Donor Class.
Trump wasn't, and they hated him for it." --some fucking idiot who really doesn't pay attention and just votes on party lines, I guess.
LOL. Trump's not beholden to the Donor Class. Righ
Re:Confused (Score:5, Interesting)
Didn't get us out of any like he promised, either. And he sure liked drone bombing, and assassinating Iranian generals despite international law.
Trump did not help anyone. Democrats just passed an actual relief bill, as opposed to the corporate hand out Trump presided over. He built ten new swamps and populated them with his cronies, he's the most corrupt president in history. And that's how he always does things, look at any of his businesses. He's not even allowed to operate charities anymore, because he just uses them to pay himself and his family. But I notice you provide no actual examples, just hot air, so I know you don't care about facts, just that your team wins
I don't care about unemployed Canadian pipeline workers. Do you think America owes Canada jobs?
Re:Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Well if I don't know about previous presidents, you don't know about Trump. Dumb argument.
Stop saying "watch and see" like it's an argument. Oh, you're guessing this guy will be more corrupt than Trump? Wow, "I guess, therefore I'm right" is soooo compelling. LOL.
Fuck your fake outrage. More Americans died from Trump's shitty covid response than almost any war, but you don't care. It's just a talking point to you. You have no moral center, and only base good and bad on how it affects your team. Shithead.
There were never 10,000 American pipeline workers, FFS. How in the fuck would a pipeline need that many workers? It's a pipe. Idiot.
You're bad at this. You know that, right?
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It's just phase 4 that was cancelled. The rest of the phases have already been completed. It crosses six US states. So, 1,666 part time employees per state, if you are correct. That may be true, it's not outside the bounds of believability. But as you say, those are part time temporary jobs, not careers. It's disingenuous to claim 10,000 jobs lost. The state department has said that the entire project, all 4 phases, would create only 50 full time permanent jobs. it's important to note that the only place m
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Instead of eliminating the tech platforms ability to censor speech this will make them more beholden to censor in accord with one political party's standards. For the next 4-8yrs anything too supportive of Biden's political opposition can be labeled under these terms.
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It was started by Unions
Citizens United is a conservative nonprofit group. Portraying this as a union initiative is going to win you the gold medal in Olympics mental gymnastics at the upcoming 2020 games.
Re: Remember Citizens United? (Score:2)
He's probably a third rate form troll, that isn' even paid because he doesn't need to, because he actually believes that shit. But still unknowingly working as a lobbyist's forum troll.
Re: Thanks a lot, assholes (Score:2)
ONLINE.
Everyone's a sociopath online. Empathy doesn't work if the other person doesn't stand in front of you.
People are still nicer, in simpler, smaller places without access to the media. (Even the smallest town can be ruined y a single TV though.)