Author Topic: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media  (Read 2238 times)

Ben

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Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« on: October 15, 2020, 09:24:55 AM »
After what happened yesterday with the whole Biden laptop story, and what is continuing today with Twitter accounts of conservatives being locked because of it, it seems it's time to take Section 230 protection away from all the tech companies. They have shown they cannot be trusted and that they are absolutely attempting to be the engines of "social change". THEIR social change.
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Ron

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #1 on: October 15, 2020, 09:32:59 AM »
Joe doesn't even remember having a son name Hunter.
For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse. Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

RoadKingLarry

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #2 on: October 15, 2020, 09:43:56 AM »
Joe doesn't even remember having a son name Hunter.

But he supports the he 2nd amendment for hunters.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

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WLJ

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #3 on: October 15, 2020, 10:19:43 AM »
But he supports the he 2nd amendment for hunters.

Give the deer both barrels through the door
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HankB

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #4 on: October 15, 2020, 10:52:24 AM »
But he supports the he 2nd amendment for hunters.
And he'll continue to do so when he wins his current Senate race.

Right after he raises the minimum wage to $15,000,000/hour, the thing, you know man, the thing - up in the sky - willing.
Trump won in 2016. Democrats haven't been so offended since Republicans came along and freed their slaves.
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French G.

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #5 on: October 15, 2020, 11:52:36 AM »
Yeah, I think locking a campaign official account will sure make things fun.
AKA Navy Joe   

I'm so contrarian that I didn't respond to the thread.

DittoHead

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #6 on: October 15, 2020, 03:07:45 PM »
it's time to take Section 230 protection away from all the tech companies.

Are there any good (and realistic) proposals to actually do this?
I know people love to whine about it but I see very few actual proposals for what the specific rules should be and attempts so far have gone nowhere.
In the moral, catatonic stupor America finds itself in today it is only disagreement we seek, and the more virulent that disagreement, the better.

TechMan

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #7 on: October 15, 2020, 03:24:09 PM »
Totally agree.  Twitter blocked the Republican House Judiciary Committee when they posted the NY Post link.

https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1316728942523547653
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kgbsquirrel

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #8 on: October 15, 2020, 05:07:00 PM »
Yeah, I think locking a campaign official account will sure make things fun.

Election interference there.

Anyone want to talk about the FBI sitting on this evidence for a year?  How about the OTHER laptop that they are still sitting on, the one from Carlos Danger.

MechAg94

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #9 on: October 15, 2020, 05:10:09 PM »
Are there any good (and realistic) proposals to actually do this?
I know people love to whine about it but I see very few actual proposals for what the specific rules should be and attempts so far have gone nowhere.
Win the election and get majorities in both houses.  Otherwise, I doubt any legislation happens.  I have heard the existing law is pretty vague on the whole thing.  They might be able to do something about it being an in-kind political donation. 
“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”  ― Calvin Coolidge

MechAg94

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #10 on: October 15, 2020, 05:23:49 PM »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqsdqkq52AI
Ted Cruz EXPLODES on Twitter For Censoring NY Post Article on Hunter Biden

Ted Cruz says the judiciary committee will be voting on subpoenas for the head of Twitter.  I guess that is one way to harass the company. 
“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”  ― Calvin Coolidge

DittoHead

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #11 on: October 15, 2020, 05:45:52 PM »
I have heard the existing law is pretty vague on the whole thing.  They might be able to do something about it being an in-kind political donation. 
What it comes down to is that websites are not liable for what the users post (with a few very specific exceptions of things that are already illegal - child porn, copyright infringement, etc.).
The owners of this forum can't be sued for the things that I post, Twitter can't be sued for what Donald Trump tweets.
Laws are sometimes overly vague and even labyrinthine in their text. But Section 230 is not one of them. The key provision, what is essentially responsible for allowing all user-generated content to exist, is only 26 words long. And it says this:

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

It means that if you, reader, operate an online forum, chatroom, or blog where your visitors can leave comments, post pictures, GIFs, or video, you cannot be sued into oblivion for anything your users post.
While I am sympathetic to the claims of bias in social media moderation, I haven't seen a proposal that is compatible with the 1st amendment and would effectively improve things. I doubt campaign finance law is a good place to look for a solution, such a mess that is. The freedom of the internet & social media is one of the few things that counters the dominance of the main stream media, tinkering with that could easily backfire.
In the moral, catatonic stupor America finds itself in today it is only disagreement we seek, and the more virulent that disagreement, the better.

Jim147

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #12 on: October 15, 2020, 06:22:20 PM »
I guess we could find some funding for Parlor. Then crush Twitter with the iron fist of capitalism.
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And sometimes goes on and on and on.

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Ben

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #13 on: October 15, 2020, 06:49:33 PM »
I guess we could find some funding for Parlor. Then crush Twitter with the iron fist of capitalism.

There used to be a thing called Usenet, where everybody just said what was on their minds, and we managed to live through the free speech.

Now we have Twitter and Facebook, which have become de facto modes of communication for a majority (not me) of not just Americans, but global inhabitants. Both platforms decide for their users what is and is not free speech. If they were small entities like APS, who cares? You just go to another forum. When they have become the main sources of communication and news for people though, they have some responsibility for the fallout of their biased policies.

They also have little reason to change, as long as people continue to default to them. As long as they continue to fall ass backwards into giant pools of money generated by selling the PII of their users, there is no big incentive for them to do anything but say, FU.
"I'm a foolish old man that has been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trousers and a nincompoop."

DittoHead

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #14 on: October 15, 2020, 07:03:09 PM »
If they were small entities like APS, who cares? You just go to another forum. When they have become the main sources of communication and news for people though, they have some responsibility for the fallout of their biased policies.
That's a hard line to draw though and it quickly turns into punishing a business for being successful.

crush Twitter with the iron fist of capitalism.
This would be the ideal solution, however I don't get the impression people really think it's feasible. There may be some anti-trust avenues to pursue the bigger tech companies, and people would certainly support it as punishment if nothing else, but I don't see that actually fixing much.
In the moral, catatonic stupor America finds itself in today it is only disagreement we seek, and the more virulent that disagreement, the better.

French G.

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #15 on: October 15, 2020, 07:15:51 PM »
Election interference there.

Anyone want to talk about the FBI sitting on this evidence for a year?  How about the OTHER laptop that they are still sitting on, the one from Carlos Danger.

Carlos Danger: No one can be a bigger idiot than I am.
Hunter: Hold my crack pipe.
AKA Navy Joe   

I'm so contrarian that I didn't respond to the thread.

makattak

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #16 on: October 15, 2020, 11:14:20 PM »
There used to be a thing called Usenet, where everybody just said what was on their minds, and we managed to live through the free speech.

Now we have Twitter and Facebook, which have become de facto modes of communication for a majority (not me) of not just Americans, but global inhabitants. Both platforms decide for their users what is and is not free speech. If they were small entities like APS, who cares? You just go to another forum. When they have become the main sources of communication and news for people though, they have some responsibility for the fallout of their biased policies.

They also have little reason to change, as long as people continue to default to them. As long as they continue to fall ass backwards into giant pools of money generated by selling the PII of their users, there is no big incentive for them to do anything but say, FU.


People do not "continue to default to them", though.

They actively buy ọut any competitor that might challenge their dominance.

Seems I've read something once or twice about what you call companies that use their market power for something something... Dark side... Something something restraint of trade...
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Ben

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #18 on: October 16, 2020, 08:32:16 AM »
https://theintercept.com/2020/10/15/facebook-and-twitter-cross-a-line-far-more-dangerous-than-what-they-censor/


Good read.

In the meantime, Twitter has "changed its policy":

Quote
Vijaya Gadde, global lead for legal, policy, and trust and safety at Twitter, wrote in a statement that Twitter would no longer remove hacked content unless it is directly shared by hackers or those acting in league with hackers, and that the company will label tweets to provide context, rather than blocking links from being shared on the platform.

Of course this has zero to do with the NY Post, as there was no hacked material in evidence*, so I guess they're really not changing policy.

*One can argue that this laptop popped up under "interesting" circumstances, but that's still not hacking.
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zahc

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #19 on: October 16, 2020, 11:04:57 AM »
Section 230 is almost irrelevant here. The only reason it's under discussion is it's the only bit of law that might apply. But it's nothing but grasping at straws, and any "reinterpretation" of section 230 will almost certainly make things worse while not fixing the problem, which is a completely new problem which no existing law addresses. A resolution would depend on swift action by a functioning congress, and our congress is all but completely dysfunctional.

It's also too late to do anything about this now, meaning this election. TwitFace's gamble is that nothing will impact them until their preferred regime is in power and after that it will be smooth sailing. Nice, smooth, fascist sailing. They are facing the threat of regulation anyway so they have nothing at all to lose. Expect them to double down.
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bedlamite

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #20 on: October 16, 2020, 11:35:52 AM »
I'm kind of surprised someone hasn't sued them already on the basis that they are editing posts,and therefore they are an publisher, not a platform, and 230 provides no protection.
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DittoHead

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #21 on: October 16, 2020, 11:57:39 AM »
I'm kind of surprised someone hasn't sued them already on the basis that they are editing posts,and therefore they are an publisher, not a platform, and 230 provides no protection.

Do you have an example of something they edited that would be lawsuit worthy?
In the moral, catatonic stupor America finds itself in today it is only disagreement we seek, and the more virulent that disagreement, the better.

Ron

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #22 on: October 16, 2020, 12:15:54 PM »
Twitter and Facebook are in full blown advocacy mode for the Democrats right now.

Like the newspapers and most all electronic media companies, they are the Democrats.

 
For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse. Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

bedlamite

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #23 on: October 16, 2020, 12:17:25 PM »
Do you have an example of something they edited that would be lawsuit worthy?

Editing is more than just changing a post, it's also deciding what gets seen and what doesn't.
A plan is just a list of things that doesn't happen.
Is defenestration possible through the overton window?

Ben

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Re: Time to Drop the Hammer on Section 230 for Social Media
« Reply #24 on: October 16, 2020, 12:52:35 PM »
Slight tangent, but even some liberals understand that what is happening is bad, even if it's happening to people they disagree with. Super pleasantly surprised to see this by Sean Lennon, especially given his background growing up. This isn't the first thing that he has made logical and cogent arguments against stuff you might think he was for. Nice to see an open mind.

https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2020/10/16/scary-to-think-about-sean-ono-lennon-says-collusion-between-social-media-and-media-to-manipulate-our-reality-puts-stalins-machine-to-shame/
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