7 ms·
Republicans working on legislation to strip Twitter of liability protections
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Ididntdothis 6y agoI am actually OK with this despite the motives of the people who want to introduce this legislation.
- Traster 6y agoYeah, because as we all know, if you let the fascists get away with a little bit, they're satisified.
- Spivak 6y agoBut the PITA is that they’re right and Twitter did a massively stupid thing and just painted a huge target on the back of every site with user generated content and moderation.
- save_ferris 6y agoThink about the leverage this gives the administration. Sure, Twitter pushes a lot of garbage content, but singling them out puts the administration in a position to demand compliance from others under threat of losing their 230 status. This is an incredibly fascist move disguised as an egalitarian one.
- Simulacra 6y agoThink about the leverage Twitter already has! If Twitter wanted to, and not saying they haven't, they could easily sway an election, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Surely you can find a better reason than simply saying this is fascist.
- save_ferris 6y agoCould Twitter sway an election? Maybe, but it’s speculative. This move is concrete and would give the president the power to go to any tech company and say “do as I wish or I will gut you” in no uncertain terms. This is classic power consolidation and is a core strategy of fascist regimes. I’m in no way being hyperbolic here. I’m not Twitter doesn’t deserve to be regulated, because they do. However, choosing to conditionally regulate companies this way is a great way to fuel corruption because the regulators get to pick and choose who to regulate instead of universally applicable law.
- Simulacra 6y agoI'm afraid this is the same scenario no matter which regulator is in power. The previous administration became the arbiter of truth as to gender and race. What's stopping the next administration from doing the same?
- save_ferris 6y ago> I'm afraid this is the same scenario no matter which regulator is in power. Yes, we trust regulators to regulate effectively and not to single out companies when they do things the president doesn’t like. > The previous administration became the arbiter of truth as to gender and race. How is the prior administration’s policy to towards race and gender in any way relevant to this administration’s policy towards one tech company? > What's stopping the next administration from doing the same? Well, if this action results in a drop in public approval of the administration, the next administration is probably not going to be incentivized to do it. Further, this line of questioning provides zero substance as you could ask that question of any scenario. “It’s OK now because no one will be stopped from doing it in the future” is not a valid argument.
- mcphage 6y ago> The previous administration became the arbiter of truth as to gender and race. What do you mean when you say this?
- blhack 6y agoIt's something that internet freedom advocates have wanted for a long time, and it's unfortunate that these are the people introducing it. edit: people seem to be misunderstanding what I'm saying, or maybe misunderstanding what is being implied in the article. Section 230 is GOOD, and it is something freedom-fighters have advocated for for a long time. What I'm saying is that freedom-advocates have been in favor of using the threat of losing 230 protection as a way of compelling platforms not to censor speech that they don't like.
- Ididntdothis 6y agoYou always have to look at the facts and not align with a party. Maybe one party does more stuff you like but if the other party does something you want, you should support it.
- fzeroracer 6y agoI'm curious: What internet freedom advocates? Because the EFF seems to believes in section 230 being a generally good thing. And back during the Christchurch shootings when there were proposed limitations to section 230 to make companies liable for hate speech on their platform, there was an uproar from the internet freedom advocates that this would result in censorship and less free speech.
- Simulacra 6y agoYour curiosity is rewarded: https://disclosurespreview.house.gov/?index=%22lobbying-disclosures%22&size=10&keyword=%22twitter%22&sort=[{%22_score%22:true},{%22field%22:%22registrant.name%22,%22order%22:%22asc%22} https://disclosurespreview.house.gov/?index=%22lobbying-disc...] Gosh what an ugly URL. It's the lobbying reports for Twitter. The biggest internet "freedom" advocates are the paid lobbyists of the tech industry.
- threatofrain 6y ago> Because the EFF seems to believes in section 230 being a generally good thing. Citation for claim? https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230
- shadowgovt 6y agoI think I'd miss the President's tweets. But if S230 protections are significantly curtailed, his tendency to tweet off the cuff without having his facts lined up in a row would put him near the top of the chopping block to kick off the service for liability reasons.
- slg 6y agoThis is the part I don't get. Don't these people realize that losing this protection would actually force Twitter's hand to "censor" people?
- autokad 6y agothe way I understand it, they are censoring people, which is why some are saying they shouldn't have the 230 protection
- bediger4000 6y agoI put together a Twitter Q-sona. I followed a bunch of prominent and not-so-prominent Qanons. The way I understand it, they are not censoring people, the people claiming to be "shadow banned" and "twitter deleting my followers" and "I get no traction on my tweets", are misunderstanding Twitter, or technology, or both. There's a huge misunderstanding of how large twitter is, how many tweets flow through, and how many people are tweeting. My understanding is based on personal research. What's yours based on?
- autokad 6y agoThe most notable recent example is Aytu BioScience, an aultraviolet light blood treatment company banned, we all know the story. I thought about going into one of the many particular individuals that have been banned, that is well know to most people except exceptional researchers like you, but I figured it would just be easy to start you with a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbTXqrS9l5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbTXqrS9l5E
- tensor 6y agoI would be OK with this if Trump was banned from Twitter after this, but you know that won't happen.
- pwinnski 6y agoIf Section 230 protections were removed, Trump would have to be banned immediately, because lawsuits against Twitter would be filed within hours. Which is somewhat the point: if you remove Section 230, there will no longer be anything like Twitter or Facebook.
- fzeroracer 6y agoIt seems to me that the threat is loud and clear. If you do anything to respond to the Trump administration, we will destroy and censor you. The great irony is that if you strip a company of their section 230 protections, doesn't that just mean that they're going to censor more things on their platform since they're now liable? Why wouldn't they remove Trump from Twitter entirely if they could be held liable for his rants? Of course then you're said to be 'biased' against Trump, which then circles back to the first step. Which seems to me might be the endgame here. Get Twitter to ban Trump and now you have a lot of red meat for his fervent fanbase.
- mabbo 6y agoI worry that what Trump wants is something far more "Godfather": for Jack Dorsey to sit down and be given an offer he can't refuse. Dorsey gets told "We'll call this all off, say that we've decided not to interfere with free speech, but from now on you never contradict the president, you never contradict any Republican leader, and you start posting fact-checks more often on Democrats". That's the Trump strategy, typically. Deals. Always making deals. And Dorsey knows he has to play the game, because his major shareholders will all be quietly informed that the deal was out there, and he didn't take it. He'd lose his job if he didn't agree. And if he goes public, Trump can say "I sat down with the man and tried to work out a fair deal, but he refused!", playing the victim. Donald Trump is not a brilliant man, but he is very, very good at this game because he does not let ethics, norms, or laws get in his way.
- dsl 6y agoIt seems counterproductive to me to remove the legal protections of a platform that prevent them from being sued to take your tweets down.
- shadowgovt 6y agoOr, worse, to prevent them from being sued for medical malpractice because one of their users tweeted medical advice without a degree, someone took it seriously, and now they're being held partially liable by the victim's estate because the drug they started taking in response to that advice exacerbated an undiagnosed heart condition.
- joncrane 6y agoHmm, what an oddly specific scenario....
- dpbriggs 6y agoI don't think Twitter will survive without platform protection, so they'll need to change their actions. I am curious if the courts will agree if annotating tweets with a fact check is editorializing.
- neonate 6y agoMaybe they're doing it more for leverage.
- Spivak 6y agoThis whole situation feels messy and gross but I think they’re absolutely right that Twitter has massively overstepped what would reasonably be considered moderation. I’m reasonably mad at Twitter for this because they’ve punched a hornets nest and opened the door to making the lives of every site massively more painful and complicated because the pendulum feels like it’s about to swing the other way where any form of moderation is going to be rebranded as editorial and make the web worse overall.
- ChrisLTD 6y agoWhat makes you say Twitter “massively overstepped what would reasonably be considered moderation”?
- Simulacra 6y agoBy defining truth they overstepped. It's like when you go to Trader Joes looking for gluten free poptarts. If Trader Joe's has decided gluten free only applies to soft white wheat, then they are the arbiter of truth as to what Gluten Free means in their stores. Twitter takes this one step further by not only identifying what it believes is truth, but also by putting a scarlet letter on what it deems contrary to their truth.
- ryguytilidie 6y agoI don't think I've ever disagreed with anyone more than, "Twitter has massively overstepped what would reasonably be considered moderation." This is all because they DARED fact check lie number 2129317?LOL
- rsynnott 6y agoI mean, if this legislation were actually to go through (which seems doubtful) Twitter would pretty much have to immediately remove Trump's account, given the libel exposure.
- 3jckd 6y agoOn one hand side, provided rationale is right and I agree. If Twitter wants to play the policing game, they'd better bring out big guns and introduce a mechanism to police and fact-check entire platform. On the other hand, and maybe its due to my lack of knowledge on the 230, how's report-and-remove of posts different? Twitter already has mechanisms to remove flagged content so how's this incident different (apart from being blatantly political). Lastly, does anyone know if Facebook and YouTube are also protected under 230? I imagine that GOP wants to make an example of Twitter but for the sake of consistency Facebook and Youtube should get the same treatment.
- arcticbull 6y ago> On one hand side, provided rationale is right and I agree. If Twitter wants to play the policing game, they'd better bring out big guns and introduce a mechanism to police and fact-check entire platform. They're not required to, of course. They are exercising their right to free speech. They are also not required to publish, amplify or otherwise create a platform for any speech they don't want to.
- Goronmon 6y agoLastly, does anyone know if Facebook and YouTube are also protected under 230? I imagine that GOP wants to make an example of Twitter but for the sake of consistency Facebook and Youtube should get the same treatment. My understanding that any website on the internet that allows users to post content is protected under 230. Including Hacker News, which then becomes potentially liable for any content posted if its removed.
- snowwrestler 6y agoFriendly reminder that any member of Congress can write and introduce whatever bill they want to. My reading of the prospects for actual passage of this bill are approximately a butterfly fart in a tornado. This is most likely what is sometimes called a "message bill": legislation that is not actually expected to pass but is introduced anyway in an attempt to score political points.
- bjourne 6y agoAlso a message from these politicians to their boss Trump that they are loyal bootlickers.
- Simulacra 6y agoThe polls reflecting Trump's low poll numbers are the same ones that said he lost on the night he won the election.
- avmich 6y agoThat case is rather unique and doesn't invalidate the idea of polling per ce.
- nutjob2 6y agoYour statement is an error in interpreting polls. Polls cannot tell you who will win the election, only the probability of each result. Trump has about a 30% chance of winning according to the polls. The polls themselves were no less accurate as they have been historically, on average. They were not wrong, but have always had the limitation of only representing probabilities.
- Simulacra 6y agoThey were not wrong? I think FiveThirtyEight would disagree with you. Their polling showed Hillary would win. They were mostly confident in that poll, and yet only one (Los Angeles Times) was correct. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-fivethirtyeight-gave-trump-a-better-chance-than-almost-anyone-else/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-fivethirtyeight-gav...
- save_ferris 6y agoThis needs to be applied universally to all companies or killed, because this puts companies like Facebook in a position to be coerced by the White House under threat of losing their protected status. Applying this rule to single companies that act out seems so incredibly dangerous.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nutjob2 6y agoIt's funny you should mention that, the idea had its own clause in the constitution (equal protection). This legislation is a bit of a joke and aimed at a certain audience. It's obviously illegal.
- bediger4000 6y agoI predict that we'll see a lot of such special cases in the next years.
- analyte123 6y agoYou can't just say "Twitter has to do X", as it would probably qualify as a bill of attainder. Consider the Sherman Antitrust Act, which was equally the law for both Standard Oil and Joe's Gas Station.
- Analemma_ 6y agoHave these people thought at all about what they're doing, as opposed to just reflexive spasms of anger? If this went through, it would accomplish the exact opposite of what they want: if section 230 was removed and Twitter became liable for the things right-wingers post there-- with their frequent libel and thinly-veiled incitements to violence-- it would have to increase the amount of censorship and banning it does, to save itself from constant lawsuits.
- errantmind 6y agoI see a lot of people asking "wouldn't stripping section 230 protections create more censorship on the platform?" That is the point. Shifting all liability to Twitter would effectively kill the platform as there is no way, even with the most sophisticated methods available, to police a platform of that size to the point where the liability is acceptable.
- nutjob2 6y agoNever mind Twitter, it would do the same to all websites if it held. The internet would be destroyed overnight, at least in the US.
- ncallaway 6y agoYep. There's a million small forums that want to provide some levels of political moderation (e.g. we don't want the KKK or overt Nazis posting their rants). Yet if you remove those posts, suddenly you become liable for anything posted on the rest of your forum. It's going to kill every small community on the internet. I suspect HN would be included in that.
- analyte123 6y agoI'm so mixed up about this whole Section 230 thing. It seems like it absolves Twitter from liability about things that its users post. But due to various pressure points or cultural factors or whatever, they act they're liable for things posted and have invested a lot of money in moderation, fact checking, trust & safety, "censorship" -- whatever you want to call it. None of this is illegal. Republicans seem to being missing the forest for the trees here, but I'm not sure what the forest looks like. Section 230 is the very same law that would prevent a conservative or right-wing site being liable for its users' content. The tweet "corrections" seem unwise, because those seem to not be immune from cvil liability under section 230 being that they fail the 3rd prong of section 230 where "defendant (Twitter) must not be the 'information content provider' of the harmful information at issue". So if someone posts libel on Twitter, you can't sue Twitter, but if Twitter "corrects" someone's tweet with something that is actionable libel, couldn't you sue them then?