6 ms·
I will reemphasize an opinion I expressed on an earlier thread: this is an overtly totalitarian move designed to intimidate and suppress private entities' prote
by akersten 6y ago
I will reemphasize an opinion I expressed on an earlier thread: this is an overtly totalitarian move designed to intimidate and suppress private entities' protected expression, disguised as a reaction to perceived bias (which would still be an invalid pretense for any such order). It's a disgusting attack on an American industry by our own executive.
- mam2 6y agoUnless hes right and social media compagnies are actually biaised against conservatives. OH WAIT.
- t0mas88 6y agoThat own executive will attack any industry he doesn't agree with at any point he pleases. It's how he has done it for years in business and it's how he will do it in politics for as long as he isn't prosecuted and removed from office. As long as the Republicans keep supporting him and have a majority he will just continue to pull more and more crazy stunts and get away with it.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- aaaaaaaaaaa10 6y agoThe Supreme Court has ruled that it “does not disable the government from taking steps to ensure that private interests not restrict...the free flow of information and ideas.” See the case here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-44.ZO.html https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-44.ZO.html The full text: "The First Amendment's command that government not impede the freedom of speech does not disable the government from taking steps to ensure that private interests not restrict, through physical control of a critical pathway of communication, the free flow of information and ideas."
- gilbetron 6y agoTwitter is expressing it's 1st amendment rights by labeling tweets. Twitter is not the government, Trump is. The situation is completely opposite what you make it.
- Reelin 6y agoI don't agree with the executive order at all, but the person you responded to doesn't have the situation backwards. People (such as yourself, and myself as it happens) will claim that this order violates the first amendment. However the Supreme Court has explicitly allowed such actions under very specific circumstances. One such circumstance was called out above. So the question is: would the actions in this case constitute a step to prevent a private interest (ie Twitter) from restricting communication via control of a physical pathway?
- jboog 6y agoHow does fact-checking dishonest (or at the very least disingenuous) comments "restrict the free flow of information and ideas"? The ideas still flow freely. Twitter isn't even forcing more accurate and factual information right next to the dishonest framing. You have to click the link to even see it. This seems like world class straw-grasping.
- akersten 6y agoA ruling like that makes me even more surprised that the government did not take steps to maintain net neutrality. I would say ISPs are a far more "critical pathway of communication" than Twitter is. Them taking steps to prevent Twitter from "restricting" information really doesn't follow with the approach this administration's FCC took with ISPs.
- lgleason 6y agoNo it's not. Twitter currently enjoys immunity from section 230 of the communication decency act. That protection requires that they are not editorializing content. Fact checking content is a form of editorializing. If you want to do that, no protection and you are open to lawsuits. This has bi-partisan support and they are simply reining this in which is long overdue.
- paulgb 6y ago> That protection requires that they are not editorializing content. It doesn't. Here is its text: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
- sixstringtheory 6y agoThat is not editorializing. Day in and day out journalists print news stories that have been fact checked and contain links to source information. And then there’s the opinion section. It’s clear which Twitter was doing, and it wasn’t editorial.
- ww520 6y agoNewspaper doesn’t enjoy the protection of Section 230.
- sixstringtheory 6y agoThat doesn't matter because we can't even start talking about S230 until we agree that what Twitter did was editorializing, which it wasn't.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- akersten 6y ago> That protection requires that they are not editorializing content. Please cite the law that says that, because it's certainly not S230. S230 was specifically made to empower sites to moderate, editorialize, and remove content as they see fit for their platform.
- nine_zeros 6y ago+1 These are the exact steps taken by authoritarian democracies (typically third world phony democracies). The last 4 years have been nothing short of a nightmare.
- partyboat1586 6y agoTwitter is _the_ place where political discourse happens. It's an unfortunate state of affairs for some that it happens to be a private company with a bias. And for better of for worse it does have a bias.
- vkou 6y agoWho should host this discourse instead? The government? A perfectly impartial Vulcan? CNN? Fox?
- partyboat1586 6y agoIt can be a private company it just needs to be regulated. I think you are underestimating how big Twitter is... It's way bigger than CNN its way bigger than Fox in fact those networks regularly quote tweets.
- vkou 6y agoBy eyeball-hours, Fox is much bigger than Twitter among American audiences. Viewers tune into it for hours, on a daily basis. What kind of regulation is it subjected to? It doesn't have to be neutral, and it has a legally-tested right to lie, and mislead. And that's for first-party content directly produced by it.
- chrisco255 6y agoDo you have a quote on eyeball hours? Fox at most gets 2-3 million viewers at prime time. Twitter has hundreds of millions of users and their reach exceeds even their membership, as Tweets often drive narrative on many other platforms. You can read the order. Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act set out provisions protecting internet service providers from liability for obscene, lewd, etc content on the basis they are a neutral platform (like an email provider) and not an active arbiter and curator of content published on their page. The law clearly states it's protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material (lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessive violent, harassing, etc). Not for editorial protection. Not for arbitrary enforcement of TOS.
- chrisco255 6y agoSorry big tech is subject to antitrust laws that have been on the books for 120+ years. The Federal Government could break Twitter up into 10 different pieces if it deemed the service a monopoly. That's not totalitarian, that's clearly justified. These platforms claim all the immunity of a utility while actively engaging in algorithmic and human-induced bias that completely slants the platform. In some cases the platform elevates and upholds the viewpoints of foreign nations above our own. That is not totalitarian. Targeting a specific political party for undue censorship and opinion meddling is totalitarian.
- inamberclad 6y agoTwitter doesn't have a monopoly on short messages posted online, and it's no real loss if I don't use Twitter at all. The closest internet company to being a monopoly is clearly Google, and that's because it's nearly impossible to avoid them. Twitter ain't there yet.
- chrisco255 6y agoMicrosoft wasn't the only operating system on the market. It doesn't matter, in legal terms a monopoly isn't owning 100% of a platform. It is having a majority of a market and engaging in anticompetitive practices, including controlling access to goods and services. Sorry, but Twitter, Facebook, and Google could all be subject to antitrust actions.
- coliveira 6y agoThe problem is not the existence of anti-trust laws and other regulations - these things are good. The problem is the blatant political use of these tools. If a company becomes a problem to the Trump regime, they will use the full array of existing laws to prosecute them, at the same time when they are dismantling legislation that targets their allies.
- paulgb 6y agoAgreed, but also -- if it's an issue of antitrust law, use antitrust law! Not the CDA by way of an executive order.
- codegeek 6y agoTrump is salty because supposedly these social media platforms lean left and are biased against the right. I can bet if it was the other way around, he wouldn't sign this. It is absolutely a partisan thing. I am not even saying whether he is right or wrong in his claim. But he is doing this only because the social media platforms supposedly hurt the right more.
- hintymad 6y agoIs providing fact-check links to the tweets of a specific person or group considered editorizing? Twitter said offering fact-check was not editorization, but the critics said that fact-checking a targeted group was. I have yet to see anyone clarify that key difference.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- TallGuyShort 6y agoI could see how it would be considered editorializing. I haven't looked much at the facts in this particular case myself, but I've definitely seen cases where fact checks seemed to be dripping with a bias or agenda of their own. But here's the thing: that's fine! I can see why people would think that Constitutional protections of individual free speech apply on social media, but regardless of if you think they do or not, then adding editorial content to the posts should be protected as well. Do you think the 1st amendment protects your posts because they're "speech"? Yes? Then Twitter also has free speech on it's own platform, even if it's biased. Do you think the 1st amendment does not protect your posts, because Twitter is a private company? Yes? Then Twitter is also allowed to say whatever it wants on it's own private platform. There's a difference between censoring, which is a whole other discussion, and adding editorial or fact-checking content, and I just don't see how anyone can argue that Twitter can't do the latter. edit: there's also a difference in individual free speech and companies having free speech, but I think Trump is the last person who can make a stand on the idea that commercial interests can't be operated based on individual preferences.
- jboog 6y agoTwitter isn't targeting any specific group so this is a moot point. They have been and will continue to "fact check" liberals and democrats too. This reminds me of the dishonest framing of the IRS supposedly targeting conservative non profits for audits. Yes, it is true Obama's DOJ targeted these groups. What you'll never hear from the GOP talking points is that the IRS also targeted liberal groups for the same audits.
- kyrra 6y ago
- kanox 6y agoAs far as I understand stripping these protections from social media companies will strongly encourage them to do far far more editorializing. This is bad for the companies (more liabilities) bad for freedom of speech (fewer views are expressed) and also bad for the president and his party (since social media companies already lean against them). Trump is an idiot.
- Avicebron 6y agoI can also see it going the other way, over editorializing could easily lead to more competition in the space.
- mundo 6y agoThank you; I find it concerning that so much of the response to this has been focused on Twitter's behavior, and so little on the President's. I would hope that even people who think Twitter's fact-check links amount to censorship would agree that Trump would be wrong to censor Twitter in retaliation. Although, I will say that if you've ever moderated a forum or subreddit, you probably know that when you ban a user for stepping over the line one too many times, "I'm gonna shut this place down!" is a pretty common first response. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail and we won't have to find out what happens when the President and the first amendment come to blows.
- roenxi 6y agoThis attack on Sec 230 is radical and may well have far reaching consequences, but it is in no way totalitarian. It is trying to classify Twitter (& others) as a publisher. The US does not treat publishers in an unreasonable manner.
- Animats 6y agoYes. It's the sort of behavior one usually sees from lesser-country petty tyrants like Erdogan (Turkey) and Netanyahu (Israel). They're elected, and don't have full autocratic power, but they heavily abuse what power they have to stay in power. This problem was classic among the central American countries and Mexico, although that part of the world is looking up a bit. Historically, leaders like this are not rare. They're just rare in US history. In the US, they've rarely advanced beyond the mayor level. (See Tweed Ring, Pendergast machine, Daley machine, etc.) Huey Long made it to one term as Louisiana governor; he's the best known US example of the type.