5 ms·

Link to the executive order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidenti

by geuis 6y ago

Link to the executive order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or... Clearly not written by POTUS himself.

rumanator 6y ago
It's mind-numbingly strange how the Trump administration is reacting to Twitter attaching a "get the facts" link with attacks with accusations of being "fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic" and, ghasp, censorship. US citizens need to step up because the whiffs of fascism are getting stronger.
- Avicebron 6y ago
  The whiffs of fascism is comping from anti-competitive and kleptocratic business practices. Fixing that is where we should be focusing.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    Dude, Trump lied his ass off and Twitter attached a "get the facts" link to Trump's original and unchanged post. This has zero to do with "kleptocratic business practices". What Twitter did is what a free press does. I'm fact, it's pathetic how anyone tries to defend Trump by pulling a "kleptocratic business practices" card.
    - s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
      > What Twitter did is what a free press does. Yeah that's the problem. If they want to do what free press does then they should be a publisher. Calling the other side pathetic and using hyperboles will not win anyone over to your side. Trump did not lie imo and if you consider his statements up for debate there are plenty of other political tweets that have never been flagged. Twitter opened a can of worms, they shouldn't have stepped into the political arena. - edit @ robotron - Trump has been a political figure for a long time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEPs17_AkTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEPs17_AkTI He may not have been directly in politics but as a real estate mogul and CEO I'm sure he's networked in. To summarize him as just a reality star is disingenuous.
      - robotron 6y ago
        If only reality TV "stars" didn't step into the political arena.
    - tathougies 6y ago
      > This has zero to do with "kleptocratic business practices". What Twitter did is what a free press does. The press has regulation though. The press can be held liable for false claims by those they affect. For example, Nick Sandman was able to sue CNN for the Covington coverage, and settle, because CNN was liable for publishing incorrect information. Whereas, twitter claims to not be a publisher or part of the press, but instead relies on being a platform or utility like a telephone, to avoid this kind of legal liability. If twitter is no longer just providing a platform for its users to provide content but is now providing content itself, then yes, it should be held to the standards of a publisher, much in the same way it is responsible legally for the ads it publishes. Now, I don't believe the president has the ability to decide this liability exists, but I would hope that it already does in our common law system somewhere.
      - javagram 6y ago
        > The press can be held liable for false claims by those they affect. For example, Nick Sandman was able to sue CNN for the Covington coverage, and settle, because CNN was liable for publishing incorrect information. However, if CNN has a comments section on their website, they aren't liable for the posts made by random people in the comments, even if they moderate those comments. They have the same section 230 protections as twitter. > Whereas, twitter claims to not be a publisher or part of the press, but instead relies on being a platform or utility like a telephone, to avoid this kind of legal liability. If the content of the "Fact Check" posted by twitter is illegal (e.g. libel), Trump could sue them in court for libel and win damages, regardless of Section 230. Section 230 protects twitter from liability for its' USERS posts, not for the posts twitter itself makes. @jack can be sued for anything illegal he posts on twitter, twitter the company can be sued for anything they post on @Twitter that is illegal. Any lawsuit against the fact check would be laughed out of court of course as its clearly protected political opinion, and corporations have 1st Amendment rights to express their political opinions (see Citizens United).
        tathougies 6y ago
        > However, if CNN has a comments section on their website, they aren't liable for the posts made by random people in the comments, even if they moderate those comments. They have the same section 230 protections as twitter. Moderation (in the form of removal) is much different from modifying the content of the post, even if to provide 'fact-checking'. I'm fine with twitter removing the president, I don't see why they should have to host him. But they are desperate for anyone to actually use their website, so... > If the content of the "Fact Check" posted by twitter is illegal (e.g. libel), Trump could sue them in court for libel and win damages, regardless of Section 230. I'm not a legal expert, so if this is the case, that's great! From what I read, the executive order supposedly made this legal, but if it already was, then props to the legislature for making it legal, and props to the president for not expanding executive power and just reiterating what congress and the courts have already made law.
    - sammalloy 6y ago
      > it’s pathetic how anyone tries to defend Trump by pulling a “kleptocratic business practices” card Nailed it, but know your audience. Most of the people here are engineers, who lean center-right and are particularly vulnerable to conspiracy theorizing and authoritarian impulses, which is why they consistently defend the behavior of the worst president in US history. https://www.machinedesign.com/news/article/21819513/the-politics-of-engineers https://www.machinedesign.com/news/article/21819513/the-poli...
      - s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
        Quite a bit of mind reading and assuming there. Your bias is clouding your cognition. Your article seems to be about electrical/mechanical engineers btw, which is probably a small subset here. I'm sure geographical location matters the most and job title is negligible, personally it's pretty liberal here to me, like most of the internet. To burst your echo chamber, Obama imo was the worst president in history, up there w/ Truman. Notice how that's my opinion and I don't try to force it on you or present it as a fact. Insulting people never wins any minds over.
        sammalloy 6y ago
        > Obama was the worst president in history Do you know why there isn’t a single, reputable and reliable expert in a relevant field that agrees with you? Believing everyone else is wrong is a danger sign https://mindhacks.com/2018/06/17/believing-everyone-else-is-wrong-is-a-danger-sign/ https://mindhacks.com/2018/06/17/believing-everyone-else-is-...
        s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
        I don't care what your "experts" have to say. I follow the news very closely and I make my own decisions based on first hand sources and comparing left & right wing secondary sources. Keep blindly believing in your "experts" and mind reading, you're living in the dark in your echo chamber. Just because you surround yourself with articles and people that think like you doesn't mean the other ideologies that challenge you go away. Believing that your side is right and the other side is completely wrong is a danger sign. Trump was elected so clearly a large amount of people agree with his politics... - edit @ sammalloy - I hit a limit so I'll reply to the below comment here: First off, the wiki article you linked has a 2014 Quinnipiac poll where Obama is polled as the worst president since WWII. Second off, you can't fact check an opinion. I think your misunderstanding of that highlights the crux of this entire twitter issue. You and Jack Dorsey can keep your fact checks, they are flawed in logic. - edit @ beirut_bootleg: As I stated above, I follow both sides and the leads. I'm here debating in this liberal echo chamber so I'm clearly not hiding in a bubble.
- _jal 6y ago
  It is a distraction. He doesn't want to talk about the economy or the plague, so he's trying to change the subject.
  - tathougies 6y ago
    If there was ever a time for a plague, this was the best time economically. People started off this plague with more wealth and savings than any time in the past decade. American business started off the crisis with more cash on hand than literally any other time in history.
    - rumanator 6y ago
      > If there was ever a time for a plague, this was the best time economically. In the US alone the covid19 death count is currently at around 100k, with 1.7M reported cases brewing up. If anything, the economic consequences are the trade-off of not getting an even larger death count, which is already quite high.
      - tathougies 6y ago
        This death count is way better than initially estimated, even with lockdowns. So this is good news. > If anything, the economic consequences are the trade-off of not getting an even larger death count, which is already quite high. Right, which is why it's a good thing the economy was as good as it was. It's not like we could have chosen a worse economy and preparedness. The US has had money allocated to stockpile PPE for the past decade, and failed to do so every year since 2009, when we spent our PPE reserves. This wasn't a money problem.
    - jopsen 6y ago
      > If there was ever a time for a plague, this was the best time economically. (The best time: "so far") Hehehe, that might actually be true :) But I'm not sure that there is a fixed number plagues that we must endure, maybe they could have been averted :D (Whether at epicenter in China or in local communities around the world)
AaronFriel 6y ago
From the text: // Twitter now selectively decides to place a warning label on certain tweets in a manner that clearly reflects political bias. As has been reported, Twitter seems never to have placed such a label on another politician’s tweet. As recently as last week, Representative Adam Schiff was continuing to mislead his followers by peddling the long-disproved Russian Collusion Hoax, and Twitter did not flag those tweets. Unsurprisingly, its officer in charge of so-called ‘Site Integrity’ has flaunted his political bias in his own tweets. // As far as executive orders go, this one strays pretty far from the legalese into just making a bunch of wild accusations.
- ccleve 6y ago
  Yes, this isn't legalese, but in what sense are these accusations "wild"? They're factually accurate. And even if you disagree (perhaps you believe there was some form of Russian collusion, despite the Muller report) the accusations are certainly well within the bounds of mainstream debate. Nothing wild here.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > the accusations are certainly well within the bounds of mainstream debate This is subjective. “Wild” could mean out of the mainstream or false. Vaccine effectiveness and the Earth being a sphere are within the bounds of mainstream debate. They contain sides that are wildly inaccurate. Sometimes a mainstream debate levels wild accusations.
  - jopsen 6y ago
    It's seems a wild accusation that Twitter is abusing their power, and engaging in "deceptive or pretextual actions". Their "get the facts" link is not deceptive. Suggesting that it's a pretext of silencing Trumps viewpoints is a wild accusation.
  - aea19 6y ago
    Following your position to completion, you’ve just admitted that you’re willing to be personally targeted on social media, mentioned in an order of the United States government, and pilloried in the liberal media for the actions of your employer because that’s “within the bounds of mainstream debate,” right? Should someone take that as a cue to scan your company’s LinkedIn until they find a job title close to their gripe, then drag that person through the media before they’ve had a chance to get their boots on? You glanced at a Node dependency of the particular gripe once, so your skin in the game under these rules of mainstream debate is sufficient to dox you and threaten you and your family with death based on job title alone. Am I understanding your position correctly? If so, are you perhaps molding your definition of mainstream debate to suit your political beliefs? Bold of you to dismiss that aspect so out of hand when you advertise your employer on HN, as if it couldn’t happen to you.
coldcode 6y ago
It's not even going to work. In end either it becomes a free for all cesspool for every side, or the internet ceases to exist which makes a lot of wealthy people poor, or every court in the land finds it laughable. It's just a flopping fish gasping for air.
- jopsen 6y ago
  Regarding section 230 it says: > It is the policy of the United States that the scope of that immunity should be clarified: the immunity should not extend beyond its text and purpose to provide protection for those who purport to provide users a forum for free and open speech, but in reality use their power over a vital means of communication to engage in deceptive or pretextual actions... So Trump would have to argue that Twitter is using their power to engage in deceptive or pretextual actions. I'm no lawyer, that seems like a stretch.. And this assumes an executive order can just change law without other legalative bodies.
  - Simulacra 6y ago
    This might help: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/LSB10306.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/LSB10306.pdf
- evan_ 6y ago
  the goal isn't for it to "work", the goal is to force Twitter to spend a lot of money defending itself so that the executives and investors, who are already wary of going against the president that gave them a bunch of tax cuts, give in and let Trump do and say whatever he wants (and punish his enemies).
  - jopsen 6y ago
    I think the goal is more simplistic than that.. The goal is to be seen as a strong president who doesn't take crap from nobody. I think it's simply: "an action". How and/or whether it actually affects Twitter is probably irrelevant.
geuis 6y ago
Odd to be downvoted for just providing a link.

by geuis 6y ago

rumanator 6y ago

It's mind-numbingly strange how the Trump administration is reacting to Twitter attaching a "get the facts" link with attacks with accusations of being "fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic" and, ghasp, censorship. US citizens need to step up because the whiffs of fascism are getting stronger.

Avicebron 6y ago
The whiffs of fascism is comping from anti-competitive and kleptocratic business practices. Fixing that is where we should be focusing.
- rumanator 6y ago
  Dude, Trump lied his ass off and Twitter attached a "get the facts" link to Trump's original and unchanged post. This has zero to do with "kleptocratic business practices". What Twitter did is what a free press does. I'm fact, it's pathetic how anyone tries to defend Trump by pulling a "kleptocratic business practices" card.
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
    > What Twitter did is what a free press does. Yeah that's the problem. If they want to do what free press does then they should be a publisher. Calling the other side pathetic and using hyperboles will not win anyone over to your side. Trump did not lie imo and if you consider his statements up for debate there are plenty of other political tweets that have never been flagged. Twitter opened a can of worms, they shouldn't have stepped into the political arena. - edit @ robotron - Trump has been a political figure for a long time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEPs17_AkTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEPs17_AkTI He may not have been directly in politics but as a real estate mogul and CEO I'm sure he's networked in. To summarize him as just a reality star is disingenuous.
    - robotron 6y ago
      If only reality TV "stars" didn't step into the political arena.
  - tathougies 6y ago
    > This has zero to do with "kleptocratic business practices". What Twitter did is what a free press does. The press has regulation though. The press can be held liable for false claims by those they affect. For example, Nick Sandman was able to sue CNN for the Covington coverage, and settle, because CNN was liable for publishing incorrect information. Whereas, twitter claims to not be a publisher or part of the press, but instead relies on being a platform or utility like a telephone, to avoid this kind of legal liability. If twitter is no longer just providing a platform for its users to provide content but is now providing content itself, then yes, it should be held to the standards of a publisher, much in the same way it is responsible legally for the ads it publishes. Now, I don't believe the president has the ability to decide this liability exists, but I would hope that it already does in our common law system somewhere.
    - javagram 6y ago
      > The press can be held liable for false claims by those they affect. For example, Nick Sandman was able to sue CNN for the Covington coverage, and settle, because CNN was liable for publishing incorrect information. However, if CNN has a comments section on their website, they aren't liable for the posts made by random people in the comments, even if they moderate those comments. They have the same section 230 protections as twitter. > Whereas, twitter claims to not be a publisher or part of the press, but instead relies on being a platform or utility like a telephone, to avoid this kind of legal liability. If the content of the "Fact Check" posted by twitter is illegal (e.g. libel), Trump could sue them in court for libel and win damages, regardless of Section 230. Section 230 protects twitter from liability for its' USERS posts, not for the posts twitter itself makes. @jack can be sued for anything illegal he posts on twitter, twitter the company can be sued for anything they post on @Twitter that is illegal. Any lawsuit against the fact check would be laughed out of court of course as its clearly protected political opinion, and corporations have 1st Amendment rights to express their political opinions (see Citizens United).
      - tathougies 6y ago
        > However, if CNN has a comments section on their website, they aren't liable for the posts made by random people in the comments, even if they moderate those comments. They have the same section 230 protections as twitter. Moderation (in the form of removal) is much different from modifying the content of the post, even if to provide 'fact-checking'. I'm fine with twitter removing the president, I don't see why they should have to host him. But they are desperate for anyone to actually use their website, so... > If the content of the "Fact Check" posted by twitter is illegal (e.g. libel), Trump could sue them in court for libel and win damages, regardless of Section 230. I'm not a legal expert, so if this is the case, that's great! From what I read, the executive order supposedly made this legal, but if it already was, then props to the legislature for making it legal, and props to the president for not expanding executive power and just reiterating what congress and the courts have already made law.
  - sammalloy 6y ago
    > it’s pathetic how anyone tries to defend Trump by pulling a “kleptocratic business practices” card Nailed it, but know your audience. Most of the people here are engineers, who lean center-right and are particularly vulnerable to conspiracy theorizing and authoritarian impulses, which is why they consistently defend the behavior of the worst president in US history. https://www.machinedesign.com/news/article/21819513/the-politics-of-engineers https://www.machinedesign.com/news/article/21819513/the-poli...
    - s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
      Quite a bit of mind reading and assuming there. Your bias is clouding your cognition. Your article seems to be about electrical/mechanical engineers btw, which is probably a small subset here. I'm sure geographical location matters the most and job title is negligible, personally it's pretty liberal here to me, like most of the internet. To burst your echo chamber, Obama imo was the worst president in history, up there w/ Truman. Notice how that's my opinion and I don't try to force it on you or present it as a fact. Insulting people never wins any minds over.
      - sammalloy 6y ago
        > Obama was the worst president in history Do you know why there isn’t a single, reputable and reliable expert in a relevant field that agrees with you? Believing everyone else is wrong is a danger sign https://mindhacks.com/2018/06/17/believing-everyone-else-is-wrong-is-a-danger-sign/ https://mindhacks.com/2018/06/17/believing-everyone-else-is-...
        s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
        I don't care what your "experts" have to say. I follow the news very closely and I make my own decisions based on first hand sources and comparing left & right wing secondary sources. Keep blindly believing in your "experts" and mind reading, you're living in the dark in your echo chamber. Just because you surround yourself with articles and people that think like you doesn't mean the other ideologies that challenge you go away. Believing that your side is right and the other side is completely wrong is a danger sign. Trump was elected so clearly a large amount of people agree with his politics... - edit @ sammalloy - I hit a limit so I'll reply to the below comment here: First off, the wiki article you linked has a 2014 Quinnipiac poll where Obama is polled as the worst president since WWII. Second off, you can't fact check an opinion. I think your misunderstanding of that highlights the crux of this entire twitter issue. You and Jack Dorsey can keep your fact checks, they are flawed in logic. - edit @ beirut_bootleg: As I stated above, I follow both sides and the leads. I'm here debating in this liberal echo chamber so I'm clearly not hiding in a bubble.
_jal 6y ago
It is a distraction. He doesn't want to talk about the economy or the plague, so he's trying to change the subject.
- tathougies 6y ago
  If there was ever a time for a plague, this was the best time economically. People started off this plague with more wealth and savings than any time in the past decade. American business started off the crisis with more cash on hand than literally any other time in history.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    > If there was ever a time for a plague, this was the best time economically. In the US alone the covid19 death count is currently at around 100k, with 1.7M reported cases brewing up. If anything, the economic consequences are the trade-off of not getting an even larger death count, which is already quite high.
    - tathougies 6y ago
      This death count is way better than initially estimated, even with lockdowns. So this is good news. > If anything, the economic consequences are the trade-off of not getting an even larger death count, which is already quite high. Right, which is why it's a good thing the economy was as good as it was. It's not like we could have chosen a worse economy and preparedness. The US has had money allocated to stockpile PPE for the past decade, and failed to do so every year since 2009, when we spent our PPE reserves. This wasn't a money problem.
  - jopsen 6y ago
    > If there was ever a time for a plague, this was the best time economically. (The best time: "so far") Hehehe, that might actually be true :) But I'm not sure that there is a fixed number plagues that we must endure, maybe they could have been averted :D (Whether at epicenter in China or in local communities around the world)

AaronFriel 6y ago

From the text: // Twitter now selectively decides to place a warning label on certain tweets in a manner that clearly reflects political bias. As has been reported, Twitter seems never to have placed such a label on another politician’s tweet. As recently as last week, Representative Adam Schiff was continuing to mislead his followers by peddling the long-disproved Russian Collusion Hoax, and Twitter did not flag those tweets. Unsurprisingly, its officer in charge of so-called ‘Site Integrity’ has flaunted his political bias in his own tweets. // As far as executive orders go, this one strays pretty far from the legalese into just making a bunch of wild accusations.

ccleve 6y ago
Yes, this isn't legalese, but in what sense are these accusations "wild"? They're factually accurate. And even if you disagree (perhaps you believe there was some form of Russian collusion, despite the Muller report) the accusations are certainly well within the bounds of mainstream debate. Nothing wild here.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > the accusations are certainly well within the bounds of mainstream debate This is subjective. “Wild” could mean out of the mainstream or false. Vaccine effectiveness and the Earth being a sphere are within the bounds of mainstream debate. They contain sides that are wildly inaccurate. Sometimes a mainstream debate levels wild accusations.
- jopsen 6y ago
  It's seems a wild accusation that Twitter is abusing their power, and engaging in "deceptive or pretextual actions". Their "get the facts" link is not deceptive. Suggesting that it's a pretext of silencing Trumps viewpoints is a wild accusation.
- aea19 6y ago
  Following your position to completion, you’ve just admitted that you’re willing to be personally targeted on social media, mentioned in an order of the United States government, and pilloried in the liberal media for the actions of your employer because that’s “within the bounds of mainstream debate,” right? Should someone take that as a cue to scan your company’s LinkedIn until they find a job title close to their gripe, then drag that person through the media before they’ve had a chance to get their boots on? You glanced at a Node dependency of the particular gripe once, so your skin in the game under these rules of mainstream debate is sufficient to dox you and threaten you and your family with death based on job title alone. Am I understanding your position correctly? If so, are you perhaps molding your definition of mainstream debate to suit your political beliefs? Bold of you to dismiss that aspect so out of hand when you advertise your employer on HN, as if it couldn’t happen to you.

coldcode 6y ago

It's not even going to work. In end either it becomes a free for all cesspool for every side, or the internet ceases to exist which makes a lot of wealthy people poor, or every court in the land finds it laughable. It's just a flopping fish gasping for air.

jopsen 6y ago
Regarding section 230 it says: > It is the policy of the United States that the scope of that immunity should be clarified: the immunity should not extend beyond its text and purpose to provide protection for those who purport to provide users a forum for free and open speech, but in reality use their power over a vital means of communication to engage in deceptive or pretextual actions... So Trump would have to argue that Twitter is using their power to engage in deceptive or pretextual actions. I'm no lawyer, that seems like a stretch.. And this assumes an executive order can just change law without other legalative bodies.
- Simulacra 6y ago
  This might help: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/LSB10306.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/LSB10306.pdf
evan_ 6y ago
the goal isn't for it to "work", the goal is to force Twitter to spend a lot of money defending itself so that the executives and investors, who are already wary of going against the president that gave them a bunch of tax cuts, give in and let Trump do and say whatever he wants (and punish his enemies).
- jopsen 6y ago
  I think the goal is more simplistic than that.. The goal is to be seen as a strong president who doesn't take crap from nobody. I think it's simply: "an action". How and/or whether it actually affects Twitter is probably irrelevant.

geuis 6y ago

Odd to be downvoted for just providing a link.