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> There's a big difference between a private company determining what is hosted on their servers vs. the U.S. government forcing a private company to censor spe

> There's a big difference between a private company determining what is hosted on their servers vs. the U.S. government forcing a private company to censor speech. So are media networks like CNN, MSNBC, Fox etc. They are private too. But they are still regulated. They can't post whatever they want and are held liable for any news that they present to their audience. Social media companies aren't regulated in the same way. They have more powers than the Government because they can literally censor anyone's speech they want. They can ban anyone they want. If they are left-leaning they can ban right-leaning content. If they are right-leaning they can ban left-leaning content. They are also not regulated like media networks because they are given immunity from liability through Section 230. They can never be held liable for what is posted on their platform. It is like having the cake and eating it too. Heck, they can even censor the US President's tweets and videos. This makes them extremely powerful. It is surprising to me that US citizens are perfectly fine with this setup.

freeone3000 6y ago
I'm sorry, you're wrong. They are not regulated. The standard for a traditional news agent is they cannot publish known lies about a living person, because that exposes them to civil liability. A news program can choose to say whatever they think about anybody - the President, any candidate, whatever, and as long as nobody can prove that they knew it was a lie, they're fine. There's no obligation to show the President's content there either. They can choose not to show right-leaning or left-leaning content. They also have the same protections on the comments section. Any reliability or nonpartisanship in US news media comes solely from a cultural sense of ethics, not any legal framework.
- shripadk 6y ago
  > They are not regulated They are. It is called "The Communications Act of 1934" in the United States. They are completely regulated by the FCC in US. They are regulated differently in different countries. In US, as an example, they have rules on political advertising. They have "equal time" rules where every political candidate "must" be given equal time and opportunity to air their viewpoints. No such regulations exist for social media companies. They can be held liable for fake news or slander. Social media platforms cannot. Only the content posted in the editorial is considered personal opinion and not the position of the News Organization. That is the only page/section in the newspaper/news that does not expose the News Organization to liability/slander. That is why you have a separate "Editorial Section" in a newspaper where the editor can give his/her opinions without exposing the newspaper to liability. But of late, the news agencies have started using other pages for giving their opinions too (from harmless clickbait to downright slander) which is again a very risky choice to make. This exposes them to liability/slander. This is why regulation is so important. To ensure what is legally allowed and not allowed. News agencies are bound by such regulations. Social media organizations are not. If news agencies publishes a hit piece on me that is obviously false, I can sue the news organization for slander. The news organization cannot claim that it believed the news reporter/agent who passed on wrong information about me and get away with it. The ultimate publisher is the news agency. Period. That is why the organization can be sued. But if a user posts a hit piece on me in a social media platform I cannot sue the platform for allowing the user to post slanderous material. Because the platform shields itself from liability by taking advantage of the provisions of Section 230. This is because it calls itself a "platform" and not a "publisher". This is fine by me as long as it remains a platform. But once it starts censoring opinions (like Twitter/Facebook deleting Trump's tweet) then it no longer is a platform. It is now behaving as a publisher. Then why should it be protected by Section 230? > because that exposes them to civil liability Exactly. They are regulated. Even if a news agent publishes a fake story, the organization is responsible for it. They cannot carry it forward without verification because if they do, they end up becoming liable. Not the news agent. That is the whole point. The recent case that comes to mind is when Nick Sandmann was falsely accused of being racist against a Native American by all left-leaning media organizations (CNN, Washington Post etc). When the fact were completely different (if you watch the video in its entirety). He sued these media organizations and won. They had to settle the 250 million $ lawsuit. Can he sue Facebook/Twitter which carried this story more than any of the media organizations did? Nope. That is the reason why I say that social media organizations enjoys powers that neither the US Government nor the Media enjoys. > There's no obligation to show the President's content there either. They can choose not to show right-leaning or left-leaning content Yes that is right. But when they do show the President, then they have to let him have his say. They cannot either censor him or change what he meant. If they do that then they open themselves up to defamation/liability depending on what they actually did. Social media companies do not have any such issues as they are unregulated. You can read more about Media Regulation in the United States here: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/americangovernment/chapter/regulating-the-media/ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/americangovernment/chapter...
  - DanBC 6y ago
    > by taking advantage of the provisions of Section 230. This is because it calls itself a "platform" and not a "publisher". This is fine by me as long as it remains a platform. But once it starts censoring opinions (like Twitter/Facebook deleting Trump's tweet) then it no longer is a platform. It is now behaving as a publisher. Then why should it be protected by Section 230? The whole point of Section 230 is to allow platforms to moderate their content without becoming liable for it. https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/08/13/610/section-230-law-moderation-social-media-content-bias/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/08/13/610/section-230-... > The classic example involves Yelp, explains Jeff Kosseff, a cybersecurity law professor at the United States Naval Academy and author of The Twenty-Six Words That Created The Internet, a book about Section 230. If someone posts a defamatory restaurant review on Yelp, Section 230 ensures that the restaurant can sue the person who wrote the review, but not Yelp itself. It protects everything from Facebook and YouTube to the recently deplatformed 8chan. > Section 230 also says that platforms can’t be held liable if they take down any content they or their users consider “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” In other words, they are not obliged to host anything they don’t want to.
    - shripadk 6y ago
      > The whole point of Section 230 is to allow platforms to moderate their content without becoming liable for it. I am not against Section 230. I am against platforms misusing Section 230. They are a platform until they behave like one. When the platform itself starts behaving like a publisher rather than a platform then why should provisions of Section 230 apply? > Section 230 also says that platforms can’t be held liable if they take down any content they or their users consider “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” In other words, they are not obliged to host anything they don’t want to. So was Trump's video about kids being "almost immune" to Coronavirus "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable"? Which one was it? Are you seriously telling me that the President of the United States video about kids being "almost immune" to Coronavirus is in some violation of policy while porn/gore content that is posted on these platforms not? I have personally reported so many of these videos and they still haven't been removed. And if political issues are the reason for censorship then what about the other politicians in US and around the World who say as bad or worse things as Trump? Will same rules be applied there as well or not? If not, why not? > In other words, they are not obliged to host anything they don’t want to. Then will these rules be applicable to everyone? In that case, I can give you a million tweets and comments that are "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable" which haven't been removed yet. Nor has Youtube removed "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable" videos from its platform. It is clear bias at play here. If you try to tell me that it is not then you need to take a hike.

freeone3000 6y ago

I'm sorry, you're wrong. They are not regulated. The standard for a traditional news agent is they cannot publish known lies about a living person, because that exposes them to civil liability. A news program can choose to say whatever they think about anybody - the President, any candidate, whatever, and as long as nobody can prove that they knew it was a lie, they're fine. There's no obligation to show the President's content there either. They can choose not to show right-leaning or left-leaning content. They also have the same protections on the comments section. Any reliability or nonpartisanship in US news media comes solely from a cultural sense of ethics, not any legal framework.

shripadk 6y ago
> They are not regulated They are. It is called "The Communications Act of 1934" in the United States. They are completely regulated by the FCC in US. They are regulated differently in different countries. In US, as an example, they have rules on political advertising. They have "equal time" rules where every political candidate "must" be given equal time and opportunity to air their viewpoints. No such regulations exist for social media companies. They can be held liable for fake news or slander. Social media platforms cannot. Only the content posted in the editorial is considered personal opinion and not the position of the News Organization. That is the only page/section in the newspaper/news that does not expose the News Organization to liability/slander. That is why you have a separate "Editorial Section" in a newspaper where the editor can give his/her opinions without exposing the newspaper to liability. But of late, the news agencies have started using other pages for giving their opinions too (from harmless clickbait to downright slander) which is again a very risky choice to make. This exposes them to liability/slander. This is why regulation is so important. To ensure what is legally allowed and not allowed. News agencies are bound by such regulations. Social media organizations are not. If news agencies publishes a hit piece on me that is obviously false, I can sue the news organization for slander. The news organization cannot claim that it believed the news reporter/agent who passed on wrong information about me and get away with it. The ultimate publisher is the news agency. Period. That is why the organization can be sued. But if a user posts a hit piece on me in a social media platform I cannot sue the platform for allowing the user to post slanderous material. Because the platform shields itself from liability by taking advantage of the provisions of Section 230. This is because it calls itself a "platform" and not a "publisher". This is fine by me as long as it remains a platform. But once it starts censoring opinions (like Twitter/Facebook deleting Trump's tweet) then it no longer is a platform. It is now behaving as a publisher. Then why should it be protected by Section 230? > because that exposes them to civil liability Exactly. They are regulated. Even if a news agent publishes a fake story, the organization is responsible for it. They cannot carry it forward without verification because if they do, they end up becoming liable. Not the news agent. That is the whole point. The recent case that comes to mind is when Nick Sandmann was falsely accused of being racist against a Native American by all left-leaning media organizations (CNN, Washington Post etc). When the fact were completely different (if you watch the video in its entirety). He sued these media organizations and won. They had to settle the 250 million $ lawsuit. Can he sue Facebook/Twitter which carried this story more than any of the media organizations did? Nope. That is the reason why I say that social media organizations enjoys powers that neither the US Government nor the Media enjoys. > There's no obligation to show the President's content there either. They can choose not to show right-leaning or left-leaning content Yes that is right. But when they do show the President, then they have to let him have his say. They cannot either censor him or change what he meant. If they do that then they open themselves up to defamation/liability depending on what they actually did. Social media companies do not have any such issues as they are unregulated. You can read more about Media Regulation in the United States here: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/americangovernment/chapter/regulating-the-media/ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/americangovernment/chapter...
- DanBC 6y ago
  > by taking advantage of the provisions of Section 230. This is because it calls itself a "platform" and not a "publisher". This is fine by me as long as it remains a platform. But once it starts censoring opinions (like Twitter/Facebook deleting Trump's tweet) then it no longer is a platform. It is now behaving as a publisher. Then why should it be protected by Section 230? The whole point of Section 230 is to allow platforms to moderate their content without becoming liable for it. https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/08/13/610/section-230-law-moderation-social-media-content-bias/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/08/13/610/section-230-... > The classic example involves Yelp, explains Jeff Kosseff, a cybersecurity law professor at the United States Naval Academy and author of The Twenty-Six Words That Created The Internet, a book about Section 230. If someone posts a defamatory restaurant review on Yelp, Section 230 ensures that the restaurant can sue the person who wrote the review, but not Yelp itself. It protects everything from Facebook and YouTube to the recently deplatformed 8chan. > Section 230 also says that platforms can’t be held liable if they take down any content they or their users consider “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” In other words, they are not obliged to host anything they don’t want to.
  - shripadk 6y ago
    > The whole point of Section 230 is to allow platforms to moderate their content without becoming liable for it. I am not against Section 230. I am against platforms misusing Section 230. They are a platform until they behave like one. When the platform itself starts behaving like a publisher rather than a platform then why should provisions of Section 230 apply? > Section 230 also says that platforms can’t be held liable if they take down any content they or their users consider “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” In other words, they are not obliged to host anything they don’t want to. So was Trump's video about kids being "almost immune" to Coronavirus "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable"? Which one was it? Are you seriously telling me that the President of the United States video about kids being "almost immune" to Coronavirus is in some violation of policy while porn/gore content that is posted on these platforms not? I have personally reported so many of these videos and they still haven't been removed. And if political issues are the reason for censorship then what about the other politicians in US and around the World who say as bad or worse things as Trump? Will same rules be applied there as well or not? If not, why not? > In other words, they are not obliged to host anything they don’t want to. Then will these rules be applicable to everyone? In that case, I can give you a million tweets and comments that are "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable" which haven't been removed yet. Nor has Youtube removed "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable" videos from its platform. It is clear bias at play here. If you try to tell me that it is not then you need to take a hike.