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EFF's Response to Social Media Decisions to Block President Trump’s Accounts
- rasengan 6y agoDear EFF, Is this seriously your official position? That far from taking a hardline stance against censorship, you're instead in agreement and commend this coordinated censorship and slippery slope? If this is the case, you are not the EFF that I or the internet know or loved. This is not about whether or not we like Donald Trump or anything. This is about the fact that social media platforms just censored the President of the United States of America for no other reason than their own political views. We saw this happen before with the stasi.
- CurtHagenlocher 6y agoWell, their political views and his attempt to overthrow a democratically-elected government by inciting a mob to storm the Capitol building.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y agoAre you really comparing the actions of East German secret police with being banned from social media? This is ridiculous.
- casefields 6y agoThe left used to defend free speech in the public square. Such as when neo-nazis marched in Skokie where many Jewish Holocaust survivors lived: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am... There's nothing wrong with the opinion of being against free speech, it's just quite sad how far we've fallen. Only allowing the speech you agree with is not free speech.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y agoFree Speech has to do with the government hauling you off for saying something, it has nothing to do with being able to incite riots, or convey viewpoints of fascism on the property of a 3rd party.
- leshokunin 6y agoI can't tell if you're spreading misinformation on purpose. You're referring to the American Nazi party as "the left". From your link: "his Neo-Nazi group, the NSPA, would regularly hold demonstrations in Marquette Park". Firstly: you're mislabeling the radical right wing. Secondly: they they're right wing goes against your point. Are you confused because "national socialist" (which is what nazi stands for) has the word socialist?
- maxlybbert 6y agoThe example was that the American Nazi Party wanted to march through a neighborhood with several Holocaust survivors. Many non-Nazis, including groups like the ACLU, defended the Nazis’ right to hold the march.
- leshokunin 6y agoThanks for the clarification.
- hinkley 6y agoDo you understand the difference between free speech and conspiracy? Between opinions and inciting? If not these are all just words you found that when strung together elicit an emotional response from yourself, and from others. A strong reaction doesn’t mean something is true, or makes sense. It just means your monkey brain reacted to it. Wisdom is separating the two.
- kadoban 6y agoDid their political views change over the last day or so? Did the President's? No? Then perhaps you should consider that there may be other possible reasons that they have banned these accounts.
- klmadfejno 6y ago> This is about the fact that social media platforms just censored the President of the United States of America for no other reason than their own political views. Pretty sure it's because they think his usage of his platform contributed to a violent insurrection on the US capitol building that killed 5 people and, had it not been managed, likely included assaults on US representatives.
- hinkley 6y agoBut they said, in not so many words, that if the platforms are going to hold normal users to a standard, they should hold public figures to an equal (or IMO, greater) standard instead of letting them have more privileges. I don’t really see a problem with that, except for how deadpan the delivery is. They don’t because pandering pays the bills. But if pandering doesn’t bother you, there are more lucrative forms and you can just do away with the pretense and get to the pandering.
- klmadfejno 6y agoYou seem to be taking the stance that they're a left leaning organization, but criticizing them for framing their point of view in politically neutral terms. What if the apparent political leanings of their thinking is a second order effect of the EFF's goal and not the root cause?
- _hyrb 6y ago> This is about the fact that social media platforms just censored the President of the United States of America for no other reason than their own political views. First they came for the most powerful person on the planet, and I said nothing...
- metabagel 6y agoTrump’s “political views” include inciting violence to overturn the election.
- admiralspoo 6y agoWell, I won't be donating to the EFF again.
- jrnichols 6y agoyet both 2020 candidates have spoken of an outright repeal of Section 230. Biden has said it should be "revoked immediately." 2021 is not going to be a good year for internet freedoms.
- kadoban 6y agoWe had a free internet (as much as it ever was) before Facebook and Twitter though. Is section 230 really about internet freedoms? Walk me through your thinking if you would? In my mind the major effect of 230 is promoting centralized sites that really don't seem to have any good effect on society.
- nabla9 6y ago230 protects all intermediaries equally.
- vharuck 6y agoSection 230 was used to defend a public library from a lawsuit after a kid used its computers to look at porn. It protects hobby websites where members share knitting tips. It protects Hacker News. Repealing it would be disastrous.
- mreome 6y agoSection 230 protects all entities with user-generated content, that includes Facebook and Twitter as well as Uncle Frank's Model Train Forum. The repeal of 230 would essentially cement those centralized sites as the sole platforms however, as Uncle Frank doesn't have paid moderation teams or a legal department, and only makes $7.44 ad revenue each month. Frank won't be able to afford the legal costs if someone starts spamming it with libelous content and he's busy and doesn't get around to taking the posts down for a couple days.
- adolph 6y agoPeople said that about sales tax too. Somehow things sorted out afterwards and online sales survived.
- rubycon22 6y agoSo this is how Mozilla and EFF go down. All to dunk on a president that was already leaving in 11 days (miss me with your conspiracy theories about how a bunch of random people taking over one building would be a successful coup to keep Trump as the president lmao, children). Looks like these companies don't really stand for anything.
- metabagel 6y agoWe’re fortunate the coup attempt wasn’t successful. There have been ridiculous coup attempts in other countries in the past, and some of them have been followed by serious and successful coup attempts. We really need to take this event seriously.