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posted by janrinok on Wednesday August 14 2019, @04:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-were-you-saying-about-Free-Speech? dept.

Leaked Draft of Trump Executive Order to 'Censor the Internet' Denounced as Dangerous, Unconstitutional Edict

It would give these bureaucratic government agencies unprecedented control over how Internet platforms moderate speech by allowing them to revoke the essential protections Congress laid out in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). CDA 230 is the basic law that makes it possible for online platforms to let users post our own content, and to make basic decisions about what types of content they as private entities want to host. Every meme, every social media post, every blog and user-created video on the Internet has been made possible by this crucial free speech protection.

In practice, this executive order would mean that whichever political party is in power could dictate what speech is allowed on the Internet. If the government doesn't like the way a private company is moderating content, they can shut their entire website down.

From https://www.salon.com/2019/08/12/leaked-draft-of-trump-executive-order-deemed-unconstitutional_partner/ we get the following:

According to CNN, which obtained a copy of the draft, the new rule "calls for the FCC to develop new regulations clarifying how and when the law protects social media websites when they decide to remove or suppress content on their platforms. Although still in its early stages and subject to change, the Trump administration's draft order also calls for the Federal Trade Commission to take those new policies into account when it investigates or files lawsuits against misbehaving companies."

While Politico was the first to report how the draft was being circulated by the White House, CNN notes that if put into effect, "the order would reflect a significant escalation by President Trump in his frequent attacks against social media companies over an alleged but unproven systemic bias against conservatives by technology platforms. And it could lead to a significant reinterpretation of a law that, its authors have insisted, was meant to give tech companies broad freedom to handle content as they see fit."

"[...] It's hard to put into words how mind bogglingly absurd this executive order is," said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, in a tweet. "In the name of defending free speech it would allow mass government censorship of online content. In practice, it means whichever party is in power can decide what speech is allowed on the internet."

This authoritarian legislation is being pushed by claiming it will do the opposite of censorship by giving the federal government even more broad power. Reminds me of the following quote, "I like taking guns away early," Trump said. "Take the guns first, go through due process second."

See also:


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by shortscreen on Wednesday August 14 2019, @07:07PM (5 children)

    by shortscreen (2252) on Wednesday August 14 2019, @07:07PM (#880456) Journal

    So are you one of the people that think mass killings are morally justifiable? You can't hide behind political abstractions when people are literally dying.

    But hey, if you want to post a manifesto glorifying literal terrorism and it gets taken down, take your provider to court.

    Posting a manifesto is not the same as a mass killing. Speaking of abstractions.

    You apparently support censorship in this case, for whatever reason. Well guess what? Maybe Trump supports censorship too, and believes it's too important to be left to the whims of random website operators. And so the government will have to step in. What could go wrong?

    Whether you want to censor trolls, bots, and hate speech, or copyright infringment, whistle blowers, and BDS, if enough fools jump on the censorship bandwagon we will end up with all of that and more.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by meustrus on Wednesday August 14 2019, @07:40PM (4 children)

    by meustrus (4961) on Wednesday August 14 2019, @07:40PM (#880484)

    Right now, website operators are free to take down any content they want. By law, at least. Practically, anything they start taking down can seriously threaten their business model.

    Look at Tumblr. They are perfectly within their rights to censor adult content. But it wasn't a good idea for them to do that, because without it they have lost what made them special.

    Does YouTube need nazi propaganda to make money? They were certainly happy to allow it for a while. But eventually, bad actors figured out how to abuse the algorithm to put fascist content where it threatened their other content sectors. YouTube desperately wants to be a platform for children. They only started taking down nazi propaganda when parents stopped letting their kids watch YouTube because of it.

    As for 8chan and the manifesto, I think jmorris may have a point about having a contract with ISPs. There's a difference between YouTube censoring things and Cloudflare censoring things. 8chan existing isn't the same as YouTube promoting its content.

    But I can't say for sure whether the manifesto is protected speech, because I haven't read it. I'm sure I could find it if I wanted to. But if it advocates for politically-motivated violence in defiance of the law, it may in fact be the kind of speech that it is safe, for the sake of political discourse, to let die.

    That may be censorship. But for something like this to be taken down, it has to be toxic to everyone's business model. It has to be so awful that Cloudflare will lose business because of their association with it. That doesn't apply to more than a few things in this world.

    It would be very different, of course, if the Executive Branch of The Government were allowed to demand things be taken down or left in place. There are very many things that Trump might like to censor in this way. It's far more dangerous to democracy than allowing the free market to decide what things are too toxic.

    I have no doubt that this draft is mainly about deplatforming. But that's really a problem with social media. Twitter is too powerful. And if we can't trust our government to make good decisions about what speech is too dangerous, the free market is not a perfect substitute.

    The real answer is to break up social media. It's far too powerful of a propaganda tool for anybody, no matter how well-intentioned the companies are in stymieing the flow of propaganda.

    But when it comes to deplatforming, "break up social media" is effectively the same thing as "deplatform everyone". And yeah, I would support that. We'll still have ideas, we'll still spread them. But it will be harder for fringe ideas like joining a terrorist organization to gain traction.

    (this turned into quite the rant, and I don't feel like going back and editing it, so if I misspoke I may need to come back and say "that's not what I meant" - sorry)

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    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 15 2019, @05:29PM (3 children)

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday August 15 2019, @05:29PM (#880658) Journal

      It's much better to teach people, from infancy, to resist propaganda, and to accept responsibility for their choices.

      Does reading all that "hate speech" make YOU want to go out and kill people? If not, there you go, free choice.

      The audience is responsible for their choices, not the speaker. All your most infamous leaders are nothing without followers. Let's all stop wagging the dog.

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      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by meustrus on Thursday August 15 2019, @07:25PM (2 children)

        by meustrus (4961) on Thursday August 15 2019, @07:25PM (#880709)

        Yeah, like teaching people to avoid Propaganda is somehow easier than breaking up centralized power blocks. Even if you could solve the teaching problem, those centralized power blocks still have a strong economic incentive not to let you teach it.

        Personal responsibility is an excuse for con men to be allowed to swindle the masses. We have to accept that there will always be irresponsible people. If we allow con men to gain power via these irresponsible people, honest people will be unable to compete.

        Some of our best laws are the ones that don't forbid you from doing sneaky things, but make you declare what sneaky things you are doing. You can then lie about it and be prosecuted for fraud, or be honest about it and only be able to target the truly oblivious.

        These rules tend to break down though in the absence of free market competition. Facebook can do what it wants, because it has a monopoly on your friend graph.

        That's why breaking up big business is important: this and other solutions to social problems only work with meaningful free market competition. In the case of Propaganda, personal responsibility is an impossible ideal as long as propagandists have the power to keep people stupid.

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        • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 15 2019, @09:10PM (1 child)

          by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday August 15 2019, @09:10PM (#880733) Journal

          Even if you could solve the teaching problem, those centralized power blocks still have a strong economic incentive not to let you teach it.

          Fine, then we're all on our own. We have to take our own initiative to turn our backs on the things we desire. People still have to be held liable for the choices they make. If not, then all bets are off.

          Facebook is entertainment. I do not care what people do with it. There is no right for the state to regulate their content. They are in no way responsible for criminal acts by the users. Being a criminal is a personal choice.

          The service providers are the ones with too much control. They are the ones we must regulate, as common carriers, at least until we can connect without being tethered to them.

          --
          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Friday August 16 2019, @01:30AM

            by meustrus (4961) on Friday August 16 2019, @01:30AM (#880810)

            I don't disagree with you on government control. Even the common threat against net neutrality, the copyright industry, is really seeking to compel based on government authority.

            Common carrier is another easy state policy that avoids corruption by applying cleanly and equally to everything.

            When it comes to regulating above the service provider level, however, sometimes you need to do what you can to stop an industry from conning masses of people. Social media is built on psychological traps and paid for by corporate propaganda. Common carrier won't fix that.

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