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from the what-were-you-saying-about-Free-Speech? dept.
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:
- https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/leaked-draft-of-trump-executive-order-to-censor-the-internet-denounced-as-dangerous-unconstitutional-edict/
- https://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2019/08/13/the-trump-administration-drafted-an-executive-order-to-censor-the-internet/
- http://dctribune.org/trumps-executive-order-to-censor-the-internet-leaked-could-allow-mass-government-censorship/
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20669477
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Wednesday August 14 2019, @09:27PM (4 children)
A new internet won't fix that. The current internet *already* has those features. But that doesn't mean jack when everyone insists on only visiting 5 different sites for everything.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 15 2019, @05:21PM (2 children)
The current internet *already* has those features.
Not while you are tethered to a service provider. Client/server will never be P2P.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Thursday August 15 2019, @09:12PM (1 child)
What you want is not possible for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that you would need to have people agree on the protocols to use.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 15 2019, @09:32PM
You should only have to worry about that at the end points. The switching should be transparent and agnostic, and just pass the bits.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 18 2019, @06:23AM
The only cost effective way to build a distributed replacement for the internet is wifi and thanks to the FCC, we have limited spectrum and legal transmission power to reach the next hop with. Running a full mesh with wifi following legal guidelines, including certified directional antennas would require so many hops to get from one end of the US to the other that it would take multiple to dozens of seconds of latency to reach the other side. And they still have legal jurisdiction to censor it. Unless you want to risk RICO violations and illegally run an overpowered wifi meshnet that is 'dark', but at that point you may as well be fighting for autonomy and self-governance anyway.
No, at this point in time we need to have a long hard discussion about a constitutional convention, and if the union really wants to be a single union, or a series of unions better aligned with the values of their constituencies. Because America division of lines may have changed, but they are still there and the two teams are not going to get along better in 10 years.