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posted by martyb on Wednesday January 29 2020, @10:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the speak-up-now dept.

The Growing Threat to Free Speech Online:

There are times when vitally important stories lurk behind the headlines. Yes, impeachment is historic and worth significant coverage, but it's not the only important story. The recent threat of war with Iran merited every second of intense world interest. But what if I told you that as we lurch from crisis to crisis there is a slow-building, bipartisan movement to engage in one of most significant acts of censorship in modern American history? What if I told you that our contemporary hostility against Big Tech may cause our nation to blunder into changing the nature of the internet to enhance the power of the elite at the expense of ordinary Americans?

I'm talking about the poorly-thought-out, poorly-understood idea of attempting to deal with widespread discontent with the effects of social media on political and cultural discourse and with the use of social media in bullying and harassment by revoking or fundamentally rewriting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

[...] In 1996, [Congress] passed Section 230. The law did two things. First, it declared that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." In plain English, this means that my comments on Twitter or Google or Yelp or the comments section of my favorite website are my comments, and my comments only.

But Section 230 went farther, it also declared that an internet provider can "restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable" without being held liable for user content. This is what allows virtually all mainstream social media companies to remove obscene or pornographic content. This allows websites to take down racial slurs – all without suddenly also becoming liable for all the rest of their users' speech.

It's difficult to overstate how important this law is for the free speech of ordinary Americans. For 24 years we've taken for granted our ability to post our thoughts and arguments about movies, music, restaurants, religions, and politicians. While different sites have different rules and boundaries, the overall breadth of free speech has been extraordinary.

[...] Large internet companies that possess billions of dollars in resources would be able to implement and enforce strict controls on user speech. Smaller sites simply lack the resources to implement widespread and comprehensive speech controls. Many of them would have no alternative but to shut down user content beyond minimalist input. Once again, the powerful would prevail.


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  • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday January 29 2020, @09:10PM (2 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday January 29 2020, @09:10PM (#950847) Journal

    Maybe I don't want to go out of my way to turn my back on you because I'm heading in a particular direction and you're blocking me.

    And if you continue after I tell you to STFU and leave me alone, there are one of two things that will happen, neither of which you will be happy with. Because either way, you will STFU. I have the right not to be harassed by any joker who won't stop talking when I tell them I'm not interested, whether it's a politician in the store parking lot at the corner, the Jehovah's Witness down the street, the satellite TV salesperson who came to my door, or the pervert who exposed himself to me last February.

    My personal space, my rights. Go get your own personal space instead of interfering with mine.

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  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 29 2020, @09:14PM (1 child)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday January 29 2020, @09:14PM (#950850) Journal

    Uh uh.. blocking is something else entirely. You can stop a person from talking to you, but if you remain within earshot while he's talking to someone else, or even himself, you're out of luck. Your personal space is inside your skin, not everything you can see or hear.

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    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday January 29 2020, @09:34PM

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday January 29 2020, @09:34PM (#950856) Journal

      You're wrong from a legal standpoint. If you're talking loud enough that you're bothering the people around you, you WILL be censored. Just try being a loudmouth in a restaurant and see how long you last.

      Or even in a public place.

      "Hello, 911? There's a crazy guy screaming to himself that the world is about to end and we're all going to die of coronavirus. I have videos. People are getting pissed off. You might want to arrest him for his own protection."

      Even the public commons has rules and regulations. Disturbing the peace is a real thing. So is public mischief. This is both.

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      SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.