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Leaked draft details Trump's likely attack on technology giants:
The Trump Administration is putting the final touches on a sweeping executive order designed to punish online platforms for perceived anti-conservative bias. Legal scholar Kate Klonick obtained a draft of the document and posted it online late Wednesday night.
[...] The document claims that online platforms have been "flagging content as inappropriate even though it does not violate any stated terms of service, making unannounced and unexplained changes to policies that have the effect of disfavoring certain viewpoints, and deleting content and entire accounts with no warning, no rationale, and no recourse."
The order then lays out several specific policy initiatives that will purportedly promote "free and open debate on the Internet."
First up is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
[...] Trump's draft executive order would ask the Federal Communications Commission to clarify Section 230—specifically a provision shielding companies from liability when they remove objectionable content.
[...] Next, the executive order directs federal agencies to review their ad spending to ensure that no ad dollars go to online platforms that "violate free speech principles."
Another provision asks the Federal Trade Commission to examine whether online platforms are restricting speech "in ways that do not align with those entities' public representations about those practices"—in other words, whether the companies' actual content moderation practices are consistent with their terms of service. The executive order suggests that an inconsistency between policy and practice could constitute an "unfair and deceptive practice" under consumer protection laws.
Trump would also ask the FTC to consider whether large online platforms like Facebook and Twitter have become so big that they've effectively become "the modern public square"—and hence governed by the First Amendment.
[...] Finally, the order directs US Attorney General William Barr to organize a working group of state attorneys general to consider whether online platforms' policies violated state consumer protection laws.
[Ed Note - The following links have been added]
Follow Up Article: Trump is desperate to punish Big Tech but has no good way to do it
The Executive Order: Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Friday May 29 2020, @05:03PM (8 children)
That's because calling someone "nigger" or "fag" is the equivalent of punching them in the face.
There is a considerable difference between entertaining a difference of opinion and being required to tolerate abuse.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @05:46PM (4 children)
That's objectively false and you know it. It doesn't even make sense on any level. I could arbitrarily state the same thing about any word.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by lentilla on Friday May 29 2020, @07:26PM (2 children)
I have the niggling feeling that you are trolling but I will reply as best I can and in all honesty. The too-long-won't-read precis is: when we use those words, it is likely that we are being abusive, and we should examine why we are allowing ourselves to behave this way.
Well; without getting too pernickety over the objective/subjective difference; I did say "equivalent". Equivalent - as in getting a fist in the face and the use of this language are both forms of abuse, and about on par with each other.
I can only reply that it makes perfect sense to me. The fact that it apparently doesn't make sense to you is; however; worrisome.
Say the school bully is holding you upside-down by the legs with your head in the toilet bowl. Naturally; between the occasional gasp and sounds that resemble "gurgle, gurgle"; you manage to exclaim "Pardon me, but I find the sensation of being held upside-down in a toilet bowl to be frightfully uncomfortable, would you be so kind as to restore my feet to the ground, kind Sir?"
The bully replies "That doesn't make any sense! I don't feel in the slightest bit uncomfortable!" And of course he flushes the toilet again as his cronies clutch their bellies in mirth.
Moral of the short story: if someone says "please don't do that", it's not so much of a request - think of it as a clear indication that you might be in the wrong. And if you happen to be holding their ankles - or hurling choice epithets like "nigger" or "faggot" at the time - you are most definitely in the wrong.
Well - you could - but why would you so do? There is nothing arbitrary about the words "nigger" and "fag". They are terms well understood to be abusive and demeaning.
No, I really do stand by what I said. Those words (excluding certain contexts) are terms of abuse. At the end of the day it really only matters that society has asked us not to use those terms because it has been reliably informed by people on the receiving end of persistent abuse that those terms are extremely hurtful. It's not the words themselves - it's the emotion and gross disrespect that gives birth to the utterance of those words. Thus, when we choose that particular vocabulary we bring to bear the meaning behind the words. This also gives us a handy short-cut: when we feel ourselves about to use those words, it's a helpful flag that we are about to hurl abuse at someone - and that we should stop and consider our position.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @03:41AM (1 child)
"The too-long-won't-read precis is: when we use those words, it is likely that we are being abusive, and we should examine why we are allowing ourselves to behave this way."
I think a much more salient point is that these words are not just abusive but actual threats. To claim they are "just words" is to show a stunning lack of appreciation of historical context. Just ask any African-American what will inevitably come next after being called "nigger".
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @04:09AM
"Sup, bro!"?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @08:45PM
Emotional pain, especially rejection, activates the same brain areas that process physical pain. There is a very real correspondence between physical and emotional pain. It is not a coincidence that many languages and cultures use the word pain for emotional pain.
As a child I've been bullied and abused both physically and emotionally, both pretty severe. I can assure you that the emotional abuse was *much* harder to deal with. The PTSS like after effects of the physical abuse faded (through a lot of effort) about 20 years after the abuse ended, for the emotional abuse it roughly took another 20 years to get over it. A life like that has one advantage: it only gets better when growing older ;-).
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @04:43AM
>> unironically conflating words with violence
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday June 01 2020, @06:45AM (1 child)
How come that being called spaghetti eater or mafioso is no prob with me?
Yes it qualifies who speaks, but he has the right to self qualify.
The fact is, I know who I am and I know what I do, and no vocal emission is going to change that. Plus, it is objectively TRUE that Italians have brought bad habits around. Yes they are a bit of a diversion for the older jewish secret society and mafia. In fact, if you look at historical or even current mafia dons surnames (generic words or geographic words) and looks, you see some patterns emerge. But you cannot blame others when the phenomenon is rooted in your country and in your people, so it's our thing (literal for cosa nostra).
So yes my people is noisy bullying and often dangerous. Meanwhile niggers and fags are all angelic victims of the bad white man. Again, one should look at what kind of white we are speaking of, if the police officers belong to certain fraternities and whether they have a crucifix or something else on the neck. It MAY BE that a certain group is playing on both sides, since the Soros behind social justice movement is not doing it for making money (why? because he literally declared "all I do is to make money no other reason", and the Romans who said EXCUSATIO NON PETITA ACCUSATIO MANIFESTA were quite insightful)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2020, @07:52AM
Opus Dei, and anti-semitic? Does Pius the X have anything to say to you? Abstinence makes the Church grow Fondlers, I always say! Steve Bannon converted to Catholicism, for all the altar boy sex!