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posted by chromas on Friday May 29 2020, @02:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the two-minutes-hate dept.

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


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @05:07PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @05:07PM (#1000619)

    To be fair, it might be illegal, but if someone runs a drone in your yard, it is perfectly OK to shoot the thing down as long as you are prepared for the consequences.

    Personal sore spot. Some a-hole was running his drone in my and my neighbors back yards every morning between 4am and 5am for several weeks. Besides the privacy invasion, those things are LOUD!

    I tried to blast it out of the air with a garden hose.

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 29 2020, @07:27PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 29 2020, @07:27PM (#1000702) Journal

    If you're going to shoot first, ask questions later, then a garden hose, or high pressure washer, would be preferable. Maybe a sooper soaker. Sling shot.

    Its just amazing how the FIRST reaction is "get the guns!"

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday May 29 2020, @10:01PM (1 child)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Friday May 29 2020, @10:01PM (#1000799) Journal

    Uh, no. Nowhere I know of is that legally true, and I know of many, many places where it is not. You never own the air above you, and unless you have mineral rights you don't own what's underneath you.

    Had you been successful you almost certainly would have owed the owner the cost of the drone. Because even if the law protected you (and many places offer no privacy protections against drones), that's not the way you are enabled to invoke its protection.

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    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @05:43AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @05:43AM (#1000946)

      Bola, or boomerang. Just stuff flying through the air, and an unfortunate mid-air collision. Too bad those tiny rotors are so delicate and vulnerable to spagetti fired from a potato cannon!

  • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday May 29 2020, @10:05PM (1 child)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Friday May 29 2020, @10:05PM (#1000802) Journal

    And I read where you said "it might be illegal..." So you are probably trying to claim a moral justification of privacy for that, or perhaps having your peace disturbed. OK, you're morally justified in not allowing it on your property! Congratulations! (We'll just ignore the rights of the drone owner to be able to enjoy their hobby, or the right of a free press to essentially photograph anything that is in open view).

    That does not mean that anything you do is therefore moral. Otherwise... George Floyd. Now be my guest and troll, flamebait, or mod me as such. But that is an equivalent moral argument. And yes, I see the irony in suggesting to you that the most your moral justification allows is to call the police or file a lawsuit. But... let the cops shoot it down and justify themselves, then.

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    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @10:13PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @10:13PM (#1000807)

      Ceding all rights and power of people to the police is not a proper solution, no master how "civilized" it is. Photographing me from the air is as much your right to free speech as my right to use a telescope to take pictures of you through your bathroom window.