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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday June 18 2020, @04:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the to-censor-or-not-to-censor,-that-is-the-question dept.

The DOJ is proposing scaling back protections for large social media companies outlined in The 1996 Communications Decency Act. In section 230 of the act it states

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.

This has protected the platforms from liability over user-generated content through the years and enabled the incredible growth of social media. An executive order signed last month directed the FCC to review whether social media companies "actions to remove, edit or supplement users' content" invalidated the protections they enjoyed from liability. It seems we have an answer:

In a press release, the Justice Department said that the past 25 years of technological change "left online platforms unaccountable for a variety of harms flowing from content on their platforms and with virtually unfettered discretion to censor third-party content with little transparency or accountability."

The new rules will be aimed at "incentivizing platforms to address the growing amount of illicit content online," the department said; the revisions will also "promote free and open discourse online," "increase the ability of the government to protect citizens from unlawful conduct," and promote competition among Internet companies.

In announcing the [requested] changes to the 26-year-old rules on Wednesday, Attorney General William Barr said: "When it comes to issues of public safety, the government is the one who must act on behalf of society at large."

"Law enforcement cannot delegate our obligations to protect the safety of the American people purely to the judgment of profit-seeking private firms. We must shape the incentives for companies to create a safer environment, which is what Section 230 was originally intended to do," he said.

The full review of section 230 by the DOJ is available here. Key Takeaways and Recommendations are here.

Also at: Justice Department proposes major overhaul of Sec. 230 protections


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:05PM (25 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:05PM (#1009584)

    Free market ideas only work if there is a free market or something approximating it.
    The current situation on the internet is clearly far from that with Google, Facebook, and Twitter abusing monopoly powers. Their business actions actively work to SUPPRESS the rise of competitors, and as monopolies (call it an oligarchy if you prefer), regulations are needed at this point.

    Part of this is of course structural as the value of a network node tends to increase dramatically with how many people use it. Thus, you will tend to get a few big winners. Any competitors that look like a real threat simply get bought out by the big monopolies.

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  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:22PM (11 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:22PM (#1009595) Journal

    Yep, clearly Facebook and Twitter have a monopoly on posting comments about articles and stuff.

    • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:32PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:32PM (#1009603)

      Google clearly has a monopoly.
      Mostly through their search engine which suppresses or promotes websites according to how they parrot the leftist line. The search results read like the headings of a newspaper with a pretty obvious viewpoint, which is to say they are not results of an internet search, but curated recommendations prompted by your search criteria. This is an important distinction.

      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:36PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:36PM (#1009604) Journal

        Google's search results don't allow user comments so section 230 doesn't apply.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:42PM (8 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:42PM (#1009611)

      Recently, Google used their position and power to shut down the competitors of NBC news. Patreon as well.

      There is coordination between Silicon Valley tech companies to shut down competition in their and other industries.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 18 2020, @06:22PM (4 children)

        by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 18 2020, @06:22PM (#1009636) Homepage Journal

        Patreon is shut down? As far as I know they are still taking donations and supporting people. If they were shut down I'm sure several cartoonists they support would have let their readers know,

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @06:43PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @06:43PM (#1009650)

          No Patreon, competitors to such. It's a typical pattern.

          1. Big company does something scummy. "Don't like it? Just start another company."
          2. Somebody else does start another company.
          3. And then multibillion dollar corporation uses their para-governmental resources to kill said competition.

          • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:13PM (2 children)

            by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:13PM (#1009794) Journal

            1. SlashDot (Dice)
            2. SoylentNews
            3. ???

            Profit!

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @12:39AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @12:39AM (#1009829)

              https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DHX/key-statistics [yahoo.com]
              Try and find even one billion in there somewhere.
              No profit either, and Slashdot got resold to BizX for that very reason.
              Guess we here are very lucky that "para-governmental resources to kill competition" in USA cost too much for just anyone.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2020, @08:00AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2020, @08:00AM (#1010303)

              Don't forget the things the young kids use, e.g. Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. One of those was beating the "Big Companies" so bad they saw no alternative but to buy them. Maybe writing big checks counts as "para-governmental resources?"

      • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:16PM (2 children)

        by captain normal (2205) on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:16PM (#1009767)

        What competitors to NBC? Faux News is still up and so is Patreon. Give us some links, some providence or STFU.

        --
        When life isn't going right, go left.
        • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday June 19 2020, @04:46AM (1 child)

          by shortscreen (2252) on Friday June 19 2020, @04:46AM (#1009896) Journal

          I'm guessing that GP was referring to The Federalist or Zerohedge.

          Plenty of other journalists, advocacy groups, candidates, and elected officials have been demonetized, censored, or banned by the big tech cabal. A few examples:

          American Herald Tribune
          Rand Paul
          The Grayzone
          Right Wing News
          The Anti Media
          Reverb Press
          Reasonable People Unite
          CopBlock
          Police the Police
          Free Thought Project
          Photography Is Not a Crime
          Press For Truth
          NoisyRoom
          Rachel Blevins
          Michael Moore
          South Front
          Jarome Bell

          DISCLAIMER for all the retards out there: I don't necessarily agree with any or all of those entities.

          • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday June 19 2020, @05:49AM

            by captain normal (2205) on Friday June 19 2020, @05:49AM (#1009911)

            That is a mixed bag. I'm guessing that mostly they were shut down because no one was reading, listening or watching them. In other words, they didn't create an audience.

            --
            When life isn't going right, go left.
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:50PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:50PM (#1009617)

    The much bigger elephant in the room is how regulations (FCC air wave monopolies and cableco monopolies) have gone so far to monopolize television into only expressing the views that big media wants you to see. Now that the Internet is competing with big media the government needs to step in and fix things so that only the same views of big media get expressed. No one should be allowed to criticize IP, for instance, and the fact that it keeps getting expanded and extended and is one sided. Big media will never criticize IP.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:52PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:52PM (#1009619)

      To continue my post,

      I still see Google, Facbeook, et al as the good guys when compared to big media. It was government regulations that monopolized big media into the tragedy that it's turned into. and now they want to do the same thing to the Internet. Anyone that criticized a politician should be censored.

      • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:33PM (1 child)

        by captain normal (2205) on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:33PM (#1009775)

        Er...just which government regulations forced small publishers and local media to sell out to the big bucks likes of Disney, News Corp, NBC-Comcast, iHeartMedia, CBS-ViacomCBS, ATT and Verzion??
        As far as I can see there were no government bodies preventing multi-national corporations from setting up huge monopolies in spite of anti-monopoly laws.

        --
        When life isn't going right, go left.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @04:58AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @04:58AM (#1009900)

          It's the governments that pass cableco/Telco and air wave monopolies to limit what gets televised to your house.

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 18 2020, @07:18PM (8 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 18 2020, @07:18PM (#1009666) Journal

    Free market ideas only work if there is a free market or something approximating it.

    The internet is a free market.

    Anybody can buy some cloud capacity and run a site on it. You don't even have to spend much to get started.

    If you're suggesting there are so many people who have these extreme minority POVs of hate then there should be more than enough potential revenue to create and operate such sites.

    If you don't like that sites don't like "right" or "conservative" ideas like hating gays, hating jews, hating muslims, hating brown people, degrading women, etc, and discriminating against people in terms of jobs, pay, housing, medical care, etc; if you don't like it, then start your own site! Express these ideas on your own site where you won't be censored. I bet a lot of "conservative" people would not embrace these ideas, or at least not openly.

    That, I think is part of the problem.

    People want to express horrible objectionable ideas, but as anonymous cowards, on someone else's platform. They are happy to pollute someone else's platform, and expect to have a right to do so.

    I would point out that Trump did not win the popular vote. I think even less so this November. Yet I still expect he will somehow remain in office.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:14PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:14PM (#1009765)

      Make them invite-only, why don't you? Keep your safe space extra safe!

      If instead you want to (mis)advertise them as a public resource, then absolutely, definitely, 200% do NOT EVER use it, directly or through incitement, to destroy the other COMPETING resources.
      As I remember, Microsoft withholding OEM Windows licenses from retailers who dared offer any other preloaded OS, was considered monopoly abuse. What mental blinders make you believe that your party fellows should be free to play such tricks to your hearts' content?

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday June 19 2020, @01:48PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 19 2020, @01:48PM (#1010036) Journal

        I know all the dirty tricks Microsoft played.

        As I said, anyone can start a web site. And you can put the vilest most hateful content on it all you want. There probably are limits where law enforcement will get involved.

        I stand by the idea that sites like, say, Facebook should be able to have a TOS that protects the general public from such vile obscenities.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday June 19 2020, @04:52AM (5 children)

      by shortscreen (2252) on Friday June 19 2020, @04:52AM (#1009897) Journal

      Anybody can buy some cloud capacity and run a site on it. You don't even have to spend much to get started.

      In general this is a good idea and more people should do this.

      But as soon as you buy service from a third party you are restricted by their ToS. So it's gonna be tough to start up that digital goatse museum you always wanted to make.

      If you know any service provider whose ToS doesn't prohibit any type of content (other than that which is illegal to begin with) I'd like to hear it.

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday June 19 2020, @01:47PM (4 children)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 19 2020, @01:47PM (#1010035) Journal

        If someone can't find a hosting provider for a site that wants to host content so vile that even internet infrastructure providers won't play ball, then they certainly should not be able to put those vile obscenities on Facebook.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday June 19 2020, @04:11PM (2 children)

          by shortscreen (2252) on Friday June 19 2020, @04:11PM (#1010083) Journal

          It's not about "vile obscenities" at all. If it were, there'd be no story here. Further more, trying to pretend that it's only about obscenity is dishonest.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @05:12PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @05:12PM (#1010101)

            ???????

            U even internet bruh???

          • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday June 19 2020, @07:13PM

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 19 2020, @07:13PM (#1010162) Journal

            Well, then in that case, my original point stands. It should be no problem to go start up a conservative web site that has it's own TOS and alternate facts.

            A web site that doesn't require face masks when you visit.

            --
            People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 2) by DeVilla on Friday June 19 2020, @08:05PM

          by DeVilla (5354) on Friday June 19 2020, @08:05PM (#1010174)

          You realize that in the 80s, the entire LGBTQ movement(s) would have been classified that way, right? Anyone who "played ball" would have also been the target of boycotts and general ostracism.