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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
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @06:48AM
Dude, that paper is literally referencing the ADL. The ADL not only lack any meaningful definition of any sort of extremism other than "right wing extremism" but also define it in the loosest possible terms. That will be most clearly emphasized this year. Right now there are tons of people being severely injured, some killed, by people rioting about a far left agenda. This is, without doubt, the most clear example of far left extremism you could get. Watch, the ADL will attribute 0 or near 0 events to it. This is the problem with organizations that become overtly political, especially when they once had a powerful reputation. People who identify with their new partisanship still cling onto their old image while the rest of the world sees them for the partisan ranters that they have become.
E.g. the Hugo award is another example along the exact same lines. It used to be, by a wide margin, the most prestigious award in sci-fi. Now it's become mostly meaningless since the award is geared not based around what it should be (writing good sci fi) but instead pushing a certain political agenda. People who identify with that agenda pretend it still means something while everybody else knows a Huge Award now means 'avoid'. Check out the reader reviews [amazon.com] for the 2019 winner. It's just a more quantifiable version of the exact thing that's happened to the ADL.