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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: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday January 29 2020, @12:33PM (8 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 29 2020, @12:33PM (#950592) Journal

    Pssst, Mr. MostCynical-with-temporarily-diminished-cynicism-capacities, let me share with you a secret: the real problem is not how to host your content, is finding something relevant or interesting to say (grin)

    If you have something that has value for a reasonable small herd of people, you will find ways to say it before the censorship kicks in, maybe even forever - the cost of running after the small independent fries are simply too high for... ummm... The Big Ugly Man.
    If you have a large crowd of sheeple that just can't wait the hear what you'll be saying next (that is, you reached the celeb status), you will find a way to communicate you gospel in spite of Google or TLA-ies.

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @12:46PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @12:46PM (#950595)

    Silly c0lo, thinking you have freedom after speech, after all, freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. Now say it again to the people you are not allowed to criticize.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 29 2020, @12:59PM (6 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 29 2020, @12:59PM (#950599) Journal

      Now say it again to the people you are not allowed to criticize.

      Just curios on who do you have in mind, Trump maybe?

      (grin)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @01:20PM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @01:20PM (#950608)

        Why don't you give it a try to see if Trump cannot be criticized?

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday January 29 2020, @01:43PM (1 child)

          by VLM (445) on Wednesday January 29 2020, @01:43PM (#950620)

          Why don't you give it a try to see if Trump cannot be criticized?

          LOL at the parenthesis

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @05:35PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @05:35PM (#950731)

            are you inserting your shit whistle where it doesn't exist?

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 29 2020, @01:48PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 29 2020, @01:48PM (#950621) Journal

          Because, even when I'm wasting my time, I try to keep at least the appearance of relevancy.
          Trump? Taking a snapshot of a Maccas burger before throwing it in a trash bin and then posting the photo on my facebook page** carries more relevancy than Trump.

          ** assuming I'd remember the 24+ almost-random-letters password I used some zillions of years ago when I created my fb account, that is.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday January 29 2020, @07:56PM (1 child)

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday January 29 2020, @07:56PM (#950806) Journal

          Why don't you give it a try to see if Trump cannot be criticized?

          Well Bolton criticized Trump and now the White House is censoring his book. [cnn.com]

          Does that count?

          • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday January 29 2020, @08:24PM

            by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday January 29 2020, @08:24PM (#950823) Journal

            That's not censorship. A threat is just free publicity. You know, the best money-can't-buy kind. Like Nixon gave The Pentagon Papers [wikipedia.org].

            Trump should have learned by now that he's not even Richard Nixon in terms of credibility.

            --
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