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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 DannyB on Friday May 29 2020, @07:43PM (5 children)
There are probably multiple reasons that happens.
Being "conservative" should merely be a difference of opinion about matters of public policy.
But we have climate change deniers. COVID-19 deniers. (Microorganisms don't care about your politics!) People who openly dislike smart people and education. People who think they have "a right" to infect other people with a disease.
These people tend to be the loudest and cause the most controversy. After all: teach the controversy, not the lies. Simply get people to believe that the truth is controversial.
If you want to break the association of "conservative" with "idiot", then:
1. the conservatives need to actually far outnumber the idiots
2. the conservatives need to speak out loudly about the idiots
In other words, if you're not part of a group, you need to distance yourself from that group. And don't let them hijack your party name. I would like to be generous and think these people are but a vocal loud minority. Prove me right.
But it is telling that I see very little of this. Which leads me to conclude (but I hope mistakenly) that "conservatives" and "idiots" are almost one group with little separation. In general.
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @08:13PM (1 child)
Due to the manipulation and lies from Fox and conservative talk show hosts who got the green light from the 1st Amendment to spout absolute lies with no repercussions. At most Fox's news outlet must publish corrections/retractions and those are small bylines that most viewers will completely miss, so even factual corrections don't really make up for the original lies.
So much bullshit and emotionally manipulative misinformation has been spread around that they truly believe things that are not real. There is no solution except for Republican leaders to lead the way back out of the darkness, to correct the lies and bullshit. After that we need to reimplement the fairness doctrine and figure out how to prevent this situation in the future. Possibly it will just be the "eternal vigilance" as any regulation to clamp down on misinformation is a few short steps from true tyranny.
Just a tough, shitty situation we're in.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 29 2020, @08:58PM
Maybe just codify that Freedom of Speech is about freedom of ideas, not a freedom to spread lies and misinformation. We can disagree about ideas. We should generally be able to agree about basic truths and falsehoods. Does the sun rise in the East or in the West?
What puzzles me is why do we have so much misinformation. Microorganisms don't care about your or my politics.
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @08:35PM (2 children)
Not even knowing that a virus is NOT a "microorganism" and still mouthing about "COVID-19 deniers" does that to you.
Indeed, bacteria and viruses do not care about your politics. But they care very much about the idiotic actions you make out of your ignorance and gullibility. As do all the other things, real things, dangerous things of this real world. Of which, the economy is one.
Reality does not care that you were led to imagine things and it is not your fault. Reality just happens to you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @03:09AM (1 child)
I love how they have you so programmed that you cannot even imagine that a program like "unemployment" could exist for a time like this.
You've become a fascist. You live to struggle. If you're not struggling for the boss' profits, against the hated enemy, you wouldn't know what to do with yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @03:29AM
And you have been programmed to think that money can be created out of thin air without repercussions.
Your life aspirations may only extend to lapping up that sweet $600+UC for as long as it lasts, but I am saving up so that at some point I can retire. That free money is devaluing all our savings, and it is happened because of a stupid Chicken Little panic and grand government fuckup.