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Justice Clarence Thomas suggests US should regulate Twitter and Facebook:
Justice Clarence Thomas suggested on Monday that Congress should consider whether laws should be updated to better regulate social media platforms that, he said, have come to have "unbridled control" over "unprecedented" amounts of speech.
The provocative and controversial opinion comes as Twitter banned former President Donald Trump from its platform for violating its rules on incitement of violence and some conservatives have called on more regulations in the tech world to combat what they view as political bias on social media.
"If part of the problem is private, concentrated control over online content and platforms available to the public, then part of the solution may be found in doctrines that limit the right of a private company to exclude, " Thomas wrote in a 12-page concurring opinion Monday.
Thomas's stance will raise concerns from critics who point out that social media platforms have not historically been subject to such content regulation, but instead have been left to devise their policies on their own.
[...] Today's digital platforms, Thomas argued, "provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech," but he said it also concentrates control "of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties."
[...] "The extent to which that power matters for purposes of the First Amendment and the extent to which that power could lawfully be modified raise interesting and important questions," he added.
[...] The conservative justice said that the court will soon have "no choice" but to address how legal doctrines apply to "privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms."
Katie Fallow, a First Amendment expert at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University said that the group actually shares Thomas concern about the power over speech being concentrated in the hands of so few. "But we think that concentrating that same power in the hands of government regulators will not necessarily solve the problems associated with social media companies." Instead, she worried it might exacerbate the issue.
(Score: 1, Informative) by crafoo on Wednesday April 07 2021, @07:54AM (5 children)
Your speech is going to be more restricted, not less. Your speech is going to be more heavily monitored, not less. Your ability to make a living and your ability to enter into commercial contracts will be contingent on what I ideas you express and how well you police the speech of your fellow citizens.
P.S. Cancel Culture is the polite euphemism the Progressive Death Cult members use in place of punishment of political dissent. No ideas are tolerated besides the dictates of The Death Cult.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 07 2021, @10:10AM
And I hear thought it was a favorite tool of the cons.... like you know, McConnel cancelling Obama's right to appoint judges and the entire drama with cancelling Affordable Care Act (ie. Obama Care). And the entire obsession with cancelling women's control over their own bodies or for that matter cancelling anyone's ability to control their own bodies.
Give respect where it's due. Cancel Culture has been the death march of the Republicans towards fascism for a generation.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 07 2021, @11:11AM
Heaps of assertions and invectives, yet no argument was made. Redundant is the closest mod to classify this vacuousness.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 07 2021, @11:49AM (1 child)
If you don't want your face eaten by leopards, quit voting for the Leopards Eating Peoples' Faces Party. I know, I know, you're mad because the leopards are eating the wrong peoples' faces, right? But it's just their nature. We warned you...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday April 07 2021, @05:29PM
The ones not voting for the Leopards Eating Peoples' Faces Party amounted to a little over 1%, in fact we lost ground during the last season. The Party machine is well oiled and running smoothly. Coffers are full, mass hysteria is high, win/win...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 07 2021, @06:25PM
it is a race to see if FOSS p2p software (for everything) can get created and distributed to the masses before these scum can con dumb slaves into giving all human freedom up.