McConnell introduces bill tying $2K stimulus checks to Section 230 repeal:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has thrown a wrench into Congressional approval of an increase in government stimulus relief checks from $600 to $2,000. The House voted overwhelmingly on Monday to increase the payments, as President Trump had advocated for. Instead of voting on the House bill, however, McConnell blocked it and instead introduced a new bill tying higher stimulus payments to Section 230's full repeal, according to Verge, which obtained a copy of the bill's text.
It's a tangled web, but the move is tied to Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes $740 billion in defense spending for the upcoming government fiscal year. "No one has worked harder, or approved more money for the military, than I have," Trump said in a statement about the veto, claiming falsely that the military "was totally depleted" when he took office in 2017. "Your failure to terminate the very dangerous national security risk of Section 230 will make our intelligence virtually impossible to conduct without everyone knowing what we are doing at every step."
Section 230 has nothing to do with military intelligence; it's a 1996 law designed to protect Internet platforms. At its highest level, the short snippet of law basically does two things. First, it grants Internet service providers, including online platforms, broad immunity from being held legally liable for content third-party users share. Second, it grants those same services legal immunity from the decisions they make around content moderation—no matter how much or how little they choose to do.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @03:35PM (179 children)
prevents you from being sued for something somebody else posts on your blog, forum, facebook page etc. It is a pretty broad law. Mostly it prevents people from being sued for things that other people said.
That really should go without saying, but when you look at the nutjobs on the hill, nothing is off the table, including the kind of politics the world hasn't seen in 70 years.
It wouldn't be an issue if the senate could be trusted to respect the Constitution. They don't so we shouldn't empower them. Hence CDA230 should stay.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @03:42PM
Contact him
https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=contact [senate.gov]
I already typed him something. Hopefully it gets to him.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 05 2021, @03:45PM (48 children)
It's abundantly clear from the public statements of the people who are into repealing section 230 that what they really really really want is for politicians to be able to sue into the ground any social media site who allows people to use that site to criticize them. And they don't even need to win the lawsuits in question, they just need to force the site to incur legal fees, and sue for each and every time any user posts anything they don't like, one at a time, until the site runs out of money to operate because they're defending themselves in court constantly.
A site like SoylentNews would be doomed very quickly. Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok would last a bit longer against something like that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @03:58PM (13 children)
One of the problems that we face is that this is the perfect time to pass unpopular laws because Covid makes it more difficult for anyone to physically go out and protest plus they can take advantage of a perceived desperate need to pass legislation to alleviate the impact of Covid by sneaking in undesirable clauses into these 'relief efforts' last minute. Plus the media is distracting everyone with nothing but Covid and bombarding them about it taking attention away from other things. Politicians know this and they see this is a good opportunity to pass all the laws that no one wants. That's why they pushed this into the stimulus bill last minute
"The COVID-19 Stimulus Bill Would Make Illegal Streaming a Felony"
https://soylentnews.org/politics/article.pl?sid=20/12/22/2140223 [soylentnews.org]
China used Covid as an excuse to clamp down Hong Kong protests.
and they are seeing this as an excuse to repeal section 230.
They don't want to pass up this perfect Covid opportunity to get bad laws pass. They don't want to wait until Covid ends to do it because by then it'll be more difficult. The time for them is now. It's despicable that these politicians see COVID as an opportunity to pass unpopular laws. Shows their true character.
While we may not have tamper resistant elections (the only reason not to is if you plan to cheat. If you really have nothing to hide then you should have no problems proving it. Elections in Canada and Europe are more tamper resistant but elections in the U.S. have turned into a joke) which could make it difficult to vote unwanted politicians out of office what's harder to cheat is the fact that huge groups of protesters will protest and have protested against stricter IP laws and will defend section 230 (ie: they protested SOPA and TPP). We never see large groups of people protest in favor of repealing section 230 or in favor of stricter IP laws. The people do not want stricter IP laws and we support section 230. This should be a democracy. The government should represent the will of the people.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:27PM (10 children)
That's true with or without Covid: The president is a lame duck, and Congress knows that this vote is very likely to be completely forgotten by the time they face reelection.
And that's one of the most important weapons politicians have: The confidence that you either never really find out what they're doing, or if you did find out you forgot it come the next election and just vote for the party that you pretty much always vote for.
Other major weapons in the political arsenal, of course, include "The Other Side Is Worse" and gerrymandering.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:56PM (9 children)
Don't forget cell modems in voting machines that get unexpected updates the day before the election that was only noticed because it broke a few machines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:07PM (8 children)
ZOMG! QUICK cancel 7million votes based on no evidence. [citation needed]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:28PM (7 children)
Wat?
Are you some kind of shill who gets paid to make elections easy for the rich and powerful to manipulate?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:22PM (6 children)
That would be you Qanon idiot child, sad day indeed if you're not getting paid for it
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:03PM (5 children)
Interesting, so it is Q that says it is secure practice to have voting machines connect to the internet via cell modems?
I don't see how any real person can defend this.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @10:34PM (1 child)
Odd how you only care about these issues now that Trump lost the election. Most everyone here on SN is vehemently against voting machines, with AT BEST machines with an auditable paper trail being acceptable enough. Don't know why I bother, you're obviously a fake news sucker.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:22PM
I always cared about these issues. The only explanation for why we are only learning this after the election is both republicans and democrats want insecure voting.
Always remember, if you meet a random person it is most likely they are neither voting for democrats nor republicans.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:56PM (2 children)
GTFO
No, all votes are counted in the U.S. by local election officials – not by Dominion. Voting systems are, by design, meant to be used as closed systems that are not networked (meaning not connected to the Internet). It is technologically impossible to "see" votes being counted in real-time and/or to "flip" them. [dominionvoting.com]
---
Cato institute [cato.org] (one of the most conservative think-tank there is)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @12:10AM
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/online-vulnerable-experts-find-nearly-three-dozen-u-s-voting-n1112436 [nbcnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @12:13AM
https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/06/antrim-county-results-election-2020/6185031002/ [freep.com]
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/georgia-election-official-machine-glitch-caused-by-last-minute-vendor-upload/ar-BB1aGQY4 [msn.com]
Sure, bro.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:56PM
For that to happen, people have to speak up and stop reelecting 40 year incumbents. With the present day 98% approval rating (only 13 incumbents were removed), they have no reason to change anything.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:56PM
Covid makes it more difficult for anyone to physically go out and protest
I have to disagree with that. Whatever discouragement Covid gives to protest because of exposure fear, not having a job due to Covid undoes it. If there were no Covid, how big do you think the George Floyd protests would have been?
If anything will stop protests over this, it's the fact that the danger to society isn't as immediate or compelling. A video of somebody dying with a boot on their neck is about as compelling as it gets. Legal proceedings, not so much.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:42PM (30 children)
IMO, 230 needs tweaking. It doesn't need to be repealed, but it needs tweaking.
Those Big 3 social media sites abused 230 to hell and back, by silencing opinions that they disagree with. Those Big 3 should lose their 230 rights and privileges because of that censorship. 230 should remain mostly intact, for the benefit of those sites that do not engage in censorship.
Of course, congress can't understand any of that. They'll use a sledgehammer where a wood chisel and a 12 ounce tack hammer would suffice.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:00PM (8 children)
Section 230 isn't what you think it is. Not that I expect you'll actually exercise your brain rather than listen to the liars, but you're wrong about section 230 [techdirt.com].
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:48PM (7 children)
Except when a platform goes further than required by law to the extent they are effectively editorializing all content. YT yeeted Talk Radio today a UK broadcaster with a regulator that answers to Parliament. [youtube.com]. So onerous are their terms of service that everything on their service should be considered officially approved. Plus YT gets a free ride on Google infrastructure, it's past time Governments stepped in to level the playing field.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:39PM (4 children)
"Except when a platform goes further than required by law"
BZZT WRONG! Their platform, their rules. Otherwise I should be able to spam comments on Soylent News advertising my Technologically Marvelous Hosts Files and anyone that censors me is a dirty commie that I'll sue into the ground!
Seriously, do you idiots bother thinking through anything? If Gaggle, Fuckbook and Twatter are violating monopoly laws then we already have systems in place to handle that. If you are just upset that people prefer using those platforms over Voat and Parler, well news flash buddy, that is not oppression and the government should not remove protections that enable more internet freedom.
The end result of repealing 230 will be more censorshp not less.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:29PM (3 children)
My home, my rules. I can accuse you of anything, beat the shit out of you and you've no recourse? Is that how it works?
Those comments are not deleted.
Exactly - who risks publishing SJW bullshit then? Andrew Cuomo is building a camp for obesity and sexwork promoting leftist nutjobs as we speak - he just doesn't know it yet!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:34PM (2 children)
"My home, my rules. I can accuse you of anything, beat the shit out of you and you've no recourse? Is that how it works?"
No, there are legal restrictions, same for web services. If you want your political opinions to be protected speech then push to have that added to anti-discrimination laws. Don't destroy the web in a misguided effort that will backfire and cause even greater censorship.
"Those comments are not deleted."
They are modified by the editorial controls of the site, same as that Twitter fact check on Trump's tweet that you trumptards lost your minds over.
"Exactly - who risks publishing SJW bullshit then? Andrew Cuomo is building a camp for obesity and sexwork promoting leftist nutjobs as we speak - he just doesn't know it yet!"
Umm, so you agree that repealing 230 is a bad idea? Now I'm confused. Wait, no I'm not. You're confused because as soon as you could think up some way it would hurt liberals you suddenly are pro-censorship?
I presume you were the AC I responded to initially -
That simply doesn't mesh. You want to reign in censorship, but then you cheer about SJWs getting censored? Ah well, done debating morons for the day, you conservative dingbats just want to put your boots on the throats of others. No one owes you a platform, and Parler has created the safe space you've been looking for. Git your butt over there!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @12:23AM (1 child)
You are confused. I am a liberal and I support freedom of speech. Those of low cognitive ability who support censorship need to understand it applies to them, if they insist on censorship we should insist on pulling the rug.
Fight fire with fire, censor the censors, burn them to the ground!
Do unto others as they would do to you.
Social media companies are not owed the right to a platform either. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @09:26AM
uh huh, buh bye
(Score: 4, Informative) by Dr Spin on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:22PM (1 child)
Except when a platform goes further than required by law to the extent they are effectively editorializing all content. YT yeeted Talk Radio today a UK broadcaster with a regulator that answers to Parliament. [youtube.com]. So onerous are their terms of service that everything on their service should be considered officially approved.
You really need to stop drinking the kool-aid.
The BBC's problem historically has been that, in order to show they are balanced, they have presented:
In the blue corner we have a Nobel prize winner who has expertise in the subject.
In the red corner we have an escaped loony who can barely string three words together.
They have recently been told that is not what balance means.
When both the left and the right complain you favour the other side, it probably means you are balanced. 80% of the UK thinks the are more honest than the rest of the media here,
and very few people here would believe the American media's version of anything, in the unlikely event that they could find the stories between the advertising.
"We know the reviews are fake because they are on Amazon!" Is how it looks from here.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:15PM
You need to stop drinking the kool aid. [bbc.com] If you struggle with this, consider the minor cost of excluding a tiny number of people for narrative and where an intel agency would truthfully want "subversives" if the intent was to monitor them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:07PM (3 children)
What you are basically saying is that since the big three don't give you 'equal time' to say whatever stupid thing you want, you want to be able to hold them liable? Liable for what exactly? Trumpsters really don't understand what section 230 does.....IT WAS NEVER INTENDED TO ENSURE FAIRNESS!!!
Lets open that floodgate and require every broadcaster to be required to provide 'equal time' to all opposing views. I am sure Hannity, Carlson, Limbaugh and all the other spouters of proven falsehoods would love to have people rebut their sillyness.
Broadcasters used to be required to follow the fairness doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine [wikipedia.org] but the Republicans in the 1980's revoked that.
Beware of what you wish for, as it may come true....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:54PM (2 children)
"Trumpsters really don't understand what section 230 does.....IT WAS NEVER INTENDED TO ENSURE FAIRNESS!!!"
Do you even read what you wrote? "Trumpsters" in fact DO get it- they don't like that 230 allows biased and hugely socially influencing organizations to steer public opinion. They want more fairness, and bias removed.
Like it or not, govt. is going to have to control the giants. Whether it be by breaking them up (dubious fix), or regulating what they're allowed to censor, or something else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:22PM (1 child)
Repealing section 230 won't do that.
Actually, the only thing that could do that is repealing the First Amendment. Why don't you go ahead and make that happen, friend.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @09:24PM
Considering the Giants want 230 repealed, it definitely won't do that.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:59PM (2 children)
Free speech is not a privilege. The entire DCA has to be repealed, and the ISPs have to be regulated as common carriers.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 05 2021, @09:51PM (1 child)
ISPs aren't the same as web-based services, and you know it.
You don't like the rules on Facebook or Twitter? Go to 8-chan or Parler. That's your remedy.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 05 2021, @10:03PM
Yes I do know it, and you're not addressing the issue. The ISP is your connection to the internet, nothing to do with the web or the people that provide web based services. Those people are content providers, hands off! The ISP should be a simple wire with a switch, not a router, at their end. Of course that means we have to develop ad-hoc networking on the WAN, but that would be better all around at making the internet more robust against interference from the authorities, so it's worth doing.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:10PM
Well that's what some news 'sources' reported, anyway. 🙄
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:31PM (1 child)
Truly, Runaway1956 is an idiot, and a fool, and a patsy for Trump and McConnell.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:45PM
Could Section 230 be the most perfectest law ever made?!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 05 2021, @09:38PM (9 children)
I'm tired of hearing this argument from you.
Any website can censor whatever they damn well please. Yes, including the "Big 3". You're trying to pretend that those are public spaces when they are in fact private spaces, and those websites can legally boot you or your content for any reason or no reason at all (including completely arbitrary reasons like "the owner doesn't like you" or "an admin is mad because you knocked up their sister"). You have no legal right to anybody else's server space or bandwidth barring a legal contract, you have a privilege that the site owners can choose to give you if they feel like it.
Imagine you're at a bar concert, some drunk idiot runs up on stage, and starts singing into the mike like they're one of the band members. The bar has every right to kick said drunk idiot out.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 05 2021, @09:52PM (3 children)
Doesn't matter how tired you are of hearing it. I'm going to repeat it again and again.
Have you looked at the world around you? This ain't 1492 any more. Or 1776, or even 1930. Technology has taken over damned near everything, and that includes "public spaces" in many cases. Big Tech owns all the soapboxes today. Remember the boxes? Soapbox, ballot box, and ammo box? Where do YOU go to voice your opinion, today? Do you go down to the town square with a megaphone?
Expect to get a lot more tired, Pal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @10:32PM
Ok fine, you can repeal 230 since the world is so crazy different nowadays, but we're putting in strict gun control to prevent nutjobs like you from murdering people. Petard, enjoy your Runaway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @10:43PM
Um, you do realize that for very little money you can create your own blog, right? For a bit more money you can also make your very own server. You are not nearly so oppressed as you suppose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @03:28PM
Like others have said you can always create your own blog or whatever. If you choose to voice your opinion on your own blog and no one wants to visit your blog that's your own problem. As long as you can provide others with the URL. It shouldn't be everyone else's responsibility to force your opinion down their throat against their will. You have a right to free speech but everyone has a right to take your free speech off of their own property/platforms if they don't like it.
Now where it may get tricky is things like how the payment processors try to censor payment to platforms that provide information that the payment processors don't like. This might be something that needs to be looked at more, especially when you consider that the money usually starts with a bank account before being sent to a payment processor and bank accounts are FDIC insured (the FDIC is practically a government body) and there are only so many FDIC insured entities to start from (the government acts as a bottleneck for that by limiting the number of banks they may insure). So the FDIC insured entities have a government granted advantage and if they work together to systematically stop payment to speech they don't like they make it more difficult for certain websites to get donations and to receive payments from advertisers or payments for services they may provide (ie: Soylentnews 'sells' a premium subscription as a service). Or else the platform has to accept crypto or something less secure than payment that originates from an FDIC insured entity. I wouldn't mind a law that says if a bank wants FDIC insurance they must work with payment processors that don't discriminate against websites with speech they don't like and the banks themselves must not discriminate. FDIC insurance is provided for by the government.
This may also depend on the whole process required to get FDIC insurance and to what extent that may discriminate and to what extent just anyone can open up a bank, get FDIC insurance, and to what extent different employers may be able to easily directly transfer your money to your bank account from whatever random bank you use. Then if you want to buy something from the store it must be considered how easy it is for you to be able to buy something from said bank account (ie: Visa, etc...). This needs to be looked at in a lot more detail by someone that really understand banking and payment processors way more than I do, this is barely scratching the surface (I would probably have to read a lot more on this stuff) but all of this has absolutely nothing to do with section 230. Section 230 needs no tweaking.
You work, your work sends money to your bank or to something (you obviously want the money in your account to be FDIC insured) and you want to get that money over to some website or platform that you like because you support them. What are the different pathways you have available to do so and how can the payment processors block those pathways. They tend to all work together, if you send money to one payment processor and they are able to send money to the website you like the bank that receives your money from your job that works with the first payment processor (ie: I have a Visa debit card, my bank let's me send money via Zella, I can link it to paypal) may work with the small group of payment processors to prevent money from going to a third party payment processor that may send money to my website.
Perhaps regulations should be in place to prevent payment processors that benefit from FDIC insurance (either directly or indirectly because they work with banks that benefit from FDIC insurance) from using their network to deter speech they don't like. I actually wouldn't mind that.
Also what needs to be looked at are webhosts and how they may also work together to block speech they don't like and what can be done to prevent this. Not regulations against a specific platform but maybe regulations that say if someone wants to start a website and they need a webhost and the webhost may wish to determine what sites they host there could be laws that restrict what they can censor? Or at least censorship at the top levels (where the big providers agree that traffic can freely move across their platforms and where smaller hosts have to pay the big providers for Internet access) should be regulated. This can get into net neutrality as well which is something you should support (but some republicans don't support it and then they complain when they get censored).
Or perhaps the government can compete with the private sector by providing their own neutral web hosting services that everyone has access to that doesn't discriminate against anyone. The government can host anyone's website, blog, or platform with the intended purpose of promoting their free speech. The government can provide a neutral search engine that allows people to search through all the websites/blogs/platforms that they host in addition to listings that people can go through. Everyone can get up to 50 gigabytes free space (or whatever) and if they want more they can purchase it from the government like a utility. I wouldn't mind that. People can either host their website/blog/platform under their own name (that can be searched for) or under a pseudonym (they can have one of each under the same account) and they can choose what information they want public or only available to those that are given a specific link.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by slinches on Tuesday January 05 2021, @10:40PM (2 children)
To be fair, Facebook, Twitter and the like are all masquerading as public spaces. So who is at fault for that misunderstanding?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:04PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by slinches on Thursday January 07 2021, @06:44PM
Tell that to Facebook's marketing department.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @09:38PM (1 child)
So, basically, the republicans calling for a repeal of 230; are actually socialists trying to push through censorship legislation? lol...
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday January 07 2021, @03:22AM
No, they're authoritarians trying to push through what amounts to censorship legislation. Not all authoritarians are socialists, and not all socialists are authoritarians.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by c0lo on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:58PM
Disagreeing with blatant lies is a feature in my books.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Wednesday January 06 2021, @04:00AM (2 children)
I like SoylentNews and the related community. That said, to plays Devil's Advocate for a moment, if 230 was repealed, and essentially *every* social media site (including FB, Twitter, the green site, here, etc.) eventually was forced to shutdown (or have draconian paid moderators and be uninteresting and expensive to run), would that really be that bad -- considering it might lead to a resurgence of peer-to-peer email, private chat, telephone use, and so on?
Yes we lose SN -- but in return FB goes down too eventually. Isn't that a net plus for the world?
We'd still have stuff like private chat rooms, right? So, if not SN as we know it now, but perhaps we could have here today gone tomorrow (unless you keep a local copy) SN community chat in small groups like IRC used to be?
Consider all the news articles about how addictive profit-focused social media is destroying society and individuals. Might almost everyone actually be better off if we went back to mostly p2p communications mixed with web-based publications by both individuals and organizations (and with only moderated comments)? Sort of like we used to have in the early days of the web?
Sometimes a step backward in the right direction can actually be a step forward. See also the novel "Retrotopia": https://becomingsee.com/collapsenowavoidtherush/retrotopia [becomingsee.com]
Anyway, so I'd at least encourage people here to think about what a post-230 technosphere might look like. Maybe it would be *much* better -- even ignoring almost every family of four in the USA would have $5200 in their pocket they did not have now and that might make the difference between life and death for millions of people near the edge.
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @04:26AM (1 child)
There could be a rapid evolution of decentralized discussion systems. But it would be much easier to host social media sites somewhere outside of the US.
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Saturday January 09 2021, @11:29PM
A link mentioned in a green site article I just saw:
"The 1996 Law That Ruined the Internet: Why I changed my mind about Section 230."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/trump-fighting-section-230-wrong-reason/617497/ [theatlantic.com]
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @03:51PM (4 children)
Section 230 is in place to prevent the issues it covers from ever going in front of a judge that might rule on the constitutionality of laws restricting what people can do on the internet (ie. enforcing DMCA). If freedom of speech were allowed on the internet, copyright and "intellectual property" would be over with. Child pornography can be dealt with by putting some pressure on sex tourism countries and breaking up sex trafficking rings, but that's not popular among the ruling classes for some reason...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:04PM (3 children)
That's just not true. Section 230 doesn't restrict anyone from suing/pursuing criminal charges. In fact, it says just that in the law.
CDA Section 230(e) [cornell.edu]:
And so, no. You're wrong about section 230 [techdirt.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:47PM (2 children)
What does any of that have to do with the Constitution?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:29PM (1 child)
Not sure what you're getting at there, friend.
Section 230 actually *encourages* free speech and strengthens the Constitution (First Amendment) on the Internet.
If it didn't exist, sites like SoylentNews would never have been able to exist, as the potential liability would prevent anyone from creating such a site if the site owners could be sued for *each and every comment* posted on the site.
All section 230 does is say that websites, Git repos, mailing lists, etc. can't be sued for what *other* people say, only for what *they* say.
As such, it *strengthens* First Amendment protections -- which is part of the Constitution -- in case you were confused about that part.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @10:46PM
Indeed. The creators of this site should pray that section 230 is never repealed. I am planning a doozy of a lawsuit if it ever is. Fear me.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:08PM (83 children)
You're all missing the other side of the argument, which the TV show "60 Minutes" covered 2 nights ago. I think the protections for social media companies are good, warranted, and necessary, but there's nothing to stop them from editing, deleting, censoring, banning, anyone and/or anything they feel like.
And, that would be okay except they're essentially monopoly, and have far too much control over the public's beliefs. Facebork is probably the worst offender.
Think about it. What do you really know about the world? You know what you read and hear in the news, social media, etc.
The show properly talked about the truly horrible things people post and fairly obviously need to be censored. Even this quite open site will censor some things.
So the question is: what should be censored, and by whom, and by what standards?
The righties are appropriately unhappy because they've seen the social media companies censoring conservatives and being more permissive toward the left.
I think the solution is to break up the giants, esp. Facebork.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:18PM
> censoring conservatives
The facts are that Republicans (not necessarily conservatives) have built-in advantages in the Senate and have pushed the boundaries of decency with gerrymandering, voter suppression and stripping incoming (D) governors of powers. Now add losing Presidential elections to the list.
They then cry bloody murder when this gets reported in then news (it's all fake, right?) or social media. Mitch wants conservatives to wield their unearned government powers to suppress news. Tell me it ain't so .
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:18PM (47 children)
If you don't like another platform runs things, then start your own.
SN is able to exist even though the green site still exists.
Parler seems to have a base of users, from what I hear.
That's the beauty of the internet. Unlike physical news papers, or limited broadcast spectrum, anyone can get a server and an IP address and start their own platform.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:43PM (10 children)
The problem is that with larger sites like YouTube and FaceBook there's basically no way of competing to any meaningful extent due to the way they run their businesses. There are alternatives, but without a critical mass of people, few add content there and because people aren't adding content there, it's unlikely that they'll reach the critical mass needed to compete.
Creating a competitor to Slashdot wasn't really that hard in comparison. All the site operators needed was a source of news articles and the ability to comment on them. With even a handful of people that could build up and let's be honest, Slashdot hasn't been about having a lot of people in ages. You simply just need a few dozen people that are posting comments that people want to read and respond to in order to start growing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:09PM
I stopped going to Slashdot when they wouldn't let me post without a bunch of rigamarole. Plus their stories seem to be puff pieces half the time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:25PM (3 children)
Then use anti-monopoly powers we already have in place, don't go allowing the dystopian thought-crime that Republicans want to club their opponents with.
Always projection with Republicans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:10PM (2 children)
Liberal = hypocrite
It's always okay for the libs to do these things, but never when a conservative tries to even the score, or thwart media bias.
I agree- someone needs to use anti-monopoly powers. And I wish it could work. Gee, what happened when a huge number of states tried to break up Microsoft's monopoly 20+ years ago...
Something along the lines of complacency, defeatism, "it's too late now"...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:41PM
Yes, but that is because conservatives are stupid, and attempt to do so rather badly. I bet right now, you want to censor me for stating the truth. But, you cannot, because this is not Parler. See how it works? Your ignorance is not the same thing as media bias. Your deplorable delusions are not the same thing as reality. There is no "score", there is just rationality and reality versus right-wing fantasies of repression and victimhood. So, as I lib, I demand you shut up, and go away, and learn to be properly deferential to those who are more intelligent than you, m'kay?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @09:29PM
George W. Bush won the 2000 election and effectively shut down the anti-trust case against Microsoft started by the Clinton administration at the Federal level.
But only because GW Bush was *so* much more liberal than Clinton, right?
Please.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:29PM (2 children)
Parler seems to be an alternative to Twitter and Facebook that embraces free speech, as long as it is only right wing speech. This is because, as its website says, it has a higher ethical standard.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:01PM (1 child)
FTFY
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @04:30AM
DannyB doesn't need sarcasm tags, he needs tags.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @10:58PM (1 child)
It seems that your complaint is essentially that your views aren't all that popular and that others are not allowing you to use their platform to broadcast them. I got news for you: while the first amendment allows you to say anything you want it doesn't mean that others have to aid you in broadcasting your views. And I would also add that, while you are free to say what you want, the rest of us are under no obligation to listen.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @01:42AM
Is this what happened when Twitter suspended the New York Post [thefederalist.com] over the Hunter Biden story? If the problem was Twitter policy on "hacking" why was the recently leaked Trump audio allowed to trend?
Is it what happened when Zerohedge was suspended [culttture.com] for suggesting SARS-CoV-2 may have leaked from a lab? If this is the problem why are recent stories from other outlets now making the same assertion not being treated similarly? Well they tell us outright... [nymag.com]
We're under no obligation to give unaccountable corporations rights over the public square either. It seems you misunderstand the arguments -- but you're actually deliberately misrepresenting them. Why are you doing that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:00PM (6 children)
No clue what you're trying to say. Long ago the US government, representing We the People, came to realize and understand a thing called "monopoly", and passed "Anti-Trust" laws to quell monopolies. Where monopoly is all but necessary, like "The Bell Telephone Company", electric utilities, etc., the govt. passed strong regulation laws, set up agencies (FCC, FTC, ICC, PUC, for example), to try to keep things in balance. (I don't think it's working very well, but that's another topic regarding govt. laws and agency effectiveness...)
The whole point of stopping monopolies is that people did try to start their own, and got almost no market share. There's a thing called "herd mentality" where human nature is to look at what other people are doing, and do what they do, regardless of good reasons.
Why don't you start your own version of Amazon? Or google? Why don't you get lots of great ideas and VC and make it happen? Why doesn't someone, anyone? Because Amazon has huge momentum, advertising $, and like google, has become as common as "Kleenex" or any other societally mainstream thing.
You're a more independent thinker, like some others here, but sadly most people just follow the tail of the sheep (cow, buffalo, etc.) in front of them.
Learn about human nature, herd mentality, monopolies, etc., and you'll have a better grasp on life.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:39PM (5 children)
That alone should be enough reason to repeal 230.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:13PM (3 children)
It is my distinct pleasure (given how much you talk out of your ass) that you are quite wrong about section 230 [techdirt.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:36PM (2 children)
Your linked article is interesting, but philosophical. Down here on earth, where reality is a thing, the very fact that many people want 230 repealed should be enough for you and others to open your vice-grip minds and look what actually happens, versus ideals of legal philosophy.
Like I commented elsewhere here, Microsoft should have been broken up long ago by anti-trust (anti-monopoly) laws. Much time, effort, and $ was spent, and it fizzled. IMHO, Microsoft OS had and has become so pervasive and necessary that nobody has the courage to break them up (for fear of disrupting absolutely everything).
Many of us fear, rightly, that the social media companies, Facebook in particular, have far too much influence on people, and at the very least need to be regulated.
Mainstream media is somewhat regulated; there's no reason to allow Facebook, et al, to do whatever they feel like doing. Zuck has been called in to testify before congress and congressional committees enough times that it's time to regulate them.
Just because almost everyone does a thing, or buys a service, doesn't make it good. Monopolies exist because of human herding nature, and governments exist because humans realize we need someone to establish and enforce rules and limits. Right?
And I have to add a paradoxical observation: the righties should be in favor of 230 because it deregulates big corporations. But interestingly the libs want it in place. Gotta make you think, no?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:47PM (1 child)
If specifically detailing what a law requires or does not require, along with concrete examples of litigation around that law is "philosophical," then call me a philosopher.
Because section 230 applies as much to *you*, me, everyone else in the US, SoylentNews and everything else with an IP address within the confines of the United States, as much it does to Facebook or Twitter.
And that's not philosophy, either. Section 230 was passed to address rulings in Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy [wikipedia.org] which would have required that *any* site that does *any* moderation (including moderation like we have here) or removes *any* content, no matter how egregious (say child porn, links to child porn on torrent sites, snuff/torture videos, Goatse and/or gay, midget furry porn on your daughter's homework review site, knitting websites, recipe websites, your open-source git repo, etc., etc., .etc.), that site may then be sued for *any* other third-party content they do not remove.
As such, without section 230, pretty much *every site* or individual on the 'net would either need to completely block *all third-party content*, let every place be a complete free-for-all or shut down.
In fact, the only folks who have any chance of surviving in a such an environment are the companies with billions in the bank to fight all the lawsuits. That would be Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. So repealing section 230 would kill off most of the free speech on the 'net, except for the very platforms you're bitching about.
As such, that you want Section 230 repealed means that you're either anti free speech or don't understand section 230.
As I'm an optimist, I'll assume it's the latter. If it is, I suggest you read the law [cornell.edu], especially section (c)(1).
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @01:25AM
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
― Anatole France
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:27PM
Anti-open source shill Barbara Hudson agrees with repealing 230? My how DO you find the time and energy to shill it up with those non-functioning eyes that ony have a tiny bit of endurance each day? Shouldn't you conserve your eyeball time for your real work? Thankfully even shills like you sometimes have actual contributions to make, and your narratives are often debunked which is just so fun to see!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:59PM (11 children)
And then like Gab and others, Visa and Mastercard will yank your ability to take payments. Oh, you're scraping by on bitcoin and cash via a P.O. box? Then your hosting will suddenly cancel your account. Manage to find another host? That one will be cancelled too. Set up your own host? You don't have that much money most likely, and even if you pull that one off, oops all those peering sources will bail on you and even the tier 1 networks won't do business with you.
This goes far beyond deleted posts and shadowbanned tweets. It's the leveraging of the entire business system to deny dissenters any method (above putting fliers under windshield wipers in a parking lot) of getting out their point of view.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:10PM (3 children)
That's the playbook.
Don't like it? Start your own platform!
Don't like it? Start your own web host!
Don't like it? Start your own payment processor!
Don't like it? Start your own country!
Don't like it? Just die!
The amount of people forced to go down this trail will only increase in the coming decades.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:27AM (2 children)
"Don't like it? Start your own payment processor!"
What I don't like is the fact that banks and, by extension, the payment processors they work with or the payment processing services they provide benefit from FDIC insurance. The FDIC is a government entity.
Laws should be passed that require that if a Bank wants to be FDIC insured (and what bank wouldn't want to be) the payment processing services they provide or the payment processors they work with must be speech neutral. If the banks and payment processors want to argue free market capitalism then that's fine, they don't need the government giving them FDIC insurance. They can just provide their services without FDIC insurance (good luck getting customers then but there are such things as corporate backed and insured assets and bonds but they're more risky).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:33AM
When the banks and any payment processors that work with the banks block payment to speech they don't like they are essentially using the weight of a government body, the FDIC, to block speech they don't like. It's the FDIC that insures their assets and gives consumers the confidence they need to use their services and put their money in the bank.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:35AM
If the banks and payment processors want to argue free market capitalism then that's fine, they don't need the government giving them FDIC insurance. Free market capitalism all the way down and not just when it's convenient to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:52PM (5 children)
Oh, I see. It's your view that private organizations of which you are not the owner are *required* to provide you with the tools to make money?
Please, do tell what law or constitutional amendment *requires* this?
Take your time. I'll wait.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @09:47PM (1 child)
Is it your view that private bakeries of which you are not the owner are required to bake you a cake?
It is not a problem for any individual company to decline to provide service to someone. When every company in that industry declines to provide service to someone, that is illegal collusion in restraint of trade. Of course, we'd have to have an operating non-corrupt court system for that to matter a tinker's damn; too bad we're fresh out of that, too.
To resolve disputes requires communications. Shutting down all but the most minor of methods of communications means disputes can't be resolved. Historically speaking, when the communication stops, the killing starts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:02PM
Nope.
Where did I say it was?
I merely pointed out that private organizations exist and that they have wide latitude in who they associate themselves with. That's part of the First Amendment here in the US, in case you were confused about that.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. To which industry are you referring?
If there is some sort of anti-competitive activity going on, there are multiple avenues that are available, including civil actions and, if you can convince an appropriate LEA/Attorney General/regulatory agency, criminal actions as well.
These aren't arcane, shadowy or unprecedented activities either. In fact, they're part of the normal legal and commercial fabric of the US and most of the rest of the world.
Not sure why you're confused about that. Nor am I entirely clear whose constitutional or legal rights you believe have been infringed. Would you mind sharing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:42AM (2 children)
"It's your view that private organizations of which you are not the owner are *required* to provide you with the tools to make money?"
I think organizations that directly or indirectly benefit from the government should be speech neutral. Banks benefit from FDIC insurance. So if they want that FDIC insurance they need to ensure that any payment processing services they provide or any payment processors they work with are speech neutral. If they want to argue free market capitalism then that's fine, free market capitalism all the way down. No FDIC insurance for them. They don't get to throw the weight of the FDIC, a government body, around to control speech they don't like. The government is supposed to be speech neutral.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:44AM
The government is supposed to be speech neutral. The government shouldn't provide services, like FDIC insurance, to entities that directly or indirectly abuse those services to suppress speech they don't like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @09:37AM
Well, get right on it, then. I'm sure you'll have lots of support from your congressperson/senators.
Good luck, friend.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:33PM
And not at all obligatory:
https://xkcd.com/1357/ [xkcd.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:05PM (6 children)
Unfortunately we allow the ISPs to regulate that activity on our connections. We have to demand they supply a dumb pipe so that we can compete
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:19PM (1 child)
Places like Linode or Digital Ocean offer small servers for as little as $5 / month. Bigger ones for $10 or $15. These are not at your residence or office, and not on your ISP.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 05 2021, @09:28PM
Yes, but you have to rent a service that is easily controlled and taken down. They won't fight your fights for you. The service provider is our biggest obstacle. If we can't get the dumb pipe, then we need a way to "tap the line" with mobile scud servers.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:56PM (3 children)
You mean like was required by the FCC in 2015 and then summarily rolled back before implementation, after certain folks took control of the FCC?
If you're serious about what you said, and live in Georgia, you better have voted today. Because there's only one set of folks (the folks who *actually* did it) that will make that happen.
But that doesn't fit your childish narrative, so I'm sure we'll have some lame attempt at false equivalence. Grow up, sonny.
(Score: 1, Troll) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 05 2021, @09:32PM (2 children)
I fart in your general direction... Screw the FCC. Congress is suppose to write legislation for things like this to make it more difficult to reverse. Congress had that chance between 2009 and 2011, but obviously they had no intention of actually doing anything. So, save your breath about who had control of what.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @10:40PM (1 child)
ahahhaahahahahahahahhaha
wow, fusty's rightwing feelings laid bare
bbbbbut whatabout TEH DEMS!
always some excuse with you to never address the GOP's corruption and blame the DNC
and no i ain't no democrat so i don't wanna hear that old whingey "muh democrat downmods" excsue either
go fuck yourself you steaming pile of garbage
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:16PM
:-) If you think the DNC is better than or even different from the GOP, then obviously you are a democrat, full of partisan poop like all the rest. They are one, a cooperative, a coalition. Now, it's not my fault that you take professional wrestling seriously. I can only advise you to stop, and look at yourself.
thankyouverymuch
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @05:34AM (9 children)
Pakistan and China took over the SWIFT banking system while Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Russia run the UN's counterterrorism office. If you try to start another platform, you lose access to payment processing and your upstream gets a nastygram that you are hosting illegal content and which comes from an office that has the authority to shut them down. If you have a way to survive that, they will destroy your business with negative press. Just look at what happened to 8chan, #Gamergate, and Milo Yiannopoulos, and what the same people have been doing to Donald Trump for four years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:59AM (8 children)
"If you try to start another platform, you lose access to payment processing"
The government is supposed to be speech neutral. It provides banks with FDIC insurance. The banks benefit from this insurance and use it to provide us with banking and payment processing services. So those banking and payment processing services should be speech neutral.
Any bank that benefits from FDIC insurance should be required, by law, to ensure that all payment processing services they provide and all payment processors they work with are speech neutral. If they don't like it and they want to argue free market capitalism then that's fine. They are free to forego their FDIC insurance. Free market capitalism all the way down.
By providing banks with FDIC insurance and allowing those banks the ability to directly or indirectly cut funds to speech they don't like the government is not being speech neutral. The government is supposed to be speech neutral.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @09:46AM (7 children)
Actually, payment processing services are generally provided by Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, etc. None of those are owned by the banks, they're separate entities.
Visa and Mastercard *used* to be owned by member banks, but Visa IPO'd in 2008 and Mastercard in 2006, so they're not banks, don't take deposits and don't need or want FDIC.
So...you're really just broadcasting your ignorance rather than making any sort of reasonable argument.
What's more, the First Amendment (yes, that old chestnut) says, among other things:
"Congress shall make no law abridging...freedom of speech..."
As such, any law that required anything approaching what you're talking about would violate the First Amendment and would be unconstitutional.
It's too bad that Trump's black shirts storming the capitol didn't make him president for life like it was supposed to. He's no friend to the First Amendment, so after he put all the demorats and RINOs up against the wall, you'd be good to go.
More's the pity, eh?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:06PM (4 children)
I know that Visa is separate from the banks. They are traded separately as well, I've followed Wells Fago, Bank of America, and Visa stocks so I know.
That misses the point. Let's say I have a Well Fargo bank account, for instance. The debit card that my bank gives me could be a Visa debit card. So if I want to contribute to Soylentnews the money must still originate from my FDIC insured bank. So the whole process is still benefiting from the fact that my bank is FDIC insured.
If my bank wants FDIC insurance any payment processing services they provide or any payment processors they work with anywhere down the chain (such as Paypal, VISA, etc...) should be REQUIRED to be speech neutral. Or else my bank loses its government provided FDIC insurance. That's the way it should be.
If the banks want free market capitalism then fine, they lose their FDIC insurance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:15PM (3 children)
How many levels of indirection would that cover? Please.
The First Amendment. Full stop [xkcd.com]. Go read it. If you still don't get it, write your congressperson and see how far you get.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:23PM
"How many levels of indirection would that cover? Please."
Anyone between me and Soylentnews for instance. My money starts at my FDIC insured bank account. I want to send it to Soylentnews. Anyone down the chain that prevents it from getting there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:25PM (1 child)
"The First Amendment. Full stop [xkcd.com]. Go read it. If you still don't get it, write your congressperson and see how far you get."
Agreed one hundred percent. FDIC insurance is a government provided service. Government provided services should have FREE SPEECH strings attached so that private entities can't use the weight of the government to regulate speech. If a bank doesn't like it then it can simply forego its FDIC insurance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @06:43AM
Are you being *deliberately* obtuse?
The First Amendment *specifically* forbids the government from doing this.
Because a law that says "you must allow all speech" abridges the First Amendment free speech rights of those affected by such a law.
Free speech means not only that I can say what I want without government interference, it also means that I or anyone else can't be forced to repeat, host or support any particular speech by the government.
As such, what you're suggesting is a clear violation of the First Amendment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @12:18PM (1 child)
"So...you're really just broadcasting your ignorance rather than making any sort of reasonable argument."
No, you're really just broadcasting your inability to read. I also said
"Any bank that benefits from FDIC insurance should be required, by law, to ensure that all payment processing services they provide and all payment processors they work with are speech neutral."
The key phrase here is any payment processors they work with. You can't read.
"As such, any law that required anything approaching what you're talking about would violate the First Amendment and would be unconstitutional."
Absolutely not. It's the exact opposite. The government shouldn't require payment processing to be speech neutral if the banks don't want FDIC insurance. The government should only require it if the banks want FDIC insurance because the use of government services should be speech neutral. To give the banks FDIC insurance and to allow them to regulate speech or to work with payment processors that regulate speech essentially gives these banks and payment processing services the green light to throw the weight of the government around to regulate speech.
Think publicly funded research. Publicly funded research should be publicly and freely available. The fruits of such research should be publicly and freely available. No drugs developed with public funding should be patented. No research conducted with public funding should be under copy'rights'. It should be public domain. If you want government money there should be strings attached.
Likewise if you want government services like FDIC insurance for your private business then there should be strings attached (ie: speech neutrality). You don't get to throw the weight of the government around to regulate speech and use the services they provide you with to regulate speech.
It's the same with broadcasting monopolies. When the FCC provides broadcasting monopolies to private entities and those entities use/abuse those monopolies to regulate speech on broadcasting spectra (and they do) that should be unconstitutional. Broadcasting monopolies originate from the government.
Likewise FDIC insurance originates from the government. You don't get to throw the weight of the government around to regulate speech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @06:51AM
And the government is forbidden by the First Amendment [wikipedia.org] to do what you are suggesting:
The government may not make *any* law that prescribes what speech a person or private entity *must* support, host, allow or expend resources on, just as it may not make any law that prescribes what speech a person or private entity must *not* support, host, allow or expend resources on.
There are exceptions [wikipedia.org] to those prohibitions, but your example is not among them.
As such, should Congress enact a law such as you're suggesting, it would be struck down (not that such a law would ever be passed) because it's a clear violation of the First Amendment.
Ignorance is not a good look, friend.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:28PM (5 children)
The law doesn't just protect media companies. And just because you are too lazy to put up a proper site and use facebook instead doesn't make them a monopoly. I've never used facebook. Ever. Because I saw what they were when they first started up. Any economic power they have over you is power that YOU have conceded to them. Stop conflating your life, with other peoples.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:42PM (4 children)
Hey Moron, not sure what you're on about, other than to make yourself look stupid. Just because I'm able to think and communicate from a variety of standpoints doesn't mean I hold those opinions. You wrote: "Stop conflating your life, with other peoples." and you have NO idea what my life is or who I am. In fact, I have NO social media accounts and never have. I'm able to watch the fray from up on a hilltop and see the masses being manipulated, mostly by Facebook. Go watch the 60 Minutes segment and learn something, mr. ff39 moron.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:05PM (3 children)
Not the AC you replied to, but you're absolutely correct. I have no idea about you. And as I don't care who you are or what your life is, let's keep it that way, okay?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:46PM (2 children)
Oh, I get it, it's okay for you to post whatever you want, but I have to somehow anticipate what you want, then conform to your rules? Fuck you.
Read previous AC's comment that I responded to. He characterized me as being a slave to Facebook.
"Any economic power they have over you is power that YOU have conceded to them. Stop conflating your life, with other peoples.".
Try to read in context, okay? Or not your thing I suppose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:18PM
You ref 60 minutes. That is really all that needs to be said about you nutter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @09:04PM
This *is* the same AC you replied with the above to.
No. You don't have to anticipate anything. Post whatever you want. Or don't. That has nothing to do with me.
You don't *have* to conform to anything. At least not as far as I'm concerned.
Nor do I care. Which was *my* point. I don't know you. I'm not interested in you or your life. I don't care to get to know you either.
Which is what I said. And it's a really long way to go from "I don't know or care who you are or what you say or think" to "I insist that you conform to my rules." In fact, they don't intersect *at all*.
You seem to have a big problem with reading comprehension. Not that I care. Nor do I request, insist or otherwise make *any* demand upon you.
Although I will observe that you appear to be both dumb *and* nasty. A wonderful combination! You go, girlfriend!
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:00PM (18 children)
Which one is the monopoly?
Facebook
Twitter
WeChat
TikTok
Tumblr
Reddit
SlashDot
Soylent News
4chan
Stormfront
Parler
Building your own damn website
Seems to me like there is plenty of opportunity and competition in the post-shit-on-the-internet space
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:03PM (8 children)
You conveniently forgot the metrics. They tell the story. Nobody is talking absolutes here, and your examples are borderline whataboutism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:31PM (6 children)
So? Last I heard users are allowed to choose what platform they want to use. If Twitter, Youtube and Facebook are somehow undermining their competition with monopolisitic practices then your shitty narrative would have more substance.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:16PM (3 children)
For these folks it doesn't count as freedom of speech unless they can force people to listen.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday January 06 2021, @01:42AM (2 children)
Say I post a video to my own website. What's the expected way to inform other people that my video exists?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @05:33AM
RSS feeds, word of mouth, advertising, SEO. How much is it worth it to you for other people to know?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @06:57AM
Good question. I'm sure there are even some answers.
But why should that be the my problem? Or the government's? Or some corporation's?
You seem to be under the misapprehension that other people *owe* you something.
If some corporation (Google/YouTube, for example) doesn't want to host your video, why do you think you have the right to *force* them to do so?
Centralization *is* a problem, but forcing others to host your content isn't the solution.
Creating decentralized platforms is the solution.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:49PM (1 child)
In your hyper-omniscient astral plane that would be correct.
"Shitty narrative"? So you're okay with most people using google, using the word "google" as a common verb, and not having a clue that there are alternatives?
Monopoly is not NECESSARILY defined by intentional anti-competitive practices, Einstein.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:58PM
Ok smooth-brain, doesn't change the fact that we already have anti-monopoly laws. Repealing 230 would have not curb the "monopolies" in any way.
It is indeed a shitty narrative undermined by all the clamoring rightwing morons did about the baker not having to bake a gay cake.
Anyway, it is becoming clear that this whinging about monopolies and censorship is just a bunch of bullshit and the real goal is getting 230 repealed so the fascists can gain more control over the flow of information. Exactly the opposite of what you claim. Burn in hell you shitty person.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:14PM
A list of competing services is *exactly* the counter-argument to a claim of a monopoly.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:10PM (1 child)
Are the top 2 (probably more) owned by the same company?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:14PM
No.
And I specifically excluded the ones I was aware of being owned by a company already in the list (e.g. Instagram, Whats App who are owned by Facebook)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:08PM (4 children)
There is no monopoly in content. The real problem is service. We permit too many restrictions and too little competition
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:05PM (3 children)
Ah there is the real fusty. Libertarian (small r) that takes ideological purity to a stupidly new level.
Permit restrictions? Explain how a service should not be allowed to enact rules? Do you agree with the spam and karma moderation here on SN? Should a kid-friendy service NOT be allowed to censor curse words?
Too little competition? Is someone stopping Parler from existing? Did Voat [voat.co] shut down due to the monopoly powers of Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter? Did the government somehow ruin their business model? Did their hosting provider refuse service based on their shitty user base? Are you being prohibited from running your own site? Please explain, how are "we" permitting too little competition (how does that phrasing even make sense?)
Might want to get your water tested.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 05 2021, @09:40PM (2 children)
You're just talking your usual partisan gibberish. As already stated, we should demand a dumb pipe from the service providers, by law if need be, so that we can compete. You have no business meddling with content provision.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @10:30PM (1 child)
You HAVE dumb pipes you moron! What you are asking for is "dumb service" because you're a lazy bum that demands others do the heavy lifting for you. Running a website in 2021 is not difficult you babboon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:02PM
Heh, learn to read, then make your entrance. Ad libbing is not your forte
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Common Joe on Wednesday January 06 2021, @09:37AM (1 child)
Many of these entities in your list are monopolies by my definition.
The term "monopoly" currently has several definitions because the term is evolving. Many people (like me) use it to mean that more than one monopolistic entity can exist in the same arena because there is no other word to use.
However, I think a very strong case can be made to define any company with 50% or more of a certain population using its services as a monopoly. I would argue it could get much lower in some circumstances -- down in the 10% - 20% range because the goal is to encourage competition between many companies, not just 2 or 3.
For instance, by my definition Facebook would be a monopoly because they reach more than 50% of the U.S. population. (Source: 190 Million Facebook users [statista.com] in the U.S.).
Twitter? Only 20%. (Source one in five [omnicoreagency.com].) In my opinion, 20% is a huge number. I would really like to see that percentage come down.
Additionally, a company can have a city-wide monopoly, but not a state or national monopoly. Demographics also need to be taken into account.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday January 07 2021, @04:32PM
Duopoly, oligopoly, cartel?
But in all these cases none of the members of the group are monopolistic, by definition, the group is monopolistic, and the word to describe the group tells you how it's composed. So what you've said is *definitionally* nonsense.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:46PM (3 children)
The Sixty Minutes Piece is Wrong Too [techdirt.com]:
Read the rest of the article too. It's quite informative. And so yes, Sixty Minutes is *also* wrong about section 230 [techdirt.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:56PM (2 children)
Again, your techdirt article is written from the stance that 230 is absolutely universally correct, and then goes on to argue why objections to 230 are invalid.
230 protects the social media companies from modifying what you post. How would you feel if SN did that to you? They have the right to. They could simply delete posts that don't conform to their political ideals. Think about it, and on the scale of Facebook. Do you even KNOW how big Facebook is? 2.7 BILLION users. That's almost 10 times the size of the US. Think about it, if you can wrap your tiny brain around that kind of power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @09:16PM
That's wrong. It does no such thing. You keep spouting off with no apparent knowledge of the subject. Read the fucking law [cornell.edu].
Yes, they do. They are a private entity and can do whatever they want. That's true for most private entities -- including you. And be glad it's that way too. Because if it wasn't, I could come over to your street and project Goatse on your house while blaring Justin Bieber 24/7/365 and you'd have to let me.
But we have this thing called *private property*. Maybe you've heard about it?
If SoylentNews was censoring folks (which they are entirely within their rights to do), I would leave. But section 230 has *nothing* to do with any of that.
It just means that NCommander can't be sued for what *I* say on SoylentNews. You can still sue me if you want, but not NCommander. That example covers the sharp end of section 230. That's it. All of it. Full stop.
You are wrong about section 230. It is not what you think it is. And the more you spout off, the more of a moron you reveal yourself to be.
Perhaps you might take this unsolicited advice: "'tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @07:29AM
It does no such thing. Rather, it points out that the 60 Minutes piece calls out a bunch of bad behavior that has nothing to do with section 230 and then blames section 230 for it.
Are you trolling or are you just really that bad with reading comprehension?
(Score: 2) by helel on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:47PM
If "social media companies are moderating too much" is the problem repealing 230 is not that answer. All 230 says is that you can't be sued for something somebody else said. Making every AC who quotes a comment in their replay libel for any part of that quote doesn't stop censorship. If anything it increases the risk of censorship as motivated parties can file huge numbers of SLAPP suits against anyone who retweets a comment they don't like. It'll be the same as the RIAA lawsuits again, average people losing their houses because they simply can't afford to fight corporate law firms.
If "social media companies are moderating too much" is really the problem then what we need is new legislation along the lines of insuring freedom of speech in digital spaces. What exact form that should take I don't claim to know.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 05 2021, @10:02PM
I mean, philosophers have been debating that one for a long long time. Solipsism being one of the more extreme takes on the problem: If you don't physically perceive it, right now, it's not happening as far as you're concerned.
As far as what you get in news sources and social media: There should be a step between "you read / hear X in the news and social media" and "you immediately accept X as The Unquestionable Truth". And that's true whether the X in question is "the president asked Georgia's secretary of state to commit election fraud and threatened him with prosecution if he didn't comply" or "Karen's ex-husband was a total jerk to her". Now, both of those statements could very well be true, but you should have some level of BS detection between "you hear this" and "it must be true".
There's an already-existing solution, one the righties are in fact using: Going to a different website for their social media dose. Do that, and Facebork isn't a monopoly anymore (and it arguably isn't one now too, for the same reason).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @10:52PM
Oh, good grief! If you are so unhappy with facefuck then hie thyself on over to parler. I'm sure you'll find the atmosphere much more genial there. Problem solved. See how easy that was?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @09:44PM (1 child)
It's a really simple fix. Keep section 230 AS IT IS; but, add to it this... You enter the realm of publisher if user generated content is, 'processed,' before being served. Say you have a site with 100 users and they are all submitting opinions and such of various kinds; but, you use an AI, or a human, to find the users that post content about tomato soup and push their content to the forefront. At that point you have, 'processed,' user content (which based on the terms of service of these sights, they have an irrovocable world wide license too anyway).
That fixes the problem, easy. It gives protection where protection is needed, and restores accountability where accountability is needed. I'm sure the gray area of, 'processed,' submissions will be a battle ground; but, that's how I see it. This will not happen though; because nobody wants a solution the problem. They want a solution to, 'their,' problem. And they are government and corporations, and we are little nobody trash people..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @09:50AM
Section 230 doesn't say *anything* about "publishers." It protects *everyone*. Full stop.
Read the law [cornell.edu]. No. Really. Because you're wrong about section 230 [techdirt.com].
(Score: 3, Informative) by slinches on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:16PM (21 children)
It is a broad law. One that's too broad that it is being abused in ways that undermine the initial intent, which is to protect free speech for everyone on the internet. It should be narrowed to protect those sites who protect the free speech rights of their users and not protect those who use section 230 as a shield while amplifying their own speech at the expense of the rest of us.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:30PM (11 children)
Enabling censorship is practically the entire point though - if you publish unfiltered, unprioritized user content - like a mailing list or usenet, then you're pretty firmly in the "communication channel" business, rather than the publishing business.
As soon as you filter out the spam, trolls, etc. you're taking editorial control and become a publisher, which leaves you open to lawsuits about the content. 230 removes that vulnerability. And in the modern world, without that protection any site discussing anything critical of anyone with power is going to be shut down under a landslide of SLAPP lawsuits.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:59PM (7 children)
There is a fine balance to the whole thing.
No matter whether you are a publisher, you must "censor" obviously illegal content. No matter your status as a publisher, a court order to remove child porn from your site must be obeyed.
Censoring spam trolls gets to be questionable pretty quickly.
The problem with the Big 3 media sites is, they are censoring perfectly legal points of view, opinions, and even facts. Any or all of those should cause them to lose 230 protections, because they are now publishers. The monopoly issue doesn't even need be considered here - publishers are publishers, and social media is something else entirely.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:16PM
Section 230 makes no distinction between "publishers" and anyone else. It protects *everyone*.
You continue to be wrong about section 230 [techdirt.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:45PM
Do you ever tire of being wrong and siding with fascists? No? Shocking
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:15PM (3 children)
Are you referring to the Big 3 dropping groups because they made advertising clients flee or are you talking about certain posts getting flagged as false at a time where people listening to bad advice were getting killed?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:54PM (2 children)
Nonsense. An advertiser might stipulate that their ads are not seen with firearms, or not seen with rap music artists, or whatever. The advertisers didn't leave Facebook, or Google, or any place else just because said content might be seen on the site.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:31PM
😂 What are you even talking about? Advertisers not only CAN pull their ads to avoid toxic backwash on their brand, but they HAVE DONE SO over bad behavior by the platform's users a number of times. High-profile incidents, mind you. This is how what you lot call "de-platforming" usually happens, it's not typically"we dont like a political party" it's "Our revenue is in danger, everyone out of the pool!"
I'm pretty sure you've bitched about 'cancel culture' before, so your denial of this is ... counter-intuitive. Then again there does seem to be a longing by some to one day be a victim. 🙄
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @10:28PM
^ smack smack smack
Do you just enjoy mental BDSM Runaway?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday January 06 2021, @03:21AM
>The problem with the Big 3 media sites is, they are censoring perfectly legal points of view,
I see the problem being somewhat different - you're using *their* services - they're free to throw you out for perfectly legal behavior. Just as the mall cop can throw you out of the mall for engaging in perfectly legal activities that the mall has decided to ban.
Prohibiting such censorship amounts to requiring them to publish your content, something the courts have repeatedly struck down as unconstitutional. You have no right to demand that other people act on your behalf. If you want to present a different take on things you're free to set up your own web server to do so, and try to find an audience who will listen. Free speech prohibits the government from silencing you in the town square - it does NOT entitle you to use the mall's PA system
Where I do see a problem, and a potential avenue of legal attack, is that modern social media sites definitely aren't even remotely the mostly-passive communication channels 230 was created to protect. They advance an agenda using other people's content, while hiding behind their immunity for that content.
I would say - fine - you are not responsible for the individual posts showing up in people's feeds. HOWEVER, you ARE responsible for promoting them to a larger audience. The posts may belong to the users, but the feed itself is all your creation. Just as a photo-collage is a new composite image created from images by other people, so is a media feed a new composite creation. And if your composite creation is spreading illegal lies, the fact that it's using other people's words to do it is immaterial. I posted a two-question test above that I think would reliably distinguish between "message boards" and "social media"
Of course - free speech would still rule, and in the US the media is completely free to lie to you, just like anyone else. I don't see any reason to expect Social Media to be held to a higher standard. But slander, public indecency, and speech likely to promote imminent illegal activities are restricted, amongst others.
At the very least, it'd pull social media sites bias out from behind the shield of 230 immunity, and make them responsible for the composite-message of their feeds, hopefully dragging them up to at least the low legally enforced standards of a traditional media companies. Beyond that point... that's where things start running into constitutional problems.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:10PM (2 children)
Then don't filter them out. If you want protection from responsibility for their speech, then let them say what they want. There's also nothing editorial about a fair user moderation system like the one here on SN. The users control relative visibility of content collectively, but anyone can choose to read everything posted.
The distinction that section 230 does not make, but needs to, is between what content is the site/platform's speech and what is the user's.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:17PM
Actually, stuff like moderation systems is *exactly* what section 230 protects.
This post is even more wrong about section 230 [techdirt.com] than your other wrong posts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:22PM
And then every site is another 4chan/8chan/8kun. Yeah, that's what I want from my favorite knitting site or early childhood education forum.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:09PM
I regret to inform you that, you too are wrong about section 230 [techdirt.com].
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:41PM (7 children)
These privately owned social networks are under no obligation to publish everything posted to them. There are alternatives to facebook, YouTube, and twitter.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:15PM (4 children)
No they aren't obligated to publish anything. I'm not proposing that anyone be required to publish anything they don't agree with. However if you want to run a platform for others to publish their own content, your protection from legal liability for their content should be contingent on treating all user submissions equally regardless of whether you agree with what it says.
I don't see why a site that accepts user content and then selects which posts it wants to publish should be treated any differently than the editorial section of a newspaper. They are doing the same thing. Sites like this one where comments from users aren't controlled by anyone but the users themselves do something different. These sites facilitate open public discussion which should be protected.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:08PM
Because you're an idiot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @07:48PM
I go to a gym to workout and get a good swim in. How dare they make rules against me swimming nude?!?!?!?!
There, does that get through your thick plated skull?
Here: https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/the-right-to-refuse-service-can-a-business-refuse-service-to-someone-because-of-appearance [legalzoom.com]
That should help you out. If you feel you are being unfairly discriminated for pushing rightwing Qanon stupidity then you'll have to champion some federal amendments to protect against it. I don't think you'll have much luck, but that is what you are actually looking for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @09:42PM (1 child)
I'm curious as to how sec230 differs from the laws regarding the editorial section of a newspaper.
How do you feel they should be realigned?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2021, @07:37AM
Libel/Defamation law in the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law [wikipedia.org]
Communications Decency Act, Section 230:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 [cornell.edu] (text of the law)
Discussion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230 [wikipedia.org]
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml [techdirt.com]
https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 [eff.org]
HTHAL
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:02PM (1 child)
In a constrained philosophical construct, you'd be correct. But here in the real world, Facebook, Twitter, et al, are HUGE and very powerful influence over the masses.
I'm starting to observe a trend of people who are literally addicted to them. Reminds me of a couple of sci-fi movies where mind-control was somehow embedded in TV broadcasts... 1984 doesn't specify who the governing entity will be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:27PM
I don't own a TV. You don't have to either. You don't have to have your mind "controlled", if you don't want to. I will leave it as an exercise for you on how to apply that to Facebook, Twitter, et al. (i.e., the rest of "the real world"). And just to head you off at the pass, I'm pretty sure that I am just as, if not better, informed about what is going on in the world as you are.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday January 05 2021, @04:22PM (10 children)
230 basically carves a safe harbor for websites that doesn't exist for newspapers, etc - newspapers can and have been successfully sued for publishing libel in a letter to the editor. When you're a publisher, you take responsibility for everything you publish. Which is why weasel-words and phrases abound: "Is X a Y?" "Some people say...", etc. Even if you'd win a lawsuit, the cost and distraction usually isn't worth it.
Social media of all kinds, from comment sections to Twitter, don't exercise that level of editorial control, and 230 prevents them from being buried in SLAPP lawsuits as a result. Get rid of the protection, and social media probably disappears overnight.
And maybe that's what many politicians really want. Most of the old-guard is utterly incompetent at leveraging social media, which puts them at a massive disadvantage against the younger upstarts. Kill social media as a viable business, and people go back to only getting the officially sanctioned story published by traditional media. It's such a shame to have consolidated virtually all the reputable news outlets under a tiny handful of umbrella companies, only to have social media do an end-run around them.
That said, I do think social media has indeed become a major danger to society - it takes the old adage about a lie getting across the country while the truth is still putting on its shoes, and gives the lie a jetpack and massive bullhorn. Lies are sculpted to appeal to emotions, while truth is often hard to swallow. Even when it's not actively unpleasant, it's usually dry and uninteresting. Anything that dramatically accelerates the spread of "engaging" information, will inevitably spread lies much more broadly than truth.
I don't know what the solution is. Maybe killing social media while we work out something less dangerous is actually the least-bad option. I'd feel a lot better about that though without the consolidation of traditional news.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:11PM
You sir, unlike many others posting here are, in fact, right about section 230 [techdirt.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @05:18PM (2 children)
Massively on point. There is no easy answer. As if we need more laws, it's like everything in life: fine lines drawn, and lawmakers need to define where we draw those lines. I'm okay with obviously harmful content being removed, but what's "obviously harmful" to me might be perfectly fine with others. TV is a great example. Who's to define what's okay to broadcast on TV, and at what times of day? I know parents who won't let their kids watch any TV and don't own one. And there are people who think the worst possible stuff should be okay on TV.
What I think is not okay is letting the few people who run powerful social media companies, like Facebook, have control over what they deem okay for publication.
Just like the public airwaves, unfortunately govt. is going to have to set up an agency to regulate social media companies. And before someone goes off on how difficult and expensive that will be, social media companies already employ algorithms and people to do the censoring. And it has been shown that they are politically biased. So, just like radio and TV airwaves, we need, at least, laws stating that the giants like google and Facebook must be politically neutral. And we must allow citizens to be part of the process. In practical terms: we citizens must be allowed to sue media companies when we can show they are censoring unfairly, like in a politically biased way, or product / service bias, anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:14PM
Except those laws not exist. The republicans revoked the FCC Fairness Doctrine as a violation of free speech.
If you want to make everything politically neutral lets talk about Fox News....good luck with that.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:29PM
Unfortunately, objectively verifiable facts are not politically neutral, as the current president and his groupies have put on dramatic display.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:44PM (5 children)
Your completely valid point led me to a different and incredibly insightful point (as an aside, my fabulousness is exceeded only by my modesty!), which is that while newspapers can (and have been) sued for libel/defamation over letters to the editor, even newspaper websites are protected by section 230 for comments in their comment sections.
Because section 230 protects *everyone* from being sued for what *other people* say on the internet.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday January 06 2021, @01:51AM (4 children)
Absolutely.
I do think modern "Social media" functions fundamentally differently than a typical comment section though, and that difference might be worth regulating.
Comments sections, like mailing lists, BBSes, web forums, etc. all tend to act as a relatively passive communication medium that (mostly) treats all posts and posters alike. There are occasional exceptions, but that's the rule - traditionally the platform does not promote specific content, at most it editorializes by "decorating" a post with information about the author's reputation or other status information. Maybe even counting "likes" and "dislikes" or other simple community commentary on the specific post. But everyone sees everyone else's posts on the (nominal) topic, except for what they choose to skip over.
Social Media though goes a step further - they don't provide a passive forum where everyone sees everyone else, instead they actively analyze content to select what you will see. Any particular user will only see a tiny fraction of everything that was said on a topic, if there's even any topic-based organization to begin with. And that fraction is chosen by the Social Media company. Very much like traditional Media outlets, Social Media inherently selects only a tiny fraction of the whole story for you to see. The choice of what selection to present to you becomes a statement in itself - an extremely powerful one for shaping public opinion.
To my mind that sort of power deserves at least as much oversight as the similar power wielded by traditional media. Which is traditionally very hands-off, most of the time (Red Scare anyone?), but is held accountable for libel and, news at least was often considered to have a moral responsibility to the truth, even if not a legal one.
To distinguish between "Social Media" and "message boards" I would propose a two-part test for any: (adjust %'s to taste)
1) Do users typically see less than 50% of all user content posted within clearly defined structural boundaries. In the case of a non-specific "news feed" that would be 100% of all content after user-selected filters are applied (e.g. "Only posts from people I follow").
2) Is more than 10% of the content a user typically sees prioritized in any way other than chronologically (e.g. oldest or newest posts first) or user-guided structure (e.g. forum topics, conversation threading, or wiki page links), that is likely to influence the number of people who will see a particular piece of content? (The 10% still allows for featured content like most helpful reviews, pinned topics, paid promotions, or the very most popular content)
If you answer "Yes" to both questions, then you're a Social Media service, and have all the legal responsibilities and liabilities that come with that. Possibly treating them as a publisher (aka drowning them in SLAPP suits), or at the very least holding them accountable for the "net effect" of any systematic biases that are proven. e.g. if your prioritization system is found to disproportionately promote "Bernie Sanders eats babies" posts, then he could sue you for using your platform to slander him.
Of course, that test alone would include search engines, which... might be a good thing - their biases and misinformation can be just as damaging. But maybe we want to explicitly carve them out for continued protection, or at least different rules.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @03:58AM
Those are interesting ideas.
However, where do you draw the lines? More importantly, *who* draws those lines and under what circumstances?
Because those sorts of decisions are, and will always be, subjective.
Personally, I'd rather see the following:
1. All social media platforms are required to share APIs to allow other platforms (e.g., Diaspora, Mastodon, etc.) to pull as well as post content from/to the larger platforms;
2. Require ISPs to provide a *minimum* of half the download bandwidth in upload bandwidth (e.g., if you have 100Mb/sec down, you get *at least* 50Mb/sec up);
3. Modify the licenses social media platforms require for posted content (currently, a non-exclusive, perpetual license to use, modify and display for any reason) to a more user-centric one (e.g., a limited, revocable license which retains copyright and ownership of content for the creator, which can only be used for specific, opt-in purposes and must regularly be renewed);
4. Require platforms to obtain opt-in agreement to all forms of tracking, whether on or off the platform.
Doing the above would reduce the powerful network effects of the big platforms, provide a wider range of *interoperable* choices for social media connections and platforms including self-hosting. Throw in federation services and you can create seamless user networks across platforms.
This would promote competition, stronger control for users over their data and information, the ability to congregate/associate as you wish, and allow anyone to create the environment that *they* want, curated (or not) as *they* choose.
And it would force the big platforms to compete on features, privacy and quality experience to retain their user base.
That can be done while still maintaining the important section 230 protections that promote free speech, regardless of the size of the platforms.
Most importantly, it retains the ability for people to seek damages for libel/defamation without heavy-handed regulation and/or some person/corporation/entity deciding how much is too much/too little.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @06:20PM (2 children)
Here's an interesting and related (First Amendment focused, rather than section 230) take on this discussion:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/opinion/trump-lies-free-speech.html [nytimes.com]
Your thoughts?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Immerman on Wednesday January 06 2021, @08:34PM (1 child)
Sorry, I'm not inclined to breach paywalls.
Just going by the headline - I do think there's a good argument to be made for holding our government representatives to a higher standard. Their free speech is guaranteed as citizens, but as our employees they must conduct themselves honestly in public or lose the job. Just as any employer can fire employees for engaging in legal behavior that interferes with their work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @09:23AM
That's weak sauce, friend.
And you're welcome.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/opinion/trump-lies-free-speech.html [nytimes.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:45PM
I'm looking at the nutjobs that put them there for 40 years plus. The ones on the hill are hardly more than a reflection.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 05 2021, @08:51PM (5 children)
It's a problem. Section 230 clearly needs change, but how? Repeal is essentially closing down on-line communication except between trusted partners. The current situation, however, can be summarized as "Gossip gone wild". Even before the internet it was said "Gossip can go around the world while truth is getting its boots on.".
OTOH, the same kind of change needs to be applied to ALL broadcast media. The internet is a bit worse because of the "power without penalty" of anonymity, but that's only a matter of degree. But who are you going to trust to determine the truth? Centralized power WILL be abused. I suppose that would more accurately be put "power without enforced responsibility" WILL be abused, but one of the first things those with centralized power do is render their positions unchallengeable. You can see this at all levels of society.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2021, @11:40PM
You can not stop gossip unless you go full Chinese firewall and make encryption illegal so the state can find said gossip in near real time. Even then you get underground gossip, and state sanctioned gossip.
Society will figure out social media just as we've figured out vocal, print, radio, and TV gossip. Institutions will build up trust, humans will learn that random internet stuff is not to be trusted, and the same suckers that buy tabloids will continue consuming the trash gossip.
The problem right now is that we're in the very beginning of social media and the abuses it enables. We will survive and learn. In my opinion trying to lock down information flow will be much worse than tolerating the gossiping fools.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday January 06 2021, @02:38AM (3 children)
Te repeat and expand on the relevant bit of something I posted above:
To distinguish between "Social Media" and the "message boards" 230 was originally created to protect, I would propose a two-part test: (adjust %'s to taste)
1) Do users typically see less than 50% of all user content posted within the clearly defined structural boundaries they're browsing? (In the case of a non-specific "news feed" that would be 100% of all content after user-selected filters are applied e.g. "Only posts from people I follow").
2) Is more than 10% of the content a user typically sees prioritized in any way other than chronologically (e.g. oldest or newest posts first) or user-guided structure (e.g. forum topics, conversation threading, or wiki page links), that is likely to influence the number of people who will see a particular piece of content? (The 10% still allows for featured content like most helpful reviews, pinned topics, paid promotions, or the very most popular content)
If you answer "Yes" to both questions, then you're a Social Media service and 230 doesn't apply to you. Even though the specific posts were user-generated, you are the one who chose to put those posts in front of so many eyes.
Basically, you're no longer a simple communication channel - each specific feed is a derivative work of your own creation. Not unlike a collage artist creates something new that they can be held responsible for, even though every individual image they used was created by someone else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2021, @09:55PM (2 children)
230 just needs ammending. You become a publisher if and when user submissions are, 'handled/processed/curated.' The language I'm using is poor; but, essentially, if an AI, or a human, takes posts, and places them strategically, that's user submissions that have been, 'handled/processed,'curated.' Such action would cue the liability, etc..
Basically you would distinguish between, 'organic,' user submitted content, and, 'artificially manipulated,' user submitted content. A message board is organic; popular threads and posts take on a life of their own and go unmolested by the site operator (for the most part, except if it's needs moderating). Facebook's, 'feed,' on the other hand, is algorithmicaly driven to serve content based on, certain factors. That's not, 'organic,' that's, 'artificial,' and therefore falls under the scope of publisher liability.
That's my two cents. Perhaps my understanding is imperfect though. I still don't really honestly grasp the issue; but, I think that's a good way to ensure freedom of speech, protect website operators from things generally outside their control, as well as hold accountable the whales in the pond who are operating on another level.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday January 07 2021, @05:46AM
Exactly. My 2-question test was more to remove the "subjective interpretation", while leaving a gap for a small amount of the most legitimately useful kinds of curation without throwing open the doors of liability.
For example - you could argue that a strict "most liked posts first" algorithm still falls under "organic" user-organized content - and that's all that's really needed for the massively misinformed echo chamber effect to get moving. The site itself doesn't have to be advancing an agenda for the results to be dangerous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2021, @09:58AM
Where do you draw the line? More importantly, *who* draws that line?
Here on SN there's the Lameness filter and various spam filters as well. Those are rule-based and could meet the threshold you set.
Note that just because *you* don't think that meets the threshold you're describing, that doesn't mean others won't.
So the answer is to give *you* the power to decide, right?
Fucking with free speech is a bad thing. Section 230 is a good thing.