SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Democrats want a truce with Section 230 supporters:
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says apps and websites aren't legally liable for third-party content, has inspired a lot of overheated rhetoric in Congress. Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) have successfully framed the rule as a "gift to Big Tech" that enables social media censorship. While Democrats have very different critiques, some have embraced a similar fire-and-brimstone tone with the bipartisan EARN IT Act. But a Senate subcommittee tried to reset that narrative today with a hearing for the Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency (PACT) Act, a similarly bipartisan attempt at a more nuanced Section 230 amendment. While the hearing didn't address all of the PACT Act's very real flaws, it presented the bill as an option for Section 230 defenders who still want a say in potential reforms.
[...] Still, Section 230 has been at the forefront of US politics for years, and some kind of change looks increasingly likely. If that's true, then particularly after today's hearing, a revised version of the PACT Act looks like the clearest existing option to preserve important parts of the law without dismissing calls for reform. And hashing out those specifics may prove more important than focusing on the policy's most hyperbolic critics.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @02:33PM (33 children)
If Twitter and Facebook choose to censor, edit, ban an individual's free speech, then they are a publisher with editorial control and liable to libel suits.
Yes, in the US it would be difficult for a politician to sue for libel, but the masses of normal users on those sites could win a suit with a lot lower threshold.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday July 30 2020, @03:52PM (23 children)
No, you can't file a libel suit for speech that never existed or that the provider removes (censoring and banning). You can only sue for libel on something which has been published. Now if a publisher publishes something then they are a publisher.
"Free speech" has only ever applied to government, not private, sanction upon speech. (As is censoring, in a legal sense, only a government function although that is arguable). You have no "right to free speech" from any private entity. If I run a publishing house I am under no obligation to print your book. "Censoring and banning" are therefore irrelevant to libel. Editing, OK.
That doesn't mean that platforms shouldn't be considered publishers and could be held co-liable for content. On the other hand one could go the other way: Why should a print publisher today be liable for what an author they have printed has written? They only distributed what they author wrote. If I rent you a hall to deliver a speech am I responsible for the content of your speech? No, not even if I choose to only rent my hall to some people and not others.
Maybe instead it should be the other way around and publishers should never be held liable for what an author has written - only the author is held liable. Maybe with the addition of any editors personally involved in editing the text, and thus an editor would have an indemnification from the publishing house for any judgments. Thus in an online context only the writer of the content allowed through would be liable for what they wrote. But that's what we generally have today. We just also have the ability for a person to be relatively anonymous and therefore unfindable.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:24PM (1 child)
No, but you could sue Twitter if some person on Twitter called you a racist. The only thing protecting Twitter and the other social media sites has been the CDA exemption. If they exercise editorial control, it is implied that they agree and promote the untrue statements.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @06:58PM
That's a dicey proposition, at least in the United States [wikipedia.org].
Something a little more on point here [freedomforuminstitute.org]
If I say I think you're a racist, that my opinion. That's *not* libel.
However, if I say that you molest young boys, that *could* be libel/defamation, unless it's either true or I have a *reasonable* belief that it's true.
I'll put a fine point on that: The truth is an absolute defense against accusations of libel/defamation.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday July 30 2020, @06:44PM (15 children)
Because the publisher made an editorial decision, i.e. to publish, publisher shares responsibility for the content.
The distinction is always, the editorial process. If you eliminate the editorial process from the platform on which speech is published, it becomes nothing more than a provider of a communication service and is not actually doing any of the work (selecting and/or editing) regarding speech.
Quit trying to have it both ways. And none of this "private companies can be horrible as much as they want" nonsense -- we've broken up monopolies before and can do it again. We just need a Teddy and a big ass stick.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @06:53PM (14 children)
Teddy was a Republican. The Democrats were content with big business fucking over the common man.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @08:04PM (10 children)
True history is not a troll.
Man -- the mod system is insane recently. I know we aren't supposed to bitch about modding, but like nazi and racist have become meaningless terms, so too is "troll" or "flamebait" going the same route.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @08:52PM
Poor victim!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:20PM (3 children)
That's why everyone gets mod points. Log in and correct some bad ones.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:38PM (2 children)
Already done, but the amount mod-abuse around here eats up my points. I'll come back and fix it later when they reset, but the mod abuse is getting out of hand.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @12:14AM
Typical, only when it affects them do narcisists start caring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @05:01AM
Agreeing with you, but correction: it's been out of hand for a long time.
And I've tried to correct some good people being mod-clobbered, but I got my points removed because I "mod-bombed" someone up too many times in one day. Stupid system. People accept it because it's there and because other people accept it, but needs to be re-thought from the ground up. Not enough people are correcting mod abuse.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 31 2020, @05:53PM (4 children)
I agree. There are some who are abusing the Troll mod to silence opinions or ideas they don't like. They are even using it against comments like this I am writing now.
Cancel culture, of which Troll modding is an expression, threatens pluralistic democracy. It is a tactic used by fascists, socialists, and totalitarians of every other stripe to quash healthy, free discourse.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 01 2020, @01:19AM (3 children)
Sounds to me like "cancel culture" is what happens when the marketplace of ideas decides your bullshit isn't selling and you're just mad about it...oh, and about having your tactics co-opted and turned against you. Cry harder.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday August 01 2020, @03:24AM (2 children)
It's really tragic that once liberals like the ACLU fought for the rights of groups like the KKK and neo-Nazis, and now all that's left on the left are bigots like you. No ideals, no integrity, just the primal scream of spastic narcissism.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @06:39PM
Why is it that every insult you attempt is always such an accurate picture of yourself.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 01 2020, @07:00PM
Even ACs are starting to notice how your entire schtick is nothing but projection now, right down to the accusations of bigotry.
I don't know what happened to you, but I noticed you getting more and more stereotypically thoughtless and lowest-common-denominator over the last couple of years. It sounds to me like all your attempts to "prove you're one of the good ones"--where you live, who your married, your supposed activism, your mixed-race child--were meant mostly to convince yourself and others that your deepest, ugliest tendencies weren't actually real. Virtue-signalling in the truest and widest-reaching sense of the term, in other words.
And at some point in the last 2 years or so, it seems like you finally snapped, started screaming "WHAT THE FUCK DO THESE PEOPLE WANT FROM ME, I DIDN'T CHOOSE TO BE A STRAIGHT WHITE CHRISTIAN MIDDLE-CLASS MALE?!" and decided to say fuck it, not going to bother anymore. This, by the way, is what "white fragility" means :) And while you didn't choose to be male, straight, or white, your religion absolutely *is* a lifestyle choice and no one as intelligent as you has a right to remain this ignorant about its roots, its history, and its internal inconsistencies.
But noooo, instead of fixing yourself, you've decided to spitefully throw yourself down in the middle of the road and have a flailing, bawling, red-faced, pants-shitting existential temper tantrum over how meeeeeeean everyone else is and how unworthy all those minorities are of your incorruptible pure pureness! After all, you're "one of the good ones," so anyone who doesn't bow down and acknowledge that to the point of verbal fellatio MUST be a sick, twisted, subhuman piece of shit, right?
Game. Set. Match. mic.self(drop);
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday July 30 2020, @09:59PM (2 children)
Until the Republicans ousted him for breaking up monopolies and other anti-agenda actions. The Republicans have not opposed screwing over the common man since.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 31 2020, @06:00PM (1 child)
Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive, back when that term still meant something positive. He was the candidate for the "Bull Moose" Party, which was the Progressive Party. The party platform from 1912 is as relevant today as it was then. This excerpt is a taste:
A new party today could almost adopt it wholesale and win.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday July 31 2020, @10:23PM
Too bad TR had not swept into power with such a mandate in 1912. The task would be more difficult today. The forces of the "invisible government" are even more entrenched, with more money at stake, so efforts to eliminate it would have to be monumental. Instead we get things like the Tea Party or Trump, which speak vaguely in terms like that, but in reality work to even further entrench those interests.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @08:11PM (4 children)
""Free speech" has only ever applied to government, not private, sanction upon speech."
A lot of people make that argument, and it is complete bullshit. It is the argument that allows quasi-state agencies to abuse civil rights while hiding behind the trade clause. The 13th and 14th pretty clearly mitigates that argument, in that the right to infringe on one persons civil rights cannot be endowed by the state onto another person. And since "person" means corporation, llc, icecream shack, my left nut, and anything else described on paper, yep that pretty much means Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Comcast, et. al.
Of course that doesn't mean that all the arguments on both sides over CDA230 aren't complete bullshit. The preceeding issue is the fact that all of the above perpetrate felony wiretapping on their customers about a million times a minute. That is what puts the profit motive behind the intrusion, and the empetus behind the use of that intrusion to support fundamentalism on both the left and right. Which are really both just the parties of oligarchy fascism, and poverty fascism (formerly called communism) They both are moving in the same direction:
One nation under oligarchy, perpetually debating the inane, exanguinating reason and defrauded by all.
IOW, if you are having a civil rights issue about who said what on the Internet, you've already fucked up. You wouldn't be arguing over who said what, if they still had their right to anonymous speech to begin with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @03:29AM (3 children)
I could explain in detail, but since someone else already has [techdirt.com], and my tour [xkcd.com] is over for the day, I'll just leave this here.
Have a wonderful evening!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday July 31 2020, @03:30PM
However, having completely read your link, they don't even discuss the topic of voluntary social media censorship of users, and I think for good reason.
Yes, the 14th Amendment means that the 1st Amendment applies to state governments as well as the federal, but that's not an issue as no governments are involved.
And yes, private individuals can't use the courts, and thus government power, to censor others (in theory anyway - in practice SLAPP suits are actually quite effective against most people.) But that's also not an issue, as there are no courts or government power involved when social media sites censor someone.
The thing about social media censorship is that they aren't actually trying to stop someone from spreading a message - they're just declining to be an active participant in that spread. "You want to say X, go right ahead - somewhere else. We won't be your megaphone" As is their right - they can't compel you to silence, but neither can you compel them to spread your message for you. Just as you can't compel a radio station to broadcast your message for you, or a newspaper to print it.
And 230 specifically grants sites the right to moderate as they see fit, without doing so being considered an editorial act that would make them liable for the posts they allow.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @06:36PM (1 child)
The more germane XKCD of course is:
https://xkcd.com/1357/ [xkcd.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @12:02AM
For the topic at hand, you're absolutely correct. However, as far as *my* involvement goes, the one I used is spot on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:39PM (8 children)
That's not a very nuanced view. In fact, it's much less nuanced than even Section 230.
And don't forget that these are *private* organizations, not the government.
What's more, users have a *contract* with these corporations. Usually it's referred to as "Terms of Service (TOS)."
I'm not going to go and look it up for you, but in the language of each TOS you will find something along the lines of:
By posting on our site, you grant <corporation> a free, perpetual, non-exclusive license to the content posted. <corporation> may use and/or display such information as it deems appropriate
And then you'll see something like this:
<corporation> reserves the right to modify or remove such content it determines, at its sole discretion, violates our policies as defined, but not limited to, in these terms of service.
Such language gives these corporations wide latitude in what may or may not be posted on their site. Section 230 merely provides an additional level of protection to those corporations when they exercise their rights under the *contract* users have entered into with each corporation.
As such, your view doesn't make a whole lot of sense, given that the First Amendment *does not apply to private parties*, only to the government.
And I'll say it again, users have entered into a legally binding *contract* with these corporations, and under that contract, those users agree to penalties from warnings or having posts taken down, up to and including getting kicked off the site if the corporation decides you've violated the terms of the contract. Language that supports that *also* appears in such TOS'.
I suggest you educate yourself. Or not. That's up to you.
N.B.: IANAL
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Thursday July 30 2020, @08:16PM (7 children)
When said corporations purchase laws to their benefit and to the detriment of the people, why do we consider them "private" parties with respect to government? All you describe here is a massive loophole -- same one used to destroy the 4A via the third party doctrine. Your proposition is a nightmare for any semblance of civil liberties continuing to exist -- it's nothing but a system designed for abuse.
Secondly, there's nothing stopping Congress from limiting corporations from behaving in certain ways -- or do you want to let companies decide who to hire and fire or serve to be based on race, religion, etc.? Because when you argue above, you are arguing for that. It's all the same thing -- it's an argument that corps should be free of all regulation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @09:16PM (3 children)
I said nothing even approaching that.
I merely pointed out (perhaps a bit verbosely) that:
1. The First Amendment applies to *government* action. Full stop;
2. U.S. contract law is enforceable in the United States. If someone is dumb enough to enter in a lopsided contract, that's on them.
Anything else is just you talking about what you *think* I said or believe. And I'm here to tell you that you're wrong.
Have a nice day!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @12:08AM (2 children)
When a part of government outsources the action to a
catspaw"private company", the full stop is coming to the Constitution unless the practice is stopped first. When someone outsources insider trading, both parties are liable; why should outsourcing Constitutional violations be freely doable?(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:40AM (1 child)
Which part of the government outsourced what "action" to which company?
This ought to be amusing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @01:44AM
While acting clinically stupid does suit your ilk, it is not amusing due to absolute lack of variety.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @09:21PM (2 children)
You do realize that the CDA and its section 230 [wikipedia.org] was enacted in 1996 right?
And you are aware that Facebook was founded in 2004 and Twitter in 2006, right?
Corporations "buying" laws that were enacted a decade before they existed, huh? If true, that would be a neat trick. But it's not, so it isn't.
You're talking out of your ass.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Friday July 31 2020, @02:48AM (1 child)
https://sunlightfoundation.com/2014/11/17/fixed-fortunes-biggest-corporate-political-interests-spend-billions-get-trillions/ [sunlightfoundation.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @03:37AM
Which is definitely fucked up. I agree.
Getting the money out of our political system is an important (if not the most important, certainly in the top three) step toward curbing the legalized bribery called "lobbying."
But it still doesn't mean that corporations (Jack Dorsey was 20, and Zuckerberg was 12 when the CDA became law) "bought" laws a decade before they were founded.
The discussion and debate around the CDA is part of the Congressional Record, not to mention the extensive press coverage of that debate, so you *could* actually get a clue.
But I won't hold my breath.