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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: 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.