SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
US Senate to issue subpoenas for Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Sundar Pichai:
The US Senate's Commerce committee on Thursday voted unanimously on a bipartisan basis to issue subpoenas to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Google's Sundar Pichai, as Congress considers changes to liability protections granted by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
The three tech CEOs would appear before the committee as witnesses, but the date of the hearing hasn't been determined.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, from Washington and the leading Democrat on the committee, initially opposed the subpoena, which had been introduced by Chairman Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi. But Cantwell changed her position after Republicans included language in the subpoena regarding privacy and "media domination."
"There is a lot we want to talk to tech platforms about, like privacy and anti-competitive media practices," she said in a statement. "I thank the Chairman for broadening the subpoena to cover these issues."
She went on to say that "Section 230 deserves a serious thoughtful discussion. But the hearing should not be used to try to have a chilling effect on social media platforms who are taking down false COVID information or hate speech."
Previously:
DOJ Unveils Trump Administration's Legislation to Reform Tech's Legal Liability Shield
Democrats Want a Truce With Section 230 Supporters
US Senate Panel OK's EARN IT Act
DOJ Proposes Rolling Back Protections for Tech Platforms Acting like Publishers
U.S. EARN IT Act Could Discourage Adoption of End-to-End Encryption
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act - 20 Years of Protecting Intermediaries
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05 2020, @11:23PM (16 children)
There are plenty of social media competitors. If any social media platform goes too far people will simply flock to a competitor.
In the case of mainstream media this is not really the case. In the case of mainstream media there are only so many options being delivered via broadcast and cableco and they all seem to be controlled by similar interests.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2020, @01:11AM (13 children)
If you don't toe the line, your payment processors, web hosts, DDOS protection and more will be targeted. Starting your own bank, internet, and country is no big deal though.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday October 06 2020, @05:03AM (12 children)
Yes, but you left out the part where any platform that allows wrongthink gets smeared by the MSM as being totally devoted to neo-nazies. Look what happened to discord.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2020, @05:24AM (11 children)
You mean this?
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dygakq/millions-of-neo-nazi-discord-messages-dumped-online [vice.com]
That hasn't seemed to the other 250 million users or 6.7 million servers. Perhaps it wasn't about the platform that was the problem at all?
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/discord-statistics/ [businessofapps.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by shortscreen on Tuesday October 06 2020, @09:20PM (10 children)
What happened to Discord is that some people were 'allowed' to post wrongthink on it, and as a result we got long-ass articles like this one [slate.com] bashing the entire platform because the wrongthink needles in the haystack weren't all found and censored quickly enough.
So, if you don't do a good enough job of implementing the censorship regime, then you get a headline saying "XYZ is a Safe Space for White Supremacists." And that's for a platform that already bans certain types of speech in their TOS and agrees that censorship is necessary and good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2020, @12:47AM (9 children)
So...let me make sure I understand your position.
1. When a platform (such as Discord) enforces their TOS, that's fine;
2. However, no one (whether it be the press or anyone else) should be allowed to write or speak about such enforcement;
3. Those who advocate for the wholesale oppression of other humans should receive preferential treatment (non-enforcement of TOS) than those who don't.
Is that correct?
Please note that I am not trying to put words in your mouth. Rather, the above is the message I took from your comment. I'd welcome it if you'd either confirm my understanding or explain how your position differs from my understanding.
Thanks!
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Wednesday October 07 2020, @07:48AM (8 children)
1) Yes.
2) Establishment media has turned against free speech. A platform that allows too much uncontrolled speech will be targetted with criticism painting it as a vehicle for whatever convenient villain can be found (could be neo-nazis, pedos, CCP propagandists, etc.) as a means to discourage such platforms. Nobody said the establishment shouldn't be allowed to promote a narrative, I am just noting one of the consequences of going against them.
3) Nobody should receive preferential treatment. Instead, what we are seeing is that platforms trying to promote a political agenda (eg. twatter) are finding it very difficult to use TOS as a cover to do so without using selective enforcement. The TOS are too vague, and if applied consistently could catch their own political allies in the same net. However, they can't clarify the TOS because they would be, in effect, spelling out their political agenda.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2020, @11:16AM (7 children)
I went back and looked at your earlier message and read the Slate article [slate.com] you linked.
It doesn't really seem to be demonizing Discord. Rather, it seems to be more focused on the message than the platform.
In fact, nowhere in the article does its author claim that the folks who run Discord are complicit. In fact, the second paragraph says:
While the article does complain about the other Nazi channels and takes the Discord folks to task for not being diligent, it most certainly doesn't suggest that Discord should be banned or shunned.
What's more, since the publication of that article (Oct 09, 2018), the number of folks using Discord nearly doubled by the end of 2019 [businessofapps.com]:
And revenue quadrupled:
Since Discord is prospering, when you say "I am just noting one of the consequences of going against them," to which "consequences" are you referring? Becoming even more popular? Pulling down much higher revenues?
Or did "the establishment" you refer to fail miserably in its dastardly plot to crush Discord?
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Wednesday October 07 2020, @12:51PM (6 children)
A headline like that one does a fine job on its own of dragging their name through the mud. Discord fell in line and stepped up their censorship game. If you want to know the additional consequences of NOT falling in line, then we'll need a different case study.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2020, @06:52PM (5 children)
Your narrative doesn't seem to comport with what the founders of Discord say [forbes.com] about it:
But then, I guess they're just lying because they don't want to get disappeared to an Egyptian black site, right? Please.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Wednesday October 07 2020, @09:10PM (4 children)
In what way? I laid out a timeline where a big stink was made about communications on their platform and they responded by cracking down.
Sounds like they are talking about said crack down right here. But that wasn't the end of it, as your quote says deleting 100 groups was only "a first step."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2020, @09:33PM (3 children)
Except by the time the Slate article was published, they had *already* started cracking down, as was explicitly stated in the Slate article *you* linked.
So, no. Your timeline is incorrect.
And what business is it of yours? Hell, Discord isn't even publicly traded. Not that it makes any difference, as they are not the government.
If those guys want to require everyone to post lolcats or gay midget porn or anything else on their platform, then those are *their* free speech rights. Unless, you're claiming that private entities and individuals are *required* to host *all* speech.
Is that what you're claiming?
If so, why don't I come over to your house and do some free expression (how about a Goatse marathon?) in your living room? Because *I* have free speech rights and you *have* to allow me to use them on your private property.
I'll go beyond that to say that while I personally believe that hateful pieces of nazi shit should absolutely *not* be censored by the government, they have no place on any of my *private* property.
That the owners of Discord decided that as well, is *their* business, not yours. If you don't like it, vote with your feet/wallet and don't use Discord. To that point, it certainly seems that 250 million people like Discord better *without* hateful Nazi spew.
If you want hateful Nazi spew, there are plenty of places you can go to find it. Or you can host it yourself -- because you do have the right to free expression -- what you don't have is the right to *demand* that others host *your* free speech.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Thursday October 08 2020, @07:46AM (2 children)
LOL, AC decides to finally stop beating around the bush and confess love for online censorship. Who could have seen THAT coming?
It's funny you should say that, because let me tell you about this long-ass article I saw on Slate which was all about Discord's censorship policy and passing judgment on the perceived failings thereof. You're saying it wasn't any of Slate's business eh?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2020, @02:54AM (1 child)
Don't put words in my mouth. I never said anything even vaguely like that.
I didn't say anything even close to that either.
But you know that. I'll clarify anyway.
The founders of Discord *own* the company. It is their *business* (company).
It's not *your* business (company) (or Slate's). As such, you (or Slate) don't get to *set policy* for Discord, as neither you (nor Slate) *own* the business.
You or Slate or anyone else can (and I support your right to do so) say just about anything you want about Discord, it's policies or just about anything or anyone else. Go ahead and knock yourself out, and more power to you.
Are you're arguing (a point you ignored in my earlier post) that *you* (or anyone else) has the right to have their speech *hosted* on the private property of others, without any input from the owners? Are you?
If you are, and *you* can force Discord to host speech it doesn't wish to host, then *I* can come over to your house and have my Goatse marathon in your living room or put up naked photos of Mitch McConnell on your lawn and you have no say about it.
Is that your assertion?
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday October 09 2020, @08:09AM
Well, you dragged this thread along for days and twice preached about the sacred right of private companies to censor as much as they want, despite the thread never being about that.
Thanks, I will.
If it had been, I would have said so, which I didn't. Go back and read the first post, it was only two sentences long.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2020, @02:57AM (1 child)
No, because the hosting companies will just drop them for allowing 'too much' speech. Nowadays, you really have to have a massive amount of money, or be extremely obscure, in order to run a platform that is permissive with regards to what speech it allows.
The same corporate media outlets that led us into Iraq based on lies are allowed to thrive and are even promoted on sites like Youtube, though. Anyone speaking truth to power - like the actual left does - will be removed or demonetized. We'll quickly entering a period where anyone questioning the military industrial complex are labeled as 'conspiracy theorists' and silenced, while the corporate media mostly ignores our endless wars because they benefit from them indirectly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2020, @01:12PM
As long as the government doesn't create barriers to starting up your own hosting company then this is no big deal. New competitors will enter the market and take up the demand.
The problem with cable and broadcasting is the government creates barriers to entry via cableco and broadcasting monopolies. That needs to stop. First of all internet service providers should be separate from cable content providers. The internet should strictly be a dumb pipe or else cableco companies will try their best to penalize competing content and promote their own content.