SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the government-should-govern-moderation-policies dept.
Greene offers bill to abolish Section 230
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Thursday is introducing a bill to abolish Section 230 — the law the protects online platforms from liability — on the heels of Twitter accepting Elon Musk's offer to buy the company and take it private.
Greene's bill would eliminate the law making online platforms not liable for content posted by third parties and replace it with a provision to require "reasonable, non-discriminatory access to online communications platforms" through a "common carrier" framework that Greene compared to airlines or package delivery services.
Republicans have long claimed that social media platforms have an anti-conservative bias, pointing to tweets that have been taken down and the removal of entire feeds from networks.
[....] Titled the 21st Century FREE Speech Act, Greene's measure will serve as the House version of a Senate bill sponsored by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.).
To combat the alleged bias against conservatives, it would prevent online communications platforms from exerting "undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, class of persons, political or religious group or affiliation, or locality" and would provide consumers a mechanism to sue for violations.
Should any platform be liable for someone else's speech? Even if they engage in moderation?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 29 2022, @11:56PM (5 children)
Actually, I support reforming 230. Internet platforms should behave as common carriers if they wish to enjoy the protections that attend that status. They should not get to enjoy immunity from lawsuits for content on their platforms, while censoring content on their platforms. It should be one or the other.
I predict that all of them would default to a hands-off stance instead of the other because it would have lower legal risk--no matter how hard a company tries to moderate all wrong-think off their platforms, somebody somewhere will get mad about something and sue sometime.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30 2022, @12:02AM
We'll have to reinstate #FreeAristarchus and allow him to make sure everybody is apprised of the runaway docks.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30 2022, @08:48AM (2 children)
And then doxxing, harrassment, shock content, CSAM, malware, and all the rest gets to come along for the ride. No, the companies would do the complete opposite to what you envision.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30 2022, @09:15AM (1 child)
Then other companies, and distributed solutions, will come and take the place of the suicided dinosaurs. A double win.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 30 2022, @04:54PM
^ this is the level of deluded stupidity you get with any "true faith" believers. "The free market will fix everything" they say, because figuring out the details and factors of human economic markets is REALLY fucking hard. So you get nonsense that entrenches the big players and sounds good to the unwashed masses who believe some hard work and being smart will be totally rewarded in the free market "meritocracy." Not even working examples of ither methods, like universal healthcare in so many countries, can convince these yahoos.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday May 02 2022, @04:11PM
This is the way I hope it goes.
At a minimum, a common carrier should be able to block traffic that is harmful to the network (DDOS) or abuses the network (SPAM).
Beyond that, it gets hard.
On a copper POTS line, At&t couldn't prevent Bob and Alice from discussing Eve. At&t was obviously a carrier.
On a paper newspaper, the Tennessean could choose not to run Bob's editorial disparaging Eve. If they chose to run that but not Eve's rebuttal, that is an editorial choice. I have difficulty with allowing them to make that choice and simultaneously claiming immunity from the implications of that decision.