Spot the threat to free speech

[jon-nyc]

The idea of the legislation was specifically to allow online platforms to not have to choose between publisher (editorial control and responsibility) or platform (neither), but rather to generally not be liable for people’s posts even while they do enforce some rules about them.

Already in the days of Compuserve and Prodigy this was an issue - with no control they would quickly become cesspools but neither company could police and be responsible for everything posted by everyone. This law said they didn’t have to choose.

[jon-nyc]

Standby by for the principled conservatives to be against this as an aggressive overreach of the administrative state.... there still are a few out there....right?

[Klaus]

Well, I'd say: Force them to choose. I personally would prefer them to be platforms: That they can't deny their service unless they are forced by law. But the current situation is just a mess.

[jon-nyc]

Spend much time at Gab?

[Klaus]

No, I've never used Gab. I hear it's used a lot by extremists. If Gab has a quasi-monopoly on not censoring, then of course they are a honeypot for those kinds of people. But if every social platform would be like that, then those people would not be more visible than they are visible in non-online communication. I can handle that.

[George K]

@jon-nyc said in Spot the threat to free speech:

Standby by for the principled conservatives to be against this as an aggressive overreach of the administrative state.... there still are a few out there....right?

As you say, make them choose: Publisher or Platform. If they choose publisher, then their editorial choices, for them to be seen as fair, must be carried out throughout the medium. You'll note that death threats against Nick Sandmann are still up on Twitter. They can't begin to be considered fair until their standards are applied to everyone. I'm surprised that no high-profile person who was censored admonished on Twitter hasn't sued yet.

[Klaus]

Also, there would be an obvious way how social media companies could provide editorial control without censorship. They could just offer an option for every user whether they want to see all content, including potentially offensive or extremist content, or only a subset of the content selected by that company. More sophisticated variants of that scheme are easily conceivable, too.

YT goes in that direction a little. Sometimes they pop up something along the lines of "are you sure you want to see this".

It gets more complicated when it comes to ads and ad revenue, but I believe it's completely possible to design it in such a way that it assumes citizens are adults who can make their own decisions.

[George K]

@Klaus said in Spot the threat to free speech:
it assumes citizens are adults who can make their own decisions.

So, it's doomed to fail, then.

[George K]

@George-K said in Spot the threat to free speech:

@Klaus said in Spot the threat to free speech:
it assumes citizens are adults who can make their own decisions.

So, it's doomed to fail, then.

[Klaus]

The only way of getting people to behave like adults is to let them fail and let them suffer the consequences of their actions.

[Axtremus]

Is TNCR a “publisher” or a “platform”?

[Klaus]

Neither. It's like a biker bar.

But YT and Twitter are more like the market place these days. You can't get heard unless you use them.

[Horace]

@jon-nyc said in Spot the threat to free speech:

Standby by for the principled conservatives to be against this as an aggressive overreach of the administrative state.... there still are a few out there....right?

No, all the principled people are on the left. Just like all the objective, non-tribal people are there.

[jon-nyc]

I’ll even take a pragmatic conservative who realizes that whatever administrative rule-making procedures he puts in place will inevitably be hijacked by the woke left.

[jon-nyc]

There’s a reason principled conservatives don’t like the administrative state, after all.

[Larry]

@Klaus said in Spot the threat to free speech:

Neither. It's like a biker bar.

Yeah, but for a fat girl we don't sweat much...

[Horace]

@jon-nyc said in Spot the threat to free speech:

I’ll even take a pragmatic conservative who realizes that whatever administrative rule-making procedures he puts in place will inevitably be hijacked by the woke left.

I have no firm idea about whether Trump's move is for the best or not. I like the conversation it is initiating though.

[xenon]

I think Trump gets one thing right. He's tweeted variations of this a few of times now:

You can't do anything with Section 230 in place. This EO is all fodder for the news cycle.

Section 230 (c) is pretty clear - especially the last bold bit:

(c)Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material

• (1)Treatment of publisher or speaker

• No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

• (2)Civil liability

• No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—

• (A)any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or

"Otherwise objectionable" - doesn't get broader than that.

[xenon]

Also from 230:

It is the policy of the United States to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation;

[xenon]

I don't see how you can Executive Order your way out of this.