Jim Jordan Releases Yet ANOTHER Anti-230 Bill (Yes Another One)
from the guys,-stop-it dept
Okay, this post is going to be quick because, none of us should be wasting our time on this this week. We've now got FOUR new bills JUST THIS WEEK seeking to undermine Section 230 (and that's after one more last week). Obviously, it appears that Congressional Republicans have taken to heart the Trump Administration's demand to make attacking Section 230 and the internet companies a key focus between now and the election.
Not counting all the other anti-230, anti-open internet bills from earlier this year (and last year), in just the last week we had Senator Lindsey Graham introduce the Online Content Policy Modernization Act, which was actually just a mashup of the bill he cosponsored a few weeks earlier with Senators Roger Wicker and Marsha Blackburn, combined with a dangerous copyright bill, the CASE Act.
This week, we've already seen Senators Manchin and Cornyn release their "force companies to snitch on everyone" See Something Say Something Act, and then on Wednesday we had two more anti-230 bills, including Senator John Kennedy's "Don't Push My Buttons" Act and then in the House there was Reps. Sylvia Garcia and Ann Wagner pushing their version of the EARN IT Act, which would attack both Section 230 and encryption in one single blow.
And the latest is that Rep. Jim Jordan, famous for dodging ongoing accusations of a rather horrific scandal and for constantly screaming nonsense about "anti-conservative bias," has thrown his hat in the ring with the "Protect Speech Act." Jordan has been pretty vocal in a few Congressional hearings (often having nothing to do with content moderation) about how "big tech" is "censoring conservatives." He goes back to the false claim that Google threatened to pull ads from The Federalist over the site's conservative views, ignoring of course that plenty of others sites -- including Techdirt -- have dealt with the same issue repeatedly.
Jordan's new bill is really just a mashup of two other bills. One is the Graham/Wicker/Blackburn bill, along with the DOJ's own proposed anti-230 bill which came out last week as well, because apparently THE ONLY THING THAT CONGRESS NEEDS TO FOCUS ON THESE DAYS IS SECTION 230.
The bill is both lame and unconstitutional, but I'm not going to go over why, because you can just go back to my older analysis of the Wicker/Graham bill and the DOJ bill and recognize that all of the problems with those bills are also in this one.
Even in a normal year, this would be crazy. Having so many bills, all seeking to undermine the open internet, all coming out at once, would be just generally exhausting. But the fact that it's happening at this particular moment in time -- when the open internet is a key part of what is keeping people connected and able to work and socialize, in the midst of a pandemic that Congress is mostly ignoring -- is just positively preposterous.
Congress is regularly seen as out of touch with Americans. This is why. They're playing politics and grandstanding to distract from all their failures, by trying to destroy one part of our daily lives that's actually working right now.
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Filed Under: 1st amendment, anti-conservative bias, free speech, intermediary liability, jim jordan, protect speech act, section 230
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Maybe with all these bills they will fall prey to analysis paralysis and none of them will actually make it out of committee.
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Y’know, I’ve yet to see anyone explain why the law should force Twitter, Facebook, etc. to host all legally protected speech.
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Re:
The explanation is simple, the alt right want the law to enable them to exercise the hecklers veto.
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Because that's the only way they can stay on those platforms
Because it's not faaaair, the teacher keeps sending them to time-out just because they keep punching and/or harassing the other students and the teacher shouldn't be allowed to do that as that's just them exercising their freedom!
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Frazzled
At this point, I'm starting to think that they're just trolling section 230 supporters. It's making some people blow a fuse, each and every time.
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Yes or no, Koby: Should the law force Twitter to host legally protected speech that Twitter’s admins don’t want hosted on Twitter?
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Wow I think you found a 'shut up' button. I wonder if it always works.
Also, some times I wonder if some people wither and/or die when exposed to too much rational thinking.
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Like the 'Shut up Ordis' button but for TD
Based upon the lack of response in the past yes, it does always seem to work for some strange reason.
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Oh, I know the reason: accountability. He can’t answer the question without being held to account for his answer; he doesn’t want that because we would hold his answer over his head forever.
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The best part is by refusing to answer he's not actually helping himself and is in fact shooting himself in the back as the assumption becomes that his position is that social media companies should be required to host any and all legal content but that he's too cowardly to own it, since if the answer was no he'd have no reason not to simply say so.
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It’s a bit like several of Trump’s judicial nominations refusing to say whether Brown v. Board of Education was decided correctly: In their refusal to answer, they’re saying far more than they ever would by saying “yes it was”.
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Re: Re:
"Wow I think you found a 'shut up' button. I wonder if it always works"
Koby always flees the thread after being challenged, he's too used to getting his ass handed to him if he engages. The responses here are so that casual readers after the fact don't get fooled into thinking he has a point.
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Re: Re: Re:
Koby is the bowling ball in the room.
It's big, heavy, hard to ignore you try to avoid stubbing your toes on it, and totally pointless.
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Re: Frazzled
Ok troll.
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Re: Frazzled
"At this point, I'm starting to think that they're just trolling section 230 supporters"
I'm tempted to agree with you. Nobody can be this stupid unless they're actually trying to get a reaction out of sane people.
But, why are you similarly stupid? Are you trolling as well, or are you genuinely unfamiliar with reality?
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Can I suggest
They are doing this just to bother Wyden?
To get him out of meetings and so forth?
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'Look over there, a distraction!'
While disgusting I honestly don't find this too surprising, with the hell that is 2020 ongoing and nothing of note beyond a really large pile of bodies to show the GOP is in dire need of something to draw attention away and rile up the gullible, and trying to kill 230 allows them to play up both the victim-complex baked in to the party and get people worked up over the current Other to hate.
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Let’s not forget that the GOP turned their coming out party for Trump’s latest SCOTUS nominee into a COVID superspreader event. They really need a distraction from that one.
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Can't the Senate simply spend the next month arguing about these bills on the floor rather than screwing the other parts of our future?
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I'm starting to think these bills are being written by GPT-3.
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Sadly I am starting to think GPT-3 would do a better job than those stupid evil assholes.
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Re: Re:
This actually seems like a reasonable assessment.
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I wonder what's worse EU laws that require the impossible, filter all content . Images, video audio for anything that might be infringing
or new laws that cripple section 230 and stop websites from blocking spam, racist content
and fake news and also limit the use of encryption
to protect users privacy.
And there's also a bíll that will bring in a 30k fine for anyone that posts a random photo or meme on
a forum or social media.
That should shutdown reddit or any forum that allows user content
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Its unlikely any of the bills will pass and what is this bíll that will bring in a 30k fine for anyone that posts a random photo or meme on a forum or social media? are you talking about the CASE ACT? because that has been stalled for a while.
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Look it up the bill is Online Content Policy Modernization Act tho its very very unlikely to pass and Lindsey Graham is likely to be voted out soon.
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You mean Gym Jordan? Mr. look-the-other-way-while-athletes-are-molested?
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