Donald Trump Now Wants To Repeal Section 230, Which Will Actually Make The Stuff He Complains About Worse

from the our-president-is-a-fool dept

We've already discussed how the President has been urging Congress to make "complaining about the internet" a key election issue for Republicans. This is why Congress has introduced 17 different bills about Section 230 this year, combined with two separate proposals from the White House itself. But apparently, even that is not enough for our completely clueless President. On Tuesday after facing a bit more mild moderation concerning dangerous lies about COVID that he had posted, he announced that he wanted to "repeal" 230 entirely.

This was in response to both Facebook and Twitter taking action after Trump's accounts falsely claimed that the flu is more deadly than COVID-19 (a truly incredible bit of disinformation coming directly from the President, a man still sick with COVID-19). Facebook removed the post while Twitter put a misinformation warning on it. And this is why Trump is upset and wants to "repeal 230."

To be fair, this is the same thing that his opponent in next month's election has been saying, with his equally ridiculous and foolish calls to "revoke" Section 230. Both of them are wrong. Neither of them seem to understand what Section 230 does or why repealing or revoking it won't help with whatever they think they're doing.

But since the President is the latest to spout this nonsense, it should be pointed out that if he got his wish, it would create the exact opposite of what he thinks will happen. Rather than putting pressure on social media companies to leave his nonsense, lies, propaganda, and disinformation alone, it will make them more likely to pull it down to avoid being taken to court and having to deal with questions of liability.

It's an ironic statement since, without the existence of Section 230, Trump very well might not be able to tweet it. If Congress were to remove social media platforms' liability protection, then companies like Twitter and Facebook would have no choice but to remove users' ability to post content at-will. Instead, moderators would have to vet and approve content to make sure that it wasn't potentially libelous.

This would exacerbate the very problem that many conservatives have with social media—namely, that Twitter (and to a lesser extent, Facebook) sometimes takes aggressive action against provocative right-wing speech, by labeling the content as misleading or removing it outright.

For whatever reason, both Democrats and Republicans seem to think that "Section 230" is Facebook/Google/Twitter. And if they don't like a move made by any of those companies they think the "solution" is to harm 230. This is wrong and shows a fundamental lack of understanding about how 230 works, what it does, and what would happen if it were changed or removed. It is ridiculous that the President calls for this in response to those sites trying to limit the damage caused by the President himself, and it's just as ridiculous that this seems to be one area that the President and his opponent actually agree on: that the open internet should go away.

Filed Under: donald trump, intermediary liability, joe biden, open internet, section 230
Companies: facebook, twitter

New Study: Once Again, The Mainstream Media Is A Bigger Problem In Spreading Disinformation Than Social Media

from the deal-with-fox-news-first dept

We've discussed in the past Yochai Benkler's excellent book "Network Propaganda," (and had Benkler on our podcast) showing (with a ton of data) how the inclination many have to immediately blame social media for the spread of disinformation is, in its own way, misinformation itself. What the research found was that crazy conspiracy theories didn't really spread as fast until they showed up on Fox News. That was basically the catalyst for them to then spread wildly on social media.

Benkler and his team are back with a new study, specifically regarding how disinformation about mail-in ballots has spread. And, again, the details show that mass media was the key in making it spread, with social media "playing a secondary role."

Despite the consensus among independent academic and journalistic investigations that voter fraud is rare and extremely unlikely to determine a national election, tens of millions of Americans believe the opposite. This is a study of the disinformation campaign that led to widespread acceptance of this apparently false belief and to its partisan distribution pattern. Contrary to the focus of most contemporary work on disinformation, our findings suggest that this highly effective disinformation campaign, with potentially profound effects for both participation in and the legitimacy of the 2020 election, was an elite-driven, mass-media led process. Social media played only a secondary and supportive role.

Using the same methods in Network Propaganda, they found that this time it went beyond Fox News, but that the President was basically using his position at President, to harness the big mainstream media operations -- which still have simply failed to contend with how to cover a President who deliberately lies, who deliberately tries to bully the media into spreading utter nonsense. The report shows that he's been very, very successful in turning the media -- who he frequently accuses of publishing "fake news" -- into actual purveyors of fake news: namely the fake news Donald Trump himself wants them to spread.

Our findings here suggest that Donald Trump has perfected the art of harnessing mass media to disseminate and at times reinforce his disinformation campaign by using three core standard practices of professional journalism. These three are: elite institutional focus (if the President says it, it’s news); headline seeking (if it bleeds, it leads); and balance, neutrality, or the avoidance of the appearance of taking a side. He uses the first two in combination to summon coverage at will, and has used them continuously to set the agenda surrounding mail-in voting through a combination of tweets, press conferences, and television interviews on Fox News. He relies on the latter professional practice to keep audiences that are not politically pre-committed and have relatively low political knowledge confused, because it limits the degree to which professional journalists in mass media organizations are willing or able to directly call the voter fraud frame disinformation.

Of course, Fox News and the wider Republican Party and media ecosystem also remains a key issue:

The president is, however, not acting alone. Throughout the first six months of the disinformation campaign, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and staff from the Trump campaign appear repeatedly and consistently on message at the same moments, suggesting an institutionalized rather than individual disinformation campaign. The efforts of the president and the Republican Party are supported by the right-wing media ecosystem, primarily Fox News and talk radio functioning in effect as a party press. These reinforce the message, provide the president a platform, and marginalize or attack those Republican leaders or any conservative media personalities who insist that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud associated with mail-in voting.

Benkler wrote a detailed post for the Columbia Journalism Review that gives you a more reader friendly version of the paper's findings. In it, he notes that when it comes to mail-in ballot disinformation, it's not happening because of foreign interference or social media algorithms. The disinformation is coming from inside the White House.

What this means is that the “usual suspects” in public debates about disinformation are not the central actors in voting disinformation. We found no examples where clickbait factories, fake pages (Russian or otherwise), or Facebook’s algorithms could explain any peak in engagement that was not better explained as having been set in motion and heavily promoted by political figures and elite right-wing media personalities, and disseminated to millions by major media outlets. On Twitter, if bots or trolls played any role, it was dwarfed by tweets from the president, his staff, and other institutional and media allies.

While the information does eventually spread on social media, that happens after the mainstream media discusses it. As Benkler notes, all the worries and attacks about social media appear to be somewhat misguided:

There is a profound disconnect between the broad public concern with social media disinformation, the persistent scientific evidence that exposure to online fake news is concentrated in a tiny minority of users, and survey evidence that repeatedly shows that less than 20 percent of US respondents say they rely on social media as a major source of political news. Network and local TV, by contrast, are the primary source of political news for about 30 percent of the population, and news websites or apps accounted for another 25 percent, according to the most recent Pew survey. When arranged according to the degree to which they report believing mail-in voter fraud is a major problem, adults who get their news from ABC, CBS, and NBC occupy an intermediate position between Fox News viewers, on one end, and readers of the New York Times, viewers of MSNBC, or NPR listeners, on the other. Local TV news viewers, in turn, form the least politically knowledgeable group of Americans, edging out the much younger respondents who mostly rely on social media. When we analyzed the stories about mail-in voter fraud, we observed that peaks in media coverage usually consisted of large numbers of syndicated stories reported by the online sites of local papers and television stations.

There's a lot more in the full paper, but the underlying message is that perhaps we should stop blaming social media for disinformation. That does not appear to be the root of the problem at all.

Filed Under: disinformation, donald trump, journalism, mail in ballots, mainstream media, misinformation, social media
Companies: associated press, facebook, fox news

Why Are Senate Democrats Helping Move Forward Trump's Strategy Of Attacking The Internet?

from the this-makes-no-sense dept

We've detailed for a while now how both Republicans and Democrats are mad online about how the internet works -- though often for reasons that directly conflict with each other. We've also highlighted how Donald Trump and his administration are actively encouraging Republicans to focus all of their legislative and grandstanding firepower on attacking the internet.

What I cannot understand is... why are the Democrats helping?

In a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday, Democrats initially seemed to recognize that plans to subpoena various internet CEOs (AGAIN) were little more than a dog and pony show for Republicans working on their Trump-directed culture war against the internet. Senators Cantwell and Blumenthal both stated that they knew this was all a grandstanding ruse to pressure social media companies to leave up their misinformation and propaganda:

Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top Democrat on Wicker’s panel, said she resisted his initial subpoena request over fears that such a move would chill the companies’ efforts to tackle “lies, harassment and intimidation” ahead of the election.

“I am not interested in using our subpoena power to try to play or game the refs days before an election, which is clearly what Republicans are doing,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said this week. “The timing shows that these subpoenas are clearly calculated to chill efforts to get misinformation or falsehoods from abroad or domestic groups [removed].”

But take a wild guess what came next? You got it. They ended up supporting the subpoenas unanimously. Why? Because Republicans told the Democrats that while everything they feared about this nonsense was true, the Democrats can also grandstand over their own bullshit misleading culture war issues. It's a win-win for politicians on both sides of the aisle and a lose-lose for the public and the internet we rely on. I mean come on:

Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the panel, urged caution amid her colleagues' complaints of anti-conservative bias. Last week, as Wicker had been pushing internally for the subpoenas, Cantwell said she feared Republicans sought to "chill the efforts of these companies to remove lies, harassment, and intimidation from their platforms."

On Thursday, Cantwell said she was pleased to move forward with the subpoenas after Wicker agreed to include the topics of Big Tech's impact on media and privacy as issues of concern.

"What I don't want to see is a chilling effect on individuals who are in a process of trying to crack down on hate speech or misinformation about Covid during a pandemic," she said at Thursday's markup.

Neither party seems interested in dealing with real problems. Both parties seem to want to waste time focusing on the internet rather than any of the actual problems facing the country and the world these days. What a waste.

Filed Under: congress, democrats, donald trump, grandstanding, intermediary liability, maria cantwell, privacy, republicans, richard blumenthal, section 230

Our Latest Techdirt Gear: I Paid More For This T-Shirt Than Trump Paid In Taxes

from the and-you-can! dept

We were working on some new Techdirt gear designs for our Techdirt Gear shop at Threadless (stay tuned!) when the NY Times dropped its bombshell of a story regarding President Donald Trump's tax returns. As you likely know, despite every Presidential candidate in my lifetime releasing their tax returns, Trump has refused to do so (also, despite promises that he would). For years, reporters have sought out those taxes, and somehow the reporters at the Times got them. There were many interesting things highlighted in those tax returns, but a key point that has resonated widely: in the year Trump won the Presidency he only paid $750 in federal taxes (the same as he paid in many other years as well, including his first year as President in 2017).

Lots of people have been pointing out that this is crazy for all sorts of reasons, and plenty of people, including Joe Biden have jumped in with "I paid more in taxes than Donald Trump" gear. But, here at Techdirt, we believe in... going bigger. So we're selling a "I Paid More For This T-Shirt Than Trump Paid In Taxes" t-shirt... for $751 (plus shipping).

This is a real shirt and you can really buy it. Whether or not it's worth paying $751 for such a t-shirt is a decision that only you can make, though we'd be happy with that kind of support.

Of course, if that's a bit too pricey for you, we do still have a lot of other more affordable gear you can pick up too, like our copyright takedown gear:

Or our 1st Emojiment gear that explains the 1st Amendment in emoji.

And many other designs and products (not just t-shirts, we've got face masks, mugs and notebooks among many other items as well). So shop around, and feel free to spend more supporting us than the President has spent supporting the United States of America.

Filed Under: donald trump, t-shirts, taxes, techdirt gear

Judge Rejected Ban On TikTok Because Trump's DOJ Can't Show Any Real National Security Threat

from the because-of-course dept

Earlier today we wrote about a judge blocking Trump's TikTok ban, though noting that the full reasoning why was under seal. Right about the time that post went up, the details were unsealed. Unlike the WeChat injunction which was done on 1st Amendment grounds, the injunction here doesn't touch the 1st Amendment questions and just says that the Trump White House (even with presenting evidence under seal) totally failed to substantiate the national security threat of TikTok, even under the IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) which grants the President tragically and dangerously broad powers to claim a "national emergency" to block international commerce.

As noted above, IEEPA contains a broad grant of authority to declare national emergencies and to prohibit certain transactions with foreign countries or foreign nationals that pose risks to the national security of the United States. But IEEPA also contains two express limitations relevant here: the “authority granted to the President . . . does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly” either (a) the importation or exportation of “information or informational materials”; or (b) “personal communication[s], which do[] not involve a transfer of anything of value.”

We pointed out this clause when Trump's executive order was first issued, noting that it likely doomed it, so it's good to see the judge highlight it. The DOJ pushed back on this, saying that since it was just prohibiting certain "business-to-business economic transactions," it wasn't actually prohibiting the movement of information. Incredibly the DOJ also claimed it had not taken any action concerning "TikTok users themselves." The judge more or less responds with a sarcastic "come on, you can't be serious."

But that argument fails to grapple with IEEPA’s text. Section 1702(b)(3) provides that IEEPA’s grant of authority “does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly,” the cross-border transmission of “information and informational materials.”... The content exchanged by TikTok users constitutes “information and informational materials”; indeed, much of that content appears to be (or to be analogous to) “publications, films, . . . photographs, . . . artworks, . . . and news wire feeds.” Id. And the purpose and effect of the Secretary’s prohibitions is to limit, and ultimately reduce to zero, the number of U.S. users who can comment on the platform and have their personal data on TikTok.... At a minimum, then, the Secretary’s prohibitions “indirectly” “regulate” the transmission of “informational materials” by U.S. persons.

Moreover, Section 1702(b)(3)’s express limitation applies to “commercial” informational materials. If prohibitions on business-to-business transactions could not constitute the regulation of “informational materials,” then there would have been no reason for Congress to include the word “commercial” when defining the scope of § 1702(b)(3)’s limitation.....

To be sure, TikTok (like a news wire, which is expressly identified in IEEPA’s carveout) is primarily a conduit of “informational materials.” In that sense, it is (among other things) a “medium of transmission,” and IEEPA provides that this carveout applies “regardless of format or medium of transmission.” 50 U.S.C. § 1702(b)(3). That is especially true where, as here, the transmitting medium is inextricably bound up with and exists primarily to share protected informational materials.

From there, the DOJ tried to argue that the Espionage Act (which I and many others believe is already unconstitutional) when combined with the IEEPA can be used to block certain information under the IEEPA. But again, the judge says that's not how any of this works, especially because kids dancing on TikTok are not violating the Espionage Act.

Finally, the government proposes a novel reading of the Espionage Act.... Section 1702(b)(3) contains an exception to its exception, so to speak, and permits the regulation of informational materials, “with respect to . . .acts . . . prohibited by chapter 37 of Title 18.” That Title authorizes life imprisonment or the death penalty for those who share U.S. defense secrets (especially classified government materials) with foreign adversaries.... But it is not plausible that the films, photos, art, or even personal information U.S. users share on TikTok fall within the plain meaning of the Espionage Act.

At the end of the order, the Court also addresses the national security question while looking at the "balance of equities" in determining whether or not an injunction against the ban was appropriate. And it notes that, despite the DOJ presenting evidence in sealed filings, it wasn't enough to substantiate the claims that TikTok is a national security threat.

The government argues that a preliminary injunction would displace and frustrate the President’s decision on how to best address a national security threat—an area where the courts typically defer to the President’s judgment.... The Court must, of course, give deference to the Executive Branch’s “evaluation of the facts” and the “sensitive and weighty interests of national security and foreign affairs,” Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1, 33–34 (2010), including “the timing of those . . . decisions.” Holy Land Found. for Relief & Dev. v. Ashcroft, 219 F. Supp. 2d 57, 74 n.28 (D.D.C. 2002). Here, the government has provided ample evidence that China presents a significant national security threat, although the specific evidence of the threat posed by Plaintiffs, as well as whether the prohibitions are the only effective way to address that threat, remains less substantial.

As for why the court only granted the injunction for last night's ban, and not the November 12th more complete ban, the court basically says "we have time to deal with that one later," but presents no suggestion that it would allow that ban to move forward either.

... the only truly imminent and immediate harm that Plaintiffs will suffer absent an injunction relates to paragraph 1 of the Commerce Identification. The Court therefore agrees with the government that injunctive relief should be limited to the prohibitions contained in paragraph 1, and that the other paragraphs of the Commerce Identification should appropriately be the subject of separate proceedings, which can be briefed and decided (potentially through cross-motions for summary judgment, and on a full administrative record) prior to those restrictions’ effective date of November 12.

So, the WeChat ban gets blocked on 1st Amendment grounds, and the TikTok ban gets blocked because the IEEPA doesn't let the President do what he wants to do, and all of this is just performative nonsense anyway, wasting two separate courtrooms' time, not to mention significant concerns among many different companies which would have had to deal with the fallout of a ban. All because Trump is mad at kids on TikTok who don't like him.

Still, it does seem notable that even under seal that government couldn't present any real evidence to the court of the threat of TikTok being owned by a Chinese firm. As if we didn't already have enough evidence about the fact that this entire debacle was a made up culture war, rather than a serious concern. It remains incredible to me that otherwise serious people jumped on board with Trump's decision to ban these apps.

Filed Under: china, doj, donald trump, executive order, ieepa, injunction, national security
Companies: bytedance, tiktok

TikTok And The DOJ Still Fighting It Out In Court Despite Oracle 'Deal'

from the look-at-that dept

Even though Trump gave his supposed okay to the grifty TikTok/Oracle hosting deal, it appears that TikTok, ByteDance and the Trump administration are still busy fighting this out in court. The Trump rules to ban the app are still set to go into effect on Sunday. And while WeChat users were able to block the rules from going into effect, they still technically are scheduled to go into effect for TikTok this weekend.

TikTok has asked for an injunction to stop the ban and the court is going to decide at the last minute whether to issue an injunction in the TikTok case as well. This is, in part, because the Oracle deal (which is not a sale and accomplishes none of the stated goals of the original executive order) still needs approval from the Chinese side -- and there are indications that China wants a better deal.

After a hearing on Thursday, the judge ordered the government to either respond to the request for an injunction or to submit "a notice describing [the DOJ's] plan to delay the effective date of the subset of prohibited transactions directed against TikTok that are scheduled to go into effect" on Sunday at midnight. The DOJ, rather than say they were delaying the TikTok ban, instead, filed an opposition to the proposed injunction, though it did so under seal so we can't see what the DOJ said.

The judge is expected to rule by Sunday, and it's possible (likely) that he'll drag the lawyers from both sides into (virtual) court this weekend. The whole thing remains insane. The President should never have the right to just ban a random social media app like this. Hopefully, the court agrees to an injunction while everything else gets worked out.

Filed Under: ban, china, commerce department, donald trump, injunction
Companies: bytedance, oracle, tiktok

China Calls TikTok Deal 'Extortion'; Says It Will Not Approve

from the back-to-the-drawing-board-folks dept

As was hinted at in our previous post on China's response to Trump forcing TikTok to... not actually be sold to Oracle, but to force TikTok into signing a hosting deal to store data in the US, it appears that China is going to do some posturing of its own. The Chinese government has said that it will block the deal which it calls "extortion."

And, to be fair, the Chinese government has a point. It was extortionate. Trump told ByteDance it had to sell or TikTok would be blocked in the US. And while it didn't actually sell TikTok, it was forced at gunpoint into a deal that it appears it would not have made otherwise. And, of course, China holds all the leverage here because Trump is a ridiculously bad dealmaker. His "plan" flopped in that he didn't force a sale, and then to save face (and to help out one of his big donors) he gave the thumbs up to the Oracle non-purchase/hosting contract. It was already a weak move that everyone other than the dumbest of Trump's fans knows is a weak move by a President who swings the executive power bat like a toddler who just learned how to smash things.

So, of course China is going to move for a better deal. In the Chinese state-controlled English language outlet China Daily, the the Chinese government goes in for the kill.

What the United States has done to TikTok is almost the same as a gangster forcing an unreasonable and unfair business deal on a legitimate company.

It (correctly) calls out that the "national security" excuse that Trump used is an obvious fig leaf and hogwash for his real motives. Of course, it claims that it was really about the US wanting to kill foreign competition, when that's unlikely to be the case. It's got more to do with various culture wars the President feels like fighting, rather than actually leading in the midst of a pandemic.

The editorial claims that even with this half-assed Oracle deal, it's a move towards the US using mafioso techniques to gain control over TikTok, and says that China has no reason to approve the deal on its end.

It is not the first time the US has played such dirty tricks to bully foreign companies in order to either destroy them or take them over.

China has no reason to give the green light to such a deal, which is dirty and unfair and based on bullying and extortion. If the US gets its way, it will continue to do the same with other foreign companies. Giving in to the unreasonable demands of the US would mean the doom of the Chinese company ByteDance.

Again, this is almost certainly just more posturing. And, ridiculously, what's it's likely to come down to is some sort of stupid diplomatic discussion between the US State Department and counterparts in China to come up with something that will make the deal work -- which means it will almost be an already worse deal than it currently is, with no redeeming points whatsoever, and what little Trump "got" out of the deal will not just be whittled down to nothing, but probably less than nothing.

Filed Under: china, deals, donald trump, extortion, national security
Companies: bytedance, oracle, tiktok

Blowback Time: China Says TikTok Deal Is A Model For How It Should Deal With US Companies In China

from the because-of-course dept

We've already covered what a ridiculous, pathetic grift the Oracle/TikTok deal was. Despite it being premised on a "national security threat" from China, because the app might share some data (all of which is easily buyable from data brokers) with Chinese officials, the final deal cured none of that, left the Chinese firm ByteDance with 80% ownership of TikTok, and gave Trump supporters at Oracle a fat contract -- and allowed Trump to pretend he did something.

Of course, what he really did was hand China a huge gift. In response to the deal, state media in China is now highlighting how the Chinese government can use this deal as a model for the Chinese to force the restructuring of US tech companies, and force the data to be controlled by local companies in China. This is from the editor-in-chief of The Global Times, a Chinese, state-sponsored newspaper:

That says:

The US restructuring of TikTok’s stake and actual control should be used as a model and promoted globally. Overseas operation of companies such as Google, Facebook shall all undergo such restructure and be under actual control of local companies for security concerns.

So, beyond doing absolutely nothing to solve the "problem" that politicians in the US laid out, the deal works in reverse. It's given justification for China to mess with American companies in the same way, and push to expose more data to the Chinese government.

Great work, Trump. Hell of a deal.

Meanwhile, the same Twitter feed says that it's expected that officials in Beijing are going to reject the deal from their end, and seek to negotiate one even more favorable to China's "national security interests and dignity."

So, beyond everything else, Trump's "deal" has probably done more to help China, and harm data privacy and protection, while also handing China a justification playbook to do so: "See, we're just following your lead!"

Filed Under: blowback, china, data localization, donald trump
Companies: bytedance, facebook, google, oracle, tiktok, walmart