Congress Decides To Ignore Trump's Ridiculous Veto Threat If Military Authorization Doesn't Wipe Out Section 230

from the good-for-them dept

This always seemed like the the most likely outcome, but Trump had complicated things with his temper tantrum demands and his threat to veto the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) if it didn't include a clause wiping out Section 230. However, Congress has come to its senses and leaders of both parties have said they'll ignore his impotent veto threat and move forward with the bill as is.

The final version of the National Defense Authorization Act that will soon be considered by the House and Senate won’t include Trump’s long-sought repeal of the legal immunity for online companies, known as Section 230, according to lawmakers and aides.

Key to this was Senate Armed Services Chair Jim Inhofe pointing out the obvious:

"First of all 230 has nothing to do with the military."

That's both first of all and last of all. The whole attempt to use the NDAA to attack CDA 230 was just bizarre.

Inhofe did say he still thinks that 230 should go, but not as a part of the NDAA. A few other Republicans are finally speaking up as well.

Still, Republicans on Wednesday showed some signs of exasperation with the president’s latest effort. As one GOP lawmaker put it: “Republicans are sick of this shit.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, put it more delicately. While he said he understood the president’s frustrations with Section 230, it was not worth imperiling the broader defense bill.

“The NDAA is so important to the men and women that wear the uniform that this should not be an item to veto the act over,” he said. “So I would hope he would reconsider his position on it.”

And Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said his “preference” would be to pass the NDAA and then address Section 230 separately.

Democratic critics of Section 230 were equally as annoyed. Remember, Senator Richard Blumenthal has been one of the most vocal critics of Section 230 going back to the time before he was a Senator and when he was stymied in trying to sue Craigslist by Section 230 (he was upset that sex workers use Craigslist, and wanted to blame Craigslist for the fact that sex workers exist).

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a co-sponsor of the only bipartisan bill targeting Section 230 to advance out of committee this Congress, called the veto threat "deeply dangerous and just plain stupid.”

He added, “Reforming Section 230 deserves its own debate — one that I’ve helped lead in Congress, and which I look forward to continuing with a more serious, thoughtful administration in January.”

In another article, Rep. Frank Pallone stated the obvious:

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone said in a statement that Trump is "holding a critical defense bill hostage in a petulant attempt to punish Twitter for fact-checking him. Our military and national security should not suffer just because Trump's ego was bruised."

There is still plenty of appetite to attack Section 230. And there will be lots of dumb fights about it, but it's not going down this way.

Filed Under: congress, donald trump, ndaa, section 230, threat, veto

Trump Promises To Defund The Entire Military, If Congress Won't Let Him Punish The Internet For Being Mean To Him

from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept

President Trump has continued to throw his little temper tantrum in response to #DiaperDon trending on Twitter. When that happened, he suddenly demanded a full repeal of Section 230 -- which would not stop Twitter from showing #DiaperDon trending when the President throws a temper tantrum like a 2 year old. Then, yesterday, we heard that the White House was really pushing for the Senate to include a 230 repeal in the must pass NDAA bill that funds the military.

Late last evening I heard from people in touch with various Congressional offices saying that this entire effort by the White House was dead in the water, because almost no one had an appetite to even try to attempt it, and despite the whackadoodle conspiracy theories from the President and Senators Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, and Josh Hawley, it turns out that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn't care about 230 reform.

Of course, even later last night, things took an even stupider turn, as Trump declared on Twitter that unless the NDAA included a full repeal of Section 230, he would veto it. This is all sorts of stupid and we'll break it all down in a moment, so bear with me.

That says:

Section 230, which is a liability shielding gift from the U.S. to “Big Tech” (the only companies in America that have it - corporate welfare!), is a serious threat to our National Security & Election Integrity. Our Country can never be safe & secure if we allow it to stand..... Therefore, if the very dangerous & unfair Section 230 is not completely terminated as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), I will be forced to unequivocally VETO the Bill when sent to the very beautiful Resolute desk. Take back America NOW. Thank you!

We'll get into why nearly everything in that statement is wrong, dangerous, and stupid, but I want to be crystal clear about what is happening here.

President Donald J. Trump is threatening to defund the US military, because he's upset that enough people mocked him on Twitter that it started trending.

That's it. That's the reality. This is the world we live in. And it's so insane, it needs to be repeated.

President Donald J. Trump is threatening to defund the US military, because he's upset that enough people mocked him on Twitter that it started trending.

Oh, and it's even stupider. On so many levels. First off, taking away Section 230 wouldn't stop #DiaperDon from trending on Twitter, because that's protected by the 1st Amendment and has nothing to do with Section 230. If anything, it would give much more incentive for Twitter to remove Donald Trump and his followers accounts entirely to avoid the suddenly increased legal liability.

But, now, let's take a deep breath, take a step back, and look at how incredibly stupid Trump's statement is.

Section 230, which is a liability shielding gift from the U.S. to “Big Tech” (the only companies in America that have it - corporate welfare!), is a serious threat to our National Security & Election Integrity.

None of this is even close to reality. This is pure nonsense. Section 230 applies to all websites for any 3rd party content they host. The claim that "big tech" are the only companies that have it is belied by this simple point: Donald Trump himself has invoked Section 230 in court. Multiple times. Incredibly, in 2017, he argued that he shouldn't be liable for the content of a retweet he did, because of Section 230. In fact, in court, Trump argued that Section 230 "should be given an 'expansive' reading" in order to protect himself from defamation claims. He's right. Section 230 should protect him in those cases, but it also highlights how it's absolutely bullshit to claim that it only protects "Big Tech" and that big tech companies are "the only companies in America that have it." It's just not true.

As for the claim that Section 230 is a "threat to our National Security," let's play a little thought exercise: which is a bigger threat to our national security: a law that says internet websites are not liable for the actions of their users or defunding the entire military? I'll give you a minute to think about it.

Because here's the point where I remind you that President Donald J. Trump is threatening to defund the US military, because he's upset that enough people mocked him on Twitter that it started trending.

Oh, and then there's the claim about "election integrity" and... what? What the fuck does election integrity have to do with Section 230? The answer is absolutely nothing. He's just spewing words.

I could go on, but it's all just incredibly stupid. It's one thing to say that Trump is an blundering fool, but here is a legitimate threat to national security, entirely because people are making fun of him. It's frightening beyond all belief.

And this is the point that in a functioning Congress, everyone would stand up to the President and say "no, this is not how this works." Congressional Republicans need to stop enabling this utterly dangerous nonsense. Because President Donald J. Trump is threatening to defund the US military, because he's upset that enough people mocked him on Twitter that it started trending. That should not be allowed to happen.

Filed Under: donald trump, insults, intermediary liability, military spending, ndaa, section 230

White House Still Pushing To Slip Section 230 Repeal Into 'Must Pass' Military Spending Bill

from the what-the-actual-fuck? dept

This was rumored a week and a half ago, and at the time I stated that there was no way in hell it was happening, and that it was all just performative nonsense... but yesterday Axios reported that the White House is still pushing Congress to insert a total repeal of Section 230 into the "must pass" National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). At the time, the story was that Trump would make a trade: he wouldn't veto the bill over a provision that removed Confederate army names from US military bases if there was a full repeal of Section 230 in it.

This is silly for all sorts of reasons, including the idea that you're horse trading the law that helped create the open internet for racist military base names in a bill that has fuck all to do with internet/telecom policy. Of course, then Thanksgiving happened, and the President threw a total shitfit because #DiaperDon started trending on Twitter, making him declare that we had to repeal Section 230 for "national security." Seems more like it would be for dealing with the insecurity of the President of the United States.

And so it appears that the White House has decided to appease the whims of the mad child emperor, and is still pushing Congress to slip the repeal into the NDAA and hoping that the confused, misplaced, and somewhat contradictory bipartisan hatred for Section 230 will cause them to go with it. Incredibly, Axios notes that it's the Republicans in the Senate trying to talk the White House out of this plan -- though they're pushing a bunch of nonsense 230 reform bills as an "alternative." The article's only comment on Democrats is that they "are sure to object." And I think that will still doom this entire effort. But, the real goal seems to be to try to sneak through some terrible bills that are short of a full repeal.

But Senate Republicans are instead trying to negotiate an alternative that would combine multiple bills aimed at reforming the law, including the bipartisan Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act and Wicker's Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act, a Hill source familiar with the matter told Axios.

We've gone through the details of why all of those bills are garbage and/or unconstitutional, and even if there were legitimate movement on getting those bills through Congress, lighting up the NDAA with them is the exact wrong thing to do. Bills like these, that would fundamentally change the very nature of the internet, are not something you just hang on an appropriations bill at the last minute.

I'm still mostly confident that none of this is actually going to happen and that it's still all just insane posturing and performative nonsense. But it's still 2020, and crazy, unprecedented shit still keeps happening, so I'll back down slightly from my "no way in hell" statement, and note that we're in hell right now, and so there's still a small chance that something horrific would happen here. It's still very, very unlikely. But it's just not going away.

Filed Under: confederate bases, donald trump, horse trading, intermediary liability, names, ndaa, section 230, white house

Just As #DiaperDon Starts Trending, Trump Claims That Twitter Uses 'Fake' Trends, Calls For 'Termination' Of Section 230

from the for-national-security? dept

It's no secret that Donald Trump doesn't like Section 230. Wait. Actually, let's back up and try that again: it's no secret that Donald Trump doesn't like what he thinks Section 230 is about, which has little-to-no-resemblance to what Section 230 is actually about. However, over the long weekend, things took an even more ridiculous turn than usual. It started on Thanksgiving when the President was signing some legislation and taking some questions from the press. For unclear reasons, the setup where he had to sign things was with a very small desk affixed with the Presidential seal. While this desk has been used before for such things -- and Trump has even joked about the size of it, the framing of the shot -- the lack of people around him, the wide frame of the shot, the tread over carpet, and just... everything really made it look like the President was sitting at an elementary school desk.

The internet started to have some fun. Actually, lots of fun.

It was not long until #DiaperDonald started trending on Twitter.

And, then, it was not much longer beforel the Commander-in-Chief of the military, and the leader of the United Stated of America decided to throw a tantrum on Twitter and claim that Twitter made up its trending topics (it does not).

That's the supposed leader of the free world saying:

Twitter is sending out totally false "Trends" that have absolutely nothing to do with what is really trending in the world. They make it up, and only negative "stuff". Same thing will happen to Twitter as is happening to @FoxNews daytime. Also, big Conservative discrimination!

All of that is, of course, nonsense, but it was followed up just five minutes later with:

That's him saying:

For purposes of National Security, Section 230 must be immediately terminated!!!

The fact that this comes so close to the tweet whining about #DiaperDon trending suggests that this has literally nothing to do with "national security." If Trump has learned one thing while he's in office, it's that one way that the President can actually get stuff done (such as start trade wars) without the need to get Congress's approval is to claim "national security" to make it happen. But you can't just get rid of laws that way. That's not how any of this works. At all.

Also, um, if Section 230 was terminated, it wouldn't change the fact that Twitter might show trending topics that are critical of the President. Because that's protected by the 1st Amendment. You know... part of the Constitution that the President swore to protect and uphold when he was sworn into office?

Of course, if 230 were terminated, meaning that Twitter (and others) might face more annoying and costly lawsuits for the actions of its users, one thing it might be a lot more prone to do is to delete the account of troublemakers spewing conspiracy theories and nonsense on its platform. Such as the soon-to-be-leaving President Donald Trump.

Filed Under: diaper don, donald trump, intermediary liability, national security, section 230, temper tantrum, trending, trends
Companies: twitter

White House Offers To Allow Renaming Confederate Bases... In Exchange For Getting Rid Of Section 230

from the who-did-the-what-now? dept

Let's state upfront that there is no way in hell this is happening, and it's all just performative nonsense. No one is actually going to do this. However, the NY Times is reporting that White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has floated the idea of "compromise" to get the annual NDAA passed, after President Trump has whined about it requiring the renaming of military bases named after Confederacy leaders. As a bit of background, I still don't understand why we have literally anything named after leaders who actually tried to leave the country and fought against the US military, in order to continue enslaving people... but that's just me. The NDAA (the National Defense Authorization Act) is the annual budget allocated by Congress for the military. It's one of those "must pass" kind of things that some in Congress try to sneak junk into, knowing that it has to pass. President Trump has threatened to veto the bill because of the base renaming bit.

Now the Times is reporting that Meadows is saying Trump would stop fighting the renaming... if Congress uses the NDAA to totally repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Really.

Over the course of several conversations, Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, asked Mr. Meadows what might persuade Mr. Trump to sign the measure with the renaming requirement intact, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Mr. Meadows, according to the people, said that adding a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, considered the most consequential law governing speech on the internet, would help.

Just to put this out there: this is insane. On many different levels. I've already expressed my confusion over why there's any debate at all about these base names, but the idea that Congress should simply wipe out Section 230 in the NDAA just creates an entirely new layer of pure ridiculousness. I mean, in part because this would simply increase uncertainty and liability for internet services, leading to a much higher likelihood that Twitter and other social media sites would take down Trump's nonsense for fear of having to defend themselves in court over it.

It truly is striking how focused so much of Washington DC has become on Section 230 without even understanding what it currently does, how it works, and what will happen if it gets removed.

Anyway, again, this is not happening. No one is going to go ahead with this. But it's just yet another example of the ridiculous policy proposals now floating around the White House.

Filed Under: appropriations, confederate bases, congress, donald trump, free speech, funding, mark meadows, military, ndaa, section 230

Trump Fires US Cybersecurity Director Chris Krebs After Krebs Debunks Trump's Claims Of Election Systems Fraud

from the mad-king-tantrum dept

As we noted last week, it was widely expected that sooner or later Donald Trump would turn his post-election temper tantrum towards Chris Krebs, the widely respected director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Krebs had been standing firm in reporting that there was no evidence to support the widespread conspiracy theories about hacked voting machines. CISA had been proactively debunking these claims.

On Tuesday morning, Krebs tweeted about how election security experts all agreed that there was no evidence of manipulated elections -- directly contradicting the ongoing unsubstantiated claims of the President and his enablers:

In response, a few hours later, Trump tweeted that Krebs was fired:

If you can't read that, it's the President saying:

The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud - including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, “glitches” in the voting machines which changed... votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

There is no evidence that any of that actually happened. None. Zero. Zilch. Every single one of those stories has been debunked (and most of them have literally nothing to do with Krebs' job). The only thing truthful in those tweets is that Trump was firing Krebs. This is a disgusting abuse of power, supporting completely bullshit conspiracy theory nonsense, in order to remove a public servant who actually did his job well in protecting against such election manipulation.

Moments later, on his personal Twitter account, Krebs tweeted with class:

This is the kind of grace and class that Trump and his enablers will never understand.

As professor Steve Vladeck notes, "we're worse off as a country" because of "this temper tantrum" by the President.

Filed Under: chris krebs, cisa, dhs, donald trump, election security, fired, tempter tantrum

Donald Trump Argues That Use Of 'Electric Avenue' In Campaign Video Was Transformative

from the um,-no dept

The election is over and, no matter the current administration's flailings, Joe Biden is now President Elect. It was, well, quite a campaign season, filled with loud interruptions, a deluge of lies, and some of the most bizarre presidential behavior on record. And, rather than running on his own record, the Trump Campaign mostly went 100% negative, filling the digital space with all kinds of hits on Biden.

One of those was a crudely put together video that showed a Trump/Pence train zipping by on some tracks, with a Biden hand-car chugging behind him. On the Biden train car were fun references to smelling hair and other childish digs. Some clips of Biden speaking made up the audio for the spot, along with the hit song from 1983 "Electric Avenue." Tweeted out on Trump's personal Twitter account, it turns out that nobody had licensed the song for the video, leading Eddy Grant to sue the President.

Trump's defense in a motion to dismiss is... fair use. How? Well...

His campaign argues that it was transformative to use the song over a cartoon version of Joe Biden driving an old-fashioned train car interspersed with his rival's speeches.

"The purpose of the Animation is not to disseminate the Song or to supplant sales of the original Song," states the motion. The motion points to lyrics from "Electric Carnival": “[N]ow in the street, there is violence... And a lots of work to be done.”

"These lyrics, however, stand in stark juxtaposition to the comedic nature of the animated caricature of Former VP Biden, squatting and pumping a handcar with a sign that says, 'Your Hair Smells Terrific', and to the excerpt of the overlayed speech that references 'hairy legs' and kids playing with his leg hair. Obviously, Mr. Grant’s purpose of creating a meaningful song for the pop music market is completely different from the Animation creator’s purpose of using the song 'to denigrate ... Former Vice President Joseph Biden.'”

On that last bit, we can agree. However, using the song in a campaign ad meant to denigrate Joe Biden no more makes that use transformative than if a grocery store used it to sell steaks. That isn't what makes the use transformative, despite my near certainty that Eddy Grant didn't intend to sell steaks with "Electric Avenue".

The motion goes on to suggest that nobody is going to go watch the campaign video instead of buying Grant's song, therefore the use doesn't effect the market for the song. While true, the claims about the other two factors in considering fair use -- the nature of the copyrighted work and the portion of the work used -- don't sound particularly convincing. The motion says that the video only used 17% of the song in the video, or forty seconds of the song in total. Again, true, except that the video itself is something like 50 seconds long, so the copyrighted work is playing for nearly the entire video. And it's played prominently.

As to the nature of the copyrighted work... hoo boy.

Here, the Song is a creative work, but it was published in 1983 (Compl. ¶ 25), and it remains, more than 37 years later, available to the public. This weighs in favor of fair use.

Um, no. The fact that it's a creative work, as opposed to one comprised of factual information, weighs against fair use, not for it. It being published in the 80s and still available now is, well, completely besides the fucking point.

I will be absolutely shocked if this motion isn't laughed out of the courthouse.

Filed Under: advertisements, campaign ad, copyright, donald trump, eddy grant, elections, electric avenue, fair use, transformative

Commerce Department Remembers It Was Supposed To Ban TikTok; Says It Won't Enforce For Now

from the oh,-right,-that dept

Yesterday we noted that TikTok had made a filing with the government asking what the fuck was going on with the supposed ban on their application that was supposed to go into effect this week. While a court had issued an injunction saying the Commerce Department couldn't put the ban into effect, the Trump administration basically hadn't said anything since then, and the ban was set to go into effect yesterday.

Late yesterday, the Commerce Department put out a notice basically saying that it's complying with the injunction issued by the court, and therefore not implementing the executive order and the ban:

However, on October 30, 2020, the District Court issued an Order granting the Plaintiffs' renewed motion for a preliminary injunction. This Order enjoined the Department from enforcing the Identification and the prohibition on transactions identified in Paragraphs 1-6 above.

The Department is complying with the terms of this Order. Accordingly, this serves as NOTICE that the Secretary’s prohibition of identified transactions pursuant to Executive Order 13942, related to TikTok, HAS BEEN ENJOINED, and WILL NOT GO INTO EFFECT, pending further legal developments

Of course, the Commerce Department saying it won't enforce the order doesn't answer the larger question of whether or not the US government is still demanding that it sell off all of its US assets -- or even whether or not the grifty non-sale to Oracle will suffice.

Basically, highlighting how much of a joke this whole thing was, it seems that the supposed "national security" rationale behind all of this was complete garbage, and since Trump has his hands full trying to pretend he won the election he very clearly lost, everyone's just going to let this slide until the Biden administration comes in and likely drops the executive order altogether. But kudos to Larry Ellison for getting a lucrative hosting deal.

Filed Under: ban, china, commerce department, donald trump, executive order, injunction, wilbur ross
Companies: bytedance, oracle, tiktok

US Cybersecurity Director Expecting To Be Fired After Refusing To Edit Page Debunking Election Hacking Myths

from the ridiculousness-in-a-bag dept

One of the few parts of the federal government that hasn't dissolved into a complete partisan trash heap was the newly created Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a division of Homeland Security that was created as part of the problematic CISA bill five years ago. While we were disappointed in many aspects of the bill itself, as an organization CISA has done some pretty good work in coordinating and dealing with cybersecurity threats. Throughout the tech industry I've heard nothing but good things about CISA as a government organization, and its director Chris Krebs (as well as the staff of CISA). Indeed, I've heard from many companies preparing for this year's election how useful CISA has been in providing clear and useful information regarding potential cybersecurity threats.

Relatedly, CISA has an excellent Rumor Control page that debunks various myths about potential cybersecurity risks regarding the election. It's very good and very thorough. And, in fact, it debunks many of the myths that various Trumpists have been spreading around social media in pretty clear and concise language:

It appears that the White House has finally realized this exists and decided it's not a good look for its own organization to be debunking the very same myths that the White House itself is trying to boost and spread as real. The White House apparently asked Krebs to have the page changed, and Krebs rejected the request. He's now telling colleagues he expects to be fired for standing up for the truth and against nonsense about election hacks.

White House officials have asked for content to be edited or removed which pushed back against numerous false claims about the election, including that Democrats are behind a mass election fraud scheme. CISA officials have chosen not to delete accurate information.

In particular, one person said, the White House was angry about a CISA post rejecting a conspiracy theory that falsely claims an intelligence agency supercomputer and program, purportedly named Hammer and Scorecard, could have flipped votes nationally. No such system exists, according to Krebs, election security experts and former U.S. officials.

The article notes that an assistant director at CISA, Bryan Ware, has handed in his resignation and it is believed that this was demanded from the White House related to this particular issue.

Krebs deserves kudos for standing up for truth and a secure election, rather than to be fired for it, while Trump continues to lie, obstruct and pretend he didn't lose the election.

Oh, and thanks to the White House for driving a ton more traffic to CISA's super useful Rumor Control website.

Filed Under: chris krebs, cisa, cybersecurity, donald trump, elections, myths, white house