By your incredibly broad (and wrong) definitions of “censorship” and “free speech”, I suppose we are okay with “censorship” and against “free speech” in some situations. We’re okay with it if it’s completely voluntary or if it’s limited in scope and enacted by private persons without government interference.
That said, that’s not what those words actually mean. Censorship means that the government is punishing you for your speech or you’re unable to say it at all without fear of government-imposed consequences. It does not include the consequences of speech imposed by society or private persons without government enforcement, nor does it include simply making the speech less visible (like hiding comments or adding context). (It can extend to other things, like bleeping out swear words or putting a mosaic on genitalia or something like that, but those are inapplicable here, and your definition of censorship is still too broad.)
Free speech is the right for private persons to say (or not say) whatever they want without government interference. It does not mean that your speech is free from consequences imposed by society or other private persons, including corporations, and those consequences may include (but are not limited to) having your speech removed from or hidden on some privately owned platform(s), being delisted from or downgraded on some privately owned search engine(s), or being banned or having your profile locked (permanently or temporarily) from some privately owned platform(s). It doesn’t mean that you have the right to say whatever you want on someone else’s private property, the right to be heard, or the right to a particular audience or an audience of a certain size.
Under these (correct) definitions, we are very much pro-free speech and anti-censorship. The only ones who don’t understand what free speech and censorship are are people like you who make the definitions so broad that just about everyone is opposed to free speech in some shape or form.
Also, the 1A only restricts the government from interfering with speech, not private individuals, private corporations, or NGOs. What is or isn’t protected by the 1A means nothing to what should or shouldn’t be moderated.
Either websites have free speech and allow anything or they don't and the censor/moderate it.
You’re presenting a false dichotomy even under your fallacious definitions of free speech and censorship. There’s also the option to allow absolutely nothing.
But seriously, even under a relatively broad definition of free speech that goes beyond being free from the government, it’s actually possible to have free speech and moderate some speech on the platforms. For one thing, even under your own definitions, libel is not protected free speech, and so moderating it would not be infringing on free speech. Furthermore, hiding some comments but still allowing them to be easily viewed or adding context is not against even the broadest plausible (though still wrong) definition of free speech.
If you [c]ensor in any way shape or form then you shouldn't be protected from suits or lash back. If you don't censor or mod then you are hands off and therefore immune.
First off, no one is saying that any sites are or should be immune to backlash over moderation decisions. In fact, we have supported that as 1A-protected free speech (even if we disagree on specific instances of backlash). You’re attacking a strawman there.
Second, §230 expressly says otherwise, and the specific motivating intent behind the law was to allow sites to be free from liability for third-party content even if they moderate. There was a court case that held a site liable for third-party content because they moderate their site to be family-friendly, which provided the impetus for §230.
There’s also the general issue that there is no distributor liability for defamation, period, under the 1A, and the right to moderate your own platform is guaranteed under the 1A (free speech and free association) and property rights, so you’d be wrong even without §230.
Nothing will change if 230 is removed.
That contradicts what you just said, and also, you don’t know that. You haven’t even presented evidence to support that claim.
Go ahead and flag this comment to since it goes against what you believe and it will only prove my point even more.
That isn’t even the site engaging in moderation; that’s just users using a tool provided to them to moderate the site.
I also don’t see how it will prove your point at all. You weren’t previously alleging that TD hides content that they disagree with, and that would do nothing to show that corporations control the net (they don’t; they only control parts of it), what sites are protected from liability, or that your definitions of free speech and censorship are true and correct.
Also if you rtfa you would have seen it wasn't trump that blocked it but, a senator. Anything to bash trump even if you have to lie and make crap up.
If you’re talking about the omnibus spending/COVID bill, you’re partially right. Trump did veto that bill on other grounds, and one senator (Lindsey Graham) is threatening to block overriding the veto of that bill if it doesn’t repeal or reform §230, but it’s not clear if that threat has any weight behind it. That said, Trump did veto another bill (the NDAA) because it didn’t repeal §230. No senator was responsible for even threatening to attempt to block it AFAIK.
Gonna laugh when our internet is just like China's and NK.
Did you notice that all the people/companies that run the really big websites are American?
Also, the “single-publication” rule is a constitutional issue. You’d have to amend the Constitution to overturn that.
Look, we’ve been arguing that all the things people dislike about §230 would still happen in some shape or form without §230. The Constitution (esp. Article III and the 1A) and basic property rights and liability logic provide most of the same protections offered by §230, just not as clearly or as quickly. So basically, US law has §230 even without §230 to some extent.
Also, under US law, there is no such thing as distributor liability for things like defamation, period. Such a thing would be unconstitutional. That is not a recognizable harm under US law even without §230. I don’t think you understand that.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: So where are your bullet points outlining /
And thus you completely missed what I said.
Repealing §230 in its entirety would likely not be unconstitutional.
Modifying §230 might be unconstitutional, depending on how it’s done.
Making §230 protections conditional based upon whether or not the site is “neutral” would certainly be unconstitutional.
Furthermore, many of the protections guaranteed by §230 are also guaranteed by the Constitution and common law even without §230. §230 just makes it easier to fight these cases. So no, they aren’t “privileges”; they’re rights.
Basically, you were completely wrong on almost anything, which you might have realized had you bothered to read just the first paragraph of what I said, which clearly refutes what you just said.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: just goes to show you the fa
For what it’s worth, I don’t have any major problem with what you said, other than I don’t believe the far left is as loud or as prevalent as the far right in the US. Also, that most people here aren’t that far left, despite your impressions.
Yes, any race can be racist and any gender can be sexist. Some people don’t believe that to be true, and most of them I would classify as far left. There is the question of whether the two are equally bad, but I’m not entering that discussion.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: just goes to show you th
I don’t recall any of us saying we identify as anything but cisgender males or cisgender females. That we support trans rights and acknowledge that gender is not black and white is another issue entirely.
Furthermore, that we recognize that blacks tend to have a different experience than whites and that racism is a real issue is not the same as being anti-white. We also don’t consider ourselves to be victims, and we’re pro-free speech.
Basically, none of what you said was remotely accurate.
Re: Re: Re: So where are your bullet points outlining / justifyi
Repealing Section 230 is not unconstitutional at all. Most countries don't have it.
Most countries also don’t place such a heavy emphasis on free speech. I’m not saying that repealing §230 is unconstitutional, per se. I’m saying that it’d be unconstitutional to regulate platforms based on their moderation decisions. It’s also unconstitutional to hold platforms responsible for speech they had no role in creating or developing.
Seriously, pointing out that other countries don’t have this or that law, or anything else about countries other than the US, has literally nothing to do with what is or isn’t constitutional in the US. Other countries don’t enter into it. Only the US Constitution, as interpreted by the US Supreme Court, has the final say over what is or isn’t constitutional in the US. Plus, it’s long been established that freedom of speech in the US is much broader than in other countries. Whether that’s good or bad or neutral is irrelevant.
Also, while repealing §230 entirely may not be unconstitutional, making its protections conditioned upon being a neutral platform is. Which is what we were discussing. (More on that later.)
Take the example of a judgment-proof or terminally ill person with an axe to grind who accused Masnick of being an arsonist (not that anyone should do this, it's just an example), or accused someone he cared about of doing something horrible (not that they should do that either). You can bet his position on Section 230 would change overnight, as he'd know that the poison would spread globally, and his protests would only cause those uninformed masses he's always writing about to believe the lies even more.
Nope. The Constitution doesn’t care. Only the person who wrote the defamatory content is responsible for its defamatory nature. Period. That’s according to the Supreme Court, BTW.
And again, whether or not you think it’s good policy is irrelevant. That doesn’t really change the fact that platforms are protected this way by the Constitution.
And as for Mike specifically, it should be noted that he thinks that defamation law should only be a last resort and, even then, is often too counterproductive to be a good idea even when directed against the right target. Plus, your stated example is highly improbable to happen at all, let alone to Mike specifically. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’d realize that suing over the false speech would only cause it to spread even further thanks to the Streisand Effect, making it even less likely he’d change his mind in your scenario.
Search engines spread libel which is why every country BUT the US has no Section 230 and does fine with it. A few reputations of innocent people is not acceptable loss for the greater good of the internet.
Again, we value free speech over the reputations of a few innocent people. That’s why defamation has such a high bar here. And again, §230 isn’t your only problem here; it’s also the 1A and basic jurisdiction issues. And, like I’ve said already, what happens in other countries has no bearing on whether it’s constitutional in the US.
Also, other countries don’t have such large search engines as Google or Bing or such large social media platforms as Facebook or Twitter. That’s because §230, the 1A, and the SPEECH Act protect online platforms from liability for third-party content and have more freedom to moderate or not as they wish here more than in any other country or under any other country’s laws. The SPEECH Act prevents international forum shopping, too.
Look, under the 1A, US laws at any level cannot recognize a separate harm for simply being the medium by which defamatory content gets found or posted. §230 doesn’t even matter that much there; it just shortcuts the process.
Without Section 230 there never would have been revenge porn.
Again, the problem there isn’t §230. In fact, the problem that every revenge-porn law in the US has run into has never been §230 but the 1A. They’ve pretty much all been declared unconstitutional. §230 was never the problem there. Forget holding platforms and search engines accountable for revenge porn; there’s been difficulty even getting the original posters accountable for revenge porn because of the 1A.
Look, just face it. The problem you have isn’t §230; it’s the 1A. That’s the point I was making. Even without §230, what you want can’t happen under the Constitution.
But really, you’re talking about a completely separate aspect of §230. When I mentioned unconstitutionality, I was talking about the moderation aspect, which is not the same as the part that shields platforms from liablility for third-party content. Specifically, I was discussing the fact that it is unconstitutional for the government (Federal, state, or local) to force a privately owned platform to be neutral, let alone a neutral public forum. You’re talking about a different prong of §230—the prong that deals with liability for third-party content for which the ICS provider/user played no part in developing. While this is also protected by the Constitution and basic jurisdictional issues, it’s not the same thing as what was being discussed. Poking holes in my argument with regards to liability for third-party content is missing the point of my argument, which, again, is about moderation. (We were also discussing social media platforms, not search engines.)
It’s still worth pointing out that such protections still exist without §230 and are far from unprecedented (see, e.g., letters to the editor in newspapers), but it’s not really the same thing as what I was talking about.
Here’s what I was saying before:
The protections offered by §230 (in toto) are not unprecedented under US law, serve the public good, and are not limited to protecting only large corporations but also small corporations/NGOs and private individuals
These points have been explained—in detail—multiple times to this same person
This person needs to provide evidence of corporations abusing their rights over their platforms before I can accept their allegations as true.
Neutral public fora cannot exist. They are effectively impossible.
There are times when people want a nonneutral forum.
It is unconstitutional for the government to force a privately owned platform, no matter how large, to be a “neutral” forum, let alone a “neutral public forum”.
Pointing out these facts doesn’t necessarily mean that one is inherently against the existence of neutral public fora.
That’s it. Nothing about whether or not repealing §230 at all, let alone entirely, would be unconstitutional. Nothing about search engines in particular (a search engine isn’t a forum, after all). In fact, your entire post had little to do with anything I actually said.
Also, with the exception of §230 being good for the public, everything I said was demonstrable fact. And even with that one, the point was simply that a decent argument could be made in favor of that, and it was limited to whether it offers any benefit to the public, not whether or not those benefits outweigh any or all downsides to §230. That would be a separate discussion, and the OP didn’t ask for that. That part is still opinion, though. Everything else is factual, however.
We can still argue about whether or not §230 is good policy, and I’m willing to have that conversation in a different thread, but those policies are rooted in the US Constitution, and that doesn’t change based upon what other countries do or don’t do. It also doesn’t change based upon what you or I think the law should be. All it does is establish our respective opinions about the protections offered by §230 (which are also protected under other areas of US law, including the US Constitution). §230 is just a shortcut to keep websites running smoothly. After all, websites have a bigger issue with the law of big numbers.
Also, I just noticed this, but I should mention that those ellipses (…) are in the original quote. I just copy/pasted it verbatim. You put ellipses in a lot of weird spots:
Therdes a lot you said...,
...shoot thems....elves in the.... face if they are collab orating with the FBI...
too stupid to com prehend... what they read
re...: bhull
and had an unexpected success, b....hull,
analysed b....hulls speech patterns
I later...../ll accused you
And those are just weird places for ellipses. I didn’t even get into the bizarre use of hyphens (-), slashes (/), other punctuation, and spaces throughout. And, again, all punctuation and spelling is as in the original. You even seemed to reference this yourself in the very next comment by using the name “Spellin Errers”. You explained it as trying to get around the filters. So there’s your answer: you used it first to get around the filters, then I just copied it.
You don't have free speech now. Your speech is censored on all major social media platforms.
sigh How many times do we have to tell you people? Private companies, by definition, cannot infringe on anyone’s free speech unless they are engaging in one of the few functions traditionally reserved exclusively to the government, which social media companies do not. Running a forum is not something reserved to the government.
Furthermore, by definition, it’s not censorship if it’s not done with or by the government or you can say the exact same thing somewhere else. Just go to Parler or 8kun or something. Twitter and/or Facebook removing your speech from their platform(s) or banning you from their platform(s) for your speech on their platform(s) is no more censorship than a bar kicking someone out for being too loud or disruptive, even if only through speech. Social media companies have every right to do what they’re doing. If you don’t like it, go to another platform or make your own. You’re not being censored. You’re being told, “We don’t do that here,” and they’re showing you the door.
Even td censors the people they don't agree with.
Okay, this is even more ridiculous. It’s not censorship if the speech is still there and the government isn’t punishing you for it. Hidden speech is absolutely not censored speech. Anyone can view hidden comments on this site with a single click/tap. It’s not that hard.
Additionally, it’s the community that decides which comments get hidden, not the people running the site.
And again, even if those comments were being removed (which they indisputably are not), that’s still not censorship. It’s just the people who go to this site telling you that your contributions aren’t welcome here. You can always take your ball and go somewhere else.
Look what happened on Twitter how it censored anything that go with the "main stream media" in regards to the election.
And it gets even more ridiculous. Look, if you can still see the speech, and the government isn’t punishing you for it, it makes no sense whatsoever to call it censorship. Adding a note contradicting what you say isn’t censorship. Adding a note saying that what you’re saying is disputed isn’t censorship either. And, of course, one or two companies removing your speech from their platforms in a world where more than two platforms exist isn’t censorship either.
The locked the NYP account and removed many others. FB is even worse.
Again, that’s still not censorship. The NYP site is still up, so you can view their content there. They’re clearly not being censored. As for the others, again, there are other places they can put their speech. There is no law or right that says you have to be able to put your speech on Facebook or Twitter specifically, nor that you’re owed a large platform in general. Nor could there be under the 1A.
You think 230 actually provides any protection and an open internet?
Just because some internet platforms are closed to you doesn’t mean the internet itself is closed to you. And if moderation is the issue for you, then §230 isn’t your problem; the 1A is.
You’re confusing the NDAA (which Trump vetoed because it didn’t remove §230) and the omnibus COVID/spending bill (which Trump didn’t seem to understand was two separate bills passed as one). And for the record, we had those clauses in previous spending bills, too, which Trump did not veto. That happens every year.
Re: Re: Re: Re: So which is it, oh case-history guru? Not contes
Because you refuse to listen. Just wait awhile until Masnick or whoever has a chance to possibly clear it. Spamming the message is roughly like pressing the elevator button over and over again. You only struggle with the quirks because you refuse to change the basic problems.
There is no law that allows for a do-over of an election this long after the fact. If the election is found to have been fraudulent, then the head of the House of Representatives may become President, but Trump will not. What you are suggesting would be outside the law.
The portion of §230 he was quoting is §230(c)(2), which doesn’t contain the words “good faith”. You’re thinking about §230(c)(1), which is about good faith efforts to remove objectionable content. §230(c)(2) is about providing users with tools to remove or exclude objectionable content, and it doesn’t specify good faith at all. That was actually specifically pointed out in a court opinion. §230(c)(1) is the only clause that is dependent upon good faith. Everything else in §230, including §230(c)(2), does not.
WE WANNA TALK TRASH ABOUT TRUMP SO LETS COME UP WITH SOMETHING TO TRASH HIM OVER.
I mean, he kinda does that for us.
OH I KNOW! LETS PRETEND MILITARY FUNDING IS WHAT WE NEED RIGHT NOW IN A PANDEMIC AND VILIFY TRUMP!
I’m not exactly for more military spending, but 1) you’re saying the entire military—including all purely defensive programs—should shut down, 2) like it or not, military-spending bills are considered must-pass bills in Congress and always have been, and 3) what we’re opposing is trying to link §230 to military spending, which makes no sense. The two things should pass or fail on their own.
LETS PRETEND CENSORSHIP IMMUNITY FROM BIG TECH IS A GOOD THING SO WE CAN BE LIKE CHINA AND MANIPULATE THE ECONOMY AND IN ELECTIONS.
§230 immunity over hosting and moderating third-party content is 1) not exclusive to Big Tech, 2) not “censorship immunity”, 3) is a good thing, and 4) is nothing like what happens in China.
WE WANT MORE MILITARY DYING AND MILITARY SPENDING SO WE CANT PUT THE MONEY INTO THE ALREADY FALTERING ECONOMY.
See my second response, but more importantly, the military spending bill is separate from the bill that would stimulate the economy. Supporting one doesn’t mean or even imply being against the other. Again, they each rise or fall on their own, as they should.
LETS POINT THE FINGER AT TRUMP THAT COVID IS HIS FAULT JUST SO WE CAN VILIFY HIM.
No one says that COVID is his fault. What we claim is that Trump failed to do much of anything to effectively mitigate its spread so its impact on public health and the economy would be lessened. He took a bad situation and actively made it worse. Therefore, the extent of COVID’s impact on the US is his fault.
It’s not censorship (just go somewhere else), and a private corporation cannot infringe on anyone’s 1st Amendment rights by definition (only the government can do that).
Re: Re: So where are your bullet points outlining / justifying?
Just show me where you state that The Public, hundreds of millions people at least, has ANY right to be on the new "platforms".
They don’t. That has never been claimed. Same goes for the old platforms. There is no legal right to a specific platform, and there never has been.
Well, the government can’t force you off a platform, but the point is that they can’t force a platform to allow you, either. That said, §230 makes it easier for platforms to allow people on without prior vetting or anything by removing disincentives.
So what?
You only hold the alleged -- at best granted -- "rights" of a few large corporations.
Every right is “granted”. That doesn’t change anything. The fact is that corporations have those rights, and to remove them would require massive changes in the law that would have undesired side-effects. Furthermore, with only a few exceptions inapplicable here, “rights” only restrict the government, not private individuals or corporations. Also, the rights in question here are not just for a few large corporations; they apply to small corporations, NGOs, and private individuals, too. That we hold that they also apply equally to large corporations is just being consistent. The law simply doesn’t distinguish between them when it comes to legal rights.
EVERY one of your pieces gets down to bottom line of absolute corporate power to control all speech on the new "platforms".
Nope. Each corporation only controls the platform(s) that they themself owns. New or old platform, it’s all the same. The same goes for private individuals who host platforms. Again, there is no distinction here between new and old platforms or private corporations and private individuals. Plus, it’s a constitutional right. Being for or against it doesn’t really matter unless you want to amend the Constitution.
Furthermore, you clearly only read the §230 pieces. Try reading the stuff on telecom and copyright. They take a far more anti-corporatist stance there.
On the post: Apparently Trump Refuses To Allow The Government To Do Anything At All Until The Open Internet Is Destroyed
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“Stochastic” essentially means “random”, right? So you’re talking about random terrorism?
On the post: Apparently Trump Refuses To Allow The Government To Do Anything At All Until The Open Internet Is Destroyed
Re: Re: Re: 230 revoking doesn't matter
Also, please learn to use commas.
On the post: Apparently Trump Refuses To Allow The Government To Do Anything At All Until The Open Internet Is Destroyed
Re: Re: 230 revoking doesn't matter
By your incredibly broad (and wrong) definitions of “censorship” and “free speech”, I suppose we are okay with “censorship” and against “free speech” in some situations. We’re okay with it if it’s completely voluntary or if it’s limited in scope and enacted by private persons without government interference.
That said, that’s not what those words actually mean. Censorship means that the government is punishing you for your speech or you’re unable to say it at all without fear of government-imposed consequences. It does not include the consequences of speech imposed by society or private persons without government enforcement, nor does it include simply making the speech less visible (like hiding comments or adding context). (It can extend to other things, like bleeping out swear words or putting a mosaic on genitalia or something like that, but those are inapplicable here, and your definition of censorship is still too broad.)
Free speech is the right for private persons to say (or not say) whatever they want without government interference. It does not mean that your speech is free from consequences imposed by society or other private persons, including corporations, and those consequences may include (but are not limited to) having your speech removed from or hidden on some privately owned platform(s), being delisted from or downgraded on some privately owned search engine(s), or being banned or having your profile locked (permanently or temporarily) from some privately owned platform(s). It doesn’t mean that you have the right to say whatever you want on someone else’s private property, the right to be heard, or the right to a particular audience or an audience of a certain size.
Under these (correct) definitions, we are very much pro-free speech and anti-censorship. The only ones who don’t understand what free speech and censorship are are people like you who make the definitions so broad that just about everyone is opposed to free speech in some shape or form.
Also, the 1A only restricts the government from interfering with speech, not private individuals, private corporations, or NGOs. What is or isn’t protected by the 1A means nothing to what should or shouldn’t be moderated.
You’re presenting a false dichotomy even under your fallacious definitions of free speech and censorship. There’s also the option to allow absolutely nothing.
But seriously, even under a relatively broad definition of free speech that goes beyond being free from the government, it’s actually possible to have free speech and moderate some speech on the platforms. For one thing, even under your own definitions, libel is not protected free speech, and so moderating it would not be infringing on free speech. Furthermore, hiding some comments but still allowing them to be easily viewed or adding context is not against even the broadest plausible (though still wrong) definition of free speech.
First off, no one is saying that any sites are or should be immune to backlash over moderation decisions. In fact, we have supported that as 1A-protected free speech (even if we disagree on specific instances of backlash). You’re attacking a strawman there.
Second, §230 expressly says otherwise, and the specific motivating intent behind the law was to allow sites to be free from liability for third-party content even if they moderate. There was a court case that held a site liable for third-party content because they moderate their site to be family-friendly, which provided the impetus for §230.
There’s also the general issue that there is no distributor liability for defamation, period, under the 1A, and the right to moderate your own platform is guaranteed under the 1A (free speech and free association) and property rights, so you’d be wrong even without §230.
That contradicts what you just said, and also, you don’t know that. You haven’t even presented evidence to support that claim.
That isn’t even the site engaging in moderation; that’s just users using a tool provided to them to moderate the site.
I also don’t see how it will prove your point at all. You weren’t previously alleging that TD hides content that they disagree with, and that would do nothing to show that corporations control the net (they don’t; they only control parts of it), what sites are protected from liability, or that your definitions of free speech and censorship are true and correct.
If you’re talking about the omnibus spending/COVID bill, you’re partially right. Trump did veto that bill on other grounds, and one senator (Lindsey Graham) is threatening to block overriding the veto of that bill if it doesn’t repeal or reform §230, but it’s not clear if that threat has any weight behind it. That said, Trump did veto another bill (the NDAA) because it didn’t repeal §230. No senator was responsible for even threatening to attempt to block it AFAIK.
Well, that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon.
On the post: Once Again, Section 230's Authors Feel The Need To Tell Everyone That Section 230 Is Not The Evil You Think It Is
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Did you notice that all the people/companies that run the really big websites are American?
Also, the “single-publication” rule is a constitutional issue. You’d have to amend the Constitution to overturn that.
Look, we’ve been arguing that all the things people dislike about §230 would still happen in some shape or form without §230. The Constitution (esp. Article III and the 1A) and basic property rights and liability logic provide most of the same protections offered by §230, just not as clearly or as quickly. So basically, US law has §230 even without §230 to some extent.
Also, under US law, there is no such thing as distributor liability for things like defamation, period. Such a thing would be unconstitutional. That is not a recognizable harm under US law even without §230. I don’t think you understand that.
On the post: Once Again, Section 230's Authors Feel The Need To Tell Everyone That Section 230 Is Not The Evil You Think It Is
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: So where are your bullet points outlining /
And thus you completely missed what I said.
Repealing §230 in its entirety would likely not be unconstitutional.
Modifying §230 might be unconstitutional, depending on how it’s done.
Making §230 protections conditional based upon whether or not the site is “neutral” would certainly be unconstitutional.
Furthermore, many of the protections guaranteed by §230 are also guaranteed by the Constitution and common law even without §230. §230 just makes it easier to fight these cases. So no, they aren’t “privileges”; they’re rights.
Basically, you were completely wrong on almost anything, which you might have realized had you bothered to read just the first paragraph of what I said, which clearly refutes what you just said.
On the post: NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Signs Law Banning Sale Of Confederate Flags That Will Absolutely Get Nullified
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: just goes to show you the fa
For what it’s worth, I don’t have any major problem with what you said, other than I don’t believe the far left is as loud or as prevalent as the far right in the US. Also, that most people here aren’t that far left, despite your impressions.
Yes, any race can be racist and any gender can be sexist. Some people don’t believe that to be true, and most of them I would classify as far left. There is the question of whether the two are equally bad, but I’m not entering that discussion.
On the post: NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Signs Law Banning Sale Of Confederate Flags That Will Absolutely Get Nullified
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I don’t recall any of us saying we identify as anything but cisgender males or cisgender females. That we support trans rights and acknowledge that gender is not black and white is another issue entirely.
Furthermore, that we recognize that blacks tend to have a different experience than whites and that racism is a real issue is not the same as being anti-white. We also don’t consider ourselves to be victims, and we’re pro-free speech.
Basically, none of what you said was remotely accurate.
On the post: Once Again, Section 230's Authors Feel The Need To Tell Everyone That Section 230 Is Not The Evil You Think It Is
Re: Re: Re: So where are your bullet points outlining / justifyi
Most countries also don’t place such a heavy emphasis on free speech. I’m not saying that repealing §230 is unconstitutional, per se. I’m saying that it’d be unconstitutional to regulate platforms based on their moderation decisions. It’s also unconstitutional to hold platforms responsible for speech they had no role in creating or developing.
Seriously, pointing out that other countries don’t have this or that law, or anything else about countries other than the US, has literally nothing to do with what is or isn’t constitutional in the US. Other countries don’t enter into it. Only the US Constitution, as interpreted by the US Supreme Court, has the final say over what is or isn’t constitutional in the US. Plus, it’s long been established that freedom of speech in the US is much broader than in other countries. Whether that’s good or bad or neutral is irrelevant.
Also, while repealing §230 entirely may not be unconstitutional, making its protections conditioned upon being a neutral platform is. Which is what we were discussing. (More on that later.)
Nope. The Constitution doesn’t care. Only the person who wrote the defamatory content is responsible for its defamatory nature. Period. That’s according to the Supreme Court, BTW.
And again, whether or not you think it’s good policy is irrelevant. That doesn’t really change the fact that platforms are protected this way by the Constitution.
And as for Mike specifically, it should be noted that he thinks that defamation law should only be a last resort and, even then, is often too counterproductive to be a good idea even when directed against the right target. Plus, your stated example is highly improbable to happen at all, let alone to Mike specifically. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’d realize that suing over the false speech would only cause it to spread even further thanks to the Streisand Effect, making it even less likely he’d change his mind in your scenario.
Again, we value free speech over the reputations of a few innocent people. That’s why defamation has such a high bar here. And again, §230 isn’t your only problem here; it’s also the 1A and basic jurisdiction issues. And, like I’ve said already, what happens in other countries has no bearing on whether it’s constitutional in the US.
Also, other countries don’t have such large search engines as Google or Bing or such large social media platforms as Facebook or Twitter. That’s because §230, the 1A, and the SPEECH Act protect online platforms from liability for third-party content and have more freedom to moderate or not as they wish here more than in any other country or under any other country’s laws. The SPEECH Act prevents international forum shopping, too.
Look, under the 1A, US laws at any level cannot recognize a separate harm for simply being the medium by which defamatory content gets found or posted. §230 doesn’t even matter that much there; it just shortcuts the process.
Again, the problem there isn’t §230. In fact, the problem that every revenge-porn law in the US has run into has never been §230 but the 1A. They’ve pretty much all been declared unconstitutional. §230 was never the problem there. Forget holding platforms and search engines accountable for revenge porn; there’s been difficulty even getting the original posters accountable for revenge porn because of the 1A.
Look, just face it. The problem you have isn’t §230; it’s the 1A. That’s the point I was making. Even without §230, what you want can’t happen under the Constitution.
But really, you’re talking about a completely separate aspect of §230. When I mentioned unconstitutionality, I was talking about the moderation aspect, which is not the same as the part that shields platforms from liablility for third-party content. Specifically, I was discussing the fact that it is unconstitutional for the government (Federal, state, or local) to force a privately owned platform to be neutral, let alone a neutral public forum. You’re talking about a different prong of §230—the prong that deals with liability for third-party content for which the ICS provider/user played no part in developing. While this is also protected by the Constitution and basic jurisdictional issues, it’s not the same thing as what was being discussed. Poking holes in my argument with regards to liability for third-party content is missing the point of my argument, which, again, is about moderation. (We were also discussing social media platforms, not search engines.)
It’s still worth pointing out that such protections still exist without §230 and are far from unprecedented (see, e.g., letters to the editor in newspapers), but it’s not really the same thing as what I was talking about.
Here’s what I was saying before:
The protections offered by §230 (in toto) are not unprecedented under US law, serve the public good, and are not limited to protecting only large corporations but also small corporations/NGOs and private individuals
These points have been explained—in detail—multiple times to this same person
This person needs to provide evidence of corporations abusing their rights over their platforms before I can accept their allegations as true.
Neutral public fora cannot exist. They are effectively impossible.
There are times when people want a nonneutral forum.
It is unconstitutional for the government to force a privately owned platform, no matter how large, to be a “neutral” forum, let alone a “neutral public forum”.
That’s it. Nothing about whether or not repealing §230 at all, let alone entirely, would be unconstitutional. Nothing about search engines in particular (a search engine isn’t a forum, after all). In fact, your entire post had little to do with anything I actually said.
Also, with the exception of §230 being good for the public, everything I said was demonstrable fact. And even with that one, the point was simply that a decent argument could be made in favor of that, and it was limited to whether it offers any benefit to the public, not whether or not those benefits outweigh any or all downsides to §230. That would be a separate discussion, and the OP didn’t ask for that. That part is still opinion, though. Everything else is factual, however.
We can still argue about whether or not §230 is good policy, and I’m willing to have that conversation in a different thread, but those policies are rooted in the US Constitution, and that doesn’t change based upon what other countries do or don’t do. It also doesn’t change based upon what you or I think the law should be. All it does is establish our respective opinions about the protections offered by §230 (which are also protected under other areas of US law, including the US Constitution). §230 is just a shortcut to keep websites running smoothly. After all, websites have a bigger issue with the law of big numbers.
On the post: LAPD Officers Faked Reports, Added Innocent People To Its Gang Database
Spelling errors
Also, I just noticed this, but I should mention that those ellipses (…) are in the original quote. I just copy/pasted it verbatim. You put ellipses in a lot of weird spots:
And those are just weird places for ellipses. I didn’t even get into the bizarre use of hyphens (-), slashes (/), other punctuation, and spaces throughout. And, again, all punctuation and spelling is as in the original. You even seemed to reference this yourself in the very next comment by using the name “Spellin Errers”. You explained it as trying to get around the filters. So there’s your answer: you used it first to get around the filters, then I just copied it.
On the post: Apparently Trump Refuses To Allow The Government To Do Anything At All Until The Open Internet Is Destroyed
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I believe the correct term is “clickwrap”.
On the post: Apparently Trump Refuses To Allow The Government To Do Anything At All Until The Open Internet Is Destroyed
Re: 230 revoking doesn't matter
sigh How many times do we have to tell you people? Private companies, by definition, cannot infringe on anyone’s free speech unless they are engaging in one of the few functions traditionally reserved exclusively to the government, which social media companies do not. Running a forum is not something reserved to the government.
Furthermore, by definition, it’s not censorship if it’s not done with or by the government or you can say the exact same thing somewhere else. Just go to Parler or 8kun or something. Twitter and/or Facebook removing your speech from their platform(s) or banning you from their platform(s) for your speech on their platform(s) is no more censorship than a bar kicking someone out for being too loud or disruptive, even if only through speech. Social media companies have every right to do what they’re doing. If you don’t like it, go to another platform or make your own. You’re not being censored. You’re being told, “We don’t do that here,” and they’re showing you the door.
Okay, this is even more ridiculous. It’s not censorship if the speech is still there and the government isn’t punishing you for it. Hidden speech is absolutely not censored speech. Anyone can view hidden comments on this site with a single click/tap. It’s not that hard.
Additionally, it’s the community that decides which comments get hidden, not the people running the site.
And again, even if those comments were being removed (which they indisputably are not), that’s still not censorship. It’s just the people who go to this site telling you that your contributions aren’t welcome here. You can always take your ball and go somewhere else.
And it gets even more ridiculous. Look, if you can still see the speech, and the government isn’t punishing you for it, it makes no sense whatsoever to call it censorship. Adding a note contradicting what you say isn’t censorship. Adding a note saying that what you’re saying is disputed isn’t censorship either. And, of course, one or two companies removing your speech from their platforms in a world where more than two platforms exist isn’t censorship either.
Again, that’s still not censorship. The NYP site is still up, so you can view their content there. They’re clearly not being censored. As for the others, again, there are other places they can put their speech. There is no law or right that says you have to be able to put your speech on Facebook or Twitter specifically, nor that you’re owed a large platform in general. Nor could there be under the 1A.
Just because some internet platforms are closed to you doesn’t mean the internet itself is closed to you. And if moderation is the issue for you, then §230 isn’t your problem; the 1A is.
On the post: Apparently Trump Refuses To Allow The Government To Do Anything At All Until The Open Internet Is Destroyed
Re: remove the crap and keep it about Americans
You’re confusing the NDAA (which Trump vetoed because it didn’t remove §230) and the omnibus COVID/spending bill (which Trump didn’t seem to understand was two separate bills passed as one). And for the record, we had those clauses in previous spending bills, too, which Trump did not veto. That happens every year.
On the post: Content Moderation Case Study: Using Copyright To Take Down A Transformative Criticism Video (2019)
Re: Re: Re: Re: So which is it, oh case-history guru? Not contes
Because you refuse to listen. Just wait awhile until Masnick or whoever has a chance to possibly clear it. Spamming the message is roughly like pressing the elevator button over and over again. You only struggle with the quirks because you refuse to change the basic problems.
On the post: 'Law And Order' President Huddles With His Enablers, Considers Enacting Martial Law To Overturn His Election Loss
Re: Law and Order
There is no law that allows for a do-over of an election this long after the fact. If the election is found to have been fraudulent, then the head of the House of Representatives may become President, but Trump will not. What you are suggesting would be outside the law.
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Re: The Chilling Effect
Do you have any data to back that up?
On the post: Apparently Trump Refuses To Allow The Government To Do Anything At All Until The Open Internet Is Destroyed
Re: Re: Dorsey points up "in good faith"!
The portion of §230 he was quoting is §230(c)(2), which doesn’t contain the words “good faith”. You’re thinking about §230(c)(1), which is about good faith efforts to remove objectionable content. §230(c)(2) is about providing users with tools to remove or exclude objectionable content, and it doesn’t specify good faith at all. That was actually specifically pointed out in a court opinion. §230(c)(1) is the only clause that is dependent upon good faith. Everything else in §230, including §230(c)(2), does not.
On the post: Apparently Trump Refuses To Allow The Government To Do Anything At All Until The Open Internet Is Destroyed
Re: WAAAH!!!
I mean, he kinda does that for us.
I’m not exactly for more military spending, but 1) you’re saying the entire military—including all purely defensive programs—should shut down, 2) like it or not, military-spending bills are considered must-pass bills in Congress and always have been, and 3) what we’re opposing is trying to link §230 to military spending, which makes no sense. The two things should pass or fail on their own.
§230 immunity over hosting and moderating third-party content is 1) not exclusive to Big Tech, 2) not “censorship immunity”, 3) is a good thing, and 4) is nothing like what happens in China.
See my second response, but more importantly, the military spending bill is separate from the bill that would stimulate the economy. Supporting one doesn’t mean or even imply being against the other. Again, they each rise or fall on their own, as they should.
No one says that COVID is his fault. What we claim is that Trump failed to do much of anything to effectively mitigate its spread so its impact on public health and the economy would be lessened. He took a bad situation and actively made it worse. Therefore, the extent of COVID’s impact on the US is his fault.
On the post: Apparently Trump Refuses To Allow The Government To Do Anything At All Until The Open Internet Is Destroyed
Re: Re:
WTF?
Seriously, can someone call the wambulance on this guy?
On the post: Apparently Trump Refuses To Allow The Government To Do Anything At All Until The Open Internet Is Destroyed
Re: Re: WAAAH!!!
It’s not censorship (just go somewhere else), and a private corporation cannot infringe on anyone’s 1st Amendment rights by definition (only the government can do that).
On the post: Once Again, Section 230's Authors Feel The Need To Tell Everyone That Section 230 Is Not The Evil You Think It Is
Re: Re: So where are your bullet points outlining / justifying?
They don’t. That has never been claimed. Same goes for the old platforms. There is no legal right to a specific platform, and there never has been.
Well, the government can’t force you off a platform, but the point is that they can’t force a platform to allow you, either. That said, §230 makes it easier for platforms to allow people on without prior vetting or anything by removing disincentives.
So what?
Every right is “granted”. That doesn’t change anything. The fact is that corporations have those rights, and to remove them would require massive changes in the law that would have undesired side-effects. Furthermore, with only a few exceptions inapplicable here, “rights” only restrict the government, not private individuals or corporations. Also, the rights in question here are not just for a few large corporations; they apply to small corporations, NGOs, and private individuals, too. That we hold that they also apply equally to large corporations is just being consistent. The law simply doesn’t distinguish between them when it comes to legal rights.
Nope. Each corporation only controls the platform(s) that they themself owns. New or old platform, it’s all the same. The same goes for private individuals who host platforms. Again, there is no distinction here between new and old platforms or private corporations and private individuals. Plus, it’s a constitutional right. Being for or against it doesn’t really matter unless you want to amend the Constitution.
Furthermore, you clearly only read the §230 pieces. Try reading the stuff on telecom and copyright. They take a far more anti-corporatist stance there.
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