FCC Chairman Ajit Pai bringing down hammer on social media companies after censorship rampage

The same thing happened on a church website once upon a time. The gay community took over the site saying the Christians had no choice but to accept their views, demands and presence because they were supposed to love their neighbour. There were few Christians among them. They were not content with mere acceptance but began to demand conversion of the rest to playing by their rules. The end result was simple. The site was shut down. Rather than start thri own site the offenders complained their platform which belonged to another had been removed. This is the culture of today and is presently trying to break down society to build it over in their own image as we are seeing on the streets of the world lately. I highly doubt the giant will let the shepherd overstep their bounds much further.

Skewpoint said:

Cool. Is what Christian Forums doing unconstitutional?

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I think that is what this entire FCC discussion aims to find out... isn't it?

timothyu said:

The same thing happened on a church website once upon a time. The gay community took over the site saying the Christians had no choice but to accept their views, demands and presence because they were supposed to love their neighbour. They were not content with mere acceptance but began to demand conversion of the rest to playing by their rules. The end result was simple. The site was shut down.

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That is entirely different beast. If forums so chose to moderate where speech can be spoken it is all good in my book. Individuals can have an open place to speak, even if it is not site wide, but they do not reserve the right to remain uncontested by others' speech/opinion. Just my point of view.

Even CF giving both Dems and Reps a safe zone is cool. That is equal opportunity.

LostMarbels said:

I think that is what this entire FCC discussion aims to find out... isn't it?

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Possibly. If you were ruling on the topic, would you deem CF's rule as unconstitutional?

Skewpoint said:

Possibly. If you were ruling on the topic, would you deem CF's rule as unconstitutional?

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I am not answering that question.

LostMarbels said:

I am not answering that question.

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Why not?

timothyu said:

One would assume that the rules couldn't conflict with the constitution. They may be able to pull this crap off in other countries but because this is based on election related or American issues it must follow the rules of country first. Keep up the taking away of people's freedoms over the last 20 years and soon the Republic will be gone. This of course will immensely please media of the world wide web because globalism is their way of life.

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The Constitution doesn't apply to private actors, only the government.

Skewpoint said:

Why not?

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Freedom to not speak at all?

Wow! I'll just go ahead and hold my breath waiting for all the small government conservatives to jump on this obvious overreach.




Any minute now





Any minute




Any

Arcangl86 said:

The Constitution doesn't apply to private actors, only the government.

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Then your opinion here is moot as you have no right to contradict me.

timothyu said:

Then your opinion here is moot as you have no right to contradict me.

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What? That makes no sense.

I should probably link to what section 230 is about: Section 230 - Wikipedia

There are two kinds of censorship: There is censorship where a site says “I do not want this kind of site on this forum”. As a rule of thumb, privately owned companies are allowed to determine what kinds of postings are and are not are allowed on their site. This is usually a good thing: Sites with no moderation quickly devolve in to endless pointless arguments or, these days, get flooded with spam. To take a position that an online forum is not allowed to “moderate” content because it’s “censorship” means that one believes, as a matter of principle, that a forum should do nothing as it gets overrun with spam promotions for all kinds of dubious and undesired products.

Then there is government censorship. There actually is content which the government, even the US government, doesn’t allow a site to have: Child inappropriate contentography, for example. What section 230 does is make a web site a “common carrier”, if you will. If someone posts illegal material on this website, without section 230, even if the moderators made a good faith effort to remove the content as soon as they are made aware of it, the website would still be potentially held liable for the content because it was posted here.

timothyu said:

One would assume that the rules couldn't conflict with the constitution. They may be able to pull this crap off in other countries but because this is based on election related or American issues it must follow the rules of country first. Keep up the taking away of people's freedoms over the last 20 years and soon the Republic will be gone. This of course will immensely please media of the world wide web because globalism is their way of life.

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They can't conflict with the Constitution, as the first amendment applies to what the government can and can not do.

LostMarbels said:

I think that is what this entire FCC discussion aims to find out... isn't it?

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No, the FCC interprets laws pertaining to broadcasters and platforms as pertains to laws written by congress.

There is specifically nothing in the Constitution that directly limits what private corporations are allowed to do.

samiam said:

If someone posts illegal material on this website, without section 230, even if the moderators made a good faith effort to remove the content as soon as they are made aware of it, the website would still be potentially held liable for the content because it was posted here.

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Which would, ironically, lead to more censorship. If you think they censor too much speech now, wait until they could be held legally responsible for anything their users post.

variant said:

No, the FCC interprets laws pertaining to broadcasters and platforms as pertains to laws written by congress.

There is specifically nothing in the Constitution that directly limits what private corporations are allowed to do.

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I think the issue begins with completely blacklisting speech around the globe while simultaneously having the only platforms to be utilized. Huge multibillion conglomerates own everything. They choke out all other platforms. Then they also ban or restrict smaller platforms that do not follow their decree. Or even get them shut down. Refuse them monetization, because they own all those companies as well. Even stonewall them in the media, because they also own them....

Arcangl86 said:

What? That makes no sense.

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You said it. You have no right to free speech ( unless of course you are hanging out here while working for the government and see yourself as a representative)

variant said:

They can't conflict with the Constitution, as the first amendment applies to what the government can and can not do.

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I am referring to Silicone Valley

lasthero said:

If you think they censor too much speech now, wait until they could be held legally responsible for anything their users post.

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They've already used that excuse to delete any contrary opinion to the left.

timothyu said:

You said it. You have no right to free speech ( unless of course you are hanging out here while working for the government and see yourself as a representative)

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No, I did not say that. I have a right to free speech in the sense that the government cannot punish me for my speech or otherwise restrict it. But as CF is a private actor, you are right in that I have no "right" to be here and they can ban me if they choose to do so.