Removal of liabilty protection over 'censoring'

Mountainmanbob

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Trump signs social media executive order that calls for removal of liability protections over 'censoring'

Flanked by Attorney General Bill Barr, President Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office on Thursday that calls for new regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) to remove statutory liability protections and cut federal funding for tech companies that engage in censorship and political conduct.

The president's order came just two days after Twitter took the unprecedented step of slapping a "misleading" warning label on two of Trump's tweets concerning the fraud risks of nationwide mail-in balloting. The move immediately backfired: Experts disputed that Trump's tweet was actually misleading, in part because mail-in balloting has been linked to ongoing fraud; Twitter's fact-check itself contained false statements; and Twitter failed to apply the standard of review to other users.
 

Hank77

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Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship | The White House

Section
1. Policy. Free speech is the bedrock of American democracy. Our Founding Fathers protected this sacred right with the First Amendment to the Constitution. The freedom to express and debate ideas is the foundation for all of our rights as a free people.

In a country that has long cherished the freedom of expression, we cannot allow a limited number of online platforms to hand pick the speech that Americans may access and convey on the internet.
[no speech was deleted, Americans still have access]
...
This practice is fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic. When large, powerful social media companies censor opinions with which they disagree, they exercise a dangerous power.

(verb: censor; examine (a book, movie, etc.) officially and suppress unacceptable parts of it.) [nothing was censored from Trump's tweet]
 
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hedrick

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Right. Putting a small note on inaccurate statements isn't censorship.

However I'm not sure what Twitter is doing makes sense. Generally people believe the kind of statements Trump makes because they want to, not because they lack information. There's been some research done on opinions about vaccines. When people have decided to reject reliable information, trying to push more information at them just hardens their position. I'd bet the same thing is true of Trump's Twitters. Anyone who wants to know the truth already knows they're unreliable. The rest will just be made at Twitter.
 
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Sparagmos

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Trump signs social media executive order that calls for removal of liability protections over 'censoring'

Flanked by Attorney General Bill Barr, President Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office on Thursday that calls for new regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) to remove statutory liability protections and cut federal funding for tech companies that engage in censorship and political conduct.

The president's order came just two days after Twitter took the unprecedented step of slapping a "misleading" warning label on two of Trump's tweets concerning the fraud risks of nationwide mail-in balloting. The move immediately backfired: Experts disputed that Trump's tweet was actually misleading, in part because mail-in balloting has been linked to ongoing fraud; Twitter's fact-check itself contained false statements; and Twitter failed to apply the standard of review to other users.
Somebody’s going off his rocker. This is so pathetic. He would have no problem if twitter noted that CNN had tweeted out something misleading, he would praise twitter for it.
 
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dqhall

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Trump signs social media executive order that calls for removal of liability protections over 'censoring'

Flanked by Attorney General Bill Barr, President Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office on Thursday that calls for new regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) to remove statutory liability protections and cut federal funding for tech companies that engage in censorship and political conduct.

The president's order came just two days after Twitter took the unprecedented step of slapping a "misleading" warning label on two of Trump's tweets concerning the fraud risks of nationwide mail-in balloting. The move immediately backfired: Experts disputed that Trump's tweet was actually misleading, in part because mail-in balloting has been linked to ongoing fraud; Twitter's fact-check itself contained false statements; and Twitter failed to apply the standard of review to other users.
Twitter commented about Trump’s fake news. Trump attempts to censor them. The First Amendment stated, “Freedom of the press,” and “Freedom of speech.” Voting by absentee ballot has been approved since the 19th century. The right to vote is a cornerstone of democracy. Freedom must oppose tyranny.
 
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hedrick

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There's a legal issue. Twitter is not responsible for things their users post. But under the law that's only true if they don't exercize editorial control. Trump is going to claim that labelling things as false is editorial control.

The problem is that we know foreign agencies are using Facebook and Twitter to spread propaganda, much of it false. It would be best to at least label that, if not remove it. But if that's editorial control (and it's reasonable to say that it is), it's questionable whether they can actually do that.

In my opinion we'd all be better off if they did label known falsehoods, but I'm just not sure how that can work. In the case of Trump I don't think it will accomplish anything, because his readers already know and don't care. But some other things may be less obvious to readers. And if they do it at all, they'll have to do it consistently across all postings, including Trump's. Probably we need legal changes, but we won't get that as long as Republicans are in control, since they'll be hit worse by fact-checking (though there will certainly be labels on Democratic sources as well).
 
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hedrick

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One compromise is to label the source of postings. However it’s probably not practical to trace all foreign propaganda to its source. Fact checking is probably more practical, but raises legal issues. Perhaps users could opt in to fact checking? Maybe we could even have multiple fact checkers. People who like alternative facts could opt for Fox fact checking. While they would give Trump a pass, they might still be willing to label at least some of our enemies’ propaganda.
 
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Radagast

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There's a legal issue. Twitter is not responsible for things their users post. But under the law that's only true if they don't exercize editorial control. Trump is going to claim that labelling things as false is editorial control.

Exactly.

The problem is that we know foreign agencies are using Facebook and Twitter to spread propaganda, much of it false. It would be best to at least label that, if not remove it.

It might be a different story if politically neutral fact-checking was being done. But that's hard to deliver.

There are some browser plugins that display the country of origin of a web page. Something like that for social media might be interesting, as you say.
 
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The Barbarian

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Hmm... if Trump gets his way, there goes Twitter, Facebook, Brietbart, WND, Daily Stormer... (lots of other platforms used by right-wing troll farms).

I don't think he's thought this out very well. But the white nationalists out there can breathe easy; what he's proposing to do is blatantly against the Constitution. My guess is that someone told him that it would be popular with the base, who don't think things through much, either.
 
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