Why Is The Washington Post Publishing Blatantly False Propaganda About Section 230?
from the the-view-from-nowhere dept
One of the big points we keep making about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is that we totally get it when grandstanding politicians or online trolls misrepresent the law. But the media should not be complicit in pumping blatantly false statements. While I may disagree with them personally, there are intellectually honest arguments for why Section 230 should be amended or changed. I’m happy to debate those arguments. What’s ridiculous, however, is when the arguments are based on a completely false reading of the law. And no upstanding news organization should allow blatant misinformation like that. However, with all the misguided screaming about “liberal bias” in the media, newspapers like the Washington Post and the NY Times seem to feel like they need to publish blatant disinformation, to avoid having trolls and idiots accuse them of bias.
Even so, the Washington Post’s decision to publish this op-ed by Charlie Kirk attacking Section 230 may be the worst we’ve seen. It is so full of factually false information, misleading spin, and just downright disinformation that no respectable publication should have allowed it to be published. And yet, there it is in the Washington Post — one of the major news organizations that Donald Trump likes to declare “fake news.” If you’re unaware of Kirk, he’s a vocal Trump supporter, who runs an organization called Turning Point USA that appears to specialize in playing the victim in all sorts of ridiculous conspiracies… all while (hypocritically) arguing that his political opponents (“the libs”) are always acting as victims and are “training a generation of victims who are being trained to be offended by something.” And yet, it seems that it’s really Kirk who is always offended.
This Washington Post op-ed is just one example. Here, Kirk is playing the victim of (as of yet, still unproven) anti-conservative bias on social media.
By now, most conservatives are convinced that our voices are being shadow-banned, throttled, muted and outright censored online. In fact, amid protestations by groups including the Internet Association, which claims Facebook, Google and Twitter are bias free, it?s an open fact that Big Tech is run predominantly by those on the ideological left. Facebook?s founder Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter?s chief executive Jack Dorsey even admitted this before Congress, and footage of Google?s leadership consoling one another after President Trump?s victory in 2016 indicates the same is true for them.
Many on the right have complained loudly and often of anti-conservative bias online. Unfortunately, all too often this is where our efforts stop. Once we?re ignored or dismissed long enough, conservatives seem to just shrug our collective shoulders and accept defeat. It?s this type of passivity that has allowed progressives to dominate film and television, universities and large swaths of the mainstream news media. How did they accomplish that? By fighting tooth and nail for what they believe in every vertical.
While it is true that many people who work in the big internet companies probably lean towards the Democratic side of the aisle (though not nearly as far as some make it out to be), that’s different than proving that they have put in place policies that are biased against “conservatives” (and I use that term loosely). Again, nearly every example that people trot out actually involves trolling, harassment, actual Nazis or other violations of terms of service. And while these companies sometimes make mistakes, they seem to do so pretty much across the board — which is the very nature of moderating so much content.
Separately, many of the links in Kirk’s opening above don’t actually say what he pretends they say. Professor Matthew Boedy went through the above links and put together a great Twitter thread unpacking how he misrespresents nearly everything:
This is not the same as Kirk's claim. While Pew also found 85% of that same group believes it is likely "social media companies intentionally censor political viewpoints that those companies find objectionable," that is not specific to just conservative tweets. 4/
— Matthew Boedy (@MatthewBoedy) July 11, 2019
"Whether or not monopolies are a bad thing is for the consumer and aspiring competitors to decide." Kirk inaccurately makes it seem the article agrees with him that these companies "are unfairly stifling competition." It doesn't say that. 12/
— Matthew Boedy (@MatthewBoedy) July 11, 2019
The thread is a lot longer and covers many more examples. Either way, Charlie needs to play the victim, and he’s decided that the culprit is Section 230. Because he either doesn’t understand Section 230, or is deliberately misrepresenting it.
The second obstacle to the free market is Big Tech?s exploitation of preexisting laws, namely Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that was passed by Congress in the ’90s. Social media companies have leveraged Section 230 to great effect, and astounding profits, by claiming they are platforms ? not publishers ? thereby avoiding under the law billions of dollars in potential copyright infringement and libel lawsuits. YouTube, for example, advertises itself as an open platform ?committed to fostering a community where everyone?s voice can be heard.? Facebook and Twitter make similar claims. Let?s be clear, when these companies censor or suppress conservative content, they are behaving as publishers, and they should be held legally responsible for the all the content they publish. If they want to continue hiding behind Section 230 and avoid legal and financial calamity, they must reform.
And here’s where an editor totally should have stepped in, because almost all of this is wrong or gibberish. First off, even a cursory glance at the text of CDA 230 shows that it excludes intellectual property, such as copyright. Section (e)(2) literally says: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit or expand any law pertaining to intellectual property.” So what the fuck is Kirk talking about when he says that they used this law to avoid “billions of dollars in potential copyright infringement… lawsuits.” The answer is that Kirk has no idea what he’s talking about, and now seems to be repeating propaganda pushed out by “liberal” Hollywood.
As for it allowing them to avoid “libel lawsuits,” well, yes. But that’s because Section 230 is about properly applying liability to those who make the statements. We don’t blame AT&T when someone uses a phone to make a bomb threat. We don’t blame Ford when someone gets into a car accident. And we don’t blame Facebook when someone posts defamatory content. It’s kind of straightforward.
Still, where it’s really egregious is that Kirk continues to push the total myth that Section 230 allows companies to hide if they just claim they’re a “platform” rather than “a publisher.” That’s not how the law works at all. It doesn’t make any such distinction.
And here’s the really crazy thing: if Kirk got his “wish” and actually got rid of CDA 230 and made internet companies liable, his own content would likely be at the top of the chopping block. Remember, one of Kirk’s claims to fame was when he published a “Professor Watchlist” calling out allegedly “left-leaning academics” who he feels discriminate against conservatives. He can do that because that’s 1st Amendment protected speech (opinion). But if 230 is amended to require “neutrality,” well, such a list is anything but neutral. Furthermore, the risk of liability of hosting such a list would be high. Even though I’d argue that it’s protected speech, you can bet that someone might find some of the claims on the list defamatory — and thus there would be strong pressure for sites to pull it down to avoid liability.
As radio host Dennis Prager often says, if an airline permitted only those passengers holding the New York Times to board but then denied Wall Street Journal readers, we would all rightly call this discrimination and demand the airline change its policy.
This is dumb for a huge number of reasons. First of all, I don’t think we’d all rightly call it discrimination. We’d call it a business decision. Probably a bad one. Which is why no airline would ever do such a thing. Second, where exactly is the social media platform that is banning people for subscribing to the WSJ, but not the NYT? It doesn’t exist. This is such a hyperbolic, misleading example. People are being banned for harassment and trolling. Not for holding conservative viewpoints. No one’s being kicked off of platforms for calling for lower taxes, less government, or other traditionally “conservative” ideas.
In the same way, conservatives cannot win the battle of ideas if we?re marginalized or removed from mainstream culture and mainstream platforms.
This, also, is laughable. Remember, “right wing” media dominates both radio and cable television. I don’t see Kirk demanding that Fox News host more liberal viewpoints to balance out Hannity. And, once again, even in the supposedly “liberal” Washington Post, he’s allowed to post this blatantly false nonsense.
Again, the Washington Post should absolutely be willing to post different points of view, including those of Kirk and his allies. But they shouldn’t allow him to blatantly spread disinformation about what the law says and what it does. That’s just… as Kirk would say, “fake news.”
Filed Under: anti-conservative bias, bias, cda 230, charlie kirk, fake news, op-ed, platform, publisher, section 230
Companies: washington post
Comments on “Why Is The Washington Post Publishing Blatantly False Propaganda About Section 230?”
When will they get it?
Some news organizations still have not figured out the difference between sharing a different point of view and an outright lie. It will probably take a generation before media organizations get over the idea that they are there to simply repeat the lies from two different partisans.
Re: Taking a generation
It took a generation after Hearst and Pulitzer to get past the notion that the news could be something other than tabloid journalism. So yeah.
The thing is, the instant access to curated news that is provided by the internet comes with the risk of being fed propaganda that the reader wants to hear or believe. Newsreading should be interpreted as a hygienic process of searching for multiple interpretations of the same story to extract the known facts from the interpretations. (X said Y in Z firefight to open mic T down at Q station), and from there, we each make our own opinion, rather than accepting what someone else tells us to think.
Joining a cult is easy. Thinking for ourselves takes practice.
Re: When will they get it?
What’s the old saw about how if someone says it’s raining and someone else says it isn’t, a journalist’s job isn’t to report both sides, it’s to look out the window?
Re: Re: When will they get it?
Now if they would actually start doing that rather than just parroting whatever anyone says, that’d be great…
YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Amendment.
THAT’S the argument, sonny. You always twist and elide to show only the good side of The Public benefitting (from our own laws!) without ever mentioning that you wish to empower corporations: Section 230 has an explicit UN-Constitutional clause which you claim gives corporations arbitrary power to suppress even The Public’s constitutionally acceptable speech.
YOU are just flat lying that you’re for The Public. You are for the corporations controlling ALL speech on platforms.
Now, yes, they’re private corporations, but the only power that have in the area is government-conferred — which makes it verge on actual government censorship, and corporations are ready to LEAP over that verge.
Otherwise they’d be as print publishers, subject to traditional rules. You / they keep claiming immunity AND to retain FULL editorial control. That’s not right by the bulk of American law and principles, which you ALWAYS omit, simply pretend Section 230 is the whole law.
Section 230 is a deal in which corporations are to be shielded for hosting, NOT outright grant of total immunity and power to censor. It cannot be as that’s repugnant to the Constitution, in direct conflict by 230’s very words.
By short logical extension of YOUR corporatist notions, ISPs don’t have to be neutral carriers, either, but through "association" and the "private company" notions, can control ALL access, snoop on opinions and suppress those that don’t like. I’m sure you’d agree that’s simply not right with ISPs, but you still do want "platforms" to have that power!
Platforms are to be neutral hosts, "electronic printers" rather than editors and publishers.
Section 230 is made to give The Public EASY to use outlets, NOT to empower corporations to control The Public’s speech.
Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Amendment.
As usual, nearly everything you publish is false.
However, I’ll just call out this, because it’s phenomenally backwards:
Platforms are to be neutral hosts, "electronic printers" rather than editors and publishers.
Section 230 is made to give The Public EASY to use outlets, NOT to empower corporations to control The Public’s speech.
This is literally the opposite of the intent behind CDA 230, which was originally written by Republican Chris Cox as a way to encourage more moderation — in particular a desire for internet websites to further moderate content to create "family friendly" spaces online.
Your historical revisionism is not just incorrect, it’s completely backwards.
Re: Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Amendm
You state opinion as if fact. Even if true, that doesn’t matter if the RESULT NOW is to stifle political views. — We The People aren’t forever subject to bad laws! Again, by your view, Dred Scott should have forever settled the slavery question.
You take no notice at all of the body of law, just focus on ONE statute and claim it gives corporations total arbitrary immunity without ANY drawback.
See my post below for YOUR credibility, sonny.
Re: Re: Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Am
It’s hard to call it an opinion when the actual author of the bill was the one who originally stated that was his intent in writing the bill.
Brushing aside your unwilling acceptance of it being true, I have yet to see one political view stifled? Can you show me some examples as all I see are people being kicked off of platforms for being complete assholes.
And the funny thing is, without section 230, sites like this will close their comments section to avoid the liability and you will be left with no place to spew your drivel. What you are advocating for is something that will ultimately silence you!
Re: Re: Re:2 YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over Firs
Wrong. We somehow got by before teh internets.
What’s different now, THE RESULT, is that anyone’s opinion can be arbitrarily suppressed.
You just like the current because believe YOUR opinions are in favor, but corporations are amoral. Tomorrow they may — almost certainly will — turn "conservative" or some other authoritarian and you’ve given up all your philosophical basis to oppose.
What you advocate is that a handful of boy billionaires effectively control the entire US so that ONLY their opinions are allowed.
Re: Re: Re:3
On a single platform, yes. You mistake being silenced on Twitter with being silence everywhere on the Internet. You look like a fool in doing so.
You advocate for a handful of boy billionaires being able to silence someone else’s legally protected speech via copyright. What’s the difference?
Re: Re: Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Am
Mike in the quote you use presents the well documented facts of the history of SEC 230, preserved in the public record, including the congressional debate around the addition of the amendment that became SEC 230 to the CDA. It is not opinion.
You are moving the goal posts. You started arguing about what the law was "made to" do. Now you are arguing what the law needs to be because of its results. Given that Mike noted that concerns about the effects of the law could be debated, you had to score points by starting at a lie and then claim you were actually talking about its effects all along. You are not arguing in good faith.
Re: Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Amendm
NON-Corporate-Funded Public Interest Technologist
"Privately owned" is not necessarily solely private control.
Directly as to whether statute authorizing "platforms" (the buzzword will do here) and yet authorizes them to total arbitrary editorial control:
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/16-4155/16-4155-2018-02-09.html
And:
The policy Congress established when passing the CDA was to ensure "a forum for a true diversity of political discourse." 47 U.S.C. S: 230(a)(3).
Masnick lures in by saying that Section 230 is to promote "free speech" then asserts that corporations get to CONTROL all access. — That’s my summary. Here are his own words:
"And, I think it’s fairly important to state that these platforms have their own First Amendment rights, which allow them to deny service to anyone."
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170825/01300738081/nazis-internet-policing-content-free-speech.shtml
No hedges, just FLAT statement, which is RARE for Masnick. He really does mean exactly arbitrary and total control of The Public’s outlets that Section 230 was expressly made to create so we could Publish without interference!
Re: Re: Re:
230 was enacted to ensure platforms had a right to moderate content without facing legal liability for doing so. The lawmaker who wrote the bill said so. Your saying it was made to provide platforms for speech is you spouting bullshit.
Incidentally, you have yet to provide a citation for any law, statute, or court ruling that says a privately-owned platform/interactive service must allow all legally protected speech. I wonder why that is. ????
Oh, and one more thing: “Private” is not the same as “privately owned”, and Twitter, Facebook, etc. are not “public access channels”.
Re: Re: Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Am
I knew your "I’m out" comment was just pure bullshit!! Just like everything else you say!
Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Amendment.
Cite the law that says any corporation has to publish any constitutionally protected speech submitted to them.
All freedom of speech guarantees is that you can publish your speech at your own expense. As that is not difficult on the Internet, as services offering free blogging accounts exist. What is more difficult is attracting an audience. If you cannot be bothered to set up your own blog, or fail to attract an audience, that is your problem, and forcing other to publish your speech because that is where the audience is is not a desirable solution, especially if the result is likely to be one of driving an audience away from a platform because of abusive speech and behaviour.
Re: Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Amendm
Corporations are NOT the publishers of what’s on "platforms". That’s what 230 frees them from, more or less rightly (they still must monitor for illegal content).
They’re otherwise to be mere neutral hosts.
Wrong premise. Try again.
Re: Re: Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Am
Oh look, you’re still just flat-out lying.
Re: Re: Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Am
What specific law requires them to remain neutral hosts?
Re: Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Amendm
Wrong. We somehow got by before teh internets.
What’s different now, THE RESULT, is that anyone’s opinion can be arbitrarily suppressed.
You just like the current because believe YOUR opinions are in favor, but corporations are amoral. Tomorrow they may — almost certainly will — turn "conservative" or some other authoritarian and you’ve given up all your philosophical basis to oppose.
What you advocate is that a handful of boy billionaires effectively control the entire US so that ONLY their opinions are allowed.
Re: Re: Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Am
Again my browser sessions stop working, though the exact text, which I’ve saved, gets through after re-start. Just coincidence for a dozen times now, eh?
Re: Re: Re:2 YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over Firs
No coincidence. Your computer is as broken as you are.
Re: Re: Re:3
Not physically possible, it would have exploded, melted down, or done both were that the case.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
You’re the only person I’ve ever met who complained that the spam filters were working as intended.
Re: Re: Re:2 YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over Firs
You really should invest in a decent virus / malware scanner for your computer. I would hate to see how badly compromised it is by now.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well that’s a pretty dumb statement to make. No one is saying we didn’t. Besides that, we wouldn’t even be talking about this "before teh internets", BECAUSE it’s all happening on the internet.
For some reason, people get all confused and think that because it’s "on a computer" or "on the internet" that it’s somehow different than IRL, when it’s really not. Social media platforms are no different than restaurants, cafes, meeting rooms, or conference centers.
I have yet to see a case where someone who was banned from one or more social media sites was not able to subsequently join a different social media site, start their own, start a free blog, or find some other way to speak online. Saying their speech was suppressed entirely when it very obviously wasn’t is just disingenuous.
Well no, not actually. The First Amendment and Section 230 says that’s the law of the land, in favor or not. And I dare you to look at all the calls politicians are making to do away with Section 230 and say our view is still "in favor". Lol.
So? Your point is? Being morally neutral is not necessarily a bad thing.
Nice of you to finally admit that conservatives aren’t interested in freedom of speech and are instead trying to impose an authoritarian censorship regime on individuals and private companies.
Well Trump was elected President of the US and he is trying to shut down any speech that disagrees with him so that statement is actually true. Oh did you mean Mark Zuckerburg, Sundar Pichai, and whoever owns/runs Twitter? Last time I checked they weren’t elected government officials and the only thing they control is what happens on their specific platforms, not the country or internet at large.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
"Social media platforms are no different than restaurants, cafes, meeting rooms, or conference centers."
Well, they are, but only because your physical location doesn’t matter in order to meet with people there, and that some people show their raging asshole side easier when not faced with physical consequences.
Apart from that, there’s not much difference, and that should include the ability to kick disruptive patrons out of the room.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Here’s an interesting thought experiment: if there was such a case… how would you know about it?
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
"Here’s an interesting thought experiment: if there was such a case… how would you know about it?’
Through the many ways and millions of websites that are available to everybody outside of the handful of sites these people are bitching about.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Well, as PaulT said, there’s this thing called the internet and it would likely be reported on and posted online, at which point I would know about it.
But, my bigger point was that it’s near impossible for there to actually be any cases of this because of the requirements that would have to be met in order for it to happen. Let’s consider:
Here’s the end scenario you and others are proposing: a user of a social media platform is banned and is therefore prevented from speaking online in any way shape or form. He is permanently excluded from all online discussions and speech. (We’ll ignore for the moment the fact that he would still have many OFFLINE speech avenues available to him.)
In order for this person to not be able to speak online in this scenario requires that the following things MUST be true:
(For the sake of argument, let’s say that for some reason point 2 is just so far beyond reason as to be insane. The following would then also need to be true.)
The likelihood of all of the above being true and someone being actively prevented from having ANY outlet online in which to speak is about as likely as a bunch of monkeys cobbling together a functioning spaceship and flying to the moon.
Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Amendment.
Your President was for free exchange so much he blocked his critics.
Twitter did a better job for free speech allowing him then he did anyone who ever disagreed with him in his life.
Techdirt still allows you to post even though it’s just spam and bad faith. I consider them better for democracy.
Re: YOUR view is 230 empowers corporations over First Amendment.
So by your logic if I have a host box in my residence which has say a blogging app running I have to let you use it? Buzz off that nonsense, my physical host box is my property, not yours. Wake me up when you understand property rights then get back to me.
It does you no credit when you disingenuously treat "traditionally conservative ideas" as meaning exactly the same thing as "economically conservative ideas," when it’s well-understood that what’s actually being discussed is "morally conservative ideas."
People are getting kicked off platforms for voicing opposition to abortion, affirming the sanctity of traditional marriage, and similar moral viewpoints which are still held even today by a majority of Americans.
Re: Re:
Re: Re: Citation needed bro
Oh who are we kidding. We all know that little wannabe Proud Boy will fuck off for a day or two than provide any evidence that might endanger his world view.
Re: Re: Re:
Puh-leeze. Have you seen the methodology behind those? That’s "Lying With Statistics 101" material.
But why even ask? Of course an SJW bigot isn’t going to take anything that might challenge his worldview seriously.
"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Masons hardly a little SJW. And I’ve read Hamlet too so unless you something actually relevant to say…
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Never said he was; I said Thad is. Grow some reading comprehension already…
Re: Re: Re:3 SJWs
You’re going to lose a lot of people with SJW. Social injustice is a thing that runs epidemic in our world, whether or not you accept a given form is a problem.
Maybe rather than lumping people into a generalization, Anonymous Coward, you should regard persons, and specific arguments on a case by case basis.
Otherwise, by name calling, you’re just making a poor ad-hominem attack, from which some of us will infer you can’t collect your thoughts enough to make an actual argument.
Re: Re: Re:4 SJWs
Your point is true to an extent, but in general, when someone who has ethical fiber pejoratively uses the term Social Justice Warrior, they aren’t criticizing the concept of advocating for equality, but opposing people who think that because certain classes of people have been or are being oppressed means that concepts like freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process of law, objective truth, etc, cease to exist. Such people call themselves "liberal" but are actually the exact opposite of liberal.
Re: Re: Re:5
…using an incredibly vague term that can mean whatever the insulting party wants it to mean for the sake of argument. Call me an SJW (and I have been called that before), and I would ask what specific part of my ideology makes me an SJW. Is it my disdain for copyright? How about my wish to see ICE (and the Department of Homeland Security) abolished? Maybe it’s my desire to see billionaires taxed on 99% of their wealth instead of sitting on it like a bunch of greedy dragons while poor people die all around them? Or did you have some other position of mine that you would consider “SJW-ish” in your head?
Re: Re: Re:6 Borrowing from Good Omens again...
Vague terms (such as Libtard or SJW or snowflake) to deride a demographic are much like a winked signal between Chattering Nuns of St. Beryl. They change drastically in meaning between sending sister and receiving sister.
They not only change meanings between those who use the terms but also those who hear (read) them. Those who are particularly self-critical will assume it applies to them, while others will dismiss such terms as nonsense (revealing more about the speaker than his targets) or presume themselves an exception to who the malice does not apply. As a result such terms of contempt cast a wide but scattershot field, generally hurt only those who are already self-conscious.
The term SJW applies to those who speak to issues of social injustice and social inequality. But the term (like many alt-right terms of disregard) suggest those who profess for social issues are insincere regarding those positions, or they express such positions due to ulterior motives or they are inconsistent in acting on the behaviors they endorse (or are guilty of engaging in the behaviors they admonish). Hence, SJWs are not to be taken seriously.
These terms are thought-stopping clichés that allow the user to dismiss a given person (and what she says) without further consideration.
So when someone calls me an SJW, I figure they’ve already dismissed me as subhuman. If they criticize SJWs the implication is that person uses such terms to dehumanize those that disagree with them.
Re: Re: Re:7
See also: “virtue signaling”. It is an accusation that someone expresses a moral or ideological position only to improve their social standing. But the accusation attacks the character of a person instead of their viewpoint. If the idea is sound, the reason for expressing it doesn’t matter.
Re: Re: Re:5 SJWs
ERROR: TYPE MISMATCH
Re: Re: Re:
An argument is a series of connected statements intended to establish a proposition. It isn’t just contradiction.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hey blue balls why didn’t you cite your source when you “stole” that quote you filthy pirate.
Re: Re: Re:
[citation needed] for Claim #2
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the Web, blue text is typically used to indicate something called a "hyperlink", or simply "link" for short.
A hyperlink is something that you can click on with your mouse pointer, tap on a touchscreen, or interact with through various other possible means. It takes you away from the webpage you are currently on and displays a different webpage.
Re: Re:
And all this time I thought it was just people being assholes that get them kicked off a platform, regardless of the content of said assholery.
Re: Re:
People are getting kicked off platforms for voicing opposition to abortion, affirming the sanctity of traditional marriage, and similar moral viewpoints which are still held even today by a majority of Americans.
Where? Show me the evidence that anyone is being kicked off for expressing "morally conservative" views.
Re: Re: Re:
He meant to say "people are getting booted for calling gay people f-gs". Because the "morally conservative" belief most often punished by social media companies is "gay people aren’t people".
Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, that is not what I meant to say, and I’ll thank you to not put words in my mouth. Particularly when those words are ugly ones. I meant to say exactly what I said.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Then what you meant to say has no basis in reality. Show us some proof of what you say in terms of:
and not just because they were being assholes.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Ever notice how the only people actually using words like that these days are the SJW bigots accusing people they disagree with of "really meaning" this ugly language?
Re: Re: Re:3
If you think the only people who use slurs are the people who call out that language, you’re not looking hard enough for the people who use those slurs as slurs.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Ever notice how the only people actually using SJW as a slur these days are the actual bigots.
FTFY bro
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Mason, you are as bad as jhon, blue balls and the other trolls when it comes to making these grand proclamations, but once you are called out and asked to show some concrete examples confirming your statements, you tuck tail and run, just like the rest of the trolls.
But the funny thing is, in other articles, you have some very insightful comments.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Wow, it’s almost as if he’s an actual, real human being with complex and nuanced opinions, and not some mindless automaton who’s going to automatically agree or disagree with everything that’s written here.
Who’da thunk it?
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Wow, it’s almost as if he’s an actual, real human being with complex and nuanced opinions, and not some mindless automaton who’s going to automatically agree or disagree with everything that’s written here.
Which has what to do with making claims and not backing them up? ‘They’re only human’ does not a shield from Hitchen’s Razor make.
Re: Re: But MM, you advocate that CAN be at whim:
Show me evidence from 1935 that Nazis would kill Jews.
The demand for "proof" is just a dodge.
Anyone honest sees the trend.
When people have power, it’ll be abused.
YOU are an enabler of arbitrary "de-platforming".
If are WORSE results in future, are you going to step up and admit responsibility? No, you’re going to ignore at best.
And even if you did accept that you’re wrong, that won’t in any way reverse the problem which will be fully entrenched in all society.
We must believe what proto-Nazi-corporatists say NOW about their POWER, just as everyone should have foreseen what prior Nazis were going to do.
Re: Re: Re:
What trend — that people who espouse racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and xenophobic views are being told “we don’t do that here” by any major Internet platform that doesn’t want to host that speech? Because that’s the trend. Rather than asking if conservatives are being banned, consider the reason for their bans.
No law, statute, or “common law” court ruling entitles anyone to the use of someone else’s platform, not even for legally protected speech. Techdirt could ban you and you would have no legal options to overturn that ban.
I’m more interested in the displays of proto-Nazi power by the Trump administration, what with the concentration camps and the painting of Hispanic immigrants as the scapegoat for America’s problems and the nationalist rhetoric that regularly veers into stochastic terrorism. In comparison to all that, Twitter booting someone for saying foul things about trans people is nothing.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Found the bigot.
Re: Re: Re:3
Lemme guess: You just watched Sean Hannity?
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Lemme guess: you’ve been taking AOC’s deranged rantings at face value, and never noticed the actual holocaust survivors who came out and said that what’s going on at the border bears zero resemblance to what they went through in the real concentration camps? Or how even leftists like MSNBC journalists and Governor Andrew Cuomo have called her on her crap?
No… then again, you probably haven’t. Never listen to any viewpoint that might interfere with The Narrative, afterall. It’s great to talk about having an open mind, but SJWs know better: if it’s actually open, unwanted ideas might make their way inside!
Re: Re: Re:5 I don’t care it they bought tickets for the show sir
I’m sorry sir but HOA rules specifically exclude screens larger than 25 feet per side. I’m afraid you’re going to have to take down your little backyard projection theatre down and put all those nice strawmen back in the fields where you’ve found them.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Just because they are not gassing people (and other atrocities), doesn’t mean it’s not a concentration camp:
Source: American Heritage Dictionary
I think that definition is quite fitting as to what is happening at the border. Also, if you say you agree with their treatment because they entered illegally, then maybe you should go have a humanity check. I for one am ashamed at the way our country are treating these people, especially the innocent children who had no choice.
So if you don’t like the definition of "concentration camp", then go complain to the dictionary people.
Re: Re: Re:6 that Israel problem
…you peeple arguing about the US border should look at your own definition of concentration camp, and apply it in Israel/Gaza.
Re: Re: Re:5
A Holocaust survivor’s words carry weight. But so do the words of over 140 experts on genocide in general and the Holocaust in particular:
And here is a quote from one of the signatories of that letter, Waitman Wade Beorn:
A refusal to acknowledge the incidental steps that led to the Holocaust — the Nazis didn’t start with death camps, after all — is a refusal to acknowledge someone repeating those steps in the here and now.
And besides, this isn’t even the first instance of concentration camps in the United States. One of the facilities reportedly being used by the Trump administration to hold detainee children was a internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Yup, as I said,
Called it.
Re: Re: Re:7 Yup as I’ve said “douchecanoe” called it
So that’s what your going with? Acting like repeating a half assed quote, you took from someone smarter than you, somehow magically makes you right. As opposed to making you look more like the smug, entitled, douchecanoe than you are. It’s a bold move, I’ll grant.
Re: Re: Re:7
I “listened” (read, in this case) to the alternative viewpoint. I considered it. And I decided that, while compelling, it was ultimately not convincing enough for me to ignore all the human rights abuses and all the dead children.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
You mean like this actual holocaust survivor who came out said they are absolutely like what she went through in the "real" concentration camps?
That’s what you do, apparently.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Deliberately indifferent denial of basic hygiene items (and if it takes a Congresscritter showing up to prompt a change in the situation, I’d call it "deliberately indifferent" on the jailer’s part) is a likely Eighth Amendment violation. See Gillis v. Litscher, 468 F.3d 488 (7th Cir. 2006).
So, I ask: why are we subjecting people who have immigration proceedings pending against them to conditions that are likely illegal when inflicted upon a Supermax inmate?
Re: Re: But MM, you advocate that CAN be at whim:
Show me evidence from 1935 that Nazis would kill Jews.
The demand for "proof" is just a dodge.
Anyone honest sees the trend.
When people have power, it’ll be abused.
YOU are an enabler of arbitrary "de-platforming".
If are WORSE results in future, are you going to step up and admit responsibility? No, you’re going to ignore at best.
And even if you did accept that you’re wrong, that won’t in any way reverse the problem which will be fully entrenched in all society.
We must believe what proto-Nazi-corporatists say NOW about their POWER, just as everyone should have foreseen what prior Nazis were going to do.
Re: Re: Re: But MM, you advocate that CAN be at whim:
I’ve never seen such a twist in logic to avoid answering a question. Bravo.
Re: Re: Re: But MM, you advocate that CAN be at whim:
When YOU make a claim, YOU are responsible to show evidence supporting YOUR claim. Everyone else can laugh you off until you do.
Also good job bringing up Nazis there, I needed Godwin for my internet law bingo card.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
You have heard of the holocaust right? That major thing that a happened during that time period, where Nazis killed over 6 million Jews? I’d say that’s evidence enough.
Well if it didn’t happen then you’re wrong and we’re right. We don’t see it happening, therefore for us to believe you, you have to provide proof, or at least evidence of the veracity of your claims. You can scream all you want that the sky is red but if other people don’t see it, you have to provide some evidence to show that you aren’t the crazy one.
Not always but sometimes.
How?
Define worse results. Because from where we stand, the potential worse results from leaving the status quo will be FAR better than best outcomes from the options you propose.
Nothing is ever set in stone. You are naive to believe otherwise. The Roman empire last for hundreds of years yet still fell. I’m sure everyone living during that time thought it would go on forever too.
Um, they’re banning the Nazis, how does that make them Nazis?
Oh? So now you admit Nazis killed Jews? I thought you needed proof?
You’re a moron. Nobody can tell the future. Some people are better at guessing it than others, but that’s all it is, a guess. And even if someone does guess correctly, how do they convince everyone else they are right and to take action?
Re: Re: Re:
…seriously, Mike?
Asking for proof of things that are common knowledge is beneath you. That’s a classic troll tactic, used all the time to derail a conversation into pedantic bickering–especially when you don’t provide any sort of standard of evidence–and you’re better than that.
But since you asked:
Facebook (directly this time!) tampered with democracy by banning pro-life ads ahead of critical Irish vote, at the behest of pro-abortion politicians.
Pro-life group Live Action falsely reclassified as "pornography" on Pinterest (effectively censoring them entirely, if you know how Pinterest works), before being shut down entirely, for telling the uncomfortable truth about abortion.
Pro-life film "Unplanned" blocked from Twitter for its honest criticism of Planned Parenthood; only reinstated after massive backlash from decent, moral Americans.
It took about 2 minutes of Googling to find that, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. None of this is hate, bullying, trolling, or whatever excuse they want to call it these days; people are being censored and deplatformed for holding conservative moral opinions and spreading facts that support them.
Re: Re: Re:
I have two questions.
You want to harp on and on about who is getting banned. A better thing to provide would be the actual reason why they were banned. (“Being ‘pro-life’ ” is not a valid reason unless you can definitively prove it.)
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Wow. Just… wow.
If you honestly believe that the stated reason is the real reason and not the excuse, I have a bridge to sell you…
Re: Re: Re:3
Unless and until you can prove the “real” reason is the reason you think those actions happened, you’re shit out of luck. How much you want for that bridge?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Just like I predicted: playing the "proof" game is a fool’s errand because the trolls come and quibble about the proof, without ever establishing a proper standard of evidence.
Tell me, what constitutes "definitively proving it"? What would you be convinced by? (Sure, we all know that the true answer is "nothing," because as you’ve demonstrated over and over again on here, you’re a closed-minded bigot who refuses to acknowledge anything that contradicts your narrow SJW worldview, but what are you going to claim you would be convinced by, for the sake of keeping up appearances?)
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
“you’re a closed-minded bigot who refuses to acknowledge anything that contradicts your narrow SJW worldview,“
Bro that kind of lame ass trash talk might rate you King Shit Of Edgelord Mountain back in whatever godforsaken chan you fell out of. Here it just makes you look like an emotionally stunted child who already knows he’s lost the argument, bar a few more lame insults.
Re: Re: Re:3
You made a factual claim (“people are being censored and deplatformed for holding conservative moral opinions and spreading facts that support them”). You offered up a few stories to back up the claim. But when asked to offer any proof that the reason you can make the claim (“people are being censored and deplatformed”) was the reason you gave (“for holding conservative moral opinions and spreading facts that support them”), you balk. Does that make you a fool, a coward, or both?
Show me a pattern of social media accounts run by anti-abortion groups being punished in some way. Show me the stated reasons for that punishment. If you can connect the dots between the anti-abortion nature of those accounts and the reasons they were punished to definitively show that the punishment was motivated by politics rather than TOS violations, I might at least think you had some credibility. Until then, I choose to believe the most reasonable explanation for their punishments: They violated the TOS in some way and got dinged for it.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Actual facts that don’t contradict reality. You’ve yet to provide any.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
On a side note, a couple of talented horror filmmakers recently got banned from Twitter for a week because filters caused images promoting their latest film to be flagged as graphic (real) content.
https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3572129/soska-sisters-got-banned-twitter-promoting-rabid-remake/
There was some uproar about that, of course and people campaigning to get the Soskas back on the site ASAP. But, I don’t recall anybody whining about it being because Twitter have an anti-horror bias, because they’re paid off by Hollywood to destroy independent filmmaking or because they want to purge Canadians from debate or anything like that. Strange. Almost as though we’re not whiny children.
Re: Re: Re: Better luck next time
If you would have spent just 2 1/3 minutes using the googles you might have figured out lifenews.com is hardly an unbiased source and avoided making a fool of yourself.
Re: Re: Re:2 Better luck next time
If you’re gonna post on Techdirt, it might help by being aware of the ground rules.
We don’t actually believe in "unbiased news" around here. It simply does not and can not exist, therefore claiming that a news site is not unbiased is meaningless.
A better question to ask is, is their reporting true? Are the claims they make factually accurate? Because the ones I posted are.
Re: Re: Re:3 Better luck next time
Well aren’t we in the TD community so blessed to have you explain the rules to us mere groundlings Otherwise someone might notice how absolutely full of shit you are. But hey if you want to double down on the stupid feel free.
Re: Re: Re:3
Claiming the site is biased in favor of a specific political viewpoint, however, is. And make no mistake, lifenews.com is biased in favor of anti-abortion activists and groups. It reports favorably on those groups in a way that makes its bias undeniable. So denying that bias, or downplaying it to make your argument look better, does nothing to help your argument.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
And now you’re flat-out lying. Again. As expected. At no point did I deny the bias; I said it’s inevitable and not particularly relevant.
How exactly do you expect the asked-for evidence to appear? If, as Mike has repeatedly asserted, bias in media is inevitable, it defies reason to expect that news of abuses against anti-abortion activists will be published by someone with a liberal bias; that undermines The Narrative. Therefore, the only place you’d be likely to find this news is in a place with a conservative bias, ideally one that specializes in reporting on abortion-related issues. Which is exactly what happened.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Counterpoint: the reason you’re not reading it outside of that echo chamber is because it didn’t happen, it’s taken wildly out of context or is such a non-issue in reality that nobody outside of that particular single-issue group would notice it.
Now, I’m not saying this is definitely the case here, but in my experience when only one "side" of the media is covering a particular story, it’s not because something is being covered up. I’ve seen enough braying fools whining about a particular story not being covered by the "mainstream" media, only for a basic fact check to prove it was based on a parody article or movie footage or other fiction, not to be highly suspicious of such claims.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
It’s always amusing when folks like him or Jhon get so mad that nobody else acknowledges the existence of things they hallucinate.
Re: Re: Re:5
But it is relevant. How can we expect a site biased in favor of the anti-abortion movement to report on anti-abortion groups with anything resembling fairness to “the other side”? Lifenews.com will always paint anti-abortion groups as being on the “right” side of the abortion argument. It will always treat those groups being victims whenever one of them suffers some sort of setback or legal defeat. For what reason, if any, can we trust their reporting if their reporting is so heavily biased?
Or, as the other reply to you pointed out, the only reason you’d find such “news” on a site like lifenews.com is that such sites are the only ones who give a shit about that “news”. If an anti-abortion group getting dinged on Facebook, Twitter, etc. for (assumedly) violating the TOS¹ was actual important news to anyone but that group and its allies, you would’ve seen that shit on a site other than lifenews.com. But since TOS violations are rarely newsworthy, even when celebrities happen to commit them, nobody else gives a shit.
¹ — Show me how the groups mentioned in those posts to which you linked were punished for anything other than violating the TOS, and I will stop assuming that. Until then, too bad so sad buh-bye.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
"Lifenews.com will always paint anti-abortion groups as being on the “right” side of the abortion argument. It will always treat those groups being victims whenever one of them suffers some sort of setback or legal defeat. For what reason, if any, can we trust their reporting if their reporting is so heavily biased?"
You can likely "trust" it to the degree that it may give some insights into what is driving those people, so long as you can corroborate the claims with other sources to understand what is bias and what is not. But if they’re the only source, they can be rejected.
I got quite practiced at this with UK tabloids growing up. It’s interesting to see different viewpoints on different subjects. But, if the subject is something to do with immigrants (as an example) and the only ones reporting are the Daily Mail and the Express, you can probably assume it’s bull.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
This assumes there is a capital N "Narrative" to begin with.
I find that usually people who believe this have drunk the conspiracy theory kool-aid (to some extent at least) and have a really hard time doing proper fact checking and simply take whatever their told as gospel truth without really checking it out.
The fact that you believe this is rather telling.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Life-news? They block people they disagree with.
We should totally sue them lol
Re: Re: Re:
Let’s take this as face value as true, is it even illegal? Like I’ll get an example, a friend of mine was a moderator on an phpBB (web forum) site where there were a couple trolls that loved pushing the limits of the rules that were set down by the site owners. In particular, one of the trolls tried to post child porn on the forums along with other horrible garbage. Needless to say, the troll was permanently banned many times (tried to use different IPs and the like). So by the logic of these 230 trolls that are saying "platforms" have to be neutral does that mean a web forum has to host child porn or lurid pictures of other kinds? Obviously, the answer is no but these clown shoes think that Twitter is magically different from a self-hosted web forum when in effect they’re the same it’s just they have different amounts of users (hundreds or thousands at the best for a web forums versus tens to hundreds of millions for a site like Twitter). And in this context of section 230, size doesn’t matter either.
If these 230 trolls had their way, then every person who has a personal blog with a comment section then MUST allow everyone to post anything on that comment section rather than having any moderation rights (removing spammers, trolls, and the like). It’s something that bothers me greatly because I sometimes open up a VPS account to run a mud or a personal blog from time to time. If 230 gets nixed or otherwise changed to force me to let any comer post garbage on my apps/sites then I guess I won’t be putting any up then. I hope they’ll be happy with a relatively sterile and dead Internet as a result.
Re: Re:
ERROR: MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Re: Re:
People are getting kicked off platforms for voicing opposition to abortion, affirming the sanctity of traditional marriage, and similar moral viewpoints which are still held even today by a majority of Americans.
If that were true how come National Review’s David French is still on Twitter?
Whether you’re right or wrong about the number of people who hold those opinions, people get booted for being abusive, not for sharing unfashionable viewpoints. I’m conservative and only ever got into trouble for my decidedly moderate views with one or two militant progressives. I generally try to get along with everyone and that means not being an obnoxious toad when sharing my opinions.
Re: Re:
Hell, I’m liberal, and I once got dinged by Twitter for using an anti-gay slur in a discussion about anti-gay attitudes. (I also got dinged once for tweeting a curse word at a Verified Account™!)
Conservatism, like religion and for many of the same reasons, is dying. Because they, as a group, have self-marginalized they became the "underdog" they portray themselves as. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Soon they’ll be relegated to the history books alongside the Whigs.
It’s a shame, really. If we lose the conservative party as a major player then all we’re left with is the liberal party which is arguably just as bad. The reasonable viewpoint lies somewhere in between the extremists both parties have become. It’s as if we can only now choose between pure socialism and pure corporatism with no sane options.
Re: What a fresh hot take bro!
Both sides are bad so vote Republican.
Re: Tories and Republicans
The current Democratic party is actually neo-conservative: pro-corporate, copyright maximalist and not really all that behind egalitarianism. We have some candidates making big reform promises, but remember that Obama was all Hope and Change until he got elected, so we have good cause to be skeptical.
Unless the Democrats go fascist and use the surveillance state to route out dissenters then other parties might try to fill in the gaps. (That would be extreme for them, but they’re half-way there by supporting the surveillance state.) I could see the Peace and Freedom party trying to turn into something with mass appeal that stands to the left of the DNP, and I can see the Libertarians trying to go moderate-rightish.
First-Past-The-Post elections will still assure that one competing party will prevail, and until we reform our election system that won’t change.
But that’s all far-future thinking. Like after the apocalypse.
For now, we have nothing stopping parties from cheating their way into power as the GOP has systematically done. (Certainly not the Supreme Court of the United States.) In fact, I expect the GOP to stay entrenched for a while even if they can’t get ten percent of the population to vote for them. If the Federalist Society plants were feeling particularly dispensational, they could decide that an enablement bill was Constitutional. (They’d lose faith of the people in the Supreme Court, but after RUCHO ET AL. v. COMMON CAUSE ET AL. I’d be surprised if there’s much faith left.
After that Democracy would be dead and the GOP would prevail until the nation fell apart.
Re: Re:
Looks to me like a false dichotomy.
Plus the social media summit that Trump’s hosting is a complete and utter joke.
YOU have ZERO credibility: omitted the "in good faith" clause!
In arguing with me here, you pretended to quote the law and SIMPLY DELETED the
"in good faith" requirement! — And when I caught that LIE, blew it off as not important:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190201/00025041506/us-newspapers-now-salivating-over-bringing-google-snippet-tax-stateside.shtml#c530
The reduced text appears nowhere else. Masnick intentionally omitted those characters. He’s a LIAR, and sunk to that just trying to win an argument on this tiny little site. Imagine what he’ll do when important!
It’s a material omission — indeed, since The Public’s benefit is always to be the primary goal of American law, your omitting the KEY requirement — and doing so blatantly — is just astounding.
If did that in a court, you’d be jailed for perjury. If did that on a site you don’t control, without your rabid fanboys to support, you’d be hooted roundly and shunned.
Yet you still have the chutzpah to keep claiming others mis-represent the law.
Re: YOU have ZERO credibility: it’s like projection is your on
Remember when you promised to leave forever bro?
Re: Re: YOU have ZERO credibility: it’s like projection is
"AC" reveals is long-time reader and a simple off-topic diverter. Anything so long as NOT on-topic, that’s what the fanboy-trolls do. — While not even giving their screen name, ’cause they’re chicken! BAWK! BAWK! (That’s just to humor this "AC" with more diversion.)
Now, NO, again, I contrived a bit of text to make you clowns go into ecstasy at thought that I would quit commenting here, and you FELL for it. You can’t let go of your first impression, even though wrong.
That joke becomes more dismaying to me as goes. But it does illustrate Techdirt just perfectly.
Re: Re: Re: YOU have ZERO credibility: it’s like projectio
What grade are you in?
Re: Re: Re: You put the ignorant in ignorant motherfucker
Just admit you’re a liar bro. The truth will set you free.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Dude, you’re an AC too. Putting random shit-post text in the name field doesn’t magically make you non-anonymous. You have to sign up for an account to do that. But you’re too scared to do that, aren’t you?
Re: YOU have ZERO credibility: omitted the "in good faith" claus
I often wonder if Mike pissed in your coffee at some point in the past as you seem to have the biggest hate boner for him and this site. At some point you must realize that is bad for your mental health to be SOOOOO obsessed over one person and one site.
And when you’re on your last breath on this big rock, I bet it’s going to be something like "Damn that Mike Masnick and his Techdirt site."
My question to you, why do you do it and what is it that you expect to gain by coming here and repeating the same debunked lines every day on just about every article?
Re: Re: YOU have ZERO credibility: omitted the "in good fai
Your hate-filled obsessive rant is OFF-TOPIC.
And demand of me what you don’t state. You too are obviously a regular, TOO CHICKEN to use your account name.
Try again. Focus, sonny. You’re not helping the site.
Re: Re: Re: YOU have ZERO credibility: omitted the "in good
Why don’t you answer the question?
Re: Re: Re: YOU have ZERO credibility: omitted the "in good
You’re a regular, why don’t you create an account and use it?
Re: Re: Re:2 YOU have ZERO credibility: omitted the "in
Plausible deniability?
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Except he doesn’t deny it. He’s owned it multiple times and even linked to past posts.
Re: Re: Re: YOU have ZERO credibility: omitted the "in good
Please point to the hate in my original comment as you have some strong projects there buddy boy.
Re: Re: Re:2 YOU have ZERO credibility: omitted the "
Its mere existence is the proof.
Techdirt fanboys go about twice before dissolving into sheer off-topic back-and-forth.
It’s USELESS as forum / convincing thanks to YOUR efforts, sonny, not my opinions.
You keep going on, obviously obsessing!
But I’m out.
Re: Re: Re:3 YOU have ZERO credibility: omitted the &
Why don’t you answer my question? Here it is again:
Re: Re: Re:3 YOU have ZERO credibility: omitted the &
If it’s so useless, why do you come here? (still waiting for an answer to my simple question.)
Re: Re: Re:3
Oh, how I wish we could all believe that — especially you.
Re: YOU have ZERO credibility: omitted the "in good faith" claus
See? NON can even quote the laws he knows he would break if 230 was destroyed if he even had a shroud of good faith left in his body and not just snakes blood.
Re:
Here’s a question: What does “in good faith” mean in the context of the actual text of 47 U.S.C. § 230 and the intent of the lawmaker who wrote and championed the bill? Because from where I sit, it means “the platform has a reason to moderate bullshit content”. Spam is protected speech, but plenty of websites filter it “in good faith” — that is, they filter it to prevent spam from overrunning the service and driving away actual users. What makes any other legally protected speech more deserving of staying up than spam?
Re: Re:
Blue, your lack of intelligence is showing again.
"Good faith" is a legal term with a specific definition:
47 U.S. Code § 230 says:
Taken in the context of this law, "good faith" simply means that the service provider must have honest intentions when removing speech they find to be objectionable. Intentions like keeping their site free from antisemitism or pornography or whatever they else they don’t want on their site.
Once again you have read a legal term, didn’t bother to look up the definition and have made yourself look foolish. Just like you did when you were spouting off how Techdirt’s comment submission widget equates to a "form contract".
Re: Re: @"Gwiz": MM simply DELETED THE WORDS "in good faith".
SO? What’s that got to do with Masnick DELETING THE VERY CHARACTERS OF THE LAW HE PRETENDED TO QUOTE?
You’re just trying to muddy up this cesspit — which is impossible.
Here again is what YOU are trying to delete:
Masnick simply DELETES the "in good faith" requirement — and then blows off it being important:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190201/00025041506/us-newspapers-now-salivating-over-bringing-google-snippet-tax-stateside.shtml#c530
Re: Re: Re:
That clause isn’t important, though. It only means “the platform has a reason to moderate bullshit content”, to put it in layman’s terms. Now show me the law, statute, or “common law” court ruling that says a platform must be neutral towards all legally protected speech — including spam, White supremacist propaganda, and clips from that new Lion King movie.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yep. That’s me alright. Trying to "muddy up this cesspit" by quoting exact definitions and quoting actual statutes……
It sometimes amazes me that you still have the ability make me laugh after all these years, Blue.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
He didn’t. He quoted a different paragraph of the law. A fact you conveniently continue to ignore or too illiterate enough to understand.
Re: Re:
He didn’t. He quoted a different paragraph of the law. A fact you conveniently continue to ignore or too illiterate enough to understand.
The only one lying here is you as anyone who actually bothers to read the text of Section 230 would see that you and Mike quoted different sections of the same law. You quoted section c2a and Mike quoted section c2b. He didn’t delete anything.
As stated and proved, you are the liar, not Mike.
Pot. Kettle. Black. Hypocrite. Liar. Moron.
You know the end is nigh when the cons are trying to get the government to force the libs to share.
I’m not liking this at all, At this rate YouTube will be nothing but hateful content in at least 2 years.
Because WaPo is a shitlib rag.
Re: Re:
They’re all shit rags regardless of their political leaning. There is no news, only entertainment and pandering.
Re: Re:
Because WaPo is a shitlib rag.
A "shitlib rag" posting factually lacking right wing propaganda? Do tell me more…
Re: "WaPo is a shitlib rag"
WaPo is a shit-moderate rag. Contrast Huffington, which will make make a grotesque from a gaff by a conservative, or FOX which won’t mention conservative gaffs at all but will suggest public medical care is the worst thing a state could inflict on its people, also detention camps are like hotels or camping trips.
Granted some of WaPo’s columned editorialists are obvious GOP shills (I’m looking at you Marc A. Thiessan) and I wonder if they’re kept on the payroll just to let WaPo claim it reports both sides, but it also features a handful of self-identified conservatives I tend to agree with as often as not.
But even before the Trump era which has taken a wrecking-ball to both Republicanism and conservatism, both sectors have regarded facts to be anti-conservative, let alone the media, and we’re moving towards an era where extreme changes will have to be made and extreme consequences faced.
Natural disasters and food crises are commanded by neither elected officials nor sovereign kings no matter their opinions.
The boy who cried wolf called, something about 'learn from me'
By now, most conservatives are convinced that our voices are being shadow-banned, throttled, muted and outright censored online.
Thanks to repeated assertions like yours telling them that, yes I imagine they are. However being convinced of something does not mean that thing is true, so ultimately it wouldn’t matter how many ‘conservatives think they’re being treated unfairly, all that matters is whether they can prove it.
In fact, amid protestations by groups including the Internet Association, which claims Facebook, Google and Twitter are bias free, it’s an open fact that Big Tech is run predominantly by those on the ideological left
Which has fuck all to do with whether or not they are treating conservatives ‘unfairly’ on their platforms.
Many on the right have complained loudly and often of anti-conservative bias online. Unfortunately, all too often this is where our efforts stop. Once we’re ignored or dismissed long enough, conservatives seem to just shrug our collective shoulders and accept defeat.
Yes, funny thing that, if you run around claiming to be victims without backing it up with evidence people tend to ignore and dismiss you.
It is so full of factually false information, misleading spin, and just downright disinformation that no respectable publication should have allowed it to be published. And yet, there it is in the Washington Post — one of the major news organizations that Donald Trump likes to declare "fake news."
Which, funnily enough, they actually are in this case by making the monumentally stupid decision to publish this tripe. Stopped clocks and own-goals I suppose.
If they keep publishing garbage like this they won’t have to worry about the ‘no respectable publication’ problem, because they will no longer qualify.
Why? …because WaPo allows op-eds. Truth and fact have nothing to do with op-eds, as evidenced by the pro-Trump pieces allowed.
Re: Just becaues you can, doesn't mean you should
That they allow op-eds does not mean they have to print any and all that are submitted to them.
Re: Re: Just becaues you can, doesn't mean you should
But apparently, they do [for a price?]. There’s no other way to explain Trump-hole Marc Thiessen being able to turn WaPo into his personal blog space.
No, seriously, where is Poochie?
I was wondering where the meltdown was over John Steele’s arrest. Turns out blue has been holding out.
Still no sign of John Herrick Poochie Section 230 Stole My Mailing Lists Smith. He’s taking Hansmeier’s jail term a lot harder than I thought. I’d feel sorry for him, but I’d literally have to break my ribcage in two just to eke out a modicum of sympathy for the Steele-loving shitstain.
Is Section 230 CDA to benefit The Public or corporations?
Obviously The Public by providing speech outlets. You could not find a single politician who’d say it’s to benefit corporations. — Though it’s entirely possible that was and is the intent: a stealthy form of censorship.
Corporations have PR departments with large budgets to get their message out. It’s only individual "natural" persons who need outlets for their views.
CDA 230 provides a new form of immunity that allows corporations to HOST content without the full liability of PUBLISHING it as still true for print outlets.
Section 230 REQUIRES that "platforms" police the sites for The Public:
That just states causes valid in common law. It’s a requirement for simple decency — the "D" in CDA. Not controversial so far…
Re:
Hey Blue, I have a question for you.
You express a hatred for corporate censorship via moderation enabled by CDA 230. You also express a love of copyright, such that you believe even corporations can enforce it to its fullest extent.
But how can you believe both “corporations can enforce copyright” and “corporations shouldn’t be able to censor legal speech” when copyright itself can be used by corporations to censor legally protected speech?
Re: Re:
There’s Poochie!
Here Poochie! Get the DMCA vote, that’s a good corporate lapdog.
Top Assange Defense Account Deleted By Twitter
https://www.activistpost.com/2019/07/top-assange-defense-account-deleted-by-twitter.html
See, kids? Twitter has its own — unaccountable — agenda that doesn’t fit with yours.
Do you really want a few white male boy (and older) billionaires controlling ALL access to teh internets?
Re: Top Assange Defense Account Deleted By Twitter
What is not wanted is spammers, scammers and political extremists, whether Nazi, ISIS or Marxist etc. infesting every site on the Internet.
Re:
No, I don’t. So let’s bust up the Internet Access Provider monopolies — you know, Charter, Comcast, what have you.
Oh wait is that not what you meant?
Re: Top Assange Defense Account Deleted By Twitter
"S ee, kids? Twitter has its own — unaccountable — agenda that doesn’t fit with yours."
No, Twitter’s agenda of being able to kick assholes off their site fits with mine.
"Do you really want a few white male boy (and older) billionaires controlling ALL access to teh internets?"
No. Luckily, there are millions of other websites out there, plus the ability for you to set up your own any time you want.
Re: Re: Re:
Never mind that he literally wants Trump and other members of a small set of white male boy billionaires to give him the Internet he wants, but honestly at this point it’d be easier to list all the times when blue wasn’t being a hypocritical sack of dogshit.
Corporations get a DEAL: immunity IN EXCHANGE FOR opportunity.
The deal of CDA 230 is to be NEUTRAL HOSTS for The Public’s speech.
Otherwise, corporations MUST obey the traditional laws of publishing and be responsible for EVERY BIT on the "platform".
The deal was granted BY The Public (through our representatives) and clearly meant as a convenience to allow The Public to use the Internet without having to manage technical details. PERIOD.
"Platforms" are NOT like accepting paid advertising / freedom of association, but an entirely NEW way for The Public to publish without "a priori" editorial interference of any kind. Host corporations are only authorized to act AFTER an offense and for THAT offense only, NOT to arbitrarily totally and forever ban "natural" persons.
CDA 230 NEVER in least authorizes corporations to discriminate for their own purposes as to WHO and WHAT is published. That’s controlled by common law.
You cannot claim The Public’s protection by way of statute AND assert that then have power OVER The Public. The power was/is not granted. The Public is primary and supreme: corporations are mere permitted fictional entities.
Re: Re:
Damn, blue, give your Tor browser a break! It’s not a hooker.
Corporatists try to twist CDA into control of OUR PUBLISHING!
First, We The People don’t have to allow the hosting corporations to exist at all! It’s entirely our option. They’re to SERVE The Public or be broken up.
Of course, GREEDY GRASPING corporatists soon found a loophole that they claim allows them POWER OVER THE PUBLIC.
How did "Communications Decency Act" get twisted into authorizing complete corporate control of The Public’s new forums?
"Immunize platforms so The Public can make use of the new medium for almost unlimited speech!", is what They SAID to LURE us into a trap. And now that they’ve obtained power, masnicks STATE that corporations have an absolute and pre-emptive "First Amendment right" to CONTROL.
No one thinks that "natural" persons on a "platform" have endorsement by the corporation. No one is mistaking the speech of "natural" persons for the corporation’s. The corporation is not in least impaired in getting its message out. — But what the corporatists want is to CONTROL "natural" persons.
The ultimate purpose of Masnick / EFF blather (both funded by Google) is to sweep on to:
They claim that corporations can use that "restrict access or availability of" clause to, whenever wish — even explicitly over YOUR First Amendment Rights — step in and EDIT comments by their own arbitrary standard, to point of becoming THE publisher, even to PREVENT we "natural" persons from publishing on "their" platforms at all!
But those are OUR platforms, The Public’s, NOT theirs.
Corporations are allowed (by The Public) merely to operate the machinery which is to convey The Public’s views. Corporations are NOT to control who gets on, nor WHAT The Public publishes, except under OUR common law terms.
Re: Corporatists try to twist CDA into control of OUR PUBLISHING
"But those are OUR platforms, The Public’s, NOT theirs."
So, you’re a communist. Nice of you to admit it.
Re:
You have been told, time and time again, that 47 U.S.C. § 230 was not written with the intent of allowing “almost unlimited speech”. It was written with the intent of allowing interactive computer services to moderate content without facing legal liability for doing so. You could at least admit that you’re ignoring the facts that were presented to you in support of those statements.
A corporation has every right to control speech on any platform it owns and operates. Those platforms may be open to the public, but they are still privately owned. And much like a privately-owned brick’n’mortar business has the right to boot people from the business for being assholes, those platforms have every right to do the same.
Doesn’t matter. Without Section 230, a person (and their respective individual¹) could sue a platform for something a third party said or did on that platform. 230 immunizes platforms in that regard. It’s why no one can sue Techdirt when you slander them in the comments.
And those claims are correct on every count. No law, statute, or “common law” court ruling says any privately owned platform must allow all protected speech without moderation. Nothing on the books says such platforms must remain “neutral” in their moderation of content, either. Even the First Amendment protects the right of association — that is, the right of a platform’s owner(s) to choose whether they want someone else’s speech associated with their platform.²
You’re not entitled to use someone else’s platform. If Techdirt banned you today, you would have no legal recourse — none whatsoever! — in either overturning that ban or forcing Techdirt to host your speech. Don’t say otherwise if you can’t prove otherwise.
I’ll ask you this question again, even though I know you’ll never give a direct answer to it: For what reason should a platform be forced to host White supremacist propaganda, which is legally protected speech in the United States, if that platform’s admins do not want it to host such speech?²
¹ — If you keep using SovCit language, I will keep mocking it.
² — This applies equally to corporate-owned services such as Twitter and non-corporate services such as individual Mastodon instances.
Oh, YES: corporations CAN violate your First Amendment Right!
In fact, that’s the KEY point of contention. Masnick says "platforms" are authorized to control speech regardless whether it’s Constitutionally protected!
Masnick is for corporations CONTROLLING the speech and outlets of "natural" persons. He repeats it often, can’t be mistaken. From last year:
"And, I think it’s fairly important to state that these platforms have their own First Amendment rights, which allow them to deny service to anyone."
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170825/01300738081/nazis-internet-policing-content-free-speech.shtml
Masnick is not hedging "lawyers say and I don’t entirely agree", or "that isn’t what I call serving The Public", but as VERY RARE for him STATES FLATLY. By deeming it a fundamental "Right", Masnick STATES that he wants a few corporations to have absolute and arbitrary control of ALL MAJOR outlets for The Public! He claims that YOUR Constitutional First Amendment Right in Public Forums are over-arched by what MERE STATUTE lays out!
This is the vital point for Masnick. He doesn’t even mention The Public’s right to publish in new way, ONLY states flatly the alleged right of corporations to control speech there.
Masnick flips the First Amendment from protection for "natural" persons into a POWER for use by corporations!
Such control (by ANY entity) to remove First Amendment Rights from The Public CANNOT be purpose of ANY statute. It’d be null and void because directly UN-Constitutional.
It’s NOT law, only the assertion of corporatists. No court has yet supported what Masnick claims. Corporatists are reaching for the moon without even a step-ladder. It’s simply a trick the New Fascists are trying to pull.
By the way: IF Section 230 law is so clear and good for The Public as Masnick claims, why is "deplatforming" being reviewed by even "Democrats", and why does he keep running these pieces?
Re:
Please show me the law, statute, or “common law” court ruling that entitles you to the use of a third party platform, regardless of who owns that platform.
The KEY trick: assert "editorial" control yet keep immunity:
Here it is cleverly worked in:
https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/2018/09/22/draft-order-for-trump-would-crack-down-on-google-facebook
NO! Totally negates the whole "platform" premise and asserts that hosting mechanisms are the actual editors!
Section 230 establishes The Public as Editors! "Platforms" are to be ONLY the technical means for conveying The Public’s Editorial choices.
CONVEYING, NOT CONTROLLING.
Section 230 is not difficult to understand. The content of a magazine IS the magazine, and can be mechanically printed on any number of presses, without the owner of the press being liable for the content. PERIOD.
Corporations which host "platforms" are exactly analogous to owners of a mechanical printing press. Printers do not have liability for what’s printed — within BROAD common law terms, and especially relevant on Techdirt: enforcing copyright law when obviously violated.
It’s ridiculous to hold a mechanism responsible: that’s what Section 230 immunizes against. But it’s even more ridiculous to hold that the owner of a printing press has total editorial control over magazine content.
But because The Internet blurs the line between mechanical and editorial, the corporate fiends now claim that owning the printing press DOES give them TOTAL editorial control over what WE want to publish!
Summary to here: For Section 230 immunity to be valid: 1) hosts must act in "good faith" according to common law standards, and 2) "platforms" are NOT to act as editors or publishers, are NEUTRAL / hands-off (again, by common law standards) with regard to persons and content.
Re: The KEY trick: assert "editorial" control yet keep immunity:
Did you go to some sort of troll school where they told you if you just keep repeating blatantly false information, maybe someone will start believing you?
Literally nothing you say is accurate or truthful.
Section 230 makes no distinction for "platforms"
No, it literally does not. It says that moderation is encouraged in order to create diverse parts of the internet, such as "family friendly" sites. It does nothing to establish "The Public" as editors.
Again, the law literally says the opposite of this.
You should stop misrepresenting the law.
Again, this is literally the opposite of what the law says, how the law was described when it was debated in Congress, and how the law has been talked about by those who wrote it and by the courts who have interpreted it.
It’s one thing to argue that you want the law to be read this way-though even that would be silly. It’s another altogether to pretend the law says the opposite of what it says.
This has been explained to you dozens of times.
Yet you keep repeating it.
Because you are a troll. You are not a serious person. You have no serious input. You are a gnat on the side of a site that you yourself insist no one reads.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Re:
Please show me the law, statute, or “common law” court ruling that says an interactive computer service is required to allow all legally protected speech.
To "offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse."
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-12/google-vs-trump-good-censor-collision-course-patriot-president
Link to US code: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
Re:
And your point is…what, exactly? 47 U.S.C. § 230 doesn’t say any “interactive computer service” must offer “true diversity of political discourse” (i.e., stay “neutral”) to retain Section 230 protections.
Discussion of White supremacy is “political discourse”. A platform that disallows White supremacists from presenting their side of the discourse would be “non-neutral”. For what reason should the law force a platform to host White supremacist propaganda?
Re: To "offer a forum for a true diversity of political discours
"This law protects Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms from liability over the material published on their websites"
BY OTHER PEOPLE. You idiots always miss that part out. They’re perfectly liable for things they themselves post, just not those of other people.
"In contrast, newspapers are subject to libel actions over Letters to the Editor, because they are assumed to have exercised editorial judgement in publishing them."
Not because they’re assumed to. Because they DO have direct editorial control. Unless you’re demanding that those other sites manually go through every post that’s on their site (and even someone as stupid as you can see how that’s not realistic), it’s clearly a very different situation.
"Link to US code"
You might want to actually read that at some point instead of having notoriously bad right-wing propaganda sites filter it for you.
Businesses TRADE "private" for permission FROM The Public.
The first act of anyone wanting to form a corporation or go into business is to ASK permission from The Public through our Public Servants. We The People are the Master in all, and any business ranks WELL BELOW Our Officers. IF the business meets certain conditions including promises to SERVE The Public and OBEY our laws and regulations, THEN a business is granted LICENSE to exist (supposedly for limited time, but in practice, perpetual).
Businesses are LICENSED entities. A corporation of course has no actual "corpus", that’s the sheer FICTION. Next, calling them "persons" is only a convenience for language. It does not by some magic make a fiction equal to a Person. (And what’s a "Person"? Best answered by that there is only ONE "person" in the entire United Kingdom: the monarch. That’s why the USA was founded by FIRST stating "all men are created equal".)
ONLY WITH permission can a business open its doors and invite in The Public to buy and sell. — And if want to sell things like Liquor, there’s MORE licensing required. — The second doors open (during "business hours"), any "natural" person has a certain degree of "right" (during good behavior as defined in common law) to be on the formerly private property. (I simplify / ignore VAST area including frequent usage, easements bought / granted / eminent domain by which persons esp as Citzens gain a "right" to use or be on property of others.)
Similarly, corporations ASKED permission to exist, set up web-sites for serving The Public, INVITE them in — under terms stated by "forms contract" which means only the visible terms, not any hidden, or "unconscionable", and definitely not solely at discretion of any given corporation, let alone for later changes, but ALWAYS must be within common law.
Proof that corporations are NOT "persons" is easy: "persons" cannot own other "persons", but corporations can own other corporations.
Now, Corporations wangled Section 230 of the Communications Decency (note how that’s been forgotten!) Act to immunize them from what users might publish. This is COMPLETE change from the law print publishers must follow. Purpose was for good of The Public to use the new possibilities of communicating on the Internet.
The Deal was: in exchange for new business opportunities, We The People immunize businesses (within reasonable) for what’s on the sites.
Those are The Public’s sites on which to publish as wish (within common law as ALWAYS). The businesses provide only the technical "platform" to make it easy for us.
BUT NOW corporations are trying to claim that the policing requirements given above actually grant them absolute and arbitrary POWER OVER The Public’s speech.
This is the KEY power that Masnick wants and asserts. Clearly, if that view is allowed to continue and grow, then We The People will effectively be subject to a new form of corporate royalty.
"When people tell you who they are, believe them." Maya Angelou.
Googlers, Facebookers, and masnicks tell us that Section 230 makes them A) completely IMMUNE for all content others put on sites, but B) retain total arbitrary power to control the sites.
IMMUNE AND EMPOWERED is dangerous combination.
Key question: What’s to stop corporations from censoring IF so choose? … Masnick is silent, simply lets us think that corporations are benevolent and wise and always will do the right thing for The Public. — He isn’t going to concede that corporate power is less than total, because soon as does, his position is weaker.
We’re lucky that they’re lying. The immunity is definitely limited: see FOSTA, and remember that Masnick states it wasn’t needed because Backpage prosecuted by existing law.
The principle that "private corporations" don’t have total control over "platforms" created by legislation is already established in cable TV case and CDA’s own words:
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/16-4155/16-4155-2018-02-09.html
The claimed immunity and empowerment is "government-conferred" by mere statute. It does not over-arch all other law, especially not with a phrase UN-Constitutional on the surface: "whether or not such material is constitutionally protected".
Now, since purpose of ALL law in the US of A is for The Public’s benefit, then how do we benefit from arbitrary control of our speech by unaccountable corporations?
Masnick has to keep claiming that absolute rule by those who tells us they’re immune and empowered proto-Nazis is GOOD.
But in America, when THE RESULT of legislation is not to The Public’s good, it’s inherently UN-Constitutional. — Indeed, the Constitution allows and even requires that it be amended when WRONG!
Since the Founding Fathers were WRONG about slavery, how can Masnick regard the mere pipsqueak he references as absolutely right?
We The People know right from wrong. — Masnicks know only corporatism and desire control.
Re: "When people tell you who they are, believe them." Maya Ange
"A) completely IMMUNE for all content others put on sites, but B) retain total arbitrary power to control the sites"
Yes, they should be held accountable for only the things they have actually done, and they should retain control over their own private property.
Why you support the seizure of private property for no crime committed by the original owner, yet don’t understand that you’re demanding actual communism (as opposed to the mild social democracy you usually rail against), is best left to your fevered imagination.
Posting on a Section 230 "web-site" is NOT a "privilege",
any more than is reading it. THAT’S THE PUBLIC-SERVING PURPOSE intended. Two-way communications is the key NEW feature of the internet.
1) What does "private" even mean when published to and invite entire world?
2) WHO owns a "web-site", anyway? — First, they’re NOT "property"! Just some text which is hosted on physical property. — Like physical business, if allow The Public in, then have CEDED some right to "private property". The Public gains, NOT loses. The deal is that businesses are permitted to exist (and use The Public’s infrastructure and marketplaces) only so long as serve The Public: when don’t, then permission to exist is withdrawn.
3) Where is this "corporation"? Show it to me. And UNDER WHAT PRIVILEGE AND RULES is it even allowed to exist? — By The Public giving it permission, and NOT for the gain of a few, but for PUBLIC USE.
4) Again, mere statute does not and CANNOT over-ride The Public’s Constitutional Right. And no, corporations are NOT persons, do not have rights, they are FICTIONS.
5) The Public’s use is the PURPOSE of any and every web-site. If allows comments, then it’s governed only by common law terms: no arbitrary exclusion. If comments are beyond common law acceptability (which allow odious), then REMOVE. Otherwise MUST REMAIN — and on equal basis with all others.
6) "Editorial control" of The Public’s speech by corporate "platforms" is EXACTLY what Section 230 is supposed to prevent! So of course it’s EXACTLY what corporations object to: they can’t stand ANY other views even being seen.
Masnick wants corporations to gain the new opportunities while yet keep old-fashioned full editorial control!
Re: Posting on a Section 230 "web-site" is NOT a "privilege",
"1) What does "private" even mean when published to and invite entire world?"
The same as it always has with any published material. Are you saying the New York Times is public property because I can read it in Europe?
"First, they’re NOT "property"!"
So, you don’t think that websites are covered by IP laws. That’s an interesting take, I’ll say.
"Like physical business, if allow The Public in, then have CEDED some right to "private property""
But, like physical businesses, not all of their rights. They’re both free to tell you to GTFO if you act like a dickhead.
"The Public’s use is the PURPOSE of any and every web-site’
So, you don’t even know about intranets or invite-only websites? What is it about factual information that destroys your arguments every time, I wonder?
Yet fanboys promote mega-corporations to rule over themselves!
THAT is the BIG puzzle at Techdirt. What’s in it for fanboys? They’re happy to throw away their own First Amendment Rights! And another part of the US Constitution, too, which is interesting to compare: they say content producers have NO right to income from or control copies of creations, but these pirates then stand up for even larger corporations to control their own SPEECH!
ARE the fanboys real persons? They sure don’t act like it! On this KEY point, they always and uniformly parrot the line that sites have complete editorial control.
So what is the (mere) statute or court decisions that grant corporations the RIGHT to over-rule First Amendment to absolutely and arbitrarily exercise editorial control on "platforms" as Masnick says? — There is NONE! It’s just his assertion. — AND EVEN IF WERE, THAT CAN CHANGE.
WE THE PEOPLE DON’T HAVE TO SUBMIT TO CORPORATIONS! AT MOST, THAT’S MERE STATUTE!
Masnick never even states that there is an alternative way, doesn’t want it to appear on the site! — WHY is that, except he’s utterly dedicated to corporatism?
Masnick flatly states that corporations are now empowered to control ALL speech on the Internet, including "platform", search, registrar, advertising revenue, payment processor, all hosts… If that leaves anything it’s only maybe ISPs, but you then must pay business rate as home servers aren’t allowed. — And then you have one little IP address which isn’t in DNS nor will it come up in search engines: not just unknown but almost un-discoverable!
Yet you fanboys appear to still believe that Masnick is for Free Speech!
PS: editorial control is so highly desired that the fanboys here complain and attempt to coerce me from UPPER-casing my little bits of text as I want! Now scale up that urge to corporations controlling tens of billions of dollars: attempts to stifle ALL opposition to their self-serving notions is 100% CERTAIN.
Re: Yet fanboys promote mega-corporations to rule over themselve
Yet blue promotes mega-corporations to rule over speech by abusing copyright!
THAT is the BIG puzzle for Blue. What’s in it for the troll?
He’s happy to throw away his First Amendment RIghts by letting big corporations censor people with state power (copyright).
etc etc etc.
Go home, blue, you’re an idiot.
MM advocates CONTROL BY OPENLY POLITICIZED GATEKEEPERS.
Masnick extols the new wonders of "platforms" hosting free speech (of "natural" persons) on the Internet from the enabling statute CDA Section 230 — which immunizes the "platform" from liability that print publishers still have — then twists that into claim that corporations can STILL, like print publishers, exercise complete and arbitrary old-fashioned editorial control over what "natural" persons publish. All without any clear firm rules let alone using common law terms, and even in advance by deciding that some are "bad persons" whom they will not host.
Re: MM advocates CONTROL BY OPENLY POLITICIZED GATEKEEPERS.
Masnick’s view of Section 230 is NOT THE DEAL that The Public made in order to easily use the new Internet. It’s not even a "deal", it’s a power-grab totally in favor of unaccountable mega-corporations.
So WHY does he assert that corporations operating "platforms" are empowered to control the speech of "natural" persons? That’s EXACT OPPOSITE INTENT OF ALL CONSTITUTIONAL LAW.
Only Mitt Romney and Mike Masnick will say that corporations are "persons" — Romney got roundly hooted for it, and Masnick only does it here in this little walled garden where he’s cultivated vegetables who don’t question him.
Masnick is a total corporatist. Only the mistaken presumption that he acts in "good faith" and shares YOUR views gives him any credibility. — Take away that presumption for a week, and READ what he writes: he’s very open about particularly that "platforms" have an alleged First Amendment Right to arbitrarily control access of we "natural" persons. Masnick believes not only that The Public can be denied access, but since Google controls search, that it can effectively "hide" speech even on alternative smaller outlets you’re forced to use. — Masnick uses "hiding" right here to disadvantage dissenters until they give up and quit commenting. He can thereby claim doesn’t censor.
Corporatists are going for TOTAL control over "natural" persons, period.
[Hit the length limit again, definite after 5 attempts, that’s why two for you to click away. Enjoy twice, then.]
Re: Re: MM advocates CONTROL BY OPENLY POLITICIZED GATEKEEPERS.
"Masnick’s view of Section 230 is NOT THE DEAL that The Public made in order to easily use the new Internet."
Well, the deal I made was certainly that only the people committing a specific crime should be held accountable for committing it. The fact that you’re desperate to hold innocent bystanders liable for things they did not commit does not mean that the rest of us want that.
"it’s a power-grab totally in favor of unaccountable mega-corporations"
What’s weird is the fact that you’re unable to comprehend that section 230 protects every website, including all of your favourites from Breitbart to Stormfront to this site. Your desire to hold people responsible for the actions of others that they had no control over will affect everybody else more than the corporations.
The Facebooks and Googles of this world might be negatively affected, but millions of other sites will be destroyed – and new competition to the corporations you think you’re attacking will be prevented from ever existing. You’re advocating that the current majors gain an either greater monopoly with no chance of ever being challenged. Chew on that for a moment…
Re: Re: Re: MM advocates CONTROL BY OPENLY POLITICIZED GATEKEEPE
No, what’s amazing is that you don’t grasp that I AGREE there, but that’s not Masnick’s / corporate only or true goal.
Corporations want arbitrary unaccountable power over even First Amendment protected speech on the very "platforms" the statute made.
That’s worth BILLIONS, even if only to suppress anti-corporation speech so that they can get even more government-conferred power.
Re: Re: Re:2 MM advocates CONTROL BY OPENLY POLITICIZED GATEK
"I AGREE there"
No you don’t, because if you agreed and understood you wouldn’t be arguing as if it’s some kind of conspiracy.
"over even First Amendment protected speech "
Yet again, you really need to read what the first amendment actually says,. because it openly states it’s irrelevant to the things you’re raving on about.
ANY entity that CAN control speech needs closely regulated.
First, here again is Masnick FLATLY stating that corporations have a superior Right to yours: "And, I think it’s fairly important to state that these platforms have their own First Amendment rights, which allow them to deny service to anyone."
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170825/01300738081/nazis-internet-policing-content-free-speech.shtml
None of you would support the government having arbitrary and total power! Why the HELL do you support it for corporations?
This isn’t only about putting your views on a given "platform", and you could move to another: If corporations controlling the speech of "natural" persons is allowed to stand, then you have no Rights at all which are safe from corporate power! The Constitution won’t protect you at all!
Look at it with simple substitution: "These platforms have their own Fourth Amendment rights, which allow them to search anyone and their property including electronic devices, anytime, for any reason." — Do you accept that? — NO? (And I rule that any less than firm yes is a NO. This is separating you from "inalienable" Rights, not open for hedging.) — Then why accept the anti-Constitutional usurpation of your Right that Masnick asserts apply to Speech?
It’s the First Amendment because THE key to freedom. If you let corporate power grow as Masnick wants, then soon you will simply not be heard protesting that your other Rights are subject to corporate power.
Now, it’s time to decide: Is Masnick right, or am I? — Doesn’t matter to me which you choose! If you choose Masnick, then you fully deserve to be ground into sausage by corporations. — You are like the NPCs in Atlas Shrugged, to whom John Galt says: "You asked for it, brothers!"
Re: ANY entity that CAN control speech needs closely regulated.
"First, here again is Masnick FLATLY stating that corporations have a superior Right to yours:"
Where? The quote you just posted say they should have the same rights, not greater. Well, within the limitations of the business still not being able to discriminate based on protected classes, whereas your ignorant ass is still free to do that – so he’s actually arguing for less rights than you have.
"Do you accept that?"
It already happens, numbnuts – for example, getting your bags checked when you exit WalMart. If you don’t like that then the answer is not to shop at WalMart, not demand that they get treated as a government agency and stop policing their own property the way they see fit. If they start doing it outside their own property, we have a problem, but they have the right to do that on their own property if they wish as long as they aren’t breaking any laws that actually do apply to them.
"Now, it’s time to decide: Is Masnick right, or am I? "
The one with a grip on reality, and it sure ain’t you.