Another win for the American people. Trump tying the repeal of Section 230 to the signing of the NDAA was check mate for Big Tech. This has bipartisan support and the days of Big Tech censorship will soon be over! Power to the people........Freedom!!!!!!!!!
Section 230 Gone!
- Thread starter shon46
- Start date
The people trying to repeal 230 don’t even know what it is or what it does. No conservative should want government interference in business like this, and ultimately it will make the marketplace less friendly to conservative viewpoints, not more friendly.
Doesn’t sound like you fully understand what it is. They can censor all they want but they will have to deal with the lawsuits which will eventually drain them financially, hence why section 230 was created. New social media companies will emerge and it will be the end of the monopoly.
Yeah you don't understand it. Remove 230 and they will have to do a lot more censoring, not less.
Beyond that, the owner of a website should be able to decide what content they want to allow. If they want to ban all conservatives, that's fine. It's their website.
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Mixed emotions about this. My capitalist side agrees while my desire for free speech across media sites disagrees. Certain websites have become the primary way for news (speech) to spread among the masses. The danger is those sites being able to silence political speech is obvious. Many have used 230 as a vehicle for blocking stories and speech which those in control have political disagreement based on their own subject biased standard. I continue to believe the greatest danger to democracy is the suppression of speech. History has told us as much. I’m not against website owners having the ability to censor truly offensive speech. However, they have gone far beyond that standard to political speech. A dangerous precedent
It's their website. The internet isn't censored, a private company's website is. If you want something different, go somewhere different. There is no shortage of places a person can go to express whatever view they want.
The whole reason they got those protections is because they perpetrated to be the public square vehicle, allowing all people to come to the public square, exercise their god given right to freedom of speech, and voice their opinion. Once we foolishly gave big tech the keys to the car, they drove the car into the ground. They have robbed the American people of our ability to speak freely and they can no longer hide behind the protections they have been given. Let them bleed money slowly until they are no longer able to stand!
What Is Section 230—And Why Does Trump Want To Change It?
Section 230 created the modern internet, and the legislation is now at the center of Presiden Trump's war on social media companies.
www.forbes.com
What Is Section 230—And Why Does Trump Want To Change It?
Section 230 created the modern internet, and the legislation is now at the center of Presiden Trump's war on social media companies.
I'm confused as to why you think that is a response to what I said in that post?
I would agree with your basic position in almost any other area but speech (information) is unique. Having a handful individuals who are largely able to control what information the public hears while being able to silence others has proven a path to disaster for the citizens of that country throughout history. I believe this alone is sufficient reason to deviate from my standard position on businesses. Remember...social media sites will continue to grow as the predominate method speech is spread among the populous.
They're not largely able to control what the public hears. They can control what the public hears on their highly popular and influential website, but people are free to go elsewhere to get information and they do. The website is influential because people have chosen to use it and make it influential. If people leave to get their information elsewhere it will be less influential.
I'm not a fan of much of the censoring that twitter does, I just really don't see the issue with them policing their forum as they see fit. We're on a separate forum right now saying just about whatever we want.
Every city has a public square. These public squares were places where people who had something to say would go to the public square and speak. These social media companies argued that bc of technology, they are the replacement for the public square. The argument was that nobody should be able to sue the public square (big tech) bc its merely the vehicle for free speech. The minute big tech started censoring people they lost their argument to be legally protected. Big tech will still be a square for speech, just not recognized by law as the free public square and protected by federal law.
There is a huge difference between a mom and pop company and a corporation. A corporation is subject to minimum wage requirements imposed by the federal gov while a mom and pop can do what they please.
I believe this is almost equally as bad. Why do we want news and information sharing sites where only one opinion is heard and opposition views not allowed. Such sites (especially since there so few large ones) results in echo chambers and further the divide in our country. People need to be presented and hear all sides. Going back to history again, we have all seen what occurs when a group of people are indoctrinated with only one point of view.
I want news and information sharing sites where only one position is allowed, sites where all positions are allowed, and sites where only some positions are allowed. And then I want for people to be able to choose which they want to view. The old conservative position used to be that people can be trusted to make their own decisions about what they want and want to do. Twitter exists, National Review exists, The Daily Caller exists, Vox exists. There’s nothing stopping someone from hearing all sides.
I also don’t particularly care whether it’s good or bad for society either. Again, an old conservative position used to be that the government can’t be trusted to socially engineer society for the common good and that ultimately that power would be leveraged unequally. The left position was the opposite which is why we had dumb ideas like bringing back the Fairness Doctrine.
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For the sake of argument I’ll accept your framing (Big Tech said that they are the public square) why should I care what they argued?
I’m arguing that there is nothing impeding the full spectrum of views being expressed and heard on the internet and that it’s nobody’s business how a company chooses to moderate discussions on the forum it owns, beyond simply choosing to go elsewhere. The fact that everyone here knows about the NY Post being censored by twitter and exactly what they were censored for is proof that people are able to freely express themselves on the internet.
Federal laws protecting them from law suits. That’s it. Take away their immunity and let them compete in the open market like every other company
That’s not an argument for why I should want them open to lawsuits. Opening them up to lawsuits would get a bunch of the people you don’t want to be censored kicked off twitter real quick. 230 is actually keeping them from censoring more. It’s what allows a place like twitter to exist. If people want to use the threat of getting rid of 230 as leverage to get them to moderate in a fairer way I don’t agree with it, but that actually is something approaching logical. Thinking that getting rid of it will actually result in a more open “public square” of speech is 180 degrees backwards.
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That’s good for the capitalistic way of life. If you don’t like a product, take your business somewhere else. New platforms have and will continue to be created. Who cares if you get kicked off.
I don't necessarily disagree with this view but the opposite is where we're we've been heading. When you have by far the largest news search engine using logarithms with a political bias. When you the largest social media platforms censoring views which the CEOs disagree. I believe your view is naive and the exact opposite direction we're moving towards. To argue it's ok for those platforms with 95% of the traffic to censor speech because alternatives exist isn't an argument rooted in current reality. Again.....the censoring of speech by the few or the many seldom turns out well for the many. The fact that people favor such actions puzzles me given hundreds of years of world history.
This is an argument for trust busting, not for allowing companies to be sued for what other people say on their websites.
When laws no longer make sense you move to change them. That is what’s happening
It still makes sense to protect a company from being sued for what third parties say. Rivals moderates content on it's forums and occasionally things are deleted/censored. Rivals should not be sued for the crazy things people say that its moderators sometimes miss. That's what you're arguing for.
It’s only a problem if they are acting together to silence a segment of the population. The obvious issue is when those in power (who would bring an anti trust action) support the censorship. Thus the trust solution isn’t really a solution.
The problem with the lawsuit on website argument is speech directed toward public figures is largely protected. These sites aren’t censoring this speech due to potential lawsuits. They are censoring speech out of political biases. Again....it’s a dangerous practice to not only allow but support.
Trust busting refers to breaking up monopolies as well. If in your opinion their censorship is a problem because they have too much power and traffic and control too much of the market, then that was making an argument for diluting their power or regulating them in a way to force them to treat all speech equally and doesn't really have much to do with 230. As you say, right now their censorship is usually from unconscious and sometimes conscious political biases. So if it isn't because they're worried about being sued(of course it's not, 230 exists), what does 230 have to do with anything besides using it as leverage to get a company to act the way you want it to? Allowing them to be sued for what Donald Trump says doesn't do anything to change whether they censor people based on political preference.
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Of course. CNN and Fox and virtually any journalist make decisions to cover what they think is important. Oftentimes what a person thinks is important is colored by political bias, but not with the conscious thought of "this helps my side or this hurts my side." Then other times the same organizations make decisions or push narratives specifically because they have a political agenda.
While many people may have that kind of bias, I don't think Anderson Cooper or Tucker Carlson are members of that group. There has been a lot of heat generated by this election and served with a side of fear of Covid 19. There are three groups of people (at least.) People who are biased for each of the two parties and the third is people who have tuned this whole thing out. The last group is the smartest or at least has the lowest blood pressure.
I think there are a large number of people who filter most facts through a will this help/hurt Trump/Biden. What is bizarre is today there was a big to do about Nevada. The only thing is that Nevada doesn't have enough electorial votes to change anything. And nothing anyone said was under oath.
I think there are a large number of people who filter most facts through a will this help/hurt Trump/Biden. What is bizarre is today there was a big to do about Nevada. The only thing is that Nevada doesn't have enough electorial votes to change anything. And nothing anyone said was under oath.
You lost me with unconscious bias. They aren’t worried about being sued for allowing comments or links to news stories regarding political or public figures. Such speech is protected. They are involved in a deliberate act to censor speech with which they disagree...and that for reasons stated over and over again is dangerous to any democracy. I’m still at a loss as to why people would support the censorship of speech by media sites, collage campuses, etc... Yet here we are. Liberals were once the defender of free speech. How things have changed. Now they seem to only defend speech with which they agree.
Seems really weird for you to focus on two words that really have nothing to do with the overall point. But besides that we're talking past each other. I don't care whether or not they're worried about being sued for allowing links or stories about public figures. That was never in question. If they’re censoring things where they are already protected, how does getting rid of 230 help end that censorship?
Again, if it's just a threat for leverage that's one thing. But actually getting rid of it doesn’t seem to address your problem. They will still censor, they’ll just do it more for other reasons.
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Section 230(c)(2) provides protection for websites to censor material they deem offensive. This is the relevant section and the language the websites are relying on when they censor speech with which they disagree. This is a subjective standard and may be based entirely in the views of the operator of the site.
The big reason for this push was a NY Post story being censored. The justification was not that it was offensive. It was unquestionably a case of political bias (there are lots of stories about Trump where information may have been obtained illegally), but according to them it was because it was against their "hacked materials" policy not that it was offensive. But hey maybe they're relying on "otherwise objectionable?"
Are you saying that they should be allowed to be sued if they do any moderation at all? I don't see how twitter could even exist.
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Repealing Section 230 outright, without any liability protections for providers, will make things worse, not better. Repealing it and not replacing it has two massive issues:
In effect, it would force one of two things to happen:
- The service becomes responsible for anything a user says on the service.
- Limits what they can do about said content after it is available on their service.
In effect, it would force one of two things to happen:
- Social media, "big tech" and the smaller players that do not censor anything, to effectively go away
- Censor before the content is allowed to be posted or shared. Repealing Section 230 does not prevent a service provider from preventing content from being posted in the first place.
The Biden information came from an abandoned laptop computer. Hacking was not necessary. On that end, a majority of political reporting these days come from “anonymous” sources and materials which are not handed to the reporter by its creator. Until the Biden story Twitter had not censored such stories. Twitter execs admitted as much when they testified their policies are “living” and change over time. Their censorship was solely political. Unfortunately, Twitter and FB censorship was not limited to the Biden story but extended to other conservative posts and tweets. None of this censorship was due to a fear of lawsuits btw...an important fact. Again....speech regarding public figures is largely exempt from slander actions. Such an excuse is flimsy at best.
