Posted on 06/29/2019 7:31:27 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
This bill forces platforms to make an impossible choice: Either host reprehensible, but First Amendment protected speech, or lose legal protections that allow them to moderate illegal content like human trafficking and violent extremism, said Michael Beckerman, president and CEO of the tech lobbying group the Internet Association. That shouldnt be a tradeoff.
so free speech is now reprehensible?
Exactly!
Their lawyers will advise them to eliminate all political content across the board.
That was a slip of the tongue.
I can disagree with what you say but support your right to say it.
terrible law, but here’s what they SHOULD pass, namely Federal legislation that makes social media platforms subject to liability (with treble damages for punishment) from anyone who believes they were censored for their political views ... would take only a couple of pages for the law, and would pretty much immediately rectify all political censorship ...
“Tech companies like Twitter or YouTube currently have protection under Section 230 against being held liable for what users post on the site. Thats why you typically cant sue Facebook for a hateful statement someone else posts on your timeline.”
That is why Facebook is not supposed to exercise editorial control over content.
Open the SOBs up for litigation. When they moderate, we are allowed to assume they approve of and are responsible for everything posted.
Verizon does not decide who I can call who on their phones. In exchange, I cannot sue Verizon when someone uses a Verizon phone to hire the hitman they send after me.
Fair exchange.
Quit censoring political opinions, and enjoy lawsuit protection. Easy..
Writing yet another law which will be ignored or unenforced is another pointless effort.
Congress and DOJ needs to prove to voters they will enforce laws already on the books.
Antifa attacking people with rocks is a felony.
Refusing to even charge the perp with Assault apparently doesn’t violate the law.
You have it backwards. Facebook and Google suppressing conservative thought has to end, OR they must accept legal responsibility for everything on their sites. After all, THEY have reviewed and approved it.
This puts them on equal footing with newspapers and TV news broadcasters who can be sued. The Covington high school boys and Richard Jewell are fine examples. Both sued for slanderous untruthful coverage about them. But they are legally prevented from going after FB or Google.
To protect themselves from such huge litigation they must choose. WIDE circumspect moderation, including by the progressives, BLM, etc. That, or they must allow to say what they want.
They are not censoring threats “I am going to murder Joe X”.
They are censoring political ideas that they do not agree with.
Also we need Trump to issue an immediate executive order.
“No executive branch agency may use the services of any social media company that censors on the basis of political opinion. No contracts for IT services may be signed with any company that censors content”.
No Facebook pages at DOD, NAVY, USAF, HUD, USDA, Dept of Labor, Interior, NASA, NOAA, USGS, FAA, HHS, Education, etc.
No Twitter pages either.
Then open similar accounts at some other legitimate social media company.
BTTT!
BTTT!
I’m no fan of Facebook, Google, Twitter etc. In fact I’d like to see them destroyed....
...By competition, and by people just completely abandoning them because of their abuses..
I just don’t want to see more government regulations stifling free speech, nor by them telling a business what they may or may not do with their own platforms.
There you go again, injecting Common Sense into the discussion.... :-)
Yes, thats exactly the right call.
their
“violent extremism” being defined as any Conservative or Christian point of view; all other points of view are acceptable.
I was permanently expelled from Facebook for posting photographs that "violate community standards." They were pictures that I--and others--had posted more than once before--photos of ISIS atrocities, beheadings, murdered and tortured children, that sort of thing, realities that the world should know about. However I suspect that the real reason was my consistent support for President Trump.
Large internet companies are de facto monopolies. They must not be allowed to to override the protections that the Constitution gives to freedom of speech.
In fact, they use the enormous power, that their de facto monopolies give them, for purposes of political propaganda, influencing elections, and advancing political and personal agendas.
They have the de facto authority to brand as "hate speech" and "violent extremism" and "reprehensible" any opinion with which they disagree and thus to silence it.
Freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas are not only God given rights protected by the US Constitution, but they are rights too fundamental and too important to be nullified by a powerful de facto oligarchy. NOTHING could be more dangerous.
lose legal protections that allow them to moderate illegal content like human trafficking and violent extremism
________________
they should lose those legal protections. They are utilities and the faster we regulate them the better. Call your local congress critters and reps and ask them to introduce bills state by state.
Users need to be the ones regulating what they see. I woiuld happily pay for use of a FB like place and for the apps to strain through what I see. Probably same for Instagram and Reddit. Even Twitt.
But I will not stand having these leftist owners dictate what I see or hear.
Nor would I put up with an electic provider who doesnt approve of me watching a tv show and cuts my power, or doesnt approve of my brand of dishwasher and cuts my power.
lose legal protections that allow them to moderate illegal content like human trafficking and violent extremism
________________
they should lose those legal protections. They are utilities and the faster we regulate them the better. Call your local congress critters and reps and ask them to introduce bills state by state.
Users need to be the ones regulating what they see. I woiuld happily pay for use of a FB like place and for the apps to strain through what I see. Probably same for Instagram and Reddit. Even Twitt.
But I will not stand having these leftist owners dictate what I see or hear.
Nor would I put up with an electic provider who doesnt approve of me watching a tv show and cuts my power, or doesnt approve of my brand of dishwasher and cuts my power.
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