Trump: We will regulate or 'close down' social media platforms before they silence conservatives

The Washington Times ^ | May 27, 2020 | David Sherfinski

[McGavin999]

Pull their exemption to lawsuits. They will be bankrupt in a few years.

[Phil DiBasquette]

In 1952 you would have told Southern blacks
to create their own school system no doubt

[9YearLurker]

His problem was listening to the Big Tech tool Jared Kushner. Should have dealt with these guys years ago.

Antitrust, the exemption from liability while also censoring, Deep State violators of Americans’ rights, all that crap.

[ChildOfThe60s]

I’ve been off of Facebook for a year-and-a-half, but when I was on I got the 3-day timeout when I posted the term tranny lawyer. That was in reference to this man who claims to be a woman who what’s going after a bakery I believe. And apparently he had a record of harassing local businesses on this matter repeatedly. Anyway apparently tranny is another Facebook no no.

I wonder if they would have banned me if I had been referring to the tranny in an ss396?

[oldbill]

Privately owned radio stations, the twitter of an earlier time, thought they were free from regulation also.
Then came the Fairness Doctrine and the democrats had no problem with stopping free speech then.

Yes, Trump can regulate, because Twitter may have free speech, but there are differing federal regulations that can be applied to make it painful to take political sides.

[sickoflibs]

No he won’t!

[Kickass Conservative]

Are they Public Utilities (?), that is the question.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

That’s how you win in the free market, both in business and in ideas.

This is like saying that if GM, Ford and Chrysler in 1965 openly discriminated against conservatives (or blacks or Jews or any other category of people), then the solution would be to start a new car company. The easier solution is to apply regulations and legislation that make it too painful for the existing companies to discriminate. The social media giants form an effective monopoly - the decades it would take to form alternatives are decades in which conservatives can be silenced and marginalized. This is simply not acceptable.

[mrmeyer]

THIS. And RICO.

[Chickensoup]

all platforms need to be regulated as utilities.

[Tallguy]

If Social Media wants to regulate speech then they are asking to be treated as a public utility. It’s been done before, so I don’t think that it is ‘automatically’ unconstitutional in the sense that there are no precedents.

[EasySt]

Oh, Good!

I’d like $10k for every time I’ve been shadow banned on Twitter for a political statement.

I’d be a millionaire, easy.

~Easy

[2aProtectsTheRest]

Decades of piling on rules, regulations, and taxes intended to produce “better outcomes” is how we got into this mess where it’s so difficult for anyone to be in business without an army of lawyers standing by to help navigate the minefield of government intrusion. We should be killing as much regulation as we can, not looking for new and interesting ways to add even more.

[VastRWCon]

EasySt.

This weekend I drove past an Easy Street. I think it was in Vero or PSL. Not sure but I said to my gal, let’s turn here and take a ride down Easy street!

[DiogenesLamp]

This guy needs an @$$ whipping to make him understand that it's a bad idea to go through life pissing people off, especially so many and of the wrong kind. (The Kind that can whip his @$$)

[Antoninus]

Jim Robinson can throw everyone of us out if he so chooses. If tomorrow he decided he hated Trump he could impose his standard on anyone on this site.

JimRob doesn't have the same kinds of immunity from liability that the mega-platforms do. If they feel the need to throttle free speech, they should be subject to the same laws against slander and copyright violation as other publishers.

Platform, or Publisher? If Big Tech firms want to retain valuable government protections, then they need to get out of the censorship business.

[DiogenesLamp]

Why regulate or close down? Why not create new, better ones?

In 1991 you could have created one of these in a garage. Nowadays you need a billion dollars to buy into this poker game.

[EasySt]

;-)
That one isn’t “my” Easy Street, but I’ve found most such detours rewarding...

~Easy

[DiogenesLamp]

Unconstitutional. He has no such authority. What is this a dictatorship?

We keep allowing these bastards to get away with this effort to manipulate the public, and we will for d@mn certain end up with a dictatorship.

At this point I am not seeing any problems with forcing communications companies to carry all traffic. There is no constitutional issue here other than these companies attempting to deny Americans their right to freedom of speech by controlling the communications infrastructure.

We either force them to let everyone access the infrastructure, or we force them out of business.

[DiogenesLamp]

Massive social media platforms like F Book and Twaddle need to either respect political free speech and not throttle views they don’t like, or be subject to liability laws as publishers.

I disagree. They either let all Americans use the communications system, or they get forced out of business. We should not allow or tolerate such efforts to control the speech of Americans.