Posted on 10/19/2020 7:29:08 AM PDT by rickmichaels
Have you read the latest about Joe Biden, his son Hunter and the whiff of scandal? No, you probably haven’t, because the story has been whipped off social media faster than you can say “left-wing conspiracy.”
No wonder there’s outrage. It took 16 years after founding Facebook for Mark Zuckerberg to decide that posts denying the Holocaust should be banned. But a Biden-bashing scoop gets zapped in seconds. Of course many are fulminating about the latest flagrant example of new media’s anti-conservative bias.
They may be correct. I don’t think so. But in any case, their argument is a diversion. The important point here is that this is actually a flagrant example of Facebook behaving like a publisher. The Biden story is not Russian bot propaganda or anti-Semitic conspiracy. It is a newspaper article in the public interest, which has already had to jump through a whole load of legal hoops. Binning it is an editorial decision. Which means Facebook is a publisher. And that really is big news.
Because in Silicon Valley, the most important words in American law are not “We the people …” — that mellifluous opening paragraph to the U.S. Constitution, 1776 — but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 1996. At 26 words, its key paragraph is half the length of that opening to the constitution. But to Zuckerberg, it is every bit as important. Here it is: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
FakeBook
the ensuing feeding frenzy will tear them to tiny pieces and
the returning competition to the marketplace to supplant their insidious #Tecnopoly
Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." This federal law preempts any state laws to the contrary: "[n]o cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section." The courts have repeatedly rejected attempts to limit the reach of Section 230 to "traditional" Internet service providers, instead treating many diverse entities as "interactive computer service providers."
7
16 years from “Don’t be evil” to “We are evil”.
It depends on whether enough Corrupticrat RINOs are willing to cash a big, fat check.
Breaking up Big Media has to also be on the table. Social Media is one thing, but having 6 big companies control most of the MSM is just asking for trouble.
Atlas Shrugged! And, Satan, laughing, spreads his wings!
Well Harry, you're an idiot. Just like 99% in the media.
The constitution was 1789
Facebook + Twitter = Speech Control
1984 is here
That is true. IF 230 was lifted. A gold mine of litigation for the lawyers and the end of Facebook.
That’s why 230 will never be lifted. Never.
The issue is that Congress legislated for the FCC that outfits like Facebook are not publishers so they cannot be sued in ways and for reasons like publishers can.
But Congress granted that legal status under the false premise that outfits like Facebook are not publishers because they “did not control the content of what is said on their web pages”.
It was always a false premise and now Google, Facebook et al have demonstrated just how false it is, due to their extreme political bias and their political censorship based on that bias. They censor the content of their pages. That is the action of a publisher, regardless of what Congress mistakenly thought.
Either the FCC now or Congress eventually has to either reign the Internet giants in over their censorship or legislate that they are publishers and come under the same legal framework as print publishers have - they can be sued over the content of their pages.
Or, they can just quit controlling what folks post.
The irony is that Zuckerberg’s wife’s parents fled communism, only to have their daughter marry a communist sympathizer.
The wife apparently is actually pretty stupid as if she learned nothing from her parents.
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