Posted on 12/05/2019 12:35:18 PM PST by Renkluaf
Lee Smith's book on the plot to overthrow the 2016 election discusses how the Computer Decency Act of 1996 (DCA), Section 230 protects computer services companies (Facebook, Google etc.) from lawsuits concerning the content that they post that is created by others. They're not considered content creators.
What I'm wondering is, by filtering/excluding content (particularly that created by conservatives) are they indeed now a type of content creator and no longer protected by Section 230?
As soon as you step up to be an editor or gatekeeper ...
No, they are still not creating the content which they do allow. They are only the deciders of content allowed, the content allowed is still not their creation, as was the content not allowed.
I believe that if the Feds wanted to go after them for being a creator of content, the Feds would win.
I, personally, would like to see these companies broken up into 10 or so competitors each, and with huge fines (multiple billions) for the present companies before the breakup.
Not a lawyer, but yes, it does. 230 is, to quote a staffer in the WH, “an outdated loophole that Google and Facebook can exploit”.
The DCA protects services like Facebook and Google from liability of anything they post other than violent or illegal content and copyright protected material. Other than this they can set their own policy of what is posted without violating Section 230. Google uses its own proprietary algorithms to sort and prioritize search results but does not alter the content so it is protected under Section 230.
They are private companies and not government agencies so they are not required to protect any First Amendment free speech rights under the Constitution. If you actually read the User’s Agreement it’s clear that everything is “caveat emptor”, use at your own risk.
You are raising a question that others, lawyers and Congress persons have already been raising, that by becoming content controllers and content censors, they, the big tech Internet giants, are in fact now “publishers” and DCA should either nor longer be applied to them, by regulatory decree, or it should be revised to not give the exemptions now in the DCA to Internet outfits that either control or censor the content on their sites.
The outfits like Facebook and Google argued they were “not publishers” but just passed along what other’s wrote, but a publisher is not so much one who writes their own material as it is one who controls and censors the material put out on the objects (books vs web sites) that they produce. Edited, choosing, censoring and “fact checking” before production are all things “publishers” do and which the big tech Internet outfits now do.
They ought to be given the choice, to either quit censoring and editing the content their web pages produce, or face the legal scrutiny of possibly being sued by someone for their web pages’ content.
Not if they hire Hunter Biden and other forunate sons.
Disclaimer: Not a lawyer but I play one of FR.
That should be the hammer used by Republicans to stop censorship of political content. However, the CDA is pretty clear, so you'd really need to repeal it first.
The worst thing about this is that the Democrats are using those entities as a way around the First Amendment The feds themselves obviously cannot censor things directly because that would violate the First Amendment. However, what they're doing is "urging" (under threat of antitrust investigation or other negative actions) Facebook, etc., to censor things those Democrats don't like.
It's all part of their effort to eliminate public dissent.
That issue has been expolored extensively, as even “pure conduits” are allowed some measure of control without getting immunity from lawsuit.
The law was created with the likes of Facebook, Twitter and other social sites in mind.
They are still covered, because of the way the law is drafted. The question has been litigated ...
A pattern must be shown..................
Our Anti Trust laws are a near perfect fit for big tech, and they have Real Teeth. Still can’t figure out why they haven’t been used against Big Tech and the ENTIRE Medical Profession.
It might have to do with the BILLIONS of DOLLARS in bribes,Kickbacks, and Campaign Donations though...
The way I see it is that want they make a decision to permit or not permit a persons posting they become owners of that posting by allowing it or disallowing it on their sites. Its like a implied expression of ownership.
They are an editor and edit out just as newspaper editors have edited out letters to the editor for hundreds of years.
So if this also applies to FR, it would eliminate editorial control?
The outfits like Facebook and Google argued they were not publishers but just passed along what others wrote, but a publisher is not so much one who writes their own material as it is one who controls and censors the material put out on the objects (books vs web sites) that they produce. Edited, choosing, censoring and fact checking before production are all things publishers do and which the big tech Internet outfits now do.
So how would this not apply to FR? One difference is that FR does not feign itself to be a unbiased apolitical forum, but states up front what it is about and provides basic rules on behavior.
So if this also applies to FR, it would eliminate editorial control?
Yes, I think if the exemptions were removed, either by law or regulatory interpretation of the law, that FreeRep could come under the laws, like book publichers, that “could” make them liable for civil suits about “content”. Though those suits would likely, I think, have to conform to the definitions and restrictions on liable and slander, which good lawyers for book publishers have often been able to argue out of.
But, I am no lawyer and my understanding could be wrong.
Look at U.K. law, as that is where America has been headed.
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