Posted on 02/20/2020 6:07:39 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Attorney General William Barr recently raised questions about whether major technology companies should remain largely immune from litigation regarding its user-generated content, adding that the technological landscape has changed much in recent decades.
Barr stated his concerns during a Feb. 19 Justice Department workshop on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The act, which was passed in 1996, states 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.”
Online companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter are protected by Section 230 as it largely exempts them from liability involving content posted by users of their platforms, although they can be held liable for content that violates criminal or intellectual property law.
“No longer are tech companies the underdog upstarts; they have become titans of U.S. industry,” Barr said. “Given this changing technological landscape, valid questions have been raised on whether Section 230’s broad immunity is still necessary, at least in its current form.”
Some of Barr’s concerns relate to the apparent stretching of the statute’s original purpose. He said the statute’s immunity has since been extended to conduct such as “selling illegal or faulty products to connecting terrorists to facilitating child exploitation.”
“Online services also have invoked immunity even where they solicited or encouraged unlawful conduct, shared in illegal proceeds, or helped perpetrators hide from law enforcement,” Barr said.
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
Pro or con, there will go free expression of ideas.
Ping.
How a out censoring free speech or conservatives Mayor MacCheese? Barr is a worthless deep state douchebag! Investagating everything but the criminals!
Conservatives get watched with a polished magnifying glass.
Leftists get watched through a telescope with one lens
that has been ground to the point of being opaque.
That's not good for conservatives, because we'll be the primary victims, and the left will get a pass.
Who should be held liable for the misdeeds of the deep state?
They can’t have it both ways. If they want immunity they need to be hands off, no bias.
“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.”
Providing they do not censor, ban, edit, delete or comment on the content from individual or group provider.
No hiding behind "community guidelines" or "hate/harmful speech."
Just because an information content provider has and states an opinion that a Platform provider dislikes does not make it harmful / hate speech.
It is simply free speech the platform provider personally hates.
Do it and kiss that Section 230 bye bye.
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You can't pick and choose who stays and goes and still say you don't approve of the content that stays on your platform twitter....
That's it in a nutshell. At some point, they're going to have to declare themselves as either a content provider or a common carrier. They can't sit on the fence forever.
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Unlikely.
I disagree.
This would open up these companies to law suits from conservatives for lies liberals are allowed to keep on these services.
It would be a gravy train!
Platforms need to be utilities for communication, like the telpehone company. People can regulate what they see or not see by purchasing apps.
No reg on platforms.
No ability for platforms to regulate speech.
Unreal.....I like Barr less and less.
Do we really want to turn our speech rights over to the courts?
Protect the first amendment.
We'll have nothing. They'll win because our views will never make it out to the general public.
Mr.Barr, the moment online content jumps out of a computer and kills, maims, or so much as raises a welt on somebody, you can consider holding the ISPs responsible. Short of that, hands off.
By the way, this is a huge red flag!
That is what is happening today.
That’s why we use Free Republic and email our friends and family information.
Because our message isn’t getting out.
How many lawsuits to put Google out of business, vs how many lawsuits to put Free Republic out of business?
Then WHY do the social media companies CENSOR us! HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE!!
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