Posted on 12/08/2020 4:01:01 PM PST by Kaslin
We’ve known for a while now that President Trump has been threatening to veto the NDAA unless it includes a provision to repeal section 230 of the 1969 Communications Decency Act. Personally, this has seemed like a rather ill-conceived notion from the start, particularly since it’s likely to backfire in a big way. There’s enough support for the “must-pass” nature of the NDAA and for section 230 that the veto could very well be overridden, handing a win to the bipartisanship crowd in open defiance of the President’s goals.
We’ve known for a while now that President Trump has been threatening to veto the NDAA unless it includes a provision to repeal section 230 of the 1969 Communications Decency Act. Personally, this has seemed like a rather ill-conceived notion from the start, particularly since it’s likely to backfire in a big way. There’s enough support for the “must-pass” nature of the NDAA and for section 230 that the veto could very well be overridden, handing a win to the bipartisanship crowd in open defiance of the President’s goals.
The two problems I have with this whole push to terminate section 230 are that it wouldn’t do anything to address the current situation and would likely only cause more “problems” than such a move would “cure.” And it could potentially go much harder against conservatives than liberals were it to happen. That’s something that was brought up last week in an article written by Robert H Bork Jr. at Real Clear Politics. Bork notes that the last time this issue was brought up during hearings, it was Ben Sasse who stepped into the fray and pointed out that no matter how much you may fume over Twitter and Facebook’s blackout policies, eliminating section 230 not only won’t fix the issue but could make things worse.
The two problems I have with this whole push to terminate section 230 are that it wouldn’t do anything to address the current situation and would likely only cause more “problems” than such a move would “cure.” And it could potentially go much harder against conservatives than liberals were it to happen. That’s something that was brought up last week in an article written by Robert H Bork Jr. at Real Clear Politics. Bork notes that the last time this issue was brought up during hearings, it was Ben Sasse who stepped into the fray and pointed out that no matter how much you may fume over Twitter and Facebook’s blackout policies, eliminating section 230 not only won’t fix the issue but could make things worse.
Here’s the shorter version of why the wheels shouldn’t stay on this wagon. Section 230 was put in place to protect information service providers from liability over content that’s generated by other parties, specifically the user community in these cases. In other words, contra Taylor’s argument, the existence of section 230 actually gives the tech giants free rein to ignore the posts of their users entirely, even if they are outrageously offensive. (Though they would still need to cooperate with law enforcement if users are employing the platform to break the law.)
As such, removing section 230 would only make the social media giants even more nervous, likely developing a tendency to blackout even more user content to avoid facing lawsuits over it. That would be pretty much the opposite of the goals of most of their critics, at least as I understand them.
There’s also a fundamental question of responsibility here. I will once again draw on one of my favorite analogies here. Twitter and Facebook and all the rest of the social media platforms are like giant, global versions of an old-fashioned corkboard. (Ask your parents if you’ve never seen one.) The big tech companies put up the corkboard and it’s initially empty. People come along and post their own information, just like students in a dorm pinning messages on slips of paper to the board. If someone pins up a really hateful message or some threat of violence, who should the police come looking for? The student who posted the message or the manufacturer of the corkboard? It’s really as simple as that.
We’re not dealing with a problem of Twitter and Facebook potentially being sued here. We’re dealing with the established fact that they have been censoring posts – almost entirely from conservative users – in an indiscriminate fashion when they can’t really be held accountable for the content of those posts to begin with. So what’s the answer? I’m unsure. Asking the government to come in and start dictating how those private companies determine when they block user content and on what basis is not only problematic from a small-government conservative philosophical standpoint, but it obviously opens up a whole new can of worms. If we allow the government to determine which sort of voices Twitter and Facebook can or can’t silence, at least half of you aren’t going to be very happy with the result.
Perhaps the best cure is once again to be found in the free market. If a sufficient number of people bail out on Twitter in favor of Gab or Parler or some other platform, they may begin to get the message. Or, failing that, perhaps they lose so much market share to less restrictive platforms that they’ll go away and cease to be a problem. But if enough people keep using their services, that means that a sufficient number of people are willing to put up with the censorship. I realize that’s a rather bleak way to look at it, but I’m just talking about reality here, no matter how harsh it may seem.
Advice from hot air?
No thanks.
Rumor has it that Mumbai Mike is sticking his “Make India Great Again” bill that previously passed the House and Senate (needs reconciliation), into the NDAA and other “must pass” bills to ensure Trump won’t veto it.
Gab or Parler is like preaching to the choir. A crappy, confusing interface with no thoughts given to UX, with most features users had on Facebook missing. They need to improve if they want to stay viable. They remind me of most open-source software. Bare-bones functionality with an extremely crappy interfere. The photo ID requirement makes it a non-starter for me in Parler.
I DID NOT PING YOU!!!
GOT IT?
Keep the exemption and add language that they cannot block political speech.
Who is Mumbai Mike?
If this was going to be bad for our side they would not be warning us not to do it.
Same with convention of states...Which is not the same as a constitutional convention.
They warn us that they’re gonna get everything they want if we do this. If that was true, they would be screaming for it themselves.
Lolol. So angry! Maybe tomorrow will be a better day for you.
Also, Mumbai Mike(Lee)
Hot Air has gone full Huff Post. It must kill Michelle Malkin to see what’s become of her creation.
Revoking S230 for FB, Twitter etc would hurt them more than us.... if users leave to a new site. Traffic is money to them.
Why cannot users could simply migrate to platforms that are truly free speech? ...in the sense that they are free of political censorship .... the stuff that should never be censored!
One would hope that those “new” platforms would/could clearly state that they would not censor this type of speech.
Perhaps I am foolish to think this would happen?
What free speech? Whatever site you land on sets the rules. It is their property, try going against the rules here at FR, that is the nature of ‘private’ property.
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Another idea about revising Section 230 is that larger sites are more difficult to moderate than smaller sites with fewer users. Some have said that a change in 230 could slow down the monopolies, which companies have already bought many smaller ones.
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