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Dershowitz: ‘Not Fair’ Big Tech Companies Can Censor Users and Have Immunity
Breitbart ^ | December 13, 202 | Trent Baker

Posted on 12/14/2020 10:11:05 AM PST by Reno89519

Dershowitz said the social media giants are acting as platforms while also acting as publishers, which he said is “not fair” because they have both censorship and immunity.

“Facebook says we don’t like this, and Twitter says we don’t like attacks on Hunter Biden. And once you act as a publisher, you’re a publisher. You know what it means — I mean, you are a publisher. And you can be sued because you’re a publisher,” Dershowitz told host John Catsimatidis. “But they are platforms. They can’t be platforms at the same time and act like publishers. They should have to check a box: If you’re going to be a platform, no censorship. If you’re not going to be a platform, then you don’t get immunity. But you can’t both have censorship and get immunity at the same time. That’s just not fair and not right.”

He added, “I think we’re going to see a revision of [Section] 230. We’re also seeing anti-trust cases now against Facebook and others. Look, this is the hardest question under the First Amendment in the 21st-century — is how to deal with these giant social media that have such an enormous impact, are not regulated … on the other hand, we can’t just let them be immune from the law. They are not above the law either.”

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alandershowitz; censorship; contraindicated; oftenwrong; section230; thedersh; trump
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Dec 13

THE BIGGEST WINNER OF OUR NEW DEFENSE BILL IS CHINA!. I WILL VETO!

Yes, veto Section 230 until it is removed or revised. As Dershwitz says:

☐ Publisher, thus responsible for all content and no immunity. Or,

☐ Platform, thus not responsible for content and have immunity for the content.

Will Trump follow-through and veto or will he fold?

1 posted on 12/14/2020 10:11:05 AM PST by Reno89519
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To: Reno89519

It’s not fair that our elected officials do nothing good for our country. What will be fair is when what goes around comes around.


2 posted on 12/14/2020 10:12:37 AM PST by 1Old Pro ( )
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To: Reno89519

Yes, veto the defense bill and defend that veto until Section 230 language is added to repeal or revise Section 230.


3 posted on 12/14/2020 10:13:22 AM PST by Reno89519 (Buy American, Hire American! End All Worker Visa Programs. Replace Visa Workers w/ American Workers)
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To: Reno89519

BIG AL. BTTT


4 posted on 12/14/2020 10:13:50 AM PST by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: 1Old Pro

>>and Twitter says we don’t like attacks on Hunter Biden

And now that NYet Times and NBC are covering Biden’s scandals, they must’ve change the rule book once again.


5 posted on 12/14/2020 10:16:28 AM PST by a fool in paradise (Who built the cages, Joe?)
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I hope he kept his underwear on, again.


6 posted on 12/14/2020 10:18:47 AM PST by proust (Justice delayed is injustice.)
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To: Reno89519

It is their money and their ball field. No one has to play on it.


7 posted on 12/14/2020 10:36:11 AM PST by HChampagne (I am ready to crawl over broken glass to get to the polling place for Nov. 2020.)
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To: Reno89519

Dershowitz is right to some extent, but actually §230 needs to be enforced, not eliminated.

The big guys, such as Twitter, FB, etc. have been treated like public utilities (neutral...that is, your phone service provider carries your calls no matter what you say) but they are acting like edited press sources.

That has got to stop. People can certainly be sought and prosecuted for publishing things like incitements to violence, child porn, etc., but that comes from content monitoring of these public sources by law enforcement, and not from editorial decisions by the service provider.

And it’s not like these companies were concerned about child porn...they were concerned only about politics.


8 posted on 12/14/2020 10:41:31 AM PST by livius
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To: HChampagne

True, but what about immunity? If they are a platform with immunity, fine. If they are a publisher, editing and censoring content, do it without immunity so they can be held accountable. End of day we expect individuals and businesses to act within certain constitutional and legal bounds. Currently these big tech companies have free reign to do whatever they want without any oversight or recourse.


9 posted on 12/14/2020 10:42:15 AM PST by Reno89519 (Buy American, Hire American! End All Worker Visa Programs. Replace Visa Workers w/ American Workers)
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To: Reno89519
If they are a publisher, editing and censoring content, do it without immunity so they can be held accountable.

It's wrong to say they have immunity. They are liable for any content of their own that they publish but they can moderate other people's content on their sites without fear of liability.

Breitbart is a good example. They can be sued for libel if they publish a bad news story, but they can't be sued when they moderate (censor) their comments section. This is why at least the editor in chief of Breitbart doesn't want to eliminate Section 230 because it would mean they would have to disable comments.

It isn't as simple as publisher or not.

10 posted on 12/14/2020 10:54:41 AM PST by semimojo
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To: Reno89519

Played perfectly as a lawyer: (Social media) should not be able to censor people AND have legal immunity.

Everybody thinks, Yeah! social media shouldn’t be able to censor people...

Dershowitz is advocating for the creation of an entirely new class of tort causes of action “wrongful censorship”. You’ll still get censored, but now you can sue. Worthless unless they include an arbitrary and capricious standard.


11 posted on 12/14/2020 11:19:07 AM PST by ameribbean expat (Attention! All persons having the corona virus...please report to the nearest IRS office. Thank you.)
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To: Reno89519

There’s a very simple way to modify section 230 that will be fair to those who use the Internet.

If an organization has a yearly gross revenues of $1,000,000.00 or less, then that organization gets the protection of the law.

If an organization has a yearly gross revenues of more than $100,000.00, they they will not be covered by it.

Simple math.

Mark


12 posted on 12/14/2020 2:08:23 PM PST by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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To: a fool in paradise

The only reason they’re beginning to report the Biden scandal is to move him out, to get Harris in as potus to give Biden, Inc presidential pardon, and then work on turning the USA into the USSA, a subsidiary of the CCP and Soros and Associates.

Mark


13 posted on 12/14/2020 2:17:14 PM PST by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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To: Reno89519

14 posted on 12/14/2020 2:26:53 PM PST by Bratch
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