Posted on 07/22/2021 12:17:03 PM PDT by karpov
WASHINGTON—Sen. Amy Klobuchar introduced a bill Thursday that would strip online platforms such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. of liability protections if their technology spreads misinformation about coronavirus vaccines or other public-health emergencies.
The bill, which Ms. Klobuchar (D., Minn.) has previously telegraphed was in the works, would create an exception to the law known as Section 230 that shields internet platforms from lawsuits for content generated by their users and other third parties.
At a congressional hearing last year, Big Tech executives signaled cautious support for modifying Section 230, a provision in the 1996 Communications Decency Act that generally shields internet platforms from liability for content posted by users on their sites.
The bill’s introduction follows a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which found that a significant amount of false information about vaccines comes from 12 social-media users.
The vast majority of patients driving up Covid-19 hospitalizations in parts of the U.S. are unvaccinated, according to hospitals. President Biden last week said that Facebook and other companies were killing people by serving as platforms for misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines. He later clarified his comments by saying that he wasn’t accusing Facebook of killing people, but that he instead wanted the company to “do something about the misinformation, the outrageous information about the vaccine.”
Facebook has rejected the Biden administration’s criticisms. In a blog post, Facebook said that 85% of its users in the U.S. have been or want to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Facebook also said it was doing its part to help get more Americans vaccinated, such as by operating pop-up vaccine clinics in low-income and underserved communities in California and other states.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Most Freepers probably don't like Facebook, but the Democrats want to further restrict speech they don't like on Facebook, and we should oppose that.
Amy “Hydroxychloroquine” Klobuchar weighs in...
I used to think she was a democrat with some sense in her head. I see I was wrong.
They are trying to single out web “misinformation” and liability regarding it to merely not towing an official government line. Censorship Soviet style courtesy of the Dims.
This is just to give them cover for the Covid blackout.
They are publishers, not platforms. Strip ALL those section 230 protections.
Wanna bet this actually works in reverse - it protect social media if they censor according the Federale’s wishes?
If this bill were to become law then “Social Media” would have to ban all health information coming from the government.
Realistically their lawyers would tell them to ban all health information regardless of source.
I disagree with most people here about almost every aspect of COVID.
But to create a LEGAL category of “misinformation” to be policed either by the State or by their social media partners (leaving aside the question of just who is working for whom) is an obscenity.
Who knows? Maybe Jane Long will turn out to be right? Maybe Enlghtened1 has the whole thing nailed down?
Exactly. And this bill would make the social media platforms official agents of the government -- pushing only the information the government approves of. Which further erodes their true Section 230 protections.
Facebook is getting what it deserves.
And who gets to define ‘misinformation’? The Bai Din administration?
Hah, I love it when the Big Tech sycophants that thought they could kiss the *ss of the Biden Admin by censoring Conservative comments on their platforms and thus please their Dem masters, get bit in the butt anyhow by them because they aren’t censoring enough according to the Administration’s wishes.
So in order to avoid interference in their business practices by being obsequious to the radical Dem Admin, these fascist corporations find they are really are just the last ones to be eaten by the alligators they were running from. They will be eaten nevertheless. Fools all.
WHAT AN F'IN JOKE.
The “misinformation” that is front and center is that from the government.
“these fascist corporations find they [are] really are just the last ones to be eaten”
Oops, one too many “are’s” in this sentence above.
LOL. Rats immediately going after the very people who put them in office. Did these fools at Facebook expect any gratitude from these feral beasts of the left? LOLOLOL.
And the attack on free speech is fully on.
Democrats.
What Klobuchar and the Democrats are doing is giving Facebook, Twatter and the rest "motivation" to censor their platforms based on the Government's demands, lest they lose their "protection" ... if you know what I mean.
In short, the Dem's are giving the "social media" sites cover to censor anything the Government (and they) don't like.
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