Social media censorship is a problem - US Attorney General

[SlinkyMike]

The Left having a meltdown in 3....2...1....

But this is literally the right melting down over Trump being called out for fake news. So what's your actual point?

 

[Mystic Twilight]

While there is certainly some form of censorship happening, the only reason this is suddenly a problem is because trump is pissed that he can't have the freedom of distributing false or misleading speech without having a disclaimer being attached. This all originated when twitter fact checked his tweet a few weeks ago and slapped on a warning tag, his executive order and instruction to the us ag regarding tech company censorship literally started because of that.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Nope, not just government, in fact this applies especially to individuals.

Nope, it explicitly refers to government action. The bit you posted confirms that.

"It forbids Congress...

...by prohibiting Congress..."

First Amendment | Contents, Freedoms, Rights, & Facts

First Amendment, amendment (1791) to the Constitution of the United States that is part of the Bill of Rights and reads, The clauses of the amendment are often called the establishment clause, the free exercise clause, the free speech clause, the free press clause, the assembly clause, and the...

www.britannica.com

The First Amendment, however, applies only to restrictions imposed by the government, since the First and Fourteenth amendments refer only to government action. As a result, if a private employer fires an employee because of the employee’s speech, there is no First Amendment violation. There is likewise no violation if a private university expels a student for what the student said, if a commercial landlord restricts what bumper stickers are sold on the property it owns, or if an Internet service provider refuses to host certain Web sites.

Not at all.
If Ben Shapiro's website claimed to be a platform, then Ben Shapiro couldn't censor what other people posted onto his platform --this allows him section 230 protection.
If Ben Shapiro's website claimed to be a private website, (Ie. he's a / the publisher), Ben Shapiro can censor whatever anyone posts on his site --this does not allow section 230 protection.
Either way, the government still couldn't force Ben Shapiro to put out an article he disagrees with -I'm not sure where you're getting that from.

Because it's what you're arguing. If Ben Shapiro's website, or Fox News, or Breitbart, or any other conservative website, has a comment section - then they are operating under Section 230 protection - and you're arguing that they shouldn't have that protection or be allowed to moderate their comment sections.

Read the bolded bit back to yourself - see where you went wrong? Do you think Ben Shapiro thinks his website isn't private property? Do you think it belongs to the government?

I've asked this question before, but no one answered, so I'll ask again (maybe you can tell me):
Are social media companies "platforms" or "publishers"?
(What's the fancy version of "publisher" again? .... Oh yeah, "content provider" or something like that.)
(It's the same thing, so let's call it what it is, to avoid any confusion: "publisher")

Because it's irrelevant.

Have you actually read Section 230?

Conservative Big Tech Campaign Based on Myths and Misunderstanding

Section 230 is not contingent on politically neutral content moderation, is not a subsidy or special privilege, nor does it make a distinction between publishers and platforms.

www.cato.org

Anyone who reads Section 230 will see that Section 230 does not state that the act of moderating content makes an interactive computer service a publisher. Section 230 merely states that an interactive computer service is not the publisher of most third party content and is free to moderate content.

That's exactly the problem. They claim protection under the "platform" label, while acting like a "publisher" -which would not afford them the same protection.
That's what this whole spiel is about.
If they claim to be a publisher -again, which they are right now- they need to be treated as such.

So, if these companies go, "Look guys, we're publishers," the government can't do anything...but on the flip-side they (the companies) are then open to being sued.
If the companies go, "We're a platform," the government can tell them that they can't censor or edit what people say or type.

Yes, I understand that you're somehow still misunderstanding the fundamental distinctions between content generated by the publisher/platform/company itself and user-generated content on its platform.

Facebook is already liable for content generated or commissioned by Facebook, but not for content generated by third parties on Facebook.

Read these two articles on the relevant law, history and distinctions that you're still missing, and Hawley, Cruz et al. are lying about.

47 U.S.C. § 230 and the Publisher/Distributor/Platform Distinction

I'm still doing some research related to President Trump's "Preventing Online Censorship" draft Executive Order, and hope to post more...

reason.com

Conservative Big Tech Campaign Based on Myths and Misunderstanding

Section 230 is not contingent on politically neutral content moderation, is not a subsidy or special privilege, nor does it make a distinction between publishers and platforms.

www.cato.org

In summary:

Under current law, Twitter, Facebook, and the like are immune as platforms, regardless of whether they edit (including in a politicized way). Like it or not, but this was a deliberate decision by Congress. You might prefer an "if you restrict your users' speech, you become liable for the speech you allow" model. But Congress rejected this model, and that rejection stands so long as § 230 remains in its current form.

So the model you're advocating for, as described above, would mean government is the entity that decides what content private websites are allowed to have on their own property.

And by the way, this has been tested in courts already, and the judges basically laughed the conservative crybabies out of court, because their claim is transparently ridiculous and at odds with the law.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

www.bloomberg.com

A three-judge panel held in a decision only four pages long that the organization didn’t provide enough evidence of an antitrust violation and that the companies aren’t state entities that can violate free speech rights.

“In general, the First Amendment ‘prohibits only governmental abridgment of speech,’” the judges wrote, quoting a previous decision.

See above, "publisher" vs "platform" (I might be repeating this a couple more times, because that's essentially the crux of the matter.
Forcing these companies to publicly state what they are. They can't be both.

Why not? Read the definitions and how they've been used in American case law for decades and tell me why not?

In practice, here's an example:

"In fact, there are times when a publisher can enjoy Section 230 protection. For example, The Wall Street Journal is a newspaper owned by a corporation. If The Wall Street Journal publishes an oped that defames someone the victim can sue the author of the oped and The Wall Street Journal. As well as publishing a dead tree newspaper, The Wall Street Journal also runs a website, which includes a comments section. This comments section is an “interactive computer service” covered by Section 230. If someone posts defamatory content in the comments section the victim can sue the user who posted the comment, but not The Wall Street Journal."

Ah yes, the "but look, nothing's happened to Ben Shapiro" defense.
(I really hate the fact that you're making me defend these people, because I generally don't agree with most of their stuff, but I'm in the
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." camp.)

The "big guys" are not the "target" audience. The social media companies don't go after the "big boys" -that would be too blatantly obvious.
They go after the "little guys". The guy that posts a MAGA hat wearing pic. The woman who posts about the trump rally. The people talking about
how great The Orange Don is or who post positive articles about him. Your normal everyday people. (Despite of what you may think or believe of them, 90% are
just normal people.)

Now the conspiracy theory expands - somehow the "anti-conservative bias" on social media doesn't apply to the vast host of conservatives who are in fact very successful on social media, get massive audiences, and still whine that they're being suppressed.

Evidence of the same social media companies bending over backwards to provide more leeway than they give anyone else, including overruling their own terms of service, is ignored.

Now it's become this phantom-like phenomenon where random nobodies are supposedly targeted. A claim that's essentially unfalsifiable.

And there's no evidence of that, either. In fact, evidence indicates the opposite is the case - right wing pages and groups consistently get the most engagement and the furthest reach.

From one of the articles above, it's even more clear there's no evidence of anti-conservative bias.

That's not even remotely the same thing.

Of course it is. What's the difference?

 

[TysonRoux]

Jack Dorsey: Twitter has no influence over elections

Jack Dorsey: Twitter has no influence over elections

The claim is sure to stir irritation on both the right and left.

www.axios.com

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Twitter does not have the ability to influence elections because there are ample additional sources of information, in response to questioning from Republican Sen. Ted Cruz during a hearing Wednesday.

Between the lines: The claim is sure to stir irritation on both the right and left. Conservatives argue Twitter and Facebook's moderation decisions help Democrats, while liberals contend the platforms shy from effectively cracking down on misinformation to appease Republicans.