Social media and the 1st Amendment (Formerly: Trump seeks to punish Twitter) (1 Viewer)

[superchuck500]

Despite Twitter historically granting Trump far more latitude with violations of Twitter terms of service than average members would get, a recent tagging of a Trump tweet with Twitter's fact-checking tool enraged the president. He announced yesterday that he will take retribution via executive order seeking to remove statutory legal protections in place for social media companies, and instructing his executive agencies (the FCC an DOJ) to formulate plans to take legal action against social media companies for "political bias."

A draft of the order has been released . . . and it is troubling to say the least.

According to analysis, the order will "reinterpret" a key provision of the Communications Decency Act (Sec. 230) that previously protected social media companies for responsibility for the content on their sites. That section works by declaring that social media companies are not "publishers" of the content posted by third-party account holders (members) - and it is statutory. The Trump order apparently also instructs the FCC to create regulations to make this new "interpretation" of Sec. 230 actionable against social media companies. In addition, the order apparently instructs the FTC (which is not an executive agency) to report to Congress on "political bias" in social media - and to consider using the reinterpreted Section 230 to bring actions against social media companies for political bias.

Apparently the order also instructs DOJ to work with state AGs to determine what state laws may be used against social media companies for political bias.

So yep, a Republican president is attempting to restructure the statutory framework that has allowed American social media companies - which are private business by the way - to grow into corporate giants without having to be answerable in court for the content posted by their members. And will do so based on the notion that private business should be held to some standard of political neutrality.

Further legal analysis will be needed, but it seems highly suspect on several important grounds (including the fact that Section 230 is statutory and is very explicit - it's not subject to rewrite by executive order). More importantly this idea that "political bias" can be defined and made actionable by federal agencies against private companies seems a patent violation of the First Amendment.

 

[Dragon]

So facebook who repeatedly have allowed misleading Trump adds apparently also have been playing sides on Instagram

Further investigation from Buzzfeed found that until recently, searching for #JoeBiden on Instagram would also return results for #trump2020landslide and #democratsdestroyamerica alongside pro-Biden messaging. Meanwhile, a similar search for #DonaldTrump did not return related hashtags.
Katie Paul, a director of the Tech Transparency Project, told Buzzfeed that the suppression of related hashtags "removes any possibility that negative hashtags could be associated with [Trump'] name or campaign slogans."

Instagram’s algorithm blocked negative hashtags of Trump, but not Biden | CNN Business

A bug in Instagram’s algorithm shielded Donald Trump from related hashtags without doing the same for rival Joe Biden

edition.cnn.com

 

[GrandAdmiral]

So facebook who repeatedly have allowed misleading Trump adds apparently also have been playing sides on Instagram

Instagram’s algorithm blocked negative hashtags of Trump, but not Biden | CNN Business

A bug in Instagram’s algorithm shielded Donald Trump from related hashtags without doing the same for rival Joe Biden

edition.cnn.com

So, does this mean things are a wash now? - Mark Zuckerberg

 

[SaintForLife]

I will patiently await Twitter fact checking Biden's false statement. I'm guessing we won't see a notification that his post is not true.

 

[Ayo]

White House Deputy Chief of Staff

 

[GrandAdmiral]

So the other day, the DNI says it will no longer brief Congress on election interference matters. Today, we get this. Awaiting to see how the fair leader handles this one...

New York (CNN Business)People associated with the infamous St. Petersburg troll group that was part of Russia's attempt to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election are trying to target Americans again, Facebook (FB) announced Tuesday after receiving a tip from the FBI.

The disrupted operation used fake personas including realistic-looking computer-generated photos of people, a network of Facebook accounts and pages that had only a small amount of engagement and influence at the time it was taken down, and a website that was set up to look and operate like a left-wing news outlet.

This is the first publicly available evidence that people connected to the Russian troll group, which is known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA), are using unwitting Americans in an attempt to meddle with the 2020 election and stir discord.

The operation seems to have been shut down before it could get much traction on Facebook or the rest of the internet. That mirrors what happened around the 2018 midterm elections, when -- as far as is publicly known -- the Russian trolls' online efforts were halting and small. The trolls had far more luck gaining followers and engagement in 2016, though it is not known how much of an impact, if any, their work had on the election.

After FBI tip, Facebook says it uncovered Russian meddling | CNN Business

People associated with the infamous St. Petersburg troll group that was part of Russia’s attempt to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election are trying to target Americans again, Facebook announced Tuesday after receiving a tip from the FBI.

www.cnn.com

 

[Saintamaniac]

We are under siege by Russia, Trump and the Republican party. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Trump and Republicans are making a play for total control of the country with Russia's help and the only reason it's not being done by force is because if the military knew, they wouldn't go along with it. You can call it a conspiracy theory or just plain craziness but what else would explain the complete capitulation of Republicans to Trump and completely ignoring the rule of law.

 

[brandon]

I will patiently await Twitter fact checking Biden's false statement. I'm guessing we won't see a notification that his post is not true.

I'm trying to figure out which part of this is false.

At first I thought maybe the date was wrong. But it happened in August 2017, so three years is correct.

So going down the list of items in the tweet:

• Were they actually white supremacists? Yes, as evidenced by Nazi flags and chants of "Jews will not replace us!"
• Did they have torches in hand? Yes.
• Did they have hate in their hearts? I guess that's not totally verifiable, but pretty likely.
• Did the president say they were very fine people? Well, his exact quote was:

Trump: "Excuse me, excuse me. They didn’t put themselves -- and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.

So the white supremacists would be included in the subset of people he was talking about, since he said there were very fine people on both sides. Unless it's your argument that he was saying that the white supremacists were bad, but the people there for the statue were fine people. But that seems to be a distinction without a difference. The people there were there as part of the "Unite the Right" rally, not to defend a statue. And the rally was organized by white supremacists.

• Was it clear then and is it clear now that we are in a battle for the soul of our nation? Again, perhaps not totally verifiable, but pretty likely.

So what exactly are you and Superman claiming is false?

 

[bdb13]

I'm trying to figure out which part of this is false.

At first I thought maybe the date was wrong. But it happened in August 2017, so three years is correct.

So going down the list of items in the tweet:

• Were they actually white supremacists? Yes, as evidenced by Nazi flags and chants of "Jews will not replace us!"
• Did they have torches in hand? Yes.
• Did they have hate in their hearts? I guess that's not totally verifiable, but pretty likely.
• Did the president say they were very fine people? Well, his exact quote was:

So the white supremacists would be included in the subset of people he was talking about, since he said there were very fine people on both sides. Unless it's your argument that he was saying that the white supremacists were bad, but the people there for the statue were fine people. But that seems to be a distinction without a difference.

• Was it clear then and is it clear now that we are in a battle for the soul of our nation? Again, perhaps not totally verifiable, but pretty likely.

So what exactly are you and Superman claiming is false?

Yeah I was wondering that as well... You could try to argue that it wasn't a "white supremacist rally" I guess?... but it was clearly a white supremacist rally (under the totally-not-racist guise of support for Confederate statues and monuments lol) and Trump said there were "very fine people" in that group...

So yeah, I dunno..

 

[Farb]

Not much of what trump said then rings different to what Biden has said when he finally condemned the violent riots across the country this past weekend. "Both sides", not that expect him too or for the media to actually ask for a follow up.

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/rnc-2020-day-3/h_b0dc1970d10b3a1577d1d66b77df8371

If this is true and CNN even thinks....maybe......not completely true...., then there must be proof that there was not a single person was there to march in support of not taking down a statue.They were 100% neo-nazis. Just like we have been told for 3 months that every protester is peaceful and all ANTIFA and BLM marches are not infiltrated by bad eggs. It can't work one way and not the other. Well, its 2020 and an election year, so......

 

[JimEverett]

This is interesting to me.

I am not talking about the actual story the Post published or whether it is mostly true or false or whether it is good reporting or not, etc. But why is Twitter acting like news police? This seems to go against the spirit and the letter of the exemption that they receive from the federal government - an exemption the Post does not receive.

 

[samiam5211]

This is interesting to me.

I am not talking about the actual story the Post published or whether it is mostly true or false or whether it is good reporting or not, etc. But why is Twitter acting like news police? This seems to go against the spirit and the letter of the exemption that they receive from the federal government - an exemption the Post does not receive.

Hopefully it leads to legislation that classifies and regulates social media/platforms as a separate type of entity.

There needs to be some type of control over what these companies can do, and right now we have none. Hopefully we can figure out a way to do it that doesn’t get overturned by the courts.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

This is interesting to me.

I am not talking about the actual story the Post published or whether it is mostly true or false or whether it is good reporting or not, etc. But why is Twitter acting like news police? This seems to go against the spirit and the letter of the exemption that they receive from the federal government - an exemption the Post does not receive.

I’d have to know the context of the story. Is it something that could possibly inspire violence or be misinformation about Corona, for example? If it’s just something negative about Biden then yeah, that’s pretty ridiculous.

 

[BobE]

I'm trying to figure out which part of this is false.

At first I thought maybe the date was wrong. But it happened in August 2017, so three years is correct.

So going down the list of items in the tweet:

• Were they actually white supremacists? Yes, as evidenced by Nazi flags and chants of "Jews will not replace us!"
• Did they have torches in hand? Yes.
• Did they have hate in their hearts? I guess that's not totally verifiable, but pretty likely.
• Did the president say they were very fine people? Well, his exact quote was:

So the white supremacists would be included in the subset of people he was talking about, since he said there were very fine people on both sides. Unless it's your argument that he was saying that the white supremacists were bad, but the people there for the statue were fine people. But that seems to be a distinction without a difference. The people there were there as part of the "Unite the Right" rally, not to defend a statue. And the rally was organized by white supremacists.

• Was it clear then and is it clear now that we are in a battle for the soul of our nation? Again, perhaps not totally verifiable, but pretty likely.

So what exactly are you and Superman claiming is false?

He also said

and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally

But that part is always left out for some reason

 

[BobE]

I’d have to know the context of the story. Is it something that could possibly inspire violence or be misinformation about Corona, for example? If it’s just something negative about Biden then yeah, that’s pretty ridiculous.

It is zero to do with Covid. It's emails between Hunter Biden and honestly not sure about talking to Joe (I think. I haven't read the story yet) Also pics of Hunter.

 

[BobE]

She probably deserved it

 

[Saint by the Bay]

Here’s more detail I was able to find including statements from Twitter And Facebook.

Twitter, Facebook Place Limits On Access To New York Post Story On Hunter Biden

UPDATE: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that their explanation for why they blocked access to the New York Post’s Hunter Biden story was “not great.” “And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable,” Dorsey wrote on Twitter, amid the furor over...

deadline.com

 

[MT15]

The pretty strong indication is that the story is completely made up Russian disinformation from Rudy and Bannon. I would imagine that is the reason that Twitter suddenly got the yips.

I think they are trying to verify if the material is legitimate in any way. If It is legitimate, which is highly doubtful, it is stolen, so not sure how that is looked at by Twitter either.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

He also said



But that part is always left out for some reason

Except it was a Unite the Right rally. There was nobody on the other side except Nazi’s and white supremacists.

It would be like me going to a Saints vs Falcons game and saying there were very fine fans on both sides, except the Falcons fans. I mean, not that I’d ever do that. I’m not willing to give the kind of wink nod validation to Falcons fans that Trump gives Nazis and white supremacists.

In fairness, even Trump doesn’t give any kind of support to Falcons fans because they are way worse than Nazis.