OT- is it time to repeal Section 230?

[mstateglfr]

Why should the "fact check" at all? That's not their function. It's the reader's perogative whether they want to believe what they read. Leave everything up as posted (unless it's to incite a riot or terroristic) with no responsibility what anyone posts. They shouldn't be liable, nor should they filter or "fact check" anything.

Why do we have consumer protection for anything? Let's just have a blanket policy of buyer beware for everything. We should just let any company to say and claim anything and allow/force the consumer to figure out whats truth and whats total ********.

 

[mstateglfr]

Preview all posts??? Ha! More than 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Good luck with that.

Yes, its completely unrealistic in practice, based on current setup.

 

[mstateglfr]

Well, I feel pretty confident that the photos of the bearded guy and the guy with the cow horns headdress, and exact same tattoos in the exact same spots on his arms showing both of them at a BLM protest in Arizona and also at the Capitol today, will be “fact-checked” right off Facebook soon.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.azcentral.com/amp/6568513002

Are you referring to the QAnon guy who sets up shop outside the AZ State Capitol and preaches conspiracy theories?
View attachment 19171


ETA- this thread has gone off the rails.

 

[Dawgg]

Well, I feel pretty confident that the photos of the bearded guy and the guy with the cow horns headdress, and exact same tattoos in the exact same spots on his arms showing both of them at a BLM protest in Arizona and also at the Capitol today, will be “fact-checked” right off Facebook soon.

Well the buffalo guy’s name is Jake Angeli, is a QAnon guy and a Trump supporter. This is from May 2020... so unless this is a long con... implicating him as Antifa/BLM probably should be fact checked right off Facebook.

https://twitter.com/brieannafrank/status/1257736599170736128?s=21

 

[ezsoil]

Why do we have consumer protection for anything? Let's just have a blanket policy of buyer beware for everything. We should just let any company to say and claim anything and allow/force the consumer to figure out whats truth and whats total ********.[/QUOTE

are you saying that people are tooo stupid to make decisions about the products that they buy?????

THANK GOD we have the government and people like you who THINK they know what's best for me *****

I'll take any company that is held accountable by the marketplace over a government agency that is never right and has never been held accountable. What "you people" don't understand is that in the free marketplace, those that sell goods MUST cater To the customer to stay in business...a government agency serves no purpose other than to serve themselves.

Any perceived problem with capitalism is caused from Government picking the winners and losers in marketplace.
regardless of how vile "you people" think corporations are, ...no corporation or small business can force you to buy their product....the only entity that can FORCE you to do anything is government.

 

[dog12]

Why do we have consumer protection for anything? Let's just have a blanket policy of buyer beware for everything. We should just let any company to say and claim anything and allow/force the consumer to figure out whats truth and whats total ********.

For things like food and drugs, consumer protection protects us from products that might make us sick or kill us.

For things like speech, consumer protection is not nearly as important. Words will never hurt me. That sort of thing.

That makes sense, right?

 

[dog12]

Yes. There's not a more smug tyrant than Jack Dorsey. With Zuck a close 2nd. Not sure about the Google guy/

View attachment 19172

 

[Go Budaw]

Correct. They filter with bias, and that's not acceptable. So if Twitter, Facebook, and others are hiding behind 230, repeal it. We don't need censoring based on their political leanings - let the reader decide.

In theory, they can filter with bias either way. They are currently deleting / removing content and posters at their own discretion right now with 230 in place. All 230 does is requires them to remove anything illegal, or be subject to lawsuit or sanctions.

Practically speaking, this is all about money. Its a lot more expensive to moderate every single post that is ever shared on a forum or social media platform than it is to only remove the most egregious 0.01% after the fact. So big tech bottom line would take a hit, as well as smaller operations like SPS, etc. (as DS already stated).

 

[dog12]

If anything section 230 should be deemed to not apply.

A major difference between, say, SPS and Facebook is that SPS does no curation of content. There's no recommendation of what thread I should read next. I can set up alerts to let me know when M-State girlfriend posts, but that's my own doing.

Facebook, and Twitter and even Reddit, will make recommendations based on mining my data. They might see that I've been earning major tendies from reading r/wsb and recommend I slow my **** down and check out r/investing. This recommendation is something that they generated.

Facebook tends to be far worse than Reddit on this front. If I go to Reddit I generally see the thread the same as any other user. Facebook will display posts and threads in a unique order for each user. It's crazy.

Here's the solution to our 230 problem: withdraw 230 protection for any platform that routinely censors speech, regardless of whether the speech is conservative or liberal.

Proving that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube routinely censor speech should be fairly easy to do.

Once that is proven, the media platform no longer has 230 protection and is liable for any defamatory content on the website.


Also, you have brought up another very important issue: the platforms have the ability to sway (or, outright control) public speech and public opinion through their censorship, news feeds, recommendations, etc.

People probably said the same thing about newspapers when they first started.

Newspapers are liable for publishing defamatory content. They have no 230 protection.

In my opinion, media platforms that routinely censor content on their platform should not have 230 protection either.

 

[Go Budaw]

If 230 is repealed, then the media platforms have no protection from defamatory content that appears on their platform.

Thus, if 230 is repealed, then Facebook, Twitter and YouTube would be liable for content on their website that equates to libel or slander against Trump or Biden.

With 230 in place, the media platforms can effectively censor any content they deem to be "misinformation."

That is how Facebook, Twitter and YouTube can selectively censor conservative voices that post content on their websites.

In my opinion, that is 17ing bullsh*t.

If 230 is repealed, at least the media platforms would be forced to evaluate whether "progressive" content is defamatory and remove it if it is.

The way things are currently, "progressive" voices have free reign on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

At least that's my understanding and my viewpoint.

Again, they can censor “misinfornation” either way. Read the fine print of any social media platform. When you post an update on grandma’s condition in the hospital on Facebook, guess what? You don’t own that content about your grandma, facebook does. Same with any photo you have ever posted. Even things that you delete are saved in facebook archives and stored on servers used to gauge your relative interests for purposes of targeted ads in the future. Same with every other media platform, browser, etc.

Section 230 says even though those sites own the content, they can’t be held liable for every single comment / photo / video / etc. of every single user. So its essentially a get out of jail free card that lets the Big Tech companies have their cake and eat it too. But even if they didn’t have that protection, they are still free to censor whatever they want, because, again, they 100% own all the content. 230 repeal would just force them to remove anything illegal.

 

[xxxWalkTheDawg]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-section-230-and-why-do-so-many-lawmakers-want-to-repeal-it/

Since the thread about storming the Capitol is active and there is a healthy discussion about whether Trump is to blame or Social Media is to blame(or perhaps both are to blame?)- I encourage anyone who is unfamiliar with what section 230 is to take a few minutes and read the link. Then google it and read other stuff about Section 230 as well.



Basically, Section 230 provides a shield to protect websites from being responsible if a user posts something illegal. This is pretty much why reddit, 4 chan, 8 chan, etc have exploded in popularity with those on the fringe of legal interests.
If Section 230 is repealed, then YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter would preview posts before allowing them to go live because they would be liable for content in those posts.

This subject is critical to how we as a society handle news and information moving forward. Regardless of if you support Section 230 or dislike it, it is vital that you understand the consequences of keeping it as well as the consequences of removing it.

There is another option. An amendment to the law.

Basically, you can opt to “fact check”, or otherwise manipulate information, IF it is applied universally. If it is not... there are penalties.

Otherwise they cannot touch the information unless it is illegal, a threat, or otherwise currently disallowed.

Then there should be a user, or subscriber, limit. Say 1 million users. Sites less than that remains as it is, over that under the amended rules. That would exempt the small sites.

 

[dog12]

Yeah it’s all trumps fault.

Didn’t seem to be a big deal when CHAZ happened or any of the other “peaceful protests”.

Perception of the capitol is bad.

But is it really worse than shutting down a decenct size portion of a city? Threatening lives of people
Who love there and closing businesses?

When did politicians become more important than the people they serve?

Today's media have two objectives:
1) destroy Trump; and
2) promote liberal agendas.

Today's media will always spin every story to promote their liberal agendas.

Thus, for today's media, Democratic politicians ARE more important than the people they serve.

 

[johnson86-1]

It will be taken advantage of and shut down the mom and pop websites like SixPackSpeak.com

If anything were ever done by Congress On 230 (it won’t be since Every significant social media company supports democrats and even if republicans were to somehow overcome the margin of fraud in the future, Enough will be on the take from tech companies that they won’t be able to get anything done), it probably would be done in a corrupt way that crushes smaller outlets.

But ideally 230 protection would stay in place for user generated content and only be lost by companies choosing which content to censor. Will be hard to actually draft a standard that effectively prevents companies like Facebook from promoting their personal views while still having a functional algorithm, but the concept is easy.

 

[gwadSIG]

So when Maxine Waters came out and said to harass republicans and to push back on them, should she be held responsible for any injuries or property damage? Let's start with something that matters...term limits.

 

[Dawgg]

There is another option. An amendment to the law.

Basically, you can opt to “fact check”, or otherwise manipulate information, IF it is applied universally. If it is not... there are penalties.

Otherwise they cannot touch the information unless it is illegal, a threat, or otherwise currently disallowed.

Then there should be a user, or subscriber, limit. Say 1 million users. Sites less than that remains as it is, over that under the amended rules. That would exempt the small sites.

Sounds like massive government overreach to me.

 

[mstateglfr]

Why do we have consumer protection for anything? Let's just have a blanket policy of buyer beware for everything. We should just let any company to say and claim anything and allow/force the consumer to figure out whats truth and whats total ********.

are you saying that people are tooo stupid to make decisions about the products that they buy?????

THANK GOD we have the government and people like you who THINK they know what's best for me *****

I'll take any company that is held accountable by the marketplace over a government agency that is never right and has never been held accountable. What "you people" don't understand is that in the free marketplace, those that sell goods MUST cater To the customer to stay in business...a government agency serves no purpose other than to serve themselves.

Any perceived problem with capitalism is caused from Government picking the winners and losers in marketplace.
regardless of how vile "you people" think corporations are, ...no corporation or small business can force you to buy their product....the only entity that can FORCE you to do anything is government.

I am not saying people are too stupid to make decisions about the products they buy. I am saying it is unreasonable and dangerous to expect consumers to be experts in every consumer retail field imaginable to ensure they keep them and their families safe by being able to sort thru the potential lies and misinformation that would be allowed without consumer safety laws.
17ing 2020 is still at it, because I am actually having to explain the benefit of consumer safety laws! Holy 17, this is wild.
Companies being held accountable by the marketplace as the only form of consumer protection means violent and horrible injuries and deaths occur before consumer demand changes things. Car companies can claim safe airbags and install burlap sacks. Chicken producers dont need to label anything about what they inject. Homes can be built with glued sawdust frames and advertised differently.
Buyer beware, right? We dont need standards because people should be experts on everything and know what claims are truthful and what are ********!

Same applies on the internet. It is incredibly difficult to figure out what is real and what is a lie on social media. Super hard to discern what is legit and what is manipulated on facebook and twitter. It matters because it affects how we govern and literally our safety. It affects how we as a people want to spend money on military and foreign aid because all those truths and lies pull us in different directions.
I mean- the caveat emptor approach is in part why we are here right now. Media(both traditional and social) puts up a picture of buildings burning and associates it to an event when its really a different event. What happens for that misinformation?...17ing nothing. To be clear, if your view is working, then that means people want the misinformation. Media claims a military veteran brought COVID19 to the US and 17ing releases the woman's personal info and what happens?...17ing nothing. She continues to receive death threats because people believe lies to a dangerous degree.


I am not arguing for or against 230 here because I dont know the answer, but I am confident that doing nothing and letting dangerous lies multiply by the hour is not the best solution.

 

[xxxWalkTheDawg]

Sounds like massive government overreach to me.

Oh son... my profession is accounting. Go down the rabbit hole of the Treasury Regulations and the Internal Revenue Code if you think that scratches the surface of government overreach.

 

[mstateglfr]

For things like food and drugs, consumer protection protects us from products that might make us sick or kill us.

For things like speech, consumer protection is not nearly as important. Words will never hurt me. That sort of thing.

That makes sense, right?

What is spoken can be dangerous to individuals and the country. People believe the words and take action.
This means members of congress vote certain ways based on internet lies. This means citizens vote certain ways based on internet and social media lies. This means citizens take protection and enforcement into their own hands based on lies.

 

[mstateglfr]

So when Maxine Waters came out and said to harass republicans and to push back on them, should she be held responsible for any injuries or property damage? Let's start with something that matters...term limits.

1- if someone with influence is advocating for violence to a person or damage to property, I would not think twice if they are held responsible.
2- term limits has 0 to do with Section 230.
3- it is possible that multiple things can matter- both Section 230 and term limits.

 

[MadDawg.sixpack]

Short answer - YES

 

[msudawg12]

While I agree that there is a lot of ******** on the internet that shouldnt be there, the ability to sensor it should never be on the table. Just look at which countries are sensoring the internet and you will see why. Once you open that door, it is a slippery slope.

Now, those social media platforms should be reviewed to see what their algorithms are pushing to the forefront of your feeds.....

 

[patdog]

Yeah. Censoring free speech scares me a lot more than any of the ******** that comes from both sides of the political spectrum.

 

[Hump4Hoops]

Yep, that's him! "QAnon Shaman"

So, this "Antifi false flag infiltrator" is actually... Exactly what he looks like. A far right extremist.

 

[mstateglfr]

Now, those social media platforms should be reviewed to see what their algorithms are pushing to the forefront of your feeds.....

For sure

 

[CookieMonster.sixpack]

YES! Repeal it. If social media went away, it would probably do everyone good.

 

[dorndawg]

How It Started:

How It's Going:

 

[Shmuley]

We need a well-timed, well-placed, EMP that specifically targets telecom and creates a 3 month telecom shut down. Reset.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

Just another point of why I am uncomfortable with Twitter and Facebook’s control of news in this country: Trump’s pages were shutdown yesterday, but they have no problem with the President of Iran.

 

[bolddogge]

And this is a bad thing how?

A person can pretty much say what they want about public figures without having to worry about slander. If you could prosecute someone for telling an untruth about a public figure, just about all politicians running for office would be in jail.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

Also, I have no problem with opening every online post up to be sued for slander/libel as long as we change the laws and require the losing party to pay for everyone’s attorney fees. That ain’t gonna happen. Too many lawyers to feed.

 

[ezsoil]

Companies being held accountable by the marketplace as the only form of consumer protection means violent and horrible injuries and deaths occur before consumer demand changes things. Car companies can claim safe airbags and install burlap sacks. Chicken producers dont need to label anything about what they inject. Homes can be built with glued sawdust frames and advertised differently.


Dude, if ANY of those things occurred the company would be out of business and be liable for any damages . The reason those things do not occur isn't from any sort of government oversight ...it's because the marketplace won't accept products that don't perform.......

Where is the accountability for the malfeasance made by government agencies ? Say for example waivers to building codes or materials? Or what about the government agencies that use regulations against those companies of a different political view... There isn't any. Government employees get raises and the people affected by their corruption are left with no recourse.

 

[Villagedawg]

While not a friend, as of today the president of Iran

Just another point of why I am uncomfortable with Twitter and Facebook’s control of news in this country: Trump’s pages were shutdown yesterday, but they have no problem with the President of Iran.

hasn't invaded and attempted to overthrow the Congress of the United States.

 

[Villagedawg]

So all of the "they shouldn't fact check or censor" crowd agrees that private businesses often have control over issues or products that are of great concern to the public and, therefore, should be subject to government regulation and/or downright government "telling them what they can and can't do with their private business"?

 

[dawglawz]

Of course not. Just like how Republican deficit hawks only fly when a Democrat is in the White House. They do not see the incongruence of their positions because they don't actually believe in the principle. Me, me, me.

 

[dawglawz]

Either that or you have to accept that DJT called Antifa "patriots."

 

[dawglawz]

How do you feel about forcing a bakery to bake a cake for a gay couple's wedding?

 

[dorndawg]

Of course not. Just like how Republican deficit hawks only fly when a Democrat is in the White House. They do not see the incongruence of their positions because they don't actually believe in the principle. Me, me, me.

BOOM.

 

[Russ Wheeler]

Of course not. Just like how Republican deficit hawks only fly when a Democrat is in the White House. They do not see the incongruence of their positions because they don't actually believe in the principle. Me, me, me.

I'm a conservative, and I 100% agree with you here.

 

[dawglawz]

Sit down and let me tell you a story about a little company called Johnson & Johnson and some of their high quality products like baby powder, vaginal mesh implants, and opioids.

Dude, if ANY of those things occurred the company would be out of business and be liable for any damages

 

[mstateglfr]

Companies being held accountable by the marketplace as the only form of consumer protection means violent and horrible injuries and deaths occur before consumer demand changes things. Car companies can claim safe airbags and install burlap sacks. Chicken producers dont need to label anything about what they inject. Homes can be built with glued sawdust frames and advertised differently.


Dude, if ANY of those things occurred the company would be out of business and be liable for any damages . The reason those things do not occur isn't from any sort of government oversight ...it's because the marketplace won't accept products that don't perform.......

Where is the accountability for the malfeasance made by government agencies ? Say for example waivers to building codes or materials? Or what about the government agencies that use regulations against those companies of a different political view... There isn't any. Government employees get raises and the people affected by their corruption are left with no recourse.

Buyer Beware as a default business practice leads to all sorts of 17ing chaos. You may not like that reality, but its true. If I used poor examples, I apologize, but that doesnt change reality. Requiring consumers to be experts at everything is not a healthy economic model. The claim that 'the market will sort it out' does prove true at times, and also doesnt happen in a lot of times.
When lies with convincing reasoning are continually sent out to citizens, we find ourselves here- unable to even agree on what is the truth. Is that picture of a fire from the CHAZ or is it from another city and different year entirely? Is that kid holding an automatic weapon actually at the CHAZ border or is it misrepresented and actually from another incident? Are those looters leftist protesters, or neo-con infiltrators? etc etc etc.

Its crippling to not be able to trust information being pushed to you, and so here we are- discussing who should be held accountable for lies...or if anyone should even be held accountable. Let the lies grow in volume and severity, apparently.