A newspaper or a radio station isn’t claiming to be a neutral, unbiased communication platform.
I mean, it’s not dangerous legally. If you run a website, you can let people post with abandon, or fact check just the ones who you disagree with.
“Otherwise objectionable” is pretty broad. If you run a website that lets other people post, you can remove or editorialize anything you disagree with.
Seems that your lawyer was incorrect? Section 230 does not require that you manage to remove every bit of objectionable material to provide the liability shield, nor does it require that you be apolitical.
My overall support of Trump? That man is a nut. I just dislike the far left more as I feel the far left are far more dangerous.
And Twitter and such are not pro free speech.
I see. So all Twitter has to do is say “We are not a neutral, unbiased communication platform” and then all is good?
IANAL, either, but I agree with this.
As I heard it said, this is Trump “solving” a problem that doesn’t exist, with power he doesn’t have.
This is rich when one takes into consideration that the weaponized ignorance of the president was a reason for many dying in the pandemic.
BTW the conservatives decided to keep the yahoo in power and to continue to look away at his dangerous choices. They own him.
They are one of the few allowing less restrictions on adult content and more controversial subjects than many other social media groups.
If they want to be publishers let them be governed by the same rules other publishers are subjected to.
That’s not what I asked. It seems as if you think, if I start a website called onlyfootballposts.com, I’m not allowed to delete any posts that don’t mention football lest I risk being governed by the same rules as publishers.
Is that what you are advocating?
Are other publishers required to publish everything anyone wants them to publish without comment? Which publishers are these?
How so?
Twitter does not publish anything of their own (beyond notices on how they are running things).
They provide a platform for others to stand on and say something. They limit how much those people can say but that is the same deal for everyone and everyone knows the deal before they walk on the stage. Pretty much anyone can line up for their turn on the stage.
If you started OctoTwitter how would you make it a “more” free speech platform (and let’s assume you want to prevent things like kiddie porn from being published)?
Like Fox News claiming to be Fair and Balanced?
Is a private company legally bound to uphold their their mission statement, slogan, name or anything else for that matter?
Just read through the full text of the EO
“© The Department of Justice shall review the viewpoint-based speech restrictions imposed by each online platform identified in the report described in subsection (b) of this section and assess whether any online platforms are problematic vehicles for government speech due to viewpoint discrimination, deception to consumers, or other bad practices.”
WERE there justice dept to find that twitter is a “problematic vehicle” for government speech and shouldn’t receive advertising dollars, would that then mean, that as Trump’s tweets have previously been found to be official communication, he also would be banned from Twitter by the government?
IANAL, but it looks like Trump and his buddy Barr want to use regulatory power to influence how the statutes are interpreted/enforced (or not) with regard to the Sen Tel-com Act of 1996. Social media came about a decade after the act, so they’ve kind of been incorporated into the existing legislation. With little hope that the House would go along with regulating social media for Trump’s benefit, one thing he might do is use the full weight of federal executive power to intimidate specific social media companies.
Something that ordinary folk need to understand about authoritarian rule is that they tend to create their own authoritarian-based form of capitalism. They reward companies that play ball and punish those who don’t. Point being, if party leadership can meet with Zuck and get him to agree to host fake news without fact checks, then that Trump tells his legions of conservatives to follow them in a move to Facebook and Instagram. Twitter becomes the “liberal” social media network - the CNN or MSNBC of social media while Facebook and Insta become Fox News or OANN.
I’m not octopus, but that is my opinion. If you’re going to sift through submissions and ascertain whether they are appropriate for your site, it is your responsibility to throw out the kiddie porn.
The exception was made so that companies like Comcast don’t have to sift through each network packet and search for criminal activity, the same way your phone company isn’t liable if you use their phone network to plot a terrorist attack. It wasn’t made with social media or web apps in mind.
~Max