I don't know why people think repealing this will help things. From the right-wing perspective, where they feverishly imagine they are being censored, it would obviously make twitter/facebook/etc... completely clamp down on anything even vaguely libelous/slanderous/dangerous. It would increase, not decrease, censorship.
From the left wing, they may be happy with less disinformation and "harassment", but they will be sad when their own disinformation and harassment is also blocked.
It's just bizarre to me as an old fogey remembering in the 90's when nerds were 100% scared to death of the govt stepping in to regulate things, now because of politics people on both sides are begging for them to do it.
It's not bizarre at all. If regulation has to be had, you want it to be sensible. I don't LIKE paying taxes, but if I have to, I want it done in an intelligent way. I don't LIKE social distancing laws, but if I have to wear a mask and can't travel to other states during this spike, I want it enforced intelligently so I'm not wasting my time. The tech companies realize that self-regulation is not cutting it, so it's better to write regulations they can live with rather than letting the idiots in congress
As much as I dislike the censorship done by big tech, at least I can move to an alternative platform. If one particular platform offers a "safe space" for the mental underclass of society, so be it. I would rather leave things as is than move to a model where the lawyers keep *any* independent thought from the light of day. If the law requires FB & everyone else to censor, then democracy is effectively dead... but if the law requires FB to abstain from censoring, most ordinary people who want that s
Yes, private censorship is bad, but regulation would effectively be an end-run around the first amendment, where nobody, anywhere - even those who can stand up their own websites - will be able to speak freely. If my ISP becomes liable for content I publish, then I will lose the even the ability to run servers.
See, this is what Section 230 was all about. Your ISP (assuming they allow 80/443 traffic) wouldn't have to worry about being liable about what you put on a web server that you host, because they're providing a dumb pipe. As long as you pay the bill and aren't hosting child pr0n or a warez server, the ISP doesn't have to worry about providing you service to host (for example) a white supremacist website. Offensive, sure, but not your problem.
The problem is with the sleight of hand that Twitter and Facebook have been playing the last few years. It's "a neutral platform" when Kathy Griffin posts a picture of her holding a representation of Donald Trump's severed head, but "a private company" when the NY Post writes an article that implicates the Bidens. It's not a perfect comparison, I grant you, but it's Twitter being a platform when it's convenient, and exercising editorial control when that's more convenient.
I think we had the solution back in the 80s, and still do, but nobody wants to seem to apply it properly: Killfiles. More specifically, Twitter and Facebook have/everything/; they can't censor or they're liable for everything posted on their platforms...but, third parties can offer filtering services and browser plugins that keep whatever you dislike at bay. This way, the solution for seeing things you don't like is to pick a killfile service and tier that automatically filters out whatever you deem offensive. Twitter isn't liable for problematic tweets, Barracuda makes a fortune allowing people to build their preferred echo chamber, and everyone retains their freedom of speech on truly neutral platforms.
CDA 230.. (Score:2)
I don't know why people think repealing this will help things. From the right-wing perspective, where they feverishly imagine they are being censored, it would obviously make twitter/facebook/etc... completely clamp down on anything even vaguely libelous/slanderous/dangerous. It would increase, not decrease, censorship.
From the left wing, they may be happy with less disinformation and "harassment", but they will be sad when their own disinformation and harassment is also blocked.
It also raises a constitutio
We want the right regulation (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just bizarre to me as an old fogey remembering in the 90's when nerds were 100% scared to death of the govt stepping in to regulate things, now because of politics people on both sides are begging for them to do it.
It's not bizarre at all. If regulation has to be had, you want it to be sensible. I don't LIKE paying taxes, but if I have to, I want it done in an intelligent way. I don't LIKE social distancing laws, but if I have to wear a mask and can't travel to other states during this spike, I want it enforced intelligently so I'm not wasting my time. The tech companies realize that self-regulation is not cutting it, so it's better to write regulations they can live with rather than letting the idiots in congress
Re: (Score:2)
As much as I dislike the censorship done by big tech, at least I can move to an alternative platform. If one particular platform offers a "safe space" for the mental underclass of society, so be it. I would rather leave things as is than move to a model where the lawyers keep *any* independent thought from the light of day. If the law requires FB & everyone else to censor, then democracy is effectively dead... but if the law requires FB to abstain from censoring, most ordinary people who want that s
Re:We want the right regulation (Score:3)
Yes, private censorship is bad, but regulation would effectively be an end-run around the first amendment, where nobody, anywhere - even those who can stand up their own websites - will be able to speak freely. If my ISP becomes liable for content I publish, then I will lose the even the ability to run servers.
See, this is what Section 230 was all about. Your ISP (assuming they allow 80/443 traffic) wouldn't have to worry about being liable about what you put on a web server that you host, because they're providing a dumb pipe. As long as you pay the bill and aren't hosting child pr0n or a warez server, the ISP doesn't have to worry about providing you service to host (for example) a white supremacist website. Offensive, sure, but not your problem.
The problem is with the sleight of hand that Twitter and Facebook have been playing the last few years. It's "a neutral platform" when Kathy Griffin posts a picture of her holding a representation of Donald Trump's severed head, but "a private company" when the NY Post writes an article that implicates the Bidens. It's not a perfect comparison, I grant you, but it's Twitter being a platform when it's convenient, and exercising editorial control when that's more convenient.
I think we had the solution back in the 80s, and still do, but nobody wants to seem to apply it properly: Killfiles. More specifically, Twitter and Facebook have /everything/; they can't censor or they're liable for everything posted on their platforms...but, third parties can offer filtering services and browser plugins that keep whatever you dislike at bay. This way, the solution for seeing things you don't like is to pick a killfile service and tier that automatically filters out whatever you deem offensive. Twitter isn't liable for problematic tweets, Barracuda makes a fortune allowing people to build their preferred echo chamber, and everyone retains their freedom of speech on truly neutral platforms.