Joe Biden Doesn't Like Trump's Twitter Order, But Still Wants To Revoke Section 230 (theverge.com) 223
Former Vice President Joe Biden still wants to repeal the pivotal internet law that provides social media companies like Facebook and Twitter with broad legal immunity over content posted by their users, a campaign spokesperson told The Verge. Still, the campaign emphasized key disagreements with the executive order signed by the president earlier this week. From a report: Earlier this year, Biden told The New York Times that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act should be "revoked, immediately." In recent days, President Donald Trump has reinvigorated a controversial debate over amending the foundational internet law after Twitter fact-checked one of his tweets for the first time. Over the last year, Trump and other congressional Republicans have grown concerned over the false idea that social media platforms actively moderate against conservative speech online. Trump turned his threats into action Thursday, signing an executive order that could pare back platform liability protections under Section 230.
In a statement Thursday responding to the order, Biden campaign spokesperson Bill Russo said that "it will not be the position of any future Biden Administration ... that the First Amendment means private companies must provide a venue for, and amplification of, the president's falsehoods, lest they become the subject of coordinated retaliation by the federal government." Still, Biden's position on Section 230 remains unchanged.
In a statement Thursday responding to the order, Biden campaign spokesperson Bill Russo said that "it will not be the position of any future Biden Administration ... that the First Amendment means private companies must provide a venue for, and amplification of, the president's falsehoods, lest they become the subject of coordinated retaliation by the federal government." Still, Biden's position on Section 230 remains unchanged.
The "web" as a whole is fucked. (Score:3)
End the web. Everyone go back to pre-web services.
Re:The "web" as a whole is fucked. (Score:4, Funny)
Usenet forever!
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Might be time to look at moving operations out of the US, given that both potential presidents seem to be interested in destroying them... Or buy some politicians, that might work.
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Just for sites in the US. Hm. Might be time to open a hosting company.
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I am just reading "Titan" from Stephen Baxter, seems he thought it would disappear much faster, for the same reasons.
Re: The "web" as a whole is fucked. (Score:2)
Titan sounds like an intriguing novel. I loved Evolution. Thanks for mentioning this, I'll give it a go.
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I don't know what you are talking about. I just run a Telnet Site. I just happen to run it on port 80. And require interesting commands to get data
for example after people connect to my site, they may type in GET / to get the welcome page with options to to follow. They can read those options and decide to connect to an other telnet site, or connect again with a different get command.
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The "web" as a whole is fucked.
If that's the case, then the "web" fucked itself. It was better when it was a wide open, wild-west style frontier with no constraints. Twitter went from "the Free Speech Wing of the Free Speech Party" to "That's Wrongthink, you can't say that". Twitter, and all like them, deserve all the shit and ruin coming their way.
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Nice try, but the law originated with protecting dial-up BBSes. We need it for anything online where individuals communicate with one another using equipment or services provided by third party hosts.
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I don't know what to think... (Score:4, Interesting)
On the one hand, I really don't like the vitriol spewed from the fringe on either the left or the right. Getting rid of 230 will force the platforms to take the fringe on and not let it be promoted and mainstreamed, so that to me sounds like a good thing.
But if the platforms become accountable for all, this could push them too far in policing to squelch all discourse, even on banal topics, so the threat of being held even partially responsible for content could make things swing way too far the other way.
Maybe it would be better if social media platforms devolve to just showing animal pics and videos. Given the state of where things are, I'm not sure things could get worse...
I do (Score:3, Funny)
On the one hand, this slope looks invitingly slippery.
On the other, I can see plainly a pit of spikes at the end of the slope that I am certain to be impaled on should I step onto the slope.
What to do, what to do...
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But this kind of assumes that things will be fine if you continue to do nothing. In reality, your house is on fire and that slope might be the only way to escape getting burned down inside.
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My own guess is that the web will just re-Balkanize around platforms for the left and right wingnuts and then the rest of us. The Trump can blast out his racist banter to his true believers.
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Getting rid of 230 will force the platforms to take the fringe on and not let it be promoted and mainstreamed, so that to me sounds like a good thing.
It also means that people who disagree with the fringe can point out why their ideas are bad. I think half of the allure that fringe groups get is comes from the notion that if the people in power won't let them say something, there must be some kind of truth to it. This is particularly true of young adults who are looking to rebel a little and don't like being told what to do.
The people on the fringe also get to engage with the rest of the world and a big reason that people stay in those fringe groups i
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The problem is the fringe group (a minority) is often very vocal with modern technology and makes themselves seem larger than they really are.
I feel getting rid of 230 or strictly following it is both a bad problem. However these companies should be responsible with the data that they are dealing with, and should be able to annotate a message (eg Pointing to factual evidence, placing the message further down) Without actually blocking the message.
Before social media, a fringe guy may go in the streets pass
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But if the platforms become accountable for all, this could push them too far in policing to squelch all discourse, even on banal topics, so the threat of being held even partially responsible for content could make things swing way too far the other way.
That is precisely what would happen.
Section 230 permits sites to "take the fringe on and not let [them] be promoted and mainstreamed" now. It even encourages them to do such things. But it does not make it mandatory, and it is extremely hard to see how you could ever mandate that they do so. That would be the government directing censorship and it would not fly.
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> Getting rid of 230 will force the platforms to take the fringe on
I don't see how, without 230 they would have no protection against anti-censorship lawsuits whenever they blocked some extremist's post. It may well benefit from some tweaking, but revoking it would be the death of social media.
230 does two things:
1) It establishes that the site is not to be held legally responsible for content posted by users - without which protection running any sort of social media site, like Slashdot here, would be
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First thing, /. shuts down. They can't risk being sued for liable.
By who? I'd be willing to bet most people have never heard of slashdot.
Hell, getting them in the news might help them out.
Things Are About to Get Interesting (Score:2)
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Or as JFK "might" have offered, "those who make peaceful social media discussion impossible make violent revolution inevitable..."
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So both 2020 presidential candidates
... say one stupid thing after another.
Now we get to chose between the two of them, based entirely upon which of the teams we've chosen to associate with that doesn't represent us very well.
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See this post [slashdot.org]. James Woods banned, for saying something MUCH less violent (indeed, a nice, historical reference to attempts to depose leaders) than what Kathy Griffin said - who wasn't banned.
If you want to exercise selective control - you're a publisher, and you can no longer hide behind the protection of section 230.
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We're not changing the way the Internet works; I don't get why you say that. What IS happening is that forums that behave more like the NY Times/CNN rather than Slashdot are going to be held to the same standards of action as the NY Times/CNN.
If you exercise the powers of a publisher, guess what - you're a publisher. You don't get to claim you are not. Consistent, biased application of rules would indicate an editorial/publisher agenda, and that means you're a publisher.
Twitter could avoid this by either
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No Again, you can have rules of conduct - you need to apply them fairly and equally. You cannot say "death threats are bad" and ban just some people who make threats - and let others stay. There really isn't a problem, if you just apply your own rules fairly (consider that Zuby was banned for misgendering someone [washingtonexaminer.com] but Kathy Griffin is ignored for threatening to kill the President).
If you don't like Nazis, then any post that references Hitler or Nazis in an opinion (not facts) based way is banned - doesn
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Be nice to Joe Biden! (Score:3, Funny)
Just my 2 cents
Re: Be nice to Joe Biden! (Score:4, Funny)
You ain't black!
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So who is pulling the strings in your little conspiracy? Because you are saying that voters who don't like Biden can still vote for him if they like the puppeteer.
Of course in reality the only one with a weak grip on reality is Trump. We've seen how dangerous that is.
Re:Be nice to Joe Biden! (Score:4, Insightful)
It can both be true that Biden is too old and has mental problems, and that Trump is shitty for all reasons described.
Would've been cooler for Democrats to show us the way and not nominate someone who sucked, or nominate someone under 75. 75!!!
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Trump's mental problems and barely disguised dementia are bad enough, but his poor physical health, the morbid obesity and bad diet, could easily lead to the worst case scenario: Pence.
Do you want a religious nut job in the Oval Office?
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I generally agree - and Pence can actually eloquently outline his evil.
I meet very few people that even *know* who Hillary's VP pick was - he got absolutely crushed in the VP debate. Kane came off as a whining sniveling golem-like weasel.
A few times Pence had me going "oh, yeah, I guess we should strip civil rights for x group" ... oh, wait! The man can talk (about evil).
Doesn't change the fact you derailed a Trump *and* Biden commentary into just Trump bashing. How can the Democrats nominate Hillary 2 i
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Wait, I shouldn't be stopping you. The more of you lazy idiots thinking Biden will win running away the fewer of you will get off your asses to go vote. Trump might win 48 states!
I'm voting for Biden just to piss you off.
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Great! Just know that the 65+ million who'll be voting for Trump aren't voting for him, they're voting AGAINST you.
Only electoral votes matter.
What's next? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Will USPS become responsible for the content of ever letter and package sent using their delivery network as well?
If they start stamping the name of my Florida girlfriend on the love letters to my Maryland girlfriend, then yes.
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Will USPS become responsible for the content of ever letter and package sent using their delivery network as well?
They already are. Postal systems can and do pull mail from the system if they think there's something in it that violates postal rules.
The problem with social media, however, is different. Social media got these protections because they claimed they were neutral, unbiased posting forums, and shouldn't be liable for content. But now, Twitter has taken editorial stances, censoring content. The whole "neutral platform" thing is now out the door, and they can't close that particular barn anymore. Both Right and
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Social media didn't claim anything, in fact a lot of it is quite open and proud about having a particular agenda.
Section 230 was created because no company could moderate the vast amount of content being created.
Re: What's next? (Score:2)
No, it criminalized indecency in-line and granted a ton of immunity to internet companies.
Then the indecency thing was junked.
You're trying to twist it into something else.
It's a little more complicated (Score:3, Interesting)
Sites like Twitter, Slashdot and YouTube that are filled with user content aren't dumb pipes. They have editorial control by necessity.
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It's a bit more complicated though.
As you say, they engage on the highest profile and react and would rather forward-by-default until they have reason to review/pay attention.
This sounds like a reasonable enough outcome, curation of the most influential, permissive by default to allow more content for the little people.
The tricky thing is how do you determine whether they are making the decision to be proactive or not based solely on some abstract level of how 'important' the content is? The overall tone of
Re: What's next? (Score:2)
Is a Twitter more like The Wall Street Journal, or the USPS?
One of those is already responsible for its content.
Democrats doing it again (Score:4, Interesting)
Running a pro-big corporation pro-intrusive government candidate, with the added bonus Biden is a senile meat puppet to be used by handlers. Trump is going to destroy him in any debate just by virtue of fact he can connect thoughts to create his B.S.
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I doubt very much Americans are going to fall for that asshole again. For one, he won't have Hillary to run against. For another, we will have had 4 years of his serial screwups. All Biden has to do is memorize some of Trump's lies to throw back at him. The hardest part will be picking from that cornucopia.
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Cobert a "friendly" democrat, a hostile debater can destroy the senile word salad dementite. But my main point is Biden is part of the system, the big corps with government in their pockets. There is another candidate the dems have, the only one, that scares that system to death....
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Joe Biden doesn't "think" (Score:2, Informative)
Joe Biden doesn't "think". He's a dementia sufferer - the best he can do is read whatever is on the teleprompter. Did you see a video where his teleprompter malfunctioned? He can't put two words together coherently without it.
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He's clearly reading from the teleprompter though. :-)
Here's the video I mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] about 50 seconds in. Super hard to find on YouTube. Hmm. I wonder why that is. Must be the "algorithms".
Well title should be (Score:2)
Regardles of who: This Kills The Internet (Score:3)
No Slashdot. No so-called 'social media'. Hell, you won't even be able leave 'customer reviews' for shit you buy anymore, on the off-chance someone says something that offends someone else, and they decide to sue the website owner for it. The Internet will become READ ONLY. This is what most of you have feared would happen to the Internet for years and years now. If you're for it, then you're not thinking even 5 minutes ahead.
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No good choices. (Score:3)
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Trump is horrible. Biden only slightly less so.
They're not identical, but to a good approximation, they're equally horrible. That's why it's a 50-50 split which one people think is worse than the other.
Editorial control (Score:4, Insightful)
It has always amazed me that people are for rights (Score:3)
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Section 230 doesn't need to be revoked, it needs to be enforced. The problem is that Twitter violated section 230 clearly when it arbitrarily both censored and added its opinion to a user's post purely based on political affiliation.
It doesn't matter who that user was, but they've been doing so for years, regardless of the position you have, if they don't like it, they can arbitrarily decide to editorialize your post. That's fine, you're a free entity, but then you can't claim the protections under Section
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Re:Authoritarians (Score:5, Insightful)
They arbitrarily applied the rules, that's the primary problem.
Ice-T called for riots in Minnesota (and got them). He didn't get banned. There are tons of examples of calls for violence if not outright violence, doxxing etc.
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Got a link to that tweet? Can't find it.
Re: Authoritarians (Score:2)
If you have some cellphone video of cops unjustifiably killing anyone, post it.
It won't go ignored if the victim is white. Is that what you were implying?
Re: Authoritarians (Score:3)
Shot to death by police is the same as murder? It's not, which is why people are reacting the way they are right now and not every other day.
Re:Authoritarians (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and that's been a problem for years in every meaningful direction. Women get banned for posting pictures that have their own nipples in them, men don't get banned for posting the *same pictures* of women. I've women kicked off that site for being mad but not threatening, and I've seen dudes get away with threatening to rape people. It's BS.
But if they're going to pick a time and a person to start flexing their muscles, this is the time, and Trump is the person. I hope they start calling out more shit, but for the time being, he's the got the widest reach, the worst followers and the most lies.
Re:Authoritarians (Score:5, Insightful)
Still a fucking idiot playing victim. What twitter does isn't arbitrary... they have rules; if you can't follow them, expect to be kicked.
No, they are quite arbitrary. Has Twitter added any "Twitter Truth Team" checks to any and all politicians claiming there was Russian collusion (when there was none)?
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They broke the law, the constitution. 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.'
By law all our associations are government by CONTRACT LAW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], right there in the constitution NO LAW SHALL BE WRITTEN, which means it is against the US Constitution to
Re: Authoritarians (Score:2)
(2) Civil liabilityNo provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account ofâ"
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; rtb61isadumbass
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Section 230 doesn't need to be revoked, it needs to be enforced. The problem is that Twitter violated section 230 clearly when it arbitrarily both censored and added its opinion to a user's post purely based on political affiliation.
Citation really, really fucking needed.
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James Woods [thegatewaypundit.com] banned for using a rather appropriate historical phrase, relating to the failure of the Mueller hoax to impeach him.
Kathy Griffin tweeting to kill the President [marketwatch.com] and faces zero Twitter ban or restrictions.
Please explain how those two results indicate a fair and balanced application of their policies.
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It doesn't - as many noted in the past, Twitter's enforcement of their own TOS is spotty at best. Trump f.ex. should've been banned years ago.
You seem confused as to what "censorship" or "adding opinions" mean though.
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You seem confused as to what "censorship" or "adding opinions" mean though.
How so? You asked for examples of biased censorship, and I responded. You've agreed it's biased. I think we're in agreement, other than you wanting to acknowledge they are biased in censorship - and thus they are open to being deemed a publisher, no longer hiding behind section 230.
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Perhaps I missed part of the story but which tweets did Twitter remove or change the wording of?
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Twitter censored nothing. Adding its opinion is Twitter using its own free speech rights. That's how free speech works, you say something, the rest of us are free to respond.
And nothing about what Twitter did was arbitrary or based on political affiliation. It was based on a clear cut violation of its terms of service.
But all that is beside the point, you fundamentally misunderstand section 230 of the CDA. It's entire purpose is to allow online platforms to "editorialize" (i.e.) take down certain posts with
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Section 230 doesn't need to be revoked, it needs to be enforced.
There is nothing in it to enforce other than 47 USC 230(d), there are no penalties for failing to provide a subsection (d) notice, and providing such notices would not actually accomplish much. Plus I bet it's already in the various notices people ignore when signing up. You're clearly ignorant of the law.
The problem is that Twitter violated section 230 clearly when it arbitrarily both censored and added its opinion to a user's post purely based on political affiliation.
Wrong! And now your ignorance is on full display, you clod. There is nothing to violate. The statute provides broad protection to Twitter. It requires nothing in return. Further, the law is meant to
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The problem is that Twitter violated section 230 clearly when it arbitrarily both censored and added its opinion to a user's post purely based on political affiliation.
This is Section 230, in it's entirety:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
Source [wikipedia.org]
Now, granted, I am not a lawyer. So maybe there is vital context that I am missing. But please tell me how one could possibly interpret that so as to read a "condition of impartiality" into it. Despite what Trump and others have been saying, I have never interpreted Section 230 as being "on the condition of being a neutral platform." That seems to be a claim that is entirely made up. And I say this as someone who has supported Trump up until this BS executive ord
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In fact, if impartiality is required, then how can forum moderators not be considered "publishers" of user-posted content if they enforce that posts stay on-topic ? How can Amazon not be consider a "publisher" of user posted reviews if they remove troll posts? How can a food blog not be considered a "publisher" of all user-posted comments in it's comment section if it removes SPAM links?
Put them into troll folder / spam folder, but keep them readable to determined readers. Create a slashdot-like mechanism to score troll posts instead of employing moderators, so trolls and spams removal / archival are disconnected from forum admin.
Meanwhile, off-topic posts can just be moved to a off-topic sub-board without any removal. It can also be done by slashdot-like mechanism to disconnect from forum admin.
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Section 230 doesn't need to be revoked, it needs to be enforced. The problem is that Twitter violated section 230 clearly when it arbitrarily both censored and added its opinion to a user's post purely based on political affiliation.
It doesn't matter who that user was, but they've been doing so for years, regardless of the position you have, if they don't like it, they can arbitrarily decide to editorialize your post. That's fine, you're a free entity, but then you can't claim the protections under Section 230.
If you don't like it, repeal the law altogether, I'm equally fine with that.
This is nonsense. The problem is entirely the failure to actually read section 230.There are two separate parts of section 230.
C1: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
C2: Civil liability: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account ofâ"
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of materia
Re: Authoritarians (Score:2)
Enforced? Which part? Like make Twitter responsible for indecent and obscene messages it makes available to minors? They might have to censor quite a bit then!
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... [cornell.edu]
(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
That part? This one?
(2) Civil liabilityNo provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held lia
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If I edit your post
Did they actually edit his posts? Since that would be impersonation.
or even put a side-note on it
They have the right to publish their own stuff, no issues there as long as the authorship is clear.
Re: Authoritarians (Score:2)
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Re: Authoritarians (Score:2)
Re: Authoritarians (Score:2)
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Perhaps he is smart enough to know that there are nuances in these position, and based on how you ask the question there are different responses.
Should you Hit a Child?
If a Child is hurting you should you defend yourself?
Should you discipline a child for bad behavior?
There is a reason why laws that are written are hundreds of pages long (other than being double spaced, and large indents) There are a lot of details and nuances that need to be worked out.
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Yeah, he's always been bad, and always sided with the various moneyed interests that don't like the net. But he's a billion times better than Trump.