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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.

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Joe Biden Doesn't Like Trump's Twitter Order, But Still Wants To Revoke Section 230

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  • by o_ferguson ( 836655 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @03:08PM (#60122228)

    End the web. Everyone go back to pre-web services.

    • by greenwow ( 3635575 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @03:09PM (#60122234)

      Usenet forever!

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        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.

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Just for sites in the US. Hm. Might be time to open a hosting company.

    • by chthon ( 580889 )

      I am just reading "Titan" from Stephen Baxter, seems he thought it would disappear much faster, for the same reasons.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • Time to dust off my 5.25" copy of Wildcat BBS software! I'll need to brush up on my ANSI art skills as well. Oh my.
  • by dark.nebulae ( 3950923 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @03:15PM (#60122260)

    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)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

      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...

      • 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.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      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.

    • 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

    • 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

    • 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.

    • > 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

  • So both 2020 presidential candidates believe that online forums should be responsible for content in the millions of daily posts from millions of different users around the world at a time when political unrest is the highest it's been in many of our lifetimes. About the only thing more dangerous than allowing the vile rhetoric of a restless population to spread through the internet completely unchecked is to start censoring that content. Just look at the language of our political discussions and notice t
    • by dyfet ( 154716 )

      Or as JFK "might" have offered, "those who make peaceful social media discussion impossible make violent revolution inevitable..."

    • 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.

  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @03:19PM (#60122294)
    he does not even know what "Revoke Section 230" means for more than a few mins, after he is told what he thinks.

    Just my 2 cents ;)
    • by Train0987 ( 1059246 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @03:30PM (#60122340)

      You ain't black!

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      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.

  • What's next? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xlsior ( 524145 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @03:21PM (#60122304) Homepage
    Will USPS become responsible for the content of ever letter and package sent using their delivery network as well?
    • by Cerilus ( 191314 )

      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.

    • 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

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        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.

    • USPS (and your ISP) are protected by "common carrier", e.g. they don't know or care what's in the pipe, they're just the pipe.

      Sites like Twitter, Slashdot and YouTube that are filled with user content aren't dumb pipes. They have editorial control by necessity. /. used to be a user moderated site only but was heavily flooded with trolls ("Greased up Yoda Doll Covered in Natalie Portman's Hot Grits!") necessitating filters. Twitter feels the need (justified or not) to identify popular posts that might in
      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        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

    • Is a Twitter more like The Wall Street Journal, or the USPS?

      One of those is already responsible for its content.

  • by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @03:27PM (#60122328)

    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.

       

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      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.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • 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.

  • Bidden's people want it revoked. I am not sure Joe knows what Joe wants these days.
  • How would you all like the Internet to be read-only permanently? Because regardless of whether it's Red or Blue that does it, that is what will happen.
    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.
  • by jklappenbach ( 824031 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @05:20PM (#60122834) Journal
    Trump is horrible. Biden only slightly less so. Biden's ideas are horrid. He's a cultural dinosaur, behind the times and unable to display even a fundamental understanding of the economy he seeks to govern.
  • Editorial control (Score:4, Insightful)

    by user no. 590291 ( 590291 ) on Saturday May 30, 2020 @03:14AM (#60124312)
    The whole point of Section 230 is that third party platforms shouldn't be held accountable for what's posted by their users. But once those platforms start censoring/editing/curating/fact check-annotating content, they should be liable for everything. Either they're not liable or they are: you don't get to ban and censor and scarlet letter content you don't like then cry "muh neutral platform" when you get nailed for hosting something infringing or illegal.
  • and freedoms only so long as they cost nothing. And they are happy to chuck them overboard at a moment's notice when they see they do.

Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing. -- Ambrose Bierce

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