US executive order to re-define Section 230 of the CDA

[Mike]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to order a review of a law that has long protected Twitter, Facebook and Alphabet’s Google from being responsible for the material posted by their users, according to a draft executive order and a source familiar with the situation.

News of the order comes after Trump threatened to shut down websites he accused of stifling conservative voices. It follows a dispute with Twitter after the company decided to tag Trump’s tweets about unsubstantiated claims of fraud in mail-in voting with a warning prompting readers to fact-check the posts.


The order, a draft copy of which was seen by Reuters, could change before it is finalized. On Wednesday, officials said Trump will sign an executive order on social media companies on Thursday. It was not, however, listed on Trump’s official schedule for Thursday released by the White House.

The White House, Facebook and Twitter declined comment. Google’s video service YouTube did not immediately comment.

Trump move could scrap or weaken law that protects social media companies

President Donald Trump said he will introduce legislation that may scrap or weaken a law that has protected internet companies, including Twitter and Facebook, in an extraordinary attempt to regulate social media platforms where he has been criticized.

www.reuters.com

 

[Mike]

This is the result of Twitter deciding to fact check a tweet by the POTUS.

POTUS has retaliated with an executive order that is very likely to permanently change the social media landscape.

Posting this now because what happens here will likely cause major rules changes on this forum. Some of you like to post things that are over the edge, and borderline on threats to others, and until now I have had to accept zero responsibility for it.

This executive order is entering us into a rabbit hole that will end with me being responsible for what members post. We don’t want that to happen.

Thanks Twitter, you started a war that will likely screw up social media forever.

 

[Mike]

so this is twitters fault rather then trump trying to silence critics?

I’m posting the facts, not politics.

Twitter fired the first shot by adding fact checks to a tweet by POTUS. If they are going to do this, which they SHOULD NOT, they need to be applying it fairly across the board. Twitter has no good business doing this.

POTUS escalated the issue with this executive order.

If this doesn’t stop now, all of us will pay for it.

 

[Sinister]

Twitter has not placed fact check stuff on anyone else.

That's the issue.

 

[Mike]

If we are focusing on Trump, the point is being 100% missed.

This is setting up for big changes on what happens within social media if this all doesn’t come to a halt quickly.

Social media platforms can either remain social media platforms and be 100% without bias, or they will become publishers which brings about regulation of content.

Regulation of content brings about heavy moderation of content. It opens up Pandora’s box in terms of lawsuits for content that people feel is unfavorable.

Ultimately, for a forum such as this, it results in every post being scrutinized by a team of moderators, and a large percentage of the posts never making it public on the forum. That will last about a week, before somebody like me simply hangs a closed sign on the door and permanently shuts down the community due to lack of interest and an inability to pay for the task of moderation that would be required.

The more modern social media platforms now become a publisher to whichever political fan base it chooses to cater to. They too will hold responsibility for what is posted, and they will use that to their advantage to silence the political landscape they oppose. This last part has already been attempted multiple times and is partly responsible for where we are potentially headed.

Big picture, folks.

 

[mndriver]

I’m posting the facts, not politics.

Twitter fired the first shot by adding fact checks to a tweet by POTUS. If they are going to do this, which they SHOULD NOT, they need to be applying it fairly across the board. Twitter has no good business doing this.

POTUS escalated the issue with this executive order.

If this doesn’t stop now, all of us will pay for it.

too late.

that ship sailed in 2016 when the media became a major TDS issue.

 

[Humble pie]

If we are focusing on Trump, the point is being 100% missed.

This is setting up for big changes on what happens within social media if this all doesn’t come to a halt quickly.

Social media platforms can either remain social media platforms and be 100% without bias, or they will become publishers which brings about regulation of content.

Regulation of content brings about heavy moderation of content. It opens up Pandora’s box in terms of lawsuits for content that people feel is unfavorable.

Ultimately, for a forum such as this, it results in every post being scrutinized by a team of moderators, and a large percentage of the posts never making it public on the forum. That will last about a week, before somebody like me simply hangs a closed sign on the door and permanently shuts down the community due to lack of interest and an inability to pay for the task of moderation that would be required.

The more modern social media platforms now become a publisher to whichever political fan base it chooses to cater to. They too will hold responsibility for what is posted, and they will use that to their advantage to silence the political landscape they oppose. This last part has already been attempted multiple times and is partly responsible for where we are potentially headed.

Big picture, folks.

I’m not missing the point. I understand Twitter is taking a political stance. I also understand Trump is a master showman. Trump is responding because Twitter called him on his post. Why? Because they don’t like him. Why is he responding? Because he’s an ego maniac who doesn’t like to be questioned. So really who is at fault?

 

[Humble pie]

I admit twitter should do it to everyone or no one.

 

[ironpony]

Twitter has not placed fact check stuff on anyone else.

That's the issue.

Twitter has consistently ignored their own rules with respect to POTUS that would have had other user's tweets removed or the user banned.

Twitter hardly fired the first shot. They're simply moderating their forum (sound familiar big boy?) They simply offered a second opinion on a controversial tweet.

 

[Duck]

so this is twitters fault rather then trump trying to silence critics?

Yes this is mostly Twitter's fault for trying to silence the President of the United States. Facebook is also guilty of trying to silence conservatives while protecting the lies of the left.

Trump spoke the truth about how the left intends to exploit this virus to enable massive voter fraud, and they tried to call him a liar with phony "fact checks".

This cannot be allowed to continue. No matter what we have to do to stop it.

The fact that these left wing extremists are trying to RIG all future elections and also lie about it and attack people trying to stop them is truly a national emergency and a serious threat to the free world and to the very democracy the left claims to embrace.

It stops now.

Hopefully it doesn't require the doomsday stuff Mike is afraid of. All that really needs to happen is for the two biggest social media platforms to be regulated as a public utility. The electric company can't cut off your power and refuse to provide service to punish you for opposing socialism. Facebook and Twitter shouldn't be allowed to either.

 

[Sinister]

Twitter has consistently ignored their own rules with respect to POTUS that would have had other user's tweets removed or the user banned.

Twitter hardly fired the first shot. They're simply moderating their forum (sound familiar big boy?) They simply offered a second opinion on a controversial tweet.

This is incorrect. Theyve admitted they "lean left". They banned James Woods. They've silenced many conservatives while doing nothing with people and organizations with whom they agree.

 

[Rigjockey]

I know I have been to Facebook jail for posts that don't align with their leftist agenda.
That is the same tactic that some newspapers use in their comment section. Posts get deleted that do not align with their agenda.
It is all media, Facebook, Twitter, newspapers.

 

[ironpony]

This is incorrect. Theyve admitted they "lean left". They banned James Woods. They've silenced many conservatives while doing nothing with people and organizations with whom they agree.

How can they "lean left" when EVERY utterance of POTUS is passed through without the slightest attempt to impose the rules they impose on every other user?

 

[Sinister]

How can they "lean left" when EVERY utterance of POTUS is passed through without the slightest attempt to impose the rules they impose on every other user?

Ask the CEO. He's the one who said it. This was easy enough to find,even in Google. Which is also plainly biased.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: I ‘fully admit’ our bias is ‘more left-leaning’

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on Saturday that he “fully admit[s]” Twitter employees share a largely left-leaning bias after facing accusations that conservatives are disc…

thehill.com

 

[Mike]

I’m not missing the point. I understand Twitter is taking a political stance. I also understand Trump is a master showman. Trump is responding because Twitter called him on his post. Why? Because they don’t like him. Why is he responding? Because he’s an ego maniac who doesn’t like to be questioned. So really who is at fault?

In this situation, I will say that Twitter is at fault.

Why? Because Trump is the only person to receive a fact check ever on their platform.

And let’s remember, I am not talking about just the United States when I say he is the only one, we must include the leaders of countries all over the world. Some very corrupt leaders posting absolute lies about all sorts of things, and they decide to do this.

That is as far as I am going with it politically though, because my concern isn’t politics. My concern is, this executive order goes after something that was intended to protect owners of websites like the one I have here.

There has been a push from both sides of the political isle to get rid of this protection, mostly from the democratic side. The recent social media attacks toward only republicans is likely enough to bring the bipartisan support to kill the protection we have had since 1996. If it does, that could be the end of forums like this.

So, yeah. Thanks to the social media giants who have decided to start playing political favorites and try to sway the public with their newfound power. You likely just changed the landscape of the internet in a bad way.

 

[Mike]

Twitter hardly fired the first shot. They're simply moderating their forum (sound familiar big boy?) They simply offered a second opinion on a controversial tweet.

And name me one other political figure that they have fact checked on their platform. There are none, and they host the leaders from all over the world.

Twitter has decided to use their huge platform to sway the political landscape. It may help the political party you support, so you may defend it, but it will come at a cost. Hope it’s with it to you in the next few years.

It’s more freedom being lost.

 

[Sinister]

And name me one other political figure that they have fact checked on their platform. There are none, and they host the leaders from all over the world.

Twitter has decided to use their huge platform to sway the political landscape. It may help the political party you support, so you may defend it, but it will come at a cost. Hope it’s with it to you in the next few years.

It’s more freedom being lost.

The Chinese Communist Party continues to blame the US Military for Coronavirus and Twitter has done nothing.

Or so I heard. I've not seen that for myself.

Honestly I don't mess with Twitter. I started one for the YouTube channel and haven't touched it since we stopped making videos.

Ita probably been hacked by a Russian spambot...

Anyway, for the brief time I was on it all I saw was vitriol. Especially to political figures. Trumps tweets responses are all his haters.

Ditto for Pelosi, etc.

We deride places like 4chan, but Twitter is the same. Just looks fancier.

Frankly, I regret that ANY social media has been taken this seriously.

South Park even made fun of people ruining other people's lives over old tweets.

Pathetic.

 

[Mike]

Hopefully it doesn't require the doomsday stuff Mike is afraid of. All that really needs to happen is for the two biggest social media platforms to be regulated as a public utility. The electric company can't cut off your power and refuse to provide service to punish you for opposing socialism. Facebook and Twitter shouldn't be allowed to either.

There can be no winner here, none. Regulating social media means we all lose.

We needed the leaders of these social media platforms to stay out of the political landscape so we wouldn’t lose these freedoms. We are losing that because Democrats have been wanting to regulate social media for quite some time. Now, republican support for the same thing is growing

No political victory gets scored here, no matter who thinks it is possible.

It either gets left alone, or it gets ruined. I don’t see a middle ground.

Government will never be able to fault regulate it. It will always be both sides trying to use it to gain votes.

It needs to be left alone. In a perfect world, the leaders at Twitter, Facebook, Alphabet, etc..., would see the importance of not using their platforms to sway people politically. Since they can’t , the only other answer is for competition to step up.

Government stepping in, at any capacity, is bad.

The Trump executive order, bad. Really bad. I get why he is doing it, but it will be bad for everyone long term. It will lead to new legislation, because there is support for it, that will change the internet in a bad way.

Government needs to stay out of social media, and new platforms need to step up and compete when the likes of Twitter decides to go the direction they are going.

 

[Duck]

Government needs to stay out of social media, and new platforms need to step up and compete when the likes of Twitter decides to go the direction they are going.

Plenty of people have tried. Big Tech either buys them out or blacklists them from the internet. It's a monopoly.

So it's either a government solution, vigilantism, or we allow communists to control the flow of information forever, turning ordinary people into obedient sheep with no ability to think for themselves.

I'd rather see ALL social media shut down than continue on being controlled by the far left.

 

[Mike]

The Chinese Communist Party continues to blame the US Military for Coronavirus and Twitter has done nothing.

Exactly. If this wasn’t simply a political hit in Trump, and Twitter truly wanted to offer the truth, there are lots of options for them to do so.

China is a perfect example. If it were about pursuing the truth for those on their platform, they would have done this to China multiple times.

They have had countless opportunities to fact check.

This was political.