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Comment by deathgrips | Hacker News Reader

The 1st amendment isn't the issue here. The issue is Facebook pretending to be a publisher when it is in fact much more like a newspaper editor. You don't get to run a private company with unparalleled influence over US politics and not play by the rules of other media companies.

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> The 1st amendment isn't the issue here.

First amendment is the issue, what do you think "publisher" vs "platform" is about? It's about who should be sued for bad speech. What happens if FB is responsible for everything you say? More censorship. What happens if you are responsible for everything you say? Less disclosure.

Right now we have a situation where the platform owner can collect the fruits of popularity, while the platform users experience basically no-liability gossip. More speech, but are we healthier as a society for it? Maybe sometimes the answer isn't always making sure we have more free speech.

Also I'm not sure how lawsuits help out in the world of little people, because only big people can sue, and they only sue big targets.

All social media sites effectively curate content by dictating what is allowed on the platform and what is not, and removing content which doesn't meet those requirements.

This isn't just about facebook and twitter, it's about every site that allows user generated content, reddit, Hacker News, Instagram, heck even Stack Exchange counts, I'd imagine.

As long as those sites curate according to their transparent terms of use these rules wouldn't apply to them.

I'd argue there's no such thing as "transparent terms of use" that wouldn't be open to legal challenge. Twitter and facebook have terms of use, they're as transparent as any other site in that regard.

Reddit has banned whole sub-reddits and shadowbanned others, Hacker news has human mods who make qualitative decisions to curate conversations on this site.

This hits every forum, every newsgroup, every site that has user generated content.

That's not at all how the law reads.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

(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;

Moderation does not have to be systematic, transparent, unbiased, or applied fairly.

The combined parts 1 and 2 of the "Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material" mean that you are not responsible for the speech you host, but you can also not be compelled to host speech you choose not to host.

Actually, the issue is that his primary campaign strategy consists of saying completely unsubstantiated bullshit, and that the introduction of any kind of fact checking would fly in it's face.

What rules do newspaper editors have to play by, exactly? Most of the major outlets are 24/7 propaganda machines. Calling any particular politician out on lying is hardly controversial for them, depending on who the politician in question is.

I don't buy this. If Clinton had won, she would have went after Facebook with tough regulations over Russians using that platform to influence the election. Both parties see Twitter and Facebook as a problem because they change the power landscape.

If you want to know what rules newspapers follow, ask a journalist about their laws and ethics rules and ask a lawyer about publisher rules. I can't give legal advice.

That is just two sideism. No other recent administration has behaved in as petty, insecure, and personally vindictive a manner as this one.

Hell, half of the 2016 campaign was about jailing the other candidate. Nobody else in any of the recent races has behaved in such a way. No president since Nixon is so quick to fly off the handle over being called out on what they are saying. If Biden were running on a Jail Trump campaign in 2020 (since it is now politically acceptable to do that sort of thing, I guess), you may have a point that the two sides behave the same way. They don't.

As for journalists - do you seriously think most of the talking heads on Fox News follow journalistic ethics? If you do, I don't think conversation is necessary - because we don't have a common understanding of either the content of Fox programming, or of ethics.

I was calling out the partisan perspective on this ("the federal government only does bad things because Trump is bad"). Call me whatever you want but I don't think the world revolves around Trump. Most people in the federal government just keep doing their jobs as usual and he doesn't have the interest or competence to interfere.

>Hell, half of the 2016 campaign was about jailing the other candidate . . .

That's not what we're talking about. People (who don't actually care about free speech in principle) are saying that this is a free speech violation in principle (legally, it is sound). The FCC might attempt to treat social media companies like newspapers. This is not a big deal. Bad orange man has not censored newspapers. Your tweets are safe.

> Most people in the federal government just keep doing their jobs as usual and he doesn't have the interest or competence to interfere.

Is this executive order one of those cases?

> The 1st amendment isn't the issue here.

From wikipedia[1] (my emphasis):

> The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws which regulate an establishment of religion, prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

Also, called it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322683

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...

If you don't like it, speak on another platform that doesn't edit and censor user content.

My point is that the government passing laws because they don't like what's happening on a platform is textbook first amendment. That you can leave the platform has no bearing on the first amendment. The first amendment says "the government CANNOT do this". It doesn't say "it can't do this, unless users can leave".

Believe it or not posting the first amendment isn't a unique message that no one has heard before. I'm not sure why it's relevant here. Of course the government is upset about something. We pass laws to fix problems. If we see no problem, we don't pass a law.

The White House wants the FCC to treat certain social media companies as if they were newspapers. That's it. Do you think there is a first amendment issue with how the government is treating newspapers right now?

> I'm not sure why it's relevant here. Of course the government is upset about something. We pass laws to fix problems. If we see no problem, we don't pass a law.

It's relevant here because the constituion is the highest legal document in the country. Something that republicans selectively forget.

Hold on... do you know what Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is about? Do you know what protections it gives to companies and what happens if you're treated like a publisher?

>Something that republicans selectively forget

ok... Go tell it to a Republican then.

You think Trump is demanding that Twitter appoint an editor to vet (and maybe fact check) all his tweets before publishing them, like a newspaper editor would?

I think that is not what Trump is asking for.

Twitter already arbitrarily approves, edits, and removes content. It seems like he wants the FCC to treat them like a publisher.

I sincerely doubt he'd be drafting this order if, say, Joe Biden's tweets were the ones getting fact-check labels added to them. I can see it being a step towards Trump/Republicans using such an order to suppress criticism though; let's say... a Democrat campaign ad that attacks Trump or calls him out.

Either way, the only intention behind this drafted order is entirely self-serving. It's a complete knee-jerk reaction.

> Twitter already arbitrarily approves, edits, and removes content.

By doing this Twitter is behaving as a publisher. Then why should Twitter not be treated like one?

Admittedly, that is one big issue. But from a purely political angle, Trump is trying to control the narrative to increase chances of re-election. This narrative will have to include undercounted COVID-19 fatalities, and understated economic effects of the failure to contain the pandemic. It cannot work if it is presented side-by-side with best estimates of actual numbers. Suppressing these numbers is the obvious goal here and leveraging money and political power over the legal system are the means.

I don't buy this. Both sides have been calling for regulation ever since Russians used Twitter and Facebook to meddle in the 2016 election. These are unaccountable companies with unparalleled influence on our elections. If they influence which lawmakers get chosen, they should have to follow minimum standards of conduct.

Fact-checking is protected free speech. Introducing fact-checking links are one of many remedies for external meddling that social platforms have done since last election, ie. to combat "fake news". This juvenile reaction from a president is working against the population making informed decisions made up of facts, not manipulative deceptive made-up unsustantiated statements. As the president also tries to suppress voter engagement, one might even conclude the current administration is working as if anti-democratic as well. The intentions seems to be; to work for oneself and fire everyone else.

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