At the risk of this being downvoted to oblivion, why doesn't he think that Twitter, a privately run company, has the right to fact-check claims made on their site? Even if there were some secret evil liberal agenda on Twitter, which there absolutely is not, why aren't they allowed to do that exactly? Is he planning on holding Fox News to the same standard and make them put less racism apologia on their network?
Because seems to be presenting themselves as a neutral platform, which they have shown themselves to not be.
EDIT: Just to clarify, obviously Twitter is not presenting themselves to users as a neutral platform. But for legal purposes, they are cloaking themselves in the same privileged status as a phone company, when they clearly are not.
B) Verizon (Comcast, Spectrum, etc...) are closer to something like a utility. I wouldn't be supportive of a water or electricity company not providing services to people I disagree with. Twitter is not a utility, it's a glorified fortune-cookie-sharing site. It's a not a "right", and there's no reason that you should feel entitled to it.
Usually fact checking "services" like snopes.com, politifact, or WaPo with the pinocchio heads, have a consistent model about what they are willing to touch, how they approach it, and how they determine factualness, etc.
Just throwing out that Twitter is or isn't _the_ platform makes no sense.
https://gizmodo.com/comcast-to-customer-who-noticed-it-secre...
2. Twitter has never had any obligation to be a neutral platform
Eh? Twitter bans accounts _all the time_. It hides stuff from search, and hides potentially explicit content behind an "are you sure you want to see this?" It is in no way a neutral platform. Fact-checking world leaders was originally conceived by twitter as an alternative to just banning them when they get dangerous.
Right, so why are they trying to claim that they are a neutral platform then, for legal purposes, when they very clearly are not one??
Twitter responds to any lawsuits by claiming that they are a neutral disinterested platform, when they very clearly are not. They enjoy the same legal protections as the phone company, when they obviously are not at all the same!
Where are they claiming that? There's no such requirement under the CDA (if there was, then any website with a stated political or other stance and a comments section would be in serious trouble).
> Twitter responds to any lawsuits by claiming that they are a neutral disinterested platform, when they very clearly are not.
Examples of this?
> They enjoy the same legal protections as the phone company
No, they don't. Totally different protections.
Hum I don't think that could possibly be true. What leads you to think this? Phone companies existed before Section 230 and as far as I know their behavior didn't change. Have you read Section 230? It definitely reads like it was passed to give entities like Twitter more power to delete objectionable content and it definitely doesn't read to me like it obligates them to be neutral.
By the logic of the order, Fox News should also lose their immunity and be liable for suit for anything posted by commenters to their online articles.
https://help.foxnews.com/hc/en-us/articles/233194608-Do-you-...
> Where have Fox News editorialised (sic) users content?
not
> Where have Fox News editorialised (sic) users political speech?
so my reply should in no way construe my opinion of what is or is not political speech.
Now that we've established that Fox News does in fact editorialize user content, we can move on to the original question of whether or not they should now
> be liable for suit for anything posted by commenters to their online articles
The law is capable of distinguishing between ideas, including whether content is good-faith speech or trolling. Pretending the two are the same and that a law could not possibly allow for a platform to moderate the latter without sacrificing its "neutrality" seems unreasonable.
I think it is a valid question that could be scrutinized in court, but there is no need to be obtuse about the fact that these are different categories of speech that the law could treat differently specifically with regard to how it would categorize ("neutrality" of) a platform on the internet, not whether or not the speech is entirely forbidden period.
Fox News is already publisher under any reasonable definition.
They are liable to suit if Fox News employees post illegal content on their website.
Twitter has the exact same treatment under the law today. It’s not liable for suit when Trump tweets lies about Joe Scarborough. But if @jack or @TwitterSafety tweeted the same lies, it could be sued in court for libel and section 230 would not be a defense.
Fox and twitter are already equal in eyes of the law today.
There was a later ruling in Hungary that seemed to go the other way though: https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/magyar-...
They still enjoy immunity with respect to user-posted content, because that is part of the explicit language of the statute and a Presidential Order can't override statutory language.